Health News. Lots of resources and information

Even with all my training, the women in my life have taught me much I needed to know about health and health care. A few years ago, my older daughter wrote her senior research project on women’s medical issues, focusing on how the entire medical system is not geared toward humans of the female persuasion. Of course, I was pleased and proud she was showing an interest in medicine, but I teased her at first about being up on her soapbox. It’s not like I took a course on how not to treat women, I told her, and except for whatever handful of male chauvinist doctors were out there (unfortunate, but unavoidable), I felt sure women received medical care on a par with men. But as she researched, and I thought about the stories my patients brought to me, and we talked, she showed me she was right.Around this same time, as my wife was going into perimenopause, she had her first bone density measurement. She came home to report that the radiologist just said that everything was fine. But when a copy of the report arrived in the mail, I saw that it actually showed significant bone loss. At her routine visit to the gynecologist, the doctor didn’t comment on the bone scan (which she had received a copy of), but did suggest calcium, exercise, and hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which, aside from the calcium, my wife declined. And so, with just one approach mentioned—and major components rejected—with no “Plan B,” no plan for follow-up, no discussion of protective eating strategies or types of exercise or alternatives to standard HRT my wife might find more appealing, these doctors were satisfied to let the whole matter go, without even explaining the potential for serious trouble ahead! Once it hit this close to home, I finally realized the extent of the problem my daughter had pointed out to me. And nowhere was it more extreme than when it came to osteoporosis.Until recently, bone fragility has been more or less shrugged off as an inevitable part of aging—and basically a woman’s lot. Though this is a totally preventable disease, the incidence of osteoporosis has been increasing because it hasn’t been properly addressed. As some new drugs were approved that provided a real treatment for low bone density for the first time, and I began to get visits from sales reps bearing information on the extent of osteoporosis among women, it became clear just how ignored this health issue had been. Most insurance companies wouldn’t even pay for screening tests, and I saw too many of my patients do without the scans that could have given them crucial information for preserving their health and lifestyle, simply because they couldn’t afford them. My practice was aging right along with Boomer me, and the topic was coming up more and more often. In talking with my patients with a sharper focus on bone health, I also realized how little information on the topic was available for women. Most patients, even those who could rattle off fat grams and recommended heart rates for aerobic exercise, knew precious little about how to correctly protect their bones—or even of the necessity of doing so. So began my crusade. If the ideal doctor-patient relationship is a true partnership, I saw I was going to have to educate myself and my patients if we were going to be able to promote the strongest possible bones.*10\228\2*

While CT scanning has revolutionized our ability to see the brain, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which is even newer, has increased our ability to see the brain even more clearly. Unlike CT scanning, MRI does not employ x-rays but rather uses a huge magnet to create an image which is then analyzed by computer in a fashion similar to the CT. It produces pictures of even greater detail. The principal disadvantages of the MRI are that, with current equipment, a scan takes about forty-five minutes, during which the child must lie perfectly still in the tunnel-like machine and thus may require sedation, and also that the test is more expensive than CT. However, when detail of the brain is important, or when subtle changes must be seen, the MRI is indicated. It produces far better pictures of the brain and of most abnormalities than the CT scan does.If your physician wants your child to have an EEG or a CT or MRI scan, you should feel free to ask him why he wants the test and what he hopes to learn from it. These questions are even more appropriate if he wants to repeat the test.*90\208\8*

