Treatment for Bed Sores

When a person is suffering from an ailment which requires bed rest, or if the person has been confined to the bed because of some disease, over a period of time, he (or she) can develop bed sores.

These sores occur when the body doesn’t move enough and is bed ridden. These are caused on the portions of the body that are bony. When the body continuously exerts pressure on the same spots for hours, lesions begin to appear on the skin. These ulcerated formations hide underneath them, even more tissue damage. Unfortunately, this tissue damage increases at an exponential pace and it requires intensive treatment for the damage to be slowed down. To prevent these sores, the person who is bed ridden should be moved around from time to time.

Bed Sores Cure

Here are a few things that can be done with bed sores:

•   Make your father lie in a position such that his body’s weight is off the area that has developed sores. This will help heal the sore faster. Also, never massage the area that has developed sores. Massaging only puts extra pressure on the skin and aggravates the sore.

•    If the sore has become ulcerated, keep it clean. Soak a soft piece of gauze in saline water. To reduce the damage, you may apply a mild antiseptic or a cleansing lotion. Alternatively, use a gauze pad that is soaked in betadine to clean the infections.

•    It the sores have become ulcerated and infected, treatment by a doctor is necessary. The open sores could get infested with multitudes of germs. Get your father to see a doctor before the sores become overrun with infections.

•    Mix some iodine and milk of magnesia and leave it for about half an hour and then apply this mixture gently on the sores. This can be repeated several times a day to promote faster healing of the sores.

•    Sugar and honey, mixed together, can be applied on the sores. This can help heal the sores faster. Alternatively, you may mix rhubarb juice with honey and apply on the sores. This mixture can be quite thin. Add some plain flour to the mixture to make it of a pasty consistency. Now apply on the sores.

•    If the bed sores are not healing on their own, you may have to ask a doctor to remove the dead, damaged tissue so that the new tissue can start growing.

•    If nothing else works, surgery may be the only alternative. Excellent results can be achieved through skin grafting and resection of the bones.

Home Remedies Pneumonia

Pneumonia is a highly infectious disease that causes the inflammation of lung tissues. Pneumonia, though common, is a very dangerous disease and can in fact prove fatal if it affects both the lungs. Pneumonia is usually caused when a person is already suffering from bronchitis or is in the habit of smoking excessively. People who consume a lot of alcohol, take drugs, or have an immune system that is weak, are also at a high risk of developing this condition.

Pneumonia can also occur as a complication in lung cancer or cystic fibrosis. Since the lungs get inflamed, respiration is affected. Breathing becomes laborious and it is often accompanied with headaches, cough, fever, chills and presence of blood in sputum.

Natural Cures for Pneumonia

Treatment for this disease should be started as soon as the condition is diagnosed. You may try some of the following home remedies for pneumonia.

•    Fresh juices of raw vegetables like carrots, beetroots, and spinach should be squeezed at home. These juices can be quite concentrated so it is best if you dilute them with water. Eating fresh fruits will also be beneficial for you.

•    Avoid foods that stimulate the system. This includes drinks with caffeine like coffee and aerated sodas.

•    The primary objective of treatment in pneumonia is to soothe the lungs and reduce inflammation. As soon as you are diagnosed, start drinking a tea brewed from fenugreek seeds. Make sure that the tea is strong enough and drink it about four times every day till your symptoms start to improve. However, do not eat anything else for as long as you are drinking this tea.

•    Garlic produces heat inside the body and therefore should be consumed so that the lungs are soothed. Crush a few garlic cloves and apply them on your chest. This will not only help bring your temperature down but also help improve your pulse.

•    To boiling water, add two tablespoons of sesame seeds and steep it for a few minutes. Take this off the gas and add linseed and honey to this liquid. If you want, you can add a pinch of salt too. This infusion is very powerful and helps treat pneumonia completely.

•    Turpentine oil has also been seen as a great remedy for pneumonia. The chest, when massaged with this oil, heats up. This is good for the lungs and helps them recover from the inflammation. After the massage, cover up the chest with a blanket or anything else that keeps you warm.

