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Acme: noun - the point at which something is at its best or most highly developed. Acne: noun - the complete opposite of this. It is not a great de...

My wife would not be impressed to hear that if given the choice between watching the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever and developing an actual fever,...

Fashion is so passe… Why not be truly original this summer and pick up a parasitic infection? Make your friends jealous with the hottest new tapewo...

In a perfect world, there is no such thing as a pharmacy. Controversial, I know. But in this perfect world, nobody would ever be sick and I would b...

The average person gets the common cold two to four times a year. The flu? Once every five years. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like those od...

Whoever coined the phrase ‘sleeping like a baby’ really should have articulated what they meant. Did they mean not sleeping at all? Sleeping on a c...

There are few things in life which we use frequently and have no idea what they do. I would argue that toothpaste falls into this category. I doubt...

If you are ever foolish enough to click on one of those “Reasons why you should never visit Australia” videos on YouTube, you’ll come across a lot ...

I can vividly remember Christmas Eve of 1984. I was just old enough to really understand what Christmas was all about, but not yet old and world we...

Confession time: I’m a huge fan of the Beastie Boys. For those of you not up to speed with your 80s New York hip hop, I’m talking Mike D, MCA and A...

Helping your baby when they’re hurting. Nothing compares to holding your baby for the first time. If you could bundle up the entire universe and pl...

You all know that feeling. Someone hands you a newborn and they feel like pure velvet. The fact that this is often accompanied by the ‘newborn smel...

I know, I know. This is a little on the nose, given the last few years we have had. Last week, my RAT test returned the dreaded double stripe, and...

Although we know by now how instrumental the period is in a woman’s reproductive cycle, it is my bet that no woman in the history of ever actually ...

I pray that you never need to use this information. Treating puncture wounds is a critical part of first aid. It could be as innocent as tripping a...

There are few things more debilitating than violent stomach cramps. I imagine being shot would be worse, but for some people, there isn’t much diff...

This is tempting fate, but thus far in my life, I have been pretty fortunate with my health. Sure, it could be that as a pharmacist, I know a bit m...

At any point in the year, there is something lurking behind the corner to affect your health. It is incredibly easy to long for the greener grass (...

If you are anything like me, you pine for days gone by when the world seemed to spin just that little bit slower, and there seemed to be more hours...

How many times have you come down with the common cold this year? In a world of COVID, we tend to be pretty careful about hygiene, masking up, and ...

There is some irony to me talking about skincare. Let’s just say that I have a face for radio. But in my latter years, I started to moisturise and ...

Pharmacies are often pigeon holed as merely a place to pick up painkillers and patches. Of course, this will always be a big part of our social res...

GERD is one of those ailments that sounds a lot worse than it actually is. Look, I am not trying to minimise it, but it does sound like the kind of...

It sounds like the beginning of a Seinfeld episode. I mean, are they good for you, or aren’t they? And why does the pharmacist always keep you wait...

This is going to sound strange, but in a perfect world, there would be no such thing as vitamins and minerals in pill form. Ideally, you would be g...

I am notoriously bad at being sick. I am impatient, I don’t follow the advice that I give to customers, and I complain to my wife at the drop of a ...

Working in healthcare over the last three years has been a harrowing experience. Whether is be frontline health workers working triple shifts to ca...

Every so often, something comes along which is a game changer. We are talking sliced bread, the wheel, salt and vinegar chips. Things that come alo...

I feel like fevers get off pretty lightly in popular culture. Think about how many films and songs use fever with positive connotations; it is some...

Miguel de Cervantes, the great Spanish writer from the middle ages, wrote that every tooth in your head is more valuable than a diamond. In his day...

There is a physiological principle called ‘reversibility’; the fact that fitness is incredibly easy to lose, and incredibly difficult to regain. It...

I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of drought and flooding rains. I love her far horizons, I love her...

For some reason, whenever I hear the words ‘nasal spray technology’ used together in a sentence, I am instantly drawn back to the advertisements fo...

I see you there, parents of a newborn! You’re wondering whether you will ever feel like your old self again; fresh, energetic and lively. As someon...

