Archive for July, 2010

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Sleep Disorders and Insomnia


2010
07.27

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There are over 100 sleep disorders that have been identified and insomnia is definitely one of the most common problems.

Episodes of insomnia can be short- or long-term (chronic) and involve difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep as well as awakening very early. Some reasons for suffering with insomnia include: anxiety, stress, depression, caffeine, alcohol, drugs and medications, illness, napping during the day, and surrounding influences (too much noise or light).

Some disorders of insomnia are:

Insomnia due to a dependence or cessation of stimulants Delayed sleep phase syndrome (the individual believes s/he sleeps better from morning to mid-afternoon Insomnia due to ceasing or building tolerance to sleep medications, known as Hypnotic dependent sleep disorder and Pyschophysiological insomnia, known as learned insomnia
The treatment for insomnia depends on uncovering the cause. First the patient must work on the sleeping environment, ensuring minimal noise, minimal light, reducing caffeine, and reducing stimulants. If the problem of insomnia persists, talk to your doctor, especially if you are considering taking over-the-counter sleeping medications. Your doctor will guide you in the right direction according to your overall health.

Your bedroom should be a place of sleep, and only sleep, especially if you suffer from any type of sleep disorder.

Tips to help insomnia:

Do not read in bed Do not watch TV in bed, in fact remove television from bedroom Do not engage in sex in the bedroom, choose another room for that as well Try to go to bed at the same time each night Cut back on smoking (especially before bedtime) Reduce the intake of caffeine (coffee, tea, cola, etc) Limit the intake of soda late at night, due to the amount of sugar
One major factor of insomnia is depression. Depression is usually treated with medication and therefore, should be discussed with your doctor.

Prognosis

Some sleep disorders go away all on their own, while others require medical attention and medication and is therefore highly recommended that you consult your doctor at the onset of insomnia.

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History of Holistic Medicine


2010
07.23

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This is the first in a series of articles on holistic therapy history and uses. Most of us understand the surprising benefits of non-traditional approaches to healing, but not the background and methodology employed in such treatment modalities. The goal is to provide a basis of understanding for how the approach of holistic medicine works.

Holistic therapy is a phrase often used when discussing the application of non-traditional medical practices. This term and others fall under the broad umbrella of holistic medicine. An awareness of holistic medicine and the application of its elements have become more prominent in recent years; however few discussions center on the history of the development of the movement.

A better understanding of the concept of holistic medicine can be attained by working to understand the evolution of the approach. The roots of holistic medicine can be traced back to individuals and their experiences that were instrumental in developing the lineage of the therapy.

Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell was an English born medical missionary who was sent to Newfoundland to improve the plight of fisherman and costal inhabitants by the Royal National Mission in the latter part of the 19th century. The efforts of Grenfell and his team provided much needed care for the population in the north eastern island community of Canada. Although Grenfell’s directive was limited in its expectations, he soon was able to accomplish significant success in multiple areas. His talents went on to help develop other elements of the community that aided in the evolution of the island, including a school, an orphanage, and various industrial work projects. His work was so instrumental that he was knighted by King George V due in large part to the request of the islanders for his years of dedication to their communities.

It is widely accepted that Evarts Greene Loomis is considered the father of holistic therapy. Born in 1910, Dr. Loomis was influenced heavily by his work on the Grenfell Mission in Newfoundland. Loomis’ work would often require that he travel by boat and dog sled to visit with his patients. During these visits he felt a calling to “treat the whole man.” His involvement with the mission resulted in the development of a therapy that he believed would address the elements that encompassed every human being. He deduced that these elements were the physical, mental, and the spiritual.

Loomis’ development was influenced by a book that he read while a biology student at Haveford College near Philadelphia by Jan Christiaan Smuts. Smuts was a prominent South African, British Statesman, and philosopher who authored the book “Holism and Evolution” in 1926. It is widely accepted that Smuts pioneered the concept of holism which he defined as “the tendency in nature to form wholes that are greater than the sum of the parts through creative evolution.”

Loomis also acknowledged that his philosophy professor at Haverford, Rufus Jones, influenced his approach on life as well. Aside from being a philosophy professor, Jones (1863-1948) was also known as a writer, magazine editor, and philosopher that was instrumental in the development of the Haveford Emergency Unit (HEU). The HEU was a pre-cursor to a Quaker organization known as the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). The AFSC received the Nobel Peace Prize (along with the British Friends Service Council) on behalf of all Quakers in 1947 for their efforts in providing conscientious objectors to wars with a constructive alternative to military service.

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Insomnia and Sleep Apnea


2010
07.17

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Sleeping is essential to how you function during the day. If you are not getting enough sleep during the night, it will show during the day. You may feel tired while at work or especially while driving, which is dangerous.

In addition to not getting enough sleep, you may also have problems while you are asleep. It is not uncommon to have sleep apnea in addition to insomnia. Sleep apnea is a nightly issue where you may stop breathing for short periods of time during sleep.

