UPDATE ON MY HAIR

MUMBAI IS STATE’S MALARIA CAPITAL

Of 1.38L Positive Cases In Maharashtra In 2010-11, Nearly 55% Came From The City

Mumbai's ignominious reputation as the state's malaria capital got cemented further as new figures revealed that the city registered nearly 55% of Maharashtra's 1.38 lakh positive cases in 2010-11, pushing it into the league of the country's worst affected states.
Nearly 80,000 cases in Greater Mumbai tested positive for malaria between April 2010 and March 2011, according to statistics recently compiled by the Maharashtra government. This was roughly six times the number recorded in secondworst Gadchiroli.
Many cite a better reporting system as the cause of the steady surge in Mumbai's malaria cases. While there were 27,417 positive instances in 2008-09, it rose to 48,341 by 2009-2010. Between April 2010 and February this year, over 13 lakh samples had been examined here for malaria, of which 75,860—or 5.5%—tested positive.
In the last three months alone, according to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the city recorded over 12,000 malaria cases and eight deaths.
The surge has been the single biggest factor in making Maharashtra the country's fourth worst malaria-afflicted state behind Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Experts blame unplanned expansion for the problem in Maharashtra, where positive cases rose from 56,852 in 2006-07 to 1.38 lakh in 2010-11.
The picture looks direr when fatalities are considered. Malaria claimed 190 lives in Maharashtra in 2010, which was only marginally less than the 214 recorded deaths in worst ranked Orissa. Here too, Mumbai played a major role. Of the 190 deaths, 129 occurred in the city.
Dr Ashish Dhariwal, the director of National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), said that Mumbai has become a bigger cause for concern than Gadchiroli and Raigad, which have reported several cases of resistance to basic malarial drugs.
"Construction work has played havoc with Mumbai's malaria scenario. We have asked the state and the civic corporation to work together," Dhariwal said.
A three-member team from the NVBDCP recently visited Mumbai to study the BMC's preparation for the rains this year. The centre has promised to help the civic body by giving it grantin-aid and commodity assistance. "We will help them procure insecticides and mosquito nets laced with insecticides besides making our experts available to them," said Dhariwal.
The corporation, however, sounded sceptical of Dhariwal's claims. A source in the BMC said that the centre used to help procure insecticides and provide medicines for malaria treatment, "all those grants stopped three years ago".
BMC's executive health officer Dr G T Ambe too said that the corporation was on its own. "Most of the expenses on procurement of oil, mosquito nets and drugs are borne by the corporation, though we do get technical know-how from NVBDCP," Ambe said.
Deadly strain losing sting over time
Mumbai: The gradual decline in cases of plasmodium falciparum malaria, considered the deadliest strain of the disease, in Mumbai has confounded many experts, particularly because the strain is taking an increasing toll in the rest of the country.
Comparative figures compiled by the state's public health department show that the percentage of p falciparum cases among all malaria numbers dropped in Mumbai from 20.20% in 2007-08 to 19.57% in '08-09. After a brief rise in '09-10 to 21.10%, the share again fell to 16.3% in '10-11.
Experts call the decline insignificant, the more so because p vivax malaria, which was rarely known to kill, has been become deadlier in the city.
Meanwhile, according to the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), p falciparum numbers have gradually increased in India from 39% in 1995 to 52.12% in 2010, showing the parasite's new dominance.
"This only means that p vivax, which is widely seen in Asian countries, is no longer the dominant strain in parts of India. Instead, it is p falciparum. This could probably explain why the number of reported malaria deaths in India has been more than 1,000 a year," said Dr R S Sharma, an urban malaria expert at NVBDCP. He added that Mumbai was "fortunate" to have low falciparum incidence.
"Once p falciparum cases come down further, it should not be very difficult to curb deaths in Mumbai," said Sharma, who was a part of the special team that recently visited the city to study the BMC's preparations for the monsoon. He explained that incomplete treatment and resistance to basic malarial drugs, which has never been found in Mumbai, are contributing to the rise in falciparum cases across parts of India.
Dr Khusrav Bhajan, a critical care intensivist at P D Hinduja Hospital, said that a fall in falciparum cases might not be of much relevance since p vivax is gaining in potency. "Vivax is more or less behaving like falciparum. This transition has happened over the last few years."

