Beauty Talk

Sadia Moyeen, Beautician, La Belle

Q1. Dear Sadia,
I am 12 years old and I have three problems.
I have an oily face. Even after washing my face, it gets oily very quickly. It becomes dark and I look very bad. I use Clearasil Face Wash and Clearasil ointment. Now I also use Ponds Angel face; after putting it, my face looks very fresh but it does not last too long. How can I get rid of this oil from my face?

I have a semi-oval face. My hair is very thick, wavy and unmanageable. It is also a bit rough. My hair is shoulder length. I use Sunsilk with sunflower extracts, L'Oreal conditioner and a little Livon. Still my hair is unmanageable. Can you please suggest a haircut which will suit me and how I can make my hair silky and manageable?

My arms are very hairy. I have removed hairs once with Nair hair removing cream. The problem is that the next day, it again starts to grow. Now my arms have become rough and a bit spiky. Can you please tell me what to do? Is there any other way to remove the hair on my arms? I will be very thankful to you if you can help me out. Thank you.

Dear Reader
(A) Wash your face with cold water 2-3 times a day. Apply a pack made with HSP multani mitti, rose water (few drops) and a pinch of haldi every morning to get rid of excess oil. Rub an ice cube for instant re freshening whenever you feel the need.

(B) Try deep conditioning treatment for conditioning your hair. Straightening is also an option.

(C) Try waxing your hands; it will eventually lessen the hair growth as well.

Q2. Dear Sadia,
I have tons of problems with my hair. Other than excessive hair loss, I also have to suffer dry, unmanageable and rough hair. Even after I wash my hair with shampoo, it turns dry after a few days. Lice are also another nightmare. Could you please suggest any solutions to get rid of these undying problems?
Worried girl

Dear reader
Oil your hair twice a week, wrap a hot towel for a few minutes on your head before Shampooing. Use a good conditioner after the Shampoo.

Lice meditation is freely available at the pharmacy Try 'licel', mix with coconut oil and leave for a few hours. Comb out your hair with a fine tooth comb and shampoo. Repeat weekly for 2-3 weeks.

Q.3 Dear Sadia,
I am an 18 year-old girl. I want to make my hair silky, soft, shiny and straight. I tried Wellastrate and also blow dry but nothing worked. Can you please advise me some other way to straighten my hair without harming it? I am also losing a lot of my hair. What can I do to reduce it?
Seema

(3) Dear Seema,
Please tell me you didn't use the Wellastrate yourself? Blow-dry should have worked as a temporary solution.
Try conditioning your hair after every shampoo to relax it: Use Livon silky potion after that. If blow-drying didn't work, ironing might help. Use that option sparingly, and at a good saloon.

Apply a pack with egg, yoghurt (1 lbs) onion juice, (1 tbs) for falling hair every week. It'll stink but will work well.

Agony Medic

Dr. Lutful Aziz, FCPS, PHD, Consultant "analgesia", Pain relief centre

What is lower back pain?
Lower back pain is the most common muscular disorder in industrialized societies. It is only second to common cold as a cause of work absences in patients less than 55 years of age. When compensation for time off work, long-term disability, and medical and legal expenses are considered, it is the costliest amongst all medical diagnoses. When patients do not improve with the usual therapy or do not recover at all, the pain and its disruption of their life-style complicate the problem. Thus, effective therapy early on during the illness is crucial.

Sources of pain

Lower back pain is often due to an incompetence of the soft tissue structures. The onset of pain is believed to be caused or triggered by a mechanical injury. For several reasons, it is often very difficult to localize the source of low back pain. It is not always associated with radiographic (X-ray) evidence. It is also difficult to identify the injury site based on the patient's description of pain. The protective mechanism of the reactive muscle spasm may mask the true source. Lower back pain may arise from one or several anatomic sites --intervertebral discs, facet joints, myofascial attachments, and sacroiliac joints.

The intervetebral disc (which lies between two vertebral bodies) is probably the most common site of back pain and may be responsible for up to 85% of cases. The facet joints are probably the primary sites of pain in 10% to 15% of patients with chronic back pain. The sacroiliac joint is responsible for perhaps 5% of cases. But this joint is frequently associated with back pain during pregnancy. Damage to the myofascial structures surrounding the spine may also result in low back pain. The muscles of the back are mainly responsible for this. Due to inadequate stretching they get taught and cause pain. Other problems include metabolic bone disease and diabetes, which increases the bone degeneration and subsequently pain.

