We have all seen, in one way or the other, the power- packed performances of Michael Jackson. Interestingly there were many who were close to the Star who knew that there was no way MJ  could not pull off  the concert at the London 02 arena!

Among the many illnesses plaguing the ailing star was a condition called the alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, a debilitating genetic disease that  predisposed the singer to lung and liver malfunctioning.

This A1A deficiency is brought about by a mutation in the SERPINA 1 gene. The normal form of this gene is required to produce the protein alpha-1 antitrypsin. This protein is required to control the activity of the enzyme neutrophil elastase which normally fights infections but which also has the propensity to attack normal cells. Alpha-1 antitrypsin keeps this enzyme in check.

The signs and symptoms of the lung disease brought about  by alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency initially appears around   20 – 50 yrs.

The earliest symptoms include-

• Shortness of breath / decreased ability  to exercise / wheezing.
• Sudden weight loss,
• Recurring respiratory infections,
• Fatigue/ palpitations
• Vision-related complications 

With time, the disease could lead to emphysema  which in turn could completely damage the lungs.

Jackson had to be administered alpha-1 antitrypsin injections each day. His voice was reduced to a mere whisper in recent times.

The arena in London, where he was to have kick- started the concert,  boasted of the best lip synching technology in the world – an arrangement that the trouble- riddled  star heavily depended on. He was forced to go through these ‘performances’ due to his mounting debts.

But Death had it otherwise- it released him from further embarrassment and provided him with much- required respite.

Needless to say, fame and tragedy are two sides of the same coin!

Dr. Reeja Tharu

It’s becoming more and more common – children being diagnosed with mental illnesses. Modern psychiatrists are sympathetic to the harassed parents of these children. Russell Barkley, the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder expert, says it’s nobody’s fault when a child has a disorder. It is not due to bad parenting. He advises parents to go to a doctor, and says psychotropic medication is often very effective.

But good as it sounds if you are such a parent, I don’t know if it really helps us.

One, long-term outcomes with psychotropic drugs are simply not known now. How will your child do on twenty years of methylphenidate (Ritalin, for hyperactivity) or risperidone (Risperdal, for bipolar disorder)? To tell the truth, nobody knows yet.

Two, all children respond to respect, sympathy, and good teaching. Yes, it makes us feel guilty and terrible when someone says this, and doing more seems physically impossible sometimes. Take Maria Montessori – if you are a parent of a problem child, her work will be difficult to read. She accuses parents and teachers and is totally sympathetic to children.

But her methods work. Not many people know that she was a psychiatric doctor who, unlike most of her colleagues, believed that ‘uneducable’ children could be taught. Her ‘defective’ eight-year olds from a special school, taught by Montessori herself, succeeded in passing the state examination for normal children, and in fact did rather well.

For problem children, having just one adult (parent, grandparent, teacher) who believes in them can turn their lives around. Drugs cannot do that.

Susan Vinodh Pandian

Read more about children’s disorders here:

1. Financial crises can affect children’s mental health

2. Mental disorders among child soldiers

3. Children of arrested illegal aliens develop mental illnesses

4. History of child abuse in adults with depression

I just finished reading Sylvia Nasar’s biography of John Nash: the brilliant mathematician who did his best work in his twenties, was schizophrenic from his thirties to his fifties, and then spontaneously recovered in his sixties and went on to win the Nobel Prize.

Nasar says three things helped Nash recover – his own persistence in trying to get better, the support of his wife and friends, and the natural body changes that come with aging. He had not been taking any medicine, or in fact any kind of treatment, for his condition for the twenty years prior to his recovery.

The support of his wife and friends and no drugs: now that is something that is difficult for a lot of us to accept, and it goes against political correctness. In the film version  Nash’s character claims that newest generation of antipsychotic medicines ‘don’t cure (him), but they help.’ The real John Nash, when asked if this was true, denied it, and attributed the ‘quote’ to artistic license.

Many ‘advocacy groups’ for mental illnesses praised the film, but Nash’s real experience (as opposed to the film) goes against their current official stand on psychopharmacology – that drugs are necessary to cure mental illnesses. It seems to confirm what anti-establishment psychiatrists like Peter Breggin have said: recovery from mental illness needs a ‘healing presence’ – one element of which is love and acceptance – rather than a prescription of medicines.

Nash himself has said he was lucky he refused to take his medicines and could get away with it. Taking antipsychotic medicines over years leads to a kind of mental fog, and causes tardive dyskinesia – distressing abnormal movements and tics – that would have made his gentle reentry into normal life impossible.

Of course, love alone is not enough. You need knowledge, skills, and resources. Medicine alone is not enough either, and it can actually be harmful.

Susan Vinodh Pandian

Read more about mental illness and recovery:

1. The need to reduce the stigma of mental illness

2. Men avoid seeking help for mental illnesses

3. Twenty million Indians have mental disorders

4. Understanding mental illness through gene-environment interactions

In the recent years  emphasis had shifted from Michael’s music to the way he looked and, of course, behaved. The world saw a nice-looking, young, black man slowly being transformed into a white woman!! And many joked that such bizarre behavior could only occur in America!

