A follicle refers to a crust or cavity from which the hair emerges on the surface of the skin. The term folliculitis is used to describe the inflamed condition of the hair. Depending upon the causal organism, folliculitis causes can be characterized as follows:

- Bacterial Folliculitis
- Fungal Folliculitis
- Viral Folliculitis
- Parasitic Folliculitis

Bacterial folliculitis
Bacterial folliculitis develops when bacteria enters the body through a cut, scrape, surgical incision, or multiplies in the skin near a hair follicle. The bacteria can get trapped and the infection may spread from the hair follicles to the other parts of the body.

Bacterial folliculitis may be superficial or deep. Superficial folliculitis, also called impetigo, consists of pustules which are small-circumscribed elevations of the skin containing pus. The pustules are often surrounded by a ring of redness. Deep folliculitis results when the infection goes deeper and involves more follicles to produce furuncles and carbuncles. These are more serious than folliculitis and can cause permanent damage and scarring to the skin.
Bacterial folliculitis usually occurs in children and adults. Staphylococcus aureus is the most common of bacterial folliculitis causes. It also causes sycosis, a deep chronic infection that involves the entire hair follicle.

Besides the species of streptococcus, pseudomonas, proteus and coliform bacteria have also been indicated as of bacterial folliculitis causes. “Hot Tub” Folliculitis is a condition caused by the pathogen pseudomonas aeruginosa. This disease is often caused due to unsanitary conditions at a spa. The pathogens identified in Gram-negative folliculitis include Klebsiella, Enterobacter, and Proteus species. This type of folliculitis sometimes develops in people receiving long-term antibiotic treatment for acne.

Some superficial follicle infections spontaneously resolve themselves. However, bacterial infections like impetigo, furuncles, carbuncles and “hot tub” folliculitis may not resolve spontaneously and generally require prescription therapy. All these infections are typically diagnosed by clinical presentation, after which predisposing factors are identified and eliminated.

Fungal folliculitis
As the name suggests fungal folliculitis is caused due to fungal infections. Superficial fungal infections are found in the top layers of the skin; deep fungal infections invade deeper layers of the skin. The infection from hair follicles can also spread to blood or internal organs.

The dermatophytic fungus, pityrosporum fungus and the yeast candida folliculitis are the prominent among the fungal folliculitis causes.

Dermatophytic folliculitis is caused most often by a zoophilic species, i.e. fungal species that show attraction to or affinity for animals. The condition presents as follicular pustules around a hardened erythematous (reddened) plaque. A deep fungal penetration causes a high degree of inflammation and determines the extent of hair shaft loss that occurs due to the infection.

Tinea capitis or ringworm of the head is the most important form of pediatric dermatophytic folliculitis. The clinical features of tinea capitis vary considerably depending on the species responsible for the infection. Typically, there is partial alopecia with a varying amount of inflammation.

In the non-inflammatory variants, asymmetrical lesions with short broken hair, 1 to 3 mm in length, are observed. Slight inflammation with scaling may be observed on careful inspection.

The most severe inflammatory reactions are called kerion and produce painful boggy masses studded with pustules. These lesions can result in severe hair loss and significant scarring when the disease is in advanced stages. The diagnosis of tinea capitis is established by identifying the organism in infected hairs under the microscope. A diagnosis is often confirmed by cultures.

Tinea barbae is a superficial dermatophytic infection that is limited to the bearded areas of the face and neck and occurs almost exclusively in older adolescent and adult males. The clinical presentation of tinea barbae includes deep folliculitis, red inflammatory papules and pustules with exudation, crusting and associated hair shaft loss. The two main species causing the infection are T. mentagrophytes and T. verrucosum.

Pityrosporum folliculitis is caused by pityrosporum yeasts resulting in an itchy eruption. The lesions are reddish follicular papules and pustules located mainly on the upper back, shoulders and chest.
Candida folliculitis is caused by the Candida species, ubiquitous fungi that most commonly affect humans.

Viral folliculitis
Viral folliculitis involves a variety of viral infections of the hair follicle. Infection by the herpes simple virus (HSV) often progress to form pustular or ulcerated lesions, and eventually a crust. Infection caused by molluscum contagiosum indicates an immuneosuppressed state which manifests as multiple whitish, itchy papules over the beard area. There are also some reports of folliculitis caused by herpes zoster infection.

Parasitic folliculitis
Parasites causing folliculitis are usually small pathogens that burrow into the hair follicle to live there or lay their eggs. Mites such as demodex folliculorum and demodex brevis are natural hosts of the human pilo-sebaceous follicle.

