Bachelor Gossip, Jade

February 17, 2015 by 7 Comments

The Bachelor Gossip, framed

 

by,

Suzanne Coleman, MD

Hi all, I just wanted to talk about “The Bachelor” a little bit.  For those of you who are watching, let’s talk about last night’s episode, shall we?

So if you watched, you saw the super cute and sweet young lady named Jade tell the Bachelor, Chris, about her past.  She was holding on to a big secret and it was time to tell it.  She had posed for “Playboy.”  She sat him down and they talked about it, she even showed him the pictures and video of it (I’m not sure why) and then he told her how it didn’t matter to him.  And then he cut her loose.

So, let’s talk about that.  I want to know what you all think.  Do you think she should have told him?  Do you think she should have showed him her pics and the video of her nude?  Do you think he let he go because of it, even though he, of course, said it wasn’t that at all…

Here are my thoughts on it all.  I think she should have told him, but much later in their relationship.  There was no need to tell him at this point as they are really just starting to get to know each other and find out if there is a connection between them.  If they found that they were in love and headed for a serious relationship (I know, this show isn’t really normal life…), I think that then she could tell him about it.

Should she have shown him the pictures?  In my opinion, absolutely not.  He didn’t ask to see them, and it was not necessary or appropriate.  That might have been the deal-breaker more than anything.  It would be so uncomfortable to be in a new relationship with someone, and to have them show you nude, and probably not so “artistic,” pictures of themselves.  And even video.  Besides making the other person very uncomfortable, they would have to question why you would want to show them these very personal photos of yourself.  Plus, you are really ruining the mystery in that aspect of the relationship.  Now, discovering each others’ bodies will be a bit, tainted.

I’m not saying there is anything wrong (or right) with her posing, that is her decision absolutely.  The human body is something that we all have, there is nothing shameful about it and we should never feel that there is.  But it is something special, which for her is now out there in the open and has changed the way that he looks at her and thinks about her.  I think that is unfortunate.

I wish her the best, and I hope she finds it.  I think she can do better than Chris anyway 🙂  I did really like what he said to her as he let her go, he told her that knowing her was “a gift.”  I think that is one of the most beautiful things that I have ever heard.

http://abc.go.com/shows/the-bachelor/cast/19-bachelorette-jade

 

 

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Beautiful preserved oak savannah along Lake Michigan by Suzanne Coleman. ©Suzanne Coleman, all rights reserved. Click on the link below to go to the shop.

Beautiful, preserved oak savannah along Lake Michigan, by Suzanne Coleman.
©Suzanne Coleman, all rights reserved. Click on the link below to go to the shop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Art for SALE here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/208012241/fort-sheridan-savannah-in-fog-nature-art?ref=listing-shop-header-2

 

 

Filed Under: Bachelor/ette Gossip, POP News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Alcohol, How its Abuse or Overuse Can Impact Us

January 21, 2015 by 3 Comments
By Oscar Sanchez Urgiles (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

By Oscar Sanchez Urgiles (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

By,

Suzanne Coleman, MD

 

I wanted to write a post on alcoholism.  Alcoholism is a common problem, approximately one out of every ten people is an alcoholic.  Yep, that’s right.  I know, the number can be surprising.  The current guidelines give you an easy way to understand when someone has a problem with alcohol, and here they are:

For men, if you drink more than two drinks a day on average, you have a problem.

For women, if you drink more than one drink a day, on average, you have a problem.

Other issues of concern are:  drinking until you pass out or don’t remember what happened, not good.  These are also signs of a problem with alcohol.

So what do they mean by “one drink” or “two drinks?”

There are different types of alcohol, and because they have different strengths, the amount that makes up “one drink” varies based on the type of alcohol you are talking about.

Check this out:

one 12 ounce can of beer = one drink

one 6 ounce glass of wine = one drink

one ounce of liquor (liquors are things like whisky, scotch, gin, brandy, vodka, tequila, schnapps, etc.) = one drink

So, really, why is it bad to drink too much alcohol?

Alcohol is a toxin, a poison, and while it can be relaxing and fun, it does do harm to our bodies, and in many cases, our personal lives.  Alcoholism is generally considered a disease where a person is dependent on alcohol or abuses it.  The best current treatment for these problems is to not drink at all.  Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) has a program that definitely works for many people, it provides support for those who want to change, because it is hard to stop when your brain is telling you to drink, drink, drink to live.  That support can be life-changing.  They also offer Al-Anon which offers support to friends and family of those with a drinking problem.  AA is not right for everyone and there are other options.  You can begin by speaking with your physician or a counselor who can be very helpful in working with you to understand why you drink and more.

