Embarrassing ailments: Don't worry, it's normal

Everybody loves to laugh, but what if a good joke makes you squirt a little? Stress urinary incontinence is pretty common, says Dr Alan Wein, chief of urology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. “The result is people can leak when they laugh, cough or sneeze.”

Blame the ageing body. “The nerves and structures that hold things in place—and prevent the urethra from moving excessively when you laugh, cough or sneeze—deteriorate,” he says. Pelvic muscle tears suffered during childbirth increase risk in women, while prostate surgery increases risk in men, says Wein. One solution? Go to the loo more often. This leaves less fluid to leak from your bladder.

Also learn to squeeze: contract your pelvic muscles as if stopping your urine midstream. Do this for ten seconds, ten contractions, ten times a day to strengthen your urinary sphincter muscles. Squeeze when you cough or sneeze. Writing down what you eat and drink, and when you go to the toilet or leak, will help your doctor determine whether you have stress incontinence or “urge incontinence” (when your bladder muscles contract at the wrong time).

Your doctor may advise a surgical fix, and can check for infection or bladder cancer.

Read more: Incontinence treatments and remedies

Most bad breath odour is bred on the back of your tongue, says Patricia Lenton, director of the Oral Health Clinical Research Clinic at the University of Minnesota. Your tongue is like a shag carpet, she says, and bacteria hide between the bumps. Plus, as we age, we take more medications. Many cause dry mouth, which exacerbates bad breath.

Solutions include cleaning your tongue with a smooth-edged tongue scraper, says Lenton. “Start as far back as you can.” A mouthwash with zinc and cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC) is your best bet against stinky mouth bacteria, studies suggest. When your mouth is at an alkaline pH, volatile sulphur compounds are released.

When you eat, your mouth becomes more acidic, reducing the stench, adds Lenton. Get checked to rule out tooth decay and gum disease, or even an underlying health problem, such as a chronic sinus infection or kidney disease.

Read more: How to cure bad breath

Cracked, brittle, discoloured and thick nails from a fungal infection are embarrassing, especially if you like open-toed shoes. Fungus feeds on the nail, damaging it, says Dr David Tran, an assistant professor at the California School of Podiatric Medicine at Samuel Merritt University. Age is the biggest risk factor, according to a paper published in PLOS Pathogens.

People with diabetes and conditions that limit circulation are also susceptible. Early treatment with a prescription topical solution such as Jublia or Kerydin is best. A more severe infection may need oral meds that require liver checks for harmful side effects, Tran says. Another option: laser treatments work in 80 per cent of cases, one study shows.

Be sure to visit a doctor if your nails change markedly. Discolouration can be the result of skin cancer, which is often diagnosed late when it occurs under nails.

Read more: 4 Steps to perfect hair and nails

If you’ve ever lost control of your bowels before getting to the toilet, don’t panic—you have plenty of company. A recent peer-reviewed study reports that faecal incontinence, also known as accidental bowel leakage (ABL), affects more than 16 per cent of people over 70. “As we get older, our nerves and muscles degenerate,” says Dr Satish Rao, director of the Digestive Health Centre at Augusta University in Georgia.

The same squeezing exercises that help with urinary problems can also strengthen your anal sphincter, giving you extra time to get where you’re going. Because certain foods can cause problems, ask a gastroenterologist for a breath test to see whether you properly metabolise foods that include the fruit sugar fructose, the milk sugar lactose and fructan, a string of molecules in foods such as wheat products, onions, garlic and artichokes, recommends Rao.

In some people, the rectum—usually a “compliant reservoir”—stiffens into a tube that can’t accommodate pile-ups. In this case, your doctor may use a balloon to stretch your rectum, or recommend surgery. Also see your doctor if you have chronic diarrhoea, blood or pus in your stool, fever, diarrhoea at night, dehydration or unexpected weight loss.

