07:51 – Barbara left at 7:00 for an early appointment with her doctor. She has to have her dentist and GP check her over before the hospital will allow her knee-replacement surgery to take place.
As expected, December is starting out heavy for science kit sales. When I checked my email first thing this morning, I found a dozen orders had come in overnight. Unfortunately, half of those are for kits that we just ran out of stock on, so I know what I’ll be doing today and over the weekend.
11:52 – I got six of the kits I had in stock shipped, which leaves me with six for which I’m still making up chemicals and bottling them. They’ll ship Monday if there’s no rise in the creek level.
As I started bottling chemicals this morning, I remembered that I needed to re-order bottles and caps. So I just did a PO for a dozen cases of assorted bottles and caps, 10,000+ of them. As always, I used the free ground shipping option, which generally takes two days after shipping to arrive. The other option was next-day, but that would have cost $900+ extra. I wonder if anyone is ever in such a hurry for bottles that they’ll pay for next-day shipping. That phrase that starts out “piss-poor planning” comes to mind.
“She has to have her dentist and GP check her over…”
Pardon my ignorance but why would a dentist have to check her out for knee surgery?
Beautiful day here, sunny with blue skies, but we’re expecting several inches of snow later tonight, supposedly.
why would a dentist have to check her out for knee surgery?
In case there are any problems with the teeth or gums that might lead to infection. Bacteria can be easily gotten into the blood stream through problems in the mouth.
Because of some issues with my heart I have to go on heavy antibiotics anytime I have any dental procedure accomplished.
That and Lawyers, one of the larger infections infesting society today.
Consider yourself “un-ignoranced”.
I think they want to make sure she has no infection of any sort before the surgery. Infection is one of the bigger risks with knee-replacement surgery.
Thanks, Dr. Bob and Dr. Ray.
No surgery scheduled for OFD yet, thank goodness. Last physical checkup, couple of weeks ago, and all systems were up and running well. Amazing, considering the chit this old wreck has been through.
Gotta get Mrs. OFD on the insurance ASAP, though; some of her systems are a little faulty. We in Vermont await with baited breath the latest “solution” from our gov and legislature and whichever outsourced outfit they’ve set up to do “single-payer” operations. Previous recent efforts have been a very dismal failure.
I’m wondering if I should go in for a checkup. It’s been 43 years since the last one.
What can it hurt, Dr. Bob? You may feel and look simply wonderful but what’s going on deep inside….?
My stuff was mostly good but the cholesterol is borderline, so I gotta be aware of that and Do the Right Thing.
In other nooz, jever wonder what neat toyz DOD may have sent to your local sheriff or cop shop? Check it out:
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2014/12/03/the-pentagon-finally-details-its-weapons-for-cops-giveaway
I’m wondering if I should go in for a checkup. It’s been 43 years since the last one.
Yes don’t be foolish. I pretty much did the same thing. Exactly a year ago at age 62 I had my first check up from a GP (I had been dealing with a cardiologist for a year at that point). Told me to get a colonoscopy and they found a spot. Had a second one a month later. I have no family history so really had no reason to be suspect. Had cancer scans done in April. All that came up good but the protocol calls for surgery. Had colon resection surgery in June(took out 12 inches). All post surgery tests also clean. I tell people it makes a posterboy for colonoscopies. No they’re not fun. Actually it’s the prep that’s miserable, the proceedure is nothing.
Point is quit putting it off. OFD is right about what goes on inside.
Hey, ya gotta love the grenade launchers they sent to the school district. That’ll keep the little bastards in line.
What does DOD think it’s doing, putting this kind of hardware into civilian hands? I mean, police departments are bad enough, but school districts? And what kind of school district applies for it?
The most recent case, killing a guy with a chokehold, medical details are pretty sparse, but it pretty much looks like the guy suffocated after they released the chokehold. So, basically, the cop didn’t kill him directly, but only indirectly, by failing to render first aid. Which falls under Duty to Rescue.
Strangely, the police have no duty to rescue someone who is not in their custody. However, this guy most definitely was in their custody; moreover, they created the situation that he needed rescuing from. Seems to me that this is where the cops should be prosecuted.
