Hennglise Dorvial is occupied by endless hours on an iPad like any teen her age – setting records on a mobile device she just picked up for the first time ever, rarely looking up during conversation.
But physically, Hennglise isn’t like other teens. Four years ago, when she was 12 years old, a benign tumor called an ameloblastoma, began growing inside of Hennglise’s maxillary sinus. What started out as a toothache, turned into a small bump that expanded from the size of a pea to the size of two grapefruits – nearly doubling the size of her face. Without treatment, the tumor would continue to grow and risk cutting off her airway.
Last month, Hennglise and her mother traveled from Haiti to Virginia Beach to seek treatment for the massive facial tumor pressing on her brain, pushing her left eye so far up and out of its socket that it has lost function. Through a partnership with Project HOPE and a generous donation from Larry O’Reilly, of O’Reilly Auto Parts, Hennglise was referred to Operation Smile’s World Care program, which arranges for patients with complicated deformities to travel with a guardian from their home country to the U.S. for surgical treatment. World Care patients stay with caring host families who provide a nurturing environment and necessary medical accommodations during the patient’s treatment and recovery, which can last a month to six months.
Sitting in the sunroom at her host family’s house a few days before her scheduled surgery, Hennglise and Yvrose, her mother, spoke through a translator.
“For me, as a mother, that tumor gives me a lot of problems,” Yvrose said. “I took her out of school last year, I don’t take her to the market anymore. It really hurts. Family used to visit, friends used to visit, but no one comes anymore.”
Yvrose sat across the room from Hennglise, watching her daughter occupied in a game of Bubble Burst. Hennglise didn’t look up when she said, “I have no friends. The other children, the bully me. They tell me I’m the only one in the world like this.”
On April 28, just a week away from her Sweet 16, Hennglise underwent a 12-hour surgery performed by Operation Smile Co-Founder and CEO Dr. William Mage and a team of medical professionals at Children’s Hospital of The Kings Daughters.
“Operation Smile is blessed with a strong relationship with Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters here in the Norfolk-Virginia Beach area,” said Dr. Magee. “This hospital is able to handle virtually any tertiary care needed. Because of its strong talent pool in craniofacial surgery/plastic surgery, pediatric neurosurgery, pediatric anesthesia, state of the art operation room and postoperative and intensive care units, as well as superb nursing and medical professionals which staff these areas, virtually every aspect of Hennglise’s care is on exceptionally strong footing.”
In the days leading up to the procedure, Hennglise says she’s not nervous about surgery. Rather, she’s excited to see what she will look like.
“I want to look in the mirror and see I’m not the same,” she said quietly, looking up from her loaned iPad for just a moment.
AFTER SURGERY
In an operating room surrounded by nearly a dozen medical professionals, Dr. Magee operated on Hennglise, cutting out her tumor in its entirety. When he left the OR after more than 12 hours to tell Yvrose and the host family of the successful surgery, the usually subdued Yvrose nearly tackled Dr. Magee in excitement.
Both Hennglise and her mother have opened up to each other and to the Operation Smile family since the surgery. Yvrose says her relationship with her daughter has improved.
“I’m more comfortable around Hennglise. The largeness of her face made me and others uncomfortable,” Yvrose said through a translator. “Before, I was afraid to take her out and socialize, but not anymore.”
Hennglise, practicing multiplication flash cards around the dining room table, said she is most excited about starting school again and to show her friends how she looks now.
“I’m happy. My face is smaller. My mouth is different, but in a good way,” Hennglise said. “I know it will take longer to look better, but I’m very happy now.”
Hennglise still needs one more surgery to move her jaw into a new position. Dr. Neil Morrison, also at CHKD, will perform the surgery, side-by-side with Dr. Magee.
“The beauty and what we have seen already is that this shy young lady is now beginning to communicate and engage with individuals,” said Dr. Magee. “This is a tribute to the environments that she has now been exposed to with caring, loving individuals taking care of her. She can intrinsically understand that our community cares about her. “
Source: operationsmile
Pool chemicals help protect swimmers from germs in the water, but the disinfectants themselves can be hazardous if used improperly, warns a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 2012, nearly 5,000 people in the United States visited an emergency department for injuries from pool chemicals, the report says.
