Ask Dr KK:I am having flu like symptoms with nausea and pain in abdomen

I am having flu like symptoms with nausea and pain in abdomen. Is it swine fly?
A: Human flu will not have nausea, diarrhea or pain in abdomen

Vasant Panchami

Vasant Panchami

Vasant or Basant or Shree Panchami is a Hindu festival celebrating Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge (wisdom, learning), music and art and is celebrated every year on the fifth day (Panchami) of the Indian month Magh (January-February) and marks the first day of spring.

On this day the children are taught to write their first words; Brahmins are fed; ancestor worship (Pitr-tarpan) is performed; the god of love Kamadeva is worshipped; and most educational institutions organise special prayer for “Ma Saraswati”.

The color yellow (vigor, enthusiasm) also plays an important role in this festival, in that people usually wear yellow garments, Saraswati is worshipped dressed in yellow, and yellow sweets are consumed within the families.

This festival is celebrated to invoke wisdom and consciousness in human beings. Saraswati is the one who gives the essence (sara) of our own self (swa).  She is considered as the personification of all knowledge – arts, sciences, crafts and other skills.

The start of school education in March, celebration of Valentines day on 14^th Feb are somehow linked to vasant month.

Beware of date rape drugs

Beware of date rape drugs

We often hear cases where a lawyer allegedly raped a client or a medical intern allegedly raped a patient or a person being robbed in a train. All have one modus operandi in common. The girl was given some water or soft drink to drink and after that she does not remember anything.

Once caught, often the defense of the accused is that the girl was a party to the sexual act. The most commonly used drug in such cases is Roofies, a date rape drug.

The use of such “predator” or “date rape drugs” is common inIndia. These drugs are commonly used in trains and buses to rob passengers, and in youth parties to exploit young females for drug-facilitated sexual assault.

Because of the effects of these drugs, victims may be physically helpless, unable to refuse sex, and can’t remember what happened. The drugs often have no colour, smell or taste and are easily added to flavoured drinks without the victim’s knowledge.

These drugs can include things like alcohol, marijuana or other street drugs, designer or club drugs like ecstasy, over-the-counter sleeping pills and anti-histamines, even cold medications.

However, the term “date rape drug” applies to any of the three drugs: GHB (gamma hydroxybutyric acid) can be made at home, used for narcolepsy in the US;Rohypnol (flunitrazepam) is legal in Europe & Mexico. Used for sleep problems and during anaesthesia and Ketamine (ketamine hydrochloride) used in the Veterinary practice.

Many factors make these drugs desirable to sexual predators. All traces of the drugs leave the body within 72 hours of ingestion and are not found in any routine toxicology screen or blood test.

Date rape drugs are easily slipped into drinks and food and are very fast acting.  They render the victim unconscious but responsive with little or no memory of what happens while the drug is active in their system. The drugs also make the victim act without inhibition, often in a sexual or physically affectionate way.

Date rape drugs render a person incapable of thinking clearly or of making appropriate decision. This makes for a very passive victim; one who is still able to play a role in what is happening but who will have no clear memory of what happened after-the-fact.

Without any memory of events the victim is often unaware that they have even been raped, and if they are aware or have suspicions they make very poor witnesses.

As the drugs are easily available, the onus lies on us to protect ourselves. Here are a few tips:

1. Don’t accept any drinks from other people, except trusted friends
2. Open containers yourself
3. Keep your drink with you at all times, even when you go to the bathroom
4. Don’t share drinks
5. Don’t drink from punch bowls or other large, common, open containers. They may already have drugs in them
6. Don’t drink anything that tastes or smells strange. Sometimes, GHB tastes salty.
7. Have a non-drinking friend with you to make sure nothing happens (if you are consuming alcohol).
8. If you think that you have been drugged and raped: Go to the police station or hospital right away. Get a urine (pee) test as soon as possible. The drugs leave your system quickly. Rohypnol leaves your body 72 hours after you take it. GHB leaves the body in 12 hours. Don’t urinate before getting help. Don’t douche, bathe, or change clothes before getting help. These things may give evidence of the rape.

Unconditional Love

Unconditional Love

There are a number of scientific studies that show the power of love to heal, to renew, to rejuvenate, and actually change the biological age. There is no doubt that love heals,  renews, makes one feel safe, inspires, empowers and brings one closer to God.

There are studies that show when nurses bond with cancer patients, particularly women with breast cancer, if they give loving support to each other, the survival rate of the patient doubles.

If you happen to have had a heart attack and a nurse or social worker calls you once a week on the phone for about a minute and says, “Mr. Gupta how are you doing? We care for you; we love you,” your mortality rate post heart attack will drop by 60%. That’s with one phone call lasting less than a minute! If a drug did that and you didn’t use it, you would be sued for malpractice. But such is our bias that this is not considered remarkably effective therapy.

Love and spirit are the same force. That at the core of every being there is only love, because the core of every being is only spirit. It’s all-pervasive. And we experience it in our lives in the flavors of human relationship–with attraction, infatuation, communion and courtship, intimacy and sexuality, surrender and non-attachment, and passion and ecstasy.

Deepak Chopra says, “At the core of every being there is only love. Love and fear are the two main forces in the universe from where all other forces arise. Other negative forces are doubt and attachment. And the positive ones are truthfulness and non judgmental.

Can you hate a stranger? Can you hate someone standing on the 12^th street 15^thavenue atNew York? No! Because we do not know him, there is no bondage. You can only hate someone to whom you have loved.

