We all dislike insects getting into the house, do we not? But I do not like squashing the ones that get in either. However, I reside in northern Thailand, 100 yards from thousands of acres of wet rice fields. The farmers spray their fields to reduce the number of insects, but inevitably there are still quite a lot here, especially in the two monsoon periods.

Therefore, we have had to secure our house and ourselves against insects, mostly of the flying variety, but not all of which bite by any means. In the monsoon seasons, which are roughly May to June and August to September, the main offender is the mosquito. There is no malaria where I am, but they are still not nice. Simultaneous with the mosquitoes are the midges, but they are not nearly so many.

When it is not raining, the common house fly is a pest. You just cannot teach a housefly not to sit on you or your food, I have tried it many times. The lessons almost invariably result in the death of the pupil by corporal punishment.

On arbitrary rainy days hordes of other kinds of flies will hatch out within hours – you can see masses of them coming out of the ground like bees, but they more resemble lace wings. They are completely innocuous, but they get in your hair and everywhere else. Then there are a few types of fly that eat rice or humans if they get in the way, but they seem to prefer rice.

The first thing we did was have fly screens inserted into our windows. That helped a great deal, but everybody kept leaving the doors ajar. Then we had screens inserted into the door frames. That really was effective for everything except midges and baby mosquitoes that seem to be squirming through the mesh.

We solved that issue by spraying the mesh with permethrin once every couple of months. I am pretty certain that no insects get into our house via that route any more. However, some insects were crawling in under the doors, because there were no thresholds or draft-excluders – a draft in Thailand normally being more than welcome. So, I fitted draft-excluders to the doors.

That blocked the scorpions, spiders, millipedes, centipedes and beetles, although some spiders appear to abseil down from the attic into our living accommodation. I do not mind spiders too much as long as I cannot see them, because I know that we have a mutual enemy, namely flies.

House flies still get in sometimes, especially when visitors and their children are about. However, the kind of spiders we have most of, do not seem to build webs. They stalk their victims and then jump on them; and they are very quick.

Despite that, we spray the floors and the tops of the walls with permethrin every month or two as well. This keeps the ants from entering the house via the attic and mops up any crawling insects that have gotten in via an open door.

Another important entry point into your home for insects is your pets. You have to take care of your cats and dogs. Groom them regularly, fit a collar which has been soaked in insecticide, bathe them in insecticidal shampoo and dust them with flea powder.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on many topics, but is currently concerned with indoor mosquito repellent. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Mosquito Repellent For Dogs.

You would doubtless be very surprised at how many people actually try to pull their own teeth. It sounds disgusting and very painful, but it is still true and there can be many reasons why people do it. We all know how distressing toothache is and how it always seems worse at night stopping the sufferer from getting a good night’s sleep.

If the tooth is just loose, there should not be too much of a problem, but if you do not know what you are doing, you could worsen the situation. Particularly if there is an abscess.

Dentistry has become very refined over the last 100 years, but before that barbers and dentists shared the same occupation. Anaesthetics were hard to come by, so most adults just got intoxicated and pulled their own teeth or had someone else do it for them.

People used to use pliers or other carpenters’ tools. Toothache was rife and it caused a lot of suffering. Nowadays, modern anaesthetics and modern practices make pulling teeth or even repairing them almost painless.

However, there are still situations when you may want or even have to draw teeth at home. Baby or milk teeth often work loose and fall out without any complications. When I was a child in the UK in the Fifties, it was not uncommon for parents to remove children’s teeth, even though dentists were free for children.

I know of parents giving their children toffee to eat, hoping that the tooth would stick in the toffee and come out and I have had a tooth tied to an open door and the door thrown shut, pulling the tooth out rapidly.

Other situations that may make you want to pull your own teeth is if you live or are holidaying in the wild or in a country where you do not trust the dentists. In some countries, any dentistry work is very expensive, in other countries straight-forward extractions are free or at a set, small charge.

There are other situations when you should never try to extract your own teeth. One of these is if you have gum disease or an abscess. These circumstances can have very serious results for your gums and jaw bones, so you ought to seek proper medical or dental assistance right away.

There are other dangers to drawing your own teeth too. If you snap off a tooth, you will be in more pain than before and you will still have to go to a dentist to have the bottom half dug out of your gum. If you do not sterilize your pliers or and other instruments you run the serious risk of infection too.

