Newpharmablog. Health News

“What about the child who doesn’t have tonic-clonic seizures, but has seizures where he wanders around confused, picking at things, and could injure himself? What should I do during one of those?”During this type of seizure, what is called a “complex partial seizure,” the patient is confused and not really aware of what he is doing or of his environment. He is likely to misunderstand and misinterpret things during this foggy state. If the child is wandering around, try and be protective. You shouldn’t try to restrain him. The myths about people being aggressive during these seizures come from the child’s misunderstanding and misinterpretation of what is happening and what is being done to him. If people try to restrain the child who is in this confused state, he may misunderstand the motivation and fight back. Rather, you should be protective, reassuring, and try to direct him away from dangerous objects or from hurting himself. This is perhaps all you can do. Confused ictal and post-ictal states may last several minutes; occasionally the post-ictal confusion lasts five to ten or even fifteen minutes. Again, only if this state lasts for a long period of time, more than fifteen minutes, is it necessary to bring the child to the emergency room or a physician’s office, where, if it continues, the physician might want to use an injection to stop the spell.*52\208\8*

As few as 50 years ago, a diagnosis of cancer was .usually a death sentence. Health professionals could only guess at probable causes, and treatments were often as deadly as the disease itself. Because we had no idea how a person “got” cancer, fears about possible infection led to secrecy by victims and ostracism and bigotry aimed at people who desperately needed support.Fortunately, we’ve come a long way since then. Today we know that there are multiple causes of cancer and that very few are linked to any type of infectious agent. Early detection and vast improvements in technology have dramatically improved the prognosis for most cancer patients. We also know that a whole array of possibilities exists for actions that we can take individually or as a society to prevent cancer. Promising research puts us closer and closer to better solutions. Knowing the facts about cancer, recognizing your personal risks and risks to others, and taking action to reduce these risks are important steps in the battle to reduce cancer rates. During 2000, approximately 552,200 people died of cancer, a much-feared disease that is the second leading cause of death in the United States. Put into perspective, this means that each day of the year more than 1,500 people die of one of the multiple types of cancer that affect humans. Only deaths from heart disease exceed those from cancer in our country. One of four deaths in the United States is from cancer; nearly 5 million lives have been lost since 1990. While cancer deaths pose an ominous threat, it is important to note that although more than 2.5 million people will be diagnosed with cancer in a year, and many will experience emotional and physical pain, nearly 4 in 10 will be alive 5 years after diagnosis. Many will be considered “cured,” meaning that they have no subsequent cancer in their systems 5 years after diagnosis and can expect to live a long and productive life.When adjusted for normal life expectancy (factors such as dying of heart disease, accidents, etc.), a relative 5-year survival of 56 percent is seen for all cancers. Some cancers that only a few decades ago presented a very poor outlook are often cured today: acute lymphocytic leukemia in children, Hodgkin’s disease, Burkitt’s lymphoma, Ewing’s sarcoma (a form of bone cancer), Wilms’ tumor (a kidney cancer in children), testicular cancer, and osteogenic (bone) sarcoma are among the most remarkable indicators of progress in treatment techniques.*1/277/5*

Epilepsy is a long-term condition, and epilepsy does not stand still. The character of your seizures may change and your drugs may need to be altered. You will be seeing your doctor regularly over the coming months and maybe even years, so it is important that you have a good relationship with them: one in which you can ask questions, ask for reassurance and get practical advice.
Once you’ve been diagnosed as having epilepsy, your follow-up may be in the hands of your GP or of a hospital consultant. If you are lucky you may be referred to a specialized epilepsy clinic, run by a neurologist or neuropsychiatrist with a special interest in epilepsy. The advantage of an epilepsy clinic is that it has a multidisciplinary team and can offer help not only with the medical aspects of epilepsy but with the social and psychological problems which people with epilepsy sometimes have to deal with too. They provide very good care, but unfortunately there are far too few of them around.
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM YOUR DOCTOR
That they see you frequently and give you blood tests whenever you are started on a new drug.
That he or she listens to what you have to say.
That you are given regular check-ups, at least two every year, and ideally about once every three months.
That you are given regular serum checks to check the level of drug in your blood and make sure your drug dosage is correct.
If your doctor fails to do these checks at least once a year (ideally more often), change to a doctor who does. Do not just carry on getting repeat prescriptions.
