Bronchial Asthma

Bronchial asthma season is near. Many asthma occur in the cold months of the year. In the Philippines it is from November to January. Asthma can be differentiated from other respiratory diseases with difficulty of breathing through listening to ones breath. Wheezing in asthma is heard during the expiratory phase. Prevention of attack of asthma is by preventing exposure to triggering factors like changes in weather, dust, pollution, scents, and some foods. Different people have different triggering factor. In some people even emotional problems can trigger an attack. There are many forms of treatment for asthma. Medicines for asthma can be in the form of tablets, syrup, inhaled via nebulizer or gas propelled inhalers. Form of treatment can be suited to one's convenience. In many cases asthma will disappaer at a certain age. In other cases it can have daily weekly or monthly attacks. It is important that one identifies his triggering factor in order to prevent the attack. Recurrent attack will lead to emphysema that is over stretching of lung tissue which will lead to more debilitating attack. Exercise is good for asthma during periods when there is no attack. Asthma sufferers has to rotate his medications every week in order to get the full benefit of the medicine since tolerance to the medicine occurs when the same medicine is taken daily for a week.Fruit juice and plenty of fluids has to be taken during the attack. In the elderly asthma has to be differentiated from difficulty of breathing brought about by heart diseases and other systemic illnesses.

Understanding Our Body

Our body has its method of maintaining balance or health. Overworking will make you tired. Our body is signaling we are overworking and we have to take rest or it will suffer from imbalance or disease. Sweating means our body is overheating and since sweating causes loss of water you will feel thirst and we need to take fluids. These are workings of the human body that we need to understand in order to remain healthy. It is important that we understand our body in order to be in balance or healthy. We should study and learn from our body. For instance let’s study hunger. Among the diabetics there is huge amount of food (sugar) in the blood yet there is always hunger. If the diabetic don’t know this he will satisfy the feeling of hunger by eating and this aggravates the condition. The simple feeling of hunger among the non-diabetics means there is little food in his system and food has to be taken. The amount of food needed need not be too much. Overindulgence in food may bring other conditions like diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, and the like. Hunger has to be satisfied by food but just at the right amount enough to replace the energy spent on performing activities that is there is no excess amount that will make you gain weight. There are still other human body manifestations that will alarm us when there is problem in our system. They will be tackled next time.

Arthritits

Cold season is coming and many of the pain of athritis will return. Arthritis is the inflamation of joints. There are many forms of arthritis. It can be osteoarthritis, gouty arthritis, infectious arthritis or rheumatoid arthrtis. Not all joint pain however is from arthritis. There are pain or swelling from the cartilage, tendons, from the muscle near the joint or from the bone itself. Differentiating these will need a physician. The common medicine for arthritis is for the relief of pain and swelling. These medicine have side effects like gut bleeding, allergy, or some renal or heart effects. Medicine intake especially long term intake has to be careful.
Swollen or painful joints need rest but they have to be bent occasionaly in order to prevent frozen joint. External heat can help as well as massage arround the swollen joint. Massage has to be gentle. It will help improve circulation thus removing offending chemicals as well as bringing fresh blood into the area. Internal heat can be also generated by wraping the swollen joint with several layers of towel. It has to be loose to enable good blood circulation into the site. This has helped me and my patients relieve the pain. Another modality of treatment is acupuncture. I have been doing it and it works most especially in removing pain.

Keeping Healthy

Everybody want healthy body and mind. It will all start with our mind. It has full control of our body. Stress will greatly affect our body. It comes form the mind. We should balance our physical and mental activities. If we are engrossed with a mental activity stand up and stretch or walk every half our. This will give a little relief with our mental activity but be sure you should have something to remind you where you stop temporarily. This is also true with our physical activities. There should short rests in between. To much physical activity is a stress in our physical body. Exercise for fitness is not to strain your body too much. Half an hour every other day is enough. Endurance training is for athletes and not for ordinary people like you and me.

Dengue Prevention

The cases of dengue in the Philippines is nearly double. The government, national and local cannot do anything effective to control dengue. We are just waiting for its natural decline. Hopefully the weather cooperates. We are now at experiencing less rain but there are intermittent downpours. These will aggravate the problem since the vector mosquito will survive longer. The temperature at present is very conducive to the longevity of the mosquito.

The most effective way to prevent dengue is eliminate mosquito inside houses and other human habitations like schools and offices. Every household has to be conscious to the presence of mosquitoes. Dengue carrying mosquitoes prefers to stay inside the house/buildings preferably in dark humid corners. They have to go out of their resting places when they are searching for blood meal and water containers in time they are going to lay eggs. Attacking mosquitoes in their resting places inside the house/building needs a simple handy commercial insecticide spray plus removal of water holding containers. It is that simple. Anytime you notice a mosquito in a corner of your house get that spray and aim it at the mosquitoes. For a long lasting easy mosquito control screening of house is the most appropriate. In this way you prevent entry of mosquito as well as other insect like flies thus preventing other diseases as well.