A 75 years old woman was living with her daughter, her son-in-law and grandchildren. One day sore throat and cough started but there was no fever. At that night, severe cough started while she was sleeping. She went to her family doctor the next day and she was diagnosed with a common cold and prescribed with medication for that. 5 days after she started to take the medication, her cough didn’t stop. 2 weeks after she was diagnosed with a common cold, while sleeping, suddenly she couldn’t almost breathe like something was clogged in the throat. She was found by her family right before she lost her life and was sent to an emergency room. 3 hours later, her breathing calmed down and her life was saved. After that, various tests were performed and the disease was identified.
Asthma Asthma is a disease that airway or bronchial tubes are abnormally contracted by some reasons. Acute symptoms such as cough or difficulty of breathing are caused and if the attack is severe, it leads to death. There are 2 types of asthma. (1) Atopic asthma: allergic reaction to pollen or dust contracts the air way. (2) Non-atopic asthma: the cause of the contraction of the airway is unknown. In her case, the cause of the asthma attack was considered as deterioration of common cold, but after multiple tests, the cause was not specified. Therefore, she was diagnosed with non-atopic asthma. She was told that she had to get along with the disease trying some medicines to control the asthma attack. She was pushed down into the depth of anxiety because it was not sure when she would be attacked by the severe asthma symptoms. She started to take the prescribed medication, but suffered from the asthma attack again not only while sleeping but also anytime in her daily life. She could only keep taking the medication and stay home being afraid of the asthma attack. One day she happed to meet a monk of her acquaintance and she was referred to the monk’s brother who was a specialist of respiratory diseases. 2 months after the first episode, she visited his hospital. The doctor expected 5 causes of asthma attack that medicine didn’t work at all: (1) Rhinitis (2) Acid reflux (3) Heart failure which causes accumulation of water in the lungs, causing asthma attack (4) Direct damage to the lungs such as cancer or COPD He excluded (1) to (4) by the examination. The remaining expected cause is (5) Side effect of medication In rare cases, some of the medications for high blood pressure or analgesic and antipyretic (antifebrile and pain killer) cause asthma symptoms as their side effects. But she was not using any other medications except the prescribed medication. So all the expected causes were denied. He kept probing his data for 30 years of experience and recalled a case of 20 years ago and asked her if she went to an eye doctor to treat glaucoma. She was using eye drops for glaucoma. In the description of the eye drops, asthma attack was specified as a side effect. She consulted her eye doctor and changed to eye drops which didn’t have asthma attack as a side effect and the asthma symptom disappeared. 2 diseases that the colors of phlegm specify Yellowish white phlegm: Chronic sinus infection Inflammation occurs in sinus and pas or nasal discharge is accumulated, causing stuffy nose or other various symptoms. The pus or nasal discharge goes into the lung, causing inflammation and comes out as phlegm. Phlegm without any problem is translucent and white. Even if there is no stuffy nose, there can be yellowish white phlegm. Translucent and a little greenish: Acid reflux The entrance to the stomach loosens by age or other reasons and stomach acid backflows causing inflammation of esophagus, resulting in the symptoms such as burning sensation in the chest. Acid reflux also causes the inflammation of bronchial tubes, causing cough and phlegm especially when waking up in the morning.
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One morning when 40 years old female called her daughter, she felt slight pain in her throat. In the after on the same day, she felt a little stronger pain in her throat when she drank water. After that, the pain in her throat occurred repeatedly.
