What is Upset stomach?
Upset stomach or abdominal pain is most often due to inflammation of the stomach lining and intestines caused by viruses. Typically, an upset stomach can be treated at home. If symptoms are extreme or prolonged, medical care is needed.

What are the symptoms?
Cramping abdominal pain
Nausea or vomiting
Diarrhea, loose or liquid stools, increased number of stools
Headache or body aches
Fatigue
Chills, with or without fevers

What are the treatment options?
Most people can successfully treat their symptoms at home. During the first 24 to 36 hours, the best treatment is a diet of clear liquids only. Frequent, small amounts of fluids are tolerated best. A good goal is to drink enough fluids to keep your urine a pale yellow or clear color. If vomiting occurs, wait up to two hours before trying to drink again, and start with sips of water or sucking on ice chips. If these are well tolerated, try other fluids:

Sports drinks
Clear, non-caffeinated sodas such as 7-Up, Sprite or ginger ale
Diluted juices such as apple, grape, cherry or cranberry (avoid citrus juices)
Clear soup broth or bullion
Popsicles
Decaffeinated tea
If fluids are well tolerated, slowly add bland solid foods (see below), but it is important to continue to focus on fluid intake at the same time.
White toast with only honey or jelly
Soda crackers
Plain white rice
Applesauce
Bananas

What should be avoided?
Non-cultured dairy products (milk, cheese, ice cream,) spicy, greasy or fatty foods, whole grains, raw vegetables, alcohol, caffeine. It may take several days to a week for a person’s appetite, energy level, and bowels to be normal again.

What are the prevention options?
Wash hands well with soap and water after using the bathroom and before and after eating or handling food.
Do not share eating or drinking utensils with others.
Avoid milk, cheese or egg-based foods that have not been refrigerated.
Handle uncooked meat or poultry carefully, wash hands, utensils and work surfaces well after preparing, especially before handling other foods
When traveling in foreign countries drink bottled beverages and only eat fruits and vegetables that can be peeled or thoroughly cooked. Avoid sidewalk food stands.

What is Undescended Testicle?
An undescended testicle (cryptorchidism) is a testicle that hasn't moved into its proper position in the bag of skin hanging below the penis (scrotum) before birth. Usually just one testicle is affected, but about 10 percent of the time both testicles are undescended. An undescended testicle is uncommon in general, but common among baby boys born prematurely.
The vast majority of the time, the undescended testicle moves into the proper position on its own, within the first few months of life. If your son has an undescended testicle that doesn't correct itself, surgery can relocate the testicle into the scrotum.



What are the symptoms?
Not seeing or feeling a testicle where you would expect it to be in the scrotum is the main sign of an undescended testicle. Testicles form in the abdomen during fetal development. During the last couple of months of normal fetal development, the testicles gradually descend from the abdomen through a tube-like passageway in the groin (inguinal canal) into the scrotum. With an undescended testicle, that process stops or is delayed.



When to see a doctor?
An undescended testicle is typically detected when your baby is examined shortly after birth. If your son has an undescended testicle, ask the doctor how often your son will need to be examined. If the testicle hasn't moved into the scrotum by the time your son is 4 months old, the problem probably won't correct itself.

Treating an undescended testicle when your son is still a baby might lower the risk of complications later in life, such as infertility and testicular cancer.

Older boys, from infants to pre-adolescent boys, who have normally descended testicles at birth might appear to be "missing" a testicle later. This condition might indicate:

A retractile testicle, which moves back and forth between the scrotum and the groin and might be easily guided by hand into the scrotum during a physical exam. This is not abnormal and is due to a muscle reflex in the scrotum.

An ascending testicle, or acquired undescended testicle, that has "returned" to the groin and can't be easily guided by hand into the scrotum. If you notice any changes in your son's genitals or are concerned about his development, talk to your son's doctor.


What causes Undescended Testicle?
The exact cause of an undescended testicle isn't known. A combination of genetics, maternal health and other environmental factors might disrupt the hormones, physical changes and nerve activity that influence the development of the testicles.



What are the risk factors?
Factors that might increase the risk of an undescended testicle in a newborn include:
Low birth weight
Premature birth
Family history of undescended testicles or other problems of genital development
Conditions of the fetus that can restrict growth, such as Down syndrome or an abdominal wall defect
Alcohol use by the mother during pregnancy
Cigarette smoking by the mother or exposure to secondhand smoke
Parents' exposure to some pesticides



What are the complications?
In order for testicles to develop and function normally, they need to be slightly cooler than normal body temperature. The scrotum provides this cooler environment. Complications of a testicle not being located where it is supposed to be include:

Testicular cancer: Testicular cancer usually begins in the cells in the testicle that produce immature sperm. What causes these cells to develop into cancer is unknown. Men who've had an undescended testicle have an increased risk of testicular cancer. The risk is greater for undescended testicles located in the abdomen than in the groin, and when both testicles are affected. Surgically correcting an undescended testicle might decrease, but not eliminate, the risk of future testicular cancer.

