Month: March 2006

When Is The Right Time To End Cancer Treatment

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Cancer is a lethal disease and you have shown some great strength and courage by coming this far and you have dealt with everything with keeping your nerves really strong. During the course of the disease you had your treatment and gone through the related side effects.

It is of great importance to note that if your cancer treatment unfortunately did not work for you then you need to eventually think of giving up the treatment, it would be a tough choice for you to make. You can always ask as to what other treatment options or clinical trials are there for you to use. You must take your time in gathering the information and can look into other different modes of treatment as well and see what are the researches saying in the medical field and is there any benefit that you can take from them.

Just remember that when you were diagnosed with cancer you and your doctor sat down and you went through a whole lot of options and you were feeling a lot hopeful and now since that did not work out, you must not feel down, because you will find another way that will work out for you, and keep looking, and keep your hopes high. This is a challenge and you will find a way to get through. Just be optimistic.

After knowing that the therapy is not working for you, you need to change your goals and that would be a wise decision that you would be taking. Being realistic, you might not get the cure, but you still can focus on different things that you still can get and control, for example you can work on controlling the pain.

Things also depend largely as to what was the stage at which your cancer was diagnosed and if it was an advanced stage then you must know that there is no cure and at that time your goal might be to control the cancer from further spread or you can shrink the cancer to prevent it from spreading.

By looking at the above scenario, your goal now can be to focus more on comfort rather than cure and keeping yourself as symptom free as possible. You can focus more on your family and relationships and seeing what you have missed most of your life and trying to catch up with that and not to think about cancer.

You must know that what is the best time for you that you need to stop your treatment that you have been taking for to cure the cancer. You can always opt for going off of the treatment by knowing your current condition and know the actual status of your cancer and not denying anything but being totally realistic. You must know as to what is the treatment doing to you, is it causing further deterioration or is it causing you to feel better. There might be a whole lot side effects that could cause you to stop taking your treatment and that is right if they are hurting more than helping.

When you think of quitting your treatment, you must need to take your religious beliefs and other personal values into consideration.

When you have thought about quitting treatment, you must talk this out with your doctor and let him know as to what are the things that are making you think to take that decision and what is the opinion of your doctor. If the doctors have anything at their end that they could let you know and that would help, you must take that into consideration and revise your decision regarding that cause you might have a chance there.

You must know the fact that your doctor is on your side and he is going to help you the most as he could and whatever he will tell you would be in your best interest.


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Know The Warning Signs Of Health Of Your Aging Parents

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As the children are the assets of their parents, the parents are an asset to their children too. Your parents have cared for you when you were a child and in their old age they are a child too in which they have short nerves, they like peace and want things their way, just as you did when you were a child. You must make sure that your parents stay healthy in their old age. You cannot take care of your parents sitting miles away, but it should be your first priority that whenever you visit your parents you must ask about their health and find out as to what you can do to help them in anyway.

You must take notice of the following things that I will be mentioning in the paragraphs below so that you are able to make that a practice in your life as to looking into the things so that you can asses their health.

Just make sure that your parents are not losing any weight. It is a general concept that people think that they are losing weight and this is the indication of achieving health, but in reality losing weight can be a real problem and it might indicate a significant health problem such as cancer, dementia, malnutrition or gastric problems. It is important for you to know that loss of weight is not always linked to illnesses, there can be times when your parents might not feel like cooking or finding lack of energy to do that. You must talk with your parents about the concerns that they are going through so you could have a better idea as to what is going on. You can find the ways with your parents as to what foods are appealing and how they can get food on the proper time according to their meal plan.

The next thing that comes in the slot is that you must know as to whether your parents are safe in their homes or not and is the home fall proof, the lights are working, the air-conditioner and the heater are working, the yard is well maintained or not, you can just see all these things by just observing the surroundings to see how well the things are being taken care of. You must see the level of the hearing and sight of your parents and how well they are or are their senses deteriorating, because you can easily judge that by talking with them. If there is a loss in hearing or sight, then your parents at an increased risk of hurting themselves.

You could also check whether your parents are forgetful about the things that have been discussed and are they putting the food on the stove and forgetting about it, leaving the iron on and not shutting it off and this would tell you as to the memory level that they have right now and that they are getting forgetful of what they were doing or discussed.

You must take a serious look on your parent’s appearance and see if they are well groomed and whether they are taking good care of their health and hygiene or not, are their clothes clean or not, you can get a lot of ideas from how well your parents are taking care of themselves.

