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If you have vitiligo, odds are good that your healthcare provider has brought up the importance of skin cancer prevention. But is this something you really need to worry about? Vitiligo is a condition that causes your skin to lose its melanin (pigment). Lack of melanin causes blotchy white patches surrounded by your natural skin color. Vitiligo is believed to be an autoimmune disorder. That means your immune system destroys healthy melanin cells (melanocytes) as if they were a threat to your health, like a virus....

What happens in the bathroom is typically not a subject that you’d expect to be trending on social media. But recently, you might have seen the #BluePoopChallenge on Twitter or Instagram. Key Takeaways The “Blue Poop Challenge” is meant to help people check their gut transit time.Bowel transit time—how long it takes for food to move through the digestive tract from start to finish—can provide clues to your gut health.The viral challenge—which involves eating muffins that are dyed blue and seeing how long it takes for you to notice blue in your stool—expands a formal study that used citizen science methods....

By themselves, both nosebleeds and headaches are common in children over the age of two and are usually not caused by a serious problem. Together, however, these two symptoms might indicate certain medical issues. Common causes include an upper respiratory infection, sinus condition, or a foreign body in the nose, and serious conditions range from head trauma to tumors. Sometimes, nosebleeds are part of childhood migraines. Symptoms Both nosebleeds (epistaxis) and headaches can be caused by a wide variety of issues in children....

What Is Zegerid? Zegerid (omeprazole and sodium bicarbonate) is a prescription combination drug consisting of two primary ingredients: a proton pump inhibitor (PPI), omeprazole, and an antacid, sodium bicarbonate. It is used to treat various gastric disorders. The combination of the two products is highly effective at reducing gastric acid production in adults 18 and older. For context, a PPI is a medication that works by reducing the amount of stomach acid made by glands in the lining of your stomach....

Medicare, health insurance companies, and hospitals are always looking for ways to save money. Assigning you to observation status rather than inpatient care is one way to do so. But depending on the coverage you have, it might end up costing you more. When you are hospitalized, knowing whether you’ve been admitted as an inpatient or put on observation status is important to you financially. This article will explain how that works, how it might affect your access to subsequent rehabilitation care coverage (if you have Medicare), and what you can do if faced with unexpected costs....

Biliary colic is a type of abdominal pain caused by a temporary blockage in the ducts leading out from the gallbladder. Sometimes, but not always, people who have gallstones get biliary colic. The word “colic” refers to the way the pain sometimes starts and stops abruptly, and “biliary” refers to bile or the bile ducts. Biliary colic is also known as a “gallstone attack” or a “gallbladder attack.” Symptoms Biliary colic is a type of pain that usually occurs in the upper part of your belly (abdomen), usually a little to the right or centrally....

The bladder collects and expels urine from the body. As urine is made, it moves from the kidneys and down each ureter to the bladder. The bladder’s flexible walls stretch and contract to hold urine until it is expelled from the body through the urethra. Anatomy The bladder is a triangle-shaped, hollow organ. In men, it is bordered by the pubic bone at the front of the pelvis and the rectum at the back of the pelvis in the lower abdomen....

The BODE index is a tool that is used by healthcare professionals to predict the mortality rate (death rate) from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Using points based on four different measures of lung function, the BODE score makes a prediction about how long someone will live after a diagnosis of COPD. The 4 Factors in the BODE Index Four different factors are evaluated as part of the BODE index. The reason for this index is that each of these factors can make some prediction about the prognosis of COPD, but added together the prediction is more accurate....

Many people with chronic illness will experience depression. In fact, depression is one of the most common complications reported by people with chronic illnesses. According to the Cleveland Clinic, up to one-third of people living with a serious chronic disease will experience symptoms of depression. It’s not difficult to see how the stresses of a chronic disease can trigger feelings of despair and sadness. Serious illnesses have significant effects on a person’s life and can limit a person’s mobility and independence....

If you have an injury that causes pain and inflammation, you may benefit from working with a healthcare professional, like a physical therapist or chiropractor, to help you recover. Your therapist may use a variety of treatments to help decrease your pain and improve blood flow to inflamed tissue. One such treatment is called cold laser therapy. Cold laser therapy is also known as low-level laser therapy (LLLT). This article helps you understand what cold laser therapy is and how it can be used to help treat injuries....

