Asthma is considered a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as are emphysema and chronic bronchitis, however the airway obstruction in asthma is reversible. Also, in asthma only the bronchi are affected and not the alveoli. Asthma may interfere with daily activities, such as walking, getting up and down the steps or any activity that requires strength and endurance. Asthma symptoms may be seasonal and be connected to very specific trigger factors, which often differ between patients.

Asthma symptoms vary from patient to patient and fall on a spectrum from mild to severe. There exist two asthma states: chronic asthma (steady-state) and the acute asthma (attack), each state has different signs and symptoms.

Chronic asthma (steady-state) is characterized by these signs and symptoms:

• shortness of breath (only at exertion)
• nighttime coughing
• a frequent throat-clearing cough
• wheezing (not always present)

Symptoms may be present during certain parts of the day, may gradually decrease or get worse.

Acute asthma (attack) symptoms are:

• shortness of breath (sometimes even when resting)
• wheezing
• tightness in chest

The symptoms of an asthma attack may be so severe that they become life threatening. Asthma attacks are often treated with a rescue inhaler containing short-acting beta-2 agonists. Long-term treatment of asthma include inhaled corticosteroids, long-acting beta-2 agonists and even monoclonal antibodies such as omalizumab and mepolizumab. The best way to take care of asthma in the long run is to identify and prevent exposure to trigger factors (see below), lower emotional and physical stress and by using prescription medicine (as discussed by you and your doctor).

Asthma Causes
Asthma has both genetic and environmental causes (triggers). Many asthma patients have family members who have lung conditions. Environmental trigger factors include bad air quality (often found in urban areas), high ozone levels in the atmosphere, other air pollutants including cigarette smoke, allergens such as pollen, mold, dust, dust mites, pet dander or rapid temperature changes. In addition, asthma can also be triggered by exersise. Recently, some researchers have suggested that the rise in asthma prevalence can be connected to the rise in acetaminophen pain killer use.

Additional Asthma Causes
Some studies have suggested that asthma may be linked to GERD, Gastro-esophageal Reflux Disease. It may be possible that the chronic aspiration of gastric acid results in a worsening of inflammation in the lungs. To establish a relationship between GERD and the presence of asthma, pH esophageal monitoring has to be performed.

Natural Remedies That May Help Asthma Symptoms
Although no natural asthma remedy exists, supplements, vitamins and herbal extracts are available that could help reduce the severity of asthma symptoms:

• Vitamin C: low levels of vitamin C have been linked to decreased lung function. Taking vitamin C may improve lung function and protect against exercise-induced asthma
• Vitamin B: In particular vitamin B-complex is able to help the body cope with the effects of stress and could therefore be beneficial to asthma
• Green Lipped Mussel (Perna canaliculus): Endemic to New-Zealand, this bi-valve mollusc (in extract form) is able to inhibit the 5-lipoxygenase pathway, which is responsible for the formation of leukotrienes. This may help curb the inflammatory processes

Eneli, I., Sadri, K., Camargo, C. and Barr, R.G. (2005). Acetaminophen and the risk of asthma: the epidemiologic and pathophysiologic evidence. Chest 127: 604–12.

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Millions of people suffer from migraine headaches, which are often referred to as migraine attacks. It is important to differentiate migraine attacks from regular headaches and cluster headaches. Migraines have the following main symptoms (lasting 4-72 hours):

• a pulsating headache (usually on one side of the head)
• nausea or vomiting
• increased sensitivity to light (photophobia)
• headache is preceded by the appearance of an “aura” in 30% of sufferers, which is the unusual sensation of a visual, olfactory or other sensory experience

Migraines seem to be linked to fluctuating hormone levels, as evidenced by 75% of adult patients being women. Migraine headaches can either be less frequent or more frequent during pregnancy.

Migraines are often treated with traditional over-the-counter medicines such as aspirin, acetaminophen (paracetamol) or analgesics containing a combination of aspirin, acetaminophen and caffeine.

How to prevent a migraine attack?

Migraine headaches seem to be triggered by certain factors, which can differ from person to person. These trigger factors include allergies, bright lights or sounds, fluctuating hormone levels, emotional or physical stress, changes in sleep patterns, alcohol, smoking and food ingredients (see next).

What not to eat?

The following food items are considered migraine triggers:

• Gluten: Several studies have found that gluten elimination from the diet can prevent or eliminate a migraine attack in a number of patients. For people who have celiac disease, migraines may be caused by a gluten sensitivity
• MSG: Mono-Sodium Glutamate has often been reported as a migraine trigger
• Tyramine: tyramine is found primarily in fermented food (aged cheeses, smoked meat, beer, wine)

Herbal treatments for migraines

Some migraine sufferers may not want to take painkillers or products containing caffeine (for example if you have high blood pressure). Migraine relief may come from these herbal remedies:

• Feverfew
• Passionflower
• Lemon balm
• Chamomille
• Ginger
• Ginkgo
• niacin (a B vitamin)

References

Lay, C.L. and Broner, S.W. (2009). Migraine in women. Neurol. Clin 27: 503–511.

