One of the most critical body part in a diabetes patient can be the extremities, especially the foot. Diabetes can cause poor blood flow to your feet. If your sugar is not well controlled, you can also lose the sensation in your feet. When this happens small cuts or sores don’t heal and they start taking longer to recover.

Germs or fungus gets into small cuts or cracks and causes infection. If you think that you have some sort of infection on your foot, immediately consult your doctor and do not undertake self cure. Early treatment can prevent the infection from spreading and helps in avoiding bigger complications like  foot amputation etc.

The best precaution is to check blood sugar at least twice a day and keep it within normal range through life style adaptations including proper diet. The net thing is the keep the feet clean, healthy and free of infection. For this examine the feet every day, clean it well with lukewarm water before going to bed and apply some moisturisers if the foot is getting dry. Dryness causes all those cracks and sores to appear on the foot. Check the foot for any injuries and avoid walking without footwear even inside the house. Take care of small cuts, corns, calluses, blisters or injuries immediately in consultation with a doctor.

Daily Foot Inspection and Upkeep

Wash and dry feet daily

You can use a mild soap and warm water to clean the feet. Pat dry the foot and do not rub. Thoroughly dry your feet. Then apply a lotion or moisturiser to prevent cracking. Do not apply inbetween the toes.

Check your feet daily

Actually checking your own feet is not such a big task as most diabetic patients make it out unless you are so old or injured that you cannot bend down. Otherwise check carefully at the top and bottom of your feet. If you cannot do it properly then have someone do it for you. Check the feet for dry, cracked skin, blisters, cuts, scratches, sores, redness, increased warmth, tenderness, ingrown toenails, corns or calluses. After properly cleaning and applying the lotion put a bandage over cuts and sores and wear a socks over it. Consult your doctor as soon as possible.

Take care of toe nails

Always cut your toenails after a bath, when it is soft. Trim them straight across, then smooth the corners with a nail file. Avoid cutting around the corners of the toes. Take care not to cut off the cuticles.

Never go barefoot

Search for a perfect pair of footwear and use it regularly when you go out and keep another pair for use inside the house. Wear footwear that will protect your feet from harsh weather like heat and cold. Change your socks daily and let it be cotton, wool or cotton-wool. Check your shoes for foreigh bodies inside or rough edges that can injure your foot. Wear special diabetic shoes if doctor recommends it.

Deal with Cuts, Bumps, Sores and Burns

Take immediate notice of and medical treatment for even minor foot problems. Follow the doctors prescription or instruction and first aid guidelines. Don’t self treat your corns, calluses or other foot problems. Check the water temperature with the elbow not your foot or hand. Don’t use heating pads on your feet and try not to cross the feet while sitting. This is for better blood flow and preventing any foot problem later.

You may think that the bad effects of smoking stops with severe cough, spitting continuos blobs of mucous or losing all the sense of stamina. You may even think that it is only limited to yellow teeth, a smelly mouth and even a foul smelling house and furniture. That’s not the truth. Smoking causes much, much more damage to your body and quality of life.

Smoking actually kills some of the vital organs of the body, which means you slowly move towards chronic illness and finally may even lead to death.

Here is a list of SIX VITAL ORGANS that can get damaged and dysfunctional due to smoking.

THE LUNGS

Lung cancer, emphysema and bronchitis are the three deadly diseases directly related to smoking. 80% of lung cancer is caused solely due to smoking. The harmful smoke you inhale reach the organs, paralyzing the delicate cilia that line the inner walls of the lungs and irritate them producing profuse mucus. When there is a build up of mucous and phlegm it causes severe respiration problems. The soft and healthy tissue turns black and hard. The result is asthma and in many cases cancer. While many body tissues recover after you stop smoking the lung tissues can never recover.

THE SKIN

We never consider the largest organ in our body as an organ itself. The organ is none other than our body’s skin. Smoking damages the skin in many ways like bags under the eyes, toughening of the skin, wrinkles appearing, stretch marks etc. This is all due to the loss of elasticity of the skin as a result of the fumes from smoking. The dangerous risks though are skin cancer, psoriasis and poor wound healing on injury.

