What Your Body is Telling Me | Doctor Mike

- Just by looking at you, I can tell what's wrong with you.

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You wanna look your best, and whenever you have

any imperfection, you're quick

to blame it on aging or stress.

But really, that's not all the signs

that something is wrong with your body.

If your insides aren't healthy,

that will show superficially.

That's why when you come into my office,

I look at you as a whole.

What warning signs are appearing

on you superficially that I can figure out

to lead to a diagnosis?

Before I spill the beans and explain

to you everything that's going on,

you need to understand how the body works.

It works in a system and it's

made up of multiple components.

When one of those components doesn't work

a lot of times that can show signs

on your physical appearance.

If one part isn't working, another part

of the body compensates that's the way

your body maintains something,

what we call homeostasis, a balance of what's normal.

Wait, wait, wait, one more thing before we start.

It's important to know that while I'm giving you

a lot of physical appearance signs,

it doesn't mean that you have the disease

if you have one of these.

All it means is that you need to go

to your doctor and have a conversation.

Something you should be doing anyway

if you've been watching my videos.

Boom, these are the top physical signs

that tell me something else is going on inside your body.

Facial flush or rosy cheeks.

Do you feel like your face looks a little too red?

I'm not talking about the time where you get sunburned

or when your crush looks at you.

Hey girl.

You may have a medical condition called Rosacea.

Rosacea's a fairly common skin problem

with 14 million people living with

the issue in the United States today.

It's not something you should get really concerned about

thinking it's a danger to your health,

but it's a simple benign condition

that can be treated by your doctor.

Wait, wait, wait one more thing about facial flush.

If you're part of the Asian population,

you may suffer from something called Asian Flush.

That's what happens when you drink alcohol,

but because you're deficient in

the enzyme Acetaldehyde Dehydrogenase,

yeah that's a mouthful, you may have a reaction

because you can't clear the alcohol properly.

You may think you have a thin chin,

you may think you have a thick neck,

you may think it's just a cosmetic problem

and not that big of a deal.

I think it's a serious risk factor

for an illness called Sleep Apnea

which can predispose you to so many bad illnesses

including stoke, heart disease, high blood pressure.

When you have Sleep Apnea, there's actually moments

in the night where your airway completely closes.

Whether it's because it's too small or too big, it closes.

And when that happens it ruins the quality of your sleep.

We've all heard our partner's snore at night.

(loud snoring) (suspenseful music)

Or wake up in the middle of the night

because their breathing wasn't right.

That's Sleep Apnea.

One of the best lifestyle changes you can make

for Sleep Apnea is to lose weight.

Unwanted body hair.

Ladies, this is mostly for you.

If you start growing hair where you've never had hair before

it doesn't mean you should pay a visit to your spa,

but it does mean you should pay a visit to your doctor.

Why?

Because that actually has a medical word behind it,

it's called hirsutism and what that means

is you started growing hair in a place

where men usually grow hair.

This could be due to a hormonal problem.

One of the most common being PCOS

which is Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.

When you pair hirsutism plus abnormal periods,

that's highly suspicious for PCOS.

Hey man, you got stanky breath, bro?

If you have bad breath, or what's medically

known as halitosis, it could be a sign of Acid Reflux.

During Acid Reflux, the stomach contents

including food, acid, all get pushed up

into your esophagus and create this nasty smell

that you may notice when you think you have bad breath.

A lot of people think they'll solve this problem

by brushing your teeth more, but that's not the solution.

The solution is to go see your doctor.

Some say the eyes are the window to the soul.

But what I say, the nails are the window to your health.

When a patient comes into my office

and I'm doing a physical exam,

I pay extra attention to the nails.

The nails give me a lot of information

on what's going on inside your body

and tip me off to some illnesses

I should be on the lookout for.

If you have clubbing of the fingers,

that could point to a chronic respiratory infection.

If you have spooning of your nails,

that could point to a chronic anemia process.

Some of you may worry about white marks or lines

on your nails and generally that's not a problem.

But if you do have two lines running parallel

horizontally across your nail, that could

be something called Muehrcke's Lines

and representative of kidney or liver issues.

Some of you may find dents or ridges in your nails

and generally, that's not something

you should be concerned about.

If that does occur with some weird symptoms

at the same time, that's definitely something

I wanna hear about and could point

to a more serious autoimmune issue.

Do you guys remember what the body's largest organ is?

- No, no!

- Skin.

First thing's first, you know how you have

that little pimple that little scratch

that never seems to heal?

To you that may not be of any importance,

but to me it's incredibly important.

If you have a non-healing wound of the face

it's Squamous Cell Carcinoma until my tests prove otherwise.

Also of utmost importance to skin are moles.

No, no, no, not this type of mole.

- Mole, bloody mole!

- Yeah, that's the mole I'm talkin' about.

Most of the time moles are completely harmless and benign.

However, sometimes they may represent

a serious form of skin cancer.

The way doctors make this distinction is using

the ABCDE classification system along with Dermoscopy.

When you're younger it's not abnormal to form new moles,

however as you age in your fifties and sixties,

if you're still developing new moles

that could be a cause for concern

and cause me to investigate further.

Hair.

It's perfectly normal to see a few strands in the shower,

but if your shower drain looks like a baby rodent,

there might be something else going on.

Excessive hair loss can be caused by an overactive

or underactive thyroid or something like anemia.

So when a patient walks into my office

I pay extra attention to what's going on on their scalp.

However, have no fear, a lot of these issues

can be diagnosed by a simple blood test.

Also, it's important to remember that you're able

to lose up to a hundred strands of hair per day

and that's totally acceptable.

♪ Look into my eyes ♪

The eyes will give you a lot of information.

If you look at the color of the eye,

if there's something off, it's not perfectly white.

A lot of times you'll see some yellowing of the eyes

and it has a medical name it's called Jaundice.

That occurs when there's something wrong

with your liver or your gall bladder.

I could also look below your eye

and get some extra information.

Things like redness or bags can represent something

called Allergic Shiners, which is a very common

symptom of people who suffer with allergies.

Springtime, fall time, very common.

If you don't sleep well, if you eat high sodium foods,

if you're dehydrated, the appearance of your eyes

is gonna appear fatigued, heavy, sad

and it's not gonna be a pretty sight.

You know what they say about big feet, right?

- Yeah, no, yeah, no.

- It's important to make sure that they're not just swollen.

That could represent a wide variety of medical issues.

Things like congestive heart failure,

circulation issues, lung issues,

autoimmune things like arthritis.

All of those can lead your legs to balloon up.

But, if you have some mild swelling at the end of a long day

of being on your feet, that's something called

Dependent Edema and likely nothing to worry about.

A lot of these signs I've pointed out

may seem like superficial concerns,

but they truly tell me a whole story

of what's going on inside your body.

Never be afraid to tell your doctor

if something doesn't feel right, look right

or even smell right.

If you have any questions in the meanwhile,

drop me a comment down below, we'll have a conversation

and figure out what's going on.

Otherwise, make sure to hit subscribe and share

this channel with your friends and family.

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(loud breathing)

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Those people over there are a little weird.

Oh wait, that's me.

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The food that's supposed to be in your belly

along with the acid gets regurgitated back

into your esophagus which creates

that nasty smell you hear.

(people laughing)

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♪ Look into my eyes ♪

♪ You will see ♪

(bleep)

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Hey, yo, you got swollen feet?

You know what dat means, right?

Big socks, snug footwear (laughs).

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