Cause

Tonsillitis is caused most often by one of the common viruses, but sometimes it can be caused by a germ (bacterium). It is often impossible to distinguish between viral and bacterial infection. For this reason, many doctors will treat tonsillitis with a course of antibiotics, or even an injection.

Clinical features

The child will complain of a sore throat and sometimes of difficulty in swallowing. There may be a fever and the glands in the neck may be enlarged and tender. Very often he will have a headache, a runny nose and many of the symptoms of an upper respiratory tract infection as described above. The symptoms usually improve after a few days and disappear within a week.

Sometimes the doctor may order a throat swab to determine whether a virus or bacterium is causing the infection, and occasionally a blood test may be helpful. No other tests are generally useful or indicated.

Treatment

If the infection is a viral one, no specific treatment is necessary. However, it is often difficult clinically to distinguish between an infection caused by a virus and one due to a germ, so the doctor will often prescribe a course of antibiotics. This is given in the form of a mixture, tablets or capsules to be taken by mouth. Very occasionally, if the child is sick or has difficulty swallowing, the antibiotics are given by injection, but this is not usually necessary.

General treatment is similar to that suggested for a cold. Gargling with warm salt water may ease a sore throat, as will frequent warm drinks and lozenges. Specific food (e.g. ice cream and jelly) has no proven value, except that the child enjoys it.

When to see your doctor

See upper respiratory tract infection (colds).

Prevention

There is no effective way to prevent tonsillitis.

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Cause

The causes of most premature deliveries are unknown but certain conditions are associated with early labour. Malformations of the womb, an incompetent cervix, early breaking of the waters (premature rupture of membranes), multiple pregnancy (e.g. twins), and maternal diabetes or an acute illness in the mother, are all more likely to result in premature labour.

Clinical features

Premature babies are generally immature. They are smaller than full-term babies and usually require special care. Tiny babies may need intensive care. In general, premature babies are more prone to develop breathing problems, cardiovascular problems, anaemia, jaundice, feeding problems, low levels of calcium and glucose, hypothermia (low body temperature), and infection due to an immature immune system. With new sophisticated techniques available to highly skilled paediatric staff, most premature babies do very well nowadays, and do not suffer any long-term consequences. If your premature baby is at major risk of developing complications, he will usually be transferred to a hospital that has a neonatal intensive care nursery.

Nerve damage

If a nerve has been stretched during the baby’s passage through the birth canal, it may result in temporary weakness of certain muscles. This is more common in breech deliveries or if your pelvis is small and the baby is large. If the baby has been delivered by forceps, damage may have occurred to a nerve supplying one side of the face. The baby may not be able to move one side of the face very well. This usually improves without treatment after several weeks.

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ANSWER: There is no need to overcome those important years. The idea is to incorporate your feelings and memories and values from those years into your sexual life. If this seems almost impossible, I suggest you consult a clergyperson. Examination of belief and value systems is a key part of developing super marital sex for all couples, so your orientation gives you a head start here. The challenge will be in learning a new sexuality that is comfortable and nonoffensive to you both. I can assure you that in the years I have been doing therapy, I have never encountered a religious system that prohibits sensitive, caring intimacy between married people. The problem is usually not the religion, but the religiosity, the way it was taught and not what was taught. We must learn to look for the deeper messages in our value system, the messages about and not against sexual intimacy.

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Nearly 100% of such poisoning comes from our diet. We basically poison ourselves, simply because we do not care about what we eat.

In view of the above, our diet requires a basic revision

The wisdom of many civilisations in the past was expressed in their diet. Two key items in the diet are common for all civilisations without exception, from ancient India to modern Georgia :

1. PURE AIR

2. PURE WATER (from the spring)

I have not heard anyone objecting to this. However, the word to which we should pay special attention is pure.

Unfortunately, the criteria for purity have become quite arbitrary nowadays. The prevailing doctrine is, that there is a threshold of pollution in the water, which is acceptable and safe for humans to consume. Medical Authorities generally accept and recommend the chemical treatment of water, leaving chlorine and other chemicals in it. Poisons are added

(fluoride), in the name of sterilisation and safety of supply, despite the fact that their toxicity is beyond doubt, and they accumulate in our body causing chronic diseases (arthritis). Municipal water also contains heavy metals from pipes, pumps etc., traces of herbicides, pesticides and other chemicals. It is very difficult to obtain information about the levels of such ingredients in our water from the relevant authorities. They would prefer that we do not know and believe that the water is OK.

Do not consume such water. Do not use it for tea, soup on even in cooking. Use water obtained from natural springs. Alternatively, filter the municipal water yourself. Do not use chemical filters. They may initially work, but eventually they may leave even more chemicals in the water you drink. The best are multi-stage paper and active carbon filters, with the final stage that uses a reverse osmosis ceramic membrane. The process of reverse osmosis imitates the function of a natural spring: water runs over a stone (ceramic element) and minute quantities filter slowly through. For home installation, the rate is quite slow: about half a litre per hour. There are systems available, which store about 10 litres of filtered water under light pressure, ready for the immediate use.

Note, that most of the beverages, including fruit juices from concentrates, contain municipal tap water. It would be much better if you squeezed the juice yourself from fresh fruits, or bought the frozen concentrate and diluted it yourself with spring or filtered water.

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It could even be due to the presence of circulating toxins, poisons or drugs in the system. The commonest cause of indigestion originates in the stomach. This is a gastritis or inflammation of this organ.

This may be due to infection either from contaminated food or passed on from another person. It may arise from irritation from too much food, too rich a food, or from such things as pickles or spices. It may be caused by the irritation of too much alcohol, tea or coffee or cigarette smoke.

It may be due to the irritation of the stomach from aspirin or the anti-inflammatory drugs used in rheumatism and arthritis. Or the gastritis may occur as the result of stress or nervous tension.

An ulcer may form in the stomach or the duodenum, which is the first part of the small bowel, and the symptoms of this may be exactly the same as with the gastritis.

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They still have some advantages in that they readily cross from the blood into the fluid inside the brain and spinal cord, which many newer antibiotics don’t. They are thus useful in treating bacterial meningitis, an infection of the covering membranes of the brain.

Insoluble forms, which are not absorbed, are used to sterilise the bowel.

Some people become sensitised to the sulphonamides and can develop an allergic rash or other allergic symptoms.

A recently developed antibiotic combines a sul-phonamide with an antibiotic of the tetracycline group, trimethoprim.

These complement each other’s action to a considerable degree and make the drug bacteriocidal in some circumstances — that is, it kills the germ rather than inhibiting its growth.

This antibiotic is marketed in Australia as Septrin and Bactrim.

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Two particular studies, one conducted by Dr. Donald Pittaway and colleagues at the Bowman Grey School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and the other by Dr. Phillip Patron and colleagues at Minnesota’s Mayo Clinic, have both turned up evidence to show that women with advanced endometriosis had elevated levels of CA-125. as did women who had acute pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) and unexplained infertility. However, patients with less advanced stages of the disease, and women who did not have endometriosis, tended to have similar and lower CA-125 levels. Still, these investigators believe, this antigen bears further study because of marked elevated levels of kin women with endometriosis. They are also looking for a possible test for detecting endometriosis by analyzing CA-125 levels, and antigenic proteins like it, in blood samples.

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