Ask the doctor: Is a coil safe to use?

Dear Maria: An Intra Uterine Contraceptive Device (IUCD) popularly known as a coil is a small, T-shaped plastic device that is wrapped with a thin copper wire and can be effective in preventing pregnancy for even up to 10 years. In other countries, coils that may contain hormones are much more common.
Bad scars usually called keloids affect the skin. You seem to fear that insertion of a coil is likely to harm your health yet the coil is inserted in the womb without damaging skin to risk keloid-like swellings.
The coil is ideal for women in stable, monogamous relationships especially those who have delivered before, whether by caesarean section or the normal way.
However, those allergic to copper as they may have found out from reacting to copper earrings (and could be the reason why you dread a coil), should avoid using coils for contraception. Allergic reactions of earrings are not responsible for ear keloids rather it is a problem that could have affected any part of the body where skin injury happened.
Women who have had unexplained vaginal bleeding, or are already pregnant or have lifestyles putting them at risk of STDs like sexual workers should not use the coil.

How the coil works
The IUD or ‘coil’ is a small plastic (or plastic and copper) device, not much longer than a match, which is placed inside your womb, where it prevents you from getting pregnant. It’s often called a ‘coil’ because most of the original IUDs were coil-shaped.

Why is my stool green?

Dear Doctor: I once went for a long call and noticed that my stool was green. Is that something normal? If not, what causes it and how can I curb it?
— Worried reader

Dear Worried reader: Stool is a result of undigested food passed by the anus and is one of the best indicators of whether or not the body is digesting food.
Generally, stool is brown in colour because of the breakdown changes of the usually yellowish green bile, produced by the liver to aid food digestion. Food when eaten takes an average of three days to come out as stool. If food takes a shorter time, like when a person has diarrhoea, the stool may be greener because bile will not have undergone the said changes. Green leafy vegetables, food colouring, flavoured cocktails or iron supplements may also make stool look green.
So green stool, if not followed by symptoms or does not last many days, may be harmless but still may require a check before declaring that it is harmless.

Are lip blisters evil?

Dear Doctor: Is it true that lips wounds forebode losing someone close (kyebikiro)?
— Katende Musa

Dear Musa: When a person gets infection of a herpes simplex virus around the lips or nose, this virus disappears into the area’s associated nerves for protection from the body’s immune mechanisms.
The virus may, however, attack the same areas following a trigger which includes fever due to malaria, common cold, pneumonia or even typhoid and hence the name fever blisters. Other triggers include friction (deep smooching or French kiss), use of drugs like prednisone or stressful events.
Some of the stressful events include having a sick dear one who may die soon after getting the blisters hence blisters being labelled a bad omen or ekyebikiro in Luganda.

Has my body become drug resistant?

Dear Doctor: I am asthmatic but recently I coughed blood on three occasions and have lost weight! The drugs for asthma are not working well. Is my asthma becoming drug resistant?
— Kabyangire Ponsiano

Dear Amina : Usually the asthma cough is dry but if one coughs out blood once or twice and it stops, this might not be due to anything serious.
However, if the cough persists and is accompanied by evening fevers, lots of sweating, loss of appetite and weight then one may have developed tuberculosis of the lungs (Pulmonary tuberculosis).
One can easily pick tuberculosis by inhaling germs from an infected person. The germs from the lungs may spread to various body parts where they lodge as “persistors” but may not lead to disease or get transmitted (latent TB).
Seek medical attention where a chest x-ray, sputum and other tests may be carried out to rule out TB. People with asthma even when they have no symptoms may have mild inflammation leading to damage of the airways and failure of drugs to work as before.
That is one reason why many asthmatics require continued preventive drugs even when they do not have attacks.

Why have I failed to urinate after sex?

Doctors usually recommend passing urine after sex. In my experience though, I have failed to pass urine no matter how much I try. Do I have prostate issues?
— LST

Dear LST: It is advisable that couples pass urine immediately after sex to flush out germs which may have inadvertently entered the urinary system through the urethra risking a urinary tract infection.
With an erection and sex, the bladder is closed off to avoid urination during sex. Urine is acidic and mixing it with semen leads to sperm damage. This is the reason why a man produces precum before ejaculation so that it washes his urethra of all urine remnants.
Both the woman and man’s urethrae are closed off and in a few people, urine passage may not be possible after sex especially if the penis is still erect.