Workshop Aims at Managing Chronic Conditions

Hendricks Regional Health has another Great Program!

"Living a Healthy Life With Chronic Conditions" is a six-week course that will be facilitated by CICOA Aging & In-Home Solutions.

Learn to communicate better with your doctor, make daily tasks easier, reduce stress and anxiety, and take back control of your condition. This workshop is open to participants with chronic conditions, such as arthritis, asthma, diabetes and more.

Caregivers and relatives of participants, who would benefit from problem solving skills related to managing a chronic condition, are also welcome. This class meets on six consecutive Tuesdays. There is a $10.00 registration fee per participant. Register online >

Flu Shot Recommendations

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone 6 months and older get a flu vaccine as soon as they are available this fall. Our Hendricks Regional Health Immediate Care Centers - in Avon and Plainfield - now, have flu shots for ages 3 and up. Cost is $35 and we file with all insurance plans.

Saturday Mammogram Appointments in October at HRH!

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a great opportunity to think about your early breast cancer prevention plan. The American Cancer Society recommends women age 40 and up have a mammogram every year and continue to do so for as long as they are in good health.  

Our Danville location already offers early and evening hours. And throughout October, we'll be rolling out the pink carpet with convenient Saturday appointments. A referral is not required for screening mammograms. Request a mammogram online at hendricks.org/mammo or call (317) 745-3404.

Join us on facebook!

Join us today at facebook.com/hendricks.org to connect with our community of health experts and receive timely health tips, updates on wellness classes and information about hospital services.

This is all from the HRH web-site.

Treatment of Allergies

If you can't avoid triggers, or if avoiding them doesn't help your symptoms, talk to your health care provider about treatment. A variety of medications are available to treat allergies. These include antihistamines and decongestants, either alone or in combination. Nasal sprays, including nasal steroids and cromolyn sodium, also are effective. Allergy shots can provide long-term relief.

Online Medical Reviewer: Godsey, Cynthia M.S., M.S.N., APRN
Online Medical Reviewer: Lambert, J.G. M.D. 

Avoiding Triggers

You can't prevent allergies, but you can reduce your exposure to allergens, which will ease your symptoms. The following suggestions from the AAAAI can help you reduce your exposure and response to fall allergens:

• Wear a face mask while mowing or raking leaves. Better yet, have someone else do these chores for you.
• Cut back trees and brush that overhang your house and remove leaves, clippings, and compost from your yard.
• Repot plants outdoors.
• Shower and wash your hair after spending time outdoors.
• Delay outdoor activities until after midmorning, when pollen counts are highest. Also, try to avoid spending long periods of time outside on dry, windy days, when pollen is more likely to fill the air. You’re likely to have fewer symptoms on rainy, cloudy, and windless days.
• Avoid spending time outdoors in the afternoon if mold spores trigger your symptoms.
• Keep windows closed to prevent triggers from entering your home.
• Keep car windows closed and run the air conditioning while in the car. It’s often helpful to let the air conditioning run for a minute or two with the windows open after first turning it on, to eliminate any mold buildup in the system.

Avoiding Fall Allergy Triggers

Many people associate allergies with springtime, but ragweed pollen and outdoor molds that arrive in the fall bring just as much misery.

Thirty-six million Americans endure burning, itchy eyes; sneezing; sniffles; and chapped nostrils caused by allergic rhinitis or hay fever, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI). People who have asthma often have allergies that trigger asthma attacks.

If allergies bother you in the fall, you’re most likely sensitive to one or more of the following molds, weeds, trees, or grasses.

Molds

Molds, which produce airborne spores, are common during autumn. Outdoor molds are plentiful in damp gutters, rotten wood, and fallen leaves. Damp fall weather also encourages mold growth indoors in bathrooms, kitchens, basements, carpets, houseplants, refrigerators, garbage cans, books, and upholstered furniture.

Weeds

Ragweed is the most common cause of late summer and fall hay fever symptoms in the United States. This yellow-flowering weed blooms from mid-August to the first frost. It’s most prevalent throughout the Northeast and Midwest, but almost every part of the United States has some ragweed pollen.

Trees and grasses

Most trees and grasses cause allergy symptoms in the spring, but those that pollinate in the fall—such as cedar elm, Chinese elm, September elm and eucalyptus—cause allergic reactions in autumn. Fall allergenic grasses include pampas grass and wild mustard.

Stressful Situation Tips

If you're chained to a desk throughout your workday, you may be even more likely to have stress-related outbursts.

