Empty Nest – December 2021 by Appen Media Group

Appen Media Group

December Special Section

2 | December 2021 | NorthFulton.com | ForsythHerald.com

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Somerby Sandy Springs Is a Special Place to Call Home Brought to you by – Somerby Sandy Springs Home is more than a physical place, it’s a feeling. It’s friendship. It’s knowing that you belong. At Somerby Sandy Springs, nothing makes us happier than hearing our residents call this community home. It means that we’ve created something very special, and we would love to share it with you and your family. Somerby Sandy Springs is conveniently located right outside of Atlanta on six acres of beautiful land. The community is easily accessible for family members to visit and enjoy activities in Atlanta. Here at Somerby Sandy Spring, our associates are dedicated to helping residents live healthy, joyous and meaningful lives. Our community is designed to support the needs of a wide range of seniors. Even if your care needs change, we’ll be here for you. We offer the following levels of care: Independent Living, Assisted Living and Memory Care. Somerby Sandy Springs has a broad range of amenities that features delicious, full-service fine dining, a bistro and social cafe, a library, a media lounge, a salon and spa, concierge healthcare, state-of-the-art health and wellness center and more. We also provide pet-friendly features because we know that your furry friends are family too. Our mission is to inspire and nurture successful living every day — with the inspiration to keep you thriving long into your golden years. At Somerby Sandy Springs, we support your zest for life. Our residents, families and associates come together in

these special communities to create a place that is full of life. Is Somerby Sandy Springs your future home?

Come experience our community for yourself. For more information or to schedule a tour, please call 800-774-8452.

AT SOMERBY, WE’RE TRANSFORMING WHAT SENIOR LIVING LOOKS LIKE AND FEELS LIKE. We create an environment where quality care means being supported and encouraged from the moment you move in.

VISIT US AT SOMERBYSENIORLIVING.COM/HERALDNEWS 866.433.2008 INDEPENDENT LIVING | ASSISTED LIVING | MEMORY CARE

25 Glenlake Parkway NE Sandy Springs GA 30328

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Getting ready for the new year! Brought to you by- Jay Looft, Medicare Insurance Broker, SeniorSource Medicare Solutions With the Medicare Annual Election Period behind us, you have already chosen to either stay on your current plan and allow it to auto-renew or are about to embark on a new chosen plan. Either way, we want to offer up a few recommendations before the 2022 plan year arrives! Get a New Insurance ID Card: Every November or early December, you should receive a new plan ID card. It is important that you have the most up-to-date ID card for the upcoming year. Why, you ask? Doctor copay dollar amounts (Primary Care and Specialist) are listed on your Insurance ID card, if you have a Medicare Advantage Plan. For many 2022 Medicare Advantage plans, these flat-dollar copays have lowered. I’ve seen too often where Medicare Advantage clients hold onto their previous year’s ID cards and end up paying too much when showing older ID cards to

the front desk at a doctor’s office. Save more money by having the most up-to-date ID card! If you need help getting a new ID

card for your plan, I recommend either calling your insurance carrier or contacting us for help. We can easily get a new ID card ordered for you.

Don’t Be Surprised With Deductibles: Every January, I receive at least a few phone calls asking, “Why are my brand-name prescription drugs so expensive?!” Whether you are on a Stand-Alone Prescription Drug Plan or Medicare Advantage Plan, many insurance companies will require you to pay up to the first $480 (for 2022) of your brand-name drug cost. This is your annual deductible on prescriptions. Remember, this is usually only for higher-cost prescription drugs (brandname medicines) and is a one-time per year dollar amount. It accounts for all your brand-name medicines and is not a per-prescription deductible. This information above gives you a few things to think about, but you may have questions when your Medicare plan starts fresh in 2022. We are here to help! SeniorSource Medicare Solutions is an independent insurance agency

See MEDICARE, Page 5

Your Local Broker for Medicare Insurance Needs

Specializing in Medicare Advantage & Medicare Supplement Plans

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Medicare: Continued from Page 4 representing most insurance carriers for Medicare Advantage, Medicare Supplement, and Stand-Alone Medicare Prescription Drug Plans. Call us at (770) 913-6464 or visit our website at www.SeniorSourceMedicare.com. SeniorSource Medicare Solutions is an independent insurance agency representing most insurance carri-

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ers for Medicare Advantage, Medicare Supplement, and Stand-Alone Medicare Prescription Drug Plans. Call us at (770) 596-6650 or visit our website at www.SeniorSourceMedicare.com. SeniorSource Medicare Solutions is an independent insurance agency representing most insurance carriers for Medicare Advantage, Medicare Supplement, and Stand-Alone Medicare Prescription Drug Plans. Call us at (770) 315-8145 or visit our website at www.SeniorSourceMedicare.com.

