Archive for September, 2014

Common and Embarrassing Men’s Health Problems

Thursday, September 25th, 2014

Jock Itch

What Are the Symptoms?

The symptom of jock itch is usually itching associated with a red rash. This rash often has a little bit of scaling around the edges, and occurs in the groin and scrotum areas. It is commonly seen in sports people because the associated body heat and sweating provides an ideal medium for fungus infections to grow and thrive. It is also common in men who are overweight or obese.

How Is It Treated?

This condition is usually effectively treated by applying an antifungal cream topically twice daily for a couple of weeks. In more severe cases antifungal medication can be taken orally. It is important to try to minimise scratching as this can lead to bacterial infection of the skin, which may need treatment with antibiotics. In this regard keeping the fingernails short and clean is essential. As a condition it is not contagious and it is fine to continue with all athletic activities. It is also helpful to wear cotton underwear and avoid tight-fitting trousers so that the area can breathe.

What Can I Do to Avoid Getting It?

  • Wear cotton underwear.
  • Avoid tight-fitting trousers.
  • Make sure to dry yourself carefully after a shower or bath, particularly in the groin area and around the testicles.
  • If you are overweight (BMI greater than 25) then lose weight.
  • Be aware of the fact that fungi can thrive in damaged skin. So take care with soaps and shampoos that can potentially irritate the skin. Nonperfumed soaps are best.

Athlete’s Foot

This is a yeast or fungus infection that affects the feet. Again it is very common, particularly in feet that are warm and sweaty.

Athlete’s foot often presents with foot odour. It can also cause itching, classically between the fourth and fifth toes, with the space between these toes being red and scaly. As the infection spreads it can cause itching and scaling on other areas of the foot. Anybody can get athlete’s foot but it is particularly common in people who play sport, who suffer from sweaty feet or who spend large amounts of time wearing plastic shoes or runners, which can cause the feet to get warm and sweaty. Canadian pharmacy cialis

Sometimes the infection can spread and involve the nails of the feet. This can result in discoloration of the nail, which can look yellowish, brownish or green, with the nail becoming thickened and sometimes more crumbly in appearance.

The diagnosis of a fungal nail infection can be confirmed by getting your doctor to send a nail clipping to the laboratory to have it analysed for the presence of fungus.

Treatment

Athlete’s foot usually responds quite well to the use of antifungal creams. The foot must also be allowed to ‘breathe’ as much as possible by avoiding wearing runners and tight shoes and by wearing flip flops in the evenings. Fungal nail infection, when confirmed, generally requires treatment with antifungal medication for at least three months.

What About Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)?

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2014

Light therapy of SAD

Light therapy appears to be safe. The light boxes used to treat SAD do not emit much ultraviolet light, so sunburn is not a problem; however, some people do complain of headaches and irritability. Tanning machines are not a suitable source of light to treat SAD as they cause sunburn.

Treatment Cialis Australia online is best started in the autumn, when symptoms begin, and continued until the spring. Some people find it beneficial to use it first thing in the morning as an alarm clock, whereby the light comes on 40 minutes before their normal wakening time. This has been described as a ‘natural dawn’.

People can notice an improvement in several days, but it can take several weeks for symptoms to improve.

What About Natural Sunlight?

Natural sunlight, even on an overcast wintery day, can help your mood. Certainly, if you have the opportunity to get outdoors for an hour, this can be helpful. However, for many indoor office workers, this is just not possible, particularly in the cold wet climate of the Irish winter.

Suicide

Here in Ireland over 450 people committed suicide last year. Men outnumber women by a ratio of four to one in terms of death by suicide. Suicide is a leading cause of death in young people.

Risk Factors for Suicide

Suicide is often a tragic consequence of undiagnosed or untreated depression, and may occur in the context of alcohol or drug abuse. Other common risk factors for suicide in men can include chronic pain, major stress including traumatic life events and recent loss social isolation and loneliness. Depression in particular can play a large role in suicide. The teenage years can be emotionally volatile and issues relating to self-esteem, body image and lack of confidence can be very real ones for teenagers. Depression is a real issue of concern for teenagers and can also be a major risk factor for teen suicide.

Suicide in Elderly Men

The highest suicide rates of any age group occur among men aged over 65 years. Depression in elderly men that is undiagnosed and so untreated is a major risk factor. Others include major life events such as retirement, loss of independence, bereavement and isolation or loneliness. Chronic ill health, including chronic pain or disability, can also be factors.

