Healing Cry

Written by Julie Cosgrove

 Are you facing a period of suffering in your life? Take this interactive online study: Finding Hope When It Hurts

“O Lord my God, I called to you for help and you healed me.” (Psalm 30:2)

Recently I was hospitalized for a staph infection that had invaded a simple scrape on my forehead. One side of my temple ballooned into a red, angry mass and the skin around my eye swelled shut. The swelling even spread to my cheek and jaw. The nurses responded by giving me IV antibiotics. However, when the doctor entered the scene he informed me that true healing would not occur unless the wound was lanced and drained.

The moment the wound was lanced I felt excruciating pain. Surprisingly, only a couple days later I was back to normal and the wound healed nicely. Even though I had recovered quite remarkably, the doctor warned me take oral antibiotics for a week to make sure any remnants of the infection were dealt with.

Sex Lives of Diabetic Men Improve with Weight Loss

Sarah C.P. Williams, MyHealthNewsDaily Contributor

If you're an overweight man with diabetes, changing your eating habits may improve your life more than popping a pill can.

A new study concludes that even for men with diabetes that's well-controlled by medication, dieting can improve the erectile dysfunction and urological problems commonly experienced.

"Lower urinary tract symptoms are often ignored," said Dr. Gary Wittert, an endocrinologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia, who led the research. "But they may affect up to 40 percent of the overweight, diabetic population."

These symptoms, Wittert said, include erectile dysfunction and overactive bladder syndrome, which is often characterized by urinating frequently and urgently.

"Medication is expensive, medical care is expensive, here's a lifestyle change that's quick, cheap, easy, and can improve health substantially beyond anything that medication can do," Wittert said.

Medicines and Sex: Not Always a Good Mix

By Chris Woolston, M.S.

For both men and women, it takes a complicated chain of events to move from arousal to a satisfying orgasm. The mind has to stay focused, nerves have to stay sensitive, and blood has to flow to all the right places. Unfortunately, many things can break the chain -- including, perhaps, the pills in your medicine cabinet.

Medicines often work by altering blood flow and brain chemistry, so its no surprise that they can affect sexual function, and not always for the better. Medications can shut down a person's sex drive, delay orgasms, or prevent orgasms entirely. Medications are also a leading cause of erectile dysfunction in men.

If you've noticed a drop in your ability to have or enjoy sex, talk to your doctor about possible causes. Be sure to bring a list of every medication you're taking. A simple change of drugs or doses could be all it takes. But never stop taking a prescription drug or change dosages on your own. Your doctor can help you determine if a drug you're taking is the problem -- and help you switch to another medication safely.

What drugs can affect sexual function?

Healing Cry

Written by Julie Cosgrove

 Are you facing a period of suffering in your life? Take this interactive online study: Finding Hope When It Hurts

“O Lord my God, I called to you for help and you healed me.” (Psalm 30:2)

Recently I was hospitalized for a staph infection that had invaded a simple scrape on my forehead. One side of my temple ballooned into a red, angry mass and the skin around my eye swelled shut. The swelling even spread to my cheek and jaw. The nurses responded by giving me IV antibiotics. However, when the doctor entered the scene he informed me that true healing would not occur unless the wound was lanced and drained.

The moment the wound was lanced I felt excruciating pain. Surprisingly, only a couple days later I was back to normal and the wound healed nicely. Even though I had recovered quite remarkably, the doctor warned me take oral antibiotics for a week to make sure any remnants of the infection were dealt with.

Drug Companies Hide Trial Results

Dear Reader,

Everyone who takes a prescription drug is stepping into the unknown. I mean EVERYONE. Including your doctor.

Your doctor MIGHT have a clue about the drugs he's prescribing. But that's the best you can expect. A clue.

That's because almost nobody outside of the inner circle of drug company employees gets a complete look at drug company trials.

Here's how trial transparency crusader Dr. Ben Goldacre puts it in a recent New York Times article… If you flip a coin, but hide it every time it comes up tails, it looks like the result is always heads.

Silence is golden

Antibiotics: How Much Is Too Much?

(Ivanhoe Newswire) – It’s very easy to go to the doctor and get a prescription of antibiotics when you’re sick. But should you be taking them so often? A new study of Medicare data from 2007 to 2009 suggests that there was a wide discrepancy in antibiotic prescribing for older patients based on geography and the season in which the prescriptions for the medication were written. 

The overuse of antibiotics is common and can lead to unnecessary spending on prescription medicine, as well as increase the risk for adverse effects and antimicrobial resistance.

Yuting Zhang, Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues used Medicare data (comprising about 1 million patients per year) to examine geographic variation in antibiotic use among older adults in 306 hospital referral regions, 50 states and the District of Columbia, and four national regions (South, West, Midwest and Northeast). They also studied quarterly change in antibiotic use across the four regions.

Can birth control pills make orgasms more difficult to achieve?