Fertility problems: Low sperm counts, poor sperm quality and decreased fertility are more likely to occur among men who've had an undescended testicle. This can be due to abnormal development of the testicle, and might get worse if the condition goes untreated for an extended period of time.
Other complications related to the abnormal location of the undescended testicle include:

Testicular torsion: Testicular torsion is the twisting of the spermatic cord, which contains blood vessels, nerves and the tube that carries semen from the testicle to the penis. This painful condition cuts off blood to the testicle.

If not treated promptly, this might result in the loss of the testicle. Testicular torsion occurs 10 times more often in undescended testicles than in normal testicles.

Trauma: If a testicle is located in the groin, it might be damaged from pressure against the pubic bone.
Inguinal hernia: If the opening between the abdomen and the inguinal canal is too loose, a portion of the intestines can push into the groin.

What is Turbinates?
Turbinates are bony structures covered with soft tissue on the sides of the inner nose that regulate airflow and protect the inner nasal anatomy. The major function of the turbinates is to control airflow. From the bottom to the top of the nose, there are three (sometimes four) levels of turbinate structures: the inferior, middle, superior and the supreme turbinate that is not present in every person.

The inferior turbinate plays the largest part in directing airflow, but it also moistens, heats, and filters the air coming into the respiratory system. The middle turbinate primarily protects the sinuses and the olfactory bulb, which houses your smell receptors. The superior turbinate protects the sphenoid sinus on each side.



What can go wrong with the Turbinates?
The primary issue people experience with their turbinates is turbinate hypertrophy (enlarged turbinates). Enlarged turbinates can be caused by allergies, chronic sinus inflammation, or environmental irritants. Turbinate hypertrophy can be situational or chronic. A common type of situational turbinate hypertrophy is the nasal cycle, in which the turbinates on one side of the nose will swell for four to six hours before returning to their normal size, at which point the turbinates on the other side will begin to swell.


What are the symptoms of Turbinate Hypertrophy?
The most common symptoms of septal deviations and turbinate hypertrophy are:
Congested or blocked nasal breathing
Breathing trouble at night and snoring
Chronic nosebleeds and chronic sinus infections


What are the risk factors of Turbinate Hypertrophy?
Some risk factors of turbinate hypertrophy include:
Recurrent sinusitis
Nasal trauma
Nasal surgery
Pet
Poor air quality
Family history of nasal polyposis


How are Turbinate Hypertrophy and a Deviated Nasal Septum related?
A patient with a deviated nasal septum is more likely to have both turbinate hypertrophy and concha bullosa. Septal deviation causes turbinate hypertrophy because the structures within the nose tend to grow so that they fill open areas. If your septum is deviated to the left, that creates space for the right middle and inferior turbinate to grow larger.



How should Enlarged Turbinates be treated?
Treatment options vary depending on the cause of your enlarged turbinates. Make sure you are certain of the cause before you begin treatment. If your enlarged turbinates are a result of allergies or environmental irritants, you can allergy-proof your home by following simple precautions to get rid of pollen, dust, and pet dander. Medications like nasal steroids should be tried but need to be continued and have varying efficacy. The best long-term treatment for chronically enlarged turbinates – especially if caused by a deviated septum, is turbinate reduction surgery. Turbinate reduction surgery is often performed at the same time as a septoplasty. Consult a board-certified ENT to determine the best course of treatment for you.

What is tuberculosis?
Tuberculosis is an infectious disease that usually affects the lungs. Compared with other diseases caused by a single infectious agent, tuberculosis is the second biggest killer globally. TB usually affects the lungs, although it can spread to other organs around the body. Doctors make a distinction between two kinds of tuberculosis infection: latent and active.
Latent TB: The bacteria remain in the body in an inactive state. They cause no symptoms and are not contagious, but they can become active.
Active TB: The bacteria do cause symptoms and can be transmitted to others.
About one-third of the world's population is believed to have latent TB. There is a 10 percent chance of latent TB becoming active, but this risk is much higher in people who have compromised immune systems, i.e., people living with HIV or malnutrition, or people who smoke. TB affects all age groups and all parts of the world. However, the disease mostly affects young adults and people living in developing countries.

What are the warning signs?
Feeling sick or weak
Loss of appetite and weight loss
Chills, fever, and night sweats
A severe cough that lasts for 3 weeks or more
Chest pain
TB can also affect other parts of the body. Symptoms will depend on the part it affects.

