December 2008


23 Dec 2008 08:50 pm

Herpes Simplex – What is Herpes, and What Does a Herpes Simplex Look Like? Comments (0)

World Of Medicine

Herpes is a virus, as well as an STD (sexually transmitted disease). There are two types of a herpes simplex. A herpes simplex is simply a different type or strain of herpes. The most common herpes simplex is Herpes Simplex 1 (HSV1).

Herpes Simplex 1 affects the oral region, and is the most common type of herpes, this herpes simplex can affect people from a very young age. This simplex usually forms around the lips or mouth, and sometimes can form inside the mouth and on the tongue.

Herpes Simplex 2 is the second type of herpes simplex, and attacks the genital region on both males and females. Males and females will have an outbreak on or around the genitalia, as well as internally in the urethra, or vaginally for females.

What does a herpes simplex outbreak look like?

A herpes outbreak usually consists of a blister, rash, or lesion. An outbreak can last anything from a few days up to several weeks. Once the blisters burst or rupture, the outbreak is over.

Sometimes it is possible to “feel” an outbreak starting, in some people this can feel like a “tingling” sensation. It is possible to treat the outbreak at this stage, sometimes by treating the herpes simplex outbreak at this time, it may stop the outbreak from breaking out completely.

Is a herpes simplex contagious?

The Herpes Simplex virus is highly contagious, and can be easily transmitted to your partner. If you are aware that you have herpes, you should advise your partner. HSV2 or Herpes Simplex 2 (genital herpes) is probably the most contagious, as it is sexually transmitted.

How do I treat a herpes simplex?

Luckily treating a herpes simplex can be very easy!

Healing Natural Oils offers two effective products specifically for both types of the herpes simplex virus.

The H-Away product is effective in eliminating a Herpes Simplex outbreak, this treatment is topically applied directly to the outbreak, and is effective on any herpes symptom.

The H-Prevention product can be used to control the frequency of future herpes simplex outbreaks, this product is used once the outbreak is over, and may stop future outbreaks completely!

All the products offered by Healing Natural Oils are completely natural and do not contain any drugs, they are also all topically applied, which bypasses all the internal organs, and can go straight to treating the condition internally.

For more information on these natural products visit the Healing Natural Oils website, online ordering is also available!

22 Dec 2008 11:56 pm

The Psychology of Torture Comments (0)

The Psychologists Way

There is one place in which one’s privacy, intimacy, integrity and inviolability are guaranteed – one’s body, a unique temple and a familiar territory of sensa and personal history. The torturer invades, defiles and desecrates this shrine. He does so publicly, deliberately, repeatedly and, often, sadistically and sexually, with undisguised pleasure. Hence the all-pervasive, long-lasting, and, frequently, irreversible effects and outcomes of torture.

In a way, the torture victim’s own body is rendered his worse enemy. It is corporeal agony that compels the sufferer to mutate, his identity to fragment, his ideals and principles to crumble. The body becomes an accomplice of the tormentor, an uninterruptible channel of communication, a treasonous, poisoned territory.

It fosters a humiliating dependency of the abused on the perpetrator. Bodily needs denied – sleep, toilet, food, water – are wrongly perceived by the victim as the direct causes of his degradation and dehumanization. As he sees it, he is rendered bestial not by the sadistic bullies around him but by his own flesh.

The concept of “body” can easily be extended to “family”, or “home”. Torture is often applied to kin and kith, compatriots, or colleagues. This intends to disrupt the continuity of “surroundings, habits, appearance, relations with others”, as the CIA put it in one of its manuals. A sense of cohesive self-identity depends crucially on the familiar and the continuous. By attacking both one’s biological body and one’s “social body”, the victim’s psyche is strained to the point of dissociation.

Beatrice Patsalides describes this transmogrification thus in “Ethics of the Unspeakable: Torture Survivors in Psychoanalytic Treatment”:

“As the gap between the ‘I’ and the ‘me’ deepens, dissociation and alienation increase. The subject that, under torture, was forced into the position of pure object has lost his or her sense of interiority, intimacy, and privacy. Time is experienced now, in the present only, and perspective – that which allows for a sense of relativity – is foreclosed. Thoughts and dreams attack the mind and invade the body as if the protective skin that normally contains our thoughts, gives us space to breathe in between the thought and the thing being thought about, and separates between inside and outside, past and present, me and you, was lost.”

Torture robs the victim of the most basic modes of relating to reality and, thus, is the equivalent of cognitive death. Space and time are warped by sleep deprivation. The self (“I”) is shattered. The tortured have nothing familiar to hold on to: family, home, personal belongings, loved ones, language, name. Gradually, they lose their mental resilience and sense of freedom. They feel alien – unable to communicate, relate, attach, or empathize with others.