What does alcohol do to a body?  Good question, thanks for asking.  I’ll go through some of the main issues here:

If a person drinks too much, they will go through withdrawal when they stop; this can happen even on a daily basis.  For example, if someone binge drinks at night, the next day they can have symptoms of alcohol withdrawal.  What are the symptoms?  They can experience anxiety, shakiness, high blood pressure, and irritability.  These feelings can lead someone to become dependent on alcohol because when they start to drink again, it will stop some of these problems.  But it’s important to understand that it is the use of alcohol that is causing them in the first place.  Proper medical care will help to break this cycle by treating any underlying anxiety issues and explaining how the use of alcohol can make them worse.

If a person drinks heavily regularly and stops for a period of days, they can be at risk of severe withdrawal which can include seizures and more.  If someone is going to stop drinking, they should first talk with their doctor about the safe way to do that, this will help them to avoid the dangers of withdrawal.

Alcohol can also cause insomnia.  This can happen, even if someone only drinks a small amount.  So for those of you who suffer from trouble sleeping, keep this in mind.  If you drink alcohol and have insomnia, try not drinking for a few days and see how you sleep.  There will be another article coming soon on insomnia, so stay tuned for that.

Alcohol can impact your organs in a negative way, causing you harm.  I’m sure most of you have heard that it can kill off your liver.  It does this over time (unless there are other factors involved like medications used, or underlying diseases, which can speed up the damage), and can lead to cirrhosis of the liver.  The liver is critical for life, and if you kill yours off, you will not be able to survive.  The liver removes toxins (like alcohol) from the blood, keeping you healthy as much as it can.

Alcohol will also kill off your brain cells (think TOXIN, toxins are toxic, which means they kill off living tissues).  Over time, this can cause a person to have difficulty with balance, they will need to change the way they stand by keeping their feet wide apart, so that they don’t fall down.  Alcohol can also cause a person to start making up stories, this is called “confabulation.”  If your liver is impacted severely enough, it cannot process toxins and then your blood will have excess ammonia in it which will impact your brain.  This will cause you to be confused and act inappropriately.  A person with brain damage from alcohol can seem like a different person than they were before.

Alcohol can cause heart failure, which can lead to death.  The toxicity of alcohol can cause cancers of the mouth, esophagus, and stomach.  There are many other problems it causes in your body and online searches or conversations with your physician can help inform you further.

Socially, the worst part of alcohol abuse or misuse is the negative impact it has on a person’s relationships.  An alcoholic will choose alcohol over family and friends, and over being reliable at work (as all other addiction disorders tend to do as well). Alcoholics who drink usually end up harming their children and spouses by neglecting their relationships with them, or worse.  Adults have the choice to leave a bad relationship, but children do not.  The neglect that alcohol abuse often causes to children is the worst outcome of this disease.

What makes someone an alcoholic?  Well, there can be many different things that lead to this in an individual.  In some cases, when the person is young they see someone in their life using alcohol to cope with their problems.  When they see this they are learning that alcohol is the way to deal with problems, or just life in general, and then they start to drink too.  But the truth is that alcohol doesn’t make problems go away, it just covers them up or delays them for a while; this can often make problems worse, but children don’t understand that.  The younger a person starts to use alcohol, the more likely they are to become (or be) an alcoholic.  Young people should not be using alcohol for this and many other reasons.

From what I have read, some people are simply born with the genes to become an alcoholic.  When they drink, their body and brain tell them that they have to keep drinking.  It is an addiction and a disease.  Research shows that this may be related to dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain.

If you find yourself saying things like “I need a drink,” you should stop and wonder why.  Many people use alcohol to try and treat underlying medical problems like anxiety disorders, depression, and others.  Some people grow up in a home where there is little to no love or support; sometimes they turn to alcohol or drugs to numb the pain they feel from this lack of love which is necessary for humans to thrive.

If you or someone you know is having problems like these, I recommend finding a counselor to talk to about them.  I believe that counseling is one of the best things you can do for yourself.  Most people can benefit from counseling in one area of their lives or another.  There is nothing wrong with being strong enough to know when you can become even stronger by asking someone to help you.  I applaud anyone who reaches out for help to become a stronger and healthier person.

 

I have covered some general points on alcohol here.  I hope it has been helpful.  I encourage anyone who might have concerns about their use of alcohol, or that of someone they know, to reach out for help to a physician, a counselor, or AA or Al-Anon.

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The information presented in this article is for educational purposes only.  If you have any questions or concerns, please speak with your personal physician.  The information presented may vary slightly from other sources, and over time, as is the nature of medical knowledge.

