Chronic Causes for Sore Muscles and Bones Joints Pain and Aching

Filed Under What Goes Inside Us | October 17th, 2006

Everybody has a couple of hundred bones and several hundred muscles throughout his body. They keep us all together and give us our shape. Without them we might look like a jellyfish, or a ball of putty or clay.

When we were tiny, our bones were kind of soft-so soft, as a matter of fact, that we could neither stand nor walk. And even though the muscles in our legs were able to work perfectly, they weren’t yet strong enough to hold our young bodies if we tried to stand. Our bones start to grow and they harden quickly, and by the time we were a little more than one year old, we were able to stand up and walk by ourself. The bones and muscles of our hands and arms, too, grew and developed so that we could pick up things by ourselves and could feed ourselves without help. Eventually we learned to dress all by ourselves. And most of us became pretty good at throwing and catching balls after we reached five or six years of age.

A human baby, however, grows into a little child who soon learns to use his hands and feet, and most other muscles and bones, in many ways that an animal can’t. Muscles are able to get longer or shorter almost like an elastic rubber band. When they contract and get hard, they become shorter. This happens when you bend your elbow and harden the muscles in your arm. When you straighten out your arm and relax, the muscles get longer and softer.

Every muscle in the body is attached to a bone by a ligament or tendon. It is the tightening (contraction) or the loosening (relaxation) of the muscles and their tendons that pulls on our bones and causes them to move. When you lift your arm, you tighten the muscles in your shoulders; when you drop your arm, you loosen those same muscles.

In order for the muscles to act properly, the nerves that supply them mustt be in good working order. If the nerves don’t work, the muscles cannot tighten or relax.

It is very important that we take good care of our bones and muscles. If we don’t drink enough milk and have too few minerals, such as calcium, in our diet, the bones may not grow the way we want them to. And if bones don’t grow properly, we won’t be as tall as we want to be. The length of our bones decides how tall we will be.
A great many children, at one time or another, break a bone or strain a muscle. Usually, it happens as an accident while running or playing or perhaps falling off a bicycle. Nobody wants that to happen, butt when it does a doctor can almost always fix it so that it will be as good as new again. If a bone is broken, it may be necessary to put it at rest for a few weeks by placing it in a cast. If a muscle or ligament has been torn or strained, it may be necessary to rest that for a few weeks.

A broken arm or leg stops hurting almost the same (lay that the cast is put on. And, fortunately, it doesn’t hurt to take off the cast. For a few days after a cast has been removed, the arm or leg may be a little weak, but it soon gets its usual strength back. A strained muscle or ligament may hurt for a long time, but it, too, even¬tually heals completely.

In many ways, we are much luckier than some of our animal friends. If we exercise regularly and play a lot and eat foods that are good for us, our muscles will become big and powerful. If we lie around the house all day looking at television, or if we don’t play and run and exercise, our muscles may become soft and flabby, and we won’t be very strong.

Here are a few rules to follow to make sure muscles and bones will be healthy:

l. Drink several glasses of milk each day and eat plenty of meats and fresh fruits and vegetables.
2. Don’t cat too much candy and other sweets, as this will make you fat.
3. Exercise regularly, in school and at home, and take part in the games your friends play.
4. Learn to ride a bicycle, to play ball, and to swim, as soon as you are old enough to do so.
5. On nice, sunny days, walk and run a lot, instead of staying around the house doing nothing.
6. Help out with family chores. If you live in a house, help to mow the lawn and rake the leaves; if you live in an apartment, help to keep it neat and clean. These are all good ways to exercise muscles and bones and accomplish something useful at the same time.
7. Dancing is great exercise as well as good fun, and boys, as well as girls, should learn.

Here are some things to remember if someone injures a muscle or bone and seems to be really badly hurt:

1. It is always better to lie flat and wait for a grown-up to help out than it is to try to walk on an injured foot or leg.
2. Whenever an injury affects the neck or back, it is especially important to lie as flatt as a pancake and not try to move. Wait for someone to come and help out.
3. If an arm is hurt, it should held close to the side of the Fwd and moved as little as possible.

Our Teeth, Laser Teeth Whitening, Implants, Bleaching and Crowns

Filed Under What Goes Inside Us | October 14th, 2006

By the time a child is two and a half to three years of age, he has gotten all of his first, or “baby,” teeth. There are twenty of them: ten in the upper jaw and ten in the lower. The two center teeth are called central incisors; the next two on each side of the central incisors are called lateral incisors; the next two on each side of the lateral incisors are called eyeteeth; the next two on each side of the eyeteeth are called first molar teeth; and the next two on each side of the first molar teeth are called second molar teeth.