WHAT YOUR DOCTOR CAN EXPECT FROM YOU
Keep on taking the tablets. It really is important that you take your medication regularly, just as it is prescribed. Failure to do this may mean that you will get withdrawal seizures. It may be safer not to take medication at all than to take it irregularly. Stick to your proper drug regime.
Keep your appointments with the clinic or your doctor, and if you can’t keep an appointment, let them know.
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Doctors examine venous pulses by looking rather than by listening or palpation. They carefully look at your neck when you are lying down with your head partially raised or when you are sitting up. They observe the slight expansion made by the jugular vein in the neck as the heart beats. The jugular vein is a reliable indicator of the pressure on the right side of the heart. When the pressure on the right side of the heart is high, the blood flowing from the jugular vein into the heart backs up a bit, causing the top of the—-expansion to be at a higher point on the neck.  Doctors can estimate the approximate pressure in the right side of the heart and also get an idea of how much extra fluid there is in the cardiovascular system by observing the jugular vein.
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The description of cancer given at the beginning of this chapter might have been written in 1950 or i960. It represents an understanding of how cancer cells behave in terms of what was then known about cellular biology. Very little was understood shout what controlled events within cells and determined (among other things) their proliferation and differentiation-Things began to change in 1953 when Francis Crick and James Watson created their now famous model of the structure of DNA, the double helix. Today we can create computer images of DNA – Crick and Watson built models of wire and cardboard.
Chemical substances are made up of molecules. The discovery by Crick and Watson that DN A, a large molecule found in all cells, was shaped like two intertwined strands presented the solution to a problem that had puzzled scientists for years.
The DN A molecule is constructed from four types of smaller and simpler molecules, known as bases, strung out along each strand. Some people like to visualize the double helix as a spiral staircase, with the bases as the steps, and this is quite a good way of thinking about it.
Crick and Watson realized that this double-stranded structure could explain how the biological information in a cell could be copied exactly and transmitted to the two new cells which result when a cell divides. Each step of the spiral staircase consists of a pair of bases bonded in the middle and, because the bases do not pair up at random to form ‘steps’, but always pair up with a complementary base, each strand in the DNA molecule has a sequence of bases that is exactly complementary to the sequence of bases on la partner strand. When a cell divides, the two strands separate so that the DSA is split along its length. Each strand then becomes a blueprint for making a new partner strand with complementary bases, and the biological information in each new pair of strands is identical to that in the original DN A molecule.
What exactly is this biological information? As we see, there are four types of bases (actually representing four different chemical substances designated by the letters A, T, G and C). These can be thought of as a four-letter code, with the sequence in which the bases are strung out along the strands providing a coded message. Different pieces of the same DNA molecule can each have a unique sequence of bases so that each piece carries its own coded message. The number of different possible sequences using a genetic code of four letters is enormous, especially when we consider that a single typical animal cell contains one metre of DNA. This huge potential for different coded messages is the basis of the great variety that we find in the Jiving world and is, of course, the reason why one species k different from another and why each individual is unique.
Genes are made of DNA. They represent a section of DNA which carries enough information in its coded sequence to instruct the cell to make a particular protein. Each protein will then make up a part of the cell’s structure or control an aspect of its function. The unique structure and function of each cell will be determined by the genes carried within that cell.
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Six different laboratories in four different countries have now obtained similar results: that polyunsaturated fatty acids normalize human cancer cells. Tests have been done on at least nine different human malignant cell lines, including cancers of the liver, bone, oesophagus, breast, prostate, and skin. In all these tests, the normal cells remained unaffected.
Studies on animal cell lines using evening primrose oil have also had very good results. A study of breast cancer in rats showed that tumour growth was inhibited in rats given evening primrose oil. These results agree with earlier findings which showed that the growth of a mammary tumour was significantly reduced in rats treated with evening primrose oil.
The amount of oil given is important. The rats were fed a normal rat chow diet containing 5% of total calories as fat. The results showed that there was a significant inhibition of tumour growth, but greater amounts of oil began to increase tumour growth.
Other studies have shown that when rats are fed a diet containing 20% saturated fat, tumour growth increased. This may be because essential fatty acids cannot compete with so much saturated fat, with the result that they do not get metabolized properly.
There does seem to be a causal relationship between fat intake and the occurrence of breast cancer. However, it seems that the kind of fat as well as how much fat are important influences on the incidence of breast cancer. These studies on rats may have important lessons for human breast cancer.
