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Posts Tagged ‘Medical Professionals’

A gallbladder attack is a relatively common problem that occurs when your gallbladder becomes irritated due to a variety of causes which will be described in this article. Pain from a gallbladder attack can range from mild to severe. Episodes may last a few minutes or a few hours, with the pain being felt mostly in the upper abdomen (although it may also radiate to the shoulder area and back).

Medical professionals refer to a gallbladder attack as cholecystitis. The terms biliary disease or biliary colic may also be used.

To get an idea of why a gallbladder attack occurs, you need to understand how the gallbladder functions and the role it plays in digestion.

Your gallbladder is a hollow organ located near your liver, and it is approximately the shape of your thumb. It is basically a storage area for a substance called bile, which is produced by the liver. Bile plays an important role in breaking down the food you eat, making it easier for the intestines to digest. It is especially helpful in breaking down cholesterol and fats. A gallbladder attack occurs when too much fat and cholesterol build up and the gallbladder can’t properly process it all. This results in inflammation and irritation - and pain - which will continue until gallbladder function returns to normal. Eating a lot of fried foods can be tough on the gallbladder.

Sometimes, so much cholesterol builds up that it begins or harden or crystallize. This leads to the formation of pebble-like substances known as gallstones. These gallstones can be minute - as tiny as a grain of sand. Or they can be very large - approximately the size of a golf ball.

As noted above, you can feel the pain and discomfort of a gallbladder attack in several areas of your body. Generally, you feel the pain of a gallbladder attack in the upper abdomen. But it’s also possible to experience considerable discomfort in the right shoulder or the upper back between the shoulder blades.

Pain from a gallbladder attack can occur due to several other reasons too, For instance, there can be a blockage or obstruction biliary tract, which is the the path that transports bile to the small intestine. Gallbladder infections are also possible.

Pain is the most recognizable symptom of a gallbladder attack. Other symptoms include the following:

* a fever is likely, along with chills
* bowel irregularities: either constipation or diarrhea
* dizziness sometimes occurs
* there may be a headache centered above the right eye
* stools will look noticeably lighter or slate-colored,
* there could be some nausea or vomiting
* stomach gas is common, as is abdominal bloating

Gallbladder attack treatment depends on the cause and the severity of the pain. People who have sudden, intense gallbladder attacks may require immediate hospitalization. But hospitalization may also be appropriate in cases where attacks have become recurring or chronic.

Your doctor will probably recommend staying away from food and drink until your gallbladder has a chance to stabilize again. Intravenous treatment including electrolytes and fluids may also be appropriate.

A tube inserted through the nose and down into the stomach may keep the stomach empty and limit fluid accumulation in the intestines. Antibiotics may also be administered.

When attacks recur, your doctor may consider gallbladder removal surgery. You can live without a gallbladder because your liver produces all the bile you need for digestion.

Certain people will experience gallbladder attacks no matter how careful they are about the way they eat and what they eat. This can be true for individuals with a family history of gallbladder problems. Most people, however, can lower their chances of having a gallbladder attack by eating more low-cholesterol, low-fat foods. Regular exercise also helps by clearing the system of excess fats and cholesterol.

(Editor’s note; The words “gallbladder attack” are also spelled spelled gall bladder attack by many individuals. There are also some typical mispellings, including galblader attack, gallbladeer attack, and even gullbladder attack.)

Click on gallbladder attack symptoms and causes and removing the gallbladder to learn more about a healthy gallbladder.

Neal Kennedy is a former radio and TV journalist with a special interest in health and fitness.

The words “colon infection” can cover a range different colon problems.

However, when medical professionals use the term, they’re most often referring to a disorder caused by a certain type of bacteria known as Clostridium difficile (commonly called C. difficile or simply C. diff).

Those most likely to get a colon infection from Clostridium difficile are seniors who are in a hospital or living in a nursing home or long term care facility. This is often the result of antibiotics they take to fight other health problems.

Antibiotics kill many kinds of bacteria - not just a certain type that are causing an illness. So, sometimes they kill bacteria that live in our intestines and help us digest our food. C. diff bacteria can become established in your intestines if there are not enough helpful kinds of bacteria present. When Clostridium difficile grows, it produces toxins that damage cells in the lining of the intestines and colon. The result is inflammation and pain.

If you only have a mild colon infection caused by Clostridium difficile, the inflammation will go away when you stop taking antibiotics. In cases wher the colon infection is more severe, however, a different type of antibiotic may be necessary to kill C. diff.

The antibiotics that seem more likely to produce Clostridium difficile infections are fluoroquinolones, cephalosporins, clindamycin and penicillin.

Clostridium difficile is plentiful and can found in plants, dirt and water. It is especially plentiful in human and animal feces, and since it can float easily on air, it spreads quickly where sanitation is poor.

To avoid C. diff contamination, be sure to keep all surfaces in your environment clean and wash your hands often. There are spores produced by Clostridium difficile that are capable of living on countertops and similar surfaces for months. Touching a surface where these germs have landed, and then touching your lips or mouth, could give them entrance to your digestive tract. This could start a chain of events that ends with a colon infection.

Just have Clostridium difficile in your system doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be sick. But people who have been infected with Clostridium difficile can give the germs to others.