Torture splinters early childhood grandiose narcissistic fantasies of uniqueness, omnipotence, invulnerability, and impenetrability. But it enhances the fantasy of merger with an idealized and omnipotent (though not benign) other – the inflicter of agony. The twin processes of individuation and separation are reversed.

Torture is the ultimate act of perverted intimacy. The torturer invades the victim’s body, pervades his psyche, and possesses his mind. Deprived of contact with others and starved for human interactions, the prey bonds with the predator. “Traumatic bonding”, akin to the Stockholm Syndrome, is about hope and the search for meaning in the brutal and indifferent and nightmarish universe of the torture cell.

The abuser becomes the black hole at the center of the victim’s surrealistic galaxy, sucking in the sufferer’s universal need for solace. The victim tries to “control” his tormentor by becoming one with him (introjecting him) and by appealing to the monster’s presumably dormant humanity and empathy.

This bonding is especially strong when the torturer and the tortured form a dyad and “collaborate” in the rituals and acts of torture (for instance, when the victim is coerced into selecting the torture implements and the types of torment to be inflicted, or to choose between two evils).

The psychologist Shirley Spitz offers this powerful overview of the contradictory nature of torture in a seminar titled “The Psychology of Torture” (1989):

“Torture is an obscenity in that it joins what is most private with what is most public. Torture entails all the isolation and extreme solitude of privacy with none of the usual security embodied therein… Torture entails at the same time all the self-exposure of the utterly public with none of its possibilities for camaraderie or shared experience. (The presence of an all powerful other with whom to merge, without the security of the other’s benign intentions.)

A further obscenity of torture is the inversion it makes of intimate human relationships. The interrogation is a form of social encounter in which the normal rules of communicating, of relating, of intimacy are manipulated. Dependency needs are elicited by the interrogator, but not so they may be met as in close relationships, but to weaken and confuse. Independence that is offered in return for ‘betrayal’ is a lie. Silence is intentionally misinterpreted either as confirmation of information or as guilt for ‘complicity’.

Torture combines complete humiliating exposure with utter devastating isolation. The final products and outcome of torture are a scarred and often shattered victim and an empty display of the fiction of power.”

Obsessed by endless ruminations, demented by pain and a continuum of sleeplessness – the victim regresses, shedding all but the most primitive defense mechanisms: splitting, narcissism, dissociation, Projective Identification, introjection, and cognitive dissonance. The victim constructs an alternative world, often suffering from depersonalization and derealization, hallucinations, ideas of reference, delusions, and psychotic episodes.

Sometimes the victim comes to crave pain – very much as self-mutilators do – because it is a proof and a reminder of his individuated existence otherwise blurred by the incessant torture. Pain shields the sufferer from disintegration and capitulation. It preserves the veracity of his unthinkable and unspeakable experiences.

This dual process of the victim’s alienation and addiction to anguish complements the perpetrator’s view of his quarry as “inhuman”, or “subhuman”. The torturer assumes the position of the sole authority, the exclusive fount of meaning and interpretation, the source of both evil and good.

Torture is about reprogramming the victim to succumb to an alternative exegesis of the world, proffered by the abuser. It is an act of deep, indelible, traumatic indoctrination. The abused also swallows whole and assimilates the torturer’s negative view of him and often, as a result, is rendered suicidal, self-destructive, or self-defeating.

Thus, torture has no cut-off date. The sounds, the voices, the smells, the sensations reverberate long after the episode has ended – both in nightmares and in waking moments. The victim’s ability to trust other people – i.e., to assume that their motives are at least rational, if not necessarily benign – has been irrevocably undermined. Social institutions are perceived as precariously poised on the verge of an ominous, Kafkaesque mutation. Nothing is either safe, or credible anymore.

Victims typically react by undulating between emotional numbing and increased arousal: insomnia, irritability, restlessness, and attention deficits. Recollections of the traumatic events intrude in the form of dreams, night terrors, flashbacks, and distressing associations.

The tortured develop compulsive rituals to fend off obsessive thoughts. Other psychological sequelae reported include cognitive impairment, reduced capacity to learn, memory disorders, sexual dysfunction, social withdrawal, inability to maintain long-term relationships, or even mere intimacy, phobias, ideas of reference and superstitions, delusions, hallucinations, psychotic microepisodes, and emotional flatness.

Depression and anxiety are very common. These are forms and manifestations of self-directed aggression. The sufferer rages at his own victimhood and resulting multiple dysfunction. He feels shamed by his new disabilities and responsible, or even guilty, somehow, for his predicament and the dire consequences borne by his nearest and dearest. His sense of self-worth and self-esteem are crippled.

In a nutshell, torture victims suffer from a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Their strong feelings of anxiety, guilt, and shame are also typical of victims of childhood abuse, domestic violence, and rape. They feel anxious because the perpetrator’s behavior is seemingly arbitrary and unpredictable – or mechanically and inhumanly regular.

