Health and medical news blog

Atypical Absence SeizuresAtypical absence seizures are often difficult to differentiate from complex partial seizures. The number of spells per day, the age of onset, and most particularly the associated manifestations of the seizure, such as lip smacking, picking at clothes, and confusion may help to identify the type of seizure. The EEG is also often useful in distinguishing between the classical three-per-second spike-wave of simple absence seizures and the somewhat slower spike-wave of atypical absence seizures.Other Special EEG Patterns”Hypsarrhythmia,” a very chaotic, high-voltage EEG pattern of spikes, poly-spikes, and slow waves seen in some young children of six months to three years, is almost always associated with the severe seizure disorder infantile spasms. The “Lennox-Gastaut” pattern is also a chaotic pattern of slow spike-wave and poly-spikes, a pattern seen in some children and young adults who have a mixed seizure disorder. The term is used to describe the EEG and also the seizure syndrome.Other types of epilepsy that can be diagnosed by a combination of the clinical pattern of the seizures and the EEG include benign rolandic seizures, which have midtemporal or parietal spikes, and juvenile myoclonic epilepsy of Janz.*82\208\8*

As mentioned earlier, the term cancer refers not to a single disease but to hundreds of different diseases. However, four broad classifications of cancer are made according to the type of tissue from which the cancer arises.
Classifications of Cancer- Carcinomas. Epithelial tissues (tissues covering body surfaces and lining most body cavities) are the most common sites for cancers. Carcinoma of the breast, lung, intestines, skin, and mouth are examples. These cancers affect the outer layer of the skin and mouth as well as the mucous membranes. They metastasize through the circulatory or lymphatic system initially and form solid tumors.- Sarcomas. Sarcomas occur in the mesodermal, or middle, layers of tissue – for example, in bones, muscles, and general connective tissue. They metastasize primarily via the blood in the early stages of disease. These cancers are less common but generally more virulent than carcinomas. They also form solid tumors.- Lymphomas. Lymphomas develop in the lymphatic system – the infection-fighting regions of the body – and metastasize through the lymph system. Hodgkin’s disease is one type of lymphoma. Lymphomas also form solid tumors.- Leukemia. Cancer of the blood-forming parts of the body, particularly the bone marrow and spleen, is called leukemia. A nonsolid tumor, leukemia is characterized by an abnormal increase in the number of white blood cells.The seriousness and general prognosis of a particular cancer are determined through careful diagnosis by trained oncologists. Once laboratory results and clinical observations have been made, cancers are rated by level and stage of development. Those diagnosed as “carcinoma in situ” are localized and are often curable. Cancers that are given higher level or stage ratings have spread farther and are less likely to be cured.*13/277/5*

