Antidepressants Blog

If you think you have bursitis, try taking aspirin or Advil to relieve the pain and deduce the swelling of the bursa. Ice packs can also help reduce the swelling. Also, try to test your shoulder until you ate able to move it through your full range of motion. The bursitis will usually cleat up in a week with these treatment methods. However, if your shoulder is still painful and your range of motion is still limited after a week, you should see your doctor, who will examine your shoulder and check your range of motion. She will probably inject a corticosteroid medication directly into the bursa to relieve the pain and decrease the swelling instantly.

Once you’ve had a bout with bursitis in your shoulder, you may find that if you repeat the same patterns of overuse, the bursitis will probably come back. The best way to prevent future problems with bursitis is not to be so gung ho with weekend activities, rather to ease into them instead. Better yet, make it a point to exercise regularly during the week, and your bursitis will probably be a thing of the past.

A person who needs to limit the movement of the elbow while a bout of olecranon bursitis clears up, may find that an Ace bandage works well. If you’ve limited your activity and your elbow still hurts, you should see your doctor, who will drain the excess fluid from the bursa at the tip of your elbow.

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Description and Possible Medical Problems

If you’ve entered menopause and you notice any amount of vaginal bleeding, whether light or heavy, you need to see your doctor immediately, since vaginal bleeding in a woman who’s gone through menopause is a serious matter. If you’ve been taking estrogen and/or progesterone and you’re either cutting down or stopping the medication completely, the bleeding might be due to withdrawal from the hormones. If you’re not taking estrogen or progesterone, the bleeding may be due to cancer of the uterus, which is the second most common form of cancer in women but the most common in postmenopausal women. Your risk for cancer is increased if you are taking estrogen without progesterone or are diabetic and/or obese. And if you’ve never had children, your risk also goes up.

If you’re postmenopausal and are experiencing vaginal bleeding, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Is the blood definitely coming from the vagina or from the urinary tract or rectal area? For instance, do I primarily see the blood when urinating or during a bowel movement, or does it also appear at other times?

2. How much blood do I see? Is it just a streak, or is it heavy enough that I have to use a pad or a tampon?

Treatment

Postmenopausal women who are experiencing vaginal bleeding will need to have a complete gynecological exam, including a physical exam, a Pap smear, and a biopsy that’s done with a D and C, or dilation and curettage.

If the initial diagnosis confirms uterine cancer—and there’s no easy way to say this—you will need to have a total abdominal hysterectomy. The uterus and ovaries will be removed; the vagina will remain in place. The total recuperation time in an otherwise healthy woman is three to four weeks. Your gynecological oncologist may also want to treat you with radiation or chemotherapy, if she believes the cancer has spread. If uterine cancer is caught early, it can be cured.

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Description and Possible Medical Problems

Of course, we know that the most common reason your abdomen would suddenly increase in girth over the course of several months is either weight gain or, if you’re a woman, pregnancy.

However, there are a number of serious medical problems that can cause the abdomen to increase in size. Sometimes the amount of water in the abdominal cavity can build up due to cancer or to failure of the heart, liver, or kidneys. This condition is called ascites. Another reason for the increase in girth could be a bowel obstruction or a tumor in the digestive or gynecological tract. You may also be jaundiced, vomiting, or constipated, or you may have experienced a recent loss in weight.

Treatment

If you notice that the size of your abdomen has increased over the course of several months and your dietary or exercise habits haven’t changed, you should see your doctor. If he suspects you have ascites, you will most likely be hospitalized in order to undergo a series of lab tests to analyze the fluid in your abdomen. If your doctor believes you have a tumor in your abdomen, he will use a CAT scan, a sonogram, and perhaps a colonoscopy to determine its size and whether it is benign or malignant.

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A cough is a very common condition. Most of the time, the purpose of a cough is very simple: we cough to expel an irritant from the lungs or the throat, whether it’s a piece of food, particle of dust, or an infection of the upper respiratory tract, such as a cold or flu. In these cases, a cough encourages the lungs to rid themselves of phlegm and irritating substances.

