google search

Google

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Intra-Uterine Devices: No Pain No Gain by Abbey Grace Yap

Now that we live in a permissive world where casual sex, however unaccaptable it may be, is a commonality not only to adults but also to teenagers, an increased awareness for birth control and contraception has been raised. A lot of women are becoming more aware of their sexual health as they are at high risk of becoming pregnant, not to mention a lot of sexually transmitted diseases, if they engage in casual sex without protection.
Thanks to mass media's campaign to inform people of different birth control methods that can be used to prevent. Among the more popular methods are the birth control pills, the withdrawal method, and the barrier methods. All these are easy to use and very accessible to the general public. But the most commonly used birth control method is the intra-uterine device or the IUD.
The IUD From the name alone, intra- meaning within or inside, and uterine meaning of the uterus, we may be able to determine where this device is placed. It is a small device that is inserted through the cervix and is placed in the uterus to prevent pregnancy. It has a small string that hangs down from the device itself to the upper part of the vaginal canal.
There are two basic types of IUDs being used: the copper IUD, and the hormonal IUD. The copper IUD is effective due to the toxicity of copper to sperm. The copper coating of the device makes the uterus and the fallopian tubes release sperm-killing fluid that contains white blood cells, copper ions, enzymes, and prostagrandins. The hormonal IUD, also called Mirena, works by releasing levonorgestrel. Levonorgestrel is a form of progestin. Mirena has been proven to be more effective than the copper IUD, plus it also lowers the risk of developing pelvic inflammatory disease. Copper IUDs can be used for at least ten years while the hormonal IUD is effective for at least five years.
Sexual health professionals advise women to undergo a check-up prior to having an IUD inserted to prevent infection of the pelvic area. If anything unusual is found, for example the presence of a sexually transmitted disease, the condition is address first before the IUD is inserted.
Because of the material used for the device, a lot of women often wonder if it has an effect during sexual intercourse. The good thing is, IUDs are barely noticeable during sex. But at the same time, because is it barely noticeable, women worry that the IUD may be pushed too far in. The best way to keep track of the IUD is to feel for the string that hangs down from the device. This is done by putting a finger inside the vagina or by using a mirror, a speculum, and a flashlight. Self-checking of the IUD is usually done after every menstrual cycle. If the string had shortened, the device may have been pushed too far in. If the string is missing, it could be possible that the IUD was expelled. If that is the case, it is best to immediately consult a physician.
IUD insertion is best done during a woman's menstrual period wherein the cervix is slightly open and chances of being pregnant is less likely. However, it may be inserted at any time. The procedure usually lasts from five to fifteen minutes. Most women complain of having abdominal muscle cramps during and after the insertion. Taking an over-the-counter pain medication may help relieve the muscle cramps.
IUD removal is much easier and faster than the insertion procedure. It may be done anytime the woman wishes to. If the device is removed near a woman's ovulation period, there is a chance that the woman may get pregnant from the last sexual intercourse prior to the IUD removal.
Intra-uterine devices have been proven as one of the more effective birth control methods. The fact that it is the most widely used contraceptive method is proof enough that a lot of women trust it more that any pill or latex barrier to protect them from accidental pregnancies. The fact that it doesn't shield you from sexually transmitted diseases should be warning enough to keep the number of sexual partners to a minimum, and only to those whom you know the sexual history of. Yes it may hurt a little to have the device inserted, but what's a little pain if it will ensure that you're not in any risk of getting pregnant?
About the Author
Choose Variety of High Quality Medicines at Online Medicines Enjoyed Reading this article? More here: Pharmacy Articles

