How to cope up with Arthritis?

Almost everybody with the age of 40 and above suffer from arthritis. Though arthritis has no cure, there are some remedies in easing discomfort caused by this. This was based in the book, "The Home Remedies Handbook".

Osteoarthritis is primarily marked by a breakdown and loss of joint cartilage. Cartilage is the tough tissue that separates the cushions the bones in a joint. As cartilage is worn away and the bones begin to rub against each other, the bones become aggravated. In osteoarthritis, this breakdown of cartilage is accompanied by minimal inflammation, hardening of the bone beneath the cartilage, and bone spurs around the joints.

On the other hand, rheumatoid arthritis is an inevitable aspect of the aging process. The synovial membrane or lining of a joint becomes inflamed, so pain, swelling, heat, and redness occur.

In the case of gout, needle-shaped uric acid crystals collect in the joints, due to a fault in the body's ability to metabolized, or process, purine. These purines are naturally occurring chemical found in certain foods, such as liver, kidney, and anchovies. The disease primarily affects overweight, fairly inactive men over the age of 35.

Lupus, on the other hand, affects many more women than men. It is a condition in which the bodies own immune system attacks healthy cells. The symptoms are wide ranging, from joint pain to mouth sores to persistent fatigue.

There are some techniques to consider that will leave you more active and in control of your life. These are ways in easing stiffness and discomfort:

• Keep moving. Maintain movement in your joints as best as you can.
• Exercise, exercise, exercise. Exercise work best when inflammation has calmed down.
• Give your hands a water workout. Try doing your hand exercises in a sink full of warm water for added ease and comfort.
• Don't overdo it. See how you feel a few hours after you exercise and then again after 24 hours. If your pain has increased considerably during that period of time, then it's time to cut back on the frequency and amount of exercise that you're doing.
• Play in a pool. If you fine even simple movements difficult, heated pool or whirlpool may be the perfect environment for exercise.
• Don't overuse over-the-counter creams. Frequent use of pain-relieving rubs may activate enzymes that can break down the cartilage in the joints.
• Put on the scarf. Not around your neck, but around the elbow or knee joint when it aches.
• Pull on a pair of stretch gloves. The tightness caused by the stretchy kind may, in fact, reduce the swelling that often accompanies arthritis.
• Get electric gloves. The gloves may keep your hands warm and pain-free.
• Try a water bed. The slight motions made by a water bed can help reduce the morning stiffness.
• Try slipping into a sleeping bag. The cocoon-like effect of a sleeping bag traps heat.
• Your weight matters. Being overweight puts more stress on the joints.

There are some ways on how to protect your joints.

• Plan ahead. Prepare a realistic, written schedule of what you would like to accomplish each day. That way, you can carry out your most demanding tasks and activities when you think you’ll have the most energy and enthusiasm.
• Spread the strain. Grasp your goods in the crook of your arm - the way a football player holds the ball as he’s running across the field – and you won’t be tackled by as much pain.
• Avoid holding one position for a long time. Keeping joints locked in the same position for any length of time will just add to your pain and stiffness.
• Use your arm as much as possible. Use your arm in carrying out an activity.
• Take a load off. Sitting down to complete a task will keep your energy level up much longer than if you stand.
• Get long handles doorknobs and faucets. They require a looser, less stressful grip to operate, so you’ll put less strain on your joints.
• Build up the handles on your tools. For a more comfortable grip, tape a layer or two of thin foam rubber, or a foam-rubber hair curler, around the handles of tools like brooms and mops.
• Choose lighter stuff. Lightweight eating and cooking utensils can keep your hands from getting heavy with hurt.
• Use Automatic appliances instead of doing it yourself.
• Do not scrub. Spray pots and pans with nonstick surface. Consider getting a dishwasher too, to save your joints some work.
• Keep your stuff within easy reach.
• A long handled gripper will help you reach stuff placed in high places.
• Do just one major cleaning chore a day.
• Interlocking cloth closures on clothing and shoes can save you the frustration of buttoning and lacing.
• Use the stairway and do it starting on your stronger leg going up and lead with your weaker leg in going down.
• Bend your knees in lifting or reaching something that’s on the ground, and always straighten your back.
• You can put your heavy load in a wagon or in a cart.
• Read with ease. For instance, while reading the newspaper, instead of holding it, you may just lay it on the table.
• When having a shower, a stool can give you a steady place and can ease your way in and out of the tub.
• Sitting, rather than stooping. Over your flower beds or vegetable garden may help reduce the stress on your back and legs.
• Ask for assistance when you need it.

