Brown's Syndrome

Brown's syndrome is a syndrome that usually occurs at birth or can occur with time. Cases of Brown's disease being originated through heredity are very rare. Other causes could come from surgeries, trauma to the eye, or conditions of chronic inflammation like rheumatoid arthritis or sinusitis.

The tell tale sign of Brown's disease is that an individual has an eye that looks strange whenever they look up or inward toward their nose. Now when you look at this picture you would think that the child's right eye (in anatomical view) is the one that is effected, but it is actually the child's left eye that is effected. With Brown's syndrome, the superior oblique tendon or muscle of the patients eye is unable to move around freely, due to hardening or inflammation of the tendon, and so the individuals lower eye is unable to look up freely. Something that I found interesting was from the website http://www.aapos.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=71 was that most individuals who have Brown's syndrome have this occur in their right eye. This is not true for this child in the picture above.

Some other symptoms that can occur and this is usually with severe cases is severe double vision, binocular vision is affected (the ability of both eyes to work together), or you start to notice that the patients head in comparison to where they are looking does not look normal.

There are different classifications of Brown's syndrome and it all depends on the severity of the eye. In the most severe of cases the individual will be looking forward and their affected eye will be looking toward the ground. In mild cases the affected eye will usually only be affected when the patient looks up, but in moderate cases the eye will start to appear to be looking down a bit when ever the patient looks in toward their nose.

The treatment of the patient will depend on the severity and origin of the Brown's syndrome. For the cases that are severe, patients will be advised to have surgery. For the moderate cases, medication can be given to reduce the inflammation of the tendon and hopefully give the tendon some more elasticity to move around freely. With the mild cases, parents and physicians will usually just monitor the child closely to make sure the condition does not worsen. In the cases where the Brown's syndrome is brought on by surgery or trauma, those patients may either need surgery to correct the issue or the condition may better itself with time.

PROLACTINOMA

Prolactinoma is a condition where there is a tumor on the pituitiary gland and it causes the overproduction of prolactin into the body, which is known is hyperprolactinemia. This can do several things to the body and I will go over that today.

SYMPTOMS

Just like an adenoma, the prolactinoma has two classifications, a microprolactinoma and a macroprolactinoma. The size of the prolactinoma will determine what kind of symptoms that an individual will have. I was able to find some information about how a prolactinoma affects men and women differently. With a prolactinoma that is very large in size, this will of course effect your vision because the optic nerves criss cross right above the pituitary gland and so if you have a tumor that is large enough in size, this will push up on those optic nerves causing inflammation which there fore will affect your vision.

For prolactinoma' s that are not large in size some other symptoms for women that may occur but are not limited to amenorrhea (cease in menstruation) and galactorrhea (milk production) when the female is not pregnant.

Some symptoms that may occur for men would be gynecomastia, which is unexplained beast enlargement, shrinkage of the testes, a sex drive that has diminished or is non-existent, and the possibility of being infertile if the prolactinoma is left untreated.

TREATMENT

Treatment for a prolactinoma is usually not surgical. Most of the time an individual will be given medication to reduce the production of prolactin and this will most often then not shrink the tumor which will decrease the symptoms that occur with prolactinoma. Usually the only time that an individual will receive surgery is if the pain or vision affects the patient to where it is unbearable or if the patient cannot handle the medications that can be given to decrease the release of prolactin.

LABYRINTHITIS

Hello to you all. How on earth are you doing? Well here we are again and now we are going to learn about Labyrinthitis. I thought that this picture was really cool because I don't know about you guys but I always thought that Labyrinth was a pretty interesting movie. Alrighty roo here we go.

DESCRIPTION

Labyrinthitis is a condition where the inner ear becomes inflamed in the area called the labyrinth or what we would know it as, the three semicircular canals and the cochlea. Remember that we learned that the cochlea deals with hearing and the semicircular canals deal with balance and equilibrium. A labyrinth is just what it says, basically a labyrinth of fluid-filled canals and sacs that are all connected. These canals connect to the vestibule, which is the portion that sends information to the brain, hence the vestibular nerve. So you can understand that if this area becomes inflamed then there is information that is going to the brain that is inaccurate and how it might affect an individuals ability to hear or their balance.

Another interesting aspect that I learned about Labyrinthitis is that we see things around us all the time and that we are able to stand up and walk and balance on one leg. So if you are seeing something and your body is not receiving the same information, in regards to balance, then you start to feel vertigo. So lets say that you are walking in a straight line and you turn around a corner to walk on a different street then the information that your vestibular nerve is sending to the brain will not match what you are seeing, so you will become dizzy or experience vertigo.

CAUSES OF LABYRINTHITIS

There are actually several possibilities for the cause of labyrinthitis, but most of the time this condition will proceed an upper respiratory infection or an infection that is viral or bacterial in origin, like the common cold or the flu. Other possibilities could be allergies, trauma to the hear and/or ear, alcohol abuse, a tumor that occurs in the middle ear, and certain medications like Dilantin (medication used to control seizures), some antibiotics administered intravenously, Lasix (which is used for the treatment of edema due to congestive heart failure ), and aspirin. Also severe stress so you should probably start doing some yoga if you find yourself getting too stressed.

