Headache

Everyone gets headaches, but not everyone gets the same kind. Some headaches are mild annoyances that go away with over-the-counter pain relievers and rest. Others, like migraines, can shut down a person's life during an attack. About 20 million Americans see a doctor each year for headaches.

Tension, migraine and cluster are types of headaches. The most common is a tension headache, usually from stress, which feels like a tight band around your head. Tension headaches usually go away with rest and over-the-counter medications.

Migraine and cluster headaches are types of vascular headaches. Physical exertion increases the headache pain in vascular headaches. The blood vessels in the tissue surrounding the head dilate or swell, causing your head to throb with pain. Cluster headaches are much less common than migraines, the most common type of vascular headache.

Cluster headaches usually strike several times in rapid succession - lasting weeks or months. Cluster headaches are more common among men and can be extremely painful.

Migraine headaches are different because they involve other parts of the body in addition to the brain. Affecting 28 million Americans, they usually cause severe pain on one or both sides of the head and can be accompanied by nausea and vomiting, light sensitivity, distorted vision and dizziness.

A rebound headache is common in migraine patients, but it can also happen if you take pain relievers more than two or three times a week.

Many people who think they are having sinus headaches may be actually suffering from migraines. A sinus headache usually means constant pain and tenderness over the affected sinus. It is characterized by a deep, dull ache made worse by head movements or straining.

Prognosis

Most headaches are not caused by serious conditions and usually can be treated with over-the-counter medicines. Migraines and other types of serious head pain may need prescription treatments and monitoring by a doctor.

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Asthma in Adults

Definition : Asthma is a long-lasting inflammatory lung disease, characterized by:

* Constriction of the airways in the lungs

* Swelling of the lining of the bronchial tubes in the lungs

* Secretion of excessive amounts of thick mucus

This inflammation is activated by irritants or allergens, called triggers. As a result, you may have trouble breathing, be short of breath, wheeze and cough. Sometimes your symptoms can become severe enough to warrant treatment in an emergency room.

Asthma usually begins in childhood, although onset in adulthood is not uncommon. About 20 million people in the United States have asthma. And more than 70 percent of people with asthma have allergies.

Treatment focuses on:

* "Rescue," usually by means of a device called an inhaler when your symptoms are severe enough to cause trouble breathing.

* Prevention of symptoms, by a combination of managing triggers (eliminating dust, for example) and medications.

Prognosis

There is no known cure for asthma. In most people, symptoms get less severe as they get older. However, asthma can be a complication for older adults who develop other respiratory problems, such as emphysema. Effective management of your condition can help you live a healthy and full life.

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Aging and Insomnia Don't Go Hand-in-Hand

It's said that the older people get, the less sleep they need. If you're having trouble sleeping at night or you wake up tired, you should know that insomnia isn't a normal part of aging.

As you age, your levels of growth hormone and melatonin (which control sleeping and waking) decline. This can make you go to sleep earlier and wake up earlier, sleep more lightly or wake up several times during the night.

Like younger adults, you still need seven to eight hours of sleep a night. Something besides normal aging may be causing your problem if:

* You depend on pills to sleep
* You haven't slept soundly in over a month
* You often become sleepy at times when you should be alert (such as behind the wheel)

Common causes of insomnia in seniors
Several health conditions that affect older people can interfere with sleep, including:

* Diabetes
* Arthritis
* Cancer
* High blood pressure
* Incontinence
* Parkinson's disease
* Alzheimer's disease
* Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
* Heart disease
* An enlarged prostate

These conditions may cause breathing difficulties, frequent urination or pain that awakens you during the night. If you think an illness is causing your insomnia, talk to your doctor.

Sleep disorders
If you have sleep apnea, you may stop breathing at times during the night. Another condition, restless legs syndrome, causes an unpleasant sensation in the legs and an intense need to move them while lying down. If you think you have either condition, speak with your doctor.

Medications
Some medications can affect sleeping. These include:

* Calcium channel blockers
* Cardiovascular drugs
* Beta blockers
* Decongestants
* Antidepressants

If this is the case, your doctor may recommend a different drug or ask you to take your medication at a different time of day. Remember to cut down on caffeine and nicotine, which can also interfere with sleep.

