Pain may arise from injury to our body cells. This is known as organic pain. More accurately it arises from the stimulation of nerve fibres as a result of injury to the body tissues. However, some organs of the body, such as the brain itself, are not supplied with pain nerves, and these organs can [...]

Q. What causes these erosions to take place in a healthy person? A. The basic cause is too much acid and pepsin in the gastric fluid. At all times, a continual battle is going on in the stomach. On one hand, glands in the walls are actively producing acid, which in turn allows production of [...]

As already noted briefly, sciatica can be experienced in a number of ways. Most typically it manifests itself as one or more of the following sensations, with some sufferers having more than one kind of sciatic pain or discomfort: A pain that sufferers describe as ‘aching’, ‘stinging’, or even ‘burning’, this either following a specific [...]

Of late, vitamin A has been much in the news as a drug that reduces the incidence of certain cancers. Accordingly, for the sake of fair balance, we felt that our readers should be told about a recent report in the Western Journal of Medicine (137:429). A young woman visited her doctor because dryness of [...]

  Symptoms Sudden abdominal pain; cramping pain; diarrhea; vomiting Home care Apply mild heat to the abdomen. Treat constipation by changing the child’s diet or with a glycerin suppository. Precautions -    Do not try to relieve stomach pain by giving a laxative or placing ice on the stomach. -    If you cannot diagnose the child’s pain as [...]

Drugs may be absorbed by mouth, by injection, by inhalation, or by contact. They may be well accepted, or they may cause intolerance or allergy. Intolerance is an exaggerated response to a large quantity of a drug, while allergy is sensitivity to the drug regardless of the quantity used. Allergy to a drug assumes one [...]

Luteinising hormone (LH) controls the development and release of the egg from the ovary. Women who have high levels of this hormone in the first half of their menstrual cycle seem to have a greater risk of miscarriage. In addition, women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) have raised levels of LH. Progesterone is the hormone [...]

Smoking diseases are diseases caused directly or indirectly by smoking tobacco. The best known is lung cancer but this is only the tip of the iceberg, as we shall see. Smoking is the single greatest cause of death in the UK, and the World Health Organization has said that the control of smoking would do [...]

Questions to ask Some of the questions that you might like to ask your doctor include: • Does the doctor have a partner who knows about you and can treat you if your own specialist is unavailable? • Can the doctor see you immediately if you have an urgent or serious problem? • Will the [...]

Poisoning Over half the fatal poisoning cases amongst elderly people involve drugs and medications. This is not surprising as people receiving a variety of treatments may become confused as to which medicines to take, when, and in what quantities. Gases and vapours are responsible for a third of the deaths by poison amongst the elderly. [...]