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Friday News Feed

The Doctors discuss controversial headlines:

• Breaking news in the Oscar Pistorius murder trial: Investigators claim a substance believed to be testosterone may have been found at Pistorius' home. The Doctors discuss the effects of testosterone supplements and whether too much testosterone can cause abnormally aggressive behavior.
• Kim Kardashian's pregnancy and her concerns regarding weight gain.
• Cruise ship catastrophe : The Doctors’ Investigative Reporter Melanie Woodrow reveals insider details on the cruise ship that’s being labeled a “giant, floating Petri dish.” Plus, hear from a passenger who was on board as she recalls her experience on the disastrous cruise.

Pencil Puncture

Kids tend to have a knack for getting into dangerous situations, but in the case of one 20-month-old girl, something dangerous got into her when she fell onto a sharp pencil while playing. The pencil entered through her right ocular socket and became lodged in the left hemisphere of her frontal lobe, requiring a three-hour procedure to carefully remove it without causing further injury.

Plastic surgeon Dr. Andrew Ordon explains the trajectory of the pencil and how it narrowly missed the eyeball and optic nerve. Although the pencil did penetrate into her brain, the damage was remarkably minimal, and doctors speculate that she will recover without further complications.

Portion Control Purge Button?
Do you ever wish you could lose weight with the push of a button? A controversial advance in the fight against obesity is raising eyebrows and making some stomachs churn. Click here to learn more.

Extracting a Lipoma
Barb, 47, lives an active lifestyle and even teaches a cardio kickboxing class. Despite being in great shape, Barb is self-conscious about an embarrassing body condition – a noticeable, golf ball-sized lump on her back.

Board-certified dermatologist Dr. Sandra Lee examines Barb and reveals that she has a lipoma, a benign, subcutaneous soft tissue tumor.

A lipoma is rubbery or doughy in texture, develops directly under the skin, and can be felt or even slightly shifted. Lipomas can occur in all age groups, but they generally develop in middle age and are often hereditary. Although lipomas are harmless, people usually elect to have them removed for cosmetic reasons.

“Sometimes [lipomas] can be painful, especially if they compress a nerve or if they have a lot of blood vessels within them,” Dr. Lee explains.

Watch as Dr. Lee excises Barb’s lipoma.

Deadly Danger for Children

There is a small item in your home, roughly the size of a nickel, that could pose a serious threat to your child. It can be found in everything from remote controls to singing greeting cards to toy cell phones and more – button batteries.

See how they can cause a lethal reaction inside the body and why you need to take immediate action if your child ingests one.

Program these numbers into your phone:

• National Battery Ingestion Hotline: 1-202-625-3333
• Poison Control Centers: 1-800-222-1222

Breakthrough Procedure to Remove Kidney Stones
People suffering from kidney stones typically experience nausea, vomiting and excruciating, often incapacitating pain. While you can normally pinpoint the source of regular back pain, it is difficult to determine where kidney stone pain originates due to how it radiates through the body.

Kidney stones develop as a result of calcified salts and minerals found in the urine that stick together and form small crystals, which can be as fine as sand or as big as golf balls. The stones get stuck in the kidneys, and if they are too big to pass through the ureter to the bladder, then they must be surgically removed.

“Hydration, hydration, hydration. That’s the most important step,” Dr. Josephson explains. “One episode by itself is not enough to get a full workup, but if you’re a recurrent stone-former, you’ve had bilateral stones or if you’ve had stones [during] pregnancy, those conditions warrant workup by means of blood tests and urine tests and stone compositions,” he adds.