That previous incident in Nov ’12 had pains down my left arm after dinner. I knew what it was. Took a 2 mi trip to the er (a mere $1800 but not really sine the ins paid only part and wrote the rest off). Did a angioplasty next morning and one stent. Fortunately did not have a heart attack and no permanent damage. Now here there is a family history and to tell my mother kept warning me.
Once again I was lucky got to it in time. Two years taking blood thinners and other drugs. Don’t really have high blood pressure or very high cholesterol but cardiologist say I need to have lower than normal levels to be safe.
A little blood work can show lots of things.
I’m wondering if I should go in for a checkup. It’s been 43 years since the last one.
Hell yes. Waiting that long may be one of the dumbest things you can do to yourself. Aside from putting a lit fire cracker in your ass.
The “kitchen cabinet” hath spoken, Dr. Bob. Get an appointment before end-of-business TODAY.
That is all.
I don’t think so. I’ve made it a practice all my life to avoid doctors and hospitals. Besides which, I had a checkup when I was 18, and that should be good for at least 50 years.
Ordinarily I might agree with that practice, but not anymore at our age; it would take a genuine MD to discover any possible issues before it’s too late to resolve them. Nonchalance and devil-may-care sound great now but won’t be much use if the you-know-what ever hits the fan with one’s notoriously treacherous inner workings.
You are definitely way over due for a colonoscopy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEp9oi1LVXw
I don’t think so. I’ve made it a practice all my life to avoid doctors and hospitals. Besides which, I had a checkup when I was 18, and that should be good for at least 50 years.
My father died in his early 70’s from prostate cancer because he avoided doctors and hospitals. He was literally falling down from the pain before he saw a doctor. My sister, the physician, said he could well be alive today (in his late 80’s) if he had seen a doctor early enough.
I have a colonoscopy scheduled next week. I am 62. It will be my third one. They found polyps the first two times, so I need to get checked regularly. My grandfather died of colon cancer at age 89. His last year was really miserable. The procedure is easy. The prep is miserable.
Rick in Portland
The procedure is easy. The prep is miserable.
I really had no complaints about the prep. Drinking the large quantities of liquids and the massive external posterior explosions were not that bad in my case. The procedure was nothing, as in I was totally knocked out and was also given an amnesia drug. Don’t remember even leaving the doctor’s office.
I was concerned as I had never been knocked out before and it was also my first IV. I did not know what to expect. After the IV was started, they wheeled me into the procedure room, I noticed that enormous black snake thingy on the wall and cringed. They rolled me on my side, I heard “put him out” and that is the last I remember.
RBT wrote:
“I don’t think so. I’ve made it a practice all my life to avoid doctors and hospitals. Besides which, I had a checkup when I was 18, and that should be good for at least 50 years.”
The human body is a finely-tuned amazing machine but at 61, your body is not what it was at 18. I know: When I was 25 I was an amazingly fit Army NCO with a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. Now I’m a 74-year old diabetic with hypertension and three replacement arteries in my heart. The fact that I am still alive is entirely due to seeing my primary care physician (a cardiologist) 4 times a year.
Avoiding physical checkups is not best scientific practice; you KNOW this. Use your scientific mind and do the right thing. Go see an MD right now. RIGHT F’N NOW!
Instead of the colonoscopy I send in a stool sample once a year to a site in New Mexico; so fah, so good. This was a VA deal they signed me up for a coupla years ago.
Not sure what type of cancer I might end up with, but if I hadda guess, it would derive from melanoma; I’m a redhead who got a bunch of very nice burns as a kid, ’cause no one knew about the dangers back then, evidently. Senility will be the frosting on the cake; now if I could only arrange the gunshot trifecta.
If you’re not careful one of these mornings you’re going to wake up dead.
You guys are all assuming zero risk and high benefit for regular doctor visits. I think the situation is exactly opposite. Common wisdom is that “modern medicine” has been responsible for extending average lifespans and I know you all will think I’m kidding, but I don’t believe “modern medicine” had anything to do with this. Other than antibiotics, most of the reason for longer average lifespans is probably attributable to better nutrition, safer food, safer water, and so on. Physicians unintentionally kill a lot of people. Sometimes it’s obvious that those deaths were the direct result of physicians screwing up. I suspect that most of the time it’s less obvious.
