Lifestyles

To Your Good Health: Inquires about back pain devices

DEAR DR. ROACH: I’m a 77-year-old woman with degenerative disc disease. I had an L4 microdiscectomy surgery in 2020, but I still have chronic pain in my lower back. Although I do core strengthening exercises with physical therapy (which helps), I’m still in daily pain. I’ve been seeing advertisements for multifidus muscle-strengthening devices, such as NeuroMD and ReliveX. What’s your opinion on this type of exercise device? — C.K. ANSWER: I think that better non-pharmacologic therapies are needed for back pain, and the theory of electrical stimulation to strengthen the ...

Thursday evening TV

Bridge by Steve Becker

A defender should always keep at the forefront of his mind exactly how many tricks his side needs to set the contract. This number becomes his goal for that hand, and if he absent-mindedly loses sight of it, disaster might soon follow. Consider this deal where West led a spade against four ...

Lobster rolls with a bit of a flavor-boosting soak

I’ve never been to Maine for a lobster roll, but the ones I’ve had in other places have been so good that I knew I needed to make one myself. This version is from my cookbook “Home” and is made with perfectly cooked lobster meat that is plump, juicy, and tender but also firm, and ...

Please pull up to the window for a glimpse of a real American icon: The drive-thru

WASHINGTON — Full disclosure: this should really be two tales. How better to pay tribute to the natural and perhaps inevitable combination of two distinctly American icons: fast food and cars? Those two massive sociological forces had already joined up, Voltron-style, early in the 20th ...

Preparations are in full swing for Benjamin and Joanna’s wedding

This past week has kept us busy canning tomatoes and pickles. We have four-plus bushels of tomatoes here that need to be canned. The days go by so fast and pretty soon another week is gone. The wedding keeps getting closer and closer. Son Benjamin and Joanna are heading out to Ohio tomorrow afternoon with the Greyhound bus. Her cousin is getting married Thursday, and she is a tablewaiter at the wedding. In our community, they have a boy and girl tablewaiter to serve guests. In that community they only have girls. From one community to the next it is different. In some they take only ...