But  how did the oh-so-black MJ become white with years?

 Many blamed it on his obsession for Caucasian features (which explained why his nose resembled Pinocchio’s on a bad day!) and a fair skin. The net result was a striking resemblance to a stylish (if-u- please) ghoul!

MJ was a remarkably talented man…. ‘one-in-a-century’ kind… and hence it becomes a necessity to educate the ignorant on the root cause of his ‘white’ skin…before more blasphemies are uttered.

 MJ suffered from a little known skin condition  known as  vitiligo which destroys the  melanin – producing cells, the melanocytes, causing de- pigmentation.  The condition occurs in all races, but is definitely more visible in people with colored skin .

The net result is that the affected have botchy patches of white on their skin, rendering it an ungainly appearance.

If the patches of white are few then it can be camouflaged with brown make-up. But MJ had 80% or more of de-pigmented areas and hence he chose to make the remaining brown patches white. Little do people know that ‘the king of pop’ had this condition even during his ‘bad’ and ‘thriller’ days.

The causes are not clearly understood but a lot of experts believe that stress could trigger the onset of this condition. We have all heard of MJ’s childhood abuse and his statements on  lost childhood, haven’t we!
Vitiligo makes the sufferer sensitive to the sun (that explains the umbrella) and   often occurs alongside other autoimmune disorders. It therefore comes as no surprise that MJ  suffered from lupus, an auto immune condition that has the potential to be  fatal.

Vitiligo is definitely not a life- threatening condition but it can be a blow to the self-esteem of a person, especially for one who loved the spotlight and swore by it,  like our late pop king !

It saddens me to think of Michael Jackson……  it is easy to see why he had to take ‘pain’ killers!

Although Michael Jackson succumbed to the ‘panacea’ he took for the internal and external pain attributed directly or indirectly to these little known conditions, they in turn, stand to gain from their celebrity victim!

Dr.Reeja Tharu

Related Links

1. Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

2. Vitiligo (leukoderma) skin disorder treatment
 

The placebo effect is all about the power of the mind, and some doctors use it very often. Because when we expect to get better with medicines we often will, some doctors prescribe vitamins, tonics, and sometimes antibiotics and sedatives, not because we really need the medicine itself, but because the feeling that we are taking a powerful drug for our symptoms will often cure us. (Antibiotic resistance is not all the fault of patients!)

It works the other way too: if you expect something to harm or hurt you, it probably will. Oncologists have written about people who die suddenly after finding out they have cancer, much sooner than the cancer itself could kill them and sooner than the doctor expected. In certain cultures, knowing that a witchdoctor has put a spell on a person can kill that person.

It can even work on other people: children who have teachers or parents  who believe they will do well often do well (in examinations, in jobs, in life); children whose parents think they are incapable often do badly.

The power of the mind, and the mind-body connection, is still mysterious. This is in spite of our advanced understanding of the brain, and the flourishing field of bio-psychiatry which connects our feelings, behaviors, and even beliefs to chemical processes in the brain.

Susan Vinodh Pandian

Read more about the mind:

1. What is sixth sense?

2. Understanding memory

3. Positive thinking helps prevent depression

4. Positive thinking can leave you with a hole in your pocket

In the 1950s, cardiologist Leonard Cobb wanted to study the effectiveness of mammary arterial ligation (tying two arteries to increase blood flow to the heart), a procedure then commonly used to treat chest pain. Cobb performed the surgery for some patients; for others he just made a cut in the chest and bandaged them up again, though patients believed they had had the surgery.

The two groups healed at the same rate, and 90% of both groups said the procedure helped them.

This is the placebo effect: if you expect a drug, or surgery, or therapy to make you feel better, it probably will. The placebo effect is not imaginary: the improvements people feel are very real, though the effects are due to the power of the mind rather than the therapeutic effects of the treatment.

Today, it is routine practice in clinical trials to test how well any treatment works compared to a placebo. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) fails in this. Much of their ‘effectiveness’ is due to the placebo effect. That is why scientifically-trained doctors, who look to clinical trials for proof of effectiveness, routinely dismiss alternative medicines, even though people swear it works.

But, as Cobb’s experiment showed, even conventional medicine often works due to the placebo effect. CAM practitioners can also claim you should not mind how it works so long as it does.

But this does not really satisfy: if you know what you are receiving is a placebo, it will not work for you. And some medical treatments are really much more effective than placebos. Till we find a scientific cure for everything, quacks (and doctors) will continue to use placebos and get results too.

But most quacks will get less results than most doctors. Don’t you hate the uncertainty? But that is how science works. And the placebo effect still cannot cure AIDS or set a broken bone.

Susan Vinodh Pandian

Some more on placebos:

1. The power of the placebo

2. Is homeopathy better than a placebo?

3. Thrill-seekers are more sensitive to the placebo effect

4. Acupuncture fertility treatment is no better than a placebo

Sometimes it is, but not always. And sometimes,  we simply don’t know.
Some kinds of alternative medicine have been proven effective in controlled studies. Acupuncture helps relive pain. Yoga, art therapy and aromatherapy are good for stress. Ginger can reduce nausea, and turmeric fights infections. Others, like therapeutic touch, seem to be harmless.

