Pillsnews. Pharmacy News

This means just that parenrs wean the child from the dependency without any intervening steps. This can be quite a shock to the child and the parents. When the child wakes during the night and calls out or cries, he is ignored. Ignore means ignore. Parents should not respond in any way, either by calling out, reassuring, ordering him to go back to sleep, threatening, feeding, cuddling, tucking may cry the rest of the night. This is obviously the difficult part for one or both parents; one or other is likely to weaken, not being able to bear their child being so upset.

The next night, if the scenario is repeated, the child will cry a little less, and the night after that even less until, in a short space of time, he stops altogether. The problem will be cured as soon as the child is convinced that his parents will not pay any attention in the middle of the night. The next morning the child should be praised for the fact that the parents did not have to attend to him during the night. Again, to allow the child to cry for a couple of nights and then give in just makes the problem more difficult to deal with the next time.

*162\90\8*

Taking the power back means changing the way we perceive the attacks and the anxiety. We see them as being life threatening, or a threat to our sanity, or as causing us severe embarrassment. There is no doubt the anxiety can cause extreme discomfort and the attacks can feel quite violent, but they are not life threatening, nor a sign of impending insanity. We may feel as though we will be significantly embarrassed, but what is embarrassment? It is a state of mind, produced by the way we think and a point I will return to shortly. We compound the disorder by continually thinking about ‘worst case scenarios’. We need to see the anxiety and the attacks for what they really are: anxiety and attacks. Nothing more.

Our thinking is so much a part of us, we don’t pay any attention to the process. Without realising it our thoughts create, dictate and control our life. All of us know the endless silent conversations, the chattering thoughts and the continual negative cycles of thinking. They roll along, carrying us with them. Yet it need not be like this. We can step in and take the power back by learning to control them. We don’t have to be dictated by them. We can dictate to them. The ‘what ifs’ and the self absorption are part of the control we all use. Although we need to let go of them, we can also learn from them. We are creating the fear by the way we think. The ‘what ifs’ and the continual monitoring of our symptoms don’t protect us or provide us with an ‘early warning system’, because they create the very symptoms we are trying to protect ourselves from.

We never take time to examine our thoughts. We don’t even realise we can. We never watch the internal world of our thoughts as it spins this way and that. We react to our thoughts without realising they are actually separate fleeting moments in time. We don’t see this separateness. Instead, we believe we have no power over the continual progression of these thoughts, and the feelings caused by them. We don’t see how our feelings can change within seconds of a change in our thought pattern. We can be calm one minute and anxious the next. Not seeing the progression from one thought to another and thus not seeing the progression from one feeling to another, makes it appear our anxiety and attacks are beyond our control. They aren’t.

Our thoughts create the fear, which creates its own symptoms. The symptoms create the ‘what ifs’, which creates further symptoms. It is not so much the original stress which perpetuates the disorder, as the stress of the disorder itself. We need to be able to see how we create this stress by the fear of what we are thinking.

We need to be in control of ourselves and our environment, yet the only thing we do not control is our thinking. We need to change this by letting go of the overall need to be in control, and control our thinking.

*76\94\8*

If you are wondering if your child’s sleep habits qualify as a “problem,” you might want to consider the following issues. Mark each statement A (agree) or D (disagree). If yours is a two-partner family, it is helpful if both partners mark the statements separately to see how each of you feels about the situation.

     1.1 feel my child is not getting enough sleep. He is irritable during the day and shows subtle

signs of lack of sleep.

     2. My child wakes too early or goes to sleep too late.

     3. Sleep seems frightening to my child.

     4. My child wakes during the middle of the night.

     5. I wonder if my child is eating too much or too frequently.

     6. Bedtime is unpleasant for my child. She goes to bed angry, sad, over-stimulated, or

frightened.

     7. I believe an undesirable pattern may be developing.

     8. My child needs me at times that seem unreasonable to me. I fear he may be overly

dependent on me.

     9. Bedtime is unpleasant. I dread it.

    10. I usually feel deprived of sleep. I crave a night of undisturbed sleep.

    11. I need to go to bed sooner than I would like in order to accommodate an early riser or a non-sleeper.    

    12. My fatigue or anger is affecting my relationship with my child, his siblings, or my partner.

    13. The current situation feels out of control.

    14. I find myself asking, “Is my child the only one acting like this?”

    15. My child continually disturbs the rest of the family.

Some of these statements reflect the child’s behavior. Others reflect the family’s response. If you agreed with three or more, there is definitely a problem within the family system. This checklist is only a guideline. A child may show only one area of difficulty that turns the family upside down. Go back to the definition of a sleep problem. If you experience it as a problem, then it is a problem worth working on.

*5\97\8*

If you need to pass urine often, but pass only small amounts each time, and especially if it also stings or burns to pass it, the lining of your bladder is probably inflamed (cystitis). Possible reasons include infection, radiation to the pelvic area and the chemotherapy drug cyclophosphamide (see pages 257-59).