Every night is not New Year’s Eve. And with the exception of a few celebrations throughout the year, most of us are probably just “social drinkers.” When it comes to liquor, you don’t need this book to tell you that drinking of the “lost weekend” type is injurious to anyone’s body. But the question is . . . how does a normal amount of liquor affect arthritics?
Alcohol may be enjoyed if you drink it at the proper time, before meals. Do you take your drinks straight or mixed? If you mix them, do you mix with water, carbonated water, soda water, tonic water, or just ice cubes? It makes a great difference to your joint linings and your arthritis. Take your liquor neat or with plain water, not the carbonated kind.
When you over-indulge in hard liquor and do not eat correctly for many years, the nutritional deficiency and the liquor can lead to a scarred liver. Worse, if you mix your drinks with carbonated products, you may eventually scar your joint linings as well.
The order in which you drink liquor is all important. Even an occasional highball or cocktail should be taken at least ten to thirty minutes before you eat. Never with the meal. In other words, keep liquor away from your dietary oils while they are being digested.
Bottled beer is a carbonated beverage, so drink it sparingly. Whenever you do drink beer, again, make it before meal-time. Or at least three hours after eating.
Smoking
When anyone starts discussing the subject of drinking, the next topic of conversation is usually “smoking.”
You may have the habit of lighting a cigarette while eating. You may wonder if you are also lighting the way to arthritis. My research does not indicate that smoking can ever do anything to dry-up the oil in your body. We have found, however, reports that excessive smoking can cause arteries to contract. Such contraction could lead to joint tissue damage. The whole problem probably hinges on whether or not you are a chain smoker.
Go ahead, enjoy smoking. Just use moderation.
What is moderate smoking? Well, you should certainly draw the line at a packet of twenty cigarettes each day. Use this as a comparable yardstick in regard to cigars and pipe-smoking.
Eating Habits
There are several minor practices which occur during our meals and have a direct bearing on arthritis. Seasoning our food, for example. Should we use vinegar, mayonnaise, special oil dressings on salads, etc.?
Vinegar must be condemned. It is not compatible with the oils we are trying to digest. For the same reason, the use of French dressing should be minimised at all times. Even though there is a small amount of vinegar in mayonnaise what we want to avoid is vinegar used in its liquid form. Therefore moderate use of mayonnaise or salad dressing is not objectionable.
Sugar Undermines Your Diet
White sugar, added to liquids, is particularly injurious to the arthritic. An over-abundance of sugar throughout your life causes the walls of your intestines to degenerate. Then the sugar particles travel to the joint linings and burn up the oils.
Sugar destroys the very oils we are trying to save. For example, when we withdraw joint fluid and measure the sugar content in a normal person, there is approximately 80 milligrams per 100 cubic centimetres of fluid. In an arthritic, with a fasting stomach, the percentage of sugar would be about the same. But . . . give the arthritic with a degenerating intestinal wall one bottle of carbonated soda pop and in twenty minutes the sugar content of the joint fluid will triple!
Oil is burned or cheapened by “inferior-type” carbohydrates (sugar). Avoid sugar in liquid form, granulated or as honey or molasses.
We have been commenting on various habits which play a part in causing arthritis. In the next chapter we will consider one of the most common tads of all in my own country. The practice of running to so-called health charts every time we need an answer to a dietary problem.
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Just stop. There are no dangerous withdrawal reactions from glue sniffing or from most of the other solvents. Withdrawal symptoms such as sickness, depression, insomnia and loss of appetite sometimes occur. Get to Narcotics Anonymous and do not substitute other drugs or alcohol.
Cannabis
How to stop-Just stop. There are no dangerous withdrawal reactions from cannabis.
Withdrawal symptoms-Heavy users have reported irritability, insomnia, nausea, loss of appetite and restlessness. You will get the emotional confusion and cravings that come to all addicts.
Advice-Despite the idea that cannabis is a ‘soft’ drug, it can be highly addictive for people who are regular users. Your recovery will need just as much effort on your part as a heroin addict’s recovery from heroin. Make sure you get to Narcotics Anonymous meetings, where you can find other cannabis addicts. Be careful not to substitute drink or other drugs.

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Not all drug-dependence clinics are equally effective. Some are excellent, and many are reasonably helpful. They may give heroin addicts methadone, but it will only be for about a week – just for withdrawal.
Unfortunately, some clinics simply take addicts off their heroin and give them methadone instead for weeks or months at a time.
That’s simply making a heroin addict into a methadone addict. This kind of treatment will just delay your recovery. You will stay ill with the illness of chemical dependence. And, worse still, if you want to recover by giving up methadone, you will discover that its withdrawal effects are more prolonged than those of heroin.
Local NA and AA members often know the local clinics. They have a network of ex-patients who can report on the good – and the bad – clinics. Neither organisation officially recommends hospitals or clinics, but individual members are often good sources of advice about where the best local clinic is to be found.
You will find good and bad clinics within the health system, and you will find good and bad clinics in the fee-paying system. Just because a clinic charges high fees does not mean that it offers good treatment. In the same way, there is no automatic superiority among the
health-service clinics.
What matters is the kind of treatment a clinic offers.