Some seem to be harmful, and for others the evidence is mixed or simply hard to find. Colon cleansing as a detoxification and weight loss procedure can cause dehydration. Ayurvedic medicines sometimes heal, but they can contain harmful heavy metals, and because the manufacturing is not standardized, the amount of the effective substance can vary from batch to batch of the same medicine. So they are not always safe, and they may have side effects too (in fact, anything when taken in excess has ’side effects’, or harms the body, even water).

Many alternative medicines are not proven. This is important to remember if you are thinking of taking alternative or complementary treatment for something serious like cancer or AIDS. There are conventional treatments that have been proven to cure or improve the prognosis for these illnesses, even though they make you feel worse in the short term.

On the other hand, if you go for alternative treatments, you may not have to deal with going bald or severe nausea, but you are choosing to trust the unknown. No alternative/complementary treatment has been proven to cure serious diseases, and if you reject conventional treatment altogether you may be seriously risking your health.  Some people use alternative medicines as an adjunct to conventional treatment, but it is best to be open about this with your doctor because herbal medicines change the way other medicines work.

You need to investigate alternative medicines, just as you investigate conventional medicines. Nothing is totally safe.

Susan Vinodh Pandian

Read some more about alternative and conventional medicine:

1. About alternative and complementary medicines

2. Alternative medicine health news

3.  Debate on complementary medicine misleads patients

4. Is homeopathy a sham?

Boys who live with single mothers are more likely to become violent and go to jail. But boys with single fathers, especially those who don’t marry but care for their children, do as well as children from intact families.

This was the conclusion of a 14-year study by Cynthia Harper and Sara McLanahan of the University of Princeton in 1998, who tracked more than 6000 teenaged boys into their thirties.

It is the presence of the biological dad which gives children an edge. When he is around, boys and girls are more likely to do well in school and grow up well adjusted individuals – and stay out of jail. Girls living with biological fathers are less likely to become teenage mothers.

According to Harper and McLanahan, stepfathers don’t make much difference. In fact, children who live with a mother and stepfather fare slightly worse than children of single mothers. This holds true even when other variables like economic status, education, and the age of the mother when giving birth are controlled. It also does not make a difference whether their father pays the child support or does not pay.

The important thing is that dad – the biological dad – should be around.

Ten years on, when almost 40% of the children in the United States are born to single mothers, this is something we need to remember: children need their dads.

Susan Vinodh Pandian

Read more on fathers here:

1. Absence of father hastens puberty for girls

2. Allowing fathers visitation rights is good for children

3. Guppy fish with the same father tend to stick together

The American Medical Association (AMA) voted recently on an epic resolution…
  recommending that hospitals ban doctors from wearing their  iconic white  coats!

Their contention, based on evidence, is that these coats carry disease- causing bacteria !

It is common sight  to see doctors in their white coats eating in  crowded  hospital canteens and then doing their rounds wearing the very coat! Therefore the AMA has a point there!

The coats were worn in the earlier times to differentiate between the quacks and the ‘scientific healers’  who symbolized hope and life! Justifiably so!

But little do the general public understand that the  ‘now-waiting-to-be-condemned’  garment is actually a lab coat — a symbol that was associated with grinding back- breaking research (some even in  the precincts of deoxygenated, dingy laboratories) and has ethically  little to do with these ‘ healers’ who take their family for  swiss holidays –courtesy pharma money!

Today even  the  ‘fledglings’  in the medical  trade, whose credibility would crumble under proper scrutiny,  take great pride in flaunting the white coat .

As to the original question  ‘should docs wear white coats?’
They definitely should not !
For the business like, ‘money first’ attitude,  in the majority, a business suit is recommended !
 
For the morbidity and the mortality associated with the medical  trade,  a  black coat would do well !

Dr.Reeja Tharu

The name sounds weird and the symptoms are weirder! Morgellons syndrome certainly stands tall among the medical mysteries….

Morgellon syndrome patient experiences a sensation akin to that of  fibers or crystals sprouting from the body. At other times, there is a feeling similar to that of an army of insects crawling all over the  body, sometimes even biting or stinging! There is a lot of scratching to be done too and this could certainly explain the persistent skin lesions.

The truth of the matter still remains unclear as there is a monumental lack of evidence. Nevertheless, symptoms such as persistent skin sores and lesions stand testimony to suffering and discomfort that the patient may experience!

Several doctors claim that Morgellons syndrome is a case of new wine in an old bottle – as it is nothing but a new name for ‘delusional parasitosis’-where a patient imagines insects or parasites crawling all over the body.

According to many experts Morgellons syndrome is more of a psychological condition than a physical one.

What causes this condition is little understood — the myth behind this mysterious disease is waiting to unfold!

Dr.Reeja Tharu

It has been mired with the macabre, has provided fodder for horror movies and comedy shows and has been dubiously associated with satanic forces for a long time!

But experts believe that Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) — or Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)– as it is referred today  — is a classic psychological condition.

A person is known to suffer from MPD when 2 or more ‘alter’ personalities coexists within him. To add to the existing enigma, each of these alters may boast of a separate name, age, history or identity –like many individuals living in one. These ‘alters’ emerge during certain situations and tend to take control of the original self.

