Many people are unaware of the health risks imposed by even so-called “mild” blood pressures, such as 140/90, and often discontinue their therapy. An 18-year study in Framingham, Massachusetts, shows clearly that, at all adult ages, men and women with elevated blood pressures run an increased risk of heart disease. For example, the risk for a 50-year-old man with “mild” hypertension is 40 percent higher than for one with a “healthy” pressure. Of course, at higher pressures (such as 160 systolic), that 50-year-old’s risk of heart disease runs even higher – 75 percent greater than for a man with a healthy pressure.
Figures collected by the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Maryland, show that one white adult in four has high blood pressure; among blacks, it is one adult in three. Regardless of race, women adhere to treatment better than men and, therefore, control their hypertension better.
Blood that courses through your arteries under high pressure takes a heavy toll on your other organs. Bit by bit, the high pressure of circulating blood serves to pile more and more cholesterol, calcium, and scar tissue into the linings of your blood vessels. Soon, their tube-like openings are blocked, closing down the flow. The high pressure „can damage the wall of the aorta, the giant artery that carries blood from the heart to the rest of your body. After years of being subjected to high pressure, the heart muscle thins and then can balloon out and burst. Albert Einstein died of this condition.
The pressure also hurts your tiny blood vessels, making it tougher for the heart to push blood through the body’s billions of narrowed channels. In a vicious cycle, your heart pumps harder, raising your blood pressure still higher and causing more injury.
As the blood pressure increases, the left side of your heart works harder and harder to push the blood through. Like any hard-working muscle, the heart gets bigger, but, overworked, it eventually can’t keep up with the demands placed on it. The volume of blood pumped by the heart drops. As a result, you go into congestive heart failure. Once this happens, water piles up in your tissues because, under the reduced blood flow, your kidneys cannot eliminate it. Eventually, you “drown” in your own fluids.
*2/266/5*

It is really important that enough time is allowed for proper physical and emotional healing after surgery. Time is needed to come to terms with the extent of the surgery and the impact this is having on functions you took for granted before surgery. For instance, the mental shock and sadness of the removal of vital sexual organs may take six to twelve months to come to terms with, even with counseling. Hopefully your specialist will have shown you and your partner what the physical changes will look like before you have surgery. Even so, the reality can be quite a shock as there will be quite significant physical changes, depending on the extent of surgery. Because drugs are often given in hospital to reduce pain and may keep you on a ‘high’ the reality and extent of the physical changes may not ‘hit’ you until you return home. Tablets for depression sometimes block your bowels that put pressure on the vulval area and are excruciatingly painful when you go to do ‘pooh’.
If the clitoris and vagina have been removed sexual intercourse through penetration is going to be extremely difficult, and in some cases impossible. Therefore you (and your partner) will need the services early in your treatment of a sexual therapist or counselor. If you live in an area where these services are not available ask your doctor to discuss and help you through the issues. It is common to become insecure about the future of your partnership if sexual activity has been an important part of it. Open communication about your fears with your partner is really important to allow you to continue emotional healing.
If radiation therapy has left surface burns on the thigh region, walking in the early stages will be painful as it takes time for the skin to settle. Some women find too much walking in the early stages can feel as if extra strain is happening in the groin area. It may take time for the surgical wounds to fully heal. Salt baths and getting someone sensitive to your needs to pour tepid water over the vulva can be very soothing. Don’t be embarrassed by this – it is a body part that all women have.
Some women find it difficult to ‘pee’ straight after surgery. This is quite common and can be avoided by getting the nurse to change the side the catheter is strapped to each day. In a case where this did not happen the patient used a funnel to direct the urine.
If the cancer has not spread to lymph glands, then the cancer is highly treatable. If the glands are involved then treatment presents a greater challenge. Emotional survival is the most difficult aspect of this cancer.
*15/144/5*

Diabetes is the fourth-leading cause of death by disease in the United States. Each year, 650,000 Americans are diagnosed with it. Ask your doctor whether you should be checked for diabetes. And if you have it:
•       See a doctor skilled in diabetes.
•      Discuss the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial with your doctor.
•      Have your doctor or laboratory draw a glycolated hemoglobin blood test. The test reveals how well your blood sugars have been controlled for the previous 2 to 4 months.
•       Check your blood sugar regularly. If you don’t have a test kit (blood meter and/or blood strips), get one and use it.
•      Tight control is not for everyone (particularly the very young or old), because of the danger of too-low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia. This can cause sweats, confusion, loss of consciousness, shock, and (rarely) death. However, if you are like most people with diabetes, you probably should improve your blood sugar control.
•      See an eye specialist experienced in diabetes at least once a year.
•      Support research.
*11/266/5*