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease marked by abnormally high levels of glucose—sugar derived from carbohydrates that serves as the body’s main source of energy—in the blood. There are five types of diabetes: type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA), gestational diabetes, and monogenic diabetes. Some experts also regard Alzheimer’s disease as a type of diabetes, calling it type 3. Some forms of diabetes are genetic in origin, while others are related to lifestyle or other factors....

In comparing the skin changes that can occur with eczema vs. psoriasis, there are similarities and differences. Affected skin can be red and dry with both. But eczema can be very itchy, though psoriasis usually is not. Psoriasis, on the other hand, tends to cause scaly plaques, while eczema causes bumps. The most important differences to note are that these chronic skin conditions have different causes and may need different treatments....

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infects most of the world’s population—around 95% of adults. Although infection with the virus often doesn’t cause symptoms at all, it can also lead to mononucleosis, which can cause symptoms like fever and fatigue. EBV also increases the risk of certain cancers, and it seems to play a role in some autoimmune and other medical conditions. The virus is named for Epstein and Barr, who discovered it in 1964....

First aid for epileptic seizures is mostly designed to keep the person safe. A seizure can be a scary thing to witness—especially if you don’t know what to do. If someone in your life has a history of seizures, you can be most helpful to them if you learn what you should and shouldn’t do when a seizure strikes. What a Seizure Looks Like Epilepsy is a neurological condition in which electrical disturbances in the brain lead to seizures....

Knowing what to eat for high cholesterol (hypercholesteremia) is important for your heart health. A high cholesterol diet is specifically designed to lower your cholesterol levels. Not all cholesterol is the same: High-density lipoprotein (HDL) can help your body remove cholesterol from your blood. High levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) can cause plaque buildup (atherosclerosis) to occur. When you have high cholesterol, the diet recommended to you will involve foods that help increase HDL (good) cholesterol and decrease LDL (bad) cholesterol....

Hemorrhoids are swollen veins in the anus or rectum caused by pressure. External hemorrhoids occur in the veins outside and around the anus, while internal hemorrhoids involve the veins in the lining of the rectum. Hemorrhoids often improve on their own within a few weeks, though sometimes medical intervention is needed. Read on to learn about at-home treatments that can help soothe symptoms and possibly prevent hemorrhoids from forming or recurring....

Treatment for ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T) is geared toward preventing and managing symptoms. This complex genetic neurodegenerative disease affects voluntary movement, immune function, and cancer risk, and causes dilated blood vessels. A-T requires a team approach, typically including a primary care professional, immunologist (specialist in the immune system), pulmonologist (lung specialist), and neurologist (specialist in the brain and nervous system). Your current symptoms, medical history, and overall health condition will be considered in your treatment plan....

Bone-strengthening drugs for cancer are now available. They can help treat cancer that has spread to the bones (bone metastasis), which is quite common. In many cases, they can be used as soon as bone metastases are diagnosed. These drugs not only reduce the risk of fractures (a common complication) but may, in some cases, improve survival. That’s because they also have anti-cancer properties. This article looks at the new drugs for bone metastases, how they work, and other possible treatments....

Cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN), also known as cervical dysplasia, is a medical condition where cells on a cervix change. Since the cervix is deep inside at the lowermost part of the uterus which connects to the vagina, you usually can’t see this internal area at home. To see if you have CIN, you’ll need to go to a qualified medical professional (ie. a doctor, nurse, or gynecologist) who can examine through Pap smear exam and Human papillomavirus (HPV) testing to determine your risk factors....

It can sometimes be difficult to tell the difference between allergies and a cold, or other illnesses that cause similar symptoms. This is especially true if your allergy symptoms are mild. Though symptoms can vary, if you have itchy, watery eyes, and a runny nose, it’s likely that you have allergies. In this article, we’ll discuss allergy symptoms and their diagnosis and treatment. What Are Allergies? Allergies are the ways your body responds to substances it sees as harmful....