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Oak Hill BLOG Exams, deadlines and colds Here's something from Robert Sapolsky's very readable book on stress and stress-related disorders, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.
To quote:
Everybody knows that being stressed increases your chances of getting a cold. Just think back to being run down, frazzled, and sleep-deprived during final exams, and, sure enough, there's that cough and runny nose. Examine the records at university health services and you'll see the same thing--students succumbing to colds left and right around exam period. Many of us continue to see the same pattern decades later--burn the candle at both ends for a few days and, suddenly, there's that scratchy throat.
End of quote.
Now life is such that sometimes we have to go into overdrive and that's okay as long as we do it consciously. When I have to push, I work to balance it somewhat by eating simple but nutritious food , taking occasional short naps (10 to 20 min) and taking some herbal tinctures for support..
Then as soon as the push is over, I schedule some downtime to rest more and eat well.
In addition, if I notice some early signs of a cold, I increase my herbal support and tailor it to the signs and symptoms. So for example, if I feel more sensitive to cool or cold temperatures, am dull and have upper body and neck aches I combine the Chinese formulas of Ren Shen Bai Du with Gan Mao Ling and add another tincture made of echinacea augustifolia and purpurea.
On the other hand, if my throat is sore and I feel like a fever is coming, I use Yin Qiao Modified and Gan Mao Ling with the two echinaceas.
The secret is to notice the earliest possible signs and take the remedies then.
We have these herbal formulas among our more that 300 other formulas at the clinic. | Tame a Child’s Cough With a Touch of Honey According to an article in the New York Times health section, honey is a more effective remedy for coughs than dextromethorphan the most common over-the-counter cough medicine.
This is certainly an easy remedy to try out on your or your child's cough.
Honey, the authors wrote in the December issue of The Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, has well-established antioxidant and antimicrobial effects. In addition, it helps dissolve mucus and soothe the throat.
Here at the clinic, we frequently recommend eating pear, loquat, or lemon with honey to help reduce the frequency and severity of coughs.
For dry cough, pear juice is prescribed.
A more complex recipe is to take a chunk of white daikon radish about fist size and slice it thin, Then you can add honey to the slices , wait 30 to 60 minutes and then drink the fluids.
Of course, here at the clinic we have a range of formulas to help a wide range of coughs.
Here is a link to the NYT article which has a link to the original study in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine:
Vital Signs: Nostrums: Tame a Child's Cough With a Touch of Honey
| Sleep during the late autumn and winter Patients have been commenting recently that they have been tireder and sleepier since the time change and since the weather has turned colder.
While we humans are not hibernators, we are affected by amount of sunshine and the temperature. The world was a very different place before the widespread use of electric lights.
At one time, long ago, I spent some time in a small rural Moroccan village which had no electricity. I was amazed at the difference. It was no problem going to sleep soon after the sunset and no problem waking with sunrise.
The availability of reliable lights for the nights is a very recent development and even in central Texas there were areas that did not have electricity until the 1940's and 50's.
While artificial lighting can help us extend our day, it is no substitute for sunshine and can lead to health problems. If we allow the stimulation of electric lights to keep us up late into the night, our biological rhythms can become disordered and cause insomnias and menstrual cycle irregularities.
We are biologically beings and our bodies automatically respond to light and temperature variations.
I do not have the research to prove it but I suspect that even SAD- "seasonal affective disorder" is strongly related to our biological need for more sleep when exposed to less light.
My response is to view my extra fatigue and sleepiness as a part of the natural cycle. I encourage my patients to allow themselves to sleep more so they will be ready to fully respond to the more active energies of the spring and summer seasons. | How to avoid diarrhea after antibiotic use Probiotic Drink Helps Reduce Antibiotic-Associated Diarrhea
Consuming a probiotic drink containing Lactobacillus may help older hospitalized patients avoid antibiotic-associated diarrhea, according to a study published online in the British Medical Journal.
In the manufacturer-supported study, 135 hospitalized patients older than 50 who were prescribed antibiotics were randomized to consume a probiotic yogurt drink or a placebo milkshake. The drinks were consumed twice a day concurrent with antibiotic treatment and for a week afterward.
Significantly fewer intervention patients than controls developed antibiotic-associated diarrhea (12% vs. 34%). The number needed to treat (NNT) to prevent one case of antibiotic-associated diarrhea was 5. The NNT to prevent one case of C. difficile-associated diarrhea was 6.
