Dealing With Shingles

Shingles can be quite common in the winter and your kids can get them easily. You are also at risk. Shingles (otherwise known as Herpes Zoster) is a painful, blistering rash caused by the chickenpox (varicella) virus and it is common during the colder seasons.
It usually only affects a very limited area of skin but as most sufferers know the pain of the blisters can feell as painful as a cut or burn. Sufferers may also suffer from a low fever. The shingles virus can also make you feel fatigued, burned out and a bit depressed.
Here are twenty tips to make yourself or a loved one feel more comfortable should you contract shinglesl
First of all avoid stress! – The Herpes Zoster Virus infects a nerve, causing a blister to break out, so the best thing you can do for yourself is unplug the phone, avoid irritating people or situations until you feel beteer.
Don't scratch! Scratching rashes or blisters is a big mistake. Not only can this cause a secondary bacterial infection in the area, but also the virus can live under the nails and be transmitted to another part of the body
If the virus enters the eye it can cause blindness. Avoid touching your ears. If the shingles virus, which can be carried by your fingers, gets into the ear it can cause dizziness, vertigo and possibly even hearing loss.
One of the most common misconceptions is that commercially prepared liquid hand purifiers and sterilizers help remove the virus from your hands after you touch a blister. This is not true as these products only kill bacteria – not viruses.
Take baths in Epsom salts or unscented sea salts to deal with itching. Epsom salts draw toxins out of the body and can help to speed the recovery. Taking a bath in Epsom or Dead Sea salts is also very relaxing and can minimize the severity of stinging skin pain. .
Baking soda can help. Mixing half of a cup of baking soda into a bath filled with lukewarm water is an old home remedy that can help ease the pain of open blisters. You can also try making a poultice out of baking soda to relieve discomfort.
Apply cold compresses not warm ones! Warm compresses can cause the blisters to break, which can result in a bacterial infection. Cold compresses help reduce the pain of swelling and itching.
Stay away from caffeine! The shingles virus usually irritates a nerve and causes a blister. The last thing you want to do is irritate any nerves even more by stimulating them with caffeine. Stay away from coffee, tea, chocolate and caffeinated soft drinks, especially while the skin is inflamed.\
Hopefully following these tips can make getting through a bad outbreak of blisters a little better for everyone in your family.

Get That Maternity Coverage

Are you a mommy who needs insurance? Maternity coverage is a really good idea if you are pregnant. Check your existing insurance policies. You will probably discover that you are not covered if you check the fine print.
It's great to be expecting but many people are not expecting the huge expenses that come with having a child. Many people who are pregnant have not even thought of getting such a thing as maternity coverage. It is just an extra cost! They face the risk of getting lousy prenatal care by not addressing this matter! You could also be in big trouble if there is a medical emergency that they cannot afford to address.
You also have to be careful because some types of coverage cover you and not your baby. Make sure there is nothing on your coverage that says that you are covered and that foetuses in the womb are excluded. When getting maternity coverage or extra maternity coverage it is a good idea to cover you bases as much as possible because so much can actually go wrong during a pregnancy.
This type of coverage can be dicey because many providers of insurance don't offer it at all. This is because pregnancy is actually defined by many of them as a preexisting medical conditions. Even though it is illegal to define pregnancy as illness insurance companies seem to get away with it all of the time.
There are many group insurance plans that do have maternity coverage for their members but there is always hitches. You need to check to see if you are actually covered as many forms of these plans have these lengthy waiting periods. For instance some maternity coverage clauses will state that you must wait two years after you have enrolled in the plan before your coverage kicks in. Of course Murphy's Law states that you will get pregnant one year after enrolling in that plan.
Sometimes you can be carrying extended coverage from a previous employer which can be of great help to you if your current employer does not have the maternity coverage in place. If you are really stuck there are also low income programs like Medicaid but the problems with that health service are well known to most Americans. They are just not as good as those natal care services provided by the more expensive private doctors who much prefer to be paid via your maternity coverage premiums through the insurance company.
If maternity coverage is prohibitively expensive than you can get maternity cards that help you ceil with your the costs of some of your pre-natal examinations and other needs. It is less costly than regular insurance.
Almost every maternity package that you can apply for will have that thirty day waiting period before it kicks and you are reimbursed for your expenses. Always study the package that is offered before accepting it to make sure that it fits in time-wise with the term of your pregnancy.