Herbal Health

Description and Possible Medical Problems

If you’ve spent any amount of time around kids, you’ve probably noticed that children, especially young boys, take great pleasure in learning how to belch and then showing others what they’ve accomplished. Though our society frowns on public belching, whether it comes from someone who’s 9 years old or 90, there are societies that consider a belch to be a sign of appreciation of a good meal.

However, it could also be caused by swallowing too much air while you’re eating, which happens in people who eat fast and/or talk while they’re eating.

Treatment

When belching occurs during and after eating with no other symptoms, it’s a totally harmless activity. If you belch a lot and it bothers you and the people around you, you may want to try to eat less food at one sitting. Some people also find that if they eat more slowly or try to keep their conversation to a minimum, their problem with belching will disappear.

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Sometimes you develop a hacking cough that wants to stay around for a while. You should first determine if it’s due to a new item that’s recently been introduced into your home. This could be a new piece of furniture, a different brand of floor wax, or a new pet. It’s not unusual for adults to develop a new sensitivity to a substance or chemical. In the presence of a new irritant, the only symptom will likely be a nonproductive, persistent cough.

If, however, you can’t trace your cough to a likely irritant, there are a number of other possibilities. If you’re under fifty, a nonproductive persistent cough can be caused by a scratchy throat or by an infection of the trachea; many times, this type of infection is caused by a virus. If this is the case, you might also have a low-grade fever, swollen glands, or a sinus infection. I have seen a chronic cough develop in people who tend to be very anxious; occasionally, they can develop a cough that can last for many months.

This type of cough can also occur in people who are taking the class of medications known as ACE inhibitors, such as Capoten, Accupril, or Zestril, for high blood pressure or heart failure.

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Description and Possible Medical Problems

You may think of your grandmother when you hear the term “liver spots,” and you may be alarmed when you begin to see these flat, reddish-brown patches on the backs of your hands and other parts of your body that have been exposed to the sun. Don’t worry … it happens to the best of us!

Liver or age spots, also known as senile lentigines, begin to appear after the age of 50 and are a normal sign of aging.

Treatment

Some people decide to treat their liver spots by bleaching them or by using cover-up creams to hide them. Others choose to have them removed with cryotherapy, in which the spot is frozen with liquid nitrogen, then removed.

Many people choose to leave liver spots alone, because they don’t grow larger or darker with time. After all, they do serve as a badge of all the experiences you’ve had in your life.

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“His affairs were attempts to get my attention. When we understood this and discussed it, our relationship went back to normal, and he wasn’t tempted again. Actually, each time he had an affair I saw it as a sign that something was wrong between us and as an opportunity to correct it; and each time I discovered that there was something I was doing that contributed to his wandering.”

Other trouble spots concerned the children—who, on becoming teenagers, began to have problems. This caused friction in the family in general and between Todd and Charlotte in particular. After their son crashed his second car, they went into family therapy. “I realized that I have this stubborn need to be right all the time,” Todd later admitted. “It was getting in the way of my relating to the children. I always want to be seen as Mr. Good Guy, and they didn’t necessarily see me that way, but they couldn’t tell me that because I wouldn’t hear it. So they smashed cars and got into trouble at school.” Added Charlotte, “I had the same problem. I was so busy being Mother of the Year that I didn’t stop to look and listen to what my kids were trying to tell me until it was almost too late. Actually, it’s never too late.”

Todd and Charlotte again managed to work through these rough spots (with the help of therapy) and to maintain both their own, and their family’s, integrity. They are not the perfect television family who raise perfect children. Rather, they are a hard-working, harmonious couple who have managed to maintain that basic harmony over a period of years by taking responsibility, being willing to look objectively at themselves, and doing whatever was considered necessary to deal with the inevitable crises of their marriage.

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The activist spouse continues to ask the uninterested spouse such detailed questions. The purpose of this is to subtly tease the uninterested spouse and try to provoke his or her buried erotic feelings. (Again, if the uninterested spouse becomes upset, the game should be stopped. It should be played only until such time as the uninterested spouse ceases to be uninterested and begins to show jealously, concern, anger, or the like.) If need be, the game can continue all the way up to the meeting at the hotel. Another plot twist is to actually have the stranger call the uninterested spouse and make the proposal directly to the latter. For example:

“Hi, this is Martin S. You met me at the club. Your spouse and I were talking the other day and she suggested I call you and ask you about it. Do you remember the movie Indecent Proposal?”

The husband may choose to wait at home or to go along to the trysting place. If he goes along, the activist spouse and suitor should maintain the performance until they see the first signs of discomfort. The three may have a drink at the bar of the hotel and Martin may turn to the activist wife:

“You know, Betty, you look ravishing tonight.”

