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6634. judithathome - 3/5/2006 3:13:26 AM Well, I know exactly what that stress is like, Arky...I read the MRI report yesterday when I picked it up to take to the specialist next Thursday.
Now, I know doctors and those who read MRIs and X-rays have to cover their asses these days...I know that intellectually but emotionally, that all goes out the window when you see words like "malignant" and "metastasis" and "cannot be ruled out at this time". It's one thing to know they have to put that in there to avoid liability but it's a whole 'nother thing to be hurting like bloody hell for almost 4 weeks and taking vicodan like it was candy and reading those words. 6635. arkymalarky - 3/5/2006 4:17:39 AM I really hope Thursday comes quickly for you and you get a good report, Judith. 6636. SnowOwl - 3/5/2006 5:10:32 AM Shit,Judith. I don't know what to say excpet good luck for Thursday. 6637. woden - 3/5/2006 5:15:56 AM Judith, I'm hoping for the best for you. 6638. thoughtful - 3/6/2006 3:16:11 PM Hang tough Juds. I know this stuff ain't easy. Don't borrow trouble. I know it's harder to do than to say, but try to keep it in mind. You'll have plenty of time to deal with bad news when it comes, should it come. But if it doesn't come, then you'll have put yourself through the wringer for nothing. 6639. thoughtful - 3/14/2006 6:41:43 PM I'm sorry, but this just struck me as funny. I guess it's not if it's you, but this is un-freakin'-believable!
Study Links Ambien Use to Unconscious Food Forays
The sleeping pill Ambien seems to unlock a primitive desire to eat in some patients, according to emerging medical case studies that describe how the drug's users sometimes sleepwalk into their kitchens, claw through their refrigerators like animals and consume calories ranging into the thousands....
Most of the people who use Ambien say the drug puts them to sleep, and they wake up without incident. But several doctors and a number of patients say that sleep-eating is one of a variety of unusual reactions to the drug.
The reactions range from fairly benign sleepwalking episodes to hallucinations, violent outbursts and, most troubling of all, driving while asleep, a subject explored in an article last week in The New York Times. 6640. PelleNilsson - 3/14/2006 6:48:50 PM Reading on, you come across this:
Among sleep-eaters, the desire for food can be tremendously powerful. One woman in the Minneapolis area whom Dr. Schenck treated, Judie Evans, said she began taking Ambien while recovering from back surgery. At the time, she was in a full body cast and needed assistance to get out of bed.
During this time, Ms. Evans, who is 59 and lives alone, began to notice that food was missing from her refrigerator. She accused two nursing aides who were caring for her of stealing food. It was not until her son came to spend several nights that Ms. Evans said she realized that despite the body cast, she was getting up to eat while she was asleep. "During the day, I couldn't even make it to the bathroom by myself," Ms. Evans said.
The first night her son was there, he found her standing in the kitchen, body cast and all, frying bacon and eggs. The next night he found her eating a sandwich, Ms. Evans said, and sent her back to bed. Later that same night, her son arose to find her standing in the kitchen again. "I had turned the oven on," she recalled. "I store pots and pans in the oven and I had turned it to 500 degrees."
Ms. Evans said her problems ended when Dr. Schenck diagnosed Ambien-induced sleep-related eating disorder.
Totally absurd!
6641. wonkers2 - 3/14/2006 8:43:07 PM Questions about the safety of a major heart drug--Plavix. 6642. thoughtful - 3/30/2006 3:15:56 PM Was up early this am watching a very interesting piece on local pbs station dedicated to dana reeve on the mind/body connection. Things like the length of time for a wound to heal is far longer in people under chronic stress than people who are not. How a pregnant woman whose water broke far too early was able to avoid infection for 4 weeks using stress reduction and guided imagery vs. the normal 1 week for those without those techniques. How a boy with cerebral palsy who suffered chronic pain was able to diminish it with self-hypnosis techniques. And most surprising was a fellow going in for back surgery and his insurance company gave him a tape on guided imagery for a successful operation. Why? the $17 tape has been proven to reduce the length of hospital stay and need for medications in surgery patients by, on average, $2,000.
Western medicine is just beginning to pick up on such things and I'm glad to see it spreading. How we feel emotionally affects us physically...how we feel physically affects us emotionally. Rather than the usual way of thinking that if there's no physical cause it must be psychological, the two are not mutually exclusive and treating a patient well means dealing with both aspects of their life, not just the physical. 6643. robertjayb - 3/30/2006 5:32:31 PM PBS late night talker/interviewer Charlie Rose is having/has had heart surgery in France. I'm looking forward to interesting reports on European health care. 6644. robertjayb - 3/30/2006 5:37:51 PM More Charlie:
(AP)---Talk show host Charlie Rose underwent heart surgery Wednesday in Paris to replace a valve, a spokesman said. He was in intensive care.
Rose, anchor and executive editor of PBS's "The Charlie Rose Show," had mitral valve surgery at the Georges Pompidou European Hospital, spokesman Howard Rubenstein said in a faxed statement.
Rose, 64, experienced shortness of breath last week while in Syria to interview President Bashar Assad and went to Paris for treatment, according to Rubenstein.
The mitral valve connects the upper left chamber with the heart's main pumping chamber. If it leaks or narrows, surgery may be need to repair or replace the valve.
6645. judithathome - 3/30/2006 10:36:42 PM I was just sure that story Robert posted was going to say "Much to the doctors surpise, they found Mr. Rose's heart chamber empty." 6646. anomie - 3/30/2006 11:09:37 PM From the CNN Health Section today:
"In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications..."
