When is it appropriate to play Japanese pop? Standing around drinking specialty martinis before your dinner party really swings, try the French, Japanese, and English songs of Pizzicatto Five. Before your radical party concept Scrabble-Rama kicks off, try Kahimi Karie. If the local bowling alley allows headphones, try Midnite Bowling Madness with Fantastic Plastic Machine.

Picking up some international pop always makes me wonder what American pop sounds like to the Japanese or Brazilian or French because Japanese pop, when sung in English, is extragalactic and odd. It can submerge you in a world of bright emotions and telling cliche’s, all put to pop disco beats with sampling and synth-pop sensibility. It makes you wonder. Why is the subject material fluffy and vapid like an imported cartoon? What do the Japanese hipsters mean to say? Are the Japanese girls fronting these bands deliberately trying to sound artistically youthful, almost exuberantly girlish in a coquettish way? Because they surely sing the songs without any seeming inflection. They don’t seem to have any real relationship with the words; they might just as well provide tuneful renditions of Rilke poems.

I like to think of it, finally, as counterpoint. A critical core of American pop music has always trafficked in heavy emotional content: love, loss, alcohol, drugs, adultery, depression. But that doesn’t have to be what songs are about. Silly and playful songs sung by mod Japanese girls go well with a crisp martini or strung paper lanterns and kettle barbecues. It’s tiring to always be head over heels in love, metaphysically lost, or suicidally depressed. It’s nice to hear breezy numbers cooed softly.

Hair loss makes one feel embarrassed and causes lack of confidence. We begin to feel we are getting old. Previous hair loss is not reversible, but we can achieve success by the use of hair replacement. Being careful is crucial even prior to seeking treatment for prevention and cure of hair loss.

You don’t experience total hair loss overnight. It is time consuming and requires proper attention if hair loss is widespread; then it is possible to treat hair loss successfully. Online and in stores, you will find plenty of hair loss remedies that are available. However, these answers may not contain the best solution. It might have worked wonders for some, but we cannot take that as a typical result, since everyone is different. A dermatologist will be able to check your scalp and advise the best remedy to use. This is the ideal method for limiting hair loss – rather than combating hair loss, it could aggravate it!

This type of treatment generally requires a lot of time. Rest assured you will see results, but the fact is that it could take a long time before you actually see those results. Taking responsibility is important along the way and will have an impact. Folks often opt for hair replacement as well, since this encourages regrowth of thicker, healthier hair.

It is possible to improve your hair loss. This is a subject of great concern and persistence. Although the common methods are the best, because they work, and they are safe, there is the option these days to try other options.

Stroke or a cerebral vascular accident is an occurrence in the brain that can cause impairment in motor skills, speech, sensation, vision and also emotions and intelligence.

These symptoms occur when some part of the brain is cut off from its blood supply, depriving it of its needed oxygen and nutrients. The most common ways deprivation of blood occurs are; “(1) a clot forms in an artery; (2) the wall of an artery ruptures and causes a hemorrhage (bleeding); or (3) a piece of a clot, having formed elsewhere in the body, breaks loose, travels to the brain, and plugs a blood vessel.

Cerebral thrombosis, cerebral hemorrhage, and cerebral embolism, are the names given to each specific occurrence.

Several factors or combinations of factors can lead to stroke, such as, high blood pressure, nervous tension, heredity, exercise, and diet. High blood pressure can increase the chances of a stroke by speeding up the rate of arteriosclerosis deposits in arteries and high blood pressure may be more likely to cause a rupture at weaker points on the blood vessels than lower blood pressure.

Nervous tension relates to stroke because it increases blood pressure dramatically. Avoiding stressful situations, especially after a stroke, is highly recommended. Heredity can be linked with strokes because of the genetic susceptibility of some to higher levels of cholesterol in their blood, which leads to arteriosclerosis. Others may inherit tendencies to be over weight. Both of these causes are related to one another.

Exercise, or lack of exercise is another contributor to having a stroke. The main reason being, exercise slows down the rate of hardening arteries, by lowering blood pressure and slowing down the rate of the heart. A person’s diet can also be one the causes that leads to stroke. A diet high in fats, and cholesterol is unhealthy since it is known that cholesterol crystals are deposited in the arteries.

One or several of the body functions can be impaired after a stroke, depending on the severity. What functions are affected is determined by the location of the brain involved. Normally, when the right side of the brain is involved, the left side of the body is affected. When the left side of the brain is involved, the right side of the body is affected.

