Medical App & Medical Advice with Hello Doctor

How to stay healthy during the water crisis

Water restrictions are in full effect in Cape Town thanks to the ongoing drought.

Here’s a survival guide for you:

In the bathroom

  • A two-minute shower is all you need to get a clean a wash. Turn off the shower when soaping and turn it back on to rinse. Keep a bucket in your shower to collect the water.
  • When you’re finished bathing, keep the water to flush the toilet. When it’s time to flush, fill the tank with water and use the handle on the toilet to flush. This uses less water than dumping water into the bowl.
  • Instead of using drinking water to wash your hands, opt for a waterless hand sanitiser. Look for one that kills at least 99% of bacteria and viruses.
  • Only flush when you need to, and close the toilet bowl if urine has not been flushed. Use disinfectants, face masks and gloves where necessary.
  • Keep the toilet bowl as clean as possible with bleaching and detergent products to minimise odours.
  • Don’t flush wipes and sanitary pads! This can cause blockage.
  • Don’t use your toilet as a dustbin‚ and switch to one-ply toilet paper to prevent blockages when choosing to “let it mellow”.

In the kitchen

  • Fill up a two-litre water bottle for the day and sip from here. Try to eat as many foods as possible that don’t need to be cooked in water.
  • For your fruit and vegetables, keep a bowl of water for rinsing, and by the end of the day you can use the leftover to water your plants or flushing the toilet.
  • Instead of boiling your veggies in water, steam them in the microwave.
  • Stock up paper plates to avoid unnecessarily washing dishes.
  • Stock up about five to 10 litres of drinking water. Remember to keep some for your pets too.
  • Store essential water in a cool and dry place, away from light and dust. Make sure all water bottles are clearly labelled “drinking water”. They should be tightly sealed to avoid contamination.
  • Let your food defrost in the fridge overnight instead of running tap water to defrost.

Laundry

  • Only wash your clothes when necessary. A washing machine uses a lot of water for just one load. Hand-wash your clothes, and save the water to flush the toilet.
  • To prevent your towels from smelling, hang them outside to dry. The sun also acts as a germ killer.
  • Sturdier clothes (like jeans and jackets) don’t need to be washed every time you wear them.

Good to know

  • Don’t store non-drinking or grey water (water from bathing, showering, laundry and hand basins) for longer than two days.
  • Don’t use spring, borehole or river water for drinking; it’s not purified.
  • Don’t use sea water or grey water for drinking. It may contain toxic and harmful substances.
  • Collect any and all rainwater that you can. This will be useful for flushing and gardening. Invest in dry shampoo so you can go at least a few days without washing your hair.

References:

Natural deodorants that work

Let’s face it – no one likes B.O. Especially when it’s emanating from the stranger next to you on the taxi. Although you may not feel particularly positive about it, you would be wise to remind yourself how sophisticated the sweat-response is. It doesn’t just make you feel cool on a warm day, it actually protects your body from overheating – which could actually kill you!

In the bigger scheme of things, body-odour is a very small side-effect, and the good news is that you can combat the smell, naturally.

Antiperspirant or deodorant?

It’s important to know that not everything you swipe under your underarms is referred to as deodorant. Here’s why.

Antiperspirants typically use aluminium in some form and it’s meant to control sweat (or perspiration). Roll-ons commonly have active ingredients with scientific names.

  • Aluminium zirconium tetrachlorohydrex (roll-ons).
  • Aluminium chlorohydrate (aerosol antiperspirants).

The aluminium in antiperspirants creates a temporary little plug in your armpit sweat glands, which prevents excessive sweating. Deodorants on the other hand, are made to mask body odour, they don’t contain aluminium, and don’t stop you from sweating. They only reduce body odour, by using fragrance or antibacterial compounds to make your armpits a little less bacteria-friendly.

What really causes that foul odour?

Body scents in general, are caused by 1) the substances secreted from skin glands and 2) skin bacteria. The smell is influenced by your diet, your hormonal cycles, your genetic typing and the type of bacteria living on your skin.

