Old remedy new cures

Sugar is used in African countries as a natural cure for wounds, leg sores and leg ulcers. The sugar is sprinkled on to the wound and this draws all the moisture out. Bacteria needs water to be able to survive, and because there is no moisture  the wound heals. 


A six month study has been done at Selly Oak hospital in Birmingham involving 21 patients whose wound had not responded to conventional treatment. The study showed that sprinkling sugar on to the wound kills the bacteria that prevents healing. It is said that the natural treatment of sugar could save the NHS billions of pounds.


You may know an older person who has a leg wound, or leg ulcer that just will not heal, this can cause considerable pain. Try sprinkling a little sugar to the wound along with vitamin c supplement 1-3 grams per day taken orally and see if this provides relief from the condition. Please feel free to comment on this.

Grands Rounds is Up

at Colorado Heath Insurance Insider - a collection of the week's health care blog posts. Have a look.

Everyday ailments

When you itch, ache, or sting, when you are coughing, sneezing or otherwise suffering, its deeply comforting to know that there are thousands of effective remedies that can help. Just stock your medicine cabinet with a few healing essentials. Find out how to soothe it with oatmeal, pamper it with peppermint and banish it with bicarbonate soda. Hundreds of health complaints can be treated by yourself instead of going to your doctor. Even more serious health problems can be helped using natural treatment. 


Bicarbonate of soda can help athlete's foot, body odour, chickenpox, gum problems, heartburn, heat rash, hives, indigestion, sore throat, sunburn and Uti. 


Check my other blogs for many many more natural cures.
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When You Feel Your Partner's Pain

This is a guest post written by Patricia Walling. It is a fascinating topic. Enjoy!

We often feel like when we really love someone we can feel their pain, and their suffering affects us greatly. Usually we explain this to ourselves as being the result of really caring about the one we love, and that it's completely a matter of the heart, but that may not be entirely the case. A recent study done at Monash University in Australia by Bernadette Fitzgibbon and some of her colleagues reveals that some people not only empathize with the pain of others, but can also feel it themselves. The study was done by using electroencephalography to monitor the brainwaves of amputees observing images of other people’s hands and feet in potentially painful situations. As it turns out, even if they don't normally feel phantom pain in their amputated limbs, amputees will actually feel real pain if they see others in pain or about to be in pain. This effect is called synaesthetic pain, which comes from the Greek syn-, together, and aisthe-, to feel or perceive.

Fitzgibbon and others propose that amputees are more able to feel synaesthetic pain in these instances due to a pain hypersensitivity, owing to the traumatic event of losing a limb. When we are threatened, our minds go into overdrive and are hypervigilant to pain anyway, and this is even more pronounced for those who have experienced such traumatic pain. This is much like when you are waiting to get a shot at the doctor's office, and the anticipation the pain of getting stuck with a needle is that much worse than if it happened randomly. Yet while you're waiting for the office to write up your bill and you watch someone else get a shot, something called our mirror neurons are also at work, making us wince when they stick them. These are the parts of our brain that allow us to “feel” the emotions of others, and enjoy drama in the theater.

However, that we can feel the suffering of others as though it were our own is nothing new to committed couples. Once my partner cut his hand wide open while cooking, and I could hardly look at it to bind it because it felt as though my own hand were cut open. In the past, I explained this experience as a result of our closeness, and that it was nothing to worry about. But with this new knowledge in mind, it is important to remember that when our partners are hurting, we hurt too. It can be easy to write it off as heartache and continue caring for them as much as we can, but we can end up hurting just as much, literally. Whether you're a full time caregiver or just helping your partner get through a nasty cold, it is important to remember that you also need to take care of yourself.

Grand Rounds is Up

The weekly collection of posts for the health care world is up at Heath Business blog. Have a read.

Auto-suggestion cures

I am looking for natural ways to cure illness and disease. We hear of people who have been diagnosed with cancer and with perhaps not long to live, and have cured their body using natural therapy. How have they done this?. Sometimes it is just the power of the subconsious mind, a very strong power of will that is in them by using auto-suggestion. Words that are used every day that convince the subconsious mind that the person is getting better. The words used are so strong and meanful that power is generated from within, and then the person is healed. My body is pure, my body is clean. All the statements must be positive, thus it is wrong to say. I have not got cancer!.however you could say, I feel better today! I am getting better, My body is healed of all illness.  When you say the statements you must feel what you are saying.
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How To Claim Your Alone Time

How do you let your partner know that you need alone time?

Chronic illness is a demanding intrusion. It can determine when you and your partner can go to a movie, what you can eat, and even when you can be intimate. At the same time, illness can force intimacy in areas where it may not be wanted -- discussion of bodily functions, acts of physical caretaking like dressing or washing, exposing helplessness.

