The plane skidded to a halt on the wet tarmac. My chaperon was waiting for me right outside baggage collections – he ushered me into an ebony limousine and drove me swiftly to the hotel. Inside my hotel bathroom, I again traced an outline of my ears and chin in the foggy bathroom mirror. A sharp, clean profile was my desire and who was I or anyone else to argue otherwise? No man or woman should live in the shadow of their own misgivings – facial reconstruction is no laughing matter and I intended to get the best possible experience. A combination of this beautiful country, a mini-vacation and expert surgery seemed like a dream come true.

On the morning of my surgery I was greeted with the growl of a hungry stomach. I could not eat the night before – as instructed by my surgeon – and this only aided in my nerves. Upon arrival at the surgery however, my doctor calmly greeted me, before he marked my face and prepped me for ‘sleepy time’. The anaesthesiologist was suddenly at my left-hand side, sliding a thick needle into my arm. As I was wheeled into surgery, the room grew warm and embraced me as I passed out.

I woke up with the surgeon by my side. She had a smile on her face and mumbled something about my operation being a great success, with no complications to boot. As I heal, I will be lounging in my deckchair overlooking the ocean and dreaming of a better tomorrow. There is no doubt in my mind that Medical tourism in South Africa should be experienced by anyone looking to combine a restful vacation with their procedure.

Addiction

One of the most obvious consequences of smoking is that you become addicted and thus get rehabilitation symptoms when you try stopping. As a smoker you actually have two smoking addictions (and thus two types of withdrawal symptoms):

1) Physical dependence

Because of regular smoking behaviour, your body develops a dependency on nicotine. You feel less effect when smoking and the negative effect will quickly drift to the surface when nicotine content decreases. Already an hour after smoking, the nicotine level in your blood has dropped by about half so you will immediately suffer from rehabilitation symptoms, such as feeling of malaise, headache, dizziness, sleep disturbances, irritability and a feeling of depression.

1 – 2 weeks after you stopped smoking, your body processed most of the nicotine and you won’t notice its effect anymore. After one week you will not even feel any unpleasant consequences of addiction anymore. Aids like nicotine patches and nicotine gum from your health shop may help to slowly become nicotine independent, so you have less adverse physical effects and rehab symptoms. A disadvantage is that you will remain dependent longer.

2) Psychological addiction

Lighting up a cigarette is often associated with specific times and situations; e.g. after eating, during a break, with a cup of coffee, a drink in the café. Moreover, smoking is often a foothold in difficult situations, or to pass the time. Many attempts of stopping fail at such a moment. Smoking addiction is certainly not just a physical dependence, but a very important part of a strong habit.

People undergoing this eye laser surgery can not only be freed from their gaze, but also of their (reading) glasses. The Crystalens allows easy refocusing from monitor to any distance. This is because this accommodative artificial lens – like the natural lens – moves along with the eye muscle. This means seamlessly switching from computer to landscape view, reading a book to watching television.

Eye Laser Clinic is a professional Eye Care centre located at Tygervalley, Cape Town, South Africa. The clinic specialises in CustomVue Lasik, PRK, contact lens implants and many others.

Dr. Barnard

Barnard was born son of a reformed pastor Low German. One of his brothers died at a young age due to a heart defect. Christian studied medicine in Cape Town. In 1956 he moved his studies to Minnesota University (U.S.). He returned to South Africa to develop the procedure of cardiac surgery further. He became world famous on December 3rd, 1967, when he performed the first successful human heart transplant on a human, in the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.

The 55-year-old Louis Washkansky received on December 3rd, 1967 the heart of the car crash casualty, Denise Darvall. Eighteen days after surgery, Louis died of pneumonia. A second heart transplant, one month later, by the same team, had more success with the 50-year-old dentist Philip Blaiberg. The heart of Clive Haupt, a young deceased man who had a brain haemorrhage, was implanted. Blaiberg lived 19 months after the operation, but eventually died from the effects of rejecting the heart.

Even though the success was of short duration, yet the team was praised worldwide. Later, drugs were used to minify the rejection problem succesfully.

In the following years, over a hundred heart transplants were performed annually. Medical Tourism in Cape Town, South Africa also inclined as people were flocking to undergo a similar procedure.

Identifying stress is not easy. The impact of stress on someone’s health is usually not visible instantly, but often only develops after a long period of stress. Even more, each person reacts differently to stress. Nevertheless, there are some signs that identify stress clearly.

