chatwithketch

Q: Hello Dr Ketch. I appreciate your efforts to see that people stay healthy. My question: is there anything that one can do to make ones brown teeth to be white again?

A: Thanks for writing in. Brown teeth can be embarrassing. Smoking, drinking coffee, wine, tea etc can cause this. Generally brightly coloured foods like some candies, berries and sauces also have the potential to stain teeth if they are left on the surface long enough.

To prevent these stains, try the following tips:
Avoid or significantly reduce the amount of these fluids or foods in your typical diet.

If you can’t avoid them, then reduce the amount of time the foods or fluids have contact with your teeth by chewing and swallowing promptly. Yes, I know I’ve said you should chew intentionally so that your tummy has the chance to receive signals from the brain which tell it…

Q: Good evening Dr. I am an 18 year-old girl and I have been having this problem for two years now, in my abdominal part off my stomach. I usually feel something moving. This happens during the course of the month and when I am about to menstruate, it becomes so painful and the movements get worse. I have never been pregnant and I have been to doctors but at first I was put on medication for urinary infections. After the course, the movements and the pain was still the same. The second time, I was told to go for a scan, which led to the doctors thinking I was pregnant but all the pregnancy tests came out negative. I am tired of this movements and extreme pain. Please I need your help.

A: Hi dear, sorry to hear about the pain you are going through. The first suggestion I…

Q: Good evening ma’am. Please ma’am, for someone that was given an episiotomy how long is she supposed to sit on warm water? If she undergoes stitching of an episiotomy twice due to opening of the 1st stitch, what can be applied on the surface or taken for quick recovery?

A: Sitz bath is a warm water bath that helps cleanse the perineum. Just in case you wondered, the perineum is that space between the rectum and the genitals. The right temperature is the one that you can handle without sustaining burns. Putting a few drops of this water on the inner surface of your wrist can help confirm this.
Plain warm water is sufficient but some people add salt to the water which is soothing. Your doctor may also suggest other things he/she may want you to add to the water.

To prepare this, you can either use the…

Q: Hello doctor, I’d like to ask: could something be wrong with me? I eat a lot of ice cubes and I can’t go a day without eating one, even at night before I go to bed.

A: Could something be wrong with you? Maybe…or maybe not. If you live in a very hot place with frequent power cuts and taking some ice cubes makes you feel cool (literally and figuratively :D), then that makes sense. If you’ve just taken a mouthful of very spicy food or perhaps have a dry mouth and need an instant ‘cool me down’ solution, then ice cubes may not be a bad call. This could develop into a habit or something you do when bored.

However, constantly eating ice cubes (pagophagia) or other non-food items like chalk, hair, glue, sand, clay etc, generally called pica, could be associated with some disease conditions like iron…

Q: Is it also good for students to study late at night and midnights?

A: Well, this is a question that has troubled mankind forever. Is it good? Well, as an adult, you need an average of 7 to 8 hours of sleep, minimum per day. If you have not been getting this number of hours of sleep for a while, then the number required daily increases. It’s just a clear case of not being able to cheat nature.
Different students like to study differently. Some prefer the day time, others prefer midnight when it’s dark and quiet. I belong to the first class and the only time I tried to do what others were doing (reading at night) with coffee to boot, I spent all night in the toilet 😀

Read about that here: https://chatwithdrketch.com/2014/01/17/daily-health-tips-coffee-energy-drinks-et-al/

So, if you’re preparing for an exam and need to swot late at night…

Q: Hi Doc, my friend told me that he used to ejaculate but now he no longer does so. His wife complains of dry sex. Please advise him on how to revive his sperm back again.

A: Anejaculation is a situation in which there is failure of ejaculation. It can be primary (in which case it is present at birth and is a lifelong condition) or it could be secondary, as appears to be the situation here. In secondary anejaculation, the problem is acquired.

The same conditions that cause retrograde ejaculation are also suspect here. Retrograde ejaculation (RE), refers to backward ejaculation. To understand this, a refresher course on how ejaculation happens is needed:

Usually, during ejaculation, the muscle at the neck of the bladder tightens ensuring that semen does not enter the bladder. In people with this problem, this muscle does not tighten enough to prevent backtrack of the…

Q: Please Doc, what is the right spacing for giving birth/pregnancies? How old should your last child be before you think of getting pregnant again?

A: Interesting question! And a good one too! 😀 I smile because I had two babies in two consecutive years (2004 and 2005)! They are really a year and 9 months apart but it was kinda embarrassing when people pointed that I practically had them back to back 😀

Truth is, when you and hubby choose to have children is totally up to you but just like everything else in life, there are choices we make that may not be optimal in the long term. Having children at very close intervals (less than one and a half to two years) puts both mother and baby at risk.

For mum, she would not have had enough time to build back her stock of nutrients like iron…

Q: Hello doc. Thanks for your usual support. What could be the cause of discharge from the ear? It comes and goes like once or twice a year for like five years now. There is neither fever nor pain but a tingling sensation. What could be d underlying problem?

A: Ear infections could lead to discharge of pus from the ear. Examples include:

• Otitis media
• Otitis media with effusion
• Otitis externa (swimmer’s ear)

In otitis media, there is an infection of the middle ear and happens when an upper respiratory tract infection introduces bacteria into the ear. The infection could also be viral. Fluid builds up in the middle ear.

In otitis media with effusion, pus forms as the body tries to fight the infection. This leads to more fluid collection and this pushes against the ear drum. This pressure can build up to the extent that the ear drum…

Q: Dear Dr Ketch, I had a vaginal suture when I delivered my first child and everything was fine until after my third child. I observed that my vagina is wider than ever. With my husband’s infidelity, I knew something was wrong with me…maybe it’s not his basis for his infidelity but I just need to correct this problem. It’s about marriage. Please, help me. What can I do???

A: Sweetheart, you are not responsible for your husband’s infidelity. Noting is wrong with you! We need to stop this ‘humbility’ thing we do…blaming ourselves for everything that goes wrong with the world and especially our husbands. Your husband would be faithful if he felt it was worthwhile. The fact that he doesn’t feel it is worthwhile to do so, means something is wrong with him and not you!

By all means, do everything you can always, to make your home…