Worried About Your Heart?

Ever since I became a parent, I'm sleeping later and later. Of course I was never the "early to bed, early to rise" type of person since my uni days, but since my first child was born, it's getting worse.

His first few months were practically a nightmare. He was a VERY light sleeper and was very difficult to take care of as he pretty much woke up and started crying almost every half an hour. So me and my wife had to take turns looking after him and basically didn't get much sleep. As he grew older, he went to bed about 12am. Now he is sleeps earlier, but I pretty much only get to do my own stuff (work, leisure, etc) after the kids are asleep. Obviously sleeping late will take a toll on your health. Which was why this forwarded mail caught my attention, and I'm going to share it with you.

The email consist of 2 sections:-

Section 1: Natural Therapy For Heart Vein Opening

The 1st part is a natural therapy for heart vein opening. Not sure if it works, but since it's ingredients are all natural and are not life threatening, I decided to share it with you without doing any research. Feel free to try it and tell me if it works :) And also tell me about the taste too LOL! Well, here it is:

"Dear All,

Natural therapy for heart vein opening

Please pass it to your colleagues or friends.

For Heart Vein opening

1) Lemon juice 01 cup
2) Ginger juice 01 cup
3) Garlic juice 01 cup
4) Apple vinegar 01 cup

Mix all above and boil in light flame approximately half
hour, when it becomes 3 cups, take it out and keep it
for cooling. After cooling, mix 3 cups of natural honey
and keep it in bottle.

Every morning before breakfast use one Table spoon
regularly. Your blockage of Vein's will open
(No need any Angiography or By pass)"


Section 2: Sharing Of Experience

This is an email about a person who had a severe heart attack symptom and was rushed to the hospital. He was sharing about his experience but more importantly, his lifestyle, which is quite similar to mine, except the smoking part. He also shared the doctor's recommended lifestyle. So take a read and see if it's applicable to you.

This is e-mail received from a person working in a Software Company

Dear colleagues, I am working in Blore Software City ....... I wanted to share an incident of my life with you, hoping that it may be an eye opener to you so that you can live more years.

On 27^th October afternoon, I had severe heart attack symptom and I was rushed to the hospital.

After reaching to the hospital, the doctors prescribed a test called angiogram.. This test is basically to identify blood flow of heart arteries. When they finished the test they found a 94% block in the main artery, please see the image below with red circle.





At this point, I wanted to share my living style, which has caused this block in my heart arteries. Please see the below points of my life style, if any of these points are part of your life style then you are at risk, please change yourselves.

1. I was not doing any physical exercise for more than 10 years , not even walking 30 minutes a day for years.

2. My food timings are 11:00 AM Breakfast or no Breakfast, 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM Lunch and dinner at 11:00 PM to 12:00 AM.

3. Sleeping in very odd timings, going to bed between 12:00 AM and 3:00 AM. Waking up at between 9:00 AM and 10:30AM ........ Some times spending sleepless nights.

4. I used to eat heavily because of long gaps between lunch and dinner and I used to make sure that Non-Veg is available most of the time, there were times when I did survey on city hotels to find delicious Non-Veg dishes. I was never interested in vegetable and healthier food.

5. Above all I was chain smoker from years.

6. My father passed away due to heart problems, and the doctors say the heart problems are usually genetic.

Once they identified the major block they have done immediately a procedure called angioplasty along with 2 Stints, mean they will insert a foreign body into the heart arteries and open the blocked area of arteries. Please see the below image after the procedure.




I learnt from the doctors that 60% people will die before reaching the hospital,20% people will die in the process of recovering from heart attack and only 20% will survive .. In my case, I was very lucky to be part of the last 20%.

Doctors instructions:

1. Need to have physical exercise for minimum of 45 minutes daily.
2. Eat your food at perfect timings, like how you eat during your school days. Eat in small quantities more times and have lot of vegetables and boiled food, try to avoid fry items and oily food. Fish is good than other non-vegetarian food.
3. Sleep for 8 hours a day, this count should complete before sun rising.
4. Stop smoking.
5. Genetic problems, we cannot avoid but we can get away from it by having regular checkups.
6. Find a way to get relived from the stress.

So I urge you all to please avoid getting into this situation, it is in your hands to turn the situation up side down, by just planning / changing your life style, by following simple points above.
If you find it's useful you can forward this mail to your friends and loved ones.....

Like for all the things I received in the email, do take it with a pinch of salt, but in this case I really don't think there's any harm in knowing these information,whether you follow them or not LOL!

I'm working on changing my lifestyle, but with my 3rd child arriving.... Well, let's hope I'll be successful before it's too late :P


TOP OF PAGE

Can't Take This Sh*t No More!!? (A Remedy For Diarrhoea)

Recently I just received another forwarded email about some kind of magical remedy for some kind of ailment. This time, it is for diarrhoea.