This is an opening between the ventricles (the pumping chambers of the heart) that increases blood flow, under high pressure, to the lungs. Increased blood flow to the lungs overworks the heart; this may lead to high blood pressure in the lung arteries or congestive heart failure. If the defect is not repaired, eventually the blood shunts from the right to the left side of the heart, causing blueness from inadequate oxygen in the tissues.
Ventricular septal defect is the most common heart malformation, accounting for 25 percent of the cases of congenital heart disease. Almost 50 percent of all ventricular septal defects close by themselves without an operation, mostly during the first few months after birth, because they are small.
Small ventricular septal defects that do not cause symptoms usually do not require surgery, but people with ventricular septal defects should receive preventive antibiotics before dental and certain surgical procedures.
In children with large defects, major problems, including heart failure, may develop in early infancy. Treatment for these babies is aimed at controlling the heartfailure with drugs. If this is unsuccessful, surgery to close the defect is usually done before age 1 year. After successful closure, a normal life-style is usual.
*116\252\8*

Cancer of the esophagus is a disease in which cancer cells are found in the tissues of the esophagus. The esophagus is the hollow tube that carries food and liquid from the throat to the stomach.

Symptoms
The most common symptom of cancer of the esophagus is difficulty in swallowing. Pain may be felt while swallowing and also from behind the breastbone.

Causes
The most important causes of esophageal cancer are high intake of spicy foods, animal fats and smoking. Vitamin deficiency may also cause injury of esophageal lining and ultimately lead to cancer.

Diagnosis
Barium meal x-ray is the most common way to diagnose this cancer. A patient is made to drink a liquid containing barium, which makes the esophagus easier to see in the X-ray.
A doctor may also loom at the inside of the esophagus with a thin, lighted tube called esophagoscope. This test is called an esophagoscopy. If the tissue is abnormal, biopsy will be necessary.

Treatment
The chance of recovery and choice of treatment depend on the stage of the cancer and the patient’s general state of health. Medical treatments for esophageal cancer are surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy. However, surgery is the most common treatment for this cancer.

Natural Methods
Some Natural methods can be implied for managing pain and mitigating the symptoms and side effects of medical treatment. These include warm water enema, daily dry friction, cold sitz or hip bath, relaxation methods and meditation.
Ginger may be used to prevent or minimize nausea, a common complication of radiation treatment and chemotherapy.
*59/355/5*

When arthritics get themselves constipated, not only do they fail to eat enough of the right foods, but they tend to go on liquid diets. That’s the greatest danger. Because liquids can disqualify whatever good food they may have eaten.
If, in addition, people with constipation choose lemon juice and water, they will soon find that their skin, scalp, hair, ears, and nails are gradually drying out. Their gum lines may even start to recede. Lemon may help a very few people with arthritis, but in the majority of cases it does harm.
Haste makes Waste
The fast ways to regularity are not always the best. If constipation is present at the time of an appendicitis attack, harsh laxatives can lead to serious complications. The reports about burst appendices in the bodies of constipated people are not myths. All too many patients with colon discomfort have also found themselves with a ruptured appendix. The manufacturers of cathartics concede this fact, and mark appropriate warnings on the labels of their wares.
*46\146\2*

Some patients return to their extreme state after only days, saying as one woman said to me, ‘Doctor, it was so beautiful to be on the moon. I was so happy there, why do you torture me by asking me to live in your harsh world? I do not have the strength to bear it here.’ Several hours later she was back in the psychosis once again with a euphoric expression lecturing to all about the moon and other planets. Who is to say that she should be in a different place? She had a choice, made a decision, and kept to it.
I have heard of other cases in which the physician gave a patient drugs, brought him out of his extreme episode only to report the resulting suicide.
An elderly gentleman I treated had been living alone with only his ‘devils’ (auditory hallucinations) for companionship for many years. After carefully adjusting his medication we were able to get rid of the ‘devils,’ at which point he fully realized how lonely and isolated he was and he drowned himself. Given the symptom-caused torment and social isolation which many schizophrenics must endure, in truth I find it surprising that the suicide rate among them is not higher than it is.
What this doctor does not mention is the possibility that the schizophrenic had his ‘devils’ as friends; his extreme state gave life meaning and prevented him from dying. Without the devils, it is fully possible that there was no longer any reason to live. Or, it is possible that one of his devils was no longer friendly to him and helped him to drown! Or, it could also be possible that the medication blocked the auditory channel through altering neurotransmitters so that the devils were no longer located there but took over his movement, whereupon he killed himself. I do not know what happened, but I would like the reader to suffer some of the philosophical uncertainties involved in working with psychotic states. My philosophy is doubt and observe, try to follow the individual process as closely as possible.
*49\227\8*

