I Need Some Help! Trivia Quiz

Answer: athlete's foot

Tinea pedis is a fungal infection with the common name of athlete's foot. Antifungal creams and powders can be bought over the counter to treat athlete's foot. You may avoid reinfection by keeping feet clean and dry, changing socks often, and wearing shower shoes in public pool areas.

Answer: plantar fasciitis

The plantar fascia is the thick pad of connective tissue on the bottom of the human foot. When this tissue becomes inflamed, the condition is called plantar fasciitis. It has also been called "policeman's heel" because it can be caused by walking and standing for long periods of time, although other causes, especially issues of calcium balance, may be involved.

Answer: celiac disease

Celiac disease - also called "sprue" or "gluten intolerance" - affects the villi on the lining of the small intestine so that some foods cannot be properly absorbed. The disease is associated with eating grains that contain gluten. While symptoms vary, abdominal pain, diarrhea, and other gastrointestinal distress are typical. It is treated by zealously remaining on a gluten-free diet.

Answer: irritable bowel syndrome

Patients suffering with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) may suffer even more because the name of their disease sounds so trivial that it may be dismissed as something in the patient's mind, even by physicians. Stress and the brain's response to continuous pain play a part, causing the gut to spasm, leading to the alternate term "spastic colitis" and similar names. Abdominal pain and bowel issues are debilitating, and symptoms may interfere with work and relationships.

Answer: alien hand syndrome

Sometimes called "anarchic hand" or "Dr.Strangelove syndrome" for the character played by Peter Sellers in the movie by that name, "alien hand syndrome" is a phenomenon that can occur after the two hemispheres of the brain lose communication between each other through injury, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, surgical treatment for epilepsy, etc.

The person with this syndrome perceives the affected hand as separate from the rest of the body in some ways, seemingly having an agency of its own, outside the control of the conscious mind. No cure is known, but the alien hand can be "kept busy" by holding something while the person carries out the normal tasks of living. Merkwürdigliebe is Strangelove's birth name, which means essentially the same thing as "strange love" in German, but it has not been applied to the alien hand syndrome. Phantom limb syndrome is a similar phenomenon in that the brain perceives something different from reality: an arm or leg is felt to be present after it has been amputated. "UFO Syndrome" is the name of a 1980 "documentary" about visitors from outer space.

Answer: pica

Pica is a disease most often seen in women and children, and is sometimes associated with malnutrition, especially deficiency of iron or zinc, although it may have a cultural basis and many children go through stages of eating foreign materials. The cravings in both children and adults are known to disappear on their own, but they may be long-lasting obsessions. Complications include malnutrition, lead poisoning (especially in children), infection, bezoars (masses of undigested material, like hairballs) and other intestinal obstructions. Pick's disease is a form of dementia. Petechia are minor hemorrhages, a symptom rather than a disease. Pike syndrome is a psychological phenomenon that gets its name from an experiment with the pike fish, a voracious eater of minnows that will stop trying to feed after being repeatedly thwarted by a glass wall.

Answer: scurvy

Movie pirates, at least, get called "scurvy cur" or something to that effect. Most of us know the history of vitamin deficiencies aboard ships during the age of discovery and exploration, when mariners (including pirates) got scurvy from eating only non-perishable foods like hardtack and salt meats. British sailors came to be called "limeys" because they were given citrus fruits to prevent scurvy. Fictional pirates also call each other "poxy" - as their real life counterparts undoubtedly did - but "pox" in this case usually referred to venereal disease.

The adjective "rickettsial" refers to another vitamin deficiency disease, rickets, but pirates probably didn't call each other that. The word "doltish" is a way of referring to a person's mental capacity or behavior, not his health.

Answer: cornu cutaneum

A "cornu cutaneum" or cutaneous horn is composed of keratin, the same substance as fingernails, and it is linked with the same sort of human papilloma virus that causes warts. It also seem to be connected with long-term exposure to UV radiation. The conical growths can grow anywhere on the body.

They are malignant (squamous cell carcinoma) in some cases, but the majority are benign. Occipital horn disease is a genetic condition related to the body's use of copper that causes skin and skeletal abnormalities, but it wouldn't cause a horn to grow on the forehead; projections would instead be on the back of the skull.

The word "rhinocerotidae" is the family name of the rhinoceros. The word "unicornitis" is my invention.

Answer: arthritis

In my childhood in Mississippi, the old lady's husband thought she was talking about being in bed with another man named "Arthur Itis" when she was actually complaining about pain in her joints that kept her from getting up. The joke reflects the way the word was pronounced by country people. Arthritis (three syllables, rather than the old lady's four) refers to the inflammation of joints, the areas where bones meet and articulate.

The most common type is osteoarthritis, probably what the old lady had, but several types exist, including rheumatoid arthritis (in both adults and children), ankylosing spondylitis, and lupus.

These are categorized as autoimmune diseases.

Answer: phlebitis

Phlebitis is the inflammation of a vein, usually in the leg, that may also include blood clots (thrombosis). Thrombophlebitis is a serious condition that calls for immediate medical treatment, because blood clots can break free and travel to the heart or lungs through the bloodstream. Phosphoresence has to do with glowing light; fibrositis involves inflammation of fibrous tissue that is more chronic than life-threatening. None of these conditions have anything to do with flea bites.