No Fear

Sea Life Entertainers Need ‘Hypnotherapy’ To Face New Attraction

Weymouth Sea Life Adventure Park is planning a special week-long ‘Face Your Fears’ attraction straddling Halloween.

Before these staff members can join other work colleagues helping visitors to conquer their nerves and get up close to a variety of creepy-crawlies, snakes, geckos and toads, however…they will need to conquer a morbid fear of their own. One staff member in particular has a fear so bad it is more of a phobia!

Marine life enthusiast Sarah Johnson is comfortable with most animals and certainly with fish…but freezes in terror at the sight of even the tiniest spider.

Sarah, 25, of Clebes Close, Weymouth is a valued member of the Park’s entertainments team and bosses want her fully involved in the ‘Face Your Fears’ event.

So they have persuaded local hypnotherapist Jacqui Hinson to visit and help Sarah overcome her phobia.

“I don’t remember how it started but I’ve been terrified of spiders my whole life,” said Sarah, a former Hull girl who plans to study marine ecology and conservation at Kingston Marwood.

“If I find a spider in the house I just scream for my mum and stand rooted to the spot watching it, so it can’t hide anywhere before mum arrives to get rid of it,” she said.

Jacqui Hinson, who shares the successful Lotus Moon hypnotherapy practice in St Mary’s Street, Weymouth, is confident she can help Sarah conquer her phobia.

Jacqui, a founder member of the Dorset Hypnotherapy Hub, reckons one three-quarter-hour session with Sarah should have her handling a huge tarantula with confidence.

“I work mainly with smokers who want to quit and people with anxiety problems,” said Jacqui.

“I also provide a massage and aromatherapy service for care homes, however, and on more than one occasion have helped care staff overcome a fear of spiders so they could remove them from residents’ rooms.”

Reptiles Plus owner, Ian, came along with a boxful of goodies (or baddies depending on how you look at them) and placed a tarantula in the girls hands and all three of the SeaLife staff members happily held the spider for a photo shoot and, quite rightly, looked very pleased with themselves afterwards.

Julz Thomas

Local entrepreneur Julz Thomas had been noting the wastage in old mobile phones being discarded and decided he could do something about it. “I decided to set up a website that would be able to give people advice and guidance on buying a second hand mobile phone.

The mobile market is now so saturated with new phones coming out almost weekly that perfectly good handsets get discarded or remain unused for years in a draw somewhere. Someone could make use of that phone and perhaps they would even buy it off you – its also the eco-firendly green option to reuse a mobile phone”. The average second hand smart phone like the Apple iPhone sells for over £100, yet these handsets might cost $500, £600 new. 

I think we are reaching near the end of the mobile phone development cycle and phones that are only a year or so old now are still going to be a good phone”. We cunningly named our website second hand mobile phones.

If in doubt, get checked out!

The purpose of Mouth Cancer Action Month is to increase awareness of the disease, its symptoms and the risk factors.

6000 people will be diagnosed with mouth cancer in the UK this year and half will die of it. Early diagnosis gives patients a 90% chance of survival however.

Mouth cancer can affect the lips, tongue, gums and cheek and the most common symptoms are mouth ulcers that do not heal after three weeks, red or white patches on the tongue or gums, or unusual lumps or swellings. Less common symptoms include pain when chewing or swallowing, a sore throat that won’t go away, a thickening of the cheek or any unusual pain, bleeding or numbness. The issue is, if in doubt, get checked out and ask your doctor, dentist or pharmacist.

The risk factors are smoking, alcohol, Human Pappilloma Virus (HPV) and a poor diet.
• Smoking is considered the leading cause of mouth cancer in the UK. Tobacco use transforms saliva into a deadly cocktail that damages cells in the mouth and can turn them cancerous.
• Drinking alcohol to excess can increase the risk of developing mouth cancer by up to four times, but people who both smoke and drink to excess are up to 30 times more likely to develop mouth cancer, as alcohol aids the absorption of tobacco in to the mouth.
• HPV, transmitted through oral sex activity is increasingly being linked to mouth cancer and is thought to account for the significant rise in younger people being afflicted with the disease.
• Poor diet is a risk factor, and it is recommended people eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. Omega 3 found in eggs and fish can help lower the risks as can foods such as nuts, seeds, whole-wheat pasta and brown rice.

Patients attending dental practices on a regular basis will normally undergo checks for mouth cancer during examination appointments. People who are registered with a dentist but have not had an examination appointment for more than 12 months are advised to do so.

Poundbury Dental Practice is supporting the Mouth Cancer Action Month in November and is offering free mouth cancer screening checks to people who have not seen a dentist for more than 12 months – people who do not have a dentist, or their registration has lapsed, and it is these people we are offering this free service to.

The appointments are completely free and will normally take a few minutes. The mouth cancer screening sessions will take place on selected Friday afternoons in November from 2pm and those interested are asked to contact Poundbury Dental Practice on 01305 268068. More information about mouth cancer can be found on the practice website which is located at www.poundburydental.co.uk

Tim Warren
Poundbury Dental Practice

P.S. Call us for free private consultations for cosmetic dental treatments. One of the treatments Dr Wilhelm Grotepass will be offereing will be dental implants for just £1,600 each, subject to conditions

Wyke Stores

Fantastic news for Wyke Regis in Weymouth, the old village stores that closed sadly in December 2011 has a new owner and will be re-openning in the next few months. The new owner is Rob and he’d love to hear from locals what they’d like to see in the shop, please let him know via his website http://wykestores.co.uk/.

There’s going to be a bit of building work going on for a while but it’ll be worth it!