In healthy children complications of chickenpox are unlikely, although they do occasionally occur. These include pneumonia and encephalitis. Children who have reduced immunity, such as those with cancer or those taking immunosuppressant medication, can suffer severe attacks of chickenpox and should be kept away from those who have it. Elderly people cannot get shingles from chickenpox, but children can develop chickenpox after contact with someone who has shingles.

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FRUSTRATED FATHER

The reason the mother’s fingers were crossed is that she knew there were still years of sex education to go. She knew what the peer group exerts profound influence, and she feared for the welfare of her son in a world confused about sexuality. The rules for effective loving and sex education are really simple. Here is the list. Talk it over with your whole family and see if they don’t agree.

Rules of Family Sex Education

Never have a “sex talk.” Sitting down for a formal birds and bees lecture is bound to fail. Sex cannot be separated from life, so deal with any problems of life when they relate to sex. If you look, you will see the relationship everywhere. Phone calls, assertiveness, curfews, discipline, respect, differing treatment of the father, mother, brother or sister, TV programs, movies, and dozens of everyday events relate to sex. Sex mini-lessons should take place then, related to an issue everyone can actually experience.

There is no need to do all of the talking. Listen and you will hear. You will hear questions even if they are not put in question form. “Nobody around

here cares about me” is a sex question about self-esteem and acceptance, “I wish our family was taller” is a question about body-image. “Look at that chick” is a question about sexism. “He’s a fag” is a question about gender identity. Use of explicit sex words is always a question about what and how to have sex, about values and morals and social appropriateness, even about technique. Good sex education is much more listening than telling.

Sex and love education cannot be done “one way.” One obvious reason

sex education can be a difficult family problem is that the child or teenager

is “on the spot,” the student. In my teaching, I have found that I am most effective when I am learning and sharing, not telling. I’m not really sure there is any such thing as teaching if it means telling. Changing behavior and thinking always depends on interaction, on a two-way learning. Ask your children to teach you about their world. Remember, you were never their age! They live in their own time, and, as the poet Kahlil Gibran stated, we cannot visit there, not even in our dreams.

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Women were never seen as prematurely orgasmic. Indeed, there was no limit to their sexual capacity. Only men “came too soon.” Women were seen as having “orgasmic dysfunction,” as not having orgasms or not having enough or intense-enough orgasms. Men, of course, were always easily orgasmic. In fact, they were seen as too easily orgasmic in comparison to these sexual women whose orgasmic threshold was high and required intense, generalized, and prolonged stimulation in order for “the force” to be released.

For men, the female orgasm became a goal. For women, it became an assignment, a signal of the effectiveness of their male partner. Even though many women talked privately of the fact that orgasms were highly subjective and that sometimes they were totally irrelevant to sexual fulfillment, they knew they had better have them if sexual relationships were to flourish. Group therapy for women was offered, “orgasm groups” helping women to find the way to their inner sexual potential. If men had their orgasms too soon, women tended to take too long. While men put desensitizing creams on their penises to numb themselves, women sought “sexual inventions” for easy orgasmic release. They discovered a magical spot that could help with all of this. After all, we were now living in a pushbutton culture, so why not look for the female sex button? Men didn’t need one, because they were turned on all the time anyway, but it seemed important to look for the female “on switch.”

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Do not ever breathe ozone produced using a high voltage arc. Such ozone is initially very hot and it is so active, that it reacts with the nitrogen in the arc plasma, creating nitrogen oxides, which are quite toxic. The air around a high voltage arc contains not only ozone, but also nitrogen oxides, which are dangerous.

“Cold” ozone, generated at low room temperature by an UV quartz lamp is safe. Such “cold” ozone is naturally produced in the atmosphere by the activity of the sun and is an essential ingredient of fresh air.

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Ergotamine is a drug which constricts the arteries and is the treatment of choice for most vascular headaches. These drugs are often combined with an antihistamine to stop nausea and vomiting.

They must be taken at the onset of the migraine so as to abort an attack.

