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


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Joke Of The Day!?

Well, the last 2 weeks had been really hectic. My eldest son is having his exams, I'm sourcing for contractors for a small renovation work that has to follow a very tight schedule to prepare for my 3rd child's arrival in the beginning of August, of course taking into consideration the possibility of the baby arriving early; and to top it all off, me and both my sons were down with viral infection, again. Anyways I hope I can work on this little blog of mine with more consistency LOL!

Back to the topic at hand.

My eldest son loves telling jokes, kinda like his old man. Unfortunately, most of the time, his jokes are usually not really logical, and at best, not really funny, also kinda like his old man. But every once in a while, he would come up with something that's really good, of course these jokes are usually borrowed, but that's ok! Since most of the time we grown-up recycled jokes from other sources anyway. The joke goes kinda like these:

"Daddy, why do cows wear cow bells?" asked my 6 year old.

"I don't know, why?" answered me in my usual reply to his "Why" jokes.

"Because their "HORNS" don't work!!!" Get it?

It actually took me a second or two (I know, I'm slow) and I burst out laughing out loud! This is probably the funniest joke he has told till now. Then my wife told me something that put a frown back on my face almost immediately.

Apparently my son told this joke to his grandma and grandpa (my mom and dad). When he told my mom, my mom laughed as she thought it was funny. Then my son went upstairs to tell his grandpa, and soon after, he came back crying. So my wife attempted to sooth and also teach him the idea that sometimes, different people have different sense of humour. Just because we think something is funny does not mean others will find it funny, so it's perfectly fine if they don't laugh.

"But mom!" cried my son, "grandpa DID laugh, BUT IT WAS SO FAKE!"

THAT coming from a 6 year old. That was one of those few moments that I realised my life ain't gonna be the same (and easy) ever again. It wasn't too long ago that I documented a similar moment. Oh well, fun and challenging times ahead!

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A Crazy 14-Days.

It has been a crazy 2 weeks for me,

An outbreak of a weird strain of the swine flu virus, which I'll write more in upcoming posts.

An almost 5 full days of crazy working hours and deadline up to 2am or 3am.

Crazy experimentation with my jailbroken iPhone 3G (fine, that's for my own enjoyment :P)

A crazily good business opportunity just presented (more like re-presented) itself.

A sudden onset of a crazy (crazy to us at least) eye allergic reaction in my 3 year old which scared the living daylights out of us. I shall elaborate more of this in this post.

Me, my wife, my 2 sons and my mom went shopping in the 1 Utama Shopping Centre on Saturday. While we were having lunch in one of the restaurant, I noticed my youngest son is rubbing his eyes again. I said again because it's not uncommon for him to do that as his eyes get itchy quite easily. While we try to stop him sometimes, we're not that worried about it, and the itch will usually go away after a while and it'll be ok. But that day it was different as his eyes were getting quite red so we were paying more attention to him and try to stop him from rubbing his eyes.

While I was shopping for some toys with my 6 year old, my wife suddenly called me on my mobile (she was sitting on a bench somewhere with my 3yo to take care of him) and said that there was something weird forming in his eyes, sort of like a blister of some sort. We were very worried and without hesitation, we decided to send him to a hospital as most of the clinics would be closed.

I was carrying him and we were walking very fast/running to my car, which was parked quite far away, and decided to bring him to the Emergency Ward of Damansara Specialist Hospital in Damansara Utama, Petaling Jaya.

When we finally get to see the doctor on duty (after registration and waiting for a while), the doctor's initial diagnosis was Membranous Conjunctivitis. When he learnt that it was a sudden onset, he ruled that out as viral and bacterial conjunctivitis usually take quite sometime to develop. He then picked up the phone and called one of the eye specialist and asked for advice. The thing I really like about this doctor is that he is calm and more importantly, admits openly that he doesn't know much about it. I totally forgotten to get his name as me and my wife were too worried to even think of getting the name of the doctor LOL!

Anyways, in conclusion, the doctor diagnosed it as an allergic reaction since it happened so suddenly. My son used to be allergic to dairy products and nuts. He is getting better now with the dairy products and we still won't let him take anything containing nuts. He must have touched something he is allergic to during lunch and accidentally rub his eyes with that hand. The doctor said that it may take about 3 days for it to totally recover. While we were hoping it to be sooner, it's not too bad.