Dr. Krakovsky recently received an award for the Most Compassionate Doctor in 2009 in America.Every month more than 60,000 patients across the United States provide Vitals Patient Choice with online reviews about personal experiences with their doctors.

They rate various components such as bedside manner, doctor-patient face time, degree of follow-up, courtesy of office staff, promptness, and overall opinion.Dr. Krakovsky’s patients have expressed their esteemed opinion of his bedside manner and identified him as one of America’s Most Compassionate Doctors.

This award compliments Dr. Krakovsky’s 100 Best Cosmetic Surgeons of the Millennium awards (2005) and 100 Best Cosmetic Surgeons of the World (2008). Other past honors include an Honorary Membership in French Society of Aesthetic Surgery and Honorary Professorship at the South East Asia College of Cosmetic Surgery.

Dr. Krakovsky is internationally renowned surgeon and speaker on aesthetic, plastic and cosmetic surgery. He has authored eight medical books and chapters and over one hundred medical articles published in prestigious journals.

How would a person know if he or she has acid reflux? How does acid reflux feel like? It is a burning sensation that affects the upper abdomen after a heavy meal when a person is already relaxing. Later, the pain goes up to the breastbone and to the chest. From this discomfort, it can lead to the inflammation of the esophagus, indigestion, hoarseness and many other symptoms.

Acid reflux disease is the condition that gives uneasiness to many adults including infants by causing sudden pains and burning in the chest. Its most common symptom is called heartburn. The condition is characterized by refluxing or backing up of the stomach acid into the esophagus. While heartburn can normally take place sometimes, it cannot be always rated as acid reflux disease. But if heartburn occurs twice to thrice a week, it is more probably a symptom of acid reflux.

In many cases, the symptoms of acid reflux disease occur after a fatty meal, when drinking liquor or beverages which contains caffeine, when lying down right after meal and worse when smoking. And because of these unpleasant sensations brought about by acid reflux, it can severely affect your health and your lifestyle. A number of people who suffered from this disease also suffered in the quality of lifestyle. Who would be enjoying life if there were a constant reminder of pain? The symptoms are so obvious that you do not need a doctor to diagnose it.

For this particular disease, there could be a variety of treatments that you can choose from. Symptoms which occur less than five times in a month can easily be treated by over the counter medicines. The doctor can give you pieces of advice on the kind of medicine appropriate for you. However, if your body does not work well with the prescribed medicines, it would be best to shift to a new one or seek for another option. Medicines formulated from natural herbs have less or no side effects.

For cases of acute acid reflux, surgical treatment may already be recommended to you. The standard treatment that has been preferred for a long time is called nissen fundoplication. In this surgical procedure, the stomach is wrapped to reinforce the sphincter and thereby preventing the stomach acid from refluxing.

In any manner, the effective way of finding relief from acid reflux symptoms is the natural way. Some simple steps that can work together with your medications will effectively cast away your suffering from this disease. A modified lifestyle will help you make things better. Things to be changed include your dietary habits, refraining from smoking and minimizing the alcohol intake. Salty foods have been found out to aggravate acid reflux disease as much as the fatty foods. Taking extra table salts in your meal can expose you to graver risks.

Obesity doesn’t only harm the heart but can worsen acid reflux disease as well. The excess fat in the abdomen amplifies the pressure in it causing the stomach acid to rise up to the gullet. So diet must be intensively watched out so as to avoid the symptoms and the discomfort they caused.

Natural cure of this disease also includes exercise. Proper stretching can help reduce the pressure on your stomach and subsequently helping you fight the symptoms of acid reflux disease.

If you can follow the preventive measures against acid reflux disease, then you are on your way to beating acid reflux without turning to medications.

Atkins diet foods are easy to find and available everywhere. There are many varieties to choose from, whether you pick prepackaged low-carb diet foods or make your own meals. No matter how you want to do the Atkins plan, there is a solution out there for you.

You’ll need to keep the Atkins food pyramid in mind when you make food choices. The Atkins pyramid looks much different than the USDA Food Guide Pyramid. The base of the pyramid consists of protein sources such as eggs, fish, beef, chicken and tofu. On a daily basis, your diet should consist primarily of these foods. The second tier has low glycemic vegetables like salad greens, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus and spinach.

The third tier is made up of berries and avocado. Fruits should be used on an occasional basis after the initial stages of the Atkins diet. Vegetable and seed oils, cheese, dairy, nuts and legumes are used sparingly and in appropriate portions. While the FDA pyramid has oils and fats at the top peak, the Atkins pyramid places whole grain foods in this spot. Whole grain foods should be used very occasionally and don’t make up the mainstay of the Atkins diet.

When you start the Atkins plan, you’ll need to make sure you understand which foods are acceptable for your stage of the program. The Induction phase is the most restrictive, but it only lasts two weeks.