Other factors affecting sleep
The lifestyle changes and emotional ups and downs of aging can also affect sleep. If you're less active than you used to be, your body may not know it still needs just as much sleep. Getting more exercise during the day - at least two hours before bedtime - can help. So can getting at least two hours of bright-light exposure each day. This can come from the sun or from a light box, which your doctor can recommend. Don't nap for more than 20 minutes during the day, or you may have trouble falling asleep at night. If feelings of sadness or anxiety are keeping you awake, talk to your doctor. You may be suffering from depression or an anxiety disorder, both of which can be treated.

Remember that sleeplessness is not a normal part of aging. Simple changes and your doctor's suggestions can help you get the rest you need.

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Hair Transplantation in Men: Is It Right for You?

If you're thinking about a hair transplant, be sure you have realistic expectations. Hair restoration techniques have improved greatly in recent years, but there are limits. The success of a transplant still depends on how much healthy hair you have to donate and how fast you are losing hair.

How does hair transplantation work?
For a hair transplant, a surgeon takes natural groupings of hair follicles and replants them in places where hair has been lost. Older methods involved taking as many as 50 "donor" hair follicles and replanting as an unnatural-looking plug of hair on a cleared-out patch on the scalp.

With newer techniques, natural one-to-five hair groupings are removed and implanted in-between existing hair follicles. The result is often so natural that it makes the new growth almost undetectable from the old.

Are hair transplants right for you?
Hair transplant may be a solution if you have male (or female) pattern baldness. It may also be helpful if you have patches of hair loss from scarring, burns, radiation therapy or infection.

To be a good candidate for hair transplant, you must have enough healthy existing hair to donate. If you don't, or if you are losing a lot of hair quickly, hair transplants may not be a good option for you.

The best results occur when there are well-defined areas of hair loss and dense hair growth on the sides and back of the scalp. It's also helpful to have a combination of fine and coarse hairs. Light-colored hair often looks more natural than darker hair.

What is the surgical procedure?
Hair transplant surgery is usually done by a plastic surgeon, dermatologist or other surgeon who specializes in hair restoration surgery. The procedure may take place in your doctor's office under local anesthesia. The surgeon will:

* Remove from the scalp tiny strips of skin that have natural clusters of healthy hair follicles.
* Divide the strips into smaller grafts of various sizes.
* Place the grafts in small holes or slits made in balding or thinning areas on your scalp. Hair can also be grafted in other areas, such as your beard or eyebrows.
* Close up the donor hair sites. Usually only very small scars remain, which can be covered by hair.

Each hair transplant session may last from one to several hours. It may take several sessions over a span of months to fill in a bald area. Sometimes, surgeons may use a combination of hair-restoration techniques for the best results. These may include scalp lifts, scalp reduction or tissue expansion.

As with any surgery, there is always a risk of complications, such as bleeding and infection. These risks are rare. There may also be prolonged scalp numbness and some grafts may not grow in their new location.

What can you expect after surgery?
Recovery is generally fairly quick. You may have a bandage for 24 hours and some swelling or bruising around your eyes for a few days. Your scalp may crust or scab over for a week or so after that. You are often able to resume daily activities right away and exercise after two weeks.

Don't be surprised if your new hair growth falls out a few weeks after surgery. This is normal and usually temporary. It may start to grow again in five to six weeks, at the rate of about one-half inch a month.

Some men find that using one of two medications after surgery may help slow hair loss and increase the quality and density of new hair growth. They are minoxidil, a nonprescription cream, and finasteride, an oral prescription medication. But be sure to ask your doctor before using anything on the scalp after surgery.

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What's the Skinny on Your Skin?

How to Keep it Healthy and Young

Myriads of products on the market claim to make your skin look younger. But no anti-aging cream, exfoliating wash, European facial, age-defying makeup or herbal remedy is more powerful than the lifestyle steps every woman can take to keep her skin looking smooth and healthy for as long as possible.

Many people begin to develop fine lines around the eyes in their 40s. But any deep facial wrinkles that emerge before age 50 are generally attributable to the cumulative effects of sun exposure, cigarette smoking or both, according to cosmetic surgeons. This observation springs into dramatic relief when you compare the skin on your face and the backs of your hands to the relatively smooth, monotone skin of your buttocks.

To a lesser extent, yo-yo dieting, chronic exposure to wind and over-animated facial expressions may also contribute to premature skin aging.

Aside from Father Time, the only skin-aging factor beyond your control is genetics. If your grandmother and mother looked younger than their years, you and your children probably will, too, in middle age - particularly if you adopt a lifelong habit of using sunscreens, wearing wide-brimmed hats on sunny days, shunning tobacco and secondhand smoke, and avoiding yo-yo dieting and the other aforementioned risk factors.

