Relieve Urinary Problems Naturally

If you are a male aged 50 or over, chances are you know someone taking medication for an overgrown prostate gland, better known as benign prostatis hyperplasia (BPH). This condition can cause bothersome problems including frequent urination at night, as well as difficulty completely emptying the bladder, and the urgent need to urinate at inconvenient times. BPH triggers noticeable problems in a third of men in their 60s and nearly half of those in their 80s. Drug therapy is often used to relieve symptoms, and for severe problems, surgery may be considered. But in the case of men with milder symptoms, BPH may not interfere with their daily lives much, so another option will be watchful waiting. 

During watchful waiting, you and your doctor monitor your symptoms closely and take action only when you feel it is necessary. Till then, simple changes in behavior can help to take the edge off urinary symptoms. This approach avoids the costs and risks associated with more aggressive treatment. 

Do you have BPH?

Irritative symptoms (problems with bladder function) include:

• Frequent urination during the day or night
• Strong and sudden urge to urinate, sometimes with involuntary leaking of urine.

Obstructive symptoms (problems with the flow of urine) include:

• Difficulty starting urination
• Straining to urinate
• Incomplete bladder emptying
• Weak or intermittent urine stream
• Dribbling after urination.                        What is BPH?
  The prostate gland may begin to grow larger over time in many men. The urethra is the tube that conveys urine from the bladder to outside the body. It passes right through the prostate, so it doesn't take much prostate growth to make urination difficult. As the bladder works against the restriction, its muscular walls begin to thicken which can cause problems like the need for more frequent visits to the bathroom and difficulty fully emptying the bladder.
  For some men, the symptoms of BPH don't demand immediate treatment. However, it is important to ask yourself questions like 'How much do your symptoms bother you?' Determining whether it is getting in the way of doing the things you want to do should be the primary driver of treatment.                  
  
  How bothersome is it?
  To measure the frequency of a man's symptoms, doctors use the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS). It's a seven-item questionnaire that delves into typical BPH symptoms, providing a score from 0 to 35. Typically, men who score 8 and above are more likely to think they need treatment - but this can vary from man to man.
  Nevertheless, for men who choose to watch and wait, it doesn't mean doing nothing. It should include strategies to lessen symptoms or make them easier to cope with. In one study, men who attended classes on such self-management techniques lowered their IPSS symptom scores by 6 points within three months. 
  
  Living with BPH and managing urinary symptoms
  BPH progresses slowly, so most men can decide for themselves if and when they would like to consider medication or surgery. In most cases, men with mild to moderate symptoms often find that changes in fluid intake, medication use, and bladder habits can relieve BPH's bothersome effects. Let's take a look:
  1. Medication Use
  

  • Alter the use of medications that may potentially worsen urinary symptoms.
  • Be sure to talk to your doctor about any medications that may contribute to BPH. Note that antihistamines and decongestants can cause problems for some. 
  • Don't take medications that may cause you to urinate more right before driving, traveling, attending an event, or going to bed.
  • Don't rely on ineffective dietary supplements. 

  2. Fluid restriction
  

  • Change how much fluid you drink and when you drink it to prevent bothersome bathroom visits.
  • Don't drink fluids before driving, traveling or attending events where finding a bathroom will be difficult.
  • Avoid caffeine and alcoholic beverages after dinner or within two hours of your bedtime. 

  3. Bladder habits
  

  • Change the time and manner in which you empty your bladder to reduce symptoms or make them less disruptive.
  • Don't hold it in. Be sure to empty your bladder when you first get the urge to. 
  • When out in public, go to the bathroom and try to urinate when you get the chance, even if you don't feel the need.
  • Take your time when urinating, emptying your bladder as much as possible. 
  • After each time you urinate, try again right away. 
  • Try urethral milking, this will prevent post-void dribbling. Gently squeeze the base of the penis after urinating and work your way outward to force urine out of the urethra.                                                                     
    

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Menopausal women experience an accelerated decline in lung function

Women suffer an increased decline in lung function during menopause, claims a recent research.