MPD specialists believe that MPD is a valid, common diagnosis that can be clubbed along with schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety, as one of the four major mental health problems. It is reported to be induced by early psychological trauma involving extreme form of physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse.

Although the subjects are more often women MPD is reported to be common among men too . But it has not been brought to the forefront in the latter as men hesitate to seek treatment. Most men with MPD land in mental asylums, as a result of mis- diagnosis, or in jail.

In his recently released book, “Breaking Free: My Life with Dissociative Identity Disorder,” Football great Herschel Walker chronicles his life with MPD and recalls the number of “alters” that plagued his life, and of a particularly harrowing ‘alter’ which led him to attempt suicide.

Treatment for MPD involves unifying the multiple alters into a single personality. This enables the patients to regain full control over their lives.

Dr. Reeja Tharu

Will that heavily-advertised ‘brain food’ help your child become smarter? Will all those DHA-fortified baby cereals and milks with ‘brain activators’ really help your daughter or son get better marks?

OK – I am no expert either on nutrition or brain development. But common sense counts still, and I remind you there is no substitute for a good diet and good teaching and studying. These will help your child, DHA or no DHA.

Two reasons for this:

1) It’s difficult for lay people like us to make sense of all the health-related news we get from the media. DHA may be good for your brain, but will DHA pills and DHA-fortified foods make you smarter? None of the manufacturers and marketers will tell you, but the pills and supplements are not proven yet, and we really don’t know yet what effect for good or bad they will have.

To take an example, while the body’s own testosterone boosts sperm production, fertility doctors only recently found that synthetic testosterone can make men infertile. Synthetic testosterone is still taken by athletes and body builders for more energy, and by men who want better erections, who don’t understand its risks.

2) I don’t trust advertisements! In India, advertisers are still rarely held accountable for the things they say. Advertisers and marketers know that if they say something is good for your brain, parents will spend a lot of money on it. Read a book on advertising. Know how you are manipulated.

Having a good balanced diet with enough exercise and enough rest, and studying well, will help your child do well in examinations and in life. If you want her to get more DHA, give her more fish or foods containing flax oil or seeds, but always as part of a balanced diet.

Susan Vinodh Pandian

Read some more about brain development:

1. Depriving a child of affection can affect brain development

2. Marijuana use disrupts brain development in teens

3. Using methamphetamine when you are pregnant can affect your baby’s brain

4. Brain development is compromised in premature babies

Most people tend to think it’s the woman’s problem if a couple is not able to have children, especially in India.

But a man can also have conditions that make it difficult for a couple to have children. Because a man’s contribution to procreation is the sperm, anything that affects the production of sperm, or its form (medically, ‘morphology’) or movement (‘motility’), can affect a man’s fertility.

Some common things that can make a man less fertile or infertile:

1. Smoking, drinking alcohol, abusing drugs

All of these reduce the number of sperms produced by the testes. Alcohol and drugs can cause the testicles to shrink, and even second hand smoke can reduce a man’s fertility.

2. Genetic and hormonal problems

Men with problems with their pituitary or hypothalamus (which control the production of testosterone) or genetic issues like Klinefelter’s syndrome (when men have a XXY pattern of sex chromosomes) have fewer, unhealthier sperm.

3. Diseases

Many infections that affect the urinary or reproductive systems impair fertility. Mumps, which causes inflammation of the testicles, can reduce sperm production. Sexually transmitted diseases like gonorrhea and chlamydia can make men infertile. Chlamydia, in fact, has no symptoms except infertility.

4. Environmental causes

Exposure to lead, pesticides, and herbicides can affect the hormones and reduce fertility. If the testes is exposed to heat, for example in a sauna or from a laptop placed over the crotch, it will produce fewer sperm.

5. Lifestyle causes

Malnutrition, obesity, and diabetes reduce a man’s fertility. Men, like women, suffer declined fertility as they age.

If a couple has not been able to conceive after one year of unprotected and frequent intercourse, both the man and woman need to consult a doctor. About 30% of the time the problem is with the man alone. The rest of the time, the problem is either with the woman alone or with both of them, or the cause is never found.

Read more about men and infertility:

1. About male infertility

2. Vatican newspaper blames the contraceptive pill for male infertility

3. 50% of male infertility in Kolkata is caused by pollution

4. There is a worldwide fall in sperm count and quality

Manifestations of aggression such as those that involve domestic abuse or road rage or a tendency to pick fights for no apparent reason are always unsettling to others especially if a victim is involved.

Most of us tend to think that such gross public display of temper is a mere personality problem, but there are others who would vouch for the fact that it is a psychological condition known as ‘intermittent explosive disorder’. This diagnosis refers to somebody who repeatedly fails to control his aggressive drive and tends to act totally out of proportion to a situation. The condition manifests in various grades in different people.

Despite its ability to raise eyebrows the diagnosis is more common than generally perceived. A 2006 NIH- funded study has revealed that the condition affects US adults to a tune of 7.3 percent.
 
