Tonsils and Adenoids

Your tonsils and adenoids are part of your lymphatic system. Your tonsils are in the back of your throat and your adenoids are higher up, behind your nose. They help protect you from infection by trapping germs coming in through your mouth and nose. Sometimes your tonsils and adenoids become infected themselves. Tonsillitis makes your tonsils sore and swollen. Enlarged adenoids can be sore, make it hard to breathe and cause ear problems.

The first treatment for infected tonsils and adenoids is antibiotics. If you have frequent infections or trouble breathing, you may need surgery. Surgery to remove the tonsils is tonsillectomy. Surgery to remove adenoids is adenoidectom.

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What Is Acupuncture?

Acupuncture is the practice of inserting thin needles into specific body points to improve health and well-being. It originated in China more than 2,000 years ago. American practices of acupuncture use medical traditions from China, Japan, Korea and other countries. In the United States, the best-known type involves putting hair-thin, metallic needles in your skin.

Research has shown that acupuncture reduces nausea and vomiting after surgery and chemotherapy. It can also relieve pain. Researchers don’t fully understand how acupuncture works. It might aid the activity of your body’s pain-killing chemicals. It also might affect how you release chemicals that regulate blood pressure and flow.

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What is arsenic?

Arsenic is a naturally occurring element widely distributed in the earth’s crust. In the environment, arsenic is combined with oxygen, chlorine, and sulfur to form inorganic arsenic compounds. Arsenic in animals and plants combines with carbon and hydrogen to form organic arsenic compounds.

Inorganic arsenic compounds are mainly used to preserve wood. Copper chromated arsenate (CCA) is used to make “pressure-treated” lumber. CCA is no longer used in the U.S. for residential uses; it is still used in industrial applications. Organic arsenic compounds are used as pesticides, primarily on cotton fields and orchards.

What happens to arsenic when it enters the environment?

Arsenic occurs naturally in soil and minerals and may enter the air, water, and land from wind-blown dust and may get into water from runoff and leaching.

Arsenic cannot be destroyed in the environment. It can only change its form.

Rain and snow remove arsenic dust particles from the air.

Many common arsenic compounds can dissolve in water. Most of the arsenic in water will ultimately end up in soil or sediment.

Fish and shellfish can accumulate arsenic; most of this arsenic is in an organic form called arsenobetaine that is much less harmful.

How might I be exposed to arsenic?

Ingesting small amounts present in your food and water or breathing air containing arsenic.

Breathing sawdust or burning smoke from wood treated with arsenic.

Living in areas with unusually high natural levels of arsenic in rock.

Working in a job that involves arsenic production or use, such as copper or lead smelting, wood treating, or pesticide application.

How can arsenic affect my health?

Breathing high levels of inorganic arsenic can give you a sore throat or irritated lungs.

Ingesting very high levels of arsenic can result in death. Exposure to lower levels can cause nausea and vomiting, decreased production of red and white blood cells, abnormal heart rhythm, damage to blood vessels, and a sensation of “pins and needles” in hands and feet.

Ingesting or breathing low levels of inorganic arsenic for a long time can cause a darkening of the skin and the appearance of small “corns” or “warts” on the palms, soles, and torso.

Skin contact with inorganic arsenic may cause redness and swelling.

Almost nothing is known regarding health effects of organic arsenic compounds in humans. Studies in animals show that some simple organic arsenic compounds are less toxic than inorganic forms. Ingestion of methyl and dimethyl compounds can cause diarrhea and damage to the kidneys.

How likely is arsenic to cause cancer?

Several studies have shown that ingestion of inorganic arsenic can increase the risk of skin cancer and cancer in the liver, bladder, and lungs. Inhalation of inorganic arsenic can cause increased risk of lung cancer. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the EPA have determined that inorganic arsenic is a known human carcinogen. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has determined that inorganic arsenic is carcinogenic to humans.

How does arsenic affect children?

There is some evidence that long-term exposure to arsenic in children may result in lower IQ scores. There is also some evidence that exposure to arsenic in the womb and early childhood may increase mortality in young adults.

There is some evidence that inhaled or ingested arsenic can injure pregnant women or their unborn babies, although the studies are not definitive. Studies in animals show that large doses of arsenic that cause illness in pregnant females, can also cause low birth weight, fetal malformations, and even fetal death. Arsenic can cross the placenta and has been found in fetal tissues. Arsenic is found at low levels in breast milk.

How can families reduce their risk for exposure to arsenic?

If you use arsenic-treated wood in home projects, you should wear dust masks, gloves, and protective clothing to decrease exposure to sawdust.

If you live in an area with high levels of arsenic in water or soil, you should use cleaner sources of water and limit contact with soil.

If you work in a job that may expose you to arsenic, be aware that you may carry arsenic home on your clothing, skin, hair, or tools. Be sure to shower and change clothes before going home.

Is there a medical test to show whether I’ve been exposed to arsenic?

