Yearly Archives: 2017

Mouth Parts – Episode 101

 in Podcasts  tagged episode / glands / gums / lips / mouth / palate / teeth / tongue / uvula by

bright red lips in a slight smirk behind a window covered in droplets of water

Mouth Parts

Lips:  They are red due to blood flow.  They have lots of nerve ending so they can be very sensitive.  Our lips are used to manipulate food as we eat and make sounds as part of our speech.
* The Divot above the center of your upper lip is called the philtrum.

Gums:  They are also known as the gingiva.  Even though they are wet and look fleshy, healthy gums are quite resilient.

Teeth: They are used for chewing, and possibly as a tool.  Healthy teeth and gums seal together tightly to keep out invaders.  We will talk about teeth in a separate episode.

Tongue:  It is a muscular organ made up of many muscles and nerve endings.  It just happens to be an organ that we can voluntarily move around.  We use our tongue to manipulate food and to make sounds for speech.  And, of course, it is covered in taste buds.  We will cover all of this in a separate episode.

Hard Palate:  A flesh-covered bone that connects the upper teeth.  Our tongue will smash food against it when we eat and use to make certain sounds in speech.

Soft Palate: It is a muscle behind the hard palate and it moves up to close off the nose when we swallow and sneeze.  It also interacts with the back of the tongue to make certain sounds when we talk.

Palatoglossal arch:  It marks the front edge of the soft palate.

Palatopharyngeal arch: It makes the back edge of the soft palate and the end of the “mouth”.

Salivary Glands

Parotid glands: The largest salivary glands are located by your jaws, below your ears.
Submandibular glands: They are located under the jaw and back molars
Sublingual glands: They are located under the tongue, behind your chin.
~1000 of mini glands: They cover the buccal (cheek) tissue, soft palate, uvula, and tongue to keep everything moist.  This is what allows the inside of the mouth to be known as a mucous membrane.

Sublingual papilla: This is the folds of skin under the tongue.  This area contains many blood vessels close to the surface.  Medicine development has learned this is a great place for medication absorption directly into the bloodstream.

Palatine raphe (ray-fee): This is the seam down the middle of the hard palate.

Frenula: Plural for frenulum.  These are folds of skin that connect one place to the other.  You have three: for your upper lip, lower lip, and tongue.

Uvula: Latin for “small bunch of grapes”.  It is attached to the soft palate and contains a gag reflex trigger.  It is also involved in snoring if it dries out.

 

Callback

Sneezing

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When I Was A Little Girl…My Story

 in Blog  tagged cheerleader / chemistry / girl / growing up / medicine / pharmacist / story / teacher by

My story starts like this…

When I was a little girl…

Don’t freak out, this is not my whole life’s story.
When I was a little girl, I told everyone that I wanted to be a cheerleader when I grew up. Later, I changed my mind and decided I wanted to be a teacher, like my mom (*Hi Mom!*). That was my career of choice until my favorite Jewish Physics teacher from New Jersey, with one leg shorter than the other, and a love for hiking pointed me in the direction of medicine. I ruled out every option that involved large amounts of blood and high risks of smelling people’s bath breath and settled on being a Pharmacist. And this is the trajectory I’ve been on ever since.

Yet something was missing from my story…

So, I ask myself “Is it possible to be a cheerleader, a teacher, AND a pharmacist?”
That is how the Pharmacist Answers Podcast was born. It is a place that I can take my expertise as a pharmacist, teach it to you, and cheer you on to independent and collaborative decision-making in your own health (rather than the amorphous entity we call Healthcare or Big Pharma making those decisions for you)!
Visit my Patreon page to see how you can help support this dream of mine and get another chapter of why The Pharmacist Answers Podcast is here!

Manifesto

 in Podcasts / Special Edition  tagged apps / break / episode / heart / manifesto / rating / review / soul / summer by

Post-Manifesto Tidbits

This is the heart and soul of why I have produced this podcast for 100 episodes.  My Manifesto, if you will.

The podcast is going to take a break for the summer to regroup and plan new and fun things!

In the meantime, catch up on episodes you missed or re-listen to them all!

If you want to stick close for sneak peaks of new adventures and the reboot, join the Pharmacist Answers Podcast Community on Facebook

If you’ve enjoyed the first chapter of The Pharmacist Answers Podcast, please leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast app.

The new home for show notes is intelleximed.com

Thank you so much for letting me be in your ears each week.

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Because a Little Bug went Ka-Choo! By: Rosetta Stone

 in Books  tagged bug / child's book / sneezing / story by

Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo!

To finish off our talk on sneezing, here’s a favorite and fun easy-reader from my childhood.

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Sneezing [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged abs / brainstem / diaphragm / episode / eyes / irritant / nose / sneeze center / sneezing / tongue by

Sneezing is very forceful in your body.

Review

The inside of your nose is covered with mucous membranes, and that mucus traps up things so they don’t get into your lungs.

Some little particles float through the air and into your nose.  They will land on those mucous membranes and irritate it.  That irritation sends a signal to your sneeze center of your brainstem.

Callback

Brainstem

Sneezing Details

The sneeze center sends out several signals.  One goes to your diaphragm to tell it to compress the lungs to force the air out.  Another signal goes to your tongue to have it direct the air through your nose.  The last signal goes to your eyes – it is really true, you can’t sneeze with your eyes open.

So your abs contract and your diaphragm forces your lungs to exhale, your tongue directs the air to go out your nose, so the mucus plus the things that irritated your nose flies out of your face.

*Mythbusters sneeze experiment*

The proven statistics on sneezes is that they travel about 40 mph but only go about 20 feet.

Holding in a sneeze can be painful and damaging.  By holding in all that air, you can rupture your eardrums, damage your tear ducts in your eyes, fracture your nasal cartilage or bones, or cause nose bleeds because of the blast against your sinus passages.

Sneezing Advice

There’s so many tricks about trying to stop a sneeze – most of them involve counter-pressure on other spots on your face or body.

The best advice for stopping a sneeze is to blow your nose to get out the irritants before the body blasts it out with a sneeze.

You will never ever sneeze when you’re sleeping.  So morning sneezing fits are normal for a lot of people.  This is because all the dust and stuff you breathe in while you’re sleeping finally irritates your body.  So morning congestion and sneezing is normal to help clear all of that out.

We’re unsure why people will sneeze in other situations like sudden exposure to bright light or changes in air pressure or temperature.  Another unsual trigger is an over-full stomach.  Multiple people have reported they feel nauseous and once they sneeze, the sick feeling goes away.  I dunno….

If you do have to sneeze, make sure you cover your face.  Use the elbow technique!

*Mythbusters hanky*

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The Nose Book By: Al Perkins

 in Books  tagged Al Perkins / nose book by

The Nose Book By Al Perkins

A relaxing break from our nose talk, here’s a favorite and fun easy-reader from my childhood.

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Nose Issues [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged allergies / blood pressure / blood thinner / cancer / congestion / deviated septum / episode / hypertrophy / infection / nose bleed / polyps / smell / smoking / viruses by

Nose issues that cause your breathing to fail

  • Congestion from allergies, viruses, or infections.
  • Deviated septum – the septum (the bone that separates the nasal cavity and divides your nostrils) can get crooked and change the size and access of the nostrils or nasal cavity.  Can be from trauma, or may gradually get crooked from chronic pressure.
  • Turbinate Hypertrophy – over-growth of tissue covering the turbinates (tissue-covered bones that add warmth and moisture to the air you breathe). This can lead to snoring.  May be treated by steroid nasal sprays or surgery to remove extra tissue.
  • Nasal Polyps – uneven overgrowth of mucus membranes (symptoms may be runny nose, post-nasal drip, stuffiness).  They are not cancerous.  Treated by snipping them out.
  • Sinus cancer – a single growing tumor that causes bulging, either around the eye, face, or mouth.

Nose issues that cause your smelling to fail

  • Age
  • Deviated septum (see above)
  • Polyps (see above)
  • Chronic sinus infections – the smelling sensors are inflamed or covered with mucus so much that they become damaged or less sensitive.
  • Smoking – smoke and toxins can damage smelling receptors in your nose.  Also, the receptors become so clogged up with smoke and tobacco molecules that there’s no room for other molecules to be detected.  This can be temporary or permanent.

Nosebleeds

  • In kids, this is usually from trauma (either bumps and bonks or picking).  Can also be caused by dry air in the wintertime (use vaseline in the nostrils).
  •  In adults, can be from hypertension (high blood pressure) or chronic use of blood thinners.

PSA: Treatment for a nosebleed:  DO NOT tip your head backwards!!!!!  It makes you swallow that blood!  THAT’S GROSS!!  Proper treatment:  pinch the nose and tip the head forward.  This allows a clot to form and clots stop the bleeding.

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Smell [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged emotions / episode / evaporation / limbic system / memories / olfactory / smell / volatile by

Smell Basics

Air goes in your nose and flows over the smell sensors.

Your nose and sinus cavities act as a resonating chamber for your voice.  That’s why you sound funny when you hold your nose or when your nose is stopped up from a cold or allergies.  This is important in talking and singing.

What makes something smell?

Volatile molecules evaporate at normal temperatures and pressures, so actually molecules of the thing are in the air and available to go in your nose.  Don’t think about this too hard….

The smelling sensors are on the roof of the nasal cavity –> olfactory receptors (olfactory is the fancy word for smelling).  The molecules fit into the receptors like a key in a key hole.  Our brain likes to categorize things, and so certain compounds have similar structures and get lumped together (“smells like eggs” but you know it’s not real eggs).

The olfactory receptors send the signals to the olfactory bulb (which is the area in the brain that translates all the smells and allows you to identify a smell).  It’s not a very long trip….

The olfactory bulb is a part of the limbic system (the emotion center).  this is why smell is more strongly connected to emotions and memory – even stronger than sight and sound.

Smell Tidbits

If you go to the perfume counter at a department stores, you’ll find that they all start smelling the same.  The perfume department will have coffee beans because it helps clean out the receptors.

Coffee-scented, caffeinated perfume <– free idea!!

Inflammation and mucus congestion blocked off the receptors.

No concrete evidence of why pregnant women get a “super smeller” during pregnancy.

One rogue molecule won’t make you smell something.

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Nose Anatomy [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged anatomy / athletics / breathing / cartilage / episode / mouth-breathing / nose / sinuses / Sleep / smell by

Nose Basics

Your nose is responsible for breathing and smelling.  These things work better when it isn’t stopped up.

The part of your nose that you can see and touch is cartilage covered in skin.  There is bone above it, beside your nose, below it, and right in the middle (inside your head).  Part of the cartilage is stiff and hold shape, other parts of cartilage are soft for flexibility.

The nasal root (the bone that extends between your eyes) connected to the bridge of your nose (which is made of cartilage).  The tip is also called the lobe.  The wings are on each side of your nose that you can flare.  The nostrils is actually the holes.

There are 4 main sinus cavities

  1. Frontal sinuses = in your forehead, between your eyebrows
  2. Maxillary sinuses = run under your eyes, behind your cheeks
  3. Ethmoid sinus = right between your eyes, in the middle of your head, connected to your tear ducts
  4. Sphenoid sinus = under your sphenoid bone (in the middle of your head)

The sinus cavities are lined with mucous membranes that keep them moist and have lots of blood flow to them.  Their job is to warm and moisten the air you breathe in your nose before it goes into the lungs.  Your lungs don’t like cold air.

Mouth breathing is not very efficient. This is true in athletics as well as sleep.   But breathing out through your mouth can be useful because you can get a large amount of air out rather quickly and the lungs empty better.

You have a fast-flow and a slow-flow nostril – this has to help you perceive smell.  Sometimes almost as good as dogs.

The cartilage of your ears and nose never stop growing through your life.

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The Ear Book By Al Perkins

 in Books  tagged Al Perkins / dramatic reading / ear book by

The Ear Book By Al Perkins

A relaxing break from our ear talk, here’s a favorite and fun easy-reader from my childhood.

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Music Credits:  “Radio Martini” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/