How can I cope with recovery after cancer treatments?

A loved one of mine had a double mastectomy due to a rapid growing breast cancer, chemotherapy, and radiation. She is in her early 30s. She is a year out from treatment/surgery and suffers daily with aches and pains. She also has lymphedema in her right arm, which doesn't help with her discomfort. She feels pain in her joints, sometimes her back, she gets headaches, she is often fatigued, and she feels sick a lot. She's forgotten what it feels like to have her body feel good. Is this normal? She definitely has depression due to this and often thinks she will get cancer back somewhere else. It's been two years since her diagnosis and she has not felt a day of no pain and or sickness. I want to give her some good feedback, some light at the end of the tunnel so to speak (without using that phrase) to help her get through it. The doctors aren't too helpful. Mostly they want her to take more pills, which are becoming the size of a meal. She refuses to take the pills that are anti hormonal. I don't blame her; she can't handle the menopausal symptoms they give her on top of everything else. She is active and often just pretends to feel ok for others sake. She also eats well with a low salt diet to help the fluid in her arm. Should there, or will there be relief after undergoing so much stress on ones body?


How can I control my body hair?

I'm only 18, but I have a lot of hair on my chest. I'm afraid of letting women see me with my shirt off because I don't want them to be turned off. How can I get rid of this rug and keep it under control without shaving daily? Also, is there away to slow down my beard growth? Shaving more than once a day can be very irritating to my face, but I hate looking so dirty.


How can I have better hair?

1) I was born with thick and coarse hair. It all sticks up when it is short. I lose confidence when I notice that people always look at my hair. Is there any way I can make them softer? Will medication help?

2) I seem to have very untamable hair. I keep the hair on the side of my head really short because of this. It's not that my hair isn't uncombable or anything like that, but if the hair on my sides grow even the slightest they start sticking out at 45-90 degree angles to my head, and there is nothing I can do about (I've tried everything but STIFF STUFF....). I look at other people's hair and they don't even need to blow dry or comb it and it sticks firmly to the sides of their heads. Is there a reason why some people have such easy control over their hair? Is it something I'm eating or doing wrong? Thank you for any advice!


Do diet teas and meal-substitute shakes work to lose weight?

I've been trying to diet for over two years. My goal is to lose about 25 pounds, but the most I've been able to get is 15, and I can hardly keep it off. I concentrate on eating very little and since exercise is so hard to keep up, I pretty much starve myself to death. I manage to maintain the weight for a month, and then I lose control again. I've been thinking about the various diet products in the market, such as diet teas, herbs, meal- substitution shakes, and other medical products. I'd like to know what kind of side-effects they have, and how effective they are. (Some boast a seven-day plan, but that seems hardly believable.) Also, I'd like to know how well-researched the information is on these products (i.e., are they long-term enough to cover all the side-effects?) As for aspartame, is it really harmless, or is it just not researched yet?