Gabrielli, M., Cremonini, F., Fiore, G. et al. (2003) Association between migraine and Celiac disease: results from a preliminary case-control and therapeutic study. Am J Gastroenterol 98:625-9.

A stylish pair of top designer shoes is one of the most sought-after items in a woman’s closet. Consequently, heels have become a stand-alone fashion statement on their own. Unfortunately, these styles of shoes can cause a myriad of conditions in the precious feet. Among them: metatarsalgia, hammertoes, bunions, and arch support conditions. Not surprisingly, the University of Maryland reported that tight shoes, especially those with a lifted heel, can both irritate and cause foot and toe conditions. Men can also experience the dangers of tight shoes. Ill-fitting boots for working or shoes worn to the office can be of particular concern. For both men and women, physical activities and sports can be a main factor in foot discomfort.

Why Poorly-Fitting Shoes Can Cause Ball-of-foot Pain

High-heeled shoes cause your body weight to be pushed forward unnaturally. This causes more pressure onto the front of the foot rather than equally distributing the weight of the body over the whole foot. Inadequate cushioning in shoes, such as heels, can be a major factor in painful foot conditions. Muscles and fat in the pads of the feet, including the heels and ball of the foot, also help cushion the foot. But the foot cannot accomplish this alone. Shoe cushioning and arch support help to add to the foot’s natural ability to guard against injury during activities like running and jumping. Be sure to wear proper shoes with adequate cushioning and arch support.

Tight shoes are another key cause of painful feet for men and women. In females, shoes with toe areas that are narrow or that squeeze the toes together, are the causes for most foot discomfort experienced. High heels also cause conditions , since they fail to give feet adequate arch support, another main factor in painful foot conditions. For men, hard, flat work shoes can present their own set of of problems. Simply put, arch support is missing in these types of shoes, so they are not good choices for daily-use footwear. As reported by the Mayo Clinic, bad shoe selection can bring on the occurrence of fallen arches, especially during repeated physical strain on the feet such as in athletic activity or lifting heavy things.

How Orthotics Can Treat Ball-of-foot Pain and Improve Arch Support

An effective solution to relieving ball of foot pain and poor arch support is through the use of orthotic inserts. These are different from the inserts found at the local store. They are made for any style of footwear, even high-heeled shoes. They provide the vital cushion and support to feet so they can perform optimally and stay pain free.

Teaching adults can be challenging at times. Naturally, as we age, we experience changes in vision. We may no longer be able to focus on close objects, deal with the glare of a computer screen for long periods of time, read smaller 18-point font size, see colors as they actually are or see around physical barriers like tables. To teach adults, instructors should take all of these factors into consideration to reduce stress on their pupils. Hearing impairment is another challenge for adults of an older age. Some may learn to do some lip reading, but it’s always best if a loud voice can be used or have a clear microphone installed. Teachers should ensure a quiet setting with limited background noise, have all cell phones turned off and be careful not to distort their faces while speaking.

Additionally, up to 80% of the older adults in basic education programs have an adult learning disability, which hosts a new set of challenges. These adults may have writing, math and reading difficulties, poor handwriting, difficulty remembering things or adhering to a schedule, confusion about direction and limited social skills. To intervene with these adults, it’s advised that instructors work on basic skills remediation, subject-area tutoring, learning styles specifically designed for adult education, vocational exploration and survival skills training.

Teaching older adults should be an enjoyable process from start to finish. Seniors have a lot of rich experiences, interesting stories and knowledge to contribute to a class, which should make it a learning process for the instructor too. The tricky part can be balancing a deep respect for the seniors’ existing skills and knowledge base, while also introducing new topics developed for their pace and with different adult learning styles in mind. Students with adult learning disabilities may require extra motivation, positive reinforcement and patience, but they are often excited to learn new things.

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Some of the current tests for dyslexia include the Beery Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration, Bender Gestalt Test of Visual Motor Perception, Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test, Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (KABC), Kaufman Tests of Educational Achievement (KTEA), Motor-Free Visual Perception Test, Peabody Individual Achievement Tests (PIAT), Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, Test for Auditory Comprehension of Language (TACL), Test of Auditory Perception (TAPS), Test of Visual Perception (TVPS), Visual Aural Digit Span Test (VADS), Wechsler Individual Achievement Tests (WIAT, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III) and the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery test. To gather the full picture, doctors and psychologists usually try as many of these tests as they can to assess adult learning disabilities. This is called a “multi-approach” to diagnosis. In addition to these psychoanalytical tests, medical doctors can now perform brain scans using MRI and PET imaging to detect brain anomalies.