What are the symptoms?
During a latent stage, TB has no symptoms. When TB is active TB, while TB usually affects the lungs, it can also affect other parts of the body, and the symptoms will vary accordingly. Without treatment, TB can spread to other parts of the body through the bloodstream.
Bones: There may be spinal pain and joint destruction.
Brain: It can lead to meningitis.
Liver and kidneys: It can impair the waste filtration functions and lead to blood in the urine.
Heart: It can impair the heart's ability to pump blood, resulting in cardiac tamponade, a condition that can be fatal.

What are the available diagnoses?
The most common diagnostic test for TB is a skin test where a small injection of PPD tuberculin, an extract of the TB bacterium, is made just below the inside forearm. The injection site should be checked after 2-3 days, and, if a hard, red bump has swollen up to a specific size, then it is likely that TB is present. Unfortunately, the skin test is not 100 percent accurate and has been known to give incorrect positive and negative readings. There are other tests that are available to diagnose TB. Blood tests, chest X-rays, and sputum tests can all be used to test for the presence of TB bacteria and may be used alongside a skin test.



What are the treatments?
The precise type and length of antibiotic treatment depend on a person's age, overall health, potential resistance to drugs, whether the TB is latent or active, and the location of infection (i.e., the lungs, brain, kidneys). People with latent TB may need just one kind of TB antibiotics, whereas people with active TB (particularly MDR-TB) will often require a prescription of multiple drugs.
Antibiotics are usually required to be taken for a relatively long time. The standard length of time for a course of TB antibiotics is about 6 months. TB medication can be toxic to the liver, and although side effects are uncommon, when they do occur, they can be quite serious. Potential side effects should be reported to a doctor and include:
Dark urine
Fever
Jaundice
Loss of appetite
Nausea and vomiting
It is important for any course of treatment to be completed fully, even if the TB symptoms have gone away. Any bacteria that have survived the treatment could become resistant to the medication that has been prescribed and could lead to developing MDR-TB in the future.

What are the causes?
The Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacterium causes TB. It is spread through the air when a person with TB (whose lungs are affected) coughs, sneezes, spits, laughs, or talks. TB is contagious, but it is not easy to catch. The chances of catching TB from someone you live or work with are much higher than from a stranger. Most people with active TB who have received appropriate treatment for at least 2 weeks are no longer contagious. Since antibiotics began to be used to fight TB, some strains have become resistant to drugs. Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) arises when an antibiotic fails to kill all of the bacteria, with the surviving bacteria developing resistance to that antibiotic and often others at the same time.

What are the preventions?
Face mask
If you have active TB, a face mask can help lower the risk of the disease spreading to other people
A few general measures can be taken to prevent the spread of active TB
Avoiding other people by not sleeping in the same room as someone, will help to minimize the risk of germs from reaching anyone else
Wearing a mask, covering the mouth, and ventilating rooms can also limit the spread of bacteria

Trigeminal Neuralgia
Trigeminal neuralgia, also known as tic douloureux, sometimes is described as the most excruciating pain known to humanity. The pain typically involves the lower face and jaw, although sometimes it affects the area around the nose and above the eye. This intense, stabbing, electric shock-like pain is caused by irritation of the trigeminal nerve, which sends branches to the forehead, cheek and lower jaw. It usually is limited to one side of the face.

Although trigeminal neuralgia cannot always be cured, there are treatments available to alleviate the debilitating pain. Normally, anticonvulsive medications are the first treatment choice. Surgery can be an effective option for those who become unresponsive to medications or for those who suffer serious side effects from the medications.

The Trigeminal Nerve
The trigeminal nerve is the fifth of 12 pairs of cranial nerves in the head. It is the nerve responsible for providing sensation to the face. One trigeminal nerve runs to the right side of the head, while the other runs to the left. Each of these nerves has three distinct branches. ("Trigeminal" derives from the Latin word "tria," which means three, and "geminus," which means twin.) After the trigeminal nerve leaves the brain and travels inside the skull, it divides into three smaller branches, controlling sensations throughout the face:

The first branch controls sensation in a person's eye, upper eyelid and forehead.
The second branch controls sensation in the lower eyelid, cheek, nostril, upper lip and upper gum.
The third branch controls sensations in the jaw, lower lip, lower gum and some of the muscles used for chewing.
Prevalence and Incidence
It is reported that 150,000 people are diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia every year. While the disorder can occur at any age, it is most common in people over the age of 50. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke(NINDS) notes that trigeminal neuralgia is more common in women than in men. Additionally, there is evidence that the disorder runs in families, likely as a result of an inherited blood vessel formation. Hypertension and multiple sclerosis (MS) also are risk factors.