A child uses these teeth only for a few years, after which time they begin to fall out and second teeth, called , permanent teeth, start to conic in. ages at which baby teeth fall out varies quite a bit.

By the time a child becomes grown up, he or she has thirty-two teeth. The two center teeth are called central incisors; the next two on each side of the central incisors are lateral incisors; the next two on each side of the lateral incisors are canine teeth; the next two on each side of the canines are called first premolar teeth; the next two on each side of the first premolars are second premolar teeth; the next two on each side of the second premolars are first molar teeth; the next two on each side of the first molars are second molar teeth; and the next two are called third molar, or wisdom, teeth.

No one knows why, but the lower baby teeth seem to fall out earlier than upper ones, and the lower permanent teeth usually come in earlier than the upper ones. Of course, it may be different in some children, but eventually all the baby teeth come out and permanent ones come in. Once in a while, baby teeth don’t fall out when they should, and this may delay a second tooth from appearing. When this happens, a dentist may have to pull the baby teeth. It doesn’t hurt much to have a baby tooth pulled, especially one that is almost ready to come out by itself anyway.

Children don’t mind verv much when they lose their baby teeth, even if it means having a big empty space in the front of the mouth. All youngsters understand that the loss of baby teeth is a sign of growing up. As a matter of fact, some children like to lose baby teeth because, when they put one tinder their pillow at night, a Tooth Fairy sometimes comes by, takes the tooth, and leaves some money in its place.

It is natural for a little bleeding to occur when a first tooth is pulled or falls out. This doesn’t cause any trouble, as only a few drops of blood are lost, and the bleeding almost always stops by itself. Parents used to tell youngsters not to keep putting the tongue in the space left behind when a tooth comes out. They used to say that would make the second tooth come in crooked. We now know that this isn’t true, and that no harm results from putting the tongue in the empty space.

The principal parts of a tooth and its sur¬roundings are: enamel (1), dentine (2). pulp cavity (3), gum (a), root (5), and jawbone (6).

Teeth are made of the hardest substance in our body, much harder and tougher than bones. They have to be. Just think of all that chewing three times a day all the years of our lives. But even the toughest teeth get holes, or cavities, if we don’t take care of them properly. And even the strongest teeth can break if we try to chew such hard things as metal coins or stones. So use your teeth wisely. They are meant for chewing foods, and nothing else.

The main parts of a tooth are:

1. The hard enamel covering.
2. Under the enamel is another hard layer called dentine.
3. Beneath the dentine is the soft pulp cavity through which blood vessels nourish the teeth and nerves supply it with feeling.
4. All teeth have roots that go down deep into the bones of the jaw. These roots anchor the teeth solidly to the bone so that they don’t wiggle or become loose.
5. The socket of a tooth is the part of the jawbone that surrounds the roots of the teeth.
6. The gums surround the base of the teeth, and it is very important that they stay healthy and not become infected. If they do become infected, the infection may spread ‘ and damage the teeth. It is also important to brush teeth regularly two to three times each day. This will not only prevent germs from growing beneath the gums, but it will prevent tartar from forming. (Tartar is a yellowish-brown crust that may damage the tooth and the bone that surrounds it, if it isn’t removed regularly. A trip to the dentist twice a year will take care of tartar, but regular brushing of the teeth helps, too.)

Most people are proud of pretty teeth, but, unfortunately, not everyone’s teeth are nice to look at. Although dentists have discovered marvelous ways to make even ugly teeth look prettier, they find it difficult to work on unhealthy teeth. So it is a good idea to keep your teeth healthy while you are young. If they stay healthy but their appearance needs improvement, this can be done when you are older.

How We Speak

Filed Under What Goes Inside Us | October 13th, 2006

Did you ever happen to think about how you learned to talk? Or why you couldn’t talk until you were a year or two old? One reason is that you had to do a lot of listening during the time you were a tiny tot in order to learn the meaning of words, and in order to make the sound of words.

When you were just a few weeks old, your mother probably said “hi” to you when she came into your room. You didn’t answer because you didn’t understand the meaning of the word “hi.” But she repeated the word many, many times each clay, week in and week out, and finally you did understand her and probably said “hi” back to her. You had learned to imitate the sound she made and, at the same time, learned its meaning. And did you know that if you hadn’t been able to hear, you wouldn’t have been able to talk? Since there would have been no talk to listen to, there would have been nothing to imitate.