Sometimes an adult dyslexia test may reveal other adult learning disabilities. Non-verbal learning disabilities are classified under a different neurological disorder, which shows problems with organization, evaluating and visual-spatial processing.

With an auditory or visual processing disorder, a person may see or hear perfectly fine but have a difficult time deciphering. Dysgraphia is a writing disability where a person may be unable to write in cursive, form certain letters or include proper spacing. With dyscalculia, a person may be unable to solve the simplest mathematical problems or understand the most basic math concepts. ADHD anxiety may make a person feel distracted, excitable and unable to concentrate long enough to understand or store information properly.

A dyslexia test is practical if people have family members who were dyslexic, if they have trouble transcribing numbers, if they make frequent errors in writing or spelling and if they must read very slowly in order to comprehend. Individuals may be able to find a free dyslexia test online. While a comprehensive, in-depth assessment cannot be obtained online for free, there are sites that may prompt you to see a psychoanalyst or neurological doctor.

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Acid reflux occurs when gastric juices that contain acid, travel back into your esophagus from your stomach. You will know if you have this kind of disorder if you have one of these acid reflux symptoms:

• Burning Feeling In The Throat
  This occurs usually on the higher part in the neck and also on the lower part. This can be due to the irritation that occurs when stomach contents reflux up to your throat
• Burning Sensation In The Chest
  Usually the sensation starts on the sternum or behind the breastbone then this may lead to your throat. The burning sensation usually occurs after eating and can last for a few minutes or several hours
• Chronic Coughing
  About 41% of chronic coughing is due to acid reflux disorder
• Sour or Bitter Taste In The Mouth
  If stomach contents reflux up into the esophagus, there is a tendency that it may reach the back of the throat. Thus, a sour or bitter taste occurs
• Difficulty Swallowing
  If food does not pass normally through your esophagus, you may likely experience difficulty in swallowing. This happens if there is a sticking sensation in the throat, pressure in the chest or burning after eating. You may also experience the feeling of choking. These can be signs of different conditions, which include esophageal cancer and erosive esophagitis. If you are experiencing this, always have a physician evaluate you
• Asthma-Like Symptoms or Wheezing
  A number of studies have shown that 60% of people who suffer from asthma, have acid reflux. Acid reflux can affect asthma if stomach acid refluxes in the esophagus and then flows over into the airways and lungs. This could be  the reason why acid reflux may cause you to experience difficulty in breathing, which can lead to wheezing and coughing

Serious Foot Issues Can Occur Without Proper arch support

Some of the hereditary foot disorders include either low arches or abnormally raised arches. Both arch problems can affect anyone, including athletes. The result of a low arch can be arch pain and overpronation because this weakened part of the foot is not working as it should. When this foot area fails to support the body’s weight, foot overpronation occurs which can lead to a heel spur, a bony outgrowth in the heel. Surgery is sometimes needed to remove the boneprotrusion and relieve the irritation. The podiatrist will use a bone saw to cut away the bony protrusion to relieve the discomfort and ripped muscle tissue it had been causing. The best alternative for treating both types of arch disorders so heel spurs can be prevented is by supplying the foot with appropriate arch support through orthotics.

Foot Arch Pain Can Be the First Sign of Bunion Formation

Bunion removal, or a bunionectomy, is the process through which the bone growth that appears to the side of the ball of the foot is filed away to achieve a more conventional foot shape and width. In the most serious cases where the big toe has situated itself under the other toes, the podiatrist cuts a triangle-shaped wedge out of the big toe’s bone to reset it to its normal position. A tiny screw is used to fasten the two bone portions together. After about 6 to 7 months, the screw can be taken out. Though this problem can be brought on by pointed shoes, sometimes people are born with the tendency to form bunions. Foot specialists warn that tight shoes that force the toes into an unnatural position can cause bunions.

Without Proper Shoes, Painful Hammertoes Can Occur

Shoes that crowd the foot, including pointed-toe shoes, can result in development of hammertoes. This problem can affect walkers and runners that wear ill-fitting shoes during exercise as well. Hammertoes are, sadly, difficult to fix without a corrective operation. First, a podiatrist can try to straighten the affected toe to try and coax it into a more normal shape. For this procedure to work, patients need to wear shoes with plenty of toe room. Hammertoes can return if ill-fitting shoes are worn again. If splinting the toe is unsuccessful, surgery is the only option. The malformed toe must have a part of the bone removed to reduce its twist. The recovery period is very important, as patients who do not rest and elevate their feet as prescribed will fail to mend correctly. The way to avoid this condition is to wear roomy shoes.

No matter what type of activity level, age, or heredity, foot disorders can occur in a large percentage of patients. Though foot procedures can surgically alleviate these disorders, most of the time they are never an issue if people wear well fitting shoes and appropriate arch support .