The researchers found that 46 percent of those injuries occurred among children and teens, and more than a third happened at home. Nearly three-quarters of injuries took place between Memorial Day and Labor Day, and about 40 percent happened on weekends. [7 Common Summer Health Concerns]
The most common type of injury was poisoning, usually from inhaling pool chemical fumes. People were typically injured when they opened containers storing pool chemicals without wearing protective equipment (such as goggles), or when they entered the water right after chemicals had been added.
"Chemicals are added to the water in pools to stop germs from spreading. But they need to be handled and stored safely to avoid serious injuries, Michele Hlavsa, chief of CDC's Healthy Swimming Program, said in a statement.
To prevent pool chemical injuries this summer season, the CDC recommends that people read and follow directions on product labels, wear safety equipment such as goggles and masks when handling pool chemicals, keep young children away from those individuals handling pool chemicals, and lock up pool chemicals to protect people and animals. Individuals should never mix different pool chemicals with each other, and should never add water to pool chemicals, the CDC said.
Because these chemicals typically take a few minutes to kill germs, swimmers can take additional steps to keep germs out of the water, including not swimming when they have diarrhea, and taking children on frequent bathroom breaks, the CDC said.
Swimmers can also protect themselves from germs by not swallowing pool water.
The report is based on information from about 100 hospital emergency departments, which the researchers used to estimate the number of pool injuries nationally. Between 2003 and 2012, there were typically about 4,000 emergency visits per year related to pool chemicals, and in 2012 there were about 4,900, the researchers estimated.
Source: foxnews
A team of researchers have recently discovered that a common kidney dialysis drug is also effective at significantly slowing the progression of HIV to AIDS in animal trials. In addition, the drug was able to prevent one of the main causes of HIV/AIDS related deaths; microbial translocation. This amazing new information will be used to develop new life-saving HIV/AIDS drug therapies.
In a new study, it was found that Sevelamer, a drug commonly given to patients receiving kidney dialysis, can also significantly reduce the risk of death from HIV-related health complications. The drug is able to block bacteria in the guts from getting into the body through intestinal lining damaged by HIV, a process called microbial translocation. The gut bacteria attach to the medication and this makes it more difficult to escape into other parts of the body. Microbial translocation is one of the main causes of chronic activation of the immune system which weakens the immune system and allows the HIV virus to transition into full-blown AIDS.
Microbial translocation also causes inflammation, which leads to heart disease, a major cause of mortality in HIV/AIDS patients. "These findings clearly demonstrate that stopping bacteria from leaving the gut reduces the rates of many HIV comorbidities," said Dr. Ivona Pandrea, professor of pathology at Pitt's CVR, in a recent press release..
Sevelamer was given to primates infected with the simian version of HIV, SIV. Sevelamer-treated monkeys were found to have lower levels of gut bacteria entering their bodies. This also caused the treated monkeys to have lower levels of a biomarker associated with excessive blood clotting. All these results suggest that heart attacks and stroke in HIV patients are more likely associated with chronic immune system activation and inflammation than the HIV drugs. "We now have direct evidence of a major culprit in poor outcomes for some HIV-infected people, which is an important breakthrough in the fight against AIDS," Pandrea explained.
This information will be used to test potential therapies aimed at slowing down or even stopping the key cause of death and heart disease in people with HIV. Unfortunately the treatment may not be suitable for HIV positive individuals that have already had severe gut damage caused by the virus. So far in clinical trials, the drugs were not successful in reducing microbial translocation in chronically infected patients.
“Our study points to the importance of early and sustained drug treatment in people infected with HIV,” Pandrea added in the press release. Due to this researchers are currently working on alternative approaches. These include coupling Sevelamer with antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs, probiotics, or supplementation of existing HIV/AIDS drugs in order to further reduce the risk of microbial translocation.
Source: medicaldaily
People with sleep apnea, a common sleep disorder, may be at increased risk for the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis, especially women and older people, a new study suggests.
Sleep apnea causes repeated, brief interruptions in breathing during sleep. Untreated sleep apnea can increase a person’s risk of heart disease, heart attack and stroke.
“Ongoing sleep disruptions caused by obstructive sleep apnea can harm many of the body’s systems, including the skeletal system,” said study co-author Dr. Kai-Jen Tien, of Chi Mei Medical Center in Tainan, Taiwan.