THE EYES

The first sign of damage to the area surrounding the eyes is the baggy appearance under the eyes. Further smoking can result in even blindness, macular degeneration, cataracts, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and dry eye syndrome. Smoking attacks the eye from outside and inside. The smoke itself in front of the face is a health risk. The constant exposure to smoke makes eyes dry and irritate endlessly. The smoke that reaches the blood flow, affects the optic nerve from getting antioxidants the result is the eye and ocular organs getting starved of good blood and resulting in serious health issues.

THE LIVER

There is always a misconception that liver damage occurs due to consumption of alcohol alone. The truth is that smoking is equally harmful to the liver. Smoking increases the risk for liver cancer. The majority of liver cancer are found to be due to hepatocellular carcinoma. Liver cirrhosis is yet another non-cancerous form of liver damage which is

SEXUAL ORGANS

The effect of long-term smoking is impotency in men. Study found men who gave up the habit of smoking to recover from impotency and regain virility. Nicotine and not smoke determines the men’s physical ability. Men recover completely on giving up nicotine patches or gum other than smoking.

Bones give the structure to our body and they are strong too, but they have their limits of strength and sometimes get fractured. It can be sports injury or an accidental fall. Diseases like cancer and osteoporosis also causes fractures as these diseases lead to weaker bones which are more fragile than normal. Fracture depends on the force of impact, age and general health of the person who suffers from it.

What are the kinds of bone fractures?

Bone breaking is also known as fractures and depending on their nature they are classified into various kinds of fractures.

Closed and Open Fracture, closed Fracture are simple fracture that don’t break through the skin, whereas open or compound ones break through the skin and cause bleeding.

Partial and complete Fracture, partial Fracture don’t go completely through the both sides of bone but complete Fracture the bone breaks into two. where if the bone still lines up it is non-displaced fracture but if does not align then it is called displaced Fracture.

What are the types of fractures?

There are many types and values for that based on the position and resultant break in the bone commonly used term are as below:

Stress Fracture: This is also called a hairline fracture since only a very thin crack occurs in the affected bone due to stress commonly seen in tibia (leg Bone) metatarsal (foot Bone) the stress may be due to the activities like (marching) or due to the bone morphology.

Green stick Fracture:This is when the bone breaks on one side but just bends on the other side seen in children.

Comminuted Fracture: When the bone breaks into 3 or more pieces it is called comminuted fracture.

Know symptoms of bone fractures?

The area around the fracture may show certain signs like bruising, stiffness and swelling. Mostly the area will be warm and generally you’ll feel it to be weak. First you’ll have difficulty in using that part of the body and you may see the bone having a bent which is visible through the skin.

 Body’s own bone repair

The body’s bone repair begins within hours of an injury and the first signs are a swelling around the fracture and the blood clot forming around the fracture. The swelling happens because the body has healing mechanism which kicks in immediately following injury through set of chemical mediators. Time of healing depends on age, bone and general nutritional status.

How to treat bone fractures?

Treatment for bone fracture is usually in 3 stages. First get the bone line up in proper place. Second give it cast to prevent it moving out of place until healed. Third is managing the pain. But for more complex or severe fracture surgery will be required. After surgery rehabilitation and physiotherapy is given.

Inflammation originates from Latin for “set afire”. In many health conditions, like rheumatoid arthritis there is usually heat, pain, redness and swelling. In diseases like heart disease, Alzheimer’s and diabetes inflammation does not produce many symptoms and is not very apparent. In such diseases inflammation is diagnosed through certain tests.

Good and Bad of Inflammation

Inflammation is the body’s reaction to some injury or infection and it is good in the short run. It is part of the immune system’s response to heal an injury or fight an infection. On the other hand if it is long-lasting in the body then it can be bad for health. Chronic inflammation is a part of many diseases and serious conditions.

Can inflammation cause heart attack?