Research in South Africa (originally published in the South African Medical Journal) showed that gammalinolenic acid, taken from evening primrose oil, reduced cancer cell growth by up to 70%. GLA was added to three different types of malignant cell, both human and mouse. The mouse cancer cells were inhibited, and the human cancer cells taken from the oesophagus were killed. This research showed that although GLA was toxic to malignant cells, it had no such effect on normal cells.
The Newsletter of the Northwest Academy of Preventive Medicine published these comments along with the findings: ‘These data may have profound implications for the prevention and treatment of cancer. Whereas the usual method of fighting cancer is to destroy malignant cells, GLA may be capable of actually reversing, or retarding, the malignant process. Of prime importance is the fact that GLA is a normal metabolite and is essentially non-toxic’.

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A thorough knowledge about the illness will help parents in the following way:
A better understanding of the illness helps parents develop a rapport with the child as well as the physician.
It reduces the level of anxiety in the family.
The parents learn to recognize a severe attack and the steps necessary to manage it.
In fact, sometimes a full blown attack can be averted by giving the child drugs like beta-2 agonist or a slow-release theophylline.
It also helps prevent panic shifting from one treating physician to another, or from one form of medication to another. Parents may in fact develop the confidence to encourage the child to participate in more physical activities and adopt a more realistic and objective attitude towards the condition.
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In 1983, the American College of Allergy and Immunology (ACAI) established a School Committee to study the problems of asthmatic children in schools. Their survey found widespread absenteeism and poor performances. Based on their observation the committee came up with the following guidelines for the school authorities to help such children reach their full potential.
The asthmatic child should:
1. Not be made to feel different and should be provided with equal opportunity to acquire a normal education;
2. Be allowed to participate in all physical activities up to his physical capacity;
3. Be encouraged to attend school regularly and not allowed to be absent without a just cause.
Role of the Class Teacher.
1. Inform the school nurse and parents if the child has a significant deterioration in performance or develops behavioural problems.
2. Keep the classroom relatively dust free.
3. Be prepared to handle an acute asthma attack.
4. Allow the child extra time to make up missed work or examinations.
5. Treat the student as a normal human being and provide a normal learning experience.
6. Be aware that asthma is a treatable condition.
7. Minimize chalk dust exposure by using a wet cloth or sponge, not an eraser, to clean blackboards.
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For an addict to get well, these characteristics have to be replaced by healthier personality traits:
-   arrogance must be replaced with humility;
-   over-sensitivity with consideration for others’ needs;
-   self-pity with gratitude;
-   inability to stand frustration with patience and emotional control;
-   anger with caring;
-   inability to face reality with acceptance of what really is;
-   fear with trust;
-   dishonesty with honesty.
Words like ‘humility’, for instance, sound rather like something out of Sunday School.
Don’t let these feelings of dismay blind you to what we are saying. Take ‘humility’ as an example. It has nothing to do with Uriah Heep-like grovelling. A person who is humble is somebody who is able to see that he or she is not perfect and is able to admit to mistakes. Therefore the humble person is able to learn from those same mistakes. Put like this, there really isn’t anything wrong with the trait of ‘humility’. It is just a question of adapting to the reality of what you are actually like.
But how on earth is the addict, just off drugs and still feeling upset, confused and probably rather ill, going to do all this? How can an alcoholic just a few days away from a drink change himself?

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what are the similarities between the personalities of these “great obsessionals”? What are the deep-seated ways of looking at life that make a person vulnerable to OCD?
A good place to start in looking for an answer is a recent theory advanced by Oxford psychologist Paul Salkovskis. The critical factor in the development of obsessions, Salkovskis hypothesizes, is an inflated sense of personal responsibility—a deep-seated, automatic tendency to feel accountable for anything bad that might happen. This tendency can turn unwanted, intrusive thoughts into disabling obsessions. Since Salkovskis first demonstrated this idea in 1985, other investigators have confirmed his finding. A 1992 study, for instance, found that of five factors related to intrusive thoughts, only personal accountability significantly predicted compulsions.
According to Salkovskis’s theory, a potentially upsetting thought causes no emotional reaction when it first comes into the mind. Indeed, if a person regards it as simply a piece of mental flotsam—as an idea of little or no importance—then the thought will just drift on by without a ripple. What happens with OCD sufferers is that they appraise the thought—a split-second evaluation that is not in full awareness—and conclude, as Salkovskis puts it, “that they might be responsible for harm to themselves or others unless they take action to prevent it.” All of a sudden an alarm sounds: “I’d better pay attention to that thought!” Now the thought will not float by. It must be dealt with.
