“Signals from your peripheral nerves – the nerves located outside of the brain and spinal cord – are responsible for a host of functions, from perceiving sensations to allowing movements and supporting balance. But sometimes these signals get disrupted for various reasons. The result is a condition known as peripheral neuropathy.

Peripheral neuropathy can be caused by health conditions such as diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, kidney disease, Lyme disease, shingles, and hepatitis. Other conditions that can cause peripheral neuropathy include having poor blood flow to the legs (often caused by peripheral arterial disease, or PAD), an underactive thyroid gland (hypothyroidism), metabolism problems, nutritional deficiencies, and growths or tumors that press on nerves.”

Harvard Health Publishing (Peripheral neuropathy: Causes, symptoms, treatment, and prevention – Harvard Health)

Peripheral Neuropathy Diagnosis:

The symptoms and body parts affected by peripheral neuropathy are so varied that it may be hard to make a diagnosis. If your healthcare provider suspects nerve damage, he or she will take an extensive medical history and do a number of neurological tests to determine the location and extent of your nerve damage. These may include:

• Blood tests
• Spinal fluid tests
• Muscle strength tests
• Tests of the ability to detect vibrations

Depending on what basic tests reveal, your healthcare provider may want to do more in-depth scanning and other tests to get a better look at your nerve damage. Tests may include:

• CT scan
• MRI scan
• Electromyography (EMG) and nerve conduction studies
• Nerve and skin biopsy

Peripheral Neuropathy Treatment:

Usually a peripheral neuropathy can’t be cured, but you can do a lot of things to prevent it from getting worse. If an underlying condition like diabetes is at fault, your healthcare provider will treat that first and then treat the pain and other symptoms of neuropathy.

In some cases, over-the-counter pain relievers can help. Other times, prescription medicines are needed. Some of these medicines include mexiletine, a medicine developed to correct irregular heart rhythms; antiseizure drugs, such as gabapentin, phenytoin, and carbamazepine; and some classes of antidepressants, including tricyclics such as amitriptyline.

Lidocaine injections and patches may help with pain in other instances. And in extreme cases, surgery can be used to destroy nerves or repair injuries that are causing neuropathic pain and symptoms.

Peripheral Neuropathy Prevention:

Lifestyle choices can play a role in preventing peripheral neuropathy. You can lessen your risk for many of these conditions by avoiding alcohol, correcting vitamin deficiencies, eating a healthy diet, losing weight, avoiding toxins, and exercising regularly. If you have kidney disease, diabetes, or other chronic health condition, it is important to work with your healthcare provider to control your condition, which may prevent or delay the onset of peripheral neuropathy

Peripheral Neuropathy Management:

Even if you already have some form of peripheral neuropathy, healthy lifestyle steps can help you feel your best and reduce the pain and symptoms related to the disorder. You’ll also want to quit smoking, not let injuries go untreated, and be meticulous about caring for your feet and treating wounds to avoid complications, such as the loss of a limb.

In some cases, non-prescription hand and foot braces can help you make up for muscle weakness. Orthotics can help you walk better. Relaxation techniques, such as yoga, may help ease emotional as well as physical symptoms.

“Are you like millions of Americans who feel tingling and numbness in your limbs? Does it feel like needles are constantly picking your hands and feet? These might be early warning symptoms of a neuropathy, also referred to as peripheral neuropathy.

While the causes of neuropathy vary, including diabetes, autoimmune diseases or chemical exposure, the symptoms are often similar. Here are 5 the most common symptoms of neuropathy to look for:

1. Persistent Tingling And Numbness

2. Loss of balance and coordination

3. Weak muscles

4. Burning pain

5. Changes in sensation

Recognizing these signs on peripheral neuropathy is the first step towards finding relief. If you are experiencing these signs, there are ways to reduce the nerve damage and regain your comfort.”

NervePainDiscovery .com (Nerve ReGen)

“Viral hepatitis often shows no symptoms, so many won’t know they have it until it’s too late.

Chronic hepatitis B and C are the world’s leading cause of liver cancer. More than 1.3 million people die because of hepatitis B or C each year – that’s the most of any communicable disease.

Each year, there are nearly two million new cases.

