How To Guide

Example 1

Meredith Boyd

JRA (Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis) is a cruel disease. It strikes when you least expect it, and its cruelty mainly resides in the fact that, even though rheumatoid arthritis is commonly associated with elderly people, this form of the disease only strikes young people, people in their teens.

Meredith Boyd, a beautiful young woman from Georgia, is proud to call herself a JRA survivor. She shares her story with the hope that she will motivate young people that have to fight this illness and will become a living example for those who might be tempted to give up. She tells us that her diagnosis was clear when she was 15 years old and still in high school. She says that she was lucky enough to receive her diagnosis in only six months, and goes through the history of her illness: it all started with wearing knee braces and using crutches, and it ended with two surgical interventions, first at the right leg and at the left leg afterwards.

She says that she was… Read More

Example 1

Jeremy

People always have a dilemma of whether to start their own business or to keep working for others. In many cases even being employed pays really well and the stress involved in working for others is much lower than in managing your own affairs. Still, there are people who want to run their own business and succeed very well in doing so. Jeremy, for instance, wanted to have a business of his own from the time he was in college.

He started his business while he was working as a system security administrator at a company and observed what then only seemed to be an opportunity. He knew there were companies specialized in selling used computers or computer parts to third parties who would then resell them. He contacted one of these companies, he borrowed some money and he started his business, gaining a lot of profit from the beginning. He observed that the market was very good for it and seized this opportunity. This way, his business flourished and he kept winning more and more money.… Read More

Example 1

Gaylene Buchanan

The fact that smoking is an addictive habit and that the cigars harm you and others around you is certain but the best way to quit smoking is not yet known. Gaylene Buchanan smoked for more that 30 years and after trying all sorts of “quit smoking aids” she finally made it and entered the nonsmoking world.

She’s sharing her story with us and this way we can get an idea of what you need to do in order to quit smoking. First off al you need to have a good reason to quit your smoking habit. In her case that was health related but other reasons to quit smoking can be easily found.

Without professional help from a pharmacist or doctor she didn’t managed to entirely quit smoking as the temptation was too high. The first doctor prescribed Wellbutrin but that was not enough so she discovered Zero Nicotine with help from one friend. She didn’t experience any of the side effects of the drug but before ordering another dose someone… Read More

Example 1

Awetumn

Even though you might think that the video games are not addictive, they actually are and it’s a proven fact. To start playing a MMORPG or a RTS game is easy; the problems begin when you’ll realize what you’ve lost while playing the game and you’ll try to quit video games for good.

Awetumn is a young girl with a solid background when it comes to gaming. She played everything, from Super Mario to Guitar Hero, 20 years of hard gaming, as she confesses. The small satisfactions a computer game provides are enough to keep you on your chair for days or even weeks.

5 years ago Awetumn realized that the real world has nothing to do with the world from the game and that was her motivation in fighting against the video games dependency. The trigger that made her realized that was her boyfriend that was more interested in hiking then in gaming. After she got over gaming some benefits immediately become visible, such as the extra time available and the better physical… Read More

Example 1

Rob

Alcoholism is a serious health condition but sometimes the best treatment doesn’t include usual treatments such as medication or AA meetings. Rob Maggs shares his “quit drinking” story with us in details.

His history as an occasional drinker goes back many years. He was 16 years old. It wasn’t a reason of concern back then but in his twenties Rob started to drink often. The effect the alcohol had on Rob was damaging his body, his public image, and the relation with its friends. Soon the drinking became a matter of concern for his parents and even though he tried to stop the heavy drinking, he couldn’t.

The heavy drinking habit became a problem for Rob soon as a father. He neglected his 3 children and still did not manage to stop drinking. The solutions he tried for this problem didn’t work at all and among them we can count AA, antidepressant pills, drinking urge killers and other methods found in magazines.

The drinking episode Rob had was the worst when… Read More

If you suffer from rheumatoid arthritis or know someone who does, you must know how debilitating this disease can be. Is it preventable?

Rheumatoid arthritis attacks the joints in the body. In early stages, if it is caught, then it may be possible to stop it from worsening. There may be many remedies to stave off the pain, but currently allopathy neither has a cure for this disease nor does it have any FDA approved treatment to prevent it.

Autoimmune disorder

Autoimmune disorders are those that occur when the body cells turn rogue. Whether it a simple case of allergy or a complicated case of cancer, there is a whole range of autoimmune diseases, and rheumatoid arthritis is one of them.

What you have to do is to recognize the early signs of rheumatoid arthritis and take action before it is too late.

Warning signs

Some of the early symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis are:

• Swelling of any joint
• Inflammation
• Pain on touching or moving
• Morning stiffness in the joints
• Sometimes there… Read More

Rheumatoid arthritis is a degenerative disease of the joints, which can be extremely disabling.

If you have any joint pain, stiffness, immobility or inflammation, for some time, don’t ignore it by taking over the counter pain killers. Rheumatoid arthritis can affect any joint whether the knee joints, elbows, or fingers or even the thermo-mandibular joint (in the jaws). It usually results in inflammation of the synovial membranes, which surround the joints, causing swelling.