Potential Health Hazards of Alcohol

Monday, September 22nd, 2014

The Heart

Heavy drinking increases the risk of high blood pressure and its complications of heart attack and stroke. Alcohol can cause irregularity of the heartbeat, known as atrial fibrillation, which in itself can increase the risk of clotting and stroke. Alcohol can directly damage the heart muscle itself causing a condition called cardiomyopathy, whereby the heart loses its ability to pump blood strongly; this can result in heart failure.

Cancers

Alcohol can increase the risk of many cancers, including cancer of the mouth and throat, and cancer of the oesophagus (food pipe), stomach, liver and pancreas gland. Excess alcohol may also have a role in increasing your risk of bowel or colon cancer as well as prostate cancer.

Alcohol and Liver Disease

The liver is the main organ responsible for filtering and removing alcohol from the body. The liver can metabolise and break down approximately 1 unit of alcohol per hour. However, if you drink alcohol faster than your liver can break it down then the amount of alcohol in your bloodstream rises.

Alcohol can affect the liver in three ways. Firstly, many people who drink excess alcohol develop what is known as a fatty liver. This is where you get a build-up of fat within the liver cells. Fatty liver is often reversible if you reduce your alcohol intake to within safe limits. However, sometimes people with fatty liver can go on to develop inflammation of the liver, known as alcoholic hepatitis.

Alcoholic hepatitis, secondly, is where the liver becomes swollen and inflamed. In mild cases this may not cause any symptoms and can simply be detected with a blood test, which may show an elevation of some of the liver enzymes. In more severe cases, though, you can feel unwell and develop nausea, yellow jaundice and sometimes pain over the liver area. If alcoholic hepatitis is severe, then the liver can shut down and go into liver failure, which can cause retention of fluid, life-threatening bleeding, confusion, coma and often death.

Finally, heavy drinking over a long period of time can lead to the development of alcoholic cirrhosis. Cirrhosis is a condition in which the normal soft, smooth tissue of the liver becomes replaced with hard, fibrous scar tissue. Some people who never drink alcohol can get cirrhosis, for example, as a result of viruses or other disorders of the immune system. However, it is felt that about one in ten heavy drinkers over a long period of time will get cirrhosis. Unfortunately, the scarring that occurs in the liver is irreversible. In severe cases, when the liver scarring is extensive, the only treatment option may be a liver transplant.

Investigating Fertility Issues in Men

Friday, September 19th, 2014

Causes of Infertility

Genetic or Chromosomal Defects

The most common of these disorders is known as Klinefelter’s syndrome, which affects about one in every 500 males. In this condition, there is an extra X chromosome. Characteristically these men have abnormal breast enlargement (known as gynaecomastia), smaller-than-normal testes, sparse facial and body hair, and no sperm production. There is also delayed onset of other secondary sexual characteristics such as deepening of the voice and development of the genitals.

Another chromosomal disorder is known as XYY syndrome, where-by the affected man has an extra Y chromosome. This again affects about one in every 500 men. These men tend to be very tall, some have had severe acne and some have a tendency to antisocial behaviour. While some of these men have no sperm, some produce normal amounts of sperm.

The extremely rare vanishing testes syndrome affects about one in every 20,000 males; these unfortunate men are born without testicles.

Kallman’s syndrome is another rare cause of infertility. It occurs in only one in every ten thousand men. It is often associated with loss of smell, deafness, cleft lip and palate, kidney problems and colour blindness as well as infertility.

Other Causes of Infertility

Male infertility may also be caused by sexual dysfunctions, such as premature ejaculation, reduced libido and erectile dysfunction. This may be due to low testosterone levels resulting from an underlying condition. These are all potentially reversible causes of infertility.

Some men have infertility for which there is no known cause at present. In addition, some known causes of infertility do not have any treatments.

Research is ongoing into this important men’s health area. As knowledge and understanding increases, more causes and, hopefully, treatments will be discovered.

Investigating Fertility Issues in Men

Talking to your doctor is a good place to start. He or she can check your medical history and any risk factors for infertility. Your doctor can discuss your ideas, concerns and expectations. A physical examination to check your testes and to see if you have a varicocele in your scrotum is important. The next step usually would be to arrange a sperm test.

Semen Analysis – Checking a Sperm Sample

Semen analysis is a test used to evaluate male fertility. This test, also called a sperm count, measures the amount and quality of seminal fluid or ejaculate. Seminal fluid contains male reproductive cells (semen or sperm) and normally is expelled through the penis during ejaculation.

