Tag: health

Family Health Report: October 2017

The Daughter missed three days of school in September

Chuck, Heather, Fran, this blogger. (c)2017 Chuck Miller
Early in October, my wife slipped on some stairs, getting a nasty bruise on her hip . It turns out there was moss growing on the top step. We would have probably sued the property owners, except they were us.

Yeah, we replaced our front steps when we redid that porch. But the back steps are in dire need of repair, something that might have made this year’s list of things to do until the boiler conked out.

The Daughter missed three days of school in September, until we found medicine that could help her with what ailed her. When she got ill the week of Columbus Day, I was home with her and called her primary physician’s office.

The person, not the doctor, who treated her last time said I COULD bring her in again. But her lungs were clear last time, so she wasn’t sure what they could do for her. She expressed ta theory she was stressed about homework; well, she wasn’t before she got sick again, though she sure is now.

More than being irritated, I’m frustrated that I don’t know what to do for my child. My wife took her to the allergist the next day, who tested at 25 – 25 what, I don’t know, but it was extremely low. The allergist gave her a combination of meds the primary’s office told her not to take together. A week later, her breathing score was 100, which is good.

I’m just tired. Stayed up talking to an old friend until after midnight one day, and the next met with some Times Union current and former bloggers, then worked on the Albany Public Library Foundation’s gala for some hours, planning Black History Month at church, extra choir rehearsals for our Randall Thompson performance, et cetera, et cetera,, et cetera.

I have probably more topics I want to write about but don’t have the time than any point in this blogging. Writing relaxes. Not writing gets my subconscious mind working in overdrive.

I WILL have days off on Election Day and the day before Veterans Day. Any port in the storm.

April 2017 health report: Vitamin D3

Rickets is not a term I’ve heard literally in decades.

Beyond the things my primary care physician said when I got to see her on April – the usual “lose weight” and “raise your ‘good’ cholesterol – was my need to get more Vitamin D3. I’m supposed to take 2000 IU (international units). My vitamin D level was 20 this year, up from 16 (on what scale I have no idea). But it’s supposed to be at 30.

Here’s my problem. Even as a kid, I never much liked going out into the sun. I mean, I’m playing baseball, fine, but just sunbathing? No way.

And it’s worse since developing the vitiligo at age 51, which makes me prone to burn in certain areas, including the top of my head, my neck and the back of my hands. I’m rightly concerned about developing skin cancer. This is why I often wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants, even in summer.

I just discovered something with the supplements I’ve been taking, off and on, for the last year. It offers 1200 mg of calcium and 1600 IU of vitamin D3 “in just two tablets.” TWO tablets! So I’ve been underdosing, and I need to take three tablets a day.

I must really be deficient, since only 400 IU is 100% of the daily value needed by the average person. Still, my doctor said I wasn’t likely to develop rickets. Rickets is not a term I’ve heard literally in decades. It is “a disease of children caused by vitamin D deficiency, characterized by imperfect calcification, softening, and distortion of the bones typically resulting in bow legs.”

But she did worry that I could be that old man who falls and breaks a bone. And most of us know that falls can be deadly to the elderly for that reason.

Speaking of falling, Dustbury linked to an article about how science shows why shoelaces come untied. This happens to me constantly; they’re ALWAYS untied. I am OK with it, but have tired of people telling me that they’re loose. I know, I know! And now I sort of know why.

Health Report: January/February 2017

It was particularly disappointing timing too.

A few weeks ago, a reporter for our local newspaper posted on Facebook, trying to find out whether this stomach flu – is THAT what they call it? – was around the area. Subsequent to that, I’ve been reading anecdotal tales about the nasty bugger that has hit several of my friends.

On Martin Luther King’s holiday, after coming home from seeing Hidden Figures at the movies, we realized the crockpot had been disconnected prematurely. But we thought the meat, rice, and carrots that had cooked in there would be OK. I’m known for having an iron stomach, consuming even some long-in-the-tooth that my wife wouldn’t touch. I think it’s the Protestant ethic of not throwing out things unless absolutely necessary.

But a couple of hours later, I’m having digestive distress. I figure it’s food poisoning, and that it would pass. But I visited the bathroom two or three times overnight. And the Daughter was likewise stricken at some level. We were both home on Tuesday and Wednesday that week. We all went to school/work Thursday, and I was about to head out the door for choir that night when I had a recurrence.

I went to work on Friday, but at noontime, suffered yet again, coincidentally when the new President was being inaugurated. I felt so poorly that I actually had to STAY at work, because I wasn’t sure I’d make it home. I missed the local Women’s March that Saturday because I was still feeling woozy.

Then at the beginning of February, the Wife was felled by not one, but two, ailments simultaneously, the stomach flu PLUS some upper respiratory thing with a sore throat. The combo made her looked more washed out than I had ever seen her but once. I would have stayed home with her that Thursday except for The Daughter, with a return of her own stomach flu, but still in better shape than her mother, stayed home and brought fluids and light food.

