Parry–Romberg syndrome (PRS) is a rare disease characterized by progressive shrinkage and degeneration of the tissues beneath the skin, usually on only one side of the face (hemifacial atrophy) but occasionally extending to other parts of the body.
National Organization for Rare Diseases (NORD)
Parry-Romberg syndrome is a rare disorder characterized by slowly progressive deterioration (atrophy) of the skin and soft tissues of half of the face (hemifacial atrophy), usually the left side. It is more common in females than in males. Initial facial changes usually involve the tissues above the upper jaw (maxilla) or between the nose and the upper corner of the lip (nasolabial fold) and subsequently progress to the angle of the mouth, areas around the eye, the brow, the ear, and the neck. The deterioration may also affect the tongue, the soft and fleshy part of the roof of the mouth, and the gums. The eye and cheek of the affected side may become sunken and facial hair may turn white and fall out (alopecia). In addition, the skin overlying affected areas may become darkly pigmented (hyperpigmentation) with, in some cases, areas of hyperpigmentation and patches of unpigmented skin (vitiligo). Parry-Romberg syndrome is also accompanied by neurological abnormalities including seizures and episodes of severe facial pain (trigeminal neuralgia). Cranial neuropathies involving cranial nerves III, V, VI, and VII, have also been described in patients with PHA. Secondary trigeminal neuralgia has been reported due to impingement of the nerve by destruction of bony structures, as well as vascular inflammation and damage resulting in facial pain that can be chronic and poorly responsive to treatment. Additionally, speech may be affected in PHA patients resulting in dysarthria or aphasia. Cognitive impairment and an increase in behavioral disorders have also been noted. Depending on the degree of atrophy, changes to intracranial tissue and vessels may also result in hemiparesis, dysesthesias, and paresthesias.
The onset of the disease usually begins between the ages of 5 and 15 years. The progression of the atrophy often lasts from 2 to 10 years, and then the process seems to enter a stable phase. Muscles in the face may atrophy and there may be bone loss in the facial bones. Problems with the retina and optic nerve may occur when the disease surrounds the eye.
The prognosis for individuals with Parry-Romberg syndrome varies. In some cases, the atrophy ends before the entire face is affected. In mild cases, the disorder usually causes no disability other than cosmetic effects.
Unfortunately there is no cure and there are no treatments that can stop the progression of Parry-Romberg syndrome. Reconstructive or microvascular surgery may be needed to repair wasted tissue. The timing of surgical intervention is generally agreed to be the best following exhaustion of the disease course and completion of facial growth. Most surgeons will recommend a waiting period of one or two years before proceeding with reconstruction. Muscle or bone grafts may also be helpful. Other treatment is symptomatic and supportive.
“Many of the body’s nerves are like household wires. There is a central conducting core in the nerves called the axon that carries an electric signal. The axon (an extension of a nerve cell) is surrounded by a covering, like insulation, called myelin. The myelin sheath surrounding the axon speeds up the transmission of nerve signals and allows the transmission of signals over long distances. This is what is effected with GBS.”
NIH – National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stoke
“Many of the body’s nerves are like household wires. There is a central conducting core in the nerves called the axon that carries an electric signal. The axon (an extension of a nerve cell) is surrounded by a covering, like insulation, called myelin. The myelin sheath surrounding the axon speeds up the transmission of nerve signals and allows the transmission of signals over long distances.This is what is effected with GBS.”
NIH – National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stoke
“Acid reflux is common, and not just for older adults, according to Dr. Koufman, who says about 37 percent of the 20 to 30-year-old age group gets it. “Tight garments on the lower abdominal region and the upper thigh can cause a condition called meralgia paresthetica, irritation of the nerves in the front and outer aspects of the thigh,” says Orly Avitzur, MD, a neurologist and medical adviser to Consumer Reports who practices in Carmel, N.Y.”
everydayhealth.com
The answer is yes.
If you have a body you’re proud of, thanks to hours of lifting weights and watching your diet, you may on occasion show it off by wearing something form fitting, but make sure it’s not TOO constrictive. As a recent news story showed, wearing tight clothing, in this case, “skinny jeans” could land you in the hospital.