Blogger, Redesigned

Posted by Jinwoo Lee, Blogger tech lead

As we shared before, our team has been hard at work on a brand new, next generation design for Blogger. After doing a sneak preview at the South by Southwest conference back in March, we received some great feedback from the media:

• Half A Billion Blog Posts Later, Google To Give Blogger A Revamp
• Google’s Blogger Is About to Get an Overhaul

Today, we're thrilled to announce the public launch of our redesign! But please wait a second before you go check out your Blogger dashboard, because we’re planning a gradual rollout that will start with a limited set of users who visit our new feature testing ground, Blogger in Draft. At the start, only some of you (lucky draws!) can see the new design on Blogger in Draft. Over the course of the next few days and weeks we’ll be ramping up to support all Draft users. There is no sign-up or activation process required from your side; just wait, and you’ll notice your dashboard has changed to the new design when you log in to Blogger in Draft. 

Although our team has been hard at work cranking out tons of new features over the last year or so, it’s been a while since our user interface has had a major update so we’re very excited about Blogger’s fresh new look. However, there’s much more to the redesign than shiny new graphics and pages—we’ve essentially rewritten the entire application from scratch, using the latest web technologies that will enable us to make future updates in more agile and flexible ways.

We decided to make the new UI available to our loyal Blogger users as quickly as possible. We realize there might be some ‘rough edges’ (see this page for the known issues) but fear not, we’ll be continually updating and improving the experience until it’s ready to graduate from Blogger in Draft. Our team is also very eager to hear your feedback, so please don’t hesitate to let us know of any bugs or suggestions by clicking on the “Send feedback” link in the navigation bar (or directly on this form).

This is only the beginning of many exciting updates that we’re planning for Blogger this year, so stay tuned!

CO-WASHING

Hi ll,
Co-washing is a technique used when ONLY conditioner is used to cleanse and condition the hair. Conditioner is used in place of shampoo the first go round and it's used as conditioner the second go round. Natural hair is already drier than relaxed hair so we need to maintain as much moisture as possible. Lots of shampoos have an ingredient in it called SLS (which I did a post on) which contributes to drying the hair out. Some recommend 6-8 weeks between every shampoo, others may say 3-4 weeks. I say use your judgement. If you use a lot of products in your hair you may feel the need to shampoo more often. If you feel and/or see the product buildup on your hair, you need to shampoo. Also when you do shampoo, you should be using a SLS free shampoo.
The benefits of co-washing is MOISTURE and MANAGEABILITY!!!!!
So go stock up on your conditioners...One of my favorite conditioners is Pantene for Women of color (in the brown bottle). It's inexpensive and gets the job done.
LATA,

4 1/2 MONTH UPDATE ON MY BALD SPOTS

Hello all,
 I just want to give you guys and update on my bald spots that I presumed came from stress. I went to my primary care doctor first to see if she can diagnose me. She basically feed off of everything I told her and the end result was referring me to the dermatologist and a psychiatrist lol. I never made the appointment to speak with the psychiatrist but I went to the dermatologist. They did a strand test to rule out fungus, so they ended up telling me it was a case of alopecia (which is just a general term for  loss of hair). The doctor suggested I start getting a monthly cortisone injection right in the spots where the hair is lost. This is supposed to regrow the hair. I was told the time frame would range anywhere from 5-9 months before you see growth.
I still am not really sure to this day what caused the bald spots but I've been told by several people that had stress spots that the hair will grow back on it's own. After 3 injections, I took it upon myself to stop getting them and wait for my hair to grow back on its own. I really don't like taking medicine and/or injections...I'm more into doing things naturally. So, I cancelled my last dermatologist appointment and I'm gonna wait for my hair to regrow on it's own. It's going on 5 months and I still don't see any growth.
Here is an updated picture of my scalp...ugh!