Health News and Information

REPAIR FOR YOUR BODY

admin — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 12:54:37 +0000

To get the body, which has had inflammation or disease or injury of any kind, back to anything approaching normal, there must be repair work done. This is as fundamental a process as is inflammation, and it occurs throughout the vegetable and animal kingdoms.

A tree can be badly injured and do marvelous repairs job to itself. I had a twenty-foot elm in my back yard. Boys sawed nearly three-quarters of the way through the trunk and the chances of the tree’s growing up to be a fine specimen looked slim indeed. But on the edges of the cut, the live layer of bark started to grow and fill in. Gradually this filling-in closed around the trunk so that the sap was nowhere cut off from its upward course. Now, not many years later, the tree is in fine shape. The only evidence is a ring – a sort of scar tissue – that looks like swollen bark and that goes three-quarters of the way around the trunk.

In the kingdom of man and beast, the lower in the animal scale, the more complete is the regeneration. We are told that if a lobster loses his claw he grows a new one. Man cannot reproduce even a lost little finger. Cut off a lowly earthworm’s head and he grows a new one. Only metaphorically can we do anything like that. Even in the human body this rule of the power of comeback of the lowly holds good. Our nerve cells are highly developed and specialized. Destroy one of them and it is gone forever and no other can take its place. Poliomyelitis destroys nerve cells in the spinal cord. That ends the activity of the muscle fibers which they controlled; hence the well-known paralysis. At the other extreme are our connective tissue cells. Their job is a simple one: just holding things together. They are usually rather small quiet things; not much to look at. But injure this tissue and the cells swell up and reach out towards one another like the line men of a football team bunching up to stop a line plunge.

Apparently the injured cells spill some substance which stimulates the remaining ones and a substance called collagen is formed. This is a Greek word meaning glue. In my youth I had access to a wood-working shop and I was told there that the broken rocker of a chair neatly fitted together and well glued would never break again at that spot. That indicates the value of collagen. To get enough of a good-quality collagen, one must have plenty of Vitamin C, which is found in fruit and vegetables. So always have your glass of orange juice for breakfast and a nice crisp salad for dinner.

Some substance from the injured tissues stimulates the cells to repair. Stimulation and irritation are the same except possibly for the question of degree and it is interesting that Dr. Alexis Carrel found that if an aseptic (that is, uninfected) wound was carefully cleaned of all blood clot and debris and completely protected from outside irritation, no healing would occur. I like the word heal meaning hale, healthy or sound, which is more personal than repair. Except when used figuratively, heal refers to living matter, while an old pair of shoes or anything inanimate may be repaired.

The ideal healing occurs in such wounds as a surgeon may make where the surfaces are brought together accurately and held there by stitches. We have a lovely phrase for what takes place then: healing by first intention. The connective tissue cells interlace and contract, forming scar tissue, and the smallest blood vessels bud out, increasing the blood supply. The wound may heal firmly in a few days, particularly in the face, where the blood supply is profuse. Because of all this extra blood supply, such wounds are red at first, but later the blood vessels close off with the resulting white scar with which you are all familiar. The skin cells slide over the edge of the wound, closing it off. No new hair or sweat glands appear here for they are complex tissues, high in the scale.

Not all wounds, of course, are simple cuts, allowing the surfaces to be brought together. Much tissue may be lost and no longer do we have first-intention healing. Such wounds are closed in by what we call “granulation tissue.” Great numbers of little loops of blood vessels grow out on the surface of the wound slowly forming scar tissue, which as it contracts has a tendency to shrink the wound. Infection in a wound increases the amount of granulation tissue, making the “proud” flesh with which many of you are familiar. This will resist the penetration of infection into the deeper tissue. The skin slowly creeps in from the edges of the wound but the final result is likely to be an unyielding scar with thin, poorly nourished skin over it.

The state of the body also influences healing so that poorly nourished people, especially those not getting enough protein, do not heal well. One of the bad aspects of cortisone is that it interferes with healing as it does with inflammation. Repair and inflammation are closely related.

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GENERAL HEALTH

HELPING TURN OFF DRUG ABUSE: OPENING THE DOOR TO HARD DRUGS

admin — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 12:53:02 +0000

The worst consequence of marijuana use may be that it opens the door to harder drugs. Dr. Richard R. Clayton of the University of Kentucky in Lexington says flatly that marijuana “causes” heroin and cocaine use. He cites figures showing that the more marijuana a person smokes the more likely he or she is to use heroin or cocaine or both.

