Sarah Densmore

If you’ve ever tried to locate the Facebook passageway that takes you through the steps to permanently delete your account, you know it’s not easy to find. That’s because the popular social networking Web site doesn't present an obvious “delete my account” button. Deactivating your Facebook account is not the same thing as deleting it.

We all go outside, which means we’re all at risk for developing skin cancer. Fortunately, skin cancer is usually successfully treated when it’s found in its early stages. Along with making sure a skin cancer screening is part of your annual check-up, a key to early detection is monthly self exam. By knowing what your skin normally looks like, and how to spot the various types of skin cancer, you’ll be able to alert your doctor at the first sign of a skin abnormality so you can get the treatment you need.

Mosquitoes, ticks, fleas, wasps, bees, and spiders (which are really arachnids) . . . the biters and stingers that come alive when the temperatures rise are almost enough to make you shun summer and stay indoors. Don’t despair. You can take action to ensure that creepy crawlers and frightening flyers don’t ruin your fun in the sun.

You jumped high and came down hard, but you got the interception. Unfortunately, you also got a very sore and swollen ankle. Now you’re left wondering if you’ve got a strain, a sprain, or fracture. In both a sprain and a strain, something has been either stretched or partially or completely torn. The difference between the two lies in which body part has actually been injured.

Choosing a therapist can seem like a daunting task. You’re already overwhelmed by life’s challenges. How do you find a therapist with the right temperament, training, and therapeutic focus to help you figure out healthy ways to overcome your particular problems? Luckily, there are plenty of referral sources you can turn to and common sense questions you can ask that will make it easier to choose the right mental health professional for you.

Every year, millions of people enroll in thousands of clinical trials conducted around the world. These research studies are crucial to evaluating the effectiveness and safety of new medical procedures and medications. Maybe you’ve heard the results of various clinical trials in the news and wondered how people are recruited for these studies — or even how you can enroll in one yourself.

While the “colon prep,” as it is commonly called, involves an inconvenient 1- or 2-day liquid diet and a bathroom camp out, it's a necessary step toward ensuring your continued colon health. Properly flushing out your large intestine before undergoing a colonoscopy allows your doctor to see your colon clearly and identify any abnormalities, including cancerous polyps.

Chemotherapy can be a life-saving cancer destroyer. Unfortunately, the drugs don’t take aim solely at cancer. They can also kill hair, skin, and reproductive tract cells. This collateral damage leaves some chemotherapy patients with thinning hair, nail loss, uncomfortably dry skin, and permanent reproductive damage.

The same properties that make chemotherapy drugs effective cancer killers also cause them to damage healthy cells in your bone marrow, blood and nervous system. The damage, although often temporary, can make cancer patients vulnerable to a series of side effects and secondary conditions, including bleeding, anemia, infections, numbness in the extremities, and memory loss.