chatwithketch

Q: Dear Dr. Ketch,I wish to use this medium to appreciate your program on TV and your Blog. I’m a fan. 

Please I have an issue that has been bothering me of late. I use to have a kind of rashes in between my pelvics and it scratches me often, I try to clean dry the area after bath but it still didn’t stop there until I started applying Sulphur ointment on it for a couple of days and the irritation stopped. 

So I stopped applying the sulphur on it. After a while, the scratches resumed again. I feel serious pain like cuts between my pelvics whenever I’m taking my bath but as I started applying the ointment again, it stopped. 

Please what is the possible cause of this and what can I do to get rid of it finally? I can’t be applying the ointment all my life. 

I look forward to your response.

A: Thanks for your kind words and for following our show and blog. If I were white, I’d blush 😀 Thank you so much.

Now to your issue, it does  sound like tinea cruris (jock itch) which is a fungal infection that can affect hair, skin or nails. I assume between your ‘pelvics’ refers to between your thighs or around your groin. It is a form of ringworm and is usually seen as a red, rash with a clear, distinct edge and oftentimes, ring-shaped. It can affect the buttocks, skin fold and inner thighs, as appears to be happening in this case.

As is common with fungal infections, this infection thrives in warm, moist environment. And so, if you sweat a lot, wear tight/nylon underpants, if you’re a man, overweight or have a compromised immune system (an immune system that is not functioning properly which may be due to some diseases or taking some drugs eg antibiotic abuse), then you are more at risk of this condition. If you have athletes’ foot (a fungal infection of the foot which may occur, for example, in people who wear covered shoes a lot), get it treated because when you’re wearing your underpants, there is the possibility of passing the infection on to the underpants and subsequently , the groin.

Ordinarily, this can be treated without necessarily seeing a doctor. An anti-fungal cream that contains clotrimazone or miconazole used diligently over the course of two weeks should produce results.  However, I suggest you see your doctor, so that the diagnosis of fungal infection (tinea cruris) is confirmed before starting on treatment.

Prevention is focused on ensuring that you keep your groin as dry as possible (if you sweat heavily, try taking a bath as frequently as possible; change out of wet clothes as soon as you can; dry your groin area thoroughly after a bath, forget the tight fitting underpants and stick with boxers or cotton underpants etc) and personal hygiene (don’t share personal items of clothing…who shares underpants or boxers, anyway? 😉 wash your underwear often)

Remember that fungal infections usually require patience to treat. You’ve got to keep using the medication/ointment faithfully for the period prescribed.

We’re in the second half of the year, people! Don’t waste any time. Go out and make those dreams come true. Y’all have got what it takes 😀

Have a fruitful week ahead 🙂

http://youtu.be/SxPXPGX0TsE

Nobody wants to be the one who made a cold spread round the office, right? 😀 Let’s teach you how to prevent that cold from going round.

Q: Good evening doc, my question goes like this: since a young lady that keeps her virginity long is likely to suffer from fibroid, what is your advice since such a young lady does not want to lose her virginity?

A: Fibroids are common in women of African origin, women who are aged between 30 to 50 years and women who have a family history of this. Women who have had children have a lower risk of developing fibroid. So, the converse side of this is that, if you have not had children, you are at a greater risk of having fibroids. Perhaps that’s where this virginity gist came from 😀 Remember that not having children does not necessarily mean one is a virgin…

My advice? That’s pretty simple! Please keep your virginity for as long as possible as your virginity has nothing to do with having fibroids 😀

Remember that with this, you can prevent all the different Sexually Transmitted Infections milling around out there 🙂

So, there you go.