Dr. Denise Kandel of the New York State Psychiatric Institute in Manhattan says that “cause” is too strong a word because only a small fraction of marijuana smokers go on to use other drugs. But, she points out, her 1971 and 1980 studies of 8,000 public high school students in New York State reveal that nearly all cocaine and heroin users start with marijuana.

In the late 1970s a survey of 17,000 high seniors by the National Institute Drug Abuse, found young people understand that regular use of any drug carries a high risk. But, in a curious way, they don’t feel at risk themselves. When they buy drugs on the street, they do not know the quality, cleanliness, dose, or the actual chemical they will be putting into their bodies.

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GENERAL HEALTH

CHILD’S HEALTH/INFECTIOUS DISEASES: RUBELLA (GERMAN MEASLES)

admin — Thu, 21 May 2009 07:21:08 +0000

Rubella is most common amongst schoolchildren under the age of 13 years. It is often a very mild illness in young children, and may pass unrecognised. It is only serious if a woman contracts rubella in the early stages of pregnancy, where it may cause abnormalities of the newborn baby.

Cause

Rubella is caused by a virus which is spread through personal contact, or by coughing and sneezing.

Clinical features

The incubation period is from 2-3 weeks, and the child is infectious for about a week after the appearance of the rash. The onset of the illness is rather like a mild cold, with slight fever or sore throat and enlarged lymph glands in the neck. The characteristic rash then appears 2-3 days later. It starts on the face and then spreads to the trunk. Initially the spots are pale pink, and gradually merge to form patches. The rash only lasts for a few days and then disappears completely.

Treatment

There is no specific treatment for rubella, aside from the relief of symptoms. Paracetamol can be given according to directions for fever. Keep your child at home until the illness has well and truly passed, to avoid infecting others.

Prevention

Routine immunisation against rubella is given to children in combination with the measles and mumps vaccine. Girls are reimmunised at around 14 years of age.

Children who have a rubella infection MUST be kept away from pregnant women, as the virus can severely harm the foetus if the woman catches it.

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LEAVING YOUR CHILDREN SOMETHING TO LOVE BY: WHAT DO CHOLDREN WANT TO KNOW ABOU SEX?

admin — Tue, 19 May 2009 05:49:32 +0000

“Would you die or have a baby if you ate sperm?”

No, you wouldn’t die and the only way a woman can have a baby is by having sperm go in through the vagina when the man puts his penis inside the vagina. Sperm is not dirty and can’t hurt you at all, but it joins with eggs to cause babies, so you should never let sperm go in the vagina unless you are ready to have and raise a baby.

”How can sperm swim? Do they have fins?”

Well, they have something better. Each one has a little tail that goes very, very fast so they can go up to the egg. Even if the sperm go on the outside of the vagina, some could get into the vagina, so you should never take a chance with sperm near the vagina.

”Why do some people take babies out too early and kill them?”

Nobody ever really wants to kill a baby. Sometimes, but not often, a baby does not get made quite right and the nesting place takes the not-finished baby, called a fetus, out of the mother. Sometimes some people who did not want a baby stop it from growing in the nesting place after the sperm and egg met. That is what an abortion is. The not-yet-finished baby, the fetus, really doesn’t look like a real baby because it was still getting made, just like a seed starting to grow does not look too much like a flower. Some people feel it is okay to stop the growth early because they don’t want a baby, and some people feel it is never right to do that.

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YOUR MARITAL HEALTH/WIVES’ SEXUALITY: MS. MYTH – THE CLOSED-MIND MYTH

admin — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:27:59 +0000

I don’t fantasize. I’m sure I don’t. Everyone talks about that, but I can’t do it and I never have. I just think about holding, being close, warm, intensely in love with my husband, just alone together, becoming more together, more in love, more turned on with each other. I think about that a lot, but I don’t fantasize.

WIFE

The early sexual perspectives saw fantasy related specifically to physical and genital imagery. Questions in the research protocols were about “physical turn-ons,” typically leading questions from the point of view of the male researcher. It is a fact that everyone fantasizes. Women fantasize, men fantasize, children fantasize. Sexual fantasy is the mental rehearsal of the love map, including some new paths that I described earlier, and relates much more to the individual experience of that love map than it does to gender. Here are two fantasies from the couples. See if you can tell which is a husband and which is a wife.

