Participants: Agatha Thrash (Host), Don Miller, Justina Thomas
Series Code: HYTH
Program Code: HYTH000204
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00:01 The Genito-urinary tract is
00:03 probably the most wonderful the most complex system in the 00:09 body apart from the central nervous system. 00:12 It's so complex it is so wonderful that sometimes 00:16 it has some problems with it and we will be discussing 00:19 some of the problems that the genito-urinary system can have 00:23 in this next program, we hope that you will join us for it. 00:45 Welcome to Help Yourself To Health 00:47 with Dr. Agatha Thrash of Uchee Pines Institute 00:51 and now here is your host Dr. Thrash. 00:54 Because of it's complexity and because of the diligent work 01:01 that it does all the time day and night, because of that 01:05 kidney is subject to certain problems that other parts 01:09 of the body may not be subject to. 01:11 One of the things that it has to do is to take care of every 01:17 bit of the blood that courses through the body, 01:20 all the blood that the heart pumps through the kidneys 01:24 at one time or other to get cleansed and to get purified 01:28 also to have some readjustments of the PH, of the blood and 01:33 of a variety of other things. 01:34 The kidney is responsible for taking excess water out of 01:39 the blood or if the blood is a little bit slow on getting 01:45 water from your elementary tract, then the kidney is 01:50 responsible for conserving water. 01:52 It has a wonderful mechanism for re-absorbing all the water 01:58 from the blood that flows through the little nephrons 02:02 that make up the functioning units of the kidney. 02:07 Now the kidney is constantly busy day and night and while it 02:13 has a little rest during the night, it doesn't work quite 02:16 so hard and certain of it's units rest today and then they 02:22 wake up and work tomorrow, then after a few hours 02:26 of working they rest again and then wake up and work again. 02:31 It's a very marvelous mechanism to control which nephrons work 02:36 and which ones don't work at any given time. 02:38 Now as blood flows through the kidneys if it has germs 02:43 in the blood then because of the complexity of the workings 02:49 of the little blood vessels inside the kidney, 02:52 because of that these germs can be filtered out and can 02:58 setup housekeeping in the kidney. 03:01 Now the kidney is pretty resistant to infection so it 03:04 doesn't get infected often, but when it does get infected 03:07 it can cause a very serious problem, the fever goes 03:12 sky high, the person is prostrate, they can't get out 03:16 of bed, they can be so sick that they have no appetite, 03:20 they may have pain in the back, they may have pain on urination 03:24 and they are really quite sick, quite intensely sick. 03:27 Now to get some idea of how the kidney is fairing 03:35 you can do a very mild examination and I have asked 03:38 Justina to help me showing you how to do an examination. 03:45 This is Justina Thomas and we will need to examine her from 03:49 the back, it's a very simple operation to do this little 03:53 maneuver, you first find the waist and that's here, 03:57 and then you find the inferior angle of the scapula, 04:01 that's right here, so half way between the waist and 04:06 the scapula is right here, now if you will slide your 04:10 finger once you have found that toward the spine 04:13 so here is spine and if you'll slide your finger towards that 04:18 you'll be just about at the upper pole of the kidneys 04:21 so the kidney is going to be right here. 04:24 So the first thing that you can do is simply to rub it 04:28 just like this, you rub it, Justina does that hurt? 04:31 - No! - No, well now if she had acute 04:36 pyelonephritis she might say yes, now once you have done 04:40 that and that doesn't cause pain, then you put your hand 04:45 on it take your fist, and you do that, did that hurt? 04:49 - Yes! - It didn't hurt her but if she 04:53 had had pyelonephritis it might have, she might have been 04:57 very much hurt by that, so with a normal person 05:01 you can give them a good sharp blow and there is no problem 05:04 but a person with pyelonephritis don't give them a hard blow 05:08 like that, you just make a little tap and then ask them 05:11 did that cause pain? 05:12 If it does cause pain, then you have a very sick kidney 05:16 now at the same time that you have done this little 05:20 maneuver on the patient, you can ask them the questions 05:25 the questions that I have just gone over that is: 05:27 Do you have pain on urination, is there a problem with pain 05:31 when I don't pound on it, how high is the fever, 05:35 all of those things are things that can help you to know 05:38 if the patient has pyelonephritis, 05:41 thank you Justina. 05:43 Now understanding this about pyelonephritis does not give you 05:49 much of the understanding of the seriousness of this disease 05:54 it can be so serious that it can make little abscesses that 05:58 then heal with a scar, the kidney can loose a great deal 06:03 with a very serious case of pyelonephritis, the person can 06:08 get a third or a half of the kidney destroyed by these 06:13 abscesses that occur in the kidney, so it can be 06:16 quite serious. 