But hepatitis is preventable and treatable. We have fast and accurate tests, effective and affordable treatments, and a proven vaccine for hepatitis B. We already have everything we need to eliminate it.

What’s holding us back? Low awareness, misinformation, myths and stigma are stopping people from accessing hepatitis services – and leading to a lack of action by decision makers.”

World Hepatitis Alliance (Home – World Hepatitis Day)

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention states the following:

“Viral hepatitis affects nearly 300 million people globally, with approximately 1.3 million deaths each year from hepatitis B and hepatitis C. Despite effective vaccines, evidence-based prevention strategies and medications, deaths from viral hepatitis are increasing globally.

CDC and other organizations around the world recognize WHD by raising awareness about viral hepatitis, the burdens people with hepatitis face, ongoing work to combat viral hepatitis across the globe, and actions people can take to prevent future transmission.

WHD is recognized annually on July 28, the birthday of Dr. Baruch Blumberg, who discovered the hepatitis B virus in 1967. Two years later, he developed the first hepatitis B vaccine. Dr. Blumberg won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1976.

CDC provides scientific and public health leadership in the United States and to countries around the world in advancing efforts to eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health threat. CDC helps countries build capacity for viral hepatitis surveillance, testing, care, and treatment and assists with development and implementation of national control and elimination programs.

CDC’s global viral hepatitis work protects the United States. Persons who were not born in the United States account for 3 out of 4 people with hepatitis B virus infections.

CDC’s global viral hepatitis work protects the United States. Persons who were not born in the United States account for 3 out of 4 people with hepatitis B virus infections. Simulation studies suggest that since 2000, progress in expanding global hepatitis B vaccination among all countries with people who immigrate to the United States could prevent almost 900,000 hepatitis B virus infections and over 67,000 hepatitis B-related deaths if global 2030 vaccination targets are achieved and sustained; this would save the United States $8.1 billion in estimated costs by 2070.

CDC’s support to other countries makes America stronger by fortifying international partnerships, advancing innovation, and using lessons from other countries to advance the elimination of hepatitis C in the United States. Notably, global work has provided examples of the usefulness for tests at point-of-care, such as a viral test for hepatitis C diagnosis that can be used to link people to care and curative treatment in real time. Evaluations of use of hepatitis C self-testing (i.e. for antibody to hepatitis C virus) has shown strong usability and acceptance in the country of Georgia providing lessons for potential use in other low- and middle-income countries to identify persons exposed to hepatitis C who do not typically access health care services.

CDC has supported the first national viral hepatitis serosurveys to estimate the burden of hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and hepatitis D in Georgia, the Kyrgyz Republic, Uzbekistan, Malawi, and Botswana, providing data that guide the development of national strategic plans, identify strategic priorities needed to achieve elimination of viral hepatitis, and measure progress toward the elimination of hepatitis B and hepatitis C.”

“Heart disease is often seen as a chronic, intractable condition — but the reality is more complex. While coronary artery disease (CAD), the most common form, is not yet curable, modern medicine has made it far more manageable than in the past. The key insight is that prevention is far more effective than cure — the best heart disease is the one you never develop.”

Cleveland Clinic (Can Heart Disease Be Cured?)

Heart disease what is it?

Your arteries can get stretched in high blood pressure and it puts the arteries at risk for an auto immune response which allows LDL particles to go in these stretched out areas causing build up of bad cholesterol in the arteries and imbeds fat causing the placque build up = narrowing of the arteries.

We need to reduce inflammation in the arteries.  To prevent, reduce, and treat heart disease if already diagnosed with.  Reduce all sugars, cut back on fatty foods, exercise daily, increase of your whole grains, fresh fruits, and vegetables.

We need to use all 4 food groups but eat the healthy ones in the right portions.  Which I can provide to you later how to go about this.

Coronary artery disease can cause a heart attack. If you have a heart attack, you are more likely to survive if you know the signs and symptoms, call 9-1-1 immediately, and get to a hospital quickly. People who have had a heart attack can also reduce the risk of future heart attacks or strokes by making lifestyle changes and taking medication.   Don’t put off the chest pain or discomfort in the chest or pain down the L arm for if your right you want to prevent the heart attack before it occurs and if you already had an attack the sooner treated the better.  Reperfusion of blood to the heart is the KEY in treatment.  Chest pain to the heart is lack of oxygen getting to the heart tissue=ischemia.  This is due to lack of oxygenated blood to the heart that causes the ischemia. We alone can’t treat it but we can prevent it before CAD even sets in through good health practices daily, healthy dieting daily and balancing rest with exercise daily is the key to prevent Heart Disease.                                              

Look at our diet alone in America:

Take the elements that are in our foods=Sugars or Carbohydrates or Fats.  Simple CHO likes bread, rice, pasta along with fats and complex sugars all convert to simple sugars in the stomach and when it goes through digestion the simple sugar reaches the blood stream filling it up with sugar which first does get utilized to our tissues and cells but if still extra sugar in the blood stream (which is caused to excess in the size of your meal or too many eating moments in the day) that sugar has to go somewhere which is by filling up the liver with it.  In the liver the glucose gets converted from active sugar=glucose to glycogen=inactive sugar that stores in this organ.  This is so if and when the body needs extra sugar for energy in our body and we don’t eat the inactive glucose glycogen will get released back into the blood stream and change to glucose and be used.  Since we eat so much in America it usually isn’t the case.  Obesity is so large in our country and this is why.   When it reaches full and can’t store anymore glucose extra glucose in the blood stream has to go somewhere.  So now the glucose gets stored in our fatty tissue=weight gain.  This is what you see with eating through on a regular basis day in & day out too much food compared to the activity or exercise you do for the day.  If no daily exercise then your  fat storage build up is high=weight gain.How do we go about preventing CAD and getting healther.  Well see if this makes sense to you, it did to me.  First, genetic abnormalities contribute to the risk for certain types of heart disease, which in turn may lead to heart failure.  However, in most instances, a specific genetic link to heart failure has not been identified.  SO THE KEY IS TO PREVENTION for Heart Disease.

Cornary artery disease (CAD) IS TO LIVE AS HEALTHY AS POSSIBLE IN YOUR ROUTINE HABITS,  YOUR DIETING OF THE 4 FOOD GROUPS, MAINTAINING YOUR WEIGHT IN A THEREPEUTIC RANGE (look as calculating BMI online for free to find out what your weight range is for your height), and BALANCING REST WITH EXERCISE TO HELP DECREASE THE CHANCE OF GETTING HEART FAILURE.

Just like a car the better you take care of it the longer it lasts same principle for heart diseases unless genetically inherited.  So prevention is the key!

“Acromegaly (called gigantism in children) is a rare condition in which the whole body or parts of the body, particularly the hands and feet, grow larger than normal. More than 95 percent of all cases of acromegaly are the result of a growth hormone–secreting pituitary adenoma.

Growth hormone–secreting pituitary adenomas begin in the somatotropic cells of the pituitary gland. Also called GH, the growth hormone secreted by these tumors triggers the liver to produce insulin-like growth factor 1, or IGF-1. IGF-1 is involved in bone and tissue growth, metabolism, and other processes of the body. When the body produces too much IGF-1, it leads to a range of symptoms known as acromegaly.”

Memorial Sloan Kettering Center (Acromegaly (Growth Hormone–Secreting Pituitary Adenomas) | Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center)

Gigantism is described as accelerated growth during childhood from the production of excess growth hormone. By definition, gigantism must occur during childhood before the growth plates in the long bones of the body (for example, the femur or humerus) have closed. In adults, the condition is called acromegaly.

Gigantism is most often caused by a benign tumor on the pituitary gland called a pituitary adenoma. However, it can also be caused by the following disorders:

• Neurofibromatosis
• McCune-Albright syndrome (MAS)
• Carney complex
• Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1

Sign and Symptoms of Gigantism:

How Gigantism is Diagnosed:

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used to determine the size and location of your child’s tumor if it is suspected that the disease is caused by a pituitary adenoma.

Furthermore, several blood tests can provide a diagnosis. High levels of prolactin or increased amounts of insulin growth factor-1 (IGF-1) can suggest acromegaly, as can high levels of growth hormone in the blood after oral administration of a large dose of glucose. Low levels of cortisol, thyroid hormone, testosterone (in boys), and estradiol (in girls) can also suggest involvement of the pituitary gland.

Treatment for Gigantism: