Health Adda

  A good night’s sleep, so essential to rest your body and mind, and restore ‘energy” and vitality, is becoming a casualty for many these days. Last week a 58 year old lady complained that she woke up with a startle in the middle of the night dreaming of “drugs”, something she had never been exposed to all her life. Another reported a nightmare in which he felt someone was “strangulating” him by tightening something around his neck, till he woke up feeling choked! Yet another reported dreaming that he was in an ICU of a hospital with PPE draped figures surrounding his bed while he was being prepared to be hooked to a ventilator. Bad dreams can be disturbing to say the least. One wakes up with a startle or in sweat, feeling disturbed and uneasy, and feeling drained. The mood in the morning is usually uneasy and snappy. Creative thinking has usually gone for a toss…postponed to yet another day when one feels more cheerful and positive.   Several factors could be contributing to “

At times such as this after 5 months into the pandemic when  Covid  infection numbers are still climbing up, life is anything but “normal”, and uncertainty is looming like thick clouds over our heads, many are getting the feeling that they are reaching the snapping point!   It was in this context that 260  teachers of  one of the reputed school chains , Lucknow Public School,  gathered  Sunday  for an online interactive session by HOPE Initiative to discuss and explore strategies of coping and resilience.   Of the many segments of society that are facing  the present brunt , school teachers  are a particularly hard-hit lot. Apart from the  universal  fear of infection, they find themselves being pushed into crazy degrees of multi-tasking: looking after   children’s studies, cooking, chores  at home  in addition to the teaching. To make matters worse, they are being pushed from their comfort zone of conventional classroom teaching to a new one of on-line teaching in which they have ofte

  Stress is undoubtedly rising steeply  in these COVID times, not just due to fear of contracting the virus, getting proper treatment, social stigma that it may bring, or surviving the infection, but now to a  newly added cause:  exhaustion and despair from waiting almost endlessly for it to go away! Yes, it is no small concern. Last week during a video consultation, a young 25-year-old girl broke down and described anxiety, palpitations, sleeplessness, constant fear, exhaustion, and a feeling of deep despair stemming from the endless wait for life to get back on track. She complained further of a constant feeling of impending doom and collapse that was driving her to wonder if life was worth living any longer. Coping behavior seems to vary between individuals, but patience is certainly running out for many who had believed that the wait would be a 2-week affair. And now that the wait has crossed 4 months with no end still in sight, many minds are reaching snapping point! She is not al

If you did not exchange wishes with friends on Friendship Day, STOP, THINK and RECTIFY! You could be missing an essential ingredient of health from your life. Friendship Day is generally celebrated on the 1 st Sunday of August, but you can of course observe it every other day. FRIENDS are important for several reasons: 1.       Scientists studying the effects of friends note a strong link between immunity and social support. Those with friends are more likely to ward off or fight illnesses and traumas, and survive life threatening situations like major accidents or heart attacks. Even wound seem to heal faster in those who have warm friends. 2.    They play a key role in processing stress. Unburdening your heart is a great stress buster and helps reduce stress hormones from the body. 3.     Friends play a pivotal role in boosting self-confidence. Remember the first occasion when you had to go up on stage…and how your supportive friends cheered you on….and reassuringly com

In times such as these, when every TV channel, newspaper or conversation is spewing fearful and despairing news, how does one cope and survive with the hope to see better times? Amidst galloping COVID 19 numbers, gruesome clashes on our borders, crumbling economy and a very uncertain future, I discovered a living story of exemplary coping and resilience that can make a difference to our lives. Her name is Ruth Ba der Ginsberg, 87 year old lady, the oldest judge of the Supreme Court of USA who is attending to her duties while undergoing chemotherapy for her third cancer. The present cancer that she is fighting is an advanced one that has spread to her liver, for which she is receiving twice weekly chemotherapy and is optimistic as the tumour is showing signs of regression. Her long life is as much a lesson in hard work and perseverance in reaching where she has in her career, as it is about coping and resilience with health problems and cancer. Her first date with cancer was in 1999 whe

Surviving COVID is not easy; it is not just the threat of death and physical suffering, but many other issues that complicates life. As the COVID outbreak is marching on, many are coming out of the illness and narrating tales of the challenges they had to overcome. I spoke with RK today, a 30 year bachelor engineer who had consulted me on-line a month ago for symptoms of “acidity”…burning in the abdomen and poor appetite that had been going on for a few months. As he did not improve with the medications and worried about an ulcer, he insisted on getting an endoscopy done even in these COVID times. Ours, like most hospitals these days, recommend a precautionary pre-endoscopy COVID test to be done a day prior. The next day, to his surprise and ours, the test came POSITIVE! He was shocked, devastated, and agitated. As he was living alone in a rented apartment in the city, away from parents who stayed 400 km away in another town, he felt very alone and shaken. His cell phone app st

