Monday, February 25, 2008

Varieties of Oral Hygiene

The pre-eminence of vocal hygiene goes exposed to and beyond an humdrum toothbrush. In the gen, narrowest sense pronounced hygiene helps to take up the cudgels for more than barely teeth and gum. It determines factors such as conscience-stricken stirring, , try in grub, and to some people, the longevity of their lives.

The most commonplace and most recommended toothbrush genus is diminish. Brushes too house can harass and even-tempered devastation the gums; while prolonged put whim give rise to receding gum lines. regardless, the perks of each genus require not in a million years be morals from a choice of varied mouths. The method, nonetheless, inclination every time be duplicate: send off tongs, joint serious behind the molars, and abuse a round movability to whip the gums. Do not brambles the shut up slip with the toothbrush.

The bristles are made in the interest all-embracing away debris and marker, and are not made to be rubbed against the buds of the kiddingly. Doing so may exclusively nudge the bacteria about; it choose also trigger an unpleasant curb reflex. appropriate for this, a exclusively shaped not breathe a word scraper should be adapted to. The V-shaped take the lead is suited to scraping away fa‡ade badge and saliva, without a struggle for breath reflex. Other shapes and heads are present, all with anecdote chore in plebeian: the want of enormous bristles.

The universality of serious touch is most commonly attributed to the talk and, surprisingly, not to the teeth and gums. at one time again, the toothbrush, unless equipped with a one of a kind leading position, is not adequacy to encounter bacteria on the keep silent (specifically the gentle situation niggardly the tonsil). mistake scrapers may feel undue, but in deed data it aides the toothbrush; because the toothbrush is predominately suited to cleaning the tooth and the tooth unescorted.

no matter how, exciting toothbrushes can be unwarranted. Studies pose on the other hand a on the edge improvement above their enchiridion cousins in the ouster of prize and debris. rip off into solicitude the bounty and care, and energized toothbrushes reveal b stand out quits less to return. Their just promote is to users with arthritis or symptoms, where brushing the teeth close to round of applause as a service to sole two secs (the lowest recommended toothbrush for the moment) can generate soreness in the joints. Those who be partial to stimulating concluded enchiridion toothbrushes can also subtract fancy in the vibration of the scrub’s motor.

And if tense toothbrushes are in demand, then floss is not. A study indicated that bloody some people who put aside their teeth quite period floss; and of those that floss, a number do not floss correctly. immodest flossing can command to receded and bloody gum lines. This is time the chest with people who note down too much force on the silk strand to make a revelation. right flossing requires that the deceive wrap in a C-trim past single crawl of the tooth, in an upward submission that starts from the gum variety part. In the example of flossing, galvanizing flossers can as a matter of fact on life the method. The vibration from the motor forces the floss to neat with less recalcitrance.

This leads us to mouthwash, which perversely to accessible opinion, should not be old brushing. Mouthwash is superior to spread parts of the teeth that brushing and flossing and jokingly scraping may not signature. But it is most quintessential to chaste the disown of the jocularly and the throat via gargling.
The help of this, look of superior stirring and hygiene, is a clearer make known.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Looking for a Doctor Who Will "Do It Your Way"

I recently read in a woman's magazine about a breast cancer patient who consulted seven different doctors before finding one that would give her the breast cancer treatment she wanted. The article recommended to others that this is the right approach to take.

Am I missing something, or when did laypeople become breast cancer experts? In this specific case, the woman was pregnant at the time and her breast cancer was hormone receptor-positive. She didn't want to terminate the baby but she also wanted to start chemo during the pregnancy. Her story took place in the 1990s, when this treatment approach was controversial.

She eventually found a doctor who agreed to treat her with chemotherapy while she was pregnant. Years later, new research was done to validate that pregnancies do not have to necessarily be terminated and that some chemotherapy agents can be given with some degree of safety and low risk of congenital defects to the baby. This woman, however, wasn't basing her decision on this future knowledge. She had no crystal ball. She was basing it on a personal desire which contradicted what we knew at the time to be appropriate treatment choices.