We were given 4 different types of eye drops (1 of them contains steroid) and a bottle of antihistamine, which stops the itch. Putting the eye drops is a nightmare as my son was not very cooperative but since we had done this before we sort of know the trick. The trick is to put a drop at the inner corner of the eye when it is shut tight (due to crying), and then to try to open his eyes, either to convince him to do it, or we do it by force by gently spreading the eyelids open with fingers. Once it's opened, the eye drop will go in.

I did some research online and found something called Allergic Conjunctivitis. In other words, it's conjunctivitis that is caused by allergy. Good thing is this form of conjunctivitis is not contagious and should not take to long to recover. I'm still not sure if what my son has is an Allergic Conjunctivitis, since the doctor just said that it's an allergic reaction, but today is the 2nd day and he is already much better. The blister in the eye has subsided so we're happy.

Here are some sites that contains information on Conjunctivitis and Allergic Conjunctivitis which I hope you find it useful:-
1. Conjunctivitis from Dr. Greene

2. An article on Allergic Conjunctivitis by the University of Illinois At Chicago's Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences.

3. An article on Allergies of the eye by the University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center.

So yeah, all in all, last 2 weeks had been really exciting and challenging for me :D. Well, live and learn.

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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.

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Parental Negligence Kills...

We heard of children being kidnapped, raped, and murdered sometimes due to lack of supervision (such as Nurin Jazlin Jazimin case in 2007).

We heard of a father reverses his car over his own daughter.

We heard of parents forgotten and left their baby in the car seat, and the baby died due to heat.

We heard of children drowned, sometimes even under the parent's nose when they were distracted but for a few minutes.

Now, just a few days ago, we read about a baby boy less than a month old was starved to death due to parent's prolonged binge drinking with friends over a few days. Below is the news article taken from thestar.com.my.

"
Friday March 27, 2009
Baby dies, drunk parents forgot to feed him
By STEPHEN THEN


MIRI: A baby boy, less than a month old, starved to death after his parents allegedly forgot to feed him because they were too drunk.

The baby died in the intensive-care unit of Miri Hospital yesterday morning and a police report has been lodged.

Police now want to question the parents, in their early 30s from a longhouse in southern Sarawak, who came to Miri to work and were renting a house at a low-cost housing scheme near the Sarawak-Brunei Highway, some 12km north of the city centre.

Relatives found the baby unconscious in the house and rushed him to the hospital at about 3am on Wednesday.

Miri deputy OCPD Supt Ismail Paduka Idris confirmed that the baby died in the morning.

“We are investigating claims that the parents had indulged in a prolonged drinking spree and had neglected the baby.

“Initial investigations show that the baby might have been so severely neglected that he suffered fatal consequences.

“We want to find out whether this was due to carelessness,” Supt Ismail said.

The couple also have a three-year-old daughter."

The above are but only a few incidents about parental negligence that were being reported. There were probably countless of other incidents that were not reported.

The purpose I'm writing this article is not to express my anger nor to point my finger at them parents and starts the blame game rolling. Rather, it is as a wake up call. A reminder. Far be in from me to judge others as I'm not perfect myself.

For those who think that these parents are terrible, utterly irresponsible and therefore, should be punished for their act of negligence, you are absolutely right! But do not forget that no one is perfect. We are all messed up in our own ways. Some of us are even capable of doing the same thing, or possibly things worse than these (we just don't know it yet). I'm someone who believes that until you're lying on your death bed breathing the last few breath in this world, do not ever let words such as "I'll NEVER do such a thing" rolled off your tongue so easily without any serious consideration because you may find yourself committing the said "crime" someday down the road.

As a Christian, there are a few phrases in the Bible that speaks to me very strongly regarding these matters:-

1. In John 8:7, Jesus protecting the prostitute from the accusers, said "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

2. Matthew 7:3-5  "Why do you observe the splinter in you brother's eye and never notice the plank in your own? How dare you say to your brother, 'Let me take the splinter out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own? Hypocrite! Take the plank out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to take the splinter out of your brother's eye."