Acne as an Adult by Billy Lee

When most of us think of acne, we think of adolescence. Many people who had acne as a teen are no longer afflicted by it; however, the number of people who do battle acne during their adulthood may surprise you. While teens do make up a large percentage of the acne-suffering population, it is more prevalent in adults than one might think.
It is also becoming clear that the physical, psychological, and social effects of this condition are still frequent occurances in adults, and can cause many problems. Also according to recent studies, acne is an increasing problem among adults, but the reasons for this are not always clear.
Whether acne strikes during adolescence and lingers into adulthood, or simply strikes after the age of 30, the physical and psychological effects can be long-lasting and cause problems. Dermatologists say that adult acne is more likely to leave permanent scars because as the skin ages and loses collagen, it's more difficult for it to bounce back and the scars are, therefore, often unable to heal as they would in younger skin. Physical scars aren't the only ones left by adult acne.
Psychological scarring can be much harder to trace, and sometimes more difficult to deal with because of the misconceptions that accompany them. For example, it has been believed that the psychological effects of adult acne are easier to deal with because adults are able to accept the condition better than teens. In reality, the ramifications of these scars can be severe because acne has been perceived to be a condition specific to teens. Though we know this isn't the case, many people are often afraid to admit they have adult acne and seek treatment.
As perceptions are shifting, and more people are recognizing acne as a problem not only among teens, but also among adults, more people are going to dermatologists for treatment.
Many adults are now seeking relief from prescribed medications as well as from over-the-counter products to treat the condition. Sales of these products have increased, along with the awareness of adult acne.
Because adult acne is reported to be on the rise, doctors are now starting to consider the special causes and unique effects of this condition on older patients. As public awareness continues to increase, people may be more likely to seek treatment.
The wealth of information is now available about adult acne can also help people afflicted with this condition to better understand it and how to combat its problems. More care is also being given to the psychological effects of adult acne. Because adults, like teens, are often affected by what those around them think and how they are perceived, many often stray from attending social events. Understanding what is causing the adult acne is key to its treatment. If the physical problems are treated, the social and psychological ones can be as well.
About the Author
Billy Lee, The Acne ex-sufferer and now want to share some acne care tips. The owner of an acne care tips website http://www.healthydo.net/

Friday, November 23, 2007

Natural home remedies for anxiety / panic attacks! by Zokson

There are so many natural remedies for anxiety or panic attacks but here are few basic steps you need to take on your own to help yourself.
1. First try avoiding coffee, nicotine or alcohol. Those three have triggered a lot of my anxiety attacks. When reducing coffee do it slowly because of the headaches. It has worked for me. And if you really need to have coffee, then drink it in the morning only. (Or mix half decaf and regular coffee!)
2. Replace your coffee with herbal teas for anxiety relief. You can find those in a lot of local health stores.
3. Avoid any energy drinks since most of those have a lot of caffeine in it. Avoiding chocolate, sweets, and even soda has helped me as well.
4. Eat healthier, more vegetables and fruits, and less junk food.
5. Light exercise at the beginning, but later on you can increase the tempo since exercise is healthy and very beneficial to your overall health.
6. Start talking to your close family and friends about your anxieties. It helps! If you cannot talk to them, finding a person who has similar issues is great. It is a free therapy.
7. In addition to all of this, you need to change your mind set!
You see, I have been dealing with anxieties for the last 4 years, and I have realized that if I start improving my "bad habits" my anxieties can be reduced and eliminated. By taking those few basic steps, my anxieties started to improve. People around me noticed the big difference. In addition to healthier diet, I found another product that changed my way of thinking. My personal belief is that healthier diet helps, but the problem is also in our mind, so as much as we need to improve our body health, we have to work on our mind as well.
In your opinion what do you think causes your anxiety? Stress or distress? Do you believe that natural home remedies for anxiety or panic attacks can cure your problem? Vote now and see what others think!
About the Author
Zokson - Sharing my personal experiences in order to help others...

Understanding Insomnia by Steven N. Muller

Insomnia �" the inability to fall asleep at night or to sleep soundly throughout the night �" can be temporary or persistent and can have many causes. Insomnia that is temporary is frequently classified as transient. If insomnia lasts longer than a few days or even a few weeks, it usually will be classified as permanent.
Women suffer the effects of insomnia more than men do, probably due to the many hormonal changes women experience. In addition, because of other factors such as a sedentary lifestyle or an underlying medical condition or as a side effect of prescription medication, insomnia can increase with age.
Insomnia that is not considered persistent can result from too much stress, from crossing into different time zones, or from environmental factors such as an increase in noise levels or temperature variations of more than a few degrees. Exposure to excessive light or loud and/or persistent noise including nearby traffic and even closer second-hand snoring can create an environment in which sleep is elusive. Insomnia can even be the result of learned behavior.
Medical treatment for intermittent or transient insomnia generally is not prescribed. That's because the condition typically remedies itself once the affected individual takes control of his or her situation and corrects the problem(s) causing the insomnia.
Permanent or chronic insomnia, on the other hand, can be more serious, even debilitating. The degree of severity will have a lot to do with what is found to be the underlying cause. Therefore, the first step that those suffering from chronic insomnia need to take is to meet with a specialist or health care provider. Understanding this disease and how it affects you is the only way to begin narrowing down the reasons behind chronic insomnia.
This type of insomnia could be caused by an abuse of narcotics or even caffeine or by shift work. Or it could be due to any number of physical or mental disorders including depression, anxiety, kidney disease, heart trouble, restless leg syndrome, asthma, Parkinson's disease or a condition called sleep apnea. And there are even more reasons why someone might regularly have trouble getting a good night's sleep.
The process of determining the underlying cause could be long and might require numerous tests and evaluations, but it has to happen. Once the cause is known, it will be easier to identify whether medical treatments are necessary or whether the underlying cause of insomnia can be treated by making one or more behavioral changes. Alleviating insomnia could be as easy as eliminating caffeine several hours before bedtime.
Diagnosing insomnia can be ever trickier than diagnosing an underlying condition because sleep in general is subjective. What is an ample amount for one person isn't necessarily right for someone else. In general, those who have difficulty remaining alert, focused and able to concentrate during the day may be suffering insomnia. Keeping a sleep journal, answering a number of sleep-related questions and evaluating the answers and/or seeing a sleep specialist are some of the tools that can help diagnose insomnia.
If your insomnia is developing into a chronic and debilitating problem, it's time to seek help. A sleep consultant will aid you in understanding this disease. He or she can help to pinpoint the problem, whether mental or physical, and work with you in solving it. Visit www.sleepmanagementconsultants.com for more information on what a sleep consultant can do for you.
About the Author
Steven N. Muller health, fitness and sleep expert and is currently involved with following websites: http://www.loseweightandcleanse.com/ and http://www.sleepmanagementconsultants.com/

