Information on popular complementary and alternative medical topics

Ant bites

Some types of ants (e.g. bull ants) are highly aggressive.

Clinical features

If your child has been stung by an ant, he may develop pain and swelling at the site of the sting. Ants can inject a type of venom via their sting, and they are able to sting several times.

Some children may be allergic to ant venom, and may develop a widespread rash, or difficulty in breathing. Some children have even been known to collapse.

Treatment

If your child only has mild pain and swelling, paracetamol may be given in recommended doses to ease the pain. If your child has a severe reaction to the sting, take him to your doctor immediately, or to the nearest children’s hospital. Make sure you remove the insect carefully first and if it is dead keep it for later identification by your doctor.

Bee stings

Bee stings have barbs on the end of them and they stay in the skin together with the venom gland (the bee dies after injecting the sting).

Clinical features

Your child will complain of severe pain at the site of the sting, and usually marked swelling develops rapidly. Children who are allergic to bee venom are at great risk of severe reaction to bee stings, and may develop a widespread rash, difficulty in breathing and may even collapse.

Treatment

Remove the insect carefully and if it is dead keep it for later identification by your doctor. Do not try to squeeze a bee sting out, as this will inject more venom into the wound. Scrape it off if possible. If your child has a severe reaction to the sting, see your doctor immediately, or go to the nearest children’s hospital.

*294\90\8*

Turning on Your Sex Lights

I don’t know why we fell into the habit of making love in the dark. We aren’t shy or anything. Maybe we’re too lazy to turn the lights on and

off.

Husband

You will not to be reading in bed in this new program, so candles or soft, full-spectrum lighting is recommended. James Ott, in his book HEALTH AND LIGHT, states, “we have finally learned that light it is a nutrient much like food, and, like food, the wrong kind can make us ill the right kind can help keep us well.” The reason for ” healthy lighting in your place for intimacy is not just so you can the beauty of your sexual interaction. Making love exclusively ^ the dark or with artificial incandescent lighting deprives us a natural sexual stimulant to the brain, to the pineal and pituitary “lands. Try to create natural, soft full-spectrum lighting for your room. Let your sexual life see the light.

Sexual Soundproofing

The only soundproofing that would work in our house would be a gag for each of us and lots of oil for the squeaky bed.

HUSBAND

Just as we suffer from lack of natural lighting, so we suffer from the constant pollution of noise. Listen now as you read this paragraph and you will detect constant humming, clicking, rattling house noises and outside noises of traffic and day-to-day living. Ask any parents and they will tell you that the one thing they want more than anything else in their house is quiet.

It is as important to keep noise out of your private place as it is to keep your intimate communication private. The only approach that seemed to meet both of these needs was to suggest to my couples a music system. Pick a system that is of sufficient quality to reproduce the full range of sounds from your favorite music. The couples reported that music free of a strong theme, vocals, and changes in beat or rhythm was the most pleasing. Your own tapes are much better than the radio, because they are free of commercials and tailored exactly to your tastes. Make your own set of super sex tapes together.

Some couples added extra sound insulation for the bedroom and others tried “white noise,” a system that creates a background that masks noise. A little creativity and effort can help you to keep your own natural sex sounds in and distracting noises out. Super sex requires sound nutrition to match your natural lighting nutrition.

*157\97\8*

Super Marital Sex Rule: Marital partners will never be at the same stage of development together. Super marital sex depends on learning to enjoy one another’s development, both partners’ valiant struggle to adjust and to grow.

Just when I got established in my career, he wants to change his. When he first talked about women’s liberation, I knew he was getting ready to quit his job. Now he wants to work, I want to work, neither of us wants to parent. When I want to do something, he does. We just don’t match up right.

WIFE

We assume that life’s passages will be encountered by each of us in our marriages at the same time with the same ease. It just does not work out that way. There is really no such thing as a mid-life crisis, only a lifelong set of crises we are just now paying attention to. So it is with marriage. We assume that things will just “develop,” but they will not. We will enter phases of life differently, putting stresses on our marriages through our lack of understanding and tolerance of individuality.

Marriage vows sometimes say “until death do us part.” They should day something like “as we struggle together to renegotiate through the hundreds of changes we will each encounter together and separately.” Our vows of intimacy should reflect the assumption of constant change, learning a marital dance in which leader and follower are forever changing.

I tell my couples “never divorce someone you don’t know.” Many couples will not listen. They see divorce as an adjustment rather than an end. Sometimes therapists teach them that. They are wrong. Divorce often relates to marital inability to work through differences in developmental challenges, changes in readiness to parent, to work, to play, to rest, to love. Until American marriage sees that it is as cyclical as individual development, reflection, directing, and responding to our changes as people, it will tend to end “too soon” too often.

All marriages struggle with the individual differences of their partners as they go through their individual lives. You will learn that sex can be one of the best aids to carry us through differences in development. In fact, super marital sex can save marriage by teaching its partners to flourish in the changes and growth of both spouses.

We must learn to remarry a different and changing person several times during our marriage. We can choose to divorce and seek out dozens of transitional partners to match our changes, or use change to sculpt the marriage as an ever-changing artwork. Good marriages depend much more on being the right person than finding the right person. Experiencing developmental changes with someone else can be as exciting as it is difficult.

In a pre-fab, pre-developed, ready-made culture, we learn to look for pre-developed partners, already formed to match our own developmental stage at a given time. If our house is too small, we move. When we get too much stuff, we look for bigger and better places to keep it. We must also learn ways to get rid of some stuff, particularly psychological stuff, yet stay in the same house.

*17\97\8*

There are some medical conditions which produce typical changes in the body and can be recognised at a glance. One of these is a disorder of bone known as Paget’s disease or osteitis deformans.

Sir James Paget, a London surgeon, first described the condition which bears his name in 1877. Its cause is unknown.

It is rare before the age of 40 but then increases in frequency with age. By the age of 90 at least 10 per cent who have reached this age will have developed this condition in their bones.

Any bone of the body may be affected but it is more common in the skull, in the spine, in the pelvis and the leg bones.

The bones are thickened and yet are softer than normal. And when they bear weight the leg bones may bow outwards. Bone is not a stable tissue.

New bone is continually being laid down and old bone is being continually absorbed or removed by other cells.

*525/71/1*

With the potent and effective drugs we now have, most of the chronic disorders of mankind can be controlled, if not cured.

Yet there are large numbers of people who do not comply with their doctor’s instructions.

Surveys have shown that more than half of patients with high blood pressure and tuberculosis no longer attend their doctors a year after starting treatment. Of those who continue, less than a third take proper dosages as ordered.

Most patients who drop out are not convinced of the value of continuing. This may be partly the fault of doctors who do not explain fully the nature of an illness or the need for continued treatment. Sometimes it’s because the price the patient has to pay may be too high: not in money terms but in comfort.

Usually, high blood pressure produces no symptoms. But most drugs to control blood pressure have side-effects. It takes a convincing doctor to persuade a patient without symptoms to take a drug which may make him feel uncomfortable.

But this doesn’t fully explain why large numbers opt out and it is irrational for patients to complain that a drug failed to help them when they either didn’t take it or took it in an inadequate dose.

Many of these patients then turn to alternative therapies; they probably are just as lax in following instructions and become just as critical as they are of orthodox medicine.

*269/71/1*

Babies under three to six months usually have protection gained from the mother if she has previously had the disease.

The rash starts on thw trunk but soon spreads to the face, the scalp and the upper parts of the limbs.

It may also involve mucous membranes and pock marks may develop in the mouth, the eyes and in the vagina.

The individual pock mark starts as a red spot which becomes raised, then a blister forms containing clear fluid. This breaks leaving a scab.

Sometimes the blister may be filled with pus.

Successive crops of pocks develop over several days or a week or two.

Chickenpox is infectious for one to two days before the onset of the rash and continues to be highly contagious until no new pock marks develop.

Sometimes the lesions develop secondary infection with bacteria and may then require treatment with antibiotics.

Occasionally, pneumonia may develop.

Another complication is encephalitis or inflammation of the brain. This may also occur with the virus infection of measles.

Shingles or herpes zoster appears to be due to reactivation of the virus lying in the tissues. It affects the sensory nerve cells in the spinal cord.

*17/71/1*

Signs and symptoms

The diagnosis of poisoning depends primarily upon knowing what the child has eaten or drunk. Otherwise, the diagnosis relies on suspicion, a careful physical examination for telltale clues, and laboratory tests. Usually, the telltale signs of aspirin overdose are rapid breathing, ringing in the ears, nausea, over-excitement, and unconsciousness. Poisoning from acids and alkalis causes burns on the lips, mouth, and tongue. An overdose of an iron tonic produces abdominal pain and severe vomiting, often with blood in the vomited material, followed by collapse.

