Month: January 2026

Do you understand now why you should actually care if your partner has pain with sex?

I hear a lot of patients lately telling me that they are having pain with sex, but they feel obligated to continue because their husbands have needs. Umm. What???? You are in pain but you have to muscle through because he has needs? Mandatory suffering? What is this craziness?

Then, it gets somehow worse and I actually ask them if they have brought this up to their partners and most of the women actually say no. Or worse, they say they brought it up and got kind of brushed off and told they need to deal with it or their relationship is over or that their partner has no idea how to help them or doesn’t even want to try. Again, whaaaat?!

Ok, let’s refresh on what a relationship should be in the first place. A relationship should be a healthy, deep, emotional and complex bond between two individuals that encourages each of the persons to live their best and most fulfilled lives. It is not a one-sided show, or at least it shouldn’t be. Both parties should be invested in the other’s happiness, wellness, and future.

Well, on that note, we are going to launch forth into the discussion of pain with sex. It matters guys. You can think about it in an empathetic way or in a mutual beneficial way. The empathetic way would be to look at it as realizing your partner is having pain and want to help because you care about them. The mutually beneficial way would be to realize that it would actually benefit you both to seek treatment for your partner’s pain. Why you ask? Because if they are in less pain, they might actually want to have sex because they won’t be afraid that it will hurt! See where I am going here?

Bottom line is, I am encouraging you to care if your partner has pain. I am encouraging you to help them seek help, from someone like me, for their issues and begin the steps to revitalize your intimate relationship. It will benefit you both …and it’s the right thing to do!.

Dr. Katz

Hello all you vaccine haters and fear mongers! This one is for you!

Guess what I just saw in the news today! South Carolina is having a major measles outbreak! 88 new cases in just the last three days and over 600 all together! Why is this happening you ask? Oh I know! It’s because people have taken a stand and are not getting vaccinated because it is their right to make a decision for all the rest of us 5 and under and 20 and up and immunocompromised to intentionally expose us to this terrible illness.

Is measles fatal you ask? The answer is YES. It can be. It can be FATAL in up to 3 in a 1000 cases. This rate is much higher in the immunocompromised. So, it’s not nothing. It does matter and lives are being compromised with this no vaccine decision making. You may also ask well this wasn’t before when we were not vaccinating. This is where you are really fooling yourself. It wasn’t happening before because we still had the benefit of herd immunity from those who had been vaccinated. It takes a few years for those numbers to fall enough for the disease to resurge. Yes, I said resurge, not come back. You see, it never disappeared in the first place. It has always been there simmering. We just adequately used vaccines to prevent it.

Let’s go through the measles process. First you have incubation, when you are infected with no symptoms. this lasts 7 to 21 days. So, you can be out there infecting everybody without even realizing it. Then you have the prodromal phase with the fever, the cough, the runny nose(coryza) and red eyes. This lasts 2 to 4 days. Then you move on to the exanthem phase when the red and blotchy rash appears and spreads from the face down to the whole body. This part lasts 3 to 5 days. Then, you finally make it to the recovery phase when symptoms gradually fade but the fatigue can last a long time. So, we are talking about over a month of yuck.

The vaccine, first offered in the 1950s, offers protection for your whole life. Measles is even more contagious than Covid that we are all afraid of. Measles was so common before vaccine that most people developed immunity just from getting it. Yes, that is true. I will give you that part. But, if you are one of the unlucky ones that is immunocompromised or you are under five, it could kill you.

I just can’t rectify to myself the option of refusing something that is available to us and is actually proven beneficial. I just can’t rectify to myself putting others at risk without their knowledge and making decisions for them without their consent. For those of you out there refusing vaccines and “taking a stand” and “not letting anyone tell you what to do,” congrats. All you are doing is putting others and yourself at risk. Please rethink it.

Dr. Katz

Laser hair removal. What’s it all about and how can you help it be successful?

Laser hair removal can be a magical thing. We take a laser with a specific beam link to specifically target the juicy root bulb of the hair follicle in it’s active phase and voila! Hair falls out and stays gone! I’m talking permanently gone! It beats a lifetime of painful waxing in my book any day.

So, as I mentioned, laser hair removal is effective when it targets the juicy root bulb of the hair follicle when it’s in its active phase of growth. Well how often is that? For all hair from the waist up, it is about every four weeks. With all hair below the waist, it is about every eight weeks. About how many sessions does it take, depending on the hairiness of the patient, to remove it completely and permanently? It takes an average of six of those monthly or bi-monthly session per body part. It is not a one and done scenario so if you are expecting that, you will be disappointed. Now if you are hairy like a bear or wolf, it may require more. The laser can only do so much

How do you increase the success and decrease the discomfort of your hair removal sessions? First, come on time at the proper intervals. Second, have yourself shaved to the point that there is only a few mm of hair sticking up above the skin surface. Third, have you skin absolutely bare with no lotions, potions, or tanners or cleansers. If there are any substances on your skin, it can confuse or worse, intensify the beam and you will get burned. This is why it’s important to read all those papers and follow the instructions.

I would also advise that you get an actual consult with a test spot before you pay for laser hair removal. This way you can get a small spot treatment with the laser, observe for 24 hours and make sure there is no skin reaction and that the settings picked are appropriate.

Lastly, not every laser can treat every skin type. All lasers are not created equal. Skin types 1 thru 3 and Asian skin type 4 require a shorter Alex beam. Darker Hispanic, Indian, and African American skin types are type 5 and 6 and require the longer Yag beam. Without using the proper beam, the laser could get confused between the patient’s skin pigment and the pigment of the hair. Then, skin damage or burning could occur.

Hope this clears things up. Here’s to being hair free!

Dr. Katz

” I felt like you were speaking directly to me!”

These are the amazing words I just heard the other day from a new patient. At first I didn’t know what she was talking about. I inquired further. The patient clarified that she had been watching me and watching my videos on Facebook. She said the resonated so much with her that she felt like they were videos and lessons made especially for her.

I was blown away. This was the most amazing compliment ever. Let me be perfectly clear. There is nothing that I do in my life that is done for the goal of receiving compliments or praise. Everything that I do is because I believe in doing it and want to project as much positivity and inner strength as I can into the world. However, compliments are amazing when people bother to give them. We all spend way too much energy into negativity rather than positivity. It is truly a blessing when someone expresses positivity in any way. I am always up for it and am grateful to receive it.

This patient had such sincerity. This is what I have started hearing lately and what I have been striving for for years. To everyone that has initially poo-pooed my online social media efforts as meaningless or useless, I say aha! It is not for nothing! It is actually working! I have mentioned this suggestion at staff meetings to provide a suggestion for reaching out to people to advertise good services only to have people dismiss and shrug. Good thing I didn’t listen to them and kept on going.

I have finally attempted to reach my ultimate goal, to be able to reach current and future patients and pre let them know that I am truly there for them and that I see them as individuals and that I truly am ready to care for them for the entire lives if they let me. I am ready to empower them and help them advocate for themselves. I am ready to help them realize that they are allowed to put themselves as a priority for their own physical and emotional well-being. I am ready to assist them in realizing their own self-worth. So, ladies, if any of the rest of you are looking for someone to care comprehensively and completely for you for the rest of your life, I’m right here in Monroe, Mi.

If you ever need some additional info about anything in general, please feel free to check out other entries in this blog or my podcast Straight Talk with Dr. Laura. Happy reading or listening!

Dr. Laura