Dr. Oz

OK, so I will confess, I am quite the Oprah fan. Not so huge that I'll rearrange my plans to watch her show, but just big enough that I wouldn't consider watching anything else on TV when her show is on. So, when I heard that our class was having a teleconference with Dr. Oz (Oprah's doctor, in case you didn't know), I was pretty excited. I think I have seen every Oprah episode in which he has appeared, so even though I missed the class where we watched his show "Most Embarrassing Questions," I felt prepared, because of course I had already seen it.

Plus, I had my question ready.

A group of us (all girls) had gone out to lunch the previous day, and this query had come up: "Is it true that you can get pregnant and then still have up to two periods, so that you'd be about three months pregnant before you knew it?"

The answer (in case you were wondering), is that it is possible, but very unlikely. And your period would be different to how it normally was, so that would be a clue that something was up. So, there we go. Burning question answered.

In addition to answering questions like mine (although, most of the questions were very journalism orientated - a bit more serious, I guess), Dr. Oz also gave us a few tidbits of other information to chew on.

The ones that stuck out to me, were that:

- One third of the time, your doctor will give you a wrong diagnosis. (Isn't that scary? I will be much more wary now of what the doctor tells me - although, I admit, I rarely go to the doctor anyway. But if I do...).

- If you take six or more medications on a daily basis (including over the counter medication), you have a 94% chance of having a drug to drug interaction. (Now, I don't often take pills - except for calcium supplements and the occasional ibuprofen. But other members of my family take a colorful assortment everyday, so I will be checking with them to see just how many they do take. Dr. Alex is on a mission!).

- People who exercise (especially as they get older) have better skin tone, because the skin can't "rust." (I exercise a lot- I run for nearly an hour five times a week, and I take my pup on multiple little works, so this is good to know).

- Only you can be the world's best expert on your own body (this actually is something I did know, since running coaches have been telling me this for years - "you have to listen to your body." But since it's been a few years since I had a running coach, it was nice to be reminded of this).

- People who write better, communicate better (as an aspiring journalist, this was a bit of "feel-good" news for the day, because I like to think that I can write, so therefore must be a lucid communicator).

There was lots of other good stuff that he said too, but that was what ressonated with me. If you want more Dr. Oz, I'm sure he'll be reappearing on Oprah sometime in the future. Talk shows; you've got to love 'em.