Herbal Health – information on herbal medicine

Meditation is an integral part of Eastern religions and forms the basis of some Christian traditions. This gives rise to the many myths surrounding meditation. As a consequence some people are unsure of meditation and are concerned about practising it. Therefore it is important for these issues to be discussed. If we have doubts about meditation because of our religious background, we need to speak to our minister or priest and be guided by our own feelings of what is right for us.

Meditation is like so many of the other Eastern techniques and disciplines we have adopted, such as various martial arts, tai chi and yoga. In India the word ‘yoga’ is a generic name for a multitude of meditation disciplines. The word ‘yoga’ was originally defined as ‘the way to go’, but more recently it has been defined simply as ‘union’.

We associate yoga with the practice of gentle physical and breathing exercises. This form of yoga is derived from a very strict meditation discipline called ‘hatha yoga’. The West has adapted hatha yoga to its needs by stripping it of all its religious and ascetic practices. This form of yoga is now an accepted part of our Western lifestyle.

Other forms of meditation from the Eastern traditions have also been adapted. The comprehensive and intricate visualisations of various deities have been replaced with images of beaches or forests, the devotional ‘gazing’ has been replaced with flowers or candles, and the sacred mantras have been replaced with everyday words.

There is nothing mysterious in these techniques. The strict adherence and disciplines required for their religious and philosophical aspects have been stripped away, leaving their bare essence, techniques for relaxation. Learning to meditate does not mean we have to change our religion, our lifestyle or our diet. The only thing which will change will be our response to stress and anxiety.

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Many people were, and still are, being given a graded exposure program as treatment for their agoraphobia. Along with medication this may be the only other form of treatment people have received. Graded exposure does not cover the many strategies used in CBT and is simply exposure to situations and/ or places we avoid.

The question many people with panic disorder/agoraphobia ask is, ‘exposure to what’? Many graded exposure programs treat the avoidance behaviour in panic disorder as though it was the situation or place which triggered the attack. Much to their confusion, people who have panic disorders without any form of avoidance behaviour have been, or are given, a graded exposure program.

The rationale behind graded exposure programs is that when people put themselves into avoided situations/or places and stay in that situation or place, then the anxiety and/or panic attack will peak and slowly ebb away. In other words the person will habituate to the anxiety and panic attack in that situation or place. As many people say, even though the panic attack does subside, if they are not directly frightened of the situation/or place why would the anxiety ‘ebb away’ when it has never done so before.

Trying to correct avoidance behaviour without working on the cause means limited success, which can be destroyed by the next panic attack.

Most of these programs insist people stay in the situation or place until the anxiety and panic attack subsides and this is also one of the main complaints from people with panic disorder. It seems illogical to stay in a city mall (or any other place) for hours on end in an effort to reduce anxiety. Many are chronically anxious day-in, day-out, and are also experiencing ongoing panic attacks. As people say, if they were going to habituate to the anxiety and the panic attacks they would have already done so, irrespective of where they were.

To compound the issue and the confusion, many panic disorder clients are asked to list their secondary fears and a graded exposure program is built around them. In some cases the list of fears included specific fears which pre-dated the attacks and have no bearing on the disorder, yet they are incorporated or become the main feature of the exposure program. This little known but crucial fact has also been noted by researchers. One such study showed, ‘half the simple (specific) phobias in panic disorder had childhood onset and half had onset associated with the onset of panic disorder’ (Argyle et al. 1990).

The new categories of panic attacks demonstrate quite clearly the spontaneous panic attack is triggered by internal cues not external ones. In panic disorder, treatment needs to be aimed at these internal cues.

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The third category of avoidance behaviour is not known or realised by almost anyone who does not have the disorder. It is the avoidance of situations and/or places because of feeling generally unwell most of the time.

As well as suffering the symptoms of anxiety and panic attacks, our level of overall fitness deteriorates rapidly. We begin to experience a general sense of feeling unwell. Some people compare this to ongoing ‘flu-like’ symptoms. We are also continually exhausted, as the anxiety and panic attacks consume all our energy. Going out, going to work or doing the normal day-to-day things around the house mean not only trying to keep the anxiety and panic attacks at bay, but also trying to overcome the feeling of being unwell and the all-consuming fatigue.

Alcohol

The use of alcohol is another control and some people will go on to develop an alcohol dependence. Both men and women use it, although it appears to be the major control used by men.

Many people with the disorders feel it is more socially acceptable to have an alcohol problem than to admit to having an anxiety disorder. The symptoms of a hangover can also perpetuate the anxiety. We misinterpret these symptoms as a warning” of an impending panic attack, so we have another drink in an effort to control it.

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Part of the overall problem in understanding the severity of the disorders lies in the word ‘anxiety’. Everyone has been anxious at one time or another, and it is through our own experience of anxiety that we judge those who experience anxiety disorders.

