Tag: depression

More Symptoms Associated With the Male Menopause Condition

Everyone knows that menopause is associated with women who reach a certain age. However, not many people are aware that menopause will also be experienced by the male population when they also reach a certain age. The male menopause condition or also known as andropause is very real and as a male, you have to be informed about it in order to cope with it.

Male menopause occurs when you reach the age of about 50 to early 60’s. The signs and symptoms of male menopause are quite similar to what women experience when they are going through the menopause.

However, unlike the female menopause where the production of hormones stops instantly, the male menopause will only decline in the production of male hormones called testosterone. This decline will result in the different signs and symptoms that you will experience when you go through male menopause.

Male menopause will have symptoms similar to menopause that women experience, such as fatigue, infertility, hot flashes, and mood swings. However, there are more symptoms that men should be aware of when they experience male menopause.

You have to consider that you will also experience erectile dysfunction, loss of interest in sex, depression, and anxiety. There are also other symptoms linked to male menopause. Some men reported that they became more motherly. It is a fact that males are more focused on money, power, and career. When they experience male menopause, they somewhat reported that they became more focused on family, and friends, which is the primary concerns of women. Sometimes they say that they regretted their former attitude.

Males will also experience loss of hair in the armpits and axilla, decreased sex drive, shrinking of testicles, impotence, constant feeling of tiredness, decreased muscle strength, decreased muscle mass, decreased bone density, and low sperm count. All these symptoms points to male menopause.

This is all due to the loss of androgens in the male’s body. This is why there is testosterone replacement therapy as a treatment for men who are going through male menopause. It has been found that testosterone replacement can significantly improve your condition and decrease the signs and symptoms of male menopause.

There are also other treatments that are not as complicated as testosterone replacement therapy that you can do in order to improve your condition. However, it is recommended that you should mix these activities with testosterone replacement therapy. It is recommended that men should relax and rest well, exercise, eat the right kinds of food, and abstain from drinking and smoking.

Together with testosterone replacement therapy, you will see that it will significantly improve your condition. You will see that it will increase your sex drive or your libido, increase your muscle mass and strength, increase bone density, and it will also prevent depression.

Before you jump up and get yourself treated with testosterone replacement therapy, it is very important that you should consult your doctor first. The doctor will be able to determine if you have a low testosterone level by conducting a series of tests. The doctor will also be the one to recommend you to a qualified professional to do the testosterone replacement therapy.

Always remember that testosterone replacement therapy will not cure male menopause. It can only relieve the symptoms you experience associated with male menopause and can help you cope up with this condition. Just remember the signs and symptoms of male menopause and you can easily determine if you need to visit your doctor.

How the Acupuncture Practitioner Uses His Needles

The major focus of an acupuncture treatment is to return the circulation of body energy to its normal levels. To do this, needles are used at points on the body indicated by the set of symptoms for the particular client. These symptoms may be physical, emotional, behavioral, and/or mental. Simply, a needle is inserted at a point in order to either stimulate or dissipate energy. Energy may be dissipated from a point if there is too much activity, which can be indicated by such symptoms as heat or anger. Energy may need to be stimulated by acupuncture if there is seems to be a depletion, as in the case of dizziness or depression.

The points at which needles are to be inserted are determined by an analysis of the client’s symptoms, and the organs that are involved in those symptoms. Some change may be affected by simply using pressure on those points (a technique known as acupressure), but far superior results are obtained by being treated by an acupuncture practitioner. There are a number of techniques for using the needles, as well as several different types of needles that can be used. Many modern acupuncture practitioners use small, disposable needles. They can be inserted to different depths, depending on the symptom addressed. It is interesting to compare how the technique to stimulate energy is different than the technique to dissipate energy.

An acupuncture needle used to stimulate energy is sometimes more effective when warmed. The point where the needle is inserted should be massaged before insertion of the needle. Puncture superficially, and then slowly insert the needle to its correct depth slowly, and remove it slowly. The needle should be inserted as the patient exhales, and removed as the patient inhales. The different points should be punctured in the order of energy flow. The needles should remain in place for several minutes, up to ten minutes.

An acupuncture needle used to dissipate energy is rarely warmed, and is inserted and withdrawn rapidly. The needles on average are inserted more deeply than for energy stimulation. The different points should be punctured in the opposite order from the energy flow. The client should inhale as the needle is punctured, and exhale as it is withdrawn. The needle need only remain a few seconds in many cases. Comparing the two techniques, the technique to dissipate energy seems very similar to letting some air out of a balloon or other container: insert quickly and deeply. It is also interesting to note that the patient exhales as the needle is withdrawn, again releasing energy.

A good acupuncture practitioner never inflicts any pain. At most, there may be a slight feeling of a twinge upon the first insertion, but even that is not to be usual. A needle remaining in the skin is not felt at all as long as it is stationary, and most patients forget about them. There are a number of different kinds of needles, but the only noticeable difference to the client is the difference between a normal needle and a Japanese needle. A Japanese needle is generally thinner and is inside a guide tube, so it will look distinctly different. Needles can come in various widths, with acupuncture needles used for dissipating energy generally thicker than the needles used for energy stimulation. I hope this introduction has both intriguing and reassuring, enough for you to schedule a first trip to an acupuncture clinic.

