Tag: Medical Condition

Humor To Relieve Stress-Can Take Its Toll

If it is left unchecked, stress will take its toll on your health. While it isn’t possible to completely eliminate all forms of stress from your life, you can feel a lot better when you use humor to relieve stress.

It has long been said that humor is the best medicine, and there have been several studies that have shown this to be true, at least to some degree. The full effects of humor are not completely understood, but laughter appears to release certain chemicals in the brain, and these chemicals make us feel better and relieve stress.

Before we get to ways to add humor to your life, it’s important to mention that you should always discuss any health concerns with your doctor. Your stress may be the result of an underlying medical condition, and your doctor can also give you additional suggestions for relieving stress.

Now, on to the funny!

Your goal should be to laugh as many times per day as possible and then a few more on top of that. Free your funny bone and look at the lighter side of life. Stress is the result of your perceptions. You can’t always control what happens to you, but you can always choose how to respond to it. There are times when stress is a good option, but those times don’t happen all that often.

Television and movies can be good sources of comedy. Maybe you don’t like the most popular show, or romantic comedies may not be your thing, but that’s okay. The key is to watch whatever makes you laugh. If you’re the only one in the room laughing hysterically while everybody else sits there with a straight look on their face, then you can laugh at that too. Humor is a subjective thing, but that’s no excuse not to laugh.

The internet is a practically endless source of humor to relieve stress. There are tons of funny people online, though some of them are unintentionally funny. Log on to the internet and you can find funny videos, cartoons, pictures, quotations, jokes, and just about anything else you can think of.

Surround yourself with as many things that bring a smile to your face as you can. A calendar that has a new joke every day, a T-shirt with a goofy picture on it, or even a humorous bumper sticker are just a few ways to add more humor to your life.

Starting your own personal “humor file” is another way to get a much-needed chuckle when you need one. Cut out funny comics from the newspaper, stories from magazines, pictures, and so on, then put them into a folder that you can access whenever you need to. It’s a good idea to have a one physical file, as well as a file on your computer dedicated to humor.

One of the cool things about using humor to relieve stress is that it doesn’t require a prescription, so there are no side effects to worry about.

The Unknown Cause of Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Irritable bowel syndrome is a body dysfunction that is characterized by problems with the excretion of solid body wastes. Although not much people actually know that such a condition exists, it is nevertheless quite common, affecting one out of five Americans, placing it as one of the most common problems diagnosed by the doctor.

There is actually no gender or age factor involved with irritable bowel syndrome. Everybody can be afflicted. Still, statistics show that there are more women who suffer from irritable bowel syndrome compared to men. Most people diagnosed have also traced their symptoms back to when they were not yet twenty years old.

If you are under the impression that constipation and diarrhea are the main symptoms, you are wrong. Because there are a lot of body problems that may result in constipation and diarrhea, medical experts placed these two as secondary symptoms. What the doctor must have in order to make a diagnosis is the occurrence of abdominal pain. There may also be bloating especially if the person has not been able to excrete waste materials for a long time.

What makes it harder to detect is the fact that symptoms for most people are not so severe. Most in fact do not even know that they have irritable bowel syndrome. This is why little is known about this problem despite its prevalence. Most people who do experience the symptoms, they are quick to dismiss them as mere food poisoning. They dont know the constipation and pain that they feel is an entirely different matter.

Causes of irritable bowel syndrome

Until now, there is still no clear answer what exactly causes irritable bowel syndrome. Medical experts are still stumped as to why such a condition occurs. Unlike some diseases and other medical condition, which is caused by a bacterial or viral infection, irritable bowel syndrome is not caused by one culprit.

Research on the problem has mentioned a large intestine, the part of the digestive system that regulates the passage of the body wastes, that is awfully sensitive. It seems that the large intestines of people suffering from irritable bowel syndrome is more easily reactive to stimulation, which in turn can affect the bowel movement.

Stress is often attributed with irritable bowel syndrome. There are also studies that suggest the role of some food items that may trigger the problem.

Non Hypoglycemia- Understand the Cause

Non hypoglycemia, also known as non diabetic hypoglycemia, is a condition where the level of glucose in your blood stream falls below a certain number and you experience symptoms. Anyone in the world can experience a hypoglycemic episode but usually hypoglycemia is caused by a medical condition or hormonal imbalance.

There are two types of non hypoglycemia, or non diabetic hypoglycemia. The first one we will discuss is Fasting Hypoglycemia. One obvious cause of fasting hypoglycemia is not eating. When you don’t eat and/or skip meals your body can’t get the fuel it needs so your blood sugar drops to dangerously low levels.