“I can see it in my mind even while we are doing it. My partner goes down on me while somebody is kissing me and somebody else is rubbing me all over. Then all three do everything to me. Then I do it to each one of them alone.”

“I see an image of the two of us embraced, close, kissing deeply. A candle is nearby, and our shadow is on the wall. The kiss becomes more and more intimate, and I come just by kissing.”

The first fantasy is that of a wife, the second was reported by a husband. You have already learned about the sexual similarities between men and women, so you probably expected the unexpected in this example, but most spouses reported the first as male, the second as female and were surprised to learn that personal and relationship development had more to do with sexual imagery than gender.

I discovered that it was more meaningful to ask about “sexual images” than fantasy. Some spouses were raised to censor the fantasy process but would readily discuss a set of mental images. It was as if the image was something to be “viewed” from a safe distance, while fantasy was something one participated in and therefore wrong. I explored not only individual imagery but “marital imagery,” asking couples to create and continually modify their collective sexual images. Here is one example.

“My wife is naked with me on a tropical island,” reported the husband. The wife is then asked to provide the next image. “We walk hand and hand in the warm sun and gentle breeze,” she reported. “We stop to shower in a warm, refreshing waterfall, and the water hitting us seems to arouse us,” reported the husband. “I notice his erection and touch it, begin to kiss it,” shares the wife. “I caress her breasts and run my hands through her hair,” shares the husband. The imagery assignment continued until the husband stated, “That’s about all we want to say in this session.” The wife added, “Good-bye, and we will leave you to finish this up with your own images.” Perhaps you and your spouse can take their imagery from here and develop your own scenes. Remember, images have no gender. You together are the producers, directors, and cast of this I-rated (intimacy-rated) movie.

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THE DESEXUALIZATION OF THE AMERICAN MARRIAGE: TWO TYPES OF EXTRAMARITAL SEX

admin — Mon, 18 May 2009 09:59:02 +0000

I have tried for years to make our marriage one long affair. Well, you know what? She had ended up having an affair all right, but not with me.

HUSBAND

Super Marital Sex Rule: Never try to make your marriage an affair. Affairs are short, intense, immature imitations of love that is only possible in lasting, mature relationships. Intensity, newness, and variety are culturally learned values that cannot compete with the predictability, sameness, and comfort of super marital sex. We must unlearn the negative connotations of these last three terms.

Type I extramarital sex is sex outside of marriage. Type II extramarital sex is the attempt to make an affair out of your marriage, to use affairs as the model of true joy so that marriage must live up to the “sexpectations” of affairs. It is the attempt to put sex “outside” of day-to-day marital living, to buy the latest sex toys, sneak away on vacations, schedule candlelight dinners, and dress in the most erotic clothing. Couples trying for this extramarital sex Type II end up with “separate marital sex,” a lack of closeness and trust in an effort to create a relationship within a relationship. You cannot have an affair with someone you love, but you can have super marital sex that takes place within the entire life system, not separate from it.

I offer a special invitation to single persons to join this “quest for intimacy.” Legal, cultural, sociological, familial, financial commitments that accompany marriage, in our society provide a framework for formalizing the unity necessary for the super marital sex you will be reading about. There are many aspects of super marital sex, however, that apply to those persons who are not, cannot, or choose not to marry. This model offers an alternative for single, widowed and divorced persons, for anyone who desires a standard of sexual intimacy based on commitment, trust, and the potential for personal and relationship growth beyond physical closeness. I suggest that we have more to learn from prolonged intimacy evolving from within a mutually fulfilling love system than from the use of sex as a means for finding someone to love. Marrying is a healthier model for loving and sex than “mating,” because it can provide for an adaptive all-inclusive style for true “living together.”

I am suggesting in super marital sex a new model for intimacy, a new course objective for our culture’s sex education, a new priority, a choosing of intimacy. The AIDS crisis should not frighten us into fidelity. We should celebrate the potential of fidelity, its capacity for a super sex where the super means whole, lasting, comforting, fulfilling.

The husband and wife who were given a second chance had never given their marriage a chance to grow into something very special. They had allowed their marriage to become de-eroticized. Has this happened to your marriage? Check the ways this happened to the thousand couples.

