Herbal Health
Herbal Remedies Blog
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CHILD’S HEALTH: PNEUMONIA
Pneumonia is an infection of the smallest airways of the lungs (alveoli). It can affect children of any age.
Cause
Pneumonia is usually caused by a virus, but can be caused by a germ.
Clinical features
The most striking features of pneumonia in children are a moist cough and a high fever. Sometimes the child is short of breath too and may complain of sharp pains in the chest on breathing deeply. Younger infants may just look very ill and breath rapidly, without having any other symptoms.
Investigations
Pneumonia can usually be diagnosed on clinical grounds, but your doctor may suggest a chest X-ray to confirm the diagnosis. Sputum and blood tests may also be helpful.
Some types of pneumonia are due to bacteria which are responsive to antibiotics. It is difficult to distinguish between a viral and a bacterial pneumonia, so sometimes antibiotics are given just to be safe. If the illness is relatively mild, your child can be treated at home with oral medication, bed rest and paracetamol to lower the fever. Use a humidifier in your child’s room to make his breathing easier. Also make sure that your home is smoke-free.
If your child is very ill, admission to hospital may be advised, so that antibiotics can be given intravenously or by injection. Once treatment is commenced, recovery is usually rapid and complete.
When to see your doctor
• if your child has a cough and a high fever;
• if your young baby is listless and breathing rapidly;
• if there is no improvement after 3 days on antibiotics.
Take your child to hospital immediately if his lips look blue.
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SUPER MARITAL SEX OPPORTUNITY
There is no way for persons who have no serious impairment to know what it is like to attempt to return to sexual intimacy following the insult of disease or injury. To help you and your spouse communicate about this issue and to broaden the range of your sexual interaction to include a small degree of imposed interference in sexual behavior, spend one love session with one partner blindfolded. Make sure there is plenty of light for one spouse while the other partner experiences the absence of one sense. Change the opportunity around on a different night. Talk about the experience both from the blind position and the sighted position in making love. Notice how you must accentuate your other senses, learn to love beyond the limits of light, and modify your sexual system and roles within that system. How adaptive were you? How adaptive was your marital system?
Some of the couples in the clinic invented their own opportunities to understand about impairment and sensory compensation and enhancement. One couple taped large wads of cotton under their arms and behind their knees, just enough to restrict movement. They wondered together about a time when their own movements might be restricted by the aging process. Some couples extended the sensory deprivation and compensation opportunity outside of the lovemaking sessions to daily living, with one partner wearing the blindfold or cotton all day while being helped by the spouse. There is a big difference between seeing and perceiving, “knowing” and experiencing, and super marital sex depends on a depth and range of adaptive sensuality, a sex strong enough to survive the most catastrophic of times. If we are able to learn this lesson and teach it to our children, we have provided them with an important love legacy. The next chapter discusses love education for super relationships.
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YOUR MARITAL HEALTH/WHY HUSBANDS DON’T HAVE ORGASM: THE HUSBANDS’ ORGASMIC INVENTORY
The next test is one of the most controversial tests taken by the couples, the Husbands’ Orgasmic Inventory.
SCORING: 3—ALWAYS 2—USUALLY 1-SELDOM 0—NEVER
1. I feel responsible for the sexual experience. Whether the interaction is good or bad depends on me.
2. Once I ejaculate, I have to rest. I feel less energetic and have to recuperate.
3. When I begin to feel very good sexually, I know I am getting very close to “coming” or’ ‘climaxing.” The better it feels, the sooner I know I will come.
4. It is better if my wife is relatively still during the act of intercourse. If she moves too vigorously, it tends to make me come sooner.
5. When I ejaculate, I feel a few strong throbs in my penis at the time of ejaculation.
6. I seem to come much sooner when I have not had sex for a long time.
7. I feel a numbness or insensitivity in most of my body just after I come. This is particularly true in my genitals.
8. I need to take a PON (post-orgasmic nap) or even a POS (post-orgasmic sleep) after I come.
9. I notice that my wife really seems to get much more intensely involved in her orgasms than I do in mine. She seems to almost be “gone”.