Go au naturel

Mild body odour is common, but when things turn sour, it can damage your self-esteem. Here are some recipes you can try to combat the smell, without exposing yourself to harsh chemicals:

Homemade roll-on:

  • Baking soda or bicarbonate of soda is a white crystalline compound, loaded with health benefits. It absorbs moisture from the skin and keeps it dry, acts as a natural deodorant agent to prevent body odour, kills bacteria and neutralises the body to prevent excess sweating and odour.
  • Known to serve its purpose in the kitchen, coconut oil can be useful as a deodorant because of its antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties while also hydrating your skin. It can fight bacteria that causes odour in your underarms after you sweat. It’s perfect for those with sensitive armpits too. Before you use coconut oil as a deodorant, do a skin test to see if there’s a chance of an allergy reaction.

Essential oils

You can choose your oils based on how they smell. It’s also important to include essential oils that kill bacteria.

  • Witch hazel reduces underarm odour by lowering the skin’s pH (a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of our body’s fluids and tissues) so the bacteria that causes odour can’t survive.
  • Lavender and tea tree oil are commonly used in natural deodorants. They have antibacterial properties.
  • Rosemary contains antibacterial properties that fight build-up of bacteria, which causes body odour.
  • Sage will help reduce activity in your sweat glands, which is one of the main causes of body odour.

Prevent the dreaded whiff

  • Hair absorbs odours easily, so shave your armpits regularly to reduce bacterial growth, sweat and odour.
  • Keep your underarms dry. Bacteria thrive in moisture and will struggle to breed in dry areas of the body.
  • Wear breathable fabrics. Many synthetic fabrics trap sweat and moisture.
  • Change your diet. Fatty foods and strong-smelling foods like garlic, onions and spicy foods can leak through your skin and cause body odour.

References:

The woman’s guide to public toilets

It’s Saturday night and you’re out with friends when those last three drinks take their toll. A public bathroom is your only option – and so you do what needs to be done – suspending yourself in mid-air, you try to do your business as carefully as possible. After all, that’s as hygienic as you can get in a public bathroom, right? As long as your skin doesn’t touch the bowl!

Not quite. It turns out that squatting might be the major contributor to dirty toilets in the first place.

The problem with bladder pressure

Squatting means employing exceptional control to avoid urinating all over the seat. And few of us are that perfectly controlled! This means that hovering runs the risk of spraying droplets of pee all over the seat, defeating the so-called hygienic value of squatting in the first place.

Trying to make sure you’re perfectly in control of your pee also means pressure on your pelvic muscles. As you hover, your hip rotators, back and abs tense up to keep your muscles in control, which makes the flow of urine difficult. You may feel you have to “force” out the stream, which leads to messiness and discomfort. Even worse, this forcing style might mean you don’t fully empty out your bladder, which could lead to a bladder infection.

Sitting pretty

So what should you do? You’ve always heard that toilet seats are crawling with every germ alive. Well, most disease-carrying- and causing organisms don’t have a long shelf life, so it would take a lot of doing for the germ to attach itself to your skin, a cut or sore and cause a serious level of damage.

The germs to worry about are viruses like the common cold virus and hepatitis A, which do live in public spaces. But this is where hand-washing becomes vital. Hand-washing is one of the simplest and most effective ways to banish bacteria.

Research also shows that in general, a person’s upper thighs are usually much cleaner than a person’s hands, so it’s probably ickier to shake hands than sit on a toilet seat! “Unless the seat is visibly soiled, it’s usually cleaner than most other things in the bathroom,” says Travis Stork, host of The Doctors. Actually, door handles and taps are the biggest germ-carrying culprits in public bathrooms. They’re both full of bacteria that can cause respiratory and diarrheal illnesses. So if you want to avoid getting ill, “the most effective thing you can do in the bathroom is wash your hands and avoid touching handles on the way out,” says Stock.

Your anti-squatting options:

  • One way people avoid coming in contact with all the bacteria floating around in cubicles is to coat the seat with toilet paper to make a “protective layer”.
  • Studies have shown that the least-used bathroom stall is the first closest to the door.
  • Wipe the seat first and then sit down and do your business. Wash your hands thoroughly and follow up with hand sanitiser for peace of mind.

