Medical Questions II
The ClubHouse: Archives: Medical Questions II
Donut | Wednesday, February 20, 2002 - 09:10 pm     hey guys, if it is head turning that does it, it really sounds like inner ear to me, (not that i am a dr. but i am in the medical field which only makes me an educated idiot!) When you get up in the morning, do you feel like you have to hold on to stuff to start walking? and it often follows a cold. Sometimes a dr. can see nystagmus(jerking eye movements) when you visually track(follow their finger with your eyes) did any of them do that? Go to an ENT dr, if your regualr dr isnt helping, or wait it out, but they can give you stuff to help like Antivert, or beconase can sometimes help. |
Whowhere | Thursday, February 21, 2002 - 10:56 am     Spygirl I am anemic too and have had the dizzy spells. Usually it happens right when I stand up, but I've had it happen while I'm just sitting, relaxed. I occassionallly get ringing in my ears, but like Donut said, I think it's normal. Here's a quick test to see if you are anemic..... Take your wedding band (assuming it's real gold) and rub it on your forehead skin. If it leaves a grey/black mark, you're anemic - if it doesn't, you're not. I've read that it doesn't work for everyone, but I get a black mark and my husband or daughter don't (they're not anemic). |
Whowhere | Thursday, February 21, 2002 - 10:58 am     Obviously a blood test would be a REAL diagnosis. |
Whoami | Friday, March 01, 2002 - 06:38 pm     My sis has been to a doctor, and told she has this disease. I have no idea how to spell it (and neither does she). Over the phone, it sounds like she is saying something like, "men ears" disease. Okay, I know it's one word, like "menears," or "meneirs." I wanted to read more about it, but without a way to spell it, I can't even do a search on it! Does anyone know what it is, or how to spell it? It apparantly affects her vision, balance and it makes her shake. |
Tess | Friday, March 01, 2002 - 06:45 pm     Whoami--my mom has that. Let me see what I can find. |
Tess | Friday, March 01, 2002 - 06:48 pm     Ok, Whoami, I just did a google search and came up with several websites. Here's the first one for you: Meniere's Disease |
Moondance | Friday, March 01, 2002 - 06:49 pm     http://www.earfoundation.com/ Meniere's Disease |
Tess | Friday, March 01, 2002 - 06:55 pm     Whoami--a Google search (www.google.com) brings up 10 pages of websites related to Meniere's Disease which include medical information, support groups, possible treatments and so forth. You might want to pass some of those on to your sister. Good Luck. |
Whoami | Friday, March 01, 2002 - 08:13 pm     Thank you Tess and Moondance. I'll have to take some time and do some reading. My sis is a bit of a hypocondriac. She has a tendancy to "embrace" illnesses. So, treatments such as diet (as is mentioned on the website Tess provided) could be good things to pass along to her. I'll need to do more reading before I pass along the websites to her. The ones that list symptoms could be detrimenal right now, as she could end up "developing" symtoms she doesn't have right now. That may sound a bit mean to say it that way. But the last thing I'd want to do is make her more miserable than she already is! Thanks again. I guess I wasn't too far off on the spelling. Do they know what causes it? I haven't read in depth yet of course. Just wondered. She's had quite a few horse and bike accidents that have led to many concussions. Just wondered if all those bonks on the head did something. |
Dahli | Friday, March 01, 2002 - 08:53 pm     Wow I took a look at those and what a lot of great information. The dizzy description really caught my eye because of what I talked about in this thread a while back. Since then I have recieved my MRI results and the ear specialist said all he could find were signs of Ischemia so now I see another specialist but I have tried to find out more about this but haven't been able to find anything nearly as informative as these sites. Tess and Moon do you have directions for me?? I would love to find out more. |
Moondance | Friday, March 01, 2002 - 08:56 pm     Google is a GREAT search engine! http://www.google.com/ |
Moondance | Friday, March 01, 2002 - 09:01 pm     Medical Search engines http://www.webinfomed.com/ http://www.freeality.com/medicalt.htm |
Dahli | Friday, March 01, 2002 - 09:12 pm     Thanks buddy! |
Tess | Saturday, March 02, 2002 - 12:52 am     Whoami, I did a little more reading to see if I could answer your question, what causes Meniere's Disease. Below is what I copied from one of the sites I found in my Google search. Meniere's Disease Meniere's disease first described in 1861 by the French physician Prosper Meniere, is characterized by multiple symptoms, all associated with excessive fluid in the inner ear involving both the hearing and balance organs. Excessive fluid in the cochlea (hearing organ) is known as cochlear hydrops. Excessive fluid in the semicircular canals (balance organ) results in dizziness and is known as vestibular hydrops. Almost all Meniere's patients have both cochlear and vestibular hydrops. Normal Hearing The ear is divided into three parts: external ear, middle ear, and inner ear. Sound travels along the external ear canal, causing the eardrum to vibrate. Three small bones of the middle ear (malleus, incus, and stapes) conduct this vibration from the ear drum to the cochlea of the inner ear, causing waves of fluid in the cochlea to stimulate its delicate hearing cells (hair cells). Movement of the hair cells generates an electrical current in the auditory nerve, which in turn transmits signals to the brain. Through various interconnections these signals are recognized as sound. Symptoms The symptoms of Meniere's disease are dizzy spells (vertigo) associated with hearing loss, tinnitus, and a feeling of fullness in the ear. These spells occur to varying degrees and last from 20 minutes to a full day. About 80 percent of patients with Meniere's disease experience the problem in only one ear. Meniere's disease can occur at any age but it most frequently begins between the ages of 30 and 50. The cause of Meniere's disease is unknown. Possible contributors are stress, excessive salt intake, and, occasionally, endocrine problems, such as low thyroid function, abnormal glucose (sugar) metabolism, or an inability to handle fats (high cholesterol and/or triglycerides.) Uncommon disorders that mimic Meniere's disease are auto-immune labyrinthitis, syphilis, head injury, or viral infection of inner ear. I hope this helps a little bit. It's sort of a the bare facts about Meniere's. From reading this it doesn't seem as if all those bonks on the head caused this problem. |
Whoami | Saturday, March 02, 2002 - 01:21 am     That's very interesting Tess. Some of those possible causes (stress, salt) sound like reversable things to me. However, my sis made it sound like this thing isn't curable. She talked about the medication they will be putting her on, and she said something about not being too thrilled about taking this medication for the rest of her life! As she does with illness, she has a tendency to "embrace" stress as well. She also was diagnosed a long time ago as hypoglycemic, and was also once on medication for her thyroid. Sounds like shes a "perfect candidate." She's also periodically on medication for depression. She went to visit our older sister last year in CA. Older sis said she laid out all her pills on the bed when they got there. One pill to take care of one thing, another to take care of the side effects of the first pill, and so on... She had SEVERAL bottles of stuff!! And she's only 46. She sure worries me. |
Tess | Saturday, March 02, 2002 - 01:49 am     Whoami, a couple of years ago, I got to feeling worse than usual and I talked to my doctor. We re-evaluated the meds I need to take for lung disease and muscle disorder and realized that some meds were doing more harm than good. Perhaps it's time for your sister's physician to take stock of her meds and see if any could be eliminated or changed. New meds are coming out all the time with fewer and fewer side effects. I don't think there is a cure for this disease however, from the little I read tonight, it sounds like there are several options for treatment from changing diet and life-style, to counselling to learn to cope with stress, to surgery. Each case is different as each patient is unique. My mom, as I said, is 74 and has had Meniere's for many, many years. There are times when she cannot take an airplane, sometimes when she cannot do other things but most of the time she sure gets around and she has heart trouble and suffers from depression most of the time. I guess my point here is that this diagnosis, while it isn't the best that could happen, isn't the worst either. It can be managed especially with a good attitude and while patients have symptoms in varying degrees from relatively mild to disabling, there still is treatment available. The big step in the right direction is nailing down the diagnosis. Of course, I'm not a doctor at all, but it does sound to me like visits to a health psychologist would be in order if your sister would go. When my daughter arrived from Korea and our lives changed forever, my doctor suggested I see a health pychologist to learn ways to manage stress and to maximize the times when I am in better health so there are fewer times when I am stuck in bed. Even good stress is still stress. Your body can't always tell the difference. Done rambling for now......I wish your sister well. Hang in there. |
Moondance | Wednesday, March 06, 2002 - 03:21 pm     Urgrace has Web TV and could not copy/paste but wanted to share this so I am posting for her HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK ALONE. If everyone who gets this sends it to 10 people, you can bet that we'll save at least one life. Let's say it's 6:15 p.m. and you're driving home (alone of course), after an unusually hard day on the job. You're really tired, upset and frustrated. Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into your arm and up into your jaw. You are only about five miles from the hospital nearest your home; unfortunately, you don't know if you'll be able to make it that far. What can you do? You've been trained in CPR but the guy that taught the course neglected to tell you how to perform it on yourself. Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, this article seemed to be in order. Without help, the person whose heart stops beating properly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness. However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigourously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest breaths and a cough must be repeated about every 2 seconds without let up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again. Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital. Tell as many other people as possible about this, it could save their lives! From Health Cares, Rochester General Hospital via Chapter 240s newsletter AND THE BEAT GOES ON ... (reprint from The Mended Hearts, Inc.publication, Heart Response) |
