Stroke Test, Stroke Cause, Stroke Symptoms and StrokeTreatment

Stroke Cause

Blood clots and burst blood vessels stop blood flow to your brain. The brain like every other part of your body needs blood to survive. Blood brings food and oxygen to brain cells which they need to work. When a stroke clot forms in your brain blow flow is choked like an accident on a highway stopping other cars getting past. This robs brain tissue downstream killing those dependent neurons and whatever processing was being done there is lost. e.g. if an area that moves your left arm gets stroked and dies you won't be able to move your left arm anymore. Stroke bleeds into the brain also stop blood flow as they both clot and swell preventing blood flow and causing a stroke.

Stroke Test Symptoms

There are 3 easy tests to look for to tell if a person is having a stroke:

1. A twisted face or drooping on one side of the face.
2. Slurred speech.
3. Ask the person to stretch out their arms and close their eyes. One side will drift down.
If you find any one of these symptoms in a person that never had it before, the chance that they've had a stroke is about 70%!
  
Stroke Treatment 

Full recovery from a stroke is best the earlier you get to a hospital for treatment!

Treatment for strokes from clots to the brain is different from strokes caused by bleeding into the brain. And 8 out of every 10 strokes are caused by clots.

The recommended treatment for clot strokes if you arrive to a hospital within three hours after the start of your symptoms is clot busting drugs given IV. Think of it like unblocking your kitchen sink with Draino. This allows oxygen rich blood to get back into the area and save any brain cells that did not die.
For small clot bleeds, they are often watched and allowed to heal on their own. If getting worse, surgery is done to 'decompress' the brain - the free blood takes up space in your brain squeezing it against the skull.
When you first arrive at a hospital the first thing your doctor does is listen to a description from you of what happened, and then examines you to see if s/he can pick up the signs of a stroke. If it seems likely that you've suffered a stroke then you're sent for a picture test of the brain called a CAT scan. This test lets your doctor know if you've had a clot or bleeding stroke and plan appropriate care for you - clot busting drugs will make a bleed worse but improve a clot.

You will spend some time in hospital until stable before discharge. after the hospital, your next stop will be a visit to a physiotherapist. Here you will get exercises and other help to recover your ability to speak, move around, and help yourself. Strokes leave affected arms so stiff that they can get permanently fixed bent at the elbow without physiotherapy - known as a contracture - and walking clumsy as the

Mini Stroke


Very often just before a major stroke there are warning signs like rumblings before an earthquake. The symptoms are exactly the same as for a full stroke but they last for less than 24 hours. For example, sudden weakness of an arm that lasts for less than a day and magically clears up. These warning signals are not to be ignored. You need to seek medical attention immediately because timely therapy can prevent a full blown stroke!
Mini strokes are called Transient Ischemic Attacks in medical speak. It means that you have suffered a temporary loss of blood flow to a part of brain. Without treatment of the root cause you're at risk for 'the big one' that is mini stroke and go get help.

Stroke Prevention

Strokes don't have to happen! Strokes can be prevented by avoiding things which cause them, known as 'Risk Factors'
 
Risk Factors for Stroke

• Smoking
  
• High cholesterol
  
• Diabetes
  
• High blood pressure.
  
• Obesity

You can see clearly that nearly all strokes can be prevented but needs your cooperation. A tablet or two a day, a low fat diet, regular exercise and throwing away your cigarettes is a small price to pay for a feeling of well being and the freedom to use all of your body.

COPD Cause, COPD Symptoms and COPD Treatment

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Treatment Information

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a lung disease in which the lungs are damaged, making it difficult to breathe. COPD is common. Approximately one million people in the UK have COPD. It mainly affects people over the age of 40. It represents a work stoppage more time than any other disease. Smoking is the primary risk factor for COPD. Approximately 80 to 90 percent of COPD deaths are caused by smoking. Breathing in other kinds of lung irritants, such as pollution, dust, or chemicals over a long period of time may also cause or contribute to COPD. Cough is usually the first symptom to develop.