You owe it to your dieting success to stay within the acceptable foods list. One of the best ways to do this is to follow the Atkins menu plans that are printed within the New Diet Revolution book. There are also Atkins cookbooks and cookbooks that are geared toward other low carb diets that are helpful in formulating meal plans.

It’s a helpful idea to use a cheat sheet of acceptable Atkins foods wherever you go. If you are out and about and hungry, the last thing you want to do is to try to think back in your memory to figure out what you can and cannot eat. Carrying a list of acceptable foods with you will make finding a snack or meal while out on the run easy. You can’t always rely on “low carb” labels to tell you whether or not something is diet friendly. Ever since low carb became the new diet craze, manufacturers have been jumping on the bandwagon to attract Atkins dieters. They label items low carb to sell products and don’t have your health in mind. Relying on foods from your own personal list is the best way to stay on the plan.

Another good resource for keeping track of the appropriate Atkins foods is an online diet program. There are several available. Some are free and some have a small monthly fee. The programs require you to register and then they provide you with personal weekly menu plans based on your needs and your carbohydrate gram level. There are normally printable weekly shopping lists that make picking up your Atkins diet foods from the grocery store easy and quick.

Atkins diet food is easy to find once you know what you are looking for. The books, food pyramid and online resources can help you make better food choices and stay on the diet for the long term.

Fast food is a big part of modern life these days, making it very hard to teach a child how he or she should eat healthy. The cheapest and easiest foods are those that are normally the least healthy. If you give your child the choice between healthy food and junk food, you normally won’t like the results.

Even though it isn’t possible to get a child to like all healthy foods, there are some ways to get your child to try and hopefully like at least a few of them. You can be as creative as you like, as getting
kids to eat healthy foods can be a little harder than you may think.

Even though it would be great if your kid understood the importance of
fruits and vegetables, this isn’t always possible. If you can’t get them to eat good food willingly, there are ways to sneak them in, such as making muffins out of bananas or apples, or pizza with
spinach on it.

You can refer to broccoli as “trees”, making them more fun to eat. There are many different names you can call fruits and vegetables, even making up your own if you prefer. Most kids prefer to eat
foods that sound fun.

Ranch dressing is great for broccoli, while peanut butter is a great topping for celery. There are several combinations for vegetables that can make them taste much better. You can let your child pick a topping for a vegetable, even if it’s something you wouldn’t
normally like yourself.

Just as much as calling them names help kids eat healthy foods, making them look funny also helps. You can do this by making funny designs on the plate, or setting them up to look like people. Although some parents don’t like their kids playing with their food, sometimes it
helps to get them to eat healthier.

There are several ways to make your kids eat healthier, but to make them enjoy it also has to be fun as well. This isn’t always an easy task, because kids normally don’t like foods that are good for them. It can however, be done with a bit of creativity. Hopefully, doing this will help your child develop a love of healthy foods for the
rest of their lives.

Researchers said Wednesday, that a simple surgical procedure destroying certain nerves in the kidney can sharply reduce blood pressure in patients whose hypertension cannot be controlled with conventional medications.

On the study was conducted on 52 patients whose blood pressure averaged 178/96, despite the fact that they were taking five hypertension medications.Their blood pressure dropped by 32/12, while a control group of 54 patients receiving only drugs showed no change.

Dr. Douglas Weaver, division head of cardiovascular medicine at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, who was not involved in the study said:”Those blood pressure reductions are pretty remarkable,” he added “Those patients had been given everything and had not responded…. No, the study is far too small. But they have shown that here is a way we could potentially lower blood pressure.”

A hypertension specialist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Dr. Suzanne Oparil, who also was not involved in the research, noted that “this is an extremely important study. We did work in the 1980s that showed that this prevents hypertension in animals, but had no way of translating it into humans. There is an enormous clinical need for this kind of approach.”

All the patients have so far been followed only for six months. But some people in an earlier trial of the same procedure have now been followed for as long as two and a half years and their blood pressure has not gone back up.

Smoke cigarettes can lead to dozens of different diseases, but apparently hypochondria isn’t one of them. Cigarettes are commonly called cancer sticks and coffin nails. The dangers of tobacco are heavily publicized in TV commercials, news articles and on cigarette packaging itself.The Food and Drug Administration believes that more prominent warning labels may help make the 20 percent of Americans who continue to smoke more aware of the consequences of their actions.

The agency has just unveiled 36 more graphic warning labels for public review. The labels feature bolder typography and striking imagery of corpses and cancerous lesions, and will eventually take up at least 50 percent of a cigarette pack’s packaging. In June, the FDA will choose nine finalists from the current 36 contenders; at that point, cigarette manufactures will have to incorporate them into their packaging within 15 months.