One month after she started to feel the pain in her throat, she felt a severe pain in her left ear when she sneezed. The pain was like the inner ear was pierced by a lot of hot needles. The severe pain calmed down in 15 seconds. But when she swallowed saliva, the severe pain started again. She went to a otorhinologist (nose and ear doctor), but nothing abnormal was found and the doctor suggested the possibility of shingles. Shingles is caused by the varicella zoster virus and appears in a band on the skin. It can be triggered by stress or weakness of the immune system. She was prescribed with pain killer and antivirals, but there was no improvement. The cycle of the pain became shorter and she felt the pain every 1 minute even while sleeping. She was in a mentally tight spot due to the pain. She had various kinds of tests in various hospitals, but the cause of the pain was not found. In the department of neurosurgery, MRI was taken but nothing was found and very strong pain killer was prescribed. The strong pain killer removed the pain but she started to feel strong tiredness. The cause of the strong tiredness was lowered liver function so she was unable to be prescribed with the strong pain killer any longer. Then she was referred to a specialist of neurology in a hospital. Since MRI, CT or X-ray cannot image nerves mostly, various tools are used in neurology to check nerves. First, the brainstem was tested. If there is any abnormality in the brainstem, there should be some abnormality in the limbs. But there was no abnormality. After that, all the nerves that could be affected were checked. Trigeminal nerves were tested. Blinking shows sensitive reaction of trigeminal nerves. If the movement of blinking is slow, the abnormality of trigeminal nerves is suspected, but there was no abnormality. The last nerve not tested yet was glossopharyngeal nerve. MRI is unable to image nerves but MRI was taken again focusing on something around the glossopharyngeal nerve. Fig. 1 is her actual MRI image. Only one side of the blood vessel by the glossopharyngeal nerve is thick. This was the cause of the severe pain. The disease was glossopharyngeal neuralgia. Hardening of the blood vessel located by the glossopharyngeal nerve occurs and the thickened blood vessel presses the glossopharyngeal nerve, causing a severe pain. She was released from the severe pain by the surgery to separate the blood vessel from the glossopharyngeal nerve. There is a statistic that people who have nocturia (frequent urination at night) have a lower survival rate than people who don’t. Also When waking up at night and going to the bathroom, there are people who sometimes fall down and break a bone, lowering the quality of life.
The main cause of nocturiais too much intake of water at night such as water, tea, coffee or alcohols. Another cause that you have to pay attention to is swollen legs. While spending daytime, blood tends to be accumulated in the legs by the influence of gravity. In addition to that, aging causes the power to push out the blood from the heart and the power to return the blood from the legs to the heart weaker, resulting in that water comes out from the blood accumulated in the legs. This is the cause of swollen legs. Why do swollen legs become a cause of nocturia? While sleeping at night, the level of the legs is equal to the heart’s, so blood containing a lot of water comes back to the heart easily without the influence of the gravity. There is a sensor in the right atrium, which detects the amount of water. The sensor orders the kidney to make more urine from the blood to prevent the heart from having too much water. To improve this type of nocturia, it is important to improve swollen legs. How to improve noctruia caused by swollen legs (1) Massage your legs from the ankle to the knee (Fig.1). (2) Walk in the evening. Moving the muscles in the calves promotes the dilation and contraction of the blood vessels, pumping the blood back to the heart. Walking in the evening makes urine before going to bed. About 10 years ago, when she went hiking, she went to the bathroom and felt the sensation of residual urine for the first time and when she had a physical examination, she was diagnosed with bladder infection.