These folks who fly into a regular fit of temper display frequently experience the consequences of their unbridled temper and many such individuals are seen languishing in jails. They are often remorseful or experience embarrassment for their actions afterward. But this does not exempt them from the responsibility of their actions.
Behavioral therapy and anti-anxiety medications such as Valium and antidepressants such as Prozac are used to treat the condition.

Dr. Reeja Tharu

Are they connected? Anne Taylor Fleming, in Motherhood Deferred, speaks with some bitterness of her youth, which she spent enthralled with the women’s movement. She achieved everything her feminist gurus said women should – succeeding in a man’s world, becoming a successful writer and journalist.

 Then the longing for a baby struck when Fleming was in her 40s, and after spending a fortune on every infertility treatment in the book, Fleming had to accept that she would never have children. Maybe she would not have had children even if she had tried in her twenties, but she would not know now.

I am afraid a lot of women in my generation may make the same mistake. Not that the woman’s movement was itself a mistake, or that we are better off looking after the children and home (we are definitely not) than going off to work. But when we have to choose between career and babies, the choice should be the babies, especially in your twenties.

The best time to have a baby physically is the twenties. After that the risk of not being able to conceive, or have a baby with problems, becomes steadily higher as you grow older. Of course, a lot of women in their thirties and forties will give birth without problems to healthy babies, but the risk is higher.

If you have your children in your twenties, you can go back to work once they are in school. Even earlier, if you have a good support system for your children in place. That leaves a lot of time for building your career.

Know more about women’s infertility:

1. Change your lifestyle, change  your infertility

2.  Weight loss surgery improves fertility

3. Infertility in women linked to passive smoking

4. ‘Kiss’ therapy for infertility

I read on an internet site that one in six couples in India is infertile. I don’t know how reliable this figure is, but worldwide, doctors agree – infertility is increasing, quite apart from all those national population control programs and  the declining populations of developing countries.

Many conditions of modern life can make you infertility – exposure to pollutants when you were in the womb, or food additives, or MSG, or obesity, or diabetes, among many other things. For men in the software field, working with laptops placed on their laps or taking certain drugs may kill sperm, or make them less motile – which means they may not be able to ’swim’ through the vagina to reach the egg.

For women, postponing marriage and childbearing are often bad choices. Women bear children most easily in the late teens or early twenties, and their babies tend to be healthier than babies of older mums. If you put your career ahead of your baby, you may find it very difficult to have a baby when you finally feel ready for motherhood.

I know many couples struggling to conceive. It’s one of those things that you never think will happen to you. But many of us will have to face it, and even if we have a child already conceiving a second time may be difficult. Many of us will spend years going through expensive and unpleasant fertility treatments before conceiving, or opting for adoption (incidentally, these couples are often very happy), or chosing to live with childlessness.

Medindia has more on  infertility:

1. How much do you know about it? A quiz on infertility

2. Interview with Dr. Kamala Selvaraj – infertility treatment pioneer in India

3. Causes of male infertility

4. Chemicals in food and cleaning products put unborn boys at risk for infertility later in life.

People who have gone through a divorce often report a bitter feeling embedded in them. It is the same with those who have lost a loved one or lost a job. Now this feeling has a name – Post-Traumatic Embitterment Disorder (PTED).
 
PTED shares many features with ‘post -traumatic stress disorder’ and was first identified  in immigrants from East Germany, following the collapse of the Berlin wall.

The single significant difference is that the stress trigger in PTED is not life -threatening.

PTED patients also suffer and dwell on feelings of injustice, rage, sadness and helplessness to an extent that their daily activities suffers.

Dr. Barbara Rothbaum, professor of psychiatry and director of the Trauma and Anxiety Recovery Program at the Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta, believes it is vital to distinguish between PTED and other types of stress disorders in order to treat them well.
 
“The mechanism behind anxiety and anger and what you do about them is different. With anxiety, you do exposure therapy and help a person confront what they’re scared of in a therapeutic manner. That’s not the way anger works. The more you focus on it, the more angry you get. … You want to see people move through [those feelings] and not get stuck in it.” Rothbaum said.

Dr. Reeja Tharu

1. It’s a gift of life

Your donated blood will be healthier and better quality than blood from paid donors or from relatives and friends (who may not be honest about their health history in the emergency situation of a loved one needing blood) . Donated blood saves lives – lives of people who need blood during major surgeries, people who have had accidents, children who have genetic blood diseases that cause anemia (thalassemia, for example), premature babies whose bone marrows sometimes are too immature to produce their own blood.

If you don’t donate blood these people will have to rely on family, friends, or paid donors. Even with today’s improved screening methods, this is simply not as good as having a reliable, safe stock of freely donated blood in the blood bank. They will always be at risk, however small, of receiving infected blood.

2.  You may need it some day

In this sense, you are just giving back early what you, or your family member or a dear friend, may need later. Many blood donors realize what a wonderful gift they have given only after they or someone they love need to receive a blood donation. And it’s not so uncommon either for family and friends of those who have received blood to become enthusiastic blood donors, because they want to express their gratitude to the unknown donor by passing on their gift.

I read a newspaper report about a Hindu man who was moved to tears when a Muslim came forward to donate blood for him and brushed off his attempts to thank him. (Unfortunately, I don’t remember any detail – which newspaper, which place, when. If any of you do, please tell me.)

