Dr. Deb

My first and only car accident as a teen happened within weeks of getting my license. I was seriously backing out of a church parking lot going so slowly for fear of a passing car that I drove right into the car next to me (now they were over the line..but still)  While I doubt many teens hit a car at 1 mph, most teen accidents will happen within 6 months of receiving their license. Many teen accidents are very serious, even deadly.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for 15 to 20 year olds with over 2 million accidents-both fatal and non-fatal-a year.

Teens are involved in 3-4 times the number of accidents ,with more teens dying during summer months than any other time of year.

Here is Dr. Deb’s  5 step Safe Teen Driving Plan

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Summer Safety

Today is the last day of school for my 4 children. Summer brings such great joy and freedom yet more children are sent to the emergency room from injury in the summer than any other time of year. Here are my summer safety tips to help keep you and yours safe!

Dr. Deb’s Summer Safety Tips (more…)

I am shocked by number of Facebook babies.  I call them babies because while many 8-12 year olds are more tech savvy than their parents, they still lack the judgment and maturity to protect their privacy.  A recent study that found 25% of children age 8-12 that use the internet have a profile on Facebook, MySpace or Bebo even though the legal minimum age for most social networks is 13.

The majority of parents in the survey knew that their kids had a FB account but 17% did not. What was astounding to me was the amount of personal information that I could find out about my own 8 & 11 year old children’s peers that were facebook babies while not being “friends” with them.  90% of the kids that I searched had many photo albums, videos and interactions public, viewable to the entire internet. One 12 year old did a strip tease (fully clothed) kissing the camera while the other lamented being alone in her house while her family was bowling.

Why are so many children using social media?

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3 shots of liquid protein a day was my most infamous crash diet in high school.  I starved myself drinking only 3 shots of foul smelling liquid protein a day. Sure the weight came off quickly, but so did loads of hair in my starvation mode. When I went off the diet, the pounds quickly returned, but the hair took much longer to grow back.

Hair Loss affects 10% of all women and can start as early as age 12. Unfortunately, after age 65, up to 75% of women will have hair loss.

Some hair loss every day is normal. In fact up to 100 hairs a day is normal. We have about 100,000 hairs on our head that grow about a half-inch per month. An individual hair usually grows for 2-6 years in the growth phase then enters a rest phase for a few months. At any given time 85% of our hair is growing while 15 % is in the rest phase. Finally it will fall out and a new hair grows in its place.  Learn more about the phases of hair growth here.

What are the main causes of hair loss in women?

There are many reasons for hair loss and I will highlight the most common ones.

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