The process of searching for alluvial gem deposits (river carried gems) goes back into prehistory—tens of thousands of years ago.

Panning for gold, gems, and diamonds in this manner is as old as mankind. One can spend a life time looking for the really large or significant find. Frequently, the key to finding gold or gemstones is to search where the ancient rivers used to flow—millions of years in the past. Many present hunters find gold and gem rough in sedentary rock.

Once a person has made a find of gem crystals, he sells them to another person who buys the crystals from all the miners working the rivers in the area. This buyer, when he has collected enough crystals to make it worth while, takes them to the large cutting centers.

An expert planner at the gem cutting company then looks at each crystal over a high intensity light table. Most gems are graded wet, or with a side polished, so they may see inside the stone. The rough gems are then graded to size, color, and clarity. These rough gems before grading are called mine run.

After the sorting and grading takes place, a price is agreed upon and a deal is struck. Only 20% of the mine run gems are cuttable. However, it is the custom to purchase all the rough the miner or purchaser has brought in. Many times the cutter or purchasers can’t agree on a price they feel will allow them to make money and the seller will reach into his pocket and pull out some really large quality rough gems to make the deal happen.

Years ago, I used to go to the Indian Reservations in Arizona and buy mine run peridot and pyrope garnet (ruby colored garnet), because the ants loved the pyrope garnet and made their large ant hills out of as much of it as they could find. I always wondered what magical qualities the ants found in this beautiful gem. The Indian name for pyrope garnet is ant hill garnet.

Peridot was formed in the caldron of volcanoes, as were diamonds. The dry river beds of Arizona contained both of these gemstones and the Indians who sifted the ant nests and river beds earned substantial amounts of money. They would never take you to their mines and even guarded their location from each other.After the sorting, we shipped the kilos of rough to Sri Lanka and had it diamond cut and shipped back.

Every February, we would take a large portion of the cut gemstones to the Tucson gem and mineral show where we would wholesale it to jewelry manufacturers and gem dealers. The first hand experiences and the hundreds of hours of inspecting rough gems gave me a real appreciation of gems and what it requires to end up with a quality gem stone or diamond.

If you are pregnant and start feeling heartburn symptoms you will most likely continue to experience this until you give birth. However there are heartburn reliefs. It is usually not recommended to take over the counter medicines as it can be harmful to pregnant women, so the best solution is natural heartburn remedies.

Here are a couple many pregnant women find useful to alleviate heartburn symptoms:

• Eat small meals and eat slowly, it will allow you to digest more easily.
• Avoid anything spicy and most of all avoid junk food or any food high in fat/oils.
• Don’t drink and eat. It is better to not drink while you are eating, drink after your meal.
• Don’t lie down after you eat, take a small walk or do a small activity where you are standing up.
• Don’t where tight clothes, they press against your stomach, making symptoms worse, where clothes that is loose and comfortable.

Always try to use natural heartburn relief and follow the tips above to avoid heartburn overall. If your heartburn symptoms become too painful during your pregnancy consult with your doctor.

The best way to stop heartburn is to prevent it from happening. Of course, you can find dozens of over-the-counter heartburn remedies at your local store. But if you want to keep it natural and find how to avoid heartburn then you’re at the right place. So let’s get to the heartburn remedies:

If you get heartburn after eating then drink a glass of water after your meal. That’s “water” not soda or concentrated juices or alcoholic beverages, just water ?

Avoid foods that cause heartburn, what foods are those? Citrus foods, chocolate, spicy foods, vinegar, alcohol, coffee, soda, black pepper, garlic and peppermint.

Eat slowly and eat less, don’t rush through your meals. Also don’t chew gum before eating and after.

Don’t lie down after eating. Avoid eating before you do to bed. Try to eat at least 3 hours before you go to sleep.

Quit smoking. You know smoking does more than just harm your lungs. Avoid eating while smoking and better yet stop smoking.

And finally eat some bananas! They are a natural heartburn remedy as is chamomile tea.

Remember, consult with your doctor if you experience frequent heartburn or if the heartburn symptoms become too painful.

What causes heartburn can vary from person to person but here is a list of common causes of heartburn.

