COATED TONGUE
The commonest cause for a uniformly coated tongue in a child is simply drinking milk. Children may have a coated tongue at any time, but it is more common when they are ill and have a fever. Encourage your child to drink plenty of clear fluids.
EAR DISCHARGE
If your child has a discharge of pus or blood from the ear you should see your doctor immediately, as this can be a sign of inflammation or infection in either the external or middle ear. If blood is present it may indicate that some kind of trauma to the ear has occurred. Do not put any cotton wool in the ear, and do not try to clean away the discharge with a cotton bud.
‘BAT’ EARS (PROTRUDING EARS)
Some children are born with ears that stick out noticeably. If your child feels self-conscious about this, or is teased at school, straightforward surgery can improve the appearance of the ears. A small piece of cartilage is removed from behind the ears under a general anaesthetic, and this allows the ear to sit flat against the side of the head.
*234\90\8*
Mouth
Most children are born without any teeth. If your child does have a tooth at birth, check with your dentist to make sure it is a normal tooth with a root structure and not just an extra tooth which can dislodge and be breathed in accidentally.
The tongue in newborn babies has a very short band connecting it to the floor of the mouth. This usually stretches over time, and is not a cause for concern.
The ears of a newborn baby often look a little squashed. The cartilage hardens after about a month and the ears begin to take on their normal shape.
Chest
Newborn babies sometimes have enlarged breasts at birth due to the influence of the mother’s hormones inside the womb. This can occur in both male and female babies, and may last for several month. Occasionally a few drops or milk will tie secreted. If one breast becomes reddened or tender, check with your doctor in case it is a sign of infection.
*67\90\8*
You have to actually feel good to really feel anything.
HUSBAND
Not a problem in the world. Both spouses young and in perfect mental and physical health. Never a physical symptom of illness, always feeling energetic, well nourished, and well exercised. Two people glowing with health; hale, hardy, and feeling good every moment of every day. If this describes the two of you within your marriage, you are unique, for most of us have transitional minor health problems throughout our lives. Many of us have major health problems with which we must cope. This chapter is a home health guide for maintaining intimacy at times of illness, for people who fall into any one of the following four categories.
Feeling good and having no health problems now. All people get sick sometimes. There would be no wellness without illness, for illness is as natural a part of living as health. Sickness comes with being human and can directly affect your sexuality. Sexual intimacy can also help in your recovery from illness. Understanding the impact of illness on sex and sex on illness before we are ill can be effective preventive medicine, so even if you have no noticeable health problems now, the material to follow can be of help to you and perhaps to someone you know if óoö share this knowledge.
*258\97\8*
Now, let us go back to the list of alternative medical treatments, given earlier in this book. When we read the list for the first time, the various healing methods appeared to have nothing in common.
In the process of reading this book we found that the key to perfect health is detoxification of the body and purification of the mind.
They form the missing link, that unifies all successful healing methods, possibly including also those which have not yet been discovered.
*48\96\8*
Recently, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported an experiment where a panel of three iridologists and three eye doctors were shown a series of colored photographs of the irises of healthy people and those suffering from kidney disease.
When the results were analysed, JAMA reported “. . .no value in iridology as a screening technique for detecting or diagnosing kidney disease.”
Orthodox, that is scientific medicine, will need to look closely to discover the reasons why many people have abandoned or distrust medicine and its practitioners.
We live in a scientific world and more people are trained in science, at least to the secondary school level.
The scientific method means that no proposition can be accepted unless it is capable of proof.
Yet we are aware of the “placebo” effect, where any treatment can achieve an improvement in symptoms in a significant number of cases.
Medicine remains an art as well as a science and its best practitioners are expert in both.
At the moment, alternative medicine is all art with little science. But if it works for you and does no harm, then who can complain?
We who practise orthodox medicine are just as willing to accept the benefits of the “placebo” effect of our treatment.
*463/71/1*
Where there is some doubt, the surgeon may make an incision in the mid line so that if another condition is found it can be easily dealt with through such an opening.
If the appendix is acutely inflamed, the surgeon will remove it and disturb the rest of the abdomen as little as possible.