The policy of education authorities is that as many children with epilepsy as possible should go to normal, mainstream schools, and about 60 per cent of adolescents with epilepsy are in regular classrooms attending normal schools. However, learning disabilities are more common amongst teenagers with epilepsy. For those who are most severely disabled a normal school may not be possible, and there are three special schools for children with severe epilepsy, including those with learning disabilities. These schools are run like normal boarding schools. However, because it is the policy of many education authorities not to send children out of the area if they believe the child’s educational needs can be met within it, parents who want to send their child to one of these schools may have difficulty in obtaining the necessary funding.
HELP AVAILABLE
If your child has both learning disabilities and epilepsy, you need help, not only to make sure that your child’s needs are met, but so that you yourself get support, someone to talk to who knows about the strain this can put on a family and will be able to advise you if problems arise.
Your GP will put you in touch with the appropriate team of professionals who will assess your child’s needs and give you specialist support and help at home. Their job is also to liaise with schools, or with a young person’s place of work, look at any problems there and help work out a solution.
The kind of support provided varies from region to region. In some areas, children with disabilities are catered for within the normal child services. In other areas these children may be seen by a specialist Child Development Team, and in others by the Community Learning Disabilities Team. Most teams consist of professionals from both Health and Social Services, which usually ensures that there is co-ordination between the various aspects of care or help that are needed. In general, health professionals are responsible for ensuring that someone’s health needs (both physical and mental) are met. Social service staff are responsible for looking at their housing, financial, employment and social support needs, and in some areas may have responsibility for co-ordinating a package of care between the various agencies. The local education authority is responsible for meeting a child’s educational needs. More often than not, you may well find yourself having to deal with several different professionals or agencies to get all the help that you need.
SPECIAL PROBLEMS
The combination of epilepsy and brain damage may cause special problems. If you have a child with learning disabilities as well as epilepsy, there are several points of which you should be aware.
Someone who has brain damage may respond differently to drugs. The side-effects of drugs may be stronger, and they may be more likely to cause difficult or abnormal behaviour.
After a seizure someone with brain damage may be more profoundly affected than other people. It may take them longer (perhaps a matter of days rather than hours) to get back to normal.
People with learning disabilities sometimes have very severe epilepsy and it is important for them to wear protective headgear to protect them if they fall. This headgear is usually something very like a motorcycle helmet. When a child has to wear protective headgear it is yet another way of being made to feel different from other children. Be sensitive to the child’s feelings; there are some nicely-designed headpieces on the market which may make them feel less conspicuous. One alternative version is available from the David Lewis Centre for Epilepsy which has designed a protective headpiece in the form of a wig with hair attached to a fibreglass protective base. It is both less cumbersome and less conspicuous than the traditional helmet.
Just because a child has learning disabilities it does not mean that their epilepsy should not be properly investigated. Never let anyone tell you that it is ‘not worth’ referring a child for special investigations: EEG, an MRI scan or psychometry. As a parent you will probably want to know the cause of your child’s epilepsy even if that information does not make any difference to the course of the condition.
In the same way, learning disabilities should not prevent a child from being considered for epilepsy surgery, though they may not be suitable if they have generalized brain damage. If seizures arise from a specific focus surgery may
cure the epilepsy, though it can not cure the learning disabilities. It may, however, prevent the learning disabilities from getting worse, because people who have very frequent and severe seizures do often suffer some mental deterioration.
COPING WITH AGGRESSION
Aggression is not characteristic of epilepsy, but it is, quite often, a by-product of brain damage. Drugs may also contribute to aggressive behaviour. Any anticonvulsant can occasionally cause aggression, but the biggest culprits are the sedative drugs, myselin and phenobarbitone. Sometimes phenytoin has the same effect, as does, less often, sodium valproate.
So it is not surprising that children who are brain damaged and often taking more than one anticonvulsant drug are sometimes irritable and aggressive; often their behaviour is problematic in other ways too. However, when a child is very aggressive or badly behaved, there are very often other causes besides drugs.
Difficult behaviour of any kind arouses very strong emotions in parents. Inevitably your own emotions are going to affect the way you respond to the child; the chances are that you will feel angry, and if you do you are likely to respond angrily. This reaction is understandable, but unfortunately a negative response to difficult behaviour often has the effect of reinforcing it and making it worse.
How to respond
