You and I must take responsibility to stop this Ebola ZIMBABWES RICHEST MAN SPEAKS ON THE EBOLA VIRUS DISEASE

From a heart with great concerns, not just for his nation or continent, but for the world he desires to see, a better place, Strive Masiyiwa, Zimbabwe's richest man voices out on the issue of the Ebola Virus Disease, which has become a great threat to the continent of Africa, and even the world.

The Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), which has broken through the coast and boundaries of five countries in Africa since its recent March outbreak, has become a household name, 'ebola', a 'terrifier' of the unprotected and threat to the yet-not-affected.

In his recent post on Facebook, Dr. Strive, as he's mostly called, compares the ignorant attitude of people towards the Ebola virus outbreak to that of the HIV/AIDs outbreak in Africa. He said, "I remember the ignorance, then the fear, the superstitions. I remember the lies, and the denials. Then, I heard about people who had died, then I knew people who had died, and soon it was my friends and my family. At the time, they said it was far, far away, in strange and remote countries of Africa. How can it come here, they asked? ...And so it spread.... We should not allow this to happen again!"

According to a BBC report, up to 23 October, 4,922 people had been reported as having died from the disease in five countries; Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and the United States. A further death has been reported in Mali.

Dr. Strive further writes to beseech all Africans, and the world at large to join him in the fight against ebola. He said,"We can stop the spread of this disease, but it requires each one of us. Yes, this is not a problem that is going to be solved by the United Nations, or the United States, or the Europeans. It can only be stopped by each one of us, acting as a global citizen. I say global citizen, because Ebola does not know borders, or race or age, or skin colour. It will kill anyone who gets infected; rich or poor, old or young. You and I must take responsibility to stop, this Ebola".

So far, the total number of reported cases is in excess of 10,000 and the World Health Organization (WHO) admits the figures are underestimates and warns there could be as many as 20,000 cases by November if efforts to tackle the outbreak are not stepped up. CDC experts have also predicted an upsurge to the rate of 1 Million Ebola Cases by January 2015.

The question to all is, what are you doing, in your 'capacity' to help contribute to bringing down the mighty wall of Ebola???!!!.

How Often Should I Change My Contact Lenses

If I want to save some money, do I really need to change out my contact lenses as often as they say I do? What will it hurt if I want to extend my time wearing the same ones when they look and seem just fine?

When we are all trying to save money and care for our eyes, taking a closer look at the above questions seem worth asking, especially since we know that almost everything we buy is pushed in our face more than we need it.

There are three different basic disposable lenses. There are the ones that are supposed to be changed out every two weeks, the ones that are to be replaced monthly and the reusable lenses that are supposed to be replaced every 6 months.

Why does an eye doctor prescribe the monthly replacement lenses to one person and then two week replacement lenses to someone else?

Do we really need to change out our disposable lenses at all? The answer to that question is yes. Protein, lipids, calcium and other substances build up on your lenses from your tears.

Who really set the rules on how often contact lenses need to be changed out anyway? It is true that the eye doctor must tell you certain things, but who tells him? Is Acuve setting the standards or is someone else doing it?

One thing is for sure, if you are dealing with contact lense discomfort in the eyes, deciding not to switch to new lenses is a bad mistake. We only have two eyes and we depend on them. Eye infections can be dangerous.

Certain eye conditions could cause damage to your eyes if you don't change out your lenses, but what about the average contact wearer?

Statistics show that doctors routinely prescribe the disposable contact lenses that need to be changed out most often. Perhaps saving money could mean going back to the doctor and asking that he prescribe the ones that you can wear much longer.

As we all are looking to cut costs with the economy, thinking about getting the type of contact lenses that can be kept for at least a month to 6 months, especially if you have several household members that wear then, can save you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in one year.

Pure O How do I tell the difference between obsessions and compulsions

There's been discussions lately on the OCD support lists about how to tell the difference between an obsession and a compulsion, if it's all thoughts, as in "Pure O." My understanding is that the initial thought is the obsession, and the cascade of thoughts afterwards are the compulsion. For me it would be something like, "What if I said the wrong thing?" as the obsession, followed by trying to figure out if I did indeed say the wrong thing, including retracing my words, trying to account for all of them, which is the compulsion.

The irony is that the compulsion is supposed to be what reduces the anxiety produced by the obsessive thought, and yet, when I used to say "I wish I could stop obsessing about this" what I really meant was the whole flood of compulsions. I fly into compulsing so quickly that it seemed quite dubious that the initial thought was causing the anxiety--surely all the retracing, figuring out, analyzing, and research were the obsession right? How could they possibly be a way to lower my anxiety??

But what I learned during exposure therapy was that compulsions only provide short term relief, and in some cases, very very short term, and then they rebound with their own additional suffering, taking up mental space and energy, and that if I challenged myself to refrain from figuring out an obsessive thought, that my anxiety level immediately spiked, and that was a sign that the compulsion was serving its function of a short term hit of relief, even if I couldn't see it as it happened.

My husband had the flu this week, and he gave this analogy--the virus is the obsession, and the immune system response is the compulsion. When we are sick, what makes us feel lousy isn't the virus itself, but the attack of the immune system on the virus. In the case of our bodies, for the flu or other illnesses, we actually want the immune system to attack, but OCD is more like an allergy, where our immune system attacks something harmless like pollen, mistaking it for an invader. I know the things we obsess about don't seem harmless, and that they are often about things important to us, but our full blown compulsions cause us more misery in many cases than the initial obsession.

In the midst of my worst OCD flare ups, I had glimpses of how destructive the compulsions were, but I was so scared by the obsessive thought that I clung to my compulsions. I finally hit a low point with my health anxiety, that even though I was terrified of getting treatment, I knew I couldn't continue on the way I was going and have any kind of life. If you are like me, you probably also spend time trying to figure out if something is an obsession or a compulsion, and wanting to know for sure which it is. Another lovely complication of the OCD! Take your best guess.