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319 North Main Street, Alpharetta, GA 30009 AppenMedia.com | 770.442.3278

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Lovastatin and Cholesterol for Disseminated Superficial Actinic Porokeratosis (DSAP): Volcanos and Dinosaurs Brought to you by – Dr. Brent Taylor, Premier Dermatology and Mohs Surgery of Atlanta If the first portion of this title does not grab you immediately, then you are not alone! Three out of five respondents polled for this article voted the first title “boring” (those respondents being my eight-year-old, six-year-old and threeyear-old). My wife’s vote was nicer with an encouraging “needs improvement.” My vote of “Riveting!” was deemed biased by the judges. If you like the second portion more, “Volcanoes and Dinosaurs,” then you like the title that my sons suggested and that, incidentally, has nothing to do with this article other than dinosaurs, like skin diseases and their medicines, often have long names that are hard to pronounce. But 2% lovastatin & cholesterol for disseminated superficial actinic porokeratosis is an exciting topic. Allow me to explain: One of the most enjoyable aspects of dermatology is that most patients present with conditions that can often be either cured or treated very effectively. When a patient presents with a skin cancer, I can often cure it with a greater than 99% cure rate through a procedure called Mohs surgery, which involves removing a cancer in stages or layers and checking the edges under the microscope until the cancer has been completely removed. When a patient presents to clinic with dermatitis or eczema, we have a whole armamentarium of medicines including topical steroids, tacrolimus, crisaborole, dupilumab and other medicines. And when a patient

presents with leg pain or swelling due to vein disease, our clinic is proud to offer minimally invasive techniques such as endovenous laser ablation and foam sclerotherapy as well as phlebectomy and external laser treatments with great success. Our tremendous power to treat skin disease has not always been the case. Take, for example, psoriasis. Historically, psoriasis was a terrible disease that could even be a death sentence. Without effective treatments, psoriasis patients frequently were hospitalized. Whole wards in hospitals were dedicated to treating patients with severe psoriasis. When psoriasis overtook a large portion of someone’s skin surface, the skin could cease to function and patients could develop “erythroderma,” in which the skin turned red, body heat and moisture was lost, and patients sometimes died of heat and water loss. Modern psoriasis treatments have essentially shut down hospitals’ psoriasis wards, and now prescriptions for medicine such as Humira® that you see advertised on television have become the miracle cures we so desperately needed. An exception to our success in dermatology has been a condition called DSAP – disseminated superficial actinic porokeratosis. In this disease, an individual develops small growths on the skin that slowly become larger. These growths often have a slightly rough or scaly ring-like edge. They rarely ever become cancer or cause easily quantifiable harm, but people who develop these lesions often develop dozens of thin round

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Premier: Continued from Page 6 growths that can nearly cover the legs or arms and can itch, cause irritation and become inflamed. DSAP lesions have had no satisfactory treatment for years. The attending physicians who trained me tried lasers, topical chemotherapy agents, acids, anti-inflammatories and a host of compounded medications all with little result. Liquid nitrogen to select lesions was often the default and relatively unsatisfying therapy of choice. Recently, Dr. Lihi Atzmony of Yale University and her colleagues identified a new therapy that they report was able to improve DSAP lesions. In many cases, DSAP appears to arise when mutations in genes involved in cholesterol metabolism cause a deficiency of cholesterol production in the skin and a build-up of toxic precursors or byproducts. In the famous “I Love Lucy” candy factory skit, Lucy is not fast enough to wrap all the candy coming down the conveyor belt and unwrapped candy builds up. Similarly, a defective cholesterol pathway is not able to produce a finished cholesterol product (the wrapped candy in this analogy), and the unfinished precursors of cholesterol build up (the unwrapped