I am particularly leery of long-term drug treatment of chronic conditions. Clinical trials focus much too tightly on the particular drug/disease being evaluated. Unless a drug candidate exhibits severe short-term side-effects during the trial, about the only thing anyone looks at is how that drug addressed the one particular symptom it’s targeted at or, even worse, one particular proxy for that particular symptom.
It’s by no means clear to me that physicians are likely to find problems early, and even if they do there’s usually nothing they can do about them. So what’s the point?
I guess the point is, you can figure your odds. Is it more likely that a routine checkup *might* find something potentially dangerous but could easily be fixed, or is it better odds to just blow off the whole thing and hope for the best?
And there’s my earlier question: what could it hurt???
I’m afraid I’m on Bob’s side. People die in hospitals. Probably been twenty years or more since I had a “check-up”, but I have had a couple colonoscopies (I’m 53) and sought advice on diverticulitis. Had my gall bladder yanked out, too. A change in diet has prevented recurrence (knock on wood) but it’s there and one of these days… Any side effects from your resection, Dreck?
When I was in India three months ago, I dislocated my shoulder and suffered a tiny fracture to the head of my humerus. I’ll spare the details, but had I been in USA they would have wanted to open me up and pin the bone back together. Trying to fend off that “standard of care” would have been enough to bring on a stroke, but I knew (know) damn well mother nature will take care of her own. Physis, the Greeks called it. Anyway, it still hurts like hell in some positions and I practice some excruciating range of motion exercises every day, but it’s healing without divine, informed and received medical intervention.
LOL, that reminds me of my dentist seven or eight years a go. I had just moved to Seattle and sought a new dentist (I’m firm believer in taking care of your teeth — lot of association between gum disease and heart disease going back a hundred years or more). Well, I have beautiful teeth but a couple deep pockets behind my upper rear molars, and have had for 35 years or more. They insisted on “planing”. Created quite a scene when I flat out told them to take their picks and, well, you get the idea. Anyway, I wrote out a disclaimer declining THAT particular standard of care and that settled that. Guess what? Pockets aren’t any deeper than they were eight years ago.
RBT wrote:
“Physicians unintentionally kill a lot of people.”
And “a lot” of people are injured/strangled/drowned or otherwise killed by their auto seatbelts, too. But I wear mine and you should too.
“It’s by no means clear to me that physicians are likely to find problems early, and even if they do there’s usually nothing they can do about them.”
I am living (!) proof of exactly the opposite. My MD found my problem(s) (because I WENT to him) and he did, indeed “fix” it. As someone once said : “If you wanna win the lottery you gotta buy a ticket!”
‘Nuff said.
What can it hurt? Look up “nosocomial”. I particularly like Wiktionary’s “(chiefly applied to bad results) Of, relating to, happening in a hospital.”
While you’re at it, look up how many people are killed every year by taking the wrong drug or the wrong dose because their physician or pharmacist (usually the physician) screwed up.
When Barbara and I watched London Hospital, which was set 100 years ago, I remember thinking that a lot of people would be thinking about how little physicians knew back then. I was thinking about how little more they know now. They don’t call it “practicing” medicine for nothing.
Again, I’ll agree with Bob. Statins do do something, but it’s by no means clear that the effect is acheived by “lowering cholesterol”, yet everyone and their uncle seems to be taking them. At what risk? The benefit is fairly tiny, the cost is god-knows-what.
Advances which have lowered infant mortality, esp during labor, have probably done more to increase the average lifespan than anything else. Soap and clean hands, anyone? Didn’t I just read that hospital acquired infections have dropped by 13% over the last three years? I’ll bet 80%+ of that was acheived by simple hand-washing.
Then of course, that “Kill All Germs” idea gets flogged to death and kids grow up in sterile environments which leaves their immune systems vulnerable to everything from flea feces to a tiny bit of Campylobacter. But don’t get me started…
It’s funny how practices differ. Colonoscopies are basically unknown here, unless they expect to find something. It’s all handled via stool samples, like OFD mentioned. Only if a stool sample shows something unexpected do they go looking…
The other aspect of medicine extending life is by preventing people from dying. Sometimes with antibiotics (our youngest had pneumonia at 6 months; definitely would not have survived without antibiotics), but also through other means ranging from blood pressure medicine through surgery to radiation therapy. All treating diseases that would otherwise kill the person who has them.