In a majority of stroke victims, paralysis or weakness usually occurs to one side of the body. Full recovery can range from days to years. Sometimes a full recovery is not possible if the stroke caused permanent brain damage.

Prevention of strokes can only occur in the areas that are controllable. One cannot choose his or her ancestors, but one can choose to live healthier life styles. Sensible diets low in fats, sodium and cholesterol, regular exercise, and avoiding stress when possible can be the first steps to prevention. Also, regular monitoring of blood pressure and cholesterol levels may be beneficial.

According to Richard Anderson of Edinburgh University in Scotland, “Male contraception is now becoming a reality instead of a ‘cloud cuckoo land’ where it’s been for a long time.” In fact, after more than 30 years of research, scientists feel that a male hormonal contraceptive will be available in about five to seven years.

Anderson is the principal investigator on a recent study (completed in 2007) that sought to demonstrate that long-acting testosterone lowers sperm counts. The study was successful, showing that so long as doses of testosterone were high enough, sperm counts in normal men plummet to zero. Researchers combined the testosterone with a progestegenic (female) hormone to counter the detrimental effects of high-dose testosterone on blood fat profiles. So far, Anderson’s method, which combines the implant of a testosterone pellet with oral doses of desogesterol (the progestegenic hormone), appears to be both reversible and safe (though I’m sure we’ll see debate on that front).

There’s another possible male contraceptive being researched at UCLA Medical Center in California. This one is a non-hormonal substance called triptolide. It’s extracted from a Chinese medicinal herb called Tripterygium wilfordii. Chinese men given triptolide for rheumatoid arthritis or psoriasis become infertile within two months of starting treatment — yet triptolide does not seem to inhibit sperm formation. Researchers are currently trying to figure out how triptolide works.

The alleged benefits of more growth hormone coursing through our bodies are healthier skin, lower body fat, stronger bones, more lean muscle mass, additional energy and quicker recuperation, to name a few. Those beneficial changes may be observed with HGH releasers the same as with HGH injections. The additional benefits of very few or no side effects plus the cheap price make this a viable option. If an athlete is seeking a legal increase or a middle-aged individual is trying to slow their aging, the HGH releaser may provide results.

The results are generally not as fast as those observed with human growth hormone injections and could take weeks, even months to notice. The sprays occasionally have a flavor that’s hard to get used to, and the pills can be big and difficult to swallow.

HGH releasers are natural mixtures of amino acids and vitamins which exist currently in our bodies. A benefit to increasing your own natural production utilizing an HGH hormone releaser is that your body will not “crash” when you stop supplementing it. When a hormone is injected or put into the body in some other way, the normal production slows down and, in unusual instances, stops completely. This causes a large dip in the amount of that hormone in the body if the hormone therapy is ceased suddenly and not gradually stopped. With HGH releasers, your system is producing the hormones and not depending on other sources. Your body will only produce to the pre-supplement level if the supplement is stopped; you gradually produce less over time.

HGH hormone releasers can offer your body the help necessary to begin producing more of its own growth hormone. The outcome might not be as fast or intense as with injections, but the long range effects, cheaper price and lack of side effects make this a nice option for individuals looking for the benefits of growth hormone therapy.

The lack of concern in the American medical community for those in chronic pain is criminal. This is a bold statement, but it is true. For most physicians, the issue of pain control and relief is overshadowed by the issue of addiction. Since many pain medications are addictive when misused, physicians often view the repeated requests for pain relief from the chronic pain sufferer as an indication of addiction. Therefore they reduce the medication level to prevent the patient from becoming dependent on the medication and force them to live in constant pain.

For the chronic pain patient, for instance a fibromyalgia sufferer, this is compounded by the fact that many physicians do not treat their condition as being serious and some even deny its existence. Because of this, these patients are forced to endure months or even years of severe pain before someone finally recognizes that they need long term pain management, not short term pain relief.

Where can this type of pain management be found? Can your family physician provide it? Probably not! It is a rare family physician who knows the intricacies of pain management. Instead, seek out a specialist who is board certified by the American Board of Pain Medicine and trained in the application of Integrated Medicine. These physicians recognize the complexities of pain and how it affects the daily lives of chronic sufferers. They understand that pain affects the patient in many other ways that are separate from the pain itself.

For example, the level of pain can cause a person to only sleep in short bursts. This causes physical and emotional exhaustion which begins to affect every aspect of their lives. The pain can also affect the mood of the sufferer, leading to irritability, withdrawal and finally clinical depression. Because of the level of pain, some sufferers even attempt suicide to escape from the pain. This is tragic, since there are many treatments which can reduce the pain to a manageable level or even eliminate it altogether.

