Illnesses and diseases

 Health is the most important thing in our lives.

 We have illnesses minor and serious. Minor illnesses are flu, sorethroat, stomachache, headache,
backache and serious illnesses, called diseases are cancer, AIDS, heart disease, pneumonia, stroke.
Some of them are incurable.
 Small children are regularly vaccinated against various diseases such as tuberculosis or other childhood
diseases which can be very dangerous when they grow up.
 Children´s diseases: measles (spalničky), chicken pox (neštovice), rubella (zarděnky), mumps
(příušnice), scarlet fever (spála).
- Flu (chřipka), fever (horečka), cold (zimnice), cough (kašel), tonsilitis (angína), sore throat
(bolest v krku), pneumonia, allergy
- Headache, toothache, stomachache
- Cancer, AIDS
- High or low blood pressure, heart attack (infarkt), stroke (mrtvice)
- Jaundice (žloutenka)
- Diarrhoea, vomit
 Light illnesses can be treated at home (flu, tonsilitis). You must stay in bed, take pills or other
medicaments (drops, sprays). We should measure our temperature, keep calm, drink a lot of herbal tea
with lemon and honey. More complicated diseases must be treated in hospital by the doctors.
 Lots of people suffer from allergies today. We can be allergic to animals, dust, sun, flower pollen, etc. If
we have allergic reaction, we have a rash, red eyes, we sneeze and sometimes problems breathing. We
must take pills.
 In some periods, people are more ill: for example in autumn or early spring, lots of people catch a flu.
Sometimes we talk about „flu epidemics“.
 There are several kinds of doctors: - a general practitioner (GP):
- A dentist, cardiologist, surgeon, psychiatrist and other specialists
 We go and see the general practitioner when we feel bad: we have high temperature, feel sick, have a
cold, etc. First, we have to wait in the waiting room. Then we are called in and the nurse wants to see
our health insurance card. She looks for our medical record (documentation). Then we can go to the
surgery. The doctor asks what is wrong with us and then he examinses the body. Sometimes we have to
open our mouth and the doctor prescribes some medicine. Then we go to the chemist´s and buy the
medicine. Mostly, we have to stay in bed until the next check – up.
 To the dentist´s we should go for a preventive check up every half year. He /she looks after our teeth.