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In children who have a squint, both eyes appear to be looking in different directions. Squints affect 2%-3% of children and usually become obvious around 3-6 months of age.

A squint is usually due to an imbalance in the co-ordination of the muscles of the eye. Sometimes it can be caused by long-sightedness in one eye. Rare causes can include a cataract in one eye, or problems with the back of the eye (the retina).

Clinical features

In children with a squint, both eyes seem to be looking in different directions. Newborn babies may have a similar appearance, but this usually resolves after 3 months when they gain more muscle control. If your child still has a squint after this time, there is also a chance that he will develop a ‘lazy eye’ (amblyopia); the image coming from the deviated eye is suppressed by the brain to avoid confusion, and it ceases to function effectively. Vision is markedly reduced in the affected eye. In general, squints become more obvious when the child is tired or ill.

Treatment

The treatment of squint is dependent on the cause. Thorough examination should first be performed, and your doctor will refer you to an eye specialist for this. Eye tests can determine if your child simply needs glasses. A lazy eye can be corrected by placing a patch over the good eye, forcing the lazy eye to function alone. If the problem is one of lack of co-ordination of eye muscles, then surgery may be required to shorten or lengthen one of the muscles. Children do not grow out of a squint.

When to see your doctor

Any child older than a few weeks of age and has a squint should be seen by an eye specialist for assessment. Remember it is never easy to assess vision.

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When I find the right girl, I will know it, because it will be special. We will know what to do, I will know just how to please her. It will be like some of the songs, you know. It will make you walk on air.

SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOY

If love and sex were anything like the records say it is, nobody would work or eat because they would be too busy making love. Songs are fantasy. The reason the records are popular is that they sometimes describe a type of romance that nobody else ever has, but wishes they could have and thinks someone else, perhaps the singer, does have. Songs are a way to dream to escape. Listen more carefully to some of the songs and you will hear that intense feelings of love cause some real sadness. You might hear that love hurts. Being in love is something you think about, plan, and work on, too. It doesn’t guarantee sexual skill or fulfillment and, even if sexual technique and turn-on with someone are really excitement, it doesn’t mean that there is necessarily love. Love does not lead you, you lead love. Both of you will make it. It won’t convert you. Love doesn’t teach you, you learn to love.

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I don’t mind my sex with my wife. I know it can’t be as good as sex with a new partner. Variety is the spice of life, but I can settle for a spice-free diet.

HUSBAND

Gay Talese writes in his book Thy Neighbor’s Wife, “Instead of loving him less after sleeping with another man, she was sure that she loved him more.” Variety in sex has been seen in early sexual perspectives as an almost irresistible attraction, and it has been assumed that sameness of partner cannot compete with newness of partner. In a society that values newness and change over sameness and predictability, an entire industry has emerged to provide men with anonymous partners. Look in the Yellow Pages in any major city under “Escort Service.” Pick any number and call it. Women will be sent by home delivery, made to order. Our double standard has, of course, not made such services widely available to women.

Emphasis on variety neglects one fact. Practice still makes perfect, and the best practice is with one partner. One rule of sexual practice is that it does not generalize. Making love well with one partner is no guarantee of making love well with someone else. The tests and opportunities in this book are of most help to a man and woman committed to being together over time. It is simply not possible to have fulfilling sex with a variety of partners in short, anonymous meetings. It is possible to have ejaculation and tension release, but seldom psychasms and never super sex. Some of our most treasured moments in life relate to sameness, repetition, tradition. As Tevye sings in Fiddler on the Roof, there is nothing quite like “tradition!” Sexual traditions are important, too.

Ask people you know about their view of sexual variety. Most people, following a divorce, go through a period of sexual freedom with new partners. After several weeks of this activity, they begin to look for one partner. Sex manuals that encourage marriages to “compete” with anonymous sex by creating mystery, or even wearing costumes and wigs, miss the key value of one partner over time, the value of knowing someone totally. As a popular song pointed out, freedom can come to mean nothing left to lose.

So there you have it. Ten myths about male sexuality. You can probably think of many more yourself. By now, if you have discussed this material with your spouse, you have done much to open new possibilities for a sexual style of your own design.

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Gradually you should introduce a “normal” diet, on which you could live on for indefinite period of time.

Note, that most of your efforts will be lost if you return to your old habits. To maintain the body in a healthy and pure state, you should take care not to poison it again. It is strongly recommended, that you eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, avoid meat, fish, eggs and any food containing extracts, colours and flavours.

It is very important to continue drinking at least 2-3 litres of pure water each day. Remember that our body is 75% water and all scientists agree that the ageing process is equivalent to slow dehydration of the cells in our body.

