Fungal infections and food

by Carmel Reid, Somerset, UK

We can suffer from a number of different fungal infections in our bodies and two that are prevalent are ‘Thrush’ and ‘Athlete’s Foot’.

Many women experience occasional bouts of a common yeast infection known as vaginal thrush, caused by Candida albicans yeast (a single-cell fungus).

It causes itching, irritation and swelling of the vagina and surrounding area, sometimes with a creamy white cottage cheese-like discharge.

Vaginal thrush is fairly harmless, but it can be uncomfortable. It can also keep returning – this is known as recurrent (or complicated) thrush.(1)

We can buy creams over the counter at a pharmacist that help to suppress the symptoms, but my question is: Does it get rid of the underlying cause?

You can also get oral thrush: oral thrush is a yeast infection in the mouth. Symptoms of oral thrush include sore, white patches in the mouth, an unpleasant taste in the mouth, a burning sensation affecting the tongue and problems swallowing. Oral thrush can affect people of all ages, including adults with weakened immune systems.

Candida albicans is one of the ‘normal’ flora that live in our gut, but becomes a pathogen if there is a disruption in the balance of microorganisms in your gut. This balance of ‘gut flora’ is a crucial part of your immune system and digestive health, but it can easily be lost during periods of stress or after a course of antibiotics. When this balance is lost, the colonies of Candida albicans are able to expand rapidly until they involve a large portion of your gut, overwhelming the other flora and causing disease.(2) Continue reading “Fungal infections and food” →

How we hurt ourselves with reaction

by Dianne Trussell, BSc Hons, Australia

The science of psycho-neuro-immunology has been showing us a lot about ourselves – that we already know from our own bodies and life experience – but often pretend we don’t.

The nervous system (which includes the brain), the immune system and the hormone system all talk to each other, and take their cues from each other about how to ‘behave’, how to respond.

Stress releases hormones that affect our brain and immune system. Stress alters how many of what kind of immune cells are made, and imbalances lead to illness. Stress suppresses our immune system’s killer cells – we are therefore more susceptible to cancer and other diseases. Stress also tires out the systems that produce the hormones – like the adrenals – leading to exhaustion.

Three important regions of the brain are affected by stress hormones, and those brain regions are important for memory, learning, dealing with life, thinking, making sense of the world, fear, emotion, fight and flight…. so it’s definitely not a good thing for them to be continually stressed! Continue reading “How we hurt ourselves with reaction” →

Two Doctors and a Patient

by Jennifer Smith, RN, Australia 

Today at work I witnessed something very beautiful, although it was something very ordinary. I watched two of my colleagues – two doctors – have a conversation about a patient.

Nothing unusual about this, given that we were all in a hospital. What was beautiful was the way they were with each other and then the patient.

This particular patient had only very recently received a very serious medical diagnosis. There had been a lot of medical assessments, tests and treatments in the previous 48 hours. All of which is often very overwhelming for anyone in this situation.

As I went about my work, organising patients for my day, I saw these two doctors standing together, talking to each other, and one was handing the care of the patient over to the other doctor as they were changing shifts. The thing that stood out the most was how genuinely caring they were, especially in the way they spoke of the person. They were considering everything about this person and their family.

Together they then spoke with the patient in a very ordinary fashion, very professional, but also connected to this patient as another human being.

You may be asking, so what’s so special about this, surely it happens every day?
Continue reading “Two Doctors and a Patient” →

Expectations and Illness

by Leigh Matson, London, UK

Recently I have been looking at my expectations, about myself, others, life and situations and what I have been finding is that these expectations directly have an impact on my health.

One such example is that I called work today to say I would not be in due to a viral illness and while I was on hold waiting to speak to my manager, all sorts of thoughts came flooding in. Expectations of ‘I need to be apologetic,’ ‘I need to show that I will be back into work tomorrow, no wasting time ‘being ill,’’ ‘I can’t be ill because work won’t be able to manage without me’ etc. As well as the judgments of ‘you should feel bad because now you’ve placed more work on people’ …you get the idea. All in the space of being on hold on the phone, and in my body my heart was racing at a thousand miles an hour. This made me feel even more drained and worse than I did before.

Continue reading “Expectations and Illness” →

I am sick, but I am feeling beautiful

By Danna Elmalah, Student Nurse, The Netherlands.

Today I woke up feeling absolutely sick. In the past I would have felt miserable and inefficient, because I could not ‘do’ anything. I used to only feel like I was ‘worth something’ if I was doing things. The more things I was able to do, the better I felt about myself, but once I was not doing anything I felt worthless and unhappy. But this time around I do not feel that any more; I have noticed that when my body is sick it is actually telling me something… and that when my body speaks to me and I am listening, all that ‘I can do’ seems to matter less and ‘who I am’ starts to mean more. Now, being myself is way more important than what I can do.

I will tell you how it all began…

Continue reading “I am sick, but I am feeling beautiful” →

The Big C – why me?