Urgrace | Wednesday, March 06, 2002 - 03:47 pm     Thank you Moondance for posting this for me. It came to me in an email, and I thought it might be something useful to know and pass along. |
Tksoard | Wednesday, March 06, 2002 - 04:12 pm     Grace, can you send me the E-mail one? I want to send it to my mom and sisters. It is great to know that!! Now, to figure out what to do if you're choking and you're alone. That is something that has always scared me.  |
Whoami | Wednesday, March 06, 2002 - 04:51 pm     I took first aid a very long time ago. But I remember the instructor saying if you are choking and alone, you can throw yourself over the back of a chair (a hard backed one, like a dining room chair or something). You aim for the spot in your abdomen that you would have done abdominal thrusts on a person you were saving from choking (don't have the medical term for that area, I'm sure someone else can explain better). You throw yourself over it in a sharp movement, just like a thrust. He said it was very hard to do. But better than doing nothing! |
Jewels | Wednesday, March 06, 2002 - 05:02 pm     I hate to be a skeptic, but I had to check it out....now I don't know what to believe. Okay, I am computer illiterate and don't know how to make a link...go to www.snopes.com and put The Mended Heart in search. Maybe some smart person can put a link here.  |
Urgrace | Wednesday, March 06, 2002 - 05:28 pm     Jewels, you think this is a hoax? I didn't even check because it came from a hospital newsletter and was published. |
Urgrace | Wednesday, March 06, 2002 - 05:38 pm     Okay I looked up hoaxes and it is not listed as one but may be classified as a rumor, which is not necessarily true or false. |
Tksoard | Wednesday, March 06, 2002 - 05:45 pm     I hope it's true!! I just sent it to all my family. Thanks Gracie!!  |
Jewels | Wednesday, March 06, 2002 - 06:39 pm     I don't think it is a hoax, but sounds like it may not be totally true. But who are you supposed to believe? I guess the best advice is to ask your own doctor!  |
Babyruth | Wednesday, March 06, 2002 - 06:48 pm     Here's the link: urban legends Origins: This helpful e-mail began its life on the Internet in June 1999. Those kindhearted souls who started it on its way likely had no inkling the advice they were forwarding could potentially be harmful to someone undergoing a heart attack, but that is indeed the case. Those in the know have come down strongly on the side of cough CPR being a dangerous procedure for the uninitiated to attempt. If you were a doctor and knew exactly what you were doing, it might help save your life. If, however, you are not a physician and you misjudge the kind of cardiac event you're experiencing, cough CPR could kill. This "helpful" e-mail could help you right into a grave. The e-mailed advice about coughing during a heart attack leaves the impression that "cough CPR" technique is endorsed by Rochester General Hospital and Mended Hearts. Rochester General had nothing to do with any of this -- how its name came to be attached to this message is a mystery. See their web page which denies their having endorsed this e-mail Mended Hearts (a support group for heart disease patients and their families) is not nearly so blameless. Although the text of the e-mailed advice was published in a Mended Hearts newsletter, the organization has since disavowed it and for a time had a page on its web site asking readers not to take the e-mail seriously because they didn't stand behind it. The piece on "cough CPR" found its way into that publication through a blend of too much enthusiasm and a dearth of fact checking. From there, other chapters picked it up, spreading the notion to an even wider audience. Attempts now to distance the organization from it don't begin to undo the damage done by the piece having been picked up from there. Darla Bonham, Mended Heart's executive director, has since issued a statement about cough CPR: I've received email from people all across the country wanting to know if it is a valid medically approved procedure. I contacted a scientist on staff with the American Heart Association Emergency Cardiac Care division, and he was able to track a possible source of the information. The information comes from a professional textbook on emergency cardiac care. This procedure is also known as "cough CPR" and is used in emergency situations by professional staff. The American Heart Association does not recommend that the public use this method in a situation where there is no medical supervision. Dr. Richard O. Cummins, Seattle's director of emergency cardiac care, explains that cough CPR raises the pressure in the chest just enough to maintain some circulation of oxygen-containing blood and help enough get to the brain to maintain consciousness for a prolonged period. But cough CPR should be used only