Antibiotics are not indicated in the great majority of these children because the original infection was due to a virus, and the cough is likely to be due to prolonged irritation irritation of the respiratory tract rather man to ongoing infection, Cough medicines and expectorants have not been shown to make any appreciable difference to cough. Vaporisers and humidifiers similarly have not been demonstrated to relieve coughing, and there are dangers in young children ingesting the vaporiser solution (usually containing menthol or eucalyptus).

Treatment of cough is non-specific, and antibiotics, cough medicines and expectorants, though they may make the parents feel they are doing something, rarely make any difference. Usually the cough will improve with the passage of time irrespective of what sort of treatment is given.

When to see your doctor

If the cough persists for longer than a week or two after a cold, or if there is a sudden onset of cough, or if it is significantly interfering with the child’s sleep or daily function, then your doctor should be consulted to make sure the cough is not due to asthma or an inhaled foreign body. Similarly, if there is any difficulty with breathing, or an associated high fever, then medical advice should be sought. In the majority of children, however, the child is well except for the cough and no medical consultation is usually necessary.

Prevention

If the cough is due to asthma, it can usually be prevented by appropriate treatment. The risk of inhaling foreign bodies can be minimised by not allowing toddlers and infants to eat nuts or play with small objects that can be easily inhaled. The cough that arises following a viral infection cannot be prevented.

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Decisions by parents about terminating a pregnancy, if the foetus is shown to have a serious genetic disorder, are not taken lightly. Genetic counselling can provide you with the information you require to make informed decisions. It is your right, and responsibility, to know what is likely to be in store for both you and your child should you decide to continue with the pregnancy. This includes the treatment methods that are currently available, as well as the kind of support that exists in the community for children with a genetic disorder, and their families.

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ANSWER: A rule of super marital sex is no problem is just with him or with her. It will help if we phrase the question a different way. Why do you find yourselves in conflict over the frequency of one posture? This question raises several mini-questions, such as how you both feel physically and emotionally about the posture and about postures that are not used and how and why this one posture became so frequent. One more thing. A posture is never a fetish, and people don’t “have” fetishes. They behave in various sexual ways that involve a range of stimuli. When one stimulus preference gets in the way of mutual enjoyment, there can be a breakdown in intimate communication. Remember that sexual preferences, even very strong preferences, are not fetishes as long as they do not physically or emotionally harm the partner. When a preference for something becomes a substitute for intimacy, professional help may be necessary on an individual basis first before working on the marital relationship. What you describe is not a perversion. It is a temporary mispositioning within your sexual interaction, not within him or you, that is correctable through open communication.

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Some patients may respond to the first drug used and be hardy enough not to suffer ill-effects, and others may seem to suffer every side effect at a low dose, and the drugs have little benefit for their blood pressure.

These are the patients of whom their doctors despair and they, in turn, despair of them. They frequently abandon either the doctor or the treatment.

One of the great challenges of medical practice is convincing these people to persist with treatment and eventually bringing their blood pressure under control and so prevent the serious consequences of severe hypertension.

Blood pressure may rise during pregnancy, usually due to pre-eclamptic toxaemia. This is a direct result of the pregnancy, although the exact cause is unknown, and may lead to serious problems for both the mother and the child.

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One of the most common is called tartrazine and is a yellow dye. It is a salicylate and related to aspirin and is also known by a variety of other names or codes. It is widely used, not only in food, but also to color medicines and tablets.

One of the difficulties of the allergist investigating his patients is that so few foods are labelled with all of the ingredients. This also poses a problem for parents in choosing foods for their allergic children.

At the moment, the most reliable method of determining if a person is allergic to a particular food is to eliminate it from the diet and see if this relieves the allergy. The suspected food should then be re-introduced to see if the allergy recurs. This procedure may need to be repeated on two or more occasions.

Sodium cromoglycate is a drug widely used in allergic asthma and hay fever. It is produced in powder form made up into capsules. The capsule is inserted in a special inhaler, punctured to release the powder which is inhaled into the lungs or the nose.

It does not relieve the acute symptoms but acts to prevent the onset of the allergy by blocking the action of the allergen from acting on cells in the tissues known as mast cells.

The allergen causes these cells to rupture and release histamine-like substances which act on the tissues and produce the allergic response.

Recently, this drug has been used by mouth to block the action of food allergens in the digestive system. Food allergies only go to show that “one man’s meat is another man’s poison”.

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Some of the health advantages of vegetarianism are impressive. There is evidence that vegetarians are thinner and suffer less from alcoholism, constipation, lung cancer, colorectal cancer, hypertension, coronary artery disease, diabetes, diverticulitis, kidney stones, gallstones, dental decay and osteoporosis. One study claims, for example, that 26% of meat-eaters suffer from high blood pressure compared to only 2% of vegetarians. Vegetarians also live longer than meat-eaters.

There are sound economic and environmental reasons for vegetarianism. Many claim that it is cheaper to eat a varied vegetarian diet than to eat a diet that includes meat. Meat production is far less economically viable on a per hectare basis than is the production of vegetarian food.

