Health news blog

Severe sunburn is treated like any other burn, and you should see your doctor immediately. In addition, young children are highly susceptible to dehydration, and this also needs prompt medical attention. If your child has only minor redness and soreness, and his skin feels warm, keep him indoors. Paracetamol given according to directions can help to reduce the pain. Encourage your child to drink a lot to replace fluid loss due to the burn. Showers may only aggravate the pain, so gentle bathing in tepid water is preferable. Avoid using soap on the area of the burn.

Commercial preparations available over the counter which claim to soothe sunburn usually contain some local anaesthetic, and we do not recommend their use. Never put butter on a burn — this can actually worsen the burn and lead to infection.

• if blisters break open or the fluid inside them is murky;

• if your child has a fever, or is listless;

• if you cannot control your child’s pain with the measures outlined above;

• if there is marked swelling in the area of the burn, or the burn itself looks infected.

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It is possible to store breastmilk for a short period of time, but you need to take great care because it can easily become contaminated. Make sure that your hands are clean before you handle breastmilk, and sterilise all containers prior to use. Plastic containers are preferable to glass, as these are easier to handle. Make sure that you do not fill the container to the brim as the milk will expand when frozen. Carefully label each container with the amount expressed and the date. After sealing, place the container in the refrigerator first to cool, then transfer it to the freezer. The maximum storage time for breastmilk in the freezer compartment of a two-door fridge is 2 weeks. It can be stored for up to 2 months in a deep freezer. If you place it in the refrigerator, it will only be good for 24 hours. To defrost breastmilk, place the container in warm water; never use a microwave as it can overheat the milk, thereby reducing its nutritional value.

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“We used to always get a sitter and go out,” said the wife. “Now we get a marriage sitter. The sitter makes us dinner and puts the kids to bed for us. We just live in our house. The sitter does dishes and everything. Why waste a sitter on the kids? We should get taken care of, too.”

Marriages can learn to enjoy themselves at home as well as outside the home. I assigned a marriage sitter to all of the couples, and they reported it helped in organizing the house and provided a respite from the constant and hectic daily schedule. It’s a good idea to get the marriage sitter during the week. He or she might be able to help the kids with homework, too, while you two sit and do nothing or take your walk together. If you are very courageous, you might go up to your privacy place and put in a little practice time on the posture of the future while the marriage sitter protects your privacy for you.

“I think at first it blew her mind,” said one husband. “We had her come over one Thursday a month. She made dinner for all of us, put the kids to bed, and answered the phone. We had her do one household chore that we both hated, like fold clothes or something. She stood lookout for us while we were in the bedroom. She never said a thing, but I’ll bet her parents heard about those perverts who stayed home when the babysitter was there and even went into their bedroom alone. We got some strange looks from her mother at the grocery store the other day.”

It takes courage to make a super sexual marriage. You have to be willing to stand out as a marriage, to break away from the established pattern. After a time, however, my couples found that other marriages were coming to them for,guidance. In effect, they were being asked to expand their sex clinic. I told them to avoid telling anyone what to do, but to enjoy their new advisory status by talking about what they did in their own marriage. Tell them anything you like, but keep the posture of the future a secret. Although it does serve as a marital attention-getter, it’s a symbol for more basic and substantial marital and sexual changes. It might help others become curious enough to make their own changes and open their own sex clinic.

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Touch, hold, embrace, contact, but do not have intercourse. Do not use intercourse as the ultimate negotiable item, the key criterion in the relationship. Be sexual, have sex, but don’t mistake coitus for intimacy and closeness, or use it as some type of substitute or shortcut.

“I swear they have a chart pinned inside their door. Each man’s name is written in over this type of body chart. They mark where the man left off. . . like, Fred at the knee, Al at the breast, Steve at the nipple. They give it a little at a time.” This report from a husband recalling his courtship shows clearly the immaturity of the whole situation, the bartering instead of bonding.

There are people you will want to touch right away, to hold, to be close to. There are other people with whom handholding is a major sacrifice. Let the person and your feelings be your guide, not some sex chart of cultural or gender expectations. Once we learn that sex is more decision than impulse, start teaching that in the family, in church, and at school, then we will be free to touch instead of have “foreplay,” to experience sex as a process instead of a goal.

