Measles, being a viral infection, does not respond to antibiotics, although these are usually given to prevent or lessen the effect of the secondary bacterial infections of the ear and lungs.

A vaccine is available to immunise against this disease. It also contains an attenuated live virus. The recommended time for immunisation is at the age of 12 months.

Before this, the infant may still have some passive immunity acquired from the mother and so the vaccine may not properly “take”. Older children who have not been immunised can still have the vaccine at any age.

Most children have little reaction from the vaccine. Some develop a feverish illness for a few days and some show a rash.

Should a child develop measles, the other children may be given gamma globulin. Children under three months and those with other serious disorders may be given a dose designed to prevent infection. This immunity is temporary, lasting only a few months.

Other children at risk should be given half this dose of gamma globulin. This is not sufficient to prevent infection but it modifies it so that it is milder yet still produces antibodies and provides immunity.

*68/71/1*

Disillusionment. Disillusionment is a psychological phenomenon that is also characteristic of the maintenance phase of fat loss. “Whilst anyone starting a program seriously is likely to be highly motivated, this can change as a result of a number of different factors. Plateaus, in particular, can cause disillusionment and lead someone to want to give it all away. Other things like short binges, holiday seasons, re-unions with friends, and critical periods in life can also cause the disillusionment which is the curse of those wishing to lose fat. When disillusionment and plateaus coincide, extra psychological principles are needed to help individuals get through this stage.

Prescribed medications. There are a number of medications, including those prescribed for anxiety, depression, schizophrenia and inflammatory conditions, that affect body fat stores. Most of these affect body fat levels by either stimulating appetite or decreasing energy use through changes in central nervous system function. Androgens may increase body weight through increased fluid retention and increased muscular bulk.

*205\186\4*

There are ten commandments for self-hypnosis, and they are easy to follow but must be repeated every night.

1. Talk to yourself. Talk to yourself in your mind as if you are talking to someone else, and tell this someone else to relax. There is no need to move your lips as this talk is in your mind. This self-talk is important as it actively keeps that single spotlight working on the relaxing ideas.

2. Repetitive talk. The repetition of relaxing ideas is sleep-inducing and conveys a protective effect on the mind. This is like a mother rocking her baby to sleep. The repetitive rocking movement induces confidence and regularity in the baby’s mind and hence induces a secure feeling. Any unexpected movements or actions are arousing and threatening to the mind.

3. Use pronouns of the second person. Do not say 7 am going to relax’; say ‘You are going to relax’. By saying ‘you’, you encourage detachment from yourself and your associated anxieties and worries. Hence it is like telling someone else to relax, although this someone else is really you and your body.

4. The law of reverse intention. Avoid words and phrases like ‘sleep’, ‘insomnia’, ‘sleepy feeling’, and ‘waking up’ as these cause anxiety for those who have a sleeping problem. This is the law of reverse intention; the more you want to sleep, the more the word sleep wakes you up. This is because, for the problem sleeper, the word sleep is charged with enormous anxiety and the mention of the word has an arousal effect on the sleep centre. Use words that are relaxing, like peaceful and tranquil, slack and loose, heavy and warm, comfortable and calm, easy and nice, deep and down, good and let go, and so on.

5. Lie in bed. Do this exercise in bed at night and every night without exception. Lie on your back, with the arms beside you in a symmetrical position. Do not wriggle and turn, as movement may generate anxiety and stimulate the mind. Most other forms of meditation also require stillness in the body.

6. Do not reject unwanted thoughts. Whenever you feel the mind is intruded by unwanted thoughts, do not reject them, as the idea of rejection means focusing on them. You should ignore them, let them flow past you. In fact, once you notice them you should immediately actively focus your spotlight back on relaxation. The unwanted thoughts will disappear gradually, as they are no longer focused on.

7. Talk to your body part by part. Tell each part of your body to relax, from the feet up to the top of your head. Do this repeatedly again and again. The feet, the legs, the thighs, the stomach, the chest, the back, the shoulders, the arms, the hands, the neck, the head, the face, the eyes, the lips, etc. Then you should restart from the feet again up to the head, and repeat this many many times. Also, when you are telling a part of the body to relax, try your best to experience that feeling at the same time. Hence when you tell your legs that they are heavy and slack, you must try to really feel the heaviness of your legs, and let them flop on the bed all by themselves. As you keep the spotlight on the relaxing part of your body, you are in fact shifting the sense of awareness in your mind to that part of the body.

