It’s never a happy thought, but we are all getting older. Those of us boomers are into our sixties now with the rest of the pack starting to catch up. This is the time when things really start going wrong with our bodies. Most of us have been lucky up to now. But despite the best efforts of medical science, there’s no pill to slow down the years. Worse, the most likely first symptom of age is going to be erectile dysfunction. All those high cholesterol meals we crammed away will come back to bite us as layers of platelets build up on the walls of our blood vessels. Some call this arteriosclerosis, others artherosclerosis. Whichever name, the result is the same. The muscles in the walls of the arteries needed to dilate start to fail. Without the dilation, there can be no erection. It’s an unhappy thought, but loss of sexual power can be the first symptom of a lifestyle with too much fat and too little exercise. When someone invents a time machine, we can go back and give ourselves good advice. Until then, we have to make the best of our golden years.
Curiously, the world is growing old with us. When we were young and living through the fifties, the television was a novelty. Replacing the radio and its world of advertiser-sponsored programs came the future with moving images and all the new ads. They were simple sales pitches, very naive by modern standards. But they got the message across. And what were those messages? Well, for the most part, housewives were told what food to put on our plates, what drinks to offer us. Then came the things to make the household run smoothly and the latest model vehicle to get us from A to B. In between were sometimes disturbing news reports which grew worse as we came into the sixties and the Russians took over Cuba as a missile base on our doorstep. In some senses, it’s actually more relaxing to have the modern coverage of world events. For the most part, our media have forgotten the need to tell us what’s happening outside our shores. It’s more important to package our local politics as the news and give us the messages most important to those controlling the content. The ads have changed as well. The networks have decided the silver-haired crowd has the buying power. We boomers hold what’s left of the purse strings. So we need to know about the adhesive to keep our dentures in place, heat wraps to keep the arthritis pain under control and the latest pills to keep Alzheimer’s away. Oh, and the pills to keep our sex lives going. more…
One of the things supposed to make America the best place in the world to live is its free market economy. If you listen to the propaganda, you believe you can buy anything you want in the US and, for the most part, the power of competition forces all traders and service providers to keep their prices low. Supposedly, if you don’t like the price or the quality of what’s on offer from one supplier, you can take your business elsewhere. This is all great in theory, but it breaks down when you get on to the subject of intellectual property rights. Now you can’t download music from anyone except iTunes and the roof falls on your head if you start up a business selling sodas and call it Pepsi. The idea of copyright or trademarks is simple. If you wrote the music and the lyrics, you own the rights and everyone has to pay to listen to them. Equally, anyone who brands a business gets a monopoly on the use of the name. No other business can copy your name and pass off its products as the brand. The predatory way in which all this works is most obvious in the patent market where anyone with a new idea can get a monopoly to exploit it. If anyone else tries to copy it, courts are quick to issue an injunction and damages follow. You can’t have failed to see news of the big cases between the technology companies, arguing who has the rights to mobile phones and hand-held devices.
Out of the public eye, the drug manufacturers protect their monopolies. They rely on local patents to keep the competition out of the US market and a lot of propaganda to slime the online pharmacies as unsafe places to buy your must-have drugs. Of course, they are more worried about the cheaper prices charged by the online pharmacies taking their business away rather than public safety. But the message comes out continuously and strong. Wherever possible, the manufacturers avoid court cases. This can be bad publicity. The common strategy is to pay foreign manufacturers not to make generic copies. But, every now and again, the foreign company will not play ball, i.e. it asks for too much money. So now we see Pfizer taking an Israeli company to court. This is Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd and it’s one of the larger generic manufacturers. In 2004, it applied to the FDA for a licence to make and sell as generic version of viagra. The FDA has indicated its willingness to grant the licence, but has yet to actually do so. If it does, the licensed generic version will eat into Pfizer’s profits. Hence, the action seeking an injunction to prevent Teva from launching the generic. more…
There’s new research from the University of California that states the problems surrounding older people and their sleep, while offering few solutions. This is a somewhat sad trend when it comes to research affecting the aging members of our society. When people are younger and more energetic, they will contribute to the growth and development of the American way of life. Equally important is their personal earning capacity. To maintain their quality of life, they will often pay the medical profession well. Those who are older have less to contribute and, while some do have money, there’s less that can be done to improve the quality of life when bodies have aged. Although Sarah Palin was exaggerating the threat of “death panels” to drum up opposition to reform, we have a comparable effect already in the rationing of research into the health problems of the old, and in the poor quality of healthcare services in the geriatric sector. People do have shorter lives in the US than in many other countries around the world.