Have a good weekend, y’all 😀

Q: Good day Dr ketch ,I need help on the proper diet to take to reduce my pot belly. I normally take rice, yam, beans and swallow. The thing is that I have never taken alcohol but my belly gets big anytime I eat and drink water. Thanks

A: I’ve been getting a lot of questions on pot bellies, big tummies after child birth or just big tummies…after nothing, full stop:D So, I’ll reproduce part of a post I’d written on this subject (the trio of diet, exercise and stress). Remember that you can always visit my blog http://www.chatwithdrketch.com and type in any subject you want to know about in the search box. You will be presented with all my posts on that subject. There’s a lot I’ve written on weight loss et al 😉

I hate to be the one to break it to you…but alcohol is not the only thing that gives you a pot belly!:D Pot belly is caused by consuming way too many calories and these can be from your chilled bottle of beer or from your huge bowl/basin of rice (especially polished white rice) or yam. It is important to know what to eat, how to eat it and how much of it to eat.

The bad thing about tummy fat, is that it is not on the outside. It is actually on the inside, around the organs. So, no amount of sit-ups can touch this fat…exercise can help tighten abdominal muscles (especially for those who just put to bed) but it won’t get to the fat around organs (visceral fat). This fat is associated with some disease conditions like Diabetes Mellitus etc.

A diet full of junk food (meat pies, doughnuts) is unhealthy on a lot of fronts. It contains empty calories which give you calories you don’t need and make you demand even more calories in a short while. They also cause your blood sugar to yo-yo (jumping up) jumping up and down in a way that doesn’t help blood sugar control. A diet that is also full of white carbs like white bread, polished rice etc is also not ideal for the same reason. So what should we eat? A balanced diet…a diet that contains all food groups in sufficient amounts for the body to use them efficiently.

I have had cause to describe the ideal plate of food several times: Half the plate should be filled with vegetables, a quarter with complex carbohydrates like beans, local rice (like Ofada/Abakaliki/brown/wild rice), sweet potatoes, oatmeal etc and the last quarter with protein (fish, chicken etc). Remember that carbs are necessary to provide the energy needed for our daily activities. So, do not ‘demonise’ (:D) them….however, not all carbs are created equal. Complex carbs are superior because they supply energy and fibre and some also supply minerals and vitamins.

Then remember portion control. Reduce the plate size you usually use, if you need to lose weight. This automatically reduces the quantity of food you can eat.

Remember also to make a conscious effort to chew your food properly and take your time. Don’t wolf it down…or inhale it 😀 Chew intentionally so as to give your brain sufficient time to process the signal from your brain which says that you are full. Have you observed that when you rush your food, you move from being very hungry to being completely stuffed! There’s no in-between, where you realize that you’re full before you get to the stuffed part. That’s because your brain didn’t have enough time to process that info before you became ‘over-full’.
Note that, even if a food is considered healthy, it doesn’t mean you should eat as much of it as you want. For instance, beans is healthy on so many levels but it also high in calories and so you still need to stick to the portion described. Moderation in everything!!
Exercise is critical because it makes your heart strong, improves your body’s ability to break down food, resist diseases and generally provides a feel-good attitude. It also helps you lose weight. Mathematically, exercise helps to burn what you have eaten such that, if you do enough and watch your portions, at the end of the day, there will be a food balance between what you have burnt and what you have taken in. If you have not been engaged in any exercise for a long time, please see your doctor before you start any vigorous regimen. A minimum of 150 minutes of exercise per week is essential for good health. Try to get this exercise anyway you can: walking, dancing, skipping, arm wrestling, pillow fights etc. All the activities count and help you keep you fit, trim and healthy. If you use the gym, that’s great. You can get the instructor to put you on a regimen that involves aerobics, strength training (training with weights) and then focus on troublesome spots like your tummy etc. (in that order) or suggest useful regimens that are helpful.
Finally, I will talk about stress because quite a number of us are stressed out. Stress causes the release of a hormone called Cortisol which, amongst other things, causes fat to be deposited around our tummy. So, reduce your stress consciously by figuring out how to better cope with your sources of stress or even eliminating the stresses that you have control over. It’s your life after all.

I suggest you also click on this link to read my post on low glycemic eating https://chatwithdrketch.com/2014/02/16/daily-health-tips-low-glycemic-eating-whats-that/

Have a good night, y’all 😀