It can be disabling and even crippling. People with rheumatoid arthritis can slowly find it difficult to walk, move their fingers or whichever joint the rheumatoid arthritis has affected. The disease can have a negative effect on the quality of life. Your family doctor or general practitioner may refer you to a rheumatoid arthritis specialist, a rheumatologist. Or he may ask for tests and then refer you.

Physical exam

Firstly a doctor will conduct a physical exam, after taking down your medical history. He or she will check for swellings, how much pain is present, the kind of movements the joints are capable of and more.… Read More

Osteoarthritis is most commonly found in the weight-bearing joint, that is the knee joints and people who are obese are particularly prone to it.

Even though many people suffer from osteoarthritis of the knees, the disease can be found in other joints like the hip, hands, neck and back, foot, shoulder, though these are not as common as the knees. Pain and stiffness in the joints, with the pain getting worse towards evening and night are among the symptoms of osteoarthritis.

Osteoarthritis occurs when the cartilage, which cushions the joints, wears and thins out and bones then start rubbing against each other. Often the bones grow spurs or osteophytes that cause even more pain.

At the doctor’s office

If you have joint pains, after taking over the counter painkillers for sometime, you will most likely go to a doctor. He or she will take your medical history and then carry out a physical exam. You may be referred to an orthopedic doctor also.

The doctor will check the reflexes, muscle strength and for swelling, physically feeling for it. He will… Read More

Nobody knows why some people get osteoarthritis, while others do not. There are lots of things you do to reduce your chances of getting this disease.

The statistics are quite alarming. As many as one in five people – that is 20 percent of the population – is likely to get osteoarthritis. This disease, which occurs when there is breakdown of the cartilage, which cushions the joint bones from rubbing against each other, can have enormously negative effects on the quality of life.

Arthritis may occur because of ageing, general wear and tear and it can even have a genetic factor. Walking, sitting, moving around can be affected. Many forms of exercise may become impossible. The individual can become wheelchair bound or have to use a walker to move around. Is there anything you can do to prevent from becoming a statistic?

Weight

Obesity is a major factor stressing the weight bearing joints mainly, hips, knees, ankles and lower back. Osteoarthritis often attacks the knees and this causes major health problems to the individual. As movement becomes difficult, the knees… Read More

Often both rheumatoid and osteoarthritis present similar symptoms so it is important to get a diagnosis as early as possible.

There are many different joint conditions, which present with similar symptoms. Rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, lupus, lyme disease, fibromyalgia, gout, scleroderma, pseudogout, bursitis, ankylosing spondylitis, carpal tunnel syndrome Reiter’s syndrome and even more are some diseases which have many symptoms in common. There are as many as 100 disorders, which are arthritic or similar to arthritis.

As there are so many different disorders with similar symptoms, sometimes diagnosis can take time and many tests. The earlier you can get a definitive diagnosis, the sooner you can start on the proper line of treatment. Meanwhile you will most likely to be put on painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs by the doctor if you experience a lot of pain.

Common symptoms

The common symptoms of any arthritic condition are pain and stiffness in any joint. The pain may be accompanied by swelling, tenderness, inflammation and even fever. Often the range of normal movements will be affected. You will have pain when using that… Read More

The internet is a place for surfers to find information and providing this information on blogs, websites, and ecommerce sites is a great way to be a freelance writer online. Information comes in many different styles and shapes including ads, product descriptions, website content, blog posts, and articles for directories along with press releases and news stories.

Freelance sites

Starting with the internet, you can expand your skills and possibly write for an offline source as well including magazines. The best way to start in the business is by joining freelance websites such as RentACoder, Elance, and Get A Freelancer. Webmasters frequent these websites in search of quality content writers and freelance writers. You will need to know a bit about the business and how to use keywords in most cases for website content in order to become great. The best way to learn about how to charge is to watch the bids on a project and see what bid wins the project. This will certainly help you in many ways so you do not charge too… Read More

This may come as a surprise, but today many people are learning just how great a business you can have online with nothing more than a blog. Owning a blog does not cost outrageous fees to start, only for hosting and the costs of the domain name. Then you can easily choose a wordpress theme that matches the theme of your blog and you are ready to start. If you prefer to start out without any costs besides your own internet connection costs, then you can always look at a website like Blogger or Amplify, which allows you to keep a blog without any costs. Of course, you will not be able to do as much with free blogs as your own and you will not be able to make as much money.

Of course, you will not make money the very first day as you must first get people reading your blog. Yes, you will need to write blog posts every day or at least three days a week. If you do not have content for them… Read More

You may not be a big ebook person, but there are millions that enjoy reading ebooks of all kinds. Providing ebooks to those that love reading ebooks while traveling, at work, relaxing at home or even on the beach with many different gadgets can provide you with a good income.

The best way to begin, if possible, is to write your own ebooks. You can write on anything and people will buy. Don’t believe, look around on the net and see the various topics you can find that is in ebook form. A great place to look is eBay and Amazon. Of course, if you do not want to spend hours writing ebooks, you can find thousands of affiliate ebooks that allow you to promote the ebooks and earn a percentage of the price.

