Category Archives: health

How to stop a lip from bleeding

Posted by Misty Mom on 11/01/2010 None comments

Arianna fell of the chair today while euthusiatically trying to strut like a parrot, while still seated on the chair. She must have lost her balance and fell sideways but landed on the back on her head. She must have hit the plastic chair or something coz her lips her slightly injured and bleeding. It wasn’t a huge split but it was large enough to bleed.

Of course she was crying and saying ‘Ouchies’, but I knew the best remedy for this kind of injury and it works wonders! :) A teaspoon of sugar cured both the bleeding AND the crying. :D I mean, which child would not stop crying when given sugar, right? Actually, this remedy I got from my aunt who used to looks after kids. I think she still does but not as many. Hence, this tip. I think it’s common to have kids running in with a busted lip every now and then. I was surprised to see that it worked the first time she did this!

It was many years ago and when one of the kids in her care fell and hurt her lips, my aunt gave her a teaspoon of sugar and the bleeding stopped and so did the crying. I was amazed and reminded myself of it. And I’ve actually used this remedy many times with Arianna and it has never failed me. Why does it work?

How to stop bleeding

For small cuts, yes, sugar can help stop the bleeding. The sugar forms a paste with the blood and thus helps it clot more quickly. In addition, sugar has some antibacterial properties which will help the wound heal quicker. With larger wounds however, sugar tends to make you bleed more, so you should not apply sugar to such a wound till after the bleeding has stopped.

The antibacterial properties are what make sugar an effective home remedy for wounds, rather than any ability to stop bleeding, which as mentioned, is not always the case. Besides, for smaller wounds, there is usually no need to stop bleeding, as this happens naturally within a short time.

Honey is also recommended to stop bleeding and disinfect the wound. However, avoid using other home remedies such as cayenne pepper or spider webs. Some such remedies may infect the wound, while others may cause unnecessary pain without providing much benefit.

The best way to stop bleeding is to apply pressure to a wound. You can even simply use your fingers to do this, but make sure that your hands are clean. If you can, use a soft, clean, absorbent cloth instead, pressing down on the wound gently but firmly.
Taken from here.

Needless to say that when Arianna fell over and started crying, KR also had to share the pain and started crying as well. I think it was mostly due to stress seeing another kid crying but so funny when you sit back and think about it. Sisterly love, eh? Anyhow, after that teaspoon of sugar, everything went back to normal.

Full of surprises

Posted by Misty Mom on 15/12/2009 None comments

Not wanting to sound like a boastful mother but Arianna’s vocab has certainly picked up a fair bit. Seeing that she is not attending any playgroups or kindy, I personally do not know the ability of kids her age. But am glad to hear that some think her as a little advanced for her age.

So far she’s really good with animals and can easily name a heck of a lot of them since playing the flashcards that my Mum bought her some time ago. She’s only now appreciating them more and not eating them. ;) I’m really happy that she’s into animals like I am. I guess I must have indirectly exposed her to animals than all those ickky girly stuff. I just can’t bear to play doll with her or pretend to be a princess. Just too bleck for me. I rather look stupid silly pretending to be a drunk elephant anytime – that’s how much I’m not into girly things at all.

She has also recently started being more civilised when it comes to drawing as well. No more eating the crayons, thank God. I’m trying to train her to enjoy coloring so that I can let her do so when we travel this May back to Malaysia on the plane. As for KR, dont know what to do with the small one just yet. She will be 1 yr old by then….might be a little tough to handle la. Here’s hoping that we will get a whole row of seats to ourselves. It may be wishful thinking since we will be travelling on Air Asia and also this is that period of time when the tickets went cheap so I expect a full flight. *sigh* We can but hope for the best.

The worst thing that could happen is that we get split up and end up sitting with an extra large person who is in dire need of diet pills because the extra bulk is surely going to be all over the place. While I have nothing against large people, I can’t help but wish that it won’t happen. Fingers, eyes and toes crossed!

YAY ME!

Posted by Misty Mom on 11/12/2009 None comments

I mentioned not too long ago that I would be starting a temp position at my old office. I’m excited about it but still iffy as well. Guess it’s mainly coz I’ve never left the kids to anyone for more than 2 hrs at any one time and now, I’ll be away for 8 hours!!! So you can’t really blame me for getting worried and stressed out about it. However, I’m sure Ted will be ok…I just told him that I intend to return home to TWO children. And as long as I have the TWO same children that I left in the morning, when I come home, all will be good. :P

Now, since I will be going back to work, yours truly went on a mini shopping spree and got me some new work clothes. I didn’t go over the top at all. In fact, I just bought me 3 blouses and 1 black pants. The office is not too strict about office wear but I intend to give a good impression so have to dress up a little bit. I was surprised to note that I’ve since lost another dress size!! YAY ME!!! I was size 18 while preggers and I dropped to 16 after KR was born and was like that for a long while. But suddenly, when I tried on pants size 16, they were loose. I thought I was dreaming!