By Eunice J Minford MA FRCS Ed, Consultant Surgeon, N.Ireland 

We all know what the phrase ‘the Big C’ means – it is a way of saying cancer without using the word cancer. I recall hearing it when I was growing up, people whispering it to one another that, “so and so has the Big C” – the feelings of fear, trepidation and worry were palpable. Even though as a young child I initially didn’t know what the Big C was – I knew it was something bad, terrible, to be avoided at all cost if possible, there was a sense of finality to it and the smell of death hung in the air. It didn’t seem to matter which particular big C you had – they were all cloaked with the stench of illness, disease, decay, sickness, bodily destruction and death. Even in the medical world, the word cancer was often avoided in the past so as not to induce such fears in the patient and euphemisms were used like ‘growth’ or ‘ulcer’ without revealing the true diagnosis.

The depth of fear around the Big C was and is huge – people instantly equate the C word with death, but not just death, it is a death that is considered to be slow, painful, miserable, full of sickness, sadness, a failing body, losing weight, having chemotherapy and its side effects like losing hair – of losing one’s bodily functions perhaps and being dependent on others for help and support in a way that we never think we will need to be. And the reality is that cancer can wreak havoc on the body and all of the above can be part and parcel of the journey with cancer – and suffering of one kind or another, be it physical, emotional, psychological or spiritual is a common experience for the cancer patient even with all the advances in palliative care, medicine and surgery. Yet all these medical advances focus more on the physical aspects of the disease and to some degree, but usually less so, the psychological and emotional components, with very little, if any, addressing of the spiritual dimension.

Yet many people with cancer struggle with the ‘why me’ questions: what is the meaning of this cancer, this life even? Why do I have cancer now, at this stage of my life? Is there a reason? Is there a purpose to it? Is it a punishment? Is it God’s will? The existential angst that arises through a cancer diagnosis is huge but often goes unaddressed and unanswered, especially in a way that is truly healing.

Continue reading “The Big C – why me?” →

Dementia – what is really going on?

By Anon, UK 

Having worked with many dementia patients in the past, and especially whilst working in a secure unit specializing with aggressive and violent dementia patients, I naturally began to look deeper into the causes of this distressing illness.

Often at the hospital where I worked we saw the same scenarios – a person who once had a respectable work and family life ending up living many of their days in a padded cell, because of the danger they presented to themselves and others.

On many occasions I was shocked to see both elderly men and ladies possess a strength that required at least four adults to restrain them, in order to keep themselves and others safe. The behaviour I have witnessed over the years has at times been shockingly aggressive and I have asked myself:

What on earth takes over these once fully functioning, aware human beings?

What possesses these people to act in such ways?

I have wondered if there is more at play here than we currently acknowledge.

Continue reading “Dementia – what is really going on?” →

Slow suicide is still suicide

by Joel Levin 

To lose a friend or loved one through suicide is traumatic for all who are involved. A few years ago a close friend of mine committed suicide and the ripples are still felt today. From time to time you review past conversations with the person, wondering what signs might have been missed and if more could have been done.

There is rightly much effort placed on understanding and preventing suicide, but what is unclear to me is why these efforts focus on only one form of suicide.

It would seem that most of suicide prevention focusses on the ‘acute’ cases; the cases where someone makes a choice, on some level, to end their life in an abrupt way.

Calling it a choice is not intending to minimise the anguish some people feel in the lead-up to that choice; in fact, contemplating the level of anguish one must be feeling to reach that point, helps me understand the choice all the more.

But there is still another form of suicide that goes under the radar. What is this other form? Continue reading “Slow suicide is still suicide” →

A Blank Canvas Waiting – Life After Prostate Cancer

by Michael Nicholson, Company Director and Business Owner, Somerset, UK

I was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer. It’s not something that I felt and there was no pain, but I had been getting very tired during the previous 12 months, so when the diagnosis was announced it was no huge surprise. I’d known it was time to stop because my body was saying so. Immediately prior to the diagnosis I had just planned my month ahead and it involved being in Germany for 5 days, Greece for 5 days, Kent for 2 days, possibly Spain for 4 days, London for 4 days and various meetings elsewhere – leaving only about 6 days at home. It was an insane schedule and it needed to stop. And by stopping, I suddenly realised that I had the most amazing blank canvas and I could work my magic on it in whatever way I truly chose to live.

The process of discovering the cancer started with seeing a consultant about the PSA levels that had been recorded at my regular medical check ups, which I had been persuaded to have following a heart attack three years earlier. During this time I had become open to finding out more about my health, which as a man was not something that I had been previously inclined to consider – so this in itself was a true change and fundamental in setting me on the best course to detect and treat early the cancer that presented.

Continue reading “A Blank Canvas Waiting – Life After Prostate Cancer” →

Contagion – Part two: Non-communicable diseases, are they really not communicable?

By Anne Malatt and Paul Moses, Australia. 

In the not-so-distant past, contagious or communicable diseases were greatly feared, and the cause of many deaths, often on a mass scale. The Black Plague, the Spanish Flu, and smallpox all come to mind and are seared in our collective memories. With the advent of modern sanitation and medicine, these diseases have become much less common. As they have waned, the importance of non-communicable diseases has risen.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), non-communicable diseases (NCDs) now account for 68% of all deaths, worldwide, every year. (1)

In Australia, chronic diseases are the leading cause of illness, disability and death, accounting for 90% of all deaths in 2011. (2)

What are non-communicable diseases (NCDs)?

Continue reading “Contagion – Part two: Non-communicable diseases, are they really not communicable?” →