candies). Lovastatin is a medicine that decreases cholesterol production. Dr. Atzmony’s 2% lovastatin / 2% cholesterol cream effectively slows down the candy belt using lovastatin and supplies the wrapped candy by delivering alreadywrapped cholesterol. A combination 2% lovastatin, 2% cholesterol ointment is currently offlabel, not FDA approved, and new, but it is scientifically based with Dr. Aztmony reporting promising early results. This ointment offers one of the first rays of hope for a condition that has defied attempts at treatment. With luck, we may add DSAP to the long list of skin diseases that we can effectively control. We live in a great era for medicine. Exciting and effective treatments increase in number every day. And the number of dinosaurs we contend with appears to be at an all time low. If you or a loved one has a skin or vein issue, consider Premier Dermatology and Mohs Surgery of Atlanta. Dr. Brent Taylor and Kathryn Filipek, PA-C are delighted to help you achieve your skin health goals. Dr. Taylor is a Harvard-graduate, a board-certified dermatologist and vein care expert, and fellowship-trained Mohs surgeon. Kathryn Filipek has greater than 15 years of dermatology experience with expertise in medical, surgical and cosmetic dermatology.

Bungalows & Cottages City Homes Independent Living Assisted Living Memory Care Village Park Milton 555 Wills Road Alpharetta, GA 30009 470.509.4557

Village Park Alpharetta 12300 Morris Road Alpharetta, GA 30005 678.740.3499

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It’s your time! Brought to you by: Addington Place of Alpharetta & Addington Place of Roswell At any stage of life, you should feel safe, valued, supported, and maybe most importantly… you should feel eager for another day. We understand the transition into senior living can be challenging and, usually, those challenges are accompanied with a multitude of questions. This is where we come in. At Addington Place in Alpharetta and Roswell, we know you want to rely on yourself, but with aging or health changes, sometimes routine tasks become nuisances which leads to becoming fixated on what you can’t do instead of what you can do. This is why our Assisted Living, Personal Care and Memory Care options at Addington Place are designed and tailored in personal ways which bolster your independence, dignity and individuality. You deserve the opportunity to live your life in pursuit of happiness. We’ll take care of the rest. We’ll join forces with you, your family members, and your physicians to determine exactly how you need extra assistance. Then, our trained healthcare professionals will unleash their kind and

friendly expertise, assisting in just-foryou ways which encourage you to pursue everything that makes you…you. It’s time. It’s time for you to enjoy your life. It’s time for you to channel your inner Bob Ross and start painting again. It’s time for you to explore your baking skills and see if you can make the perfect chocolate chip cookie. It’s time for you to connect with your community while wearing your favorite Hawaiian shirt during the summer luau. Maybe you’ll even test out your green thumb and help keep our gardens flourishing. Whatever you choose to do, it’s your time to do it. Our job is to make sure you have everything you need in order to make it happen. And, if we’re being honest, we’re pretty good at our job. We are so confident that we will meet your expectations that we offer the Cedarhurst PromiseTM. If you’re not satisfied and decide to move out within your first 60 days, we’ll give you a complete refund. Let’s get started.

How

Addington Place of Alpharetta 762 N. Main Street Alpharetta, GA 30009 (678) 883-7378 AddingtonPlaceAlpharetta.com

Addington Place of Roswell 550 Barrington Drive Roswell, GA 30075 (770) 626-4724 AddingtonPlaceRoswell.com

you like to live

We create communities faithful to one big idea: Every person should feel loved, valued, supported and able to safely live life to the fullest. Discover senior living that unfailingly respects every individual.

The Cedarhurst Promise.TM We promise. If you’re not satisfied and decide to move out within your first 60 days, we’ll give you a complete refund.*

Call now to schedule your tour. *Cedarhurst Promise™ program is only available at advertised community. Not applicable for respite or other short-term stays. Refund is available only if move out is a result of dissatisfaction with Cedarhurst community as documented throughout stay. Complete refund includes base rent, level of care charges, and community fee. Ancillary services fees (ex. additional transportation, pet fees and laundry charges) do not qualify for refund. Additional terms and conditions may apply. Please contact community for additional details. Void where prohibited.

ALPHARETTA • (678) 883-7378 Assisted Living & Memory Care ROSWELL • (770) 626-4724 Personal Care & Memory Care Find a community near you at CedarhurstLiving.com

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