#abdominal problems

Today we will talk about common abdominal problems which you face in day-to-day life, like gall stones, acidity, reflux, gerd problems – constipation, diarrhoea, which need to be taken care of, especially this rainy season, hence you have to be careful about what you are eating and what you are drinking.

So, commonly asked questions are like, “I was diagnosed with gall stones a few days back. Should I do it, should I wait, should I go in for gallbladder surgery or can the gallstones go on its own?” The simple answer to this question is that gallbladder is at fault and not the gall stones, it’s the gallbladder lining which has got broken up and therefore it is causing gall stones, so treatment is of not gall stones but treatment is of gallbladder. So, it’s no point removing the gall stone, gall stones cannot be removed like that, like a kidney stone. We have to remove the kidney stone, we cannot remove the kidney, it’s a vital organ, but the gallbladder is not functional in your body and therefore it is forming stones and therefore we need to remove the gallbladder. It’s a laparoscopic key-hole surgery, one-day stay, you get admitted, you get the operation done on the same day and go home the next day. So, it gives you relief from the constant pain/ache or like acidity, reflux associated to gallstones. And within a day’s time, you can go back, switch to your work in 7 to 8 days’ time. So, it’s a small surgery, and therefore, there is nothing to get worried about it because that will solve the problem once and for all.

Other things which are asked is how can I wait. The answer is you can wait till you start getting recurrent pain and you start landing up in the hospital with all these problems, so it’s not right to postpone things to the point that it becomes very serious. It is a small surgery, it has to be done quickly and/or you can get rid of the things as soon as possible. There is no medicine which can dissolve the gallstones life long, you have to take the medicines lifelong, otherwise, so instead of taking so many medicines lifelong, it is better that you get the surgery done and get rid of the gallbladder problem.

People ask how to keep a healthy, disease-free stomach. I want to say, if you eat properly, if you have a good balanced diet, if you don’t eat anything which is non-hygienic, if you keep less spice and oil in your diet, if you don’t keep your tummy fasting for long time, your stomach will automatically be healthy and disease-free; otherwise, you will start getting recurrent acidity, reflux symptoms, constipation, diarrhoea. So, the best thing is to have a good, healthy, balanced fat-free diet, otherwise, all the problems start popping up. Drink as less possible as milk, and don’t take besan or channa dal or what you call like vada pav, bhajia, deep fried stuff because that will create lot of acidity and that will grow as lot of reflux problems. So having a healthy, disease-free stomach means you are having good habits and drinking lot of water.

Benefits of Laparoscopic surgery: People ask me, what are the benefits of doing laparoscopic surgery over open surgery? See, open surgery was done with a big cut on the abdomen and you would have a big scar. So would healing and all, everything was a big issue, so we are having key-hole surgery, wherein you don’t put your hand into the stomach, but you make small holes, take small instruments, put in the abdomen, dissect the tissue with that instruments, see it on a video camera on a TV Monitor, and you had to remove the organs or do the surgery to be done laparoscopically. Open surgery requires bed rest for month’s time and that would be disaster for, if you are a young person, working person, you lose one month of you time.

Laparoscopic surgery, you can go for work in 4-5 days’ time, when your inner wounds heal. Therefore, there are lot of benefits, there are also cosmetic benefits of a laparoscopic surgery. There are also the hernia which happens after open surgeries that is not in case of laparoscopic surgeries.

People ask me, “Can we keep upwas? Is it harmful for us or is it helpful for us?” I say, “Don’t keep your stomach empty for 4 to 5 hours, more than 4 to 5 hours because by doing that, you are keeping acid under control and reflux under control. So, doing upwas or fasting is not a great idea, it will lead to more acidity, more gallstones because the gallbladder is getting distended while you are not using that by keeping fast, and therefore, you will start forming gallstones, so it’s a common problem. Gallstone is a common problem in fasting stage.

Alcohol, whether it should be taken or not taken, is it good for health, not good for health. Alcohol, if you are taking beer, once in a while is okay. But if you are taking heavy drinks, whiskey and all that, they contain 43-44% alcohol, as compared to beer which contains only 17% of alcohol, so taking heavy drinks regularly will put you into liver damage and liver cirrhosis and that can damage your liver over a long time. So anything in moderate or anything in less quantity is okay, especially beer is okay but heavy drinks every day will put your liver at risk.

