Author Archives: Barbie Zabielski

About Barbie Zabielski

Barbie Zabielski received an MPH from The George Washington University in August 2017. She has a wide range of interests in public health, including environmental epidemiology, pharmacovigilance, Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, and autoimmune conditions. Her primary focus, however, is sexual and reproductive health in low-resource settings. She is deeply committed to promoting increased access to and utilization of modern contraceptives as a means of improving social, economic, health, educational, and environmental outcomes among diverse populations across the globe. She currently works with New River Health District on developing various aspects of its family planning program.

The curious case of fibromyalgia: Overdiagnosed, underdiagnosed, and misunderstood

By | June 21, 2018

Fibromyalgia is a debilitating centralized pain condition experienced by millions of Americans. “Centralized” refers to origination or amplification of pain by a sufferer’s central nervous system. It is, in a true sense, pain that is “in one’s head” — but nevertheless as real and noxious as any other pain. Ultimately, pain is always something experienced… Read More »

Opportunistic Salpingectomy: How is this Not Totally a Thing?

By | September 18, 2019

The name doesn’t exactly help. But before we discuss rebranding, a brief introduction to the concept . . . Salpingectomy refers to surgical removal of one (unilateral) or both (bilateral) fallopian tubes. It is thus a surgical option for female sterilization—but also drastically reduces a woman’s risk of ovarian cancer. This is huge. Ovarian cancer… Read More »

Promoting Primary Prevention of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome

By | March 21, 2021

“Neonatal abstinence syndrome” (NAS) sounds deceptively innocuous, given that it is literally infant drug withdrawal. It is usually caused by prenatal exposure to opioids but can also result from maternal consumption of other substances, like alcohol and antianxiety medications. Common symptoms include excessive high-pitched crying, fever, sweating, irritability, vomiting, diarrhea, rapid breathing, sleep disturbances, and poor… Read More »

Problems with Epilepsy Drug Treatment for Older Adults

By | June 3, 2017

Expensive brand-name drugs are prescribed over older, less costly generics whose efficacy and risk profiles aren’t much different. Sometimes the financial issues involved are painfully obvious, such as when a drug company introduces a new, “improved” version of a medication that is merely a longer-acting version of the same chemical entity shortly before the patent expires on the original… Read More »