They feel guilty and disgraced because, to restore a semblance of order to their shattered world and a modicum of dominion over their chaotic life, they need to transform themselves into the cause of their own degradation and the accomplices of their tormentors.

The CIA, in its “Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual – 1983″ (reprinted in the April 1997 issue of Harper’s Magazine), summed up the theory of coercion thus:

“The purpose of all coercive techniques is to induce psychological regression in the subject by bringing a superior outside force to bear on his will to resist. Regression is basically a loss of autonomy, a reversion to an earlier behavioral level. As the subject regresses, his learned personality traits fall away in reverse chronological order. He begins to lose the capacity to carry out the highest creative activities, to deal with complex situations, or to cope with stressful interpersonal relationships or repeated frustrations.”

Inevitably, in the aftermath of torture, its victims feel helpless and powerless. This loss of control over one’s life and body is manifested physically in impotence, attention deficits, and insomnia. This is often exacerbated by the disbelief many torture victims encounter, especially if they are unable to produce scars, or other “objective” proof of their ordeal. Language cannot communicate such an intensely private experience as pain.

Spitz makes the following observation:

“Pain is also unsharable in that it is resistant to language… All our interior states of consciousness: emotional, perceptual, cognitive and somatic can be described as having an object in the external world… This affirms our capacity to move beyond the boundaries of our body into the external, sharable world. This is the space in which we interact and communicate with our environment. But when we explore the interior state of physical pain we find that there is no object ‘out there’ – no external, referential content. Pain is not of, or for, anything. Pain is. And it draws us away from the space of interaction, the sharable world, inwards. It draws us into the boundaries of our body.”

Bystanders resent the tortured because they make them feel guilty and ashamed for having done nothing to prevent the atrocity. The victims threaten their sense of security and their much-needed belief in predictability, justice, and rule of law. The victims, on their part, do not believe that it is possible to effectively communicate to “outsiders” what they have been through. The torture chambers are “another galaxy”. This is how Auschwitz was described by the author K. Zetnik in his testimony in the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961.

Kenneth Pope in “Torture”, a chapter he wrote for the “Encyclopedia of Women and Gender: Sex Similarities and Differences and the Impact of Society on Gender”, quotes Harvard psychiatrist Judith Herman:

“It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering.”

But, more often, continued attempts to repress fearful memories result in psychosomatic illnesses (conversion). The victim wishes to forget the torture, to avoid re-experiencing the often life threatening abuse and to shield his human environment from the horrors. In conjunction with the victim’s pervasive distrust, this is frequently interpreted as hypervigilance, or even paranoia. It seems that the victims can’t win. Torture is forever.

Note – Why Do People Torture?

We should distinguish functional torture from the sadistic variety. The former is calculated to extract information from the tortured or to punish them. It is measured, impersonal, efficient, and disinterested.

The latter – the sadistic variety – fulfils the emotional needs of the perpetrator.

People who find themselves caught up in anomic states – for instance, soldiers in war or incarcerated inmates – tend to feel helpless and alienated. They experience a partial or total loss of control. They have been rendered vulnerable, powerless, and defenseless by events and circumstances beyond their influence.

Torture amounts to exerting an absolute and all-pervasive domination of the victim’s existence. It is a coping strategy employed by torturers who wish to reassert control over their lives and, thus, to re-establish their mastery and superiority. By subjugating the tortured – they regain their self-confidence and regulate their sense of self-worth.

Other tormentors channel their negative emotions – pent up aggression, humiliation, rage, envy, diffuse hatred – and displace them. The victim becomes a symbol of everything that’s wrong in the torturer’s life and the situation he finds himself caught in. The act of torture amounts to misplaced and violent venting.

Many perpetrate heinous acts out of a wish to conform. Torturing others is their way of demonstrating obsequious obeisance to authority, group affiliation, colleagueship, and adherence to the same ethical code of conduct and common values. They bask in the praise that is heaped on them by their superiors, fellow workers, associates, team mates, or collaborators. Their need to belong is so strong that it overpowers ethical, moral, or legal considerations.

Many offenders derive pleasure and satisfaction from sadistic acts of humiliation. To these, inflicting pain is fun. They lack empathy and so their victim’s agonized reactions are merely cause for much hilarity.

Moreover, sadism is rooted in deviant sexuality. The torture inflicted by sadists is bound to involve perverted sex (rape, homosexual rape, voyeurism, exhibitionism, pedophilia, fetishism, and other paraphilias). Aberrant sex, unlimited power, excruciating pain – these are the intoxicating ingredients of the sadistic variant of torture.

Still, torture rarely occurs where it does not have the sanction and blessing of the authorities, whether local or national. A permissive environment is sine qua non. The more abnormal the circumstances, the less normative the milieu, the further the scene of the crime is from public scrutiny – the more is egregious torture likely to occur. This is especially true in totalitarian societies where the use of physical force to discipline or eliminate dissent is an acceptable practice.