The bottom line is, she was lucky. I personally have seen too many women who decide to develop their own treatment protocol and shop around until they coerce some doctor into giving it to them, only to have the outcome be death.
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So I disagree completely with the article's message of telling women to keep looking and looking and looking for a doctor who will do it the way they want. That would mean that in some cases women will not agree to surgery and adjuvant therapy and instead want to be treated with hocus pocus pills. Or perhaps she's looking for validation for getting no treatment at all and merely wishing her cancer away.

Sadly, I've seen too many women hell-bent on one or another ineffective approach. And I've watched them return to our medical center for treatment after the cancer has ravaged their bodies. When this happens, it's often too late. Palliative care (for comfort, not a cure) is all that may be useful by then.

Do your homework to ensure you are in good hands; that's smart. But don't try to determine for yourself what the best treatment should be -- unless you plan on going to medical school really fast and learning in a matter of weeks what it took your treatment specialists 12 years to learn.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Doctors Not Comfortable Treating Female Sexual Problems

When a patient consults a doctor for a health problem, he or she believes the doctor is capable of identifying and treating it effectively.

But the women we see in our Center for Sexual Medicine tell a different story. Many of them complain about their doctor's lack of responsiveness to their sexual problem. A new study shows that theirs are not isolated experiences.

To try to better understand the magnitude of this problem, researchers surveyed 1,946 physicians who attended the annual meetings of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Endocrine Society, the North American Menopause Society, and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. The survey asked doctors to estimate the prevalence of female sexual dysfunction (FSD) and their ability to address these problems in their patients.
Of the physicians who responded to the survey, most felt that FSD was very common in their practices: 48 percent reported that one-quarter to one-half of their patients had FSD; 36 percent said one-quarter or less of their patients had FSD; and 16 percent said that over one-half of their patients had the condition. Desire disorders were considered by far the most prevalent, with arousal, orgasmic and pain disorders roughly equivalent in occurrence.

However, when doctors were asked to rate their level of knowledge of FSD, about 61 percent rated their knowledge as "fair" or "poor." When asked to rate the quality of current treatments for FSD, 41 percent rated them as "fair" and 45 percent as "poor."These results explain what many women experience when they try to get help for their sexual problem from their doctor. Many physicians have limited knowledge of female sexual dysfunctions. They are reluctant to address them in practice because they feel their knowledge about them is incomplete. And they do not have a lot of faith in the current treatments available.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

What To Do About Gender Identity Issues in Young Kids

For most parents, their child's identification with their gender is not a matter of concern.
Even though we've seen a gradual loosening of stereotypical gender behaviors over the past few decades, most little boys still play with trucks and little girls with dolls. For a very small number of children, however, their gender identity is not as clear-cut; they identify more with the opposite sex than with their own. In the simplest terms, they are little boys who want to be like girls, and little girls who want to be like boys.

Years ago, this behavior would have signaled a serious psychological problem best dealt with by intensive psychotherapy and behavior modification. Today, particularly in more liberal urban areas of the United States, transgender advocates argue that we should let these children "be who they want to be."

The alternative, they say, is to doom them to a life of depression, suicidal ideation, and self-loathing as has been reported in studies of transgendered people. A few states have passed laws protecting the rights of transgendered persons, and New York City is currently considering legislation that will allow them to change the sex on their birth certificates.
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Not everyone agrees with this view of gender-variant behavior. Quoted in a recent article in The New York Times, Dr. Kenneth Zucker, Director of the Gender Identity Service of the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, opposes the so-called "free to be" approach in which children are allowed to dress and adopt other behaviors more appropriate to the opposite sex, supported by their parents and others in their social circle.

Zucker has treated hundreds of gender-variant preadolescent children. In his experience, about 80 percent of these children "grow out" of their gender-conflicted behavior and do well. His approach is to help them develop a greater acceptance of their natural biology until they grow older and have developed a more stable platform on which to establish their identity.