This is a highly accurate test. However, it is worth noting that a normal result does not guarantee fertility, as fertility is naturally a couple-related phenomenon. However, a normal result is certainly reassuring that your reproductive track is in reasonably good order.

Sex Therapy – The Impotence Therapy

Monday, September 15th, 2014

Sex therapy can be a broad term. So let us use impotence therapy in this re­gards. The latter is also one form of counseling that you could take advantage and this would mean that you would have to do about ten to twenty minutes of a session on a regular basis. A psychologist can help you in the process. Nor­mally, a session might have to be held every day per week and during the ses­sion, you will be able to receive assignments as a patient in order to do at home and there- fore, you are instructed to read the books about sexuality, touching exercise that are used in order to take the pressure from the person and you will also need to improve the communication sexual skills that you have.

The therapy that you are following could be used to treat the impotence and thus, you will enjoy having normal sleep during the days and you will also manage to have your physical exams ready for all the other preparations. The sex therapy can also be useful when managing several sexual dysfunctions be­cause this will ensure that you are able to pass over the sexual communication skills that you lack, relationship conflicts, worries from work. In such cases, the sex therapy is always a good thing to decide on. There are other similar nat­ural cures for impotence that work very well. One thing to take care here is – that you need to actually evaluate what are the true causes of impotence or ED prevalent in yourself and choose a method accordingly.

Will the impotence therapy fit your needs?

The impotence therapy thing is extremely effective when the men are willing to take part actively in the treatment. For example, you should know that in instances where males are having stress related issues, opening this up to their partners about it has helped ease their issues with the problems and they have started to feel much better about things. If the husband is only going through counseling by himself, then the results might not be that effective. Moreover, the impotence therapy is likely to work in a lot of situations and so, you will be able to find the right answer for your problems. Sometimes, having partic­ipated in a lot of classes of impotence therapy with buy Sildenafil in Canada will help the husband regain confidence in his capabilities and he will be experiencing positive thoughts. When this is has happened, this will mean that the person can now feel more positive and more relaxed about it and thus, he will be able to perform better in bed and thus see his confidence being boost up.

Will the health insurance that you already have?

Some plans that are offered to the general public might offer impotence ther­apy. Once having selected the psychologist, you will be able to receive guid­ance and information from him or her in order to isolate the best medical problems that you might get for that insurance. Also, in such cases, psychol­ogist might have their fees adjusted and thus, you might have to get into your calculation the fees and taxes involved with the sex therapies involved.

Sexual and Reproductive Health in Young People with Cystic Fibrosis

Wednesday, September 10th, 2014

Who says what, when and to whom?

The above discussion has focused on aspects of fertility and reproductive health, although as briefly discussed in the introduction, a wide range of sexual health Viagra pharmacy issues are relevant to adolescents with CF. Given the risks of pregnancy, it is especially of concern that sexually active young women with CF are less likely to use contraception than otherwise healthy young women, and have erroneous beliefs about infertility and pregnancy risk. It is equally of concern that approximately one in three young men with CF report confusing not needing to use contraception with not needing to protect themselves from sexually trans-mitted infections, making statements like:

  • I don’t need to use condoms because I don’t have to worry about contraceptives.

These examples highlight the importance of ensuring that young people as well as parents have an appropriate level of knowledge and skills to protect themselves from unnecessary sexual health risks. As approximately two-thirds of adolescents and young adults want more information about sexual and reproductive health, it looks like this information is not being provided. This raises the need to consider why these issues appear difficult to discuss, when these issues should be discussed and by whom.

In contrast to acquired medical conditions where an ‘event’ such as the diagnosis of cancer or the commencement of chemotherapy may act as a catalyst for a discussion of reproductive complications such as infertility, CF is a congenital condition that is generally diagnosed in infancy. In contrast to infertility as a complication of chemotherapy where actions can sometimes be taken to improve later reproductive health (e.g. egg or sperm retrieval), this is not the case in CF. Thus, while it is expected that brief discussion of likely male infertility will take place at the time of diagnosis, the priority of most ongoing clinic discussions with parents of children with CF is on more immediate or day-to-day CF-focused management issues.

Mothers of girls with CF report that they would like to discuss a range of sexual and reproductive health topics with their daughters’ CF doctor before their daughters reach puberty. However, this occurs uncommonly in practice and mothers still overwhelmingly call for more CF-specific sexual and reproductive health information to be provided. It is likely that parents of boys would be similarly interested in discussing these issues with their sons’ CF doctor. However, the perspective of parents of boys with CF (both mothers and fathers) has been infrequently studied.