Diagnosis
The exact cause of low back pain is not always very simple to diagnose. It often requires different investigations and imaging techniques.

History: Diagnosis of low back pain requires taking history carefully and physical examination to identify conditions or injuries that may have caused the pain, rule out other back problems that may be more serious, and gain more information about the symptoms and spinal dysfunction.

Pain assessment tools: The primary objective of taking history is to assess the seriousness of the complaint. Many clinicians use pain assessment tools such as questionnaires and pain diagrams that the patient completes. The drawings used can be marked or coloured to localize the site of pain and quantify the severity of pain. It helps to translate the subjective experience of pain into more objective evidence that can be analyzed by the examining physician and used for comparison on subsequent visits.

Other forms of investigations are Physical Examination, Functional Testing. Then there is three types of Imaging Studies. Which is done by Radiography (X-ray), Computed topography (CT),and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Electrodiagnostics Studies is another method.

To be continued...

 

 

Under A Different Sky

"Olden Golden"

If you are ever in the mood for a wild night in town and want to hit the hip and happening restaurants/bars or catch a movie, make sure you are dressed in proper attire, not your low-cuts and tight slacks. Why? Because there is a huge chance you might bump into this uncle or that in the uniform of a busboy or bartender.

You might think I am joking but a few very popular part-time professions of Bengali men in their 50s and 60s here in America are those of liquor store clerks, or busboys in trendy clubs. Receiving your Vodka tonic from wrinkled Bengali hands, you are not sure if you should look away and take the drink or touch it to your head and say salaam to the uncle you see frequently at Bengali parties. They came in the 70s, and some in the 80s. They were younger then, a large part of them were government workers posted in USA who decided to stay for the sake of children's education, taking early retirements. Some came using OP1 or DV1 leaving their jobs back home to start afresh here, but never started anything solid. Their older ages worked against them, making them lose energy and the inspiration to start something fresh. Potentials destroyed before proper use. They worked hard doing odd jobs so that their kids could receive an American education, maybe in their minds they thought that after their children are successful professionals they will not have to work any longer and they will be taken care of.

Not everything flows like a fairy tale, however, so life brings them now to a place where they are stuck as they are too Americanised to go back and live in Bangladesh, and too Bangladeshi to fully accept America.

The women, playing the Bengali grandmother or mother-
in-law, appear more helpless than they were back home. The country full of opportunity might have taught them to go as far as to get their baby sitting licenses but not as far, in most cases, to drive or take public transportation or to speak fluent English, no matter how long they have been in this country.

They have, however, adapted well to the telephones, the televisions, the rice cookers, the ovens and little titbits which make them seem savvier than women of their age in Bangladesh. They have frequent parties, eating pilaf and fish and reminiscing about Bangladesh and its memories. They compare how many times they have each been to Mecca, the current political situations in Bangladesh, and the old recipes of pitha. They put down America, planning trips to Bangladesh, trips which never last more than a few months, because they themselves know in the back of their minds they can't stay there long term. They continue wearing their saris and Punjabi-pyjamas, and make sure to talk about the one who has become too modern by switching from saris to salwar kamiz at their age or has discovered make up and went a little over-board with the red shade of lipstick. They often become possessive or too protective of their sons and daughters.

The feeling of "This is all I have, as my own" works towards that, and sometimes just being away from home they don't realise how times have changed. They are forward thinking in some cases (working in liquor stores) backward thinking in others (getting the children's marriages arranged).

Their stagnant values, their changed morals, their confusion spreads bitterness like the smell of deshi spice. They all love to play the victim this situation, they all love to show off the sacrifices they have made for their children by settling here, but was that truly a totally unselfish decision? If they also didn't think about their own secured future along with their children's would they have settled here? The parents whose kids have made it big also change their circle, ditching the old middle class circles who still earn money from odd jobs. Their clothing become a bit more expensive as well as the cars they ride to parties, but the conversation? Does that change? How can it? The power of the dollar is enough to erase hardship, yet not enough to erase the past.

My prayer goes out to all Bengali men and women in their 50s and 60s living in USA, may they break out of their self-created illusions of bad and good, and right and wrong, may they see better days, and learn to love and let go.

By Iffat Nawaz