chatwithketch

Ever since my first daughter went ‘natural’, she has been extra finicky about the ingredients in her hair products. This was soon to be carried over to being super particular about the ingredients in her skin care products and finally her food. If it has letters and not real names, she will not use it. If she’s not sure what exactly it means, she will research it before she buys it. It is absolutely exhausting to go shopping with this daughter of mine…even though I approve of all that ‘finickiness!’ ;D

Well, this post is not about her. It is about the fact that you should also be particular about the stuff you put on and inside your body. Some of the ingredients in those products may be harmful. Read!

https://www.health.harvard.edu/womens-health/toxic-beauty

Q: Good morning doctor, Please I am 5months pregnant and I have been having an itching and less painful white discharge from my vagina two days now. Please what might have been the problem?

A: A: In pregnancy, the decrease in tolerance to glucose which may occur, means that the vagina has a rich supply of sugar which encourages the fungi to grow and multiply as they love the dark, warm, moist and rich environment 😀

Usually, there is yeast (fungi) in the vagina and they generally mind their own business until something comes along to disturb the peace of the environment. This disturbance can be in the form of abuse of antibiotics (which kills off the good bacteria that hold the fungi at bay causing them to take over and overgrow the environment) or even in pregnancy (where the estrogen hormone produced in pregnancy messes with the normal order of co-existence of fungi and bacteria, again, allowing the fungi to take over). Other conditions associated candidiasis include Diabetes Mellitus, disorders of the immune system, use of oral contraceptives, the hormonal changes associated with menstrual cycle etc.

How can this be prevented? Trust me, I’m not going to suggest not getting pregnant 😀 There are things you can do to reduce your risk of this infection. They include:
• Wear cotton panties instead of tight fitting nylon panties.
• Always wipe from the front to the back, after using the bathroom
• Do not use perfumed personal care products like sanitary towels, tissue etc
• Do not spray perfumes in your genitals and avoid perfumed soaps
• Change out of wet swimming gear as soon as possible

Now, this infection can be treated using oral drugs (tablets to be taken by mouth) but these are not recommended during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Vaginal pessaries and creams are better bets in pregnancy. However, because of the very small possibility of hurting your cervix (the neck of the womb), it is advisable not to use the applicator to administer the pessary. Instead, use your finger to insert the pessary. It may be necessary to continue the drug application for about 6 days as opposed to the shorter 3-day course. Your doctor will confirm diagnosis and advice on medication duration.

For more on candidiasis, please click on the following links:
https://chatwithdrketch.com/2014/06/26/daily-health-tips-why-do-i-have-recurrent-candidiasis/
https://chatwithdrketch.com/2014/03/07/daily-health-tips-toilet-infection-seriously/
https://chatwithdrketch.com/2014/04/27/daily-health-tips-is-vaginal-discharge-normal/

Have a great weekend, y’all 😀

Q: Good evening Dr Ketch. Thanks for your work. Please, I wish to know if green tea is good for a woman TTC? If no, please what can I do to slim down? Thank you.

A: Lots of people like green tea for different reasons. Some because they like everything herbal. Others, because it is thought to speed up metabolism which in turn can help weight loss. It’s also touted to have beneficial effects on blood pressure, blood sugar levels and Alzheimer’s disease. These health effects are thought to be due to the presence of the anti-oxidants that help fight cell damage as in cancer. However, in excessive amounts, green tea can cause the same symptoms as excessive caffeine in the body and this includes diarrhoea, irritability, nervousness, rapid heart beat etc.

Some claim that green tea helps conception. There’s no evidence to that effect.

So, on the average, just like for coffee, 2 ‘dainty’ 😀 cups are fine per day. More than that, you could be opening up yourself to other health issues. Most green teas contain less caffeine than black tea and coffee.Where in doubt, especially when trying to conceive, please see your doctor.

For tips on slimming down, please click on https://chatwithdrketch.com/2014/11/27/daily-health-tips-weight-loss-revisited/

Have a great weekend

Q: Good Evening Dr. Please, I need your help on this. I have been married now for 7yrs and I dated my husband for 2 years. Please, the problem is running nose. His nose never dries. In fact, it’s worse at night. Please, what can he use? Thanks 

A: Well, it may be due to allergy known as allergic rhinitis (pronounced Rine-Ai-Tis). This condition, also known as hay fever, occurs when your immune system over-reacts to certain substances in the air (allergens), marking them out as intruders. The resulting symptoms are due to some chemicals released in the body like histamine. These substances cause sneezing especially when you wake up in the morning, runny nose, watery itchy eyes and itchy ears, nose and throat, which could occur seasonally or be present all year round. In fact, the symptoms written above are as good as a text book description of this condition 😀

Oftentimes, in people with this condition, there is a positive history of a family member with asthma or other allergies. The first step towards dealing with this is finding out what the triggers (allergens) are. It could be dust mites, wood dust, smoke, pollen, grasses, cockroaches etc. Your doctor will ask helpful questions to help you identify the culprit. He/she, in the meantime, will prescribe some drugs, the commonest of which is an anti-histamine to help control your symptoms.

