Tag: United States

5 Sure-Fire Tips For Treating Your Arthritis

5 Sure-Fire Tips For Treating Your Arthritis
Susan Easton

The numbers can rattle you down to your bones if you let them. Millions upon millions of American adults suffer from arthritis, and that’s not including folks around the globe in other countries. In fact, arthritis tops the list as one of the most common chronic conditions in the United States and most other Western nations.
The numbers are much worse when you consider that arthritis pain and other arthritis symptoms are so hard to live with many times. Arthritis symptoms can include debilitating pain in your joints and in your bones. It can lead to the inability to move certain limbs, or extreme stiffness in others.
Arthritis pain could steal you ability to feed yourself with utensils, to be able to pick up your grandchildren, or to even get out bed in the morning. Other arthritis symptoms can include swelling, burning sensations in your joints, aches and pains in indiscriminate parts of your body, and redness.
Arthritis is actually a family of a whole host of different disorders. And to find the arthritis pain relief and treatment for you, you must know your particular type of arthritis. The two main kinds of arthritis are rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis (OA). There is also gout, and some even consider fibromyalgia a form of arthritis.
Each type has its own arthritis treatment. For osteoarthritis, also known as degenerative joint disease, for instance, to get arthritis pain relief some experts recommend alternative herbal remedies, or even your standard supplement treatments such as vitamin C, vitamin D, and calcium.
The top sure-fire arthritis treatment tips involve a little of such remedies, as well as some physical things you can do to better protect your joints.
1. Be kind to your joints. OA starts as excessive wear and tear in your joints. So one of the best ways to reduce the risk of this is by avoiding repetitive motions, which can include swinging a tennis racket, golf club, picking up packages at work, and other things you do the same way over and over.
2. Lose weight. Another way to be the kindest to your joints is to drop the load they have to bear. In other words, lose weight. Talk to your doctor about what a healthy weight is for you if you’re overweight.
3. Eat right. Some experts believe that calcium-filled dairy foods, and vitamin packed fruits and vegetables, can go a long way as an arthritis treatment and prevention method.
4. Know your drugs. NSAIDs work well against some forms of arthritis pain, but they also come with risks. Remember Vioxx? Acetaminophen, the drug in Tylenol, works well, too, but it can also lead to kidney and liver problems in excessive doses. So don’t take these drugs without your doctor’s advice.
5. Know your herbal remedies. Glucosamine and chondroitin have finally been proven as effective remedies for arthritis pain. But talk with your doctor before you take them.
There is no guarantee that any of these arthritis treatments can help you not become part of that frightening arthritis statistic, but the beauty is, no matter how much they work for your arthritis pain, they will definitely benefit your overall health. So it’s a win-win situation no matter how you look at it.

About The Author

This article about arthritis is submitted by Susan Easton, writing for http://www.arthritisinfosite.com.

The Unknown Cause Of IBS

Not many people know about irritable bowel syndrome. Perhaps because not much is known about it despite the fact that it affects a lot of people. In fact, statistics in the United States have shown that one out of five people suffer from irritable bowel syndrome. That is roughly about 20 percent of the population. That is pretty prevalent for a disease that is not so known.

In fact, most doctors believe that the numbers should be even higher. The lack of information has contributed to a lot of misdiagnosis and under diagnosis. Patients, it seems, do not even know that they have irritable bowel syndrome until after a few years when the symptoms are already getting out of hand.

With irritable bowel syndrome, the symptoms are often mild. In fact, among patients suffering from the disorder, about 70 percent of them only have mild symptoms at the onset. This is the reason why the problem is not detected early on.

Irritable bowel syndrome does not have a specific cause. Up until now, doctors cannot still pinpoint what causes the problem in the first place. Although much research has already been done about, there is still no clear cut answer as to what exactly starts off the problem. One existing theory in the medical profession is that people suffering from irritable bowel syndrome have very sensitive large intestines or colon. Because of this increased sensitiveness, minor changes in the chemicals and substances that enter the chamber sets off a series of reactions that affect the movement of bowel in the body. Another possibility is the role of stress in the problem.

This happens when stress brings on changes with how the body responds and work internally. Although stress is not the cause, many still believe that easing stress can significantly improve the condition. This is true. In fact, some doctors also recommend undergoing some psychotherapy to help the patient deal with some of the stressors in his life. Another triggering factor that are being researched upon are milk and other milk products that are said to often trigger irritable bowel syndrome.