The bottom line is that it best not to attempt to pull your own teeth if you can possibly avoid it for the reasons given above. Another problem for many though is expense, particularly in the United States where dental costs seem to be out of control. With the deepening recession and rising unemployment, there is a danger that some people will revert to pulling their own teeth again, setting dental care standards back a hundred years.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on a number of topics, but is currently involved with investigating teeth whitening costs. If you would like to know more or check out great offers, please go to our website at Opalescence Tooth Whitening Systems

Have you ever heard about clothing that repels mosquitoes and other flying insects? If not, I am prepared to venture that there have been times when you have wished you could get some. Mosquitoes and midges can ruin a holiday or even make you have to get out of your own garden when it starts getting dark.

There are various ways that you can combat mosquitoes and the other terrors of the twilight, but they always seem to find a spot where I am not totally protected. Often that spot is on the shoulder blade, where they will stick their proboscis through the material of your shirt to suck your blood.

I enjoy my garden, but so do the mosquitoes as there is a lot of open water in the surrounding area. My first technique of defense against mosquitoes is to plant flowers and trees that they are known to hate the smell of. I think that the odour that they hate the most is that of lemons.

Therefore, we have a few small lemon trees, which will soon be playing a vital part in our defense, a patch of lemon grass for my wife’s favourite Thai curries and some as yet poorly-looking citronella plants. (I think that Thailand may be too hot for them, but I am hoping that they will become accustomed).

Then I have two mosquito lamps. The kind that entice the insects to an ultraviolet light and then zaps them with 25,000 volts. They are very effective, but more so in the dark than at sunset, when they must be less discernible to the insects. I am aware that there are insect lights that use smells or pheromones to attract mosquitoes, but I have not seen any for sale over here yet. I did once try a unit that emits a sound on a high frequency that was alleged to drive them away, but it did not work on our mosquitoes.

Finally, if it was a bad night I used to put on some insect repellent cream, often something that had DEET in it. This is pretty effective for a few hours, but it can damage some fabrics and some plastics, which is why the makers suggest that you only put it on your exposed skin. If you do that, your shoulders and your legs become targets, even if you are wearing trousers and a top.

This is where it becomes a good idea to treat your clothing with insect repellent. It seems that the military has been using them for years. The active ingredient used is called permethrin and it should be used at a concentration of 0.5%. There are two ways of applying it: by drenching clothing in it, as the army does or by spraying it on. I assume that you will be spraying it on.

Do the spraying in the garden far away from any fish pond as permethrin kills fish as well. Spray the clothing and wait for the chemical to soak in and dry out. Clothing treated with insect repellent in this fashion will protect you for about six weeks and will still be active after six washes. However, sunlight breaks permethrin down, so dry the items indoors and store in black plastic bags for longer efficacy.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on many subjects, but is currently concerned with indoor mosquito repellent. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Mosquito Repellent For Dogs.

It is a plain and simple fact, that primary and junior school children get head lice and pass them around among themselves. Therefore, do not be upset, horrified or astonished when your child comes home from school with head lice. It does not mean that you or your child is dirty or that you are doing a bad job as a parent. It happens because young children come into very close bodily contact with each other.

Here are a number of interesting facts about head lice. Head lice are not known to pass on any human diseases. They cannot jump or fly. Itching starts about three weeks after infestation. The age group that is most at risk of head lice is 4-13 years of age. It is commonly thought that head lice prefer clean hair to greasy hair, because it is simpler to fix their eggs to clean hair. Girls are more than two times as liable as boys to carry lice. Black children are less likely to have head lice than white children because of their type of hair, although they can still pass them on.

There are lots of ways of getting rid of head lice, but most parents will go to the pharmacy to buy a medicated shampoo and a lice comb. This will do the job successfully, but many people are trying to use fewer chemicals in their lives and on their bodies and this is one area where you can avoid chemicals too.

One of the simplest home remedies to try is vinegar. Soak the hair in undiluted vinegar and comb it well in. Wrap a towel around the head or better still use a shower cap and keep the hair wet for an hour. Vinegar can totally eliminate an infestation within three days

Tea tree oil has long been known to combat head lice. You can try massaging a few drops into the hair undiluted, but it is easier to add fifteen drops of tea tree oil to a three-quarter full bottle of everyday shampoo and mix it up. Use it every day for five days to clear up an infestation or just use it every day for life to be rid of lice evermore.

Mayonnaise will kill head lice as well, although it is a more costly and a messier way of doing it than others. Massage the mayonnaise into the hair and leave it for an hour as with vinegar. Mayonnaise will poison the eggs too.