3.  It’s safe and easy

Blood banks use disposable needles and syringes, so there is no chance of getting an infection. Most people who are healthy can donate blood – men up to five times a year and women two times, with a gap of two months between each time.  The procedure is not painful, and even if you feel a bit tired after it (very few people do)  you will recover within an hour or two, with some rest and juice and snacks. Some doctors say blood donation actually improves  your health by stimulating your bone marrow.

You will be able to go to work or to school the next day, and you will remember the experience as a rewarding one.

The only thing you should remember is to check that you are donating your blood to an reputed blood bank which follows all the safety procedures.

Susan

Read some more about blood donation on Medindia:

1. Slide animation on blood groups, blood typing, and blood donation.

2. Blood donation quiz – how much do you really know about blood donation?

3. Blood donation FAQs

4. Blood donation due date calculator

5. World Blood Donation Day (yesterday – 14 June!)

6. Interview with Dr. Srinivasan of Jeevan Blood Bank – saving lives

Case 1: A successful businessman — a married man and a father to three children,  — suddenly disappears, only to surface 3 months later in a different city under a new identity!
 
Case 2: A man, who is unable to identify himself, walks into a police station, and told the police personnel that he woke up on the street and has no idea as to who he is. His family locates him two weeks later, after which he returns to normal.

These are some of the samples of dissociative fugue state wherein an individual suffers from reversible amnesia and leaves behind everything, including their memories and identity and simply disappear.

The fugue state comes under a family of conditions called dissociative memory disorders. This state is normally short-lived  lasting upto hours or even days. Dissociative fugue, in most cases, involves spontaneous travelling or wandering. There are instances when the sufferer wakes up in unfamiliar far-off destinations. In some instances, he may even assume a new identity, which persists until such time when they are reunited with their old familiar surroundings.

This psychological disorder has invited exasperation from the public  — and triggered debates among health experts, who however agree that the condition is a legitimate one.
 
It is understood that a traumatic event such as the death of a loved one, work pressure or a traumatic past involving natural calamities or war could trigger these conditions.

Dr. Reeja Tharu

Intermittent explosive disorder…. Mathematics disorder…!!

These are some of the strange medical jargons being tossed around…

Despite their strangeness  medical experts believe they are genuine medical conditions that  warrant treatment.

Now if you have a child who displays such frequent and aggressive defiance of you as a parent, that it actually disrupts your family life, then it may be prudent for you to know that he could be suffering from another strange-sounding condition– Oppositional Defiant Disorder ( ODD) .

ODD is a diagnosis in children that is commonly linked to other childhood  behavioral disorders, such as Attentionn Deficit Disorder (ADD) .

According to the Mayo Clinic Web site, ODD occurs in 1 in 10 children .

Many people blame parenting styles, which is not surprising, considering the  socially disruptive nature of this disorder. But the diagnosis is not a fake one and often requires counseling for both the child as well as for the parent. Medications too help to control a child’s disruptive behavior.

This medical categorization of a commonly seen disorder comes with a catch as no young child can actually be blamed as a brat anymore! It seems there is an explanation!!

Dr.Reeja Tharu

Not always. This was only one thing with which I disagreed  in Medindia’s special report on Dr. Rekha Ramachandran’s and her excellent work for children with Down syndrome.

Of course, special education integrated in a regular classroom is ideal, with one or two special children per class with maybe their own special education teacher nearby to help. It helps special children make friends and function in a ‘normal’ setting and it helps children without special needs to accept others who are different from them.

But speaking from my own experience with my son this is very difficult to find. In Chennai, except for Lady Andal School, there are no schools which provide inclusion with the support necessary to make inclusion work. So, unless the teacher or principal is exceptional, they will accept your child as an act of kindness but they will have no idea how to make him learn, and they will not even try.  He will not pick up much of reading, writing or arithmetic. And you are going to hear complaints everyday – he does not participate/read/write/ or he disrupts the class/fights/disobeys.

This was my experience, and the experience of many friends with special needs children. In Chennai, only in special schools do we see teachers with a positive attitude and the will to make all children, whatever their difficulties, learn. And our children are actually learning to read and write and count, which they never did when they studied in a regular classroom.

This is the reality in India, though in the US inclusion is mandatory and they have a much better support system.

It’s a difficult choice. But parents should check continually if their child is learning and benefitting especially when they choose to put a special needs child in a regular school. It’s not enough if he just learns to sit quietly and not disturb the class.

By the way, Temple Grandin, the animal behavior scientist and autism icon, went to a special school too – not when she was small, but when  she was a teenage. After being expelled from her ‘normal’ school for hitting a girl who taunted her, she attended a special school for children with behavior problems. It was an excellent school, and she credits the science teacher there with putting her on the path that later made her famous.

