Coronavirus and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Facts we know till now!
Coronavirus and theCOVID-19 Pandemic: Facts we know till now! The History From 28th to 31st December, few patients were admitted in Wuhan hospitals with features of upper respiratory infection and suddenly becoming critical needing ventilatory support. Their X-Ray showed pneumonia. Most of them succumbed to this devastating disease. Blood cultures and routine investigations could not identify the organism causing the disease. Polymerase Chain reaction (PCR) tests and next generation sequencing of the sample of the dead people showed a closed resemblance to the SARS virus. The epidemic of SARS virus occurred in 2002 killing about 800 people. Another epidemic of …
Maintaining Hygiene “Down Under”: Genital Hygiene in Diabetes
Patients of Type I and Type 2 Diabetes are at a higher risk of developing infections. Some infections are exclusively found in diabetics while some others may be found to be recurrent or of elevated severity in diabetics. Many a times, it is found that “prutius vulvae” or “purutis scroti” I.e. the itching of the vulva (external part) of the female genitals) or scrotum is one of the presenting symptoms of diabetes. Urinary tract infections are common in patients with uncontrolled diabetes, autonomic neuropathy (damage of nerves that control everyday functions like blood pressure, bladder voiding etc) and bladder obstruction. …
Snoring: Obstructive Sleep Apnoea
Normal sleep consists of 4 phases: Falling asleep – Very deep sleep – REM (rapid eye movements) – Awakening or Arousal. 4-6 cycles of these phases every night give sound sleep with a fresh feeling on awakening. These normal cycles are disturbed when the brain does not get enough oxygen secondary to obstruction to breathing during sleep. Normally the pharyngeal muscles are taut and contracted during the wakeful state. During sleep like all skeletal muscles of the body, the pharyngeal muscle gets flaccid. In obese individual or in short neck people, this flaccidity can obstruct the air passage causing repeated …
Types of Diabetes
In the past we understood only two types of Diabetes – Insulin Dependent also earlier named as Juvenile Diabetes in Young and Non-Insulin Dependent Diabetes in older people. With the alarming rise of diabetes in India and globally, we are now seeing younger and younger diabetic patients, so the question of whether they are Type 1 or Type 2 DM is a challenge to diagnose and requires a good history, proper examination, and few investigations. We are also now classifying other types which classically do not fit into these. Type 1 diabetes or Insulin-dependent Diabetes: Type 1 diabetes is an …