Home care

Two steps are vital. First, try to determine quickly what the substance is that your child has taken, how much of the substance your child has taken, and when the incident happened. Second, call your doctor or local poison control center for instructions. Read the label of the drug or other preparation over the phone. You will be told whether or not to induce vomiting.

If your child has not vomited, if the poison was neither a strong acid nor an alkali, and if your child is conscious, induce vomiting by giving two to three teaspoonful of syrup of ipecac followed by a half to a full glass of water. Do not give milk. If the child does not vomit within 20 to 30 minutes, repeat the syrup of ipecac liquid dose. It is not safe to induce vomiting after the child has swallowed volatile hydrocarbons (petrol, turpentine, and so on).

In general, if your child has taken a normally edible substance (medications, for example), induce vomiting. If your child has taken a substance that is not normally edible (petrol or furniture polish, for instance), do not induce vomiting. If your child is not fully conscious, do not induce vomiting.

Precautions

• The most important precaution is prevention: see that all poisonous substances are stored out of reach of children – under lock and key if necessary.

• Keep the telephone numbers of police and fire departments, your doctor, and the local poison control center near the telephone.

• Always have syrup of ipecac in the house.

• Do not transfer any poisonous substance to an ordinary glass or bottle and do not keep any medication in an unlabeled container.

• Insist upon childproof tops on all medicines, not just those intended for children.

• Make sure that the bottles containing turpentine and kerosene have safety tops.

• Be careful with iron tablets. They taste sweet, look like candy, and can be deadly.

• When visiting other people’s homes, do not let your children explore until you are sure there are no poisons within reach.

• When guests visit you, be certain their medications are out of reach of any children.

Medical treatment

Your doctor may induce vomiting with syrup of ipecac or wash out the stomach by means of a tube. Further treatment varies with the substance taken and your child’s condition.

*170/84/5*

What they are?

Stones made of calcium salts that are produced by and lodge in the kidney. Some stay there and produce no symptoms for years and others pas down the tube (the ureter) that leads from the kidney to the bladder, causing great pain as they do so. Such stones hospitalize more than million North Americans each year. Many millions of others have small stones which pass without being noticed or with only a small amount of abdominal or loin pain.

What causes them?

The fluids that pass through the kidneys contain many different chemicals and minerals. Two of the more plentiful of these are calcium and oxalate, which combine to form calcium oxalate. If there is too little fluid or too much of these salts they begin to settle out and crystallize. More crystals are attracted until, like a snowball, the deposit increases in size and becomes a small, hard stone. This in turn can grow in size to almost fill the cavity of the kidney.

Just what starts off this crystallization process is not known but it is thought that a tiny piece of organic matter such as a bacterium could do so.

The population appears to be divided into two broad categories-stone-formers and non-stone-formers. An analysis of 24-hour urine collections from stone-formers shows that between 40 and 60 per cent has too much calcium in their urine. One study found that stone-formers ate more purine-containing foods and another found that they consumed more meat, fish and poultry and less bread, grains and starch. Research shows that both protein and glucose increase the rate of calcium excretion in the urine and that the glucose effect is exaggerated in stone-formers. This led one researcher to claim that kidney stones are a disorder of carbohydrate metabolism. Adding sugar to the diet increases the amount of calcium put out in the urine.

Another feature of the diet of the countries in which kidney stones are common is the amount of animal protein they eat. Research has found that the more animal protein we eat the more oxalate and calcium we excrete into our urine.

Dietary fibre traps and reduces the absorption of sugars, and wheat bran definitely produces beneficial effects on carbohydrate metabolism and the control of blood sugar. One study found that wheat bran reduced the absorption of calcium from the diet by as much as 50 per cent and that the increased absorption of calcium normally produced by sugar was reduced in those taking bran.

A study in Ireland, where 8 per cent of the population has a kidney stone at some time in their lives, found that the diet of fifty-one stone-formers was different from those who never formed stones. The stone-producers ate less fibre, got fewer carbohydrates from fruit, vegetables and grains and ate more fat and red meats.

An Australian study compared thirty meat-eaters with thirty vegetarians and found that the animal proteins caused an abundance of calcium to be excreted into the urine. They also found that the lower the calcium intake, the higher the oxalate excretion, so clearly reducing calcium intake alone is no good if you have kidney stones-you need to reduce your oxalate level as well.

*190/72/5*