Other treatment options include taking allergy shots and going for a nasal irrigation (essentially rinsing out the mucous from your nose). Prevention is focused on identifying and reducing contact with allergens. This would include eradicating cockroaches from your house, using a mask when working outdoors, closing doors and windows when there are lots of pollen in the environment, not hanging laundry outside to prevent pollen sticking to them and causing problems later etc. Reducing dust mites by using oiled duster or damp cloth to clean, using allergen proof covers on mattresses etc will be helpful. So, get a doctor to prescribe drugs to tide you over (you should be able to pick up the prescription over the counter thereafter) and work with you to identify allergens and then you have to avoid them. Other causes of runny or stuffed nose include: Common cold. We are all familiar with this common cause of nasal congestion 😀 This causes blockage of the sinus which results in nasal congestion.  A nasal septum (the wall between the nostrils) that is crooked or bent to one side may cause nasal congestion. This ‘deformity’ may be from birth, due to injury or occur as a process of growth. Excessive use of nasal decongestants can also lead to this as after the decongestant is stopped, there is rebound nasal congestion. And so, one ends up with the same situation they were trying to solve from the beginning! 😀 So, if you must, do not use your nasal decongestants for more than three days Sinusitis is an inflammation of the sinuses (air cavities) that line the nose. When these air cavities (which are supposed to be filled by air) become filled with fluid as a result of blockage, bacteria, fungi and viruses can thrive in this environment and cause infection. Pus-like nasal discharge, facial pain and persistence of symptoms for more than a week, maybe suggestive of this. 

Other conditions include:

• Cold weather

 Foreign body in the nose

 Presence of tumour or polyp (a small growth with a stalk protruding from a surface)

 Medications for high blood pressure

 Spicy foods (remember how you start sniffling once you start on a hot dish?)

 Stress etc

There’s a pretty long list of causes, but your doctor will attempt to narrow down to what the probable cause for you is. In the meantime,

Ø try drinking a lot of water

Ø Use saline sprays instead of the nasal decongestants, if you’ve been indulging in this 😉

Ø Use a humidifier which loosens the mucous. Turning on the hot water shower and inhaling the steam is another great idea.

Ø Avoid irritants of the nose like smoke All these measures will help reduce the nasal congestion. 

Have a great night y’all 😀

Q: Hello doctor I do urinate frequently and I am not pregnant, My stomach pains me. What could be the cause and what can be used to treat toilet infection?

A: Frequent urination may actually be due to the simple fact that you’re drinking way too much fluid. However, where this is not the case, it is likely to be due to a health problem.

Some causes of frequent urination include:

1. Sexually Transmitted Infections as you have already noted.
2. Some medications
3. Drinks that contain caffeine, alcohol etc
4. Infections that along the urinary tract or changes to the bladder
5. Infection or enlargement of the prostate
6. Disease conditions like Diabetes Mellitus etc
7. Some cancer treatment eg radiation treatment for the lower abdomen

If this is due to excessive fluid intake, limiting this will help. If this symptom is associated with others like difficulty with urination, pain during urination, passing out bloody urine, incomplete emptying of bladder when urinating etc, please see your doctor ASAP.

So, I suggest that you just go and see your doctor. He will take a good history, examine you and order some investigations. The treatment of course will depend on the cause of the problem.

On toilet disease…

This entity called toilet disease is a well-known one, especially in Nigeria, but does not exist anywhere except in our imaginations 😀 Seriously!!! I would love to meet that person who caught a Sexually Transmitted Infection from a toilet seat. The reasons are 1) these infections hardly survive for long outside of the human body and 2) the cold and hard toilet seat is not a great medium for the germs to really grown and multiply. They are also not found in urine. Theoretically, if this is deposited on the toilet seat and one sits down on it immediately and this person has cuts and abrasions on their buttocks, perhaps this can happen. But the odds of this ever happening is seriously negligible…particularly because so many conditions will need to be satisfied! I think that going into the toilet, we should be more worried about observing personal hygiene eg washing our hands and drying thoroughly before leaving.

For related posts, please click on the following:

Daily Health Tips: Urinary Tract Infections In Men

Daily Health Tips: Why Do I Have Pain When Urinating?

Daily Health Tips: Train That Leaking Bladder!

Daily Health Tips: Prostate Enlargement

Daily Health Tips: More on The Prostate Gland

All the best!

It has been an interesting year, so far for everyone all around the world. COVID-19 took the world by storm few weeks after we entered a brand new year and decade. So, right now in the environment, there are all the ingredients for, not just stress, but a melt down!

But hey…crises also present opportunities. If you look around, not everyone is having a meltdown. Some are going about their business albeit in a new social distanced way J, some are doing better than before and some others are just taking each day at a time. There are also those that are adapting to these new times and coming up with ideas made for these times etc.