According to the research, about half the seniors in the US complain of difficulty in sleeping. It’s suggested that lack of sleep increases the risk of illness and early death. The question, therefore, is why seniors do find sleep more difficult. The answers are not directly related to age as such, but to the facts that older people are more prone to diseases and disorders, use more medications which have insomnia as a side effect, and find their circadian rhythms disrupted. Unfortunately, the research also finds the healthcare service is not sympathetic to these problems and fails to properly diagnose sleep disorders or give the appropriate treatment (including simply adjusting the dosages in medications probably contributing to the sleep disorder). At present, there’s no financial incentive for hospitals and clinics to divert resources to treat these problems. Although seniors can use their own savings to go to professional sleep laboratories for overnight assessment with a polysomnogram, the necessary follow-up treatments through counseling and cognitive behavioral therapy is often neglected because it’s not considered cost-effective. Necessary dentistry or, where appropriate, surgery is a one-off cost and preferred where appropriate. But, for the most part, seniors are left to fend for themselves. more…
For some, there are threats everywhere. They fear the world is dangerous and, unless they stay in a constant state of vigilance, their lives will be at risk. In a small number of cases, this gets out of control and tips into paranoia and mental disorder. For the majority, it”s an exaggerated caution because they do not understand how modern technology works. They see how dangerous electricity can be and so are cautious when using powered equipment, particularly when that involves the use of “radiation”. Now there”s a word to get the conspiracy theorists into action. Yet, from a scientific point of view, you cannot escape the fact that television and computer screens give off electromagnetic radiation (EMR), handphones rely on microwave broadcasts, and then there”s light. In coherent form as a laser, it can potentially blind people. As it shines from the sun, we can see our way and, with appropriate protection from ultraviolet, live healthy lives.
The white light we “see” is in fact made up of all the colors blended together. Each color has a property of its own and you may have seen increasing publicity given to light as a treatment for skin problems like acne. When it”s projected from a TV or computer screen, you get both the EMR and light in the visible spectrum, often with a slightly bluish tinge. For the treatment of skin problems, blue and red are used. For the treatment of sleep disorders, blue and green are being used in a series of clinical trials. It”s perhaps slightly ironic, but those who felt an effect from television and computer screens were probably right, except that the effect seems to be beneficial if you want to change your sleeping times.
We know when to sleep because our internal clock is set to match the local daily cycle. If we move to different time zones so that morning is now night, this confuses us and we find it difficult to match local time for sleep. As a trial, a number of people were cut off from the world in rooms without windows or clocks. There was no way for them to tell how much time was passing. The research team kept them awake for fifty hours and then allowed sleep for eight. When awake, half were exposed to blue light, the other to green. All the participants were carefully monitored and it was found that both colors could reset the internal clocks. The only difference between the two groups was that dim blue and bright green lights were less effective. The relevant neurotransmitters and hormones responded more precisely to bright blue and dim green. more…
There’s an old saying that, “You can’t have too much of a good thing”. Well, that rather depends on the thing. For children, this is free-flow ice cream. Yet, no matter how enjoyable something is once in a while, the idea of eating it all the time is enough to produce vomiting – those of you with children will have experienced projectile vomiting after they have ignored your advice and eaten too much ice cream. The reality is your enjoyment of something is greater when you have the chance to anticipate a pleasurable experience. The other saying at work here is that, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”. You appreciate something more when you do not have it.
