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Alimentary Tract
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Aphthous Ulcer of the Mouth
"...A common and painful affliction affecting as many as 20% of people
but in most only intermittently
and with long remissions. Nevertheless, dental surgeons and GPs find
the worst cases frustrating to treat. Cortisol pellets provide effective
short-term relief but do not prevent another ulcer appearing in a few
days in the most severely affected..."
Behcet's Syndrome
"...This was first described by Hulusi BehÁet, a Turkish professor
of dermatology, in 1937 ("a tri-symptomatic complex with hypopyous iridocyclitis,
oral aphthous lesions and genital ulcerations"). While a latent virus
infection of a type somewhat similar to herpes simplex has not been
excluded, interest of late has shifted to an immunological determinant,
and consequently to some types of emotional stress acting through it..."
Sjögren's Sundrome
"...the disorder is common but often overlooked in people past middle
age, usually women. Because many of them have unresolved mourning and
loss, their symptoms are too often attributed to depression. Some are
depressed as a result of a prolonged mourning reaction, but in many
depression is enhanced because they feel unwell as a result of their
systemic disorder and its troublesome somatic aspects..."
Nervous Dysphagia
"...This unconscious habit of air swallowing is so common among the
general population that it is difficult to regard it as other than a
temporary exaggeration of the normal fight or flight response of deep
breathing, and it rarely leads to medical consultation. The habit is
apparent to doctors during medical interviews, or on examination when
the patient's thyroid cartilage is seen to be bobbing up and down. Such
patients may belch when something stressful is said or conveyed which
they find it difficult to accept. It is then as revealing as an asthmatic's
cough or wheeze, or of other people's sneezes or belly rumbles. Yet
uncomplaining aerophagists unconsciously swallow air during much of
their working or social day..."
The Splenic Flexure Syndrome
"...Excess gas in the stomach may lead patients to eructate persistently
if they are able to relax the cardiac sphincter. Others who cannot belch
or those who control the urge are now known to pass the air through
their small intestines into the colon producing the classical splenic
flexure syndrome..."
Persistent Severe Disabling Aerophagy and/or Dysphagia
"...She was referred again aged 31 because, despite these interventions,
hyperventilation attacks had worsened, and because for 7 years she had
suffered aerophagy and belching whenever she went out or met new people.
It had become so severe that her social life had virtually ceased..."
Duodenal Ulcer
"...the last 20 years in part reflects a falling incidence of the disease
in most, but not all parts of the Western world [...]. The fall in incidence
began in 1945 in the southern United Kingdom and United States of America,
in 1960 in the Federal Republic of Germany, but has been slower and
later in Scotland, especially west central Scotland. The disease reached
almost epidemic proportions between 1918 and 1939, and this led to a
great deal of research..."
Prophylaxis for Duodenal Ulcer and Ischaemic Heart Disease
"...in both disorders the underlying childhood insecurity, i.e. lack
of overt love and esteem or even denigration, leads to [...] an attempt
to gain approval and esteem (love) from the working or social environment.
Ischaemic Heart Disease patients react in the same way as those patients
with Duodenal Ulcer when described by relatives, friends and workmates.
It has been estimated that 70% of Ischaemic Heart Disease sufferers
have type A personality..."