References:

Shower less. Save water. Stay healthy

How often should you shower? Daily showers have become a norm for many, but aren’t always necessary. In fact, your everyday scrubbing ritual may be doing you more harm than good.

With parts of the country experiencing a drought, where water is more essential than ever: do we really need to shower?

Showering regularly, particularly in scorching hot water, can dry out and irritate your skin, and disrupt your microbiome – the collection of bacteria, viruses, and other microbes that live in and on your body. A healthy microbiome is essential to your health. Without it, your immune system, digestion, and heart wouldn’t function properly. According to the Genetic Science Centre at the University of Utah, even subtle imbalances in your microbiome can cause diseases like acne, obesity, diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, and cancer.

Scary, right?

Considering the potential health risks of being squeaky clean, you’re probably wondering: how often do we really need to shower? And, are there a “correct” number of showers we need each week to get the perfect balance between a robust microbiome and not being smelly?

The short and sweet answer: there is no ideal shower frequency. You should only shower when you need to, advises Professor Stephen Shumack, President of the Australasian College of Dermatologists.

“It’s only in the last fifty to sixty years that the idea of a daily shower has become commonplace,” says Professor Shumack. “The pressure to do that is actually social pressure and not actual need. It’s become popular because of the social need to smell good.”

As long as you focus on the “right areas” (your face, underarms, under your breasts, genitals, and rear end), showering every other day would do no harm, says John Oxford, Professor of Virology at Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Showering less can also help with our current water crisis. The average shower uses about 22 litres of water per minute. That’s a whopping 220 litres, if you had to shower for 10 minutes, which is the global average shower time. Just think about how much water you would save if you cut back on showers to twice or thrice a week.

Stay fresh and clean

So, you want to jump on the no-shower bandwagon, but you’re worried you may cause a stink. Of course, showering can get rid of body odour, but it isn’t the only way to feel fresh and smell good. Keep it clean on non-shower days by:

  • Wet wiping away. Swipe your face, armpits, and groin with a deodorising, cleansing, moisturising wet wipe. Carry them on you and use when you smell a funk.       
  • Powdering up. Fight unwanted moisture and odour with a sprinkle of body powder. Dust it in your socks and underwear, and repeat when things get a little musky. This will absorb the smell without drying out your skin. You can also dab some on your hair to keep bad hair days at bay.
  • Changing your clothes. Clothing collects a lot of the dead skin cells and grime your body accumulates, so make sure you change outfits (and underwear) on days you’ve skipped your morning shower. Choose clothes made from breathable fabrics like cotton to stave off odur-producing bacteria and sweat.

Good to know

Showering isn’t your best defence against illness – hand washing is. Research shows that hand washing is the single most effective and inexpensive way to reduce your risk for diarrhoea and respiratory diseases. Washing your hands more than six times a day is the basic hygiene minimum, according to the Global Hygiene Council. You can also use an alcohol-based hand sanitiser that has at least 60% alcohol to kill disease-causing microorganisms.

References:

Greeting your boss could be making you sick

You walk into a meeting and shake hands with your client. At a social event, you introduce yourself by shaking hands. When, how and why did this quirky little greeting originate?

We can’t pinpoint the exact time when humans first shook hands to introduce themselves, but historical findings date back to as far as the 5th century BC. British historian Dr Robert Hume writes that by shaking hands, kings proved they were comfortable enough in each other’s presence not to bring weapons.

Today, weapons aside, research suggests that our customary greeting may be instinct rather than etiquette since humans, like other animals, use smell when they greet each other. According to some theories, humans subconsciously sniff their hands after greeting someone to pick up pheromones; the odourless scent that most mammals produce in response to their environment. The researchers suggest that there’s much more chemical signalling that goes on between two people who shake hands than meets the eye. Could that mean that shaking hands is perhaps just our primal way of gathering scents?

Whatever the reason, the handshake has evolved into the greeting du jour for most of us. This leaves us open and vulnerable to all kinds of health nasties, unfortunately.

Good hands

Good hygiene starts with hand washing. Many of us get it wrong – and may become seriously sick.