There is hardly any person in Uttar Pradesh who has not heard of Dr D K Chhabra, a senior neurosurgeon, who died recently. Over the decades his expertise, pragmatic advice and popularity had broken the shackles of his narrow surgical field coming to be known as a “brain-specialist”and a genuine adviser for all health problems. I got to know him in 1987 when I joined the upcoming Sanjay Gandhi PG Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGI) in Lucknow as a young member of the faculty in Gastroenterology. He had moved from his alma mater the KG Medical College where he is still regarded as a legend. An omnipresent bachelor doctor living in the duty room readily available to help anybody anytime.He was tasked to heading and developing Neurosciences at SGPGI. He had an eye for detail and was tasked additionally by the director to set up not just his department, but the whole hospital, the building, equipment and the campus. DKC was a tall and handsome man who spoke little. But when he did inl

If your mind space is crowded with too many stressful “negative” occupants such as COVID crisis, border conflicts, shattering economy, uncertainties of future or locusts, just to name a few, and if you are in a mood to explore something new and relaxing, give Birdwatching a try. At the outset, let me confess that being a workaholic all my life and born under the Zodiac sign of Capricorn, I had never found time for such “idle” hobbies”. In fact as stud ents with lives packed with studies, sports, thrills, work and challenges, we had scoffed at Dr Salim Ali, one of the greatest ornithologists, who had made headlines decades ago. It all started 2 years ago when my wife hung a “bird feeder” outside our window and our gardener planted a new creeper in the garden. Two years down, when I found myself locked in at home recently in my own empty nest, I found time to notice and appreciate groups of domestic birds visiting us. And when I Googled “Bird watching health benefits” I was stunned with

It is indeed difficult in the midst of a raging pandemic to see any silver lining to the dark COVID clouds, but two sets of observations are emerging on an optimistic note. Let me start with a true story of a 34-year old otherwise healthy young man who came down with fever for 8 days, initially suspected to be typhoid, that refused to subside with several courses of strong antibiotics. By the time he reached a nearby hospital, he was found to be breathless requiring oxygen therapy (requirement 4 liters/minute). A COVID test was sent, but as no beds were available, he was asked to go to another hospital. After much pleading, he was kept in the emergency hold area on supportive care waiting for a bed to fall vacant. Over the next 2 days his fever and breathlessness deteriorated (requiring 15 liters/minute), while his COVID test came positive. He could luckily be shifted to a single ICU bed of a nearby hospital that fell vacant, just in time to be put on a ventilator. In the subsequent da

Unexpected disasters, natural or man made, are getting commoner by the day and failure to address the emotional trauma and psychological impact of survivors such as the relatives of road traffic accident victims, often leaves a glaring hole in people’s lives and personalities. For most of us, it would be impossible to imagine the emotional trauma and agony of those who have seen loved ones been dragged away by flood waters or buried alive by landslides, o r perhaps even worse, just missing! How and what can be done for them? I was watching the TV interview of one of the relatives of a recent RTA victim and was saddened to hear how the lives of the family members had had been catapulted since the young man’s death. At the outset it is important to know the sequence of reaction that a traumatised person goes through. The first stage is one of denial or disbelief at the suddenness of the upheaval. It is followed usually by anger, often directed at people around, government, at oneself or

If difficult stretches of time throw us a challenge and make us think and behave differently, they also often emerge as life’s best TEACHERS. While the tone is of fear, gloom and lament on most lips nowadays, some are using this period as an opportunity to turn things completely around.  Many are going back into reviving their long-lost hobbies. The social media is throbbing with people displaying their musical talents, either rendering solo song s or getting together with other musicians on “tele” platforms to create complex music. In one of the displays, several musicians joined in from different parts of the globe to create a finely tuned “orchestra”! There are others who are reverting back to dancing, cooking, craftsmanship, yoga or fitness. All of them look surprisingly happy in the videos they post, their pursuits proving helpful in lifting their gloom and bringing a smile of accomplishment and joy onto their faces. Few seem to be discovering and enjoying their new avatar in “pre

The ongoing explosive outbreak of COVID is bursting and splitting society like never before, turning many a table upside down. The reassuring and comforting words of leaders emanating from the TV channels that 80% of those infected will have mild or no symptoms, and only 5-10 % need to be wary, are not sounding soothing anymore. People are increasingly becoming witness to someone they “knew” having COVID and falling unluckily into the wrong basket of 5% or even made it into the unfortunate ditch of 2.8% and died, and are beginning to ask, “ How do I know which one I will fall into”? Three months ago, we were hailing the South Korean model of testing, testing and testing and believed that an early answer to “Do I have COVID?” would control the spread. We even had examples where over 150 people who attended a “party” were all tested and quarantined where only one symptomatic attendee had been positive. Two months down we are now been given to understand that “early detect

The COVID19 story that started just 5 months ago as a regional outbreak and then snowballed into a massive pandemic, seems to have another facet that scientists are coming to terms with: a funny spin or DOOSRA for most aspects we thought we knew!  BLOOD VESSEL DISEASE There is increasing evidence that COVID that was thought to be a viral pneumonia quite like influenza, SARS or H1N1 is turning out to be BLOOD VESSEL disease. Studies on lungs of patients are showing that small vessels that supply blood to the lungs are choked with clots, in stark contrast to what we see in “pneumonia” where the blood vessels are intact but the small airspaces are filled with fluids and cells. This is helping explain why many patients have breathlessness and low levels of oxygen in the blood, and why providing high flow rates of oxygen rather than mechanical ventilation seems to help. Damage and choking of blood vessels in other parts of the body are being increasingly seen and r

One of the off shoots of the COVID 19 scare and lockdown and that many of my colleagues and I are witnessing is the growing use of TELEMEDICINE. It is not without reason that most good hospitals are now offering tele-medicine services, and many patients are benefiting from it. In fact, I thought it makes perfect sense for a patient of Chronic Hepatitis B who is doing well under my treatment with oral medications for the last 4 years and residing in a remote small town of Uttar Pradesh for example, not to spend time, travel cost and effort to visit me in my clinic to show his reports, have a 10- minute consultation, and get a fresh prescription, all that he may now get on-line by telemedicine using his smart phone. Telemedicine is emerging as the in-thing nowadays across the world where people are reaping the benefit of technology, having a face-to face consultation (without masks!) on video with a doctor after having shared all reports with him in advance. And you can do it fr

With the COVID outbreak spreading and infecting more people across the world, doctors and scientists are getting to understand the widening spectrum of mischief this virus causes in the body, far beyond just lungs and respiratory passages. 1. Brain and Nerves Several patients report loss of taste or smell during the phase of illness. These symptoms ascribed initially to involvement of receptors of the tongue and nose, have now been traced to the brain. MRI studies have revealed that regions that receive the taste and smell signals brought there by the cranial nerves show small spots of oedema and nerve degeneration. Brain involvement has also been found in several patients complaining of headache, disturbed consciousness, loss of memory, tingling sensations and extreme body weakness due to a form of ‘encephalitis’ and neuronal degeneration. Fortunately, these changes regress in most who recover. 2. Muscle and Heart Another notable feature in a third of patien

I cannot recall witnessing the government machinery of this country so active, energetic, concerted and committed in its fight against a common enemy, as during the COVID outbreak this time. The next few weeks are going to be a “make or break” phase…when we might either breathe a sigh of relief, or suffer much for a long time. But I must share a story with you. Our house help who shares our home for 20 years got a call on her cell phone t hat one of her elderly aunts staying in a congested part of her hometown had died. She had been old and had a long-standing breathing problem. To my obvious next question “Was it COVID?”, she answered that she had not been tested. On pursuing further if there was time still before the body was disposed, as a precaution just in case, she said “It would be too much hassle… the police will land up at home, perhaps take grieving relatives elsewhere, involve expenses, and delay the last rites”. Officials, be it of the health department

It could not be more sardonic that when forcibly confined to our homes and locked into isolation, our earlier hankering for holidays, respite from school and work and time for rest, is turning out to be like Midas’s boon of golden touch! In this unprecedented period of depressive developments, we are experiencing many types of emotions that are broadly included under “stress”. The international expert David Kessler  terms it “Grief” and describes 6 stages which I found helpful to understand my feelings: 1.The 1st stage is DENIAL; like what we felt in early March…..”this is just another scare….happening elsewhere…wont affect us in any way”. 2. It gives way to ANGER: “how can this be happening here? Lockdown on our freedom and movements? Never happened before! The government and enforcement people are victimising us…..we need to raise our voice and fight!” 3. When we run out of options, we start to BARGAIN: “OK.. If we suffer for these 3 weeks, all will be OK again?