Description and Possible Medical Problems

If you’ve ever had novocaine at the dentist’s office, then you know what a numb mouth feels like.

Some people who are chronic worriers bite their lips a lot, which can result in a lack of sensation in the lips. But if you discover that the area around your mouth is numb, it might be a sign of a lack of blood flow to the brain. This could be a signal of impending stroke.

Frequently, when a stroke has occurred, your mouth will feel numb either around the lips or on one side of them. Most people who have had a stroke also have a numb arm and/or leg—if both, they’ll be on the same side of the body—and difficulty with their speech and/or vision.

Sometimes numbness around the mouth caused by poor circulation to the brain can also be accompanied by a sudden loss of consciousness.

Treatment

Many times, treatment will include aspirin, but only after a vascular flow study of the vessels of the neck that lead to the brain, along with, possibly, an angiogram and a CAT scan or MRI. A low-salt, low-fat diet is prescribed, along with prescription medication that will lower blood pressure.

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Description and Possible Medical Problems

Though a nosebleed usually arrives without warning and is alarming, it’s usually not a serious condition, and it disappears as quickly as it came.

In midlife adults and older, nosebleeds can occur for no apparent reason, or they may be due to a blow to the nose or even breathing dry air. This type of nosebleed starts and stops suddenly. The blood vessels on the front of the septum—the cartilage that divides the nose—are thin and fragile, and it doesn’t take much for them to break. However, there are some instances in older adults where a nosebleed can indicate a serious condition that warrants immediate medical attention, and that’s why it’s a Body Signal Alert.

More serious nosebleeds usually originate further back in the nose and may be caused by a number of factors, from an excess of anticoagulant medication such as aspirin to the rupture of an artery, or even as a symptom of a worsening case of hypertension.

If your nosebleed recurs several times over the course of the day, or if the bleeding is constant, you should see your doctor right away.

Treatment

To stop a mild nosebleed, don’t lean your head back or lie down. Instead, sit up straight and pinch your nose so that you’re applying pressure to the septum. Apply ice; the bleeding should subside within a few minutes.

As far as a recurring or constant nosebleed is concerned, do not attempt to treat this mote serious type by yourself. Your doctot will first apply gauze soaked with anesthetic to the septum to shrink inflammation and stop the bleeding. If this is not successful, your doctor may choose to cauterize the site of the bleeding or to surgically place a temporary nasal balloon against the septum. This will help control the bleeding.

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Description and Possible Medical Problems

You know how you feel when you’re on a plane and coming in for a landing or driving down a mountain: your ears suddenly feel clogged. Usually, a good swallow or two will take care of it.

But what if this doesn’t help? A clogged sensation in your ear is frequently caused by an accumulation of earwax and has a simple solution. In most cases, you can even take care of it yourself.

Treatment

First, check to see if your ear is filled with earwax, or cerumen. Take a windup clock and see if you hear the ticking at the same volume in both ears. Another trick is to hum. If you can hear the humming louder on one side, that’s the side with the accumulation of wax. If you do find that one ear is filled with earwax, fill an eyedropper with mineral oil and place a few drops in the ear daily for a few days until the wax plug softens. Then flush out the wax with warm water in a plastic syringe.

TIP FOR FREQUENT FLYERS

There is a new device available that eliminates the painful ear¬aches that are due to pressure changes on ascent or descent. They are called “Earplanes” and look like a small set of earplugs. They can be purchased in drugstores and airports.

Special Mention for the Elderly

In the elderly, earwax can actually accumulate for years through inatten¬tion. The cerumen can become hard as a rock in some cases. This requires medical attention to remove the wax and avoid aggravating the chronic infection that usually accompanies a large accumulation of hard¬ened earwax.

There’s always the possibility that a bug has crawled into your ear or that a plug of cotton from an ear swab has dislodged and became stuck in your ear canal. Gently flushing the ear with mineral oil followed by water will probably do the trick for either problem. If you have no luck, contact your physician immediately and have her dislodge the offender. Don’t poke around yourself; you may puncture the eardrum.

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If you cross your eyes, you’ll see two of whatever you’re looking at. But if you begin to see double without purposely crossing your eyes, you should see your doctor, since this condition can be a symptom of diabetes, hypertension, or arteriosclerosis.

Double vision, also known as diplopia, occurs when one of your eyes crosses by itself or when the picture one of your eyes receives is not being processed properly by the brain. Ordinarily, the muscles of the eyes work together to coordinate two images into one picture. However, when one of the body’s major operating systems goes awry—such as with diabetes or hypertension—it can affect how the ocular muscles operate. Sometimes a trauma to one of the nerves in the brain that controls the eye muscles—such as an aneurysm—can affect your eyesight.

When double vision is caused by an aneurysm, a condition in which the wall of an artery swells, the aneurysm can press on some of the nerves that affect sight. Arteriosclerosis can reduce or completely stop the flow of blood to the optic nerve, and diabetes frequently affects circulation to the retina.

Double vision tends to occur in diabetics who have had their disease for ten years or more. The altered metabolic processes that are a symptom of diabetes can sometimes deprive the retina of oxygen, with one result being double vision.

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Description and Possible Medical Problems

“I have a sty in my eye.” Most of us have experienced a sty, an infection that occurs at the root of an eyelash, at one time or another. It may feel as though a tiny pea or pebble is stuck in your eye, and, because it is an irritant, the entire eye may become red and sore. Some people develop another kind of lump on the eyelid, called a chalazion, which is similar to a sty except that the infection occurs near the edge of the eyelid in the skin of the lid next to the eye. A chalazion looks like a lump in your eyelid, and you may feel as though you have a foreign body in your eye. A chalazion forms when one of the glands that lubricates the edge of the eyelid, called a meibomian gland, becomes blocked. But, unlike a sty, a chalazion doesn’t hurt.

Treatment

In most cases, you can take care of a sty or chalazion yourself. In fact, treating a sty yourself will speed up the healing process and relieve the pain. Simply apply a warm, damp washcloth to the area two or three times an hour. When the sty looks as though it’s about to burst, you can either pull out the eyelash near the sty or let the sty burst by itself. Once all the pus has run out of the sty, wash the area with warm water. The area will heal totally in a day or two.

To treat a chalazion, you should gently rub the swelling toward the edge of the eyelid. This usually causes the meibomian gland to become unblocked and the pus to drain quickly. Again, make sure to wash the eyelid with warm water. As with a sty, the lid will quickly heal.

Unless the infection grows so large that it begins to interfere with your sight, you may decide to wait out a sty or chalazion. But once it becomes larger than a small pea, it can distort the appearance of the eye and become unattractive, so you’ll probably want to treat it purely for aesthetic reasons.

If either of these self-help remedies doesn’t work, you should see your eye doctor, who will probably lance the sty or chalazion to allow it to drain and then treat the site with a topical antibiotic such as Bactrim, applied two or three times daily for about a week.

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