Awards for Everyone

As a nurse, I do a fair amount of walking each day, and it tends to be my feet that are the last thing I think of maintaining. Until recently that is.

I organized for some of my patients to have a chiropodist visit them at home and was astonished at the difference it made to them, not just in terms of being able to walk better, but also psychologically. Somehow, having someone care for your feet appears to have had an effect on their mood which I found a bit strange.

Therefore I arranged an appointment for myself with the same chiropodist, who looked at my feet, told me where my back hurts and which of my knees hurts, without me saying a word to her. She has diagnosed a slightly fallen fore-foot and correctly stated she would expect me to have pain in my big toe on that side.

I am a convert. I have ordered some decent shoes from an on-line company called Dansko, and am organizing an insert for the affected foot to help put the foot back into allignment. I have also arranged another appointment for six weeks with the chiropodist. There is a new lightness to my step, and I will be looking after my feet with renewed respect.

Popularity: 5%

When I worked as a Nurse Practitioner in a GP practice in England, we routinely saw patients that had weight problems. Most of them were overweight.

If counselling and advice did not help, in the end the doctors would prescribe some medication that was guaranteed to help the patient lose weight.

Look and search for the best fat burners.

Popularity: 8%

No, not me. As I said before,  I am terminally underweight and always have been. But my friend is still desperately trying to lose weight and has now spent a small fortune in search of the ‘magic bullet’ that will help her.

She exercises regularly, does not eat half as much as I do, she eats most early in the day and very little after 6.00 p.m., all in accordance with what most diet leaflets and clinics would tell you to do. She has been a member of innumerable programmes supposed to help you weigh and measure your food, but all to no avail. She belongs to a good gym, and works out four times a week, comes back looking like a boiled tomato at the end of her work out session, but the pounds refuse to shift.

She is now looking in to diet pills again, atro-phex, ephedrasil, you name it, she is looking at it. One pill promises more than the other, she reads about one and rings me up full of excitement, but when I do the research on-line and tell her about it, she gets despondent. Maybe there is no magic bullet, and our ideas of what constitutes a good weight are influenced too much by the fashion industry and what other people say about how much we should weigh.  Hope she gets to the weight she wants to be though, she would probably feel better about herself then and would come to the beach with me.

Popularity: 7%

Although as a health care professional I have to admit that I have problems with people often reaching for a bottle of pills rather than adapting their lifestyle to deal with health issues, the fact is that most of us at times would rather take a pill than drink more water, exercise more and eat sensibly. One of the reasons we reach for the pills is that it allows us to carry on with our previous lifestyle whilst at the same time reaching a goal we have set ourselves.

Nowhere is this issue more clearly visible than in the issue of weight control. Most people who are overweight eat too much (and often at the wrong time of day) and do too little physical work/exercise. That is a known fact. Very few people who are overweight have medical conditions that make them so.  Yet we would rather take supplements such as ephedra, amphetamines or medication that stops fat being absorbed in the intestines, than eat a diet lower in fat and walk to work.

The same issue applies to the vitamins we take (rather than eat a balanced diet of organic fruit and vegetables and less meat) and the fact that we reach for the painkillers every time we have a headache, rather than maybe drinking more water (dehydration is a major cause of headaches) or trying to find out what is causing the pain.

I do exactly the same myself, and console myself with the idea that at least I am relatively well-informed about the actions of various drugs and their side-effects.

Popularity: 9%

I have a problem with my weight. I can hear you inwardly sighing and thinking, oh no, not another article on being overweight, diet pills, exercise regimes, milkshakes that make you lose weight and the plethora of other things there are about  being overweight.

Popularity: 61%

Jeanne has been a patient of mine for about eight months now. Originally I started visiting her twice a day after she was discharged on a Friday evening at 19.00 hrs. without any discharge arrangement having been made for her. She had been in hospital for a fall, but no diagnosis had been made as to the cause of her fall.

When I first met Jeanne she was, to put it midly, bewildered. She did not understand why I was there (her family had telephoned to hire me) and she clearly did not want me to be there. After a while of talking with her, it became clear that in fact she was very confused. In a woman of 77, who suddenly becomes confused, the first thing that springs to mind is an infection, usually of the urinary tract, sometimes a chest infection. My inital thought of urinary tract infection was correct, and a course of antibiotics sorted her out in no time at all.

The one thing that struck me about Jeanne was that she had a very hoarse voice and that she seemed short of breath. Since I did my Asthma Diploma in UK, I decided to perform a spirometry and reversibility test, but she did not respond to inhaled medication in the way that I had hoped. I therefore persuaded her to see her doctor and he requested a chest X-ray. This was followed by a scan, then a lung biopsy, and the upshot of all the tests was that she has a pulmonary mesothelioma.

