posted by admin on May 8
“I feel like someone opened an umbrella in my bladder,” one woman from Wisconsin wrote vividly in a letter to me. “I’ve been to a urologist five times and he gives me antibiotics, but nothing helps. For five or six days a month, all I do is go to the bathroom. It’s worse when I have my period. Then I have blood in my urine, on top of all the pain. What’s really wrong with me?
Many women share Peggy’s problem. They come to their doctors complaining of bladder pain, or of the sensation of needing to urinate frequently. Many of these women are suffering from endometriosis, but they are diagnosed as having bladder infections unrelated to the “career woman’s disease.” Endometrial tissue can implant itself on the bladder and find its way to the kidneys, where it may become a cause of future problems. The intravenous pyelogram (IVP), which is a radiographic visualization of the kidneys, can offer some clues.
In this test, dye is injected into a vein and the dye travels to the kidneys. Under X ray, these outlined organs are picked up Cases exist in which endometriosis has invaded the kidney and leaves telltale indentations. However, even these indentations do not always constitute a diagnosis of endometriosis. A biopsy of tissue around the kidney it required in order to make a definitive evaluation.
Cystoscopy is another technique used to explore urinary tract dysfunction. It employs an instrument called the cystoscope, which is inserted into the urethra, making it possible to view the bladder. As with the laparoscope, the cystoscope has a built-in light source that facilitates viewing (or photographing the area) and is so constructed that doctors may take tissue biopsies at the same time.
*51\43\4*
posted by admin on May 8
In the past, when there was no effective treatment, the patients were segregated in leprosaria so as to protect those who were not infected. However, no such justification for segregation exists today: for one thing, only about one-fifth of all leprosy sufferers are ever infectious, even prior to treatment; furthermore, those that are infectious can be rendered noninfectious within three weeks of appropriate treatment. Unnecessary segregation lends support to the groundless fears of the general public regarding the infectiousness of leprosy. It also causes many would-be patients to hide their disease, encouraging the spread of other infectious diseases which they may suffer from, such as tuberculosis. Furthermore it reduces the opportunities for medical students, nurses and doctors to learn about the disease.
Gradually, people are becoming more aware that patients with Hansens disease should be treated in general hospital outpatient departments. The most commonly used and effective drug which destroys the germ within about three weeks, is the antibiotic Rifampicin. It is the same antibiotic used to treat tuberculosis, which is a germ very similar to the one causing Hansens disease. Subsequent treatment is with the much cheaper years with Dapsone. Those with the Iepromatous form are treated for life. Equally as important as the drug programme, is the rehabilitation of those with deformities. This involves particular skills of plastic and orthopaedic surgeons, as well as those of occupational therapists and physiotherapists. Specialized footwear has been developed for patients, and considerable research is still proceeding. In fact one of the more exciting research projects in this field involves the possibility of a specific vaccine that would be effective against the disease.
Because of its subtle and very gradual onset, Hansens disease will not be eradicated by the sort of vigorous imaginative control programme which has been so effective for smallpox. It will, however, be eradicated slowly as modern treatment becomes freely available to cooperating patients. Major steps towards this will be the medical exorcism of the word ‘leper’, and the acceptance of patients with Hansens disease into our clinics, our surgeries and our hospitals as unrestricted patients and fellow human beings.
*79\44\4*
posted by admin on May 8
Popular diets are usually based on weight loss, which over the short term may predominantly reflect changes in body water balance and metabolically active tissue. However, the focus should be on sustainable fat loss. Fad diets are those that cause short term weight losses, but no long term sustainable effects. Like any fad, they go into and out of fashion according to the media attention paid to them at any particular time. As such, they play on the vulnerabilities of the target group, who regard themselves at fault for the long term failure of the diet.
Advertising and ‘Fad Diets’.
Some typical concepts used in fad diet advertising include:
• 4100 per cent guaranteed’
• ‘instant’ and ‘phenomenal results’
• ‘x kg weight loss in one month’ (usually a lot)
• ’100 per cent natural and Dr Recommended’
• ‘secret ingredients’
• ‘supported by Doctors and Dietitians’
• ‘lose inches (cm) while relaxing’
• ‘secret of the . . . Aztecs, Incas, Hunzas’ (insert an ancient tribe of your choice).
