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Dear Dr. Roach: I am a 76-year-old woman in reasonably good health. Around Thanksgiving last year, my left ankle was swollen, red and very painful. I thought it was tendonitis, so I stopped going for my half-hour walks in the morning.

Dear Dr. Roach: I have liver disease (my doctor calls it mild cirrhosis) and terrible, painful varicose veins. Is it safe for me to get a vein stripping? V.P.

Dear Dr. Roach: I am a 77-year-old woman with spinal stenosis and have been treated by a pain-management doctor for several years. My pain is from my neck down to my lower back and radiates to my legs.

Dear Dr. Roach: Why do older people tend to get lightheaded (not vertigo) and therefore become liable to trip or fall? What causes that, and can anything be done? I鈥檓 an 83-year-old lady afraid to trip over the garden hose or her own feet. A.R.

Dear Dr. Roach: What is causing my hair to fall out? What can I do to stop it? I鈥檓 a 72-year-old woman. Could I be hypothyroid? L.O.I. By far, the most common cause of hair loss in women in their 70s is female pattern hair loss.

Dear Dr. Roach: More than a year ago my husband had surgery. A couple of days later he was diagnosed with a blood clot in his calf. They did blood testing on him, and one test came back positive for 鈥渙ne copy of the Factor V Leiden Variant.

Dear Dr. Roach: For over six decades, I have lived with smokers. My parents smoked around their children inside our family home and inside the family car. Later, most of my siblings smoked. Family gatherings were always smoky affairs.

Dear Dr. Roach: Your recent column on melanoma piqued my interest. My husband was exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam in 1968. He had a melanoma on his neck removed with lymph nodes in 2007.

Dear Dr. Roach: I am a 55-year-old woman. I have always been in excellent health, but this year, my routine bloodwork showed that my creatinine is 1.08 (high) and that my GFR is 58 (low).

Dear Dr. Roach: I have been suffering for some time with jock itch. The resulting scratching leaves my groin area and thighs abraded and oftentimes bleeding.