The numbers are just in for the number of prescription written by US doctors in 2009. This gives us the chance to worry about how many pills we are popping and whether we are popping them for the right reasons. And, guess what! We have more or less the same result as 2008. The inconvenient evidence continues to flow in. We are popping too many drugs to control anxiety and depression. If you look at the banner on this site – last year, doctors wrote 44 million prescriptions for it. When you add up all the pills represented by these prescriptions, that’s more than enough pills to give several to every person in the US (both legal and illegal). Now take a moment to absorb the implications of this number. Let’s ignore the fact this is 17 million more prescriptions than the next most popular anti-anxiety drug. If you were to add in all the other millions of prescriptions written for anti-anxiety drugs, every household in the US would have a bathroom cabinet full of pills. But the chilling thought is the number of people who now buy their drugs online without a prescription. Being realistic, online pharmacies sell drugs more cheaply than you can ever buy in your neighborhood pharmacy and everyone with an overstressed household budget now looks to save money wherever possible. Once you add the guess to the actual numbers, the flow of drugs into US households is remarkably high. more…
Sometimes people want their good news delivered in convenient bite-sized amounts. If you cut out all the chatter and boil it down to just one simple thing, what do I have to do to lose weight? When experts get put on the spot, they tend to fall back on a formula. Reduce your diet to this number of calories and you will lose weight. The person does a mental calculation. That number sounds doable. Right. Let’s do it! There may be a lot of other information that should be given, other factors to take into account. But none of that is heard. The decision is based on just one number. Way back when, one of the more common formulas to see the light of day was an equation. About 3,500 calories add up to about 1 pound of fat (that’s 0.45 kg who think in metric). Keeping it simple, that means you lose 1 pound every week if you cut 500 calories a day.
When an expert is trapped into endorsing such a plan, almost everyone will say they can do it. Ah, but wait a moment. At your current intake, you may have been putting on 1 pound of fat every week. So if all you do is reduce your overall intake by 3,500, the only effect would be to avoid putting on another pound. What tends to happen as people age is their stomach capacity grows. They feel comfortable with increasingly large volumes of food inside. This fuels a progressive weight increase and a slow journey into obesity. So whatever charges you plan to make to your diet must take account of your current weight and eating habits. This is not to say that sacrificing 3,500 calories a week will not produce some weight loss. But whatever is lost is unlikely to be significant and the loss will not continue. People who diet will know that, after a month or so, their weight stabilizes at a new level. Those who are easily discouraged go back to their old eating habits and stop whatever exercise they had started. Within a week or so, they are back to their old weight. more…
As discussed in numerous articles on the causes of erectile dysfunction there is a type of male impotence that is caused by the used of certain medications. Doctors even call it drug-induced impotence. Different substances including prescription, non-prescription, over-the-counter, herbal and recreational drugs can cause a negative effect on a man’s sexual abilities. And it’s not a rule of thumb – if one man gets an ED by using a certain antidepressant another person can be perfectly active using the very same medication. It’s all just a matter of case study, however there are general tendencies that can be observed.
In case you feel like a certain drug you are currently taking affects your sexual abilities you should inform your doctor first. He or she is the person to decide whether you should stop taking the medication or not. Never take such decisions on your own, as with some drugs you may experience severe withdrawal effects if you stop taking them not as prescribed by your doctor. Your health and even life can depend on that so don’t do anything without your doctor knowing. Experiencing ED for a few days is not as dramatic as ending up in the emergency room with a severe withdrawal effect.
Here’s a list of substances that are commonly cited as having the potential to cause erectile dysfunction in men taking them.