Ordinary analgesics, even strong ones, are of little use in relieving migraine. The stronger narcotic drugs like morphine and pethidine should be used with extreme caution.

If the attacks are infrequent, taking an ergota-mine preparation to relieve the attack is all that is necessary. More severe or frequent attacks usually require the use of one of the preventive drugs taken on a regular basis, usually for many months.

Some cases resistant to other measures do well with manipulation of the neck, hypnosis or acupuncture.

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It may be relieved if the pregnant woman takes a diuretic; a drug that washes fluid and salt from the body. The symptoms are usually relieved following delivery.

Carpal tunnel syndrome causes pain in the hand and fingers, but this pain may spread up the forearm as well.

Pins and needles and numbness may affect the hands and fingers. The fifth finger is never involved because of its different nerve supply.

Patients may be unaware that the little finger is not involved and claim that their symptoms involve the whole hand. But when they are made aware of it and they take particular note, they will find that this finger is spared.

That is a very important point in making the diagnosis. Pressure on the nerve in the neck will usually involve all five digits. Sometimes weakness and inco-ordination of the muscles, particularly those of the thumb, may be part of the problem.

The pain appears to be worse following use of the hand but it also commonly comes on at night and may wake the person in the early hours of the morning. It is usually relieved by hanging the hand down over the side of the bed.

In mild cases the use of one of the antiinflammatory drugs to relieve the inflammatory swelling of the nerve in the tunnel may produce relief. This is often combined with the taking of a diuretic to reduce fluid retention.

If these simple measures do not work, it is worth a trial of applying a plaster of Paris splint to the wrist to be worn only at nights.

Nerve conduction studies will confirm the diagnosis. Where conservative measures fail, operation gives excellent results.

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Remember you cannot make the best decisions for yourself without this information. Getting it will not be easy. Most of the answers should come from your practitioner. You can ask other practitioners as well as the first one you see. You will find many of the answers in this book. You can go to a library or bookshop and find other books. You can get information from other patients, other hospital staff, friends, or relatives.

Much of this information will not be offered, you will have to ask and often ask more than once. If you find it hard to push for all the information, some of the following will help.

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The first is the claim made for the enormous benefits of UVA radiation for the body! They reject the ‘blazing and potentially dangerous sun’, only to promote ‘the rich golden tan, which gives you that healthy, confident, affluent look. Who could resist, especially as they say that the radiation which produces a tan is also the major source of vitamin D. In fact the major source of vitamin D is dairy products and fish oils, not sunlight. Moreover such supplementation of vitamin D is hardly necessary in our society: vitamin D deficiency results in rickets, a virtually non-existent condition in developed countries.

The second misleading claim concerns the safety of these units. They maintain that they ‘filter out the potentially harmful part of the UV range’, and use only the ‘beneficial tanning rays’. Some even state that they produce ‘a safe tan, without drying and prematurely ageing the skin’, and further, that such tan is a very effective measure towards the prevention of skin cancer’.

Thirdly, they state that ‘it is not necessary to wear protective goggles’. This, in spite of increasing evidence of cataract formation.

It can be seen, therefore, that tanning for cosmetic purposes is not a harmless procedure. This is equally true whether the tan is developed by lying on sunny beaches or frequenting solariums. The greatest disadvantage of the solarium concept is that it allows people to maintain a tan all the year round. Such people thus have the means of accumulating consistent cellular damage, resulting eventually in tissue breakdown which manifests itself as premature ageing and cancer.

The widespread use of solariums is a public health issue, just as smoking has become. In the United States the Government Department of Health and Human Services, together with the Food and Drug Administration, are very much aware of the danger involved in the indiscriminate use of solariums. As a result, regulations governing their use and their equipment are being enforced. All operators are required to be licensed, and their equipment regularly calibrated and checked. Posters must be prominently displayed, warning of the skin and eye dangers, and referring to the various drugs and diseases which may adversely affect the client using the solarium.

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