8. Shifting from the THS mode to the sleeping mode. This shift normally happens unconsciously. Do not get worried or impatient that you do not feel the sleeping mode coming on. This shift from the THS to sleep is an unconscious act, and no one can tell himself that now is the moment of shifting from the THS to sleep. Just stay in the THS as long as is necessary and you will drift into sleep without knowing it. This is because, when you are in the THS, the arousal activity of the cerebral cortex is minimal and you will have less and less effect on the sleep centre. The sleep centre will trigger off natural sleep at anytime while the cerebral cortex is engaged in the THS.

9. Do not despair if it does not work initially. It may take a bit of practice before you are familiar with the technique. Perseverence is the key to success in self-hypnosis. Just perform the self-hypnosis religiously every night. Remember, even if you are not asleep, you are having all the rest you need if you just stay relaxed. However, no one can stay relaxed continuously in the THS mode, as the THS is the precursor of sleep.

10. Physical relaxation is the same as mental relaxation. There are two schools of thoughts as to the relationship between the body and the mind. Some people think that the body and the mind are completely separate and that, if the body is relaxed, the mind can still be tense. My belief is this; the mind is housed inside the brain, and the brain is made up of nerve cells that are in direct communication with the rest of the body. The mind commands the body to relax; when the body is relaxed, the mind has to be relaxed also.

*101\174\4*

It makes it easier to resolve our conflicts if there is someone we can trust to whom we can unburden ourselves. This, of course, is the basis of psychotherapy. However, there are quite a number of people who are disturbed by functional pain which is due to anxiety from causes which are clearly within their consciousness. As I write, two patients come to my mind, one a man, the other a woman. In both the conflict concerned an extramarital love affair. Both knew the reason for their anxiety, and both knew quite well that in their case there was only one way to resolve the problem. True, in such a situation it makes it easier to seek the moral support of a psychiatrist, but with a little determination and self-discipline the matter could have been resolved quite easily by the patients themselves. In saying this I do not intend in any way to

discourage people from seeking the help of a psychiatrist. The point I wish to make is that in many cases the significant conflict is really quite superficial and well within the capacity of the patient to resolve it, if he will only make a serious attempt to make his behaviour agree with his values.

On the other hand many patients are disturbed by conflicts that are deeply unconscious and thus quite inaccessible to the patient. However, it is well for the reader to know that those disturbed by deeply unconscious conflicts form only a minority of the patients coming to consultation in ordinary psychiatric practice.

I now come to the most important observation about psychological conflicts. It is this: that it is simply not necessary that all our conflicts should be resolved by discussion for us to obtain peace of mind and function as mature individuals. Psychotherapy in general and psychoanalysis in particular have become such a vogue of our present culture that many people lose sight of this simple fact. When all is said and done, psychoanalysis by its very nature is an artificial procedure. It can be helpful, but its easy access may make us forget that man in the process of evolution has developed within himself a mechanism for dealing with excessive anxiety and pain. It is to the reawakening of this mechanism that I would have you turn, rather than to the endless search for the unconscious conflicts of childhood.

*123\57\2*

Q. We hear a great deal about this condition. What is it?

A. This means that small outpockets occur along the large bowel, the colon and, less often, the small bowel. They may be single or in great numbers, start small and gradually increase in size. Food material from the bowel enters and leaves readily, but if the entry to the pouch becomes clogged, germs may breed inside the pouch causing inflammation, a bit like appendicitis. The non-infected condition is called diverticulosis and if infection takes place it is referred to as diverticulitis.

Q. What symptoms take place?

A. If there is no infection present symptoms may be absent. Some may notice vague abdominal pains with altered bowel habits. If infection occurs suddenly, there may be the onset of acute abdominal pain in the lower region, a fever, maybe vomiting, lack of appetite. There is usually pain most marked in the left lower abdomen, the opposite side to appendicitis. On the other hand, the disorder may become chronic and continue for months or years, giving general low bowel tenderness and discomfort, often relieved by a bowel action. There may be intermittent diarrhoea or constipation with mucus, blood and maybe pus in the stools.

Q. What about diagnosis and treatment of diverticulosis?

A. A special x-ray called the barium enema is usually diagnostic for the little pouches can usually be clearly seen. Sometimes an examination by the sigmoidoscope or colonoscope is used to make certain cancer is not present — an ever present fear with similar symptoms. It is difficult to see the pouches under direct vision, however, for their openings are usually closed.

Treatment has altered dramatically in recent years when doctors working in Africa noticed it was rare in natives. They attributed this to the high fibre diet they ate and noticed their stools were loose and bulky. The ‘transit time’, the length of time it takes food to travel from the mouth to anus was also much less. This led to the idea that the normal western diet, depleted as it is of natural fibre, increases transit time, increases the pressure inside the bowel and this probably causes the bowel pouchings.

