Health

Yvonne Martin keeps detailed notes of two years in her life. It starts on March 1, 2016. That’s the day her son, Daniel, first ran away from the family’s home near Evansville, Ind.

He was 13.

In 2018, Side Effects covered community struggles with public health crises, barriers to treatment and clever workarounds to get vulnerable people the care they need. 

Nearly 500,000 adults in Kentucky are living with diabetes and becoming increasingly burdened by the cost of insulin.

Angela Lautner, head of KOI#insulin4all, an advocacy group representing diabetics in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, says costs of the two main insulin brands have increased more than 1,000 percent since the late 1990s.

“Humalog and Novolog were approximately $25 when introduced to the market originally--$25 per vial. Now, Humalog’s list price is $274.70 per vial.”

Stress is a normal part of life. And there’s even such thing as a “good” level of stress that keeps us going, according to psychology researchers Sanda and Florin Dolcos at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

But severe stress can interfere with day-to-day living, and this can be particularly challenging during the holiday season, they say.

The impressive facade of the main church at Saint Meinrad Archabbey looks like it was taken straight out of Europe. Twin steeples topped by golden crosses loom over the rural Indiana landscape.

During the holiday season, it's a place of healing, as some St. Meinrad monks help people cope with their grief.

When people seek help at a drug treatment center for an opioid addiction, concerns about having contracted hepatitis C are generally low on their list.

They've often reached a crisis point in their lives, says Marie Sutton, the CEO of Imagine Hope, a consulting group that provides staff training and technical assistance to facilitate testing for the liver-damaging virus at more than 30 drug treatment centers in Georgia.

Greg Kelly's grandson, Caden, scampers to the tree-shaded creek behind his grandfather's house to catch crawdads, as Kelly shuffles along, trying to keep up. Kelly's small day pack holds an oxygen tank with a clear tube clipped to his nose. He has chairs spaced out on the short route so he can stop every few minutes, sit down and catch his breath, until he has enough wind and strength to start out again for the creek.

About 100 people crammed into a small clinic on Columbus' west side on Sunday to celebrate the grand opening of Ohio’s first Somali primary care center.

Across the Midwest, health care has emerged as one of the year’s biggest campaign flash points — in races from U.S. Senate to state attorney general.

For older Ohioans, there’s some good and some bad news.  A new shingles vaccine is markedly better than previous options, but the drugmaker is having a hard time keeping up with demand.

Researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital say they were surprised by the results of a study that found no decline in the neurocognitive abilities of youth football players over the course of one season.

Last year, Ohio changed its rules for prescribing opioids, restricting amounts of, and circumstances under which, doctors can prescribe those narcotics. The new rules have an exemption for people who are in hospice type care for diseases like cancer. But many patients who suffer from chronic pain say the new rules are leaving them without pain relief, resulting in unintended consequences.

The Ohio Department of Medicaid announced that Medicaid will begin covering more medications to help with drug withdrawal symptoms, beginning in January.

The leader of a health advocacy group says Kentucky isn’t investing enough in the prevention of cancer. 

Ben Chandler, President and CEO of the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, says many of the state’s cancer cases are related to smoking.  In a speech to the Bowling Green Noon Rotary Club on Wednesday, Chandler said the state isn’t doing enough to curb the habit. 

The Foundation wants a higher tax on cigarettes.  While the General Assembly raised the tax this year by 50 cents, Chandler says that’s not enough to make people kick the habit. 

Steve Dillman thinks he can trace his prostate cancer back to August 1, 1985.

Some 750 doctors say they’re endorsing Democrat for governor Richard Cordray, breaking with the Ohio State Medical Association, which is backing his Republican opponent Mike DeWine. The doctors split over protections for people with pre-existing health conditions.

A new annual report by the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shows Ohio's current obesity rate is 33.8 percent, up from nearly 20 percent in the year 2000. 

Public health officials in Kentucky are preparing for what they expect to be a difficult flu season.