3. And of course, in Luke 23:34, while Jesus was crucified on the cross, at one point, he said "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

I believe in second chances because I believe in a God who believes in second chances.  Of course there are some who has worn out their second chances, especially those who are aware of their mistakes yet remain unrepentant.

The above drunk parents will not be charged with any criminal offence as the police investigation revealed that it's a tragic mishap and there was no criminal intent on hurting the baby.

Were the parents irresponsible? - Extremely

Were they stupid? - Definitely, but hopefully not anymore

Could the tragedy be prevented? - TOTALLY

Did they want the baby to die? - I most certainly hope not

Do they deserve a second chance? - In my humble opinion, YES.

Did they deserve to be punish? - Yes, and trust me, they are really having it right now.

Personally, I hope this experience, and the second chance they get will mould them to be better parents. And I do think they are really suffering right now, unless they are totally heartless. Frankly, I believe only if you're a parent, you'd fully understand the feeling of guilt, fear, and regret that one will go through when we put our little ones through pain, suffering, and in some cases - death, whether on purpose or by accident. The experience will haunt them for life. 

Like I said earlier, we're all messed up in our own way. Some of our mistakes are repairable, but unfortunatly, there are some mistakes you just can't do-over, but life goes on. Instead of pointing fingers, I'm just going to use the couple's story to teach, and remind myself of my duty as a parent and to pay more attention to my kids, and make sure that they are safe.... but of course have to try hard not to get over paranoid LOL! Otherwise I'd be putting my kids through a different kind of hell. The last thing you want is your children growing up with emotional and mental bondage fearing and thinking that the world is out to get them :P.

Arghhh! Living a balanced life, easier said than done LOL! No one and nothing is perfect, we just got to do our best according to our own abilities.

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Post-meal Acrobatics = Post-meal Clean-up

Not too long ago... ok, fine, it may be a while ago, maybe 2 - 3 months back, I had a funny experience that brought back some memories. So why did I take so long to write about it, well, I always had some more important stuff to do or blog about and this story was always at the back of my mind, and now, I finally managed to pen it down. Well I'm not exactly penning it down but you get the idea :P.

I was at my friend's place practicing some songs for another friend's wedding, when we finished our practice and were just hanging around his house chatting, at one point the wife had to go out to fetch the daughter from the in-laws' place. While she was out, we're still hanging around and my friend's son didn't go out with mommy and was with us the whole time. We were chatting, and my friend was playing with his boy, throwing him up in the air, swinging him around, turning him upside down etc. The kid was obviously having a blast, but the dad was getting a little tired so we decided to take a sit and chill.

While we were chilling and talking, the kid was still sticking to his dad, hugging and going around his (rather big size) dad like an obstacle course, and suddenly, he became very quiet and looked really serious.

From my experience as a father, most of the time when a kid suddenly becomes very still and serious, it could only mean 2 things:-
1. He was shitting or already finished doing the deed.
or
2. He was about to throw up (vomit).

Well, it was the latter. The son threw up all over the dad, the couch and on the floor. We helped him a little bit and had to cut short our visit.

On the wedding day itself, I kinda brought it up and both the husband and the wife were there and we're having a good laugh, that was until I brought up the fact that the son vomitted because the dad was throwing him around after meal, than I heard the "shh! shh!" coming from my friend. Apparently while the wife was aware that the son threw up, she was not informed of the cause LOL!!

This kinda brought back some memories about my eldest son, who's going to be 6 years old in about a week's time. When he was younger, he really threw up a lot. When he was a few months old, after every feed, if he was to raised his legs and kicked the air, or when we raised his legs to change his diaper, most of the time, it would result in him vomitting, and the amount is really scary. He could vomit like 80% of the milk that he just drank. We were VERY worried at first, but since he was growing well despite of all the wasted milk, we slowly gotten used to it. And it wasn't until just recently his vomitting tendencies have reduced significantly.

So the moral of the story is :-
1. If you want to a have post-meal acrobatic fun with your kid(s), be prepared to do some post-meal cleaning up.
2. Don't hide important details from your wife. She will know about it anyway, so it's much better that you confess your sins with your own mouth rather than her finding it out from an outside source LOL!

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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

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Can I Afford To Go Organic?