There are tests available to measure arsenic in your blood, urine, hair, and fingernails. The urine test is the most reliable test for arsenic exposure within the last few days. Tests on hair and fingernails can measure exposure to high levels of arsenic over the past 6-12 months. These tests can determine if you have been exposed to above-average levels of arsenic. They cannot predict whether the arsenic levels in your body will affect your health.

Has the federal government made recommendations to protect human health?

The EPA has set limits on the amount of arsenic that industrial sources can release to the environment and has restricted or cancelled many of the uses of arsenic in pesticides. EPA has set a limit of 0.01 parts per million (ppm) for arsenic in drinking water.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has set a permissible exposure limit (PEL) of 10 micrograms of arsenic per cubic meter of workplace air (10 μg/m3) for 8 hour shifts and 40 hour work weeks.

CDC

Facts About Personal Cleaning and Disposal of Contaminated Clothing

Chemical Agents: Facts About Personal Cleaning and Disposal of Contaminated Clothing

Some kinds of chemical accidents or attacks may cause you to come in contact with dangerous chemicals. Coming in contact with a dangerous chemical may make it necessary for you to remove and dispose of your clothing right away and then wash yourself. Removing your clothing and washing your body will reduce or remove the chemical so that it is no longer a hazard. This process is called decontamination.

People are decontaminated for two primary reasons:

• to prevent the chemical from being further absorbed by their body or from spreading on their body, and
• to prevent the chemical from spreading to other people, including medical personnel, who must handle or who might come in contact with the person who is contaminated with the chemical.

Most chemical agents can penetrate clothing and are absorbed rapidly through the skin. Therefore, the most important and most effective decontamination for any chemical exposure is decontamination done within the first minute or two after exposure.

How to know if you need to wash yourself and dispose of your clothing?

In most cases, emergency coordinators will let you know if a dangerous chemical has been released and will tell you what to do.

In general, exposure to a chemical in its liquid or solid form will require you to remove your clothing and then thoroughly wash your exposed skin. Exposure to a chemical in its vapor (gas) form generally requires you only to remove your clothing and the source of the toxic vapor.

If you think you have been exposed to a chemical release, but you have not heard from emergency coordinators, you can follow the washing and clothing disposal advice in the next section.

What to do?

Act quickly and follow the instructions of local emergency coordinators. Every situation can be different, so local emergency coordinators might have special instructions for you to follow. The three most important things to do if you think you may have been exposed to a dangerous chemical are to (1) quickly remove your clothing, (2) wash yourself, and (3) dispose of your clothing. Here’s how:

Removing your clothing:

Quickly take off clothing that has a chemical on it. Any clothing that has to be pulled over your head should be cut off instead of being pulled over your head.

If you are helping other people remove their clothing, try to avoid touching any contaminated areas, and remove the clothing as quickly as possible.

Washing yourself:

As quickly as possible, wash any chemicals from your skin with large amounts of soap and water. Washing with soap and water will help protect you from any chemicals on your body.

If your eyes are burning or your vision is blurred, rinse your eyes with plain water for 10 to 15 minutes. If you wear contacts, remove them and put them with the contaminated clothing. Do not put the contacts back in your eyes (even if they are not disposable contacts). If you wear eyeglasses, wash them with soap and water. You can put your eyeglasses back on after you wash them.

Disposing of your clothes:

After you have washed yourself, place your clothing inside a plastic bag. Avoid touching contaminated areas of the clothing. If you can’t avoid touching contaminated areas, or you aren’t sure where the contaminated areas are, wear rubber gloves or put the clothing in the bag using tongs, tool handles, sticks, or similar objects. Anything that touches the contaminated clothing should also be placed in the bag. If you wear contacts, put them in the plastic bag, too.

Seal the bag, and then seal that bag inside another plastic bag. Disposing of your clothing in this way will help protect you and other people from any chemicals that might be on your clothes.

When the local or state health department or emergency personnel arrive, tell them what you did with your clothes. The health department or emergency personnel will arrange for further disposal. Do not handle the plastic bags yourself.

After you have removed your clothing, washed yourself, and disposed of your clothing, you should dress in clothing that is not contaminated. Clothing that has been stored in drawers or closets is unlikely to be contaminated, so it would be a good choice for you to wear.

You should avoid coming in contact with other people who may have been exposed but who have not yet changed their clothes or washed. Move away from the area where the chemical was released when emergency coordinators tell you to do so.

CDC

Lab Measurements in People

CDC’s Environmental Health Laboratory conducts the National Biomonitoring Program (NBP). The Program specializes in biomonitoring, which is the direct measurement of people’s exposure to toxic substances in the environment by measuring the substances or their metabolites in human specimens, such as blood or urine. Biomonitoring measurements are the most health-relevant assessments of exposure because they indicate the amount of the chemical that actually gets into people from all environmental sources (e.g., air, soil, water, dust, food) combined, rather than the amount that may get into them.

CDC

Latex Allergies

Latex gloves have proved effective in preventing transmission of many infectious diseases to health care workers. But for some workers, exposures to latex may result in allergic reactions. Reports of such reactions have increased in recent years–especially among health care workers.