It is very important that you see as to how are the spirits of your parents and how they feel, whether they feel down or they feel really good and alive in themselves. You can look for signs of depression in your parents and can always help them turn around and look at the bright side of life. You must ask your parents as to what are their daily schedules and how are they going with their friends or their social circles, do they go out from time to time or not and you can tell them that you have plans for them to come and stay at your place.

You must see as to whether your parents are complying to deal with the problems they are going through. You can motivate them and make them realize that the things can be taken care for and you need them to be happy and lively. If you see that your parents are not complying, then you can talk with their doctor and see what can be done and are there any services that could help your parents out. So you must take serious steps in those regards.


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Help Your Loved Ones In Their Last Days

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The toughest time in our lives is that when we come to know that our loved one is departing from this world. This is the time that is totally draining someone mentally and emotionally and leaving them blank as to what they would do. In this scenario, you can prepare yourself and you can help make your loved ones feel really good and happy in their last days and knowing as to what you can do to reduce their anxiety as the time comes near.

There might be some common signs and symptoms that you will come across when you will see a person die in which you will see the signs of irregular breathing, confusion, restlessness, loss of appetite, seeing people who have already died, and these can be very distressing for you, but you should know that these are the normal signs of the dying phase.

You can always be near to your loved ones and can help them reduce their anxiety when the news breaks out as to the time that one has to live. Usually the doctors predict that time that the person has and since no one can exactly predict that time, the doctors tell that the individual has some months, weeks or days that he or she is going to survive.

You must ask your loved one as to what are their wishes for the last phase of their life and you can have conversation with them. These conversations can be difficult and pretty uncomfortable, but this will provide your loved one to express themselves and any wishes that they have that they want fulfilled.

If your loved one wants to be moved to a nursing home facility, you must consult the doctor to see as to what you can do in terms of moving your loved one to the nursing home, and can check whether the Medicare and the Medicaid covers the cost of admission into those institutions. You can discuss this also with the social worker to see what options are there for you.

You can also seek religious or spiritual guidance for your loved one at the end of life time and they can find peace inside themselves and are more calm and are able to overcome their anxiousness.


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Help Your Close Ones To Combat Depression

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Depression is a feeling of sadness and despair in which it just eats out the person inside. Depression is something that can isolate an individual and thus it would take them away from their family, friends and people who are close to them.

The person who is going through the episode of depression is a person who has no interest in life at all. If you see any individual who is going through depression, you can just observe them pretty closely as to what are the different feelings that they are going through and thus you can see their feelings and you can learn a lot as to the different phases they experience and your role in that to help them come out of those feelings.

You must know that you can do a lot for those individuals how are going through such a disaster in their life and just remember that these feelings are contagious and can absorb you too, so it is best for you that you just take care of your emotional feelings and make sure that you are not going to fall apart as they are doing at the current point in time. You are the one who is going to support that person and not the one who would be depressed like the person whom you are thinking to help.

The most important thing in helping someone with depression is that you recognize the signs of depression, which are sadness and despair and a feeling where they are going down every single day and are not able to come out of the feelings they are in. They will lose the interest in the pleasure activities that they used to have and they have crying spells as well too. Their sleep would be disturbed, they might have impaired thinking or concentration, you can observe them close and see that they are losing weight or might gain weight as well, fatigue is another sign, low self esteem, loss of libido and suicidal ideations are other signs that can be looked for in these individuals.

The first and the foremost thing that you can do is that you recognize it and you let the person who is suffering through depression to understand that they are going through depression. After that you have gone through the realization process, you need to urge them that they need to see a doctor, as it is a medical situation and this needs to be looked into by a professional so that they could guide the best. You can also tell them that there are other medical conditions that could trigger the symptoms of depression such as thyroid disease. This would put the realization that they do need to get themselves checked and they would get the best care possible.

You must know that pretty clearly that it is a feeling of impending doom and if you haven’t had felt what depression is then you just cannot feel what depression really is and what the other person is going through. You can read information on depression to see as to what it does to individuals and how lethal it can be.

You can offer the people suffering from depression the empathy and compassion and being by their side to comfort them as much as you can.

You can acknowledge their pain and don’t talk on the things much that would put them back in the same feelings that they were and you must not give them advices.

You can ask them as to how you can help them and you can do for them as to whatever they would want you to do and show them your concerns and your compassion for them.
You must always reinforce them positively and tell them how much they mean to you and how your life depends on them in so many ways and you don’t want them to be in that feeling and it really hurts you to see the suffering they are in.