Myth-informations. The idea that fasting helps fat loss and ‘cleanses toxins’ has been clearly disproven. Any weight loss is quickly regained through physiological adaptation and Jew if any of the minerals lost in sweat are ‘toxins’.
Heat pads and electrical devices, although promoted for fat loss, are banned from advertising as such by the Australian Slimming Advertising Code.
*131\186\4*
posted by admin on May 8
Links between reproductive function, mood and behaviour have been proposed for many years. Mothers who experience severe and persistent anxiety and depression after giving birth have been described as having postpartum depression. Women who consistently experience symptoms such as irritability, anxiety, aggression, depression and loss of concentration during the two weeks between ovulation and menstruation may be diagnosed as having premenstrual syndrome (PMS). And after a hysterectomy, women with heightened levels of depression may be said to have ‘post-hysterectomy depression’ syndrome. While not disputing that disturbances of reproductive function can affect mood and behaviour, and that the obverse may also apply, it must be said that many of the associations suggested to date seem oversimplified.
Doctors have suggested for many years that menopausal depression is a depressive disorder occurring specifically in the mid-life years and that it is different from other depressive disorders. Little evidence has, however, been found to support this idea. Studies have actually found high levels of well-being among women during mid-life. And, as far as hysterectomised women are concerned, there is little evidence that they are any more prone to depression after hysterectomy than before. In those cases where menopausal women are diagnosed as having psychiatric symptoms, there is a stronger association with important life events, relationships with children, and marital status than with cessation of menstruation. Furthermore, some women experience physical symptoms such as hot flushes without any psychiatric symptoms, while the reverse is true for others.
There is still much to learn about these associations as many of the studies carried out to date have involved small numbers of self-selected women rather than large random samples. The Melbourne Women’s Midlife Health Project is an attempt to overcome some of these deficiencies. It aims to help rectify a situation where the linkages described are, in the words of the United States Office of Technology Assessment, ‘based on myths, unwarranted assumptions and conclusions derived from outdated, poorly constructed studies’.
*5\198\4*
posted by admin on May 8
Another possible explanation of why we sleep is the chemical theory. We are all aware of the fact that certain chemical substances induce sleep; we have all heard of sleeping pills. When we take a sleeping pill, the drug is absorbed into the blood and acts on the brain. The drug induces sleep. When the drug wears off and is eliminated from the body, we wake up.
Is there a sleep-inducing, naturally occurring chemical in the body? Also, does this chemical accumulate in the day like a waste product from our metabolism and require elimination? When the chemical reaches a certain threshold, does the brain become drugged and cause us to fall asleep? Whilst asleep, is this chemical eliminated from the body, causing us to wake up refreshed? A French scientist in 1913 called this hypothetical chemical sleep poison or hypnotoxin.
The answers are all no. This is shown in the example of Siamese twins. Siamese twins are two twins born together with some parts of their bodies attached. They share the same blood circulation. It is observed that one twin can be wide awake whilst the other is fast asleep. If there is a chemical in the blood causing sleep, then the two twins should be waking and sleeping at the same time. This clearly demonstrates that ‘natural sleep’ is not due to a chemical or a drug circulating in the blood. On the other hand, if one twin is given an appropriate dose of sleeping pill, after this is absorbed into the blood the two twins sleep at the same time. This shows that sleep induced by sleeping pills is very different from natural sleep, and the chemical theory is unable to explain why we need to sleep.
However, in spite of this, there is still considerable research taking place to examine the possibility of the presence of hypnotoxin. Claims were made that extracts of spinal fluid from sleep-deprived animals when injected into waking animals would induce sleep. US scientists called this substance in the spinal fluid factor S (S for sleep) and Japanese scientists called it sleep-promoting substance or SPS. Sleep-deprived animals were used for the source of this substance as it was believed that factor S or SPS accumulated greatly in these animals, since only sleep could eliminate it.
*4\174\4*
|
|