“Women are living longer and, therefore, many years beyond menopause,” said Kai Triebner, MSc, lead author of the study, which was published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

”Our study highlights the importance of maintaining respiratory health long after the menopausal transition,” Triebner added.
The researchers report that both forced vital capacity (FVC), a measure of lung size, and forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), a measure of how much air can be forcefully exhaled in one second, declined in women going through the menopausal transition and after menopause beyond what would be expected through normal aging.

The authors wrote that the decline in FVC was comparable to smoking 20 cigarettes a day for 10 years, and the decline in FEV1 was comparable to smoking 20 cigarettes a day for two years.
The more pronounced decline in FVC than FEV1 indicated menopause was more likely to cause restrictive, rather than obstructive, breathing problems.

Obstructive breathing problems (including COPD) make it difficult to exhale air from the lungs while restrictive breathing problems (including sarcoidosis) make it difficult to fully expand the lungs upon inhaling.

“Whether obstructive or restrictive, the decline in lung function may cause an increase in shortness of breath, reduced work capacity and fatigue,” Triebner said.

Adding, “Symptoms depend upon how much lung capacity is reduced, and a few women may actually develop respiratory failure as a result of this decline.”

In what they believe is the first longitudinal population-based study of lung function and menopause, the researchers analysed data from 1,438 women enrolled in the European Respiratory Health Survey.
Participants in the study ranged in age from 25 to 48 at enrolment, and none was menopausal when the study began.

They were followed for 20 years and during that time most went through the menopausal transition or became postmenopausal.

The researchers adjusted their findings for age, weight, height, education and smoking history.

As might be expected, current and past smokers showed a steeper decline in both age — and menopause-related lung function decline.
The authors said there were several possible explanations for their findings.

Menopause brings hormonal changes that have been linked to systemic inflammation, which itself is associated with lung function decline.

Hormonal changes are also implicated in osteoporosis, which shortens the height of the chest vertebrae and may, in turn, limit the amount of air a person can inhale.

“Women, and their physicians, should be aware that respiratory health might decline considerably during and after the menopausal transition,” Triebner said.

Adding, “This could mean that they experience shortness of breath already with low physical activity.” 

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Moderate weight loss can help prevent, cure obstructive sleep apnea

A new study suggests that even a moderate weight reduction can prevent the progression of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), and even cure it.

The study focused on the effects of weight loss on OSA and demonstrated, for the first time, that a sustained weight loss of just 5 percent was enough to prevent the disease from worsening and even cure it in a long-term follow-up.

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) has become a major burden for our health care systems over the last years.

Although it is one of the most increasingly prevalent non-communicable diseases, the vast majority of people with OSA still remain undiagnosed.

OSA has also been found to be tightly linked with metabolic abnormalities, particularly type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular morbidity.

OSA is a chronic, progressive disease, and it is well-documented that moderate to severe forms of OSA are associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Obesity is the most important risk factor for OSA.

Based on current knowledge about the evolution of OSA, weight gain represents a high risk for the further progression of the disease towards the more severe forms, particularly in patients who already have a partial obstruction of their upper airways associated with mild OSA.

This study provides first time long-term evidence that even a modest weight reduction can result in marked improvements of OSA and metabolism in overweight patients, and these positive changes are sustained even four years after the cessation of the active intervention, and the progression of the disease is thus prevented.

The study is published in the journal Sleep Medicine.

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Surgical treatment for sleep apnea

The standard treatment for people with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea is a mask worn at night that helps them breathe without interruption. The mask is unwieldy and uncomfortable, however; one study found that 46 per cent to 83 per cent of patients with obstructive sleep apnea do not wear it diligently. 

Now scientists may have found an alternative, at least for some patients: a pacemaker-like device implanted in the chest that stimulates a nerve in the jaw, helping to keep part of the upper airway open. The device, called a neurostimulator, helped reduce breathing interruptions and raise blood oxygen levels in about two-thirds of sleep apnea patients participating in a trial, researchers reported on Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. 