Are Your Skinny Jeans TOO Tight?
Recently, a woman donned a pair of skinny jeans to help her friend move to a new apartment. While milling around her friend’s old apartment, she squatted down time after time to pick items up with the skinny jeans hugging her legs. By the end of the day, she could no longer feel her legs because of leg swelling and nerve compression, and fell while walking through a park. When she couldn’t get up, she had to crawl to the side of the road and hail a passing taxi to transport her to the hospital.
Sadly, she went on to spend four days in the hospital getting treatment to repair the damage the form-fitting jeans did to her muscles, nerves, and blood vessels. The swelling in her legs was so pronounced that medical personnel had to cut her skinny jeans off. Lab studies showed she had abnormally high levels of creatine kinase, an enzyme that rises when muscles are damaged.
The diagnosis was rhabdomyolysis and compartment syndrome – a condition marked by the build-up of pressure within a muscle. When muscles swell inside a space that’s too tight, it can quickly damage tissues by blocking the blood supply they need for survival. Muscles are surrounded by fascia, connective tissue that doesn’t stretch or expand easily. So when pressure builds up, it can’t be easily released. People sometimes develop compartment syndrome when they have an arm or leg in a tight cast and less commonly from wearing clothing that’s too tight. Some people are more prone to developing compartment syndrome because their fascia is overly rigid.
Can Wearing Tight Clothing Cause Nerve Damage?
Compartment syndrome from wearing tight clothing is rare, but what isn’t so rare is a condition called meralgia paresthetica, another health problem caused by, among other things, wearing tight pants. With meralgia paresthetica, the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve that supplies sensation to the outer aspect of the thigh is compressed by constrictive clothing, usually a pair of tight pants. Pregnancy, having diabetes, and being overweight are also risk factors for this condition. Fortunately, damage to the nerve usually isn’t permanent, although surgery may occasionally be needed.
If you wear a compression garment or shape wear that makes your tummy and hips look slimmer for a night out on the town, you’re at higher risk for meralgia paresthetica. Better to tone up those areas through exercise than wear something overly constrictive to push in your hips or tummy.
Can Tight Clothing Cause Spinal Problems?
Ask a chiropractor and they’ll tell you not to wear clothing that limits movement of your hips and core. Why? Doing so tightens the muscles that support your spine and throws off your postural alignment. A study published in Applied Ergonomics showed wearing tight pants restricts movement of the lower hips and trunk. As a result, the lumbar spine has to work harder to compensate. It’s always risky to limit movement of one part of the kinetic chain since another part has to take up the slack.
It’s not just tight pants that are a problem but tube and pencil skirts that force you to take short steps and place greater stress on your joints. Combine a tube skirt with high heels and you make the problem even worse by throwing off your center of gravity. Your risk of injury is higher too when you slip into a tight tube or pencil skirt. Ever tried to squat down or bend over to pick something up in a narrow skirt? It’s not easy – or safe.
Don’t forget – you may not feel the impact wearing tight clothing has on you right away, unless you develop an acute injury. Think of the risk as being cumulative over time. Keep in mind that anything that alters your natural gait and stride can create back and spine problems over time.
Digestive Issues and Yeast Infections
Wearing tight clothing around your waist or abdomen increases the pressure inside your abdomen cavity. This pressure pushes up on your diaphragm and can trigger or worsen acid reflux symptoms. So, if you have heartburn, indigestion or bloating after a meal, check to see if your pants are too tight, and if you have on tight clothing, watch how much you eat! Clothing with tight waistbands and belts that constrict your waist or tummy are common culprits as are compression garments like Spanx.
Finally, tight clothing that reduces air flow to your “private parts” place you at greater risk for vaginal yeast infections. When you walk around in tight pants, moisture builds up in your crotch area and serves as a breeding ground for Candida, the fungi that cause yeast infections.
