Trocaventure

ED is not a chronic or permanent condition and can be treated

The vast experience is studying erectile dysfunction in men and numerous clinical tests have confirmed that the condition can be reversed to 35% of the initial state if treated with conventional methods. In some cases natural treatments can have very beneficial effects in the patient, while in others conventional medications are the key to restoring healthy sexual functions. There’s no secret about the fact that by improving health in overall, men tend to improve their sexual abilities too. Such evident things as physical exercises, lack of alcohol abuse and smoking usually make the restoring process much easier. Not to mention that these lifestyle changes will improve the quality of life in general. [...]

It’s not a laughing matter. Fear really can stalk the night. You can be lying in bed, enjoying the moment as sleep slowly overtakes you at the end of tiring day when, with just the merest warning, the pain can strike, usually in the calves. Or you can be jerked unceremoniously from sleep. Nothing seems to protect you. You wonder about hanging garlic above the windows, but reject it. You experiment with temperature, adding or rejecting coverings. But cramp is not to be frightened away like a vampire, nor does it seem to care whether your legs are hot or cold. Those muscles can suddenly contract and tie themselves into a knot. And the pain! Even though it may only be a minute or so, it feels like forever. So what do you do apart from grab the leg and howl with pain. Well, some believe in rubbing it. Others try stretching – pulling or pointing the toes up or back can seem to help. While the more active leap from bed and walk it off. Well, that should be limp it off since putting weight on the leg only seems to add to the pain at first.

Let’s get the helpful piece of news out of the way. No one knows why it happens. For some it’s a regular disruption to sleep, particularly affecting some women during the later stages of pregnancy. People who play sport or exercise more vigorously also report more incidents than the couch potatoes among us. The only useful information is that muscles come in pairs, one to push, the other to pull. So, when you want to move, the relevant muscles have to cooperate by simultaneously contracting and relaxing. If the paired muscle will not relax when it’s supposed to, you get a cramp. When this happens, the worst thing you can do if try to force the muscles to relax by pulling violently at your leg. This can overstretch the muscles and tear them. Not surprisingly, this tear can be painful and, unlike the cramp, the pain will not simply fade away. Start with a massage and do not stretch until you feel some relaxation begin. [...]

As children, we grow up knowing the acne thing is going to happen during our teen years. As parents we watch our kids pretending everything is cool while desperately looking in mirrors. It’s pointless to say acne is just “spots”. It’s cruel and unrealistic to blame our children for inflicting this emotional trauma on each other. It’s going to take a revolution to change society and make anything less than perfect skin acceptable. Except. . . Except it’s no longer just a teen problem. More adults now find acne never really goes away. Or perhaps it’s that more adults now ask for treatment. Either way, it’s estimated about 15% of adult women up to the age of 45 years now use an acne treatment. Why is this?

Well, experts (people who sound as if they know what they are talking about)discuss changes in lifestyle. They blame increased levels of stress, poor diets and too much exercise. OK, remember balancing myths against facts can be difficult. There may be a link between acne and eating food with too much fat in it, or drinking too much alcohol. Smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke can damage your skin. Changes in hormone levels can trigger the release of more oil in the skin, i.e. as testosterone levels rise in men and women. If your stomach and bladder are not working as well as they should, toxins can build up and encourage acne.

There’s clear evidence women are more likely to be affected by hormone shifts during adolescence, the menstrual cycle and pregnancy. Taking an oral contraceptive can even out the balance between hormones but some find this a difficult choice because of their religious convictions. During pregnancy, the safest course is simple over-the-counter products like benzoyl peroxide. A recent small-scale trial at Stanford University found an increase in acne during exam times. When anyone experiences stress, the adrenal gland produces more androgens. This makes skin problems more likely. Stress also reduces the effectiveness of your autoimmune system making your body in general and skin in particular more likely to be affected by infections.

A research trial in Australia studied two small groups of young adults, one with a regular diet of processed foods with high sugar and salt levels, the other with a low-GI diet based on fresh fruit, vegetables, lean meat and wholegrain foods. After three months, the low-GI group saw a reduction of 50% in the severity of their acne – a better result than using any of the over-the-counter products. Even exercise can cause problems because, as the skin produces more sweat, this produces a warm moist environment encouraging the growth of bacteria. [...]

Now here’s the thing. The US courts have been at work, accepting cases to prove every possible type of danger caused to humankind by every possible product. Whether it’s cars that just will not stop no matter how many times you stand on the brakes, or the attack of killer tomatoes full of salmonella, the cases just keep on coming. It’s not surprising the political parties wrestle with the idea of cutting back on the right of trial lawyers to harass successful businesses. In fact, every week you see stories of manufacturers surrendering in the face of legal challenges. Sometimes, right or wrong, it’s cheaper just to give up and walk away. So what’s the story here?

We have to cross to seas to distant islands going under the name of New Zealand. Even though these people live too far away to be considered properly civilized – no developed court system for suing manufacturers marks them out as still primitive – they have witch doctors who have been studying the effect of the key drug used to treat acne. Remarkable though this may seem, they actually managed to round up 1,700 people who have been taking this drug and followed their health for six years. All participants had severe acne that had failed to respond to the usual treatments – rubbing the skin with live toads was the standard. They all took this fierce Western drug in low doses and, remarkably, there did not seem to be any serious side effects. A few had slight cracking of the skin of their lips and minor inflammation but this cleared quickly. When people were taking a dose equivalent to 0.25mg/kg of their body weight, about 3.5% were affected by tiredness and minor mood changes but, overall, only 13 people stopped taking the drug because of the side effects. [...]

Wherever you look in the research literature, you will see research articles praising cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Despite the best efforts of the pharmaceutical industry, the academic researchers have managed to maintain enough independence to challenge the assumption that drugs are the best way of treating any disease or disorder. But it’s all very well for researchers to write articles. This is only useful information if the world changes a little. The are two key changes required. The first comes in the attitude of hospitals and the top physicians. The healthcare services industry is built on a for-profit model that makes the most efficient use of the smallest number of employees to deliver care to the maximum possible number of patients. Unfortunately, one-to-one therapy is an expensive way to use the time of any senior member of staff. Unless you create a new departmental empire for the senior staff to run, they will not support the move to provide CBT, and the hospital will refuse because it will not make enough money unless. . . The second change would have to come from the health insurance industry. The insurers have been hit by regularly increasing medical costs, all of which have been passed on to you as higher premiums. The insurers would have to adjust their payment strategies to prefer short-term therapy costs to long-term drug costs.

So what exactly is CBT? In a way the label is the answer. “Cognitive” = thinking. “Behavior” is easily defined. This is a short-term therapy designed to give you strategies for coping in your present circumstances, i.e. you focus on what you need to do “now”. You are encouraged to look for the cause and effect of what you think and how you act. This is not the same as classical psychological analysis which looks back in time for the deep-rooted causes of problems. This is a practical survival course. If you have a phobia, how do you overcome it? If you cannot go into a crowded room because of social anxiety disorder, what can be done? This makes it good for moderate anxiety states and it has proved a cheap way of helping people learn basic survival skills.

Like all emerging disciplines, it has been staking out its claim for leadership in the field of therapy and counseling. It has therefore made enemies. They accuse it of making exaggerated claims for its success rates. Quick fixes are just that, i.e. if you think of a car, a “fix” is often only good for a short time before full repairs have to be made. Nevertheless, CBT is rising to the top of the heap because it’s more positive. It reacts to situations rather than merely offering general advice as counseling. [...]