How you respond to someone who seems to be behaving ‘badly’ depends very much on why you think they are behaving this way. If you think that the child could, if they wanted to, control their behaviour, that it is simply part of their personality, or a direct attempt to manipulate you, then you are much more likely to be angry with them than if you saw the behaviour as something that is a by-product of their disability, and therefore largely outside their control. In this latter case you would know the child could not help what it was doing, and you would be more likely to be sympathetic. You would feel pity rather than anger, and you would probably be more tolerant and respond much more positively to them.
If you can analyse your child’s behaviour quite closely, so that you can see what has led up to it and what its consequences are, you may understand it better (keeping an ABC chart in the way suggested on pp.97-100 is one way to do this). Sometimes, for example, a child uses ‘bad’ or aggressive behaviour as a way of communicating. The child may feel emotions – ‘I’m frightened,’ or ‘I’ve had enough’ – but may not have the words to express them. Aggression may be the only way they can ‘say’ what they feel. And if at the same time you examine your own beliefs about the causes underlying the child’s behaviour, you may understand your own emotions and perhaps feel better able to deal with them and to respond to your child in a different way. Sometimes, for example, parents are comforted by believing that their child has some control over his or her behaviour; they themselves need not then feel so responsible and guilty about it.
If your child’s behaviour is a problem, ask for help from the specialist professionals in either the Child Development Team or the Community Team for Learning Disabilities. Many areas have special intensive support teams who will work either with the family or with the school, to help manage and reduce aggression or other problems. Drug treatment is very seldom the answer, though sometimes it can help modify aggressive behaviour.
It is also worth bearing in mind that psychiatric illnesses such as depression or schizophrenia may show themselves quite differently in someone who has severe learning disabilities. Someone who is depressed, for example, may not necessarily appear to be sad; instead their behaviour may deteriorate quite markedly.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
What will happen to our child when we are gone? Any parent whose child has profound difficulties worries about the future and has probably asked themselves this question. It is an anxiety that has to be faced and the best insurance policy for your child’s future is for you to try and ensure that they achieve a degree of independence while you are alive. You might aim, for example, to get them established in a group home when they become adult.
However, in some regions this will be easier than in others. It will depend on the extent of accommodation available and the state of social service funding. Social services departments or your local Community Learning Disabilities Team are the first people to approach. They will know what facilities are available in your area, including houses run by housing associations and privately run homes. They will also help to assess whether the accommodation will meet the needs of your child. In addition, social services hold the purse strings, and any application, whether to a privately run home or to a home run by a housing association will need funding agreement by your local social services department.
Letting your child go
Even if you are lucky enough to find just the right home for your child, where they will be competently cared for and have just the right mixture of companionship, care and independence, your own feelings about the move will probably be mixed. Most parents in this situation feel a mixture of guilt (‘We should be able to continue to look after our own child; it’s our job’), as well as a very natural sense of relief. They may feel anxiety (‘Will anyone else be able to take care of our child as well as we can?’), and huge personal loss. Looking after your child has probably taken up a large part of your life; it has given you a role and a purpose and it may take you some time to come to terms with this dual loss. But however hard it is for you, independence has to be the best decision you can make for your child.
TREATMENT OPTIONS FOR SEVERE EPILEPSY
When a child’s epilepsy is very severe, a doctor may pile on drug after drug, in a desperate attempt to get better seizure control. However, after a certain point there is often little benefit to the child in this course of action. Obviously when a child has severe epilepsy the doctor has to aim to reduce the frequency of seizures. But a balance also has to be struck; prescribing ever more anticonvulsants may simply make the child increasingly slow and drowsy without having much extra effect on seizures. If your child seems to be very over-drugged, it may be better to talk to your doctor about the possibility of cutting down the number of different medications they are taking so that they become brighter and more alert, even though that means accepting that their seizure frequency will not be reduced any further.
A few children have intractable epilepsy combined with very severe physical disability, for example a hemiplegia (paralysis of one side of their body). They may be able to walk, but otherwise have little useful function on one side of their brain. The risk for these children is that the severe, unremitting seizures arising in the damaged side of the brain may gradually damage the other, ‘good’ side of the brain, so that they no longer acquire any further skills and may actually deteriorate, losing those skills they already have. For these few children the operation of hemispherectomy, to remove the damaged half of the brain is worth considering.
Hemispherectomy is only an option if damage is extensive but confined to one side of the brain. But for these few children it can greatly improve the quality of life. They have fewer seizures, need fewer drugs, and become brighter, more responsive and sometimes less aggressive and better behaved too. Parents often say they notice this change in behaviour almost immediately after the operation.
*77\193\2*

