There's a reason why doctors ask us to open up and say “ahh” if we are unwell: What's happening in your mouth can provide a glimpse into your overall health. In particular, the shape, colour, coating and texture of your tongue can indicate nutritional imbalances and sometimes more serious health issues.
The doctor will look for possible signs of mouth or throat cancer or pre-cancer. These could be bumps or other changed areas on your head, face or neck, or problems with the nerves of the face and mouth. The doctor will look at the entire inside of your mouth, and might feel around in it with a gloved finger.
Physicians often ask their patients to "Please stick out your tongue." The tongue can betray signs of illness, which combined with other symptoms such as a cough, fever, presence of jaundice, headache or bowel habits, can help the physician offer a diagnosis.
Within minutes of listening to you “take a deep breath in,” doctors can hear for abnormalities that may indicate if you need emergency attention, thus saving your life.
Doctors can hear the tell-tale sounds of a leaky valve and pinpoint which valve is leaking and the amount of blood leaking. Arrhythmias. Physicians can hear if the patient has a normal heart rhythm or if the patient has an abnormal rhythm, called an arrhythmia, like atrial fibrillation.
A health care provider will perform a physical exam and listen to your chest using a stethoscope. The provider may hear abnormal sounds in your lungs (called crackles), a heart murmur, or other abnormal sounds. You may have a fast or uneven pulse.
Have you been to the doctor before and they have shined light in your eyes? This is called a pupillary light test. This test is designed to look at the constriction of your pupils when exposed to light.
There are a couple reasons we feel your neck: we check your lymph nodes and your thyroid. Feeling your neck and under your ears is a way to see if your lymph nodes (often referred to as glands) are enlarged. It's normal for them to increase in size when your body is fighting an infection.
When your provider presses on your belly, he or she may get clues to possible problems. This exam with the hands gives healthcare providers information about important parts of the body. These are the liver, spleen, kidneys, intestines, stomach, pancreas, bladder, gallbladder, appendix, and the abdominal aorta.
White tongue is the result of an overgrowth and swelling of the fingerlike projections (papillae) on the surface of your tongue. The appearance of a white coating is caused by debris, bacteria and dead cells getting lodged between the enlarged and sometimes inflamed papillae.
A pink tongue is healthy and normal. A red tongue may indicate heat in the body like a fever or a hormonal imbalance. A reddish purple tongue is a sign that there may be inflammation or an infection in the body. A pale pink tongue may be a sign of a vitamin deficiency, a weak immune system or a lack of energy.
To provide the highest standard of care for our patients, we perform an oral cancer screening at the time of our exams. Mostly this is a visual examination of the tongue, lips, and soft and hard tissues.
Your mouth can tell you a lot about the health of your body. The mouth shows signs of tooth decay, gum disease and other oral health problems. It can also show signs of other disease, if you're missing certain foods from your diet and unhealthy habits such as using tobacco and tobacco-like products, and alcohol.
Oral mucosa
Abnormal findings include dryness, cyanosis, paleness and Fordyce spots, and signs of disease include canker sores, Koplik's spots (an early indication of measles), candidiasis and leukoplakia.
With one finger palpating the neck externally and the other gloved finger in the oral cavity, gently palpate any identified lumps from both sides. 2. Palpate the lateral walls of the mouth to assess the parotid gland and duct.
But what about when your doctor moves it to the back of your body? This helps doctors hear your lungs—especially the two lower lobes, which you can't hear at all from the front of your body, explains Robin Maier, M.D., an assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
A lump under your chin or in your neck is most commonly caused by a bacterial or viral infection. These lumps are often called reactive lymph nodes, and they usually indicate that your immune system is fighting an infection.
Your eyes act as an early warning system to let you know when something is wrong and you need medical attention. Diabetes, for instance, can cause blurred vision when symptoms began to flare up. Dim or double vision may be an early sign you are suffering a stroke. Blood vessels are especially revealing.
Ophthalmoscopy (also called fundoscopy or funduscopy) is an exam your doctor, optometrist, or ophthalmologist uses to look into the back of your eye. It lets them see the retina (which senses light and images), the optic disk (where the optic nerve takes the information to the brain), and blood vessels.
Stroke: Sometimes eye doctors can detect blood vessel blockages in the back of the eye, which pose a high stroke risk. A regular vision exam can help detect a stroke before it happens, especially in older individuals.
You may have trouble breathing, an irregular heartbeat, swollen legs, neck veins that stick out, and sounds from fluid built up in your lungs. Your doctor will check for these and other signs of heart failure. A test called an echocardiogram is often the best test to diagnose your heart failure.
During the physical exam, your doctor may listen to your arteries for an abnormal whooshing sound called a bruit. Your doctor can hear a bruit when placing a stethoscope over an affected artery. A bruit may indicate poor blood flow due to plaque.