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Importance of adequate sleep by Steven N. Muller

The number of hours of sleep we need on a daily basis varies depending on our ages and our current state of health. If we expect the sleep we do get to be beneficial, those hours of sleep must consist of quality sleep. If you are getting the suggested amount of sleep each night but still feel groggy or irritable or you cannot concentrate, there's a good chance you aren't getting enough deep sleep.
Newborn babies need the most, which is why they spend the majority of their days swaddled up in dreamland. Typically, newborns will sleep about 4 hours, then get up for a feeding, then they'll go right back to sleep for another few hours, then wake for a feeding or to get changed or to play. Then it's back to sleep. During a 24-hour period, newborns spend between 14 and 16 hours sleeping.
It's not until an infant gets to be between 3 to 6 months old that he or she can make it through an entire night without waking. Infants still spend a good part of their days asleep, sleeping between 10 �" 14 hours.
Believe it or not, children and teen-agers really should be getting this amount of sleep as well. After taking into consideration a child's or teen's schooling and other activities, a solid 10 hours of sleep is sufficient for most. Interestingly, what has been perceived for years as laziness in teen-agers is turning out to be something more physiological. Studies are showing that more sleep seems to be necessary because of all the growth and hormonal changes taking place in a teen's body.
Adults need the least amount of sleep, and should feel lucky (as well as refreshed) if they can get around 8 or 8 ½ hours of sleep each night. In some cultures, people reduce the number of hours they sleep during the nighttime by an hour or so and make up the difference by taking a midday nap. Either way, the sum still equals around 8 hours for adults.
Older adults need about the same amount of sleep each day as adults, around 8. Women who are pregnant should increase the amount of sleep they get by about 3 hours.
You'll know you are getting enough sleep each day if you wake up feeling refreshed. If you find that you have trouble staying focused, or it takes only a few minutes to fall deep into sleep, or that you 'nod off' during the day, chances are you're not getting enough sleep.
Sleep deprivation can have serious consequences. If you are driving, your reflexes may be slower, your eyes may stay closed longer when you blink and your chances of becoming involved in an accident increase. Consuming alcohol while sleep deprived is not advisable since alcohol compounds these problems. Judgment, impulses, reaction times, hand-eye coordination and attention spans can all become impaired when you are sleep deprived. Serious sleep deprivation can result in hallucinations.
Sleep and how it affects us is a complex subject. Even with the advances made in medicine every day, many aspects of sleep and why we need it are unclear. To learn the most you can about sleep, sleep disorders, and how to get the best rest possible, visit www.sleepmanagementconsultants.com for more information.
About the Author
Science strives to understand as much as possible about sleep's effects and patterns, as well as our need for it. If you're interested in learning more about sleep and how it affects you, visit http://www.sleepmanagementconsultants.com/for more information.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Laugh Your Way to Pain Relief by Steven Hefferon