In this way, he is least likely to spread infection or cause adhesions. If the appendix does not appear inflamed, he will still remove it, to save a further operation should it later become inflamed, and then will inspect the rest of the abdominal organs to find the cause of the patient’s symptoms.
If the condition is acute appendicitis, the laxative may stimulate strong contractions of the bowel and lead to early perforation of the appendix.
This common condition of an acutely inflamed appendix may be the easiest or the hardest diagnosis to make and appendicectomy may be the easiest or the hardest of operations to perform.
*208/71/1*
About 1-2 percent of the population exhibits a failure of pigmentation in patches of the skin which, as a consequence, appear unnaturally white. While in a few cases, the lack of pigmentation is generalized, the white patches are usually only a few inches across and occur on the parts of the body that are most exposed. The face (especially around the mouth and eyes), neck, chest, armpits, elbows, and knees are most affected.
Treatment, which, the American Family Physician (33#5:137) reports, is often unsatisfactory, includes repeated exposure to ultraviolet light after the patient has been given psoralen, a drug that sensitizes skin and makes it more reactive to sunlight. Before this, however, the eyes must be examined by an expert since the retina may also be involved in this pigment disturbance and could be injured by the psoralen-light reaction. Some parts of the skin may pigment more deeply and permanently than others in response to treatment. Skin that does not darken can be hidden with cosmetics or, alternatively, the surrounding skin can be lightened with
Eldoquin or Artra creams to blur the edges of the patches and make them less noticeable.
It is essential that anyone with patches of de-pigmented skin be seen by a dermatologist, since there are other conditions, including some types of poisoning and serious infection, that resemble vitiligo but that urgently need very different treatment. Moreover, anyone with vitiligo should undergo very careful medical examination, because in some cases there is an associated major illness, such as an autoimmunity (in which the tissues attack themselves), diabetes, thyroid disease pernicious anemia, myasthenia gravis, or melanoma. The relationship with melanoma is intriguing since a melanoma is a cancer of pigment-producing skin cells. However, having vitiligo does not mean that one is likely to develop a melanoma; the reverse is true and about 20 percent of melanoma patients also have vitiligo. Furthermore, the occurrence of vitiligo in someone who has had a melanoma removed sometimes heralds the development of recurrent melanoma tumors elsewhere in the body (i.e: in the liver).
*193\143\2*
Symptoms
Oral herpes: multiple painful ulcers of mouth membranes or eyeballs, painful, red, swollen gums, swollen lymph nodes in neck, fever, fever blisters near the lips.
Genital herpes: painful ulcers and blisters on genitals.
Home care
For oral herpes give aspirin or paracetamol to relieve pain, and have the child eat bland foods.
An older child can rinse the mouth with a mild salt solution or be treated with triamcinolone or local anesthetic ointments.
Apply antibiotic ointment to fever blisters to prevent cracking and lessen the possibility of further infection.
For genital herpes, warm soaks help relieve inflammation and pain.
- In the case of herpes of the eyeball, consult an eye doctor promptly.
- If a baby contracts herpes, get prompt medical attention.
- Keep adults or children with herpes isolated from babies.
- A pregnant woman with genital herpes can infect her child as the infant passes through the birth canal during delivery.
Herpes simplex is a highly contagious disease caused by herpesvirus hominis types 1 and 2. It is commonly known as canker sores (when it occurs in the mouth) or fever blisters (when it appears near the mouth). The infection is transmitted by direct contact with an infected person.
The type 1 infection (oral herpes) is common before the age of four but can occur at any age. Once contracted, the virus continues to live in the body for months or years, sometimes for the person’s lifetime. When the person’s resistance is lowered, (for instance by fever, sunburn, exhaustion, or emotional stress), the “sleeping” virus is reactivated.
Infection with the type 2 virus is genital herpes and, like oral herpes, it is contagious and often recurrent. It is usually transmitted sexually when the lesions (blisters) are present. A baby born to a mother with genital herpes can contract the disease while passing through the birth canal during delivery. In this case there is a 50 percent chance that the infant will be severely damaged or die.
*110/84/5*