CDC

What Are Liver Diseases?

Also called: Hepatic disease

Your liver is the largest organ inside your body. It is also one of the most important. The liver has many jobs, including changing food into energy and cleaning alcohol and poisons from the blood. Your liver also makes bile, a yellowish-green liquid that helps with digestion.

There are many kinds of liver diseases. Viruses cause some of them, like hepatitis A, hepatitis B and hepatitis C, Others can be the result of drugs, poisons or drinking too much alcohol. If the liver forms scar tissue because of an illness, it’s called cirrhosis. laundice, or yellowing of the skin, can be one sign of liver disease.

Like other parts of your body, cancer can affect the liver. You could also inherit a liver disease such as hemochromatosis.

MedlinePlus

Diverticulosis and Diverticulitis

Also called: Diverticular disease

Diverticula are small pouches that bulge outward through the colon, or large intestine. If you have these pouches, you have diverticulosis. This condition becomes more common as people age. About half of all people over age 60 have it. Doctors believe the main cause is a low-fiber diet.

Most people with diverticulosis don’t have symptoms. Sometimes it causes mild cramps, bloating or constipation. A high-fiber diet and mild pain reliever will often relieve symptoms.

If the pouches become inflamed or infected, you have diverticulitis. The most common symptom is abdominal pain, usually on the left side. If the diverticula are infected, you may also have fever, nausea, vomiting, chills, cramping and constipation. In serious cases, diverticulitis can lead to bleeding tears, or blockages. Treatment focuses on clearing up the infection with antibiotics, resting the colon and preventing future problems. A serious case may require a hospital stay.

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What is Helicobacter pylori?

H. pylori is a spiral-shaped gram negative bacterium that can live in the stomach and in the duodenum which is the section of intestine below the stomach. It is the most common cause of ulcers of the stomach and duodenum, accounting for up to 90% of duodenal ulcers and up to 80% of gastric ulcers. Ulcers can also be caused by some medications or too much stomach acid, but the most common cause is H. pylori infection. Infection with H. pylori also causes gastritis, and infected persons also have a 2- to 6-fold increased risk of developing mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma, and gastric cancer compared with uninfected counterparts.

H. pylori infection is common in the United States and is most often found in persons from lower income groups and older adults. About 20% of persons less than 40 years of age and about 50% of persons over 60 years of age are infected. Most infected people do not have symptoms and only a small percentage go on to develop disease.

How H. pylori is passed from one person to another is not known at this time. How people get infected with H. pylori is not known. The germs have been found in saliva, dental plaque and in the stools of children. Overcrowding and close contact with others in households may increase the spread of infection.

How is H. pylori infection diagnosed?
Endoscopy
Small samples of the lining of the stomach are taken through a tube that is passed through the mouth into the stomach. The samples are tested for H. pylori. The histology test, considered the gold standard of diagnostic tests for H. pylori, can be performed on the tissue sample. The culture test, performed in very few laboratories, is important when we wish to know if a person’s H. pylori will be killed by certain antibiotics.

Urea Breath Test (UBT)
H. pylori infection can be detected in the exhaled breath using this special test. This test is positive only if the person has a current infection. Sensitivity and specificity of this test ranges from 94-98%.

Serologic test (IgG antibody)
A blood test that shows if a person has ever been infected. This test remains positive for years after infection and also for several months after H. pylori has been successfully treated. Sensitivity and specificity of this test ranges from 80-95% depending on the type of assay used.

How is infection with H. pylori treated?
At the present time, national guidelines recommend that H. pylori infection be treated only in persons who have ulcers, low-grade gastric MALT lymphoma, or in persons following removal of early gastric cancer. It is difficult to kill the H. pylori germs because the place where they live in the lining of the stomach helps protect them from antibiotics. To be sure the infection is cleared, at least two effective antibiotics plus either an acid-lowering agent (proton-pump inhibitor or histamine H2 receptor blocker) or bismuth subsalicylate (Pepto-Bismol) are taken. These medicines are all taken at the same time, either 2 to 4 times a day (depending on the regimen) for 1-2 weeks. Currently, there is no conclusive evidence of treatment benefit to H. pylori infected persons with non-ulcer dyspepsia (stomach upset without an ulcer).

CDC

Pituitary Disorders

Your pituitary gland is a pea-sized gland at the base of your brain. The pituitary is the “master control gland” – it makes hormones that affect growth and the functions of other glands in the body.

Injuries can cause pituitary disorders, but the most common cause is a pituitary tumor. About 1 in 10,000 people get them. They grow slowly, do not spread and are usually not cancerous. The most common type of pituitary tumor produces hormones and disrupts the balance of hormones in your body. This can cause endocrine disorders such as cushing’s syndrome and hyperthyroidism.
Symptoms of pituitary tumors include:

• Headaches
• Vision problems
• Nausea and vomiting
• Any of the problems caused by the production of too many hormones

Pituitary tumors are usually curable. Treatment is often surgery to remove the tumor. Other options include medicines and radiation.

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