Any guesses? No, it isn’t analgesics, which, despite the first two syllables, are to be taken orally. It’s not even vitamin C pills which some peo...

Ever blown your top? Flipped your lid? Everyone has their tipping point.  Heavy traffic may be the perfect incubator. You’re already running late w...

Growing up, Seinfeld was a constant on the family TV set each evening. Apart from The Simpsons, there was no other show that was guaranteed to have...

Something changed last week.  I don’t know if you felt it, but I sure did. I was outside watering the garden and I realised that I didn’t have a j...

I was talking with a younger customer a few weeks ago about some options for dealing with his acne, and he turned to me (with the most mournful ash...

When I was a young boy, I remember the dentist quite fondly. He was fairly gentle, and I got a brand new toothbrush at the end. As I got older, vis...

I’m always fascinated by the concept of the ‘immune system’. It’s all that stands in the way of you and certain death, and yet most of us don’t kno...

The sad reality is that Australia is home to some of the world’s most deadly snakes. In fact, of the top ten most venomous, three of them hail from...

I remember the day I found my first grey hair… I had just turned 30 and it felt like the new decade had arrived with a vengeance. I sat in the show...

I never used to worry too much about the amount of sleep I was getting. I was studying pharmacy, busy working in the industry so I could take over ...

I naively thought I was going to look young even when I got old. I have no idea why I thought this. Perhaps it is part of the arrogance of youth, w...

To supplement, or not to supplement? That is the question. Well, maybe not the question, but it is certainly a question that is worth considering. ...

I think it can largely be agreed that the lockdown and social distancing measures implemented throughout the world during the peaks of the COVID-19...

When I was a kid, I rarely got sick. However, if I did go down, I tended to go down hard. Illness for me almost always involved a seriously high te...

It sounds like some truly awful wrestling pay per view event: This time, it’s personal! In reality, it is one of the questions that I get asked all...

When we are young our skin is almost immaculate. Ironically, we are far too young to appreciate this at the time, and as our self awareness improve...

When an expecting mother looks ahead to life with a child, there are a number of things which they might expect: newborn snuggles, a lack of sleep ...

There is a good chance that you have taken both of these in some form, but have almost no idea what they are or what they do. Not knowing what you’...

First things first, congratulations! Pregnancy is a rewarding (and challenging) time in any person’s life, and we want to celebrate this moment wit...

Summer is well and truly upon us! Whilst that prompts memories of barbeques, warmth and friends, it also brings with it the possibility of a whole ...

Have you ever noticed that we spend a lot of time learning about how to deal with physical emergencies, and almost no time focusing on what to do w...

Your head is pounding. Your nose is flowing free. Opening your eyes invites a stabbing pain into the back of your head. It is in these moments that...

Skin. It’s a pretty magical thing. An organ with three basic layers, providing a multitude of different services to the body.  To begin with, the o...

Patience is a virtue. This is certainly true but our society is not really structured in such a way as to promote this virtue. We want it all and w...

Now, we all know the saying that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. However, in the case of people’s skin, the cover can often provide a glim...

It’s an awful feeling; that slow looming realisation that you are probably coming down with something. Some people bravely (foolishly) press on, wh...

Rejoice! The warmth has well and truly arrived, and (unless you live on the east coast where La Nina is keeping things a little cooler and wetter t...

Many people wear this as a badge of pride. “I avoid taking medicine if I can help it,” they declare proudly. “I like to stay natural.” In some ways...

There are few more interesting areas of research in modern medical science than the connection between your brain and your gut. We have long known ...

The German Philosopher Arthur Schopenheur said that “every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world”. While this...

Anyone who suffers from cold sores doesn’t need to be told how inconvenient a cold sore can be. And it is actually more people than you think. Rece...

The new year’s resolution: It’s a pattern that has been repeated so many times in our lives, that it has almost lost all meaning whatsoever. In fac...

In the 21st Century, it has never been easier to learn about health and all the things your body needs to function well. Paradoxically, it has neve...