Being a parent, obviously one of the more important things in life is your children's health, and one of the question that my wife and I have been struggling with for quite a while is whether to go organic or not. If you look at the health benefits of organic food, such as:-
1. Lower pesticide residue
2. Higher nutrient level
3. Very good for children (as they are still developing)
4. Absence of potentially harmful food additives
5. Generally a better health outcome;
I should go organic. There's only one reason that's stopping us from going all out for organic food, which is this:-

5 apples for RM23.36, RM2.59 for 100gram.

Proof of Quality :)

Yes, what's stopping me from going all out is the price. Organic products (at least in Malaysia) usually cost 3x to 4x more than normal products. I can normally buy 5 apples from our usual wet market fruit stall for only RM5.00 but I need to pay close to RM24.00 for 5 organically grown apples. But I have to say, they taste extremely sweet and good, no doubt about that.

But regardless of what most organic food advocates argue, that you shouldn't put a price on quality of life, paying 4x more for something when your pay stays the same is extremely difficult for some, and near impossible to those who are in the lower income group. Putting the blame on cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, etc. and saying that in order to afford organic food, people just need to change their lifestyle, ie stop smoking, drinking, buying branded clothes, are just downright ignorant, shallow, self-righteous and arrogant. Why? Because they sounded as if quitting substance abuse and changing lifestyle are like changing clothes, and heck, some of us are not even using those substances.

Not only that, it is not unanimous in the scientific world that organic products are definitely better than non-organic products. There are still debates going on about organic vs non-organic. I'm not going to go into the debate, so if you want to read more about it, visit the following sites:-
1. Organic or Not Organic - A neutral and well written article on this subject
2. Organic Food & Farming (pdf) - A very thorough report to counter the argument that organic food is not necessary better than non-organic food.

The verdict, after doing my research, is that I'm still pro organic, for now. I'm sure in the near future, more research and evidence will be able to shed more light on this subject. Which brings me back to the issue of costs. My conclusion is that my wife and I will try to our best to go organic for food that are listed to have high pesticide content. What list you say? Well, Environmental Working Group (EWG), a not-for-profit organisation, has been compiling a lists of vegies and fruits, in fact, a list of 43 vegetables and fruits and rank them according to their pesticide content. I know that this is a US based list, but since I can't seemed to find any such lists provided by our local authority, that list is the best guide I can find.

Here's the Top 12 worst (highest pesticide content) and best (lowest pesticide content) vegies and fruits.

The Dirty Dozen and Cleanest 12 (Click to enlarge)

Click here to get the printable One-pager pdf file provided by Foodnews.org.

I also find this website to be helpful as an additional info to the above list.

Anyway, this is my take on organic food, I hope you find it useful, but like I said, as for me, I will try my best to buy organic food for the "high risk" food. You gotta decide for yourself what is best for you :P

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Call Me Un-Romantic

Just before Valentine's Day, a couple of my colleagues were asking me questions such as:

Q: So, are you buying anything for your wife on Valentine's Day?

A: No.

(Looks of horror and disgust crept across their faces)

Q: So, what are you doing on Valentine's Day?

A: Nothing.

(More or less the same respond as above)

My usual reply, albeit a little cliched, is "Everyday is and can be Valentine's Day, why must you celebrate it on a day when everything is more expensive and all the restaurants are over-crowded? If you need to have a special day to do something nice and different for THAT person in your life, you can do it any other day!"

And I truly believe in the above statement, as do my wife (and I'm not just saying that to make myself look good).  I just don't see a point in spending extra money unnecessarily on things that you usually can get it a whole lot cheaper. I also don't understand what so special about going out for a nice fancy dinner, and sit in a restaurant packed with people.

I'm lucky my wife is a very practical person who has no use for things like flowers and diamond rings (fine, call me cheapskate). Below are2 separate scenarios that may very well happen depending on her mood, should I buy her a bunch of beautiful flowers on Valentine's Day.

GOOD MOOD: Thanks dear, that is very nice of you, but you don't need to waste your money buying me flowers especially when you know that I have no use for them, nice as they are.

BAD MOOD: WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU THINKING!!? Why do you waste so much money and precious time buying something for me that I DON'T NEED? I'd much rather you stay home and help me take care of the kids (bearing in mind my wife is 3 months pregnant and still suffering from morning sickness).

