Hickey From Kissing Can Cause a Stroke (Rarely)

Image from stulala on WattPad Apparently, a lover's aggressive kissing on the neck leading to hickey formation can potentially also cause enough trauma to the underlying carotid artery that it can lead to stroke and even death. Hard to believe that something that normally would cause no more harm than some teasing from friends has potential life consequences. The first published report of a hickey leading to stroke was in 2010. In this case report , a 44 years old woman received a h…

8/30/2016 0

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Probiotic Nasal Flushes to Treat Chronic Sinusitis

For patients suffering from chronic sinusitis, the problem may lay more with the absence of "good" bacteria in the sinus cavities than "bad" bacteria that needs to be eliminated. A study in 2012 documented what normal bacteria colonization should be found in healthy sinus cavities versus those suffering from chronic sinusitis. The study evaluated (only) 10 healthy patients and 10 suffering from chronic sinusitis . Within this small study population, they found over 1482…

8/28/2016 1

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Chronic Cough due to Playing a Wind Instrument

Image courtesy of Iamnee at  FreeDigitalPhotos.net There have now been a few published case reports where playing a wind instrument caused a persistent cough ... one of which ended in death. Report in 2010 described a trombone player whose chronic cough for over 15 years was ultimately found to be due to a mold called fusarium as well as mycobacterium (cousin to TB) found growing inside his trombone. Each time he inhaled while playing the trombone, these germs inside his trombone was caus…

8/22/2016 0

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Pet Dog May Cause Recurrent Strep Throat

Image courtesy of alex_ugalek at  FreeDigitalPhotos.net In rare situations, strep throat infection bounces repeatedly among all family members. In such situations, the family's pet dog may be the carrier for strep that may cause such recurrent strep infections among the children and parents. See references below. Fortunately, in the vast majority of situations, the pet dog has no role in recurrent strep throat infections . Indeed, many healthcare professionals are in fact skeptical …

8/21/2016 0

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Family Guy Nasal Spray Addiction

Peter Griffin on Family Guy A patient came to my office one day with a chief complaint of being addicted to an over-the-counter nasal spray called Afrin . When asked why he started using it in the first place, he mentioned about that "one episode on Family Guy when Peter uses a nasal spray and feels invincible because he can breath so great through the nose and smell everything." Watch video below. The implication being that he bought and used the nasal spray so he can breath a…

8/19/2016 0

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Hillary Clinton's Constant Throat-Clearing

Image by Gage Skidmore in Wikipedia Many viewers noted that presidential nominee,  Hillary Clinton , constantly cleared her throat during her speech at the Democratic National Convention on July 28, 2016 (watch video below). About 22 times in fact.  Media have noted that this throat problem has been going on for far longer... since January 2016. Why is she clearing her throat so often? Why is she coughing so much? Is it manufactured  as some have suggested? Or could there be a medi…

8/07/2016 0

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Hearing Amplifiers That Work Almost as Well as More Expensive Hearing Aids

CS50+ High End Hearing Amplifier In my last blog , I argued that hearing amplifiers are not safe to use in patients with hearing loss . In fact, such hearing amplifiers can potentially cause further hearing loss given indiscriminate amplification of sound frequencies where hearing loss may be minimal/absent. Given that caveat, there are a new breed of high-end amplifiers that approach the quality and safety of hearing aids . Such high-end hearing amplifiers typically run $300+, can be pu…

8/05/2016 0

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