Yin Teing’s Health Blog

Over the past years, I have received some forwarded emails from friends about the dangers of instant noodles. Some people may not be aware of the dangers and just to save money or due to no time to cook, they may be slowly poisoning their systems. There is no harm to take precautions. Many kids love to eat instant noodles- so if you are cooking occassionally for your kids, you may want to take note of the correct way to cook instant noodles.

The content below are based on forwarded emails that I’ve received- I am not the original author:

Read the rest of this entry »

If someone you know are taking traditional medication- and you noticed that the person seemed to be putting on a lot of weight even though the person did not eat a lot. Or even the action of drinking water seemed to bloat the body up- as if the body is desperate to conserve water. And this is often accompanied by the face becoming round and bloated- which is often referred as the ‘moon face’.

Normally, if we visit the doctor practising Western medicine, the doctor will tell is if the medication contains steroids and what are the side effects to expect from it. So the patient is generally well informed. And the steroids prescribed in the medication are within accepted and permissible levels.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here are the SIGNS OF STROKE as per American Heart Institute. Please heed these warnings signs.

I want to share with you on what happened to my favourite auntie (my mom’s 5th sister) as a lesson not to delay in obtaining medical treatment. She had been feeling “out of sorts” and uncomfortable. A part of her body sometimes felt numb. Sometimes she felt very dizzy. She dealt with self-massage. She did not want to go to a clinic and get checkup done. Thinking back, I understood her reasons: she wanted to save on medical expenses. She did not think that seeing a doctor was necessary- she had attributed it to be the disease of old age and she did not want to trouble anyone.

Big, big mistake. We wished now we could have just drive to her place, climb up to the 4th floor of the flat and dragged her kicking and screaming to the hospital. But with deep regret, we could not turn back time.

Read the rest of this entry »

On 2 Sept 08, The Star paper published a letter by a reader pertaining to the bad experience he had on finding treatment using Traditional Chinese Medicine when initially the Western doctors could not help.

The story: Unsafe Prescription- an encounter that leaves a bitter taste in the mouth (Speaking Up, Star Two, Tuesday 2 September 2008)

(Note: I decided to summarise the story here in case the article above goes off The Star’s archives and the link don’t work).

The reader, A.S Toh, suffered infection on his right ear with discharge and ringing in the ear following a diving expedition in Indonesia. Initially, he sought treatment from Western doctors- the ENT said it could be due to his nose while the eye specialist said it was his brain and the neurologist told him it was an old man’s disease. The treatments were getting nowhere.

So in April, he visited a TCM sinseh (the sinseh came from China) recommended by his friend. He was told there was an imbalance of qi, then he undergone acupuncture and was given some herbal solution and tablets. He took the medication and when it was not working, the sinseh told him it was due to his ears. The initial dizzy spells that he used to have were slightly reduced. But the treatment does not seemed to be working very well, so he was losing faith because he had gone for many sessions.

Read the rest of this entry »

Coffee should be drunk and not inserted up your posterior- Dr Albert Lim (oncologist)

I have heard people recommending the use of coffee enema as a form of detoxification. Cancer patients are told to use the treatment to detox the toxins from the body. Pardon my ignorance but I have no idea that coffee enema treatment means shoving a tube from the anal and then put hot coffee into it. 

Until I read the article on The Star dated 5 October 08- I was shocked. Even with the colon hydrotherapy- I have a lot of reservations about that- basically pumping water up the anus all the way to the digestive track (and if I am not mistaken, the water pressure had to be high in order to clean the intensines properly) seemed all wrong. If you want to maintain a good digestive health, you will need to practice good eating habits- drink lots of water, take fruits and veges. Eating fruits about 10 minutes after a glass of warm water first thing in the morning is good.  On an empty stomach. Why I know it is good? Because I have tried it and I know of people I know who does it. 

Think about it- if you shove pipes from the bottoms up- and clean it with water or coffee, few days later, the dirt or whatever will come back. Toxins take long time to accumulate in the body, you can’t just barbarically flush it off. And it’s worst, when the intensines are so ‘clean’ because the good bacteria obviously had been wiped out in the process, it opens to infections and indigestion. I know, after these treatment, the person normally have to abstain from certain food. But at that time, the entire intensine track is very vulnerable- it is opened to infection and attacks.