With the combination of not being able to fall asleep until early hours and on top of that, having breathing problems when you finally do, it is very hard to push yourself through the day without wanting to collapse into a coma!

For adults, insomnia is common and can be helped. Usually it is brought on by busy lifestyles that fight against unwinding when night comes, stress from work and kids, and too much caffeine.

Sleep apnea can be caused by being overweight, tonsil and adeniod problems, and problems with mucus in the nose and throat.

As far as remedies to get rid of these problems, there are a few that may help kill two birds with one stone. Eating healthier and exercising is one. Another is staying away from caffeine and drinks that may enhance the amount of phlegm in the throat, and eliminating stress in your lifestyle. Easier said than done, but it is very possible, and definitely works if you are desperate.

Sleep is very important, so make sure to take care of your body when you are awake and while you are sleeping!

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Pinched Sciatic Nerve


2010
07.16

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A pinched sciatic nerve is a common expression used by both doctors and laymen alike to explain chronic back and leg pain issues stemming from a suspected compressive neuropathy condition. It is certainly possible for the sciatic to suffer impingement due to a wide range of reasons. However, the most commonly cited example of sciatic nerve compression is a lumbar herniated disc, which makes no sense, being that the sciatic nerve does not even connect directly into the spine.

Actual pinched sciatic nerve issues can be caused by several known reasons. The first is inflammation related to traumatic injury. This event is most often found in patients who experience severe damage to the legs or buttocks from a car accident, significant fall or other form of direct trauma. The inflammatory process can put pressure on the sciatic nerve almost anywhere in the lower body, enacting symptoms often associated with a pinched nerve. Luckily, inflammation is a temporary concern and these neuropathy issues should resolve completely, even without any formal treatment.

The next possible situation involving an actual pinched sciatic nerve is the pain condition known as piriformis syndrome. This occurs when the sciatic nerve is impinged upon by the piriformis muscle. Some patients demonstrate an anatomical abnormality which locates their sciatic nerve directly through the piriformis muscle, rather than beneath it. These patients are statistically more likely to suffer piriformis syndrome than others who do not share this bodily variation, but this is certainly not an absolute rule. It is well known that most cases of piriformis syndrome have less to do with the anatomy or suspected injury, and far more to do with regional oxygen deprivation of the involved musculature, enacting spasms and painful symptoms. In the vast majority of affected patients, the source of this ischemia is surely psychogenic.

The herniated disc explanation for sciatica can be accurate, but not in the way some patients perceive. Due to the watering-down of medical information, and in some cases, the fundamental lack of understanding by diagnosticians, some patients actually feel that their sciatic nerve is being pinched by the herniated disc directly. This could not be further from the truth. The sciatic is made up of nerve roots from the L4, L5, S1, S2 and S3 vertebral levels and the herniated disc may be compressing one or more of these roots, not the sciatic nerve itself. The actual sciatic nerve forms far below the end of the spinal column, making this theory ridiculous and anatomically nonviable. In most cases, it is the L4, L5 or S1 nerve root affected, due to herniations at L4/L5 or L5/S1. However, in my experience, the overwhelming percentage of patients suspected to be suffering from foraminal stenosis or spinal stenosis in the lumbar spine or lumbo-sacral juncture as the source of their pain are grossly misdiagnosed. It is quite rare for pinched nerve roots to occur in the spine and the best way to double check the diagnosis is to compare the expected symptomatic pattern to the actual clinical expression. In almost every case, there will be great discrepancies, making structural nerve compression the least likely source of pain, even when diagnostic imaging suggests otherwise…

Remember that foraminal stenosis and spinal stenosis are normal parts of the aging process for most patients. Spinal degeneration, such as disc disease and herniations, is par for the course. Most of the time, these diagnoses are made in an attempt to explain the occurrence of back pain, although subsequent treatments are almost never successful, especially in the long term. Furthermore, the majority of people with identical anatomical issues have no pain whatsoever… This is the best evidence that the various structural issues most commonly blamed for enacting sciatica are mistakenly diagnosed. No wonder the condition has such a terrible reputation as a long term and treatment-resistant syndrome. After all, if the diagnosis is wrong and treatments are targeting a mistakenly identified causation, then how can patients ever find relief?

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He Died After Chemotherapy And A Shot of Blood-Count-Boosting (Epoetin) Injection


2010
07.13

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Some years ago, one young man came to see me for his cancer. He was prescribed some herbs which he did not take. He preferred to go for chemotherapy instead. Not too long after that his wife came to my house in the middle of the night and asked for help. She told me that after chemotherapy, her husband’s red blood counts dropped drastically. The doctor gave him an injection to boost up the blood counts. He suffered a blood clot in his thigh and had to undergo an emergency operation. She wanted me to help him with the herbs. But it was not to be, her husband died soon afterwards.

In the early days of my practice, I did not document patients who came to see me. So, I only have vague recollection of some outstanding cases. This was one outstanding case that I remember, involving a young professional. When he had cancer, I could see the agony and hopelessness in the face of his young wife.

