The Health Blog
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Archive for May, 2009
Generally the treatment of constipation is dietary. The child’s diet is modified to increase the amount of bulk and fibre he eats. This means giving increased emphasis to foods such as fruit, vegetables, high fibre cereals such as muesli, porridge, or Weetbix, Vita Brits or weeties, rice and pasta, wholegrain breads and biscuits, dried fruits and nuts. (Remember not to give nuts to children under 4 years of age as they may choke on them.)
It is also important to ensure that the child is drinking lots of fluids (but not too much milk) and is getting sufficient exercise. He should be encouraged to go to the toilet at a regular time, such as after breakfast or after dinner, and discouraged from holding back if he feels the urge to go to the toilet.
Sometimes medications are used for constipation. A number of different preparations are available, usually without a prescription. Medications are not a long-term solution for constipation. They may be very useful for several weeks to help relieve any pain or discomfort and to keep the stools soft, but a good diet and regular sitting on the toilet is the only treatment that will ensure long-term results.
When to see your doctor
Constipation is usually not a serious condition, and in the majority of cases the parents will easily be able to manage it. The doctor should be consulted if:
• the condition does not improve quickly with the simple measures described above;
• there is blood in the stools;
• the child is in persistent or severe pain;
• the constipation seems chronic;
• you are worried.
Most cases of constipation can be prevented by attention to diet and the other measures outlined above.
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Most babies will live happily on breastmilk or formula until they are around 4-6 months old. At this time you may choose to gradually introduce them to solids, although not all babies will be willing to accept them at first. If your baby is clearly not ready to start solids, do not try to force the move; rather, try again a week later.
Start with foods that have a smooth consistency such as rice, cereal or pureed cooked apples, and offer a teaspoonful once a day for the first week. By the second week, if your baby is enjoying solids, increase the amount gradually, and offer two meals a day. If using cereal, you can prepare it using breastmilk or formula. Vegetables can be introduced by the fourth week after you begin to offer your baby solids. Both mashed potato and pumpkin are usually well tolerated. By the time your baby is 8 months old you can introduce white meat such as chicken or fish (remove all bones), followed by small amounts of red meat at around 10 months of age.
Some children have an allergy to eggs, so be careful when introducing these to your baby. Start at around 6 months with a small amount of hard-boiled yolk, and if this is well tolerated, try the yolk of a soft-boiled egg. Egg white can be introduced at around 8 months of age. Finger foods can also be introduced, with supervision, at this stage.
Always introduce one food at a time, and stick to this food for several days, making sure that your baby is not allergic to it, before introducing another type of solid. Allergic reactions include rashes and wheezing. Cow’s milk and dairy products should be avoided during the first year of the baby’s life, as they are difficult for the immature gut to digest.
Avoid adding salt or sugar when preparing food for your baby. Most babies prefer bland-tasting food, so avoid overseasoning. Avoid fatty foods or highly processed foods, as these are not high in nutritional value, and create bad eating habits which can persist throughout adult life. Obesity usually begins during childhood.
years old, because they can be breathed in accidentally and may lead to choking.
Whenever possible feed your baby at the same time as the rest of the family. In this way he will learn that eating together can also be a social occasion, and is not a chore.
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FEAR RESPONSE: Some of the spouses report a fear of returning to sexual intimacy following a loss. Whenever we experience a death close to us, we question our own mortality, and we may become so focused on the fear and ruminations about living and dying that there is little room for the renewal of sexuality. The intensity of loss can result in a fear of all intensity, including the intensity of sexual intimacy, and fear can replace positive anticipation.
SEXUAL TITHING: Some partners deal with their grief by consciously or unconsciously giving up some of the joy of their own living. Sometimes the sexual area is the area of joy that is sacrificed. One husband had promised in his prayers that if his father was spared from death, he would not continue to have sex with his then fiancee. His belief system, one he was willing to modify prior to the stress of his father’s illness, dictated against premarital sex. Following marriage and for the six years of that marriage prior to the couple’s treatment in the super marital sex program, no sexual interaction took place.