So, what to do? Stress is a normal part of life and indeed, even if whatever was your source of stress were to be removed now, it’s only a matter of time before you have to face another stressor. It is really how we react to stress that makes it good stress or bad stress. Two people can experience the same problem and approach it differently. For instance, the woman who has never had a baby and gets pregnant is more likely to handle this issue in a more positive way (good stress) than a woman who already has 6 children and finds out she’s pregnant with another baby (bad stress). Same stressor, different reactions J

There are four things you can do (the 4As):
• Avoid the stressor: If this is possible, avoid the stressor, be they human or material. In these COVID-19 news saturated times, you may want to take heed what you hear. Reduce your intake of the bad news and focus on more uplifting sources of information
• Alter the situation: Make compromises, make a new financial plan that captures your new financial reality etc
• Adapt to the stressor: Find out what good can come out from this situation. Look for it and focus on it (remember how the bible says that all things work together for our good?). Remember that in the very midst of tough times, we can become very creative. So, stretch yourself and your mind. This may very well be the break you’ve been waiting for, if you can open up to the experience.
• Accept the things that you cannot change: Having done all the above, accept the things you can’t change and move ahead.
Remember the serenity prayer?
God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

Obviously, when you’re stressed out, sleeping is a challenge. Please click on the link below for more information on how to deal with insomnia (inability to sleep) and stress
https://chatwithdrketch.com/2014/06/11/daily-health-tips-insomnia/
https://chatwithdrketch.com/2013/03/08/this-thing-called-stress/

Remember that if you do not handle the stress, the problem with sleeping and anxiety will still remain. There are so many ailments associated with stress: hypertension, obesity, loss of libido, stomach ulcers etc. So, the first focus should be on the stress. Keep reminding yourself all the reasons you have to be thankful and be positive 😀

Have a goodnight, everyone 😀

Happy Easter, everyone!
I hope you have had a great day social distancing at home but still staying in touch with family through phones and other devices.
As we move into a new week and contemplate yet another seven days of working from home if you have that luxury, here are some tips to help you cope
Here are 5 signs that you could be suffering from stress:• Feeling of Light headaches, dizziness or faintness• Over-reactions to petty annoyances• Constant tiredness weakness or fatigue• Feeling overloaded or overwhelmed• Difficulty concentrating, racing thoughts Today, I remind you of fun ways to get rid of stress! How? Here are some tips! • Blow bubbles: You can do this alone or with someone. Watch the colors and shapes of the bubbles and how very beautiful they are• Remember the advert where a boss is dancing in his office and his staff join in? Be that guy. Dance. Turn on the music in your living room or bedroom and just dance. Beyond the feel good effect, this releases happy brain chemicals, endorphins• Buy a book of jokes and indulge in it when it looks like the sky is about to fall• Watch your favourite comedy and just let your laughter roar from somewhere deep inside• Don’t take yourself too seriously. Laugh and laugh often too. This lowers blood pressure, opens up creativity and stimulates the production of endorphins…the happy brain chemicals You only live once! Make the best of this one life you’ve got! 😀
Tomorrow, we will discuss other more ‘serious’ ways of dealing with stress.

Q: Good morning, Dr. My wife has a bent uterus. What is the cure? Please, help me

A: Normally, a uterus tilts forwards at the cervix towards the stomach. In some women, however, the uterus tilts backwards inside the pelvis towards the spine. This is called a retroverted or tilted uterus. Many women with this condition are born with it but some women may develop it after birth as a result of:

1. Pregnancy: During pregnancy, the ligaments holding the uterus in place become weak and so after pregnancy, some women now find their uteri tilted.
2. Prior surgery, infections and disease conditions like endometriosis may lead to a tilted uterus. In these cases, conception may be difficult but not impossible. Patients here may benefit from seeing a fertility doctor.

For more on endometriosis and pelvic inflammatory disease, please click on these links:

Daily Health Tips: Can PID Block My Fallopian Tubes?

Daily Health Tips: What’s An Ovarian Cyst?

1. Menopause: Estrogen deficiency in menopause also leads to weakened ligaments such that the uterus now becomes tilted.

A retroverted uterus is usually an incidental finding as most women experience no symptoms. The women with symptoms usually complain of pain during menstruation and pain during sexual intercourse. Other symptoms include lower back pain, incontinence, difficulty with passing stool or urine.

Treatment for this include:

Kegel exercises: The exercise mimics the movements we make when we want to stop the flow of urine. Try holding this for about 10 seconds and then doing about 10 repetitions per set. Try about 4 to 6 sets per day and increase this as you feel ready.

Knee to chest exercise: Lie flat on your back and place both feet on the floor with both knees bent. With your left foot still flat on the floor, bring your right knee to your chest. Hold this position for about 15 to 30 seconds and then return your leg to the floor. Do about 10 reps of this exercise on each leg 3 times a day. This can help return a tilted uterus to a forward position.

Vaginal pessaries (plastic devices) which help to hold the uterus in position.

Surgery can also help to shorten (tighten) the weakened ligaments and thus return the uterus to its rightful position.

Now, does a retroverted uterus stop one from getting pregnant? No. The sperm can swim just as easily here as they do in other uteri/wombs. However, given that some of the causes of retroverted uterus like endometriosis are associated with difficulty to conceive, then retroverted uterus may be associated with infertility even though it doesn’t cause it.

I hope this helps you. If you have more questions, please seek out a good gynaecologist and let him/her help you.

Have a good night, everyone 😀