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Cancer not the end of road
EYESIGHT
Health Notes
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Cancer not the end of road But in the region, some cancer survivors and their families have been beating cancer at its own game — by keeping faith, smiling and respecting life while it lasts. They have all suffered post-detection trauma and found ways of overcoming it. The best way out is knowing what one is dealing with, and ducking fear, which stems from half-truths and ignorance shrouding the disease. “It is not contagious. More importantly, most cancers can be effectively controlled to keep the patient free from disease and enable them to lead near-normal lives. We have hundreds of cancer survivors in our group. Only my wife, the founder, was not lucky,” says Ajay, whose wife Neelu in May 1997 set up Sahayta Cancer Sahyog to foster an understanding of the disease, still dreaded like hell. The group was Neelu’s emotional reaction to her sister’s cancer affliction. She did not have the slightest idea that malignancy was affecting her own body as well. One day, she reported acute pain in her legs. Within days, malignancy was confirmed. Neelu had defied medical history by reporting cancer of the uterus without reporting its symptoms. What followed was a saga of trial for the family — shocked at the irony of the situation. But we made it easy for her, says Ajay, remembering how hard he worked to keep the fear of death at bay. The most difficult phase for patients, as revealed by interviews, is the period of radiotherapy/ chemotherapy. At the PGI, Radiotherapy department in Chandigarh, which functions from Monday to Saturday (10 a.m. to 11.30 a.m.), Sahayta volunteers apprise patients of the treatment’s aftereffects, which can be very undermining (especially for patients of breast cancer). Treatment may be followed by changes in the skin such as redness or soreness. Mouth may become sore; hair on the exposed part may fall out. Loss of appetite, difficulty in swallowing, pain in the abdomen and loose stools are other problems accompanying radiotherapy. “We tell the patients and their families that these are normal reactions to treatment. Taste problems can be handled by trying out cold foods, having chewing gum or cloves, eating fresh fruits and sipping as much liquid as possible. Sore mouth can be avoided by having foods with extra butter, gravies, etc. A room humidifier is helpful to prevent dry mouth. Nausea is normal and can be controlled by eating slowly and chewing food well,” says a counselor with Sahayta, which also holds cancer clinics at the PGI’s paediatric oncology OPD in the Advanced Paediatric Centre on all Fridays from 10.30 a.m. to 12 noon. At the hematology department, the volunteers are available every Monday from 10 a.m. to 11.30 a.m. Answering questions for the families of cancer patients is an important psychological approach to cancer treatment, says Ranjana Tulsi, detected with breast cancer nine years ago. She is a survivor, one of the hundreds who have joined Sahatya to build bridges between sufferers and survivors. Cancer Insurance
The Indian Cancer Society offers India’s only insurance policy against all expenses of cancer diagnosis and treatment. For just Rs 200 a year (no charges for the poor and needy), both you and your spouse can get Rs 40,000 worth of coverage. This is good enough for expenses involved in diagnosis, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery, medication and rehabilitation. For details, write to the Indian Cancer Society, Q 5-A, Jangpura Extension, New Delhi (011-4629572). Sahayta Cancer Sahyog
Runs cancer clinics at the PGI, Chandigarh; sponsors treatment of needy patients; provides mastectomy bras and prosthesis, runs a toy bank at the PGI’s Advanced Paediatric Centre for cancer-afflicted children attending OPD clinics. Contacts – 0172-5060002; 9316120808.