“I didn’t want to be a tease. I loved making out, but I stopped at that. The boys thought I was terrible. I would love to just kiss all night, and they would complain that they could die from this, perhaps from some type of internal genital explosion. One night I told a boy to go ahead and masturbate, and that when he was finished, we could go back to kissing up a storm. He thought I was nuts. He called me one of the ultimate names of the day, a ‘prick tease.’ I guess he felt I was only teasing that part of him, as if it had a mind of its own. It’s strange that you never hear much about a clit tease.” This report from one of the wives about her early courtship shows the degree to which we have genitalized our lovemaking.

As it is in courtship, so it may be in marriage. If we cling to the “time bomb” theory of sex, that once the fuse is set, there must be an ultimate explosion, we miss out on some of the most exciting and intimate experiences of human interaction: the freedom to touch and kiss and hold just for the sake of doing only that.

One of the wives reported, “Now that our therapy is finished, do you know what we like to do? I know this sounds strange, but we go out in the car at night and neck. Just neck. We get so turned on that the windows steam over like the old days. That’s all, we just do that. It’s great.”

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The earlier tetanus develops then the worse the outcome and the longer it takes to develop then the better the likely result.

The tetanus germs produce a poison or toxin which affects the nervous system.

The first symptoms are often restlessness and agitation which is then followed by spasm of the muscles.

The jaw muscles are often the first affected and so the patient has difficulty in opening the mouth — the old name for tetanus was lock-jaw.

Eventually all the muscles go into severe cramps or spasms and breathing may be affected and the patient may then die of lung or heart failure.

The modern treatment of tetanus is to sedate the patient heavily with massive doses of diazepam, a tranquilliser and a curare-like muscle relaxant drug used in anaesthesia.

A tracheotomy, or opening of the windpipe is made and the patient is put on a breathing machine and breathes artificially.

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Potassium is often given in the form of tablets particularly when taking large doses of diuretics.

Some newer drugs have a mild diuretic action and a potassium-sparing effect as well. These are often added to the diuretic to prevent the excretion of potassium and so no added potassium is necessary.

We now believe we have somewhat over-reacted to the reports about the need to add extra potassium when using diuretics.

When the diuretic is used to control high blood pressure, there is usually no need for extra potassium. It may be necessary in treating heart failure if digitalis is used as well.

In liver and kidney disease, regular blood tests, will determine whether potassium is low, and when the supplements are necessary.

Although there is little risk from taking extra potassium if it is not needed, the real problem is that the normal dose is six tablets daily. This extra load on top of those prescribed to treat the condition may make some people give all their tablets away or take a reduced dose.

Better patient compliance seems to go with fewer tablets and the less often they need to be taken during the day.

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As bow legs are common before the age of two, so knock knees are common in the age group two to five.

As with bow legs and in-toeing, there is little functional impairment from this condition but the appearance is unattractive and may require treatment.

Knock knees are thought to be due to posture and sleeping habits, although some researchers doubt this.

Sleeping on the back with the legs and feet rotated outwards like a frog, may be the cause. Or a child may sleep on his face with the legs extended and the feet turned in, but apart from each other.

Knock knees usually do not require treatment unless the child, standing with knees together, has the ankles at a greater distance than 10 cm (4 in).

Normally, if treatment is required, the legs can be placed in splints during sleep. Rarely are operations necessary.

It is wise for parents to avoid “folk lore” treatments, such as making the child wear his shoes on the opposite feet. This doesn’t work.

If parents are worried by their children’s feet and legs, medical advice should be sought. Most cases will not require treatment and will spontaneously revert to normal.

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A physically active lifestyle or hard exercise taken regularly every day make losing weight and staying slim very much easier. According to Science Digest (94#4:41), these beneficial effects are due to the fact that muscular activity burns up the body’s fat stores while at the same time increasing the bulk of its muscles.

Muscle is a much more active tissue than fat and, pound for pound, has more cells and needs more calories just to maintain itself. Thus, people who have replaced fat with muscle develop a much more active metabolism that burns up more calories at rest and helps them to stay slim.

Dieting without exercise, on the other hand, results in loss of both fat and muscle tissue, and when the dieting is over, lost weight is quickly regained. Worse yet, weight regained under these circumstances is mostly due to fat. Cyclic loss and gain of weight due to dieting without exercise results in a new loss of muscle tissue that makes slimness even more difficult to attain in the future.

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Signs and symptoms

Depending on where the object is lodged, it may cause choking, gagging, pain, discomfort in the throat or chest, or difficulty swallowing. Once a foreign object passes into the stomach it does not produce any symptoms unless it obstructs or penetrates the digestive tract. Then abdominal pain, vomiting, and fever may develop. If the child has swallowed a metal object it will be visible on an X ray, but wood, plastic, or glass will not. Usually, however, the diagnosis is suggested by the circumstances and the symptoms that do appear.

