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The urinary bladder is a convenient storage place for urine. Urine is a liquid waste product produced by the kidneys. This waste product is held in the bladder until we can have an opportunity to empty the contents. The kidneys, the bladder, and the urine within it are normally sterile (no bacteria). The tube leading from the bladder to the outside of the body is called the urethra. It is longer in men, but is only a half inch long in women. There are bacteria on the outside of the body. These can find their way into the urethra and into the bladder, causing an infection. From the bladder, bacteria can travel up to the kidneys. A kidney infection is a very serious problem. Both men and women can get bladder infections, known as a UTI or Urinary Tract Infection. In men, this generally only occurs when a catheter has been used, or when the man has other underlying disease, such as diabetes. Urinary tract infections are extremely common in women, however, because of the very short urethra. Urinary tract infections are also extremely common as nosocomial infections and can cause illness and death in patients in places such as nursing homes and hospitals.
The measure of the acidity or alkalinity of a liquid is called its pH. The pH Scale is from One to 14, with 7 being Neutral. An alkaline (basic) pH is over 7 up to 14, and an acid pH is from 1 up to 7.
Urine in the bladder should contain no bacteria and should have an acid pH in the range of 5 to 6. It should be as dilute as possible. Bacteria can feed on the components of urine. The more concentrated the urine, the more food there is for any bacteria that may be present. Bacteria also love alkaline solutions. And if bacteria are present, their own metabolic products create an alkaline environment. Blood type can be a factor in a tendency to get bladder infections. Women with blood type O, especially O Negative, have less immune defenses in their tissues than other blood types.
To prevent bladder infections, several things can be done which are simply logical ways to aid the body in its own natural functioning.
Keep the urine dilute. This means drinking plenty of fluids.
Keep the bladder empty. This means emptying it every two hours or so or when needed. Holding it for long times is not good. Any bacteria that may have strayed in will have time to get a foothold.
When cleaning the body after using the restroom, always wipe from front to back. Wipe only once with a piece of tissue. Use a new tissue if another wipe is needed.
Urinary tract infections are nearly always caused by fecal bacteria, especially E. coli. These are present on the skin after a bowel movement, and can move by various means to places where they can cause problems. This is the reason for wiping front to back only, and for being thorough. In addition, general cleanliness is very important. Fecal bacteria can find their way into the vagina. At times, the vagina contains blood, which is an extremely nutritious medium in which bacteria can grow. From there, bacteria can find their way to the urinary bladder. Keeping the vagina clean helps greatly in reducing the incidence of bladder infections. The vagina normally contains bacteria (usual flora) that maintain an acid pH and provide resistance to invaders. Rinsing the vagina, or douching, is not always recommended because these beneficial bacteria are removed. However, douching with a solution of acidophilus bacteria removes the contaminated materials while leaving a fresh supply of normal beneficial bacteria behind. This is also an effective technique to combat vaginal yeast infections. Acidophilus can be found in dairy-free capsules in the refrigerated section of health food stores.
Sexual intercourse can provide an excellent means for bacteria to get into the bladder. Bacteria from the outside of the body can get "milked" into that short little urethra and into the bladder. Preventive measures include making sure the bladder is empty before sex. Drink one glass of water before sex, and two glasses after. Empty the bladder again immediately after sex. Empty it again as soon as the glasses of water create the need.
Urinary tract infections occur with high frequency during pregnancy because of the added pressure on the bladder, again causing bacteria to be milked into the bladder. Keeping the urine acidic and dilute and keeping the bladder empty will help.
Keep the pH in the right range, on the acid side. Citrus fruits and citrus juices create an ALKALINE urinary pH. Bacteria love this. Avoid citrus (orange, grapefruit, lemon, lime), or make sure to compensate with lots of water to make dilute urine. Also make sure to counteract the pH change.
Urinary pH can be regulated using vitamin C. A vitamin C tablet and a glass or two of water is like an insurance policy for your bladder. The pH drops to acid levels, and the urine is dilute. Any bacteria around will be very unhappy about this and won't be able to grow.
