Addiction | Quality of Life

New Occupational Therapy Techniques

When Mike Utley gave a thumbs-up sign as he was carted off of a football field, his action became a rallying cry. Utley provided a dramatic moment for his team, the Detroit Lions, to rally to a great season. But football mattered less than the attention that Utley brought to spinal cord injuries.

Remembering the Forgotten

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History shows little compassion for those afflicted by any type of medical ailment. The historical response to those with injuries or ailments has been to push them aside. High profile injuries to football gladiators helped to chance the notion that a medical condition means the end of normal human interaction. If someone with the physical stature of Utley could be reduced to life in a wheelchair in an instant then it meant that it could happen to anyone.

There are more resources and avenues to seek assistance than ever before for individuals seeking treatment for debilitating injuries. New techniques in occupational therapy offer a more promising outcome for many who are injured as seriously as Utley or who have less debilitating injuries. A good los angeles spinal cord injury attorney can ensure that patients receive the best possible medical care.

Best Treatment Possible

Not everyone will receive the same type of treatment and attention as a fallen NFL player. Even though people dealing with spinal cord injuries receive better treatment than ever before, it does not mean that society has found the best possible way to deal with the disabled. The Utley story might be remembered, but too many are ignored.

Filed Under: Addiction, Treatment Tagged With: Mike Utley, Occupational therapy, Spinal cord injury

Can a Minor Possess an Electric Cigarette?

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That depends on whether or not the device actually contains nicotine liquid. Some of them do not, so if the parent has no objection, and it can be readily determined that it is indeed an electric cigarette, then possession may not be against any state or local laws.

However, possessing any type of cigarette, even an electric one, brings up other issues not necessarily related to the law. These include whether or not that is an image that a parent is comfortable with a child projecting, as well as the propensity existing that the child may consider “graduating” from an electric cigarette to the real thing. Both of these may be reasons for having a discussion with a child about cigarette use, real or otherwise.

A parent may simply not want a child projecting an image of being a smoker, even if the cigarette is not real. The parent may feel that is sets a bad example for younger siblings or others who see the child on a regular basis.

Still another parent may be worried that “fake” smoking will lead to the real thing, especially if by some means a child gets hold of an electric cigarette that does contain nicotine liquid. Although the amount may be very small, or be so diluted by the filter and water vapor through which it is passed, it is still present, and the possibility of a true nicotine addiction can exist.

Parents should familiarize themselves with the laws governing electric cigarette possession, including those that do and do not contain nicotine liquid. If legal issues are not a concern, then parents should consider again whether or not this is a good image for their child.

There is currently an FDA ban on the importing of electric cigarette devices. However, they are still available in some retail stores that were able to procure a supply before the ban went into effect. Parents who do not want their children to possess even non-nicotine devices may want to monitor their child’s purchases in stores that sell these devices.

Filed Under: Addiction, Health, Research Tagged With: Cigarette, Electronic cigarette, Food and Drug Administration, Nicotine

Bipolar Disorder

Many people are dealing with bipolar disorder. You may think that you are alone and that there is nothing that you can do to help your disorder. The good news is that there are things that you can do. You may be wondering what bipolar disorder is. This is a disorder where you are not in control of your emotions and sometimes your actions. You may notice long periods of sadness or where you have the other extreme of a lot of energy.

There are some symptoms that you should look at when you are thinking about bipolar disorder. The first is long periods of depression. This means that you are sad for longer than a few days. You may also notice these symptoms come in cycles. These symptoms will come and go in these cycles monthly or weekly.

Another symptom is increased energy. You may notice that you are staying up late doing things that do not really need to be done right away. You may also notice that you are making choices that are not really the best for you. These choices can sometimes harm you or your family because you make choices that could hurt your finances or your relationships.

Another symptom that you may notice is that you feel as though you do not have control over your body and what you are doing. This can be a little scary and can make you feel like there is something really wrong with you. You should make sure that you talk to your doctor and let them know what you are feeling. That way they will be aware of what your problems are and how you are feeling about them. This can make a big difference when it comes to your health and dealing with the disease.

Filed Under: Addiction, Health, Rehab, Treatment Tagged With: Bipolar disorder, Disorders, Mental health

How Drug Addiction Affects Health

Drug addiction takes its toll on the abusers health besides disrupting their ability to live a full and productive life. Some of the most common health issues that plague drug addiction are cardiovascular disease, stroke, lung disease, cancer and mental disorders. The effects of prolonged cigarette use are well known to cause cancer of the lung, throat, larynx, blood, stomach, kidneys and cervix. Drugs that are inhaled are known to cause damage to the nerve cells in the brain and the nervous system.
Mental disorders are thought to be a trigger for drug addiction and drug addiction is thought to be a trigger for mental disorders. The two go hand in hand and are more pronounced for those who are vulnerable to both.
The saddest part of drug addiction is that it does not always just affect the user, there are particular instances when health hazards are passed to another person. Prenatal exposure to the unborn child can cause developmental problems in young children and are being studied for their affects on teenagers. Many times these children need special educational programs to help them succeed as they often display emotional behavior deficits as well as attention problems and impairment to their cognitive thinking.
Second hand smoke is still being studied and the reports are not good to those who are exposed especially in children. Increased illnesses and an increase in heart disease and lung cancer are known to occur in adults who have never smoked but have been exposed to second hand smoke.
Drugs that are injected also increase the chances of infectious diseases to be transmitted with the reckless use of needles. One third of all new AIDS cases are thought to be because of drug use by injection. Drug use by needles also increases the chance of Hepatitis C which can cause death by liver failure.