Allergies- Ways to Feel Better

In many cases, allergy symptoms are difficult to differentiate from the symptoms of other disorders and illnesses, such as cold, a deformity of the nose, or a food intolerance. For this reason, many doctors suggest that allergies be properly diagnosed by
a board-certified allergist to avoid the self administration of inappropriate medication or other remedies. Also, some allergy sufferers can benefit from today's wide range of available treatments, such as new treatment antihistamine that won't cause drowsiness, nasal corticosteroids, and allergy injections that can provide immunity to a specific allergen.

Some mild allergies, like seasonal hay fever or an allergy to cats, can be treated with a combination of properly used, over-the counter antihistamines and a wide range of strategies to reduce or eliminate your exposure to particularly annoying allergens.

There are some ways to help reduce the discomfort caused by the most common allergies. The following ways may be used in combination with an allergist's treatment or, if your allergies are mild, by themselves.

• Avoid the culprit. At times, the best way to reduce discomfort is to avoid exposure to allergen as much as possible.
  
• Rinse you eyes. If your eyes are itchy and irritated and you have no access to allergy medicine, rinsing your eyes with cool, clean water may help soothe them.
• Try a warm washcloth. If sinus passages feel congested and painful, a washcloth soaked in warm water may make things flow a bit easier. You can place the washcloth over the nose and upper-cheek area and relax for a few minutes.
• Use saline solution. Irrigating the nose with saline solution may help soothe upper-respiratory allergies by removing irritants that become lodged in the nose, causing inflammation.
• Wash your hair. If you spent long hours outdoors during pollen season, wash your hair after you come inside to remove pollen.
• Take a shower. If you wake up in the middle of the night with a coughing, sneezing allergy attack, a hot shower may wash off any pollen residues you've collected on your body throughout the day.
• Wear your sunglasses. Sunglasses may help shield your eyes from airborne allergen.
• Beware of the air. Since air pollution can augment allergies and may actually induce people to have allergies.
• Make your house a no-smoking zone. Tobacco smoke is a notorious irritant, either causing or aggravating respiratory allergies.
• Keep the window shut. Close windows will keep pollen out of the house apartment.
• Filter your vacuum.
• Dust with a damp cloth. Avoid using feather dusters, which tend to spread dust around.
  
• Don't dust at all. If dusting only aggravates your allergies, it's better not to do it at all.
• Dehumidify. Dust mites grow very well in humid areas.
• Think before you burn. Wood that is treated with heavy metals or other chemical-laden materials will irritate everybody, but the person that is allergic or asthmatic will have proportionally more difficulty.
• Cut through the smoke. Many people with respiratory allergies find that wood smoke poses a particular problem.
• Leave the lawn mowing to someone else. During pollen season, a grass-allergic person is better off letting someone else-anyone else-mow the lawn.
  
• Wash your pet.
  
• Make sure that your final rinse really rinses. Make sure that your final rinse cycle on your machine thoroughly rinses the detergent from your clothes.
  
• Call ahead. When planning a vacation or business trip, call ahead to find a room that will be easier on your allergies.
  

Home Remedies for Acne

Acne has been a major concern of most teenagers and some adults. Though new acne treatments allows a faster and scar free removal of acne.

Let us know first some factors where we can get acne. First factor is genes, you may inherit some skin characteristics that can make you likely to develop acne.

You have thousands of oil glands in the skin; on your face, chest and back that lubricate the skin by producing sebum, or oil. There are 2,000 oil glands per square inch in the central part of your face. The oil from the glands flows through tiny ducts to the skin surface. At times, the oil ducts become plugged with sebum, bacteria, and dead skin cells that are shed from the lining of the duct and that is acne. This condition often appears in adolescence because of changing hormone levels, which enlarge the oil glands and encourage them to produce more oil. The increase in oil appears to fuel acne, perhaps by stimulating the production of sticky skin cells that, when shed, tend to plug the duct. this situation usually settles down by the end of the teen years or during the early 20s.