I know that some of you are still thinking that I'm just giving excuses and trying hard to justify myself. I also know that there's nothing I can do to convince you otherwise, so I won't even try :P.

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Shit Happens, and lots of it! (Oh the smell!)

My youngest son, the 2 1/2 year old, is having the worst diarrhoea (or diarrhea depending on where you're from) that our kids had ever had. Even the worst that my 6 yo experienced was nothing like this. That being said, we thank God that there's still no need for him to be hospitalized. One thing that I could never understand though, is how can such disgusting, terribly foul smelling stuff comes out of such a cute tiny little body?? Even the fart! Oh me oh my, LOL!! Well, I guess shit happens, but that's not the end of it. The next day, it was my turn to have diarrhoea, about as bad as his but I dare say no where near as foul smelling as his. Then the day after, it was my mom's turn (she is staying with us). Like I said, lots of shit happened, and will probably continue on for another day or two.

Let's talk about my son since I'm most worried about him. His stool was very watery and every time after he drank some water, he passed it out almost immediately. I guessed that's the reason why it's recommended for them to take sips of water. The first night that he had diarrhoea, he soiled easily about 8 heavy diapers.

We got pretty worried, so the next day we decided to get some Oral Rehydration Salt (ORS). Can be obtained easily from any pharmacy. Just add one packet to 8 oz (240 ml) of water (or according to what the instruction says) and shake well. We used a water tumbler and let him take small sips through out the day. You can also use a bottle for younger children. He's acting well, still playing, active, but gets tired easily, didn't have much of an appetite and was eating less than usual, but we weren't really worried about that as long as he is well hydrated.

Today is the third day for him (and 2nd for myself). I pray tomorrow we'll all be fine. One thing though, all my life I always thought that diarrhoea is not contagious, until about 4 years ago, when a doctor told me otherwise. Well, I guess diarrhoea itself is not contagious but the microorganism that causes it is. So always practice proper hygiene especially after changing a soiled diaper, or you may find yourself, or another member in your family, follow suit with the slam dunking action.

Since my wife is just over 3 months pregnant, she was quite worried that she may catch it too. So in her visit to her gynaecologist today, she asked about it, and the doctor said that once or twice of soft stool is ok, if it's more severe, she better get it treated. The doctor was afraid that too much stress and strain may cause her to pass out the foetus!! LOL! Lucky she asked as she may very well catch it. Guess her paranoia pays off eh.

To learn more about diarrhoea (especially in young children) and dealing with dehydration, you can visit the sites below:

1. Rehydration Project

2. Babycentre

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A Hard Life!!

And that was coming from a 6 year old!!

I know I'm going to have a hard life when my 6 yo started asking my wife questions like:

"Why is life so hard, Mommy?" *sob sob*

"Why is my life so hard??!!" *started crying*

"Why? Mommy, why??!!" *close to wailing*

*sigh* And all that just because our relatives who said they were coming for a visit were just a little late, and he's getting impatient of waiting.

It's getting harder and harder trying to imagine that my life can be easy with a son that is both dramatic AND philosophical LOL!

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Phimosis Scare

Just a few days ago, my 6 yo son was complaining that it hurts when he was urinating. We got a little worried as he had a history of recurring Urinary Tract Infection when he was younger. It was a very bad experience for us as we had to put him through an x-ray test for urinary reflux/vesico-ureteral reflux (VUR). The test is called Micturating Cysto-urethrogram (MCU). It pains us that he has to go through an x-ray test at such a young age, but I guess it's much better than to have VUR and thus taking risk of renal scarring (kidney damage). Anyway, I'll talk about that some other time.

As I was saying, we got worried about him complaining that it was painful while he was urinating, so we decided to check his penis ourselves and found out that there is sort of a cut there. To be sure, we decided to bring him to see our Sunday pediatrician (since our usual pediatrician doesn't work on Sundays), at the very least, get an antiseptic cream to prevent any form of infection. The doctor said that it's just a small cut or a bug bite and gave us an antiseptic cream.