SYMPTOMS

Some symptoms that can occur with labyrinthitis can be vertigo, nausea, loss of balance, and vomiting. Other symptoms that could occur would be headaches, tinnitus( a ringing or rushing noise that occurs within the ear), some hearing loss.

TREATMENTS

Treatments would include to monitor your diet and cut back on the salt and sugar that you digest, you can also lie down on your side, you also should probably cut back on the chocolate, cigarettes, and coffee if you have labyrinthitis. Medicinal treatments can be a route because of the origin of the labyrinthitis to begin with is usually from a viral or bacterial infection. There are also some exercises that you can do that can help speed up the recovery time of labyrinthitis. The exercises are called Brandt and Daroff exercises and the Epley maneuver. You can look at www.emedicinehealth.com/labyrinthitis for an explanation of all of the exercises, but I will give you a quick run down. You would look to your right side really fast and then lie down on your left side while keeping your head facing toward the right, and you repeat this on the opposite side as well. You do repetitions of the different exercises and this is suppose to aid in your recovery time.

GLIOBLASTOMA MULTIFORME

Glioblastoma multiforme is unfortunately a condition that an individual does not ever want to be diagnosed with. This is actually the type of tumor that Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with if you have listened to the news then he was fine last year and at one of the inauguration balls for President Obama, Ted Kennedy passed out and it was later discovered that his tumors were back.

DESCRIPTION

Glioblastoma multiforme is a brain tumor that is rapid and aggressive and forms very rapidly and will not usually cause symptoms until it is already massive in size. Glioblastoma multiforme is a tumor that usually does not arise from a pre-existing lesion in the brain. Many glioblastoma multiforme will develop from lower grade astrocytomas or anaplastic astrocytomas within the cerebrum. The tumors can arise from either the white or gray matter but will usually originate in the white matter and quickly spread to other parts of the body. Usually whenever the patient has chosen treatment, it is not shortly after that the tumor will arise in usually the same location within the brain.

SYMPTOMS

Some symptoms that can arise from glioblastoma multiforme would be headaches, personality changes, you can see slowing of cognitive functions, nausea and vomiting. There can be hemiparesis, which is weakness in one side of the body, sensory loss, visual loss, aphasia, and eventually there could be seizures.

TREATMENT

Unfortunately treatment is only palliative and so when the patient is diagnosed with this condition, the life expectancy of these patients is not good. According to http://www.emedicine.medscape.com/ for those individuals who chose to not participate in treatment, they have a three month life expectancy and for those individuals who do decide to have treatment, their life expectancy is about a year.

Depending on the size of the tumor, the stage it is in and the location of the tumor, treatments can include surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. But there is still no cure for glioblastoma multiforme.

INTRACRANIAL ANEURYSM

INTRACRANIAL ANEURYSMS

I chose brain aneurysms as my blog due to the fact that I wanted to educated myself a bit more about this condition. When I was in the first grade my mother had a intracranial aneurysm that ruptured and we almost lost her. So here is my blog about intracranial aneurysms.

DESCRIPTION

A brain anuerysm is an abnormal bulging of one or more of the arteries within the brain. Most of the time brain aneurysms are not ever detected unless there are symptoms of an aneurysm and tests are performed to rule out an aneurysm or if the aneurysm has ruptured causing subarachnoid hemorrhaging.

SYMPTOMS

My mother said that she did not really notice any symptoms occurring before the aneurysm, but she did say that once the initial pain of it rupturing went away, she said that it was a huge release because the pressure was not so great. She does not remember anything after that. Some symptoms that could arise with a ruptured intracranial aneurysm would be nausea and vomiting, blurred vision or double vision, pain that is above and/or behind the eyes, dilated pupils, sensitivity to light and loss of sensation throughout the body.

Some symptoms for an intracranial aneurysm that has not ruptured would be short-term memory difficulty's loss of coordination and balance, speech difficulties, issues with thinking normally or processing problems and sudden changes in behavior.

TREATMENTS

There are usually two reasons for treatment. The first reason is that

there were findings of an intracranial aneurysm with the modalities of

CT or MRI and the patient has opted to take a course of action or there

is the incidence of a ruptured intracranial aneurysm and it is a life or

death situation and the patient needs to be taken to surgery

immediately to stop the bleeding and to stop the irreversible damage

that can occur to the brain.

One way of treatment is to do what is called "surgical clipping" and this is where there is a surgical clip that is inserted into the brain and that clip clamps off the aneurysm so that the patient will not bleed out. A second course of action, and this is only if the intracranial aneurysm has not burst is to do what is endovascular coiling. And these photos explain endovascular coiling very well. This is a non invasive procedure that can be performed under general fluoroscopy. A catheter will be inserted into the femoral artery and will then be lead to the brain where they can locate the aneurysm, block the aneurysm with lead coils, and cut off blood circulation to that weak point of the vessel for the prevention of an aneursym rupturing.