10. I feel that ejaculation is essentially the same thing as orgasm. If I don’t ejaculate, then I know I haven’t come.
11. My orgasms are essentially the same no matter. what type of sex I am having (coitus, oral sex, masturbation). Whatever the source of stimulation, I essentially come the same way.
12. I have noticed as I get older that my orgasms are less intense than they used to be. The throbbing is less intense and there are fewer of them.
13. I have sex mostly at night. It sort of allows me to release the tension so I can sleep.
14. My sexual patterns with my wife are essentially “turn-taking.” I try to help her have an orgasm before I try to have mine.
Before I come, I feel as if I would have loved to have sex all night. After
15 I come, I seem to lose interest.
I usually get to the point that no matter what happens, there is nothing I
can do to stop my ejaculation. Even if all stimulation is stopped, I ejaculate
anyway.
17 I try so hard to time my ejaculation that I cannot ejaculate at all during intercourse.
18 I am a quiet person during sex. I might moan or groan, but I do not intentionally say much.
19 If I have masturbated, I tend not to want to have intercourse several hours after I have masturbated.
20. When I am having sex, everything seems to be focused in my genitals. I notice very little about any stimulation to any other part of my body.
TOTAL POINTS
If you score thirty-five or more points on this test, it is very likely that you are experiencing the physiological reflex of orgasm emphasized by the first three perspectives of sexuality but are not experiencing psychasm, the ability to enjoy a full emotional and cognitive dimension to the sexual experience. The idea is not to replace the quest for orgasm with a quest for psychasm. The idea instead is to open up new options for sexual interaction free of the artificially imposed limits of a mechanical, gender-assigned model of sexual intimacy.
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THE JOY OF PERFECT HEALTH: HOW TO KEEP YOUR MIND PURE
Let people do their mistakes. In most cases it is their best lesson. Help them only if they ask you for it. Note, that it works even with children. They learn faster. You just need to predict excessive danger sometimes. People make mistakes because they do not understand, and/or do not want to listen. Note, that you see mistakes of others better than you see yours. We question everyone and everything except our own ignorance. Once I was like that too.
Eliminate envy and jealousy from your mind They are totally useless and severely paralyse your intellectual capacity. Try an unconditional love instead. Do not shout about love. Just replace all those nasty negative feelings in your own mind, for yourself.
Learn to listen to your own higher mind – listen to the silence between thoughts. The best information and advice, tailored exclusively for you at any given instant is there. All talented people without exception access such a state naturally. All their ideas spring from there.
No words could possibly describe the connection with your own higher mind. In comparison to the language of your higher mind, our spoken and written languages are actually quite a primitive form of communication.
For example, the higher mind can communicate a book, musical symphony or a scientific discovery, with all the minute details in a “flash” lasting only a second or two. It may take many days or even years to “consciously” reconstruct and translate such messages into text, music or mathematical formulae, which others can then understand. Many people experience the state of euphoric joy, just by remembering such an instance of connection with their own higher mind.
Your higher mind does not only communicate books and science. The above was just one example. In fact it can help any of us in all imaginable aspects of our lives. We just need to learn to listen.
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LIVER – DESCRIPTION
The liver is a remarkable organ. It is like a compact factory, performing a variety of seemingly unrelated tasks all at once.
The liver has an enormous reserve of function and a great capacity to regenerate itself, so it can stand a lot of abuse.
Worn-out red blood cells are broken down in the liver, their iron content stored for future use and the pigment excreted in the bile.
The bile runs down two ducts, one from each lobe of the liver. These ducts join and then a small side channel leads to the gall bladder. This hollow organ lies tucked under the liver and stores and concentrates the bile.
The gallbladder contracts, usually under the stimulus of a fatty meal, and the concentrated bile flows back into the common bile duct and down to run into the duodenum or first part of the small bowel. At the point where it enters the duodenum, it is joined by a duct carrying digestive juices from the pancreas.
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BOWEL CANCER – BLEEDING AS A SIGN
There are many normal bacteria present in the bowel, and many of these perform a useful function for the host.