When a child hears the same sounds over and over again, he begins to understand what they mean. If the mother says “come here” and motions for the baby to come to her, eventually he knows the meaning of the words. If the baby happens to live in France and the mother says viensici over and over again, the little French child soon realizes that it means the same as “come here.” When a mother points to the electric light in the ceiling and sees “light,” the baby soon learns what a light is, and imitates the sound his mother has made.

The Speech becomes possible when we find out how to use the larynx in the neck, together with the tongue and lips. The larynx-some people call it the Adam’s apple-is located in the neck below the throat and above the windpipe going to the lungs. It is made of cartilage and is held together by muscles and ligaments. In the middle of the larynx are two vocal cords, which vibrate when air passes between them. ,When we tighten our vocal cords and air very hard out of the lungs, we e a high sound. When we relax our vocal cords and blow air out of our lungs, we make a low, deep sound. By using the muscles in the throat to tighten and relax the vocal cords, we learn to make all kinds of different sounds.

When we breathe in, air passes from the outside through the larynx and down through the windpipe into the bungs. During times when we are not talking, the vocal cords are relaxed and apart. When we talk or sing, we tighten the vocal cords and narrow the opening in the larynx. Air passing through the vibrating vocal cords causes them to vibrate, producing sound. It is very much the same as producing sound by blowing through a clarinet or a trumpet. When we play a clarinet we cause a thin piece of wood, called a reed, to vibrate as we blow air over it. When we blow a trumpet, our lips vibrate as we blow air into the instrument’s opening. We also make a sound when we blow air through a whistle. In fact, whenever air passes with force from a larger to a smaller passageway, sound is created. You can do that by letting air out of a balloon by allowing only a small opening at the top.

When the sound waves we create by blowing air out of the windpipe and larynx reach the mouth, we are able to turn those sounds into words. We do this by using our tongue and lips and jaws. If you want to see how important the tongue and lips and jaws are in speaking, just try to talk without moving them. You find you can make sounds, but you can’t make words. Your jaws, and even your teeth, help to make your talk clear. For instance, try to say the word “mom” with your jaw open. It can’t be done. Or try to say the word “open” with your mouth tightly shut. You’ll find you can’t do that either.

As children grow up they learn to control their larynx and their tongue and lips better. They even find that they can train these organs to perform just like a fine instrument. Some boys and girls take singing lessons, and when they do, they are really learning how to use their breathing, their larynx, and their tongue and lips so they work together smoothly. A child who sings beautifully has learned how to control his vocal cords, too, so that they vibrate just right in order to make just the musical sounds wanted.

The vocal cords are delicate and can be injured by constant yelling, shouting, or screaming. Did you ever see someone just home from an exciting football or basketball game? He may be hoarse from having shouted encouragement to his team. If he only does this once in a while, it probably will do no great damage. Still, it is better to speak softly and take good care of your voice.

When someone gets an inflammation of his larynx, he may also become hoarse. Some children and grown-ups actually can’t talk because of the inflammation, but if they stay quiet, drink a lot of water and fruit juice, and take their medicine regularly, they will see the condition clear up within a few days and their voice return to normal.

Just above the larynx is a piece of tissue called the epiglottis. Whenever we swallow food or liquid, the epiglottis closes the entrance to the larynx. This prevents food or drink from getting into the windpipe or lungs while we are eating. Once in a while a person talks and eats at the same time, and the larynx opens and the food or liquid goes down the wrong way-right into the windpipe. And, of course, he coughs and chokes. That’s why nobody, especially a child, should try to talk with his mouth full.

How Our Nose Can Smell, Blocked Nose Infection and Bleeding

Filed Under What Goes Inside Us | October 13th, 2006

Inside the nose, in the middle part, there are nerves with a fancy name. They are called olfactory nerves, and they are responsible for our being able to smell. The air we breathe in passes by these nerves. If the air has an odor, let us say, of roses, then we immediately smell roses. These nerves are extremely sensitive. They can tell hundreds upon hundreds of different odors from one another, and they transmit along the nerve to the brain a separate signal for each smell. The brain then interprets each smell separately. And these nerves practically never make a when the air smells of roses, they never transmit the signal for lilacs or some other flower.

Think of all the many odors you know. In a second, with no trouble at all, you can tell the smell of bacon cooking in the kitchen even without being in the kitchen yourself. You can smell perfume, if your mother uses it, without being anywhere near her. And, of course, there are many outdoor smells-newly cut grass, fresh flowers, burning leaves, and zillions of others that you can spot as quickly as you can say Jimmy Cricket.