Rosemary oil will also poison head lice. Put a few drops of rosemary oil into a bowl of water and use it to rinse your child’s hair. Rosemary oil will not only kill the head lice, but it will also add a beautiful sheen to brown hair..

Seeing a child with head lice does not mean anything awful, unless it has them all the time, because then it is a sign of neglect. Children in the age group most at risk, should be inspected for head lice at least once per week and if you have several children, you should inspect them more often. The more children in a family, the more chance of one of them catching nits, bringing them home and passing them around.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on quite a few topics, but is currently concerned with natural tick repellent. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at tick Repellent For Dogs.

Diabetes can have different adverse effects on sufferers’ health and one of those ill-effects is dental quality. Diabetics have a problem dealing with sugars, which often leads to a condition called hyperglycemia, which means that there is too much sugar in the blood. The converse of having too much sugar in your blood is having too little and that is known as hypoglycemia.

Both conditions are regulated in healthy people by insulin and herein lies the diabetic’s problem – the body’s automatic production of insulin to control blood sugar levels. Both circumstances can have serious consequences. Too much sugar in the blood can lead to issues with the kidneys, the heart, the eyes and others, while too little sugar in the blood can cause fits and black-outs.

Tooth and gum disease is normal as are any other health problems. Factors that play a role in tooth and gum disease are age, heredity, smoking and oral hygiene, but the diabetic who is often hyperglycemic has a higher probability of developing dental sickness.

The diabetic is more susceptible to infection of any kind and one of the most common is periodontitis, which affects the teeth, the jaw bones and the gums. One of the observable symptoms of periodontitis is receding gums, which makes the teeth look curiously large, but also exposes the roots of the teeth to the air and food, resulting in sensitive teeth. Therefore, diabetics must ensure that they make a particular effort to visit their dentist at least twice a year. Periodontitis can result in the complete loss of one’s teeth.

The superfluous sugar in the blood supplies extra food for germs, so they reproduce much more quickly than normal. This rapid build up of bacteria produces red, swollen gums. One of the first signs of gum disease is frequently bleeding. If your gums begin to bleed when you brush your teeth, make an early appointment with your dentist.

Diabetics, along with those who have an impaired immune system, run a much greater risk of contracting periodontitis and so losing all their teeth, if it is left untreated.

Diabetics with periodontitis are not guaranteed to lose all their teeth, but it does have to be noticed and treated early because there are various ways that a dentist can treat the disease.

One of the best means is to manage your blood sugar levels in the first instance. This has to be achieved in conjuction with your doctor, but it will usually include correct dieting, exercise and taking insulin or a surrogate. Not smoking and maintaining your correct weight are also important.

Not all diabetics have to take insulin. There is much more understood about diabetes, diet, exercise and their inter-relationship these days. Some diabetics can avoid taking insulin and all the side effects that that would usually entail by not eating sugary or starchy food, by eating low-calorie meals often during the day instead of at two or three large meals and by checking blood-sugar levels.

This is the best way of avoiding the dental complications that diabetics can suffer.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on a number of subjects, but is currently concerned with investigating teeth whitening costs. If you would like to know more or check out great offers, please go to our website at Opalescence Tooth Whitening Systems

It sounds pretty revolting to most Westerners that many people around the world eat insects on a frequent, even daily, basis. This is not always only because edible insects are so abundant and money is so scarce. In many countries, some insects are considered a delicacy.

I am not an expert on edible insects in every country, but there are so many varieties of edible insects where I have been, that there must be similar edible insects in every country except the North and South Poles.

Eating insects may sound repulsive to us, but I have met people who think that it is just as revolting to eat prawns, shrimps and lobsters. After all, they are just insects of the sea of a kind. And just like eating shrimps or lobster, insects are either the major or only part of the dish. In other words, they are thought of as just as much a luxury as shrimps, prawns or lobster is in the West.

Insects are not eaten with rice, chips, in a sandwich or with a sauce. Rather insects are deep-fried in a wok and eaten from a paper bag like chips. Insects are not mixed when cooked either. You buy fifty grammes of one and fifty grammes of another and they are eaten separately.

Insects are plentiful and they do not have to be bred, unlike cattle. An interesting fact is that beef is about 20% protein whereas insects are between 65% and 80% protein. Surprising, eh? Fifty grammes of insects provides more protein that a half-pound beef steak and they contain hardly any cholesterol.