06:17 Very fortunately most of the time the pyelonephritis 06:21 is not very serious, does not give the serious symptoms 06:25 that I have mentioned but merely have the person to be 06:31 like having the flu or a cold, they may ache a little 06:36 and have a little fever and they may want to lie around 06:39 the house for a day or so and they do have some urinary 06:42 tract symptoms with pain or burning on urination. 06:45 When they look at the stool after they have passed their 06:52 urine they see in the commode bloody urine or smoky urine. 06:56 The smoke color is very specific of blood in the urine, 07:01 so this smoky color can alert you that the problem is still 07:05 going on even when the patient feels quite good. 07:08 Now what can you do for this problem if you don't have 07:12 professional help and of course for something as serious as 07:16 pyelonephritis you'll want the best professional help that 07:20 you can get, but let's say that you are in a field situation, 07:22 you don't have a physician near by and you believe that your 07:27 patient has pyelonephritis, the look of the urine, 07:31 the symptoms that the person has, your examination which 07:34 reveals tenderness in the proper area, then what can you do? 07:38 the first thing is to give hot packs to the abdomen, 07:43 these should be fairly short so that you put the pack on 07:48 the back and after a short while you make a change so that it's 07:54 an ice pack, so it's a hot pack and then an ice pack, 07:59 three minutes for the hot, about 30-60 seconds for the 08:04 cold, the icy cold and then when you have finished with 08:09 that part then you repeat that five times and then you give 08:14 a massage. 08:15 Now the massage is not one that you really go in there 08:18 after it and you do all sorts of things that may be very nice 08:23 for a person who is in good health, but for the person 08:27 with pyelonephritis you make the massage rather gentle 08:32 except that you want to friction the skin, so the skin can be 08:35 frictioned with a quick movement but not with a lot of pressure 08:40 and that is a very good hydrotherapy and finish for 08:45 the patient with pyelonephritis. 08:47 Now in addition to that you can use a number of 08:50 anti-microbial herbs, and the very minute that you suspect 08:54 that a person may have a urinary tract infection start right in 08:59 at that time with the herbal preparations, 09:03 those that are anti-microbial include those that contain 09:08 Golden Seal, Astragalus, Echinacea, maybe Elderberry, 09:16 perhaps some Grapefruit Seed Extract, garlic, Myrrh, 09:22 Calendula, all of those are anti-microbial and there are 09:26 many others in countries far flung all over the world 09:30 there are the anti-microbial herbs which you can find 09:34 in that area and apply those. 09:37 Now having done all of these you may still have a sick 09:42 patient, so one of the things that you can do additionally 09:47 is to put an ice pack on the lower end of the sternum, 09:51 that's the breast bone, so at the lower end of it 09:54 you put an ice pack there so that increases inflectively 09:59 the flow of urine. 10:01 Now having done these things you can feel that your patient 10:06 is going to have the very best chance of getting well, 10:10 persist in the treatment, don't feel that when the patient's 10:14 symptoms subside a bit your work is done, you must continue 10:19 as long as you continue to have blood or pus in the urine. 10:23 So just look at it and catch the urine in a clear glass 10:29 or a little jar and just look at it with the light, 10:32 and if it's cloudy then you are probably still having 10:35 white blood cells and puss in the urine, and germs 10:40 in the urine, so in this way you can help your patient 10:44 to get over pyelonephritis. 10:45 Now there is another problem with the kidneys that you need 10:49 to know something about, and that's kidney stones and 10:53 Dr. Don Miller will tell you something about kidney stones, 10:58 it must be the most exquisite pain that a person 11:01 ever experiences Dr. Miller. - Well, exquisite pain for sure 11:05 as a matter of fact if you never had one you don't know 11:08 unless you've had a baby, they say that passing the stone 11:13 is similar to having a baby. 11:15 So if you've had a baby you know what it must be like 11:18 to have a stone, well God be with you because it's a 11:23 miserable experience. 11:24 We have to understand that some people happen to be 11:27 stone formers, that doesn't mean that you are going to have 11:31 stones, it means that you have to be so much more careful 11:34 lifestyle because it's many lifestyle related things 11:37 that are going to cause the stones. 11:39 You can go to some parts of the world they don't have 11:41 kidney stones, it's because their lifestyles do not promote 11:44 kidney stones. 