chatwithketch

June 14th every year is World Blood Donor Day. This day is set aside to thank voluntary, unpaid blood donors for their life-saving gifts of blood. It also raise awareness of the need for regular blood donations to ensure that all individuals and communities have access to affordable and timely supplies of safe and quality-assured blood and blood products.

Have you ever given blood? Do you plan to? In honour of this day, I repeat an earlier post I had made on the gift of life. Enjoy….

What does having the power to give the gift of life mean? Is it the birthing of a baby, as a great percentage of women are able to do? Is it the role the men and women play in the miracle of conception? Is it the role of doctors in being able to take life and death decisions that affect their patients? The list could go on forever and I guess in some ways these different people play major roles in determining life at some point or the other.

I take a few seconds to issue a quick disclaimer that this concept of giving the gift of life is very different from playing God. Only God can play God :D. The rest of us? We only play roles he has prescribed. A friend of mine would say cynically, ‘if men were God…’
Back to the discourse; is this role of giving the gift of life something that you would associate with yourself? Not a doctor, maybe not male, or even if female, no child etc. So perhaps you think this probably doesn’t refer to you. But guess what? It does! You absolutely have the ability to give the gift of life and not just in the ways I mentioned above. You can donate your blood and save somebody else’s life!

It might appear to casual on-lookers that this is a ‘no-brainer-not-a-problem, ‘the-blood-banks-should-be-filled-with-blood’ kinda situation, but I guess that perhaps only the medics and parents/people who have witnessed the frantic calling, running around and utter confusion that is the scenario when blood is needed for a patient (perhaps a sickler, a pregnant woman or even a newly born baby) and can’t be found, can understand! Lots of lives have been lost due to lack of blood in banks. Perhaps you understand now why some hospitals insist on having the husband’s of pregnant women donate blood during the course of their wives’ ANC whether they would need it or not. Probably their innovative way of getting ‘voluntary’ donors! 😀

Let me digress a bit from the disturbing imagery of blood search to a bit of history. There is a bit of confusion about the exact person who performed the first blood transfusion (Jean-Baptiste Denys or Richard Lower) but all the controversies agree that this was done in 1667. They must have been real geniuses, thinking out of the box and making a difference to the very future of medicine apart from the life they saved. As most ‘firsts’ are, it was a crude procedure using sheep’s blood!!! It was a miracle that the patient survived but subsequent procedures using same blood were not so successful.

Away from history to the present, you can also make a difference. Become a voluntary ‘unpaid’ blood donor. You will be doing more good than you even know. We all like to do good even if this is seasonal for a greater percentage of people :D, during festive seasons with visits to the motherless babies’ homes etc. Let’s make doing good more fashionable and ‘in-season’ all the time.

It doesn’t matter your blood group. People with blood group ‘O’ are known as universal donors and people with blood group AB are known as universal acceptors. Thus, blood groups O+, O-, AB- and B- are always in hot demand. Even if you don’t have any of these ‘fashionable’ 😉 blood groups, your donation still counts. You have to be at least 17 years or over, in good health with a healthy blood count and weigh more than 50kg, you can donate whole blood every 56 days and your blood will be screened for viruses and bacteria. If you’re female, please don’t donate while menstruating or soon after. We don’t want to drain the life out of you, do we? 😀

So what are you waiting for? Let’s play our parts in saving other people’s lives; we may very well be saving ours as that guy or lady who needs a blood donation tomorrow might very well be you. As the lotto advert goes, who knows, ‘e fit be you oh!’

Q: Good evening Dr ketch! Please ma’am is it ok for a pregnant woman to drink chocolate drink? I’m few weeks pregnant first pregnancy! Please ma/am educate me on food to avoid

A: Thanks for your question and congratulations on your pregnancy

I’ve edited out the exact name of the chocolate drink you mentioned J

Chocolate drinks typically contain caffeine (less than what you would find in coffee though) because they are made from cocoa It is generally recommended to avoid caffeine in pregnancy. Although the amount in the recommended serving portion of this chocolate drink may not cause a problem, please be sure to fully discuss your diet plan with your doctor.

Here are 5 nutrition tips for a pregnant woman:

1. Eat a balanced diet with a variety of foods from different food groups.
2. Be sure to include a lot of high fibre foods like vegetables, whole grain cereals etc to deal with the constipation associated with pregnancy.
3. Ensure you take your antenatal medications (prenatal vitamins) in addition to eating well.
4. Drink at least 4 servings of milk, other dairy products or calcium rich foods. If you don’t eat enough, your baby will start drawing on your own stock from your bones. So, drink up your milk!
5. Be sure to also take foods rich in iron eg and foods rich in folic acid eg green leafy veggies and beans. World Health Organization recommends that pregnant women receive folic acid and iron tablets daily. Folic acid prevents neural tube defects which may occur during the first 28days of pregnancy. This is usually the period when quite a number of women do not even know they are pregnant. Thus, women who plan on getting pregnant should start on folic acid supplements at least 3 months before their planned date to safeguard against neural tube defects. If you haven’t started this earlier and realize you’re pregnant, start taking them as soon as possible.