Causes
The pain associated with trigeminal neuralgia represents an irritation of the nerve. The cause of the pain usually is due to contact between a healthy artery or vein and the trigeminal nerve at the base of the brain. This places pressure on the nerve as it enters the brain and causes the nerve to misfire.

Other causes of trigeminal neuralgia include pressure of a tumor on the nerve or MS, which damages the myelin sheaths. Development of trigeminal neuralgia in a young adult suggests the possibility of MS.

Symptoms
Most patients report that their pain begins spontaneously and seemingly out of nowhere. Other patients say their pain follows a car accident, a blow to the face or dental surgery. Most physicians and dentists do not believe that dental work can cause trigeminal neuralgia. In these cases, it is more likely that the disorder was already developing, and the dental work caused the initial symptoms to be triggered coincidentally.

Pain often is first experienced along the upper or lower jaw, so many patients assume they have a dental abscess. Some patients see their dentists and actually have a root canal performed, which inevitably brings no relief. When the pain persists, patients realize the problem is not dental-related.

The pain of trigeminal neuralgia is defined as either Type I (sometimes also referred to as “classic”) or Type II (may also be called “atypical”) . With classic pain, there are definite periods of remission. The pain is intensely sharp, throbbing and shock-like and usually triggered by touching an area of the skin or by specific activities.Type II pain often is present as a constant, burning sensation affecting a more widespread area of the face. With atypical trigeminal neuralgia, there may not be a remission period, and symptoms are usually more difficult to treat.

Trigeminal neuralgia tends to run in cycles. Patients often suffer long stretches of frequent attacks followed by weeks, months or even years of little or no pain. The usual pattern, however, is for the attacks to intensify over time with shorter pain-free periods. Some patients suffer less than one attack a day, while others experience a dozen or more every hour. The pain typically begins with a sensation of electrical shocks that culminates in an excruciating stabbing pain within less than 20 seconds. The pain often leaves patients with uncontrollable facial twitching, which is why the disorder is also known as tic douloureux.

Attacks of trigeminal neuralgia may be triggered by the following:

Touching the skin lightly
Washing
Shaving
Brushing teeth
Blowing the nose
Drinking hot or cold beverages
Encountering a light breeze
Applying makeup
Smiling
Talking
The symptoms of several pain disorders are similar to those of trigeminal neuralgia. Temporal tendinitis involves cheek pain and tooth sensitivity, as well as headaches and neck and shoulder pain. This condition is called a "migraine mimic" because its symptoms are similar to those of a migraine. Ernest syndrome is an injury of the styomandubular ligament, which connects the base of the skull with the lower jaw, producing pain in areas of the face, head, and neck. Occipital neuralgia involves pain in the front and back of the head that sometimes extends into the facial region.

Diagnosis
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can detect if a tumor or MS is irritating the trigeminal nerve. However, unless a tumor or MS is the cause, imaging of the brain will seldom reveal the precise reason why the nerve is being irritated. The vessel next to the nerve root is difficult to see even on a high-quality MRI. Tests can help rule out other causes of facial disorders. Trigeminal neuralgia usually is diagnosed based on the description of the symptoms provided by the patient.

Treatment
There are several effective ways to alleviate the pain, including a variety of medications.

Carbamazepine, an anticonvulsant drug, is the most common medication that doctors use to treat trigeminal neuralgia. In the early stages of the disease, carbamazepine controls pain for most people. When a patient shows no relief from this medication, a physician has cause to doubt whether trigeminal neuralgia is present. However, the effectiveness of carbamazepine decreases over time. Possible side effects include dizziness, double vision, drowsiness and nausea.
Baclofen is a muscle relaxant. Its effectiveness may increase when it is used with either carbamazepine or phenytoin. Possible side effects include confusion, depression and drowsiness.
Phenytoin, an anticonvulsant medication, was the first medication used to treat trigeminal neuralgia. Possible side effects include gum overgrowth, balance disturbances and drowsiness.
Oxcarbazepine, a newer medication, has been used more recently as the first line of treatment. It is structurally related to carbamazepine and may be preferred because it generally has fewer side effects. Possible side effects include dizziness and double vision.
Other medications include gabapentin, clonazepam, sodium valporate, lamotrigine and topiramate.

There are drawbacks to these medications other than side effects. Some patients may need relatively high doses to alleviate the pain, and the side effects can become more pronounced at higher doses. Anticonvulsant drugs may lose their effectiveness over time. Some patients may need a higher dose to reduce the pain or a second anticonvulsant, which can lead to adverse drug reactions. Many of these drugs can have a toxic effect on some patients, particularly people with a history of bone marrow suppression and kidney and liver toxicity. These patients must have their blood monitored to ensure their safety.