Maintaining Breast Health Begins With Awareness: A How-To Guide

Tits, boobs, hooters, the girls, fun bags, flesh bags, high beams, jugs, racks, melons, knockers, and torpedoes. Did we miss anything? Breasts, and their many nicknames, get an awful lot of attention, and though they may be key to your female anatomy, most likely you think of them as just another part of your body, lovely though they may be. Quite possibly you see them as essential to your future since your, um, mammary glands — just kills the mood, right guys? — may someday feed your children. As the owner of a pair of glands, then, you understand you've been tasked with the important responsibility of maintaining their well-being, an often humdrum job at best. To help you fulfill your duty, we've outlined the accepted wisdom concerning breast health.

Self-Awareness = Self-Exams
      Healthy breasts begin and end with developing a sense of what the everyday reality is for your girls. The point? When you know what’s normal, you will be able to recognize what’s not normal. And when something's not normal, you can promptly call a doctor. For this reason, the very first and most important suggestion is you should consider doing regular self-exams.
     Now, there are all sorts of diagrams and demonstrations showing you a how-to self-examination — go to the American Cancer Society for the most up-to-date method — but the truth of the matter is a simple daily feeling of your own two breasts will help plenty. (Remember: Many lumps and tumors are first discovered by, not the woman herself, but by her sex partner.) If you make it a habit to touch and examine your breasts each morning while you’re getting dressed, say, or before you go to bed at night, you’ll soon enough learn how your breasts and nipples feel normally. You'll experience the increasing sensitivity as you get closer to your period, while you discover their natural bumps and lumps (many, many women have unsmooth breasts).

Citizens Advice - Complaining about the NHS

You may have several options to make a complaint about health services. One option is to use the complaints procedure, or you may be able to report your concerns to a different organisation, for example, an Ombudsman or the regulatory body of the professional involved. In serious cases, you might want advice about taking legal action.

Complaining About The NHS

• Where to start
• Deciding whether to complain
• Deciding what outcomes you want to achieve
• NHS complaints procedure
• Who you can go to when you have a problem

Taking your complaint to court

In most cases, making a complaint using the NHS complaints procedure will solve a problem. But in some cases, you might need to take legal action

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Your Rights Under The NHS Constitution                                                                   

Summary of the legal rights and pledges set out in the NHS Constitution, and what to do if the standard of health or adult care you recieve doesn't meet the promised standards

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NHS patients' rights

Complaints about GPs

Access to medical reports and health records

6 Signs It’s Time to Ditch Your Doctor

As patients with chronic illness, we’re well-accustomed to going to the doctor. Many of us have had great medical teams, but I know we’ve all had the experience of seeing a medical professional and leaving upset. Obviously, communication is a two-way street and we need to do our part as patients, as well as have reasonable expectations for our providers. Sometimes though, it becomes necessary to fire a doctor and move on.
Here are some hints it might be time to change doctors:
1)  Your doctor is unapologetic about a mistake. Doctors are humans and therefore mistakes are going to happen. If your doctor seems distressed about the error and changes how they operate to guard against another mistake, great! But if your doctor can’t understand why you’re upset, downplays the error or your feelings, and doesn’t make any relevant changes, it may be time to give them the pink slip

What Not to Do After Breast Surgery Video

One of the most dreaded complications after breast augmentation surgery is bleeding or hematoma. A Hematoma is a collection of blood within the pocket of the breast where the implant is placed. So the reason this is a feared complication is that when there is bleeding first of all another operation is required to evacuate the blood. However, more importantly we know that when bleeding occurs, the risk of capsular contracture around the implant increases. Capsular contracture is scar tissue that forms naturally around the breast if that capsule becomes thickens, it can actually contract or deform the shape of the breast or the implant and it can cause pain. 

So the risk of contraction of this capsule increases when there is bleeding after breast surgery. Because of this, I tell my patients to do everything they can to minimize any stress after breast surgery. I have people with them after surgery particularly in the first few nights after surgery. I ask them to have somebody help them out of bed. I don't want them to strain in any way. If the patient feels nauseous, I give them anti-nausea medication so that they don't vomit, because vomiting actually increases the blood pressure which can increase the chances of bleeding.