Sam Vaknin ( samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant Self Love – Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain – How the West Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician, Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.

Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.

Visit Sam’s Web site at samvak.tripod.com

18 Dec 2008 05:56 pm

As The Primary Care Giver for an Alzheimer’s Patient, How Can I Get a Break? Comments (0)

World Of Medicine

Taking care of a loved one who has Alzheimer’s is a huge responsibility and very time consuming. It can bring a lot of stress, frustration and more. You devote all your time to your loved one and not have time for yourself anymore. You always wonder: when can I take a break from her? It is not an easy decision, but sometimes it has to be made for your own well being.

There are different options to consider. If your loved one is in early/mid stages of Alzheimer’s you can consider private duty home care. Many agencies throughout the nation and in your community provide this service. A list of providers can be obtained in the phone book, from the local Alzheimer’s Association, Area Agency on Aging, or any case management and referral source. The private duty home care can include services like bathing, sitting, taking to appointments, shopping, meal preparation and other day-to-day essentials. This assistance will definitely help you in getting more free time.

You might also try adult day care. The centers usually operate from 8.00 am to 5.00 pm. It is a good environment for socialization. Your loved one will be able to interact with others, but she knows she will be back home for the night. If you decide to look for an adult day care, you will want to make sure the staff is experienced in caring for Alzheimer’s patients.

Another solution is hiring an independent in-home care giver yourself. This person will take care of your loved one while you are away. You may be able to obtain names and information about experienced caregivers from places such as your church, Alzheimer’s Association, Area Agency on Aging.

Make sure you check the references. Meet and talk with the prospective caregiver and see how the person interacts with your loved one. Touching is very important. It could be a pat on the back or gently rubbing the hand. You can even ask your loved one for input about the person. People with dementia are often perceptive and intuitive.

And don’t forget! You have family members as well that can help you. A loved one who has Alzheimer’s affects all family members. So if family members offer to help, take advantage of it.

Remember, help is available. Do not feel guilty because you want to take a break. You deserve it.

About The Author

William G. Hammond, JD is a nationally known elder law attorney and founder of The Alzheimer’s Resource Center. He is a frequent guest on radio and television and has developed innovative solutions to guide families who have a loved one suffering from Alzheimer’s. For more information you can visit his website at www.BeatAlzheimers.com.

16 Dec 2008 03:37 am

Tricks to Help You Sleep Comments (0)

World Of Medicine

Everyone deserves to have the ability to lay their head on a pillow at night and drift off to sleep. But, for so many, this isn’t what happens.

Be it the events of the day, the pressures that surround you or some other residing factor, not being able to sleep only complicates matters and adds to the stresses of what you are already experiencing.

Doctors are quite happy to test, prod and probe you and feed you plenty of pills and potions that they feel might assist you to get at least some sleep. These may work temporarily but they don’t work long term, and you find yourself back in the Doctor’s consulting room, desperate for their next ‘well, if that didn’t work, try this’ scenario.

Sorry, but after years of putting myself through their trial and error methods, I lost all faith in Doctors and their ’standardized’ ways of treating people with sleeping problems. I started thinking ‘outside of the square’ and stumbled across something that finally worked for me.

Here’s an example.

How many people, including Doctors, have suggested you try counting sheep or something similar? It’s the ’standard’ response from people when they find out you have a sleeping problem. The silly part is, it actually works but NOT as you are currently doing it.

Let me explain.

What do you do when you start to count? You begin at one, right? Well, if you are using this method to get to sleep, the ONLY way this would EVER work is when you are bored senseless and you do go off to sleep but it is neither restful or relaxing. It also would be a very short sleep and you would find yourself starting from one again and counting off into oblivion! That’s because you are counting in the WRONG DIRECTION!

You are looking for a result – SLEEP! To achieve it, there MUST be a start and finish point – the finish point being you getting to sleep. If you start counting from one, there is no structured end which makes this method unworkable and therefore undesirable. You are searching for regularity, not one off results.

Pick a figure close to 100 and work your way slowly backwards to zero, taking a slow deep breath with each counted number. This focus enables your mind to relax and gives you a finishing point to achieve. Your body relaxes with each deep breath and your mind remains focused on the important task of reaching your goal. Don’t stress if you lose count. Just pick a number higher than the last one you remember and continue slowly counting backwards, remembering to take that deep breath with each number.

Is it self hypnosis? Who cares what label you attach to it – it works – that’s ALL that counts!

This little exercise, coupled with a few other ‘outside the square’ exercises, allows me to get what used to be impossible – regular and relaxing sleeping patterns. Maybe it can help you as well.