If you want to include insects in your diet, then you will need to study the subject with regard to your own country, but I will give some suggestions. In the insect world, yellow means ’stay away from me, I am poisonous or do not taste nice’, so it is best not to eat those ones. Most insectivores stay away from hairy insects too, so spiders and house flies are out as well. Mosquitoes are too small so are ticks and many other insects.

Although some caterpillars can be eaten, some cannot, so leave them to the experts. The best insects to go for are beetles, termites, larvae, grubs, grasshoppers, crickets and some night-flying insects.

In Thailand, for example, most people will eat insects for a treat, although some people eat them every day. In the north-east and in the north-west, people may eat insects once a month. In the centre, like Bangkok and Pattaya, fried insects are sold on the streets, so they are easily available. They are eaten frequently in the south and in the east, which is called Isaan.

However, all over Thailand, you can see ultraviolet lights over insect traps. These families will either consume the insects themselves or sell them on to a merchant. I have also seen individuals collecting a fly which only comes out at night after rainfall. You can gather thousands in an hour by putting a bowl of water under a street light. The insects get stunned by the light and spiral down into the water where they drown.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on quite a few topics, but is currently involved with indoor mosquito repellent. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Mosquito Repellent For Dogs.

Hay fever as well as other forms of allergies such as Eczema, affect every 4 in 10 people in America today. While some forms of allergies can be mild, others may be dangerous or even life-threatening. To keep things under control, many of us depend on modern medicine to get relief – but why is this bad?

Prescription drugs can be very expensive in the long run and so are the over-the-counter pills or tablets that you buy. There is hope however, as there are several natural ways you can go about getting relief from your allergies, as shall soon see.

Although natural remedies are good overall, and they’re safe to use on yourself for the most part, they are not as effective at dissipating severe and sometimes deadly symptoms quite as quickly. This is where prescription drugs still come in handy.

Many people have recently started to look towards natural remedies for their allergies such as the B5 vitamin. This vitamin when taken consistently can help with reducing the allergy symptoms related to pets, dust and pollen.

It will take several weeks or months of daily consumption before you notice its positive effects, depending on your immune system.

Purchasing the vitamins can be expensive so try to buy large wholesale quantities instead. You should be able to find huge bottles of them available at most good health stores.

Certain fruits are extremely beneficial in providing relief from certain allergies as well. Try drinking lime juice for several months, first thing in the morning. It is probably better to drink natural lime juice rather than the bottled ones, so keep some stock of lime at home and either squeeze it yourself or get a juicer. You may add in some honey or sugar if you find it too sour for your liking.

Other good sources of vitamins are bananas, which is also high in vitamin B5. Since B5 is good for skin related issues, many people have looked towards bananas to cure their skin-related problems. If you suffer from rash breakouts or eczema, give banana’s a shot everyday for a month or more.

The list of these natural ways of allergy treatment goes on. There’s literally thousands upon thousands of these helpful remedies. Where can you find them?

There are tons of great health and allergy-related websites on the web that provide tomes of free tips and helpful advise along with natural ways in which to find relief from your allergies.

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Summer is around the corner and many people would no doubt agree that it is one of their favorite season, especially if you are an outdoor person. The sunny weathers allow a host of activities to be done, but before we get into full swing of the summer season, you should give consideration as to how you are going to protect yourself against sunburn.

Sunburn is indeed a very unpleasant experience for a lot of people, not to mention that it can cause a lot of pain as well as premature aging. Aside from the immediate pain, sunburn can also lead to skin cancer and therefore preventive measures should be implemented before it kills you.

Preventing Sunburn

Obviously, if you want to protect yourself against sunburn is to never expose yourself in the situation in the first place. Always find shades, wear protective clothing such as shirt with long sleeves, cap, or hats for your face. Make sure you find clothing made out of breathable materials as it might be a little too hot wearing all that under the sun.

Otherwise, using a sunscreen is probably the next most effective answer to sun protection, this is especially true for those who like going to the beach and staying under the sun for a pro-longed period of time. When choosing a sun screen, one with SPF 15 is usually sufficient, however if you have a baby with you, you’re advised to use SPF 30 for the baby for more protection.

If you do hit the water, then make sure the sunscreen you apply is going to be waterproof so that the water or your sweat does not rinse them off. The typical period to reapply sunscreen to your body is about 8 hours or so.

If you’re looking to treat sunburn, the most common and popular products are Hydro-cortisone cream and calamine lotion, just apply them as you would with a sun screen to the affected area. More natural remedies are such like Aloe Vera, where its healing properties are excellent for treating sunburn.