Since our son is seeing a skin specialist (dermatologist), we also let him take a look at my son's penis for a second opinion. He said that there's no infection but he saw that my wife was having some difficulty retracting my son's foreskin and my son was complaining that it hurts when she tried to retract the foreskin. He then said that there may be tightening of foreskin, which may lead to more problems (such as UTI) when he gets older. He recommended us to see a pediatric surgeon in SDMCSJ (previosly SJMC - Subang Jaya Medical Centre) to do a circumcision. According to him a pediatric surgeon is gentler and more experience operating on children as compared to a pediatrician or a general surgeon. The operation should only take about 10 mins but he would have to stay for half a day in the hospital. We asked if it's something we needed to do it immediately and he said we can do it within the next six months.

It was then I decided to do a search online and found out about Phimosis.

According to Krames Online:-

In uncircumcised boys, the foreskin lies over the head of the penis. It begins to loosen from the head of the penis by age 3. This allows the foreskin to gently retract (slide back) over the head of the penis. In some boys, the tip of the foreskin (prepuce) is very tight, making it difficult to retract. This is phimosis.

The unretracted foreskin and prepuce cover the penis. Retraction of the foreskin uncovers the head of the penis. (Source: Krames Online)

Phimosis is most likely to be identified between 4 yo to 7 yo since for younger children, their foreskin may not be able to fully retract. The last time our son got his penis checked was when he was younger (around 2 or 3 yo), so we decided to let our usual doctor check him again. Thankfully he said that he doesn't have the signs of Phimosis. It probably hurts because he was terrified by last few days experience and furthermore it's a sensitive area. He just need some getting used to the stretching of foreskin and slowly it will be able to retract. There's no rush, according to him. He also does not recommend going for circumcision until he's a little older because if we do it now, he will need to go under General Anesthetic as he's probably too immature to stand still for the administration of a Local Anesthetic.

In any case, we're glad that our son is ok and nothing needs to be done at the moment, thank God!!

To get more information about Phimosis, when to see the doctor, and the treatment for it, please visit Krames Online.

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Pica?!!

My wife was a quite worried about eating seafood as she is in the first trimester and some seafood is known to contain high levels of mercury, and so I did a google search on it. As I was reading an article about eating during pregnancy from KidsHealth, at the food cravings section, I came across this word - Pica.

What in the world is Pica?? The only Pica I know is the noise that Pikachu made in Pokemon LOL! So I clicked on the link and this is what I learnt:-

Pica is an eating/medical disorder (it's also a unit of measurement, but that's not what I'm talking about) characterized by having an appetite mostly for nonfood or non-nutritive items which can also include food ingredients.

While it's normal for young kids to put various items into their mouth (most kids do that at some point in time) since it's how they explore and learn about their surroundings, kids with Pica goes beyond innocent exploration and it's characterized by persistant and complusive cravings.

Pica can be seen in young children (especially those who are developmentally disabled), pregnant women (as food cravings), people with epilepsy and also in animal (mostly dogs). It can last for one month or longer.

Here are some examples of nonfood items people with Pica normally crave or consume (source: KidsHealth):-
- dirt
- clay
- paint chips
- plaster
- chalk
- cornstarch
- laundry starch
- baking soda
- coffee grounds
- cigarette ashes
- burnt match heads
- cigarette butts
- feces
- ice
- glue
- hair
- buttons
- paper
- sand
- toothpaste
- soap

Below is a picture of items found in a pica patient's stomach (picture obtained from Wikipedia)

1,440 items found in a patient suffering from Pica

Ewww!! We learn new things everyday, and I learned that we're living in a crazy world that's always full of surprises LOL!!

To read more about Pica such as signs and causes of it; treatment etc, please visit the sites below for more information.

References:
1. Wikipedia
2. KidsHealth

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War On Dengue (& Chikungunya)

As far as parenting is concern, some news just doesn't sit right with me. For example:

Taken from http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/1/20/nation/3065279&sec=nation
Tuesday January 20, 2009

War on dengue
By LOH FOON FONG and AUDREY EDWARDS

PETALING JAYA: The Health Ministry has declared war on dengue following an alarming rise in cases and related deaths in the first two weeks of the year.

Minister Datuk Liow Tiong Lai also raised an alarm against chikungunya, which has seen a sharp rise in the number of cases from last year.

Liow, who described the spike in cases as “unusual”, warned that the situation could worsen if there was not enough co-operation from all parties involved.

