Texas Social Blog

In the Margot Perot Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, families struggle each night along with their newborns to see the morning sun. It is one of the many struggles in Dallas After Dark.

These days, when Mother Nature doesn’t give you what you want you can buy it, dye it or implant it. But, can you go under the knife to change your brown eyes to blue? The new procedure is raising eyebrows in San Antonio.

When was the last time you went to work or school without makeup, and with you hair just as it would be without hairspray?

Diet and exercise are key pieces to losing weight, but when and what we put in our bodies is just as important.

You might be able to tell if someone is depressed by watching how they use the Internet.

More and more women are using a sugar mixture instead of wax for hair removal.

A South Carolina woman undergoing treatment for infection with a rare case of “flesh-eating” bacteria was in critical but stable condition Thursday at Greenville Memorial Hospital, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Lana Kuykendall, 36, “underwent her fifth debridement surgery to remove necrotic, or dead, tissue from her lower leg,” said Sandy Dees, senior media relations coordinator for Greenville Hospital System University Medical Center, in a news release.

Kuykendall was admitted and diagnosed last Friday with necrotizing fasciitis, the release said.

A team of surgeons, critical-care physicians and infection disease specialists was monitoring her condition, which is typically managed by surgery, antibiotics and aggressive supportive care, it said.

“She remains very ill but stable,” Dr. Bill Kelly, the hospital epidemiologist, said in the release.

Kuykendall was healthy when she gave birth to twins on May 7 in Atlanta but went to the hospital near her home in South Carolina a few days later after noticing a rapidly expanding bruise on her leg, her husband, Darren, told CNN on Wednesday. Doctors there removed dead skin and tissue from her legs and she was put on a ventilator, he said.

Kuykendall is a nurse and paramedic; her husband is a firefighter. The twins are healthy, he said.

A two-hour drive south of Greenville, in Augusta, Georgia, 24-year-old Aimee Copeland was battling similarly aggressive bacteria on Thursday. Doctors have amputated one of her legs and surgically removed part of her abdomen. Her father, Andy Copeland, told CNN on Wednesday that her fingers, too, will have to be amputated.

Still, “Aimee continues to be in good spirits,” said a blog posted on the website of the Psychology Department at the University of West Georgia, where Aimee Copeland is a graduate student.

“Two major medical developments today for Aimee,” it said. “Those will be announced later today once Andy has the opportunity to type them out. Stay tuned.”

Copeland contracted the flesh-devouring bacteria Aeromonas hydrophila when she fell May 1 from a homemade zip line that broke and cut her leg. The gash required 22 staples. Days later, still in pain, she went to the Augusta hospital, where doctors diagnosed her with necrotizing fasciitis.

The psychology student is on a ventilator and has undergone a tracheotomy.

A number of bacteria can cause the condition, which attacks and destroys healthy tissue and is fatal about 20% of the time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The bacteria are common in the environment but rarely cause an infection; when they do, the body’s immune system is almost always able to fight them off, according to experts.

Occasionally, however, the bacteria find their way into the bloodstream — either through a cut or an abrasion.

In such cases, doctors move aggressively, excising even healthy tissue near the infection site to ensure none of the dangerous bacteria remain.

Necrotizing fasciitis is rare. Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, estimated in a telephone interview on Wednesday that fewer than 250 cases occur each year in the United States, though such estimates are imprecise since doctors do not have to report the cases to health authorities.

“Diet and exercise” is a phrase that goes hand-in-hand with losing weight. But what you eat or drink before, during and after your workout is key to the weight loss process.

Whether you run marathons, bike to work or walk around your neighborhood a few times a week — if you really want to optimize your workout, it’s time to check in on your diet.

It’s all about moderation and balancing your food groups: protein and carbs, fruits and veggies, experts say.

So how do they all work together?

Before a workout, it’s all about the carbs, said Carol Kelly, a dietitian at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. “Carbohydrate is the fuel for our bodies, fuel for our brains. If you think of your metabolism as a fire, carbohydrate is the fuel that helps the fire burn hot.”

You want a meal that includes quality carbohydrates, lean protein, heart-healthy fats and fluids. Without a sufficient carb supply, you could be breaking down muscle when you exercise.