“This is a new paradigm of surgical treatment that seems to effectively control obstructive sleep apnea in selected patients,” said Dr Sean M. Caples, a sleep specialist in the division of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “It’s very exciting.” 

Still, Dr Caples, who was not involved in the new study, noted that “a third of patients were not improved when all was said and done,” even though they were chosen because they were seen as likely to benefit. 

The new trial was funded by the maker of the device, Inspire Medical Systems.

At 22 sites internationally, in 126 patients, doctors surgically implanted a remote-controlled neurostimulator that, activated at night, sends regular electric impulses to a nerve inside the jaw. The impulses cause the tongue to move forward during inhalation, opening the airway. 

Patients experienced a decline in breathing pauses after using the device for a year, to 9 per hour on average, from 29.3 episodes per hour. The number of dangerous drops in blood oxygen levels also declined, to 7.4 per hour on average, from 25.4 per hour. 

There was no control group during this phase of the study, however, and other experts said that diet, exercise or other factors may have contributed to the reductions. 

At a year, only two of 126 patients stopped using their upper airway stimulator at night, and 86 percent reported daily use. But sleep apnea worsened in about 20 patients using the device, though it is unclear why.

 In the second phase of the study, 46 patients doing well with the stimulators after one year were randomly assigned to either continue with the therapy or have it withdrawn for a week. The therapy-continuation group had little change in the number of breathing pauses per hour or drops in blood oxygen levels. But in the patients from whom the stimulation therapy was withdrawn, the number of such breathing pauses increased sharply, to 25.8 per hour on average from 7.6 per hour. The episodes of blood oxygen level drops rose to 23 per hour on average, from 6 per hour. 

“That rebound was compelling evidence that this device did something for their sleep apnea,” said Dr Christine H. Won, , the medical director of the Yale Sleep Center. 

An alternative therapy for patients who can’t or won’t use standard continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) masks diligently would be “very valuable,” Dr Won said. 

The neurostimulator is not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration and may only benefit a subset of sleep apnea patients, including those with a body mass index of less than 32 and people whose obstructions stem from airway collapse behind their tongues. Only patients who could not or would not use mask therapy participated.

 Less than 2 per cent of study participants experienced serious adverse events. Still, more than half reported discomfort from stimulation, tongue abrasion, incision discomfort and other issues. 

After her chin incision became inflamed after implantation of the neurostimulator in 2011, Jackie Kopplin, 45, who runs a housecleaning business in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, was “blown up like a basketball” and in pain for six weeks. “I was regretting it at first,” she said.

 But she now sleeps eight to nine hours at night, is not bothered by the tongue thrusting, and no longer dozes off while driving. 

As long as she remembers to turn on the stimulator nightly, Kopplin said, “I wake up and I have energy to make it through the whole day.

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chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

Exercises for COPD can help your breathing, allowing you to stay as active as possible and improving your quality of life. Before beginning with a COPD exercise program, be sure to talk with your doctor or other health care provider.

Exercise -- especially exercise that works your lungs and heart -- has many benefits for those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Exercise can:

• Improve how well your body uses oxygen, which is important since people with COPD use more energy to breathe than other people do.
• Decrease your symptoms and improve your breathing.
• Strengthen your heart, lower your blood pressure, and improve your circulation.
• Improve your energy, making it possible to stay more active.
• Improve your sleep and make you feel more relaxed.
• Help you maintain a healthy weight.
• Enhance your mental and emotional outlook.
• Reduce your social isolation, if you exercise with others.
• Strengthen your bones.

