John Roberts

The next two weeks, I’d like to address shoulder pain and injuries. Most people experience shoulder pain at some point in their lives. Doctors see it in athletes, people who overuse their shoulders, and others who may have fallen or received a blow directly to their shoulder, or fallen on their outstretched arm. To understand…

Jill wants to know, “what’s a thyroid and what does it do?” We take care of a lot of problems in family medicine practices. For those like Jill who don’t know what the thyroid gland is or does, read on! The thyroid is an endocrine gland found in the front part of the neck below…

We are definitely living in a post-truth world. It’s not just in the political sphere that we have to be careful of facts and “alternative facts”; it also extends to the scientific and medical worlds as well. The public is being constantly bombarded with scientific information via mainstream media, social media and other internet sources.…

Sometimes I get asked questions in unusual places. A few months ago at church I was pulled aside and asked if I could write my column on the menopausal malady of hot flashes. Hot flashes are usually described as a feeling of intense heat, usually with sweating and a rapid heartbeat. They can last a…

It’s once again time to run my annual column on allergies. Some of our readers may already cursing the annual return of allergy symptoms. Tree pollen levels (Oak, Cedar/Juniper, Nettle) in Indiana have been high recently. Spring allergy symptoms can make it even more difficult to differentiate who might have lingering COVID-19 symptoms or just…

Snoring can certainly be annoying, but it doesn’t always indicate a serious medical problem. However, sometimes snoring can be due to sleep apnea, a condition that can lead to significant medical issues. Sleep apnea is a condition where people have pauses in their breathing while sleeping. Most people have pauses to some degree, but people…

I’ve been seeing a lot of news lately about stem cell treatments. This week I want to focus what they are, where they come from, how they might be used to treat disease and finally, the social and ethical challenges surrounding their use. Stem cells are cells that have the potential to change into other…

Last week I tried to explain the very complex non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHL). This week I want to cover Hodgkin lymphoma, more commonly known as Hodgkin’s Disease (HD). It gets its eponymous name from Dr. Thomas Hodgkin who first described it in 1832. Hodgkin’s is a potentially curable malignant lymphoma that carries a much better prognosis…

One of my patients asked me recently what lymphoma is. My knowledge of the subject was a bit dusty before I started researching this column. Medical knowledge of non-Hodgkin lymphoma has rapidly evolved over the last decade or so. It is a very interesting disease and a type of cancer that is illustrative of where…

“Dad is getting awfully forgetful – could he have Alzheimer’s?” That’s becoming a more common question. It is becoming more likely to encounter someone with Alzheimer’s dementia as the proportion of elderly in our society increases. Some forgetfulness is normal for most of us as we age but many of us carry the fear of…