The authors estimate that it would cost $120 to prevent one case of C. difficile-associated diarrhea, whereas it costs an average of $3700 to treat a case in the U.S. They conclude that the drink "has the potential to decrease morbidity, healthcare costs, and mortality if used routinely in patients aged over 50."
BMJ article (Free)
Do you think that this might also help people under 50 years of age? I suggest you do your own research after you or one of your family members take a course of antibiotics.
Yogurt with live culture is pretty cheap medicine and tastes good also.
 | Cortisone shot relief shortlived Here is an article from the L.A. Times via the newspaper the Hartford Courant that illustrates
the point that quicker is not always better.
Here is a link to the article in the Courant:
http://www.courant.com/news/health/hc-healthquickcheckup1017.artoct17,
0,2495285.story?coll=hc-headlines-health
Shots Give Only Limited Pain Relief
October 17 2006
Tennis elbow sufferers eager to retake the court, return to the computer or get back to
hammering nails have long looked to cortisone injections to bring relief. Australian
researchers have found the relief to be real, but short-lived.
That blow to die-hard serve-and-volleyers comes from a study published in the Sept. 27
edition of the British Medical Journal that compared three groups of tennis-elbow sufferers
six weeks and a year after an office visit. One group received reassurances that the pain
would likely ease on its own and instructions for avoiding activities that could aggravate the
condition. A second group received eight sessions of physical therapy in six weeks and
learned exercises to do at home. A third group was given a cortisone shot and was told to
resume normal activities gradually.
The group who received the shot got quick relief. After six weeks, 78 percent of those in the
injection group reported some relief of their pain, followed by the physical therapy group, among
whom 65 percent felt better. In the "wait-and-see" group, 27 percent felt better at six weeks.
But a year later, 72 percent of those who received the steroid shot reported a return of pain -
a consequence, researchers surmise, of injury brought on by a premature return to work or
play. Among the wait-and-see group and those who received physical therapy, all subjects
reported either recovery or much improvement.
- Los Angeles Times
| Honey Remedy Could Save Limbs This is an interesting article I found at www.wired.com
Honey Remedy Could Save Limbs
By Brandon Keim|
01:00 AM Oct, 11, 2006
When Jennifer Eddy first saw an ulcer on the left foot of her patient, an elderly diabetic man, it was pink and quarter-sized. Fourteen months later, drug-resistant bacteria had made it an unrecognizable black mess.
Doctors tried everything they knew -- and failed. After five hospitalizations, four surgeries and regimens of antibiotics, the man had lost two toes. Doctors wanted to remove his entire foot.
"He preferred death to amputation, and everybody agreed he was going to die if he didn't get an amputation," said Eddy, a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
With standard techniques exhausted, Eddy turned to a treatment used by ancient Sumerian physicians, touted in the Talmud and praised by Hippocrates: honey. Eddy dressed the wounds in honey-soaked gauze. In just two weeks, her patient's ulcers started to heal. Pink flesh replaced black. A year later, he could walk again.
"I've used honey in a dozen cases since then," said Eddy. "I've yet to have one that didn't improve."
Eddy is one of many doctors to recently rediscover honey as medicine. Abandoned with the advent of antibiotics in the 1940s and subsequently disregarded as folk quackery, a growing set of clinical literature and dozens of glowing anecdotes now recommend it.
Most tantalizingly, honey seems capable of combating the growing scourge of drug-resistant wound infections, especially methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, the infamous flesh-eating strain. These have become alarmingly more common in recent years, with MRSA alone responsible for half of all skin infections treated in U.S. emergency rooms. So-called superbugs cause thousands of deaths and disfigurements every year, and public health officials are alarmed.
Though the practice is uncommon in the United States, honey is successfully used elsewhere on wounds and burns that are unresponsive to other treatments. Some of the most promising results come from Germany's Bonn University Children's Hospital, where doctors have used honey to treat wounds in 50 children whose normal healing processes were weakened by chemotherapy.
The children, said pediatric oncologist Arne Simon, fared consistently better than those with the usual applications of iodine, antibiotics and silver-coated dressings. The only adverse effects were pain in 2 percent of the children and one incidence of eczema. These risks, he said, compare favorably to iodine's possible thyroid effects and the unknowns of silver -- and honey is also cheaper.