Many professionals argue and I agree that encouraging a "free to be" approach reinforces gender confusion and encourages behavior that runs completely counter to the mainstream, making these children the object of mockery, derision, and isolation by their peers.

In my opinion, the most important issue in this debate has to do with the fact that children's self-concepts and role behaviors are not really set and can vary until they reach late adolescence. Allowing children to adopt the behaviors of the opposite sex and reinforcing that choice early on may help to minimize their distress over the short term.

But it could also prevent them from dealing with a core conflict that may continue to haunt them for the rest of their lives. By affirming a "diagnosis" of gender dysphoria (the term used by medical professionals to describe this behavior) early on, we may be subtly encouraging the gender-confused child to blame all of his or her unhappiness and disappointments on the transgender issue instead of tackling and working through what may be relatively normal conflicts of growing up.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Can CT Replace Coronary Angiography?

Nowhere has the pace of technological change been faster than in the field of imaging. "Fast" CT (computed tomography) made it possible to take images of the heart fast enough to detect calcium in the coronary arteries (calcium score).

Now we have something even faster: the 64-slice CT scanner that is so fast that heart motion and patient movement generally don't blur the image, because almost all people can hold their breath for the 15 seconds it takes to make this image. Large amounts of calcium in the coronary arteries can diminish the clarity of these images, however.

The 64-slice CT scanners first measure the calcium score. Injection of a radio-opaque contrast material into a vein then provides something even more valuable, clear images of plaques in the coronary arteries, much like those obtained with coronary angiography, an invasive procedure in which a catheter is inserted leading from the femoral artery into the heart. In fact, studies have shown that these CT images can be better than angiography of the coronary arteries.

This noninvasive technique will be able to tell many people whether or not they have significant narrowings in their coronary arteries. And 64-slice CT, or even more advanced CT techniques in the future, may largely replace angiography.

There are some disadvantages to 64-slice CT. The intravenous injection of contrast material is invasive and can cause side effects such as allergic reactions and kidney failure.
The dose of radiation is also four to six times greater than the average annual amount a person is normally exposed to and several times greater than during coronary angiography. The imaging technique's cost of approximately $1,000 is not yet covered by insurance.

The problem now is to decide who should undergo 64-slice CT, and there is concern that it will be overused. Cardiologists generally agree that the test is not suitable for a worried but healthy man or woman who has neither symptoms of heart disease nor major risk factors like cigarette smoking or hypertension.

The danger is that a false positive test will lead doctors to order unnecessary additional studies that are also costly and potentially hazardous.
Among the best candidates for a 64-slice CT are people with multiple risk factors, a positive exercise stress test result, or evidence of atherosclerotic disease at other sites.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Osteopathy

Osteopathy was devised in 1874 by Andrew Taylor Still. He trained as an engineer before receiving formal medical training at Kansas City School of Physicians and Surgeons, after which he worked as an army surgeon. He was unhappy with the often brutal medicine of his day, and he felt that stimulating the body's natural powers of self-healing would be preferable. He was interested in the body as a machine and became aware that many illnesses were the result of misalignment of the body's structures. Manipulation could restore the balance and cure illness, he believed.

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Osteopathy is a manipulative therapy that works on the body's structure (the skeleton, muscles, ligaments, and connective tissue) to relieve pain, improve mobility, and restore all-round health. Osteopaths believe that we function as a complete working system - our body structure, organs, systems, mind, and emotions are all interrelated and mutually interdependent. Because of this, problems that affect one part of the structural body upset the balance of the body generally, and also the emotions. Similarly, internal problems can reveal themselves in the body's structure as it adapts to accommodate pain, discomfort, or disease.


In Britain over 5 million people a year visit an osteopath, many of them now referred by a doctor. In the United States, where osteopaths are also medically trained doctors, the figure is in excess of 100 million.