Antidepressants and other drugs for mental illness:
- Amitriptyline
- Amoxapine
- Buspirone
- Chlordiazepoxide
- Chlorpromazine
- Clomipramine
- Clorazepate
- Desipramine
- Diazepam
- Doxepin
- Fluoxetine
- Fluphenazine
- Imipramine
- Isocarboxazid
- Lorazepam
- Meprobamate
- Mesoridazine
- Nortriptyline
- Oxazepam
- Phenelzine
- Phenytoin
- Sertraline
- Thioridazine
- Thiothixene
- Tranylcypromine
- Trifluoperazine
Antihistamine drugs:
- Cimetidine
- Dimenhydrinate
- Diphenhydramine
- Hydroxyzine
- Meclizine
- Nizatidine
- Promethazine
- Ranitidine
Diuretics and hypertension medications:
- Atenolol
- Bethanidine
- Bumetanide
- Captopril
- Chlorothiazide
- Chlorthalidone
- Clonidine
- Enalapril
- Furosemide
- Guanabenz
- Guanethidine
- Guanfacine
- Haloperidol
- Hydralazine
- Hydrochlorothiazide
- Labetalol
- Methyldopa
- Metoprolol
- Minoxidil
- Nifedipine
- Phenoxybenzamine
- Phentolamine
- Prazosin
- Propranolol
- Reserpine
- Spironolactone
- Triamterene
- Verapamil
The most common types of medications for high blood pressure that are known to cause erectile dysfunction quite often are thiazides and beta-blockers. Alpha-blockers usually don’t cause erectile problems.
Drugs for Parkinson’s disease:
- Benztropine
- Biperiden
- Bromocriptine
- Levodopa
- Procyclidine
- Trihexyphenidyl
Chemotherapy and hormonal treatments:
- Antiandrogens
- Busulfan
- Cyclophosphamide
- Ketoconazole
- LHRH agonists
Other drugs:
- Aminocaproic acid
- Atropine
- Clofibrate
- Cyclobenzaprine
- Cyproterone
- Digoxin
- Disopyramide
- Estrogen
- Finasteride
- Furazolidone
- H2 Blockers
- Indomethacin
- Lipid lowering-agents
- Licorice
- Metoclopramide
- NSAIDs
- Orphenadrine
- Prochlorperazine
- Pseudoephedrine
Pain relief medications:
- Codeine
- Fentanyl
- Hydromorphone
- Meperidine
- Methadone
- Morphine
- Oxycodone
Street drugs:
- Alcohol
- Amphetamines
- Barbiturates
- Cocaine
- Marijuana
- Heroin
- Nicotine
Make sure to check out the label to see whether any of these substances makes part of the drugs you currently take. There may be numerous brand names and formulations, but if the substance is contained in any of them you might need the help of Cialis to make things right. more…
Insurance companies are known to cost lots of money. They make your face pale just with one thought. But hey, brighten up! It doesn’t have to be a nightmare. It can be pricey but without driving you totally nuts.
We all were born to believe that good things don’t come free when it comes to purchases. We hate to break it but this is not so. You can save pretty much on anything you want nowadays without making yourself to regret this thing. How come? This is only because the market is bombarded with companies that want to compete for people like you. They know the chain reaction works well here. What do we mean by that? Let’s take a look at the following example. You come in without any clue about what you need.
The clearest of it all in such case has to be the price comparison between different companies. You need to do this thing in order to find out your possibilities and options with various insurance providers. With the help of online quotes you can do it easily and hastily. But, remember not to rush such moments. You have been waiting long enough without any insurance plan so it is better to take an extra day or two to sort the situation out.
There are many sites that will give you a list of companies, their best offers and rates. Consumer buying guides that compare premiums from different insurers together will the feedback from different costumers – this is what some independent insurance sites have in store for you.
Keep in mind that every detail counts. When you have chosen the company to trust, it is important to fill in the application the right way. We would like to advice you not to lie in your application. Lies are always punished in the end. Fill it in frankly, without making it seem too good or too bad. When you fill in the line about your expectations – please let the company know that you would like to take advantage of any discounts that you are eligible to and let them think you are interested in the decrease of your payments. If you are a part of a certain group of people – for example veteran or a teacher, if you are a student as well, be aware of discounts coming your way as very often these categories and people that are a part of those have a right to a discount.