Cranberry juice is extremely beneficial to the entire urinary system. Even a small glass a day is good. Cranberry juice helps to create an ACID urinary pH. It seems to have other beneficial effects as well. Note that ‘cranberry juice cocktail' contains a lot of sugar and not much cranberry. Look for pure juice. Cranberry is now available in tablet form. A cranberry tablet a day might be very helpful. You can get the benefits of cranberry juice even if you don't have any juice available.
Urinary tract infections are annoying and painful but can also cause serious damage. The urethra and bladder become scarred with each infection. This has the effect of allowing future infections to occur more easily. Bacteria readily spread up the ureters from the bladder to the kidneys. Kidney function is extremely essential to life. Infection of the kidneys can be extremely serious and even life threatening. Thus, it is best to prevent urinary tract infections whenever possible. If one does occur, swift treatment with antibiotics is essential.
Soda, coffee, spicy foods, and so on can irritate the bladder. This may feel like an infection but it is not. The precautions above should help to maintain a healthy bladder, even if it has a twinge now and then. A careful regimen of care should help keep the urinary system infection free!
Eleven Ways to Enhance Your Sense of Humor - Yes, it is possible to become funnier. Here's how.
What is the greatest reward of being alive? Is it chocolate, sex, ice cream, tropical vacations, hugs from children, a perfect night's sleep, or the satisfaction of a job well done? A thousand people, a thousand different answers. But one supreme pleasure that spans all people is laughter.
Little can compare to the feeling of a deep, complete, heartfelt laughing spell. No matter your age, wealth, race, or living situation, life is good when laughter is frequent.
Life is also healthier. Research finds that humor can help you cope better with pain, enhance your immune system, reduce stress, even help you live longer. Laughter, doctors and psychologists agree, is an essential component of a healthy, happy life.
As Mark Twain once said, "Studying humor is like dissecting a frog -- you may know a lot but you end up with a dead frog." Nonetheless, we're giving it a try. Here are 11 tips for getting -- or growing -- your sense of humor, based partly on the idea that you can't be funny if you don't understand what funny is.
1. First, regain your smile. A smile and a laugh aren't the same thing, but they do live in the same neighborhood. Be sure to smile at simple pleasures -- the sight of kids playing, a loved one or friend approaching, the successful completion of a task, the witnessing of something amazing or humorous. Smiles indicate that stress and the weight of the world haven't overcome you. If your day isn't marked by at least a few dozen, then you need to explore whether you are depressed or overly stressed.
2. Recall several of the most embarrassing moments in your life. Then find the humor in them. Now practice telling stories describing them in a humorous way. It might take a little exaggeration or dramatization, but that's what good storytelling is all about. By revealing your vulnerable moments and being self-deprecating, you open yourself up much more to the humorous aspects of life.
3. Anytime something annoying and frustrating occurs, turn it on its head and find the humor. Sure, you can be angry at getting splashed with mud, stepping in dog poop, or inadvertently throwing a red towel in with the white laundry. In fact, that is probably the most normal response. But it doesn't accomplish anything other than to put you in a sour mood. Better to find a way to laugh at life's little annoyances. One way to do that: Think about it as if it happened to someone else, someone you like -- or maybe someone you don't. In fact, keep running through the Rolodex in your head until you find the best person you can think of to put in your current predicament. Laugh at him, then laugh at yourself!
4. Read the comics every day and cut out the ones that remind you of your life. Post them on a bulletin board or the refrigerator or anywhere else you can see them frequently.
5. When a person offends you or makes you angry, respond with humor rather than hostility. For instance, if someone is always late, say, "Well, I'm glad you're not running an airline." Life is too short to turn every personal affront into a battle. However, if you are constantly offended by someone in particular, yes, take it seriously and take appropriate action. But for occasional troubles, or if nothing you do can change the person or situation, take the humor response.
6. Add an item to your daily to-do list: Find something humorous. Don't mark it off until you do it, suggests Jeanne Robertson, a humor expert and author of several books on the topic.