The Bottom Line
Not only is constrictive clothing uncomfortable, it may be hazardous to your health. If you wear something tight, keep it on for the least amount of time possible. Just as you save your stilettos for a special occasion, treat tight clothing the same way. It’s not comfy nor is it healthy. Wearing pants that are tight around the calves is especially risky when it’s warm outside and you’re standing or sitting a lot. The warm weather and standing can cause leg swelling and with tight pants on, your calves can only expand so much, leading to a build-up of pressure.
The take-home message? Be fashionable but sensible about what you put on.
Some clothing-related maladies go by mundane-sounding names that hardly hint at their potential to sicken. For example, a middle-aged or older man whose belly hangs below the waist of his pants may suffer from “tight pants syndrome,” a term coined in a 1993 article by Dr. Octavio Bessa, an internist in Stamford, Conn.
Bessa described a collection of gastrointestinal symptoms including abdominal pain, heartburn and reflux a few hours after meals that he would see in 20 to 25 men every year. The common thread: All wore ill-fitting pants with waistbands several inches smaller than their bellies, Bessa reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Three years later, two diagnostic imaging specialists from Wales described a “sporting variant” of tight-pants syndrome that they linked to tight Neoprene bike shorts worn to prevent muscular injury. Drs. Charles G.F. Robinson and Nigel Jowett recounted how the shorts blocked venous blood flow in the legs of a 25-year-old man after his workout on a stationary bike. The doctors determined he’d suffered deep venous thrombosis (DVT), clotting probably exacerbated by a hip fracture four years earlier.
Despite treatment with blood thinners, the patient later developed a dangerous pulmonary embolism, indicating a clot had traveled to his lungs.
Pants that are too snug can lead to certain health issues, research suggests. Meaning you can be fit not just overweight.
Women suffer their own tight-pants agonies, too. A gynecological variation can foster yeast infections, pelvic pain, itching and irritations easily mistaken for a sexually transmitted disease. The solution? Looser, cotton clothing.
The way a woman wears her slacks might leave her prone to the breakdown of fatty tissue at the outside of the thighs, called lipoatrophia semicircularis, dermatologists say. “Persistent mechanical pressure” exerted by “strangling folds” of too-tight trousers can impair circulation and set the stage for this condition, especially in women who sit for long periods, according to a study from Chile’s Universidad Andres Bello in the June 2007 Journal of Dermatology.
Wearing tight neckties and shirts with constricting collars can impede blood flow through neck veins and arteries and may affect vision. In a 2003 study of 40 men, half with glaucoma, three minutes with a tightened tie raised eye pressure among the majority of those with and without the disease. Elevated eye pressure is a key element of diagnosing and monitoring glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness.
The lead researcher, Dr. Robert Ritch, a glaucoma specialist at New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, maintained in the study in the British Journal of Ophthalmology that the transient rise in pressure readings “could affect the diagnosis and management of glaucoma.” But several prominent glaucoma specialists said the study failed to establish that transient high pressure from the tightened ties could cause glaucoma.
Believe it or not but too-tight neckties might impede proper circulation in severe cases, research suggests.
Tight neckties also can limit neck movement and raise muscle tension in the upper back and neck, researchers at Korea’s Yonsei University reported last year in “Work: A Journal of Prevention, Assessment and Rehabilitation.” They tested 30 computer workers when wearing and not wearing tight neckties and concluded that “it is especially important for male workers to select and tie neckties appropriately” to prevent musculoskeletal injuries.
Although clothing-related pain and dysfunction can affect almost everyone, Avitzur said women have a tendency to overlook discomfort, for the sake of appearance. An admitted fashion health victim, Avitzur said she had worn ill-fitting boots and “too-heavy earrings that tore through one of my lobes.”
She got the idea for a blog about skinny jeans while at the office of the plastic surgeon who repaired the damage from her poor earring choice.
References:
Applied Ergonomics xxx (2013) 1e9. “Effects of restrictive clothing on lumbar range of motion and trunk muscle activity in young adult worker manual material handling”
Medical Daily. “Fashion Victim In Tight Pants Experiences Nerve And Muscle Damage: Medical Conditions Caused By Skinny Jeans” June 22, 2015.