However, a cough can also be caused by emotions, as some

people cough when they get upset; it’s almost as if they’re trying to rid the body of the negative thoughts and feelings that are causing them to be upset.

These kinds of coughs are usually not serious and tend not to last for more than a week or so. Since most coughs are part of the body’s infection-fighting system, they usually disappear without any specific treatment. However, if your cough lasts for more than a week or appears on and off over a period of a couple of months, you should see your doctor.

More uncommonly, a cough can be a sign of a serious disease. Asthma and heart disease can first show up as a simple cough. Likewise, many cancers of the lung begin with a cough as the only symptom. Therefore, the words you use to describe your cough to your doctor are very important. If you’re not sure of the reason why you’re coughing, ask yourself the following questions:

1. How long have I been coughing? Hours, days, or weeks?

2. Is it a productive cough? In other words, am I coughing up mucus, phlegm, or blood? If so, how much? Less than a tablespoon or more than that? And what is the color? Bright red, brown, grey, green,| black, or clear?

3. Do I start to cough when I’m in a certain position such as lying down?

4. Do I start to cough when I increase my level of physical activity?

5. Am I wheezing?

6. Do I have other symptoms, such as weight loss, fever, or chills? Has my voice changed over a period of several months?

7. Do I start coughing when I’m eating?

8. Do I tend to cough when I become nervous?

Your answers to these questions will help your doctor diagnose your cough and prescribe appropriate treatment. If he thinks your cough is a sign of a serious underlying illness, he may order one or more of the tests listed earlier in this chapter that are used to investigate problems in the chest.

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Description and Possible Medical Problems

If you notice a raised lesion on your face with a luminescent color, like a pearl, chances are you have one of the most common forms of skin cancer, basal cell carcinoma.

Basal cell carcinoma affects men and women who burn easily in the sun and who have had a significant amount of sun exposure over the course of their lives. Some doctors believe that heredity can increase your risk of contracting this malignant form of cancer.

But the news is actually very good. The fact is that basal cell carcinoma rarely spreads to other parts of the body, and it’s one of the easiest kinds of cancer to treat.

Treatment

Though basal cell carcinoma rarely spreads to other parts of the body, your doctor will want to remove the tumor when biopsy shows a positive diagnosis. He will remove it surgically, with radiation, or by freezing it with cryosurgery.

After treatment has been successful and all traces of the tumor have been removed, your doctor will recommend that you stay out of the sun unless you regularly and liberally apply a sunscreen with an SPF of 15 or higher.

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When there is an excess of acid in the stomach, some of it may be regurgitated back into the throat, thereby producing a strong acid taste in the mouth known as heartburn. When heartburn keeps one awake at night, Geriatrics (41#1:31) reports, taking a sleeping pill is not a safe thing to do.

The pill will overcome the insomnia, but it can also prevent a heartburn victim from waking up in response to the discomfort of the acid regurgitation. If acid is allowed to remain in the esophagus (the passageway through which food and drink descend from the throat to the stomach) for any length of time without being neutralized with milk or medication, it will erode the lining of the esophagus The entire thickness of the esophageal wall will become inflamed and go into spasms, a very painful condition known as reflux esoph-agitis. Without a sleeping pill, the victim is likely to be aroused by the discomfort of heartburn and to take steps to relieve it before it can do any harm.

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Reye Syndrome, an uncommon complication of viral illnesses, most often of influenza or chickenpox, usually affects children aged between 5 and 11, and sometimes also young adults.

Presenting with severe vomiting, followed by lethargy, changes in personality, and then coma and even death, Reye Syndrome is due to inflammation, with swelling and disordered function of the brain and the liver. The cause of this complication has remained a mystery until now. The Public Health Service’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (27:532) cites two studies, in Ohio and Michigan, both of which point to aspirin as a likely major factor. Aspirin’s use in febrile illnesses, according to the report, increases the likelihood of Reye Syndrome about 11-fold.

