Color blindness, gambling problems, bruising answered

Q. Do women get color blindness?

A. Color blindness affects about 10% of men, but only 1% of women.

Color blindness is the common term used to describe color vision deficiency. The term is misleading, because total color blindness that turns the world into shades of gray is rare.

The most common type of color blindness makes it difficult for people to discriminate between red and green. The next most common form of the deficiency affects the perception of blues and yellows. Those with blue-yellow blindness almost always have red-green blindness, too.

Most people with color blindness inherited it. There is no treatment to correct inherited color blindness. However, there are specially tinted eyeglasses that can help people with deficiencies to discriminate between colors.

Q. How can you tell if you have a gambling problem?

A. Gamblers Anonymous offers the following 20 questions to help people decide if they have a compulsion to gamble and want to stop. Most compulsive gamblers will answer yes to at least seven of these questions.

1. Did you ever lose time from work or school due to gambling?

2. Has gambling ever made your home life unhappy?

3. Did gambling affect your reputation?

4. Have you ever felt remorse after gambling?

5. Did you ever gamble to get money with which to pay debts or otherwise solve financial difficulties?

6. Did gambling cause a decrease in your ambition or efficiency?

7. After losing did you feel you must return as soon as possible and win back your losses?

8. After a win did you have a strong urge to return and win more?

9. Did you often gamble until your last dollar was gone?

10. Did you ever borrow to finance your gambling?

11. Have you ever sold anything to finance gambling?

12. Were you reluctant to use “gambling money” for normal expenditures?

13. Did gambling make you careless of the welfare of yourself or your family?

14. Did you ever gamble longer than you had planned?

15. Have you ever gambled to escape worry or trouble?

16. Have you ever committed, or considered committing, an illegal act to finance gambling?

17. Did gambling cause you to have difficulty in sleeping?

18. Do arguments, disappointments or frustrations create within you an urge to gamble?

19. Did you ever have an urge to celebrate any good fortune by a few hours of gambling?

20. Have you ever considered self-destruction or suicide as a result of your gambling?

Q. I’m taking a variety of medications and was wondering if any of them can contribute to bruising.

A. Blood-thinning medications can contribute to bruising. So you might bruise more easily if you take Plavix or Coumadin. Aspirin will have a similar effect. The thinners allow more blood to pool under your skin. So, if you’re taking one of this drugs, what seems like a harmless bump against a coffee table could lead to a nasty bruise.

Some dietary supplements can thin your blood, too. Be careful if you are consuming more than normal amounts of fish oil, ginkgo, ginger and garlic.

A tendency to bruise easily is common when you age. It’s especially common among women.

A bruise — also known as a contusion — occurs when the tiny blood vessels under your skin break after being struck. When you bruise, the blood leaks under the skin and leaves a black-and-blue mark. As the blood is reabsorbed by your body, the bruise goes away.

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