Its a bird, Its a plane, Its a flying puppy!!

Since this is my very last blog post I decided to do it about my all time favorite animal. My favorite animal is the bat. I find them precious and really want one as a pet. I have done a couple projects within this semester on them in ecology and I find their behavior to be extremely interesting. For a fun fact, there is actually a cave in San Antonio called Bracken Cave that over 15 million pregnant bats migrate to, to give birth. There is almost 500 bats per square foot of the cave ceiling. That is not what I am going to talk about in this blog though. In this blog I am going to be talking about one of the diseases that bats can transmit to you.

You cannot actually get many diseases from bats like we grew up learning as children. The normal one you would expect a bat to give you is rabies. You can only obtain rabies if you are bit during its virulent stage. You can also get lung cancer from bats, but you can also get this from birds. I had a family friend that contracted lung cancer from her certain type of bird pooping in her house and her inhaling it for a long period of time. The disease I am going to focus on is Histoplasmosis, which is a type of lung cancer. It is found that the bat poop, otherwise known as guano, serves as a host for a fungus called Histoplasma Capsulatum. For the guano to contain this fungus it usually has to be a couple years old.      

The people that contract this are usually infants or people with weakened immune systems. The common occupations that these people have are construction workers, farmers, pest control workers, roofer, landscaper, or demolition worker. The unfortunate people that contract this disease sometimes don’t even know they did. The people that contract this are usually infants or people with weakened immune systems. The other not so lucky people just get the mild symptoms of the flu such as chills, fever, aching joints, and a cough. These symptoms have been known to go on for weeks or not go away at all. This is when you develop a chronic lung infection. To test if you have this disease they can perform a fungal culture where they will sample a small piece of tissue from the skin or liver. They can also do a blood test. To treat this disease an antifungul medication call Itraconazole is used for three to twelve months.

This absolutely does not change my mind about getting a bat as a pet. I don’t plan on leaving my bats poop in the cage for longer than a couple days, much less a couple years. Cheers to these super cuddly little flying puppies.

 

http://www.batsintheattic.org/diseases.html

https://www.healthline.com/health/histoplasmosis

You said enlargement of the what?!

Since I have been on a streak of posting about weird diseases and disorders, I’m just going to continue to do so. This week I am going to be talking about elephantiasis. I had heard about this condition when I was in high school due to one of the coaches on another softball team having this in his legs. I never really did any research on it so I decided to do so now.

Elephantiasis is a condition that causes an enlargement of a certain part of the body. This enlargement usually takes place in the limbs. In some cases, it even includes the external genitals. The enlargement is due to an obstruction in the lymphatic system which results in a lymph build up in the certain areas. Due to the lymph system being a part of the body that protects against disease and it being a network of tubular channels that drains lymph from certain parts of the body it is not good for one of these channels to be obstructed. It has been found that Elephantiasis can also be caused by lymphatic filariasis. It has been said in some cases that those two conditions could be used interchangeably. Other causes of lymphatic damage are sexually transmitted disease, streptococcal, tuberculosis, and leprosy. It has also been recently found that a worm by the name of Brugia malayi may be the cause of elephantiasis.

I have touched on the symptoms of this condition, but there are more. Once the body part enlarges due to the lymph buildup it tends to look like the size and texture of an elephant appendage. This means that it is not only large, but the skin tends to dry, darken, and thicken. Fever and chills might also be present in these patients. Elephantiasis tends to only be common in the more tropical regions such as Southeast Asia, India, Africa, and South America.

There is still hope for these patients though! There are ways that this condition can be treated. This condition can be treated with diethylcarbamazine which is a medication taken orally. It is an inhibitor of arachidonic acid metabolism in microfilaria. Meaning that it kills the worm or parasite that is causing the problem. The only problem is that in some cases medication isn’t enough to treat the enlargement. Sometimes surgery is necessary. Mostly the surgery is just reconstructive to help get the body part back to normal size and use. In these surgeries they might also remove lymphatic tissue to help with the flow of lymph.

Therefore, I feel like people that develop this condition are lucky due to the fact that there are ways to treat it. Rather than some of the other diseases and conditions I have spoken about where there is literally no hope for them and they just have to live with it. I think it’s truly amazing learning about all the different types of conditions that are out there and I hope you enjoy the posts about it. It is always good to stay informed of the ever-changing world around you!


https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/elephantiasis/

I dont know what to do with my hands

Since I am already on the topic of how the brain can cause problems throughout the body, I’m going to go ahead and talk about another syndrome that I find extremely interesting. Just imagine that you are just sitting around going about your day and all of a sudden you lose control of one of your body parts.

There is actually a syndrome where you feel like your hand is possessed by someone else because you are no longer able to control it. This syndrome is called Alien hand syndrome and is usually a symptom after someone has trauma to the brain. This trauma could be caused from brain surgery, stroke, or an infection. Each type of brain injury causes different types of alien hand syndrome due to different parts of the brain being affected.

Doctors have scanned the brains of people with this syndrome using functional magnetic resonance imaging. This scan was done to a man with his arms and forearms strapped down and out of the man’s sight. When he was told to voluntarily move one of his arms the scan showed activity in multiple parts of the brain. While the man was resting and his left hand moved involuntarily there was only activity in the motor cortex portion of the brain. Therefore, it was found that when you are voluntarily moving a body part multiple parts of the brain are used. When you have an involuntary movement only one small part of the brain is used.

There isn’t any known cure for this syndrome. Most individuals that do suffer from this syndrome tend to grip things with that hand to not allow it to move involuntarily or hold it down with the other hand. All of these syndromes that are caused by trauma in the brain are helping scientists and doctors understand the brain better. They are able to take people with different syndromes and measure and research their brain activity to find exactly what part of the brain causes and controls certain actions. If people didn’t have these syndromes doctors might not be able to understand the brain as much as they do now.  

http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/a/alien_hand_syndrome/treatments.htm

https://www.webmd.com/brain/news/20070717/brain-glitch-spurs-alien-hand-syndrome

https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=12655

We're all mad here

Have you ever wondered what it was like to live in the life of a fictional character in one of your favorite Disney movies? Well unfortunately there are people out there that have to live the life of Alice in Alice in Wonderland. This week I am going to be talking about a syndrome called Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. Most of us have seen the movie Alice in Wonderland. In this movie Alice drank a bottle that said “drink me”, which allowed her to shrink small enough to fit through a very small door. She then ate a cake that said “eat me” and this allowed her to grow tall enough to reach the top of a tall table.

This syndrome occurs in about 10-20% of the population and only occurs a few times throughout the lives of the affected individuals. Individuals with this syndrome experience clusters of related symptoms. These symptoms include the individual seeing their body parts and others changing in size. They also find their surroundings altering in size. They also see colors a lot brighter than they are and straight lines will become wavy. Most people that experience this syndrome usually have migraines, epilepsy, or head trauma. Children that experience this syndrome tend to develop infections and migraines in their future growing up.

Dr. John Todd first described AIWS in 1955. He named this syndrome after the famous novel because what the individuals were experiencing was very close to what Alice experienced. It was later found that Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland actually suffered from severe migraines and Lilliputian hallucinations. This could be what gave him the idea for his book. He might have had this syndrome and decided to include it in his book.

This syndrome is sometimes mistaken by doctors as drug intoxication or psychosis. People with this syndrome have episodes that are short in duration but that can happen multiple times in a day. Doctors have studied the brain activity on these individuals with MRI’s and have found their brain function to be normal. One doctor by the name of Dr. Aurora did an MRI on a patient of 12 years old with this syndrome. With the results, she concluded that the electrical activity caused abnormal blood flow in parts of the brain that control the vision of shape, texture, and size. Therefore, the brain of someone with the syndrome is barley different than someone with a normal brain per say.

