A single-food exclusion diet is also not always helpful if you have no obvious suspects and really do not know where to start. If this applies to you, and you do want to try this approach, rather than a more radical diet from the outset, keeping a Foods Diary for a week to 10 days will help identify possible candidates to test. Note down every time you eat, drink or ingest something (whether it is food, drink, drugs, home medicine or even toothpaste). Note down any change in symptoms, whenever they occur, and see if you can detect any pattern at all.
Watch out for delayed reactions – if you feel worse at night or the morning after eating a particular food, this may be a sign of intolerance, especially with grains and proteins, which the body takes longer to break down. Watch out also for withdrawal or cravings. If you feel unwell until you can consume a drink or particular food in the morning, or until you eat something specific at a snack or meal, then suspect that food or foods.
If you really cannot see an obvious suspect, then pick one of the most common causes of allergy and intolerance, such as wheat, eggs, corn, yeast or cow’s milk, and leave that out totally. Alternatively, you could choose a food that is not such an extensive part of basic diet and hence easier to leave out – such as tea, coffee, chocolate or oranges -and start there.
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You should take medical advice before trying to identify for yourself the cause of symptoms you think are related to an allergic or sensitivity reaction. Many symptoms – such as headache, breathlessness, gut pain and diarrhoea – can be caused by other diseases and you need to be sure that other possible causes have been ruled out.
Some reactions to things you inhale, swallow or touch are entirely normal. The body has normal defence mechanisms to protect it. It is usual for anyone to sneeze or cough, or for your eyes to run, if you encounter a lot of dust and particles. Most people also find that strong household chemicals or DIY materials irritate their breathing passages, give them a sore throat or headache, or make their hands sore. Only if your reactions make you feel very unwell, and affect your system for quite a while afterwards, or if you are affected by minute amounts, should you suspect sensitivity or allergy. If your symptoms are not severe or long-term, they are probably a natural response.
Hyperventilation and withdrawal symptoms often accompany reactions, or follow soon afterwards. The symptoms of these can be confused with true reactions.
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Washing soda (available from supermarkets) is an effective general cleaner for all kinds of uses, but do not use on anything made of aluminium. Dissolve a tablespoonful in a bowl of hot water.
You can use washing soda for washing paintwork; for cleaning baths and tile work; for washing floors; for cleaning windows; for washing cars. It is less effective than detergents or dishwashing liquids at cutting grease, so use in combination with one that you tolerate if you need extra grease-cutting power. Washing soda can damage some oven surfaces.
Amway make a general cleaner, LOC Regular, a concentrated and powerful detergent which is generally well tolerated. Available via Amway agents.
Livos make a range of low-allergen general cleaners. These are new on the market and we have no reports of how well they are tolerated. Livos will send small samples to try before purchase.
Glass and Tile Cleaners
To clean glass and tiles, you can use a general cleaner such as wash¬ing soda or Amway’s LOC Regular. If you tolerate vinegar, you can also mix white vinegar half and half with water. Apply lightly to the surface and polish with a soft cotton cloth.
To clean scum and mould from tiles and grouting, sprinkle Borax or sodium bicarbonate on a nailbrush and scrub thoroughly. Borax and sodium bicarbonate inhibit mould growth.
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After the filling fruit, vegetable and unusual grains, you can then try other fruit and vegetables, such as apples, pears, courgettes, tomato. After nine months, you can try the less allergenic grains -rice, oats, rye and millet. Save the highly allergenic foods – wheat, cow’s milk, eggs, etc. -until babies are at least 12 months old and for as long as you can thereafter.
If your baby runs into problems on the suggested weaning programme, and starts reacting to the less troublesome foods, or else is very hungry, then you may be obliged to bring forward some of the more troublesome foods earlier than you would like. If you do this, then leave foods such as wheat, eggs, cow’s milk, yeast and corn to the very end of those you try. Try lentils, soya, meat, poultry, fish and nuts before the others, and maybe sheep’s milk, unless your doctor advises strongly against it.
Never overload a potentially food-sensitive baby with too many new foods at once, or too many allergenic foods. Keep to a varied, spaced out and simple diet. Babies’ digestions can usually cope better with simple demands.
Most babies are extremely happy on this kind of weaning diet, having known no different, until they are 12-15 months old. You need not worry, provided they are still getting plenty of breastmilk or bottle formula milk, are generally well and healthy, are keeping to their projected height and growth charts, and your doctor has given you any vitamin and mineral supplements that are necessary.
Do not be tempted, if you have very few foods that baby tolerates, or if baby shows a particular liking for something, to allow the baby to eat lots of that food every day. This can pre-dispose a food-sensitive baby to develop allergy or intolerance of that food. Craving and addiction can also be a symptom of food sensitivity. Keep the diet spaced out and varied.
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In your own home, the key ways of reducing moulds are to:
• Keep your environment as dry as you are able
• Remove obvious sources of mould spores
• Keep a constant warmth if possible
If you cannot afford the money or time to keep your whole home free of moulds, then concentrate on one or two rooms, especially your bedroom, and try and confine damp, wet activities (like drying laundry) to certain areas away from where you spend most of your time. The most useful things to do first are the following basic avoidance measures:
Dry laundry outside the home if possible. If you use a tumble dryer, locate it outside the home if you can, or at least away from the living areas, and make sure it is well vented to the outside. Put any damp cloths or towels straight on to a heat source to dry off fast. Do not leave damp towels or cloths lying around.
Dry off any condensation and damp standing on windows, walls or work surfaces – a quick wipe in the morning or after a bath or shower does the trick. Open windows and doors to air for a while – good ventilation for at least a short period each day helps to dry things out, even on damp days. Keep plugs in sinks, basin and bath plugholes –this stops moulds wafting up.
Use extractor fans if you have them when bathing, doing laundry, or cooking, to ventilate and get damp out fast.
Airing beds and keeping them dry is a very effective way of reducing mould levels in bedrooms, and away from where you breathe at night. Humans shed about half a litre (nearly a pint) of fluid in sleep each night, and moulds like damp, warm places.
Fix obvious sources of damp and drips. If you have any persistent problems with rising or penetrating damp, or any leaking taps or pipes, then sort them out. Many millions of mould spores can be generated from small areas of damp.
Using gas fires or paraffin heaters can create condensation and damp problems, since they generate water when they burn. Do not use gas fires or paraffin heaters if you can avoid them. Solid fuel fires generate water, but the damp is usually drawn up the chimney and dried off, so they do not cause damp. Electric heating produces a dry heat and is advantageous. Gas central heating, and other forms of central heating, do not cause water problems. Do not use humidifiers on radiators. They can be a source of moulds and raise humidity.
Gas and paraffin cooking appliances also create damp when used, but, because they are usually not operated as long, nor as intensively, as heaters, they cause less problems with damp. If you use them, always ventilate well to clear the damp they create.
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A good candidate for sex therapy is someone interested in finding out more about himself. Therefore, he is somewhat intro- spective, has some insight into himself and wants to learn more. He will have functioned well sexually in the past, and his problem will have developed recently. This is particularly important, because men with erection problems may become extremely depressed, and solving the problem early can help men avoid the cycle of rejection and despair that can develop overtime.
Some therapists require that a man with an erection problem already have a partner in a relationship. The reason for such a rule is that because sex is something which concerns both partners, both should participate in any resolution of a sexual problem. The two partners don’t have to be married or to have been together for a long time, but it’s important that they feel good about each other. Other therapists will work with men who do not have a steady partner, or don’t have a partner at all.
Perhaps most important of all, a good candidate for sex therapy is someone who is motivated: He wants to improve his sexual functioning and his sexual relationship and learn more about his body. He is willing to do the homework the therapist assigns; he wants to change.
There are also key characteristics a good candidate does not have. He doesn’t suffer from persistent, long-term, low sexual desire, even though the erection problem may have recently reduced his interest in sex. He’s not seeking help just because he’s being pressured to change by his lover. He doesn’t have very restricted and firmly fixed ideas about what is “normal” sex; he will consider sexual behavior besides intercourse, and he’s willing to experiment. He does not carry within him a strong prohibition against sex. For example, a man who says, “I avoid sex until I can’t stand it” will need to spend additional time in sex therapy examining and reconsidering his attitudes.
Along the same lines, someone who remarks, “I masturbate only when I can’t stop myself” isn’t going to be comfortable stimulating himself as part of a sex therapy program. Working on his attitudes toward self-pleasure would be an important first step, and a good sex therapist would be able to help him examine and possibly change those feelings.
Just as the wife or lover plays an important role in diagnosis and treatment, she can be crucial to successful sex therapy. In the best situation, the partner is interested, involved and sup- is that you and your partner honestly share your feelings and concerns with the therapist.
