Online Medical Clinic

Herpes Simplex

Herpes is a caused by a herpes simplex virus (HSV). It has been approximated that the indirect and direct costs of incident HSV genital infection in the United States. The virus may also be spread in contact with the infected area and then touching another part of the body. If you touch the sores, wash your hands with soap and water as soon as possible. Also, not to share towels or clothing with others. Herpes virus can infect the fetoeus and may show congenital abnormalities. Mothers can also infect their babies during childbirth. It may also be transmitted to a newborn child during vaginal delivery in mothers who are infected with herpes viruses, mainly if the mother has active infection at that time.

Herpes simplex viruses comprise 2 ddifferent types of DNA viruses, HSV-1 and HSV-2. HSV-1 causes oral lblisters in nearly 80% of cases and genital lesions in 20% of cases. Virus can spread even when sores are not present. And vice-versa for HSV-2, which causes genital lesions in 80% and oral lesions in 20%.

Approximately 80% of the adult population has serologic infection with HSV-1 with only about 30% of these individuals having clinically significant epidemic. Nearly 20% of the adult population in the US is seropositive for HSV-2. Herpes infections are accompanied by painful, watery lesions in the skin or mucous membranes (such as the mouth or lips) or on the genital . The lesions resembles as seen in Chickenpox which is an infection caused by a third member of the alpha-Herpesviridae subfamily, Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV), also known as Human Herpes Virus 3 (HHV-3).

Causes of Herpes Simplex

Common causes of Herpes Simplex

• Herpes simplex virus (HSV).
• Physical or emotional stress.
• Genital herpes.
• Maternal-fetal transmission.
• Ultraviolet light exposure.

Symptoms of Herpes Simplex

Common Symptoms of Herpes Simplex

• Fever.
• Headache.
• Muscle aches
• Fatigue.
• Painful urination
• Swollen
• Tender lymph glands in the groin.
• Stress.
• Trauma.
• Fatigue.
• Lesions.
• Menstruation or sexual intercourse.

Treatment of Herpes Simplex

Common Treatment of Herpes Simplex

• Nucleoside analogs are molecules which possess a similarity to natural nucleotides.
• Wear loose clothing.
• OTC topical medications( dyclonine or benzocaine ) help in Herpes.
• Avoid excessive heat or sunlight.
• Keep the sore area clean and dry.
• Place cool or lukewarm cloths on the sore area for short periods of time.
• Take aspirin, acetaminophen or ibuprofen for the pain.
• Avoid touching sores .
• Wash hands if you do touch the sores.
• Sexual intercourse should be avoided during this time.

Genital Herpes

Genital herpes is a sexually transmitted disease (STD). Most people have no or minimal symptoms from HSV-1 or HSV-2 infection. The virus is spread very rarely, if it is thenl, by objects such as a toilet seat or hot tub. When symptoms occurs, they appear as one or more lesions on or around the genitals or rectum. The blisters rupture, leaving tender ulcers (sores) may take two to four weeks to heal the first time they occur. It is caused by the herpes simplex viruse. Many people get genital herpes by having sex with one who is shedding the herpes virus either during an outbreak or during a period with no symptoms. People who don’t know they have herpes plays an important role in its transmission. Although the infection may remain in the body for a long time, the number of outbreaks tends to lower over a period of years. Around 45 million Americans, age 12 and older contains genital herpes. It’s estimated that up to one million people become infected each year.

Herpes is a virus which can be transmitted through sexual contact. Moreover, herpes is most infectious when a person has open sores.Genital herpes spread from person to person. Some patients have harsh symptoms, as many painful sores, but others have mild symptoms. Genital herpes typically brings about indication within two weeks of having sexual contact with an infected person and can last from two to three weeks. Genital Herpes (HSV-2) is more acute in women than men. Those people having herpes should not have sexual connectivity when sores or other signs of herpes are present. HSV-1 can results in genital herpes, but the patient ordinaarily faces infections of the mouth and lips or “fever blisters.” Condoms can reduce the possibility of getting herpes.

Causes of Genital Herpes

Common causes of Genital Herpes

• Herpes simplex virus (HSV).

Symptoms of Genital Herpes

Common Symptoms of Genital Herpes

• Itching or burning.
• Fever.
• Swollen glands.
• Pain in the legs, buttocks and genital area.
• Vaginal discharge.
• Feeling of pressure in the area below the stomach.
• Muscle aches.
• Headaches.