It’s pretty remarkable, isn’t it? And yet most animals can smell even better than people can. Cats, dogs, and horses have such a much better sense of smell than we do that, if one knows you, he can usually smell your body’s odor and everyone has a special kind of body odor-long before you come anywhere near him. If you are outdoors and the wind is blowing right, an animal can smell you coming front as far as a block or so away. Wild animals have an even better sense of smell than tame animals. A deer or it rabbit can smell the approach of a dangerous animal when it is far away. This wonderful sense of smell protects them, so when danger approaches they can run or hide in plenty of time.

We mentioned that everyone has a body odor of his or her own. That’s true. And the smell of a clean body, whether it is of a child or grown-up, can be very pleasant. It is only when people wear dirty clothes or don’t bathe often enough that their bodies smell bad.

The sense of smell all but disappears when we have a bad cold, because the membranes in our noses become swollen and irritated and stuffed with mucus. As a result, the nerves aren’t stimulated by odors in the air. You can test for yourself what happens when you can’t breathe through your nose. First, smell something nice by breathing in deeply through your nose. Next, pinch your nose closed and breathe in deeply through your mouth. Whatever you smelled before you practically can’t smell now. That’s what happens when your nose gets clogged up when you have a cold.

The nose is composed mainly of bone and cartilage. Its two cavities are separated by the septum, a wall of cartilage. The nasal bone is quite delicate and is easily fractured. In most cases, it is not too difficult to restore a fractured nose to its normal shape.

The sense of smell also has a great deal to do with the sense of taste. The next time you have a cold you will realize that you really can’t taste anything, unless you can smell it at the same time. If you want to, you can test this even without having a cold. Ask someone to blindfold you and then pinch shut your nose or stuff it for a few minutes with a little cotton. Then, ask to be given something familiar to eat. You may find that it doesn’t taste familiar at all.

How We Hear and Our Ear Function with Hearing Aids

Filed Under What Goes Inside Us | October 13th, 2006

Sound travels by sound waves that are much like the waves you see in water. Sound waves can be strong and big, like a stormy sea, or they can be weak, as when the sea is flat and calm. When a jet plane flies directly overhead, the sound waves are strong and we hear a loud sound. When somebody whispers softly, the sound waves are small and weak.

Sound waves can travel through air or water or even through solid things such as doors and walls. When you hear your mother and dad talking in another room through a closed door, you are hearing the sound waves of their voices passing through your door. And when a friend yells from the out¬side and asks you to come out and play, you may be hearing the sound waves right through the walls of your house.

Hearing takes place when sound waves enter the ear and strike against the eardrum, causing it to vibrate that’s moving back and forth quickly, or quivering, almost like what happens when you shake a bowl of Jello.

When the eardrum vibrates it causes three little bones just behind the eardrum to vibrate too. The vibration of these three bones-the malleus, incus, and strapes-transmits a signal to the inner ear. The inner ear is filled with a fluid, and this fluid passes the vibrations along to the nerve of hearing, called the acoustic nerve. The acoustic nerve picks up the signal from the inner ear and sends it on to the brain. The brain then interprets the signals it receives sound and, within the flash of a second, can say, “I hear Mom’s voice” or “that’s Dad speaking” or “that’s the baby crying” or “that’s thunder” or “that’s the music of my favorite song”.

It is really amazing how we hear! And all it takes is the time to blink an eye for anyone to hear something. The second someone makes sound waves by talking, your ear picks up the waves, sends the vibrations to your eardrum, then to the three little bones, then to the inner-ear fluid, then to the nerve of hearing, and finally to that amazing brain inside your skull.

Sound waves are transmitted through the ear canal and the middle ear to nerves in the inner ear, which send Impulses to the brain. The various parts of the ear are very delicate and can be damaged by repeated loud noises.

To keep our hearing at its very best, there are certain rules to follow:

1. Never stick anything into your ear or into anyone else’s ear. The eardrum may be hurt, and that could interfere with hearing. However, if an insect accidentally flies into your ear, or if you accidentally lose something in your ear, don’t worry, because it is easy for a doctor to remove it.

2. Always tell a grown-up when you have a pain in your ear. It may be necessary for you to take med¬icine to clear up an ear problem.

3. Always tell someone if you don’t hear as well as you usually do. You may need to have the wax cleaned out of your ears. Or, if you have an ear infection, you may need medicine to clear it up.

