How many times have you come away from a visit to your doctor more confused or in the dark about your condition than you were before the consultation and prescribed treatment? Actually, that sort of unsettling experience happens to many people who subsequently feel they may not have received the best care possible. The best [...]
Here are nine proven ways you can reduce dietary fat in your diet: 1) Eat whole-grain and freshly baked breads and rolls. 2) Instead of butter or margarine, use jam, jelly or marmalade on bread and toast. 3) Stay away from whole milk. The best way to do that is to drink only skim milk. [...]
Such emergencies may be caused by a variety of things including airway obstruction, ingestion of poison, injury to chest or lungs, heart-attack, allergic reactions, and electrocution. If a person is not breathing, there will not be an up-an-down movement of the chest or abdomen, and you will not be able to hear or feel air [...]
Health Insurance Policies can vary widely. It pays to examine several kinds before makingg a selection. Here are a few things to look for: (1) Use an independent insurance agent. They can get policies and ates from dozens of health insurers – instead of just one. You could save up to 40% (2) Is the [...]
Every year, 12,000 babies suffer brain damage or die after being infected with the common bacteria known as Group B Strep (GBS) during delivery. Until now, most obstetricians did not regularly test women for GBS, but new guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) may change that. The new guidelines encourage screening [...]
Can Prozac induce a manic high? In Bipolar I or Bipolar II manic-depressive patients, not on lithium, Prozac has been reported to induce a manic or hypomanic state, which is why this drug must be prescribed and monitored with great care in such patients. This is a serious problem—and it is certainly something to watch [...]
Prozac works by specifically inhibiting the uptake of serotonin at the nerve endings in the brain. This results in an increased concentration of serotonin at the synapse, which in turn increases the availability of serotonin at the critically important brain receptor sites, thought to result in normal nervous system transmission. Prozac and the other SSRIs [...]
Unipolar depression is the same as major depression, which is the same as clinical depression. It is considered unipolar because, whereas manic depressives experience both terrible lows and manic highs (the twin poles of their disorder), people afflicted with unipolar depression only experience the down phase. When episodes happen repeatedly over the course of months [...]
Subclinical depression is depression that is not extensive enough in symptoms to merit a diagnosis of major depression or dysthymia according to DSM-IV, which categorizes various mental and emotional diseases and lists required symptoms for each major diagnostic category. However, a patient diagnosed with a given disorder doesn’t necessarily display every one of those listed [...]
Many manic depressives are treated with lithium alone, which helps smooth out the rough hills and valleys of the emotional landscape. (In some cases, if lithium cannot be tolerated or is simply ineffective, antiepileptic medications Tegretol or Depakote have been used to stabilize mood and behavior.) Often, however, lithium isn’t enough. The mania may be [...]