I agree with RBT that someone who is lucky enough to never have a serious illness or injury would probably have lived just as long hundreds of years ago as they do today (given good nutrition). What percentage of the population is that lucky? I’m betting it’s pretty small, especially as we get older…
You may be living proof, but only in a post hoc ergo propter hoc sense. Even assuming that you in fact benefited, which we can obviously never know for sure, what about all the people that “modern medicine” kills needlessly?
I have no desire to know my blood pressure or serum cholesterol levels. Why would I bother. I’m not going to change how I eat or behave, and I’m certainly not going to take any of their damned pills.
You will note that most of the life-threatening conditions like cancer and heart disease were extremely rare back before “modern medicine” started “helping”.
I still maintain that the best way to live one’s life is to do what you want, eat what you want, drink what you want, stay away from doctors and hospitals, and don’t get stressed about anything.
Okey-dokey; it’s your life, you can do what you want…etc. However that song goes.
But no one was saying you ought to go camp out inside a hospital, only to see a doc, or for that matter, a nurse practitioner, who can just check your vitals and make sure nothing drastic is going on.
“…don’t get stressed about anything.”
Yeah. Let me know how you make out with that. Most of us out here get stressed about stuff on a regular basis; it’s how we handle the stress that counts.
I don’t get stressed.
Well this may be the first time I’ll question how rationally you’re thinking. Would you ignore pains in your arm until you have a heart attack? I assure you not as they are fairly severe. The angioplasty and stent placement took all of about 20 mins and I was in the hospital less than two days. To deny the good from that procedure is absurd.
The resection surgery took a week of hospital stay and another month of taking it easy but honestly little pain (except at first it felt like my bladder was treated like a soccer ball). As to actual need could be questionable as no other cancer was found. Maybe they got it all in the colonoscopy. No real long term effects.
Now surgery has come a long way. Cataracts are an excellent example. Not only does it clear vision but they insert lenses that correct your vision. My wife and mother have both had them.
Wife had surgery last year for ruptured tendon in foot. Same guy that does major ball players in LA. That’s not going to heal itself. Be crippled for life. Same as Barbara’s knee.
I wish that I had gone to my GP or to the ER before my heart attack back in 2009. I had a warning about three days in advance. The warning was severe vertigo which I thought was an inner ear problem. It was in fact, ultra high blood pressure, probably in the range 200 over 100. My body took it for three days before it caused coronary artery spasms and damage to the back side of my heart.
BTW, my new Obamacare insurance that started December 1 raised my ER visit cost from $100 to $500. That was a not so nice little surprise.
I will be having cataract surgery on the right eye in a month or two. I just need to schedule. Then I will have floater removal surgery on the same eye in another couple of months after that.
Mrs. OFD will probably have to have the same kind of eye surgery as you’ve had and are about to have, Mr. Lynn. She’s terrified of going blind. On top of her thyroid problem and associated insomnia and heart pounding sometimes. This causes no little amount of STRESS, not only for her, but for me, her daughter and her own mom. Who, by the way, has had hip replacement surgery, heart surgery and cataract surgery, in her 80s, and still has a mostly happy and pain-free life which would otherwise not be the case. To the point she moves furniture, paints pictures for art shows and galleries, cooks dinners for us sometimes, and travels every year back and forth to Florida and Nouveau Brunswick. This all came about via doctors, nurses, and nurse-practitioners in a HOSPITAL.
And I can assure anyone that if faced with a fight-or-flight scenario, there will be some STRESS involved. It’s one of them pesky human things.
I’m with Bob. I only go to a doctor is something is bleeding (and I can’t stop it) or something is sticking out that shouldn’t. And yes, I’ve stitched up my own cuts. However, I also don’t ignore obvious symptoms like tingling limbs or pains in my arm. And yes, I’m aware that no symptoms is also a symptom of heart problems. They’re also no symptoms, at all.
