Glossary

Cold Agglutinin Disease

Cold Agglutinin Disease is an autoimmune disease characterized by the presence of high concentrations of circulating antibodies, usually IgM, directed against red blood cells. It is a form of autoimmune hemolytic anemia, specifically one in which antibodies only bind red blood cells at low body temperatures, typically 28-31°C.

Colon Cancer

Colon cancer is cancer of the large intestine (colon), the lower part of your digestive system. Rectal cancer is cancer of the last several inches of the colon. Together, they’re often referred to as colorectal cancers.

Most cases of colon cancer begin as small, noncancerous (benign) clumps of cells called adenomatous polyps. Over time some of these polyps become colon cancers.

Polyps may be small and produce few, if any, symptoms. For this reason, doctors recommend regular screening tests to help prevent colon cancer by identifying polyps before they become colon cancer.

Congestive Heart Failure

Heart failure, also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), means your heart can’t pump enough blood to meet your body’s needs. Over time, conditions such as narrowed arteries in your heart (coronary artery disease) or high blood pressure gradually leave your heart too weak or stiff to fill and pump efficiently.

You can’t reverse many conditions that lead to heart failure, but heart failure can often be treated with good results. Medications can improve the signs and symptoms of heart failure and help you live longer. Lifestyle changes, such as exercising, reducing the salt in your diet, managing stress, treating depression, and especially losing weight, can improve your quality of life.

The best way to prevent heart failure is to control risk factors and conditions that cause heart failure, such as coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or obesity.

Constipation

Constipation is infrequent bowel movements or difficult passage of stools. Constipation is a common gastrointestinal problem.

What’s considered normal frequency for bowel movements varies widely. In general, however, you’re probably experiencing constipation if you pass fewer than three stools a week, and your stools are hard and dry.

Fortunately, most cases of constipation are temporary. Simple lifestyle changes, such as getting more exercise, drinking more fluids and eating a high-fiber diet, can go a long way toward alleviating constipation. Constipation may also be treated with over-the-counter laxatives.

CREST Disease

CREST Syndrome is a collection of symptoms seen in limited cutaneous systemic scleroderma and is a systemic inflammatory autoimmune connective tissue disease.

Patients with lcSSc commonly induce pulmonary artery hypertension which may result in heart failure. Blood vessel thrombosis and arteriosclerosis has also led to the necessity of amputation of fingers and leg ulceration may result from burst blood vessels and thin skin, leading to chronic infections. Other symptoms of CREST syndrome can be exhaustion, weakness, difficulties with breathing, dizziness and badly healing wounds. Crest syndrome involves the production of autoimmune anti-nuclear and anti-centromere antibodies, though their etiology is not currently understood. There is no known infectious cause.

Disease progression may be slowed with immunosuppressives and other medications, and esophageal reflux, pulmonary hypertension and Raynaud phenomenon may benefit from symptomatic treatment. However, there is no cure for this disease as there is no cure for scleroderma in general.

Crohn’s Disease

Crohn’s disease is an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). It causes inflammation of the lining of your digestive tract, which can lead to abdominal pain, severe diarrhea and even malnutrition. Inflammation caused by Crohn’s disease can involve different areas of the digestive tract in different people.

The inflammation caused by Crohn’s disease often spreads deep into the layers of affected bowel tissue. Like ulcerative colitis, another common IBD, Crohn’s disease can be both painful and debilitating, and sometimes may lead to life-threatening complications.

While there’s no known cure for Crohn’s disease, therapies can greatly reduce the signs and symptoms of Crohn’s disease and even bring about long-term remission. With treatment, many people with Crohn’s disease are able to function well.

Dark Circle

What ages you most? Surprisingly, it might not be wrinkles or gray hair, but dark circles under your eyes. Dark circles under eyes usually aren’t a sign of exhaustion or serious illness, though they can make you feel old, unhealthy and tired. Dark circles under eyes affect both men and women, often starting in adulthood, although children can develop dark circles under eyes, too.

Dermatitis

Dermatitis is a general term that describes an inflammation of the skin. There are different types of dermatitis, including seborrheic dermatitis and atopic dermatitis (eczema). Although the disorder can have many causes and occur in many forms, it usually involves swollen, reddened and itchy skin.

Dermatitis is a common condition that usually isn’t life-threatening or contagious. But, it can make you feel uncomfortable and self-conscious. A combination of self-care steps and medications can help you treat dermatitis.

Dermatitis Herpetiformis

Dermatitis Herpetiformis , or Duhring’s Disease, is a chronic blistering skin condition, characterised by blisters filled with a watery fluid. Despite its name, DH is not related to or caused by herpes virus: the name means that it is a skin inflammation having an appearance similar to herpes.