Read some more on treatment and teaching for children with special needs

1. Genetic research may open way for treatment for Down syndrome in the womb (latest news!)

2.  A portable communication system for autistic children

3.  Why do children with Down syndrome have less cancer?

4. Deaf children invent their own sign language to communicate

Vacationing in these cities is dangerous for your mental health! Okay, it’s not funny if it happens to you. But you might find these these disorders I came up with in an internet search interesting:

Paris syndrome: When tourists in Paris are develop psychiatric symptoms (especailly delusions), apparently as a result of being overwhelmed by their culture shock as they face the reality of Paris after idealizing the city. Japanese tourists are especially vulnerable.

Jerusalem syndrome: When visitors to Jerusalem become delusional or obsessed with, usually, religious themes. Sometimes sufferers deliver long rather confused sermons in holy places, pleading with people to return to simple living.

Florence syndrome: When someone faced with magnifient works of art or with great natural beauty is overwhelmed and becomes faint, confused, and even delusional. A psychiatrist who treated many foreigners in the city’s mental hospitals first described the syndrome, and said it happened when the person identified too closely with the art.

Read some more about mental illnesses:

1. Twenty million mentally ill Indians, most of them suffering in secret

2. Almost half of Australians are mentally ill at some point in life

3. Iraqis with mental illness don’t seek treatment because of stigma

4. Many Bangladeshis are mentally ill

Actor David Carradine died of ‘autoerotic asphyxia’ – a medical way of saying he was trying to stimulate himself sexually (‘autoerotic’) by depriving his brain of oxygen (‘asphyxia’), when something went terribly wrong, and the asphyxia ended up killing him. The 71-year old actor was found in a Thai hotel with ropes around his neck and his genitals.

It’s not a pretty way to die. Most people who practice ‘autoerotic asphyxiation’ (fortunately, very few) are, like Carradine, discovered only when they die. Often, they will be naked and have smothering/strangulating gear around their neck and pornographic material around. Their family, in shock, will usually clean up before the police or medics come to the scene, and the dealth may be recorded as a suicide.

Oxygen deprivation is supposed to create a hightened orgasm, and those who practice ‘autoerotic asphyxia’ generally rig contraptions to kick in after they are asphyxiated to prevent them from strangling or smothering to death. But it is a risky practice and things go wrong – often.

I find it scary that now many people will be googling ‘autoerotic asphyxia’ and may even stumble on results that give you instructions on how to try it out.

Parents, beware.

One more reason to never let your child surf the internet alone.

Read more:

1. Game to teach children internet safety

2. How to manage your internet-savvy child

3. Women who date men they meet on the internet are likely to be assaulted

4. Internet service providers block websites promoting child porn

There are lots more funny diseases, a la cello scrotum. Though if you suffer from some of these it’s probably not funny to you. These are some more diseases I came up with after researching the internet:

Cellist’s chest, fiddler’s neck, flautist’s chin, harpist’s fingers, jogger’s nipple, tennis elbow, typist’s wrist, radium jaw, painter’s colic, miner’s lung, nintendo thumb (also called nintendonitis, maple syrup urine disease, parrot fever, and the jumping frenchmen disease.

But the best has to be this: the shrinking penis syndrome, also called the penis panic, or very formally the genital retraction syndrome. This is apparently a psychological syndrome specific to certain cultures, when a man, or many men, come to believe their penis is shrinking because someone is putting a spell on them.

Read some more medical funnies here!

1. Medical jokes

2. The kinds of humor

Yes, it happens. Sometimes the doctor gets it wrong and sometimes it’s just a figment of his imagination.

Here are two ‘diseases’ – one served up as a practical joke and another in all seriousness by a psychiatrist out to discover new mental illnesses

1. Cello scrotum

This condition was first ‘noted’ by Elaine Murphy, a medical student, in 1974 in a letter to the British Medical Journal. Murphy said the cello scrotum was an inflammation caused by constant chafing of the scrotum during long hours practicing the cello.

In spite of the fact that there were no pictures and very few details (it was a nine-line letter), and in fact there is no contact between the cello and scrotum, the disease quickly caught the imagination. Soon there was the cellist’s chest, guitarist’s nipple, and flautist’s chin. Though some doctors were skeptical, the disease lingered on officially, and only after Dr. Murphy confessed it was a prank did the BMJ produce a formal correction earlier this year (that is 34 years on).

2.  Drapetomania

Dr. Samuel Cartwright, in pre-Civil War United States, said this mental disorder of slaves caused them to want to flee servitude and was connected with “dysaethesia aethiopica”, another disorder which made them avoid work. He said these disorders often had the physical symptom of insensitive skin (insensitive to beatings, apparently).

Cartwright was a good doctor, actually, and did some good work in understanding yellow fever and cholera. Unfortunately for him, he is remembered only for drapetomania, and he is fodder for the anti-psychiatry establishment.

Read some more about humor in medicine:

1. Doctor jokes

2.  Funny definitions

3.  Funny quotes

4. The eight ways to make people laugh

Many people swear by herbal supplements, and there is this idea that these supplements have no side effects. Often they are useful, but you need to be careful:

For one, anything if taken in excess can harm your body. In other words, it’s poisonous. Even ayurvedic and ‘herbal’ medicine and supplements. They are not standardised the way ‘western’ medicine is, and every batch of a medicine may contain different amounts of the effective substance. They also tend to contain heavy metals. So you should not overdose on herbal supplements, thinking it cannot harm you.