Most dark spots caused by the sun aren’t dangerous, but a dermatologist will identify changing patterns that can signal problems, says Dr Jane Grant-Kels, director of dermatopathology at the University of Connecticut. About 14 per cent of middle-aged people have harmless brown spots, also known as age spots, notes a study in PLOS One. These appear more as you age, in places exposed to UV rays, such as your face, hands and forearms.

You can use a skin-lightening cream, or a dermatologist can zap them with liquid nitrogen or a laser. Seborrheic keratoses—genetic wart-like growths ranging from yellow to brown to black—are harmless. Grant-Kels encourages most patients to leave the spots alone, but a dermatologist can freeze them for you. Red bumps called cherry angiomas—clusters of dilated blood vessels—are benign, but a doctor can erase them with a laser or a scalpel.

If any skin spot concerns you, see your dermatologist. Skin cancer is one of the most common cancers in the UK in both men and women, according to figures from Cancer Research UK. Symptoms for basal and squamous cell cancers include an unusual growth that doesn’t heal. Signs of melanoma include a new spot, or one that changes size, shape or colour.

Although the bones in our faces stop growing around 15, the cartilage in our noses and ears continues to stretch, says Dr Steve Daveluy, an assistant professor of dermatology at Wayne State University in Michigan. At middle age, the bones and fat in our cheeks sink inward, making our noses more pronounced. “Maybe it got only less than one millimetre larger, but because the cheeks shrunk, it adds up,” Daveluy says.

Gravity pulls your earlobes too, especially if you’ve spent years wearing heavy earrings.Applying sunscreen to your nose and ears daily will help stave off age-related damage that makes skin droopy, Daveluy says. But cosmetic surgery is the only way to shrink your nose or ears.If your nose is thickening and red, you might have rhinophyma, a complication of untreated rosacea. See your doctor; surgery or laser treatment can help.

When the bacteria in your gut ferment food in your colon, gases such as hydrogen and carbon dioxide are released, causing even healthy people to pass gas up to 20 times a day. As we age, some people let go more often and with more odour. For instance, some develop trouble digesting lactose, making them feel bloated and causing more eruptions.

An over-the-counter anti-gas medicine with simethicone can break up gas bubbles. Swallow probiotics. When taken consistently, these good bacteria can help calm gas, bloating and other components of irritable bowel syndrome, according to a study review published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology. Or spoon up a daily helping of five to eight ounces of pro-biotic yogurt.

Some people struggle with gas, bloating and belching because they suck in too much air when they drink carbonated beverages or smoke cigarettes. “It’s funny how often this comes up,” says Dr William Chey, director of the GI nutrition and behavioural well-ness programme at the University of Michigan. “People come in for bloating and belching, and they’re drinking eight Diet Cokes a day.”

Also, avoid consuming a lot of sugar-free sweets and gums containing sugar alcohols such as sorbitol, mannitol and xylitol. Your body can’t absorb them, and that can cause bloating and gas. If gas, bloating or burping strikes often, a gastroenterologist can help determine if you have a chronic problem digesting certain foods, says Rao of Augusta University.

Read more: Excessive flatulence remedies and cures

Many people suffer some hearing loss in one or both ears: nearly a third of people aged 50-59; nearly half of those aged 60-69; and three-quarters of people over 70. While all those rock concerts didn’t help, there are other contributors, including ageing, genetics, smoking, a poor diet and diabetes, says Craig Newman, section head of audiology at the Cleveland Clinic.

These all destroy hair cells in the inner ear that send auditory signals to your brain.Get a hearing aid. Once hair cells are damaged, they’re kaput. And the longer you wait, the harder it will be to treat. Fortunately, the brain can “relearn” the ability to hear. “That means you have to ‘teach’ your brain to hear again, by wearing hearing aids regularly,” Newman says. But if you suddenly lose most, or all, of your hearing, “get to the doctor within hours”, Newman cautions.

Depending on the cause—virus, reaction to medication or, in rare cases, benign tumours called acoustic neuromas—steroids or antiviral medications can help with this.

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