A man rushed into a veterinarian's office carrying his limp, lifeless dog. The vet examined the animal and told the man the dog was dead. The man asked if there was any way the doctor could revive the dog. The doctor left the room and returned with a cat, who sniffed the dog from head to tail then looked up at the vet and meowed."Sorry," said the doctor. "There's nothing I can do.""Thanks for trying," said the man with a sigh. "How much do I owe you?""Three hundred and fifty dollars," replied the doctor."Three hundred and fifty dollars! Just to tell me my dog is dead?""Well," said the doctor, "it was $50 for the office visit. The other $300 is for the CAT scan."Whether the above joke made you laugh or groan, it lightened your mood. And if you had been in pain, many scientists agree, it would have eased the hurt��"at least temporarily.A fresh take on an old ideaThe notion that laughter is good for the body has been around for thousands of years��"certainly as far back as the Old Testament. Proverbs 17:22 says, "A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones."Seventeenth century English physician Dr. Thomas Sydenham remarked, "The arrival of a good clown exercises more beneficial influence upon the health of a town than of twenty asses laden with drugs." Or as Groucho Marx put it, "A clown is like aspirin, only he works twice as fast."How do you get a sweet 80-year-old lady to say the F word? Get another sweet little 80-year-old lady to yell *BINGO*!The value of laughter in helping to relieve pain began to attract significant attention in the 1980s when Dr. Norman Cousins in his book Anatomy of an Illness described how watching Marx Brother movies and reading humorous books and articles helped him recover from a life-threatening tissue disease.Cousins made it a point to enjoy a hearty belly laugh several times a day. He claimed that a few minutes of laughter gave him an hour or more of pain-free sleep. As a result, many pain centers around the country began to use humor therapy to reduce the level of pain medication needed by patients.There was even a movie made about real-life doctor Patch Adams, a physician who was totally committed to making his patients laugh as an essential part of his treatment.How does laughter reduce pain?Clinical staff consistently note that the primary benefit of humor therapy is that it serves as a diversionary tactic��"that is, it takes a patient's mind off the pain.A study published in the Journal of Holistic Nursing reported that patients who were told one-liners after surgery and before painful medication was administered perceived less pain when compared to patients who didn't get a dose of humor as part of their therapy.Why don't bunnies make noise when they have sex? Because they have cotton balls.Another study, this one published in the Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis, found that young girls with burns who were shown cartoons during very painful hydrotherapy said they felt less pain than similar patients who were not exposed to cartoons during the same procedure.A second theory of how laughter helps relieve pain is that it triggers the release of endorphins, the chemicals in the brain that can make us feel good.Natural healingAround the same time that the Cousins book appeared, the departing editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Franz Ingelfinger, noted that 85 percent of all human illnesses are curable by the body's own healing system. Building a positive focus in your life��"which includes a regular dose of laughter��"can play a key role in supporting the body's ability to do just that.Laughing, in fact, has been shown to increase the body's natural killer cells and T-cells, which are types of cells that attack foreign material in our bodies. Laughter also keeps away negative emotions such as anxiety and depression, which tend to weaken the immune system.Why are they called "hemorrhoids". They should be called "asteroids"?Research on stress-related hormones and humor has shown that laughter reduces at least four of the hormones associated with the stress response, including epinephrine, cortisol, dopac, and growth hormone.Some studies have indicated that laughter improves lung capacity and with improved lung capacity come improved oxygen levels in the blood, thereby alleviating ischemic pain or pain do to lack of oxygen-rich blood. Internal joggingAccording to Dr. William Fry from Stanford University, one minute of laughter is equal to 10 minutes on the rowing machine. Laughter is a kind of "internal jogging" that exercises our heart and reduces blood pressure in the same way as does standard aerobic exercise. This kind of laughter exercise is well suited to sedentary people and those who are confined to a bed or wheelchair.What did One saggy boob say to the other saggy boob? If we drop any lower people are gonna think we are nuts!If you keep the Huh Huh Huh - going for long periods of time and increase the number of times you do it while at the same time shrugging your upper body you will keep the oxygen flowing to the cells that need it and you will be giving what you body need to begin to reduce your pain and speed healing.And here's a final fascinating fact: Researchers at St. Paul Ramsey Medical Center in Minnesota say that tears of laughter remove toxic substances that normally build up during periods of emotional stress…So, whether you prefer Dirty jokes, Redneck jokes or Funny Photos the Internet has provide us with an unlimited number of resources not to mention the ton of emails that you get from your friends that they think are funny and they just have to send to you for some reason thinking that you have the time to read it and that you have nothing else to do. Maybe just read on a week and see how you feel.If you do read a joke or see a funny photo and it does put a smile on your face learn to keep that smile going longer and feel how good you feel when you keep your head up and a smile on your face. Life will always be full of challenges but we should always be driven to seek those thing that give us Joy and Piece, so if a joke can give you 30 seconds of joy, read a joke and keep smiling.
About the Author
If you enjoyed this article, and would like more information in alternative back pain treatments sign up for our Back Pain Advisory and you will join the nearly 1 million people that have received this life changing information. Please visit our new web site at http://losethebackpain.com/ for more free informative articles, videos and open forums.