Our own anxiety may not have affected us to any great extent. If it did we were able to do something about it, or it passed of its own accord and was no longer a problem. We have extreme difficulty in accepting that a person with an anxiety disorder experiences anything different from our own anxiety. So it is quite natural for us to say or think ‘pull yourself together’, or to ignore that there really is a problem.

There is a marked difference between the ‘normal’ experience of anxiety and that of an anxiety disorder. People cannot ‘pull themselves together’, because they do not know what is wrong with them. They do not recognise the symptoms as anxiety. If it was purely the experience of anxiety, people would recognise it and they would be able to address the problem. It is this difference which is highlighted by the fact that even now, some health professionals are still unable to recognise, let alone, diagnose or treat these disorders.

The symptoms of anxiety can be quite varied, with any number of symptoms being experienced at the same time. The most common ones are a rapid or pounding heartbeat,

‘missed’ heartbeats, chest pain, an inability to take a deep breath, a feeling that breathing will stop altogether, choking sensation, dizziness, giddiness, feeling faint, nausea, pins and needles, diarrhoea, trembling hands and/or legs, dry mouth, sweating, fatigue, loss of concentration, loss of libido. Dissociative symptoms can include depersonalisation, derealisation, visual disturbances such as intolerance to light, stationary objects appearing to move, tunnel vision and/or audio disturbances, where everyday noise seems louder than normal.

For many people with an anxiety disorder the symptoms are their constant companion. Not just for a few minutes or hours at a time, but ongoing sometimes for months or years. To confuse the issue further, people can experience different symptoms and sensations in their anxiety and panic attacks (Arthur-Jjnes 1994).

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One intriguing aspect of illness is that it can often be ‘cured’ – at least temporarily – by any form of medical attention. A medical investigation or injection can work wonders, and a course of tablets is almost as good. This phenomenon is known as the placebo effect placebo being a Latin word that means ‘I shall be pleasing’.

Research shows that over a third of people in pain get relief from inert

tablets that they believe to be painkillers. Headaches, migraine, insomnia, epilepsy and rheumatoid arthritis are among the conditions that are susceptible to placebos.

In some cases, the symptoms may have been psychosomatic in origin, which would account for the good effect of the placebo. It may be that the patient feels gratified by someone taking his or her illness seriously, or it may simply be the power of suggestion – because they feel they are being offered a cure, they actually begin to get better. In other cases, there may be a mixture of organic illness and psychosomatic illness behind the symptoms – the two can coexist, one feeding on the other. Again, the placebo could be powerful because it meets some psychological need for attention and treatment.

With diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, it is less obvious how the placebo effect works. However, the immune system plays an important role in rheumatoid arthritis, and this may provide a clue. A new form of treatment, or a new and more enthusiastic doctor, may act as a morale-booster which has a beneficial effect on the immune system – the sort of effect that the psychoneuroimmunologists are currently studying. Placebo effects are also seen in allergy, perhaps for the same reason.

A characteristic feature of the placebo effect is that it does not last all that long: it is usually only a matter of weeks, and two to six months is about the most that can be expected. If a patient responds to a new treatment and is still well after a year, it is unlikely to be a placebo effect.

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Anytime a patient notices a suspicious mass in his testicle, I suggest that he visit a urologist, who will do a sonogram of the mass to determine the exact site and whether the mass is hard or filled with fluid. If the urologist has any doubt, he will perform a biopsy. If the testicle is not cancerous—which is usually the case—it will be left in place.

If you have a cyst on the epididymis, your doctor will probably choose to leave it alone. If it continues to grow, however, it will eventually cause pain. At that point, your doctor will probably want to remove it surgically.

If the lump turns out to be cancerous, your doctor will need to treat it immediately by removing the entire testicle. This procedure is called an orchiectomy and is performed if the cancer has not spread beyond the testicle. Again, since only one testicle is usually affected, the other testicle will be left in place, meaning that your fertility will not be impaired. If your doctor feels that the cancer has spread, however, he will recommend that you also be treated with radiation or chemotherapy; this will result in sterility.

One of my patients is a 37-year-old man whom I diagnosed 10 years ago with testicular cancer; he was unmarried at the time. Before he was treated with surgery and radiation, he decided to have his sperm frozen so he would be able to father a child in the future, since the treatments would render him sterile. He also had a small testicular prosthesis placed into his testicular sac for cosmetic reasons.

Today, he’s been cancer free since the surgery; he needs only an annual blood test and physical exam. He hasn’t yet married, but his semen is intact if he needs it to become a father.

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Changing your diet or your medication will often correct chronic diarrhea.