It is productive with sputum (phlegm). It tends to come and go at first, then gradually became more persistent (chronic). Shortness of breath and wheeze may occur. Lung infections are more common. Wheezing and coughing with shortness of breath may become worse than usual if you have a lung infection. Crachat is generally yellow or green during a lung infection. Quitting is the most important treatment. The most important thing is to stop smoking. Inhalators are commonly used to relieve the symptoms. Other treatments, such as steroids, antibiotics, oxygen and mucolytic drugs are sometimes prescribed.

Broncho dilator medicines (prescription drugs that relax and open up air passages in the lungs) are at the heart of the management of the symptoms of COPD. The exercise as many times as you are able to help keep the lungs strong and builds self-confidence. Aides to physiotherapy clear mucus in the lungs. Antibiotics are used during outbreaks of symptoms such as infections can worsen COPD. Surgery to remove parts of the lung disease has proved useful for some patients with COPD. Lung rehabilitation programs can help some patients. Lung transplantation is sometimes done for serious cases. Try to lose weight if you are overweight.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Treatment and Prevention Tips

1. Lung transplant is sometimes performed for severe cases.

2. Surgery is an option in a very small number of cases.

3. Physiotherapy helps to clear mucus from the lungs.

4. Antibiotics are used during flare-ups of symptoms as infections of COPD.

5. Pneumonia and influenza vaccines should be given to COPD patients.

6. Bronchodilator medications are central to the symptomatic management of COPD.

7. Eating a healthy diet and drinking enough liquid is essential.

8. Steam inhalation and humidifying rooms can also help breathing by loosening mucus.

Hypoglycemia Cause, Hypoglycemia Symptoms and Hypoglycemia Treatment

Hypoglycemia, also called hypoglycemia. The symptoms of hypoglycemia may vary from one person to another, just like gravity. Hypoglycemia is commonly associated with diabetes. However, a wide variety of conditions, many of which are rare, can cause hypoglycemia in people without diabetes. Hypoglycemia can also come from medicines, such as monoamine oxidase inhibitors quinine sulfate, and salicylates (including aspirin). Drinking too much alcohol. Diseases that affect the pancreas, liver, kidneys, adrenal glands, and other organs. Rapid gastric emptying after a meal. Exercise can also cause hypoglycemia.

Hypoglycemia affects mostly older adults. Women are more affected by hypoglycemia than males. The symptoms of hypoglycemia divided three parts. Mild hypoglycemia can cause nausea, a feeling of nervousness or nervous, cold and clammy skin, sweating, hunger, and a rapid heartbeat. Moderate Hypoglycemia often makes you feel irritable, anxious, or confused. You may have blurred vision, feel unstable, and have difficulty walking. Severe Hypoglycemia can cause loss of consciousness, convulsions and coma and can be fatal. The treatment of hypoglycemia is made to correct the deficiency glucose.

The management of acute hypoglycemia involves the rapid delivery of a source of sugar readily absorbed. Regular soda, fruit juices, rescuers include table sugar, and so forth are good options. Good control of diabetes is the best way we know to prevent hypoglycemia. Surgical removal of the hyperactive part of the pancreas is healing with minimal risk when is the focal hyperinsulinism. IV injections of glucose or glucagon is also recommended that condition. Children with growth hormone deficiency were treated with injections of growth hormones. Diazoxide streptozotocin or may be prescribed.

Hypoglycemia Treatment and Prevention Tips

1. Avoid Alcohol.

2. Surgery is the best treatment for this type of tumor.

3. Blood sugar balance during unusual hours, higher levels of exercise.

4. Diazoxide or streptozotocin are down a low sugar is refractory or repetitive.

5. Children with growth hormone deficiency are treated with growth hormone injections.

6. Certain medications that make the pancreatic beta cells produce less insulin are sometimes used.

Diabetes Cause ,Diabetes Symptoms and Diabetes Treatment

Diabetes Cause

Diabetes is caused by your body not being able to control its blood sugar level through insulin. Insulin is a hormone made by your pancreas that lowers blood sugar. Sugar in controlled amounts is necessary for life but too is toxic. Type 1 Diabetes that starts as a kid is a result of no insulin being made. Type 2 Diabetes starts later in life and come from too little insulin being made or your body being insensitive to the insulin signal. 