There are no known cures for the syndrome other than medication for migraines which seems to be the main cause of this syndrome. Next time you are wishing to be part of a movie or live in the lives of a fictional character…. Make sure it’s a fun one and not something like Alice in Wonderland.

"You're mad. Bonkers. Off your head...But i'll tell you a secret...All of the best people are." 

-Alice in Wonderland

http://www.neurologytimes.com/headache-and-migraine/alice-wonderland-syndrome

http://www.medicalbag.com/profile-in-rare-diseases/alice-in-wonderland-syndrome/article/472825/

Justice was served....eventually

This week I am going to focus on something that I find extremely interesting and plan to do the rest of my life. The topic of this week is on DNA extraction and how it is used in crime scene investigation. As we know mankind hasn’t always had the technology and advancements that we have today. DNA extraction is one of those advancements. 

In the past, crimes were going unsolved because the resources needed to prosecute someone were not readily available. Over time, the National Institute of Justice had been funding a program that consists of going around the country solving cold cases that could be solved with the use of DNA. In most cases that are cold cases it is due to the fact that DNA testing didn’t exist. 

There is a certain case I am going to focus on in this blog and this case is the one of nineteen-year-old Mary Sullivan. Mary had recently moved to Boston from Cape Cod. After a few days of living in Boston she was found raped and killed. Mary was one of eleven women whom Albert DeSalvo would later confess to killing, also known as the Boston Strangler. DeSalvo recanted his confession and therefore caused doubts within the case. Due to these doubts DeSalvo was never convicted of the Strangler Killings that took place in Boston. He was imprisoned due to other rape charges that were not involved with murder. He was later stabbed to death by fellow inmates in 1973. 

In 2009 the city of Boston received grants from the NIJs cold case program. The Boston Police Departments cold case squad decided to use this grant to test the DNA of DeSalvos nephew to look at the match between the seminal fluid that was taken from the body of Mary. When they compared the two samples they got a hit. They focused on the Y-chromosome DNA due to the fact that this comes from the father. The testing of Y-STRs in the Mary Sullivan case did in fact show a match between the DNA from the crime scene and the nephew of DeSalvo. 

To make sure that it was DeSalvo and not another family member the team decided to exhume DeSalvos body in July of 2013. They did this so that they could conduct a confirmatory test using the DNA directly from DeSalvo. They extracted DNA from femur and three teeth and a match was confirmed. Albert DeSalvo had in fact raped and murdered Mary Sullivan. 

I think it is truly amazing what technology and advancements that we have today. It is incredible that the team was able to go back to past cases to gain justice for the family of the victims and the victims. It is terrible that it had to take so long to do so, but at least justice was served. 

https://www.nij.gov/journals/273/pages/boston-strangler.aspx

And I thought I had a lot of mucus...

Ever since taking biochemistry a couple semesters ago I had a weird interest in cystic fibrosis. We had this topic on a test and I decided to research it and found it quite interesting. My professor had provided videos of people that had this disorder and their daily lives. 

Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disorder that mostly affects the lungs and sometimes the pancreas, liver, kidneys, and intestines. People that have CF usually have a difficult time breathing and cough up mucus. This is because they usually get frequent lung infections. CF is an autosomal recessive disorder. It is caused by the presence of a mutation in both copies of the gene, cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator. This gene is otherwise known as CFTR. CTFR is involved with producing sweat, digestive fluids, and mucus. When this gene is not working properly, the secretions that are usually thin become extremely thick. This is what causes lung and sinus infections.

To test for CF a sweat test and genetic test is done. There is currently no known cure for this disorder. The infections that are obtained are treated with antibiotics. These antibiotics are usually inhaled or taken by mouth. If lung function continues to worsen, lung transplant is an option. Most people with this disorder take pancreatic enzyme replacement and fat soluble vitamin supplements. Some people even use chest physiotherapy. This is when they strap a special vest around their chest that vibrates and shakes to break up the mucus in their lungs. 