John is the Author of an eBook that dispels the myths and offers hope to those who find it hard to get to sleep at night. Visit http://ez4u2sleep.myriad2020.com to continue the story.

15 Dec 2008 03:47 am

Eat Fiber and Avoid Constipation Comments (0)

World Of Medicine

To have regular bowel movements and escape constipation you need to eat more fiber. Fiber from raw vegetable and fruits is better for you than fiber from grains. Why? Raw vegetables and fruits are live foods with enzymes, minerals, vitamins, and many antioxidants that are charged electrically. They have a magnetic energy that is absorbed by your DNA. So get more fiber from this source and less from grains.

Don’t forget about water. If you don’t get enough water during the day, your body will take the water out of your fecal matter in the colon and make your stools hard. Drink a minimum of 3 glasses a day of pure water and work up to drinking 5-6.

Here’s where you need to do some “fiber work.” You need to increase your fiber intake to around 40 – 60 mg or more. Yes this is a lot. In the past, I recommended 35mg of fiber, but this is an average. You want to have more than the average amount. Here are some foods with high fiber. Add them to your eating habits so that you will not be constipated. Fiber does much more in your colon than make you regular,it:

* combines with toxins and moves them out in your stools

* combines with heavy metal and moves them out in your stools

* combines with cholesterol and bile and prevents them from being reabsorbed into your blood stream.

* helps to prevent colon cancer and other colon diseases.

* keeps your colon walls strong and healthy by not allowing toxins to accumulate there.

* cleans the colon walls and pulls toxins out of colon pockets and holes.

The following foods provide 3 gm of fiber. Add a variety of these foods to your daily diet to get more fiber into your eating habits. Start eating these foods little by little to get use to eating high fiber levels.

* 1/3 cup prunes

* 2 slices of whole wheat bread

* 1/2 cup cooked winter squash

* 1/2 cup fresh cooked green peas

* 1/2 cup cooked kidney beans, or pinto beans, or cowpeas

* 1 cup of cooked barley, 1 1/2 cup of brown rice, 1 cup of millet

* 3 corn tortillas

* 1 1/2 cup spaghetti, 1/3 cup of spinach spaghetti

* 1/6 cup 100% bran, 1/2 cup cream of wheat

* 1 cup applesauce, 1 cup of apple slices, 1/2 cup of bananas, 1/2 cup figs

* 1 cup fruit salad, 1 cup of prune juice, 1 ounce of raisins

* 1/2 avocado

* 1 cup blueberries, 3/4 cup of cranberries

* 1/3 cup guava, 1 kiwifruit, 1/2 of a mango, 2 nectarines, 1/3 papaya

* 1 orange, 1 cup peach slices, 1 cup pears slices, 1/2 persimmon

* 1 1/2 cup pineapple, 1 cup strawberries

* 1/2 cup raisins, 3/4 cup coconut

* 1/2 cup rhubarb, 1/3 cup of artichoke hearts

* 1.2 ounces of almonds, 1/2 ounce sesame seeds, 1/3 cup of sunflower seeds

* 1/4 cup of baby lima beans, 1/7 cup of black beans, 1 cup green beans

* 1/4 cup of kidney, pinto, white or navy beans, 1/3 cup of lentils

* 1/2 cup broccoli, 1/2 cup Brussels sprouts, 1 cup cabbage

* 2 carrots, 1/2 cup of carrot juice

* 1 cup cauliflower, 5 stalks of celery

* 1 cup of chard, 1 cup of mustard greens

* 1 ear of corn

* 1/2 cup of mixed vegetables

* 1/2 cup of olives

* 1/2 baked potato, 1 baked sweet potato, 1 cup yams

* 1 cup tomato juice, 1 cup vegetable juice

How do you know when you are starting to get plenty of fiber in your diet? When you are getting plenty of fiber in your diet, your stools weigh less and float in your toilet water. So if your stools sink in water then you need more fiber. This is just a general rule. If you eat excess fiber your stools may sink, but I doubt any of you fall in this category.

Rudy Silva - EzineArticles Expert Author

Rudy Silva has a Physics degree from the University of San Jose California and is a Natural Nutritionist. He has written an ebook called “How to Relieve Your Constipation with 77 Natural Remedies.” You can get more information on this ebook and more constipation remedies at this site. http://www.stop-constipation.com

15 Dec 2008 02:57 am

What is Magnetic Therapy? Comments (0)

World Of Medicine

Historically it is reported that magnets have been around for an extremely long time. Magnets were first documented around 2500-3000 years BC. Magnets have been used in Chinese medicine from around 2000 BC in-conjunction with reflexology and acupuncture. It is still used today as a first line treatment for many common complaints. However the last 15 years has shown a prolific increase in medical research into magnetic therapy. There have been over 57 studies in the USA into incurable diseases and magnetics.