This case would not have resurface and find itself in print if not for some articles I have just read in the net about erythropoiesis stimulating agents (ESAs). ESA is commonly used to treat anemia, i.e., a lower than normal number of red blood cells. Examples of such drugs are Procrit, Epogen and Aranesp. These are synthetic, genetically engineered version of a natural glycoprotein known as erythroprotein. The US-FDA had approved the use of ESAs to treat anemia in patients with chronic kidney failure and in patients with cancer after chemotherapy had lowered their blood counts. To patients in Malaysia, each injection cost a good tidy sum of money.

According to Alison Tonka, associate editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) “thousands of patients worldwide rely on synthetic ESAs to alleviate the anemia that accompanies chronic renal disease and chemotherapy for cancer.” Two news articles in the BMJ had these titles: “Safety of anemia drug erythopoitin is to be reviewed” and “FDA calls for warning on anaemia drugs amid reports of incentives to doctors.” The main message from these articles is that more patients treated with ESAs died from the treatment rather than live longer or are helped. That is to say, ESAs increase the risk of death. Studies also showed that at a dose higher than indicated ESAs could cause increased risk of blood clots, stroke and heart attack. In patients with head and neck cancer, higher doses of ESAs promoted tumour growth.

In November 2006, February and March 2007, the US-FDA put out safety alerts informing the public about this safety concerns. From the net, I learn the following:

1. ESAs can cause serious and life-threatening side effects.

2. A greater number of deaths occurred in patients treated with these blood-count-boosting injections than in patients who did not receive chemotherapy.

3. ESAs cause increased rate of tumour growth in patients who had radiation therapy for their head and neck cancers and chemotherapy for their metastatic breast cancer.

4. ESAs cause higher chance of death and increased number of blood clots, strokes, heart failure and heart attacks in patients with chronic kidney failure.

All users of this blood-count-boosting drugs need to be told that they are at increased risk of death as well as serious cardiovascular complications including stroke, heart attack, blood clots to the heart, lungs, brain and major blood vessels. Those with chronic kidney failure given ESAs may suffer from seizures and hypertensive encephalopathy, i.e., swelling of the brain caused by very high blood pressure.

I now know why this young man met his premature death after chemotherapy plus a shot of erythropoiesis stimulating agent (ESA) that the doctor gave him. Goethe, a German philosopher once wrote: “There is nothing more frightening than active ignorance.”

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Integrative Wellness – A New Model For Well Being


2010
07.11

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“Health and wellness”. We are bombarded with news, statistics, and recommendations to improve our health. Health, as a state of being, is something we rarely think about until we have signs that we are not healthy… a cough… a lab test with high triglycerides… a persistent pain. I realized that I did not know what healthy felt like other than the absence of symptoms. So what’s a proactive person to do?

Recently I have shifted my focus to the second half of that phrase: “wellness”. I’ve heard the term often, but never really thought about what it meant and had to Google it. This is one definition that I found: Wellness is the interactive process of becoming aware of healthy choices and practicing them to create a more balanced lifestyle. Our state of being changes frequently… sometimes I wake up happy and then hear bad news that saddens me; or I will go on a long hike, only to feel a sore and tight the following day. These fluctuations in our state of being are a normal part of life, so why wouldn’t wellness be an interactive process?

Traditionally, medical doctors have been the primary line of defense for our health concerns. But why do we expect our medical doctors to know the specific benefits of meditation or yoga, when we wouldn’t expect our meditation or yoga teacher to treat our health issues?

As we shift focus towards becoming aware of healthy choices and learning how to practice them, we find ourselves supported by a team, each skilled in their own area of expertise. This is the concept of integrative wellness… a team of professionals, each of whom is trained in either conventional medicine or complementary modalities — those tools and techniques (for example, meditation, massage, and yoga) which can be safely used in conjunction with conventional treatments.

A simple concept, but a powerful one as the result is an individualized network of support tailored to your specific health concerns. A person with high blood pressure may seek support from a cardiologist and a meditation teacher, while someone overweight may seek support from a nutritionist, a personal trainer and a hypnotherapist. Shifting focus to wellness acknowledges that one symptom may have multiple aspects to it, so the quality of support we receive becomes more holistic… that we each are so much more than today’s symptom.

By now, you may be asking “So how do I begin?” First, tell your doctor “I want to be active in my wellness. Can you suggest something that I could be doing regularly?” With that suggestion in hand, check out what classes may be offered through your local hospital. Many cities and towns have healthcare districts, which are umbrella organizations that provide homes for support groups, health screenings, immunization clinics, as well as classes. Many health and wellness professionals who are new to the area offer evening workshops, so that local residents can come and get to know them. Check your local newspaper under the Events and Classes section. Be prepared that you may need to check out a few different teachers or a few different professionals before you find the one that you like. And that is okay! Remember, your goal is to create your own network of support tailored to your unique health concerns.

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