As a Registered Respiratory Therapist and Educator one of the questions I always asked my students was "Why do you want to be a Respiratory Therapist?"  For me it was an easy choice.  I always wanted to be a doctor but hated school. While in high school I was a candy striper and had a crush on one of the Respiratory Therapists and decided I wanted to do what he did.  I loved my job but it did have some downsides.

As women we hit a lot of milestones in our lives but the one most women dread is menopause. We hear a lot of horror stories about mood swings, hot flashes and the pros and cons of hormone replacement. Did you know there's another symptom of menopause that's most often overlooked? It's insomnia. Yes, I'm talking about those nights when you're so tired you can hardly keep your eyes open yet they don't seem to stay shut.

According to the American Heart Association around 650,000 to 1.3 million Americans have a congenital heart defect. Approximately 36,000 babies are born with a heart defect each year. That is one in eight. Many of these children have heart surgery and some receive a heart transplant.

Quitting smoking is one of the hardest tasks to ever accomplish. However, as more and more municipalities ban smoking in public places, now is a great time to give it a go for the first (or fiftieth) time.

While smoking is dangerous to you and those around you (and even to those who visit your home, whether you light up in their presence or not), it’s important to realize that smoking is an addiction.  Certain properties in nicotine have addictive qualities, and to be truthful, they are not all bad. Nicotine can help people focus, make them more alert and can soothe frazzled nerves. It’s the other stuff that cigarettes are made up of – the cancer-causing carcinogens – that are so harmful. In short, if nicotine could be bottled or manufactured without the rest of a cigarette’s components, we might all find ourselves racing out to buy some.

Exercising is difficult, at least for me. What's hardest is being motivated and going to a gym with a bunch of people who are usually in better shape than I am and of course I feel they're all staring at me, the short, chubby uncoordinated one in the back who can't quite keep up. I know all it would take is some time and I'd be able to keep up with everyone else in the class but my shyness and lack of self confidence keeps me from going back. I know if I had a physical problem, one that was noticeable to everyone, not just being out of shape I'd have a harder time going to the gym than I do now and of course I'd be inclined to just sit at home and veg. Well, Jackie Warner is about to change that for people with psoriasis.

On top of having Osteoarthritis which I'm sure was caused by normal wear and numerous falls when I was younger,  Yes, I admit it, I'm clumsy. I was diagnosed a couple of years ago with Rheumatoid Arthritis.  As anyone with both OA and RA will tell you it's hard to get moving and exercise but all the experts say exercise is good for you and it's especially good for those with any type of arthritis.

March 11-17 is Premie Week. In recognition of the week I was asked to write a guest post for abla2able. Going back to my days or years working in the NICU and channeling my inner educator The Fragile Lungs of Your Premie was born.

able2able is written by the mom of a special needs child who also happens to be a NICU nurse.  able2able is dedicated to education for special needs and features great articles and product reviews aimed at those needs. While you're over there reading my article,(come on I know you will be) look around a bit. I'm sure you'll find it educational and well worth the time.

Not being an expert on everything health but still wanting to provide the best information and education to you I’ve decided to turn to other sources to share their knowledge and first hand experiences.  This first article written by Kathryn Schleich has particular significance to women.  You can also read other articles by Kathryn by following the link in the short biography following this article.
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Only when a grave-faced Emergency Room doctor explained to my husband and me I was having a heart attack did the strange symptoms begin to make sense? Because the signs of women experiencing a heart attack are often different than those of men had no idea that was part of what was wrong with me. What I realized is every breath seemed just of reach, the left side of my body ached, and I had lost quite a bit of blood due to the ulcerative colitis which triggered  the heart attack.

Today I was thinking about my many years working with kids. This may be insulting to some of you but a lot need to hear it. It's one of my pet peeves.

I worked in Respiratory Care for 30 years. Twenty three of those 30 years was in a hospital setting and at least 15 was in pediatrics with the last 10 being coordinator of PEDS, NICU and Mother/Baby. I was clinical educator and helped teach a Family Asthma Class.

You've probably been seeing a lot more food products labeled Gluten Free lately. Until few years ago I'd never heard of gluten, that is until I had a friend diagnosed with Celiac Disease and another with a gluten allergy. I thought diabetes was bad in counting carbs but how would you like to be looking for foods with no wheat, rye, barley or some food additives.

When you have a baby you go for routine well baby exams, if your child gets sick you immediately call the doctor. Is a vision exam also part that routine care. If not it should be.