Other couples report that a percentage of their sex life seemed to end with the loss experienced by one or both of the partners. This ‘ ‘tithing” may not be as overt as in the example of the husband just mentioned, but it is a factor in couples who felt that they were compromising their values sexually and then experienced a loss they perceived as punishment or a “sign” to pay for their indiscretion.
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Look. You love me or you don’t. There is no halfway in this thing.
HUSBAND
One of the most common confrontation moments in the therapy program for couples came in the form illustrated by one wife:’ ‘This is it. Just say it. Yes or no. You either love me or you hate me. I want to know which it is.”
For this wife and many of the persons in my sample, there was the assumption that love, anger, resentment, joy, and other emotions were somehow exclusive, that it was possible to feel only one emotion at a time. This is not true. We are capable of the simultaneous experience of a range of emotions. The language of love does not contain prepositions, on/off, in/out, beside/away from. The system of love is one of simultaneity, of the balance and flow, the Tao of loving I described in Chapter Two.
There is an important exception here. Research indicates that while we may be able to attach to many people at one time, we can bond with only one person at a time. It is not that we cannot bond with several people, just that the actual bonding I referred to earlier—the mature, intentional bonding—can only take place on one-to-one basis, one interaction at a time. This concept is called “monotropy,” the technical word for bonding relationship by re lationship. It became an important concept in treatment, and I required couples to suspend any other bonding processes for the few weeks they worked on their marital bond. Therapy would not begin until this could be done. Extramarital sex, “Type I, sex outside marriage,” is debilitating to marriages because energy spent on bonding is an invested energy. If you are spending it in one bond, it is not available for forming another.
Love, however, is not monotropic. You can love many people and feel many other feelings while you are loving. When you are bonding, establishing or re-establishing love, it is a one-at-a-time event. But isn’t there a “one and only” for everyone? This assumption underlies the next love lie.
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TRAVEL – INTRODUCTION
Author: admin
Travellers run many risks, such as lost luggage, expensive “bargains” and the local tummy wog that gives a bout of diarrhoea.
But some travellers may also face an added risk, merely by the fact of travelling. Sitting still for prolonged periods in a car, bus, train or plane can lead to problems in veins and may give rise to the formation of clots.
The venous return of blood from the lower limbs is assisted by muscular activity in the legs when we walk or run. Sitting for long periods, particularly if the veins are constricted by pressure of the seat, by crossing the legs or from panty girdles may lead to inflammation in the vein or to the silent formation of a blood clot.
This is more likely in those who have an increased tendency for clot formation. Pregnant women, those on the Pill, people with varicose veins or those with a previous history of clots are particularly at risk.
To lessen the risks, travellers should be encouraged to stretch their legs from time to time. Movin the feet up and down every so often, stretching the legs straight out, tightening the muscles of the buttock and the abdomen and taking deep breaths are all good exercises to do while on long trips. All these measures help to improve the flow of the blood through the veins back to the heart.
Getting up and walking up and down the aisle in a plane, or stopping every hour or so for a five-minute walk when driving long distances, can be a great help.
Aspirin has been found to reduce the “stickiness” of platelets, factors in the blood which are con¬cerned with clotting.
Taking even one aspirin a day can be beneficial in lessening the risk of a clot developing under these circumstances.
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DOCTORS – EDUCATION
Author: admin
There are many medical schools throughout the world that have not been accepted as producing graduates of equal standing to those of the Australian universities. And so graduates from those medical schools are required to repeat the last three years of their study in an Australian medical school before being eligible for registration.
Of course, an adequate knowledge of English is also essential.
A person enters the medical school of an Australian university following Matriculation. Most universities have a quota system, and take students on the basis of their examination results.
The medical course generally consists of six years of study, though recently in NSW the length was reduced to five years.
The pre-clinical science subjects studied in the first three years include chemistry, physics, biology, bio-chemistry, anatomy, physiology, bacteriology and pathology.