 

 

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Let’s talk about dry skin and lips

January 1, 2015 by 1 Comment

 

Chapped_lips

By,

Suzanne Coleman, MD

 

I think we should talk about skin, and for today, specifically dry skin and lips.  It’s that time of year, heaters are running causing dry air, and that leads to dry skin and lips.

You don’t need to suffer these conditions though!  The solution is simple, humidify your air.

It’s the dryness of the air that is sucking the moisture out of your skin and lips, so you need to put that moisture back.  There are several ways to do this.  The simplest one that will work for almost everyone is to go out and buy those small portable humidifiers for your home.  They can usually be found at places like Walmart and Walgreens, but you can also buy them online.  This year I bought two new ones made by Vicks to humidify my home.  I needed two because each unit only fills a certain square footage of air properly; one just wasn’t enough.

If you have a furnace system, you might be able to add on a humidifier right onto it.  I had this type of heating system before and adding the humidifier directly onto the system worked very well to humidify the house, and the price was around $300 installed.

In both of the above cases, the level of humidity is adjustable.  This is important, because depending on the size of your home, you don’t want too much or too little humidity.  When you have too little, that is when you start to see dry lips and skin.  Low humidity can also cause red, dry eyes and painful cracks inside of the nose.  On the other hand, when you have too much humidity you will see condensation on the windows; that is bad because it can lead to mold which can cause health problems and should be avoided.  Some condensation can occur at healthy humidity levels, especially on very cold days if the windows are covered.  But if it continues on an average winter day, you should turn down the level of humidity in that case.

Other ways to humidify are less reliable, but also work.  For one, taking a shower and not using the exhaust fan is a good way to put humidity back into the home.  That is usually not enough humidity in a cold winter though.  You can also use a spray bottle to spray water into the air several times a day.  Other ways to help increase the humidity are to put out pans of water in the home.  If you have radiator heat, this works well.  Just place pans of water on the radiator and the water will evaporate into the air.  It can be messy though if a pan spills, and might cause discoloration or mineral deposits on the pans.

Overall, I recommend the small units or the whole-house furnace unit based on general effectiveness and ease of use.  The small units will need to be refilled on a daily basis when being used, so keep that in mind.  The ones I bought this year make it easier to do this than the ones I used to have.

Also, be aware that there are at least three different forms of small humidifier, based on how they put humidity into the air.  The cold steam ones can leave a white, chalky substance all over everything, so I do not recommend them.  I even tried one that said it didn’t do that, well, it did.  The warm mist ones are the ones I tend to prefer personally.  They also make ultrasonic ones; I tried one once but didn’t like it.  I think it was too loud, but I can’t remember for sure anymore.

The other things to remember in caring for you skin and lips are the following.  If your lips are dry, use something to keep them protected.  They shouldn’t get too dry if your living and working environments are properly humidified, but we all know that sometimes we cannot control our working environments enough to be sure to take care of that.  In those cases, I recommend using Vaseline petroleum jelly.  It comes in small tubes like other lip treatments and is very convenient to take with you anywhere.  Please note, that some lip treatments can actually cause dry lips.  If you try one and your lips seem worse, stop using it.  The Vaseline is good for people who might have sensitive skin or reactions to some lip products like Chapstick and lipsticks.

If you are a parent, your child will appreciate the improved humidity as well.  Plus if they get chapped lips, giving them the Vaseline lip tube to carry around with them will help.  Kids love to lick those lips and this can help!

For the skin, after you bathe, you should apply some type of lotion or oil to keep the moisture at a healthy level.  I have tried many different skin lotions and personally prefer the Vaseline brand no dyes no perfumes type.  It absorbs fairly well (though they keep changing the formula…) and it is not greasy.  Many of the  brands “recommended by dermatologists” actually do not absorb well and are greasy.  The choice is yours.

Another thing to remember in the winter is that washing your hands removes the natural oils, so use lotion after you wash them to avoid chapped, cracking skin.  The whole-home humidity will also help you to avoid this problem.  Also be aware that anti-bacterial soaps are severely drying to the skin, and completely unnecessary in most homes.  Stick with regular soaps and do your skin a favor.

You might also notice that when your home is properly humidified that you and your family may experience less respiratory illnesses like colds and the flu.  Proper humidity is important for your health, all-around.

If you follow the above guidelines you and your family should experience improved skin and lip health.

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Someone asked what is a healthy humidity level.  A healthy humidity level is around 50-55% in the summer, above that you risk mold.  In the winter it may be less, the EPA suggests 25-40% would be a good range, below that may be too dry.  In the summer, some people need to own dehumidifiers (especially for basements) to keep the level from getting too high.  This can cause mold which will lead to allergies and possibly other health problems, plus it can ruin your possessions and your home itself in some cases.

