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.

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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.

Ears

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.

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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.

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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.

Looking at the list of alternative medical treatments once again, it is quite easy to notice, that the various methods of detoxification of the body and/or purification of the mind (our thoughts) are actually essential elements of them all.

They form the missing link, that unifies all successful healing methods, possibly including also those which have not yet been discovered.

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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.

Those who practise and advocate what used to be called “fringe” medicine and now, more properly, is termed alternative medicine, rely on anecdotal evidence and personal recommendation to justify their claims.

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.

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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.

Few parents still believe that a dose of castor oil will fix most childhood illnesses, so it is not so necessary to advise them that laxatives should never be given in cases of undiagnosed abdominal pain.

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.

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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).

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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.

Precautions

-    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.

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Wrong. No one, not even a golfer, is immune to lightning. Lightning kills about 100 people a year, and injures hundreds more, says Michael Cherington, M.D., clinical professor of neurology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and founder of the Lightning Data Center at Centura Health, both in Denver. Men are four times as likely to get jolted as women, perhaps, in part, because they don’t come in out of the rain. He recommends several ways to lower your risk.

Pick up the signals. Darkening skies, sudden drops in temperature and increasing wind are all pretty good signs that a storm is coming and you ought to head for cover.

Use your ears. If you can hear thunder, you’re close enough to get zapped. You can measure how far away the storm is by counting seconds between the flash of lightning and the thunder-every five seconds equals roughly one mile-but just seek safe shelter immediately.

Follow an 11:00 a.m. curfew. If you’re hiking high altitudes like the Rocky Mountains, get down below timber-line by 11:00 A.M., Dr. Cherington says. “Most strikes occur after this time during the day.”

Seek safe shelter. The safest place during a storm is inside a safe shelter. When indoors, stay off the phone, out of the shower or bathtub, and away from appliances.

Stay away from single trees. If you’re on a golf course or any other open area, do not seek refuge under an isolated tree. The inside of a closed car or van is a relatively safe place to be. If a vehicle or safe shelter is not nearby, run into a forest rather than under a single tree. If you’re outside and you feel your hair starting to stand on end, a lightning strike is imminent. “Get into a catcher’s position, crouching on the balls of your feet, lower your head, and cover your ears,” says Dr. Cherington. “This is a very bad situation that’s best avoided.”

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Let me tell you about another patient, a man with diabetes, which required daily insulin injections. This wealthy businessman loved to eat large, thick steaks, sweet-and-sour Chinese food and deli-sandwiches. He ate his way through the fanciest restaurants in Los Angeles and, for that matter, all over the U.S., as he traveled about the country. He came to see me regularly, listening attentively as I explained how and why he should start protecting his “doctor within.” Like the sports figure, however, he didn’t make the commitment to his health. Then a diabetes-related gangrene attacked his foot, and part of it had to be amputated. Now he was ready to make the changes. Unlike a salamander, he couldn’t grow back the part of his foot he had lost. But by adopting all the health-enhancement techniques I’ve described in this book, and others that I designed specifically for him, he brought his diabetes under control. He is doing well, feels well and is looking forward to many productive and healthy years.

I can’t slap your hand every time you reach for unhealthy food; I can’t force you to follow the Immune For Life program. But I can tell you that there is no more precious thing on earth than your good health. Nature has endowed you with the best doctor you can have: your “doctor within.” As a physician, my advice is to take care of it. You’ll be rewarded with long life, vibrant health and happiness.

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