In recent years, there have been a growing number of colon infections reported caused by C. difficile bacteria. Scientists tell us that a newer, more aggressive strain of Clostridium difficile germ has mutated and is spreading. It is resistant to medications that worked before, and has resulted in several outbreaks in the last decade.

Symptoms of a colon infection can take a long time to appear after C. diff germs get into your system. It can be months. Once symptoms begin to present themselves, you can expect one or more of the following.

Abdominal cramping, along with tenderness and discomfort in the lower digestive tract.
* A bout of diarrhea that continues for a period of at least two days, with bathroom visits reaching 10-15 times a day.
* Colitis, which is a type of severe stomach inflammation.
* You might also experience patches of raw tissue that can bleed or produce pus or blood in the stool.
* Fever and nausea.
* Decreased appetite and sudden weight loss.
* Symptoms that indicate dehydration may be occurring.

It’s time to call a doctor if you have these symptoms for 2-3 days or more.

Once you’ve been diagnosed with a C. difficile colon infection, your physician will probably discontinue prescribing the antibiotic that brought on your problem. But even though this will reduce the severity of your symptoms, other treatment steps will probably be needed.

Ironically, you may still be able to take certain other antibiotics. Several are available that will stop C. diff while allowing healthy bacteria to grow. The most frequently antibiotics for a colon infection are metronidazole and vancomycin. Both these medications may have side effects like nausea, and they sometimes leave a bitter taste in your mouth. You may get an especially bad reaction if you mix metronidazole and alcohol.

There are a number of probiotics which be beneficial in restoring your intestinal tract Your doctor may also suggest a type of yeast called Saccharomyces boulardii, which can be effective when combined with certain other medications.

Surgery isn’t usually performed, but is sometimes done in especially severe cases.

Treatment for a colon infection doesn’t always work. This happens becausethe C. difficile germs was never totally removed from the digestive tract in the first place, or because the patient has been exposed to a new strain.

Click on what causes colon infections and colitis and colon health to learn more about colon health. Neal Kennedy is a former radio and TV talk show host with a special interest in health and fitness topics.

Physicians carry an oath to accomplish no hurt, but they’re giving more and more individuals enslaving prescriptions. Why? Simply because non-addictive prescriptions cut into massive pharma revenue.

When a physician gets his license, he commits to a typical of health care ethics often known as the Hippocratic Oath. One of several most well-known concepts inside that oath is ‘to do no hurt,’ and most medical professionals carry that very critically. They are healers. So why do they prescribe prescriptions that have significant and risky aspect consequences, including the very real risk of prescription medicine addiction? In quite a few cases, the physician doesn’t employ a selection. Secure prescriptions are simply not offered for selected conditions.

Discomfort, for instance: Regardless of whether chronic, acute or just annoying, whether or not it is from a back again injury, surgery, or even a headache, odds are your physician will give you an enslaving painkiller. Additional folks are showing up in addiction remedy centers for painkillers they at first got from their physician than ever before.

Why did your physician give it to you? Unless he was prepared to send you to a health practitioner who employed drug-free strategies to manage ache, he genuinely didn’t employ a selection. Enslaving painkillers are almost every one of the medicine corporations have to offer you. Just ask your reputable Arcadia doctors, Alhambra city doctors or established Antioch doctors.

Do not believe it? Do a Google search for non-addictive prescription painkillers. You’re not likely to find very much - other than a few promises that scientists are operating on building them.

Big pharma spends about $60 billion a year on advertising - roughly the identical amount it expenses American taxpayers to fight the war on prescriptions. But they also devote dollars to analysis and improvement. It really is only about half the amount they expend on advertising but, still, it is a lot of dollars.

With all that dollars and brain energy you’d consider they could have developed a non-addictive painkiller by now. Following all, even primitive cultures had workable ache remedies - and some of them are still around. Certainly the medicine corporations could come up with something we wouldn’t get addicted to.

In truth, building a non-addictive painkiller could spell selected death for some medicine corporations.

It really is a well-known simple fact in organization that repeat shoppers can make or break you. Salesmen all in excess of the earth make their living off satisfied shoppers coming back again for a lot more. Regrettably, quite a few prescriptions usually do not lend themselves to that normal progression. Their goods have risky and uncomfortable aspect consequences, not something that quite a few folks would opt for to endure if they had a selection.

Big pharma is massive organization. Pure and basic. They are not element on the health care community, regardless on the simple fact that they sell their goods by means of medical professionals, and they’re not bound through the Hippocratic Oath. The only regulations that apply are the regulations of organization, which are, for the most element, restricted only through the law. Plus the survival of massive pharma as an sector, in its existing bloated state, is dependent upon how quite a few folks are taking their prescriptions, and for how long.

So, they employ a selection: They could expend their dollars on prescriptions they know folks will employ a tough time quitting, or they can concentrate on doing what’s correct - building prescriptions that could address the difficulty the human being is owning devoid of creating additional harm - prescriptions that may be taken safely, and stopped as soon as they’re no longer desired.

Certainly, that would critically cut into revenue. And they’re not likely to accomplish that willingly - which can be why they’re forced by law to fork in excess of billions of dollars in damages.