All Posts Tagged: Neurology

Toothache? OR Trigeminal Neuralgia? [Updated 2023]

Trigeminal Neuralgia (TN), also known as Tic Douloureux and or the suicide disease, is a chronic pain condition that affects the trigeminal or 5th cranial nerve, one of the most widely distributed nerves in the head.

Trigeminal Neuralgia is often misdiagnosed as dental pain, since pain is frequently triggered when someone chews or talks. However, pain can also occur when someone touches their face, shaves or simply feels the wind.

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Bell’s Palsy

Definition

Bell’s palsy refers to facial paralysis caused by a lesion or inflammation of the facial nerve. Symptoms resemble a stroke, with unilateral facial weakness. However, most facial weakness from strokes spares the forehead muscles. These are weakened with Bell’s palsy. Patients will have unilateral facial weakness that often causes difficulty with eyelid closure, dropping of the affected side of the mouth and reduced ability to wrinkle the forehead or the nose.

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Memory Loss

Memory loss is a common neurological concern. Often, mild forgetfulness is due to stress, distraction, or even depression. Though patients can experience a little forgetfulness with aging, significant changes in memory or thinking are never only attributed to age.

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The Relationship of Neuropathy & Diabetes

Arkansas is ranked 4th among the nation in adult diabetes rates. This is somewhat of an alarming statistic. There are different forms of diabetes but type 2 diabetes is the one I would like to highlight. One complication that can be associated with type 2 diabetes is neuropathy.

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Migraine Triggers

Many migraine patients recognize specific triggers to their headaches. Migraine patients are more sensitive to certain substances in their foods and environments as well as changes to their routine. Too much or too little sleep, changes in exercise routines, and processed foods can worsen migraine headaches.Heavy, flowery scents or cigarette smoke are frequent triggers.

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Writers Cramp

Task-specific dystonia, also known as “writers cramp” can occur in people who do repetitive movements.

It gets its name task-specific because classically, it only occurs during one specific task. It can be inherited, secondary to an underlying neurologic cause, or occur sporadically.

It is often initiated by voluntary movement with symptoms “overflowing” into adjacent muscles causing involuntary muscle cramping of adjacent fingers, wrist, and can include forearm. It can sometimes resemble a tremor. The most common task-specific dystonia is writers cramp, but this also frequently occurs in musicians due to the repetitive motions of playing an instrument. Treatments range from conservative measures such as occupational therapy and stretching to Botulinum toxin (Botox) injections of affected muscles if severely limiting function.

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Tremors

Tremor is an involuntary shaking movement, usually affecting the hands and head, but may affect any part of the body included the feet or torso.
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Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s is a progressive disease caused by a decreased level of dopamine produced by nerve cells in the brain, in an area called the substantia nigra. Dopamine levels drop as the disease progresses.  Dopamine sends messages in the brain to areas that control movement and coordination. With decreased dopamine, patients have difficulty controlling their limb and overall body movement along with their emotions.

Approximately 1,000,000 adults in the USA have Parkinson’s Disease, while males have a 50% higher risk than females.

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