Health and disease

First of all I’d like to describe the human body. The head is the upper part of our body containing the skull, brain, hair, eyes, ears, cheeks, mouth, lips, teeth, tongue and chin. The trunk connects our head with the neck. The arm consists of shoulder, elbow, wrist and hand. Each hand has a palm and 5 fingers. The leg consists of the thigh, knee, calf and foot with its heel. All the body is covered by skin and there are lots of bones. Inside the body there are many organs. The most important are the heart and lungs. The others are: liver, stomach and blood.

At the doctor’s
We visit doctors when we feel ill or if we have any health problem. Medical care of any type in our country is free of charge, although there are now many private doctors. Everybody has a right to choose a doctor. We can go to the Health centre, policlinic, hospital or to private doctor, many factories and offices have their own doctors.
First of all we enter the waiting room. Then the nurse says „next please“ and invited us into the consulting room. She wants to see our insurence card. Doctors may ask you to strip to teh waist before they examine your chest and throat. They can also check our blood pressure, feel the pulse ro put our blood or urine through lab-tests. Doctors ussually prescribe some medicine for us – pills, antibiotics, eye drops, sleeping pills, ointments or they tell us to go on a diet. Sometimes they may X-ray our lungs or bones. We must go through many types of vaccination during our lives. Dentists may check our teeth and sometimes pull out or drill and fill them. There are various types of physicians: GP (general practitioners). Each person should undergo a regular check-up at least once a year. Dentists, surgeons, internist, oculists, paediatricians, gyneacologists, psychiatrists, dermatologists, ear and throat specialists. I most often visit orthopaedic specialist because I have many injures from basketball.
We can suffer from various illnesses begginning with common children diseases such as: maesles, chickenpox, mumps, scarlet fever or otitis. Usually we suffer from common infections such as colds, influenza, diarrhoea, indigestion or the "stomach flu". We usually stay in bed, drink herbal teas, take pills, drops or vitamins and after a week or two we feel well again. However the situation may sometimes be more serious and need special treatment in the hospital, e.g. heart attack, breaking an arm or leg. There are still diseases which can't be cured such as cancer or AIDS.
It is true that prevention is better than a cure. We should try to live a healthy way of life, practice sports, at least swim or go for walks, we should eat healthy food with lots of vitamins, we shouldn’t smoke or drink too much alcohol. I don’t like pills. I eat a lot of vitamins and I haven’t been ill already about 4 years. I thing I’m a hard man. I only use oinment on my joints exactly on my knucklebones and ankles. I have to have plaster on my hand twice and once on my ankle. All my injures were at sports. A lot of sportsmen use special sport equipments against injures. I have it too. When you want to be slimmer you can try to go on a diet, but I don’t believe in them, because when you eat something with more calories, then all the weight you lost will be back again. It is better to eat more vegetables and fruits, cereal, and other low caloric and healthy food. And it is also better to eat your last meal before seven PM. Finally, when you sit and do nothing, then all the calories are turned into fat, so I can recommend that you should be more active. I don’t like any diet because I like eating. But I don’t eat any fat food and I don’t use a butter. I prefer to go running to go on a diet.

Now I’d like to talk about first aid. When you see an accident you may phone the ambulance (in our country it is 155) or you may accord first aid. If you are bleeding you must stop the bleeding, elevate the injury above the heart ad press with sterile compress. If you see a car accident, check if they are breathing, stop the bleeding, if there is any, don’t move with the victims unless it’s absolutely necessary, keep them warm, loosen any tight clothes and of course call the doctor. If you have any smaler wound you may dress it yourself, but if it is any larger wound you may go to the doctor. If I have any serious injury I’d rather go to a hospital or call a doctor.
I don’t know any alternative approaches. But I heard about acupuncture. It is medical stiching special needles to some parts of human body. It has an affect on our central nervous systém and it helps to banish aches. It is initially chiness medical method.