Health Care Zone

Appendectomy is a surgical procedure to remove an inflamed appendix. It can be done either through laparotomy (which involves a large incision through the abdominal wall) or laparoscopy where the incision is small but the surgery is aided by a camera (laparoscope).

Here are some celebrities who had appendectomies.

Suze Orman. Personal finance guru Suze Orman, one of the most influential women in the world according to Forbes Magazine, had an emergency appendectomy on her 59th birthday. Says a spokesperson for CNBC (where her very popular The Suze Orman Show is aired): “Suze went to Chicago to celebrate her birthday and didn’t expect to leave her appendix behind. Northwestern Hospital took great care of her. It was a great team of doctors and a successful surgery. She will be recuperating in Florida.”

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If you are a morning person, there is a good chance that you watch morning shows like Good Morning America on ABC. By this time, you might have also heard about the announcement by one of the show’s hosts, Robin Roberts, that she has been diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome which is more commonly known as MDS.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Robin likely developed the disease while being treated for breast cancer. Despite her new health battle, Robin is optimistic that she will prevail over MDS.

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Celebrity Brain Tumor Survivors (and Non-Survivors). This week American singer Sheryl Crow revealed in an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal that she was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Apparently, what prompted her to visit the doctor is the fact that she was experiencing memory loss. She found out that she has meningioma or a tumor in the meninges which is the membrane which surrounds our brains.

Despite the diagnosis, Sheryl allayed the fears of her fans with this post on her Facebook page: “Hey everyone – please don’t worry about my ‘brain tumor’, it’s a non-cancerous growth. I know some folks can have problems with this kind of thing, but I want to assure everyone I’m OK.”

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Celebrities with body dysmorphic disorder or BDD appear to be not as common as celebrities with OCD as well as those with bi-polar disorders but this does not mean than they’re actually less common. In fact, back in 2010, Dr. Jamie Feusner, a psychiatrist at the University of California in Los Angeles told CNN that he and his colleagues have treated several celebrities for BDD but only few have publicly admitted their condition.

But what is body dysmorphic disorder? According to the National Institutes of Health, BDD is a sever psychiatric disorder whereby a sufferer “believe they look ugly or deformed (thinking, for example, that they have a large and ‘repulsive’ nose, or severely scarred skin), when in reality they look normal.” BDD is also known as dysmorphophobia and it is sometimes associated with eating disorders, such as compulsive overeating, anorexia nervosa or bulimia.

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