• Oh, my. The New York Daily News reports on a new lawsuit against Dr. Mehmet Oz, brought by a viewer who claims he was badly burned after employing the T.V. doctor’s advice for a new insomnia cure. Last April, Oz apparently touted a ”knapsack-heated rice footsie”—basically, socks filled with rice that are heated in the microwave—as a technique to help people doze off. He advised on the show that you should lie in bed with the socks on for 20 minutes to get blood flowing toward your feet. The socks help speed up your body’s cool-down process, which is apparently something that needs to happen before you can doze off. But when 76-year-old New Jersey man Frank Dietl (brother of the guy from those Arby’s commercials) did it, he didn’t realize how hot the socks were because he has diabetes-related numbness in his feet; Dietl ended up burning them badly, according to the lawsuit. “He didn’t realize how hot the socks were until he got up in the middle of the night and tried to walk,” reports NYDN. Yikes. Read more here.
• If you’ve torn your meniscus, don’t rush into surgery just yet: A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that in a lot of cases, physical therapy works just as well as surgery—and at a fraction of the cost. Read more here.
• Whoa, this is super cool. ABC News has a video of a Washington man who invented a finger prosthetic out of bike parts. Watch it here.
Photo: lev radin / Shutterstock.com
This article really gets me; I was ON the Dr. Oz show in October of 2011, as a featured ‘guest’ because of my sleep disorder. Dr. Oz and Dr. M. Breuss both assured me and the other guest that he would be sure we got the help we needed – NEVER happened!! I still take a ton of meds to get to sleep and there wasn’t any assistance AT ALL from the Dr. Oz show (and he promised me I’d get help – right). It’s Daytime TV unfortunately and I’ve become very jaded about Dr. Oz and the entire show. But am I going to sue? Not at all; it’s TV!! This gentleman has a lot of nerve, but his attorney is even worse – hey lawyer guy; contact me if you want a REAL lawsuit, but I won’t even entertain the thought of suing – Despite any degrees or expertise that Dr. Oz may say he has, he’s become an entertainer – he’s no longer a Doctor, in my eyes – good luck with this frivolous suit – stupid