High-frequency chest wall oscillation uses an inflatable vest that is attached to a machine. The machine powers the vest to perform chest physical therapy by vibrating at really high frequencies. Every five minutes that the machine is running it is turned off so that the person can cough up any mucus that was loosened up.  In the machine there is an air pulse generator that attaches to the generator by hoses. The generator send air through the hose causing the vest to inflate and deflate at a fast pace. It does this about 20 times per second and it creates pressure to the chest that is similar to clapping. This motions doesn’t only loosen mucus, but works it in to major airways so that it is easier to cough up. The sessions with this vest usually last about 20 to 30 minutes. 

The average life expectancy is 42 to 50 years and lung problems are responsible for 80% of the deaths. There are more than 30,000 people in the US and the symptoms of this disorder varies from person to person. This truly amazes me because that means that 30,000 people are all living with this disorder and most likely have different symptoms. Below I have attached a photo of the vest that they use to help break up the mucus. This is what I found so interesting about this disorder. It’s incredible that someone found a way to loosen mucus in a way that the body isn’t able to do.

 https://www.cff.org/What-is-CF/About-Cystic-Fibrosis/

 https://www.cff.org/Life-With-CF/Treatments-and-Therapies/Airway-Clearance/High-frequency-Chest-Wall-Oscillation/

Creatures of the Night

As little as everyone may know… I have a huge obsession with vampires. I have traveled to New Orleans so that I could go on a vampire tour, I have gone to museums, and I watch many and many of vampire shows. I even have a picture of one hanging from my wall in my apartment and have been one the past three Halloweens. I am a super nerd when it comes to them. Therefore, I decided to choose the topic of Xeroderma pigmentosum for this weeks blog. 
 

Xeroderma pigmentosum, also known as vampire syndrome, is an inherited condition. This condition is characterized by extreme sensitivity to the ultraviolet rays from sunlight just like vampires are known to be. When in the sun the areas that are receiving sunlight and the eyes are affected. In extreme conditions the nervous system is also affected.

The symptoms of this condition usually appear during early childhood and infancy. It is usually diagnosed after a child gets a severe sunburn after only being in the sun for a couple minutes. The sunburn leads to blistering that will last for weeks at a time. Some children will tan very easily and over time develop freckles on their skin in the areas that are exposed to the sun. The name itself comes from the sunlight causing dry skin which is xeroderma and the skin changing color which is pigmentation.  

It is easy to tell that people with this condition will have and extremely high risk of developing skin cancer. In most cases if the correct sun protection isn’t used the children will develop skin cancer by the age of ten. The skin cancer that is obtained is usually on sensitive areas such as the face, lips, eyelids, scalp, and tip of the tongue. Not only are these people at the risk of getting skin cancer, they also develop the risk of brain tumors and lung cancer. It is essential that the people with this condition wear eye protection because the sun will cause their eyes to get cloudy, their eyelids to thin, and their eye lashes to fall out. It is also normal for these people to develop eye abnormalities effecting their vision.

This condition is caused be mutations in nine different genes. Eight of which make up the nucleotide excision repair pathway which controls the repairs of UV induced DNA damage. The ninth gene is what bypasses unrepaired damage. XP is an autosomal recessive disorder meaning that it is inherited when two copies of a non-working genes for the same trait is present. If a person only has one non-working gene and one working gene they are a carrier of the condition but do not express the symptoms. Parents that are blood relatives have an increased chance to carry the same non-working genes which increases the risk of the child getting the condition. 

This condition would be extremely hard to live with as you can tell from all the protection that must be worn at all times. I don’t have this condition and I will burn after being in the sun for less than an hour. Therefore, I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like burning after minutes. It is also scary that you will most likely develop skin cancer multiple times throughout your lifetime. I guess this is why vampires immediately burst into flames after they get in the sun. 

https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/xeroderma-pigmentosum

https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/xeroderma-pigmentosum/