More on allergies

If you have allergies, how do they affect you? Are they seasonal allergies that make you all headache-y and stuffed up? Do you have food allergies that can be life-threatening? What about environmental allergies that can do all sorts of stuff to you?

I'm pretty lucky. My only biggie in terms of allergies is one to sulfa drugs, antibiotics. Luckily, unlike antibiotics like penicillin, they're not usually the first choice of medications so I don't worry about getting them in an emergency situation. I do have mild allergies to a few other things but nothing to really get upset about.

I did have an odd thing happen before Christmas though. My daughter and I went shopping and I bought some ice cream sandwiches from a company I'd never bought before. My daughter had one and a few days later, I had one. I was enjoying it but towards the end, I felt like I'd been eating pepper. I thought it was odd, but I forgot about it. I had another one a few days later and again, at the end of the treat, my mouth felt like it was burning. I actually looked at what was left to see if it had been tampered with. I honestly felt like someone had put pepper on the ice cream. It was a very harsh burning, peppery feeling on my tongue and lips.

Well, seems like I'm a slow learner because I tried a third one a few weeks later. I had asked my daughter if she had tasted anything odd with the ice cream and she didn't. So, I started a third one. Same thing happened. Duh - it finally clicked that I was having a reaction to something in the ice cream sandwich. Like I said - I can be slow sometimes.

I have no idea what it is I reacted to. I've never had a reaction to food before. I'm going to have to pay more attention to anything like that in the future and be a little more on the ball. Could it have been just that one product? I hope so. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

News for Today:
Good marriage keeps blood pressure low: study
Cortisol may alleviate chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia symptoms: study
Study highlights aggression in nursing home residents
New survey shows allergies dramatically impact sufferers' moods and how they feel about themselves
Smokers treated for brain aneurysm with coils at higher risk of recurrence
The difference in eating habits between men and women
Community-Based Staph Pneumonia More Common Than Thought
Fosamax Linked to Unusual Femur Fractures
Severe Lupus May Respond to Drug Combo
Transfusions of 'Older' Blood Don't Work As Well
Botox Might Have Dozens Of New Medical Uses In Treating Problems Such As Restless Legs, Asthma And Even Obesity

Spring time... spring time...allergy time?

Well, spring is supposed to be officially here - it is today, isn't it? Maybe I'm off a day or two. Nevertheless, with snow still over 3ft high in my backyard, it doesn't seem like spring is happening here any time soon.

For some people, spring is the beginning of misery, with all the allergies that abound. From the budding flowers and growing vegetation, headache, sneezing and sniffling season is what they call spring.

Do you have seasonal allergies? Many of us have or know people with fall hay fever, but I'm meeting more and more people who suffer in the spring.

What do you do for your allergies?

News for Today:
Fewer radiotherapy treatments effective, study finds
Ten ways to eat healthy and feel great
Reducing Heart Disease risk naturally post-menopause
Overweight, Obese Women Improve Quality Of Life With 10 To 30 Minutes Of Exercise

Yet another "addiction"?

How much time have you spent on the Web since the beginning of the month? Are you a "I'll just take a moment to check my email" kind of person, or are you one who checks email but is still on the computer hours later? Or, do you take it a step later and ignore all around you while you stay on the computer as long as you possibly can?

This article, Time to recognize Web addiction as illness, has news that I've been hearing on the radio since yesterday - that this should be a true illness like alcoholism. What do you think?

I know that it's easy to become addicted to something and that some people have more addictive personalities than others, but it seems to me - and this is my opinion only - that this whole addiction thing is getting a little out of control. I may not be popular saying this, but although I do understand that there are addictions to alcohol and drugs, I don't believe in sex addicts, for example. I believe that by naming all these issues as addictions takes the responsibility off the person and allows them to blame something out of their control.

I'm not saying it's easy to avoid something you really enjoy doing or feel you need to do. I go through stages where I just *have* to do something and could almost say it's like an addiction, but the issue isn't that I'm addicted to it, the issue is that I want to do it, I feel like I have to do it, and I'm an adult who has to realize that right here and now, perhaps I can't do it.

What do you think?

News for Today:
Girls with ADHD more likely to develop eating disorders: study
Botox a life-saver for babies with saliva syndrome
Some West Nile patients never fully recover: study
Reducing HD risk naturally post-menopause
An anti-inflammatory response to the vegan diet
Study examines changes in quality of life after head and neck cancer treatment
Trauma patients likely to experience moderately severe pain 1 year after injuries
Study outlines risk of treatment-resistant infection following facelift surgery
Cocaine may cause heart attack symptoms
Time to recognize Web addiction as illness

Boot camp for pain

There's an interesting story on CTV news, Boot camps' treat pain sufferers. What makes such a story interesting is that the premise isn't new. The basis behind such a program is there is a need for a team approach to treat chronic pain. Isn't that something that we've been trying to get done within the medical community for so long?

It's really just common sense. There isn't just one issue when someone has a chronic illness or chronic pain, so it doesn't make sense to have just one branch of medicine to deal with it. In all fairness, many doctors do incorporate other services for their patients, like physiotherapy. But sometimes it take a lot more than just that. A full-service, whole team approach is what is needed in so many cases. It's a shame that it takes a program like this that is expensive as well as unreachable for many (who can take four weeks from their life to go to such a boot camp?) for this to become newsworthy.


News for Today:
Positive thinking may help heart patients live longer: study
Boot camps' treat pain sufferers
Parents told to avoid lindane-laced lice shampoo
Obesity lowers breast cancer survival
Seasonal allergies could spark depression, fatigue
Don't Prescribe Antibiotics for Adult Sinus Woes
New Study: Pycnogenol(R) Improves Memory in Elderly