You got into the shape you’re in today because of the foods you’ve been eating since you were weaned from the bottle.
Your life and health depend on the decisions you make today about the food you’ll be eating in the future.
The food you eat is as important to you as anything else in your diabetes management plan. As important as exercise. As important as medication. As important as monitoring.

Your Eating Plan is the Key
Without a proper eating plan, you can’t expect to gain control of your Type II diabetes. There are no easy ways to achieve diabetes control. You have to follow an eating plan that’s designed to get you into the best possible physical shape – and then you have to stick to an eating plan for the rest of your life.
If you’re like most people with Type II diabetes, you’re now carrying quite a few extra kilograms. You’re overweight or obese. You got those kilograms as the result of eating too much and exercising too little during the past decades.
Now you have to take off those excess kilos and keep them off. If you do this, your blood glucose levels will fall – perhaps even into the normal range – and your overall physical fitness will improve.
You don’t have to be “gaunt and gorgeous” to gain some benefits. You don’t even have to achieve the “ideal” body weight for a person your size and age.
What you have to do is lose about ten to twenty per cent of your present weight. For instance, if you now weigh ninety kilograms, you will begin to see some benefits when you drop nine kilograms and even more benefits when you drop eighteen kilograms. You don’t have to go all the way down to the fifty-nine kilograms that a published weight table says you should be at to have an “ideal” weight.
However, dropping those extra kilos and keeping them off is easier written than done.
You need to reduce the amount of kilojoules your body gets from food and increase the amount of kilojoules your body burns as fuel. That’s the secret formula for achieving permanent weight loss.
*12/210/5*

1. Plenty of exercise, both as preventative and therapeutic measures in heart disease, is imperative. Walking, jogging, jumping ropes, riding a horse or bicycle, swimming, etc. Not only would sufficient exercise in fresh air prevent most heart problems, but for those who survived a heart attack, exercise is singularly the most important measure to assure complete recovery and prolong life. There is a famous rehabilitation center for former heart attack victims in Yugoslavia where the only therapeutic program is gradually increased walks in hilly terrain. Patients, who could hardly walk 100 feet on arrival ” because of heart damage, walk and jog several miles in a few weeks, and leave the center able to continue with their normal work.
2.    The second most important preventative and therapeutic factor in heart disease is vitamin E. Those who have a heart condition should take preventive doses, 600 up to 1,200 IU a day, and surviving heart attack patients should take 1,600 to 2,000 IU of vitamin E a day for the rest of their lives.
3.    Avoid smog. Smoggy air definitely adversely affects a heart condition.
4.    Avoid emotional stresses and worries. Severe emotional stress causes spasmatic constriction of arteries and may contribute to heart attack.
5.    According to Dr. Royal Lee, the administration of cytotrophic extract of beef heart tissue is extremely effective in correction of heart abnormalities and in restoration of heart function after a heart attack.
6.    Do not smoke! A recently completed ten-year study made in Stockholm, Sweden, shows that smoking is the surest way to become a heart attack candidate. Study shows that 82 percent of all men who died of a heart attack were smokers. The other important factors that contributed to heart attacks were: emotional stress, lack of regular exercise, alcohol and high cholesterol and lipid (fat) count in the blood.
7.    If other measures fail, possibly periodic blood-letting can be considered, especially for those with high viscosity blood. Blood-letting is an ancient method, recently rediscovered by modern science.
8.    Atherosclerosis, with excessive cholesterol and lipids in the arteries, is one of the main causes of coronary heart disease. It has been clinically demonstrated that atherosclerosis may be caused largely by C-vitamin deficiency. Administration of large doses of vitamin С (1,000 to 3,000 mg.) daily resulted in drastic reduction of blood serum cholesterol.
Note: Administration of vitamin С to atherosclerotic patients may temporarily result in rise of serum cholesterol levels due to mobilization of the arterial cholesterol deposits. Although this is not serious and the continued treatment will eventually bring serum cholesterol level down, the phenomenon should be closely observed by a doctor, especially in coronary cases.
There are eight other nutritional substances which play a vital role in maintaining proper levels of cholesterol and triglycerides in blood and arteries:
a.   Vitamin F, or unsaturated fatty acids. Sources are: crude, cold-pressed vegetable oils, raw seeds and nuts and grains. Also available in capsule form.
b.  Lecithin.   Best   food   sources   are unrefined, raw, crude vegetable oils, seeds, nuts and grains. Also available in granular, or liquid form, or in capsules,
с Chromium. The best natural food sources of chromium are: unsaturated cold-pressed oils, whole grains, organically grown fruits and vegetables, raw sugar and sugar cane, and brewer’s yeast. Also in naturally hard drinking water.
d.  Niacin. Normalizes blood clotting and markedly reduces cholesterol levels in arteries. Best food sources: brewer’s yeast, whole grain products.
e.  Calcium.   Extra   supplementary   calcium   reduces   blood cholesterol. Best sources: milk, bone meal, sesame seeds, vegetables.
f.  B6    (pyrodoxine).    It   has   been   shown   that   prolonged deficiency of vitamin B6 will lead to damage to arteries and consequent atherosclerotic development.
g.  Magnesium. It has been shown that plentiful magnesium in the diet is imperative to     health of the heart. Magnesium strengthens the heart muscle, and can prevent atherosclerosis and heart attack, h. Zinc. Recent research shows that low zinc values are associated with atherosclerosis (William Strain, et al.). Best food sources of zinc; seeds, nuts, grains, milk, eggs.