Hand washing gets rid of infection-causing germs before they get a chance to infect us or the people around us. Just this little act protects us from common infections like colds, flu and gastro, and other nasty diseases.

With life-threatening infectious diseases like Ebola and swine flu presenting new global challenges, you should be taking personal hygiene seriously.

Washing your hands may seem relatively simple, but it’s disturbing to note that only one in every 20 people around the world washes their hands properly!

If these survey results are anything to go by, it’s time for a good refresher course . . .

  1. Good, effective hand washing needs a small amount of water and soap:
  • Lather your wet hands with soap.
  • Scrub your palms, the back of your hands, between the fingers and under your fingernails.
  • Rinse your hands well with running water.
  • Dry your hands on a clean, dry cloth (this further helps to remove microorganisms).
  1. Wash your hands for at least 20 seconds. An easy way to gauge the time is to sing “Happy Birthday” twice. This is also a fun way of teaching kids to wash their hands thoroughly.
  1. Not using soap is a common mistake when it comes to hand washing. Water alone isn’t enough to dislodge the germs and dirt that get stuck in the natural oils on the skin of your hands.
  1. Research shows that hand washing with soap and running water reduces the risk of diarrhoea and respiratory diseases, regardless of water quality.
  1. Hand washing more than six times a day is considered the basic hygiene minimum by the Global Hygiene Council.

If that seems like a lot, consider that you should be washing your hands:

  • Before and after you eat.
  • After going to the toilet.
  • After touching commonly used surfaces.
  • After you’ve worked in the garden or touched animals.
  • After you’ve taken care of sick people.
  1. You can safely use an alcohol-based hand sanitiser that contains at least 60 percent alcohol. It will help kill micro-organisms, but will not remove dirt effectively.
  1. Both antibacterial and regular soap are good for washing. It’s the foam created from rubbing one’s hands together with water that helps remove the dirt and germs.

References

Is your home making you sick?

You think of your home as a sanctuary from the grind and grime of city living. Unfortunately, this sanctuary can become tainted with cigarette smoke, cleaning chemicals, and even air fresheners.

The toxicity builds up further when doors and windows are closed. Indoor pollution is often more harmful than outdoor. It’s easy to forget that indoors is also part of the environment, but keeping it clean is one of the best favours you can do for your health.

Where gremlins lurk

  • The lounge. Leisure zones like your lounge are often filled with toxins, germs, dust and dander, as this is one of the most used areas in your home. Residual toxins are especially rife in winter – think heaters and the fireplace, and very little ventilation.
  • In the kitchen. Your go-to kitchen cleaner is probably spreading more toxins than it’s getting rid of. Most cleaning products contain harmful chemicals like triclosan, ammonia and chlorine that have been linked to cancer, asthma, and developmental disorders.
  • In your bathroom. From the products you use on your face to the ones for scrubbing the sink, toxins hide all over your bathroom. In small numbers, they probably won’t do much harm. But in the long term, these products may have a negative impact on your health and the environment.

Keep it clean (and healthy)

  • Leave your shoes at the front door to help prevent tracking in dirt and bacteria from outside.
  • Use pot plants as indoor air filters. These green gifts bring life to any room, and they’re proven natural air-pollution filters. They can improve air quality by helping reduce concentrations of toxins like benzene, formaldehyde and ammonia.
  • Open windows and doors to improve indoor ventilation, especially while using commercial cleaners, which give off harmful fumes. This will dilute indoor air pollutants, and reduce exposure to disease-carrying germs. Also, let the sunlight in! It acts as a natural disinfectant.
  • Make your home a smoke-free zone. Smoking outside will improve indoor air. Just be sure it’s done several metres away from windows and doors as smoke can find its way inside.
  • Ditch artificial air fresheners and deodorisers. These products release toxic substances, including carcinogens and chemicals that can affect your respiratory, neurological and reproductive health. Use crushed herbs and flowers instead.
  • Cut down on commercial cleaning products. Use smaller amounts, dilute, or make your own non-toxic alternatives. When you do use these products, make sure you rinse well with warm water. This is especially important when you’re washing dishes.
  • Try natural cleaners with ingredients like lemon juice, vinegar and bicarbonate of soda. They have surprisingly high germ-busting power, and they’re safe.
  • Vacuum regularly and mop the floors to reduce levels of dust and pollutants. It helps to control fleas too. Sweeping is better than nothing, but it tends to stir up the dust.
  • During renovations, vacate the property if possible. Avoid spending time in rooms that are being renovated or painted. If you can smell new carpets, furniture or freshly painted walls, you’re exposing yourself to harmful chemical fumes.
  • Roll out a clean mat for kids to play on, and encourage hand-washing. Children spend more time on and near the floor, and also put their hands in their mouths more –which increases their toxin exposure.