They may produce certain vitamins which the host absorbs and uses.
The type of diet influences the type of bacteria present.
Some of these may act on the breakdown products of meat and fat in the diet and form cancer-causing substances.
Perhaps a high fibre diet, because of the bulk it produces, tends to dilute these cancer-causing chemicals — carcinogens — or else limits the contact between them and the bowel wall by hastening their progress through the gut.
A study in the U.S. shows a link between beer consumption and death from bowel cancer.
How beer drinking can lead to large bowel cancer is not clear.
Bowel cancer can occur in the young although it becomes more common after the age of 40.
Bleeding is the earliest and commonest sign.
Although bleeding may often be due to piles, all cases of bleeding need investigation, to exclude the possibility of cancer, as the two conditions may co-exist.
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CHILDREN’S HEALTH: INSECT AND SPIDER BITES AND STING
Emergency symptom
Allergic reaction: hives; difficult breathing
Emergency treatment
Take the child to the nearest hospital if he or she has an allergic reaction.
Symptoms: swelling, itching, stinger left in wound (honeybee), small, dark bumps (ticks), weakness, difficulty in breathing (ticks).
Home care
- Relieve swelling by applying ice.
- Apply calamine lotion to relieve itching.
- Give a nonprescription antihistamine to relieve itching and swelling.
Precautions
- Protect children with appropriate clothing and insect repellents. Use mosquito netting if necessary.
- If your child is allergic to certain insect and spider bites or stings, make sure your doctor tells you what to do if the child is bitten or stung.
- Find out which insects are common in your neighborhood and how to protect your child against them.
- Clear away all rubble and rubbish from near the house – it can harbor funnel web spiders.
- If your child shows signs of a general physical disturbance after being bitten by a spider or insect take the child to the nearest hospital. If you believe the bite was from a funnel web or red back spider go in any case; take the spider if you can, so that it can be identified.
- The bites of most insects and spiders and bull ant and jumper ant bites may be very painful. Some bites however can cause serious conditions.
- Funnel web spiders can inject venom powerful enough to kill a human being. Red back spiders can make a child very ill, although death is unlikely. Bush ticks can cause paralysis and death in a child just as they do in animals.
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SOME TIPS TO PREVENT FLUID RETENTION
• Wear elastic stockings if your legs swell.
• Do the same in pregnancy and in both cases use every opportunity to take the weight off your feet. This greatly helps reduce the swelling.
• Come off the Pill and use another method of contraception.
• Prevent allergies by eliminating foods and other allergens from your diet and surroundings.
• Take vitamin B6. This seems to affect the balance between oestrogen and sodium. Taking 200 mg a day pre-menstrually has been shown to prevent fluid retention. B6 is especially good in pregnancy. Never take more than 200 mg a day.
• Take vitamin Ñ-it seems to enhance the action of vitamin B6. It also has a diuretic effect of its own.
• Drink more water – additional 4-6 glasses a day on top of what you currently drink. This increases the excretion efficiency of the kidneys.
• Take less salt. Some people are exceptionally sensitive to salt and as little as 1 g can produce swelling in them. One large pickled cucumber, for example, contains 2 g salt.
• Eat only complex carbohydrates (as found in fruit, vegetables and whole grains)-no refined ones. Sugar is a major culprit when it comes to water retention, and we consume quantities of sugar without being aware of its presence. Look for anything with the suffix ‘ose’ on the label (fructose, lactose, dextrose, maltose etc) and avoid it.
• Include in your diet natural diuretics, such as pineapple, cucumber, parsley, alfalfa, strawberries, apples, grapes, beetroot and chamomile tea.
• Ensure that you eat plenty of calcium-containing foods, especially if your fluid retention is a part of your pregnancy symptoms, as there is a link between the amount of calcium in the diet and fluid retention during pregnancy.
• Take more exercise. Any exercise that improves the tone of blood vessels will help.
• Try to lie down flat at least once a day for twenty minutes or so, as urine production is increased in the horizontal position.