*3/103/5*

The lymphatic system is a part of the body’s defence system, or immune system. It consists of capillaries and vessels, which extend to twice the length of the arteries, veins and capillaries of the blood system, and these serve to drain off the fluid in which cells are bathed. The fluid is passed through lymph glands, or nodes, which are about the size and shape of a dried kidney bean, or smaller. The lymph nodes act as filters, removing bacteria and other substances. Once cleansed, the lymph is drained into the blood for recirculation.
The lymph system is crucial for defence against infections. One school of thought is that lymph nodes become ‘infected’ with cancer as it spreads. Another is that cancer cells are initially trapped in the nodes as part of the defence system for controlling the spread of the disease, and the nodes are instrumental in destroying those cells. It is because of this that the health of the lymph system is so important.
A lump in the armpit can be a fairly strong indicator of breast cancer and occasionally may be noticed before a lump is found in the breast. However, lumps in the lymph node area can also occur with benign, non-cancerous, breast disease and with infections of the nodes. It could also be that the nodes have swollen in a natural attempt by the body to resist the breast cancer, but this does not necessarily mean that the cancer has spread to the nodes.
Breast cancer cells are believed to migrate, or metastasize, quite early on in the disease process. It seems possible that lymph nodes which do not harbour cancer cells indicate a good level of natural resistance. By the same token, cancer in the nodes may suggest that the woman’s natural resistance is at a low ebb.
When surgery is performed on lymph nodes, in about 5 per cent of cases the drainage of lymph fluid is disrupted and results in swelling of the upper arm, or of the breast – this is called lymphoedema. Since the practice of using radiotherapy on the axillary, or underarm, area after surgery to that area has more or less been abandoned, the number of lymphoedema cases has plummeted.
*30\240\2*

You may find that fatigue is the most incapacitating feature of RA. Fatigue can limit your concentration and ability to function so that even mustering sufficient energy to care for your family or to participate in social activities-much less to deal with the responsibilities of the workplace- can be difficult. The normal demands of everyday living can sometimes appear overwhelming to the person who is chronically tired.
Sometimes the fatigue and loss of energy which result from RA are severe. In fact, many people think that there must be something else wrong with them in addition to arthritis because they can not believe that arthritis alone can affect their energy so drastically.
Fatigue may be unpredictable, and so it can interfere with the plans you’ve made. You may feel exasperated or frightened by this loss of control over your energy level. Tiredness also contributes to depression, anxiety, and increased pain. Remember, fatigue increases pain in your joints. You need to know what you can do to alleviate this pervasive symptom.
*46/209/5*