It was particularly disappointing timing too. The Daughter went on a church ski trip over that first February weekend, and The Wife and I were going to a play, a movie, maybe dinner; didn’t happen. And Monday, she still felt weak.

The potential of a snow/ice delay was on the minds of both the females in the house this past Tuesday, but it didn’t happen. But they DID get Thursday (yesterday) off, and I know they were glad for the rest, though my wife spent a goodly amount of time doing paperwork for school.

We all had gotten flu shots, so what we’ve been suffering from must be something else, unfortunately.

Being sick, then the extra cooking and cleaning I did has made my blogging output quite pathetic recently, for instance, two posts in a week. I guess why I write ahead.

 

HIV treatment options

“From 2002 to 2012, expanded access to HIV treatment averted 4.2 million deaths globally and contributed to a 58% reduction in new HIV infections.”

hiv-treatments-2Back in January 2016, I helped organize a workshop at my church, “Ending the Epidemic in NYS: HIV/AIDS Treatment in 2015: What Congregations Need to Know!”

It was designed to, among other things, increase awareness of the Blueprint to Ending the Epidemic in NYS by 2020; and learn how HIV treatment, such as PEP and PrEP, have impacted HIV prevention and treatment efforts.

PEP is post-exposure prophylaxis, “taking antiretroviral medicines (ART) after being potentially exposed to HIV to prevent becoming infected. PEP should be used only in emergency situations and must be started within 72 hours after a recent possible exposure to HIV.”

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (or PrEP) “is when people at very high risk for HIV take HIV medicines daily to lower their chances of getting infected. A combination of two HIV medicines (tenofovir and emtricitabine), sold under the name Truvada® (pronounced tru vá duh), is approved for daily use as PrEP to help prevent an HIV-negative person from getting HIV from a sexual or injection-drug-using partner who’s positive.”

Since then, I’ve been on the email list, seeing the progress of the NYS Department of Health’s effort. There is an Ending the Epidemic website in New York.

At the global AIDS conference in July 2016 in South Africa, it was noted that 15 million people have received “access to life-saving HIV treatment by 2015. Additionally, UNAIDS estimates that from 2002 to 2012, expanded access to HIV treatment averted 4.2 million deaths globally and contributed to a 58% reduction in new HIV infections. However…more than 60% of people living with HIV remain without antiretroviral therapy.”

I was interested to read in Wired recently, To Build A Viable HIV Vaccine, Start from the Molecule Up:

“Someday, vaccines might bat the [HIV] virus out of your system without you ever knowing you’d been exposed. If successful, such a vaccine would effectively cure AIDS. Someday, maybe. So scientists are working on it. Like yesterday: Researchers published results to a promising study on primates infected with SIV, a monkey version of HIV. The study, published in Nature, used a special drug to awaken the virus, which made it easier for their novel vaccine to detect and snuff it out.”

Here’s the 2015 HIV Surveillance Report. HIV/AIDS continues to be one of those issues that weighs on my heart.

Family health report: usual, or not so much

Blueberry, cherry, five-fruit, some lemon custard thing, pecan, pumpkin

cortisoneFamily health report, but no news about the Wife, which is good news.

I woke up early the week of Thanksgiving with about a dozen scratches on my upper back, at the shoulder blade level and above. I didn’t really notice the wounds until I realized how much it itched back there. They’re deep enough that I’d think I’d notice when they happened, but apparently not.

Did one of the cats do this? They remain the prime suspects; Arthur knows about cat scratches, though none of mine was nearly that long. The Wife wondered if she could have done so in her sleep, but it seems highly unlikely; talking in her sleep, yes, but not scratching. And it’s virtually impossible for me to have done that to myself, as I can barely reach the area.

The Wife treated it with some topical lotions, including cortisone and Eucerin, and it feels SO MUCH better.

Too much pie, even for a dozen of us. Blueberry, cherry, five-fruit, some lemon custard thing, pecan, pumpkin, made mostly from some Amish folks. Surprisingly, no apple. With vanilla ice cream. I ate only the first four over the two days, but it was enough to make Friday night dinner totally unnecessary.

The Daughter and one of her cousins were playing on Thanksgiving day. Trying to climb a wall, she got an abrasion on her abdomen that apparently looks worse than it feels.

Her cousin somehow hit The Daughter’s foot with her elbow(?) on Thanksgiving Day, and it remained bruised into the next day. We took her to the urgent care place about 9:42 a.m., maybe 15 seconds after another guy showed up. HE needed two 20-minute sessions, so we got pushed back to 11:20 a.m., as the earlier slots were also filled.

We left, then came back. No, the foot isn’t broken. But it still hurts. She SHOULD be taking an NSAID such as ibuprofen or naproxen, to relieve the inflammation, but she’s not the best patient.

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