Natural Holistic Health Blog

by Seema Mathur

Some people who’ve had kidney stones say they’re more painful than having a baby. Doctors say if you don’t take the right precautions in the Texas heat, your chances go up of getting one.

A few months ago David Bauman, 46, says he experienced the worst pain of his life

�It was just so intense it caused me to vomit,� Bauman said.

Bauman was feeling a kidney stone trying to make its way out of his system.

�It was almost like someone was sticking a knife in your back and going up and down,� he said.

As part of natural metabolism, the body creates and filters crystals from the kidneys.

�If we don’t have enough urine to wash those crystals out they can start bumping into each other and forming stones,� urologist Dr. Richard Chopp
said.

Doctors say the Texas heat and a lack of hydration puts Austinites at greater risk of kidney stones.

�The major cause in Austin is a fluid problem,� Chopp said.

To decrease your chances of having a kidney stone, Chopp says, avoid salt and drink a lot of water and lemonade.

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Trends analysis of drug poisoning deaths has helped explain a national epidemic of overdose deaths in the USA that began in the 1990s, concludes Leonard Paulozzi and colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, USA. The contribution of prescription pain killers to the epidemic has only become clear recently. This research is published this week in the journal, Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety.

Drugs called “opioids” are frequently prescribed to relieve pain, but if abused they can kill. Over the past 15 years, sales of opioid pain killers, including oxycodone, hydrocodone, methadone and fentanyl, have increased, and deaths from these drugs have increased in parallel.

In 2002, over 16,000 people died in the USA as a result of drug overdoses, with most deaths related to opioids, heroin, and cocaine. Opioids surpassed both cocaine and heroin in extent of involvement in these drug overdoses between 1999 and 2002

The situation appears to be accelerating. Between 1979 and 1990 the rate of deaths attributed to unintentional drug poisoning increased by an average of 5.3% each year. Between 1990 and 2002, the rate increased by 18.1% per year.

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DECATUR — It seems common sense to most people to layer on coats, scarves and hats when the winter winds begin to bite. But many are not as quick to take necessary precautions when outside temperatures reach into the 90s.

The elderly are especially are risk for heat stress and heatstroke due to the body’s cooling system becoming less efficient with age, said Mike O’Donnell, executive director for the East Central Illinois Area Agency on Aging Inc.

“It’s always a risk, especially for older adults living alone and taking certain medications,” O’Donnell said. “People most at risk are those with chronic medical conditions and taking medications including diuretic, heart medicine, diabetes medicine, psychoactive drugs, antihistamines and those controlling high blood pressure.”

The early signs of heat-induced illness are confusion, dizziness and loss of consciousness, O’Donnell said. It’s extremely important that friends and relatives have daily contact with the elderly, especially those who live alone.

“Older adults should ask a friend or relative to check on them twice a day,” he said.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) — Acupuncture may help relieve the symptoms of fibromyalgia, especially the fatigue and anxiety that often come with the condition, a new study suggests.

Fibromyalgia is a syndrome marked by chronic widespread aches and pains, fatigue and sleep problems, among other symptoms; the cause is unknown, and there are no medications specifically approved for the condition. Instead, treatment usually involves a combination of approaches, such as painkillers, antidepressants and exercise therapy.

Only two well-designed clinical trials have tested acupuncture’s effects on fibromyalgia, and these studies yielded conflicting results.

The new study was conducted by researchers at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota, and in Jackson, Florida.

Fifty fibromyalgia patients were randomly assigned to acupuncture or to a “placebo” version of the therapy, where a dull surgical instrument was pressed against the skin rather than acupuncture needles.

The subjects were positioned so they could not see which treatment they received. All but one subject was female.

The patients underwent six treatment sessions over two to three weeks. None of the patients had been treated with acupuncture before.

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Use of a type of anti-depressant medication during pregnancy may increase the risk of a stillborn baby, research suggests.

A Canadian study of almost 5,000 mothers found those who used SSRIs were also more likely to have premature and low birth weight babies.

However experts said women should not stop taking medication without expert advice.

The study is published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

The researchers, from the University of Ottawa, compared the health of babies born to 972 women taking SSRI anti-depressants with that of babies born to mothers who did not use anti-depressants.

SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors work by increasing levels of the mood chemical serotonin in the brain. They include Prozac.

The researchers found women using the drugs were twice as likely to have a stillbirth. They were also almost twice as likely to have a low birth weight baby.

Almost 20% of women who used SSRIs gave birth prematurely, compared to 12% of those who did not use the drugs.

Babies born to women using SSRIs were also more likely to have seizures.

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