Q: Can birth control pills make orgasms more difficult to achieve?I'm 16 and I’ve been on birth control for a long time. I recently started taking a certain brand, and all of a sudden my ability to orgasm went away...but I had been able to masturbate to orgasm before with no problems. So I decided to switch pills again to see if that would fix the problem...but nothing’s changed, even though I’ve been on it for almost a whole pack. Are birth control pills ruining my orgasms? Will I ever get my orgasms back?

Saffron Recipe for Depression and Cancer

A Taste of Good Cheer: Saffron for the treatment of cancer related depression

Jacob Schor ND

There is little about having cancer that warms the heart or that triggers glee. On a list of stressful or depressing life experiences, cancer is near the top. Thus we often find cancer patients are prescribed anti-depressant medications. In certain cancers these medications may have drawbacks.

For example it has long been a common practice to prescribe SSRI antidepressants to women taking tamoxifen as this both cheers them up and seems to reduce the drug’s side effects. There is now concern that tamoxifen’s side effects decrease because the anti-depressants by interfering with the liver’s production of a particular enzyme (cyp2d6) render tamoxifen ineffective.

These same antidepressants may reduce bone growth. Though not proven, slowing bone growth, aside from contributing to osteoporosis, may have another problem as it is generally believed that this could favor growth of cancer metastases in the bone. We would prefer bones to be growing fast and staying strong.

Caring for a Loved One With COPD

What's involved in home care for the COPD patient?

By Krisha McCoy, MS

Medically reviewed by Lindsey Marcellin, MD, MPH

When you care for someone with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) at home, you may have numerous responsibilities.

One of the most important things to do when your loved one is diagnosed with COPD is to learn as much as you can about the disease, says Barry Make, MD, co-director of the COPD program at National Jewish Health and professor of medicine in the division of pulmonary sciences and critical care medicine at the University of Colorado in Denver. COPD caregivers "need to understand the disease as well as the patient does," he says.

Talk to your COPD patient's doctors about what tasks you will need to perform. It is also important to seek support from your loved one's medical team, and other friends and family members.

COPD Home Care: Specific Tasks

Some tasks you may need to perform as a COPD caregiver:

• Encourage pulmonary rehabilitation. Pulmonary rehabilitation consists of prescribed exercise, nutrition counseling, and disease education. Rehab can improve quality of life, increase strength, and reduce shortness of breath and other COPD symptoms. As a caregiver, you can encourage your loved one to go to rehab and even attend rehab sessions with your loved one. "Not only should the patient be in [pulmonary rehabilitation], but their spouse or significant other should attend as well," says Dr. Make.
• Help with medications. Depending on your loved one's symptoms and severity of disease, he may need to take multiple medications at a variety of times throughout the day. You can help keep track of these medications and make sure your loved one is taking them by creating a chart that tracks each medication, its dosage, and time of day it is to be taken. You can use the chart to check off when the medication is taken as directed.
• Attend doctor's appointments. "I think that the spouse or significant other of the COPD patient should go into the physician visits as well as the patient," says Make. You can help your loved one remember what the doctor said and make sure all questions are answered. "One of the best things a caregiver can do before they bring home their newly diagnosed COPD patient is ask a lot of questions," says Kitty Weary, of West Yellowstone, Mont., who provided COPD care for her father, husband, and mother.
  Weary suggests writing down all of the questions you and your loved one have in a notebook and leaving spaces to fill in answers from the medical team. "All of this new stuff is getting fired at you, and there is a good chance you won't remember anything," she says. At the visits, you can learn how to use any prescribed equipment, which may include supplemental oxygen, a handheld bronchodilator inhaler, or a nebulizer.
• Monitor your loved one's condition. Talk with the medical team about the warning signs of an exacerbation (an episode of worsened symptoms), and when you should seek medical help. In general, you should call the doctor when your loved one has:
• 
  
  • Excessive trouble breathing during everyday activities
  • Greater than usual coughing or coughing-related chest pain
  • Increased mucus production or change in appearance of mucus
  • Swelling in the hands or feet
  • Cramping of muscles
  • Tiredness or weakness
  • Trouble sleeping that is related to shortness of breath

Caring for a COPD patient at home can be challenging. But by following the medical team's instructions and encouraging your loved one to adhere to her COPD treatment regimen, you can play an important role in improving your loved one's quality of life.

http://www.everydayhealth.com/health-report/chronic-obstructive-pulmonary-disease/caring-for-loved-one-with-copd

Hyperhidrosis and Dating

Jan 23, 2012

Excessive armpit sweating (hyperhidrosis) and dating can be an embarrassing combination. However, it doesn't have to be. The common treatments already available include:

• Antiperspirants
• Medications
• Lontophoresis
• Botox
• Endoscopic Thoracic Sympathectomy
• Diet
• Retrodermal Curettage
• Liposuction

Hyperhidrosis is an annoying, but treatable condition. If you suffer from excessive armpit sweating, don't hide it, come clean. Finding a partner who is accepting and supportive of who you are is more important than hiding it.

Use this helpful infographic to learn more about hyperhidrosis, and the myths that surround it.

http://freethinkermatch.com/index.php?page=showarticle&articleid=7