ABC News.go.com
CHF COMPLICATIONS:
Complications of CHF:
Through the Mayo Clinic, as a reference, complications at their website stated, “If you have heart failure your outlook depends on the cause, the severity, your overall health and other factors such as your age.” Mayo Clinic states complications could include:
“Kidney damage or failure. Heart failure can reduce the blood flow to your kidneys, which can eventually cause kidney failure if left untreated. Kidney damage from heart failure can require dialysis for treatment.
Heart valve problems. The valves of your heart, which keep blood flowing in the proper direction through your heart, may not function properly if your heart is enlarged, or if the pressure in your heart is very high due to heart failure.
Liver damage. Heart failure can lead to a buildup of fluid that puts too much pressure on the liver. This fluid backup can lead to scarring, which makes it more difficult for your liver to function properly.
Stroke. Because blood flow through the heart is slower in heart failure than in a normal heart, it’s more likely you’ll develop blood clots, which can increase your risk of having a stroke.
Closely follow your doctor’s instructions, being compliant with the instructions and taking your meds.
Immediately call your doctor of any significant change in your condition, such as an intensified shortness of breath or swollen feet or weight gain of 3lbs or more within one week.
Control your weight in making it easier for your heart, that’s in failure, to function better (less stress).
Watch what you eat and how much. Watch the diet intake of cholesterol and sodium that can cause a negative impact on the heart by causing stress to the organ through either high B/P=high sodium that causes vasoconstriction or high cholesterol frequently=blockage in an artery and both cause diminishing of oxygenated blood getting to the heart. Without oxygen to our tissues or cells this causes tissue & cellular starvation. What is starvation to the heart=chest pain (what we call angina). Take a brittle diabetic, the furthest area from the heart is the feet the first area to experience starvation is the toes, foot or lower extremity which is why this is usually the first to be amputated if necessary (you usually see an upper extremity amputated due to trauma).
Limit or stop alcohol consumption as your doctor informs you.
Of course, stop smoking permanently if actively smoking.
The best defense against heart failure is PREVENTION! Almost all the cardiac risk factors can be controlled of eliminated (smoking, obese, high cholesterol, high B/P, diabetes).
Going to the doctor can be stressful but know he is there for you. It is hard to remember everything you want to ask the doctor with everything you hear at your visit. It helps to prepare a list of questions you may have and bring it with you at your appointment to address to the doctor your concerns. In doing this it helps you with your appointment so you can record the answers by listing them on the paper you have. Before you leave the doctor’s office, be sure you understand your condition and its treatment, including any medications your taking this doctor ordered for you with him or her knowing any other medications you may be on through a different doctor to prevent side effects or adverse reactions but if you forget this about the medications there is always your pharmacist you can ask than your M.D. later. With you knowing this information you will see why it is so vital for you doing all these actions or inter- ventions for your disease that the doctor ordered and you’re more out to follow them as well.
If you are needing any guidance in how to lose weight through using all 4 food groups, with assistance in what to eat now to lose weight till in therapeutic range for your height or needing to understand how the body works with food and metabolism with where activity comes into play just start with going to the internet and see all the diet organizations in helping you loose weight or go to a doctor or go to a work out organization. Just get your self in a routine of diet, exercise with balance and rest without burning yourself out. There is a lot of help out there or do your own research in a library or the internet with guidance by your M.D. in a short time you will figure out what your best routine is with your life’s schedule! Just take the first few steps with sticking to them and that is just disciplining yourself.
“Thanks to improvements in early detection and treatment, well over a million people in the US count themselves as survivors of colon or rectum cancer (also called colorectal cancer). And, regular screening and healthy lifestyle choices have helped many prevent colorectal cancer from even starting.”.
American Cancer Society
“Absent a widely available vaccine, the coronavirus is not going to die out. The US — and much of the world — is far from the level of immunity its population would need to stifle the virus’ spread.
That means it will likely circulate for years. According to a recent analysis from infectious-disease researchers at Harvard, “a resurgence in contagion could be possible as late as 2024.”
Harvard