When Your Child is Diagnosed With Hearing Loss

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Learning that a child has hearing loss can be an incredibly intense and difficult time for parents. Many parents describe feeling horribly overwhelmed. Rachel Coleman, the mother of a child with hearing impairment, wrote on her blog about receiving her daughter’s diagnosis: “When we did hear her diagnosis. . . we mourned. We cried. We felt silly. We couldn’t believe it. We thought there was a mistake. We hoped it would go away. We felt all of that and more at once!”

But, like the Colemans and many parents have come to realize, in the long run mourning isn’t the best response. After all, the child may have been hearing poorly for months or years; now that you know what’s going on, she’ll be able to hear and communicate that much better. And now, we have the inspiring examples of many parents who have chosen not to reduce their expectations for their children’s quality of life simply because those children are less able to hear.

Advocating for a child who has hearing loss can be an uphill fight. Some parents immediately encounter support. Depending on the resources where you live, you may immediately have access to parents of other children with hearing impairment, an audiologist, a pediatric otolaryngologist, a speech pathologist, a social worker, or other professionals who can help you on your way–but not everyone has a team assembled for them. Unfortunately, support resources are nowhere near this bountiful. Many parents report that, in coming through this emotionally difficult experience, other parents who have been through the same thing are incredibly helpful.

Children who have hearing loss, like any other children, are capable of wonderful things. There’s nothing about not being able to hear as well that makes someone less emotionally sensitive, or less physically or intellectually capable. Parents who fight for their child who has hearing loss–fight for education, social opportunities, and the child’s sense of his or her own competence–will definitely see the benefits as time goes by.

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Better Sleep for Better Health

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It’s on every list of instructions you take home from the doctors office, because it’s the first line of defense you can give your body–get plenty of rest. Sleep is when your body heals itself, grows, and does an astonishing amount of psychological re-balancing. Poor sleep has an especially strong correlation with childhood obesity. As little as fifteen minutes more of sleep per night has also been associated with a noticeable increase in SAT scores for high school students. Getting good sleep is essential for health and can be helpful in treating (or compensating for) any number of disorders.

There are many factors that impact the quality and quantity of your sleep. The body can be trained to accept a sleep schedule that falls anywhere in the twenty-four hour day, but if you have enough flexibility in your schedule, it’s probably healthiest to experiment with timing to find what works best for you. Timing and routine can have a huge impact. Make sure you are spending enough time in bed trying to sleep. Your want to wake up refreshed and rested every single day. If you are not meeting that goal, try going to sleep fifteen minutes earlier, or setting your alarm to go off fifteen minutes later in the morning. When you’re trying to create a routine around a specific time, be aware that your body sets its natural sleep clock around the time you wake up, not the time you go to bed, so if you are not able to stick to any other part of the schedule you are creating for yourself, keep your wake up time!

True sleep disorders are rare, and people who have trouble sleeping often over-report their symptoms. This is probably because the effects of sleep disturbance have such a big impact on their lives, they are often afraid of not being taken seriously enough to get the help that they need. Usually they’re unaware that most insomnia can be overcome by dedication to a nightly routine, a sleeping schedule, and a few other non-pharmaceutical support measures, with no complex medical interventions involved.

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Dealing with Seasonal Allergies

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If you’ve ever had seasonal allergies, you know how miserable and frustrating they can be. They can spring on you suddenly and sometimes it’s hard to know whether they’re allergies or if you’re just coming down with a cold because that’s what it feels like—like you’re perpetually coming down with a cold that doesn’t seem to want to go away.

Here are some tips with how you can deal with seasonal allergies:

Try different over the counter medications. There are many allergy medications out there and each will work differently on different people. Try different types and see if one works better for you than others. For some, Benadryl works great, while for others, it just makes them drowsy, some to the point where they can’t sleep. For others, Claritin or Zyrtec work great. If your main symptoms are running nose, it’s possible that all you’ll need is a nasal decongestant such as Sudafed. If over the counter medications aren’t working for you, meet with your doctor to discuss the possibility of prescription drugs that might be more helpful.