Many conditions which cause chronic pain are precipitated by an injury or some other trauma, which when the pain caused by them is left untreated can lead to fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. By the inappropriate use of pain medication when the injury first occurs, these other conditions are allowed to develop. If physicians treated the original trauma, perhaps many cases of these illnesses could be eliminated.

Pain management specialists, for example have developed a technique called neurostimulation. In this technique, an electrical simulator is connected by a small metal lead to the area near the center of the pain, so that it blocks the pain signal from reaching the brain. Some people might ask if blocking the pain from being felt might not lead to further injury, since the pain is a signal that something is wrong in the body. In reality, the pain felt in chronic pain is called maldynia and is different from the pain of an injury. It serves no biological function. It simply exists. And it needs special techniques to eliminate it.

There are many herbal supplements as well that Integrative Medicine physicians are using to enhance the traditional approaches to pain control. There are other techniques, such as biofeedback, aromatherapy, massage, and even meditation. A combination of these methods has been proven time and again to be superior to either technique used alone.

If fibromyalgia or any other chronic pain issue is causing you pain that is preventing you from functioning in a normal manner, locate a pain management clinic in your area or a physician who specializes in pain management and get an evaluation of your condition. Remember, you can get relief, but it’s up to you to take the first step.

Upon my arriving home I ventured back into my usual routine of visiting doctors and arranging tests. At one of my doctors’ visits, he inquired about how well the new medication was working, I told him I was pleased with the results and that my pain had decreased significantly. As a side comment, I casually mentioned how the taste of food had become bland. I quickly discovered that this lack of taste was due to one of the many side affects of this new medication. With this in mind, we promptly agreed to remove the Prenicillamine and replace it with yet another new medication.

Every two weeks I went through a series of tests and evaluations. The grueling doctor’s visits and tedious tests eventually started taking its toll. Yet through it all, my friend and I continued our daily commitment to working out at the health club.

As my life seemed to be getting back to normal, my husband of 11 years had become very ill. One day, out of the blue he started experiencing overwhelming pain. After rushing him to the hospital, and sending him through numerous tests, he was diagnosed with colon cancer. He promptly had surgery to remove the tumor and was eventually released from the hospital to return home to recover.

With the grace of God, I managed to find the strength and stamina I needed to care for him at home. After months of healing he felt stronger and returned to work, but unfortunately, his recovery was short lived. One year after being diagnosed with colon cancer, doctors discovered he now was suffering from malignant liver cancer. After a hard and exhausting fight with seven months of chemotherapy, he eventually lost his battle for his life and died.

With the passing of my husband, the depression and stress ignited another painful flare-up with the arthritis. Once again it was back to the doctors every two weeks for blood tests and evaluations. Once again, I called upon God and my inner strength to pull me through this present challenge. I refused to give up; after all I had my children and my precious grandchildren to keep me going.

After my last set of blood tests, I began to feel much better. The doctor once again removed me from my current medication and put me on Ascripitin AD. Another anti-inflammatory for pain with fewer side effects.

For the first time since experiencing this illness I finally had a medication I could tolerate.

Through all this I continued my commitment to working out at the health club. One day while doing my usual routine, I was talking to some of the other members about my situation. To my delight, they told me about a group called The Chronic Pain Association. I later discovered that a friend of mine had been involved with a local chapter that met only a few miles from were I was living at the time.

When I tracked her down, she gave me the details of the group and I decided to attend my first meeting. What a blessing; the people in attendance came from all walks of life, I found most easy to relate to. We all suffered from one thing in common, “pain, ” each with different varieties and varying degrees but nonetheless, pain.

Through these support meetings I was taught to take control of my pain, I became more assertive in dealing with the doctors and medical staff.

The Chronic Pain Association was helpful in recommending various types of books that were informative. Books that provided support, such as, “Bad Things Happen to Good People” were especially helpful for me and dealing with my daily challenges.

I was not only learning to cope with the physical pain of arthritis, but also, the emotional pain of losing my husband to cancer, I found this Association to be very therapeutic and supportive. They helped me to become, once again, a productive and contributing part of society. It took a combination, of modern medicine, the physical support of the health club, the mental support provided by the Pain Association and most important to me, the spiritual support I found through God.

I remember as a child, my Grandmother commenting on how she could tell when a storm was about to approach, or when there would be a sudden drop in temperature that she would experience a drastic increase in her discomfort.