11:46 The symptoms of kidney stones are initially you have a 11:50 dull dragging from the lower part of the back towards 11:52 the front of the abdomen and that's a sign that you are 11:58 going to have some problems but you really get the 12:00 kidney stone when it's passed from the kidney into the ureter 12:03 now is when you have the big problems. 12:05 Excruciating pain at times blood and puss in the urine 12:11 all these are signs that you have a stone, you won't be 12:14 mistaken when you have one of those things because the 12:17 pain will tell you. 12:19 There are some things that you can do for it. 12:20 I had a friend one time that had a really bad kidney stone 12:25 attack, and whenever he would have one of these things 12:27 he would take a very warm bath. 12:29 We find that warmth has a tendency to be very analgesic, 12:33 to let the pain go away, it relaxes the vascular system 12:37 relaxes the ureters, allows the pressure to be taken off 12:42 and therefore a good relief was gained, 12:44 but that does not solve the problem. 12:47 Let's go back a minute and find out why do we get the 12:49 stones in the first place, there are various types 12:52 of stones, about 70- 80% of the stones are 12:55 calcium oxalate stones. 12:57 Basically the body is excreting calcium oxalate foods, 13:01 if a person is a stone former and they realize that their 13:04 stones are calcium oxalate they need to stay off of the 13:08 oxalate containing foods which are these: First of all 13:12 I recommend that we stay off of these foods that I am going 13:14 to mention this first group of foods all the time, 13:17 for any reason, these are the brown drink foods, your tea, 13:22 coffee, colas, and chocolate, these things are not fit for 13:26 human consumption, these things are high in oxalate 13:30 and they are going to cause you to loose calcium and 13:33 if you loose a lot of calcium then you are going to form 13:35 the stones. 13:36 There are other things, good foods like beet greens, 13:39 probably the highest oxalate food that there is Rhubarb, 13:43 Rhubarb is not the best food to take especially if you are 13:49 a stone former, citrus fruit is high in oxalates, grapes, 13:55 so there are some good foods that we have to stay away from. 13:59 Sweet potatoes is an oxalate food, now I am just talking 14:03 to you people who are stone formers who have formed 14:07 calcium oxalate stones. 14:09 Everyone else, these last few foods go ahead and enjoy them 14:13 as much as possible. 14:14 Figs, tomatoes, and plumbs, are high in oxalates, 14:19 if you are an oxalate former stay away from these. 14:22 The other ones are uric acid stones, people who have high 14:26 blood urea because they are high meat eaters or 14:29 dairy products, cheese, you are going to have a high 14:33 uric acid level and you are going to pass this to the 14:36 kidneys, it's going to crystallize, form a stone 14:39 and that's about 10% of the stones, so the cure there is 14:43 or at least wise the prevention is get off the meats, 14:46 that's the number one thing get off the meats and you 14:49 will probably not have the problem with those 14:51 particular stones, dairy products is always one of 14:54 those things that you need to leave off. 14:55 Stones normally form in middle aged men, women seem to get 15:01 gall stones, men seem to get kidney stones and it's usually 15:05 middle aged, not to say that you can't get them younger, 15:08 I've know young people with the stones, it is becoming 15:12 more and more common. 15:13 You see our lifestyles today are such that we're causing 15:16 our bodies to always be flushing calcium, we are told to take 15:21 take more calcium, but they don't tell us how to retain 15:25 the calcium that we are taking. 15:27 First of all to retain your calcium take it in a more 15:30 bio-available form which is in your foods like greens 15:35 and fruits and vegetables, not in animal products, 15:37 these are not very kind to the body they like to dump right on 15:41 out of the body so stay away from those foods that do this. 15:45 Mineral loss of all types, we realize that the Para-thyroids 15:52 are monitoring your blood level of your calcium, and when the 15:56 calcium goes down in the blood it says look we have to bring 15:59 the calcium back up and so it sends to the bones to give up 16:03 some of it's calcium to go back into the blood, 16:05 but then if we have a high protein diet which causes 16:08 the calcium to go down through the kidneys it works all over 16:11 again, so besides having the kidney stones, 16:14 as a matter of fact American's lead the world in 16:16 kidney disease, we also lead the world in osteoporosis 16:19 we also lead the world in dairy and meat consumption 16:22 so maybe this is not so curative after all, that we do not need 16:27 these products. 