Pregnancy provides an opportunity for a mother to adequately prepare her baby for life in 9 months. Make sure that you get all the nutrients that give your child a great health boost.

Have a great evening y’all 😀

Most people on diets ‘are going to be disappointed, because even when successful, lost weight is frequently regained within a few months.’

Do you want to know why and what you can do to prevent this? Read!

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/when-dieting-doesnt-work-2020052519889

Today is World Food Safety Day. Below I share one of my favourite posts on food hygiene.

Are you aware of the different ways in which your food could become unsafe? Food hygiene is coming more and more under the radar because of increasing cases of food poisoning and issues experienced in keeping the integrity of the food chain even in very developed countries. Here are five issues you need to know about food hygiene.

• Eggs. These are at the root of more than 30 percent of food poisoning cases. So get your children to stay off them. If you’ve got children like mine, it may not be as easy as it sounds especially when you’ve mixed up a batch of cakes and are trying to convince them that the batter they desperately want to lick off the bowl is not healthy! Ensure that egg dishes eg French toasts (when you choose to indulge), custards etc are well cooked with no hint of raw eggs. The risk of salmonella infection is ever so real.

• Chicken. Poultry usually harbours the salmonella infection but because this meat is usually cooked before eating, it may not be a problem. However, cross contamination by using the same chopping board or work surface used to prepare chicken to prepare other foods could lead to a salmonella infection. This is also the case if the chicken is stored in the fridge in direct contact with other foods. Use different work surfaces for raw meats and other foods and please separate from other foods when storing in the freezer.

• Raw or slightly cooked fish. Worms in raw fish can survive in the intestines of man and cause infections. Thus fish has to be properly cooked. All you sushi lovers please pay attention. Appropriate cooking methods include grilling and poaching. You know that way most people fry their fish until it sounds and feels like plantain chips when you’re eating it? Well, that certainly will destroy any worm in the fish but is not healthy for you. Sounds like you can’t win, yeah?

• Raw or partially cooked meat. Provided meat is not minced, any surface contamination of the meat is easily eliminated by cooking. However, minced meat requires that the meat be cooked thoroughly all the way through. Lovers of tartar which are raw meat dishes should be especially wary. Wooden chopping boards are discouraged as cuts on them form rich reservoirs for germs.

• Fruits and vegetables are not common sources of food contamination but could get contaminated if prepared on a contaminated surface or if not in optimal quality when eaten. So be careful

The World Health Organization has a very handy 5 keys to safer food that sums all of this up:

Keep your hands clean. Remember that even hands that look clean, could very have germs on them: wash them after using the toilet, playing with pets, before food preparation etc

Separate raw and cooked foods so that you don’t transfer germs from foods like meat to other foods. Start off this separation when grocery shopping and pack these items differently, have different chopping boards for meats, veggies etc

Cook foods properly and reheat (warm) foods that have been cooked earlier, thoroughly. This ensures that any germs, present are destroyed by the heat involved.

Keep food at safe temperatures. Germs can comfortably grow in foods stored at room temperature. Refrigerating them slows down the multiplication of these germs and in some cases may stop the growth completely: cooked food should be piping hot, Frozen foods should be thawed in the refrigerator and not room temperature, cooked foods should not be stored at room temperature for longer than 2 hours etc

Finally, use safe water and produce.

So please make sure that you obey the cardinal rules of hygiene in the kitchen as in every other part of your life. This message is even more important today with COVID-19. Stay safe people

Have a good evening, y’all 😀

Q: Hello once again. Is it normal for a man to have unequal breasts? My right breast is bigger than the left breast and when I feel it with my hands they are some lumps in it. What might be the cause? And how do I treat it?

A: Thanks for writing in.

What you describe can happen in boys and men as a result of hormonal imbalance (of estrogen and testosterone) and can affect one or both breasts. As a result of the hormonal changes at these periods, new-born babies adolescents and the elderly may experience this. Other risk factors include the use of performance enhancing drugs (steroids or androgens) in sports.

Boys and men with this condition may feel some pain and embarrassment. To prevent this condition, staying away from illegal drugs, like anabolic steroids and staying off alcohol could be helpful. Also, getting your doctor to review your medication to ensure that you are not taking any drug that could lead to increase in breast tissue would be helpful.

If the usual conditional described above describe your case, then this would disappear on its own but where it doesn’t or you continue to feel concerned, please consult your doctor. You may require further investigation and/or treatment in the form of surgery to remove excess breast tissue or medication.

I hope you had a great day, people.