If there is a possibility for you to pay your whole premium in one go, please do so. But know that most carriers charge some additional money for those of us who pay on installments. Don’t let something go wrong with your payments. It is important to be updated with what you have to do at the right time before the situation gets out of control.
If you are the owner of an ordinary car, these advices were suitable for you. If you are about to get yourself a brand new car, take into consideration the fact that expensive cars demand high premiums. Simply make sure everything is the way you can afford it to be. more…
A person can experience an anxiety attack whenever and wherever he or she is, and it always takes place at least expected moments.
Anxiety is a normal part of our everyday life, being a natural response to situations of tension and uncertainty. Remember how you feel before an important exam, or when giving a speech in front of an audience or going to a job interview. The feeling of worry and panic is what anxiety is, and there’s probably no person that haven’t dealt with it in their life. Natural anxiety is characterized by a definite and logical cause standing behinds it, which triggers the fight/flight response in our body. However, there are cases when anxiety is triggered for no actual reason and occurs in circumstances that are otherwise logically safe for the person and where no anxiety should take place. This is what anxiety disorders are all about and the least pleasant of their aspects are of course anxiety attacks.
Anxiety attacks are characterized by a much higher intensity of worry, fear and even dread than you would experience with normal everyday anxiety. Most people describe panic attacks as an intense and sudden feeling of dread and coming disaster that takes place for no apparent reason and is very hard to control. This is usually accompanied by different physical and psychological symptoms. Panic attacks in most cases are caused by the imbalanced work of amygdale, a small portion of our brain that is responsible for the fight/flight response. In normal settings this response is triggered by exceptional situations that pose a potential threat to the individual. But when amygdale doesn’t work properly, the same response could be triggered by just any setting and even a simple thought. When the reaction is triggered, a large amount of adrenaline is fused into the bloodstream, resulting in fast heartbeat and changed perception of reality. Usually, anxiety attacks reach their peak of intensity within the first minutes (anything from 5 to 30 minutes) and wear off gradually. The symptoms, although quite unpleasant ones, do not pose real danger to the body and health. However, the spectrum of feelings and emotions a person experiences during panic attacks can make it very hard to perform everyday activities, especially communication and socializing. more…
When a person experiences sleep problems it is quite discomforting to say the least. Not getting enough sleep can over-exhaust you and become the cause of more serious psychological problems such as anxiety or depression.
However, for most people sleep disorders doesn’t seem to be a big problem at all, as the majority of those troubled with them think that popping over-the-counter pills is just enough to make the problem go away. Fact is that sleep problems are not something usual and won’t be treated with occasional medications without a professional doctor’s help.
If you have problems with falling asleep and spend a lot of time tossing and turning before actually drifting off to seep, rest assured that you aren’t the only one. It is estimated that about 60 million of US citizens have different sleep disorders. A third part of them have recurring and occasional sleep problems, while two thirds suffer from chronic and even constant insomnia and irregular sleep patterns.
Determining the type of sleep disorder
When speaking about sleep disorders, specialists divide them into three main groups:
- complete inability to sleep
- irregular sleep
- excessive sleep
Each group is outside the range of normal healthy sleep and affects the individual in different ways. It is known that an average adult needs about 6-9 hours of good consistent sleep to feel refreshed and energized throughout the day. The actual duration of healthy sleep depends on the individual, types of activities he or she performs and the conditions of sleep itself. The main criteria of good healthy sleep are the feeling of energy and renewal the next day, not the actual time spent in bed.
The first group of disorders is also known as insomnia. This problem is quite common in occasional forms, as stress and fatigue from daily activities can result in lack of sleep the night after, and many people go through that on a regular basis. However, if the problem persists and lasts to be permanent, it is a cause of serious concern. Not getting enough sleep affects the overall condition of the body and mind, and will surely affect your everyday activities. So you feel that insomnia is here to stay with you, don’t hesitate and consult with your doctor. There are drugs like Ambien that can help you with the condition, so discuss the matter thoroughly. more…