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Until very recently, most doctors thought that veins, which carry blood out of the penis, weren’t important culprits in erection problems. Doctors thought that the amount of blood leaving the penis didn’t change much, whether a man was erect or not. The arteries were the main concern. The fact that some veins in the penis could be abnormal and sabotage erection all by themselves wasn’t recognized.
That view has undergone a radical shift in just the last few years. New research has demonstrated that abnormal veins in the penis can sabotage erection. They do this by letting blood flow too rapidly out of the penis, thus preventing a man from getting or maintaining an erection. Normally, when a man becomes erect, the veins partially shut down, restricting the blood flow. Leaky veins, however, don’t get the message, and keep the blood flowing out of the penis.
In fact, some experts now think that a significant percentage of men with physically caused erection problems may have leaky veins. Doctors are continuing to study the problem and new research should soon tell us even more.
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You know that the penis itself contains no muscles, but exercise still might be able to help your sex life. We’re not sure exercise helps, but some sex therapists suggest that Kegel exercises to strengthen the pelvic muscles may help you prolong intercourse. (Kegel exercises have for years been recommended to women who want to increase their sexual enjoyment.)
In order to exercise the pelvic muscles you first have to find them. There are two ways to do this, according to sex therapist-Bernie Zilbergeld, Ph.D., the author of Mate Sexuality. You can pretend you are holding in a bowel movement; the muscles you squeeze are the pelvic ones. Or, when you are urinating, stop and start your flow several times; when you stop the flow, you’re squeezing the muscles you want.
Once you know where the muscles are, you can try squeezing and relaxing the muscles 10 to 15 times, twice a day. Dr. Zilbergeld suggests you gradually increase your workout to 60 or 70, twice a day. And once you’ve mastered that, you can try holding the squeeze for a bit longer and then relaxing. However, it’s important not to overdo it and to increase gradually, because, as with any exercise, too much too soon can make you sore.
Some therapists say that strengthening these muscles can help you last longer and control your ejaculations more easily. If you tighten these muscles just before you ejaculate, you’re doing a kind of internal squeeze technique.
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The second type of prostate operation is done when a man has cancer of the prostate. Called a radical prostatectomy, this procedure involves the removal of the entire prostate and the seminal vesicles, always through an incision in the body. It’s much more common for crucial nerves to be injured during this type of procedure. Because surgeons have now identified the exact location of these nerves, however, new methods have been developed to save them, and the odds that potency will be maintained are much better. Using these new techniques, popularized by Patrick C. Walsh, M.D., Chairman of the Department of Urology at Johns Hopkins University, the surgeon can preserve the nerves next to the prostate that control erection. The results are striking: One year after having their prostates removed, 86 percent of men who were potent before surgery retained their ability to get an erection. Previously, the vast majority of men who had such surgery were physically incapable of getting an erection. It does take some time to regain potency following prostate surgery; less than a third of the men were potent after just three months, but after nine months about 60 percent had regained potency. Younger patients were faster to recover their erectile abilities, and the smaller the cancer, the better the odds for preserving the nerves and the ability to get an erection. The nerve-sparing technique is now widely known, and any man contemplating prostate surgery should discuss the methods to be used with his doctor.
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Always ask your doctor or pharmacist if a medication can cause potency problems—even if the problem occurs after you’ve been taking the drug for a while. And remember to ask about how drugs interact with each other and with alcohol. Doctors differ in their approach to the drug/erection problem. Some believe that volunteering the information that a medication may cause impotence just sets the patient up for performance anxiety. Others strongly assert that a well-informed patient is in a much better position to report any difficulties, and that patients can be saved needless anxiety by knowing what might happen. We favor the second approach. In any case, you can protect yourself by always asking if a medication can affect your potency. If you ask directly for the information, the physician should provide it.
Many patients do not connect medications with potency, and neither do their wives. Think how differently William and Sharon would have felt if, when the first erection problem occurred, William said, “Well, it might be the blood pressure pills. I’ll call the doctor in the morning. Maybe he can switch me to a different medication, or change the dosage.” A lot of pain and anguish might have been avoided.
Recreational drugs, like marijuana, amphetamines and narcotics can also cause erection problems. As with medications, responses to these drugs vary: Some men find that even small doses leave them unable to get an erection, or maintain one, while others have a higher tolerance.
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