Ethical reasons include not destroying animal life and not contributing to the meat production industry. Those contemplating vegetarianism are advised to investigate ways of achieving a balanced diet, although many of the alleged drawbacks of vegetarianism, like the possibility of Vitamin B12 deficiency, are often exaggerated. Vegans should check their Vitamin B12 levels from time to time, but vegetarians who eat eggs are unlikely to be deficient in this vitamin. There is an enormous amount of information available on vegetarian diets and recipes through health food shops and bookshops.

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Such skeletal softening has been attributed mostly to loss of calcium and phosphorus from the body. However, as we shall see in the following articles, other factors play a part as well.

The incidence of osteoporosis rises most dramatically in women after the menopause. For this reason the disease has been linked with hormonal changes, and many women take estrogen to prevent osteoporosis. Others fear that this may bring on cancer of the uterus, so they hesitate to take the hormones. For more information about this very important question, please read the article, “Should Women Take Estrogens to Prevent Osteoporosis?” in the section of the book on Hormones.

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Home care:

Try to keep the child away from the substances responsible for the allergic reaction.

Have the child sleep on a non-allergenic pillow.

The use of air conditioners or dehumidifiers can help remove allergy-causing substances from your home, as can filters on hot air ducts.

Consult your doctor before giving the child medications for hay fever.

Precautions:

-    Antihistamines and decongestants can help relieve the child’s allergic reaction but should only be given on a doctor’s recommendation.

-    Repeated use of decongestant nasal drops or sprays can have a rebound effect and cause even worse congestion.

-    Non-allergenic rubber pillows may breed molds as they age.

-    The dander of a cat or dog allowed into the house only once can remain for weeks.

-    Hay fever rarely occurs as a reaction to foods, drinks, or medications.

-    Hay fever can be followed by bacterial infection indicated by fever, earache, swollen neck glands, or thick nasal discharge.

-    A child with severe hay fever may need a series of injections to make him or her less sensitive to the allergy-causing substances.

Hay fever is an allergic reaction of the membranes of the nose and sinuses to substances inhaled out of the air. When it occurs only during a particular time of the year (seasonal allergies), hay fever is usually due to pollens of trees, grasses, or weeds. (Pollens of flowers are usually too heavy to be airborne or inhaled.)

When hay fever occurs year-round (perennial allergies), it may be due to animal dander (tiny scales from the skin of an animal). The reaction may be to dander from a cat, dog, horse, or cow. Horse or cow dander may be present in some felt under-padding of carpeting that contain horse or cow hair. Hay fever is not usually caused by a reaction to dander from guinea pigs, hamsters, or mice. It can, however, be caused by house dust, molds, and feathers from pillows, eiderdowns, or pet birds. Hay fever is rarely a reaction to foods, beverages, or medications.

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Just look what he started. Every year about 10.7 million auto accidents are added to the roster. From those accidents, about 2.3 million people end up with disabling injuries. And 44,000 end up dead. It’s statistics like these that make the venerated road trip one of the most dangerous activities that everyday folks do. More people die in cars for every 100 million miles traveled than they do in planes, trains, or buses.

“Car crashes are the leading cause of death for people ages 1 to 34,” says Stephanie Faul, communications director of the American Automobile Association’s (AAA) Foundation for Traffic Safety in Washington, D.C. “Driving is the most dangerous thing the average person does every day.” That said, driving isn’t nearly as deadly as it used to be, thanks to public education about safety and better engineering in the automobile industry. But we still have a long way to go, says Faul.

Most of us can remember a day not too long ago when the biggest safety feature in cars was lap belts that nobody bothered wearing. Then shoulder belts came. Soon after, safety bugs and crash test dummies were appearing in public service announcements telling us that buckling up saves lives. States started making it illegal not to wear a seat belt. Today, cars are sold as much by their plethora of safety features like antilock brakes and daytime running lights as they are by cost and color.

The safety push has paid off. During the past 80 years, the number of deaths for every 10,000 registered passenger vehicles has plummeted 94 percent. Way back in 1912, there were 3,100 car crash deaths on record, even though there were only 950,000 registered vehicles driving on U.S. roads. In 1995, almost 44,000 people died on American roadways, but we also had more than 204 million registered cars driving around out there. Just wearing seat belts has saved almost 10,000 lives during the past 10 years, say statisticians.

“If folks were willing, we could make cars even safer,” says Tim Kennedy of the National Safety Council, pointing to the National Association of Stock Car Racing (NASCAR) drivers who routinely emerge from their mangled wreckage unscathed. “If we were willing to wear helmets and five-point safety belts that crossed both shoulders and around our waists, we could be a whole lot safer. We could also build cages inside our cars like Indy drivers have. But there’s only so much the public is willing to accept.”

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John had been upset when he didn’t get a promotion he thought he deserved. Instead of talking it over with his supervisors, he threw a tantrum, then stomped out, hopped in his car and headed north on Pacific Coast Highway. The California

Highway Patrol stopped him because he was going 80 miles an hour. John argued with the patrol officer and wound up in jail. It was while telling off his cellmate that he suffered the chest pains that sent him to the hospital.

I had explained the relationship between stress seeking and heart disease to him several times. He never paid attention. This time he took very careful notes. Since that time, John has worked very hard to control himself. “I’m in no hurry to die, Arnie,” he said.

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