Fasting Hypoglycemia can also be brought on by excessive strenuous exercise. If you do not replenish your body’s reserves during exercise then you will experience an episode of hypoglycemia. Fasting hypoglycemia is the type that can also be caused by a medical condition or hormonal imbalance.

A medical condition known as hyperinsulinism, or too much insulin released by your pancreas, is caused by a tumor in the pancreas. Other conditions, like Addison’s disease, that affect the secretion of hormones by the pituitary gland or the adrenal glands also can cause the pancreas to secrete more insulin than is necessary to maintain healthy blood glucose levels.

Excessive alcohol consumption can cause the drinker to experience a hypoglycemic episode. Alcohol
converts directly to sugar in your system and therefore stimulates the pancreas to secrete the insulin. If you do not eat the way you are supposed to when you are drinking, then you can and probably will feel the symptoms of hypoglycemia.

Reactive Hypoglycemia is a condition that may result due to a deficiency in the liver when it is required to secrete glucagon. Sugar is stored in the liver as glucagon and when the body needs a boost the liver normally secretes some into the blood stream. Liver diseases like hepatitis, cancer, or cirrhosis can inhibit the storage of glucagon.

If you have never had an episode of hypoglycemia before then you probably don’t know what symptoms to look for. Hypoglycemia symptoms include feeling shaky, hungry, being unable to think clearly, pallor, sweating, anxiousness, dizziness or lightheadedness, and blurred vision. Any or all of these symptoms should say only one thing to you, EAT NOW. If you do not get something to eat when you feel these symptoms other symptoms will soon follow and they include falling into unconsciousness, convulsions and even death. Do not play around with hypoglycemia, you could get yourself into all kinds of trouble in very short order.

So, if you feel these symptoms coming on stop what you are doing and eat something to raise your blood sugar quickly. If this happens often you probably keep some hard candy or chocolate at the ready. When your blood sugar is back to within normal limits then you need to eat something a little more substantial to keep it up.

Non hypoglycemia, or non diabetic hypoglycemia, is a dangerous condition that can turn even more dangerous very quickly so learn to control it early.

Diagnosing Gilbert’s Disease

There are times when people go through a certain stage in their lives when they need to understand and adjust to certain changes in the way that they live. Some people are burdened with adjusting to getting married, losing a loved one or acquiring a disease or a medical condition. Of all the three, getting diagnosed with a medical condition can be the hardest to adjust to especially if you found out that you have been living with it for all your life. Hereditary diseases like Gilberts disease are one of those that we can acquire and not know about for a long time.

One of the reasons why we can live without knowing the presence of Gilberts disease is that the condition itself has no symptom or noticeable effect. Some people can even live through the rest of their lives without even knowing.

Just because it has no symptom it doesnt mean that it should not be consulted. People sometimes have the wrong notion of not going to a specialist if they suspect that they have Gilberts disease. So why is it important to have your condition diagnosed? Well there are several reasons but lets just look at one and that is for proper identification of the solution for the the problem, once we have the right diagnosis we can move on to taking care of the person who is sick.

Exclusion of other conditions

While this syndrome Gilberts disease is considered to be harmless by itself, it is clinically important to be diagnosed and identified correctly because it may be confused with much more dangerous liver conditions. However, these will show other indicators of liver dysfunction:

– Hemolysis can be excluded by a full blood count, haptoglobin, lactate dehydrogenase levels and the absence of reticulocytosis (elevated reticulocytes in the blood would usually be observed in haemolytic anaemia);

– Hepatitis can be excluded by negative blood samples for antigens specific to the different hepatitis vira;

– Cholestasis can be excluded by the absence of lactate dehydrogenase, low levels of conjugated bilirubin and ultrasound scan of the bile ducts;

– More severe types of glucoronyl transferase disorders like Crigler-Najjar syndrome (types I and II). These are much more severe and cause brain damage in infancy (type I) and teenage years (type II);

Other diseases of the liver can be exluded by the liver-enzymes ALAT, ASAT and albumin being within normal ranges.

Findings specific to Gilberts syndrome

Patients with Gilberts disease show predominantly elevated unconjugated bilirubin. While conjugated is usually within normal ranges and form less than 20 percent of the total. The level of total bilirubin is often increased if the blood sample is taken after fasting for two days, and a fast can therefore be useful diagnostically. If the total bilirubin does in fact increase while fasting, the patient can then be given low doses of phenobarbital when fasting has ended, and following samples should show a decrease in total bilirubin toward normal levels.

Once the findings have been reported, the patient with Gilberts disease should be more careful and should follow what the physician says. It will also be helpful for him or her to conduct a research so he or she can take care of themselves at home or if they cannot go to the doctor regularly. It is also best to watch diet carefully, conduct regular exercise, and take necessary medications or undergo treatments when needed.