"We're dealing with chronic wounds, and every intervention which heals a chronic wound is cost effective, because most of those patients have medical histories of months or years," he said.
While Eddy bought honey at a supermarket, Simon used Medihoney, one of several varieties made from species of Leptospermum flowers found in New Zealand and Australia.
Honey, formed when bees swallow, digest and regurgitate nectar, contains approximately 600 compounds, depending on the type of flower and bee. Leptospermum honeys are renowned for their efficacy and dominate the commercial market, though scientists aren't totally sure why they work.
"All honey is antibacterial, because the bees add an enzyme that makes hydrogen peroxide," said Peter Molan, director of the Honey Research Unit at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. "But we still haven't managed to identify the active components. All we know is (the honey) works on an extremely broad spectrum."
Attempts in the lab to induce a bacterial resistance to honey have failed, Molan and Simon said. Honey's complex attack, they said, might make adaptation impossible.
Two dozen German hospitals are experimenting with medical honeys, which are also used in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. In the United States, however, honey as an antibiotic is nearly unknown. American doctors remain skeptical because studies on honey come from abroad and some are imperfectly designed, Molan said.
In a review published this year, Molan collected positive results from more than 20 studies involving 2,000 people. Supported by extensive animal research, he said, the evidence should sway the medical community -- especially when faced by drug-resistant bacteria.
"In some, antibiotics won't work at all," he said. "People are dying from these infections."
Commercial medical honeys are available online in the United States, and one company has applied for Food and Drug Administration approval. In the meantime, more complete clinical research is imminent. The German hospitals are documenting their cases in a database built by Simon's team in Bonn, while Eddy is conducting the first double-blind study.
"The more we keep giving antibiotics, the more we breed these superbugs. Wounds end up being repositories for them," Eddy said. "By eradicating them, honey could do a great job for society and to improve public health."
Wired News
Wired.com © 2006 CondéNet Inc. All rights reserved.
| Change in the seasons and health Well, we have arrived at a tricky time of year healthwise; the transition from summer to fall.
Just when we started worrying that summer here would last forever, suddenly there is a coolness in the mornings and the sun seems to noticeably be setting earlier and earlier.
In China and Japan, these times in between seasons have a specific name and meaning. It is a time to pay special attention to our lifestyle and to start preparing for the new season.
As you probably know, one of the central concepts in Oriental Medicine is "balance within change." It is time to start changing.
During the heat of summer when almost everyday is the same weather, we settle into dressing a certain way, eating more cooling and raw foods, etc. We have put up with the heat for so long that we tend to still behave as if it were still summer.
When the weather starts changing, we are a little slow in adjusting. It takes us time to start carrying around a bit more protective clothing and eating a bit more cooked foods and less cold drinks and raw foods. Because of this tendency we are more susceptible to chills and allergies.
This is the time to pay more attention to strengthening our immune systems and preparing ourselves for cooler and then colder weather.
Officially autumn starts this week and that is particularly significant for those susceptible to lung and allergy problems. Here at the clinic, we are stocking herbs and herbal formulas to work with colds, allergies and the immune system. Also, we have our moxa and heat compresses ready to help those who wear those skimpy summer fashions right into the fall weather.
I recommend that you throw a light jacket and a sweater in your car just in case the weather suddenly becomes a bit cooler that you realized when you left the house.
| Easy solutions- ginger and stomach upset It is nice to know that extremely powerful medicines are available just in case of they are needed. However, most discomforts if handled in the early stages can be treated with very simple kitchen medicines.
For example, for many cases of stomach upset and pain, a ginger tea is very effective for helping with nausea and vomiting. It is cheap, simple and readily available. If it doesn't work for a particular upset stomach, then you can always turn to the more powerful (and more dangerous solutions.) If you use fresh ginger just grate a piece about 1/4 to 1/2 inch and steep in hot water, strain and drink. Or you can try nibbling on a small piece of sugared ginger.
There is a old adage, "Don't go hunting mice with an elephant gun." Much medical treatment(i.e. drug treatment) uses "elephant guns to hunt mice."
In a hot climate like ours, people tend to try to cool themselves off on a hot day with a cold beer or soda so ironically there are quite a few abdominal problems causes by cold. A ginger tea can usually help by warming and calming the stomach and abdomen.
If ginger tea does not take care of the upset, there are many traditional herbal formulas available at our clinic. | | |
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