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To Your Good Health: Seek Neurologist’s Advice for Involuntary Mouth Movements

DEAR DR. ROACH: For about the past year, I have had mouth movements that I do not intend to make. I can stop them if I really concentrate on doing so, but as soon as I think of something else, they resume. Lately, I also have involuntary movements on the left side of my mouth when I am about to fall asleep, or maybe when I have already fallen asleep. I make a loud noise, which wakes me up. The left side of my face is twitching wildly. Sorry I don’t know how to better explain this, but I am partly asleep when it happens and don’t know anything else. Do you have any idea what could be ...

Dear Abby: Widower Regrets Not Having Living Will Handy at Hospital

DEAR ABBY: I would like to address a problem I’ve never seen in your column. A lot of people have living wills but most don’t remember what’s in them. My wife went to the hospital for a routine procedure that required anesthesia. After three hours of what was supposed to be a one-hour procedure, a nurse came out, said there was “a problem” and took me back to the recovery room. My wife was writhing on the bed and kept rasping, “I can’t breathe!” Six nurses tried to put an oxygen mask over her face, but she kept fighting them, trying to rip it off. I was in total shock. ...

Too Many Off-Track Beats Could Cause Symptoms, Heart Disease

DEAR DR. ROACH: I am a 77-year-old retired internal medicine physician. Last year I started to have asymptomatic PVCs. I also have prediabetes and mild high blood pressure. I am on 100 milligrams of Lopressor twice daily. I had a negative stress test. My cardiologist wants to reduce the frequency of the PVCs to less than 10%. Is there any good scientific rationale to this approach? — R.D. ANSWER: Premature ventricular contractions — PVCs — are early heartbeats. An average person might have 500 of them daily. You are having a great deal more than average: more than 10% of your ...

Older Boyfriend Considers Meeting In Person Too Risky

DEAR ABBY: I have a dilemma. My 33-year-old boyfriend keeps badgering me to see each other. We live 15 miles apart. I’m a 60-year-old man in pretty good health. Before this pandemic, I worked out every day at a gym, and I still do at home now. Every day he keeps asking me to either come visit or if he can come here. Because of this shelter-in-place advisory, I have been telling him I’m more at risk due to my age. He then tries to make me feel guilty by saying things like, “We are both fine; there’s no need to worry,” and, “OK. Fine! That’s the last time I’m going to ...

Chilly Cookies

Dear Heloise: When I bake cookies, I like to chill the dough first. So after mixing the dough, I put the dough into a gallon freezer bag with a zip-lock closure. I then roll the outside of the bag with a rolling pin so the dough is spread out inside the bag and evenly flat. I then chill the bag with the dough. When I’m ready to bake the cookies, I cut open the bag and use a cookie or biscuit cutter and place them on parchment paper on a pan. The cookies look very professional that way! I have started to use the freezer bag technique on pie crusts too. — Reader, via ...

Poolside Overexposure Gets Disapproval Of Grandparents

DEAR ABBY: My husband and I are in our 60s and have a swimming pool that our kids and grandkids like to visit. Our issue is that our granddaughter wears a bathing suit that shows her bum. It isn’t a thong, but close to it. She’s 16 and starting her junior year of high school this year. It makes my husband and me uncomfortable, and we have told my daughter as much. Is this one of those situations where we either accept it or don’t allow her to swim with such a suit? I love my granddaughter and will put up with the way it makes us feel if that is where the line is drawn, but it ...