Every gesture helps: Discussing mental health with patients

Eaten up with guilt, shame and fear, I’ll never forget the young teenaged patient who nervously answered “yes” when I asked if she had any eating disorders while filling out her medical history. I had been nervously anticipating the day I’d encounter a patient who would respond affirmatively to this question because I’d been in her situation before. 

Taking time for the little things

If you have been on TikTok recently, you have probably come across a video featuring the following quote: “You have to start romanticizing your life. You have to start believing that your morning commute is cute and fun — that every cup of coffee is the best that you’ve ever had. That even the smallest and most mundane things are exciting and new.”

Mental health as a barrier to care

My patient was escorted to our urgent care clinic wearing an ankle monitor. Her chief complaint was that she felt pain around every tooth. When I took a closer look, the source of her pain became apparent. She had a mouth full of non-functional root tips. Almost every root tip showed signs of infection. My patient was from a local drug rehabilitation center, and she was 10 months sober from a heroin addiction. As a result, she wasn’t allowed any prescription narcotics or nitrous oxide, as instructed by her program due to fear of relapse.

A review of guided meditation apps

If you keep up with Mouthing Off, then you’ve read several posts about stress relief and mental health. And if you are like me, you read them, but you don’t change any habits because of the notion that “there’s not enough time” to do so. Despite their stress-relieving benefits, I was continually telling myself that I didn’t have the time to do yoga or meditate. Over the past couple months, though, I noticed that with graduation looming, I was not sleeping well. I believed my lack of sleep was due to increased stress, so, while awake in the middle of the night, I searched for ways to relieve stress.