7. When you run into friends or coworkers, ask them to tell you one funny thing that has happened to them in the past couple of weeks. Become known as a person who wants to hear humorous true stories as opposed to an individual who prefers to hear gossip, suggests Robertson.
8. Find a humor buddy. This is someone you can call just to tell him something funny; someone who will also call you with funny stories of things he's seen or experienced, says Robertson.
9. Exaggerate and overstate problems. Making the situation bigger than life can help us to regain a humorous perspective, says Patty Wooten, R.N., an award-winning humorist and author of Compassionate Laughter: Jest for the Health of It. Cartoon caricatures, slapstick comedy, and clowning articles are all based on exaggeration, she notes.
10. Create a humor environment. Have a ha-ha bulletin board where you only post funny sayings or signs, suggests Allen Klein, an award-winning professional speaker and author of The Healing Power of Humor. His favorite funny sign: "Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it."
11. Spend 15 minutes a day having a giggling session. Here's how you do it: You and another person (partner, kid, friend, etc.) lie on the floor with your head on her stomach, and her head on another person's stomach and so on (the more people the better). The first person says, "Ha." The next person says, "Ha-ha." The third person says, "Ha-ha-ha." And so on. We guarantee you'll be laughing in no time.
Can I get HIV/AIDS from Kissing? There are four fluids that can carry and transmit HIV: blood, semen, vaginal fluids, and breast milk. Saliva doesn't transmit it.
• It is, however, THEORETICALLY possible to contract HIV through kissing. If both partners have cuts or sores in the mouth or bleeding gums (like after brushing or flossing your teeth), infected blood could possibly be exchanged. However, in practice this is EXTREMELY unlikely. There is something about saliva and the environment of the mouth that is inhospitable to the virus. Like all safe sex, kissing is a matter of managing risks. If you are aware of cuts or sores in your mouth, it is best to abstain from "deep kissing", but in general kissing is one of the safest sexual activities.
Katrina Displaces Thousands With HIV September 12, 2005 Associated Press By MARTHA MENDOZA (AP National Writer) About 8,000 people with HIV and AIDS who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina now face the massive challenge of trying to manage their disease without their doctors, their clinics and their support systems. "I'm very frustrated right now," said Noel Twilbeck, executive director of the NO/AIDS Taskforce, the oldest HIV/AIDS service organization in the Gulf South. "We absolutely have to get people their medication. This is a frightening situation."
When Michael-Chase Creasy, 49, fled New Orleans, he brought his HIV medicines - but not a lifetime supply. And when he saw television footage from the safety of a Houston hotel room of flood waters rising above his own 1820s Canal Street home, he knew he would not be returning soon and he was in serious trouble. He needed to ensure that his prescriptions would not be interrupted: "These medicines are what keep me healthy and ultimately alive. If I go too long without it, I can really atrophy or descend rapidly." HIV-infected people typically take a "cocktail" of medications that can include upward of 20 pills a day. When patients go off their medication, the virus can multiply and they develop resistance to the drugs. Studies have repeatedly shown patients have a better chance of keeping their HIV under control by not missing doses.
The NO/AIDS Task Force has found a temporary home at the Montrose Clinic in Houston, a medical center that specializes in the needs of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. Montrose's executive director Katy Caldwell said evacuees have been arriving by the dozens.
Creasy was one who found help there. Doctors swiped the saliva on his gum to confirm he is HIV positive and then loaded him up with prescriptions and free samples. His problem is solved, for now. But his health insurance is set to run out Sept. 15 when the trade exchange where he worked as a media broker goes out of business. Caldwell said lack of funds will not affect anyone's access to care. "We treat them first, worry about the money later," she said. "Thank God for Katy," said Twilbeck, sitting by her side and recalling his own dash out of New Orleans as the hurricane approached with 25 family members, eight dogs and a lizard.