Q. How has this affected treatment?

A. Instead of giving a low residue diet, once popular, doctors now prescribe a high fibre diet, usually one containing a lot of unprocessed bran, the coarse outer layer of the wheat grain and the most readily accessible source of fibre. Not only will this help prevent diverticulosis from occurring in the first place but is good treatment for established cases and may quickly relieve symptoms. The amount given is that sufficient to produce one soft bowel action daily — often 2-4 tablespoonsful a day is adequate.

Antibiotics are often given for acute cases of diverticulitis. In severe protracted cases which do not respond, surgical removal of the affected part is sometimes carried out.

Q. Do you think everybody should eat bran each day?

A. I do, and have been advocating this for many years. Around two tablespoonsful a day are usually adequate. It may take 6-12 weeks for the system to adjust to this and in the early stages abdominal rumblings and a feeling of fullness and bloat are common. Passing wind and burping are also frequently encountered. But the system soon becomes accustomed to it, settles down and regular easy bowel frequency is usual.

Many claim they dislike the taste of it — ‘it’s like stewed cardboard,’ they say. I agree. But have it with cereal or stewed fruit or make it into cookies, rissoles or other recipes and this will mask the neutral flavour. Some people take it in orange juice. As a disease preventive and good health measure it is worth a bit of discomfort, for the results are certainly worthwhile. As already noted it may help reduce the occurrence of large bowel cancer. It can certainly relieve haemorrhoids (piles) and varicose veins and may reduce the risks of appendicitis, hiatus hernia and even peptic ulcers.

*27\61\2*

Something that all of us experience at times, pain is essentially a warning that your body sends to you to let you know that something is amiss. While we tend to think of the pain we feel as being the problem, it is more often merely a signal intended to draw our attention.

Demonstrating this through a fairly obvious example, you’ll feel pain when you touch something that is too hot – the pain in that case causing you to withdraw your hand before further damage is done. In instances like this one, pain serves a very useful function.

Back pain and sciatica, unpleasant though they can be, also fulfil a similar purpose, in effect sending one or more of the following messages:

You’ve overdone things and subjected your back to greater demands than it can cope with comfortably.

Stop whatever it is that you’re doing, it’s causing harm.

There’s an underlying problem somewhere that needs attention (the message sent by sciatica is a bit confusing in this regard as it first draws attention to where the pain is felt, in the buttocks, legs, wherever, rather than to the area where the cause of it resides).

You’re being reminded that you’re susceptible to back problems and you’d be well-advised to treat your spine more considerately in the future.

While pain that alerts you to a situation that needs your attention is indeed useful, there are also many instances where pain appears to be of no purpose, or at least not obviously so. Typical of this are many chronic – that is long-lasting or ongoing – pains for which there is no obvious explanation, other than perhaps that they’re due to part of the nervous system failing to operate properly and as such may/could be considered as ‘false alarms’.

It’s also worth noting that valuable though pain is as a warning sign, its severity is by no means always directly related to the seriousness of the underlying cause. For example, migraines are notorious for causing excruciating pain, yet apart from that may present little risk to overall health. On the other hand, some extremely serious diseases are marked by little or even no pain, especially in their early stages.

Although the severity of sciatica and other pain symptoms related to back problems are usually a fairly good indication of how bad the problem is at that moment, it isn’t always so. Many factors influence how strongly a given individual perceives and reacts to pain, so it’s perfectly possible that two patients with back problems of equal severity may experience widely varying degrees of pain.

*25\124\2*

A weight loss organization with over 650 centers throughout the U.S.A., Canada, and Germany urges its patrons to drink at least eight to 12 glasses of water every day, and even possibly more, as part of its program, a letter to the editor of New England Journal of Medicine (312:246) reports.

The writer of the letter, a Stanford University Medical School physician, had three patients with a recent recurrence of epileptic seizures. All three were epileptics but, with medication, had been seizure-free for many years.

They began to have seizures again after drinking more water, as recommended by the weight loss organization. Since excessive hydration is known to bring on seizures, especially in those who are already prone to them, drinking eight to 12 glasses of water a day cannot safely be recommended for everybody.

A good rule is to drink enough so that one produces about a quart of pale urine every day. If one does not drink enough, the urine becomes dark and too scanty. Of course, depending upon the climate, one’s temperature, and how much one sweats, even more than 12 glasses of water a day might sometimes be needed.