Because irritable bowel syndrome has no specific cause, diagnosis often relies on the account of symptoms that come from the patient was well as the medical history. There is no specific test that can detect the occurrence of irritable bowel syndrome. The most that doctors do is to make sure that other problems are not causing the symptoms. Hence, they will give you a number of tests designed to test other diseases and not irritable bowel syndrome.

Saline or Silicone, Whats The Difference

Saline implants are just empty shells. Theyre surgically placed then filled with a salt water solution. Since this implant is so small when its placed, the incision can also be quite small. This small incision leaves a much smaller scar. The silicone implant is a cover or envelope containing a silicone substance. This implant requires a larger incision for placement.

The United States places restrictions on silicone implants. Even though these restrictions have been considerably lessened in the past few years, the saline implant is still the most common implant used in America. Quality results can be expected from saline implants, but they can be more likely to suffer from cosmetic problems. Women with thin breast tissue may have the most problems.

Rippling and wrinkling of the implant may be seen. Theres also the possibility of noticing the implant itself, either by sight or by touch. Women with more breast tissue dont generally have this issue. Its for this reason that most surgeons prefer the silicone implant for post-mastectomy reconstruction.

Silicone implants are more widely used outside the United States than saline. Theyre considered by most surgeons to be more realistic in appearance. Methods have been developed to hide the scar left by the large incision the silicone implant requires. The newest version has shown the potential for significant improvements over the older products. Even though the leaked silicone hasnt been shown to cause health problems, the possibility of leakage is still a concern.

What You need To Know About Gilbert’s Disease

There are quite a number in the American population that had been affected since their time of birth by this condition, Gilberts disease affects about two to five percent of the population in the United States alone. To better understand what it is and how it affects the people ridden with the condition, here are some of the frequently asked questions about Gilberts disease.

1. What is Gilberts disease? Gilberts disease is known to be one of the causes of mild jaundice once in a while. It is typically not dangerous and has no need for treatment. It is due to a condensed amount of a compounds in the liver, which processes a breakdown result of blood cells called bilirubin. Gilberts disease is a condition wherein the liver has a problem in breaking down the bilirubin completely.

2. Where did the name Gilberts disease came from? In 1901, a French gastroenterologist named Augustin Nicolas Gilbert and his co-workers described the differences in the symptoms of Gilberts disease and the other liver diseases. He also provided additional information on how to acquire it and its further transmission.

3. What is bilirubin and what happens to a person with Gilberts disease? Bilirubin is continuously made inside our bodies, it is a form of end product. It is the waste product of hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is a compound that is found in every persons red blood cells and it is responsible for carrying oxygen to the other cells in the body. Many of the red blood cells that we have and the hemoglobin break down each day and as a result bilirubin needs constant disposal. Bilirubin get carried to the bloodstream and into the liver where it is taken in by liver cells. The liver breaks down the bilirubin further into the gut and to bile. An enzyme or a chemical compound that can be found in liver cells called urodine diphosphate glucuronosyltransferase (UGT) aides the liver cells to break down the bilirubin. People with Gilberts syndrome have a reduced level of UGT and so bilirubin can build up in the bloodstream. High levels of bilirubin in the blood causes jaundice.

4. Who gets Gilberts disease? Gilberts syndrome is a very common hereditary condition that means there is no way to prevent or to treat the condition was it has been passed on to the next generation. About 1 in 20 people have this syndrome – but most will not be aware of it. It is more common in men than women. It is often first diagnosed in the late teens or early twenties.

5. What are the symptoms of Gilberts disease? More often than not, none. Unfortunately, the specific symptoms related to Gilberts disease is not as easy to spot and monitor like in other diseases. Gilberts disease can be very dormant in terms of symptoms that it can manifest in a person for several years with them knowing it.

6. How different is it from jaundice? Jaundice is caused by the excessive levels of bilirubin in the body, more specifically the blood. Because people with Gilberts disease have fluctuating levels of UGT or urodine diphosphate glucuronosyltransferase, the build up and the manifestation of Jaundice cant really be used to gauge the severity of a person with Gilberts diseases condition. Aside from the discomfort and stomach pains most of the other signs of having Gilberts disease can be associated with other conditions.