Apparently her late husband died of the same condition, having worked in the building trade during the years of construction following the Second World War, when asbestos was widely used in the construction industry.

I had the privilege of going with Jeanne to the hospital last week to be with her whilst she was having her chemotherapy. We were in the hospital from 8.00 in the morning until 16.00 hrs. and I was exhausted. Jeanne was still going strong, but since her treatment she has not eaten more than a bit of yoghurt and some soup. She states the treatment is making her feel worse than she did before she knew she was ill. I have to say, I almost wish I had not forced her into seeing her doctor and having investigations now, as seeing her getting thinner and so tired is making me wonder whether the cure is not worse than the disease. There is no chance of alternative treatments here either, as she is not insured in any way, so the normal mainstream treatment is all she will be able to have. I wonder if Jeanne knew what was wrong with her all along, since her late husband died of the same disease, and did not want to have investigations to have confirmation of something she dreaded. Because her husband died, I believe Jeanne has a deeply held conviction that this disease is ‘incurable’ and therefore ‘hopeless’.

All I can do now is make her as comfortable as I can and be there for her when times are not so good. Just wish that she would take legal advice, because there are good lawyers that would be able to prove that the employers of her husband are legally liable and therefore she might be able to have better treatment. However, knowing the speed with which lawyers work, she might be very ill  before they even present the case.

Popularity: 67%

We who controls food, controls mankind.

The Earth Summit Statistics meeting in 1992 revealed that farmland in the U.S. is over 85% micronutrient depleted – the situation with farmland in other continents was no better. This means that although that land can produce good-looking vegetables and fruits (aided by the use of large doses of pesticides) those vegetables/fruits contain no micronutients essential for human health. Small wonder then that vast numbers of people worldwide are taking vitamin and mineral supplements and herbal preparations.

This may soon come to an end. If by 31st December 2009 there has been no legal challenge to a little known UN Trade Commission known as the ‘Codex Alimentarius’ health food shops and pharmacies and other outlets will have to stop selling vitamins, minerals and any herbal preparations that claim to improve health. This is of course all done under the guise of consumer protection. In fact the ‘top guy’ for the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses, a Dr. Rolf Grossklaus has stated that ‘nutrition is not relevant to health’. Dr. Grossklaus managed to get nutrients to be declared toxins in 1992.

If you are concerned about your health, the health of your family and your children and grandchildren, I urge you to at least visit this website, and if you live in the USA, click the link that says Take Action – Sign the Citizens Petition. That petition is a legal challenge against acceptance of the terms of the Codex Alimentarius.  This is the last chance the USA has to get out of the supposedly ‘binding’ regulations made by Codex Alimentarius, for Europe and other parts of the world it seems it may already be too late.

Popularity: 13%

Pope Benedict XVI is currently visiting Africa. Whilst on the plane flying to Africa he pronounced that the use of condoms remains against the doctrine of the Catholic Church (as set out in the Encyclical ‘Humanae Vitae’ , 1968).

He is quoted as saying that ‘Aids cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problem’. This latter statement is completely wrong as the majority of scientists agree that the consistent and correct use of condoms substantially reduces the spread of Aids. It would be interesting to know what research the Pope is quoting when he made that statement.

The UN programme against Aids says that condoms are an essential part of combination prevention. Several Aids activists as well as the French and Belgian government have expressed grave concern at the Pope’s statements, in exactly that continent where Hiv and Aids are of pandemic proportions, which unfortunately is also the continent where the Pope remains quite popular.

The Pope of course has the right (vested in him by the Catholic Church) to make statements on Church Doctrine, but unless he can show evidence of research that shows that condoms aggravate the problem, he really does need to retract that statement.

The situation is that condoms are expressely forbidden because they are a form of birth control, (within what the Church considers it rightful area of expertise) but that condoms are an essential part of the combination prevention for HIV.

If people as a consequence of the Pope’s statement stop using condoms, this means that more babies will be born that are HIV positive. This is obviously something that the Pope feels he can live with, although he did say that he is suffering with the poor of Africa. That should make them feel a lot better, hopefully it means that he will be distributing the estimated $10 – $15 billion Vatican wealth very soon amongst the poor and needy.

Or maybe he will buy a drug company that enables the people suffering from Aids that he is so concerned about, to have free drug treatment. At the moment 70% of people who are HIV positive on the African subcontinent, die as a consequence of the disease. The cost of drug treatment is prohibitive for most African countries.

As a very lapsed Catholic I have no problem with the Pope making his doctrinal statements, but I feel he has to keep out of the issue of Health Promotion, particularly as he is not offering any evidence of his statement. Come on Pope, you talk about religion and God, and let everyone else make pronouncements on their areas of expertise.

Popularity: 8%