[Note, none of the companies mentioned in this article have provided any compensation or support and the recommendations made are made purely on personal experience.  The above article is written to provide general information,  any specific medical questions or concerns should be brought to the attention of your physician.]

 

 

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What Do YOU Think?

December 28, 2014 by 2 Comments

What do you think? box with blue around and blue letters, graphic, SI, 700x700

by,

Suzanne Coleman

 

So here’s the story.  There are a bunch of us sitting at a table in a popular restaurant having dessert when one of the guys brings up something that happened to him in his dating past, and asks what the women think about what he did and what happened after that.

So as best as I can recall it, he tells us the following story:

______________

I had met this woman and we went on a few dates together.  We were getting along fine and she was in my apartment one day when I played back a message on my answering machine.  I shouldn’t have done that with her there, in retrospect!

It was my wife calling about the divorce we were going through.  I hadn’t told the woman I was dating that I was still married.  It never came up.

My date left after hearing that message.  The next day I opened up my front door and found out that she had come by and left the flowers I had given her recently  outside of my apartment, turned upside down.

______________

So after telling us this story, he turned to us, a questioning look on his face, and asked us what we thought.

“Well,” I told him, “you were still married and you didn’t tell her that.  That comes across as pretty creepy.  You weren’t being honest with her, it was like you were lying to her the whole time.”

Another woman spoke up, agreeing that he should have told her his exact status, as it matters to many women.

Some other opinions were voiced, and it was interesting that some of the people there were only concerned with how SHE responded to his behavior, and not with what HE did to her in the first place.  There were comments about how she shouldn’t have left the flowers there, how could she do such a thing!

One man found it particularly upsetting and shocking that a woman would enter the man’s building and leave the flowers that he gave her outside of his door, upside down, returning them to him, no longer wanted.  He felt that her behavior was some great violation.  He was upset that she was “trespassing,” though I don’t recall any mention of a secure building during the story.  But even if she entered a secure building, she was buzzed in by him or someone else.

I found these responses interesting, to say the least, and very telling about these people’s views on women and their “rights,” as well as men and their behaviors.

Above all, I thought that this woman’s message was clear, “you are a jerk and I don’t want your flowers.”  Personally, I applaud her reaction.  She stood up for herself against what she thought was a violation of her trust, and a lack of respect for her as a person.  She made a statement that she had every right to make, as we all do.

So now I turn to you, ladies and gentlemen, what do YOU think?

(Click on “Leave a comment” above to let us know.)

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Flu Season is Here

December 28, 2014 by Leave a Comment

 

Doc's Corner, larger

 

 

by,

Suzanne Coleman, MD

 

The flu is here, and it’s earlier than usual this year.  I wanted to take a moment to talk with you about the flu because I have found that many people don’t know what we mean when we say “the flu.”  Many people have told me that they think that the flu means they will have stomach problems, like vomiting, and intestinal problems, like diarrhea.  While this can happen, it usually doesn’t happen with the flu.

What we call “the flu,” short for” influenza”, can be caused by many different viruses which can be circulating around among us at different times.  If you catch one of these viruses, the main symptoms are coughing, runny nose, sore throat, fatigue (feeling very tired), fever, achiness, and sometimes headache.

If you are feeling these symptoms, especially if you are older, have other medical issues, or if the sick person is someone very young, you should go to your doctor to see if you can take a medication that can make the illness less severe.  You should go as soon as possible, the medication is best started within the first 2 days of feeling ill.

This winter the flu virus causing most of the illnesses is a strong one, and they recommend that everyone who can, gets vaccinated to help reduce the symptoms of the illness if they do get sick.

Also, it’s very important if you do get sick that you do your best to not pass the virus on to others.  Be wise, stay home from work, don’t go to the store or other places where you might spread the virus to others.  Especially do not visit older people, babies, women who are pregnant, or anyone who is already fighting any type of serious illness; catching the virus could make them dangerously ill and even lead to their death.

Hopefully you won’t get sick, but if you do, take good care of yourself, drink lots of fluids, stay warm, and get well soon.  Medications like tylenol and ibuprofen can be helpful in reducing symptoms like pain, fever, and aches.

I have included a link to the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) weekly flu-tracker website map.  It shows how widespread the flu is in each state, on a weekly basis.  It is interesting and I thought you might enjoy taking a look at it too.

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/usmap.htm

 

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Please note that the above is for informational purposes only, if you need medical advice, please consult a physician directly.

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