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Meningitis. That diagnosis is to many people still as frightening as telling them they have cancer.

Most cases now are mild and with few complications.

Meningitis is an infection of the meninges, or coverings, of the brain and spinal cord. There are several bacteria which can cause this infection.

They gain access to the meninges by spreading through the blood stream, or directly, such as from a penetrating wound of the skull, or from an ear or sinus infection.

Sometimes the spread is from local infection in the scalp. Before antibiotics, most cases ended in death and so earned this condition its bad reputation.

Modern antibiotics are effective against bacterial meningitis and it is no longer the killer of the past years, although it is still a disease with the potential of serious complications.

What we see more often is viral meningitis and this may be due to a variety of different viruses, particularly those of two types, the Coxsackie and Echo groups.

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Alcohol tends to release inhibitions and to make many people more aggressive. Cannabis, on the other hand, is claimed to make the user more passive. Tests have shown that if a person is not stressed then he may be more passive. But if stressed he may become aggressive, even paranoid and psychotic.

Regular users are often touchy. Even ordinary inter-personal relations may bring the user to feel he is being “hassled” and to react accordingly.

Recently, some medical uses have been propounded for cannabis. It has been recommended for use by some asthmatics and for those with chronic pain. The presently available drugs for these conditions may not be ideal but I don’t think there is a large untapped market for cannabis in these fields.

There is evidence to show that cannabis may damage chromosomes, the part of a cell which carries the genes. This could lead to damage or deformity in an embryo.

Some years ago, when a Royal Commission in Canada recommended decriminalisation of cannabis, the Canadian Medical Association objected on the grounds that too little was known about its ill-effects.

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While about 96% percent of the body is water, protein, and tats, the remaining 4 percent is accounted for by minerals. When we think of minerals, the first one that comes to mind is calcium. Others include magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, iodine, potassium, and sodium. Hard skeletal structure is composed primarily of minerals, but we could not survive or reproduce without adequate and balanced amounts of the minerals that form the nuclei of soft tissues such as muscle and nerve cells.

Minerals are responsible for regulating a few crucial functions, such as nerve responses, and for maintaining the acid-base equilibrium that helps in the absorption of minerals and contraction of muscles.

The best food sources of calcium have typically been milk and dairy products, followed by green leafy vegetables and some types of fish. An excellent low-calorie, high-calcium drink without a trace of caffeine is bancha tea, otherwise known as green twig tea or kukicha tea. A 3—4-ouncc serving of this tea contains more than 700 me of calcium—-or two and one-half times the calcium of the same quantity of whole milk. Bancha is brewed by steeping a few teaspoons of the delicate, cut-up twigs in boiling water for a few minutest. It has a light tea favor, contains virtually no calories, and is a nutritious tonic drink. You can buy bancha tea at a health food store and enjoy a cup or two a day.

Dosage: For severe uterine cramping and nervous irritability, you may do better with calcium supplements to get maximum dosage. If you prefer calcium supplements, my choices among the many calcium compounds are calcium gluconate and boncmc.il tablets. Drink at least one cup of hot or cold unsweetened brancha tea.

Calcium gluconate; For cramps take two 500-mg tablets twice daily; more than four tablets (or 2.000 mg) is not necessarily better, and do not exceed six tablets (3,000 mg) a day. Take calcium with 350 mg of magnesium, 1,000 units of vitamin D, and 100 mg of phosphorus.

Bone meal: Bone meal compounds often come in already balanced formulas. Check the labels to be sure it contains vitamin D, phosphorus, and magnesium, or add supplements as you need them. Begin taking two or three honemeal tablets per day about ten days before your menstrual period, continuing them through your cycle.

Best selection of foods with calcium: Dairy foods are prime sources of calcium, but since their tat content may be implicated in exacerbating symptoms of endometriosis, the wiser course is to reduce intake for ten days a month. Begin lowering the amount of these products a week

before your menstrual period is due and during the cycle. You may want to have toy products one day and alternate these with a limited amount of dairy products the next. Other than milk, cheese, and yogurt, excellent sources are bancha tea, canned salmon (with bones), dams, broccoli, turnips, greens, and kale.

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Melanin, the pigment protein, is formed In specialized cells found in the basal layer (growth area) of the epidermis. This melanin, which is what gives skin its colour, also protects the skin to a certain extent from sunburn by absorbing sunlight. It does not however protect the skin from chronic sun exposure, which may result in serious damage. The harmful effects of sunlight are due not only to ultraviolet radiation A and B. but also to infra-red waves (heat) and visible light, which have recently been shown to activate and augment the effect of the ultraviolet.