Types of wrinkles

Dermatologists and plastic surgeons distinguish between two types of facial wrinkles: static and dynamic. Static wrinkles are always visible, even when all the facial muscles are resting. Static wrinkles tend to develop in skin that has thinned and stretched as a result of premature or natural aging processes.

Dynamic wrinkles occur in people of all ages, even young children. Sometimes called "laugh lines," dynamic wrinkles appear temporarily when a muscle contracts and causes the overlying skin to crease like an accordion. Dynamic wrinkles are seen only when you are smiling, raising your eyebrows or otherwise animating your facial expression.

How sunlight harms the skin

Think back to those golden summers of your youth. Like many pre-adolescent and teenage girls, you probably donned your bikini, slathered your body with baby oil and held those foil-covered sun reflectors under your chin in the quest for the perfect, golden tan.

No one told you that decades later your skin would pay the price for those sun-soaked days in the form of dryness, wrinkles, fine lines, liver spots and perhaps even skin cancer. Government health officials have estimated that half of a lifetime's worth of UV exposure occurs by age 18. One research study carried out in Australia found that people as young as 25 already had detectable photoaged skin on their face and the back of their hands--the parts of the body that are chronically exposed to UV radiation. Research indicates that about 90 percent of skin changes that begin in your 30s and 40s stem directly from "photoaging," or the cumulative effects of exposure to the sun's UV radiation.

Simply put, UV radiation - be it from the sun or a tanning bed - damages the DNA of skin cells. To make matters worse, the thinning of the Earth's protective ozone layer is believed to be amplifying UV radiation levels. It takes many years before enough microscopic damage accumulates to create wrinkles and other visible skin changes. Using sunscreens with a skin protection factor (SPF) of 15 or more will filter out most of these harmful UV rays. Even if you failed to use sunscreens in your youth, you can prevent further UV damage by using them religiously throughout the year, even on the ski slope.

During all outdoor activities, including gardening, playing sports, walking and jogging, as well as going to the beach, be sure to use a sunscreen that blocks both UV-A and UV-B radiation. Sunscreens work best when applied liberally to all exposed skin about 30 minutes before sun exposure and re-applied every few hours or after swimming or sweating. Don't miss the backs of your hands, and don't be fooled by an overcast day; UV light penetrates clouds and can still harm unprotected skin. Wearing a baseball cap or wide-brimmed hat in addition to your sunscreen offers an additional measure of protection.

How smoking ages the skin

It is well-known that cigarette smoking ages people on the inside by causing lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease and an array of other health problems. But fewer people realize that smoking also ages your appearance. Chemicals inhaled from cigarette smoke constrict tiny blood vessels in the skin, reducing the oxygen and nutrient supply to delicate facial tissues. Blood-vessel constriction lasts at least an hour after a cigarette has been snuffed out. Over many years of smoking, the oxygen and nutrient deficiencies cause skin to wrinkle prematurely and lose elasticity, the ability to "bounce back" after being stretched. It is not unusual for the skin of longtime smokers to exhibit a grayish pallor.

To make matters worse, repeatedly pursing your lips around a cigarette hastens the formation of fine vertical lines around your mouth. Squinting when smoke gets in your eyes can cause premature wrinkling of the eyelids.

Dieting and skin aging

Cyclical, significant weight loss and gain, also known as "yo-yo" dieting, stretches the skin, causing it to lose its elasticity and making it more vulnerable to wrinkling and sagging under the force of gravity. Try to stay within five or 10 pounds of your ideal weight and avoid fad or crash diets.

How facial expressions age the skin

In a sense, skin has a "memory." If it is repeatedly folded in the same way by muscle contractions, permanent static lines will eventually form. This is common in sailors who constantly squint to protect their eyes from wind and sun glare. It also can be true of people who smile broadly much of the time and those who scowl a lot. Wearing sunglasses outdoors is one way to prevent continuous squinting. Another is to become aware of undue tension in your facial muscles and to make a conscious effort to relax your face.

Ways to keep your skin looking young

In general, some of the same steps that keep you healthy on the inside--such as not smoking and maintaining a normal weight also can help keep you looking healthy on the outside. Here are some steps you can take to help your skin look younger longer:

* Try to avoid sunlight between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., when UV rays are the strongest.