• 4 Types of Exercises for COPD

  These four types of exercises can help you if you have COPD. How much you focus on each type of exercise may depend upon the COPD exercise program your health care providers suggests for you. Before starting these programs speak with your health care provider.
  Stretching exercises lengthen your muscles, increasing your flexibility. Stretching can also help prepare your muscles for other types of exercise, decreasing your chance of injury.
  Aerobic exercises use large muscle groups to move at a steady, rhythmic pace. This type of exercise works your heart and lungs, improving their endurance by working your respiratory muscles. This helps your body use oxygen more efficiently and, with time, can improve your breathing. Walking and using a stationary bike are two good choices of aerobic exercise if you have COPD.
  Strengthening exercises involve tightening muscles repeatedly to the point of fatigue. When you do this for the upper body, it can help increase the strength of your breathing muscles.
  Breathing exercises for COPD help you strengthen breathing muscles, get more oxygen, and breathe with less effort. Here are two examples of breathing exercises you can begin doing for five to 10 minutes, three to four times a day.
  Pursed lip breathing:
  1. Relax your neck and shoulder muscles.
  2. Breathe in for two seconds through your nose, keeping your mouth closed.
  3. Breathe out for four seconds through pursed lips. If this is too long for you, simply breathe out twice as long as you breathe in.
  Use pursed-lip breathing while exercising. If you experience shortness of breath, first try slowing your rate of breathing and focus on breathing out through pursed lips.
  Diaphragmatic breathing:
  1. Lie on your back with knees bent. You can put a pillow under your knees for support.
  2. Place one hand on your belly below your rib cage. Place the other hand on your chest.
  3. Inhale deeply through your nose for a count of 3. (Your belly and lower ribs should rise, but your chest should remain still.)
  4. Tighten your stomach muscles and exhale for a count of 6 through slightly puckered lips.

  COPD and Exercise Guidelines

  You may find that it helps to exercise at the same time each day; late morning or early afternoon may be a time when you have more energy. Here are some other basic guidelines for exercise when you have COPD:

  • Set realistic goals.
  • Gradually increase the number of minutes and days you exercise. A good goal is to exercise 20 to 40 minutes, two to four times a week.
  • Start out slow. Warm up for a few minutes.
  • Choose activities you enjoy, but vary them to help you stay motivated.
  • Find an exercise partner.
  • Keep a record of your exercise to help you stay on track.
  • As you end your exercise, cool down by moving more slowly.

  COPD and Exercise Precautions

  It's good to take precautions when exercising with COPD, but remember that shortness of breath doesn't always mean you should stop altogether. Instead, slow down and continue exercising. If shortness of breath becomes severe, then stop exercising.

  Here are other exercise precautions:

  • Always consult a doctor or other health care provider before starting a COPD exercise program. If you have a change in any medications, talk to your doctor before continuing with your exercise routine.
  • Balance exercise with rest. If you feel tired, start at a lower level. If you feel very tired, rest and try again the next day.
  • Wait at least one and a half hours after eating before beginning to exercise.
  • Remember any fluid restrictions you have when you drink fluids while exercising.
  • Avoid hot or cold showers after exercising.
  • If you've been away from exercise for several days, start up slowly and gradually return to your regular routine.

  Exercises to avoid when you have COPD:

  • Heavy lifting or pushing.
  • Chores such as shoveling, mowing, or raking.
  • Push-ups or sit-ups or isometric exercises, which involve pushing against immovable objects.
  • Outdoor exercises when the weather is very cold, hot, or humid.
  • Walking up steep hills.

  Ask your doctor whether exercises like weight lifting, jogging, or swimming are OK for you to do when you have COPD.

  COPD and Exercise: When to Stop

  If you experience any of these signs or symptoms, stop your COPD exercise program right away. Sit down and keep your feet raised while resting. If you don't feel better quickly, call your doctor.

  • Nausea
  • Dizziness
  • Weakness
  • Rapid or irregular heart beat
  • Severe shortness of breath
  • Pain

  Pressure or pain in your chest or your arm, neck, jaw, or shoulder

  
  

  for more info kindly read-

  http://www.webmd.com/lung/copd/copd-breathlessness-