DH was first described by Dr. Louis Duhring in 1884. A connection between DH and gluten intolerance (celiac disease) was recognised in 1967, although the exact causal mechanism is not known.

The age of onset is usually about 15-40, but DH can also affect children and the elderly. Men and women are equally affected. Estimates of DH prevalence vary from 1 in 400 to 1 in 10000. It is most common in patients of northern European ancestry, and is associated with the HLA-DQ2 haplotype along with celiac disease and gluten sensitivity.

Dermatomyositis

Dermatomyositis (dur-muh-toe-mi-uh-SI-tis) is an uncommon inflammatory disease marked by muscle weakness and a distinctive skin rash. Medically, polymyositis is classified as a chronic inflammatory myopathy – one of only three such diseases.

Dermatomyositis affects adults and children alike. In adults, dermatomyositis usually occurs from the late 40s to early 60s; in children, the disease most often appears between 5 and 15 years of age. Dermatomyositis affects more females than males.

Periods of remission, when symptoms of dermatomyositis improve spontaneously, may occur. Treatment can clear the skin rash and help you regain muscle strength and function.

Devic’s Disease (Neuromyelitis Optica)

Neuromyelitis optica (NMO), also known as Devic’s disease or Devic’s syndrome, is an autoimmune, inflammatory disorder in which a person’s own immune system attacks the optic nerves and spinal cord. This produces an inflammation of the optic nerve (optic neuritis) and the spinal cord (myelitis). Although inflammation may also affect the brain, the lesions are different from those observed in the related condition, multiple sclerosis. Spinal cord lesions lead to varying degrees of weakness or paralysis in the legs or arms, loss of sensation (including blindness), and/or bladder andbowel dysfunction.

Devic’s disease is a rare disorder which resembles multiple sclerosis (MS) in several ways, but requires a different course of treatment for optimal results. It has also been suggested to be a variant form of acute disseminated encephalomyelitis. The likely target of the autoimmune attack, at least in some patients with NMO, has been identified as a protein of the nervous system cells called aquaporin 4.

Diabates Neuropathy

Diabetic neuropathy is a type of nerve damage that can occur if you have diabetes. High blood sugar can injure nerve fibers throughout your body, but diabetic neuropathy most often damages nerves in your legs and feet.

Depending on the affected nerves, symptoms of diabetic neuropathy can range from pain and numbness in your extremities to problems with your digestive system, urinary tract, blood vessels and heart. For some people, these symptoms are mild; for others, diabetic neuropathy can be painful, disabling and even fatal.

Diabetic neuropathy is a common serious complication of diabetes. Yet you can often prevent diabetic neuropathy or slow its progress with tight blood sugar control and a healthy lifestyle.

Dibates Mellitus

Diabetes Mellitus refers to a group of diseases that affect how your body uses blood glucose, commonly called blood sugar. Glucose is vital to your health because it’s an important source of energy for the cells that make up your muscles and tissues. It’s also your brain’s main source of fuel.

If you have diabetes, no matter what type, it means you have too much glucose in your blood, although the reasons may differ. Too much glucose can lead to serious health problems.

Chronic diabetes conditions include type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. Potentially reversible diabetes conditions include prediabetes – when your blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be classified as diabetes – and gestational diabetes, which occurs during pregnancy but may resolve after the baby is delivered.

Disc Prolapse/Slip Disc/Herniation

A spinal disc herniation is a medical condition affecting the spine due to trauma, lifting injuries, or unknown causes, in which a tear in the outer, fibrous ring of an intervertebral disc allows the soft, central portion to bulge out beyond the damaged outer rings. Tears are almost always postero-lateral in nature owing to the presence of the posterior longitudinal ligament in the spinal canal. This tear in the disc ring may result in severe pain, even in the absence of nerve root compression.

Disc herniations are normally a further development of a previously existing disc “protrusion”, a condition in which the outermost layers of the annulus fibrosus are still intact, but can bulge when the disc is under pressure. In contrast to a herniation, none of the nucleus pulposus escapes beyond the outer layers.

Most minor herniations heal within several weeks. Anti-inflammatory treatments for pain associated with disc herniation, protrusion, bulge, or disc tear are generally effective. Severe herniations may not heal of their own accord and may require holistic treatment.

The condition is widely referred to as a slipped disc, but this term is not medically accurate as the spinal discs are fixed in position between the vertebrae and cannot “slip”.

Discoid Lupus Erythematosus (DLE)

Discoid Lupus Erythematosus (DLE) is a chronic skin condition of sores with inflammation and scarring favoring the face, ears, and scalp and at times on other body areas. These lesions develop as a red, inflamed patch with a scaling and crusty appearance. The center areas may appear lighter in color with a rim darker than the normal skin.

Discoid Lupus Erythematosus can be divided into localized, generalized and childhood discoid lupus erythematosus.