Know what’s causing your allergies. If you know what causes the symptoms you can work on ways to avoid that plant so it’s less likely to cause you to sneeze. The most common are ragweed, pollens, and molds. If you live in a wet area, such as an area that rains often, you’ll more likely deal with allergies because moisture stirs up pollen and allows mold to grow. One way to decrease symptoms is by wearing a mask when you garden or are doing yard work, you can protect your eyes by wearing sunglasses outside.

Avoid foods that are contaminated. There are some foods that can be contaminated with ragweed causing you to ingest the allergen which can increase symptoms. Possible foods in this category include zucchini, cucumbers, bananas, melons, and sunflower seeds.

So the next time you’re dealing with symptoms, remember these tips. There’s a lot you can do to help alleviate seasonal allergy symptoms so that you can enjoy being outside without sneezing and blowing your nose all day.

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Explosive Anger Bad for Your Heart

If you’re a screamer and a thrower, you may want to learn how to tone down your anger. Not only can yelling and explosive anger negatively affect those around you (most notably children), but repeated anger has actually been found to harm your heart and lead to heart disease.

An associate professor from Harvard’s School of Public Health, Laura Kubzanksy, did a study on cardiovascular disease and how stress and emotions can affect it. According to this study by Kubzansky, frequent outbursts of anger were linked to heart disease, though the researchers weren’t sure of the actual physiological causes. One possibility is the hormones that are produced because of the anger, including the fight or flight reflex that causes the release of both adrenaline and cortisol. It’s believed that the cortisol and adrenaline lead to a toxic effect on your heart because of the wear and tear on the cardiovascular system. It also raises blood pressure.

Kubzansky did point out that moderate levels of anger were okay. It’s important to inform people when you’re upset about something, but the trick is to do it constructively and to not blow up often. It’s best if you can learn how to control your anger so that you don’t yell, which will reduce the stress you feel at that moment and will reduce the hormones that are produced in response. It’s especially important for those who have heart disease or who are at risk for heart disease to learn how to deal with anger constructively.

Some techniques for dealing with anger given by Wayne Sotile, PhD, who is the author of Thriving with Heart Disease, are using certain phrases that will help you work through the anger so it doesn’t build. When you start to feel like you’re becoming angry, try saying these statements to yourself:

• It doesn’t help me to blame others, even if they are responsible for what happened.
• Will this matter five years from now, five hours from now, or even five minutes from now?
• I can deal with this tomorrow if it still bothers me.

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What Is Fibromyalgia?

It doesn’t seem like you can go anywhere nowadays without hearing someone who is dealing with fibromyalgia — women. So what is fibromyalgia exactly? It’s an arthritis related illness that is characterized by muscle and joint pain throughout the body as well as fatigue. Often, depression is associated with fibromyalgia syndrome (often shortened to FMS). It’s unknown why, but women are 10 times more likely to have this disease than men.

What It’s Like to Have FMS

Imagine aching all over, but not having a cause. Being touched can be painful. Fatigue is so overwhelming that you can’t even get up. Sleeping is impossible, which causes other problems, and your muscles feel like they’ve been overworked and are so tired. Your joints are achy and painful. This is what it’s like to live with fibromyalgia. Other symptoms include:

• abdominal pain
• headaches
• problems concentrating
• extremely painful cramps
• stiffness
• depression and/or anxiety

What can make living with FMS difficult is it may be hard for those around you to understand what you’re going through. You look fine and healthy on the outside, but you might be hurting and dealing with extreme pain on the inside. Others may wonder why it’s so hard to keep a job, to get out of bed every day, and to out with friends when they haven’t experienced it for themselves. The best you can do is try to explain what it’s like and hope they can understand.

Causes of FMS

Currently it’s unclear the exact cause of FMS. There are many theories out there, but none have proven to be the exact cause and more research will need to be done to determine exactly why some develop this disease. Some of these theories include hormonal disturbances, chemical imbalances, deep muscle pain caused by stress or trauma, heredity, and not sleeping deeply enough to allow your body to recover and relax the muscles.

One reason it’s believed that women are more likely to develop FMS is men have about seven times more serotonin in their brains causing it to less likely occur.

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