by a person about to lose consciousness, an indication of cardiac arrest, he cautions. It can be dangerous for someone having a heart attack that does not result in cardiac arrest. Such a person should call for help and then sit quietly until help arrives, he says. In other words, the procedure might be the right thing to attempt or it might be the very thing that would kill the afflicted depending on which sort of cardiac crisis is being experienced. Without a doctor there to judge the situation and, if cough CPR is indicated, to supervise the rhythmic coughing, the procedure is just far too risky for a layman to attempt. Forget about coughing -- key to surviving a heart attack is obtaining proper medical assistance within a very limited window of opportunity. Once an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) has been diagnosed, speedy injection of thrombolytic agents to dissolve clots is of the utmost importance -- the more quickly those drugs are delivered, the better the chances of survival are. It's a race against the clock. Most patients who present with minor chest pains usually look healthy and show no signs of a heart attack. Electrocardiogram (ECG) results tell the story though, so be sure to insist upon one being performed if you've any doubts at all. Often mild heart attacks are left untreated and undetected because hospital staff mistake a heart attack for something more benign because the presenting symptoms are minor. Rather than risk killing yourself with cough CPR, those experiencing a heart attack should heed the advice of physicians the world over -- down a couple of Aspirin as an emergency remedy. Doctors believe that during the early stages of a heart attack, Aspirin -- which is known to prevent blood platelets from sticking together -- can prevent a clot from getting bigger. In 1991 Dr. Michael Vance, president of the American Board of Emergency Medicine, recommended that people who think they are having a heart attack should "Call 911, then take an Aspirin." Oh, and it probably makes a great deal of sense to chew the Aspirin before swallowing. The sooner it is dispersed by the stomach, the sooner it gets to where it is needed. During a heart attack, waiting for the enteric coating surrounding the pill to break down naturally could be a mistake. In 1993 The American Heart Association began recommending a 325mg Aspirin at the onset of chest pain or other symptoms of a severe heart attack. That bit of advice is going unheeded though -- a follow-up report published in 1997 shows as many as 10,000 American lives a year could be saved if more people who think they're having a heart attack took an aspirin at the start of chest pains. Okay, so in terms of the drama of it, swallowing an Aspirin seems quite a come-down from bravely trying to induce a perfectly timed coughing fit. Less flamboyant is better, though; Aspirin saves lives, whereas coughing might well cost them. |
Juju2bigdog | Thursday, March 07, 2002 - 10:55 am     Huh! I got this e-mail over a year ago and didn't think to question it, although I question almost everything else. Thanks for copying the information, Babyruth. |
Julieboo | Thursday, March 07, 2002 - 11:16 am     I am assuming the newest dimetapp email is a hoax too. Anyone get that one? |
Urgrace | Thursday, March 07, 2002 - 01:02 pm     The whole thing sounds a little politic. Kinda like when you ask your doctor about taking natural remedies instead of drugs, and s/he starts sweating and getting defensive. I now carry a bottle of aspirin with me everywhere, but who says that bottle will be within reaching distance if I am alone and having a heart attack. |
Juju2bigdog | Thursday, March 07, 2002 - 02:33 pm     I carry aspirin at all times that I have my purse with me, but it is in one of those annoying little metal boxes where you have to press two red dots with your thumbs. You never know if you are going to get it open or not. And sometimes it is open when you don't know it, and you are breaking your thumbs pressing those stupid red dots. Oops, I better head over to the griping thread. Must be the freaking SNOW!
 |
Grooch | Friday, March 08, 2002 - 12:57 pm     I just got an email from my sister about my niece who is only four and I was wondering if anyone ever heard anything like this before. Here is part of her email. I took her to the emergency room yesterday. She was in pain and couldn't move her leg. Couldn't lift her up to put her in the car or she would scream so I had to call the ambulance. They took blood and x-rays and they came back negative but they diagnosed it as inflammation of the hip joint and said it was caused by a virus. Could be from the cold she just got over or another virus. Another kid in her class had the same thing yesterday. Now she's doing ok. She can walk now. |
Babyruth | Friday, March 08, 2002 - 01:06 pm     Grooch, I just did a quick google.com search under viral arthritis in children, and got this. Hope it helps. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000416.htm |
Twiggyish | Friday, March 08, 2002 - 01:07 pm     No, but that sounds scary!! I can't imagine a virus in the joints. |
Grooch | Friday, March 08, 2002 - 01:18 pm     Thanks, Babyruth. The site says "This is a common form of childhood joint discomfort." I had never heard about it before in my life before today. |
|