Science has discovered that a magnetic field over and around the point of pain increases blood flow in the effected area. The blood contains iron and when therapeutic magnets are placed on the skin the magnetic field penetrates through the skin and into the surrounding tissues and blood stream. The iron in the blood is attracted to the magnetic field, this causes movement within the blood stream and the increased activity causes the blood flow to improve. This increased blood flow carries with it greater quantities of oxygen, vital nutrients, and especially endorphins which relieve and soon remove and alleviate the pain.

When static magnets are placed over an area of inflammation, the magnetic field penetrates through the skin and deep into the tissues and blood stream. Damaged cells will react to the presence of a magnetic field by realigning their ions into the correct position. This begins the process of eliminating the excess fluid from within the cell. Cell damage will stop and healing of the cells will begin over a period of days. In real terms the effects of these magnets will reduce pain and discomfort in and around the area that they are placed.

The truth is, magnets need to be placed directly over the area of pain to have an effect. Unfortunately you can not treat the whole of your body with just one magnet. Magnets do not block the pain signal. They work on the cause of the pain, which is why static magnets have to placed as close to the point of pain as possible. In short, wherever your pain is located you must place the magnets within that area or the very close proximity.

The pain reducing effects will remain for as long as the magnets remain in place, thus reducing the need for other analgesics.

Best of all, magnets are natural, contain no drugs or chemicals and have no known side effects. Magnets leave a lasting and deeply beneficial reduction of painful symptoms for 82% of users that will stay with them for as long as they continue to use them.

Research studies have shown magnets to be effective in 82% of cases and have demonstrated benefits in the following conditions:

Arthritis, Osteoporosis, Spondylosis, Fibromyalgia, general joint pain, muscular pain, M.S., stroke, insomnia, migraine, stress, depression, bowel disorders, Diabetes, high blood pressure and poor circulation.

Debbie Shimadry is qualified magnetic therapist and pain nurse specialist. She appears on several BBC radio stations as an expert guest on magnetic therapy and is also the managing director of leading magnetic therapy company worldofmagnets.co.uk. To find out more on how magnetic therapy can help you, visit magnetictherapyfacts.org.

13 Dec 2008 04:12 pm

Natural Health Remedy – Feel Better More Quickly Comments (0)

World Of Medicine

Being ill and feeling run down all the time is not the best way to enhance your productivity at work and your energy at home. The reality of this situation is that many people suffer from fatigue and don’t know that there is a simple remedy for it. When your body does not receive the correct amounts of the proper nutrients, it cannot carry out its everyday functions properly. This is often caused by a lack of vital nutrients in the body.

In the meantime, you are expecting all kinds of things from your body. You might want it to deliver, but your inputs are just not creating the right outputs. Feeling lethargic, with a lack of energy and stamina is a sure sign of loss of natural nutrients in the body.

Many natural health remedies will help you fight all these issues with which your body is faced. A natural health regimen will incorporate the right eating habits, which means your body will get the right food to help you keep fatigue and lethargy at bay.

Natural health remedies come in many forms; these can be natural health products for internal and external use, natural health medicine or natural health tonics. As a consumer, you have a number of options. You should start with one product, build a regimen, and then move on to the next.

A natural health remedy can also involve using natural health products to help you keep your body as healthy as you possibly can. Natural health remedies will help you maintain wellness, not simply treat the symptoms, as is the case in most of modern American medicine.

Your body is like a car. It needs the right fuel, in the proper amounts, so that it can keep running at maximum performance. Natural health remedies will give you a helping and natural advantage in all the little everyday ailments that you are faced with. As a consumer, you have a number of options. You should start with one product, build a regimen and view the results, and then move on to the next.

In addition to using natural health remedies, you should also learn what to eat and in what proportions, so you can prevent stress and fatigue. Changing your diet will have benefits that last beyond the day or the week; changing your diet will have a lifelong impact on your energy level and productivity.

Many of the natural health remedies are praised for their fast and effective means of dealing with many of today’s ailments. Their long history is something that cannot be denied. Chinese herbal medicine has been around for centuries, and in the Western world, folk medicine is being proven by modern science to be based in fact. No longer is folk medicine viewed as an archaic tradition from the hill country of the Southern states. It is joining the mainstream of modern America because people are sick and tired of not only the cost of pharmaceuticals, but because many feel that doctors are simply “throwing” medicine at a problem instead of finding a cure.

My own experience is an example of this. After knee surgery 3 years ago, I developed serious allergies that caused me to break out in hives on a daily basis. Nothing a prominent allergist or my family doctor has done can find the reason for these daily attacks, yet they “keep me going” by prescribing huge doses of Allegra and Tagamet. Out of pocket expenses for these medications, if I did not have co-pay, would be outrageous.

This experience has caused me to become interested in natural herbal remedies and all things related to natural medicine. My quest for a cure has begun with research. I have developed a website, http://www.naturesherbalremediesonline.com , to address the issues facing people today who are seeking answers.