Bladder infection is a disease that bacteria goes into the bladder and causes inflammation, causing symptoms such as the sensation of residual urine or painful urination. If the inflammation is spread in the urethra, painful urination is caused. If the inflammation is spread in the bladder, the nerves controlling the desire to urinate are malfunctioned and even if there is no urine accumulated, they want to urinate, in other words, the sensation of residual urine is caused. After taking prescribed medicine (antibiotics), her sensation of residual urine disappeared. But at this moment, she didn’t notice that her bladder infection was not the ordinary bladder infection but the bladder infection caused by a more serious problem. She felt the sensation of residual urine again and this time she couldn’t urinate at all. So she went see a specialist of urology and had various kinds of tests. The result was bladder infection because there was no abnormality in the bladder and kidney, but there was inflammation in the bladder. While she was taking prescribed medicine, the symptoms were suppressed, but about a month later the bladder infection came back again. Every time the bladder infection came back, she had to take antibiotics without knowing what caused the bladder infection. 5 years after the first bladder infection, she started to feel pain on urination. She took prescribed medicine, but not only the pain didn’t go away but also the sensation of residual urine became stronger than before. She went see doctors other than the urologist including the internal medicine, a gynecologist and even a psychiatrist, but the cause was not found. So she had to keep taking antibiotics for about 10 years. She happened to see a doctor who was a specialist of ultrasound. Her kidneys, urethra and bladder were checked with ultrasound, but no abnormality was found. So the doctor asked her if she noticed anything else and she mentioned that she sometimes had gas like a fart when she urinated. Her bladder was checked with ultrasound again and there were white dots moving around. The doctor checked the inside her bladder with a bladder endoscope. The inside of her bladder was cloudy with small floaters. Then CT scan for the large intestine was performed (Fig. 1). Her disease turned out to be Colon diverticulitis. Colon diverticulitis is a disease that a part of the wall of the colon sticks out and pouches are formed and stool is accumulated in the pouches, causing inflammation. This disease often happens to people with constipation or elderlies. Diverticulitis is not rare disease but in her case, the location of diverticulitis was very rare. In her case, diverticulitis happened right next to the bladder, causing adhesion. The adhesion made a hole to the bladder. Stools in the large intestine went into the bladder. The floaters seen with colon endoscope were stools. The gas which was supposed to be eliminated from the large intestine was eliminated with urination (Fig. 2) (Fig. 3). As stools always went into the bladder, germs increased even if she took antibiotics, causing repetitive bladder infection. Her life was saved by the surgery to remove the adhesion. Knee pain when going down the stairs
The cause of these knee pain is wear of cartridge. Osteoarthritis of the knee Cartridge absorbing the shock wears away by ageing. However, if you don’t move because it is painful, the muscles and tendons around the knee become hard and the weight also increases. This makes the condition worse. To improve the knee pain, first of all, losing weight is important. If you can lose weight by 7 lbs. (3 Kg), your knee will be much easier. Secondly when you have knee pain, you tend to have your knee always bent a little bit so it is important to straighten your knee, warming up your knee. Exercise for knee pain after soaking in the tub (Fig. 1) (1) Warm your knees by soaking in the tub. The joints and muscles around your knees become softer so your knees become easier to stretch. (2) Sit in a chair and stretch your knee slowly, having your toes face the ceiling. (3) Keep your knee straight for 10 seconds. (4) Repeat this 5-10 times for both legs. Once you have muscle strength and flexibility in your knee by this exercise, your knee pain will be improved. Characteristics:
The similarities between these three are that it is painful when starting to move and it is improved after for a while. This is a typical symptom of low back pain. The major cause of this type of low back pain is aging. Aging causes degeneration of the bone and disks between the bones in the low back, and the muscles become thinner. Decrease of the muscles starts at the age of 40. Joints and muscles tend to become tight. In addition, being worried about the low back pain excessively makes people not to move, leading to the aggravation of the low back pain. Exercise for Low Back Pain Caused by Aging (1) Sit in a chair (Fig. 1) (2) Bend forward slowly and grab your left ankle with your right hand by twisting your waist (Fig. 2). (3) After returning the posture to the original state, grab your right ankle with your left hand (Fig. 2). Doing this exercise 3 times in the morning and evening softens the joints and the muscles around your low back, leading to the relief of the low back pain. Characteristics:
That is caused by the weight of the head. Do you know the weight of our head? It is about 11 pounds (5 kg), which is as heavy as a ball of bowling. The muscles around the shoulder is pulled by the weight of the head, causing stiffness in the neck and shoulders. Exercise for Stiffness in neck and shoulders (1) Pinch the cloth at the shoulder with one hand (Fig.1). (2) Rotate your shoulder widely from front to back and from back to front (Fig. 2). Since this exercise moves the shoulder blade widely, it is effective to loosen the muscles around the shoulder blade. If you have kept the same posture for more than 30 minutes, it is good to do this exercise a few times to prevent the stiffness in the neck and shoulders. |
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