Two, if you have a serious illness – AIDS, hepatitis, cancer, kidney disease – your best bet is still  regular medicine. Many people in India distrust public hospitals and find private treatment too expensive, and so go to alternative medicine doctors, and some people really believe herbal treatment can cure them. But ‘western’ medicine is still the best we have for these diseases and many other problems (fractures, transplants, ).

You can use herbal treatment alongside regular treatment, but you should never forego regular treatment, especially for a serious disease.

Read more about herbal medicine here:

1. Information about herbal medicine

2. Herbal beauty oils

3. Herbal menopause remedy debunked

4. Herbal medicine factory closes after its drug  causes death

Here’s another simple thing you can do to be healthier: get the sleep you need. Tell that to your mother the next time she complains you are sleeping too much.

There’s a lot of research confirming the dangers of being sleep deprived. People not getting enough sleep are more likely to be overweight, depressed, and have diabetes. Children with disturbed sleep have attention-deficit disorder-like symptoms and more behavior problems. You are more likely to catch colds, and more likely to have accidents when you haven’t slept enough – a number of airplane accidents have been connected to sleep-deprived pilots.

Even staying up late studying before your exam might not be a good idea. One of my friends went out shopping the whole day and studied the entire night before a test- only to realize the next morning she had studied the previous year’s syllabus. Even if you don’t do anything so egregious, you will have more trouble concentrating and lower reading comprehension and more risk of blanking out than if you had slept well.

In case you want to take this too far – it’s not good to sleep too much either. This has been linked to depression too, and to a shorter life span.

But an adult should get at least 6 hours of sleep a night.

Not getting enough sleep? Take this online test to diagnose sleep disorders

Epworth sleepiness scale

Read about sleep problems here:

1. Sleep disorders

2. Sleep disorders in elderly people

3. People with sleep apnea should not drive after poor sleep

4. Sleepwalking

Here are three common ways germs spread. You should worry about them and not about pills and injections (in these days of the swine flu)!

1.    Through our HANDS.

The hands are in the center of the network of contamination – infected food/water/things/people/animals to hands to eyes/nose/mouth. Keeping your hands clean can save you a lot of trouble!

Incidentally, the doctor who discovered the power of hand washing deserves more credit than he gets: Dr. Semmelweis of Vienna brought down the death rate among women giving birth in his teaching hospital from about 20% to less than 2% by forcing medical students to wash their hands before visiting the women. The student doctors used to come straight from dissecting cadavers to treat these women – without washing their hands.

2.    Through the air

Like you can see from this picture, if you don’t cover your mouth when you sneeze or cough, you spread a whole lot of germs! Using a tissue rather than a handkerchief also cuts down infections. Staying at home when you are sick cuts down infection too.

3.    Through infected food and water

Water from water-purifying devices like Aquaguard are the cleanest – more reliable than bottled or canned water. Use purified water to wash your food and clean your vessels and don’t eat food that may contain unclean water or have been washed in unclean water (mostly chutneys and salads).

Read more about how infections spread here:

1.    There are more germs in the kitchen than in the loo!
2.    Back-to-school brings germs
3.    Antibiotic-resistant germs
4.    TB spreads through breathing in the TB germs

Here is news that should make parents stop and think before they spend their money on educational TV and CDs: watching TV actually hampers babies’ language development.

Now the babies in this study apparently lived in homes where the TV was on all the time, whether or not somebody was watching. While this confirms something a lot of parents and teachers have known intuitively (too much TV is bad for your mind), there still seems to be huge number of people who firmly believe in the benefit of these things. I was constantly being advised to get these educational CDs for my son when he was late talking.

Of course, there are good programs on TV and CDs that are really educational, but they are not many and parents should sit with their children when they watch TV.

Read more about how important it is to regulate how your child watches TV:

1. Link between asthma and TV watching

2.  Food ads during kids’ TV shows make them eat more junk food

and about how children learn to communicate:

3. Speech and language disorders in children

4. Children learn language from their classmates

5. Deaf children create their own sign language

We should not be quick to put the LD/ADHD label on our children. Sometimes it is just bad teaching, and sometimes there are physical problems which cause these symptoms.

I thought about this when I saw this news item on how sleep problems and ADHD often go together.

For one thing, children with these labels do better when they are taught in smaller groups with more multisensory aids and interesting material (than our normal school textbooks which you can use as sleeping aids). They also do better with practical activities, sometimes better than ‘normal’ children. Even ADHD/LD advocates admit that, even though Then it does not seem a disability but rather a different kind of ability.

Also, all this talk about childhood mental disorders hides the fact that so many physical problems can cause the same symptoms. Every responsible doctor should do a full physical screening before putting a label on a child. Thyroid disorders, sleeping problems, and over-sensitive and under-sensitive sight or hearing can cause children to have problems learning in a regular classroom and trouble getting along – all symptoms of LDs and ADHD. (Among other things).

Take this quiz on ADHD to find out how much you really know about it.

The ADHD quiz.

Read more about ADHD and LDs here:

1. ADHD and sleep problems

2. ADHD, LDs, and hypertension

3. ADHD propensity helps people in nomadic environments