The feeling of instability is the crux of borderline personality disorder. This condition usually begins in early adulthood and is worst at its onset. As a person ages, borderline personality disorder usually improves and becomes easier to handle. For a person with borderline personality disorder, everything from their relationships to their moods, thinking and behaviour is unstable and constantly changing. This can be frightening but thankfully, this condition can be treated.

As with any other personality disorder or health issue, the earlier a condition is diagnosed, the easier it is to treat. Hence, it is important to understand the signs and symptoms of this disorder. This disease manifests itself in different ways in each person but some symptoms are commonly experienced. These include:

Fear of abandonment: No one likes to be alone, but people suffering from borderline personality disorder are terrified of being abandoned. Even something as simple as being stood up at a meeting, can make such a person extremely anxious. It can also lead to relationship problems by making the person seem clingy and jealous about their partner.
Unstable relationships: For a person suffering from this disorder, relationships are either perfect or failures. Hence their relationships are extremely passionate but very short lived and they often feel disappointed by their partners.
Unstable self-image: People suffering from this disorder may feel very confident one day and feel the opposite on the next. Though everyone has shifting views of their identity form time to time, for people suffering from this personality disorder, theses shifts are extreme. It can often lead to frequent changes in jobs, friend circles, relationships, goals and values. It can also cause changes in their understanding of sexual orientation.
Impulsive behaviour: People who display self-destructing and attention seeking behaviour may suffer from this condition. This disorder has been often associated with alcoholism, drug abuse and recklessness.
Suicidal behavior: People suffering from this disorder may often be associated with behaviour that physically harms them. They are also capable of following through on suicidal threats.
Mood swings: Extreme fluctuations in emotions and moods are a common experience or people suffering from borderline personality disorder. These mood swings usually start only a few minutes of a few hours unlike depression and other anxiety disorders.
Suspicion about everyone around: Borderline personality disorder can make a person struggle with suspicious thoughts about everyone around them and make them paranoid. They often feel out of touch with reality and can feel spaced out when under stress.

Borderline Personality Disorder - Signs and Symptoms!

Acidity - gastritis: understanding the symptoms and causes

Gastritis/acidity is a group of diseases or symptoms where there is excess secretion of acid by the gastric glands of the stomach.

If you have upper abdominal discomfort or pain, stomach fullness, heartburn, nausea, vomiting, indigestion, belching, waterbrash or irregular bowel movement, then you must be suffering from acidity or gastritis. It is a problem which becomes worse when an individual has poor eating habits and improper lifestyle.

Gastritis: swelling of stomach lining

Various factors like spicy food, medicines, tobacco, alcohol etc. Can cause increase in gastric acid production and disturb, weaken or damage the normal stomach lining. Gastritis occurs when there is an imbalance between the acid production and damage to the stomach lining, resulting in swelling of the stomach lining.

Gastritis a very common disorder of all age groups

Gastritis is of two types - acute gastritis (which occur suddenly) and chronic gastritis (develops over a period of time). In India gastritis is a very common disorder which occurs at any age but is more widespread in the adolescent age group (12-17 years). Adolescence is a change from childhood to adulthood, the period in which a lot of physical and psychological changes occur increasing the risk of gastritis. 

Multiple factors cause gastritis

Various factors like spicy food, medicines (pain killers), tobacco, alcohol, emotional disturbance, psychological stress, smoking, alcohol intake and bacterial infection lead to gastritis.

Besides these, the three most important factors include helicobacter pylori infection (bacterial infection), use of painkiller medicines and autoimmunity (body loses its own immunity and attacks itself). These factors in the long term may even cause an ulcer (permanent breakage of the stomach lining), acid reflux disorder (food coming back to mouth after swallowing) and stomach cancer.

What does Ayurveda suggest?

In Ayurveda, agni refers to fire like activity in alimentary canal responsible for digestion of food which is influenced by the status of doshas. When samana-vata associates with kapha in turn produces weak digestive power (agni-mandya). Consuming food against the code of dietetics i. E. Ahara-vidhi vidhana and ahara-vidhi-visheshayatana (method of taking food) lead to a number of diseases related with food. Eating food before the previous food is digested, untimely food, eating too much of spicy or oily food, eating when not hungry, drinking too much water during food and at a time unless required, very hot high fatty-fried food, stale food, heavy diet, excess consumption of horse gram, vitiate all the three body humours (tridosha) also contribute to the symptoms of gastritis.

Due to the sourness of consumed food the liquidity of pitta increases further decreasing the capacity for digestion (agnimandya). Hence, rasadi-dhatu is not formed in a proper manner. This, after a certain period, manifests as amlapitta (hyperacidity).

Symptoms of gastritis vary among individuals

Symptoms of gastritis vary among individuals, and in many people even there are no symptoms. It also depends on the duration of disease, whether it is of acute (coming on suddenly) or chronic (causing symptoms over a long period of time) type.

