Friday, October 14, 2011

Fifth Disease in Kids

Being a mother instantly gives you the position of being the family doctor. Thus, you must be aware of the conditions that might attack your family at any time, especially if you still have kids because they do not know when something is wrong with them until they feel weak. There are so many conditions that target the younger population and one of them is Fifth disease. Kids who are suffering from this condition are infected by the human parvovirus B19.

Since it affects the younger ones, it is your duty to be very observant about the changes so that when you seek professional assistance, you can accurately give an account of the development. It is not very easy to detect Fifth disease. Kids, at times, do not show signs of its presence. The common symptoms that are usually associated with it may or may not manifest. In cases that they do, the patient may suffer from headache, runny nose, sore throat, a low-grade fever and after a week, or sometimes longer, rashes may begin appearing.

When the rash appears, you should be very patient for it could give your child so much discomfort as it would be very itchy, especially when exposed to the sun or too much heat. It usually begins showing around the cheeks, making them quite bulky and reddish. After some time, it would spread to the arms and legs and could even advance to the buttocks or trunks. It may come and go for some weeks, so just bear with your child.

The transmission of the virus within a household would be very fast. One infected member could easily contaminate the whole family because of the intimacy among them. Once acquired, there would be an incubation period of about 21 days before the first symptoms will appear. This is why; when anyone feels any of the above symptoms, you must be extra careful and do not let the kids near that person since they can easily be infected. It is important to take action at once because when the rash appears, it means that the contagion period is over and it could be that the virus has already been passed to someone else.

Fifth disease in kids may not be as alarming as other conditions but it is still a burden to see your child suffer. So, be very keen about everything that is happening so that you can detect even the first signs of its presence to prevent it from spreading and to find treatment for it immediately.

Painkiller Special Delivery

New and modern techniques are continuously being developed in the fight against chronic pain. These efforts are prompted by the need to have safer treatments for pain in order to avoid negative effects of existing pain medications. These negative effects include addiction, pain medication tolerance, liver damage and stomach ulcers. This is the reason why researchers and pain management specialists are searching high and low for better ways to handle and manage chronic pain.

Modern technology has given numerous contributions to the medical field. Today's technology can convert ideas and mere possibilities into reality. One of the most notable contributions of modern science to medicine is precision. This has proven to be most useful in laparoscopic surgeries and eye surgeries.

Recent studies show that precision may also lend a hand in chronic pain management. It is well-settled that the sensation of pain is created by brain signals which travel through the body's nervous system and to the nerve endings where pain is finally perceived.

Along the nervous system, a cellular process called axoplasmic or axonal transport occurs. The axonal transport is responsible for the movement and communication of neurons and molecules along the nervous system. Since brain signals which cause the perception of pain are also transported in the same manner, experts are entertaining the possibility that treatment or cure for pain can also be directly infused into and transported within the nervous system.

The perfection of this technology will revolutionize pain management. By using the nervous system itself to transport treatment to only the affected nerve endings, the dosage that will be needed to treat or cure the pain will be greatly reduced. In fact, studies show that this type of treatment would need only about 1/10,000th of the dosage which would usually be needed if the pain medication is taken orally. This information would make anyone stop in their tracks and wonder why such a large dose of pain killer has to be taken when, in fact, the tiniest amount will be able to do the job. This leads to an even more vital question. Where does the rest of the pain killer go? It goes to the other parts of the body - to the organs, bones, tissues, blood and muscles which have absolutely no need for pain killers. That is why taking pain killers cause an array of side effects, ranging from nausea to allergies and drowsiness.

When pain medication is ingested, it first goes to the stomach (which explains why constant use can cause stomach ulcers) then some particles move on to the intestines and get expelled. A portion, however, goes also to the liver (explaining why pain killers sometimes cause liver damage) and then get expelled by the kidneys. The small remaining portion successfully makes its way to the brain and nervous system where it was originally intended to go. A minute portion makes it to the affected nerve finally and zaps the pain away.

By using the axonal transport of the nervous system, pain medication can be delivered straight to its target destination. The process is made possible with the use of an axonal transport facilitator which carries the medication to the nerve ending through the axonal transport.