Rx for Readers: First trimester blues

For the first trimester I felt quite well, but currently in my second I am suffering from nausea and fatigue. Shouldn't they have passed by now?

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
pregnant woman 88 (photo credit: )
pregnant woman 88
(photo credit: )
There are ads for "natural" shampoos with rosemary that are claimed to eliminate head lice without pesticides. Do these work? - P.G., Omer Dr. Kosta Mumcuoglu, a senior parasitologist at the Kuvin Center for the Study of Infectious and Tropical Diseases at the Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine, replies: I am almost 100 percent sure that a shampoo or conditioner which has a given concentration of rosemary (5% to 10%) will have no effect whatsoever on lice, surely not to repel them. Our clinical experience shows that using the oil concentrate and putting some drops on the hair of the child could protect the child for about three to five hours from being infested with lice. Therefore, it should be applied each morning before the child leaves the house to go to school or kindergarten. Rosemary, as most probably all other essential oils, has the tendency to evaporate quickly and accordingly lose its efficacy. Smaller concentrations of rosemary will most probably have no effect, especially if you apply it the night before (I cannot imagine that someone will start shampooing the child's hair early in the morning). The concentrated oil could eventually kill the lice, but you have to apply it on the entire scalp. If you do, however, it would have such a strong odor and the eyes would burn so strongly that one would be not able to keep it on one's head for a long enough time to take effect. I do not expect that this "natural solution" would in any way improve the problems related to head lice. If possible, preventing direct head contact with those who are infested, as well as using anti-lice shampoos and manual combing with a fine-tooth comb, are much more effective. I am a 32-year-old woman pregnant for the third time. For the first trimester I felt quite well, but currently in my second I am suffering from nausea and fatigue. Shouldn't they have passed by now? - E.G., Haifa Dr. Raphael Pollack, acting director-general and medical director of Jerusalem's Bikur Holim Hospital and an experienced gynecologist and obstetrician, comments: Nausea should be receding by now. Of course, a wide variety of illnesses present with nausea and fatigue. The fact that you are pregnant does not mean that you are not suffering from other intercurrent illnesses. Hence the prudent thing to do would be to see your doctor, discuss these complaints with him and see if any additional investigations are warranted. My mother is nearly 90 - she had both eyes operated on for cataracts many years ago in South Africa. Recently she complained about the frames of her glasses, and when we went to the optometrist, he tested her eyes and said there is a 20% to 30% change in her vision. She maintains that because of the cataract operations her vision cannot change that much. Even though I wanted to take her to our eye specialist, she refuses as she says she doesn't need new glasses. Is she right that her vision can't change that much? - N.S., Jerusalem Dr. Igal Leibovitch, senior ophthalmologist in the eye department and head of the orbital surgery service at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, comments: Even after very successful cataract surgery, vision can decline after a few years due to reasons related to the the operation itself - mainly because of posterior capsular opacification (secondary cataract), which can be treated easily with laser. There are many other reasons for visual deterioration that are not related to the cataract operation, such as corneal or retinal pathologies. Even though she is 90 years old, it is important to be evaluated by an ophthalmologist. Rx for Readers welcomes queries from readers about medical problems. Experts will answer those we find most interesting. Write Rx for Readers, The Jerusalem Post, POB 81, Jerusalem 91000, fax your question to Judy Siegel-Itzkovich at (02) 538-9527, or e-mail it to jsiegel@jpost.com, giving your initials, age and residence.