I chose carefully when I go to a doctor. I once freaked out my wife, by waking up one morning after 22 years of marriage while battling a cold and saying “You better take me to the doctor”. She went white, as I had never before uttered those words. I had double pneumonia, which I suspected and advised the doctor of when I saw him. He gave me a lecture about self-diagnoses, then admitted I was correct. I’ve made it to 55 using that philosophy and so far so good. Perhaps I’m like the guy falling from the top of the Empire State and just haven’t hit the ground yet, but until I do my plan is working just fine.
My wife, OTOH, went to the doctor often. A yearly checkup, also for pap smears and mammograms. Regular readers will recall that she died of external breast cancer more than 4 years ago. It was I who found the lump that diagnosed her condition. So much for checkups.
I have a lady friend who nags me continually to go to the doctor. Then we go and visit her 94 year old mother, who sits in a wheelchair and drools, and has Alzheimer’s to the point of rarely recognizing her only daughter. This in an old folks home with many others who sit and drool and worse. Last time I went with her I told her that I didn’t want to end up in a home like that. I would rather drop dead of a heart attack.
OFD, did your doctor find any issue with your heart before you had the pains in your arm, and the subsequent stent? If not, why not?
She’s terrified of going blind.
Me too. I have been delaying the surgeries on the right eye about a year now. I keep on telling myself that I can see around the edges just fine. Which, I can’t, I am living off the left eye. Bad enough so that I backed my truck into the garage door last Friday night.
She’s terrified of going blind.
Me too. I have been delaying the surgeries on the right eye about a year now. I keep on telling myself that I can see around the edges just fine. Which, I can’t, I am living off the left eye. Bad enough so that I backed my truck into the garage door last Friday night.
BTW, I have decided to go with distance vision on the right eye. It is -6.75 right now so I have never been able to see out of it without correction. I read and shoot with my left eye which is -4.25.
Yes, in spite of all the good they do, there are things medical science does not yet have a handle on. Fast cancers are one. Sudden death heart attacks and strokes another. For those that do survive them life afterwards is not always good. Somethings just are not fixable with current knowledge and technology.
I have no use for prolonging life that is not worth living.
I’m the one that had the arm pains and a stent. Like Bob I tried to ignore doctors for 40 years. I got lucky when it did happen, not everyone does, which is why I’m evangelizing now.
I agree completely with RBT. The common wisdom about every man over 40 (or whatever) getting a prostate exam every other year and everyone getting a complete physical annually, including blood work and scans and I don’t know what else, would seem to the cynical to be driven as much by the profit motive of the medical profession as by concern for the patients’ health. Statistically, there’s not much difference in longevity or quality of life between people who go to the doctor for every little thing and people who avoid doctors and hospitals completely. (Until near end of life, when everything is breaking down and the hospital can keep you alive with poor quality of life and at great expense.) Individually, unless you have a history of a problem with something or you have good reason to believe there’s a problem, there’s little to be gained by seeing a doctor.
I haven’t gone to a regular doctor in ages unless I need antibiotics. I did go fifteen or twenty years ago to get my hand stitched up after a dog chewed on it, and they gave me rabies shots after they’d given me painkillers and antibiotics and I was too doped up to object. Sure, I understand taking precautions, but the dog was on a leash, so was unlikely to be infected. I suspect that it was a slow night and they had an intern that could use some extra experience.
I do go to the dentist regularly; as noted above, there’s a strong link between dental problems and other problems. And I go to the eye doc every couple years for glasses. Other than that, nope. Even if I break a rib or a toe in martial arts practice, there’s no point in going to the doc.
Oh, forgot to mention: someone back in the 1970s or 80s did the best he could in analyzing and comparing the public health benefits of doctors and … janitors. The conclusion was that the janitors were far more effective in controlling the spread of disease. This was in the US or UK, as I recall. I imagine that you’d get similar results if you compared doctors and plumbers in a “developing” nation.
OFD went to the ER twice in the past two years due to bronchial asthma seizures; couldn’t breathe. When you can’t breathe anymore, you usually croak. I made it in time and now have the inhaler, etc, and take other measures to ensure that won’t happen again. Mrs. OFD has gone to the ER twice over the years, not recently, and both times were due to horse-riding accidents; her hoss slipped on a wet rock one time and she fell off onto said rock and landed on her hip, which is still dented. The other time the hoss accidentally kicked her in the head, and she was black-and-blue for a couple of weeks, plus on arrival, they separated us to get our stories. (to rule out me as a suspect in said injury).
MIL went once for an allergic reaction. Point is, much as we may distrust MDs and hospitals, and tough as we may be at fixing chit on our own, why not avail oneself of half-decent medical treatment when it’s necessary?
And just to point out once again, the start of this discussion; it’s only a damn checkup! They don’t kidnap you on the spot and then imprison you in an evil hospital. They look at vital signs and for anything out of the ordinary. Maybe they find nothing. Hey, great! Lucky you! Or maybe there’s something you ought to know about, at age 61 or 71 or 51. Before it’s too late to do anything about it.
But whatever. There’s a happy medium here somewhere; we don’t go for every little thing and we don’t arbitrarily rule out medical checkups or treatments just because we know some stats and dislike doctors and hospitals and insurance companies.
RBT – be your own man, as you usually are.
If you choose to get a examine, without a long-time relationship with a Family or General Practice Physician, there is a slim chance of getting a doctor who can speak English or have a diploma from a real medical school.
I have a perspective that most of you don’t. First, in my family history are doctors and nurses going back to the Revolution. Second, my wife is a Surgical RN, with more than 40 years of practice. Third, my Daughter is a Certified Medical Coder, her training was the same as for a Registered Nurse, except she took exams (which have to be updated yearly) to be a Coder rather than going off for a Residency. She could become an RN is just 6-months just by completing the residency. She deals daily with Doctors of all types, several hospitals, every Insurance Company in the USA, and the Government Bureaucracy that has become an unimaginable monster with ObamaNoCare.
Bottom line, any more, getting “scoped” is a high profit center for Doctors, their Private Clinics, and Hospitals. A very high percentage of the surgery that is done is really not necessary and is only done because the patient has passed a proper “wallet biopsy”.
I feel for any Veteran who is being treated by the VA, they don’t have a chance. My Dad was nearly killed 3 times by the VA in Iowa. The third time being the charm, my Sister and I took on all of his medical expenses so the last 3 years of his life he had real doctors, real surgeons, and real drugs.
I could write a book.
My family was fortunate up until 3-months ago, we had the same Family Practice Doctor for 30 years. ObamaNoCare has essentially forced him into early retirement. 30 years of great medical now leaves us with “whoever is available”. Fortunately my Daughter is proficient in 6 foreign languages.
I yield the rest of my time…
“I feel for any Veteran who is being treated by the VA, they don’t have a chance.”
I appreciate your greater experience and background with medical stuff. Mrs. OFD has been in the public health field, starting out as an admitting nurse at Bellevue in the early 70s, for her whole life. Her aunt is a nurse in her late 80s and still practicing up here; and her cousin is another nurse. A second cousin is a doctor down in Virginia.
VA treatment depends on which medical center the vet goes to; in my case it’s the one in White River Junction, VT, much smaller than most of the others, and very near to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, and both places share personnel and information. I have always been treated like a prince there and quite frankly, they saved my life five years ago. Mrs. OFD and I fully realize how lucky we are and that VA centers in other parts of the country are in sorry shape. But as I’ve said many times, a general rule of thumb is that we’re valued only so long as we’re warm bodies, can carry a rifle and follow orders. Once we’re done with that and gone home, we’re dog-shit.
Sorry your dad got messed over by the VA in Iowa, Mr. DadCooks. Other vets up here tell me the upper-level staff down at White River is changing almost daily; new director every other day, it seems. All politically driven.
No don’t run to the doctor for every little thing. But every couple of years getting your blood checked or a gloved finger up your butt isn’t going to harm you (some might even enjoy it). Blood pressure and diabetes are not good. You also don’t have to do everything they say. GI doc and oncologist both said I should eat less red meat. They’re both East Indian and I think they’re just trying to save the cows (is that un-pc?). My cardiologist is also Indian but says if I want a bacon cheese burger sometimes, go ahead, he likes them too. My GP is Hispanic and my surgeon was just a good old white guy. I like them all.
Right now its getting to be beer-thirty and I off to the pub for some Firestone DBA. Three or four pints shall do then call the wife and make her pick me up.