Filed Under: Addiction, Health Tagged With: Health, Hepatitis C, Mental disorder, Substance dependence

Be Safe with Holiday Partying

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The holidays are fun! Great get-togethers with friends and family dinners bring out the fun in all of us. At many of these holiday gatherings you will find the alcohol flowing freely, and it’s no accident that drunken driving arrests are through the roof in December.

With so much drinking going on during the holidays it’s a great time to assess if any of your friends have drinking problems and might need help from alcoholism treatment centers.

A couple of hints that will help you make it through the holidays safely.

• Determine a designated driver before you go out somewhere. Determining a designated driver two hours into party-time is a horrible way to set you up for the evening. Decide before you go out for the evening who is going to stay completely sober and make sure everyone gets home safe.

• Call a taxi whenever possible. There is no shame in leaving your car at a drinking establishment. Your car, your family and you are going to be much safer if you make the commitment to not get behind the wheel after you’ve been drinking.

• Invite friends and family to spend the night if they’ve been drinking. Family get-togethers are even more fun after a night of partying when you get up and have coffee and breakfast together. Plan ahead for these events and encourage those that live on the other side of town or even out of town to spend the night.

• Cut someone off if they’ve had too much to drink. Even if it’s saying why don’t you slow down for a bit.

The holidays are truly the most wonderful time of the year. Its fun to gather with old friends and ring in Christmas or New Year’s with a few drinks. Don’t let a moment of poor decision making turn your holiday into a nightmare.

Filed Under: Addiction, General Tagged With: Alcoholism, Christmas, Designated driver, Driving under the influence, Family (biology), Holidays, New Year, New York City

Electronic Cigarettes Making Your First Purchase

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So you have decided to try electronic cigarettes as an alternative to smoking but have no idea where to start. Let’s see if we can help you get on the right track by explaining a little about what you should know before you buy your first electronic cigarettes.
First let us explain the basics of these tobacco-free devices. These cigarettes look, taste and feel like a traditional cigarette but are healthier for the user because they do not contain toxins or tobacco. An electronic cigarette delivers a nicotine vapor to the user and does not produce any kind of smoke, carbon monoxide or ash.
So now that you know about the basics of this alternative to traditional tobacco-filled cigarettes, let us discuss a few tips to help you choose an electronic cigarette. Price is always possibly the main factor to take into account before purchasing any kind of starter kit. Like any product, the most expensive product is not always the best starting point because you may not like these nicotine-delivery devices. But then again, the cheapest price will often get you a product that breaks easily or does not function properly.
Starting somewhere around the $100 to $200 price point is good for your first purchase. This will most likely give you an electronic cigarette starting kit that is durable and comes with a carrying case for your batteries and replacement cartridges. That brings us to your other most important buying factors – batteries and cartridges.
When it comes to these two factors, do your research. Make sure that your battery is guaranteed with some type of money-back warranty as these can often not last as long as the companies promise. Also, replacement cartridges can last anywhere between what can be compared to one to five packs of cigarettes. With that in mind, doing your research will ensure you spend your money on a product that gives you the biggest bang for your buck.
These tips should help you get started with electronic cigarettes. Use one of the many tools out there to do your research and you will feel better about making your first purchase.

Filed Under: Addiction, Health Tagged With: Electronic cigarette, Health, Nicotine, Tobacco

Addicted to Dieting

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With the way the media portrays thin people, many others are striving to look like celebrities. Many people think they can gain popularity, prettiness and success just by being thin and good-looking. What many don’t realize is that it is easy for one to become addicted to dieting and exercise.

Millions of people suffer from obesity, and doctors strive to teach people how to eat healthy. Sometimes though, when a person experiences a drastic weight loss, they might go overboard and continue to diet and exercise excessively, even when they don’t need to.

Many popular weight loss companies such as Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig stress portion control. They teach people how to limit their cravings and learn a healthier lifestyle. Sometimes this is achieved by counting points or calories. There are some people though, that suffer from addictive behavior and tend to take their dieting to the next level.

Some people won’t put anything in their mouth unless they know how many calories it contains or how much it weighs. Sometimes when in a social setting, an excessive dieter may go hungry instead of eat something that is on the menu. If the dieter happens to eat something they wouldn’t normally eat, what often follows is hours and hours of exercise to the point of exhaustion, both physically and mentally.

In order to break this addiction, this person needs to take a step back and realize what they are doing. The first step in treating an addiction is realizing you have one in the first place.