With colon cancer, the initial stage, which is Stage 0, is found in the epithelial tissue of the innermost lining of the colon. Here, doctors find cells that are abnormal but have not yet mobilized into full-blown cancer. To treat this stage, doctors will perform a polypectomy, which is a local excision to remove the tumor and surrounding tissue. This treatment is usually considered curative and often no further problems develop if caught early during colon cancer screening tests.

In Stage I, the cancer has spread beyond the innermost layer to the second and third layers, as well as the inside wall of the colon. According to the National Cancer Institute’s most recent data (1991 to 2000), there is a 93% survival rate for colon cancer patients with Stage I cancer.

As the stages of colon cancer progress, the undetected carcinoid tumors are allowed to fester, expand and spread out. Soon they eat their way through the middle layers of the colon into tissues around the rectum and the outermost colon layers. This is known as Stage II-A, which offers an 85% survival rate if detected. Similarly, Stage III-A, which involves cancer that has spread through the wall and affected three disease-fighting lymph nodes, offers an 83% survival rate if caught right away. Once the cancer has reached the bowels, uterus, prostate, bladder and other organs, such as in Stages II-B and III-C, the survival rate declines to 72% and 44%, respectively.

The fourth and last stage of colon cancer is the most deadly, with just an 8% survival rate. By this time, most patients have metastatic colon cancer, which means the tumors and abnormal cell growths have migrated through lymph nodes to other larger organs, like the liver and the lungs.

If detected early, colon polyps can be easily removed during a colonoscopy or a minimally invasive laparoscopic surgical procedure. During Stages II and III, parts of the colon may need to be removed and reattached. Often chemotherapy and radiation therapy are recommended as complimentary therapies to surgery in the later stages as well.

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How can you discern whether your teen simply feels “blue” occasionally, or has full-blown depression and might need medical attention? If your teen’s gloomy moods aren’t balanced out by more positive things like good friends, interests and hobbies, or a generally good school experience, then these may be warning signs.

Depression in teens can manifest in lack of self-esteem, isolation and lack of concentration. And of course, if there is any talk of suicide, or any of these symptoms last for more than three weeks, you may need to find a depression treatment center.

Treatments can be varied, though having discussions with a therapist may be the best place to start. They’ll try to discover if you’re dealing with an anxiety disorder or if there’s a coming together of external influences that have created a perfect storm in your teen’s life, or a combination of the two. The best treatments may include a combination of psychotherapy and antidepressants.

If the depression is connected to disorders like anorexia or bulimia, then the teenager may benefit from some time in a mental health treatment center that would be better equipped to deal with all of the issues he or she is facing. They can also supervise the effects of antidepressants, which sometimes increase suicidal tendencies in teens rather than decreasing them.

Depression in teens is usually very treatable, especially when it’s diagnosed early. This doesn’t entirely prevent about 50% of them from having further depression problems in their adult life, yet effective treatment does result in the other 50% of teens being free from any further depressive episodes. Even for those who may experience it again, having received the best treatments and counseling as teenagers will equip them to manage it much more successfully as adults.

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Menopause treatment is not at all the same thing as treatment for depression. Most mood fluctuations during this time simply relate to hormone changes, and may be managed with diet or hormone therapy, except in severe cases. This means that the drug products that work for depression, while they may bring some relief to menopausal women, might not address the real causes of depressive symptoms.

One of the facts that any menopause treatment has to take into account, is that estrogen tends to be a factor in mood enhancement, while progesterone is more of a mood de-stabilizer. Current treatments for the symptoms that accompany the transition into menopause usually involve hormone replacement therapy (HRT). And yet, if the woman has had post partum depression treatment in the past, or has a history of depressive episodes, then HRT can actually worsen the risk of menopause-related depression.

That would mean that such women might consider seeking alternative treatments to alleviate menopausal symptoms, to try to avoid increasing their depression risk even further. And while there are vitamins and supplements that can help, sometimes the best treatments will simply be to exercise and eat properly.

Making sure they eat a diet containing plenty of natural estrogens may improve a woman’s mood just as well as drugs, in many cases. A few examples of these foods would be lentils, beans, apples, broccoli, beets, tomatoes, squash and olives. And there are many more. All of this is part of the natural treatment of menopause in general, but depressive symptoms that go along with menopause are as likely to be relieved as other symptoms.

However, if a woman continues to have difficulty, and she really does need comprehensive menopause treatment like HRT, even if it might make the depression worse, then a doctor can recommend other standard methods of depression therapy be added to the hormone treatments. This would primarily include the prescription of antidepressants, along with the hormone treatments themselves. If a woman is severely depressed during this time of her life, it’s well worth exploring all possible health treatments to ensure that her transition through menopause is not a miserable experience.

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