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OBSESSIONS – DESCRIPTION

admin — Fri, 15 May 2009 09:48:30 +0000

Obsessions and phobias are often considered together, as both stem from anxiety.

The obsessional personality may, in its milder forms, be an asset in our society. It can lead its owner to have what appears to be strength of character, a well-developed sense of duty, conscientiousness and to be a hard worker.

If carried to excess, it may make its owner cold, rigid, inhibited and repressed.

The obsessional person has difficulty in handling his own aggression and this hostility is then repressed.

His troubles often stem from unresolved childhood conflicts between obedience and defiance; from fear of authority; and the development of a rigid, conforming attitude with an obsession for neatness and orderliness.

Because for the unresolved conflicts the obsessional person develops anxiety and can control it only by seeking order and attempting to control everything around him.

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CLAUDICATION – ANGIOGRAPHY

admin — Fri, 15 May 2009 08:02:23 +0000

Angiography is the procedure of inserting a needle into the femoral artery in the groin and injecting a radio-opaque dye. X-rays are taken as the dye flows down the arteries with the blood and outlines the arterial tree. Narrowing or blocking can be seen.

An ultrasound probe may also be used. This employs the Doppler effect. If you remember the physics you learned at school, you may understand how it works.

An ultrasonic signal is beamed into the artery and the reflected beam picked up and converted into an audible signal. The pitch of the sound varies with the velocity of the blood flow and can show narrowing or blocking.

If the disease is widespread, involving most of the arteries, operation may not be possible.

The femoral artery is the one most usually involved and is often blocked at about its middle. It is possible to bypass the localised blockage by taking a vein, usually the long saphenous vein that runs from the groin to the ankle, and joining it to the artery above and below the block.

It is possible to use synthetic material in place of the vein but it appears that the vein graft gives better long-term results.

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YOUR CANCER YOUR LIFE – RIGHT TO MAKE YOUR OWN DECISIONS (RIGHT TO CONSIDER ALTERNATIVE)

admin — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:02:34 +0000

In any given situation there is always at least one alternative. To have one treatment or another treatment or no treatment at all. To keep working or stop working, or perhaps work part-time. To Itay home or go into hospital or move in with your daughter. To i iv or to explode or to sulk or to smile. To talk or to remain silent.

To play with the grandchildren or just watch them or stop them from visiting you at all.

Often we decide on something without consciously recognising or thinking through the alternatives. This can happen when the advantages of a particular course of action seem so great that it’s not worth considering anything else. That’s fine if it’s true. But more often, it’s best to at least go through the exercise of thinking through the possible options.

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SKIN CARE: MELANOMA

admin — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:41:24 +0000

This is a malignant tumour of melanocytes, which are the melanin and pigment producing cells in the basal layer of the epidermis. It is by far the most dangerous and life-threatening form of all cancers. Two-thirds of all skin cancer deaths are attributable to it. Like other skin cancers, the frequency of melanomas appear to be increasing—and not because of better or earlier recognition.

Causes. The incidence is greatest where light-skinned Caucasians are exposed to large amounts of solar radiation. Unlike S.C.C.s or B.C.C.s, melanomas are not found predominantly on sun-exposed areas—one-third of tumours occur on the trunk. The greatest incidence in the world is in Queensland.

Occasionally a mole may undergo malignant change and become a melanoma. However, considering the number of moles in the population, this happens relatively rarely; melanomas of this origin account for probably less than one-third of melanomas.

Features. Melanomas may vary considerably in appearance. However they usually all have some degree of colour or pigmentation to them. This is usually not uniform, and the edges are commonly irregular. The pigmentation may range from tan through blue to black, or from between red and brown to blue and black. Sometimes a melanoma is quite flat and flush with the skin surface, or on the other hand it may appear as a raised lump.

Some of the characteristics that may be observed in a mole which should arouse suspicion are:

colour change—either becoming darker or more variable in colour size change—becoming larger or irregular in outline surface roughness, scales, ulceration, or bleeding itching or pain

Treatment. The treatment for melanomas is basically surgical excision. If the diagnosis is uncertain, this should be preceded by a biopsy. The surgery of melanomas is usually fairly extensive (that is! wide and deep) because of the poor prognoses for advanced cases. Usually, a fairly large margin of normal skin is taken out with the melanoma, and a skin graft applied. The more radical approach of the past, in which the lymph glands close to the affected skin were also removed, is no longer practised.

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