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YOUR CANCER, YOUR LIFE – EXFOLIATIVE CYTOLOGY
Author: admin
‘Exfoliative’ means falling off (like leaves off a tree). ‘Cytology’ means the study of cells. When a cancer breaks through any surface, cells fall off it singly or in little clusters. For example, a lung cancer which has grown through the lining of a bronchial tube sheds cells which may be coughed up. Examination of sputum (spit) specimens under the microscope may reveal cancer cells. Cells from cancer of the bladder can float off and be found in specimens of urine. Cells from cancer of the uterus (womb) or cervix (neck of the womb) may be found in samples taken from the surface of the vagina and cervix (a Pap smear). When the diagnosis is made by this method, we can sometimes be in the position of knowing that a cancer is present before we have ‘seen’ it by some other means. For example, a sputum specimen from a patient who has been coughing blood sometimes shows cancer cells when the X-ray looks quite normal (that is, the cancer is too small to show up on the X-ray).
Exfoliative cytology is a quick and easy way of making a diagnosis when it is positive, that is, cancer cells are found. However, when it is negative, that is, no cancer cells are found, it is not so helpful because cancer may still be the cause of the symptom. Some cancers don’t release cells at all, or only release them now and then, so clear specimens do not necessarily mean no cancer. Other tests would be necessary to make a definite diagnosis.
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It would be wonderful is we could tell by a simple blood test whether or not cancer cells have got into the bloodstream. You will remember from Chapter 2 that it is very rare to actually see cancer cells in a blood sample. There are never many of them in the blood at any one time except in leukaemia and some cases of lymphoma and myeloma. The chances of seeing cancer cells in the tiny drop of blood that is looked at under the microscope is minute. Because it is so hard to ‘catch them in the act’, the usual way of finding out that cancer cells have been in the blood is by finding the resulting secondary deposits.
Most of the tests that we use are only capable of picking up cancer deposits that are more than about 1cm across. You might remember from Chapter 2 that cancer cells can go through the blood, lodge somewhere in the body and lie dormant there for a long time. These tiny dormant seedlings are made up of only a few cells and cannot be detected by currently available tests. We only find out later that these cells have been there—when they activate and grow into a deposit that can be detected. If your doctor tells you that your tests are clear and no secondary growths have been found, this is certainly good news. However, it is not a cast-iron guarantee that there will be no trouble in the future. The danger period during which dormant seedlings can activate is different for different types of cancer, ranging from as little as twelve months to as much as twenty or more years. Ask your doctor how long it is for your particular type of cancer.
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NAPPY RASH – INTRODUCTION
Author: admin
The word dermatitis applies to an inflammation of the skin, so any rash is a dermatitis. It does not imply infection, nor does it mean that the condition is infectious. It is loosely used to apply to many conditions.
A nappy rash may have many causes.
Inadequate cleaning. Many babies have sensitive skins and if the changing of nappies is delayed, so that the skin is in contact with a wet or dirty nappy for a long time, the skin may react by producing a rash.
An ammonia dermatitis, due to the chemical action of ammonia in the urine. This may occur when the baby is on a cereal diet or food that tends to be acidic. It is also common during teething. The characteristic smell of ammonia can be recognised in the urine.
Thrush, or infection on the skin by the yeast organism monilia or Candida. The organism rarely is the primary cause of infection anywhere in the body. It is a secondary invader in tissues already inflamed from another cause.
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FAT LOSS: DRUGS AND SURGICAL TREATMENT
Author: admin
Slimming drugs date back to the nineteenth century. It was then that ephedrine, extracted from the Chinese plant Ephedra Sinica and taken in tea as a stimulant, was first reportedly used. Further experimentation with this led to the development of amphetamines, and in the 1930s it was noted that these had an appetite suppressant effect by acting on the appetite centre of the brain. Unfortunately, the amphetamine-based drugs were also discovered to have marked effects on the central nervous system and euphoric qualities with much potential for abuse and so their use is now narrowly restricted by legislation in most countries.
Since then, there has been a vast array of research aimed at drug treatments, all with an obvious view to the huge marketing potential of a ‘magic’ product. The drugs researched can be broadly classified into three categories:
2. Drugs aimed at increasing energy expenditure
3. Drugs used for changing fat and carbohydrate metabolism.
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