Insulin tells cells like your muscles and fat tissue to sponge up sugar from the blood. When the pancreas senses high blood sugar it squirts out insulin to lower it and protect your body from sticky sugar damage (glycosylation). 

 

Kid Type 1 Diabetes is caused by your pancreas not squirting out any insulin to combat high blood sugar. It is caused by early destruction of pancreas cells by viral infections, autoimmune self directed attacks, or congenital absence of insulin cells. Once destroyed there's no cure. But scientists are experimenting at implanting new pancreas cells.

Adult onset Type 2 Diabetes is caused by either by a pancreas that's not squirting out enough insulin or insulin that doesn't effectively stimulate tissues to suck sugar from the blood. This form of diabetes is most often found in persons who are overweight.

Diabetes is a multi-factorial disease. It is caused by an interplay of several factors.

We do know however that careful diet low in refined sugars and starches, exercise, and weight control, lower your risk of developing diabetes.

  

Symptoms of Diabetes:

• Urinating often, waking several times at night to go.
  
• Extraordinary thirst.
  
• Rapid weight loss and ravenous appetite.
  
• Frequent or severe skin and vaginal infections with weak bugs like thrush, yeast, boils and ringworm.
  

• Coma if left untreated.
  
• Bad Breath that smells like nail-polish remover.
  
• Blurred Vision.
  
  Diabetes Diagnosis 
  
  If your doctor suspects you have diabetes s/he will send you for a blood sugar test. You fast from midnight and have your blood tested the next morning before breakfast.
  Urine samples are traditionally used by doctors and clinics to screen patients for diabetes - a form of early detection. A dip-stick is placed into a sample of urine. If high in sugar the indicator changes color. Once diabetes is suspected, blood testing is used for confirmation.
  
  

  Diabetes Effects

• Heart disease. Four out of five diabetics die from heart disease.
  
• Strokes are also more common due to higher cholesterol.
  
• Pain and tingling in fingers and feet. Prolonged high blood sugar is toxic to nerves.
  
• Lost sensation in feet leads to injury without awareness e.g. stepping on glass without pain.
  
• High blood sugar makes white blood cells lazy. This makes infections especially of the skin more common and severe.
  
• Cataracts and retinal damage.
  
• Kidney disease with protein spilling.
  

Diabetes Treatment: 

Kid' Juvenile onset Type 1 Diabetes is caused by a pancreas that is making no insulin. TREATMENT for this type of DIABETES is to replace the missing insulin by daily injection of insulin taken from pigs, cows, or artificial human insulin. Doses vary from once a day to three times a day as different preparations circulate for different times in the body.

Adult onset Type 2 Diabetes is caused by a pancreas that is making too little, or poorly functioning insulin. This is treated by stimulating your pancreas to squirt out more insulin with pills or by supplementing the insulin you do make with inject-able insulin. Drugs that stimulate your pancreas into action are called 'oral hypoglycemics'. Early in the course of mild adult diabetes, exercise and a low sugar diet can be enough to bring blood sugar levels back within normal range without medication. Conversely, if pancreas function continues to decline supplemental insulin will eventually be needed.

For all types of diabetes, monitoring your blood sugar level often is ideal. This is done by pricking your finger with a needle and dropping a droplet of blood onto a machine that reads blood sugar levels. This gives you immediate feedback as to whether your blood sugar is where it should be or not and your medication can be adjusted accordingly. Fasting sugar on first waking should be 4-7 mmol/L and two hours after each meal 5-10 mmol/L. If your readings are consistently above these targets your medication will need to be adjusted.