We all take our vision for granted until something happens and we loose it. Most people feel if their baby is born healthy looks in their direction when talking to them their vision is fine. Oh, how wrong you might be.

According to the U.S Census Bureau about 4.02 babies were born in 2004. About 4% of those babies will develop Strabismus and 3% will develop Amblyopia. That's about 7% or 100,000 babies born each year at risk for eye and vision problems which may be serious.

Strabismus a eyes that aren't properly alligned. Crossed eyes is one type but the eyes can turn out or up and down. The eye muscles don't work together and this causes the mialignment. If left untreated Strabismus can lead to Amblyopia.

Ambylopia is the medical term for "lazy eye" If left untreated Ambylopia can lead to one eye becoming stronger and the weaker eye can become useless leaving that eye functionally blind.

In 2005 the American Optometric Association and The Vision Care Institute of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Inc. launched InfantSee. InfantSee is a nationwide program to provide professional eye and vision care to infants. Infants between 6 & 12 months can be seen by an optometrist. This exam is free no matter what your income. Even at an age when the baby is unable to communicate verbally with the doctor or read an eye chart their eyes can be examined for serious problems and abnormalities. There are over 7,000 optometrists nationwide who volunteer their services to InfantSee. There is a Doctor Locator on their website. To find out more about Infant Eye Screenings and locate a doctor in your area visit http://www.infantsee.org.

Isn't it worth a free vision screening to insure your child's eyes will develop normally and he'll be able to enjoy all the beautiful things there are to see in this world.

The past couple of years I've been given a true wake-up call and realize that what I thought were "OLD PEOPLE" diseases or conditions really aren't.

With all the talk about the flu and H1N1 everyone's concerned and rightly so. Yes, you can control what you do to try to prevent catching and spreading the bugs but you can't control what other's do. This is something I've always believed but an incident involving a family member the other day really got me to thinking.

A cousin of mine told me how upset she was when she went grocery shopping and was getting some chicken at the deli. There was a young kid waiting on her and the meat was on the scale as he was preparing to bag it. He turned to the side and let out a huge sneeze without trying to cover his mouth. He continued bagging the meat, and walked off sniffling. A second person cut some more products and my cousin asked him to re-cut the meat and throw the earlier stuff away. She's now lost her appetite and is doing the "what if" game.

I know it's been a while since I've been here but I'm back and ready to start educating again. This time around I won't limit my focus to lung diseases but to all aspects of health care. With a little knowledge I can be dangerous so watch out. Honestly the reality is, I feel that a lot of what is out there is written in a way that can be confusing so I hope to be able to interpret that to make it easier to understand.

Just thought I'd send out a friendly reminder that flu season is fast approaching and it's time to be getting that flu shot.

You can get it from your physician, quick care center, health clinic and some pharmacies have them available.

I check the stats for this site periodically to see how people found it and what they’re searching for when they do. I recently saw that someone did a search for the phrase “how to tell someone their perfume is irritating.” This is a toughie because you don’t want to offend anybody. The problem is your fear of hurting someone’s feelings is actually hurting you physically.

It's been a while since I posted anything new and for that I apologize.  What I have today is a post I wrote for another blog I do and I feel it's equally important to the visitors who come here. Rather than rewrite the post please visit What Medical Equipment Companies Don't Want You To Know on my Weekly Beef Blog.
In that post I give you my experience in working in homecare and how to protect yourself from being taken advantage of.   Feel free to share your opinions whether negative or positive (I like positive the best though).  I'm a big girl, I can take it.

May is Asthma Awareness Month. Throughout the month there will be increased activity in the area of Asthma Education and the risks of second hand smoke. There are also asthma screening centers sponsored by Astra Zeneca set up throughout the country. The asthma screening is in it’s 12th year and provides free screening questionnaires and breathing tests to adults and children.

By now you may have heard that the FDA recommends that over-the-counter cold and cough medicine not be used in children under 2 and they’re still debating on it’s use in children under 11. The reason is that serious life threatening side effects can occur. They sited that from 1969 to 2006, at least 54 children died after taking over the counter decongestants, and 69 died after taking over-the-counter antihistamines..

If you have chronic illness it’s good to find a support group. You can interact with people who understand what you’re going through and how you feel. You can also share ideas with each other. If you are unable to get out of the house or if there’s no group in your area you can find many message boards and forums online.