Could ozone gasoline assistance me keep away from hip joint surgical procedure? DR MARTIN SCURR answers your well being questions 

What do you know about ozone therapy? I am 86 and contemplating it for a reasonably arthritic still left hip. I experienced a steroid injection not long ago which has accomplished nothing at all to relieve intensive ache. I’d like to avoid hip substitute surgery if feasible.

Brian Littleton, Nuthall, Nottingham.

Osteoarthritis of the hip can induce debilitating agony, and I extremely significantly sympathise with you.

Wear and tear slowly but surely thins the layer of protective tissue covering the joint (acknowledged as the articular cartilage). This leaves uncovered bone grinding on bone, leading to swelling and agony.

A corticosteroid injection (typically triamcinolone) immediately into the joint can decrease the irritation, lessening the ache, but this delivers only non permanent respite.

Research into techniques to promote cartilage growth continues, with stem cell technologies presenting the finest hope, but the only selected way to restore pain-no cost mobility is by changing the joint.

Put on and tear slowly thins the layer of protective tissue masking the joint (recognised as the articular cartilage). This leaves uncovered bone grinding on bone, leading to irritation and discomfort

It’s significant to have an understanding of a bit about ozone, a pale blue fuel with a pungent odor, which has a diverse molecular composition from the oxygen gasoline that we breathe.

It is fashioned from a chemical response in between the oxygen in the air and the ultraviolet rays from daylight or electrical discharges within the earth’s environment these types of as lightning, and is regarded as a pollutant.

It has been demonstrated to be hazardous to lungs, coronary heart and the central anxious process, notably at ranges identified in urban areas.

I imagine the ozone-centered therapy you are referring to is prolozone remedy, which employs ozone to promote cell expansion in a weakened location, this kind of as an arthritic hip. The strategy is this brings about cartilage to regenerate, but there is no printed, peer-reviewed evidence that it does.

So I am deeply sceptical that this cure, which can be expensive, will give you any profit.

There is no doubt in my thoughts that hip alternative medical procedures is the very best way of restoring your mobility and abolishing the discomfort.

Quite a few periods a day my head, neck and higher system experience scorching and sweaty, and once or twice a 7 days I come to feel mild-headed. My ideal leg, from the knee down, feels pretty chilly every evening. What could be creating these signs and symptoms in a moderately in good shape 82-12 months-aged girl?

Ingeborg Eaves, Kettering, Northamptonshire.

The signs or symptoms you explain fit these of sizzling flushes, the place the body’s thermostat goes haywire quickly. These can be a side-influence of particular medicines, particularly high blood pressure medicine, and are also frequent in women going through the menopause, when a drop in oestrogen ranges influences the brain’s thermostat, leading to system temperature to fluctuate.

In equally conditions, although usually short-lived, they can be uncomfortable and debilitating.

Your extended letter points out you have been prescribed two medication to management your superior blood pressure, perindopril and doxazosin. Very hot flushes are a acknowledged side-outcome of both of these. So it makes feeling your GP suggested you to appear off each of these briefly to see if the signs or symptoms resolve.

The symptoms you describe fit all those of scorching flushes, exactly where the body’s thermostat goes haywire temporarily 

As you clarify, not only did the very hot flushes go on but your blood pressure also increased rapidly, inside of days, so you were properly encouraged by your GP to commence using the medicine once more.

Retaining your blood pressure less than regulate is the much more important health problem listed here, as uncontrolled substantial blood force is associated with an increased danger of coronary heart attack and stroke. Other (really uncommon) choices contain carcinoid syndrome and pheochromocytoma, typically benign growths (usually in the gastrointestinal tract or the adrenal glands) that secrete hormones. The original test would be a 24-hour urine assortment to test for proof of these hormones. If positive, a CT scan would be the following stage.

Consult your GP again, taking a latest diary of the episodes about two or three weeks, with the aim of requesting a referral for suited investigations.

Create to Dr Scurr

Write to Dr Scurr at Fantastic Health and fitness, Day-to-day Mail, 2 Derry Road, London W8 5TT or email drmartin@dailymail. co.uk — incorporate your make contact with information. Dr Scurr cannot enter into own correspondence. Replies really should be taken in a basic context and always talk to your have GP with any health and fitness problems. 

In my perspective: New treatment method for vitiligo may possibly be on horizon

Vitiligo — a affliction in which places of the skin eliminate pigment cells (melanocytes) and turn into marble white — causes terrific distress to those who are impacted by it. That is a not inconsiderable 2 for every cent of the populace.

The loss of pores and skin pigment can crop up as a outcome of genetics and, it is imagined, a malfunction of the immune method, leading to the melanocytes remaining ruined or harmed.

Until eventually now, attempts at treatment with UV mild and immunosuppressant medicine have been only partly successful at most effective.

They could limit the afflicted areas extending somewhere else on the overall body, but with tiny prospect of re-pigmentation.

Now comes a analyze, revealed last thirty day period in the New England Journal of Medicine, that opens the door to a new treatment method. This is an immunosuppressant cream, the success of which are startling despite the fact that gradual, with up to 50 for every cent of recipients demonstrating enhancement in facial pigmentation just after a yr.

There is, at past, hope on the horizon for sufferers of this upsetting affliction.