*232\143\2*

Symptom

Failure of one or both testes to rest in the scrotum at birth

Home care

Check periodically to see if the testis has descended. If it does not, consult the doctor.

Precautions

-    An undescended testis that is not treated may become twisted, injured, or possibly cancerous.

-    If an undescended testis is not corrected before age seven, body heat may cause it to become damaged and unable to produce sperm.

-    An undescended testis should not be confused with a migratory or retractile testis which needs no correction.

-    An undescended testis may be mistaken for a hernia or a swollen lymph gland. Have the doctor make the diagnosis.

-    An undescended testis should be treated between the ages of four and seven.

-    Do not worry the child by discussing the condition.

In the male unborn baby the two testes, the sex glands, lie just beneath the kidneys. Before birth, they travel down into the groin and come to rest in each side of the scrotum. In 1 to 2 percent of full-term male infants and 20 to 30 percent of premature male infants one or both testes have not completed their descent by the time the baby is born. The testis or testes are then referred to as “undescended.”

An undescended testis may lie within the abdomen or the groin. In a boy’s first months or years of life an undescended testis may successfully complete its migration to the scrotum. However, this does not always happen.

A testis that remains undescended is at risk of becoming twisted, injured, or cancerous (malignant). If the condition is not corrected by the time a boy reaches age seven, an undescended testis may be damaged by the heat of the body; it may shrivel (atrophy) and lose its ability to produce sperm.

*219/84/5*

In our brain we have mechanisms which keep in control our primitive, instinctual urges. We control our eating so that we do not indulge our appetite for food to its full extent. We control our sexual desires. We have a similar biological urge to act aggressively to anyone who acts aggressively to us. This is a built-in biological protective mechanism to help us survive in the physical rough and tumble of primitive life many generations ago. This aggressive urge is still within us, but in ordinary life we have learned to control it fairly well.

If we come under stress, the orderly action of our brain cells that control our primitive aggression is disrupted. The result is that when we are under stress we may easily act much more aggressively than we normally would. And, more important, we may act aggressively in inappropriate circumstances or situations where a calm and considered response would have served us much better.

«I told the boss what I thought. Should have done it differently. Just calmly. It was silly, silly, silly. »

«I hit him. Yes. I hit him. So small, I shall never forgive myself.»

Man or woman, the reaction is the same. The particular reaction which is evoked just depends on the circumstances in which we are placed.

‘Baby bashing’ is just a particular example of the release of aggression through stress. There is often a major problem such as an unexpected pregnancy, and an associated problem that the woman is not feeling too well. There may be a background problem of her husband drinking. And the stress reaction is finally precipitated by the baby’s persistent crying. Her aggression can no longer be contained. It bursts forth. She hits the child.

*52/98/5*

The older phase brings problems of its own. It is the finish of the race that counts. The last phase can be good, very good, if we just manage things in the way that we should. Manage ourselves. And it can be good in a way that the youngsters in middle life simply do not understand.

What can I do?

« I am old. Enfeebled. Would do something, but I can’t. What can the aged do? »

The aged can do this. And I have seen many a one who has done it. The older phase is the time for sorting things out. Of letting some inner understanding come to us. And with it, when this understanding comes, we have a tranquility which we did not have before.

You may ask, ‘What kind of doing is this?’ It is the doing of something deep in the laws of nature.

The older person who achieves tranquility with age has an effect, a deep effect, on others. This is a doing of something quite profound. And it may come without the aged one’s knowledge as to what it is all about.

What might have been?

«Old and living alone, that’s me. Plagued by thoughts. What might have been? What could have been? What I did not do. What I did not do too well. The thoughts crowd in a stream of restlessness, and I cannot sit still.

‘Discomfort and pain make me irritable in a way I have not been before.»

The messages that crowd our brain from the events of past years lose their intensity in the friendly company of others. Companionship, with the pleasant nattering of old people, of one with the other, with the recollections of times past, helps the brain to settle.

Let our mind run easy. Practice it at those times when the discomfort is less pronounced. By letting our mind run easy, our perception of discomfort and pain becomes so much the less.

I am useless

«Young people don’t understand. It is unlikely that you have even thought of being useless. Just utterly useless. But I am old and this is reality, and it plagues my mind. The rosebush in the garden serves a purpose. So it is with the grass in the fields. What purpose do I serve? Nothing. The idea of uselessness shadows my thoughts as does the noose with the condemned man. »

Life is giving and taking. There are many good takers and some good givers. Those that have been givers must learn that a time comes for their role to change. To accept as well as to give. When you learn to accept as well as to give, the crowding thoughts of uselessness no longer make such a background cause of stress.

*17/98/5*