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Headache is such a common problem that most of us take it lightly and forget that it may be an early symptom of a more serious disorder. Headache can be pain above the eyes or the ears, behind the head, or in the back of the upper neck. There are two types of headaches: primary headaches which are not associated with other diseases including migraine, tension and cluster headache; and secondary headaches which are caused by associated disease. Tension headache, the most common type of primary headache, is more common among women. Tension headaches are often related to stress, depression, or anxiety, overworking, not getting enough sleep, missing meals, and using alcohol or street drugs. Cluster headache (CH) consists of recurrent brief attacks of sudden, severe, pain around one eye. Migraine headaches the second most common type of primary headache occurs as severe unilateral headache with or without aura. Visual disturbances are the most common feature of migraine aura which occur in the form of shimmering spots or stars, zigzag lines that gradually float across field of vision, loss of vision in one eye, blurred vision, flashes of light. Migraine without aura comprises the majority of childhood migraine headaches. They are frequently preceded by behavioral or mood changes or withdrawal from activity. Secondary headaches have diverse causes, ranging from serious and life threatening conditions such as brain tumors, strokes, meningitis, brain hemorrhages, to less serious but common conditions such as withdrawal from caffeine and discontinuation of pain killers. Sinus headaches cause pain in the front of your head and face and are due to swelling in the sinus passages. Headaches can be triggered by chocolate, cheese, and certain flavour enhancers. If you are over age 50 and are experiencing headaches for the first time, a blinding condition called temporal arteritis presenting as impaired vision and pain aggravated by chewing may prove to be the cause. Other ocular causes of headache include uncorrected refractive errors, astigmatism, and muscle weakness, ocular inflammations like swelling in the eye or optic nerves, glaucoma. In some cases, the headache is caused by the person overstraining the eye muscles and squinting in an attempt to better focus their vision. Difficulties with vision, such as blurring caused by long-sightedness can cause eyestrain and headache which can be corrected with prescription of glasses or contact lenses. Apart from a complete eye checkup, a few tests may be useful in diagnosing the cause of secondary headaches including blood tests, computerised tomography (CT scan) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of the head, and lumbar puncture. Though not all the causes are so unnerving, persistent and recurring headache in children must be examined by an eye specialist. If you have unusual, severe headache or sudden headache associated with a stiff neck, fever, fits or accompanied by confusion or loss of consciousness, double vision or vision loss, or following a blow to the head, or associated with pain in the eye or ear, you must visit your ophthalmologist who is usually the first one to diagnose some serious underlying problem. The writer is Chairman and Medical Director, Centre for Sight, New Delhi. Email: msachdev@bol.net.in
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Health Notes “Though cures have existed since the 1950s, TB is still the second leading infectious cause of mortality — a close runner up to AIDS,” News.com.au quoted Selgelid, as saying.
— ANI
Tackling Huntington’s disease
LONDON: A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Cambridge has provided a number of promising new drug targets for Huntington’s disease, a neurodegenerative disease. They have identified a number of candidate drugs to study further as to which encourage cells to eat the malformed proteins that causes the disease. Verapamil, which is currently used to treat high blood pressure and heart arrhythmias, is one of the drugs tested that inhibits the influx of calcium into cells, which, in turn, appears to regulate autophagy. Likewise, clonidine, which is currently used to treat hypertension or migraine, appears to work on autophagy by decreasing levels of cAMP, a molecule that is important in many biological processes.
— ANI
Hope for Parkinson’s cure
LONDON: Scientists at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) have come closer to a potential cure for Parkinson’s disease, by showing that it’s possible to treat the degenerative brain disorder with stem cells produced by therapeutic cloning, also known as somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). For the first time, researchers showed that therapeutic cloning or SCNT has been effectively used to treat disease in the same subjects from whom the initial cells were derived.
— ANI
Green fuels may increase asthma
They found that when diesel was mixed with bio-fuels to power school buses, it released 80 per cent more dangerous particles into the air that can lead to asthma. “Poor air quality can have a major effect on our health and risks making life worse for people with respiratory conditions like asthma and emphysema,” the Mirror quoted local government green group LACORS, as saying. The government claims the fuels reduce pollution by 50 to 60 per cent.
— ANI
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The world could well have come to an end. But it did not. Two years after Ajay Tulli saw his wife being clutched away by cancer, he finds time to smile and help others see cancer as it is – just another disease. Of course, it comes with its package of fear and procrastination, which make coping with cancer a disease in itself.
SYDNEY: A lack of focus on tuberculosis following AIDS epidemic has made it a worse threat than AIDS, says a leading bioethicist. Dr Michael Selgelid has warned that tuberculosis may once again cause the world’s deadliest epidemics if ignored.
LONDON:
Green fuels used in school buses may increase asthma rates, warn experts. American experts believe that the bio fuels made from corn, sugar cane and rapeseed can cause more damage to the quality of air than