November 25th, 2011 by ChristopherChangMD in Health Tips
No Comments »
A deviated septum is a well known factor causing nasal obstruction in people. However, many patients with a deviated septum will also state that there are times when they can breathe just fine from their nose. As such, can a deviated septum truly be the cause of their nasal obstructive symptoms? Shouldn’t the obstruction be constant?
The blunt answer is ABSOLUTELY nasal obstruction can be intermittent OR constant with a deviated septum!!! It’s more a question of degree.
To begin with, a deviated septum is when the wall that separates the right and left nasal cavities is bent one way (green arrow in left illustration) instead of being perfectly straight (right illustration).
If there is no mucosal swelling, a person with a deviated septum is able to breathe from both sides just fine. However, if there is the slightest bit of mucosal swelling from turbinate hypertrophy, allergies, upper respiratory infection, or any other environmental irritation, the side that is more narrow will obstruct much more readily with less swelling given there is just “less room” for swelling to occur before obstruction occurs.
Below is the same exact nose and septum as above, but with mucosal swelling present. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Fauquier ENT Blog*
October 28th, 2011 by KerriSparling in Opinion
No Comments »
For a good, long time, I ran higher than usual on purpose because of my focus on the baby and my fear of low blood sugars while I was responsible for her care. In the last few months, I’ve started to lower my blood sugar goals to reclaim a little more control and tighten up that freaking standard deviation.
Which also means that my sensitivity to low blood sugars is tossed out the window once again, along with any whisper of a symptom. (“Pssssst. You’re low.”)
So these lows are starting to creep back into rotation. For a few weeks, it was Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*
September 29th, 2011 by HarvardHealth in Health Tips
No Comments »
I love bread, pasta, and many other foods made with wheat. Luckily, I can eat them all without having to worry about gluten. But I have to admit that the growing public awareness of gluten and the problems it can cause has got me thinking.
Gluten is an umbrella term for the proteins gliadin (in wheat), secalin (in rye), and hordein (in barley). Bakers know it as the substance that makes dough resilient and stretchy. In some people, gluten triggers an immune reaction and causes inflammation of the lining of the small intestine, which can eventually interfere with the absorption of nutrients from food. This is called celiac disease. Some of the more common symptoms of celiac disease are:
- Gas
- Bloating
- Abdominal cramps
- Diarrhea
- Foul-smelling stools
- Fatigue
- Weight loss
- Skin rash
Some people have Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Harvard Health Blog*
September 17th, 2011 by admin in Health Tips
No Comments »
With the release of the movie Contagion, I thought it would be appropriate to post my cheat sheet on how to investigate a disease outbreak. Aspiring disease detectives take notes!
What do you think of when you hear the word “outbreak”? Maybe you envision a population decimated by a terrible, novel, and incurable disease like in the aformentioned movie Contagion or you think of Dustin Hoffman roaming around California in a blue biocontainment suit with Rene Russo trying to protect folks from a tiny monkey and narrowly preventing an airstrike by the US military?
Hollywood has done their best to capture what an outbreak is…but here are the facts. An outbreak, or epidemic, occurs when there are more cases of disease than would normally be expected in a specific time and place. The disease may be something doctors have already seen before just in a new form or abnormally high numbers, such as foodborne or healthcare-associated infections, or it may be an emerging disease that we don’t know much about like SARS. Either way, we need to investigate to determine why it is happening and how to prevent other people from getting sick or dying. 
Outbreaks are usually noticed by an astute clinician, such as those who first noticed AIDS in New York City and San Francisco, but there are also many high tech disease detection systems available to help us spot any increase in illness. PulseNet is a laboratory network that uses PFGE (pulsed-field gel electrophoresis) to help identify foodborne outbreaks by monitoring the genetic make-up of the bacteria causing what may otherwise look like unrelated illnesses. In the recent events of the Salmonella outbreak in ground turkey, PulseNet and the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System helped identify the cause of the outbreak as well as determine how widely it had spread. Programs such as Biosense and First Watch monitor the chief complaint or reason that someone called 9-1-1 or went to the hospital (aka syndromic surveillance). We also monitor news media for reports of outbreaks and websites such as Google Flu trends, which tracks circulating viruses and illnesses. With new technology ordinary citizens can also increasingly report outbreaks in their communities too.
The Magic Formula
So how do you figure out the who, what, when, and where of a disease outbreak? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Public Health Matters Blog*
July 13th, 2011 by Paul Auerbach, M.D. in Health Tips
No Comments »
Dengue fever is a viral (flavivrus) disease transmitted by Aedes albopictus and female A. aegypti mosquitoes. It is estimated that 50 to 100 million people in more than 100 countries are infected each year with dengue viruses.
There are four different types of dengue virus, and there is no cross-immunity, so a person may be stricken with dengue fever four times in his life. The most active feeding times for dengue vector mosquitoes is for a few hours after daybreak and in the afternoon for a few hours just after dark (dusk).
As opposed to the night-feeding mosquitoes that transmit malaria, these species tend to be “urban,” may also feed during daylight hours (also indoors, in the shade, and during overcast weather), and are known to bite below the waist. Dengue fever is seen chiefly in the Caribbean and South America, as well as other tropical and semitropical areas, such as Southeast Asia, Africa, and Mexico. In the United States, cases have been noted in Texas, Hawaii and Florida. The larvae flourish in artificial water containers (e.g., vases, tires), often in a domestic environment.
The incubation period following a mosquito bite is two to eight days. The disease is self-limited (five to seven days) and characterized in older children and adults by a sudden onset of symptoms, including: Read more »
This post, Dengue Fever: Mosquito Born Illness Now Found In Texas, Florida, And Hawaii, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..
If there is no mucosal swelling, a person with a deviated septum is able to breathe from both sides just fine. However, if there is the slightest bit of mucosal swelling from turbinate hypertrophy, allergies, upper respiratory infection, or any other environmental irritation, the side that is more narrow will obstruct much more readily with less swelling given there is just “less room” for swelling to occur before obstruction occurs.
