Whelehans Therapists Blog

Athlete’s foot is a fungal infection of skin between the toes, which can spread further onto the foot such as nails if left untreated. It appears as patches of soft, white, cracked skin, sometimes with red areas visible underneath. Athlete’s foot may cause itching, burning or stinging and can have an unpleasant odour. It spreads via wet floors and shared footwear or towels. Treatment tips Topical antifungals containing clotrimazole, miconazole, terbinafine, tolnaftate, undecenoic acid or zinc undecenoate are available as creams, gels, liquids, spray powders and powders in pharmacies. The most effective antifungals for athlete’s foot are terbinafine (Lamisil AF® cream)...

Eamonn Brady is a pharmacist and the owner of Whelehans Pharmacy, Pearse St and Clonmore Mullingar. If you have any health questions e-mail them to info@whelehans.ie  This is a continuation of last week’s article on verrucas.   Can verrucas be cured? Yes, but no single treatment can be guaranteed to be effective in every case.  The highest cure rates are in young people who have not had their warts for very long. However, most verrucas will go away by themselves in due course, so it is very reasonable to leave them alone if they are not causing trouble. Some of...

Warts are localised thickenings of the skin, and the term ‘plantar wart’ is used for those that occur on the soles of the feet (the ‘plantar’ surface). They are also known as verrucas. What causes verrucas? Verrucas are a form of infection with a virus called the ‘human papilloma virus’ (HPV virus for short). Infection of the cells of the outermost layer of the skin (the epidermis) with this virus results in this top layer of skin growing and thickening, creating the non-cancerous skin growth that is a wart. Plantar warts are caught by contact with virally-infected skin scales. These...

October is breast cancer awareness month; awareness and self-checks and regular health checks is key to prevention, early diagnosis and survival.   Facts about breast cancer Every 3 hours a woman in Ireland is diagnosed with breast cancer. In this week’s Topic I give some facts and figures about breast cancer which is the second most common cancer in women after skin cancer. More than 2000 new cases of breast cancer are diagnosed in Ireland each year. Irish women have a 1 in 12 chance of developing breast cancer in their lifetime. Only about five to ten per cent of...

  Acupuncture can help combat period pain and help relieve associated headaches and nausea. In Australia, a small pilot study* of 74 women aged between 18 and 45 found that more than half had at least a 50% reduction in the severity of their period pain after undergoing acupuncture treatment for three months, with the effects lasting for up to a year. Many of the women also reported less need to use painkillers to treat their period pain and improvement in secondary symptoms, including headaches and nausea according to the study published in the international journal PLOS One. Known in...