These symptoms are warning signals. The sooner you recognize the symptoms and address the causes, the less likely you become stressed. Take these complaints seriously!

Physical symptoms & complaints

• hypertension
• increased cholesterol
• insomnia
• palpitations
• myalgia headache
• persistent fatigue
• poor appetite
• reduced resistance
• indigestion

Psychological symptoms & complaints

• depression
• not able to enjoy
• irritability and irritation
• diminished interest
• indecisive
• feelings of powerlessness, anxiety, rapid emotion and fear

Changes in behaviour

• overeating
• increase smoking habit
• drinking & taking medication
• focus & concentration problems
• chaotic talking
• complaining
• cynicism and bitterness

Symptoms at work

• reduced production
• more mistakes, indecisive
• less motivation
• more short-term absenteeism
• internal tensions and conflicts

Our fast moving economy requires us to be on our toes all the time. This constant pressure results in stress. Most people don’t take stress seriously. However they should know that stress directly impacts a person’s health. Over 75% of visits to a general practitioner are directly related to stress. Read through these complaints and symptoms and do the test; are you suffering from stress?

In case you identified stress symptoms, you can see a general practitioner or browse the web for cures. Various online health shops offer stress relief products that could help you. Be aware that stress is different for every individual.

Is Retirement Healthy?

The active period of almost any working class individual often runs parallel with times of intense stress. This results in health issues varying from head aches to low energy/fatigue and heart complaints.

A variety of studies were done to proof the impact of stress on a human body. Only recently, a French study focused on the effects of retirement. Can it restore your health? Entirely? Is being a couch potato healthier than daily stress?

One clear conclusion showed that those who retire will see their sleep disturbances disappear.

A study conducted among French employees has shown that the frequency of sleeping disorders reduces immediately after retirement: the frequency decreased from 24.2% the year before retirement to 17.8% immediately afterward. The decrease in the number of sleeping disorders is even clearer in some groups:

• Those who before retirement suffered from depression or mental fatigue.
• Men and executives or leading jobs.
• Among people whose job required a high psychological.
• Those who occasionally or regularly work at night.

If that is true; why does other research proof to continue to work is better for your health than to retire?

However, a United States study concludes different results. The researchers compared the health of people who continued to work even after retirement with the health of people who decided to stop any professional activity. This shows that the health, particularly mental health, is better if one or other professional activity is exercised. For those who remained active, there were less severe diseases and found that people functioned better in daily life.

What’s the deal? Is it good or bad to retire for your health?

The contradiction is not as great as it might appear at first glance. In this U.S. study, the health benefits of the people who continued working after retirement, was only experienced by those who were working in the same environment as before their retirement. Researchers concluded, these benefits appeared with those who wished to continue working because their activities interested them. It was therefore not the case with those who were forced to continue working, although they did prefer to stop working.

Let’s start at the origin. Coffee is made from beans. Tea however is being produced out of the camellia plant. Rooibos tea is an exception being produced from the Fynbos plant.

Coffee you brew, using a percolator or let a coffee machine drip it. Tea you infuse by using loose tea or tea bags. The main point, where coffee and tea differ, is when it comes to health benefits. The raise of our environmental conscience (ourselves included) tends to put tea on a advantageous level. But is that rightfully acclaimed?

Many scientific studies proof that tea beats coffee on health benefits. Antioxidants are used in the body to stop or slow down oxidative damage to our body. It reduces the risk of heart diseases, degeneration, diabetes and cancer. Tea outranks coffee when it comes to antioxidants by far.

Strongly related to antioxidants is caffeine. Caffeine is a bitter stimulant drug found in the bean that produces coffee. For humans, caffeine stimulates the central nervous system. It restores alertness and wards off drowsiness. Even though coffee is highly overused, in the right proportion it reduces the feeling of being tired. Depending on the size and weight of body, in general 25-50 milligrams of caffeine is sufficient to report increases in alertness.

Coffee or caffeine can however cause nervousness, anxiety, irritability, tremulousness, hyperreflexia, insomnia, headaches… Some teas have similar working without containing that much caffeine. A normal size cup takes about half of the caffeine coffee does. Rooibos tea even has no caffeine ingredient in it.

Coffee is the world’s most widely consumed substance and will unlikely give up that position. Tea can however be a viable alternative for the health oriented human being.

Lasik Eye Surgery

Lasik Eye Surgery is a fairly new technology that corrects the eye using a laser. As the surgery is new, little extend research is done on the topic. However, due to its recent success more and more questions are being raised. The most important one is probably regarding the safety of the procedure and the patient’s recovery.

