Go Purple- Help End Alzheimer's Disease!

The heart remembers...Today, September 21, 2012, is Alzheimer's Action Day- so put on your PURPLE and help to raise awareness for this devastating disease. Over 35 MILLION people worldwide and 5.4 MILLION Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease (AD). $200 BILLION will be spent in the US alone this year caring for people suffering with AD. This disease slowly invaded my amazing mother's brain, creeping along for over a decade, steadily pulling her away from our family. As we don our purple today, we stand together with every other family who has helplessly witnessed this "long goodbye". I hope and pray we are in the last decade without a cure or full prevention for Alzheimer's.

Significant memory loss is NOT a normal part of aging. Misplacing your keys, forgetting a friend's name at a chance meeting or not being sure why you walked in to a room are frustrating events- but usually a sign of a busy mind focusing on other things. Missing multiple appointments or bills, not knowing how to drive home from your neighborhood store or losing the ability to balance a checkbook (when that used to be a straightforward process) ARE worrisome signs.

Major advances are being made in understanding how Alzheimer disease affects the brain, and the sequence in which it progresses. The hope is to find a way to block that progression, and research dollars donated today will help scientists find that barrier.

BOTTOM LINE: If Alzheimer's disease has touched YOUR life, join in the fight to find a cure and start with wearing PURPLE today!

MORE Teen Sex Q&A

More questions I hear from teens...
Which Sexually Transmitted Diseases can be cured? Trichomonas (a parasite), crabs (public lice), gonorrhea & chlamydia (both bacteria) can all be completely CURED if caught early and treated. If gonorrhea & chlamydia sit around for months or years untreated, they can cause permanent damage that leads to infertility or pelvic pain- and though the infection can still be cured, the damage to the genital tract cannot.

Which STDs can NOT be cured? Right now, we have treatments but no cures for the viral diseases: HIV (which causes AIDS), HPV (the human papilloma virus), Herpes (both oral and genital) and Hepatitis A, B & C.

When should I get tested- after how many partners? In a perfect world, you really should be tested after intimacy with any new partner. Since most STDs are silent, the only way you can no for sure that you will not be giving a new partner disease is to go and get tested.

How do they test for these diseases? A simple urine test can be used for gonorrhea, chlamydia, and trichomonas. A blood test is required for HIV, syphilis, hepatitis, and herpes. Pap tests with DNA testing check for different strains of HPV. Pubic lice can be detected by simple visual inspection, sometimes aided with looking at a pubic hair under a microscope.

More on testing tomorrow...too many questions for one post!
BOTTOM LINE: Let's answer teen questions about sex and STDs!

PS. For more details, FAQ, answers & stories, check out Seductive Delusions

Swimmer's Ear- Home Remedy

Here in Texas we are nearly done with school, and thoughts are veering away from finals and towards days filled with swimming, boating and all kinds of water activities. Austin boasts terrific natural swimming spots, including our lakes and our famous spring-fed Barton Springs pool, where the refreshing water stays at a cool 65 degrees even when we are baking in 100-plus temperatures. Not surprisingly, we tend to see an increase in swimmer's ear infections (otitis externa), which can not only be painful, but can limit your water fun. The good news is that prevention works extremely well, and even when that fails, you may not need to head straight to the doctor. The solution is EAR DROPS.

What drops do we use? We make our own home brew of half and half, alcohol and vinegar. (Yes, rubbing alcohol and generic cooking white vinegar.) To be honest, I like the convenience of the over-the-counter little bottle, so I actually buy one and pour out the contents, replacing it with our home remedy. An extra tip is to set it outside (in the shade in Texas) where it will warm up a bit before you put drops in your ears, so it's not cold and irritating.

This mix will actually work both for prevention and for treatment, if you forgot to use it ahead of time. Nine times out of ten, this will be all you will need! The vinegar kills the fungus, and the alcohol dries up any moisture that remains.
If you are an ear-wax-builder-upper, you may need to flush your ears periodically (such as once per month) using an infant bulb syringe and luke warm tap water, to remove packed in ear wax prior to putting in the home brew drops.

BOTTOM LINE: As always, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but remember vinegar/alcohol ear drops for swimmer's ear and you'll be set!

Q&A about GERD

Since I brought up caffeine yesterday, let me follow with a related common question I hear in the office. "What can you give me for my heartburn?" or, sadly, since the dawn of commercials telling us what we "need", "I think I need the purple pill for my GERD (Gastro-Esophageal Reflux Disease)"! And what do I say? My response is "Let me teach you what YOU can do to improve your heartburn."
There are certainly a plethora of medicines we can use to treat reflux, from over the counter antacids to expensive proton pump inhibitors, and they all work very well. However, why not address the CAUSE of the problem? Heartburn comes from stomach acid sloshing back upwards into the esophagus rather than flowing downstream. This happens when the sphincter- the band of tissue that surrounds the connection between the esophagus and the stomach- relaxes. What causes it to relax?
You already know the answer if you picture what people do after overeating, and they want to relieve their distended stomach. Tobacco, alcohol, caffeine and peppermints all relax that sphincter, letting our stomachs feel less distended, but allowing acid reflux in the process. Remember this when the waiter sets your mints down as he refills your coffee with desert.
BOTTOM LINE: If you're having heartburn on a regular basis, limit the causes of reflux- smoking, alcohol, caffeine and mints- BEFORE you head to the doctor for a quick fix.