Teens today-freaking anxious!

Anxiety is just another part of our life. It can be good or bad, depending on the situation and how the feelings are dealt with. Still today more and more teens are suffering from imbalance of this vital but dreadful human psychosocial entity.

What is anxiety? In a general sense anxiety means to worry, feel stress, concern or nervousness; sometimes even panic. For many of teens, the anxiety is only felt during situations that involve stress such as before taking an important exam or while waiting for a date- especially when it’s their first date or just early phase of it. It is when the level of anxiety interferes with the ability to function normally in daily life that problems arise.

Undoubtedly, life had become more demanding to all of us, including toddlers- consider how it has to fight with the adverse effect of distance with working parents and having to adjust to new people like maids and day care centers etc.
Similarly, teens are facing more challenges in life than ever before. Teens have always faced challenges and worries such as whether they will do well on exam or whether the right person will be willing to date them- why am I mentioning dating so much? Believe me; to them it’s a big deal, even though it might not be for us.

Today, there are so many unique, new challenges that teens can fall into an anxiety pattern. These challenges were not faced on the same level by generations of teens in the past. For example, Will I get into a college? Will I be safe from crime? Will someone shoot me while attending school?

A teen that is experiencing anxiety is not crazy! Neither has he/she gone “nuts”. If the anxiety has developed to the point that the teen is unable to function normally, they may have developed an anxiety disorder which can be treated successfully by trained medical professionals such as psychiatrists and therapists.

There are several different types of anxiety disorders, all of which can affect teens. All of these disorders respond to therapy once diagnosed by a qualified professional. Sometimes these disorders also require prescription medication. These treatments can allow a teen with an anxiety disorder to be productive and live a happy, normal life- bottom line is… don’t be afraid of being labeled as psycho, when if you think you need help for your anxiety issues, please do seek help.

The origin of Mal-indi-lankans- a page from modern Maldivian history

The day is 11th Nov 2020-time to declare “2020 ge thasavuru” a success. It’s been exactly 12 years since the wise move by then president of Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed to bring foreign investments to Maldives during apparently the worst economic down turn of the centaury. As we are celebrating the huge success of our grave foreseeing leaders’ vision 2020, there are few things we can’t just leave off unspoken.

The human developments Maldives has achieved through out past 8 yrs would beat any human civilization ever existed- of course, except the great Zionist civilization which ate up the whole of Middle East. Look at the arguments happening among anthropologists regarding the taxonomy of new ethnicity just appeared in Maldives. They wanted to call them the new red Indians, but we insist; it should rather be the Mal-indi-lankans.

The origin of Maldivians had been a quarreling point among concerned people ever since the beginning. Some would say they are south Asians with Afro-Arabian blended in a coconut shell. But most recent scholars like ex-President Nasheed would argue that they are pure breed of tamilnadu fageeru koige dharin. Anyways, to solve the problem people then decided to call these super mixed bunch of people, the Maldivians (undecided ethnicity due to clash with every other ethic culture and their customs). It was ok then, but today we all are in a dilemma, as the people of Maldives are no longer Maldivians and are more homogenized mixture of Indian and Sri Lankan businessmen with local woman. This produced a unique breed of people who are neither like Maldivians, Indian nor Sri Lankan. This is how the issue went to United Nations Human Taxonomy Council (UNHTC).

It all dates back to 2008 when a hyper-excited activist with lots of Sanadhu (including, mudhinkamuge sansdhu and katheebu kamuge sanadhu) became the president and wanted to bring the Maldivians to aneh dhivehi raajje. By then capital Male’ was over crowded with raajjetherey meehun (a class of Maldivians who came to Male’ from island and were regarded as low class Maldivians). Mr Activist-turned-president came up with this bright idea to chase away these people back to their hoods- the mighty decentralization plan.

To fill-up the emptiness that surrounded capital Male, he decided to bring Investors from India and Srilanka to Male, apparently to invest on economic development which erroneously turned to “human development” couples of years late. Initially bigger investments in Maldives were given to them including hospitals, banks, airports, seaports etc. And those Indians being the Indians, they started copulating and populating the Maldives like they do everywhere else they go (another example is Dubai and England). Initially they brought their people to do the jobs, and then these people became permanent resident of Maldives and started spreading out like “Indians” marrying off locals. And soon before they knew what’s going on, the whole population became this new hybrid of Malindilankans.

