Posted by admin on March 26, 2011 under Anti Depressants-Sleeping Aid | 
Once you feel more comfortable in the exposure situation, you’ll need to challenge yourself more by facing a situation with a higher rating. The goal is to move up your hierarchy as quickly as possible, but not so quickly that you can’t put yourself in the harder situation or leave it prematurely. After she felt more comfortable jogging around the neighborhood. Sandra moved up her hierarchy, frequently going to the grocery store and doing other kinds of shopping. At first, she felt very anxious because she worried that others would notice her scar, but the more she went, the better she felt. She then continued moving up the hierarchy. She eventually pushed herself to go to night school again, first three times a week and then five times. Gradually, over several months, she did activities with higher anxiety ratings. Eventually, she even talked with a man at a party. Gradually, her fear and avoidance diminished.
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Posted by admin on March 19, 2011 under Asthma |
When the child leaves home for the first time to go to a boarding school, he should have a sound grasp of the fundamentals of asthma, should know how and when to use medications, how to seek additional care for acute relapses, i.e., learn all the techniques of self-management. The physician should prepare the child’s medical history and a current list of his medications which will help the school doctors. A special request can also be made to the school housing authorities for non-allergenic bedding, and an air-conditioned dormitory.
Sometimes the first term in the hostel produces a dramatic improvement, mainly because a dust mite or pet-sensitive child leaves a dusty home or where his pets were kept. There are cases where a child has been able to stop all asthma medications in school, but experienced a severe relapse on returning home for a holiday. Re-exposure to the family home infested with dust mites and animals is usually the cause of such relapses.
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Posted by admin on March 12, 2011 under Women's Health |
This story is an ironic one. Thirty-two years old at the time, a mother of three children, and a career woman, Annette believed that a hysterectomy would end the pain of endometriosis and she insisted on surgery, although her doctor did not think it was in order at all. As Annette tells it, her story goes this way:
“I was diagnosed as having endometriosis six years ago, right after the birth of my third child,” she said, “ft finally cleared up the mystery of all the pain I’d been having for years. Then an ovarian cyst ruptured and I had to have emergency surgery. At the same time, I had my uterus suspended and some nerves cut.
“Instead of getting better, things got worse. I had an enlarged uterus and unbelievable pain and heavy bleeding,” she continued. “I felt so bad, I couldn’t have sex, i was barely a mother to my children, and life was hardly livable. I went to two doctors who both said hysterectomy was the only answer. That bothered me a lot. A hysterectomy at twenty-nine years of age? This sounded drastic to me.
“Then I went to another doctor who I heard was opposed to hysterectomy. He put me on Danocrine and 1 took it on and off for three years. It helped somewhat, but the drug made me feel depressed and I still had pain in the one remaining ovary. Then I started to hemorrhage. I wanted a hysterectomy, to be free of the cramps, pain, and bleeding. My doctor wouldn’t do it, so I went back to the first doctor, and he did it a week later.
“I felt about a hundred times better the day after surgery,” Annette said. “And I believe I had no real choice about whether or not to have a hysterectomy, even if one doctor was against it. 1 was in severe pain for years and disabled by bleeding. Keeping my uterus seemed less critical to me than ending these problems—they were just ruining my life. I still have one ovary, so my hormone levels arc normal. Most of all, I feel I wasted time when my husband and children saw me debilitated and in pain for years.
“I think this kind of surgery is a personal matter, I am usually happy about my decision to have a hysterectomy, but there are moments when I am ambivalent about it I have come to understand that this ambivalence is normal. There are times when I feel sad knowing I could never have another child. There are times when f fear that there could be a chance that my remaining ovary will be destroyed by endometriosis and will have to be removed. Then I remember how much pain I was in every day and I know I did the right thing for me.”
Although she worries about endometriosis spreading to this organ, Annette is generally optimistic. She is attuned to the possible symptoms resulting from hysterectomy that might affect her, such as weight gain and diminished sex drive, but thus far, she has not experienced these reactions. (In fact, since she is finally free of persistent pain, she feels an increased sex drive.) One factor in her favor is a functioning ovary that is supplying enough estrogen and progesterone for her needs. Annette is lucky. Her hysterectomy did not put her into a traumatic state of sudden and premature menopause, and she is feeling healthy.
These cases are dissimilar, but both women were suffering from symptoms of endometriosis that were difficult to live with, was hysterectomy really the answer for Annette and Penny? The indicators for hysterectomy in cases of endometriosis are:
• when Danocrine or other hormonal therapies do not work and the woman is suffering from debilitating pain
• when a woman does not respond to laser surgery or conservative surgery
• when more than one endometriosis specialist evaluates the case and reels a hysterectomy will help
Even then, it may or may not be the answer. As I have stated, hysterectomy should be the last resort, and ideally done at an age when a woman has completed childbearing and is closer to natural menopause.
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