“Why thank you, Marty.”

“I never noticed that your eyes were so light blue. They are like some kind of sea coral.” “That’s a lovely thing to say.”

“And you have such delicate bones, the kind that need to be caressed.” “Oh, really?”

“And fine, long fingers that I’m sure have a very sensitive touch.”

“Maybe.”

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Players: Husband and wife. Activist/s: Either or both. Setting: Home or hotel.

Aim: To arouse sexual attraction and desire through the use of erotic videos or movies.

Game Plan: If one partner is more unattracted than the other, the other partner may want to activate this game some evening or weekend. He or she may surprise the unattracted spouse by slipping an erotic tape into the video player, then partially or fully disrobing in view of the spouse. Perhaps there will be a seductive wink in the direction of his or her partner.

The activist may choose an erotic video of his or her choice, or one of the classics, such as Behind the Green Door, Misty Beethoven, Roommates, or Debbie Does Dallas. After the video has begun to play, he or she masturbates wildly, putting on an act while watching the film, and every now and then glancing at the partner.

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Of course it will not be at all boring. Boredom, as we noted in the second chapter, is a feeling that covers up some other thought or feeling that is being avoided. The activist spouse leads the perverse spouse to bed and proceeds to make love in a very straightforward way, saying, “I love you,” and “I appreciate you” and “You’re wonderful” as he or she softly and tenderly kisses the other and engages in standard lovemaking.

The perverse spouse (or both) may indeed experience boredom at first:

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t seem to get into this.”

“How come?”

“I don’t know. It’s too . . . too . . . straight.” “What else are you feeling, other than boredom?” “What else? I don’t know. Maybe annoyance.” “What’s that about?”

“That something is too . . . too . . . direct . . . too sweet.” “Tell me about it.”

The perverse spouse talks, and then the activist spouse talks—and they will probably learn something new.

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Players: Husband and wife.

Activists: Both.

Setting: Home or hotel.

Aim: To force impulsive couple to delay their sexual gratification in order to put them in touch with the feelings they are trying to avoid and help them learn to tolerate those feelings.

Game Plan: The rationale for this game is that as long as the members of an impulsive couple succeed in avoiding their deeper feelings of shame and rage, they will remain on a superficial, driven mode of existence, slaves of their own whims. This game uses sexuality to help them to both develop a toleration for frustration and delay gratification.

Basically, the couple is required to abstain from sexual intercourse (and indeed from any kind of orgasmic release, including mutual or self-masturbation) for a period of time— say one month. During this time the husband and wife are asked, instead, to get undressed several times a week and sit facing one another on a bed or couch and make love to one another only with their eyes and words—but without touching. They should sit close enough to touch so as to have the opportunity to resist temptation. Then they should take turns making loving statements.

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Depending on the type of heart trouble, some of the earliest signs of failure in need of treatment include swelling of the ankles (medically known as edema) and shortness of breath during mild exercise, such as climbing stairs. This latter sign is evidence that the heart is not pumping well enough to empty blood out of the lungs, causing the condition medically known as pulmonary congestion.

However, according to Primary Cardiology Clinics (2#1:19), a certain type of coughing is yet another sign that, if heeded, gives even earlier warning. Also due to pulmonary congestion, this sign is almost like a smoker’s “hacking” cough. Its really distinctive feature is that it comes on when one is in bed or sitting down but stops almost instantly when one stands up.

In heart failure patients, this sign may precede breathless-ness by hours or days but should always be reported to a physician right away. When pulmonary congestion is more severe, of course, the cough is not relieved by standing and may be replaced by breathlessness which is not relieved by rest. Even though this early sign is not new, we feel that knowing about it is important and could save many lives.

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Since it is made with modified but still “live” virus, oral polio vaccine (OPV) sometimes actually causes paralytic polio, the very illness it is supposed to prevent. Injectable polio vaccine (IPV), which is made with killed virus, cannot do this. In Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (31:22), the U.S. Public Health Service warns that OPV occasionally endangers not only those who are vaccinated with it but also, for a month afterwards, certain persons living in close contact with them. Anyone with deficient immunity is at risk, and this involves, among others, all cancer or leukemia patients, persons treated with radiation, or anyone taking cortisone-like steroid drugs, whether for arthritis, asthma, or any other ailment.

Since, even though rare, polio paralysis can cripple or kill, the Swedish government has now banned OPV. For the same reason, many American physicians prefer EPV, but, surprisingly, OPV continues to be the most widely used vaccine for polio in the U.S.A.

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