The skin is constantly exposed to environmental hazards, especially ultraviolet light. Ultraviolet A light is especially likely to cause damage within the dermis, leading to wrinkles and premature ageing, while ultraviolet В light is more likely to cause skin cancer. With the ongoing depletion of the ozone layer, ultraviolet intensity is rapidly increasing. As a consequence, the risk to our skin is greater, and our love of sun-baking does nothing to help the situation.The skin is constantly surrounded by potential enemies, not only the sun, but fungi, bacteria and viruses. Undamaged skin is very efficient at protecting us from serious infections. Other environmental hazards include various chemicals, cigarettes, creams and cosmetics. Many people do not realize that nearly every cosmetic contains at least ten different chemicals, the safety of which can be uncertain.Despite popular belief, most skin diseases are not related to food, and the majority of food allergies are not evident on the skin. True skin allergies to substances applied to the skin— particularly in the form of perfumed cosmetics, creams, medicaments, industrial chemicals and plants – do occur, however.Another misconception is that skin diseases are not particularly important to one’s overall state of health. Although it is rare for people to die of skin diseases, on a psychological level they can cause depression and social isolation.Because much of our skin is often visible, disease is easy to detect and sometimes difficult to hide. Because we place such value on the attractiveness of our skin, we are more concerned with our skin than almost any other part of our body. Cosmetic companies are able to take advantage of our insecurity, promoting all manner of skin remedies. Even the most intelligent people can be brainwashed by their advertising. Methods of minimizing skin damage, however, are available to us all, especially in the form of sun protection.
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Fatigue often accompanies depression: people dealing with depression lose not only a sense of hope but also their physical energy. Fatigue is also an indirect result of HIV infection. In this case, it is usually accompanied by weight loss, fever, and night sweats. These symptoms are most likely to occur relatively late in the course of the infection when the CD4 count is low, usually well below 300. HIV infection causes fatigue by depriving the body of some of its sources of energy. People with HIV infection often have anemia, or lower numbers of red blood cells. Red blood cells, among other things, carry oxygen; oxygen supplies the muscles with energy. People with fewer red blood cells therefore have less energy and tire easily, though the anemia must be severe before people notice symptoms. In addition, people with HIV infection sometimes have diarrhea. With diarrhea, food is eliminated from the body before being absorbed, so food is also unavailable as a source of energy. Again, the diarrhea must be severe or last for several weeks to cause the fatigue that accompanies malnutrition. For some people, fatigue is caused by opportunistic infections like MAI or CMV. Medications can also cause fatigue or sleepiness, which is often interpreted as fatigue. These medications include, among others, narcotics, antihistamines, and antidepressants.
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When we come to discuss the treatment of stress breakdown, the first point to make is that correct diagnosis is essential before attempting any treatment, because treatment appropriate for stress breakdown will be of no use for the other conditions which may resemble stress breakdown. Moreover, wrongly giving a patient who in fact is suffering from stress breakdown a treatment designed for some other disorder, may well make the over-stressed patient worse.
Therefore we need to understand stress breakdown before we can treat it properly.
Understanding stress breakdown is the key to successful treatment, and the best treatment is prevention.
Firstly, I need to say that the best, most effective treatment always for stress breakdown is prevention. Stress breakdown is much more difficult to treat than to prevent, because the fact of having broken down becomes a stress in itself; further, treatment for stress breakdown may have to include the mending of hurts and strained relationships caused by the symptoms of the stress breakdown.
Secondly, before discussing treatment for stress breakdown I need to clarify exactly where the anxiety equation fits in with stage one. I don’t want to give the impression that all conditions which cause anxiety can progress on to cause further stress-breakdown symptoms.
The anxiety equation suggests that there can be a number of reasons why a person will experience anxiety. One of them is excessive overload of the nervous system. Others, for example, low blood-glucose levels and sedative drug withdrawal, might produce anxiety when the nervous system is not unduly overloaded. However, these conditions in themselves need not lead on to stage two breakdown.
The necessary precondition for stage one stress symptoms to progress to stage two is the use of will-power mechanisms to ignore the anxiety symptoms and to stay in the stressful situation.
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