Are herbs effective in family planning?

Dear Doc,

I am 45 years old and for five years I have been using herbs in family planning and they have worked. Other women have also been helped. Should I continue?

It is true that many drugs are made from herbs and that herbs can be effective in treating humans but unfortunately for many, the appropriate dosage, purity, effectiveness, contents, or even short or long-term side effects may never be known.

A woman’s fertility largely depends on her age. Women are born with all the eggs they will ever have but as they age their eggs diminish in quantity and quality hence negating fertility.

A woman’s fertility starts to decline in her early 30s, with the decline speeding up after 35.

It is likely that you are not getting pregnant because of diminished fertility rather than the effectiveness of the herb in family planning. This has also been helped by having sex less often as happens when a woman nears or gets into menopause.

Dear Doc,

Is it true that saunas cause impotence? Do they have any health benefits?

A sauna is a heated room in which people relax in dry heat.

Many Ugandans flock saunas thinking they will burn fat and reduce weight just like when one has done a strenuous physical exercise, which is untrue. Sweating in saunas happens to cool one down.

That said, saunas are said to have heart and blood vessel benefits including preventing stroke, reducing stress, and relieving soreness of muscles and joints including chronic arthritis.

It is advised that if a man has problems of fertility, he should avoid saunas.

Also, if a woman is pregnant or anybody who has a cardiovascular problem, they should avoid saunas. Drinking alcohol before and after saunas should also be avoided.

Thirty five per cent of fertility problems that couples experience are caused by a problem with male fertility usually resulting from low sperm motility, low or no sperm count and abnormal sperms.

In normal couples, saunas may cause no fertility problems. Those with fertility problems, high sauna temperatures are likely to increase them.

Sauna high temperatures can affect the testes with a likelihood of worsening low sperm count and sperm motility hindering fertility. Impotence, which refers to erection problems, is not usually caused by saunas.

Dear Doc,

I get flu every morning. Is it the cause of my failure to taste anything?

The smell sense may contribute up to 80 per cent of the taste sense (flavour) and as such anything interfering with the smell sense, including allergies in the nose and a common cold may interfere with the sense of taste.

What you call morning flu could be an allergy in the nose called allergic rhinitis (but could be non-allergic rhinitis), which produces too much mucus that swamps the smell sense nerve endings, hence making you fail to smell and therefore fail to taste.

Proper treatment or management of the nasal symptoms will most likely improve both the smell and taste sense.