16:28 Dehydration, people are just not hydrated, we are finding that 16:35 osteoporosis is becoming a childhood disease because of 16:38 the high soda intake which is high in phosphoric acid 16:42 the phosphoric acid also causes the calcium to flow out 16:46 of the body, the calcium concentrating in the kidneys 16:49 forming the stones and therefore we have the 16:52 kidney stone problem, so we need to get a diet that is 16:55 friendly, a kidney friendly diet, and water is the thing, 16:58 now there are some things that we can do to help us 17:00 to pass more water, things like watermelon seed tea. 17:03 In the summer time eat lots of watermelon it's a good 17:07 diuretic, and then as you are eating the watermelon 17:10 save the seeds, take the seeds grind them up and store them 17:15 in a glass jar for the wintertime when you can make 17:17 watermelon seed tea. 17:18 Also in the summer time eat lots of corn and save the silk 17:22 dry it, powder it, put it in a jar make corn silk tea, 17:26 these are very nice diuretics, help you diurese, pass a lot 17:32 of water, keep those kidneys clean, you have to flush those 17:35 kidneys, they filter about 50 gallons of water a day 17:40 or fluids a day, your blood is going through there, 17:43 lot's of things are going through, if you have good 17:46 quality of water in your system you will keep them clean 17:49 and the stones can not form. 17:51 Cranberry juice would be good to try to dissolve some of these 17:56 stones so we have a person go on either cranberry juice 17:59 or vitamin C supplementation to help make the urine 18:04 a little bit more acid to dissolve the stones. 18:06 You can make a potassium broth, take thick peelings of potatoes 18:11 along with onions, garlic, and carrots simmer this 18:15 for 30-40 min, make a broth and drink this about 3 or 4 18:20 glasses a day is a good thing to help with the stones. 18:24 There are certain herbs that you can take, licorice herb 18:27 is a good ureter relaxer, you realize that when you have this 18:31 stone passing down through the ureter, it's the pain of 18:35 pressure on the ureter itself that causes the pain. 18:39 We realize that some of these things don't have pain sensation 18:42 other than this distention, it's like the bowels, you can stick a 18:46 knife in them you won't feel it but if they get distended 18:49 by gas you have excruciating pain, so it's that stone 18:52 in there so the licorice will cause that to relax a bit and 18:57 take away some of the pain. 18:59 Horsetail tea, this is one that is quite popular in the 19:05 German countries, I have read some here in this country 19:08 we need to be more aware of the benefits of horsetail tea. 19:12 Parsley tea and Stinging Nettle, I was first introduced 19:18 to Stinging Nettle in Uchee Pines when I was walking 19:20 out in the woods and I sat down and happened to sit on a 19:23 Stinging Nettle and I found out why they call it 19:26 Stinging Nettle, but it also makes a very good tea, 19:29 very good for kidney stones, and there is various ways 19:33 I'm sure a lot of folk literature on 19:35 this and that's where we get 19:36 our simple remedies is from basically the folklore but 19:39 there is one way that I have read about and heard that it's 19:42 quite effective in dissolving the stones. 19:44 Basically here is what you do, you take between 3 quarts and 19:48 one gallon of hot water with lemon juice or cranberry juice 19:53 in it and you drink that for three days, that's what you are 19:56 doing, you are drinking a lot of water, hot water with 19:58 lemon juice or cranberry juice in there, on the third day you 20:01 take two ounces of olive oil, this may set yourself up to 20:06 pass that stone or to dissolve the stone. 20:09 But again the best way to take care of your kidney stones 20:13 is don't get them in the first place, get a good dietary that 20:16 will stay away from them and you won't have that 20:18 child birth feeling, especially for men, I don't think we 20:22 want to go through that experience, you have Dr. Thrash 20:25 do you think I want to go through that? 20:27 - I don't think so but I understand from those who 20:31 have had it that kidney stone is worse than having the baby. 20:36 It may be similar, but for those women who have had both 20:40 kidney stone and child birth they say that the kidney stone 20:44 is worse. 20:45 Those who have had heart attacks and stones say that the 20:48 heart attack is not as bad as the kidney stones, 20:53 it must be excruciating and I have seen people walking 20:57 up and down wringing their hands just waiting for 21:01 their shot of a narcotic, and there certainly is 21:04 justifiable if you can't control the pain in any other way 21:08 to have them take a narcotic. 21:10 Now some of the foods that you can eat I was glad to hear the 21:15 formula of the potato with the celery and carrots and 21:23 onion in it, I'm not sure that celery was mentioned but 21:26 celery should be in the soup that was given to people who 21:31 have kidney stones, and avocado, bananas, soy, 21:35 buckwheat, barley, oats and rice, 21:37 all of these are high in magnesium, they are 21:40 very good foods for a person with kidney stones to eat. 21:44 Then there are some excellent herbs they are good for any part 21:47 of the genito-urinary tract including the incontinence 21:51 that I'm going to talk about next, these herbs are dandelion, 21:55 that's a hot tea if it's for stones, use it as a hot tea 21:59 and golden rod hot tea, and the demulcent herbs, 22:04 these are all of those that soothe the body in some way 22:10 that would include marshmallow root, and slippery elm, 22:14 and a large number that are like that. 22:16 Couch grass and corn silk, all of those are demulcent herbs and 22:21 can be very helpful for the people who have the pain 22:25 of kidney stone. 