The most common symptoms of acute gastritis include:

Abdominal bloating or stomach fullness,

Belching (expelling air from the stomach through the mouth)

Waterbrashes (sour fluid or tasteless saliva into the mouth)

Upper abdominal pain or discomfort

Nausea/vomiting feeling

Irregular bowel movement

Recurrent indigestion,

Chest burn or gnawing feeling between meals (heartburn)

Hiccups etc.

In addition to this, symptoms of chronic gastritis may include weight loss, continuous flatulence, black stool, loss of appetite and even anemia.

How to diagnose gastritis?

To diagnose gastritis, performs a thorough physical evaluation, and may recommend a blood test for h. Pylori screening, stool test for blood in the stool. Abdominal x-rays or barium studies (upper or lower) may demonstrate the presence of thickened stomach lining and folds that are signs of inflammation in the stomach.

Sometimes, an endoscope, a thin tube containing a tiny camera, is inserted through the mouth and down into the stomach to look at the stomach lining (endoscopy). The doctor will check for inflammation and may perform a biopsy, in which a tiny sample of tissue is removed and sent for analysis of gastric lining.

If you would like to consult with me privately, please click on 'consult'.
Related Tip: 10 Things You Must Correct to Fight Acidity And Heartburn

What Causes Acidity?  Understanding its Symptoms and Causes

Your body goes through drastic changes when you are pregnant. Your body makes more blood during pregnancy; for instance, prior to pregnancy, your body made approximately 5 litres of blood, but now it produces 7 to 8 litres of it.
Producing excess red blood cells requires haemoglobin, which in turn requires plenty of folate, iron and vitamin B12. If there is a deficiency in any of these requirements, you might develop anaemia.
Anaemia is a condition, which is characterized by a lack of red blood cells in the body. The risks of becoming anaemic during pregnancy include:
1. Being extremely fatigued
2. Miscarriages, premature birth, or low birth-weight
3. The baby can inherit anaemia from the mother
4. The child can have certain developmental delays
5. Postpartum depression (post-childbirth depression)

How it can be prevented?
To prevent such risks, it is important to implement the proper diet. Here are some dietary tips to prevent anaemia during pregnancy: 
1. Consume iron-rich foods: Foods that provide you with the best source of iron are 
i. Poultry and eggs
ii. Dark green and leafy vegetables (for example: spinach, broccoli and kale)
iii. Seeds and nuts
iv. Beans and lentils
v. Tofu
vi. Beetroot
vii. Ripe bananas

2. Don't forget the supplements: Foods are great sources of the nutrients you require, but they may be lacking at times. Ask your doctor for supplements like vitamin, folic acid and iron supplements mostly. Consuming supplements before pregnancy can go a long way in preventing anaemia.

3. Folic acid is important: Folic acid is very important for pregnant women. You must consume 400 milligrams of it to prevent anaemia and birth defects in babies. Foods that are rich in folic acid include:
i. Beans
ii. Muesli
iii. Broccoli
iv. Brussel sprouts
v. Asparagus

4. Vitamins are crucial: Vitamin C helps in iron absorption which boosts haemoglobin production. Some foods rich in vitamin C include
i. Citrus fruits
ii. Strawberries
iii. Kiwis
iv. Tomatoes
v. Bell peppers

5. Be vigilant while cooking: Sometimes while cooking foods, the wrong method can strip them of their iron content. So be careful not to fry, boil or stew such foods too much. Certain foods are best consumed raw; read the labels properly if in doubt.

6. Abstain from certain habits: Alcohol, tea, cigarette and coffee hinder iron absorption. So stop consuming them if you are trying to conceive or have conceived.

Dietary Tips to Prevent Anaemia in Pregnant Women

The development of bumps and blisters on your skin surface accompanied by severe itching are the symptoms of a skin condition known as scabies. It is caused by a burrowing mite called sarcoptes scabiei. A patient experiences itching in the affected area and the urge for itching gets increased during the night. Scabies is a contagious disease and spreads rapidly among people via a physical contact.

Symptoms
Thin and irregular burrow tracks or blisters are common symptoms of scabies. These tracks generally appear in the folds of the skin. Commonly, scabies appears in the following areas:

Between the fingers
In the armpits
Around the waist and along the insides of the wrist
On the inner elbow, soles of the feet
Around the breasts, buttocks, knees and shoulder blades
In case you had scabies previously, the symptoms usually develop within a few days after exposure. For first-time occurrences, six weeks are required for the symptoms to appear.

Causes
The eight-legged female mite which causes scabies burrows beneath the skin, produces a tunnel and deposits egg in it. After being hatched, the mite travels to the skin surface. Here they become mature and spread to other areas. The body s allergic reaction to the mites, the eggs and their waste material causes the itching. Vigorous scratching of the scabies infected skin can break the skin, allowing a secondary bacterial infection to develop, like impetigo. A severe type of scabies known as crusted scabies can affect some people. 