Go here for the full story.

After almost 6 years of being parents, one thing still freaks my wife and I out, sometimes a little, and sometimes a lot, is when our kids fall sick. If you're living in Malaysia, especially in Kuala Lumpur (Wilayah Persekutuan) and Selangor area, dengue fever is something that we're always watching out for.

But wait, I know about dengue fever, but what in the world is this Chikungunya virus they are talking about? Well if you have not read about it, the Aedes mosquito is the carrier of both Dengue and Chikungunya virus.

First, let's take a look at the little buggers,

From Wikipedia:
The yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti (=Stegomyia aegypti, =Aedes (Stegomyia) aegypti), is a mosquito that can spread the dengue fever, Chikungunya and yellow fever viruses, and other diseases as well. The mosquito can be recognized by white markings on legs and a marking of the form of a lyre on the thorax. The mosquito originated from Africa^[1] but is now found in the tropics worldwide^[2].

Aedes Mosquito - See it, Fear it, KILL IT!

Aedes mosquitoes are most active early morning and late evening. Avoid bringing your child/children out at those times and avoid bringing them to crowded places as the mosquitoes spread the diseases through bites. I know it's kinda hard sometimes, but at least try avoiding public places such as shopping complexes that you know have a lot of mosquitoes, especially at places with high dengue cases.

Quick facts on Dengue and Chikungunya:

To make it easier for you to read, I've compiled information about Dengue Fever and Chikungunya I collected from various sources and tabulated it. Hope this is helpful. I will provide the links to the sources at the end of this post so that you can go and read more about it.

	Dengue Fever	Chikungunya
Incubation Period	Approximately 4 days	Ranging from 3 - 12 days, usually 3 - 7 days
Signs & Symptoms	Sudden burst of continuous high fever (3 - 7 days) Red rashes on skin (may appear as fever reduces) Acute pain in bones, muscles, joints, eye-balls and head Loss of appetite Vomiting Stomach Pain Bleeding from body, nose and mouth	Sudden onset of high fever Redness with rashes appearing on the hand, leg and body Headache Severe joint pains Nausea and vomiting Redness of the eyes Fever can occur for a period from 1 - 7 days (usually 5 days) (Commonly mistaken for dengue fever)
Rush to hospital when	High fever with bleeding symptoms Suspect Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever (DHF)(Severe Dengue with complications) Blood spots under the skin (petechiae) Bleeding from gums Nose Bleeding (epistaxis) Vomiting blood (hematemesis) when acompanying normal dengue symptoms	In Malaysia, Chikungunya has never been reported as causing haemorrhage ordeath
Care & Treatment	No specific treatment, must let it run it's course Use supportive care - pain relief, drink fluids, rest - Use Panadol (paracetamol) - Do NOT use aspirin (salicyclic acid) - Do NOT use ibuprofen Watch out for bleeding symptoms (DHF)	No specific treatment treated symptomatically (treating for specific symptoms) Majority need only outpatient treatment
Vaccine	No vaccine	No vaccine
Immunity	There are four types of dengue viruses DEN1, DEN2, DEN3 & DEN4. A person infected with one type of dengue will subsequently only be immune to that type. They will not be immune to other types of dengue and will, in fact, be at risk of developing severe symptoms if they contract another type of dengue.	Most patients who have been infected will be immune for life.
Is it Contagious?	It is not contagious, in other words one human can't directly pass to another human. However an aedes mosquito after biting an infected person can transmit the disease by biting someone else	Same as dengue

One of the best way to battle these diseases is to prevent the Aedes mosquitoes from breeding. Click the below flyers/posters provided by http://www.infosihat.gov.my to learn how to do it.

Chikungunya

Dengue Fever

Dengue Fever

References:
Do visit these sites for more information on Dengue Fever and Chikungunya:
1. Wikipedia (on Aedes Aegypti)
2. Info Sihat (for both diseases)
3. World Health Organisation (WHO) (for Dengue Fever)
4. Queensland Government website (for Dengue Fever)
5. www.stanford.edu/group/virus/flavi/2000/dengue.htm (for Dengue Fever)
6. diabetescare.yoscare.in/content/chikungunya-what-you-must-know (for Chikungunya)

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