If you need to pass urine often in large amounts, you are producing too much urine. Possible causes include kidney failure, sugar diabetes (perhaps due to corticosteroids), diabetes insipides and too much calcium in the blood. Diabetes insipides is a condition where you pass large amounts of very weak urine. It can follow attempts to destroy the pituitary gland — see page 295.

Your doctor should quickly be able to find out why you are passing urine too often by testing your urine and blood.

I’ll just explain a bit more here about one of the possible causes. Too much calcium in the blood is a complication of cancer which we have not discussed in detail so far. If this is the reason for you passing a lot of urine often, you are likely to have other symptoms as well— nausea, unusual thirst, a metallic taste in the mouth, constipation, muscle weakness, drowsiness and confusion.

*199/40/1*

“The common people call them piles, the aristocracy call them haemorrhoids, the French call them figs — what does it matter, so long as you can cure them?”

What John of Arderne, regarded as the first English surgeon, said in the 14th century is still applicable today.

Haemorrhoids are varicose veins in the anus. They are common, but rarely seen before the age of 30 except in pregnant women.

There are many factors associated with their cause. The condition is common in families, as are varicose veins of the legs. Some hereditary weakness of the veins is also believed to play a part.

Chronic constipation and the subsequent straining at stool may be the most important factor.

Developed nations’ highly processed diet, which is low in vegetable fibre, is believed to be associated with an increased risk, not only of developing piles, but also several other conditions, including cancer of the bowel, diverticulitis, appendicitis and varicose veins.

*388/71/1*

In the past 10 years, there has been controversy about whether or not childbirth should be induced or be allowed to progress naturally.

There has been an increasing tendency for doctors to induce labor.

Associated with this has been a progression in childbirth technology, so that the strength of the contractions of the womb can be controlled by drugs and the progress of the baby closely monitored.

Those parents who see induced labor as too technological, and a complication of what should be a natural and shared family experience, have been increasingly vocal in demanding that their viewpoints be heard and considered.

Medical proponents of the management of labor argue that the method allows the whole medical team to be available to deal with any problems which may arise, whereas spontaneous natural labor may occur at night, on weekends or holidays when the full medical team is not available.

In a British Medical Journal review of reports from several centres, it was found that there can be different interpretations and different results from various groups in matters of usage and observation of natural or induced labor. And so the debate continues.

*135/71/1*

In some competitive sports, athletes compete on consecutive days and glycogen stores need to be at their maximum each time. Here it is important to restock the glycogen store in the muscles as fast as possible after the event. High G.I. foods are best in this situation. Sports scientists at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra have shown that high G.I. foods resulted in faster replenishment of glycogen into the fatigued muscles. Muscles are more sensitive to glucose in the bloodstream in the first hour after exercise, so a concerted effort should be made to get as many high G.I. foods in as soon as possible.

Suggested foods include most of the sports drinks on the market (which replace water and electrolyte losses too), or low amylose rice (Calrose rice), breads and breakfast cereals with a high G.I. such as cornflakes and rice bubbles. Potatoes cooked without fat are a good choice too, but their high satiety means it is hard to eat lots of them. Soft drinks have an intermediate G.L, so they won’t be ideal but they won’t do any harm either.

Females weighing about 50 kilograms should aim to eat 50 grams of carbohydrate. Males weighing about 75 kilograms should aim to eat 75 grams of carbohydrate.

If you want to keep up the pace from one training session to another, day after day, you will benefit by learning to select high G.L foods. The trouble is that many people, even coaches and sports medicine practitioners, have got it all wrong when it comes to selecting sources of fast-release carbohydrate. The information in this chapter gives you the most up-to-date information and the key to better performance and faster recovery. Go for it!

Recovery formula. Aim to ingest about I gram of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight each 2 hours after exercise. If you weigh between 50 and 75 kilograms, you need 50 to 75 grams of carbohydrate for each 2 hours after exercise.

*115\42\4*

Among the genetic factors thought to influence fat loss response, racial differences have probably been studied least. Yet simple observation shows that there are big differences in body shape between Negroids, Asians and Caucasians in particular. Negroid women store fat more readily around the hips and buttocks: amongst Negroids, the Hottentot women of South Africa, who have survived in a severe desert climate for millennia, are well-known for their exaggerated gynoid tat stores, which may have increased the survival potential of the race in the desert.

Asian women are known for their small hips, waist-to-hip ratios used as a measure of risk in Caucasians, therefore, are generally not relevant for these women because they give measures more characteristic of a man. Other fat measures such as skinfolds or machine measures may be more relevant here, and particularly when comparing between racial groups. Normative values for body rat, therefore, need to take account of racial differences, but to date this has not been done.

The deposition of fat may also differ amongst racial groups. Chinese and Indians, for example, appear to put additional fat on the waist first before then filling out all over. Island races like Sa moans and Tongans are big people and are prone to developing significant obesity, but that fat is stored more evenly over the body. Aboriginal Australians have naturally lean limbs and small hips but also a high tendency for fat gain from eating ‘Western-style’ foods. This appears to manifest more in the form of abdominal obesity rather than the overall obesity more common of Polynesians and Melanesians.

*179\186\4*