Some facets of our life slip seamlessly between the online and the physical world. Whether it’s booking tickets to a show and flashing your QR code...

Have you ever begun to feel faint or dizzy or even fainted for no apparent reason? On the other side of the coin, have you ever experienced headach...

The whole field of weight loss can be a nebulous minefield of misinformation, disappointment and failure. Everyone has tips and tricks of what work...

Summer is here! For many of us, this will involve time spent in or around the ocean, barbecues with friends, and long nights of festivities. There ...

Checking your body’s temperature is one of the best ways to measure your general wellbeing, and yet there seems to be a generation of people who ar...

You would be hard pressed to find a more iconic smell than the instantly recognisable aroma of Dettol. The scent immediately conjures childhood mem...

You have to love the skin you’re in. As much as you might wish otherwise, it is the only one you’ve got. There are a whole host of different condit...

Inner Health Plus is a probiotic focused on the improvement of gut health. What is particularly interesting though is the possibilities it has for ...

One of the most pleasing trends in recent years has been the growing understanding about how our brains work. Only last century, we would lock peop...

Diabetes is poorly understood, and frequently underestimated. It relates to the way your pancreas produces insulin, the hormone which allows your b...

Few things unite Australians like a shared hatred of the ‘Big C’. We might be polarised in our politics, worldviews or religious views, but when so...

When your child is unwell, it can be the most testing experience of your life. You are torn between sympathy and irritability and it can sometimes ...

The feeling of asphyxiation is one of the least pleasant experiences. Anyone who has struggled to break the surface of the water, or felt crushed i...

The concept of modern athletic strapping tape has been around for over 100 years. This style of strapping is rigid, not elastic and concerned with ...

What is arthritis?  Arthritis, despite affecting 1 in 6 Australians, which totals nearly 4 million people, remains surprisingly misunderstood. Whil...

In years gone by, mental health disorders were largely swept under the carpet. Stiff upper lip was the going wisdom. Thankfully, we don’t live in t...

You know how it goes - the sun is shining, flowers blooming, the beach is calling and the kids are playing outside way into the evening. It’s idyll...

For the largest organ in the body, the epidermis sure does come with its own host of conditions, disorders, problems and issues. The skin on the fa...

Every single day, you take steps to make sure that you can be as happy as possible. You’ve tried to pick a job you don’t hate. You take a meal to w...

You would have a tough time finding something more scary than not being able to breathe. We can take it for granted but nothing is more important t...

Back problems seem to be almost on par with death and taxes, particularly as you move past thirty. Whether your job involves heavy lifting or tappi...

  Vitamins and supplements get spruiked pretty heavily as an easy solution to virtually any problem your body might have. You’ve almost certainly s...

We regularly hear the age-old adage spruiked that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Whilst there is unquestionably some wisdom in not basing ...

There is an old saying that pain lets you know you’re alive, and back pain makes you wish you weren’t. Hyperbole? Maybe. However, back pain can be ...

The world is a daunting place at the best of times. If you’re feeling self conscious about your skin, this only gets more frightening. The only goo...

If you have ever suffered from back pain then you know how debilitating it can be. There isn’t one single activity that doesn’t involve your spine ...

We don’t mean to sound unnecessarily bleak here, but the new year heads downhill fast. The heat begins to slip away, and autumn arrives before you ...

There is beauty to every season in life. There is an unmistakable joy that comes with sitting by a fire on a cold winter’s day, but equally, the fi...

You know it well. The glossy cover of the teen magazine bears the image of a perfect-faced girl, a scattering of freckles across her nose, perfect ...

Most people by the age of twenty have suffered some kind of long term injury: a broken arm, a torn ACL, even just a sprained ankle. It can take wee...

It’s the antiseptic solution we’ve all got somewhere in the back of our bathroom cupboards; rarely used, possibly past its use-by date, but instrum...

It’s a quandary we’ve all faced: when the skin care routine is robust (with no signs of decreasing), and the suitcase space for upcoming travel pla...