This exaggerated sense of personal responsibility is demonstrated most dramatically by people with checking compulsions. A patient of mine, an articulate, middle-aged mechanic with OCD, described it this way:
My compulsions are caused by fears of hurting someone through my negligence. It’s always the same mental rigmarole. Making sure the doors are latched and the gas jets ate off. Making sure I switch off the light with just the right amount of pressure, so I don’t cause an electrical problem. Making sure I shift the car’s gears cleanly, so I don’t damage the machinery.
I went to a sale at Tru Value hardware Saturday and bought a Weed Eater marked down from $34.99 to $26.88. After I checked out, I got to wondering if it was really on sale. The sales slip said it was, but I still wondered if I had cheated the guy, if maybe his computer wasn’t up to date. So I went back in and, pretending I was looking at something else, made sure the sale price was under the item I had bought. It was, but after leaving the store I was still afraid I got sale prices I didn’t deserve. I wanted to go back in again, but since I’d already spent a long time in there, people would have noticed me. I stood in the parking lot trying to decide what to do. Finally I drove away, but I was troubled all day long.
I fantasize about finding an island in the South Pacific and living alone. That would take the pressure off; if I would harm anyone it would just be me. Yet even if I were alone, I’d still have my worries, because even insects can be a problem. Sometimes when I take the garbage out, I’m afraid that I’ve stepped on an ant. I stare down to see if there is an ant kicking and writhing in agony. I took a walk last week by a pond, but I couldn’t enjoy it because I remembered it was spawning season, and I worried that I might be stepping on the eggs of bass or bluegill.
I realize that other people don’t do these things. Mainly, it’s that I don’t want to go through the guilt of having hurt anything. It’s selfish in that sense. I don’t care about them as much as I do about not feeling the guilt.

When the exaggerated sense of personal responsibility is violated, the result is guilt—a major driving force in the lives of all obsessionals. In Young Sam Johnson, James Clifford writes: “Johnson was the kind of man who magnified his sins, and instead of forgetting them brooded over and stressed past offenses. . . . He had a deep-seated sense of guilt.” Boswell tells the story of Samuel Johnson’s visiting his hometown. Johnson remembered that, fifty years before, he had refused his father’s request that he sell books at a stall. He went to that stall and stood in front of it for an hour in the rain, ignoring the sneers of passers-by. Johnson explained that he did this “to do away with my sin of this disobedience . . . and to propitiate Heaven for my only instance, I believe, of contumacy to my father.”
Johnson himself observed the close tie between guilt and obsessions. “No disease of the imagination,” Johnson wrote, “is so difficult to cute as that which is complicated with the dread of guilt: fancy and conscience then act interchangeably upon us, and so often shift their places, that the illusions of one are not distinguished from the dictates of the other.”
Guilt and obsessions sometimes feed on each other, leading to a frenzied state in which an OCD sufferer may even confess to crimes he knows he didn’t commit. I had a patient who, on the basis of violent obsessions, turned himself in as a murderer. Yet, in fact, the OCD sufferer who has thoughts to harm others is the least likely person of all to commit a violent act. The obsessional’s personality is the antithesis to that of the hard-core criminal, or antisocial. Thomas Insel, M.D., specialist in OCD at the National Institutes of Mental Health, summarizes this contrariety: “Antisocials are severely aggressive and never feel any guilt, while obsessionals do nothing aggressive and feel guilty all the time.”
Having an exaggerated sense of personal responsibility is not all bad, of course. It can be a spur to greatness. When the mental mechanisms work together fortuitously, it may find expression in a sense of lofty mission. Churchill felt he was chosen to lead Britain to its finest hour. “This cannot be accident; it must be design,” the prime minister once noted. “I was kept for this job.” Similar sentiments are echoed by Luther, Ignatius, and Bunyan.
Salkovskis’s idea that a deep-seated, exaggerated sense of personal responsibility lies at the root of obsessions is particularly appealing because it accounts for many of the well-known character traits of OCD patients. As noted by Stanley Rachman, Ph.D., in his 1980 text Obsessions and Compulsions, foremost among those traits are fear-fulness, introversion, and a tendency to depression.
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