This caught my attention straight away because for most of my life, I've been having a very sensitive bowel. Having diarrhoea can sometimes be a daily event for me. Not only that, after becoming a parent, it's sometimes quite scary when your little ones have severe diarrhoea, not to mention the horror of cleaning them up after that, especially if you're using cloth nappy LOL! Of course, after we know for sure that something is not right, we will let them wear disposable for the rest of the day, but still, the smell is almost unbearable.

According to the email, the very simple, and more importantly, perfectly safe remedy, is rice water. My wife and I heard of it before but we didn't really take it seriously. Anyway I will copy and paste the whole email below. I will also include an article from Rehydration Project that was mentioned in the email. Hope you find these information useful.


"> > Subject: Fw: Diarrhoea

Drinking sugar dilute in water also makes a simple and quick remedy!

With recent case on the Geylang Serai food poisoning out break.. would like to share the info received from a friend pls read on it may be of help...

When someone gets diarrhoea, sometimes the solution is so easy, we wonder why anyone has to suffer.

The secret is in rice water.

This is already known in this region. Ask your maids -- Sri Lankan, Indonesian, Filipina and they would know about it.

(My mother) knew about it. When Dr Albert Winsemius came to Singapore or a farewell and thank you dinner in his honour, he brought along his wife Aly and his granddaughter, Jolijn. Both women came down with very bad gastroenteritis. They saw the doctor who gave them medication. It was slow to work.

Mother boiled some rice in lots of water and went to their hotel with two 1.5L bottles of rice water.

I cringed in shame at the offer of this folk remedy, which seemed so primitive to me. Never heard of this cure before. To my surprise, it worked, and they were even able to go out for dinner the next day. Both were exclaiming how the rice water did the trick of making them well again. Well, lucky it worked, I thought to myself.

I was discussing this some years back with Kim Ng, the ex-matron of KK Hospital. She said, yes, that is what Professor Wong Hock Boon, the notable paediatrician teaches.. I was shocked and made some comment how could he? It was common knowledge so what had he to do with it?

Many months later, I regretted laughing at it. Dr Christina Shanta Emmanuel, who is the CEO of...uh, which group I have forgotten. Either National Health Group, or Polyclinics, or whatever.. regarded me seriously when I brought up the topic like it was good fun. She said that Prof Wong Hock Boon had presented a paper on it. At some conference. After he had done clinical trials.

Then his results were published in the Lancet, the Medical Journal all doctors read. In fact, said Shanta, he was credited for saving the lives of 2 million African babies by this method.

Ah, so! I am impressed.

It is rice water and not rice, that does the trick. I have found it effective again and again. You take a handful of rice and boil it in a large saucepan with lots of water. Like three or four large glasses. Then you cool that and drink the water. If you are in a hurry to relieve the ailing person, take the saucepan off the fire and dunk it in a frying pan or basin of cool water with ice cubes if necessary.

This gives the patient a chance to drink the rice watersooner and cure himself or herself sooner.

When drinking the rice water, make sure there is lots of it. You have to tell the patient that enough water must go in to line your guts from throat to other end, all 10 to 12 metres of it. If you take rice, it stays in the stomach. If you take broth, some of it may go into the small intestine.

But if you take rice water, it will carry rice grains to every inch of your small and large intestine to the end where the problem is.

How does it work? Even Prof Wong Hock Boon doesn't know. Read the attached file. Or go to
*http://rehydrate.org/dd/dd06.htm#page2*

It is good to pass on the news to everyone you know because the complaint is so common and people suffer unnecessarily. You would be doing your friends a great favour to relieve them of their misery when the occasion arises."

You can visit the link above to read the article, or you can just read it here :P

"Rice water and diarrhoea

The advantage of using rice water is that rice is cooked daily in South East Asia. WHO photograph by Dr Gramiccia In South East Asia, rice is prepared in two ways - to produce either dry, cooked rice or, with extra water, rice porridge. This leaves a fluid (rice water) on top of the cooked rice grains. Professor Wong Hock Boon, a paediatrician working in Singapore, has been using rice water to rehydrate babies for several years. If the babies are bottle-fed rice water is given exclusively for the first 24 hours of treatment - breastfeeding can continue as normal (1). Professor Wong and his colleagues have found that many babies who have not responded to other rehydration solutions respond well to rice water. If diarrhoea starts again with the re-introduction of milk, extra rice water is given with additional rice porridge. Older babies are sometimes given rice porridge alone.

The means by which rice water helps to stop diarrhoea are still being researched. One explanation could be that starch-like sugars tend to draw less fluid out of the body and into the gut compared with a similar amount of simple sugar such as glucose. Some babies with diarrhoea can digest starch more easily than simple sugars. The International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR, B) is carrying out studies on the inclusion of locally available starches (such as rice starch) as the carbohydrate in oral rehydration solution.

As Professor Wong stresses, the advantage of using rice water is that rice is cooked daily in South East Asia. The rice water is boiled and does not have to be made up and kept in large quantities as is frequently the case with sugar-salt rehydration solutions.

