Health News. Lots of resources and information

After a routine exam, a 55-year-old patient cleared her throat as she was getting ready to leave. “Doctor,” she said, “one more thing.”

I motioned to het to sit down. She did, seeming almost embarrassed to bring up what was bothering her.

“My mouth has seemed rather dry lately,” she said. “I find that it’s harder for me to eat, especially foods like toast and crackers.” She added that she had begun to drink water with her meals to help her swallow, which she had never done before.

Dry mouth, or xerostomia, may be due to illness, a change in medication, or a problem with the salivary glands. A stone in the salivary duct can also cause your mouth to become dry. In this case, you’ll definitely know the cause because, in most cases, a salivary duct stone causes a section of the temple or upper neck to swell up. You may also feel a sharp pain in your mouth. A stone is formed by certain chemicals in the duct which then harden and block the duct.

Though doctors once believed that a decrease in saliva production was a natural sign of aging, they now dismiss it. More often, it is something else that affects the salivary glands, although sometimes a patient will complain of the sensation of a dry mouth, or xerostomia, when salivary output is normal.

Though most people might think that having a dry mouth is just an inconvenience, it can lead to other health problems, including an increase in tooth decay.

If you’ve recently developed dry mouth, or if it’s plagued you on and off for years, it’s important to determine the cause, since it can also be a symptom of some serious diseases.

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Description and Possible Medical Problems

Sometimes when a midlife adult complains of hearing loss or a low, constant buzzing and his physician comes up empty-handed, the diagnosis is simpler than either one may have thought.

It’s ironic, but sometimes a drug that is used to treat an ear infection can actually contribute to heating loss. Several kinds of drugs are notorious for inducing a temporary hearing loss that’s usually accompanied by buzzing.

To determine if your hearing loss is due to medication, go through the following checklist:

1. Do I take a lot of aspirin?

2. Has my doctor recently prescribed an antibiotic to treat another illness?

3. Do I frequently take diuretics to control my weight?

If you answered yes to any of these questions and you’ve recently had a noticeable loss of hearing, it’s possible that the medications—both over the counter and prescription—are responsible.

Treatment

Though three classes of dtugs—diuretics, antibiotics, and aspirin—are among the most commonly used and prescribed, they can be exttemely toxic to the eat, or ototoxic. The inner ear is affected since these drugs can damage the tiny hairs and other parts of the inner ear. The ensuing hearing loss, especially in the elderly, may be irreversible. And patients who already have substantial hearing loss shouldn’t be prescribed these ototoxic drugs at all.

Fortunately, less toxic formulations of these drugs are available, so if you’ve had any problems with your hearing in the past, be sure to alert your doctor before he prescribes these medications.

Special Mention for the Elderly

Elderly people with chronic health problems frequently visit several different doctors, who may not always be aware of the medications their colleagues are prescribing. Even though one may prescribe a low-toxicity antibiotic, if another doctor prescribes a similar medication for a separate condition, the combination might be enough to permanently damage an adult’s hearing.

Make sure that each doctor you or an elderly family member sees knows about all the medications that are being taken.

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Description and Possible Medical Problems

It’s not unusual to suddenly lose part or all of your vision for a few seconds as a result of a physical injury—for instance, when you see stars during the impact of a car accident. Your sight will usually be fully restored within a few days.

But what happens when you suddenly become unable to see within a small area or visual field or can see only some of the objects located within that area?

Partial loss of a visual field is commonly known as a scotoma, and it affects people in a variety of ways. A scotoma may result in total blindness to all objects within the affected field, or the affected person may be able to pick out certain large objects but not smaller ones. Sometimes the scotoma will be visible as flashes of light that occur only within a partial visual field; this is called a scintillating scotoma.

A number of health problems can cause a scotoma. Certain eye diseases, such as glaucoma, the inflammation of the optic nerve called optic neuritis, and a retinal disorder called macular degeneration, can cause a scotoma. A scintillating scotoma frequently occurs in people who suffer from migraine headaches. Prompt treatment is necessary in order to prevent permanent damage to your vision.

Treatment

To treat a scotoma, your doctor will first have to address the underlying condition that is causing the partial loss of a visual field. Scotomas that are caused by glaucoma or macular degeneration lessen or disappear when these conditions are treated. A scintillating scotoma will disappear when a migraine subsides. However, with optic neuritis, the vision loss will last until the inflammation of the optic nerve subsides, which can take up to three weeks or more. Since optic neuritis can sometimes be painful, your doctor may recommend that you remain still and quiet and try to restrict your eye movement to hasten your recovery. Optic neuritis can also be an early symptom of multiple sclerosis, so your doctor will want to monitor your health closely to check the progress of the disease.

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You know how it is when you look through a telescope—even though you are focusing on an image, you’re still aware that you’re looking through a tube.

But what if you have this sensation without looking through a telescope? If you notice that you are gradually losing your field of vision in one eye, you may have glaucoma, which is one of the most common eye problems today and one of the leading causes of blindness. In addition to your monocular field loss, other symptoms of glaucoma may include eye pain, blurred vision, and redness. Though glaucoma usually begins in one eye, it will eventually affect the vision in both eyes. As a result, both eyes will have to undergo treatment at the same time, even if only one eye shows symptoms of the disease.

Glaucoma is a condition in which the aqueous humor, the fluid that lubricates the outside of the eyeball, is unable to drain out of the eye normally. This usually occurs because of a blockage in the drainage channel that allows the fluid to drain out of the eye and into the veins that surround the eye.

When the drainage channel is blocked, the fluid drains away more slowly than usual or may become totally blocked. When this happens, the fluid builds up in the eye, creating pressure on the vitreous humor, the gel-like substance that makes up the internal part of the eyeball. This, in turn, presses on the vessels that provide the optic nerve with a steady flow of blood, slowing it down or stopping it completely. And when the blood flow ceases, the nerve begins to die, resulting in a gradual decline of vision.

Glaucoma usually begins to show up in people around the age of 40. There is also a genetic tendency to glaucoma; if a relative had the condition, you should be alert to changes in your eyesight and get medical attention promptly if you notice a one-eye field loss or develop a feeling of looking through a tube.

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Description and Possible Medical Problems

If the upper eyelid of one of your eyes appears to droop a little lower than the other, and if it seems to have sagged more with age, you have a condition known as ptosis.

Ptosis occurs when the muscle responsible for raising the upper eyelid becomes weak over time or when the nerve that controls the muscle is damaged in some way. Ptosis is usually hereditary, and both diabetes and myasthenia gravis—a rare condition in which the nerves of the muscles weaken progressively over a period of time—can aggravate the condition. The degree of droopiness can also vary widely over the course of the day; it may hardly be noticeable in the morning, but by nightfall the eyelid may droop considerably.

Treatment

The good news is that, by itself, ptosis is not a serious problem unless the drooping lid begins to interfere with your vision, or if you believe it is aesthetically unattractive. If this is the case, you should opt for cosmetic surgery that will stop the lid from sagging by removing excess skin from the upper lid.

It’s important for you to determine if the eyelid began to droop suddenly or if the deterioration was gradual, which is a normal sign of aging. If, however, your ptosis is caused by either diabetes or myasthenia gravis, a very rare neurological disease (see “Eyelids That Droop as the Day Progresses” below), you and your doctor need to first address and treat the disease. The drooping lid should return to its previous state after proper treatment of the disease.

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