How to Resume Your Sex Life After a Heart Attack

If your well-being has been affected by a heart attack, you may be too embarrassed to inquire about your sexual health. But when is it OK to have sex again? And what’s the safest way to go about it? Now, new guidelines, published in the journals Circulation and European Heart Journal, are urging doctors to help their patients resume a healthy love life, and provide – for the first time – specific advice on enjoying sex safely after a heart attack, stroke, heart transplant or other heart condition.

 

This isn’t the first time that guidelines have discussed how long you should wait before getting back between the sheets, the new advice details exactly which sexual positions and activities you can engage in if you aren’t ready for the physical exertion of intercourse. According to Elaine Steinke, lead author of the statement and professor of nursing at Wichita State University in Kansas, ‘Patients are anxious and often afraid sex will trigger another cardiac event – but the topic sometimes gets passed over because of embarrassment or discomfort.’

 

The paper also recommends that you undergo some type of sex counseling, and discuss with your doctor the health risks of embarking on an affair. As having an affair has been shown to increase the risk of dying from heart problems, the guidelines urge doctors not to be embarrassed about fully discussing the issue. Professor Steinke commented, ‘We deal with the intimate parts of the body in many ways as health care providers. Those who want information are very much relieved that the health care provider has brought up this topic.’

 

If you’ve had no complications after your heart attack, and can walk briskly without experiencing chest pain or other symptoms, the guidelines state that you can typically engage in sexual activity after one week. However, if you’ve undergone heart bypass surgery, you need to wait for your incision to heal fully, and can generally safely resume sexual activity after six to eight weeks. This should be done gradually, and you might want to consider more PG stuff before you move onto the main event, Professor Steinke advised.

Categories: Attack, guidelines, health, health care, healthy sex life, heart, Heart Attack, positions, professor steinke, sexual, sexual activity

Psoriatic Arthritis: New Treatment Guidelines Released

The first-ever international guidelines for the treatment of psoriatic arthritis have been published, thanks to the joint efforts of arthritic wellness experts such as rheumatologists, dermatologists, and patient advocates. The disease mainly affects the wellbeing of people who have psoriasis, but some people without it may also be at risk of psoriatic arthritis.

The guidelines were published by the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA), led by Christopher Ritchlin, MD, MPH, professor of Medicine at the University Of Rochester Medical Centre. Ritchlin, who treats about 250 patients with psoriatic arthritis, is also the director of the Clinical Immunology Research Unit at the Medical Centre and presented the guidelines.

‘In the past few years, new medications have become available that are incredibly effective for the various manifestations of psoriatic arthritis,’ he said. ‘Many patients’ find their lives changed for the better within just a couple of weeks. These guidelines are designed as a platform to make sure physicians around the world are aware of what’s available for their patients and to help them make sound treatment decisions.’

Doctors say that about one out of four patients with psoriasis also gets psoriatic arthritis, and roughly 15% of people who get the disease don’t have psoriasis. The autoimmune disease works by causing your body to attack itself by activating signalling molecules. Psoriatic arthritis literally eats away at your joints, which causes some bones to shrink or disappear and others to grow in an abnormal, disfiguring and disabling way. The disease also increases your risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart attacks.

According to Ritchlin, ‘The presenting symptoms of psoriatic arthritis vary tremendously from patient to patient. It’s a very challenging disease to treat, because so many different parts of the body can be involved. The skin can be inflamed, a particular joint or tendon can hurt tremendously, the patient might have back pain, or a single swollen finger or toe. Oftentimes a patient will come in with something you might call ‘tennis elbow,’ or they might have a sore Achilles heel, and that’s their only symptom. It can be very difficult to diagnose.’

A broad range of treatments is available to treat the disease. The group recommended that, as soon as you suspect psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis, you consult a specialist, such as a dermatologist or rheumatologist to find the best plan for you. The group also urged physicians to consider ewer medications that inhibit a molecule known as TNF (tumour necrosis factor). ‘Most people respond rapidly and dramatically to these medications,’ Ritchlin said.

Psoriatic Arthritis: New Treatment Guidelines Released

Categories: guidelines, psoriatic arthritis, treatment

Salt May Not Be As Bad For You As You Think

For many years we have known that salt is bad us. In fact, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention have been recommending that Americans cut back on their salt intake for decades. The guidelines advise that lowering that amount of sodium we eat would decrease the growing burden of high blood pressure and heart disease. And through this, it could even prevent deaths.

It’s recommended that we should have no more than a teaspoon of salt per day as a young, healthy person. The level should be around half for people over 40 or those who already have high blood pressure.