The skin may be afflicted with so many diseases that one might think that it has little protection against infection, yet we have reason to believe that the intact skin is germ-proof. We know now that for centuries surgeons carried infections on their hands and, when they operated, it was taken as a matter of course that the wounds would become infected. Then Pasteur showed that infection was due to germs, and Lister of England demonstrated that these infections were carried by the surgeons. Meanwhile the surgeons were fairly safe themselves. If they refrained from sticking needles into their fingers or cutting themselves with scalpels, it was their patients and not themselves who died of erysipelas or pined with suppurating wounds.
But a skin without the slightest break through its surface is a difficult thing to achieve. A bacterium is exceedingly minute. Wounds invisibly small may let a horde of them into the moist warm flesh where they thrive. Even the surgeon’s eagerness to obtain great cleanliness may itself defeat his purpose. Frequent washes with soap remove the soft grease normal to the skin, which then dries and cracks. But only to an unusually discriminating congregation can it be hinted that cleanliness is not an absolute law. It is a highly important one. Mankind has been afflicted with many diseases which could have been avoided by reasonable cleanliness.
*13/276/5*

Of the five senses, the skin’s sense of touch has a peculiarly vivid and explosive quality and differs from other sensations in arousing response. It is the most extensive sense, as the sensory organs of touch are distributed all over the body in the skin and the adjoining mucous membrane. The sensation of touch is of two types—active and passive. If you touch your partner the sensations you feel are active sensations. On the other hand, if your partner touches you, it is termed a passive sensation. Both types of touch sensation are necessary to enhance sexual excitement and pleasure and lift sex from the level of the humdrum to the sublime. However, to feel these sensations normally or to be sensuous, the sensory centre in the brain where these sensations are interpreted should be free and uninhibited. As I shall describe in the next section, it is very easy to inhibit or brake the sensations from childhood. If your sensory motor is braked from childhood, you can never respond freely and totally in sex: you are like a car trying to accelerate with the hand-brakes on. But you can learn to release the brakes, even if your parents have anaesthetised you sensually. Robert Browning wisely advises:
‘You should not take a fellow eight years old and make him swear to never kiss the girls’
Touching plays an important role in the normal, well-balanced emotional growth of babies. Infants thrive on cuddles and caresses. Without contact their personalities become deprived and warped. Harry Harlow in a series of experiments isolated the young ones of monkeys from their parents, thus depriving them of early childhood experiences like touching and fondling by their mothers or playing with other baby monkeys and watching adult monkeys having sex. When the secluded monkeys grew up and attempted sex they were very clumsy. In another experiment, Dr. James Prescott of the National Institute of Health, USA, demonstrated that young infants, when deprived of sensory experiences like touching and fondling, grew up mentally retarded. It is customary in our culture for mothers to hug and kiss their daughters, but not the sons for fear that they may grow up into ‘sissies’.
*106\262\8*

Bleeding gums are usually a symptom of gingivitis. Gingiva is the medical term for the gums, and it is means inflammation. Some people have severe bleeding of the gums, severe pain, and severe gingival disease with rapid tooth loss over a period as short as two or three months. This rapid loss of the structure that supports the teeth is called periodontitis. Periodontitis and gingivitis both are more frequent and severe in people with HIV infection.
The cause of gingivitis and periodontitis is not clearly established. Most dentists think the cause is the same bacteria normally present in the mouth which have, for some reason, gone out of control. Like other conditions, gingivitis is also common in people without HIV infection, but it is more frequent and more severe in those with the infection.
Care must be taken to distinguish gum bleeding caused by gingivitis from bleeding caused by the low numbers of blood platelets that are a part of ITP, which is an entirely different complication of HIV infection. The distinction between the two is easily made by a blood test that counts the number of platelets, or by a consultation with a dentist who will identify diseases of the teeth and gums.
For gingivitis and periodontitis, the treatment is usually mouthwashes containing germicides. One such mouthwash is chlorhexidine in a concentration of 0.12 percent, known as Peridex. Another is povidone-iodine, or Betadine. Both can be purchased in most pharmacies; Peridex requires a prescription, Betadine does not. Chlorhexidine has a high alcohol content that can cause pain in people with advanced gum disease. In this case, it is probably more appropriate to apply povidone-iodine, which is less painful, for several days and then switch to chlorhexidine mouthwashes when they can be better tolerated. For people who have extensive periodontitis, the dental procedure usually recommended is removal of plaque by planing and scaling, a procedure done by dentists. In many cases, antibiotic treatment with metronidazole (Flagyl) is also recommended.
These treatments should be accompanied by rigorously doing what your dentist has always told you to do: use dental floss, brush regularly with a soft toothbrush, and see a dentist regularly.
*123\191\2*