The first cigarette warning label appeared in 1966. “Caution: Cigarette Smoking May be Hazardous to Your Health,” it gently warned. Over the following decades, the admonishments grew longer and sterner, but they remained informational in nature, employing nothing more than rational, sans-serif scientific fact to make their argument: “SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy.” “SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Cigarette Smoke Contains Carbon Monoxide.”

The new warning labels are different. Instead of merely informing, they aim to scare, shame and stigmatize smokers into healthy compliance. “Tobacco smoke can harm your children,” reads one paired with an image of a squalling toddler.

Manufacturers of relatively benign products pay Madison Avenue geniuses big money to make their offerings sound more illicit. And thus in the last few years have seen the emergence of hamburgers that sound like they can give you a hangover.

There are energy drinks, which grew into a multibillion-dollar market virtually overnight by playing to the average teen’s unquenchable thirst for hip insurgence. They paired comically lethal names with oversized, graphically frantic packaging that looked like beer cans on steroids and meth.

The new warning labels face a paradoxical challenge. To capture anyone’s attention in a media-saturated world, they must be unusually striking, they need vivid colors, arresting compositions, glamour.

FDA and a company from California is working, and voluntarily recalling the teething tablets for infants and toddlers.The tablets was manufactured by Standard Homeopathic Company and are sold as Hyland’s Teething Tablets and are sold in bottles of 50 to 250 tablets.Some adverse problems have been reported, the consumers who are concerned about the safety of the product can contact the company for instructions on a refund or replacement product.

The Teething Tablets UPC codes included in the recall are:

- Hyland’s Teething Tablets, 125 tablets, UPC # 3 54973 75041
- Hyland’s Teething Tablets, 250 tablets, UPC # 3 54973 75042
- Hyland’s Teething Tablets, 125 tablets, UPC # 3 54973 75066
- Hyland’s Teething Tablets, 50 tablets, UPC # 3 54973 75044
- Hyland’s Teething Tablets, 145 tablets, UPC # 3 54973 75121
- Hyland’s Teething Tablets, Clip Strip 6×125 tablets, UPC # 3 54973 35109

For all information and some instructions, consumers should check the website www.hylandsteething.com/recall or to call
1-877-496-5044.

About 2 million baby strollers sold before 2008 at major retailers across the country are being recalled because four infants died of strangulation after becoming trapped in the leg opening under the tray, according to latimes.com.

Graco Children’s Products Inc. announced the voluntary recall of the Quattro Tour and MetroLite strollers Wednesday. Strollers were sold mostly at AAFES, Babies R Us, Burlington Coat Factory, Fred Meyer, Kmart, Meijers, Navy Exchange, Sears, Target and Walmart between November 2000 and December 2007.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commision and Graco issued the alert after receiving reports of four infant strangulation deaths, five infants receiving cuts and bruises and one infant having difficulty breathing.Enfants, especially those younger than 12 months old, can become weddged between the stroller tray and seat bottom if not properly strapped into the stroller, leaving their heads and necks trapped by the tray.

Consumers are advised to stop using these strollers immediately and to contact Graco for a free repair kit.

For a list of the model numbers check on this: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml11/11015.html

For people with multiple sclerosis, it is very important not to let themselves get overheated. When the body overheats, there is usually an increase of symptoms. Medically, this is called a pseudo exacerbation. Typically this causes mild or occasional symptoms to get worse. The most common MS symptoms effected are dizziness, speech difficulties, loss of balance, fatigue, and clarity of thinking. However, it is important to remember that any symptom the person has experienced can be effected.

Cooling vests can be purchased for minimal cost. Some of these vests are designed to be soaked in cool water and put in the freezer, others have inserts that you keep in the freezer until needed, much like ice packs used for keeping lunches cool. For those on a limited income, the National MS Society can sometimes help with purchase.

Wearing a large bath sheet around your neck will do the same thing. Just keep the bath sheet or towel in the freezer until you need it.

Whenever possible, stay out of the direct sun and away from hot, stuffy places. During summer, ask a friend or family member to run errands for you. You might consider hiring a local teenager to do these for you, as well. If you must go out in the heat, drink plenty of water, wear a wide brimmed hat to keep the direct sun off, and always seek shade. Wear a cooling vest or cold towel around your neck. For outdoor activities, invest in a personal, handheld fan, they spray cool water on you and can help lower body temperature.

Listen to your body. If you find yourself feeling unwell, feeling unusually tired, or having an increase in symptoms, stop what you are doing and go cool off. Find an air-conditioned store, or just sit in your car with the air running until you feel better.