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July 31, 2019July 31, 2019

Dengue Is Back! – How To Deal With It?

As almost 500 cases crop up in Dakshin Kannada or Mangaluru, Dengue is back this season and with a big bang for sure in Karnataka. Already four people have succumbed to the deadly fever that is a result of the Aedes mosquitos. Unike malaria mosquitos, Dengue mosquitos breed inside the house in clean water. A viral infection, Dengue is at its peak in the monsoon season every year. The most common symptoms of dengue include headache, swollen lymph nodes, rashes, exhaustion and high fever. The main characteristics of dengue include high fever, rashes and headache.

The acute phase of the fever can last upto two weeks. The more serious and life threatening condition of Dengue is Dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) occurring mostly in under 10 years children. This complication can cause circulatory collapse, hemorrhage and abdominal pain. The symptoms often occur after 3 days to 15 days of the mosquito bite. The weather conditions also are responsible to an extent for breeding the dengue mosquitos. Outbreaks are more common in tropical and subtropical areas. Though the condition is not contagious, if a mosquito bites a dengue infected, it does contract the dengue virus too and spread it onward to other people.

Thus the Aedes mosquito is considered the vector or transmitter and humans as the source of infection. As mentioned Dengue Hemorrhagic fever or DHF is a shock syndrome of dengue that mostly affects children under 10 years of age. DHF starts abruptly with consistent fever accompanied with headache. Other symptoms include cough, nausea, sore throat, and vomiting as well as abdominal pain. The shock occurs around 2 to 6 days after the onset of symptoms with sudden collapse, mouth blueness, weak pulse to name a few. Bleeding is also a common possibility and DHF requires close monitoring. There is no particular treatment and only intensive care with blood transfusion and oxygen provision as well as immediate fluid replacement are some of the treatments. If proper treatment is provided the mortality rate could be less but it could rise to as high as 20% if not treated properly.

The best idea is to take care around your house and avoid travelling to mosquito prone areas. Check for water storage possibilities for breeding mosquitos and treat appropriately.

*Sourced from the Internet

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July 11, 2018September 11, 2018

All you need to Know About HLA-B27 Test

HLA B27 is a test that is conducted to identify the Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA B27) protein. This protein is situated on the white blood cells surface and is an antigen that helps the immune system infection causing aliens and healthy body tissues.

Though most of the HLAs protect the body against harmful invaders, HLA B27 is on a particular protein that is responsible for system dysfunction by attacking the healthy cells instead of foreign substances. This causes autoimmune diseases like ankylosing spondylitis or rheumatoid arthritis.

Symptoms that indicate Test Taking
The HLA-B27 test is taken alongside other tests like MRI scan, urine and blood tests to confirm the presence of autoimmune disease.

Joint inflammation and skin lesions
Pain in the joints
Eye inflammation that reoccurs
Swelling or stiffness in the neck, chest or spine

Auto-immune conditions due to HLA-B27
Based on the symptoms the doctor may advise the test to check for the presence and progression of HLA-B27 with certain autoimmune conditions like

Bone inflammation in the spine – Ankylosing spondylitis
Joint inflammation in joints, eyes, urethra, and skins lesions at times – Reactive arthritis
Swelling and irritation at eyes middle layer – Anterior uveitis
Joint stiffness, pain, redness, limping, swelling and reduced motion range – Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis

Besides, HLA antigen tests are also taken when a patient needs to undergo a transplant of kidney or bone marrow as they help in determining a suitable match of a donor.

Diagnosis
If the test is positive, it indicates the presence of HLA- B27 in blood. Though, it still is not a cent percent confirmation that an autoimmune condition may develop. Other symptoms are also taken into account including blood tests and diagnostic exams.

Conclusion
HLA-B27 indicates the presence of the protein in blood but a positive or negative result cannot be taken as a cent percent confirmation of the autoimmune disorder. Once the test is done and the results are out, the doctor will advise you on further steps around the possible condition.

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October 18, 2017

Dementia Risk and Blood Magnesium Levels

Before we talk about risk factors associated with dementia lets just polish our information around the condition. This condition usually occurs at an older age and causes memory loss. Alzheimers is one of the most common forms of dementia known. Apparently, its not a condition by a symptoms or group of symptoms rather. You should also know that it does hamper our day to day routines because we tend to forget a lot. Dementia symptoms are also caused due to vitamin deficiencies and thyroid problems. Dementia occurs due to brain cell damage and most of them are generally permanent or increase with time.

Now, a study has found out that the levels of magnesium in your blood can associated to the risk of dementia later in life. The people with lower or higher levels of minerals in the body were subject to dementia more compared to the ones with middle levels. It has yet to be proved and nowhere confirm that it causes dementia but definitely magnesium levels do have a link with dementia. There are apparently two ways in which magnesium levels could be called as risk factor for dementia.

Coming back to the study, around 10,000 participant around 65 years of age were studied across 8 years span and their magnesium levels were checked at the beginning of the test. They were divided in 5 groups. The study findings showed that those with low and high level magnesium had 30% greater risk of dementia compared to mid level magnesium level participants. The lower and higher magnesium range is below 0.85 millimoles per liter and 1.10 mmol/L respectively. Though as the magnesium levels were not measure post eight years the results could have associated limitations.

