Approach to Chest Pain

Upon presenting to your doctor with chest pain, a rational and step-by-step approach to diagnosing the cause of the pain will be followed. This will include a thorough case taking and physical examination which may be followed by tests and investigations to exclude or confirm differential diagnoses.

Case Taking and History

Assisting your doctor by providing pertinent information for a quick chest pain diagnosis will allow for the appropriate treatment to be administered as soon as possible.

continue reading Chest Pain Diagnosis

Hypothyroidism is a prevalent condition and may be the result of underlying conditions, like Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. In order to diagnose an underactive thyroid and isolate the possible cause, a thyroid profile blood test may be requested by your doctor. Apart from confirming diagnosis and providing valuable information as to the possible cause, the thyroid test will also identify the level of low thyroid activity and assist with assessing the efficacy of thyroid drugs.

continue reading Low Thyroid Test Levels

What is a sputum culture?

The material which is coughed up from the lungs and then spat out or expectorated is called sputum or sometimes referred to as phlegm. A sputum culture is done to identify the microorganism causing lower respiratory tract infections such as pneumonia and tuberculosis. A fever with a chronic cough , along with blood or pus-like material in the sputum, is usually an indication for undertaking a sputum culture.

continue reading Sputum or Phlegm Bacteria Culture Lab Test

What is a Blood Culture?

This test is advisable when there are symptoms of blood infection such as septicemia or bacteremia and blood culture is done to identify the bacteria or other microorganism. A blood microbial culture will be requested by your doctor depending on your case history and clinical findings upon physical examination.

Collection of Specimen

About 10 ml (0.3 fl oz) of blood is withdrawn with a needle and syringe from a vein, either on the inside of the elbow or back of the hand, and collected in two vials. It is sent to the laboratory where it is placed on a petri dish with agar. This is the ideal medium for bacterial growth and after incubation, it will indicate clear areas of bacterial growth if there was bacteria present in the blood specimen.

continue reading Bacteria Blood Culture Lab Test

What is a Microbial Culture?

A microbial culture is one of the diagnostic methods of microbiology and is used to determine the cause of an infectious disease by allowing the microorganism to multiply in certain specific media under controlled laboratory conditions. This helps to determine the type as well as severity of the infection by doing a colony count of the organism in the specimen.

continue reading Microbial Culture Lab Test for Bacteria, Fungus

What Is Blood Pressure (BP)?

Blood pressure, abbreviated BP, is the pressure of the blood against the arterial walls.

Blood pressure results from the force of the heart that pumps the blood into the arteries, and the force of the arteries as they resist the blood flow.

Why Are Two Values in the Blood Pressure Reading?

Blood pressure is expressed with two values, separated by a slash and with a unit (mm Hg), for example 125/85 mm Hg; pronounced “125 over 85 millimeters of mercury” (according to height of a column in a blood pressure monitor).

• The first (higher) value (125) represents blood pressure during the heart contraction (systole in Greek) and is called systolic blood pressure
• The second (lower) value (85) represents blood pressure during the heart relaxation (diastole in Greek) and is called diastolic blood pressure

continue reading What Is Normal Blood Pressure Range? Blood Pressure Chart

What Is Medical History?

A medical history or anamnesis (Greek anamnesis = recalling) is a summary of your symptoms, past diseases, therapies, medical investigations and diagnoses (personal medical history), and chronic diseases running in your family (family medical history), as you reveal them to your doctor (Picture 1).

Picture 1. Collect all important details about your health problem
and reveal them to your doctor

Below questionnaire may help you to recall all details, which may help your doctor to give you a correct diagnosis and treatment.

Medical History Questionnaire

1. Basic Data

Sex, age, height, weight, occupation, marital status.

continue reading Patient’s Personal and Family Medical History Form (Questionnaire)

What Is Medical Diagnosis?

A medical diagnosis (Greek dia = apart; gnosis = knowledge, insight), short Dx, is the physician’s conclusion about which disease, disorder, injury or state his patient is affected by.

Only a registered physician can give a medical diagnosis. Other health workers (nurses, technicians) and non-medical specialists, even those with Dr. or PhD in their titles, can not and may not give a medical diagnosis.

Diagnostic procedure includes asking a patient for symptoms by taking a medical history, finding signs of the disease by a physical examination, checking results of medical investigations and making conclusion from obtained data.

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What Is Double Balloon Endoscopy?

Double balloon endoscopy (enteroscopy) is an endoscopic investigation of the entire small intestine, using a gastroscope or colonoscope and a tube with two balloons that help to drag the intestine over the endoscope (1). Investigation is done to:

• Make biopsies of suspicious mucosal lesions found by capsule endoscopy, mainly for diagnosis of celiac and Crohn’s disease, small intestinal tumors and unexplained bowel bleeding.
• Dilatation of strictures, removing of foreign objects, stopping of bleeding, etc.

continue reading Double Balloon Endoscopy (Enteroscopy)

What Is Capsule Endoscopy?

In capsule endoscopy, you swallow a pill-shaped camera (PillCam) that then travels through your gut and makes pictures of your small intestine (1).

Picture 1. A capsule camera to swallow in capsule endoscopy
(source: Wikipedia)

A capsule camera is 28 mm (about an inch) long and 11 mm wide. It has a slippery coating when wet to ease swallowing a bit. The cost of the camera and procedure is about $500 (without insurance).

When Is It Done?

Capsule endoscopy may be done when small bowel disease like celiac or Crohn’s disease or bowel bleeding that cannot be detected by upper endoscopy or colonoscopy is suspected. Capsule endoscopy can be done in a patient after 10 years of age (2), including pregnant women (3).

continue reading Small Bowel or Capsule Endoscopy – Procedure, Video and Pictures