You don’t get a pass on the dangers of excessive sleep & napping just because you’re elderly. Some older people will make excuses for all of their naps and will insist they “need it,” but [...]
You know that excess sitting can cause a DVT, but what about sleep? How much sleep is too much sleep when it comes to causing a blood clot in your vein? “Excessive sleeping means you [...]
The rule of “Lift no more than your body weight” seems to favor overweight people with aortic aneurysm who aren’t necessarily stronger than slimmer people. On typical medical sites, the guidelines for lifting weight for [...]
Have you noticed that soon after you sit down to do computer work, your heart starts thumping, maybe skipping beats, palpitations? This means an abnormal heart rhythm disorder is often your first thought. And if [...]
It’s said that it’s harder to lose weight as we age, yet many elderly women are too thin for good health. So what’s really going on with this bizarre phenomenon? If you’re thinking that the [...]
Ever wonder how much body type plays into being an Olympic champion? Michael Phelps has a strange body type: Phelps’ arm span exceeds his 6-4 height by three inches. […]
Most causes of slurred speech are life-threatening, but there’s also a small number of benign causes. […]
Whether or not a serious injury can result hitting your head on a car door depends on your age. We’re talking about casually getting in and out of the vehicle, rather than having one’s head [...]
There are cases in which someone with ALS was misdiagnosed with BFS. Imagine the devastation when the patient finally receives the correct diagnosis. From a clinical standpoint, early ALS can resemble benign fasciculation syndrome – [...]
The term “twitching” is ambiguous; there are different kinds. Certainly, there are variations between ALS muscle twitching and that of BFS. What are the differences between the twitching muscles of ALS and those of BFS? [...]
It is just ridiculously aggravating when you’ve hit a plateau in the deadlift, especially if you’re middle aged and wondering if this is a sign you’ve reached your all-time limit. […]
The rack pull is a great strength training move that very few women do out of fear it’ll bulk their back. Absolutely false; rack pulls will burn fat and do several wonderful things for a [...]
Laryngeal cancer is one of the scariest diseases, but it would be appealing to someone who’s just been diagnosed with bulbar onset ALS. Symptoms overlap in these two conditions. “Both conditions can be associated with [...]
The groove or indentation appears in one thigh only, so this may mean the muscle is starting to waste away or atrophy from ALS, and unfortunately, this is the erroneous thought process that many people have [...]
First of all, not all women who appear “too thin” have an eating disorder. Anorexia nervosa is a term that many laypeople associate with a particular body appearance: emaciated or one that appears “way too [...]
There are cases of people who’ve fatally ruptured their stomach from eating enormous amounts of food in a short period of time. The “600 Pound Life” subjects apparently have not suffered this fate. [...]
You may already know that a chronic subdural hematoma can cause permanent physical disability. But what about an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease? Can the bleeding that contacts the brain set in motion a chain [...]
Long-term use of anabolic steroids can cause damage to the brain. There are many causes of bleeding in the brain. Some of these bleeds occur slowly and some are instantaneous and thus immediately life-threatening. [...]
“It can be difficult to distinguish between early ALS atrophy and normal atrophy,” says Bonnie Gerecke, MD, MD, director of the Neurology Center at Mercy in Baltimore. The typical course goes as follows: • You [...]
Do whatever it takes to quit smoking if you’ve had a TIA. Smoking damages the blood vessels in the brain. But not only that, it also causes conditions that are independent risk factors for transient [...]
If you just learned a family member has a brain aneurysm, you definitely should schedule an MRI scan of your brain, as there is a familial link to this condition. This genetic link was shown [...]
Are you a weightlifter or runner with an unruptured, newly coiled aneurysm? Just what does “return to full activities” really mean? Exercise is encouraged by surgeons who clip or coil brain aneurysms, but the term [...]
Once you’ve had a transient ischemic attack, life as you know it will never be the same — but there are five measures you can take to regain power over your life. […]
If you’ve suffered from a TIA, perhaps you’re wondering if the DASH diet will help prevent another one of these mini-strokes, which can mean a massive stroke in the near future. You need not have [...]
Can your “jabs and jolts” stabbing head pain be caused by an aneurysm that’s about to rupture? Aneurysm pain from rupture is classically a “thunderclap” headache: sudden in onset, and excruciating, the worst head pain [...]
What you think is a muscle twitch from MS (myokymia) may actually be just a harmless fasciculation; there’s a way to tell the difference with these two kinds of muscle twitching. […]
There actually is a type of facial twitch that’s associated with multiple sclerosis. However, this data needs to be picked apart very carefully, which is why the statement, “A twitching nose can be an early [...]
A brain tumor can cause an eyelid to droop, but the big question is: Can a brain tumor cause an eyelid to twitch? Many people who have a persistently twitching eyelid are terrified that this [...]
Perhaps you’ve read that a stroke can cause a metal taste in the mouth, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that a TIA can leave a metal taste in your mouth, does it? A TIA (transient [...]
Is the cause of gold stools—a more golden color rather than straight yellow—different from the cause of a blander yellow type of poop? What can be considered a “gold” stool might actually be a yellowish [...]
So you know that left arm pain with chest pain, nausea, sweating might mean a heart attack. But what if your ONLY symptom is unexplained left arm pain? First off, even when pain in the [...]
You should not rule out a heart problem if you keep awakening with chest pain that gets better soon afterwards. It may seem odd that a heart problem would cause chest pain only in the [...]
If you have burping along with your chest pain, this definitely can mean something’s going on with your heart. A visit to a cardiologist would be smart. Angina Chest Pain with Burping Angina is impaired [...]
If you’re having chest pain AFTER exercise, not during the activity, this may still be related to your heart. The older you are, the more likely that any chest pain that’s associated with exercise is [...]
The problem with comparing a TIA headache with a ruptured brain aneurysm is if the sudden headache is a burst aneurysm, you don’t have minutes to wait around and see what happens. […]
How can one tell the difference between a transient ischemic attack (TIA) and brain metastases? There’s an overlap of symptoms with a TIA and brain mets, but there’s also features of brain mets that would [...]
The life expectancy after ALS diagnosis averages two to five years, but progression of the disease is not always predictive of life expectancy. Progression of this fatal disease will vary from one patient to the [...]
ALS is 100% fatal, though there are extremely rare cases in which the patient lives many years after diagnosis. But ALS will kill them, too, assuming that by sheer chance, another illness or accident doesn’t [...]
Here’s a comparison between the muscle weakness of ALS and that of benign fasciculation syndrome (BFS). There are striking differences between the muscle weakness of ALS and that of BFS. […]
Do you have the green light to eat a ton of sugar in one sitting if your blood sugar level is in the normal range? For example, you’re healthy and have a glucose monitor device [...]
