Little Disorder - Big Name

Have you ever noticed that most medical conditions have really long unpronounceable names?

I went to visit my doctor the other day and one of my complaints had to do with fluid in my lungs during the night. This condition wakes me up with shortness of breath and sounds that I can hear at the end of each exhalation.

The doctor said he knew exactly what was causing the problem. Then he gave me the medical term for my condition. Awakening at night due to accumulation of fluid within the lungs is call paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea. It may be associated with orthopnea, breathless while lying flat or need to use several pillows at night as well as swelling in the feet or ankles. It is usually due to congestive heart failure. It is caused by edema fluid translocating from the lower extremities into the lungs on changing position from standing to lying down.

I do have congestive heart failure, I sleep with two pillows, and I experience swelling in the feet and ankles. I wear pressure sock to keep the swelling down, but still always have some.

I suppose there is a shortened name for paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea, like maybe PND. I like the long name, since it makes it seem even more serious than it really is. In fact, the easy treatment for it is a prescription drug called furosemide, a water pill. Taken in moderate doses, it keeps fluid levels in the body down. But it does make trips to the bathroom more frequent.

I have another little disorder with a huge name. I also share that disorder with some pretty heady—you’ll soon see that “heady” is my first pun of 2009—big-name celebrities. However, I have mine under control (finally) and I don’t think they have that distinction.

Are you ready for this? I suffered for years with a strange and subconscious habit of pulling my eyebrows. The condition is called trichotillomania, “trich” for short. I never knew how many people have this problem until I was reading a Dear Abby column one day and she addressed it for one of her readers who had mustered up the nerve to write to her about it.

If you don’t have this OCD behavior, and you don’t know anyone who does have it, you might think it is a minor malady and not very dangerous or serious. If that is the case, then I have news for you. It is disfiguring when there are no eyebrows, eyelashes, and in some instances, no nose or ear hairs visible. Those are the most frequent hairs that come under attack, but there are some people who pull body hair from other places.

There are cures for the behavior, but I seem to have cured mine without help. In fact, I grew a mustache for exactly a year, from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008. My wife hated it, but I never told her that a major reason for it was to distract myself from hair pulling.

(I guess I should tell you here that it is pretty difficult and painful to pull mustache hair. I tried it once, just to test it, and I never did it again.)

There has been a lot of research into OCD behavior, and trichotillomania is one of the ones where great strides have been made to change it. If a person really wants to take the cure, it can be done.

Okay, who are those stars who share “trich?’ Two of them are Whoopi Goldberg and Chris Kristofferson. Go ahead and Google them and look at their photos; not a brow hair between them. They are pretty “heady,” aren’t they?

I have never seen either of these stars up close, so I don’t know whether or not they pull eyelash hairs (I never got into that) or hair from other parts of the body.

One of the bad remnants of trichotillomania—I like that word—is that my now visible eyebrows are not only grey, due to my age; they are also growing wild and have to be trimmed frequently. Of course, I could let them grow like Andy Rooney’s, but that is worse, I think.

Well, now you know. If you learned something about yourself, and if you would like more information about it, there are numerous sources on the Internet. You no longer have to suffer from this “nasty habit.”