So tried on 14 and omg….was fitting so nicely!!! YAY ME!!!! It must have been the huge drop of sugar intake and a slight change to my ‘diet’ – more sanwiches and not rice only everyday. :) Now although this method will not be as effective as the best weight loss pills around, I’m sure that it works just as well. In fact, I foresee myself losing MORE weight since I’ll be walking to the train station everyday. :D So that would be 1hr of walking EVERYDAY!!!

Uber awesome….can’t wait to be slimmer. HEH. :D

Is it possible??

Posted by Misty Mom on 21/11/2009 None comments

Please make it possible!! :) Well, this is more with regards to me hoping that since I’ve been on my dairy free diet for almost a month now, a fw more kilos would have dropped. Why? Well, while I was on my normal dairy diet, I used to have my teh susu [tea with milk] at least once a day and sometimes, when I feel like it, it would be twice a day. Now, although I do not really have a sweet tooth, I really like my tea creamy and sweet.

Back in Malaysia, I used condensed sweetened milk but over here, I didn’t bother buying due to the cost as well as I’d have to finish it on my own as Ted doesn’t take it at all. Now, when I say sweet..I really mean sweet! I’m talking 4 teaspoons of sugar per mug. *smiles guiltily* That is indeed a fair amount of sugar and most likely would have given the trainers on Biggest Loser a major cardiac arrest! But that said, since the dairy free diet, no more milk tea hence less sugar and hopefully some weight loss.

Guess I don’t need to try that apidexin. ;)

Mummy’s going back to work

Posted by Misty Mom on 18/11/2009 None comments

Apparently I am a wanted woman! lol :P Some time ago, I was looking for a part time job and had emailed my ex-boss to ask him if there was anything at TAFE for me. He said that there was none at that time and that he would keep me in mind if anything turned up.

True to his word, he recently contacted me and asked if I was interested to come in for a temp position at which I jumped and said yes. Although I am really apprehensive about going back to work and leaving the kids behind with Ted, I know that this is a common thing and working mums around the globe are doing it. So I am biting the bullet and giving it a shot.

That said, it’s been ages since I had anything done to my hair or face. I used to get acne treatment done for my face because it was really bad while I was growing up and I still have the scars to prove it. But these days, just a normal facial is suffice for me. I am certainly looking forward to a nice facial and hair cut but have no idea when all this will take place coz of Ted’s shift work. But either way, we will have to work something out really soon coz time will soon run out before you know it. And with Chrissy just around the corner, one can’t wait too long!

Cleared for now

Posted by Misty Mom on 04/11/2009 None comments

I never blogged about this earlier as I didn’t want to constantly be talking about something that was already stressing me out. But now that we know what we are facing, I’m so relieved to say that I praise and thank God that she is well.

About a month ago, KR started having specks of blood in her stool. It happened so infrequently that I guess I never thought to take it seriously until it began happening a little bit more often. It would happen like once a week or not at all, so I dare say that I was perhaps in a silly way, waiting for things to get worst. Which now I think would have been disastrous had it been something serious. In my mother’s own words, ‘Don’t play-play with blood!’.

That said, we went to the GP and got a stool sample sent in only to be told that the pathologist has confirmed that there is blood in there. Hullo….I can see it with my eyes, I didn’t need someone with a microscope telling me that!! But since the GP couldn’t give us more info, he referred us to a paed and that was the appointment we went to today.

It has been a rough time waiting for this moment but when I saw the doc, I dare say that his ‘aura’ made me calm. As silly as it sounds, I was at ease with him and I was glad that we got him as our paed. O, btw, he’s a little, kinda oldish Indian man called Dr. Arun Shankar – very nice man really. :) Anyway, he got KR’s history from me and then he began telling us or ruling out things that it couldn’t be.

First of all, this bleeding in the stool is something fairly common with breastfed babies. Because their gut is so small, whatever they ingest get passed through as is. If I had a bleeding cracked nipple, the blood that came from it would most likely come out KR’s other end as is. It would not get digested. But since I didn’t have that, doc said that it could be breast milk colitis.