Even though the government has been pushing the idea of reduce levels of salt for decades, salty foods have been making a comeback, even for so-called “healthy” chefs like Jamie Oliver. It is becoming more regular that researchers and doctors are starting to doubt the science behind the “recommended daily levels” of sodium intake. According to many, the guidelines just aren’t backed up by the evidence.

A study published in the Journal of Hypertension analysed data from over 6,000 people. The results failed to find an association between lowered salt intake and a lower risk of heart attacks, strokes or death.

Another study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, went even further, suggesting that a low-salt diet might even be bad for us. The authors reported that the less sodium subjects excreted in their urine, the greater their risk was of dying from heart disease.

These findings may be at the more extreme end of the scale, but the fact is that the evidence is divided on how bad salt is for us.

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Salt May Not Be As Bad For You As You Think

Categories: guidelines, Jamie Oliver, Salt

Warning: Current Asthma Advice May be Wrong

A new study into the treatment of those who suffer from asthma has revealed that current guidelines surrounding treatment may be flawed.

Asthma is a debilitating condition which causes the airways of sufferers to swell, affecting their respiratory wellness and causing them a variety of symptoms including wheezing, breathlessness, loss of consciousness and much more. In severe cases, it can even lead to death.

Two new trials now claim that in the case of adults who do not have well-controlled asthma, a single inhaler containing a mixture of two different types of drugs, may be the best treatment.

This system is known as ‘Single inhaler Maintenance and Reliever Therapy’ (SMART) and works in both a preventative and a rescue sense, so can be used to avoid an attack or to get rid of an attack when it strikes.

Asthma UK, a leading asthma charity in the United Kingdom, has welcomed the news, stating that this single-inhaler approach is already available in the UK (for over 18s) and has been for many years. The treatment, however, is not yet available in the United States, as it is yet to be approved.

Many asthma sufferers struggle to keep good control of the associated symptoms, and in the cases of these people, they are usually prescribed a corticosteroid, to be inhaled in order to prevent attacks, plus a long-acting beta2 agonist if the steroid is not enough on its own. Then, all patients are advised to have a second inhaler, known as a ‘reliever’ to help ward off the symptoms of an attack when they strike.

In contrast to this, the new SMART system uses just one inhaler which contains a steroid as well as a LABA bronchodilator, and works in a preventative and rescue sense at the same time.

In practical terms, this move would mean that asthmatics only had to carry one inhaler with them at all times and would use it in any situation.

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Warning: Current Asthma Advice May be Wrong

Categories: Asthma, guidelines, treatment

Experts Issue Guidelines for Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome

Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS) is a rare condition that affects sexual health in a unique way. If you have the syndrome, it means that while you are genetically male, you have some or all of the physical characteristics of a female. Needless to say, AIS can take its toll on your emotional wellbeing, and so University of Granada researchers have designed new guidelines for physicians and patients on the syndrome.

There is a low prevalence of AIS, which, in its complete form, only occurs in 20,000 live births. AIS is defined as the inability of the tissues to respond to the action of male hormones, meaning that individuals with XY sex hormones (i.e. 46 XY) are prevented from developing male genitalia. It occurs due to a genetic mutation that codifies the receptor of androgens, and when doctors identify such a mutation, the diagnosis is confirmed. Women carry the gene, but it only develops in men, or, in other words, it is transmitted by a sex-linked recessive gene.

In a review study recently published in the journal Gynaecological Endocrinology, the researchers looked at the most relevant clinical and epidemiological data of AIS to come up with their guidelines. This includes patient follow-up protocols to be applied from birth to adulthood, carried out during childhood and adolescence, as well as additional information for patients. The guidelines are available at the web site of the Biomedical Research Network of Rare Diseases (CIBERER) www.ciberer.es, the Spanish Association of Human Genetics www.aegh.org and the research group on cancer in patients with polymalformation genetic syndromes (www.ct-csgp.org).

So far, it has been difficult to affix guidelines to the syndrome, as it creates such a diversity of symptoms. Clinically, symptoms of AIS can include anything from spermatogenic defects causing infertility in men with otherwise normal genitalia, to individuals who look female in appearance but have not menstruation or female internal genitalia. It can sometimes be problematic identifying the gender of AIS sufferers at birth, and doctors require a more precise diagnosis to determine the sex of the newborn and plan potential treatments.

Professor Mendoza, one of the authors of the study and a researcher at the University of Granada Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, said that therapy for AIS is based on three pillars: ‘The first step is reinforcing the sexual identity of the subject with the help of psychologists. In cases of sexual ambiguity and determination of female gender, the second step is to perform a gonadectomy (removal of testicles), as they may become cancerous. Finally, it is necessary to administer hormone replacement therapy in case the subject is assigned the female sex. The prognosis of these patients is good if the testicles are timely removed.’

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Experts Issue Guidelines for Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome

Categories: Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, guidelines, Research