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Some of you have already had a lot of training in managing medical and city authorities. I will therefore address others who might need a greater overview and additional support for their work.
You are required to be part psychiatrist, part analyst, part business and economic expert, family therapist, and mediator between the courts, the family and the taxpayer. Your role is full of problems! You frequently feel inferior in training and importance to the psychologists and psychiatrists you work with and feel that your position is not respected enough. And you are right, but this is partly your
The social worker’s position own doing. Many of you did not want to submit yourselves to the long and arduous training offered to analysts, psychiatrists and psychologists. But perhaps you were right; some of the training is not really as useful as it could be! Why not define the problems of your profession better and seek the kind of training you need, training which will bridge the gaps between individual psychology and city problems?
I recommend that you redefine your role. Your job is a mixture of all the abilities needed in the client’s situation, as well as the ability to switch roles as the situation demands. Since your job deals with the entire city you are like a mind in the midst of a body. A problem in one part of the body demands that you make contact with that part and examine the entire situation surrounding it. As a general rule, the organization of the entire body must change so that the troubled part improves.
*145\227\8*

Partially treated bacterial meningitis may manifest as aseptic meningitis and should be strongly considered in patients who have had prior antibiotic treatment. Subacute bacterial endocarditis is associated with aseptic meningitis. In addition, parameningeal foci of infections, such as an epidural abscess, are also associated with a CSF pleocytosis.
Several rickettsial infections may be associated with aseptic meningitis. Aseptic meningitis may be a manifestation of the second phase of Lyme disease, caused by Borrelia burgdorferi. This is more often associated with other neurologic findings such as cranial neuropathies. Headache and stiff neck may occur in the first stage, but the CSF is often normal during that stage. The CSF often shows a lymphocytic pleocytosis with slightly elevated protein level and normal glucose level. Prognosis is good with appropriate antibiotic therapy. Secondary syphilis may be associated with meningitis as well. Aseptic meningitis may also occur in approximately one half of cases due to Leptospirosis, which is acquired by contact with animal body fluids.
Although tuberculous meningitis often appears subacutely and with neurologic manifestations other than meningitis, it, too, should be considered in the differential diagnosis of aseptic meningitis. Approximately 75% of patients with tuberculous meningitis have evidence of extrameningeal disease, but 25% do not. In addition, the tuberculin skin test may be negative. These patients often have a delay in diagnosis and increased severity of disease. Cranial nerve palsies, the syndrome of inappropriate anti-diuretic hormone secretion, and a change in mental status are often present. Diagnosis is often difficult without such signs, as cultures of CSF for Mycobacterium tuberculosis are slow and may be insensitive. It can be confused with enteroviral infections, and dual infections with viruses have been reported. CSF in late disease will show a lymphocytic pleocytosis with increased protein and decreased glucose but may differ in early disease. Newer culture techniques arid antigen testing are currently ongoing. Prognosis is often progressive and fatal, especially without therapy.
*15/348/5*

Neuro-transmitter substances
When a brain cell or neuron is activated it fires off electrically; this firing-off releases a small amount of a chemical at the end of the nerve fibre. This chemical is called a neuro-transmitter substance.
The neuro-transmitter substance in turn stimulates the next neuron to fire off. Thus the conduction of impulses in the brain is via an electrical-chemical – electrical – chemical -electrical, etc., process.
The neurotransmitter substances of the reticular activating system are different from those secreted by the learning/ unlearning cells of the cerebral cortex. Noradrenalin and serotonin are neurotransmitters which probably play an important role in this system.
Because changes in the level of neuro-transmitter substances available to be secreted at nerve endings can affect brain function, it is probable that the inhibitory reserve reflects levels of available neuro-transmitter substances. Should levels of these neuro-transmitter substances in the brain become diminished as in malnutrition or where the brain’s metabolism is disturbed’ then it is possible that the inhibitory reserve will be adversely affected.

Importance of sleep
However, the single most important factor in the regeneration of the inhibitory reserve is sleep. Sleep is an essential part of the treatment of all patterns of disturbed mental function, and the relationship between lack of sleep and irritability is so self-evident that there is no need for scientific proof. Every mother with experience of looking after cranky children who have missed out on their daytime nap, has learned for herself the relationship between sleep and the regeneration of the inhibitory reserve.