6647. wabbit - 4/6/2006 12:47:04 AM Holy crap, what next?
Lasik@Home
6648. wabbit - 4/6/2006 12:54:35 AM Ok, in all fairness, is this just a wee bit late for 4/1?
Good eyesight lets you do so many things you could not do before, like paint and watch movies where the Eiffel Tower is about to be exploded by a humongous helicopter! btw, don't forget to follow the instructions very carefully - DON'T BLINK! And then smoke comes out of your eye socket!
And despite all these positive things, the 'doctor' is still wearing glasses ... hmmmmmmm ...
I need the tshirt. 6649. arkymalarky - 4/6/2006 4:50:52 AM Bob wants to know more about it. He said he'd try it on one eye. I'm relatively certain he's kidding, but he's been wanting lasik surgery for years. 6650. tmesis - 8/2/2006 4:03:45 AM http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4965034.stm
Americans 'more ill than English'
Obese woman
Higher rates of obesity in the US could not explain the differences
White middle-aged Americans are less healthy than their English counterparts, research suggests.
Americans aged 55 to 64 are up to twice as likely to suffer from diabetes, lung cancer and high blood pressure as English people of the same age.
The healthiest Americans had similar disease rates to the least healthy English, the Journal of the American Medical Association study found.
The US-UK research found greater links between health and wealth in the US.
We should look for explanation to the circumstances in which people live and work
Sir Michael Marmot
The joint team from University College London, the University of London and health research organisation Rand Corporation, chose two groups of comparable white people from large, long-term health surveys in the US and in England.
In total, the study examined data on around 8,000 people in the two countries.
Each group was divided into three socio-economic groups based on their education and income.
They then compared self-reports of chronic diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, heart attacks, stroke and lung disease.
The American group reported significantly higher levels of disease than the English.
Rates of diabetes were twice as high among the US group as the English.
One of the study's authors, James Smith of Rand, said: "You don't expect the health of middle-aged people in these two countries to be too different, but we found that the English are a lot healthier than the Americans."
'Medical care'
Those on the lowest incomes in both countries reported most cases of all diseases, except for cancer, and those on the highest incomes the least.
But these health inequalities were more pronounced in the US than they were in England.
The researchers suggested the lack of social programmes in the US, which in the UK help protect those who are sick from loss of income and poverty, could partly help explain why there was a greater link between Americans' wealth and disease.
But the study also found that differences in disease rates between the two nations were not fully explained by lifestyle factors either.
Rates of smoking are similar in the US and England but alcohol consumption is higher in the UK.
'Bad lifestyle'
Obesity is more common in the US and Americans tend to get less exercise, but even when the obesity factor was taken out, the differences persisted.
One of the researchers Professor Sir Michael Marmot, of the department of epidemiology and public health at University College London, said people would automatically presume the differences were caused by the variance in healthcare systems.
US healthcare is funded through an insurance system while England's NHS is funded by taxation and is free at the point of use.
But he pointed out that Americans spent almost double per head on health care than the English do, even though the system was organised in a different way.
He said: "There is more uneven distribution in the US and something like 15% of Americans have no health insurance and (there are) a bigger number who are under-insured."
But this could not fully explain the differences because the richest Americans with access to highest levels of healthcare still had rates of poor health comparable to the worst off in England.
Infant mortality
"We cannot blame either bad lifestyle or inadequate medical care as the main culprits in these socio-economic differences in health.
"We should look for explanation to the circumstances in which people live and work.
"We have to take a much broader look at social determinants of health in both countries.
"We need to do further research to fill in the jigsaw pieces of the puzzle," he added.
A Department of Health spokeswoman acknowledged health inequalities in England of the kind revealed in the research and said the government was anxious to tackle them.
It aims to reduce health inequalities in life expectancy and infant mortality by 10% and improve health generally.
"Health trainers, targeted initially at the most deprived communities, are one of the many initiatives which will help narrow this gap by supporting people to make healthier choices in their daily lives," she added. 6651. tmesis - 8/2/2006 4:04:58 AM The original JAMA article:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/295/17/2037 6652. arkymalarky - 8/2/2006 5:21:36 AM Good info, Tmesis. Thanks for posting it!
I've ranted about lunchroom food in public schools and 1) the dependence of poor children from pre-k through high school on it for much of each year and 2) the differences between lunch offerings in rich public schools vs poor ones.
Of course there are lots of factors (British eat less food because so much of it's awful over there?), but I think if we're going to start with kids, which is where the govt and Bill Clinton are focusing, the health benefits of lunchroom food have to be addressed. 6653. arkymalarky - 8/3/2006 4:37:17 PM Interesting on childbirth, from Trillium in the Cafe:
http://www.infoforhealth.org/inforeports/fistula/index.shtml
For a lot of people, it's still "150 years ago" where childbearing is concerned. Apparently obstructed labor happens in about 5 out of 100 cases. It's a problem that is especially difficult for teen/pubescent mothers, who may be small because of age, and in addition because of malnutrition.
Obstetric fistula is gross, so sorry about that aspect of my post. The problem of delivery in those cases is similar to what's described in partial birth abortion movies, except it takes much longer; the baby's head is too large to pass, baby dies, and the mother may have to suffer up to a week later until decomposition is sufficient for it to pass. In the meantime a great deal of damage occurs to the guts of the mother.
I too am glad that advanced medical help is available in our particular area of the globe. I used to be very pro-midwife-natural childbirth; and I still like having that option, but more people could acknowledge -- wow is the existence of clean surgical facilities and experienced surgeons a GOOD THING. A blessing, as many people would describe it.
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