So all precautions are taken to minimize the chance of post operative bleeding and essentially those precautions include just keeping the patient calm. They can walk around and in fact I prefer they don't stay in bed; however, I don't want them to stress in any way shape or form. In addition to that, while the breast implant pocket is healing, I put restrictions on the amount of arm movements the patients can make. I don't allow them to bring their arms up past their shoulder height. They can however move their arm in this direction, however, the upper arm should not move past shoulder height. This again is to prevent any problems with the implant pocket while it's healing. Certainly patients cannot exercise for the first few weeks but in four to six weeks when things have completely healed, they can resume their normal activities.

How to Know What Your Normal Boobs Feel Like

You notice when your chest is swollen, sore, or squeezed into a probably-too-tight bra, but do you know what your normal boobs feel like? According to a new campaign from the U.K. charity CoppaFeel (ha, get it?), that's actually really important information.

The breast cancer charity is specifically aimed at raising awareness in young adults and encouraging women to get to know what their "normal" feels like so that they'll know when something is up.

With their hashtag #WhatNormalFeelsLike, they're telling women to get to know their breasts using whatever language feels right and familiar to them. Aside from the lumps or puckering your gyno has reminded you to look for, they suggest using your own descriptive words, whether it's "doughy," "firm," or "spongey.

An Open letter to anyone wanting a boob job

Of course, as a man, I have no knowledge of what it's like to live in that situation.  But there's one thing I do know: in our society, it's the norm for women to find fault with their bodies and the exception to feel like you're good enough, and that's true even for the most physically perfect people.  Isn't that basically insane?  If you look around at other people, you wouldn't proclaim that four fifths of them are defective and only a few are adequate, would you?  Yet that's how too many of us treat ourselves.

I once listened to a talk by a guy named Dr. Stan Dale, who told a story about how he was once, many years ago, hired by Hugh Hefner of Playboy.  Hefner's problem was that he'd recruit these gorgeous women to pose for his magazine, but they were often so ashamed and inhibited about it that it was a big difficult effort to get any photo shoot accomplished.  So he asked Dale to work with them and see what he could do... and Dale gave a bunch of these playboy models a questionnaire to investigate how they felt about their bodies.  He asked them, how do you feel about your hair, your forehead, your eyebrows, your eyes, your cheekbones, your nose, etc etc all the way to their toes.  And what he found is that almost every one of these women found a way to despise almost every part of themselves.  The only body part that didn't come in for intense negative criticism was their teeth.  And these were women who had already been selected to be in the most perfect-looking top tenth of a percent of the population.

Isn't this crazy?  Why do this to ourselves?  (I say "ourselves" because this is not rare among men either and I've certainly felt ashamed of my looks sometimes.)  When so many people fall into this kind of fault-finding, obviously the cause is not that everyone's body has so many faults.  This means the problem is in the way of looking at the body, not in the body itself. Read more

48 reasons not to get a boob job. -

1)  According to the National Institute of Medicine, 25 to 40 percent of people who get breast implants end up needing another operation to correct something wrong with the first one.  (The rate varied in particular studies, depending on things like how long women were monitored, the typical time being five years.)

2)  A study by a maker of saline breast implants, Mentor, found that 27 percent of implants put into breast cancer patients had to be taken back out again within three years, due to side effects.  Another 13 percent had to have lesser corrective surgeries.  The competing manufacturer McGhan/Inamed/Allergan has similar numbers.  Even for healthy patients, both were forced to admit that "most women experienced at least one complication over the three year period".

3)  In general, breast cancer patients have complications with implants far more often than healthy people do.  Many of the complications are about three times as likely for mastectomy reconstruction patients as for cosmetic augmentation patients.  We regard this as socially the most acceptable and necessary time for implants to be used, but medically it is the most risky and unjustifiable time to use them.  If you don't have a healthy body at the start when you're getting the implants, the odds of keeping healthy with them in place plummet.

4)  Up to 9 percent of saline implants end up deflating within just three years, according to the Food and Drug Administration.  The FDA also found that complications become more and more common for each year implants spend in the body.

5)  Another FDA study found that even among women who had not complained of any perceived trouble with their implants, MRI scans showed two thirds of them have ruptured implants on at least one side.  The rate was actually higher in 10 to 15 year old implants than with 20 year old ones, because the older ones were made with thicker containers.  In 21 percent of women in the study, significant volumes of silicone were found to have migrated elsewhere in the body.  Doctors removing implants often claim that they ruptured at the time of removal.  This study makes me suspect, as some patients long have, that many doctors are lying about this for some reason, perhaps to avoid liability. Read More

Even More Reasons Not To Get A Boob Job

In the time since I put up my "48 Reasons Not To Get A Boob Job" page, even in the early days when there were only about 27 reasons, quite a number of people have written to me in response to it, and many of these correspondents had gotten breast implants themselves.  Though some wrote just to say that they were happy with their implants and had not experienced any problems with them (and, in some cases, suggested that I should therefore shut the hell up), many others had unfortunate experiences with them.  Others have written to me who have not gotten implants, but have strongly considered buying them, offering a different perspective.  I have also sometimes heard from friends and partners of those with implants.