“When sleep apnea periodically deprives the body of oxygen, it can weaken bones and raise the risk of osteoporosis,” Tien said. “The progressive condition can lead to bone fractures, increased medical costs, reduced quality of life and even death.”
For the study, published April 15 in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, researchers analyzed the medical records of nearly 1,400 people in Taiwan diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea between 2000 and 2008. They compared them with more than 20,600 people who did not have the sleep disorder.
Over six years of follow-up, people with sleep apnea were 2.7 times more likely to be diagnosed with osteoporosis. The risk for the bone-thinning disease was highest among women and older people with sleep apnea, according to the study.
“As more and more people are diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea worldwide, both patients and health care providers need to be aware of the heightened risk of developing other conditions,” Tien said in a journal news release. “We need to pay more attention to the relationship between sleep apnea and bone health so we can identify strategies to prevent osteoporosis.”
However, the study only noted an association between sleep apnea and osteoporosis. It does not prove that one causes the other.
Source: U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Oil pulling, which goes back 2,500 years, is based on Indian traditional medicine, or Ayurveda, said Marc Halpern, a chiropractor and president of the California College of Ayurveda, in Nevada City, Calif.
The practice is based on a core concept of Ayurveda: that oil is nourishing to body tissue, said Halpern. “In Ayurveda we oil all the tissues of the body, from head to toe, every day. Studies have shown there can be an antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory action.”
Halpern swishes oil. “I try to do everything within the realm of Ayurveda to see if it’s of value,” he said.
But even Halpern admits that oil pulling may not produce the broad range of benefits some boast. “People have reported all kinds of wonderful results from doing it, but you can’t attribute every result to the practice,” he said.
Hard evidence of the benefits and risks is hard to come by.
Bennett decided to try swishing after applying coconut oil to her 2-year-old daughter’s skin to treat eczema. In reading about how the oil worked, she learned about pulling. So she recently ordered another bottle of coconut oil and tried it.
“It wasn’t bad,” said Bennett, who swished for 10 to 15 minutes. “My mouth seemed quite clean after and my teeth seemed whiter even after just one time. I plan to make this a part of my daily routine each morning.”
Do experts in Ayurveda think pulling really works as a teeth whitener? “It hasn’t been studied,” said Halpern.
As for any downside, Halpern said some people feel a little nauseous when they swish. For that he recommends using oil for just five minutes, not the 20 minutes some recommend, and using less oil if need be.
“Between a teaspoon and a tablespoon is fine. There is no exact amount of oil that must be put in your mouth,” he said.
While Halpern said he believes swishing oil is safe, he recommends that people work with a trained and experienced Ayurveda practitioner to get a personalized “prescription” for the type of oil that best fits their needs and physical make-up.
Lydia Hall, a spokeswoman for the American Dental Association, said the association can’t comment on oil pulling because additional research is needed. And the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research isn’t doing any research on oil pulling, said its spokesman, Bob Kuska.
Some experts say almost anything you do for your mouth is better than neglecting it.
“Anyone who wants to pay attention to their oral hygiene, it’s a good thing,” said Dr. Joseph Banker, a cosmetic dentist in Westfield, N.J. “But are there other things that they could be doing? Probably.”
Many “old remedies” were developed when there was no toothpaste, mouthwash, floss or toothbrushes, Banker said. Nowadays, inexpensive and widely available tools make it a lot easier to take care of your teeth and gums, he added.
As for whether swishing can whiten teeth, Banker is skeptical. “I don’t think the oil has an intrinsic effect other than the removal of plaque. It’s hard to find a study that states that. Anything that swishes around for 20 minutes may have some effect, even water.”
Yet if done daily, oil pulling may remove some tooth stain, Banker said. Also, if the process improves gum health, they will be pinker, which can often make the teeth look whiter, he said.
Banker recommends that people who want brighter teeth simply use whitening strips. “They’re easy to place, and you can stop using them if your teeth get sensitive.”
Source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
People with asthma could be at higher risk of bone loss, new research suggests.
But it’s not clear how the two conditions might be related.
“We know prolonged use of corticosteroids in the treatment of asthma is a risk factor of osteoporosis, but we haven’t had definite data showing the relationship between asthma itself and bone loss,” study author Dr. Jae-Woo Jung said in a news release from the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (ACAAI).
