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.

Parenting Tips
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Tips For Taming Rowdy Kids

The Barrie Journal in Canada recently printed an interesting article about how to keep those rowdy kids in line. The tips actually come from Alan Kazdin who is the director of the Yale Parenting Center and Child Conduct Clinic, and he’s president of the American Psychological Association. Still I couldn't help but think his tips were pretty academic, as they sound good in theory.

Here is a condensed version of what I learned in that article. I actually tried a few of these tips to see if they work and unfortunately my conclusion is that they would work on a kid that was a good kid in the first place and not one that had ADD or a real resentment problem.

First of all, the doctor tells us we are supposed to think in terms of the 'positive opposite.' For instance the next time my teen daughter treats me like I am invisible and ignoring me I am not supposed to be negative. Instead of taking the approach that “It drives me crazy when she doesn’t listen,” I am supposed to take a more positive attitude as in “I want her to listen to me the first time I say something.'

I say wanting is one thing and having it happen on the other. It isn't much use practicing 'The Secret' on kids. They like to do the opposite all of the time. I don't think this particular tip is going to be very effective.

His second tip is to use lavish praise on your child. I have actually tried this one. Now I have a very conceited teen who thinks that she should be lavishly praised all of the time. She is still rowdy too. She thinks she is the Queen and flirts too much with men. I try not to criticize her but I think there is such a thing as raising a teen that is too cocky.

Another tip from this book which is called the Kazdin Method for Parenting the Defiant Child is to not punish the child. I think I do agree with this one if you have a defiant teen. The reason is that punishing them whips up their adrenalin and makes them even more rowdy. When it comes to these types of kids, what you resist seems to persist.

Furthermore punishment really does seem to affect these defiant kids because they are so sensitive in the first place.

So what do you do exactly if you do have a defiant kid? My police are mainly to try and praise a little more and punish a little less to see if I can achieve a little balance. The problem with this book by Alan Kazin is that it simply does not take into account that my daughter might not even want my approval. The assumption that children do want your approval all of the time is the great flaw that is in that work.

Parenting Tips
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