Adult could develop acne from hormones, stress, cosmetics, occupational exposure (numerous chemicals can also cause acne), and certain medication.

There are steps you can take to help clear up your skin.

• Do no harm. Don't prick, press, rub, or otherwise manipulate those pimples. The plug at the top of the pore is like a balloon. You can pop it, but below the surface, the sebum, bacteria, and skin cells may leak into the surrounding tissue, causing inflammation.
  
• Use benzoyl peroxide. Some over-the-counter product contain this ingredient, which helps break up the plug of dead skin cells, bacteria, and oil in pores and cuts down on the bacteria as well. Start with the lowest concentration, and work your way up, especially if you have sensitive skin, because the higher concentration, the more irritating it may be. Use it once or twice a day. If it dries the skin too much, apply a mild moisturizers.
• Give one of the over-the-counter product a shot.
• Apply over-the-counter products for prevention. Don't just spot the product on existing acne, put it on acne-prone areas.
• Go easy on your face.
  
• Wash properly. Use a mild soap. Rub lightly with your fingertips and warm water. For oily skin, use a soap with benzoyl peroxide for its drying properties. And wash once or twice a day.
• Don't exfoliate. That refers to removing the top layer of skin cells.
• Watch out for oily products. That goes for oily pomades on your hair, heavy oil-based moisturizers, and even oily cleansers.
• Use water-based makeup.
• Fore go the facial. Since most people giving facial aren't trained to treat acne-prone skin properly and may end up doing more harm than good.
• Don't rest your chin on your hands.
  
• Soak up the oil. There are paper product that can be pressed onto the skin to soak up oil. Though it doesn't help acne, it helps relieve the oiliness which is disagreeable.
• Screen out the sun.Protect your skin by means of sunblock with SPF 15 or higher.
• Don't worry about diet. Chocolate, french fries, and other foods have not been proven to have anything at all to do with causing teenage acne.
  
• Watch out for iodine. High levels of iodine, found in some multiple vitamins and in iodized salt, may encourage acne.
  

Cabbage and Tomato Soup

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp Butter
• 2 cups Coarsely cut cabbage
• 2 cups Water
• 1 tsp Salt
• 2 Tbsp Flour
• 1/4 Cup Cold Water
• 2 Medium Tomatoes, peeled, seeded and coarsely chopped
• 1 tbsp Dried Parsley
• 1/2 tsp Dried leaf basil
• 1/4 tsp Celery Salt
• 1/8 tsp Garlic Salt
• 1/8 tsp Pepper
• 3 cups Milk

Procedure:

Heat Butter in large saucepan. Add cabbage and cook gently 3 minutes, stirring. Add 2 cups ( 500ml ) water and salt, bring to a boil. Turn down heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Bring back to a boil. Shake flour and 1/4 cup ( 60 ml ) water together until blended in a small jar with a tight lid. Stir into boiling liquid gradually. Add tomatoes and seasonings. Bring to a boil, turn down heat and simmer gently 5 minutes, stirring often. Stir in Milk. Heat to scalding. Serve Immediately.

*******Good for 6 servings*******

Corn Soup

Ingredients:

• 3 tbsp Butter
• 1 medium Onion, Sliced thin
• 1/2 Cup Diced Green Pepper
• 2 Medium Potatoes, sliced thin
• 2 Cups Boiling water
• 2 Cups Milk
• 1 tbsp Flour
• small piece Bay leaf
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1/4 tsp Pepper
• 19-oz can Cream Style Corn
  

Procedure:

Heat butter in medium saucepan. Add onion and green pepper and cook gently 3 minutes, stirring. Add potatoes and water and bring to a boil. Turn down heat, cover and boil gently 15 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Mix about 1/4 cup ( 60 ml) of the milk with the flour until
smooth and stir into the boiling mixture. Add remaining milk, bay leaf, salt, pepper and corn. Simmer 15 minutes. Discard bay leaf.

Whirl in blender ( half at a time ) until nearly smooth. Serve hot or chilled.

*****Good for 6 serving********