If you would like more information about the use of rice water for rehydration, write to: Professor Wong Hock Boon, National University of Singapore, University Department of Paediatrics, Singapore General Hospital, Outram Road, Singapore.

For information on ICDDR, B's work on locally available starches, write to: Library and Publication Unit, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, G.P.O. Box 128, Dacca-2, Bangladesh.

(1) Wong H B 1981 Rice water in treatment of infantile gastroenteritis. The Lancet vol 2: 102-103."

Please Share: For those who have tried this method, or have heard of stories and testimonies, please do not hesitate to share with us.

TOP OF PAGE

A Remedy For Nighttime Cough? Or Not? You Decide

I came across an email making some pretty crazy claim about an unlikely remedy for nighttime cough. Obviously as a parent, my children's nighttime coughs can be worrying, so when I came across a claim like this, it's hard not to get curious about it. Some of you may have read about it, but anyway, here is the email I received:-

"How to stop cough in 5 minutes!!!
This is a must try....
We have all been kept awake by our own or someone else's cough. Try this and pass it on. The tip and not the cough. ANYTHING is! better than antibiotics. Even babies could benefit from this and the parents wouldn't worry about the safety of their child. And of course, it is harmless and free from any type of side-effects.
WOW! I was raised, and raised my kids with Vicks. How come I never knew this? I can't wait for my next cough. Amazing!
READ IT ALL. It works 100 percent of the time, although the scientists at the Canada

Research council (who discovered it) aren't sure why.

Treatment:

To stop night time coughing in a child (or an adult, as! we found out personally), put Vicks Vapor Rub generously on the bottom of the feet at bedtime and then cover with socks.

Even persistent, heavy, deep coughing will stop in about five minutes and stay stopped for many, many hours of relief. This works 100 percent of the time, and is more effective in children than
even very strong prescription cough medicines. In addition it is extremely soothing and comforting and they will sleep soundly. I heard the head of the Canada Research Council describe these findings on the part of their scientists when they were investigating the effectiveness and usage of prescription cough medicines in children, as compared to alter! native therapies like acupressure. I just happened to tune in to a.m. Radio and picked up this guy talking about why cough medicines in kids often do more harm than good due to the chemical makeup of these strong drugs, so I listened. It was a surprising finding and found to be more effective than prescribed medicines for children at bedtime, and in addition to have a soothing and calming effect on sick children who then went on to sleep soundly.

My wife tried it on herself when she had a very deep constant and persistent cough a few weeks ago, and it worked 100
percent! She said it felt like a warm blanket had enveloped her. The coughing stopped in a few minutes, ! and believe me this was a deep (incredibly annoying!) every few seconds, uncontrollable cough and she slept cough-free for hours every night she used it.


If you have children or grandchildren, pass it on. If you end up sick, try it yourself and you will be absolutely amazed. How to stop cough in 5 minutes!!! This is a must try..."

Well, I cut and pasted it word for word, even the mistakes LOL!

And me being me (as in cautious and sometimes paranoid), I decided to go online to do some research regarding this "amazing" claim. While I found out that there are a lot of people claiming this to be true and that it really works, there are a few articles that I came across that sort of put me back on the cautious mode.

The first article is "Avoid applying Vicks VapoRub to babies, pediatricians say" from CBCnews.ca. This is a very good article and I highly recommend people to read it before using the above method.

Then I came across a very interesting website, Snopes.com, which investigates rumors, urban legends, old wives tale etc. On the website, there was an entry on this claim and the status of the claim is Undetermined, ie, can't say if it's real or not. Interestingly, this website posted a statement by the National Research Council Canada (NRC) denying that they ever said that Vicks VapoRub can be used on the sole of the feet to counter nighttime coughs. Go and read the whole article here.

Which then lead me to the actual statement issued by NRC from their very own website, and it's titled "Foot Rub Cough Cure: Fact or Fiction?".

Conclusion:

In my opinion, if you have been using Vicks VapoRub for your children all these while and they don't show any signs of adverse reaction to it, there is no harm in giving this remedy a try. Who knows it might actually give you a peace of mind during those otherwise cough-full nights.

However, if you want to give this method a go but have not used Vicks VapoRub before, please read the above articles carefully and heed the warnings below:-

WARNING!
1. Always, always, always, read the label before use!
2. DO NOT use adult Vicks on children under 2 years of age! I believe they have products meant for babies.
3. Any problem, please consult your doctor.

For those who still want to give it a try, here's some pictures to guide you through the simple steps:-

First
Use Vicks VapoRub

Second

Apply generous amount at the sole of both feet.

Finally

Cover it with socks to prevent staining your bedsheet.

Please Share: If anyone tried this method before, or is planning to try it, please share with us and tell us if it actually works, or not. We thank you in advance. :P

TOP OF PAGE