Health Check: Breaking the Seal, Hearing Your Pulse and Clammy Palms

Mind and body issues dealt with at our write-in clinic

Leaking tap

Why do I always need to pee again so soon after I’ve ‘broken the seal’?

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Ricky, New Delhi

Alcohol causes the kidneys to increase urine production and irritate the bladder so that you feel you need to go for a pee when you may not quite need to. When you start drinking it takes a little time for these effects to take hold, which is why you may be able to hold your beer for the first couple of hours. Once you do ‘break the seal’ then the effect of the alcohol has well and truly established, so you will need to pee far more regularly.

You what?

My girlfriend is always having a go at me for ignoring her, but I genuinely just don’t hear her sometimes! Could I actually be going deaf?

Tarun, Hyderbad

Sadly, an ear trumpet could be on the cards. The sign of hearing loss is constantly asking ‘pardon’. If you think this is you, a visit to the GP is on the cards. Surely it’s a bit early to be going deaf, though? You don’t have to be old to lose your hearing – loud clubbing and high volume on your MP3 player can damage ears, so it is important to have regular tests.

Bloody hell

In bed I think I can hear blood moving around my body, and sometimes it sounds like it’s speeding up, like it’s got through a blockage of some kind. Am I mental?

Rajeev, New Delhi

Apparently not. The perception of hearing your own pulse is termed ‘pulsatile tinnitus’ and is usually not indicative of anything to worry about. And if that doesn’t fast track you back to the land of the sane, this should. Hearing your heartbeat thundering away just before you get your head down is totally normal. Nevertheless if it is causing you to go ‘mental’, get it checked by your local ENT surgeon. They’ll give you peace of mind and some strategies to avoid the noise.

Booze blues

Some of my body parts seem to freeze when I’m hungover. Am I having a stroke?

Subhash, Mumbai

The blunt answer? No. When one is hungover, the chemical metabolites of alcohol interfere with the action of the nervous system, partially stopping it from working correctly. This effect is ‘patchy’ which is why it may seem to affect some parts of your body more than others. A stroke is something else. It is either caused by a blood clot that forces part of the brain to be cut off from its blood supply and die, or by a bleed, which raises pressure within the skull, destroying brain tissue. Strokes either cause death or brain damage, which typically leads to paralysis of one side of the body with a shortening of lifespan and severe disability.

Now for the good news, right? Wrong. You can avoid this fate by keeping your weight down, don’t smoke and if you develop high blood pressure or raised cholesterol, getting it treated.

Handy tip

Is there anything I can do about my clammy palms?

Aaron, via email

You’re suffering from what is known in the trade as ‘hyperhidrosis’ and there is a solution. For long term results, treatment involves a simple injection of a muscle relaxant called Botulinum. That’s Botox to you and me, so prepare to make like a rictus-gobbed Hollywood starlet. And if you don’t fancy concreting your palms for the next six months? For milder cases, try talc to absorb the sweat.

From the October 2010 issue of FHM India.