Treatment of Genital Herpes

Common Treatment of Genital Herpes

• Avoid excessive heat or sunlight, which makes the irritation more uncomfortable.
• Do not use perfumed or antibacterial soaps, feminine deodorant, or douches.
• Wear more comfortable, loose cotton clothing.
• If you are pain, take aspirin, acetaminophen (Tylenol), and ibuprofen.
• Cool cloths on the affected area may soothe the pain.
• Avoid touching the sores; wash hands after contact with the sores.

Gall Bladder Help

Gall Bladder Pain Prevention with Olive Oil

Gall bladder pain is reduced if you take 1tablespoon of olive oil before each meal.

Gall Bladder Tonic with Lemon Juice

Take 4 tablespoons of lemon juice every morning on an empty stomach. Continue for at least 1 week to get results.

Gall Bladder Treatment with St. John’s Worth

St. John’s wort tea is good to use if you have gall bladder trouble. Make a tea using 4-5 leaves steeped in 1 cup of boiling water. Strain, and drink several times a day to soothe the gall bladder. Caution: St. John’s worth can cause photosensitivity and the skin will be very sensitive to sunlight. Do not use if you already suffer from sensitivity to sunlight. If you are using it to treat gall bladder, please stay out of the sun during treatment. Do not use the treatment for long periods of time. Use only when you are having problems with your gall bladder.

Constipation Herbal Home Remedies

Constipation can be very uncomfortable. Treat it as soon as possible. Do not use a laxative, however, on a very weak person or on one who is recovering from a debilitating illness. Children also should not receive a laxative. It would be better to use a suppository on small children and a mild enema on older children. I used to cut a small sliver of hand soap and use it as a suppository for my children when they were babies. It worked well.

Castor Oil Treatment

This works quickly, but again, do not use on someone who is in a weakened condition. It’s guaranteed to work. Soak a flannel cloth in warm castor oil. Put it in a cake pan and pour the oil over the cloth, then place it in the oven until warmed through. Place on the small of the back and cover to keep warm. Keep on at least 15 minutes. Do once a day until bowels have moved satisfactorily.

Home Remedies with Aloe Vera

To sterilize the water, boil it and then cool it. Peel the aloe Vera. Put the green peelings and the water in a closed jar. (The juice is not the part used for a laxative it’s the sap between the skin and the pulp.) Place in the refrigerator and drink 1cup twice a week to regulate bowels. The strength is determined by the amount of aloe Vera placed in the water. Start with several leaves, and add until desired strength is reached.

Home Remedies with Apple Juice

Mix together ½ cup of apple juice and ½ cup of olive oil. Drink Before going to bed.

Home Remedies with Cloves

Pour 1 cup boiling water over 1teaspoon of whole cloves. Cover and steep overnight. Strain the next morning and drink while cool.

Home Remedies with Molasses

Take 2 tablespoons of black strap molasses before retiring to bed. This does work. Add to a glass of milk or juice if desired to improve the flavor.

Home Remedies with Prunes

Pour boiling water over several prunes and allow to soak overnight. Add honey if you desire sweetening. Eat the prunes and drink the liquid.

Regulate Bowels with Lemon Juice

Mix 1 teaspoon each of lemon juice and olive oil. Take on a daily basis.

Regulate Bowels to Prevent Constipation

Put 2 teaspoons corn meal in 1 cup of cold water every morning and drink daily. Help to regulate bowels.

Gallstone Symptoms and Treatment

Gallstones are concentrations of mineral salts in the gall-bladder or in the bile-ducts, more often in the former. They may be as small as a pin head or large as a pigeon egg. About three-fourths of the victims of gallstones are women, generally of plump physique and usually around the age of forty. Because of these facts corset-wearing frequently has been blamed. But a life of physical ease, especially when the abdominal walls have been allowed to become weak and prolapsed, is more likely to cause these concretions.

However, they do not result even in such cases unless there has been an acid-producing diet, with wrong food combination, especially starches, which overload the liver and change the quantity of the bile. Constipation is a contributive factor in practically all cases. Other causes that have been given earlier in the preceding pages usually are active in the production of gallstones also.

Gallstone Symptoms

Symptoms of gallstones may be absolutely missing until a gallstone attempts to pass through the gall-duct or the bile-duct, when there results one of the most agonizing pains humans may experience-gallstone colic. During this passage the path is burning, extreme and excruciating, and is felt in the “pit of the stomach” and to the right of this point.

Some stones are so large that they can not pass through the duct, hence can not cause gallstone colic. This is produced when the stones are small enough to enter the duct, but still large enough that they pass through with difficulty.

Gallstone Treatment

In the treatment of gallstone colic it may be difficult or impossible to give complete relief at once, except by the aid of a definite and powerful pain-killing agent. The pain or the cause of the pain will continue as long as the stone is in the bile-duct. When a pain-killing drug is used for this purpose, there may be pronounced delay in passage of the stone. Sometimes great relief is afforded by internal and external application of heat.

The drinking of large amounts of hot water often will bring considerable relaxation and hasten the passage orthe stone. The water may be plain or flavored with lemon. A fairly-hot enema with as much water as the patient can take usually should be given after a quart or more of hot water has been drunk.

Hot abdominal packs may be employed with considerable benefit. In an occasional case stone some relief’ seems to be afforded by drinking from four to eight ounces of olive oil. If this is taken, it is well to follow it an hour later with a glassful of citrate of magnesia. Gentle massage about the liver and vibration over the liver area may be used also.

Arthritis Types and Treatment

By this term is meant an inflammation of a joint or joints, but today it is used more specifically now to designate an inflammation due to infection from some local focus of suppuration, such as abscessed teeth, tonsils, gall-bladder, or appendix or to gonorrhea. Many cases of arthritis occur without any apparent. Focus of infection. Practically all cases, however, are due primarily to overeating and other dietetic errors; insufficient elimination, enervation, and general wrong habits of living although arthritis is classified as rheumatic, syphilitic, suppurative, tuberculous, gouty or as a result of spinal cord lesions or typhoid infection. Arthritis appears in both acute and chronic forms, and with different manifestations. The most important form of arthritis is rheumatoid arthritis (or arthritis deformans).

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid Arthritis is a chronic and deformative inflammation of the joints. It differs from articular rheumatism in that it results in change in form of the joint, due to more or less growth of the bone or to an atrophy or shrinkage of the structures. As the body in general loses weight, with reduction of the soft tissues encasing the joints, the deformity becomes seemingly more pronounced. The condition develops ,very slowly and insidiously at first, and usually persists for years.

The first symptoms are joint pains occurring during movement of the joints, with reduced movement of the joints especially after rest. Gradually there develops progressive reduced movement of the joints. Only one joint, may be involved, but as a rule several joints are affected, particularly the fingers, the hands and the vertebrae. Usually the two sides of the body are similarly affected.

Acute Arthritis

Acute arthritis generally is the result of a direct injury to the joints, hence single joints are involved as a rule.If the injury results in an open wound and there is sufficient general toxemia present an infection may result, with the development of pus in the joint. Gonorrhea also is a frequent cause of acute arthritis, in which case several joints may be afflicted. The underlying cause in all cases, except the slight cases resulting from direct injury, is a general toxemia resulting from wrong living habits in general; and even when the result of injury, there will be more pronounced joint affection if toxemia is present.

Arthritis Treatment Methods

Treatment of acute arthritis consists of complete rest, withdrawal of all food except citrus or other fruit juices or vegetable broths, and local applications to the affected joints, with some means of applying sweat-baths if possible. The best local compresses are cold Epson salts compresses covered with sufficient dry flannel that reaction to warmth is prompt and complete, and these packs left on for three or four hours. Upon removal, hot compresses may be applied for from fifteen to thirty minutes, followed by the re-application of the pack above described. It is best to have considerable Epson salts in the water used for the pack-two ounces to the quart of water. Sweat-baths by means of blanket-packs with the drinking of plain hot water or hot unsweetened lemonade while in the pack, will be very beneficial. Much water or fruit juice should be taken in order to keep the kidneys functioning freely. The bowels should be cleansed daily by the tepid enema. It may be necessary for the patient to remain on a fruit diet for from one to three or four weeks. The later diet in any case should be highly alkaline yet nourishing-fruits, vegetables, milk and whole grain cereals chiefly.

Treatment of the chronic form requires fruit juice diet also, though naturally the patient can not be kept on this diet until complete cure or maximum benefit have been secured. From six to 8 dozen oranges or the equivalent of other fruit juices may be taken daily for as long as weight, strength and energy permit. After this there should be a gradual increase in the amount and variety of fruits, with the addition of raw and cooked green and root vegetables, and with very moderate amounts of whole grain cereals, and some form of milk in quantities usually of a quart or two a day.

Bowel cleansing is necessary in these cases also, but after the fruit diet bowel activity should be secured by plenty of bulk-providing foods. The compresses and packs advised for acute arthritis should be used in chronic arthritis, also an occasional sweat-bath, perhaps two or three a week if the general condition will permit. Hot immersions, especially with two or three pounds of Epson salts to the tub bath, are very beneficial. Alternate hot and cold applications are of benefit-and in acute arthritis also. Heat by means of an infra-red lamp may be used in arthritis of various forms. Sunbaths should be obtained whenever possible, and there must be plenty of fresh air at all times. General massage is of value, also often cod liver oil. There are various forms of electrical treatment that may be used if available, especially diathermia and some of the static modalities.

All possible sources of infection; besides, should receive attention, but some of the possible sources will be taken care of by the procedures advised above. The sufferer from chronic arthritis must appreciate the fact that progress toward recovery will be slow. A great deal can be done by following the above suggestions and by manipulating the joints and carrying them through the normal movements of the joints. It will be necessary for the patient to go through more or less pain in these manipulations and movements, but there will be no appreciable improvement unless the joints are moved sufficiently and with sufficient frequency to improve the local circulation and help to break down some of the deposits.

When bony ankylosis has occurred, little can be accomplished in its way of mobility in the affected part; if fibrous ankylosis exist, much may be done by manipulative movements. Exercise, whenever it can be taken, is practically mandatory.

Adenoids Information

The tonsils are not organs without functions to perform, yet from their frequent removal one would gather that they are inherently a menace. Adenoids are not ‘unnatural tissues, but are natural tissues gone abnormal through wrong conditions within the body. Yet adenoids and enlarged tonsils have been extirpated by the millions - in many cases because mothers have not been informed how to nourish and care for their children in such a way as to avoid these abnormal conditions.

Prominent additional causes are; failure of parents to see that their children exercise, secure enough outdoor play and enough ventilation indoors, that their elimination is adequate, their skin kept free from accumulations and toned sufficiently for normal responses to the body’s needs, and to obtain adequate sleep and, during the first few year’s of life adequate day-time rest.

The diet in such cases should be much simpler than a child usually receives. The usual breakfast provides starches and proteins and perhaps twice as many calories as are required. When there are adenoids or affected tonsils good breakfast is dry toast with a little butter, or a dry cereal with a little rich milk, some naturally sweet fruit, and a glass of milk. If a cooked cereal is used it should be taken with a sweet fruit so that it must be masticated.

In some cases, considerable benefit will follow gentle massage of the tonsils. The mother’s or nurse’s finger may be covered with sterilized gauze or a clean handkerchief or sterile cotton, and then gentle rotary pressure given upon the tonsil. This should be avoided in case of acute inflammation; but in many cases where there is pus in the tonsil or where the crypts are filled with a white cheesy substance, the finger may be used in the same manner to exert gentle pressure in such a direction as to express the pus or cheesy substance out of the [Onsil onto the finger protection. Hydrogen peroxide and water, equal parts, may be used for a gargle or a swab after expressing either the pus or the cheesy substance from the tonsil.

Adenoids, as stated earlier, are normal tissues: but enlarged for reasons that have been mentioned. They are normal to childhood but generally vanish by the time of puberty. They are located at the roof of the throat just back of the posterior nasal passages. When this adenoid tissue becomes pronouncedly swollen the breathing is affected, the child becomes a mouth-breather, the palate often is pushed upward and the teeth thrown out of line. The whole respiratory apparatus is adversely affected, for the lungs are denied air that normally should be strained, moistened and warmed by passing through the involved nasal cavities. Laryngitis, pharyngitis, bronchitis and asthma often result from mouth-breathing.

Often swollen adenoid tissue does not respond as rapidly or as completely as do enlarged tonsils. But if the mode of living suggested is adapted, with special care taken to see that all eliminative organs function up to normal, there probably will be shrinkage of these tissues. However, the operation for the removal of the adenoid growth is very simple, and usually there is no recurrence after their removal. This is an operation where harm extremely rarely results. If the parents cannot or will not keep the child on such a health program as will permit the adenoids to gradually reduce, then by all means this tissue should be removed. Adenoids are a handicap to physical and mental growth and, naturally or unnaturally, they should be removed.

Adults can be treated for enlarged tonsils much as has been outlined for children. Local treatment usually will help them just as it will help the child, although perhaps more siowly.

Defective adenoids and tonsils would not develop were the body properly treated, whether in childhood or adulthood. If they develop, or are developing, right living will often help to degorge them and allow them to return to a more normal condition.