The next question commonly asked is, “I have appendicitis, I am suffering from that. Doctors told me the pain subsides, I become better. Should we operate or should we not operate?” I tell them, “If the appendicitis worsens, it can lead to perforations in appendix and all the stool contents will come in the tummy and you can have serious health issues.  And you better go and remove the appendix, do an appendectomy by laparoscopic way because that will help you avoid complications. Appendix is a vestigial organ, you don’t have any need of appendix; at the same time, it will start creating trouble to you, it should be removed by laparoscopy.

“Does excessive tea and coffee intake effect the digestion,” people ask me, tea and coffee contains milk, so drinking milk for, I mean to say, if you consume lot of milk, it will cause acidity, constipation. So, tea and coffee moderation is okay, it boosts you, especially coffee, but anything in excess is not recommended.

So, even cancers, people ask me are cancers dangerous? Definitely, cancers are dangerous but if you treat them properly with good surgery and chemotherapy if required, all the things can be taken care of. Ones which are bad are pancreatic cancers, gallbladder cancers, sometimes liver cancers, they are bad cancers and those cancers should be diagnosed early, treated early, every cancer can be cured. It depends on the stage what you are approaching your doctor for cancer treatment. If it is advanced stage, no cancer can be cured, but if you diagnose any cancer at the early stage, all the cancers can be taken care of because of control of the cancer rather than cure. It is said that if you survive in the cancer with treatment for 5 years, you will survive lifelong, so 5 years survival will depend on what stage of cancer you are approaching the doctor. Therefore, you should have early diagnosis of anything. Therefore, you should not linger with the problem for long time because lingering with the problem will lead to problems, you will not be able to diagnose it early, the cancer will spread everywhere in the body and then you will have hard time fighting, it’s like a fire, you have to control the fire. If you control the fire, well, otherwise it will be too late, it will damage all your organs, and therefore, you should control the fire well in time. Ideally, you should not allow the fire to break, if it breaks, you have to control it early otherwise the fire will take control over you. So, any cancers in the body is like a fire, you have to be quick in accessing the problem and tackling the problem.

So how to prevent the cancer is first thing is to have good, healthy eating habits, which itself will lead to good body hygiene I am talking about. So, if you have good body hygiene, you maintain it with regular exercises, gyming, and if you eat properly every day then it automatically… cancer cells are our own cells which start growing in the rapid rate, so we have to get a hygienic diet. Also, some cancers are genetic, you have to know the family tree, who had what cancers in the family and do investigation accordingly. Especially after 40, you start doing the ultrasound of the abdomen, x-ray of the chest, routine blood test after the age of 40, so that you diagnose heart ailments as well as all the small, small problems like cancers or tuberculosis and treat them well in time. Once you treat any problem well in time, you should be fine.

Regarding the liver, I would like to discuss the topic about liver, healthy liver, lot of reports are saying that you have fatty liver or your liver functions are saying that SGPT, SGPT are high, if that is so, it means that you have fatty liver, it may damage your health, and so you should well control the fatty liver. How to control the fatty liver is simple it is, you have to have a healthy, fat-free diet, less of carbohydrates, and more of rich proteins like soya milk or egg whites, fish, which are rich in proteins so that your fat automatically gets destroyed and you will have a good, non-fatty liver. Fatty liver over a period of time can lead to lot of issues, it can lead to liver cirrhosis and if you are alcoholic on top of it, it can damage your liver more so and therefore you need to take care of the liver. So, fatty liver is a common problem which is seen nowadays on sonography, best you should have weight reduction and that will take care of your fatty liver.

Regarding balanced diet, you should have lot of fibre in your diet, which will help you in passing good amount of stools every day, fat-free diet, less of carbohydrates, more of proteins, and that’s what is called as balanced diet, where you have each component in adequate proportion. So, if you are non-vegetarian, you should have two egg whites every day and you should impinge on fried, deep fried, roasted, but more of boiled, steamed products so that you are eating healthy food and from that, and at the same time, you are getting all the micronutrients, vitamins, and everything in your body. You should always have a good routine about when to eat food, I mean you should have a good, healthy breakfast in the morning, which contains egg, soya, high proteins, and after 3-4 hours, you should have some fruit, you should have good, small lunch, and a small evening snack, and you should have your dinner which is wholesome, rich in proteins by 7 or 8 o’clock, so that you have 2 hours to move around, empty the stomach properly and then go to bed. You should not eat your dinner and go to bed immediately. So, timings as well as content of the food is very, very important. It is just that you eating food, you are having a healthy diet but you are not eating on time, also can damage your health.