Instead, these babies are usually allergic to the cow’s milk that their mother drinks and which passes into her breastmilk. These cow’s milk proteins trigger allergic colitis, which is the name for this condition in which infants have bloody stools.

This gist of what breast milk colitis is taken from About.com.

Because of this, I have been to be on a dairy-free journey for the next month to see if this is really the cause of the bleeding and to rule out this possibility and look at the others. This means no more teh susu or yogurt or anything like that – poor Mummy!! Thank goodness I can still drink Teh O [black tea]!

I’m glad that he has let us know what we are facing and deep down inside me, I knew that if could not be something too serious as KR is thriving, as the doc put it and her growth is all on the upper percentile. As much as I do not want to jinx myself about it [knowing how we Malaysians got a million and one pantangs/dos and don'ts!], KR is doing well because I can see it with my own eyes. I’m glad that to a certain extend that I was right but I really thank God that He made it this way. God has never let my family down and I’m so thankful and grateful for that.

Anyhoo, now that we can rest a little bit, I rejoiced by getting me a big packet of some Punjabi sweets from an Indian grocer near the medical centre. :) And I’m loving every mouth full!!!

I drink straight from the tap

Posted by Misty Mom on 02/11/2009 None comments

Which is something that I couldn’t think of doing back home in Malaysia. *lol* Weird right? I mean, I don’t think twice about just drinking tap water here in Australia but I don’t know why I can’t do the same at home. I guess it’s coz I’m not used to doing so in the first place. We grew up drinking boiled water and given the choice, I rather drink warm water than iced water. Another weird thing right? I know Ted thinks I’m some sort of weirdo for drinking warm water…as in luke warm water. It’s unthinkable apparently.

That said, we never drank from the tap when we were on holidays in Holland either. I remember my aunt telling me that the water was ‘hard’ hence it had to be filtered. I guess in such places, you’d need some sort of water softener eh? I wonder if my cousin has bought a new one. She had this really old one when we were visiting and it was years ago. I hope she’s got a new one now or it would be the same as drinking from the tap! :P

Time to shape up Mummy~

Posted by Misty Mom on 02/11/2009 None comments

Eekss….I read on FB that one of my friends went for a 5km walk with her kid and hubby!! What a fit woman…and definitely on her way to becoming a YUMMY MUMMY! But not yours truly though. *sigh* Although I have lost a fair bit due to breastfeeding and my almost daily oats breakkie, I think I may be putting some pound back on again. :/

I don’t think I want to look like Ms. Muscle Universe or anything like that, so I wouldn’t even think of trying to bulk up my muscles. I think I’d just like to tone up. I wonder if that Kettlebell thingamajic would help…..and I guess I’ll have to watch my diet as well, eh? Pfffff!

Getting into shape

Posted by Misty Mom on 28/10/2009 None comments

Did I tell you that I can now fit into my pre-preggers jeans??? (“,)

YES!! It’s true….and I couldn’t believe it myself, until I actually got into them. What triggered this move was simply the fact that the jeans that I normally wear or what I wore right after the birth was literally falling off. The joke of it all was that it never crossed my mind that I had *actually* lost weight that my pants were falling off. *slaps forehead* Goes to show how much thought goes into thinking of trivial matters. ;)

My secret to the weight loss is apparently, according to my mum is eating oats. Since my mum was with me for abt 3 months after KR came along, we’ve sort of been eating oats for breakfast almost everyday. It wasn’t a weight loss plan or anything like that and please don’t ask me what the best weight loss pill is, cause I have no idea at all! It’s simply because we both like it lots. And on top of the fact that I am breastfeeding KR exclusively is definitely a big help too. :) I’m really glad that I am losing that weight since it has boosted my self-esteem and I feel pretty too.

Hey, perhaps I should start teaching Arianna to call me ‘Yummy Mummy’! :D

When natural remedies are the best!

Posted by Misty Mom on 18/09/2009 None comments

Needless to say that with the economy going the way it is, I can definitely kiss all my facials good bye. Although I am no beauty regime junkie, I do try my best to keep my facial regime as best I can. Honestly, I haven’t been to a facial appointment for as long as I can remember.

Being someone who had acne for most of her teenage years, one mustn’t be surprise to note that such ‘scarred’ kids are always on the look out on ways they can get rid of their acne. If some one offered me some sort of acne treatment, even though it was a natural acne treatment, I’d have gladly agreed to try it out. This was simply because both sis and I have tried almost everything under the sun to get rid of the acne. For me, I’m glad that it’s gone due to age and having kids but I pity my sister who is still suffering. Perhaps she should think about that natural treatment again.