If need be, a professional should be sought out for medical advice. The excessive dieter may be harming their body by all the dieting and exercise. Check the diet charts and make sure the correct weight limit is reached. If the person falls under the recommended healthy weight for their age and height, then they need to seek help for their addiction.

Filed Under: Addiction Tagged With: Calorie, diet, Health, Jenny Craig, Physical exercise, Support group, Weight loss, Weight Watchers

Recognizing OCD in Children and Teens

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Obsessive compulsive disorder is one of the most crippling diseases in the world. Millions of people suffer from this disease everyday. The disease, which is characterized as an anxiety disorder where the patient will act out behaviors in a repetitive manner in order to quell and calm the anxiety, can form at any age but is usually noticed at a young age. As parents it is your job to try and find these traits in your children. They are not easy as all children can have behaviors that might seem odd or peculiar but that does not mean that they have a clinical disorder.

As a parent you must understand that the environment that your child is raised in can greatly affect them forming the disorder. A child who is raised in an environment that is chaotic and full of disorder will often use OCD as a way to cope with this lack of order in their life. If a child comes from a house where parental figures are shuffled in and out or if the routine of family life is not present children are at a great risk for OCD.

The other determining factor for a parent is the behavior of the child themselves. If a child likes to arrange blocks in a certain order during playtime there is nothing unusual about that. If the child continues to arrange blocks to the point where disrupting the blocks will cause the child to be unhappy or to set of any anxiety, then there might be an issue with the child’s coping skills. This could lead you to believe you might need to keep an eye on this behavior for it could be something that is developing into OCD. Watching for warning signs and monitoring your children’s behavior could lead you to catching the disease early.

Filed Under: Addiction Tagged With: Anxiety, Child, Disease, Disorders, Health, Mental health, Obsessive-Compulsive, Obsessive–compulsive disorder

Common and Not-so-common Side Effects of Prescription Medications

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Anybody who takes a prescription medication knows that there are side effects, and depending upon the strength and type of drug, they can be anywhere from annoying to downright dangerous if you don’t carefully follow the method and amount specified for taking your medication. Nausea is one of the most common side effects of any prescription medication and if it gets bad enough, vomiting is definitely a common possibility as well.

Other side effects of prescription drugs in general include drowsiness or trouble sleeping, palpitations and other heart problems, the constant concern that you may be allergic to the drug and not know it yet, and in the case of the stronger medications, the risk of becoming addicted. Yes, you can become addicted to prescription drugs, too–many of the stronger pain medications commonly prescribed by dentists have the risk of dependency and taking them excessively may land you in the situation of having to slowly wean yourself off of them.

A little drowsiness or feeling sick to your stomach are generally small prices to pay for relief from pain and they’re just temporary. In general, prescription medications work for you much more than they work against you. However, in rarer cases much more serious side effects are possible. For example, some types of cholesterol medication have been known to cause temporary memory loss, and depending upon your type of allergy medication, it may actually cause bodily aches and pains. A lesser-known fact about Viagra is the fact that it can cause blurred vision, tint your world blue and make it difficult for you to tell if something is blue or green!

Thankfully, these side effects are exceptions for specific drugs; most prescription drugs only cause mild and minor side effects. It certainly puts things in perspective, though–next to amnesia and vision loss, what’s a little vomiting or heart palpitation?

Filed Under: Addiction, Health Tagged With: Adverse effect, Allergy, Health, Nausea, Pharmaceutical drug, Pharmacy, Prescription drug, United States

Adding Activity to Your Life for a Healthier You

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Being active is proven to reduce heart risks and other health complications, as well as lifting mood and energy. Here are some ways that you can add exercise into your life.

Create social events that involve exercise. Exercising does not have to be anything really intense or not enjoyable. You can begin looking forward to exercising if you have a group of friends to exercise with. Instead of going out to coffee or lunch with a friend, ask her on a walking date. You can still do all of the talking; you will just walk at the same time.

Take vacations that involve activity. Adding activity means not only traveling to places where you have to walk a lot, but going to places that involve more intense versions of activity, such as hiking, swimming, or biking. While you could take a vacation to Vegas and check out the slot machines, why not take a trip to Canada’s province of British Columbia, which is a goldmine of beautiful and mountainous scenery. You can use Canada 411 to find even more places in Canada that offer great tourism with opportunities to exercise. Even if you decide to take a beach vacation, try taking on diving or surfing.

Make your down-time an exercise time. Everybody needs at least a short period of time to unwind from a stressful day. To help you relax, try doing some stretches or other light exercise (consider yoga or Pilates) to stretch out your tense muscles. You may be surprised how much better you feel doing something active instead of zoning out to the television.

These few ways of adding exercise to your life can help you get the activity you need. Even little changes like this can lift your energy and endorphin level to help you become a healthier and happier person.

Filed Under: Addiction, Health Tagged With: British Columbia, Canada, Health, Jane Fonda, Physical exercise, Pilates, United States, Weight loss