The website is designed to be interactive, with a form on the home page designed for the reader to ask for more information and to give suggestions for topics. I urge everyone interested in natural herbal remedies to visit today, and leave your feedback.

Alden Smith is a published and award winning author who’s website www.naturesherbalremediesonline.com informs and educates the person wanting to learn more about natural remedies. A martial artist, he focuses now on healing & natural cures.

13 Dec 2008 12:07 pm

Liberation Comments (0)

The Psychologists Way

It is one thing to be free; it is quite another to be liberated. Liberation implies that freedom was absent for a time, and there was bondage. Though it may seem like a dichotomy, grief has both the power to bind and the power to liberate from bondage.

Initially, when a person we love dies, we are in the bondage of grief and it feels as if we will never recovernever be the same again. And we are right; we never will be the same again. But maybe being the same again shouldn’t be our goal. Having been confronted by death, we suddenly see LIFE in a totally different way than we had ever considered it before. Gradually, we begin to realize how we are different, and it is in those differences that we can find liberation and new freedoms.

Many of the things we used to think were important are now irrelevant. Previous goals and opportunities are now limp, meaningless, empty and discarded. But as we lose interest in many of the things that formerly seemed so life-enhancing, we discover new values and priorities.

At last we are liberated from the bondage of competition. If we were formerly obsessed with the fastest, the most expensive, the biggest, the newest, the most beautiful, the most powerful, we now know how empty and futile those victories can be. In our “other lives,” we believed we had to belong to the right organizations, attend the right schools, live in the right neighborhoods, work in the right jobs, wear the right clothes, have the right opinions. Now, some of the things that were “right” are wrong, and some just simply don’t matter anymore. Grief has liberated us from those masters.

We have a new freedom to challenge old ideas and goals, to attempt new ventures, to confront old relationships, to develop and explore latent skills and talents. No longer are we burdened and shackled by “should” and “ought.”

We have the freedom to be wrong. While we are no longer “right” as often as we used to be, when we are right, we’re more certain and less abusive about it.

We have been liberated from inhibition and self-consciousness. The strength born of our pain has given us the courage to speak out when before we might have been silent. We no longer fear the criticism and judgment of others. Who can hurt us now? We have experienced the worst and survived. Sorrow has stripped away those fears. Now, we are more aware of the panorama of life and less concerned with our own little piece of it.

We have discovered the freedom to express our affection for others freely, even lavishly. We are acutely aware that there may be no more chances to say “Goodbye,” or, “I love you,” one more time.

We are free to develop a new acquaintance with our inner selves. Often we have a keener awareness of the “still, small voice” within. We hear our directions with more sensitivity and trust. We are more aligned with our spiritual connections and perhaps less impressed with “religion.” We have learned to appreciate wisdom above knowledge.

We have the freedom to appreciate time in a new value system. Our experience has taught us to view time with a new fragility, because we know how easily and quickly it can seem to end.

We have the freedom to have an open mind. Previously, we may have made concrete and inviolate decisions about anything ranging from breakfast cereal to eternal destiny. Now, we are more cautious, ready to hear another point of view. Where we used to have all the answers, now we just have all the questions.

Finally, we have achieved a freedom from the fear of death. We can now look Death squarely in the eye and know that there is no more intimidation. No longer are we afraid. Death had one trump card, and now that it’s been played, we stand in the victor’s circle.

With liberation, we are free to live and work and advocate in memory of our absent loved ones for whatever time we remain here on Earth. And when it’s our turn to be called away, we will leave behind an ongoing legacy of freedom for those we love who yet remain.

Yes, in liberation, there is peace.

Good Grief Resources (http://www.goodgriefresources.com) was conceived and founded by Andrea Gambill whose 17-year-old daughter died in 1976. Almost thirty years of experience in leading grief support gropus, writing, editing, and founding a national grief-support magazine has provided valuable insights into the unique needs of the bereaved and their caregivers and wide access to many excellent resources. The primary goal of Good Grief Resources is to connect the bereaved and their caregivers with as many bereavement support resources as possible in one, efficient and easy-to-use website directory.

13 Dec 2008 11:29 am

Depression Treatment and Changing Your Diet – Results Could Beat Using Drugs Comments (0)

The Psychologists Way

I had stated in a previous article how Yoga could work as a natural depression treatment based on my own experiences. To add to that information-being a very important limb of Yoga into itself- what you eat also has an effect on your mental health. Consequently, if you’re interested in a drug-free treatment of depression, without the side-effects common to most depression medications, a crucial step will be to make some dietetic changes amongst other factors.

