Sinusitis

Sinusitis is inflammation of your sinuses. Symptoms of sinusitis is determined on which sinus is affected. For example, if the maxillary sinus were affected then you would have pain and tenderness over the cheek area. Ethmoid inflammation could cause loss of smell and stuffy nose. There are many causes for sinusitis, such as allergies, hay fever, pollen and dog dander. Treatment of sinusitis will depend on cause and severity of the infection. Doctors often prescribe decongestants to reduce congestion, antibiotics to control bacterial infection, and steroid nasal spays to help reduce the congestion, swelling and inflammation of the sinuses.

Coat's disease

Coat's disease is a rare eye disorder that can cause full or partial blindness. It is characterized by abnormal development of blood vessels behind the retina. The cause is unknown at this time, but has been described as a manifestation of facioscapulohumeral dystrophy,(form of muscular dystrophy).Patients usually presents with blurred vision in one eye and is more pronounced when the unaffected eye is covered. This can also cause depth perception, floaters, and flashes of light. Initially these can be mistaken for hallucinations, but are the result of retina detachment.

Treatment is laser surgery or cryotherapy (freezing) to destroy abnormal blood vessels, halting progression of the disease. These treaments are risky cause if the blood vessels are leaking and are clustered around the nerve it can cause permanent blindness. Although, cases have been documented where the disease has stop progressing on it's own and in somes cases had reversed itself.

The image is an angiogram that shows areas of capillary non-perfusion and dilation together with fusiform aneurysom formation.

Prolactinoma

Prolactinoma is a benign tumor of the pituitary gland. It gets it's name from the hormone that stimulates the breast to produce milk durning pregnancy, called prolactin. Symptoms are caused by too much prolactin in the blood. In women, it can often cause infertility and changes in menstruation. In men, the most common problem is impotence, many men wait so long before going to the doctor they begin to have headaches or eye problems due to the enlarged pituitary gland pressing against nearby eye nerves. When diagnosing a doctor will test thyroid functions, and also MRI scans. Since dopamine is the chemical that nomally inhibits prolactin secrection, doctors may treat prolactinomas with bromocriptine or cabergoline, drugs that act like dopamine. Surgery is also and option if the medical treatment fails to get prolactin secretion to normal levels, shrink the tumor, and restore normal reproduction and pituitary functions.

Mastoiditis

Mastoiditis is a bacterial infection of the mastiod air cells. The image above is a coronal MRI after gadolinium. Complications of mastoiditis is temporal lobe abscess, and that is also shown in the image above. Signs and symptoms include, swelling and tenderness of the postauricular, hearing loss, fever, and a unresolved otitis media. Lab work such as a complete blood count (CBC) helps aide in the diagnosis and treatment of the condition. Most effective diagnosising tool is imaging of the mastoid area. Treatment of mastoiditis is being admitted for IV antibiotics course for 21 days, or having a myringotomy (tubes in the middle ear), although 50% of cases has to have mastoidectomy (removes infected bone or mucosa).