Allergy to Metal

Wearing either original or artificial jewellery can often cause allergies around the area that they are worn on. This allergy is caused by nickel that is often added as a coating to the jewellery. Nickel dermatitis, the allergy caused by contact with nickel, can occur anytime. It is not necessary that you may develop the allergy as soon as you wear the jewellery. The allergy may kick in particular weather conditions or when you are especially susceptible.

Some people develop chronic allergies to jewellery. Such people are not able to wear any jewellery at all. This could be quite unfortunate because jewelry is treasured everywhere in the world and almost every person would like to wear jewellery, even if it in the form of a simple wedding band.

Usually the allergies occur when wearing gold or silver jewellery because nickel is added to these to harden them so that they can be set into a design. Platinum jewellery, on the other hand, has palladium which does not cause allergies. Palladium is a more stable and a costlier metal than nickel. It is therefore less likely to cause allergies.

You may start getting allergic to the jewellery when there is too much heat and you begin to sweat a lot. When the perspiration under the piece of jewellery, comes in contact with it, the nickel present in the jewellery begins to react with it and form nickel salts. This salt may react with the skin and cause bleeding, itching and rashes. The jewellery worn in the ears may cause formation of pus.

When a ring is removed, sometimes it leaves behind a blue colored patch. This too is because of the allergy caused by nickel. Red rashes, boils or small marks too may begin to appear whenever there is an allergy.

If you have got a piercing on your body using a thin gold wire, the area becomes exposed to nickel and could cause many allergies over a period of time. If you have developed an allergy because of a piercing, make sure that you put on jewellery made of sterilized stainless steel. Though there is nickel in stainless steel too, it is bound in a manner that the nickel doesn’t come in contact with the skin.

If you have used soap while wearing your jewellery, it is best to rinse the soap thoroughly. Sometimes, a few traces of soap are left behind and act as catalysts, causing allergies. Exercise a little caution when you wash yourself while wearing jewellery.  Remove your jewellery while doing housework and try not to wear it for long periods of time. Applying several coats of clear transparent nail enamel can help control the allergies.

Sleep Apnea and Heart Disorders

The effect of lack of sleep on the skin is quite well known. Everyone knows that it causes dark circles and puffy eyes. But, its harms are not limited just to that. It has very serious health risks like diabetes, hypertension, strokes, obesity and heart diseases. If a person sleeps less than seven hours every day, he is four times more likely to have a heart attack, especially if he suffers from high blood pressure. Lack of sleep causes stress to the body, it goes under pressure and gives inadequate time to the arteries to repair themselves causing strain to the heart. At the same time, more than eight hours of sleep everyday can also cause cardiovascular diseases. In the case of heart diseases, it works the other way round too. If heart diseases are caused by sleep disorders, these ailments may also result in a lack of sleep. This is because heart patients often wake up breathless and disoriented in the middle of the night because of a buildup of fluids in the lungs. It also causes sleep apnea, palpitations, and nighttime angina, or chest pain that can disturb the patient’s sleep.

There are many reasons why a person cannot get a good night’s sleep. The major causative factors of sleeplessness are stress, anxiety, tension, depression, overeating, constipation, and an excessive consumption of caffeine and nicotine. A mistake that people make when they cannot get sleep after waking up is they do not try to go back to sleep again. Instead of tossing and turning in bed, the person must indulge in a quiet activity like listening to soothing music or reading and try to sleep again. Other than that, doing exercises like walking, jogging, and doing stretching exercises also helps with sleep. It’s best to exercise late in the afternoon instead of before bedtime. Cutting down on alcohol, coffee, energy drinks, and tea also regulates sleeping hours. Taking a hot relaxing bath before going to bed would also put one to sleep easily. Consuming hot milk, milk from poppy seeds, powdered nutmegs every night also helps one in getting sound sleep. It’s also beneficial to maintain a healthy diet as it prevents problems like constipation, which is also one of the causes of sleeping problems. In any case, a healthy diet is important for having a healthy heart. Getting adequate sleep also helps a person to calm down, relax, and de-stress thereby keeping hypertension at bay, which is a leading cause of heart attacks.