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DRUGS FOR ANGINA: BETA-BLOCKERS
Research demonstrates that beta-blockers are considered first-line therapy in most patients with chronic angina and prolong life in patients who have had a heart attack.
Beta-blockers prevent angina by lowering the oxygen needs of the heart during physical exertion or emotional stress. They do this by reducing the heart rate, the force of heart muscle contraction, and blood pressure. Your heart rate may fall as low as fifty beats per minute, and if you feel well at that rate, the medicine is acting just as it should.
In the U.S., propranolol (Inderal), atenolol (Tenormin), and nadolol (Corgard) are the most frequently used beta-blockers for angina. They are not used for Prinzmetal’s angina because they tend to increase spasm when it is the cause of angina rather than lessen it.
Patients with asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), diabetes, heart failure, or depression need special evaluation before they use beta-blockers. Symptoms can be exacerbated on these drugs. Even without such coexisting conditions some people find beta-blockers hard to tolerate. They may experience side effects such as impotence, bad dreams, cold hands and feet, and fatigue. If you decide beta-blockers are not for you despite their proven effectiveness, do not stop taking them abruptly. You might get “rebound angina.” Talk it over with your doctor, who will decide what is best for you.
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FACTS WHICH AIM TO DISSUADE YOU FROM THE USE OF TOBACCO
So the rest of this article aims to dissuade you from the use of tobacco for the rest of your life. Consider the following facts:
• Heart attacks are the inevitable end of the road for an angina sufferer who continues to smoke.
• Smoking causes almost as many deaths from heart attacks than it does deaths from any other cause, including chronic bronchitis and lung cancer.
• People who smoke cigarettes have two or three times the risk of a fatal heart attack than nonsmokers. The more they smoke, the greater the risk.
• Men under forty-five who smoke twenty-five or more cigarettes a day have ten to fifteen times the chance of dying from a heart attack than nonsmokers.
• In developed countries like the U.S., one-third of men who smoke die before they reach sixty-five, mainly from smoking-related diseases.
• One-third of all women married to smokers are widows before they can enjoy retirement with their husbands, mainly because their husbands smoked.
• About 40 percent of all heavy smokers die before they reach sixty-five. Of the 60 percent of smokers still alive at that age, many are disabled by bronchitis, angina, heart failure, or because they have had a leg amputated.
• Of all smokers, only 10 percent reach seventy-five years of age. Most nonsmokers reach age seventy-five in good health.
• Smoking takes a terrible toll in ways other than heart attacks. In the U.S., smoking accounts for one out of every six deaths. Over 130,000 of these deaths are due to smoking-related cancers. Even passive smoking can be life threatening; it causes an estimated 3800 deaths in nonsmokers each year due to lung cancer.
• Lung cancer has replaced breast cancer as the cancer causing most deaths in women.
• Smoking during pregnancy is responsible for approximately 18 percent of all cases of low birth weight, shortened gestation, and sudden infant death syndrome.
• Other cancers more common in smokers than in nonsmokers include tumors of the tongue, throat, larynx, pancreas, kidney, bladder, and cervix. About one-third of all cancers are caused directly by smoking.
• Don’t think that because you have angina, you won’t get one of these other smoking-related diseases as well. Many smokers have multiple diseases, all caused by their love for cigarettes.
So take stock now if you have angina and you still smoke. You can’t use the false hope of so many people when they face the future “It may not happen to me”—because it has happened to you! You have already been damaged by your habit, and you can be damaged far more if you continue. Nor should you use the excuses heard by every doctor. They are listed here, with their honest answers:
• My father/grandfather/uncle smoked twenty a day and lived until he was seventy-five.
Everyone knows someone like that. But they forget all the others they knew who died long before their time. The chances are, if you continue to smoke, that you will be one of them, and not one of the very few survivors.
• People who don’t smoke also have angina.
True, there are other causes of heart attacks, but 70 percent of all people under sixty-five years old admitted to coronary care units with heart attacks are smokers, as are 91 percent of patients considered for bypass surgery.
• Moderation in all things is acceptable; I only smoke moderately.
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