Well, to prove that magnesium levels do determine the risk of dementia in later stages of life, further detailed study is required.

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July 27, 2017

The Early You Quit Smoking The Better For Your Lungs

All of us are quite aware of the ill effects of Cigarette smoking to our health. Here is some information that you may consider as a bit of good news particularly if you’ve started smoking recently.

Experts say that if a smoker quits smoking, his/ her lungs do heal to a certain extent.

HOW SMOKING AFFECTS OUR LUNGS?
Well, as per the experts when you inhale the smoke of a cigar or cigarette, it causes inflammation and irritation of the lung’s delicate lining. Our lungs are lined with tiny hairs called cilia. After smoking, even upto several hours the brush like movement of cilia is slowed down because smoking causes temporary paralysis to them. Now, this in turn makes their job of cleaning the mucus and other substances like dust particles from the lung airways comparatively ineffective.

Furthermore, there is also an increase in production and thickness of mucus in the lungs of smokers. The inability of the cilia to chuck of the mucus out of the lungs leads to accumulation of the mucus within the lung airbags, thereby choking them and thus leading to cough issues. If smoking persists it can also lead to chronic bronchitis, a kind of lung infection.

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER YOU QUIT SMOKING?
The short term inflammation caused by smoking can be reversed once you quit smoking. Though, initially for a few weeks post quitting, you may experience more coughing issues than you ever had while smoking. But, consider this as a positive signal is what experts say. You cough when the lungs are cleaning up your gunk which means that your cilia is again active and on the job of cleaning of mucus, from the airbags of your lungs.

Gradually, the breathing improves and swelling decreases as the lining of the lungs is no longer exposed to the irritants produced due to smoke. The decrease in swelling also aids in regulating the airflow through the passageways.

SOME IMPORTANT FACTS ABOUT SMOKING
Statistically speaking, 10 years after you quit smoking, your chances of getting lung cancer are practically reduced to half. This does mean that there is always a risk because once upon a time you were a smoker but the 50% reduction in its possibility is off course a great consideration to quit smoking.

Having said that, one fact that which needs a mention is that not everyone’s lungs get functioning normally once they quit smoking. It actually depends on the number of packets you have been smoking and the number of years you have been doing so. The term is known as pack years and in simple words, the greater the number of pack years, the greater the damage or to put it the other way, lesser the irreversibility. Further, Lung cancer is most likely to occur amongst smokers and ex-smokers and not amongst non smokers.

So, if you’ve started smoking recently, quitting seems a smart idea. And if you have been smoking for a long time, it definitely is a wake up call to call smoking quits.

World NO Tobacco day “Awareness Initiative” and No Tobacco Day Conducted by RRMCH

June 28, 2017

Diabetes and Yeast Infections – An Overview

There is certainly a relation between yeasts and diabetes and most logically it is sugar that relates yeast infections to diabetes. Yeast are generally found growing near mucous membranes around the skin. When there is a build up of yeast, it is called yeast infection. As yeast feeds on sugar and diabetics tend to sweat, pee and secrete a lot of mucus due to high glucose levels, automatically inviting yeasts to build on and cause yeast infections. The areas where yeast grow rapidly are those with warm temperatures typically under skin folds and breasts, mouth and around genitals.

The most common of the yeast infections with women is the vaginal infection and generally occurs in people suffering from diabetics that is not under proper control. When the diabetes is not controlled properly, it also effects the immune system adversely. Apparently, it suppresses the growth of immune proteins known as beta defensins, responsible for killing microbes.

Furthermore, even after treatment, there is high possibility of re-occurrence of the infection in people with poorly controlled diabetes. This is because after colonization of the yeast in a particular area, its becomes easy for yeast to re-attack. The extra sugar levels in diabetics helps in colonization on the yeast and makes it easy for other pathogens to stick to mucous gland and skin cells as well.

Diagnosis
The doctor asks for vaginal secretion sample test to confirm the vaginal yeast infection. The microscopical review of the sample is carried out for confirmation of Candida fungus in abnormal amounts. Sometimes even urine samples are tested.

Treatment
Most of the doctors prescribe anti-fungal creams that can be easily applied to the affected area. These creams are usually available over the counter. Only when creams aren’t effective is when doctors prescribe a dose of anti-fungal medication.

Home Remedies
Alternatively, home remedies like using oregano oil, yogurt, over the counter creams, coconut or tea tree oil for treating yeast infection are commonly tried.

Prevention
Prevention is always a better idea, and particularly for diabetics, wherein there is high possibility of yeast infection to reoccur. But, certain precautionary measures can help you keep the yeast infection at bay. This includes keeping body and genital dry, using clean cotton under garments and perfumed pads of good quality. As far as diet supplements are concerned, eating yogurt on a daily basis helps a lot.

Though, treating the root cause would definitely help you the most so try keeping your glucose levels under control to prevent the complications that arise due to the same.

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