Inflammations of the arteries are seen in people with heart disease. When fats build up in the walls of the coronary arteries, the body  reacts with inflammatory chemicals, since it finds it as an injury to the heart. This could trigger a blood clot that causes a heart attack or stroke.

Diabetes and inflammation

Type 2 diabetes and inflammation are linked and experts say obesity triggers the inflammation, which prevents the body from using insulin properly. That is why losing weight and keeping the inflammation off is the key step to lower the chance of getting type 2 diabetes.

Causes Alzheimer’s disease

It is known that chronic brain inflammation causes dementia in people. There is no evidence how it really works but it is acknowledge that inflammation does play a big role in the progression of the disease. That’s why anti-inflammatory drugs are give as treatment for Alzheimer’s .

Inflammation of the Stomach

Prolonged inflammation in the gut causes ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. These are also known as inflammatory bowel’s syndrome. It happens when the body’s immune system by mistake attacks the healthy bacteria in the gut and causes severe inflammation that lasts for a while. The symptoms of such a condition includes belly pain, cramping and diarrhea.

Rheumatoid arthritis

RA is caused due to inflammation of the joints.  This can lead to even heart attack. The symptoms include pain, stiffness and red, warm, swollen joints.

What is Fibromyalgia?

Unlike in RA inflammation the inflammation in fibromyalgia does not affect the joints. The condition usually causes pain, tenderness and fatigue. Fibromyalgia causes inflammation  from other illness.

When does inflammation quickly happen?

At times inflammation strikes all of a sudden when the body is fighting an infection. Cellulitis, skin infection or appendicitis can produce this sort of infection. There is no go in such cases but to consult a physician

How to prevent inflammation?

First and foremost is your diet, a diet rich in plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, plant proteins from vegetables, fish and healthier oils like olive oil. Next is adapting an active lifestyle and getting some quality shut eye or sleep every day. Finally sudden or chronic  inflammation is caused due to smoking , which can be effectively stopped.

Brain Fog is also known as brain fatigue. Brain Fog is not a medical disease it a combination of symptoms that affect a person’s ability to think properly. People who have brain fog will feel confused or disorganised. The affected person will find it hard to focus or put the thoughts into words. If underlying causes of Brain Fog are not addressed, then it can negatively affect one’s professional and personal life.

Common Causes of Brain Fog are

1. Brain Fog during Pregnancy

This is a condition in which a pregnant woman finds it harder to remember things. When carrying the body undergoes lot of changes at hormonal and physical levels, many chemicals are also released to protect and nourish the baby and hence the memory problems.

2. Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

The body of a person suffering from MS undergoes many problems with the central nervous system and this will change the way the brain communicates with the rest of the body. People with MS have issues with memory, attention, planning or language and some sort of memory exercises can help.

3. Medicines

Some over the counter and prescribe medicines can cause brain fog. If you are not sure about the after effects of a medicine consult your doctor rather than continuing with it since it will sometimes cause brain fog and other related problems.

4. Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy for cancer results in the use of strong medications which will cause a condition called ‘chemo brain’ similar to brain fog. A patient undergoing chemotherapy will have difficulty in remembering names, dates or in multi-tasking.

5. Menopause

Women go through this phase in life and many of them show signs of brain fog. There are many hormonal and body changes that brings about a lack of memory and physical discomfort.  Hormone supplements and medications can help treat this condition.

6. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)

When a patient is affected with this condition then the body and mind will feel tired continuously. The person may feel confused, forgetful and unable to focus. There is no particular cure for the condition but medication, exercise and counselling can help.

7. Lack of Sleep

When there is enough of sleep then the brain works at its optimum level. When you lack in sleep the brain will feel foggy. A daily rest of 7 to 8 hours is recommended to keep the brain working at its best. Avoid caffeine and alcohol before bedtime. Following this will help wake up refreshed and at the same day daily.

8. Glucose

Since glucose is primary source of energy to brain, fluctuating glucose in blood can cause short term brain fatigue symptoms.