• Eating too much. Serve yourself less food, you’ll lose some weight and stop heartburn.
• Wearing tight clothes. Avoid wearing tight clothes all day, especially slimming underwear or belts that can press against your stomach.
• Sleeping after dinner. Or any meal in fact, avoid going to sleep or laying down after eating. Stand up, take a small walk or wash the dishes!
• Smoking. This is a no brainer, smoking does a million bad things to your body, including heartburn.
• Alcoholic beverages. I know I like my cold beer or vodka at the club, but it is a major cause of heartburn. Avoid drinking to often.
• Tomatoes. But it’s a vegetable! There good now and then but try to use different veggies in your meals or avoid that Friday pizza with extra tomato sauce.
• Citrus products. Especially the concentrated flavors, there no good for you.
• Coffee. Another big cause of heartburn, anything with caffeine in fact. Your safe option is water.

Aside from losing weight, knowing what the causes of heartburn are will now let you focus on how to avoid feeling that chest pain or fire in your throat. Drink plenty of water and keep a healthy lifestyle overall.

Many also experience heartburn symptoms after eating. A sore throat and/or acid taste in the mouth are also common symptoms. Some also say heartburn feels like food was stuck in there chest. Others also experience heartburn symptoms as a fire in there throat, neck and chest.

Because heartburn symptoms are similar to a heart attack many confuse both. Either way if you frequently experience heartburn it is best consult your doctor.

You may experience heartburn symptoms every now and then but if they become constant you may have Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease, also abbreviated as GERD. The difference is that acids enter your esophagus frequently or all the time.

Knowing the symptoms of heartburn is important for your health. An occasional heartburn may not be life threatening and can probably be treated easily. But if you experience heartburn symptoms regularly, even daily, and with intense pain it is highly recommended you consult your doctor.

There are a few ways though by which one can enjoy the status of having clean, white teeth and smile away to glory. They are:

• Chewing gums especially made for the purpose of teeth whitening. One of the initial steps taken by many individuals when it comes to teeth whitening is the consumption of such gums, impregnated with special chemical substances which help in accelerating the whitening process.

• ‘Hydrogen Peroxide’ mouthwash solutions are another option. One can use them in the concentrations of five to ten percent and expect to have remarkable results. Care should be taken to avoid overuse.

• A very famous home based remedy involves the use of ‘baking soda’. Baking soda is known to have effervescent properties. When used in the right concentrations and applied onto the teeth in the form of a paste, baking soda helps in bubbling away a lot of deposited ‘plaque’. It is not a very good option if the aim is to improve the condition of discolored teeth.

Teeth whitening may not be such a difficult task as it may seem. Besides the above mentioned methods, one can also visit the dentist to avail the benefits of the highly effective ‘zoom’ therapy for whiter teeth along with laser cleaning of the teeth.

The first thing that many people who want to get stain free teeth is to purchase a box of the best chewable teeth whitening system available out there. Products like ‘Orbit White’ and ‘Happy Dent’ have proved useful when it comes to chewable teeth whitening systems. They are FDA approved and are successful when used in milder cases of stained or discolored teeth.

Many people also consult dentists about the best teeth whitening systems that they can use to have glowing white teeth. But the response that they get is not satisfactory. Most dentists often don’t tell the right products to be used, out of the fear that they will use their patients. Also, sometimes they even resort to the practice of recommending products sold to them at a discounted price by many companies.

One need not fall prey to such practices. It is very easy to lay hand on teeth cleaning solutions and other medications meant for this purpose. One only needs to take the pains about finding out about the various products available and get them delivered at the earliest.

Even though the average man or woman only has between approximately 6 to 10 pints of blood in their bodies, the heart pumps the equivalent of 2,000 gallons of blood through its chambers everyday. In order for your heart to meet your body’s blood supply demands, the chambers, the valves and electrical (cardiac conduction) system of your heart have to work in a highly coordinated rhythm. Understanding how blood flows through a healthy heart and how physicians diagnose heart disease will help you to understand the nature of your cardiac disorder.

Valve Function and Blood Flow

As any engineer will tell you, in order for a pump to work sufficiently, there has to be a priming mechanism and there have to be valves that help control directional flow so necessary pressure is created. There are four valves in your heart that regulate the directional flow of blood.

