Senior Care Partners

Archive for January 10th, 2012

Everyone hates getting a cold or flu but even the healthiest people are susceptible to falling ill. I will discuss the simplest ways of staying healthy and if you do feel the beginnings of a flu or cold, how you can either prevent it from getting worse or easing the symptoms.

The easiest ways of preventing colds and the flu:

Wash your hands. This should be done every time before you eat. There’s a reason why your mom or school teachers would always emphasize that before eating you should wash your hands. Nowadays in the news, I hear doctors emphasizing the need to wash your hands. You should also wash your hands more often if you’re in close contact with people who have the cold or flu. Also, try to avoid eye, ear or nose contact with your unwashed hands.

Get plenty of sleep. When your body is well rested, your immune system remains strong. The amount of sleep you should get depends on your body’s needs. Only you know how much sleep your body requires. If you’re having trouble falling asleep, try a simple breathing technique I use. It works 99.9% of the time. Lie down on your back in bed in a comfortable position, breathe in slowly through your nose and breathe out slowly. Do this several times and before you know it, you will fall asleep very quickly. This technique does two things. It clears your mind of all your problems, stresses and gets your body ready for sleep.

Exercise. Getting the correct amount of exercise boosts your immune system.

Proper nutrition. Eating properly and at regular times maintains that your body gets the vitamins and minerals that keep the immune system strong. You may also want to supplement your diet with quality vitamins.

If you do feel the symptoms of a cold, flu coming on or if you’re in close contact with people who are ill you may want to consider taking Echinacea (Purple Coneflower). Forget about taking over the counter cold and flu medications because they do not work and they are expensive. In the past, Echinacea was used by North America’s Native Indians to treat fevers and by early settlers to North America for treating colds and the flu. Echinacea is most effective when it is taken just when you feel symptoms of a flu or cold. By taking it at this stage, your symptoms will either disappear entirely or the symptoms will be very mild, almost unnoticeable. Taking Echinacea once the cold or flu has gotten worse will not help.

If you are in close contact with sick people, you may want to take Echinacea to keep your immune system resistant to the flu or cold. I prefer using capsules from a quality manufacturer of Echinacea. However, it should not be used for a prolonged period of time because it will lose its effect of boosting your immune system and be sure to read the manufacturer’s instructions.

By following these simple tips, you will remain healthy.

We always considered those who have become addicts to be dead. There is no reason for them to deny this fact. We believe that the addicts know for sure that we are right. Once they have fallen to the path of an addict; they have been considered dead. They know it too. That is why they should not refuse the statement that they need to be helped. They need to be treated and going through the process to live again. Processes such as drug detox might be painful but there are no other choices. It is better to feel the pain now then to suffer for the rest of their life.

The addicts need to know this. They need us to tell them this. They will not be able to understand any of it without our help. That is why we should help them. We can choose to close our eyes but then it will be very naive of us to think that addiction problem is not our problem. We do not want to live in a community full of addict too. That is why we need to help the addict to know that they may be alive once again if they choose to go through heroin detox.

We believe that they will refuse at the beginning. Who will accept the fact that they need to go through a lot of pain if they want to be alive again? Who will accept the fact that they can live normal if only they stand the process that may give them unspeakable pain? There is no one and that is why we believe it will not be easy for them to trust us but if we keep on explaining about detox process such as alcohol detox to them; they will understand about it very soon.

Vaso – Vagal Syncope

The exact mechanism of syncope is still under study. In this condition, there appears to be a transitory fall in blood pressure due to the failure of peripheral resistance. This momentary fall in blood pressure causes a decreased flow of blood to the brain, leading to syncope, during which time there is a transient/brief form of unconsciousness, and the patient may fall to the ground, if he remains standing, i.e., does not sit, or lie immediately. Before his fall, he may feel some symptoms like nausea, giddiness, vertigo, disturbance of vision/hearing, blurring of vision or odd noises in the ears, body pallor, rapid respiration and sweating, etc.

If the attack is a prolonged one, in some of the cases, even twitching/jerky movements, or open convulsions may occur, thus creating some difficulty in diagnosing the condition clinically. Such attacks occur usually only in a standing/upright position. They do not occur when the patient is either lying down or sitting. The patient is not confused after the attack, although he still may be undergoing feelings of nausea.

This problem appears particularly in normal young adults, especially in females, with no obvious pathology which could account for these attacks. Such cases are usually seen in day-to-day practice, and can be embarrassing enough to cause anxiety.

The attacks are usually precipitated when a person keeps standing for a long time, e.g., as is sometimes seen in school students when they gather for their morning prayers (childhood syncope), or in older students standing for hours in various laboratories, and similarly in policemen and soldiers, when they happen to stand on duty at one place for a considerable length of time.

Also, the attacks are aggravated when a person suddenly stands up after lying down or sitting for a long period, or when the person gets up suddenly during his sleep at midnight/morning. Further, bad news or sight of blood, i.e., emotional shock, intense fear/pain, hot weather or a stuffy atmosphere, hunger, intake of excessive alcohol or loss of fluids, i.e., dehydration etc., may also initiate these attacks.

Recovery in vaso – vagal syncope occurs after the person lies down. There is no underlying cause. There is only a failure of peripheral resistance which causes the various conditions mentioned above.

Cardiac syncope

Cardiac syncope, i.e., syncope as a result of some underlying heart disease, occurs suddenly, without any warning symptoms. In such cases, there is a sudden fall in cardiac output/blood pressure, as a result of various diseases of the heart, like arrhythmias, such as when the heart rate is very high (paroxysmal atrial tachycardia-PAT, atrial fibrillation), or in a heart block (Stokes-Adams attack) when the heart rate becomes extremely slow, or in advanced cases of aortic stenosis (aortic valve disease), which result in a decreased flow of blood to the brain, etc. Hence detailed tests like electrocardiogram ECG (with a long rhythm strip), Holter monitoring (to detect arrhythmias), echocardiography (to detect aortic / other valvular diseases), etc., are required, besides an EEG, in some cases, for specific diagnosis and treatment.