A Typical Diabetes Treatment Program:

• Start Insulin or Blood Sugar Pills.
• Keep track of your blood sugar at home first thing in the morning and two hours before breakfast, lunch, and supper.
• Every three months see your family doctor with home sugar readings to have your medication adjusted.
• Once each year: have your eyes tested by an ophthalmologist; have a foot examination for loss of sensation; get a kidney blood and urine function test; get a blood pressure and cholesterol check.
• Stop smoking and limit alcohol.

It is important while on medication for diabetes not to miss meals as this can then lead to blood sugar dropping too low causing a coma.

Hypoglycemia Symptoms:

• Sweating
  
• Drowsiness
  
• Hunger
  
• Trembling
  
• Tingling
  
• Dizziness
  
• Anxiety
  
• Palpitations
  
• Confusion.
  
• Coma
  

Hypoglycemia Treatment:

Take 15 g of glucose tablets, or 3 teaspoons of table sugar, or 6 Lifesavers, or 1 tablespoon of honey, wait 15 minutes and then repeat if your blood sugar reading is still low. Do not miss your next routine meal. Visit your doctor with home glucose readings to have your medication adjusted.

If you have ever reached the point of coma or have frequent low blood sugars, ask your doctor for Glucagon to keep at home. This is an injection the opposite of insulin which can be injected by anyone at home to revive you if found unconscious. 

Hypoglycemia can happen in non-diabetics too but not as severe. The symptoms are usually fuzzy headedness and irritability which go away with snacking. The cure for this type of mild low blood sugar is to eat non refined carbohydrates which take longer to digest, eat frequent small meals, and add protein to each meal.

Parkinson's Disease - Definition, Causes, Symptoms and Treatment

Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system. Parkinson's disease occurs when nerve cells, or neurons, in an area of the brain known as the substantia nigra die or become impaired. Normally, these neurons produce an important brain chemical known as dopamine. At least 500,000 people in the United States currently have PD. Parkinson's disease belongs to a group of conditions called movement disorders. Parkinson's disease is progressive, meaning the signs and symptoms become worse over time. But although Parkinson's disease may eventually be disabling, the disease often progresses gradually. Parkinson disease affects movement (motor symptoms). Typical other symptoms include disorders of mood, behavior, thinking, and sensation (non-motor symptoms). Individual patients' symptoms may be quite dissimilar and progression of the disease is also distinctly individual. Parkinson's usually begins around age 60. It is more common in men than in women. Symptoms of Parkinson's disease often start on one side of the body first and then affect both sides.

There are many secondary symptoms associated with Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's disease patients may notice that they are weaker or more tired. Symptoms include disorders of mood, behavior, thinking, and sensation. Poor balance is due to the impairment or loss of the reflexes that adjust posture in order to maintain balance. Falls are common in people with Parkinson's. Shaking (muscle tremor). This is one of the first symptoms in three-quarters of people, and affects most people with Parkinson's disease. Bradykinesia is the phenomenon of a person experiencing slow movements. In addition to slow movements, a person with bradykinesia will probably also have incomplete movement, difficulty initiating movements and sudden stopping of ongoing movement. The progressive loss of voluntary and involuntary muscle control produces a number of secondary symptoms associated with Parkinson's. Postural instability, or impaired balance and coordination, causes patients to develop a forward or backward lean and to fall easily.

Parkinson's disease requires broad-based management including patient and family education, support group services, general wellness maintenance, exercise, and nutrition. Medications can help manage problems with walking, movement and tremor by increasing the brain's supply of dopamine. Amantadine may also be added to carbidopa-levodopa therapy for people in the latter stages of Parkinson's disease. Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) inhibitors drugs prolong the effect of carbidopa-levodopa therapy by blocking an enzyme that breaks down dopamine. Tolcapone (Tasmar) is a potent COMT inhibitor that easily crosses the blood-brain barrier. A medicine called levodopa is often given to people who have Parkinson's disease. Called "L-dopa," this medicine increases the amount of dopamine in the body and has been shown to improve a person's ability to walk and move around. Thalamotomy involves the destruction of small amounts of tissue in the thalamus - a major brain center for relaying messages and transmitting sensations.