Following sun exposure, and exposure to UV radiation in particular, immediate and then, later, long-term effects will appear. The most immediate and obvious result is redness, which will proceed to burning, blistering, and peeling if exposure is prolonged, or will fade if exposure is terminated. If this is repeated without over-exposure, pigmentation or tanning will take place. Initially, what is termed immediate tanning occurs. This is transient, and is due to oxidation of the skin’s existing melanin. It is produced mainly by UV A radiation. True tanning, which takes much longer but which persists for weeks, involves the formation of new melanin. This is produced mainly by UVB radiation.

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The first thing a woman is most likely to notice is her periods becoming more irregular. The time between them may be less than usual or they may be further apart; they may last for a longer or shorter time; be heavier or lighter; or a combination of all these, varying from month to month. Very occasionally, a woman says she had a period at the expected time and then never had another, but this is unusual; irregular and unpredictable is how things are likely to be for quite a while.

(A small warning here: It’s quite normal to have irregular periods at regular intervals, or normal periods at irregular intervals, but continual ‘spotting’ between periods is something to see your doctor about.)

The next stage is to miss one or more, even several, periods completely. The menstrual loss may be less than normal, even scanty, but as long as periods continue, ovulation is still taking place and pregnancy is still possible. Gradually, the gap between periods increases and the duration of bleeding becomes less and less, until a woman might think, ‘Hurray, it’s all over.’ She may be right — or she may suddenly get another period months and months later (often at a most awkward time, such as during a holiday on a remote Greek island with the nearest chemist’s shop a three-hour boat trip away!). The moral is: If you are under 50 and have had no periods for two years, or over 50 and have had none for one year, then you can probably relax; otherwise, never go away without being prepared! (This rule of thumb also applies to the likelihood of becoming pregnant, but is probably unnecessarily cautious.)

The timescale over which all these changes occur varies greatly from one woman to another, so this is one instance where your friends’ experiences may not be very helpful. It is highly likely that during this time you will be experiencing a whole range of menopausal symptoms that you might feel unprepared for. The more you know about them – and what can be done about them — the more confident you will feel in yourself, and your self-confidence and self-esteem are less likely to suffer. Research has shown that many of those who find it hard to cope at this time just don’t realise what’s happening to them, or why, or what can be done to help them. The women who cope best are those who understand about the menopause and are able to develop a positive attitude to managing it.

Many women say, ‘I’ve had a hysterectomy. How will this affect my menopause?’ The answer is that it depends on the sort of hysterectomy you had. It is surprising how many women have no idea how much of their body was removed during their hysterectomy. Was it just the uterus (womb), or the uterus and cervix, or all that and the ovaries as well? To anyone reading this book who may have a hysterectomy at some time in the future (and to those who are still in touch with the hospital who carried out their hysterectomy in the past), it is advisable to know your body. In other words, don’t just let ‘them’ do things to you unless you know what it is, and why. Surgeons who would be very reluctant to remove a man’s testicles (where the male hormones are produced) will whip out a woman’s ovaries (where the female hormones are produced) in the twinkling of an eye, and she may never know. So ask, because it will greatly affect the next few months and years of your life.

There are two sorts of menopause: a natural menopause and a surgical menopause. With a natural menopause, hormone levels gradually fall over quite a long timespan and symptoms build up slowly. This usually happens between the mid-forties and mid-fifties, though it can start much earlier and end rather later. A surgical menopause is not gradual. You may have been on the waiting list for a hysterectomy for weeks (or even months), but as far as your body is concerned it is a sudden event. One minute you have all those female bits inside you, and an hour or so later they have gone.

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Women who have difficulty with contraception or who, for religious reasons, do not want to use drugs or devices to control their fertility sometimes find themselves in a situation of despair regarding family planning. They may have as many children as they can cope with and may feel that a hysterectomy is the only way out of their dilemma.

Equally, hysterectomy is sometimes seen as a ‘solution’ to contraception worries and bleeding difficulties for disabled teenage women. When Jane was seventeen, her case went before the Family Court. She was profoundly intellectually disabled and had epilepsy and was unable to communicate with her carers except to smile when happy and to resist when unwilling to do what they asked. Her parents had applied to the Family Court for an order allowing them to consent to a hysterectomy on her behalf. Following a 1992 decision, courts have to give permission in Australia before a non-therapeutic hysterectomy is carried out on an intellectually disabled female. They argued that it would assist in her hygiene, control her epilepsy (which worsened when she menstruated), and could prevent her becoming pregnant. The judge held that it was not in Jane’s best interests to have the operation, although three of the four doctors who gave evidence disagreed. There are no easy answers to dilemmas such as these, for the issues extend well beyond the medical into social areas.

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