Videos from Fairborn Medical Center

Spring allergy symptoms really depend on the weather and when the pollen start coming. So if things were still frozen, we may not see it till March, but they can begun in February. And depending on what your allergies are to, if they are spring allergies which are mostly tree allergies, you know they may go away come May, if you are unlucky enough to have summer allergies then well, through the summer too.

Allergy treatment options are abundant over the counter. There are your standard antihistamine tablets, the 24 hours, there is at least three different generic options for over-the-counter treatments. One great option over the counter is a nasal spray. It’s steroid nasal spray in that those can be more effective than tablets but people are commonly afraid to use the nasal spray or they don’t want to use a nasal spray. Generally I recommend if your allergies are so bad that you require more than one therapy to control your symptoms that you see a physician just to make sure you are using the right and best combination for you.

Most allergy medications work by stopping the chemicals that produce allergy symptoms. So for example, you have an allergen, your cells – that allergen attacks the cell, the cell bursts open, and these chemicals are released. And those cause the runny nose, the itchy eyes and the cough. The medication stops that allergen from connecting to the cell. So if you already have symptoms it means that cell has already burst open and released that chemical.  So that’s why it’s really important to stay ahead of the game and stay on your allergy medicine. Because if you take your medication after those chemicals are released, then it’s not going to be as effective.

All women should consider themselves at risk for heart disease. Heart disease is still the number one killer of women over the age of 40. Every woman should consider what they’re doing in their life on an everyday basis to impact their heart health. Smoking is a huge risk factor for heart disease. Diet, low cholesterol, and those things we think about every day as we are eating. We need to eat fruits and vegetables and not eat those high sugar high fat foods. Exercise is extremely important. Trying to get that average of 30 minutes every day. Hard to do but your heart is most likely going to cause you to live or die, it’s really important. We need to be thinking about it every day if we want to live those long healthy lives.

Bone health is really important for women because as they get older the impact of having poor bones can dramatically affect how they function as an older woman. For example, if a woman were to sustain a hip fracture when they are older, only 30 percent of those people will go back to the way they were functioning before. Thirty percent will be in a nursing home afterward and remain there for the rest of their lives. And about 30 percent will die from it or actually complications. So, it has a tremendous impact on your life as an older woman.

Your peak bone mass occurs about age 28 to 32. It’s important because if you have low peak bone mass so the maximum that your density of your bones get is lower than normal then you have to sustain that from age 33 until 80, 90 however old you are. So if it starts out low at its highest point, then you will be at risk when you get older. Mostly things that affect that low peak bone mass are severe deficiencies so some type of cancer, anorexia which is a severe nutrition deficiency, things that have a huge impact on your nutrition are going to impact that low peak bone mass.

Hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism are disorders of thyroid that affect the way your body runs. So, hypothyroidism means your thyroid is slow which means your body is going to be running slower. Symptoms of that are going to be you’re going to be tired, you can develop constipation because again things are slow. You can get swollen and then there’s common things that occur like headache, not feeling well, not sure what’s wrong with you and that you can actually see with hyperthyroidism as well, headache, not feeling well that sort of thing but your body’s going to be running faster so your heart may cause palpitations or you may feel a little shaky, nervous, anxious, diarrhea again your body is functioning faster. So some of the symptoms are the opposite but that general ‘not feeling well’ can be similar.

Asthma is a chronic condition of the lungs, where the small airways in the lungs can become constricted or even smaller and get filled with mucus and become swollen, so it limits the amount of air that can go through the lungs and, thus you get less oxygen. With that, the symptoms can be chest tightness because you feel those airways constrict, shortness of breath, obviously, because there is less oxygen. The wheezing that sometimes you can hear, sometimes only a physician can hear, is when that air is trying to squeeze through those little airways. Sometimes in children, the symptoms can be much less dramatic. They just may cough. You don't think, "Oh, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough." You know, you're not thinking that it's asthma, but nighttime cough, particularly, in children. Sometimes, children just get less energy. They may be playing with their friends and just come in more tired. So the symptoms in children can be less, much less, dramatic than an adult, who can say, "Gosh, I feel really tight today," or, you know, "I hear that wheezing." So those are some different things between adults and children, but the kind of reason behind it is the same.

Seasonal allergies are a body's abnormal response to triggers, so, instead of the trees, which really shouldn't bother you, but it causes a chemical response so the cells release these chemicals, like histamines. I'm sure you've heard of antihistamines, that cause symptoms, like runny nose, congestion, itchy eyes, itchy throat, those are some common symptoms that people have, and they can run in the spring and you may only have spring allergies, they can run in the fall, or they can, run year round if you have allergies to all of those environmental things. Or if you have dust allergies or molds – those tend to kind of be more year-round type, but the seasonal allergies are specific to trees, grasses or, like, ragweed in the fall.

If you have asthma, you should be able to do everything that you want to do if you are treated appropriately, so that certainly includes exercise and normal activities that you would like to do. Now, some people will have increased asthmatic symptoms, or only asthmatic symptoms with exercise, but if you see your doctor and are treated, then that should eliminate those symptoms. So we don't want people to stop exercising if they have asthma, because exercise is so important and can improve your lung function, but we just want to make sure that you're treated when you do it.

So adults are recommended to have 180 minutes of exercise per week and that can be divided however throughout the week. Children, however, they're recommended to have 60 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous exercise. So they are actually required to have much more than a typical adult.

Families that engage in physical activities together have multiple benefits. Not only are they getting that regular exercise that is recommended, but also they are developing good patterns so that when kids get older they know that exercise is an important part of life. So we don't want to wait until you're 35 years old and, "oh, I need to exercise? What's that?" If you establish those good habits early and know that they're a part of what you do instead of an extra activity, then it can be established as a good pattern. But also, there are many benefits of spending time together as a family. The kids aren't being isolated, they're being interactive with their parents, and that is good for talking about things that may come up at school or in life. So you're developing that family bond as well. So it's very good from a physical health perspective but as well as a mental health perspective.

There are lots of things families can do to start doing physical activity together as a family unit. Simple things would be to play games that your kids like. Now, some families may have kids of all different ages or even small kids or big kids, so you're going to pick an activity that's going to be appropriate for your family. So if you have little kids maybe they like to play certain games like Tag or something like that, where your older kids they may actually like to engage in some true physical activity. Or you could do Just Dance, which is combining the video and activity as well. So things like that.

Another thing that you could do is if you have a family TV show that you really like, is that you could do physical activity commercial breaks. Where you go and, "Alright it's time to do how many, who can do the most push ups or jumping jacks? Or you know, dance crazy for the next 60 seconds" or something. But that way you're enjoying your family time as you watch a show, but you're also getting that physical activity as well. And if you have mixed ages, you can have the little kids pick out what's their favorite physical activity and the older kids and kind of combine it.