Parkinson's Disease for Treatment Tips

1. Carbidopa and benserazide are dopa decarboxylase inhibitors.

2. Tolcapone inhibits the COMT enzyme, thereby prolonging the effects of L-dopa, and so has been used to complement L-dopa.

3. Selegiline and rasagiline reduce the symptoms by inhibiting monoamine oxidase-B (MAO-B).

4. An antiviral drug, amantadine, can help reduce symptoms of PD and levodopa-induced dyskinesia.

5. COMT (catechol O-methyl transferase) inhibitors are a new class of drugs that stop the breakdown of dopamine.

6. Other therapies that are important for managing and coping with Parkinson's disease include physiotherapy, speech therapy, and occupational therapy.

7. Amantadine acts like a dopamine replacement drug but works on different sites in the brain.

Author: Juliet Cohen

HIV AIDS Cause, HIV Symptoms, HIV Treatment

HIV is CAUSED by a virus called the Human Immunodeficiency Virus.

This virus is spread from person to person through blood exchange of any type from an infected person to a non-infected person. This can be from sex, blood transfusion, and shared needles in drug use. It is not spread by mosquitoes or touching.

There is no cure!

It is not the HIV virus which actually does the killing. What it does is weaken your immune system - the cells which fight invading infections - a little bit everyday until you are no longer to put up resistance to even the simplest infection. At this point the infection is called AIDS which stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Full blown AIDS happens about 8 to 10 years after getting the HIV virus. At this point bacteria and fungi around take advantage of your weakness and attack you. When your immune system is exhausted you quickly become overwhelmed.

HIV acts like a bully holding you down while other infections deliver the blows.

Infection with HIV is diagnosed by a blood test which measures antibodies in blood against the virus. AIDS is also diagnosed by a blood test, but by measuring the level of your immune cells called CD4+ Tcells; when they fall to less than 200 this is AIDS.

Recap: for the first 8 to 10 years of an HIV infection, you feel well. It is after this period that your immune system becomes so weakened that you begin to suffer constant miserable infections from other viruses, bacteria, and fungi. From this point to death is called AIDS.
HIV Symptoms

1 month after picking up HIV, flu-like symptoms develop temporarily such as:

* Fever
* Sore throat
* Malaise
* Muscle aches
* Rash
* Lymph nodes you can feel as marbles under your skin.

Then it dissappears within a few weeks and for the next 8 years there are no obvious symptoms. You feel well and do not realize you are infected until the SPURs begin - severe, persistent, unusual, recurrent infections.
AIDS Symptoms

* Fever
* Weight loss
* Loss of Appetite
* Night Sweats
* Unusual and severe infections such as thrush of the mouth, Kaposi's skin cancer - purple skin plaques, pneumonias, skin infections, diarrhea.
* Recurrence of these infections despite treatment.

Eventually a victim's white blood cell count winds down so low that they are unable to fight the simplest of infections and they suffer bad infections from bugs you normally would dismiss as harmless.
HIV Treatment

By far the most common way to get HIV AIDS is through unprotected sex with persons you do not know whether they have HIV or not. So there's really only two ways to prevent getting HIV - wearing condoms during all sex, or only having sex with someone you know does not have HIV. If in doubt, wear a condom. This device prevents blood transfer from you, and to you, and also protects against other sexually transmitted diseases (STD's). Before removing condoms both of you should have STD testing including HIV. It's uncomfortable to ask a partner to seek testing but helps if you offer to get tested at the same time.

Once you do have HIV AIDS there's no turning back. From that point on the best we can do is try to slow down the virus and prolong your life through antiviral drugs such as AZT (zidovudine) and by treating other infections that hitch a ride with antibiotics or antifungals.But there is hope. Doctors have been improving survival times with combination drug cocktails and scientists are working around the clock to find a cure.