Read the rest of this entry »

Many people like to enjoy a chilling glass of iced lemon tea on a hot day or after a days’ work. My friends frequently love to order ice lemon tea after walking around shopping or to accompany their meals - some restaurants offer free refills.

The belief that iced or cold drinks are very damaging for your health originate from Eastern beliefs. Any physician treating patients using traditional Chinese medication will tell you it is a strict no no to take any form of cold drinks- especially when your body is very hot or at night. My grandmother and the grandmother of my friends also frown on this.

Another strict no no is to take iced drinks with your meal. From biology, we know that our body need to digest food at room temperature. So if you were to accompany your meals with cold water, you reduce your system’s capacity to digest food at its optimum levels which will bring you all kinds of stomach ailments such as stomach spasms, acid reflux, indigestion, wind in the stomach, bloating, etc.

However, many in the West considered this to be merely old wives superstition and since there is no scientific basis of this, people are told to abandon this ancient ’superstition’. Especially after exercising, we are told that our body need to rehydrate and as such, if you drink iced or cool drinks, the fluid will be absorbed quicker into your working muscles, thus preventing heat strokes or dehydration.

Read the rest of this entry »

If the muscles in your body are under conditioned, it will result in muscle weakness. The muscle weakness will make the person more prone to injury, muscle sprain or pain. Your body does it best to work together as a unit. Whenever there is a discomfort, your body will automatically compensate for the weak muscle by changing to an unnatural position. The unnatural position places excessive pressure on the compensating part.

What happens if you do not do anything about it:

• –constant pain, sometimes acute, sometimes chronic. Lower back pain, stiff shoulders, pain the neck are all indicative of back posture and weak muscles (especially the core muscles)
• Personal Experience
  I have mentioned in a previous post that I have pain on my right knee. for a long time (before gym days). My body tries to reduce that pain but shifting more weight towards the left leg. Now, the pain in my knee is very much reduced after I began putting more focus on core exercises. But my right hip, who have been bearing the brunt for too long, begins to show signs of pain. I am planning to do more core conditioning exercises to strengthen my hip muscles.

  Previously, when I started yoga based exercises, doing abdominal and back exercises wrongly (when you do not suck in your belly button towards the spine) will cause tremendous pressure on the lower back. But after one of the instructor advised me to tuck in, I was able to slowly develop a stronger lower back. Now, I do not get lower back pain because I am doing those exercises correctly.

  How to handle posture problems.
  You need to do more stretching and core exercises to strengthen your muscles. And weight bearing exercises to strengthen the weak muscle. If you have an injury, you should not do high intensity exercises. But you need to consider focusing on working on to correct your posture before it gets worst.

  Whenever you start yoga, Pilates or core exercises, let the instructor know that you have an injury. Your instructor will be able to offer you options if a certain post were to bring you lots of pain. Don’t ever force the exercise (especially if you have an injury or chronic pain)- a sharp piercing pain during workout indicates that either you are not ready for the exercise or it’s done wrongly. The safest bet is to go into recommendated exercises slowly and gradually.

  Most important, take the first step to heal any postural issues. Do not be a victim of constant back pain, muscle stiffness anymore. No more spending tonnes of money on frequent massage and spas- once you start to workout your core and do the exercises correctly, your body will feel well.

  Tips:
  You can check out YouTube.com and type in the keywords like ‘exercise injury’ or ‘exercise posture’ to find videos that shows what type of exercises help for certain types of injuries or to improve your posture. I have also compiled some exercise videos on Injuries & Pain Management and Core Muscles (for posture)

• —the part that is well will suffer injury such as fracture or slip disk because the muscles are no longer protecting the bones effectively due to weakness.
• —may led to autodegenerative diseases such as osteoperosis, athritis or osteoarthritis because of weak muscles and more pressure on bones and joints. Read the rest of this entry »