Everybody lies- House, MD.

Folks, this is an interesting piece of crap. I was posted to Anaesthesiology and intensive medicine for past two weeks. The place is full of interesting things, expensive equipment etc.. In general, almost every case admitted to ICU is an interesting case. But this one case i went through, really stunned me. I told myself, this is a house MD case!

There was a 28yrs old Malay female, who came with a 3 days history of high grade fever , productive cough and reduce consciousness. On further questioning, she also had been having night sweats, dry cough for past 3 months and losing weight. There was no other significant medical history at that time. Her temperature was 40 deg, respiratory rate was 44, pulse rate was 120bpm and BP was 80/50. She was initially treated as septicemic shock secondary to pneumonia.

Chest x-ray showed a brochopneumonia- like picture with some evidence suggestive of TB cavitations on both lung apexes. Blood and sputum culture was negative for any growth. CBC showed mild leucocytosis with predominant neurophilia. Mycoplasma antigen test was negative.


That evening a group of young women came and claimed that they are her "support group members". What support group? HIV support group! she had been with them for past 2 years. Intensivist scolded medical officer for incomplete history and the poor fella repeated it over again and got further history from the husband.

New history revealed that the patient is the second wife of the man and had been married for past 1.5 yrs. She was an alcoholic and a smoker but husband does not know if she has any risk factors of HIV such as Drug injection or sexual promiscuity (He just didnt know, but she has the whole High risk complex ie, smoking, alcohol, promiscuity, drugs). What about the husband?. He is a long distance lorry driver (we all know what it means and it’s associated risks in Malaysia). Denies any high risk behaviour.

In the dilemma, her HIV status was later confirmed by biochemical tests. Careful investigations revealed she had Pneumocystis Pneumonia (PCP) – a common opportunistic infection that occur in AIDS patients. She was then treated with Trimethoprim and her condition improved dramatically. The man refused to be rested for RVD.

But then, what would be the consequences? Did she lie to her husband about her HIV status? Or, did she get it from him? did they lie to each other? How did she manage to get married without letting him know about her HIV status if she was diagnosed 2 yrs ago? It’s easy for me to think that our job is done once the patient recovers, but definitely there would be huge social implications from this dilemma. Once again, doesn’t this sound like one of those House MD cases? It does, right?

Why all the excitement about the stem-cell research?

Doctors could grow new organs to replace defective ones, and if they used the patient’s own stem cells, there would be no need to take medicines to prevent rejection. Diabetics could get a new pancreas that works instead of injecting themselves with insulin. Patients with spinal cord injuries could walk again.

So why the controversy?

Arguments about the ethics of stem cell research arise from questions about the source of the stem cells. Although “adult” stem cells can be obtained from an adult person, who can give informed consent for the procedure and who will (most likely) not be harmed by the procedure, embryonic stem cells require the destruction of an embryo. Those who believe an embryo is a human life entitled to the same protections as a child or adult argue that this amounts to murder and believe that it is unethical to murder an embryo to help treat disease in an adult.

Opponents of embryonic stem cell research believe that adult stem cells provide appropriate material for study and should be the sole focus of stem cell research.

Do they have a valid point? Maybe, but maybe not. So-called “adult stem cells” are not as primitive as embryonic stem cells. They already have some characteristics of the organ from which they are derived (liver, kidney, bone marrow…). So to make them turn into a different tissue is more complicated and more difficult. These “adult stem cells” have to first lose the characteristics of the tissue they came from and then gain the characteristics of the tissue they are being turned into. So far, doctors have been unable to accomplish this task on a large scale. Embryonic stem cells, because they are the most primitive stem cells available, should be easier to turn into the tissue of choice.

Muslim scholars have actually discussed this issue in depth, if you are interested in what they have to say about the matter, u may visit this link...http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1119503545118&pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar%2FFatwaE%2FFatwaEAskTheScholar