Crusted scabies usually affects people suffering from chronic heart diseases due to which the body s immune system gets weakened. People who are very sick, hospitalised and aged people in nursing homes may develop crusted scabies. This type of scabies is scaly and crusty, covers large areas all over the body and is difficult to cure.

Treatment of scabies
The involves the elimination of the developments using medicines. There are several lotions and creams, which can be used on a doctor s prescription for treatment. These creams should be applied all over the body. After the application, the medication should be left for eight hours. In case of recurrence of rashes and burrows, a second treatment may be required.

It is important to consult a doctor for proper treatment of scabies. Usually, treatment is recommended for all family members and close friends of an affected person, even though no symptoms of scabies appear in these people.

Scabies - How Dermatological Treatment Can Help?

With the change of season, we all have to be geared up for the increase in the number of mosquitoes in and around our homes, and among these is one such mosquito, which can be fatal for your life. The bite of the  Aedes aegypti  mosquito causes Dengue. This mosquito survives and breeds in tropical and sub-tropical areas. It is a waterborne disease and causes extreme pain, discomfort and in some cases even death. Each year 390 million people are inflicted with dengue out of which 96 million develop serious illnesses and are required to be hospitalized.

Causes:
1. As mentioned above it is caused by the bite of the  Aedes aegypti  mosquito.
2. When a mosquito bites a person who already has dengue, it becomes infected and it can be transmitted to any healthy person this mosquito bites next.
3. If you already have dengue and are infected again then you have a higher chance of developing dengue hemorrhagic fever or a dengue shock which can even cause death.
4. Living near a stagnant water body, or accumulating water in open containers, staying in the vicinity of clogged drains and open windows can also expose you to the threat of Dengue.

Symptoms:
The symptoms can last to about 10 days after one gets infected. The symptoms are as follows:
1. Excruciating pain behind the eyes
2. Severe headache
3. Sudden high fever.
4. Vomiting
5. Fatigue
6. Skin rash which generally appears two to five days after you get bitten.
7. Nose bleeding, easy bruising and bleeding gums.
8. Severe muscle and joint pain.

These symptoms can be mistaken for high fever or viral infection, so it is important to get tested as soon as you start experiencing these symptoms. If dengue is not treated in time, it can give rise to dengue hemorrhagic fever. In this case, you can suffer from high fever, nose bleeding (damage of blood vessels), failure of the circulatory system and enlargement of liver.

You can also prevent dengue by avoiding storing water in containers, keeping your surroundings clean, wearing full body clothing, using mosquito repellants, sleeping under a mosquito net and setting mosquito traps. Dengue is very devastating and can cause death in worse cases as in dengue shock or dengue hemorrhagic fever. Dengue is now an epidemic in many countries. People affected with dengue need to drink a lot of fluids and take plenty of rest. They can also reduce the fever by having a paracetamol.

Dengue - Signs You Must Be Careful About!

Coughing during the night can really wreak havoc for your sleep and cause inexplicable discomfort in the throat and chest region. Thankfully, you can manage it by soothing your tickling throat as well as sensitive airways before you go to bed at night. 

Drink herbal tea: A mugful of non-caffeinated tea mixed with a teaspoon of honey before going to bed can help you to a considerable extent. This is because any warm liquid has the power to break down the formation of mucus in the throat region and with a bit of honey, the herbal tea becomes even more powerful.
Try to sleep in an inclining position: Gravity is your greatest enemy while combating night-time cough. When you lie down flat on your back at night, all the mucus and dust particles, which you have swallowed all through the day, would accumulate in the throat area and aggravate it making more cough. But you can easily defy gravitational force by piling up some pillows and prop yourself on them while sleeping. You may also keep a wooden block of 4 inches height under your head, which would keep the acids in the stomach so that they don t come up to irritate your throat.
Make sure you use the steam cautiously: When your airways are dry, it can make you cough harder. Therefore, you may find relief if you take a warm shower or a bath before going to bed. But you have to be sure that you don t have asthma as steam can prove harmful for you.
Check the level of humidity: Humidifiers are known to soothe the problem of persistent coughing when the surrounding air is dry. But too much of moisture during the night can also make you cough. This is because dust mites, mold and other allergens thrive well in the damp air and they could conspire to make your cough even worse. So, pick up a cheap hygrometer from a hardware store and see that the humidity level stays within 40 to 50 percent.
Equip yourself at night: Keep all the things from drops to water to cough syrup or anything that soothes coughing at your bedside so that you can help yourself in case you wake up in the middle of the night and start coughing.
By following these few tips every day, you can manage the night time cough and have a good night s sleep without any interruptions.

Night Time Cough - 5 Tips to Manage it

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