Home care

If the swallowed object is small and smooth, no treatment is necessary. If the object is long, sharp, or large, examine the child’s stools carefully for several days to be sure the object has passed from the body. Each bowel movement must be passed through a sieve until the object is passed. If the child has been trained, place in the toilet bowl a basin fashioned of window screening. Then, after the child has passed a stool wash it through the screening with hot water.

Precautions

• An object lodged in the oesophagus must be removed within hours, preferably by a doctor.

• No known food, drink, or medication will speed up the passage of a foreign object through the body.

• If an object has not passed from the child’s body within one week, see your doctor. Try to bring a duplicate of the swallowed object to show your doctor.

• Do not give your child a laxative in an effort to speed passage of a swallowed object.

Medical treatment

Your doctor will carefully inspect the throat and observe the way your child swallows. The doctor may order X rays of the throat, neck, chest, or abdomen. If an object is wedged in the throat or oesophagus, your doctor will remove it with a surgical instrument. If the object is in the stomach the doctor will watch the child’s condition for three or more weeks before trying to remove it surgically. If the object is in the intestines and does not pass within a week the doctor may remove it surgically.

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What is it?

Thrush is a yeast infection that affects both men and women but mostly women. The organism that causes it lives on our skin and in the mouth and is often found in the bowel. Usually this yeast causes no harm but sometimes it multiplies and produces problems. In babies it can produce a nappy rash.

Most commonly thrush causes a thick, white, very irritant vaginal discharge in women. There is soreness on intercourse and often pain on passing water.

What causes it?

• Pregnancy is a common cause. During pregnancy the raised level of oestrogen in the woman’s body encourages the yeast to grow.

• The contraceptive pill produces it for the same reasons (most pills contain an oestrogen).

• Wearing tights, nylon panties or tight-fitting jeans or trousers seems to raise the temperature and humidity in the woman’s vulval area and encourage the growth of the yeast.

• Antibiotics kill off other organisms in the bowel and in the body generally, leaving the yeasts free to multiply.

• Inflammation of the vulval area -caused by vaginal deodorants, bubble baths, talcum, perfumed soap, a scratch, etc. – can make thrush more likely.

• Poor health can make thrush more likely. Really run-down, overtired, and seriously ill women are more at risk.

• Sexual contact is an uncommon cause of thrush. In the vast majority of women the infection arises spontaneously but it can be transmitted sexually. Many doctors still think it is sensible to treat a woman’s partner so that the two do not pass the infection back and forth between them.

• Refined carbohydrates act as ‘food’ for thrush in the gut and can produce increased bloating, flatulence, soreness, itching, disturbed bowel function and a general increase of the symptoms. Eat no refined carbohydrates. Restrict your total daily carbohydrate intake to 60-80 grams. It helps to go on to a low-refined carbohydrate, no yeasty-foods diet for two weeks before starting Nystatin from your doctor. Keep on the diet even when taking the Nystatin, until all your symptoms disappear. Slowly, you can loosen up on your diet. If symptoms reappear avoid these foods for good.

Prevention

• Avoid tights, nylon panties, and tight-fitting jeans and trousers. Wear skirts, cotton panties or no panties and stockings.

• Use pads rather than tampons during a period.

• Avoid perfumed soaps, vaginal deodorants, and other irritants such as bubble baths and disinfectants.

• After going to the lavatory, wipe yourself from front to back so as not to drag any yeasts from the bowel opening to the vaginal area.

• Use antibiotics only when absolutely necessary and then eat two or three natural yoghurts (live) a day to replace lost bacteria in the bowel.

• (For a man) never have casual sex with a woman unless you use a sheath.

• Keep generally healthy.

Try a diet low in yeasts and refined carbohydrates for 2-4 weeks to see if there is any improvement. Yeasted foods include Marmite, frozen or concentrated orange juice, cheeses, bread made with yeast, alcoholic drinks, grapes and grape juices, unpeeled fruits, raisins, sultanas, food that has been ‘left around’ for some time, and B-vitamins (unless the label specifically says that they are yeast-free).

Follow your doctor’s advice about taking the drug Nystatin to kill the yeast and prevent its spread to your partner. As soon as you think you have thrush, stop having intercourse or you could infect your partner.

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