However, what should be the main priority, to avoid adding insult to injury when using depression medications, will ironically be avoiding their use considering the many side effects common to these anti-depression drugs. Effective as they may be for a while, it’s been noted that these substances have several side effects which may include nausea, fatigue, insomnia and some sexual dysfunctions. In some cases on mental side effects, mania has even been reported; so needless to say, a drug free depression treatment might be your best AND safest bet for your health.

Now, when in depression, most of us have the tendency to binge in an effort to mask our feelings or deaden the pain, some of us go as far as soliciting the use of alcohol, drugs or even sex for depression help. Yes, they may give some relief for a while, but when these mere distractions wear off, the symptoms of depression always do come back, and with a vengeance.

This considered, it will be safe to say the first step of a dietetic factor in regards to depression treatment could be refraining from food, at least for a while friends, really.
An observance of nature will show us that when animals are frightened or angered, they refrain from eating until after the passage of considerable time.

It is true that under stressful circumstances many civilized people refrain from eating and find in truth that they lack the desire for food, but it is also too often that most will eat large meals under these circumstances, which will be mostly disease forming foods to start with, that as a consequence, complicates or altogether halts an already retarded ongoing digestion. This endless cycle leads to even more toxins and poisons in an already encumbered body.

So what are you saying Foras (that’s my name by the way), I should fast or something?

Well, if you can, that will be excellent. At least till your emotional balance returns, which will be the end result as the body is not taxed with the duties of digestion, assimilation and re-building. Your mind clears and all moroseness disappears and consequently, we tend to find the answers to the problems warranting a treatment for depression in the first place.

Now for many, I agree it might be asking for too much to fast during a stressful time based on old habits, but as an alternative, it will be advisable to steer clear of harmful mucus forming foods and partake of body healing ones: Fruits and Vegetables. A restricted diet of one kind of fruit can be considered a camouflaged fasts but you have to be knowledgeable of its season, how it was grown (organically or conventional) and even when to eat as body cleansing and building do occur at specific times of the day.

Now, not to get of the subject of depression treatment, these steps, be they a fast or a healthier diet, will ensure that the body is cleaner and well we all should know by now that a cleaner body equates to a cleaner mind. In fact Yoga sages (this obviously showing my vote of Yoga for anti-depression) suggest that certain foods, which they coin as ‘rajasic’ (stimulating foods including Spices, alcohol, and animal products) foods have a negative stimulating effect on the nervous and endocrine systems, the two main ones that are related to mental health and consequently depression.

Based on their impeccable analysis of the human body, it may be safe to say these old Yoga Sages are completely right in suggesting we as humans-or at least those of us seeking the use of Yoga for depression treatment-should abstain from these foods for optimal success.

Is it a co-incidence that these same foods are the ones that have been shown to wreak havoc on our physical health? I think not folks.

This considered, instead of introducing chemical substances into your body in a quest for seeking depression treatment, from the facts above, it will be wise to first make a dietetic change, which again may include a short fast, at least to clear our minds first to tackle our problems, then eat the proper foods for nourishment and of course partake in some physical exercise (my choice being some Yoga) to obtain the inevitable feel-good results.

Depression is something we all may go through at some point, but thankfully relief and a successful treatment of it is not out of reach and this without harmful side-effects.

So empower yourself to a successful depression treatment targeting its root cause with drug-free methods of healing. On the subject of diet and depression treatment, I choose to remind you of this quote: “Let your foods be your medicine and your medicine your foods” (By Hippocrates the ‘Father or Medicine”)

May happiness be yours.

Foras Aje - EzineArticles Expert Author

Foras Aje is an independent researcher and author of Fitness: Inside and out, a book on improving physical and mental health naturally. For additional information on depression treatment go to: http://www.bodyhealthsoul.com/depression.htm

08 Dec 2008 06:46 pm

Neutral Hip Bath Comments (0)

World Of Medicine

The temperature of the water should be 320C to 360C. Here too, friction to the abdomen should be avoided. This bath is generally taken for 20 minutes to an hour. The neutral hip bath helps to relieve all acute and sub-acute inflammatory conditions such as acute catarrh of the bladder and urethra and subacute inflammations in the uterus, ovaries, and tubes. It also relieves neuralgia of the fallopian tubes or testicles, painful spasms of the vagina, and prorates of the anus and vulva.

Besides, it is a sedative treatment for erotomanis in both sexes.

Alternate hip bath

This is also known as revulsive hip bath. The temperature in the hot tub should be 400C to 450C and in the cold tub 100C to 180C. The patient should alternately sit in the hot tub for five minutes and then in the cold tub for three minutes. The duration of the bath is generally 10 to 20 minutes.

The head and neck should be kept cold with a cold compress. The treatment should end with a dash of cold water to the hips.

This bath relieves chronic inflammatory conditions of the pelvic viscera such as salpingitis, ovaritis, cellulitis and various neuralgias of the genito-urinary organs, sciatica and lumbago.

To learn more about the energy principle in healing, please read:

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