Give up drugs and drink just for the day – the day you are in now or the twenty-four hours that started from your last drug.
Everybody – yes, literally every single addict and alcoholic – can give up drugs or drink for a day. You may have done it many times – times when you couldn’t get your supply of drugs or drink, or times when you were making those promises to yourself: Til never do that again.’
This mental trick concentrates all your energies where they should be – on staying away from drugs now. It also means that you can stop worrying about tomorrow, or next week, or how you will manage next Christmas.
Most addicts cannot envisage staying off drugs for life. Indeed, if they think of it in that way, they simply become downhearted, or even downright unwilling to try. But you do not have to think in terms of a lifetime.
This forward thinking is what NA calls ‘projection’, and it’s a killer. Thinking forward to all the difficulties that lie in the future fills your head with fear and despair, making it too much for you. So don’t do it.
All you have to do is get through today without a drug. Thinking about giving up drugs for just one day, the day you are in, is much less worrying. Just concentrate on that.
Push tomorrow out of your head. And push yesterday out of your head too. Thinking back to the past will fill your head full of either dangerously euphoric memories or guilt and anxiety. Yesterday is no concern of yours just now.
Today is the only day that matters. And today is the day that you are going to get through without a drug.
Sometimes, when the cravings get very bad, you will probably feel you can’t even manage a day without drugs. This is the moment when you start living not just twenty-four hours at a time, but ten minutes at a time.
The 10-minutes-at-a-time plan-In the first few days, you will probably have moments when you feel that you are going to use drugs literally any moment now. The craving is so strong that you feel almost – but not quite – overwhelmed by it.
This is when to live ten minutes at a time. Tell yourself that you will get through the next ten minutes – or five minutes, if necessary – without taking the drug. Postpone taking the drug or picking up the drink just that long.
You can do that. Undoubtedly, you can get through ten minutes without using drugs.
And when that ten minutes is over, start the next ten minutes without taking the drug.

*77\116\2*

In Older Children (10-15 years). The goals for asthma self-management, for older children should be:
Allow the child to become an ally of the physician.
To make your child live as normal a life as possible.
To increase his confidence in his ability to manage the illness by himself.
A child can achieve this by learning to manage the triggers, thereby controlling the attacks, and by learning to manage his medication.
Making the child an ally of the Physician. An important aspect of self-management is that an asthmatic child should be taught to observe and record the triggers that affect him. Since it is he, more than anyone else, knows what triggers the attack; the sensations that occur during an attack, and what controls the attack. The child should be encouraged to share his experiences with the physician. This will help the physician help the child better.
Leading a normal life. Sometimes, asthma may become the centre of the child’s life. He may find it difficult to do many things like taking part in outdoor activities for fear of triggering an attack. The child should be encouraged to use self-management skills, limit the frequency and severity of the attacks and lead a normal life.
Confidence. A child who takes an active role in his own care will develop the confidence necessary to tackle the disorder. And this is very important to control individual episodes of asthma.
*111\260\8*

In my understanding, what we call ‘will-power’ is a function of the reticular activating system of the brain stem. This system is made up of a network of cells and connecting fibres situated in the lower part of the brain where the upper end of the spinal cord meets the brain’s hemispheres. It is the reticular activating system that puts us to sleep at night and wakes us up in the morning. It is this system that is responsible for selective attention, allowing us to concentrate on specific tasks, while excluding other outside stimuli from our conscious awareness.
The reticular activating system is under the executive control of the brain’s frontal lobes, which can direct the reticular activating system to enhance or diminish the level of excitation of different parts of the cerebral cortex, where the learning and unlearning neurons (nerve cells) are situated. (The cerebral cortex is the folded outer layer of the brain’s surface, containing the millions of cells which form the elements of the marvelous computer which is the human brain.)

*18/129/5*