 

References:

Typhoid outbreak – what you need to know

There has been a recent warning that South Africans could face a Typhoid outbreak after the summer holidays. Hospitals and healthcare centers have been notified to be on high alert, since the Typhoid infections that started in Zimbabwe, could spread here when holiday-goers come back after their holidays.

via GIPHY

What is Typhoid fever?

Typhoid fever is an infection caused by a bacteria (Salmonella Typhi). It spreads easily through food and water contaminated by sewerage. You can also get it from someone who has the infection. It’s quite common in overcrowded areas with overcrowding & poor sanitation.

How do you get typhoid fever?

Typhoid is spread through the faecal-oral route. This means that the bacteria are found in the faeces (stool) of an infected person. You can get the infection from water, food or other objects that have been contaminated with the infected stool. If you eat/drink contaminated items or touch contaminated surfaces you will get the infection.

What are the symptoms?

Unless it’s treated, you can get these symptoms over a few weeks:

Week 1:

  • A step-wise fever: this means it gets higher over the day, and then drops by the morning again.
  • Headache
  • Stomach pain
  • Constipation or diarrhoea
  • Feeling tired
  • Loss of appetite
  • Rash

Week 2:

  • Fever that stays high
  • A swollen stomach
  • Very bad constipation or diarrhoea
  • Weight loss

Week 3:

The person becomes very ill and confused. If he/she isn’t treated, this is usually when the infection gets worse, and complications happen, such as bleeding into the intestines and infection of the blood.

Week 4:

If the person has survived, their fever will start returning to normal this week.

People who recover from Typhoid can still carry the bacteria in their system, without being sick. The bacteria still spreads through their faeces, infecting others.

In 1900, there was a cook who worked in the restaurants in New York city. She infected more than 50 people during her cooking career, and was later called ‘Typhoid Mary’.

How do you get treated?

Luckily we can very successfully treat typhoid with antibiotics. If the infection is treated in time, you can be cured before life-threatening complications happen.

So how can I keep myself from becoming infected?

If you have plans to travel to a country where Typhoid is common – such as Zimbabwe – make sure that you have taken the vaccine. It should be available at your nearest travel clinic. Other than that – be sure to follow basic hygiene rules:

  • avoid ordering raw or unpeeled fruit and vegetables from restaurants
  • wash any fresh fruit and vegetables thoroughly before eating
  • make sure you wash your hands well after using the bathroom
  • wash your hands thoroughly before eating anything – even a snack

Remember: you may not be in touch with an infected person directly, but they touch many other things that you are in contact with: door handles, counters and cutlery. So be sure to wash your hands often.

Article adapted from original by Dr. Lynelle Hoeks

Throw away your earbuds today!

Doctors often need to dig out  old, dirty ear buds from someone’s ear in the emergency room. Apart from getting stuck, they ear buds can cause skin irritation, infection and even hearing loss! They may have been a constant fixture in most bathroom cabinets for years, but it’s best for you – and your health – to throw them out today.

Continue reading “Throw away your earbuds today!”

You have worms!?

Let’s flip a coin. Heads or tails? What are your chances of guessing correctly? 50%, right? Well, that’s about the same chance of you having worms in your gut at this very moment.

We know, it’s disgusting, and you’d rather not think about it. But think about it: if they’re in there right now, sharing your lunch, wouldn’t you want to get rid of them – heads and tails?

Continue reading “You have worms!?”