Of course, if you write your own, you will not have to split the money with anyone. Consider the possibilities. You must know some subject well enough to write 1,000 words and place in an ebook format; form your own recipes to parenting… Read More

If you browse the internet, you have to notice the various ads on each website you visit. Some of these ads are for products or services you can purchase online, but did you know that you can make money using these ads on your own website through affiliate marketing? The great part about affiliate marketing is you do not even have to have a website to make money; of course, a website or blog can help you make even more money. Let’s say you own a website or blog, you can make money easily with affiliate marketing.

Consumers when they are searching for products or services they often research before buying. This is where you come in. You can write an article about a specific product or service and using your affiliate link, link to the product or service, such as a review.

Potentially  lucrative

Some individuals have totally quit their 9 to 5 jobs and are now making a hefty living via affiliate marketing. If you want to get started, you have to be committed… Read More

Anyone that owns a website or blog has heard of Google Adsense. This is one way to make money that is really passive. All you have to do is set it in motion and that’s it. Of course, you will need to learn the particulars if you want to make money or you will never really earn a good amount of money in this fashion.

With Google Adsense, all you need is a website or blog to sign up for the program. Then you can begin placing contextual ads on your blog or website. These ads are ads that will be relevant to the content on your website. All this really means is that if you have a website that pertains to parenting, all the ads will have something to do with children and if you have a travel website ads will pertain to travel, hotels, etc… Not only that, but the ads will be relevant to your location such as the United States and not Africa. This will help you get more clicks on ads as they… Read More

Example 1

Open source seem to have a huge importance in the IT development as it involves lots of people in order to create a real competition to the commercial software that exists on the market.

A blogger with expertise in the software development domain shares his story with us in order to help us understand what the advantages of involving in Open Source are. As a result of learning an open source programming language (PHP) and then involving into an open source community, he easily found two jobs well paid where he was enjoying what he was doing.

His story also points the way an open source program can help you improve your software engineering skills and how that matters for top companies such as Google or Zend. By showing them a link to your contribution the employer can easily see the way you code and that saves you from a long interview that can sometimes be annoying.

By making part of an online Open Source community you’ll also be considered an important marketing asset by the employer. Most… Read More

Example 1

Being with a person who suffers from Bipolar Personality Disorder (BPD) is very difficult because it entails a lot of strength and understanding. Still, it is all the more difficult being the one who actually suffers from it, since they have to face so many disruptions and distractions and find themselves in self-destructive situations.

This is the story of a woman who suffers from BPD and writes about how her relationship with her husband is affected by her disease. She underlines how, in many situations, she is overwhelmed by her own thoughts in such a degree that she can’t even pay attention to the person next to her and how she can’t even keep up with their conversation. A solution she finds very effective when feeling down and depressed is to clean the house, the loan, the backyard, in order to externalize the energy that is making her feel bad. Others aspects she brings into the discussion are the way she feels about relating to people: she wants to stay close enough so that she could feel… Read More

Example 1

Ann Marie

Finding out about having leukemia is a horrible thing, given the fact that the number of victims this diseases does yearly is very high. Still, there are people who suffer from it and with the proper treatment manage to beat this type of cancer and live a normal life. This is Ann Marie’s story, a woman who discovered she had leukemia and managed to get healthy.

She found out about her disease in 1997 after going to the dentist and a visit to her family doctor due to tingling fingers. After passing through a blood test which revealed a low white blood count, and a few more days when she felt really bad, she was diagnosed with leukemia.

This is how her journey as a cancer patient began. She went through difficult treatments, chemotherapy, her body felt all the changes, she experienced the inevitable hair loss and had to cut it. She spent weeks in the hospital and after she took her third bone marrow test, the doctor informed her that… Read More

Example 1

George

For some people, their pets are their best friends. They are loyal, you can always turn to them and they have a lot of love and affection to offer. For this reason, when a pet dies people find it very hard and need a lot of time to get over it. George, for instance, had to go through very difficult moments, as he had to make the hard decision of putting his cat to sleep. He had to make this decision as he saw the kitty having difficulties in moving her rear legs. When he took the cat to the vet, they told him that she had a blood clot preventing the arteries from getting enough blood.

Given that the chances for recovery were extremely low and she might not even survive a couple of days, George decided to put the cat to sleep in order to save her from all the suffering from living the rest of her days crippled. Hard as it has been for him, George tried to get over this difficult moment… Read More

Example 1

Carol

Migraines are very difficult to handle as they have different manifestations and different intensities and people manage them in very different ways. This is Carol’s story and her struggle with migraines. Her first one, she had it when she was only seventeen years old. She went through a lot of pain, headaches, and a great deal of nausea as well as intense sensitivity to light.

In order to find a treatment for her problem, she went to a lot of doctors for more than twenty years, and they put her trough different treatments. There have been a few treatments that worked, but their effects stopped as the years past and she had to go to new doctors and take new treatments in order to get by. During a period of eighteen years, she says, she has been on more than twenty five types of drugs, some of them more efficient, and others with lesser results. The best period, as she tells her story, was one of two years, when she was on a Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitor,… Read More