If this is true, what should we do about the fever and discomfort of viral illnesses? Perhaps we should do nothing, suggests Internal Medicine Alert (2:71). Reducing fever may be counter-productive, IMA reports, since fever is one of nature’s best defenses against the multiplication and spread of viruses in the body. Aspirin, therefore, while making febrile patients feel better, may actually prolong their illnesses and increase the likelihood of complications.

Please note, this does not apply to the small daily aspirin doses thought to be useful in reducing the likelihood of strokes and heart attacks.

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Monthly self-examination of the breasts by women is generally acknowledged to be an efficient way of detecting tumors while they are still likely to be curable. Why then don’t men take the same trouble in detecting testicular tumors? The answer, of course, is that testicular tumors are much less common than tumors of the breast.

Nevertheless, according to the Southern Medical Journal (78:33), men all too frequently procrastinate after finding a mass in the scrotum. When diagnosis and surgical treatment are carried out early and before a testicular tumor has spread beyond the scrotum, cure can be obtained in over 90 percent of cases. Three months seems to be a critical period. When men delay longer than this before seeking help, their tumors are more likely to have spread, and survival then drops to less than 50 percent.

Unfortunately, the man who discovers an abnormal testicular mass tends to find an excuse for not doing anything about it. Such masses are usually painless, and this suggests to non-medical people that they can’treally be dangerous. Nothing could be more misleading, because the majority of testicular tumors are highly malignant. For this reason, Emergency Medicine (12#17:167) recommends that, using both hands, all men should systematically feel the contents of the scrotum every month and report to a physician immediately if they detect anything abnormal. Taking only a minute, this procedure can save many lives.

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Episodes of blindness, lasting up to five minutes and involving part or all of the visual field, are often a sign of decreased blood flow to the eye or to its nerve connections inside the brain. This is a warning of impending stroke.

About one in five persons so affected, according to the Lancet (1:838), will show X-ray evidence of a narrowed artery in the neck. Due to atherosclerosis (cholesterol deposits), the narrowed part of the artery can usually be removed, thereby improving the blood flow and helping to prevent a stroke.

Whether or not surgery can be performed, all other possible means of preventing stroke should be employed in such cases. These measures should include keeping the blood pressure down to normal and taking a medication such as aspirin in doses that slow the blood clotting mechanism.

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While New York City has 29 percent of all AIDS victims in the United States (San Francisco 10 percent, Los Angeles 9 percent, Miami 3 percent, Newark 2 percent), the remaining 47 percent of people with AIDS live in smaller communities throughout the country. Modern Medicine (55#10:80) reports that one recently diagnosed patient is a farmer who milks 40 cows every morning and evening.

For every person with AIDS, there are about 100 others who do not yet have the disease, but who have become infected with the virus. Most of these people will ultimately develop AIDS and die from it sometime during the next three to 10 years, authorities believe.

Despite this chilling evidence of spread, many commentators who lack the necessary information and understanding have been suggesting that the worst is over, and that AIDS remains essentially a disease of homosexuals, drug addicts, and members of certain urban minority groups, among whom it has already peaked. This is not only untrue, but it lulls people into a false sense of security and suggests that we need no longer take steps to defend ourselves against this killer disease.

Returning to plain facts, the virus has already infected 11 percent of prostitutes nationwide, is showing up more and more often in our “normal” heterosexual population, and public health authorities are now talking about the start of “the breakout” phase in the spread of AIDS throughout the U.S.A. Casual sex coupled with ignorance of the facts about the epidemic provide nearly ideal conditions for the spread of this disease. Furthermore, so long as our TV personalities, movies, magazines, and commercials continue presenting sex as an attractive recreational activity, many people will have difficulty in viewing it otherwise and in seeing the need for safer behavior.

If we are to halt the transmission of AIDS, the Surgeon General believes we must do a better job in educating people about it and in getting them to become more responsible in their relationships with one another.

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