About one-sixth of workers said anger at work led to property damage, and 2%-3% of workers admit to pushing, slapping or hitting someone at work, according to Reuters.

"With roughly 100 million people in the U.S. work force ... that's as many as 3 million people," Reuters reports.

Additionally, about 22% of U.S. workers say they've been driven to tears because of workplace stress and 9% say that stress has led to physically violent situations, reports RJC Associates, a career development firm.

Prevention: Smaller stressors can be handled with breathing and relaxation techniques at your desk or a break outside of the office, but some conflicts may call for mediation by an unbiased party.

And believe it or not, video games have been suggested as a method for easing workplace stress, according to CareerBuilder.com. With the job market recovering and more companies hiring, however, it's starting to look like new job prospects could be a promising way out of stressful work conditions as well.

Bacteria

Problem: "The desk, in terms of bacteria, is 400 times more dirty than your toilet," University of Arizona microbiologist Dr. Charles Gerba told WebMD (NASDAQ: WBMD - News). "People turn their desks into bacteria cafeterias because they eat at them, but they never clean them. The phone is the dirtiest, the desktop is next, and the mouse and the computer follow."

But bacteria problems at your desk could be more severe than Gerba thinks. Breadcrumbs and other food remnants get can get in between keys on your keyboard, attract rats and lead to unintended exposure to their germs. What's more, many raw and cooked foods need to remain refrigerated, and leaving them out for two hours or more is a food safety no-no.

Prevention: If you frequently eat your lunch at your desk, you may want to make sure you have hand sanitizer and antibacterial wipes to wipe down your work surface daily. That can also protect you from germs sprayed into the air by your coughing and sneezing coworkers.

If your office has a communal kitchen sink with a sponge, the American Dietetic Association suggests using paper towels instead, just to stay safe from bacteria.

The association goes as far as recommending that those who eat in the office bring a refrigerator thermometer and a meat thermometer as well.

Eye Strain

Problem: Office workers who spend hours a day staring at a computer screen might tell you that after a certain amount of time, their vision gets blurry and their eyes generally become more sensitive. Those symptoms (as well as too-watery or too-dry eyes, a headache or a sore neck) could be indications of eyestrain, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Prevention: To prevent eyestrain at your computer, increase your font size so you don't have to squint, suggests Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT - News) (though the font on this informative page might cause readers to do just that). You may also want to rest your eyes frequently by looking away from your computer screen and reducing any glare on your monitor, the Mayo Clinic suggests.

Other Joint Problems

Problem: The human body is meant to move, and staying in one position for too long can make joints feel tight. Sitting at a desk especially shortens and tightens the hip flexors, the muscles than help pull your legs toward your body, according to the Yoga Journal. And tight hip flexors can actually contribute to back pain as well since tight hips force the pelvis to tilt forward, compressing the back, Yoga Journal says.

Prevention: Besides getting up from your desk at regular intervals and walking around a bit, the Mayo Clinic recommends a number of stretches that can help loosen up your hips.

Lower-Back Pain

Problem: Sitting for hours on end, particularly if you have bad posture, can be devastating to your body over time if you don't get moving on a regular basis. And back pain is actually a major reason for missed work for adults of all ages, according to the Georgetown University Center on an Aging Society.

But bad posture at your desk goes beyond the obvious slouching. Sitting up straight but curving your back too much can be a cause of lower-back pain as well, notes the NIH.

Prevention: Besides being better aware of your posture as you're sitting at your desk, getting regular exercise including abdominal strengthening activities should relieve some of the pressure on your lower back.

Having too fat a wallet in your back pocket can be a bad thing as well. Sitting on a large wallet can put pressure on the sciatic nerve, which can cause sharp back pain, according to UAB Health System in Birmingham, Ala.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Problem: Any motion that is repeated over and over again can cause injury or pain, according to occupational-health-focused Denver Chiropractor Dr. T. Randall Eldridge. But carpal tunnel syndrome isn't just pain or soreness from too much typing. It's the tingling, numbness, itching or even sharp pain caused when a nerve that runs through the forearm is compressed by swollen ligaments and bones in the wrist, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Prevention: Before you're forced to treat carpal tunnel with acupuncture, drugs or even surgery, stretching and other exercises may help release tension in the wrist, the NIH says. And, contrary to what many believe, your wrists shouldn't actually rest on those cushy wrist pads that sit below your keyboard or mouse pad. They should actually be used as a guide for how high your wrists should be, according to occupational therapist to Marji Hajic. Hajic says hands should hover over the wrist rest and it should only be used as a rest in between bouts of typing.