22:26 Now incontinence is an involuntary loss of urine 22:31 either day or night, sometimes caused by urge and sometimes 22:37 caused by other things, some of the reasons why people have 22:43 incontinence one is that there has been retention 22:47 and there is overflow after the retention and that can be 22:51 from paralysis or from nerves or whatever, or delay in 22:56 answering the call to urinate, and whatever it may be if the 23:01 bladder has become so distended that it now sort of is paralyzed 23:07 and cannot empty itself, then you may just have overflow 23:11 incontinence from that, stenosis of the urethra which is the 23:18 tube that leads to the outside of the body, a stricture in that 23:22 can cause retention in the bladder and that can be most 23:27 uncomfortable once it happens. 23:30 Benign prostatic hypertrophy in men can cause 23:35 urinary retention and over distention followed by 23:39 incontinence and of course a spinal cord tumor or a spinal 23:43 cord injury can also cause retention of urine and then 23:48 with overflow incontinence. 23:50 Stress incontinence is probably one of the most distressing 23:54 because it can occur with coughing, giggling, laughing, 23:59 with any strong emotion, with crying, sneezing, 24:03 or lifting something, that can cause a great deal of 24:08 embarrassment for people and the incontinence that we get 24:11 with that is a little bit difficult to handle as well. 24:16 If there has been a prostatectomy, especially if 24:20 it's been a super pubic prostatectomy that can leave 24:23 the person with a damaged internal sphincter, 24:26 which is the muscle that holds the urine right at the bladder 24:30 neck or the external sphincter which is the little muscle 24:35 bundle that encircles the urethra to keep it from loosing 24:39 urine, you have more control over the external than you do 24:42 the internal which is largely controlled by psychological 24:46 factors and the pressures inside the bladder. 24:50 If you have those kinds of things then you can expect 24:55 that at times you may have incontinence. 24:57 Now as we get older, older women in particular who have had 25:02 multiple children, they tend to be more afflicted by 25:07 incontinence than younger women, and one of the 25:12 nice things that an older woman can do is the kegel exercises, 25:16 they are very simple to do and don't take much time 25:20 because a woman can do the exercise when she's riding 25:24 along or when she's sitting at her desk, or washing dishes, 25:27 or doing a number of other types of activities that don't 25:32 require a lot of thought. 25:34 Now the kegel exercises contracts the same muscles 25:39 that one would contract if one wants to 25:42 turn off the flow of urine when one 25:45 has begun to void, so if she begins to void and then stops 25:49 the flow of urine. 25:50 Pay attention to the muscles that are involved in that 25:54 process and then what she does after that is simply do a series 25:59 of ten three times she contracts holds it for three seconds 26:05 relaxes, three seconds more, relaxes, for ten times 26:09 and repeats that three times at that time, three sets of them 26:13 at one time. 26:15 Then another time of the day she does three more sets, 26:18 another time of the day she does three more sets for 26:21 a total of 90 contractions through the day and that's 26:26 the kegel exercise it's very simple to do, very effective, 26:30 but many women think that's so simple that couldn't 26:34 possibly help me with my serious problem, mine is much to serious 26:38 for that to be effective and so they don't even try it 26:41 and unfortunately because of that they may not get the 26:47 benefit that they require. 26:48 Now of course there are some psychological factors that 26:52 can cause incontinence but they are not very important for you 26:58 to know about, they require generally some kind of 27:02 professional help. 27:03 The last thing that I would like to talk about is that of 27:07 kidney failure, kidney failure is that of that happens when 27:11 at least 90% of the functioning units of the kidney have been 27:19 lost for one reason or other, they do require dialysis 27:22 of one kind or other, and the kind of diet that you have 27:27 can be a vegetarian diet, although most dialysis centers 27:32 don't have nutritionists who are knowledgeable enough to help 27:36 you with that but if you look carefully you will be able 27:39 to find a good diet that will work in harmony with 27:43 your dialysis. 27:44 Now these are a few of the problems that can occur with 27:50 the kidneys and the entire system, and we hope that our 27:53 discussion of it will be a great blessing to you. |
Revised 2014-12-17