Lasik Eye Surgery is your option to wearing corrective eyeglasses or contact lenses. While eyeglasses a reasonably safe, lots of people hate the impact it has on your presence. Children get mocked at school and adults tend to mind the obstacle blocking their view as well.  Some people believe that contact lenses are safer than an eye laser surgery. However, recent research proved that contact lenses are more likely to have complications in regards to vision loss over a longer period of time than those choosing for a Lasik laser surgery.

The research calculated that contact lenses give you a 1/100 chance of developing infections that are related to contacts over a period of 20 years. Laser surgery has a 1/2000 chance of suffering vision loss as a result of the surgery of that same period of time.

If you should suffer from eye infection following a Lasik eye surgery, many specialized surgeons can treat the eye-threatening infections with a customized care plan.

Sean Connery

How do you perceive a bald person? Do make a difference whether he’s entirely bald or just partly? And what about a bald she? Can you imagine the impact it has on that person’s personality?

Ever since images were depicted, long and full or thick hair has been a symptom of a healthy and strong man, or in the female case as fertile. We are brought up with those values in mind. So during our childhood and adolescence we see bald men or women as less strong or healthy. Add the eruption of chemotherapy in cancer treatment to that. Cancer chemotherapy causes severe hair loss. Most patients grab for the alternative of hairpieces or hats to cover their hat.

It is clear that baldness or hair loss has a huge impact on the well-being of a person. In recent years however, baldness became increasingly more fashionable because of charismatic bald men, from actors such as Bruce Willis to Sean Connery and sportsmen from Shaquille O’Neil to Andre Agassi.

Treatment

Still the paradigm of humiliation stays for a lot of people, mainly because of lousy jokes. It can cause humiliation, depression, jealousy and isolation. For those who can’t live with the image of being bald, hair loss treatment is easily accessible and affordable today. Many hair clinics offer a solid procedure towards quick hair restoration.

Rooibos tea is a true South African product. It originates from the Cedarberg Mountains, Western Cape. “Did you know Rooibos is theoretically not even a tea?” That’s because it’s made of an entirely different plant than normal teas. Rooibos tea derives its name from Red Bush, which directly points out to the color. RED. Due to the African sun, minerals and the mountain air, it doesn’t turn green. Instead it’s red.

The healing power of Rooibos should not be underestimated. It relieves asthma, hay fever, stomach cramping, irritable bowel syndrome, anxiety, boost the immune system, cure insomnia and help colicky infants.

Tonic plants have multiple functions in the human body and act in the healthy individual by maintaining and supporting general physical and mental health. Several formal studies proof the healing power of tonic plants, of which Rooibos is one. Here’s an overview of some tonic plants and their power:

• Buchu: stimulate kidney function to treat mild cystitis and prosatititis. In small doses buchu is  an appetite stimulant and is a good digestive, carminative and antispasmodic. Also used to treat colds, flu, coughs, rheumatism and gout.
• Kankerbos: Anti-viral and anti-cancer. Used to treat cystitis, piles, inflammation rheumatism, liver problems, backaches and HIV/AIDS. Boosts immune system.
• Rooibos: Antispasmodic and anti-ageing flavonoids. Rooibos tea reduces heart diseases.
• Sandolien: Decoction of leaves for fever, arthritis influenza and even measles.
• Bloublomsalie: Infusions used for flu, bronchitis, abdominal cramps and indigestion.
• Kattekruid: Leaves steeped in hot water for 10 minutes and taken as a tea. Treatment of haemorrhoids. With salvias used to treat measles and fever. Infusions or brandy tinctures for colds, flu, bronchitis, asthma, heart trouble, insomnia, liver problems, typhoid fever, headaches and foot bath for arthritis. Antispasmodic and sedative effects.
• Siektroos: Infusions of tuberous rootstock for vernereal diseases, decoctions for epilepsy and bladder problems. Resinous gum used to treat ringworm. Piece of raw tap rootis chewed and juice is swallowed to treat coughproductive of purulent spotum and tuberculosis.
• Wildeals: Infusion of leaves used for coughs, flu, colds, also fever,colic, headache, earache, malaria, intestinal worms etc. Decongestant and anti-bacterial, narcotic, analgesic and antihistamine activity.

All these plant have their roots in the Cedarberg Mountain region, Western Cape, South Africa.