“Three or four pints shall do then call the wife and make her pick me up.”
Very nice.
Healthy, too.
I am a engineer. Engineers know that if it was not logged then it did not happen. I check my blood pressure (using a wrist cuff) and weight each morning and log them. I’ve been dong this since I had my first heart incident in 2009.
I am trying to lose the 20 lbs that the cardiologist told me to (again) so I am watching the log. Hopefully this will bring down my triglycerides and cholesterol also that he yelled at me about. Of course, he is about 5’8″ and weighs around 150 lbs. I am 6’1″ and weigh 246 lbs.
I have yet to try Chuck’s spoonful of olive oil at night but I may. Of course, I am going to a Christmas party tonight with all kinds of goodies and junk food.
Fun discussion.
I think our host is playing “macho”; either that or he’s foolish.
One ought to have a colonoscopy every five years or so after 50 — it’s fairly well established (and by that I mean 30+ years of experience) that polyps -> cancer. It’s a pain in the ass, but an ounce of prevention…
One ought to check your blood pressure occasionally. The cynical among us note that the guidelines for the definition of high blood pressure keep dropping, but at a certain point, intervention is beneficial, cheap and effective. There’s more than 50 years of experience backing up that claim, especially if you are Negro.
One probably ought to have a blood & urine panel done every few years, just to make sure nothing’s terribly awry.
Have I missed anything? Because I agree with Bob: a helluva lot of medical intervention and “proactive” intervention is costly, ineffective, unnecessary, and quite often dangerous. People die in hospitals.
Ye old prostate exam is a good illustration. PSA tests were all the rage 10 years ago, until someone looked at corpses and discovered that any old man over 70 most likely had a small bit of cancer in his prostate and died from something else. But in that interregnum how many guys got zapped by gamma rays, zipped and sewn and otherwise emasculated in the process?
Just because you CAN do thing doesn’t mean you OUGHT to do it.
Ray Thompson has practically been begging me to get a cataract lens implant for years now. We both have horrible myopia, so Ray, if you’re listening — message not lost. It seems to accelerate as time goes by. Not afraid of it a bit and I’m sure I’ll wish I’d heeded your advice earlier.
” Of course, he is about 5’8″ and weighs around 150 lbs. I am 6’1″ and weigh 246 lbs.”
My VA doc until recently is shorter than that, even, probably 5’4″, and not much over 120 pounds if he’s an ounce. I have over a foot on him and roughly twice his weight. He mainly told me to get off my ass and do stuff outside, which dovetails nicely with what my VA counselor/therapist says.
We never go to parties so I don’t have to worry about that; we make our Xmas goodies and junk food right here. But I really gotta get out more; hope we have lotsa snow this wintuh so I can do the snowshoeing again; may have to head up into the hills to find enough snow. Plus x-c skiing. And next spring, out in the canoe and hiking more. Also LOTS more target shooting and testing of firearms, plus signing up for the Appleseed Project next time they’re up here and the CMP program, which has a regular site not fah from here.
“Houston serial killer Dean Corll’s accomplice David Brooks could be paroled”
http://www.chron.com/houston/article/Parole-hearing-for-serial-killer-Corll-accomplice-5937587.php
This is why I hate life sentences. They do not mean life in jail, at least here in Texas. This guy helped kill 28 boys in 1970 to 1973 and is up for parole again. This is the face of evil!
I remember that case pretty well; Corll was the “Candyman,” was he not? They found a bunch of the boys’ bodies in the walls of his house. Not only did they kill their victims, they sodomized and tortured them to death. This piece of shit ain’t getting out; most of the parents may be dead by now, but there are still plenty of other family members. I find it astounding that he’s survived in prison this long; is the Henley gremlin still alive, too?
You will note that most of the life-threatening conditions like cancer and heart disease were extremely rare back before “modern medicine” started “helping”.
Yeh, back then you just died of “consumption”. No one really knew the cause or cared. When you reached the middle 50’s one foot was in the grave.
Me too. I have been delaying the surgeries on the right eye about a year now.
I have had cataract surgery in both eyes, one eye twice because they did not get the proper correction lens. I have had floaters removed (vitrectomy) in both eyes. I have had both eyes lasered.