“This study has shown a meaningful association between the two conditions, even in the absence of previous oral corticosteroid use,” noted Jung.
The researchers studied more than 7,000 people, including 433 with asthma. They found that bone density in the lumbar spine and femur was significantly lower in those with asthma.
“It is difficult to pinpoint the cause of bone loss in this subset of patients,” said allergist Dr. John Oppenheimer in a statement provided by the ACAAI.
“Reasons can include corticosteroid use, low levels of vitamin D or even race. This research has unveiled findings that need be further studied,” he said.
Although steroid treatments for asthma may be a possible link to bone loss, no one should stop taking these drugs without talking to their doctor.
“Asthma is a serious disease that can be life-threatening,” Oppenheimer said. “It is important that those with asthma and other breathing problems continue their prescribed treatment. It is also imperative that allergists discuss the potential of the disease itself or as a consequence of therapy in asthma sufferers.”
Side effects from corticosteroid treatment are generally more evident with oral forms of the drugs instead of inhaled, though oral steroids are more effective. Doctors prescribe inhaled corticosteroids whenever possible. If oral corticosteroids are necessary, doctors will prescribe the lowest effective dose to help avoid side effects, according to the ACAAI news release.
Source: National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
Arguing and worrying over family problems may lead to an increased risk of dying in middle age, Danish researchers report.
Conflicts with family, friends and neighbors posed the greatest risk. Those most at risk are men and people out of work, the researchers noted.
“Stressful social relations in private life are associated with a two- to three-times increased risk of dying,” said lead researcher Dr. Rikke Lund, an associate professor in the department of public health at the University of Copenhagen.
“Worries and demands from partners and children, and conflicts in general, seem the most important risk factors,” she said.
The findings still held when chronic disease, depressive symptoms, age, sex, marital status, support from social relations, and social and economic position were taken into account, Lund said.
“We also find that men and participants outside the labor force are especially vulnerable to the exposure to stress from social relations,” she said.
Simon Rego, director of psychology training at Montefiore Medical Center at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, said, “While we’ve long known the protective role that healthy social relations play, the results of this study suggest that social relations are actually more like a double-edged sword, as they can also be destructive when unhealthy.”
The report was published online May 8 in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
For the study, Lund and colleagues collected data on nearly 10,000 men and women, aged 36 to 52, who took part in the Danish Longitudinal Study on Work, Unemployment and Health.
Participants were asked about their everyday social relationships, particularly about who, among partners, children, other relatives, friends and neighbors, made excess demands, prompted worries or were a source of conflict, and how often these problems arose. They also examined whether having a job made a difference.
Using data from the Danish Cause of Death Registry, researchers tracked participants from 2000 to the end of 2011. Over that time, 196 women (4 percent) and 226 men (6 percent) died. Nearly half the deaths were from cancer. Heart disease and stroke, liver disease, accidents and suicide accounted for the rest.
About one in 10 said that their children were a frequent source of excess demands and worries. Nine percent said that their spouse was often a source of demands or concern. Six percent cited problems among their relatives and 2 percent had issues with friends.
Some 6 percent of participants said they “always or often” had conflicts with their spouse or children, 2 percent had such conflicts with other relatives, and 1 percent with friends or neighbors.
Taking all of this into account, Lund’s team calculated that these stresses were linked to a 50 percent to 100 percent increased risk of death from any cause. Among all these stresses, arguing was the most harmful, the researchers found.
Frequent arguments with partners, relatives, friends or neighbors were associated with a doubling to tripling in the risk of death from any cause, compared with those who said these incidents were rare, the authors noted.
Rego said it’s important to note the limitations of an observational study, such as this one. “As with all studies that employ observational designs, caution should be used when interpreting the results, as the design does not provide conclusive information about any cause-and-effect relationships,” he said.
Still, the researchers suspect that greater stress from conflicts and concerns might be the reason behind the increased risk. They noted that when stressors were increased — for example, conflict at home coupled with unemployment — the risk of premature death also rose.
Lund also cited higher levels of stress hormones and increased blood pressure as possible reasons for the connection.
Rego said the interactions between stressful social situations and the body’s stress response as well as other factors — such as genetics, environment, socioeconomic factors and psychological responses — likely all play a role in the association between conflicts and a higher risk of death.
Source: U.S. National Institute of Mental Health.