What is darkness, it is absence of light. Darkness cannot be removed physically. It can only be removed by bringing back the light. Similarly there is nothing like hatred. It is absence or withdrawal of love one is having for him. Hatred can be removed only by bringing that love back.

Stress is nothing but the reaction of the body to the interpretation of a known situation. This is the interpretation, which withdraws the love and brings hatred in ones life. One needs to learn to interpret things differently and start analyzing things from other’s perspectives and not once own.

One should also learn to live in the present and base his or her actions on the observations as they are and not on analysis.

To practice the importance of love one should do the following exercise. Close your eyed, bring your awareness to the heart and ask yourself, repeatedly. What is the purpose of my life? You will never get an inner voice with negative statements, like killing some one, hurting some one, murdering some one, etc. You will only get positive affirmations like serving, loving, caring, helping, etc.

In a deep state of relaxation one is closer to the spirit. Spirit is pure love and hence the affirmations will be only the ones, which are the affirmations of spirit.

It’s the unconditional love, which is the main quality of spirit. Unconditional love is bondage and is a negative quality love. This type of love is full of attachment and desires. Once it is fulfilled it leads to addiction and if not it ends up in anger and destruction.

February 14 also Impotence Day and Sale of Viagra increases on this day

February 14 also Impotence Day and Sale of Viagra increases on this day

February 14, Valentine’s Day, is also celebrated as National Impotence Day in countries like the UK to raise awareness of erectile dysfunction.

Valentine’s Day is a reminder of relationship between two individuals which can be at the level of body, mind, intellect, ego and or soul. Unless all relationships are fulfilled, they cannot be labeled as made for each other.

Quite often people develop relationships with others to satisfy any of the above needs. The needs may be to satisfy physically, to ease out mentally, to share intellect, to share power (ego) or to share happiness (spiritual needs.) It is, therefore, common for a person to have different relationships with different people, e.g., husband for physical needs, a guru for spiritual needs, a friend for mental or intellectual needs, and a partner to satisfy ego needs.

Valentine’s Day should not be misused as a day to satisfy one’s physical needs.

One should also be cautious about the misuse of misuse of date-rape-drugs on this day. Date-rape-drugs are easily available in the market. They are colorless, tasteless and odorless and can make a person unaware of the surroundings while remaining conscious.

For example a female under the influence of date-rape-drugs may actually be under rape but feel as if she is in a date and after the effect of drug is over, she will have retrospective amnesia or memory loss about the event.

Extra marital sex is dangerous for heart patients as it is often done in unusual circumstances, places, locations, timings and often with a partner who is 20 years younger. The performance anxiety to perform better can precipitate dangerous rise in heart rate and BP leading to heart attack and in some cases, sudden cardiac death. The dictum for heart patients, therefore, has been that sleeping with your wife or with someone with whom you have prolonged relationship prolongs life.

There is no age bar for males to have sexual act and as a result, a man can be active sexually till the age of 70 years. With the availability of Viagra drugs, it is possible for the elderly persons to enjoy sexual relationships with their partner.

The sale of Viagra drugs increases near Valentine’s Day.  However, these drugs should not be misused by heart patients who are on nitrates as it can precipitate BP.  Viagra group of drugs should also not be taken by individuals as a licence to attempt multiple sexual attempts in one sitting as any unaccustomed exercise by heart patients with underlying severe blockages can precipitate heart attack and sudden cardiac death.

Why do We Speak Delicately in Love?

Why do We Speak Delicately in Love?

A saint asked his disciples, “Why do people shout in anger or why do people shout at each other when they are upset?”  The disciples thought for a while, then one of them said, “Because we lose our calm, we shout because of that.” “But why shout when the other person is just next to you?” asked the saint, “Isn’t it possible to speak to him or her in a soft voice? Why do you shout at a person when you are angry?” The disciples gave other answers but none satisfied the saint.

Finally the saint explained, “When two people are angry at each other, their hearts grow distant. To cover the distance they must shout – so that they are able to hear each other. The angrier they are, the louder they will have to shout to hear each other across that distance.”

The saint continued, “What happens when two people fall in love? They don’t shout at each other but talk softly, why? Because their hearts are very close. The distance between them is very small.”

He explained, “When they love each other even more, what happens? They do not speak, only whisper and they get even closer to each other in their love. Finally they need not even whisper, they only look at each other and that’s all. That is how close two people are when they love each other.

When you argue do not let your hearts get distant, do not say words that distance each other more, else there will come a day when the distance is so great that you will not find the path to return.”

Is Caffeine Good For The Health?

Is Caffeine Good For The Health?

1. Caffeine is the most consumed stimulant in the world.

2. It is consumed in the form of coffee and tea.

3. At present there is no scientific data for promoting or discouraging coffee and/or tea consumption in the daily diet.

4. Short term benefits include mental alertness and improved athletic performance.

5. Short term adverse effects including headache, anxiety, tremors, and insomnia.

6. Long term adverse affects include generalized anxiety disorder and substance abuse disorders.

7. Long-term benefits are dose-dependent. Caffeine is associated with a reduced risk of Parkinson disease, Alzheimer disease, alcoholic cirrhosis, and gout. Both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee are also associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes.

8. Heavy coffee intake may trigger coronary and arrhythmic events in susceptible individuals, although coffee intake is not considered a long-term risk factor for myocardial disease.

9. Most studies show a modest inverse relationship between coffee consumption and all-cause mortality.

10. Caffeine withdrawal is a well-documented clinical syndrome with headache being the most common symptom. (Source uptodate)