Is there a relation between diet and cancer? Yes, there is a big relation between diet and cancer. If you are taking lot of deep fried, roasted, non-healthy food, all your proteins are replaced by fats and it leads to fatty liver, it can lead to blockage in your heart, at the same time, it can give rise to cancer. Cancer, there is no single reason which causes cancer. Cancer is our own cells growing at a faster pace and forming lumps or tumours in the body. So to avoid cancer, you should have a healthy, balanced diet, not eat too much rich carbohydrate or heavy fat-laden food. And also tobacco, alcohol should be not consumed. Alcohol in moderation is okay but tobacco is absolute no because it can lead to any cancer, starting from mouth to the anal canal – food pipe cancer, stomach cancer, small intestine cancer, large intestine cancer, it can lead to any cancer. So you should avoid having the tobacco product at least.

Also smoking, alcohol, and cancer, do they go hand in hand? I told that they do go hand-in-hand, so best thing is not to consume them, have a good fat-free diet and no tobacco and also alcohol, I told you, in moderation is okay. Anything in moderation is okay, anything in excess is dangerous.

Micronutrients are required, vitamins are required. If they are deficient, you need to correct them by food or by tablets if required but something which helps you in building that, that’s fine.

People ask me about weight reduction surgeries, cosmetic surgery, liposuction, bariatric surgery, obesity surgery, whatever you call that. Best is to not reach to a stage where you require surgery for obesity. I told you, you should have balanced diet at right time, get all the things which should be added in your diet. If required, consult a dietician and get a proper diet plan meant for you, because once you get obesity, it is related to many problems in the body like you may have osteoarthritis because of spine issues, you may have heart ailments where you can start having troubles, you can have joint pains, you can have fatty liver, liver cirrhosis, so fat is dangerous to your body in short.

So tummy-tuck liposuction, see removing the tummy fat or doing a tummy tuck or liposuction is okay if you are reducing weight. If you are not reducing weight and if you are just doing liposuction, you will remove the fat temporarily, again in a month’s time, all the fat will be re-deposited, all the money is wasted and goes down the drain. So normally, cosmetic surgeries like liposuction and tummy-tuck are advised only when you have done some weight reduction either by medical means or by surgical means like a bariatric or a metabolic surgery, what you call. When you cut down the size of the stomach by sleeve gastrectomy, reduce the size of the stomach and then and then only you can progress on to the further weight reduction. So tummy-tuck by itself, on itself is not a good idea, best is to reduce weight, get you BMI checked either by medical means or by surgery and then tummy-tuck or cosmetic surgeries are advisable.

                      Exercise-89: Pada prasar paschimottanasana (the legs spread and back stretching pose)

Sit with the legs spread as wide as possible.

Clasp the hands over the head and swivel the torso slightly to the right.

Stretch the arms upward and bend the trunk downward.

Touch the right knee with the nose.

Raise the trunk and repeat on the opposite side.

VARIATION-1

Pada prasar…

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What Are Abdominal Problems

It is defined as a disorder in which there is a pain in the stomach. It is also known as the stomach ache. It is the most common symptom which is linked with the serious disorders. The diagnosis must not be definite and there are many symptoms linked with this disorder. It is a common problem and is benign or self limited and it requires the treatment as early as possible.

What are the signs and symptoms of acute abdominal problems?

It includes the severe pain in stomach. It requires the use of surgery as early as possible. It is also linked with the nausea, vomiting, fever as well as shock. It can also lead to distension in the abdomen. These symptoms are linked with the acute appendicitis. In this case the fecal matter hardens and becomes hard like a rock. It closes the opening. It can occur due to the trauma which can be blunt or make holes in the stomach, spleen as well as liver and kidneys. The other reasons can be inflammatory infections or mechanical injuries. The inflammatory infections can be pancreatitis, pyelonephritis and it can be inflammatory disease such as ulcerative colitis or crohn’s disease. The mechanical reason includes the small as well as large bowel obstruction. The vascular reasons can be the decrease in blood supply of intestine. It is due to the formation of emboli in the superior artery of mesenteric.

How abdominal problems can be diagnosed?