Tuesday 20 December 2016

ROOT CANAL TREATMENT CAN MAKE YOU VERY SICK

Millions of root canals are performed every year, on individuals who are mistakenly informed that it is a safe and harmless procedure.

Root canal treatment, also called endodontic treatment involves removing the nerve tissue (called pulp) located in the center of the tooth and its root or roots (called the root canal). Treatment involves creating an opening through the biting surface of the tooth to expose the remnants of the pulp, which then are removed. Medications may be used to sterilize the interior of the tooth to prevent further infection. Root canal treatment may relieve symptoms such as pain and discomfort.
Each empty root canal that can be located is filled often with natural rubber. Occasionally, a post is also inserted into the canal to help restore the tooth. The opening in the tooth is closed with a temporary filling. At a later appointment, a crown may be placed. It is a separate dental procedure not included in this discussion.

Twisted, curved, accessory, or blocked canals may prevent removal of all inflamed or infected pulp. Since leaving any pulp in the root canal may cause your symptoms to continue or worsen, this might require an additional procedure called an apicoectomy. Through a small opening cut in the gums and surrounding bone, any infected tissue is removed and the root canal is sealed. An apicoectomy may also be required if your symptoms continue and the tooth does not heal.

Thursday 8 December 2016

The Life-Changing Magic of Mushrooms

A single dose of magic mushrooms can make people with severe anxiety and depression better for months, according to a landmark pair of new studies.
The doom hung like an anvil over her head. In 2012, a few years after Carol Vincent was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, she was waiting to see whether her cancer would progress enough to require chemotherapy or radiation. The disease had already done a number on her, inflating lymph nodes on her chin, collar bones, and groin. She battled her symptoms while running her own marketing business. To top it all off, she was going through menopause.

“Life is just pointless stress, and then you die,” she thought. “All I’m doing is sitting here waiting for all this shit to happen.”

When one day at an intersection she mulled whether it would be so bad to get hit by a car, she realized her mental health was almost as depleted as her physical state.
That’s when her 27-year-old son sent her a link to an invitation from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, seeking cancer patients to sign up to take psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, to alleviate their anxiety and depression. “Start thinking about all the existential questions you want to ponder while your window is open to the universe!” her son wrote.
Vincent, who is 5 foot 1 and 61 years old, has never been a big drug user. She doesn’t like taking aspirin, and the one time she used cocaine in her 20s, she fainted. But she’s taken other risks—she was a sky-diver for 10 years—and she figured there was a chance the experience might “reboot” her. She signed up and, after being screened, flew down to Baltimore from her home in British Columbia.
The results of Vincent’s mushroom trip—and those of 79 other study subjects like her—are now being made public, and they’re very encouraging. A pair of randomized, blinded studies published Thursday in The Journal of Psychopharmacology provide the most robust evidence to date that a single dose of psilocybin can provide relief from the anxiety and gloom associated with cancer for at least six months.