It’s a question that has probably crossed everyone’s mind at some point, not least of all during the global pandemic we have all just endured in bo...

You may not know much about vitamins and minerals, but almost certainly, you’ve heard about vitamin D. Vitamin D is most closely synonymous with th...

It never fails to shock us that the common cold - so-called because it is so run-of-the-mill, simply so probable, so universal, so trivial - can un...

A quick Google of the words “gut health” yields 1.3 billion results in thirty seconds and the number grows by the day. Not too long ago the notion ...

Balance is really the key. However, it’s not easily achieved. Often, without even realising, we get pulled too far in one direction, throwing us al...

Language is important. The words we use carry weight and a very different meaning can be established with the words we choose. Words and their mean...

If you have ever suffered an injury that has put your ability to exercise on hold, then you will know just how closely related physical and mental ...

Nobody is going to call into question the severity of your broken arm. The disfigured shape, the swelling, the likely obvious way in which you sust...

There are certain illnesses that are discreet. Sure, they may be frustrating, impacting upon your day-to-day routines but they’re your business and...

If there is one thing that you can be sure of with kids in the house, it’s that you’re going to need Dettol. Skinned knees are virtually a daily oc...

Some food for thought: In 2013–14, 1 in 5 (20%) young people aged 11–17 had either high or very high levels of psychological distress (13% and 6.6...

Diet is definitely a dirty word these days - connotations of restriction, yo-yo weight loss, disordered eating and fads - it’s hard to find someone...

Googling “keto diet” gets you four hundred and fourteen million results in 0.4 seconds. One of the most heavily celeb-endorsed diets, on the rise i...

Our bodies have been hurting since the fall of man. Ancient Greeks relieved fever with willow bark, Ancient Egyptians depicted people suffering inj...

You have to admit, the song was a banger. In fact, every song from her 2003 album, The Diary of Alicia Keys has stood the test of time, luring even...

It would come as a surprise to no one that thrush is not the number one most desirable topic of conversation to have around the dinner table. And y...

Being an adult can give you some perspective that can be pretty hard to come by as a young person. When you’re in that phase of adolescence where y...

As a kid, calcium was one of those simple things, that in my mind, I had no shortage of because I consumed an enormous amount of dairy products. Ch...

There are certain universal truths when it comes to health. Basic things that will have a big impact, not just on certain aspects of your health bu...

Dry skin is one of those things that strikes everybody at some stage. Depending upon where you’re located, it might come about as a result of too m...

For a long time, mental health was not something that was spoken about. There are a few reasons for this. Physical injuries and their treatment oft...

We’re told not to judge a book by its cover but if you’ve got no other context, what else are you left with to judge? It’s natural for us to make a...

When I was growing up, there was an advertisement on television for an acne product, where a bunch of adolescents rattled off a series of things th...

It may seem like a simplistic question but the relationship between mental and physical illness is a really complex interplay. If you have ever bee...

There are certain words that even the very mention of them can strike fear into those who hear them. Cold sore has to fall into this category. The ...

We’ve all heard the saying and have likely used it ourselves; “I’ve just got a gut feeling about it.” This saying reflects those moments when somet...

Personality can be difficult to pin down because it essentially comprises all the different aspects that make us who we are. Rather than how we mig...

Like clockwork, April rolls around, and with the change of season, so too comes the blocked-up sinuses, the razor-sharp sore throat, and the endles...

Assuming that you’ve experienced a temperature at some point in your life is not a huge leap, but it is not an illness unto itself. So have you eve...

We are beginning to head into cold and flu season again. The days are getting shorter, the mercury is dropping and all around the country, people a...

There weren’t a whole lot of positives during the Covid years but one of the perks was a virtual disappearance of the cold and flu during that peri...

Here is a little secret which is wildly underappreciated in 2023. Yes, you probably have anxiety at some point in your life. But that doesn’t mean ...

Period pain is genuinely one of the least pleasant things a person can experience. 50% of the population should consider themselves lucky that this...

The mouth can be one of the most frustrating places to experience pain. After all, you need it to breathe, eat and talk. When you shut down the mou...