If you think you have lactose intolerance, try eating some ice cream or drinking a large glass of milk. If you begin to have diarrhea an hour or two later, and you also feel pain and bloating in your abdomen, you probably have a lactose intolerance. You should then eliminate dairy products from your diet as much as you can. This, however, can be a problem, since you still need to get some calcium in your diet, especially if you are a woman. Fortunately, you can take calcium supplements, 1000 milligrams a day for premenopausal women and 1500 milligrams for postmenopausal women daily. You can also buy a lactose-free milk such as Lactaid in the supermarket or add Lactaid drops to your milk or take pills whenever you eat or drink foods that contain lactose.

If you have a gluten intolerance, your doctor will take an X ray of your small intestine to show the typical pattern of gluten malabsorption. An endoscope may also be used to take a biopsy to confirm the diagnosis. One of my patients came to me a few years back complaining of chronic weight loss, and we gave him every test in the book and came up empty-handed. Then I ordered an X ray of his small intestine, which immediately showed all the signs of gluten malabsorption. With the help of a dietitian, we changed his diet to avoid all gluten, and he recovered quickly.

If you have an intolerance to gluten, a gluten-free diet is easy to achieve, even though gluten is found in almost all bread products and cereals. You can eat rice cakes and buy gluten-free products at the health food store.

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Description and Possible Medical Problems

If you suddenly become short of breath and simultaneously begin to cough up a pinkish sputum, you need to call 911 for immediate medical attention. You may also be sweating, pale, and wheezing.

These are all signs of acute pulmonary edema, in which the lungs begin to fill with water. Acute pulmonary edema can be caused by a dietary change, a sudden change in or cessation of a medication, a reaction from mixing two or more kinds of medication, or a heart attack or change in heart rhythm. If you have phlebitis, acute pulmonary edema can also be the result of a clot that travels from the veins of the legs into the lung, a condition known as pulmonary embolus.

Treatment

Acute pulmonary edema is a life-and-death situation, and immediate medical attention is necessary. While waiting for medical help, the most important thing to do is to keep a sitting position. If you have any diuretics or water pills at home, there is no harm in taking two of these pills immediately.

Regardless of the cause of acute pulmonary edema, once professional help is on the scene, the treatment for acute pulmonary edema includes the injection of a diuretic, such as Lasix, which will remove excess fluid from your body, meaning the heart has to work less, and nitrates, which reduce the amount of effort the heart has to make. In severe cases, it will be necessary to put you on ventilator support.

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Description and Possible Medical Problems

Like gray hair, wrinkles are a normal part of aging. However, wrinkles tend to appear earlier than gray hair in most people and so are fought more rabidly and for a longer period of time.

One factor we can’t control when it comes to wrinkles is the fact that skin becomes thinner as it ages, which hastens the appearance of wrinkles. Certain factors can speed up the initial appearance of wrinkles and make them worse once they do appear. Cigarette smoking and sun exposure ate often cited as the two best friends a wrinkle can have. Failing to drink enough water every day is also a significant factor, since adequately hydrated skin tends to wrinkle later and less often.

Most of the expensive skin creams that supposedly “turn back the clock” on wrinkles help keep the skin moist—if you apply the cream to damp skin—but the most important thing you can do is to hydrate your skin from within by drinking 8 to 10 glasses of water a day. It’s never too late to start. You should also stop smoking cigarettes and restrict your exposure to the sun.

Treatment

Wrinkles, of course, are irreversible, unless you decide to opt for cosmetic surgery.

Getting a face-lift has been a popular choice for both women and men for years, but the major drawback, besides the fact that any surgical procedure is dangerous, is the fact that it isn’t permanent, which necessitates a repeat performance in a number of years—and at regular intervals afterward. For some people, however, a face-lift is definitely worth it.

Dermatologists have prescribed the use of certain preparations for years, though the side effects can sometimes be harsh.

Again, more and more people today are deciding to let nature take its course and to age with grace—which includes getting wrinkles.

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We all get hoarse from time to time. Sometimes it’s due to over-enthusiastic cheering at a sporting event; at others it’s due to talking too much. Hoarseness can also result from a cold, perhaps accompanied by a sore throat. Whatever the cause, hoarseness occurs when the larynx— which contains the vocal cords—becomes irritated and inflamed, a condition that is known as laryngitis.

Whenever I hear hoarseness in a patient’s voice, I’ll immediately suspect he or she is a smoker. I always ask, “How many cigarettes do you smoke?” It always amazes my patients that I know they smoke. In turn, I’m surprised that they’re not aware of their smoker’s voice. From then on, at every checkup I’ll know to look for the possibility of polyps— abnormal growths that are common in smokers—on their larynxes.

For people who do not smoke but are frequently hoarse nonetheless, the cause is usually raising the voice or talking loudly. Like smokers, people who talk loudly or who frequently shout or scream are prone to developing polyps on the larynx.

While some folks may joke that the periodic bouts of laryngitis some people have finally allow others to get a word in edgewise, the fact is that persistent hoarseness and/or laryngitis may in fact be an indication of a more serious disease, such as polyps or a tumor on the larynx or in the lung.

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