Finally, make sure you are always taking care of yourself because preventing yourself from sunburn is easy to do as compared to treating them. If you do get extreme sunburn, you will need to see your doctor immediately.

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A healthy amount of stress in our life can propel us to greater heights and achievements, however, what level of stress is enough in your life before it kills you? The truth is stress can bring about more negative effects in our health than positive one, not only it will affect us mentally, it can also affect our health negatively! Thus this article will talk about why it is important to handle them effectively before they eventually kill you.

Besides affecting your mental health, here are some other ways that excessive stress can kill you:

Whenever we experience stress, our body experiences the fight of flight mode, which is a state where the body will release certain hormones and chemicals such as adrenaline and endorphins into our body to avert the danger. The increase in these hormones will lead to an increase of blood pressure and blood flow to certain parts of our organs, while slowing down certain parts too. It was important that we have this stage in the past, but certainly it is not as important in our society these days.

After the threat is over, your body will then start on the next stage where it will repair tissues that was damaged during the fight or flight mode, and this is called the stress resistance. Normal function of our body will begin again, but we are still somewhat on an alert mode.

The last physiological change to our body is stress exhaustion, this is where it can be potentially harmful to our body, especially the more we go through it. The immune system now will be suppressed, because of the overabundance of chemicals in our body, and thus causing our cardiovascular system to suffer.

This is the main reason why cardiovascular diseases such as high blood pressure, stroke and heart diseases are most commonly linked to high level of stress. Another way it can be harmful to us is that it can lead to the formation of stomach ulcers due to a weakened immune system, and it will affect our eating habits.

Other significant way that stress is affecting our body is that we will be constantly having headaches, body aches and also a drop in sexual desire and performance. Your sleeping pattern will also be somewhat altered due to stress.

The worst part about having excess stress in our life is that it often escalates our current health complication, especially complication that involves our nervous system. Escalation of chronic pain, bowel disorders and digestive problems are not uncommon when someone with the condition undergoes a stressful period.

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Over the decades since the Second World War, we have come to depend on chemicals more than natural products. Chemicals were more powerful and more easily available. This is nowhere more true than in the realm of insect repellents. DEET was invented just after the war and developed for use by the United States army for jungle warfare. DDT was used widely on crops around about the same time.

In the post World War period, chemicals appeared to be more effective and cheaper. What more could anyone wish for? But regulation was not so strict then and governments and manufacturers got away with a great deal. DDT was later banned, although it has made a come-back of sorts. DEET is still the most often used insect repellent, although there are worries now about the regular use of it.

This is why there is a trend back towards the old fashioned methods of controlling insects and in particular, mosquitoes. Governments have let us down in the past and they will carry on to do so, until we can elect people who care about us and the environment more than they do about themselves and their wallets. Maybe it was always a myth that politicians went into ‘public service’, but one thing is for certain, we do not get much service for our money any more.

So, if you do not have faith in chemicals, what do you do? The way I see it, you have to go back to granny’s methods. Those that have been used forever. Let us take a look at some of the natural ways to discourage insects, with particular regard to mosquitoes.

Eucalyptus oil is an old-fashioned mosquito repellent . You can either use eucalyptus oil from a bottle, make your own, or rub the fresh leaves on to your bare skin. As with all natural treatments, you will have to repeat the process often. DEET will remain effectual for about four or five hours, but natural repellents will only be effective for about an hour.

Chrysanthemum seed husks are well-known to contain a smell or chemical that mosquitoes cannot abide. This deterrent may be difficult to track down, but it is out there. It is called pyrethrin and is produced from the plant of the same name, Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium, by its Latin name. As a matter of interest, permethrin, one of the most common insect repellents is a synthesized spin-off of pyrethin.

Mosquitoes hate anything that smells like lemons to them. I have put it in that way because some products, like shampoos, may smell like lemons to us, but maybe they do not smell like lemons to mosquitoes. Anyway, some of the organic products that smell like lemons to both humans and mosquitoes are: lemon grass, citronella and, surprise surprise, lemons, but there may be others.

You can utilize any of these three plants to great effect against mosquitoes. Citronella or lemon oil are probably the easiest to get hold of. In any case, you could try some shampoos or soaps ‘containing lemon juice’ until you discover which ones actually work. The fact is that it does not matter what is written on the box, mosquitoes will let you know by their absence.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on quite a few topics, but is currently involved with natural mosquito repellant. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Mosquito Repellent For Dogs.