Navigating Healthcare: A Guide to Modern Medicine and Wellness

Tag: GI conditions

Natural Ways to Prevent a Toothache

Why Does My Breath Smell?

The scientific name for bad breath is halitosis and the biggest culprits for creating this malady are onions and garlic.  This is not only due to their strong aroma, but because they both contain sulfuric compounds that get absorbed into your bloodstream, enabling a secondary odiferous wave to reach your lungs, where it eventually escapes through your mouth. So, not only do you have a strong aftertaste where mouthwash or mints fail miserably to rid your mouth of the odor, but, in the case of garlic, once it is absorbed it continues to emit a bitter scent from your pores.  Many people simply use garlic to enhance their food and others take garlic pills for their antioxidant powers and to help thwart heart disease and cancer.

Bad breath can also be caused by aromatic spices, stinky sausages and ethnic foods that will leave you with dragon breath; even red wine can be problematic, leaving you with a pungent odor in your mouth.  But, bad breath from ingesting certain food or drink generally goes away in a day or two, whereas bad breath which is continual and cannot be masked by mints or mouthwash, is of special concern.  Your first stop as you play detective to uncover the source of the bad breath is to see a dentist to determine if you have gum disease, or perhaps, a decaying tooth.  If that is not the reason, the next stop is an ear, nose and throat specialist (or ENT) to see if tonsillitis or a sinus condition might be the culprit.  A dentist in Maplewood NJ can do diagnostic tests to locate the cause of your bad breath. If there are no issues determined by either specialist,  then you must delve further to determine the cause of the problem which may be “stomach breath”.

lifestyle medicine practitioner with patient

Common Causes of Tummy Ache in Children

When you are not feeling up to par, there are a few solutions available to remedy the situation:  1)  you wait it out and hope it goes away; 2) you Google to find the answer (and sometimes you feel worse after reading what those symptoms might really be; or 3) you take yourself to the doctor.

Babies and pets are the only ones who must suffer in silence because they are unable to tell you they don’t feel well.  An astute parent, or pet parent, notices a not-so-perky or listless demeanor or crying/whining and that is all you have to go on.

Toddlers or children are more vocal.  They’ll come up to you and say “I’ve got a tummy ache” and will point a chubby finger around the area of their bellybutton.  Well, that doesn’t help much, so, it is up to you to play detective and decide if the malady warrants a trip to the pediatrician, or even the E.R., or just a few days spent in bed.  Pain that is generally located around the center of the abdomen, or the bellybutton is considered “simple” abdominal pain.

Common Causes of Stomach Pain

Causes of Stomach Pain
Causes of Stomach Pain

Everyone has been through abdominal pain. The question becomes is this something due to temporary indigestion or is it something more serious? Without the diagnostic skills of your friendly gastrointestinal doctor in Queens what are the known symptoms of serious abdominal pain? And what are the causes of serious stomach pain?

Symptoms of Stomach Distress

Everyone has been through the kind of stomach pain that comes and goes. This is usually the result of either what we’ve eaten or if we’ve eaten too much. But there are more serious causes of stomach pain and these are defined as the more serious symptoms: