Q After my break-up with my girlfriend, i started losing my hair and i am becoming bald day by day is this the reason or some other major problem with me. Please guide me & suggest me some remedy or therapy.

There are many factors that can cause hair loss. Stress, anxiety, and depression are surprisingly common causes of thinning scalp hair, and can be especially difficult to recognize and treat. But apart from these there can be several other causes like hereditary, infection, nutritional deficiency, thyroid imbalance etc.. Once you have noticed that you are losing your hair, the first step is to get a medical evaluation to determine the cause. Either your primary care or a dermatologist is a good place to start. Treatment can then be directed to any of the above underlying causes that are present. But meanwhile you can follow these advices: eat plenty of salads including green leafy vegetables like spinach lettuce, plateful of fruits, buttermilk, milk, curd, fish,egg, increase intake of peanuts and almond and walnut, have proper and sound sleep daily. Concentrating on future rather than dwelling on past can work.

Q How much sleep does a 3 year old need?

The child aged 3 years need a sleep of 9 to 12 hours during night and 1 to 3 hours (1 nap) of sleep in the morning. The total time of sleep varies about 12 to 13 hours.

Q What can you tell me about Borderline Personality Disorder?

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a Mental Health disorder that generates significant emotional instability. This can lead to a variety of other stressful mental and behavioral problems. When you have borderline personality disorder, you often have an insecure sense of who you are. Your self-image, self-identity or sense of self often rapidly changes. You may view yourself as evil or bad, and sometimes you may feel as if you dont exist at all. An unstable self-image often leads to frequent changes in jobs, friendships, goals and values. This is because people with borderline personality disorder often have difficulty accepting gray areas; things seem to be either black or white. The common symptom of borderline personality disorder are overwhelming feelings of distress, anxiety, worthlessness or anger, difficulty managing such feelings without self-harming, for example by abusing drugs and alcohol or taking overdoses, difficulty maintaining stable and close relationships, sometimes, periods of loss of contact with reality, in some cases, threats of harm to others. Treatment may involve a range of individual and group psychological therapies (psychotherapy) carried out by trained professionals.

Q What is natural family planning?

Natural Family Planning ( NFP) is the term for certain methods used to achieve and avoid pregnancies. These methods are based on observation of the naturally occurring signs and symptoms of the fertile and infertile phases of a womans menstrual cycle. Couples using NFP to avoid pregnancy abstain from intercourse and genital contact during the fertile phase of the womans cycle. No drugs, devices, or surgical procedures are used to avoid pregnancy.

Q Does dietary fiber reduce the risk of cancer?

A few studies have shown that a high intake of dietary fibre reduces the risk of colon cancer and breast cancer.

Q What is Hyper Tension

Hypertension, also referred to as high blood pressure, is a condition in which the arteries have persistently elevated blood pressure. Every time the human heart beats, it pumps blood to the whole body through the arteries. Systolic pressure more than 140 and diastolic pressure more than 90 is usually considered as hypertension.

Q My lips are very dry and occasionally bleeds what to do?

Lips have a thin coating of oil which prevents them from drying. However in some people this moisture is lost resulting in excessive drying. The main reasons behind this is defective hydration, excessive licking habit, in winters due to dry winds, side effect of medications. In most cases self care measures helps to resolve the issue. Self care measures include: Improving daily water intake because it is important to remain well hydrated to prevent drying of lips. Use a lip balm whenever you are outdoors. Rubbing a slice of cucumber or a milk cream on lips at night. Keep it for few minutes and then wash it of with plain water. This will help in healing of cracked lips. However a condition called as chelitis which is cracked skin at corner of lips needs medical care, as the cause is infection. In that case consultation with dermatologist is required.

Q My underarms have become dark. I wax regularly and don~t use any hair removal creams. Can you please suggest something?

Excessive sweating is the main cause of dark underarms. Make sure not to keep the underarm hair too long. Wax your underarms every 15 days. Tight clothes may cause excess sweating and affect the area. Friction can darken the underarm skin too. So, avoid wearing tight clothes as far as possible.n Gently exfoliate the underarm skin every week to remove the top layer of dead skin cells, which can cause darkening. To reduce darkening, scrub underarms daily with pumice stone while taking shower. Waxing removes hair from the roots and dead cells from armpits. Thus usually it does not darken underarms.

Q Shall I give my baby rotavirus vaccination?

Rotavirus vaccination is included in Indian Immunization schedule. So it is safe to give it to your child. The recommended age for the vaccination is 2 months, 4 months and 6 months. It is contraindicated in cases where the child has allergic reaction to rotavirus vaccine, has intussuception or sever combined immunodeficiency.

Q I am 69 year old, my hands start trembling whenever I am writing any thing which medicine should I take? what is parkinsons disease?

Trembling or shaking of hands is called as tremors. There are variety of tremors found and so variety of causes are there for its occurance. If you are suufering from tremors only when you write something, then these can be: Intentional tremors that occur at the end of any purposeful movements, Cerebellar tremors represented as intetional tremors, postural tremor that occur in particular posture of hand or leg against gravity, benign essential tremors occuring at older age and are inherited from family, tremors due to increased thyroid functioning, tremors due to reduced blood sugar levels, tremors as a result of alohol withdrawal or due to alcohol consumption, it can be a side effect of certain medicines, or it can be a task specific tremors. To prescribe you any medicines, it is necessary to evaluate your symptoms in more detailed way including evaluation by physical examination, which will be best achieved if you see your physician or a neurologist. Perkinsons disease is a degenerative disorder of central nervous system, where brain cells and nervous tissue undergo degeneration, resulting in dopamine deficiency in a patient. If you are trying to link your tremors with parkinsons, then the main differentiating point is parkinsons tremors are observed at rest and not at the time of movements. Further evaluation is needed for proper management.