I wondered, as I grew older, if these remarks were just old wives tales or could my grandmother’s body actually tell her of changing weather patterns. Now, after personally experiencing arthritis, I can understand what my grandmother went through. I can also say without a doubt, that varying degrees of atmospheric pressure play a major role in the symptoms of arthritis.

After weeks of evaluations and tests my doctor prescribed, Prednisone, a hormone used for the treatment of severe inflammation. It was prescribed to me as a medication to help in the reduction of my pain. At the time, my doctor didn’t explain the side effects that might be associated with such a powerful drug as Prednisone, so you could image my surprise, when after the first month I had gained quite a bit of weight. This was mostly due to the swelling this medication induces.

The weight nonetheless made me very uncomfortable and not very happy. For the first time in my life I was experiencing a weight problem and felt as though I should be doing something about it.

Without jeopardizing my treatment, a friend and I joined a neighborhood Health Spa. After discussing potential health risks with my doctor, husband and several close friends, I decided to go for it. The next day, very excited about the program, we signed up and started immediately. The facility had all the latest equipment, highly trained professionals who conducted various classes that I found very beneficial. Plus they also had a multitude of activities that aided me in my quest for pain relief.

My friend and I went to the health club for weeks, working out religiously, almost daily. I have to admit that in the first stages of our workout I found it to be very difficult and much more painful than I expected. Combined with learning how to use the machines and getting into a routine, I was attempting to move joints and muscles that had become stiff and inflamed for quite sometime.

I started out slowly; working my way up from small, light weights to heavier and more strenuous weights as weeks went by. It was important for me to monitor the amount of pressure applied to the joints and muscles so I wouldn’t cause any extensive damage. We participated in floor activities as well as many of the aerobic and pool exercises. Afterwards, the whirlpools always offered a nice way to relax and smooth out the aches of the day.

As months went by, I started noticing the results of my hard work and committed training.

Once again, I started regaining strength and stamina, feeling better, physically, as well as mentally.

My weight dropped and my self-esteem began to rise. That bloated feeling I had experienced for so long from the medication, magically disappeared. This did wonders for my mental attitude, but I noticed the biggest difference physically. It became much easier to walk, get in and out of chairs and to function efficiently in my daily activities.

In the meantime, my doctor had replaced my Prednisone with a new drug called Penicillamine. It was much stronger than the medication I was taking currently. Penicillamine worked like a charm, eventually putting my arthritis into remission. With this new drug, most of my pain had disappeared, but like the Prednisone before it, Penicillamine also had its side effects I wasn’t aware of.

When I first started taking the medication I noticed a change in the taste of my food. It became bland and flavorless, at the time I didn’t associate this condition with the new medication and I figured whatever it was happening would be temporary. The following week I went to Kansas for my sons wedding. It was a beautiful wedding, but at the reception I remember commenting about the steak being served having no flavor. I actually felt disappointed for my son, because I thought the chef preparing the food just wasn’t a good cook. Once again, associating my lack of taste buds with the new medication never occurred to me.

…to be continued

Even though extreme weight loss is a stupid idea, there continue to be numerous websites that endorse extreme weight loss. Certainly, these websites are marketing an item that promises to support this type of weight loss.

It can be counter productive and unhealthy to lose weight too quickly. Teenage girls who attempt to lose weight by desperate measures like throwing up, overuse of laxatives and forgoing meals will probably end up being bigger than girls who have a lot of fat in their diet.  This is the reason that a lot of overweight adults say that went on diets when they were very young.

Weight loss needs to occur at a rate that is slow, to keep the weight off. Consider this; if you gained a large amount of weight through the years, to lose it in a healthy way, you need to lose weight in a similar way. By gradually changing your eating habits and exercising, weight loss will happen slowly and you will live your life this way instead of hating diets.

A doctor must be included if it becomes medically necessary for quick weight loss. A bariatric operation, for instance will result in extreme weight loss because of the procedure and careful monitoring by a doctor. There are some liquid diet plans that are effective, (Oprah Winfrey was on this diet when she lost weight the first time) however it is difficult to keep the weight off.

As well as not being effective, fast weight loss can cause you to become ill or you could die from it. Perhaps one of the most well known cases recently of extreme weight loss ending up in death was Luther Van dross’ off and on diets and being unsuccessful in managing his ailments that were connect to his weight.

Eventually, it might be a better idea to keep your extra weight than to continuously take part in extreme diets.