To Your Health

Mental Health America states, “Whether for heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, or depression - health screenings provide a quick and easy way to spot the first signs of serious illness and can reach people who might not otherwise seek professional medical advice. Clinical depression is a common medical illness. Like screenings for other illnesses, depression screenings should be a routine part of healthcare.”

Today is Depression Screening Day. 

In the early 1990s, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, Estee Lauder and Self magazine began distributing pink ribbons at events to promote breast cancer awareness.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  

Today, most people are aware of breast cancer, but many don’t have a plan to detect the disease in its early stages and encourage others to do the same.

Fall has arrived! The leaves are turning colors, the air is getting cool and crisp…and you’re sneezing?

Allergies don’t just occur as things bloom in the spring and summer.

Fall allergies have different triggers than spring and summer allergies, but they can be just as annoying. Ragweed is a common culprit. The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America report that 10 to 20 percent of Americans suffer from ragweed allergy or hay fever. Ragweed begins releasing pollen in late summer and continues almost until frost kills the plant.

Do you remember hearing the quote “Don’t judge a book by its cover?”  Chronic illnesses, such as Multiple Sclerosis, have symptoms that are like icebergs; you only see what’s on the surface.

One of my students recently shared with me her experience as an MS warrior.

I can remember a big milk carton style box of Epsom salts sitting in the linen closet at my grandparents’ house. Like the canister of Metamucil in the kitchen and the denture tray in the bathroom, it seemed like one of the mysteries of senior citizens that would one day be revealed to me.  So I was surprised when after indulging in a massage recently, the massage therapist told me I should take a bath with Epsom salts that night. Didn’t I have at least another 20 years before I needed that? And wasn’t it sort of an old-timey remedy? Did it even really work?