The AIDS Alliance for Children, Youth and Families estimates at least 8,000 HIV-infected people are now trying to get care. The organization is working to get money and supplies to providers, who are struggling to find their patients. Federal officials say they're doing their best to streamline care to HIV-infected patients, and several drug companies are offering free medication. Meanwhile, providers in Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and beyond report that displaced patients are showing up at their clinics and asking for new prescriptions, quickly. On a billboard in the Houston Astrodome, posters - as well as onsite medical providers - are advising HIV-infected people to go to the Thomas Street Health Center for a quick AIDS test, a physical examination and a month's supply of their medication. The U.S. Health Resources and Services Agency, the federal agency that provides health care for people infected with HIV, completely lost its service centers in Biloxi and New Orleans. The centers in Hattiesburg and Mobile are flooded and lack power.
Social stigmas may also limit some access to care. "People are not going to walk up to the American Red Cross and say, "Hi, I have HIV". More likely they're going to try to find an HIV provider," said Diana Bruce, a spokeswoman for the Washington DC-based AIDS Alliance for Children, Youth & Families. Those evacuees who do seek medical assistance from providers at emergency centers may end up with doctors who have no experience caring for people with HIV. Dr. Nicholaos Bellos, president of the Dallas-based Southwester Infectious Disease Associates, helped launch an online triage program for Hurricane Katrina survivors. The program advises doctors working in emergency clinics how to care and medicate patients with HIV. Their Web site also provides patients with information about where to find specialized care. including maps. Bellos said people with HIV and AIDS have complex medical histories which are often well documented at their clinics. It's hard to treat them without this detailed background, he said. "Not many of these people had a chance to go by and pick up their medical records on the way out of town," he said. "One of our biggest problems, right off the bat, is just documenting their HIV-positive status." Viral load tests, to see how much HIV is in someone's bloodstream, as well as T-cell tests, to determine the strength of their immune system, are important factors when deciding what to prescribe.
Kaye Ray, who runs a 10-clinic family HIV program out of Hattiesburg, Miss., said that it took eight days before even their first clinic could reopen. Staff members drove door to door checking on patients until they ran out of gas. Late last week, she received some much-needed funds from the AIDS Alliance Emergency Fund to buy diapers and transportation for HIV-infected families, many of whom have lost their homes.
Many advocates said this week that with an impending public health disaster looming in the Gulf region, they feared that people living with HIV and AIDS might slip through the cracks. "There are many immediate, midterm and long-term issues that will literally be life and death for people living with HIV/AIDS," said Terje Anderson, executive director of the National Association of People with AIDS in an urgent letter seeking help from Health Secretary Michael Leavitt.
Always keep in mind that it is better to do a job ONCE and do it THOROUGHLY AND CORRECTLY than to do it quickly, mess it up, and have to do it OVER! Here is an old fashioned story to remind us that Slow and Steady Wins the Race.
The Hare was once boasting of his speed before the other animals. "I have never yet been beaten," said he, "when I put forth my full speed. I challenge any one here to race with me."
The Tortoise said quietly, "I accept your challenge."
"That is a good joke," said the Hare; "I could dance round you all the way."
"Keep your boasting till you've beaten," answered the Tortoise. "Shall we race?"
So a course was fixed and a start was made. The Hare darted almost out of sight at once, but soon stopped and, to show his contempt for the Tortoise, lay down to have a nap. The Tortoise plodded on and plodded on, and when the Hare awoke from his nap, he saw the Tortoise just near the winning-post and could not run up in time to save the race. Then said the Tortoise: "Plodding Wins The Race."
"WHAT a dull, heavy creature," says the Hare, "is this Tortoise!"
"And yet," says the Tortoise, "I'll run with you for a wager."
"Done," says the Hare, and then they asked the Fox to be the judge.
They started together, and the Tortoise kept jogging on still, till he came to the end of the course.
The Hare laid himself down midway and took a nap; "for," says he, "I can catch up with the Tortoise when I please."
But it seems he overslept himself, for when he came to wake, though he scudded away as fast as possible, the Tortoise had got to the post before him and won the wager.
Slow And Steady Wins The Race.
• The Hare and the Tortoise • Aesop's Fables • The Tortoise and the Hare • The Tortoise and the Hare •
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