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If we ask the nervous system to process conflicting information or to make a decision when it has already been programmed not to, it responds exactly as a computer would in similar circumstances. It responds with an error signal or alarm reaction. Thus an anxiety reaction may occur if we ask the nervous system to deal with inappropriate information.
For example, due to experiences in childhood a boy may have made a decision such as – ‘I will never ask anyone to marry me because I could never face the guilt if I couldn’t live up to the responsibilities of married life and have to leave like my father did!’ Because this vow or promise was made so long ago, and it was in association with painful memories, it was repressed into the unconscious mind, where it was out of reach of conscious recall, and therefore apparently forgotten. Now, many years later, this young man is preparing to ask his girlfriend to marry him, but he finds when he goes to pop the question, he develops anxiety symptoms. However, he is quite unaware of the reasons for this at the time and may even make the incorrect assumption that he doesn’t love the girl enough.
What the young man is doing is attempting to make a decision about marrying this girl while his nervous system is still programmed by the pre-existent decision which is unconscious, but still operative within the nervous system’s memory circuits. The decision-making process becomes blocked or ‘hung-up’, triggering an alarm or anxiety reaction.
In this case, anxiety arising in circumstances where the nervous system is neither apparently overloaded nor malfunctioning could be described as neurotic anxiety. The brain is overloaded in that it is failing to deal with a discrimination task which is too difficult for it to do. The person experiencing such anxiety would experience it in these circumstances whether he or she was otherwise over-stressed or not. However, it is obvious that a number of small, inner, deep conflicts such as the one I described might so use up the available computing space in the nervous system as to allow stress breakdown to occur at lesser levels of load than would happen in a person without such inner conflicts.
Inner conflicts thus lead to inefficiency and a lowered threshold for stress breakdown.
The most common conflicts interfering with our ability to tolerate high levels of stress without breaking down are conflicts over self-protection and self-discipline. Many people, when they experience anxiety symptoms, become anxious about being anxious. ‘How long will I be like this?’, ‘How do I know I’m going to get over this awful feeling of doom?’, ‘Howl do I know I won’t go insane like my great-aunt?’, ‘How can I be sure the doctor will be able to come if I call him?’, and so on. These conflicts can easily lead to a vicious cycle where the person’s focus of anxiety shifts to the question of being anxious. This type of vicious cycle, feeding on itself, is the basis; for phobic anxiety states, such as agoraphobia.

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A pollen count is simply that: a count of the average number of pollen grains contained in a cubic yard of air during the collection time, usually 24 hours.
Special devices have been developed to collect pollen and ensure an accurate count of the amount of pollen in a unit of air. Currently, the most commonly used method is that of specially coated glass rods. During predetermined time intervals, the rods are rotated in the air for specified intervals. As the rods are rotated, pollen grains from the air stick to the coated surface.
After 24 hours of such intermittent sampling (usually from
8 AM one morning until 8 AM the next morning) the rods are collected and stained. As the staining fluids are absorbed by the pollen grains, the grains distend and assume a highly characteristic appearance, one generally very different from that of the natural pollen. This change in appearance on staining permits most pollens to be easily identified. The pollen grains are then counted. The average number of grains of each pollen, as well as the average total number of pollen grains per cubic yard of air sampled, is then calculated as the pollen count for the last 24 hours.
When you hear about or read about today’s pollen count, remember that that sample was taken from 8 AM yesterday until 8 AM today.
The amount of pollen in the air is affected by several factors. If you are following the pollen counts provided by the television, radio and/or print media in your area, it will be helpful for you to be aware of these variants:
1. The pollen count you hear or read about today is always at least 24 hours old.
2. “Rain tends to wash pollen out of the air” is generally a true statement: large droplets are not efficient pollen removers, but small droplets are very efficient. Therefore, brief thunderstorms are less efficient pollen removers than are prolonged gentle rains. In fact, thunderstorms may actually re-disperse settled pollen in the air.
3. Humidity affects the pollination process. During times of high relative humidity, pollen grains tend to absorb moisture. This moisture adds weight and fills the tiny air pockets in the rains’ outer walls, making them less aerodynamic. During periods of low relative humidity, water evaporates from the pollen grains walls. This opens the air pockets and lightens the pollen, making it more buoyant. This is why the combination of low humidity and a windy day increases the amount of pollen in the air – and increases the misery of allergy sufferers.
4. Temperature affects pollen counts. Warm air encourages the process of pollination, whereas cool temperatures reduce pollen production.
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