The experiences of the ill and well partner are different. Both may feel sadness and anger - at the illness and at each other. But the experiences that provoke strong feelings can be different. And both may need a break from each other in order to simply be quiet or to re-energize or to not feel obligated or dependent.

How do you take a break from your partner without wounding him or her? How do you claim your alone time without without giving the impression that you are rejecting your partner?

For some couples this may be easy. They may have even built alone time into their weekly routines. For others, especially where communication is more labored, taking alone time can be more fraught.

Richard and I both require lots of alone time. That is our nature and it was part of our relationship before chronic pain entered our picture. So now, if one of us closes the door or walks out of the room, the other is not wounded or offended. Sometimes we will say to each other, "Time for alone time."

Do you need alone time? How do you communicate this to your partner?

The natural way to protect against E coli.

The recent outbreak of E coli accross Europe is a new strain, and is proveing difficult to trace. So what can we do ourselves to protect us against this deadly disease. Natural cures may provide some answers. Wash all salad, fruit and vegetables before consuming. If eating fruits like apples then peal the fruit first. The most important thing is to maintain a high standard of hygene, wash hands after visiting the toilet, and before preparing food, as well as when hands are dirty.
Some natural plants and herbs may provide some protection against E coli, such as garlic, cinnoman, cloves, and rose petal oil.

Grand Rounds is Up

The weekly collection of the best posts from the health care blogosphere is up at Medgadget. Have a read.

Also - PFAM (Patients for a Moment), a collection of posts write by patents aobut their experiences is up at Getting Closer to Myself.

Health of Older Couples is Linked to Each Other

As if we didn't already know this........ (quoted from an article on the University of British Columbia's web site):

Physical and emotional health of older couples linked for better or worse, study finds

A study of older married couples that gives new meaning to the matrimonial adage “for better or worse” finds that spouses have a much greater impact on their partner’s health than previously known.

The study, published in the current issue of the American Psychological Association’s journal Health Psychology, finds strong associations between the physical and emotional health of older married couples – and provides important new information on the psychological toll of physical limitations in old age.

Researchers from the University of British Columbia and Pennsylvania State University tracked the emotional and physical histories of more than 1,700 older couples over a 15-year period, using data from a major U.S. survey. Participants ranged in age from 76 to 90 and many had been married for more than 40 years.

In individuals and couples, the researchers found a strong relationship between “depressive symptoms” (unhappiness, loneliness and restlessness) and “functional limitations” – the physical inability to perform such basic tasks as climbing stairs, picking up objects, cooking and shopping. While previous studies have linked physical and emotional health in individuals, this is the first study to show the phenomenon in couples.

“This study shows how important marital relationships can be in determining old age health,” says lead author Prof. Christiane Hoppmann of UBC’s Dept. of Psychology. “In addition, we show that many of the associations between functional limitations and depressive symptoms that have previously been found in individuals are in fact related to spouses.”

The researchers found that spouses’ depressive symptoms waxed and waned closely with those of their partners. Functional limitations in one spouse was not only associated with their own depressive symptoms but also with depressive symptoms in the other spouse. Increases in depressive symptoms in one spouse were also associated with greater functional limitations in both spouses.

“When people are depressed, they tend to want to stay at home – but that causes a spouse to stay home more too,” says Hoppmann. “That’s a problem, because when older adults stop being active – going for walks, socializing, shopping – they risk losing that functional ability. It’s that old saying, ‘use it or lose it.’”

“These findings help to illuminate the often vicious cycle between depressive symptoms and our physical abilities,” Hoppmann adds, noting that associations remained after controlling for individual (age, education, cognition) and spousal covariates (marriage duration, number of children) and did not differ between women and men.

Surprisingly, the researchers found that the relationship between depressive symptoms were slightly stronger in couples than some individuals, suggesting that a spouse’s physical or emotional health can have a greater impact on their partner’s health than their own in some cases.

“Being married for a long time is a very specific situation, it really ties your lives together,” says Hoppmann, whose previous research has explored happiness in older couples. “These findings show just how interdependent, emotionally and physically, long-term couples can become.”

Hoppmann says the findings point towards a greater need for holistic healthcare approaches. “This interdependence suggests that we cannot simply focus on individual patients, while disregarding the major impacts their illnesses can have on the people in their lives,” she says, noting studies have shown caregivers to be at a greater risk for mental and physical health problems.

The researchers – which include Anita Hibbert, a graduate student in UBC’s Dept. of Psychology, and Prof. Denis Gerstorf of Pennsylvania State University – say further studies are required to determine whether these spousal associations are specific to long-term married couples and whether they generalize to aging Baby Boomers who enter old age with more diverse relationship histories, including divorces and remarriages.