If you’re working out in the afternoon or after work, you want to make sure to eat a balanced lunch with some carbs. Here are a few options:

–A turkey sandwich with a piece of fruit

–Whole grain pasta with low-fat tomato sauce

–A salad with grilled chicken

Now, if you’re working out first thing in the morning for an hour or less, breakfast can wait until after your workout. That’s because the body usually stores enough glycogen (the body’s long-term energy storage molecules) from the previous night’s dinner to fuel the workout.

After exercise, refueling (a.k.a. breakfast) needs to happen within 30 to 40 minutes. That meal should look like a combination of carbohydrates and protein, but not too much protein: 10 to 20 grams, or a palm-sized piece of chicken, is enough.

You can try some of these combinations:

–Greek yogurt and an apple

–Hummus and whole grain crackers

–Grilled chicken and a baked potato

“With exercise, our bodies are constantly breaking down and need to be repaired and protein helps do that,” Kelly said.

But there are still “free radicals” floating around in our bodies after we work out, one of the few negative effects of exercise. These are molecules which are produced when the body breaks down cells and can cause cell damage. The best solution to rid our bodies of free radicals is to eat lots of fruit and vegetables which help mop up damage that occurs during exercise. A salad, a piece of fruit, mushrooms, onions, even salsa — all are good plant options to fit in throughout the day, according to Kelly.

If you do work out more than 60 minutes each day, you’re going to have to up your carb and protein intake. And definitely don’t delay breakfast if you’re working out that long first thing in the morning. You’re going to need some fuel to keep you going, whether it’s some yogurt and toast or cereal with milk.

You can also sip on a sports drink while you work out. Some sports beverages get a bad rap for the sugar some of them contain, but for intense workouts that last longer than an hour, they do the trick. Stick to drinks that have a 6-to-8 percent solution of carbohydrates and electrolytes to help you hit your workout goal.

For those of us who aren’t competing in a triathlon just yet, plain old H2O has everything you need to stay hydrated during your workout –and during the day.

The important thing is to get moving first and then work your diet around your exercise routine.

A Catholic college in Ohio has apparently become the nation’s first to drop its health care plan because it opposes parts of the federal health care law signed by President Barack Obama.

The Franciscan University of Steubenville posted on its website last week that it is discontinuing its health care plan.

“The Obama Administration has mandated that all health insurance plans must cover ‘women’s health services’ including contraception, sterilization, and abortion-causing medications as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” the university says.

“We will not participate in a plan that requires us to violate the consistent teachings of the Catholic Church on the sacredness of human life,” the statement says.

The coverage includes emergency contraceptives such as Plan B, which can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg, but not drugs like RU-486, which can end an early pregnancy.

The school is also dropping its health insurance plan for students because the new health care law requires employers to provide more robust coverage, making it more expensive, said Tom Sofio, a spokesman for the Franciscan University of Steubenville.

“It was our own moral reasons and then the rising cost of health care because of the act,” Sofio said, explaining the university’s decision.

Sofio said school officials are not aware of another college that has dropped its health insurance plan out of disagreements with the federal health care law.

A spokeswoman for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing three religious schools that are challenging the health care law, said that she was also unaware of another college that had taken such action.

A spokeswoman with the Health and Human Services Department, charged with implementing the new health care law, said Wednesday that the department had no comment on the school’s decision and that it does not keep track of changes to college health insurance plans.

The Obama administration faced a firestorm of controversy from many religious groups this year over a proposed rule that would require employers to provide no-cost contraception coverage to their employees.

In what it called a compromise, the White House revised the rule to require health insurance companies — not employers — to provide contraception coverage, mollifying some Catholic critics. Other Catholic groups, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, are not satisfied by the revised rule.

The Roman Catholic Church opposes the use of contraception.

“We’re paying the health insurance company, and if they provide abortion-causing drugs, that’s against our religious beliefs,” Sofio said Wednesday.

About 200 of the Franciscan University of Steubenville’s 2,500 students rely on the university health care plan, which costs about $50 a month, Sofio said. He said the school is retaining its health care plan for employees because it is hopeful that legal challenges to the health care law will prevent much of it from taking effect.

Sofio said that the school sent letters about its decision to students and parents in April and that it has received overwhelming support from both constituencies. Ninety-five percent of students at the university are Catholic, he said.

A hospital official says three of the premature sextuplets born last month in Houston are now breathing on their own.