Your heart’s valves contain cusps (flaps) that open to let blood flow through and close to ensure that blood doesn’t regurgitate backwards. Valve stenosis occurs when the cusps don’t open completely, so the opening of the valve is smaller than it should be which can restrict blood flow. Valve regurgitation occurs when the cusps don’t close completely allowing blood to flow backwards. Defective valves can be congenital (present at birth) or they can be damaged by infection, disease, or age. Your physician listens through a stethoscope to assess the health and efficacy of your heart’s valves.

Your heart receives oxygen poor blood from the superior vena cava (a large vein) into the right atrium. The tricuspid valve regulates the flow of oxygen poor blood from the right atrium into the right ventricle. The pulmonary valve regulates directional blood flow from the right ventricle to the pulmonary artery.

Oxygen poor blood travels through the pulmonary artery and on to the lungs where it becomes oxygenated. Oxygenated blood is returned to the left side of the heart into the left atrium through the pulmonary veins. The mitral valve regulates directional blood flow from the left atrium into the left ventricle, and the aortic valve regulates directional blood flow of oxygen rich blood from the left ventricle to the aorta.

The aorta is the largest artery in the human body and it transports oxygen rich blood from the heart to the rest of the circulatory system. The aortic and the pulmonary arteries help to create pressure by resisting the blood flow from the heart as blood is pumped from the ventricles. Your blood pressure is a measurement of that pressure when the heart contracts to pump blood into the arteries (systolic pressure) and when the heart relaxes between contractions (diastolic pressure). Your blood pressure is recorded as systolic over diastolic, a normal, healthy pressure reading being 120/80.

The Cardiac Cycle: Rhythm & Conduction

A single cardiac cycle is the complete sequence of a heartbeat. Each of the events of a heartbeat happens in time and has a beginning, middle and end. The following terms indicate the beginning of each sequence:

Atrial Diastole

As the atria dilate, blood from the superior vena cava flows into the right atrium and blood from the pulmonary veins flows into the left atrium.

Atrial Systole

When both atria contract pumping blood through the valves into the ventricles – when the contraction is complete, the mitral and tricuspid valves shut.

Ventricle Diastole

As the ventricles dilate, their pressure drops below the pressure in the atria causing the tricuspid and mitral valves to open allowing blood to flow into the ventricles.

Ventricle Systole

When both ventricles contract pumping blood through the valves into the arteries – when the contraction is complete,the pulmonary and aortic valves shut.

Complete Cardiac Diastole

The period in which both the atria and ventricles dilate (relax) and the all of the heart valves are closed.

A single heartbeat represents one complete cardiac cycle. When you consider that your heart normally beats 70 times per minute during calm periods of inactivity, your heart completes over 100,000 cardiac cycles per day.

What Keeps the Beat?

The tissue of your heart muscle is highly specialized myogenic muscle tissue, which means it can contract and relax on its own without a nerve impulse. Cells from your heart muscle tissue will beat in unison if placed side by side. In other words, your heart muscle doesn’t need outside stimulus from your brain to keep beating. Your heart’s survival in dire situations is protected because the impulse to contract doesn’t come from outside of itself. But with so many cells and layers of muscle tissue, along with the chambers and valves, something has to coordinate the heart’s rhythm.

Cardiac conduction regulates the rhythms of the cardiac cycle. Atop the right atrium is a bundle of cells called the sinoatrial (SA) node. The SA node is often referred to as your heart’s natural pacemaker because it controls the initiation of electrical impulses in cardiac conduction.

Once an electrical impulse is fired across the SA node, it travels across the right atrium to the left atrium causing the contraction in atrial systole.

The electrical impulse reconvenes at the atrioventricular (AV) node and travels across the atrioventricular bundle (Bundle of His) where it splits down the right and left crura spreading into the Purkinje’s fibers causing the contraction in ventricular systole.

An EKG (or ECG) allows physicians to monitor and measure the timing of the electrical impulses of the cardiac conduction cycle. The measurement of the EKG is recorded as a wave. The wave has three differentiated parts: the P wave, QRS wave (or QRS complex) and the T wave.

