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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Earlobe Crease Associated with Heart Attacks

Check out the Earlobe Crease in this bust of Roman Emperor Hadrian It is a factoid that all medical students memorize and is even tested on exams... at least I remember doing so sometime during my first 2 years of medical school. This findings is also known as "Frank's Sign" named after Dr. Sanders Frank based on a paper he authored in 1973 . This risk of heart attack associated with a diagonal earlobe crease has reported numerous times over the years.  In a 1989 study of 3…

7/14/2015 0

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Ibuprofen (and Other NSAIDS) Increases Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke

It seems that the longer we study a particular medication on larger numbers of people, the more risks we find associated with taking it. The FDA on 7/9/15 reported that NSAID medications like ibuprofen (but NOT aspirin) significantly increases the risk of heart attack and stroke. This risk of heart attack and stroke with NSAIDs, either of which can lead to death, was first published in 2005. However, this warning will now be strengthened with the following statements: The risk of heart …

7/10/2015 0

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Flushing Ears with Cold Water Can Treat Somatoparaphrenia

Somatoparaphrenia is a condition whereby a person denies that a limb or an entire side of the body belongs to them, even if provided with irrefutable proof. This condition usually is accompanied by left-sided paralysis and anosognosia (denial or lack of awareness) of the paralysis often due to a parietal stroke. What is interesting is that flushing the left ear with cold water (caloric vestibular stimulation) can temporarily treat/resolve somatoparaphrenia. Specifically, the protocol is fl…

3/03/2014 0

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Stroke vs Non-Stroke Facial Paralysis

Image by Patrick Lynch from Wikipedia A recent blog post about a ER doctor who was found negligent for not pursuing a stroke workup for an isolated facial paralysis did bring up an interesting medical phenomenon about what differentiates a facial paralysis due to stroke vs facial paralysis due to facial nerve inflammation. To begin, the facial nerve innervates the entire half of the face. The nerve itself exits from the skull behind the ear and sends finger-like branches to all the musc…

3/23/2013 0

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ER Doc Found Negligent in Bell's Palsy Case

This case is not quite what you might think... Here's the background... The Wisconsin State Supreme Court  found an ER physician negligent for failing to offer a carotid ultrasound for a patient who presented with an isolated facial paralysis  (patient did not exhibit paralysis anywhere else in the body) and upheld a $2 million jury award to the patient in 2008. Not only that, the Wisconsin Medical Board reprimanded the ER physician and fined her $300. [ link ] Hmmmm... After all, …

3/22/2013 6

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