Among these different points of view are many more reasons not to get a boob job that I could never have expressed myself.  So here they are, in the correspondents' own words with minimal editing.  Of course, I have kept all quotes as anonymous as possible.  (Emphasis in boldface or italics is my own, not the original writer's.) Read More

25 Reasons Not to Get Breast Implants

Take a look at the list below and decide if you would let someone you love take these risks with their health ... just to have a bigger boobs ... What price are women willing to pay? Why are women so unhappy with their breasts? Do we really think we will be loved more if we have a bigger bra size? Maybe men could let us know how lovely small breasts really are. Hey guys ... step up to and save some women's lives. Tell us we are beautiful and you love us with any size breasts and that you would rather have us healthy than sick, alive, not dead.
   Now I agree, a breast cancer survivor is justified in wanting her disfigured body restored to symmetry and wholeness. But does she really want to risk another cancer and more surgeries? And what about healthy women who go under the knife willingly?
     Stop, take a breath and understand the real risks and the possible complications. Get educated. Get smart. Look before you leap.Read more

Fibromyalgia

Basics

• What Is Fibromyalgia?
• Fibromyalgia in Children and Teens
• 
  

Causes

• Fibromyalgia Causes
• Fibromyalgia and Depression

Symptoms

• Fibromyalgia Symptoms
• Fibromyalgia Health Check
• Fibromyalgia Tender Points
• Fibromyalgia Pain
• Fibromyalgia and Fatigue
• Fibromyalgia and Sleep

Diagnosis

• Diagnosis and Misdiagnosis
• Finding the Right Doctor
• Common Misdiagnoses of Fibromyalgia

Treatment

• Fibromyalgia Treatments
• Medications
• Cymbalta
• Lyrica
• Savella
• Physical Therapy
• Medical Marijuana

Complementary Treatment

• Herbs and Supplements
• Complementary Treatments
• 
  

Diet

• The Diet Connection
• 
  

Exercise

• Fibromyalgia & Exercise
• 
  

Coping

• Tips for Coping
• Fibromyalgia and Sex
• Fibromyalgia and Pregnancy
• Work and Disability

How to Recognize Breast Cancer Symptoms

17 Amazing Uses for Epsom Salt… Some You Won’t Believe

Epsom salt, which is not really a salt at all but a mineral compound comprised of magnesium and sulfate, gets its named from a saline spring at Epsom in Surrey, England.
Epsom salt has been used for centuries as a natural remedy for a number of ailments, and also has many beauty, gardening and household uses.
Both magnesium and sulfate are readily absorbed into the skin, which makes their health benefits readily accessible. Over 325 enzymes in the body are regulated by magnesium, which also helps reduce inflammation, alleviates hardening of the arteries and improves muscle and nerve function. Sulfates improve the rate at which nutrients are absorbed and help to flush out toxins.

Here are 17 of our favorite uses for this versatile compound – we hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

1. Soothe sore muscles
An Epsom salt bath is a great way to soothe sore muscles, cramps, bruises and joint pain. Because of this, it is a great after-workout soak. In addition, soaking in an Epsom salt bath is a wonderful way to relax and relieve stress. Add 2 cups of salts to a warm bath. Mix the salt in so it dissolves in the water. Soak for 10-15 minutes for best results.

Pregnant Women: You'll Want To Avoid This Chemical In Your Drinking Water

There’s something in the water for moms-to-be to be afraid of because it’s causing stillbirths and other pregnancy complications. Researchers from the Boston University Medical Center found a dangerous chemical in drinking water, and published their findings in the journal Environmental Health.



The pregnant women of Cape Cod, Mass., were experiencing some abnormally high rates of pregnancy complications and researchers set out to find what was making them twice as likely to have a stillbirth, and 1.35 times more likely to have a placenta abruption and high risk of vaginal bleeding. It wasn’t until researchers looked into their drinking water that they found the cause; a sickening chemical called tetrachloroethylene (PCE) was harming moms and their unborn babies.

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