MEDICAL DISCLAIMER
The information contained in or made available through This Site cannot replace or substitute for the services of trained professionals in the medical field. We do not recommend any treatment, drug, food or supplement. You should regularly consult a doctor in all matters relating to physical or mental health, particularly concerning any symptoms that may require diagnosis or medical attention.

Heart Attack Warning Signs

Below are the signs and symptoms of a heart attack. Please review them. Should you experience any of these, call 911, or have someone drive you immediately to the hospital. DO NOT DRIVE YOURSELF.

Any one or more of the following could indicate a heart attack.

Chest Discomfort or Pain

• Sudden discomfort or pain in the chest area that lasts longer than 15 minutes.
• The chest area may include the neck or throat, jaw, shoulder, one or both arms or back, especially between the shoulder blades.
• The discomfort or pain may feel like burning, squeezing, heaviness, tightness, or pressure
• Heart attack discomfort or pain may or may not be severe but it typically covers an area that is impossible to cover with one single hand.
• Discomfort or pain that feels like indigestion but encompasses a large area (larger than one hand flattened)
• In women, the discomfort/pain may be more vague

Sudden Shortness of Breath, or Sudden Difficulty Breathing

Nausea and Vomiting

• Nausea and vomiting may occur in some individuals, usually around the time of discomfort/pain episode.

Sweating

• Sweating often occurs at the time of the chest discomfort/pain. Cool, clammy skin is often a feature of profuse sweating. Profuse sweating that accompanies chest pain is a clear indication to seek medical attention immediately.

MEDICAL DISCLAIMER
The information contained in or made available through This Site cannot replace or substitute for the services of trained professionals in the medical field. We do not recommend any treatment, drug, food or supplement. You should regularly consult a doctor in all matters relating to physical or mental health, particularly concerning any symptoms that may require diagnosis or medical attention.

What is Chronic Pulmonary Embolism?

The veins in our body carry blood to and from the heart. When blood is returned to the heart it also travels, through the pulmonary arteries, to the lungs where it receives oxygen. The blood then travels away from the heart, carrying the oxygen to other parts of the body.

Sometimes blood clots form within veins, usually in the lower body. Blood clots may happen because of a major physical illness, or be caused by a person being immobile. In some instances, genetic or inherited characteristics may also increase a person’s chances of forming blood clots. In a small percentage of patients, blood clots can break away from the vein walls. When this happens, they travel through the blood’s circulatory system until they reach the lungs, where the clots become trapped. This is called a pulmonary embolism and it affects the oxygen exchange in a person’s body, making it difficult for the lungs to function properly.

The heart’s right ventricle is not well suited to excessive mechanical demands, being adapted to pump blood through the normally low-resistance, high-capacity lung circulatory path. Symptoms of pulmonary embolism can include shortness of breath, chest pain, fatigue, and dizziness.

Pulmonary embolism is the second most common cause of cardiac death in North America after coronary artery disease. However, in the majority of individuals, if a patient withstands the initial pulmonary embolus, the blood clot will dissolve and normal circulation will return.

Pulmonary Thromboendarterectomy (Surgery for Chronic Pulmonary Embolism)

In a small number of patients (0.5-2.5%), for unknown reasons a blood clot does not dissolve. This means the blood pressure remains elevated in the right side of the circulation, causing a persistent strain on the right side of the heart (right ventricle). This is called a chronic pulmonary embolism (or “chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension”).

Individuals with this disorder experience symptoms ranging from shortness of breath while moving around or exercising, to chest pain, fainting spells, and severe leg and abdominal swelling. The best treatment for this problem is a surgical procedure called a pulmonary thromboendarterectomy. The procedure involves open-heart surgery and uses a heart/lung machine to stop the patient’s circulation while the surgeon works to open the arteries and remove the chronic blood clot.

MEDICAL DISCLAIMER
The information contained in or made available through This Site cannot replace or substitute for the services of trained professionals in the medical field. We do not recommend any treatment, drug, food or supplement. You should regularly consult a doctor in all matters relating to physical or mental health, particularly concerning any symptoms that may require diagnosis or medical attention.