Healthy Living

The basic job of your immune system is to identify things that are a part of your body, and to rid your body of things that don't belong. This process allows your immune system to detect and fight off dangerous microorganisms. But not all invaders are equally dangerous, and some are even benign. People suffering from allergies are actually mounting an immune response to a material that, while it doesn't belong in the body, is normally harmless.

It was my last day at a very stressful job. My coworkers were gathered at a going away party, when I had a bad attack of indigestion. For weeks I'd been having bad indigestion and had been living on antacids; I'd just chalked up my "stomach problems" to the miscarriage I'd had earlier in the month and the pain of leaving a start-up I'd helped grow but finally had to leave in frustration. I went into the women's room to take a dose of antacid.

Ear infections are one of the most common childhood illnesses. About 70% of all children have one infection by age three, and a third of these children will have multiple ear infections. Ear infections are a source of concern because they can lead to hearing loss and speech development delays in young children. The annual cost of treating ear infections in the United States exceeds $3.5 billion.

I'll admit it up front: I have very pale skin, and gave up on tanning at an early age. When I was growing up, my friends slathered oil on their bodies and soaked up rays until their skin was a nice, healthy brown. The serious tanners even used aluminum foil reflectors to magnify the sun's rays. I got freckles, spots and sunburns, and tried to avoid getting too much sun. Now that we know more about the effects of sunlight on our skin, I'm reassured that staying out of the sun was the best thing I could have done for my skin.

Managing the medical care of your elder is one of the most important aspects of caregiving. The elderly are commonly plagued with several chronic illnesses, and finding good medical care for common problems, and specialty care for the rare conditions may seem like a job unto itself.

Four years ago, on Valentine's Day 1995, my father was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Back then, we didn't know what to expect--how fast would the disease progress? How would we know when it was time for him to begin heavier medication? How would we know when the disease was entering a new stage?

My family and I live with my father. Looking at him now you might not know he's recovered from a stroke; he is an active man, walking every day and still driving. His speech and fine motor skills are good, and he can write almost as if nothing ever happened.

But it took lots of work on his part and on our part; Medicare refused to pay for professional rehabilitation help after his hospitalization. Here's how we did it together.

Birth is paradoxical: a very predictable yet unpredictable human passage. On one hand, almost without fail the vast majority of human females spontaneously begin labor, progress through increasingly intense stages of labor, feel like pushing, and give birth, at approximately 40 weeks after conception.

When I was in my third trimester I suffered terribly from sciatica and my doctor suggested that I go for a massage. I had received back rubs from my husband before but I had never seen a professional massage therapist. I was nervous about the idea of being touched by a stranger but I was desperate for relief from the pain so I went and was wonderfully, delightfully surprised by the experience.