The procedures are trivial, especially the cataract surgery. When I had the first eye done the results were so amazing I immediately wanted the other eye done. The vitrectomy went well on one eye, the other eye hemorrhaged. Apparently not a big deal but scared the crap out of me as I was blind in one eye the next day.
After it is all said and done those two procedures have to be some of the most remarkable surgeries that you can experience.
The lasering was uncomfortable, but only when they zapped they eye. Like a little hammer in the middle of your head for each zap. Only had to experience on one eye. The other eye was lasered during the vitrectomy and I was knocked out for that part.
For the cataract and vitrectomy you are awake and get to watch it all. I did have an IV for the vitrectomy as a precaution.
All highly recommended to keep the eyeballs in good, if not better working order.
Or else he’s approaching this as a scientist or statistician and seeing that, as I noted above, for most people there’s no particular difference between seeing a doctor regularly and not.
“…for most people there’s no particular difference between seeing a doctor regularly and not.”
There’s “regularly,” which no one mentioned at the beginning of this caper, and then there’s “how ’bout now, after 40 years without doing so” seeing as how chit starts to go wrong when one hits one’s 50s and up. All part of that scientific/biological process.
No one suggested to Dr. Bob that he start going once a year and hang out in hospitals; only that he get ONE measly checkup. I’m guessing most of us here, if not all, would like to have Dr. Bob around for a while longer.
I think our host is foolish as a scientist *and* statistician.
Not to weigh the benefit of intervention in truly essential hypertension (diastolic over 140?) is foolish; esp. if one measures against the cost of both investigation and treatment.
Not to weigh the benefit of colonoscopy and polyp removal on regular intervals in men over 50 is foolish. Better a tube up the butt once in a while than a colostomy bag, don’t you think?
Those are two proven medical investigations which improve quality of life. Might even extend it a bit, don’t you think?
Reminds me of the time I cracked a rib hauling a ladder around…
Went to the olde doc, an old Scotsman. 70, if a day. I said, “I think I cracked a rib.”
He poked the sore point and said, “Yes you did. We used to tape them up but found it doesn’t do any good.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all. That will be 25 dollars, please.”
I paid him, trusted his advice, and wish there were more olde foolish docs like him around.
Ray wrote:
“Hell yes. Waiting that long may be one of the dumbest things you can do to yourself. Aside from putting a lit fire cracker in your ass.”
Ray, you’ve watched The Eye of the Tiger too many times.
Rick wrote:
“The prep is miserable.”
Not nearly as bad as it used to be. I had one last year and although it wasn’t fun the prep was nowhere near as bad as the previous one in 2006.
Ray, you’ve watched The Eye of the Tiger too many times.
I have never watched that movie.
None of us to go the doctor too often – I get a checkup every five years or so. But when we do go, it’s almost always for something unusual. The kids had the weirdest accidents when they were younger.
I’ve most recently (just last week) had the joy of a thrombosis (clot stopping up the big vein in the leg). This is confusing my doctor no end, because I don’t match any of the risk factors: very active, non-smoker, not overweight, no family history, no recent plane flights, etc.. Shouldn’t have happened. So I’m in for a bunch of tests to look for some hidden, underlying issue…
With colonoscopies, the risk of intestinal perforation is surprisingly high: something like one perforation in every thousand cases.
I remember that case pretty well; Corll was the “Candyman,” was he not? They found a bunch of the boys’ bodies in the walls of his house. Not only did they kill their victims, they sodomized and tortured them to death. This piece of s*** ain’t getting out; most of the parents may be dead by now, but there are still plenty of other family members. I find it astounding that he’s survived in prison this long; is the Henley gremlin still alive, too?
Sorry, I do not remember much about the particulars of the case. All I remember was that I was 13 at the time and not allowed to leave our street on my bike. The place where most of the boys were kidnapped from was about a mile away from our house. Little did Mom know that I frequently left our street and rode my bike everywhere around the southwest side of Houston, especially in the concrete bayous.
,i> With colonoscopies, the risk of intestinal perforation is surprisingly high: something like one perforation in every thousand cases.
And the incidence of colon cancer is what, 10% of the population? Sounds like a good tradeoff to me.