* Apply a sunscreen with SPF 15 or more on all exposed skin 30 minutes before going outdoors.


* Re-apply sunscreen after swimming or sweating.


* Do not sunbathe.


* When at the beach, stay under a beach umbrella, but also use sunscreens since sunlight reflecting off the sand and water can harm unprotected skin.


* Outdoors, wear wide-brimmed hats, long sleeves and pants.


* Wear makeup (foundations and lipsticks) that has a sunscreen with SPF 15 or higher.


* Avoid tanning booths.


* Don't smoke.


* Wear sunglasses outdoors.


* Use moisturizers to combat skin dryness.


* Use moisturizing soaps.


* Use a humidifier at home in winter when indoor air can be particularly dry.


* Ask your dermatologist about topical tretinoin emollient cream. This FDA-approved product may slow or stop additional photoaging when used to treat existing photoaging.


* Ask your dermatologist about alpha-hydroxy acid, which also may help reduce some visible signs of photoaging.




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Health and Fitness Supplements for Women

Many health and fitness supplements for women are making headlines today. They promise to help you lose weight, feel great, and even shed the pounds where you hate them the most. But are these supplements safe for you to use? And do they follow through on their promises? More studies are showing that health and fitness supplements for women may be a poor decision when it comes to the health of your body, causing more problems than solutions.

One of the first things to keep in mind with health and fitness supplements for women is that many of these have not been scientifically tested. While they might say they have been tested in their labs, this is not a definite indication of quality. Since supplements are not monitored by the FDA or tested before they get on the shelves, they can contain harmful ingredients that are only found to be harmful once people start reporting problems. Another consideration is that those supplements that have been tested may not have been tested on women exclusively. This means that they may contain higher levels of some ingredients that are safe for men but not for women.

Most fitness experts will tell you that health and fitness supplements for women are not advisable. Not only are they not addressing the problems or habits that have caused weight or health issues, but they may be adding to the problems at the same time. For example, when the diet pills starting being sold with Ephedra, they worked great. They gave users a lot of energy and helped them lose weight by reducing their appetite. But as users started to report heart palpitations and even some deaths, the safety of these pills was called into question. For the time, they were even taken off the market. While they're back on the market now, this does not mean that they're safe for you to take. Those items on the market may be ticking time bombs in your body – and do you really want to be the test subject?

Buying health and fitness supplements for women isn't the answer to your weight and health woes. There are no quick fixes when it comes to your health and to your weight. If you want to lose weight, you need to exercise more and eat less. These simple steps will not only allow you to healthfully lose weight, but you can also ensure that no unforeseen side effects occur along the way.

The health and fitness supplements for women that line the shelves of stores might be appealing right now, but if you were to have some of the awful side effects happen to you, you might not feel the same way. Why not follow the common sense advice that has worked for so many others? Sure, it might take a longer time to lose the weight you want to lose, but isn't that worth it when it comes to saving your health?

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3 Types of Food That Will Burn the Fat Right Off

Diets can be wonderful and diets can also be the pain in your butt. The thing is with diets you have to find a diet that is going to suit your body needs. I have known people who have gone through diet through diet and still have not found the diet that fits them the best yet. See I don't think you should have to keep trying and trying. Diets are all about eating the right food and when it comes to the diet that I have been doing lately all you have to do is eat the correct food. The right food that you should eat when it comes down to it is fruits, vegetables, and meats.

The food that you should be eating in your diet is fruits because they are good for the body. Fruits are awesome because they usually don't have too many calories and don't have too much fat so when you are eating them you are eating healthy. When you are going to reach for that extra snack during the day you should grab for a fruit because it is not going to put a dent into your health and it will probably if anything make you feel healthier.

The next food that you should be eating in your diet is vegetables because they too are good for your health. It is always good to eat salads and vegetables because they carry very little calories and are some of the best foods that you can eat. Remember when you were little and your parents always used to tell you to eat your vegetables well they did have a good point because vegetables are some of the best things that you can put into your body.

The final food that you should be eating in your diets is meats because they are a great source of protein. A great source of protein will help you meet your goal in trying to keep your body healthy because it will make your muscles grow. It is always a good thing to have bigger muscle because bigger muscles will help your body stay in shape. In the end eating meats will give you more protein that makes your muscles grow bigger so in essence you are keeping your body healthy.

Now diets aren't hard because I have just made them easy for you by telling you the food that is going to help you out the most with your diet.

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