Psychiatric Evidence of Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder, or manic depression, is a serious mental illness that has eluded doctors for decades. For many years, bipolar disorder patients were diagnosed as psychotic or Schitsophrinia. However, about twenty years ago, manic depression became a more common diagnosis. Psychiatric specialists still, however, did not really understand the illness.

Over time, more psychiatric evidence has come to light that proves that bipolar disorder, as it is now called, is actually caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. Other factors, both medical and situational, can be involved as well. In the last few years, psychiatric specialists and researchers have determined that bipolar disorder actually has varying degrees of severity, as well as types of symptoms.

Studies of bipolar patients conducted by psychiatric professionals and researchers has long suggested that bipolar disorder runs in families, or, in other words, is hereditary. Through careful study and research of the functions of the brain, it has now been determined how this illness is indeed hereditary and biological in nature.

According to research posted in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 2000, patients with bipolar disorder actually have thirty percent more brain cells of a certain class that have to do with sending signals within the brain. These additional brain cells cause patients’ brains to actually behave differently, making them predisposed to have periods of mania or depression.

According to researchers, this type of brain cell regulates moods, how someone responds to stress, and cognitive functions. When the extra brain cells are present, a congestion of cells regulated one type of mood or cognitive function is overloaded, and therefore causes a bout of mania or depression. It is not yet known by psychiatric researchers, however, why patients with bipolar disorder have these additional brain cells. To discover this, more genetic research will be required.

In addition to brain cells and brain chemistry, it has also been speculated by psychiatric researchers that various genes in the genetic makeup of bipolar patients can also contribute to the cause of and hereditary nature of bipolar disorder. Studies have been ongoing experimenting with removal of the gene in mice. The evidence suggests that circadian genes, which regulate mood, hormones, blood pressure, and heart activity may be linked to bipolar disorder. Specifically, the absence or abnormality of the gene actually seems to bring about mania episodes.

All in all, more research needs to be done. Medical and psychiatric researchers and doctors have a lot more to learn about the brain and how it functions. While current treatments seem to work for bipolar disorder, they also have severe side effects. Often, medications prescribed for bipolar disorder have to be monitored, dosages modified, or medications switched entirely for patients to maintain balance. The more we learn about the brain and it’s functions, the more we can learn about the physical, biological causes of bipolar disorder. The more we learn about the causes of bipolar disorder, the more likely it will become that effective treatments can be found that offer little side effects and more permanent treatment options for bipolar patients.

How Many Acupuncture Treatments Will it Take?

Acupuncture is a well-established and increasingly accepted treatment procedure for pain, for emotional troubles, and for an ever increasing number of physical ailments. More and more traditional physicians are referring patients to acupuncture clinics for a certain set of problems that may be treated more effectively, and without the side effects of medication. Also, individuals may decide to use an acupuncture clinic as the first choice to heal a disease.

The length of a treatment varies widely from person to person, depending on the particular symptoms, the age of the patient, how long the condition has existed, and the environment of the patient. There also seem to be patients that are naturally responsive to acupuncture, when all the other factors are similar. A patient that is responsive to acupuncture may only require one or two visits, as is the case with a number of children. Adult patients that are responsive generally require one to six visits for a particular symptom or set of symptoms. In other cases, up to twenty visits may be required, depending on the severity and length of time the symptoms have persisted. But even some remarkable cases such as recovery from paralysis may come about after a very long series of treatments.

For some conditions, such as for chronic pain, daily treatments are recommended until the pain subsides. The same is true for clients using acupuncture as a means to help stop drug addiction, which require daily treatments in order to keep the cravings at a minimal level. In a few patients, the initial treatment may aggravate the symptoms. A similar possibility is that there is a marked improvement after the first treatment, which may be followed by an aggravation of symptoms at the next few treatments. These should be reported in detail to the acupuncture practitioner, who may revise the locations of needles for the treatment, depending on the particular patient.

It is always a good idea to consider an acupuncture practitioner for whatever health problem you might have. Some problems respond exceptionally well with acupuncture. Acupuncture has a very good success rate for such symptoms as headaches, head congestion, cramps (menstrual, muscular, or intestinal), pain, depression, fatigue, hemorrhoids, and children’s nervous disorders. Acupuncture treatments have frequent success in the following areas, though not quite the same success rate as in the areas above. These include diarrhea, painful menstruation, eczema, gastric problems, kidney and gall bladder malfunction, nervous disorders, palpitations, rheumatism, shingles, autonomic nervous problems, especially following surgery.

There are a number of other conditions that acupuncture can be effective for, and for these a practitioner should be consulted, as new results are coming out frequently. Currently, it is thought that acupuncture is more helpful for symptoms rather than curing such diseases as tuberculosis, infantile paralysis, and Parkinson’s disease. Acupuncture treatments are sometimes surprisingly effective after traditional medicine has been tried without success. Lets look at two simple cases. In the first, a lady suffered with pain in her ankle for three years, and no standard medical treatment helped. Careful observation of her symptoms by an experienced acupuncture practitioner cured her in three treatments. The second case was of a farmer who had a low grade fever (about 100 degrees) nearly every night for a number of months. Regular physicians could not determine a cause, nor a solution. Regular acupuncture treatment was not effective. The acupuncture practitioner then applied the treatments at the optimal time (very early AM, not during the normal clinic hours), and the fever disappeared permanently. I hope this introduction to some uses of acupuncture may help you or someone you know to better health.