4. Don’t shout into another person’s ear. Remember, very strong sound waves can do damage.

5. Get into the habit of playing your radio or television set softly. It has been found that people who work in places where there is loud noise all the time don’t hear as well as others.

6. When people talk to you, look right at them. You can always hear better when you look at the person who is speaking to you. And that way he won’t have to speak so loudly.

7. Don’t listen to the radio or to television while you are reading a book or magazine. If you want to be sure to understand what you are reading, concentrate on it. If you want to hear the radio or television program properly, then concentrate on it. You can’t do both well at the same time.

How We See

Filed Under What Goes Inside Us | October 11th, 2006

Of all the various parts of the body, the eyes are among the most wonderful. They are like two big, shiny-bright, beautiful windows through which all the marvelous sights of the world are viewed. We don’t appreciate our eyes sufficiently or we would take better care of them all the time. And if you want to find out what life would be like without your eyes, ask someone to blindfold you for a little while and let you walk about your room. Then you’ll learn a little bit about how difficult life is without vision. And you’ll discover how remarkable it is that unsighted people manage to get along so well without the use of their eves.

Did you know that unsighted people develop extra-fine hearing? And that their fingers and hands develop a much better sense of touch than those of us who can see? And that their ability to smell and taste things develops better? Well, that’s because all these other senses make up for the loss of sight. In a way, unsighted people “see” with their fingers and their ears and their noses and their tongues.

To understand how we see, we must learn something about the eye’s structure and how it works. The part of the eye we see in the face is only the front of the eye. The entire eye is shaped like a ball and is called the eyeball. Most of its lies inside the head in a special bony socket called the orbit. The front of the eyeball is covered by a clear, thin tissue, the cornea. You can look through a cornea as you can a piece of clear glass. The cornea covers the iris, the colored portion of the eye. Practically all babies are born with blue-colored eyes. Some eyes stay blue permanently. Others turn brown or green or gray when the child is several months old.

There is a black-looking opening in the center of the iris in everybody’s eyes. This is called the pupil, and it is the part of the eye through which light passes. The pupil gets smaller when exposed to bright light and larger in dim light. As a result of the iris’ opening and closing, the pupil looks larger or smaller, depending on how much or how little light there is.

The white part of the eye is called the sclera, and its job is to protect the rest of the eye. We don’t see through the white portions of our eyes.

Covering the front of the eye and the insides of the eyelids-except where the cornea is located-is a tissue called the conjunctiva. It protects the eyeball from infection, and from any dust and dirt that might be flying around.

Behind the iris and pupil in the center of the eye is an elliptical lens. It is like the lens of a camera, and like camera’s lens it lets light pass through it. The lens can change its gape, getting rounder or flatter in order to bring the light into focus.

Light passes through the cornea and pupil, then through the lens, then through the clear fluid that fills the inside of the eyeball, and, finally, hits the retina in the very back part of the eyeball.

The retina, which lines the back of the eyeball just like wallpaper lines all, is the part of the eye with which we actually see. It is like the film in a camera. Without film in a camera, it doesn’t make any difference how often we click the shutter or how little or how much light passes through the lens no picture will develop. It’s the same with our eyes. If we didn’t have a retina, no picture would result.

But this isn’t the end of the story about how we see. When light hits the retina, the retina transmits a signal along the nerve of sight-called the optic nerve-to a special part of the brain. And when that special part of the brain receives the signal, we finally fee what the eye is looking at.

Let’s go over it once more:
1. Light passes through the cornea and pupil to the lens.
2. It passes through the lens and the fluid of the eyeball to the retina.
3. The retina picks up the light impulses and passes them along to the optic nerve.
4. The optic nerve sends the signals to the brain.
5. The brain translates the signals into sight.

In many parts of this book, we discuss how smart the brain is. Just think of it. In the flash of a second, your brain translates what it sees and you say to yourself, “I see a dog,” “I see a boat,” “I see boom,” or “I see Dad.” But what happens when you see something that isn’t familiar to you? You see it, but you don’t understand it. Suppose you look through a microscope and see all sorts of strange cells and germs. You would have to say to yourself, “I see it, but it doesn’t mean anything to me.”

So it is not only important for us to see things clearly. We must study carefully and understand what we see. Most children ask questions when they don’t understand what they are seeing. That’s what helps us to grow up to be smart.

The iris of the eye. like the iris of an automatic camera, closes down in strong light and opens up in weak light to control the amount of light that enters.