You can ask them to go for a walk with you and you must ask them politely and do not press them much on that and just try to find their areas of interest in which they might find the strength to get themselves go out of the home and enjoy some time and feel a little better cause this can be a big break to make them feel good.

You must remember that if you see any signs of suicidal ideation in the individuals then you must take immediate action by letting their personal care provider know about the situation and you must stay with the person at all times so that they do not commit the suicide that they are planning to or saying through words directly that they are going to commit suicide, be very careful cause it is when they need the most attention.

You may want to look upon this antidepressant cymbalta.


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The Morning After Pill

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There was this interesting case that was brought forward in which there were three women who sued the Wal-Mart for not keeping the morning after pill in Massachusetts.

There was a new law that took effect last year in which there was a heated debate among the lawmakers in which they said that it must be necessary that the hospitals provide the morning after pill to the rape victims, this also allows the pharmacists to dispense the pill without a prescription.

This lawsuit is being back by the abortion rights group who argue that Wal-Mart is defying the state policy, which requires all the pharmacies all over Massachusetts to provide the medicines that are commonly prescribed and this group wants the compliance with the regulation of the state.

The lawyer of the plaintiffs said that the Massachusetts pharmacies are required to stock all medications that are commonly prescribed to meet the usual needs of the community.

On the other hand, the spokesman for the Wal-Mart said that the company not chooses not to carry many products for business reasons.

The spokesman also said that if the Wal-Mart pharmacy does not have the prescription, then the pharmacist is instructed to refer the customer to a different drug store.

The Wal-Mart spokesman also said that they are not keeping that drug in any of the stores in any other state.

The way that morning after pill works is that it provides a high dose of hormones that the women can take till five or six days, which will prevent pregnancy. There are some people who oppose abortion state that contraception is another form of abortion because it works to block the fertilized egg from being implanted on the uterine wall.

The plaintiffs who tried to take the morning after pill were turned away when they tried to buy the contraception pill at the Wal-Mart stores in their areas.

One of the doctors’s stated that the women should not be refused of the emergency medications that they need.

This case has just caught a lot of publicity these days and people are awaiting to see as to how this case would shape in the coming days.


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Prostate Cancer Screening

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There is a large population of men who fall in the clutches of prostate cancer and that is why it is necessary that men should get their prostate checked starting from the age of 50 till the age of 70.

There are millions of people that fall in this age and undergo the tests every year to get assessment as to the status of their prostate gland. The prostate check includes a blood test that checks the prostate specific antigen, which is also known as PSA, as well as a digital rectal examination in which the individual’s prostate gland’s anatomy is assessed through the rectal wall.

There is a stunning news that the prostate examinations are not perfect and that men should decide for themselves as to whether they would want to get screened for prostate cancer or not. This statement was made by Dr. John Concato, who is a clinical epidemiologist at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System.

It is being mentioned by the doctors that some of the cases of prostate cancer grow pretty slow and their growth does not cause much symptoms, but on the other hand if that cancer is detected at an early stage and the patient goes through surgery and radiation treatment then this can cause incontinence and impotence, which was not that the individual was experiencing while having that cancer. Therefore this early recognition of the cancer is causing a lot of harm than the good as was expected.

It is also interesting to know that the PSA tests can give uncertain results, in which it is stated that if the individuals who have elevated prostate antigen specific levels, do not have prostate cancer. On the other hand some men who have low PSA levels do have cancer.

It is recommended that before an individual goes through the screening tests, they must be knowing the risks and benefits of this test so that they could make a decision as to whether they want to undergo the test or not.

In a study that was conducted included about two different groups of men who were treated at 10 different Veterans Affairs medical centers and one group consisted of about 501 men who were diagnosed with prostate cancer and they died later because of that disease or other causes and then the researchers chose about 501 more men who matched the first group in terms of age and other factors, but they survived. The only difference between the two groups was that the group who was alive was not screened for prostate cancer and did not receive any treatments.

In order to understand the prostate anatomy, the prostate gland is a size of a walnut, which is located under the bladder and that makes the fluid for semen. It is interesting to note that the prostate cancer is second only to the skin cancer in its prevalence in American men.

It is mentioned that the diet high in fruits and vegetables can reduce the risk of cancer.
There are more studies being conducted to see as to what would be the most beneficial tests that would be there and how to assess as to when to start the treatment so that the individual’s quality of life is not affected in anyway.


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