Health News

Feeling shit:  yesterday I suddenly got a sore throat, sinus drainage/blockage (I don’t know how they can coexist, either), and the beginning of a hacking cough.

Same as I had a few months ago.  Anyway, when I called my GP yesterday  to see if he could just send a Zithromycin Rx to CVS, he insisted that I come in to see him.  Couldn’t fit me in yesterday — it was after 5pm, to be honest — but I do have an 8.30 appointment this morning.

My Brit Readers (and anyone else living under a nationalized healthcare system) are allowed to feel envious.

Anyway…

Till later.


Update:  Just got back from the above.  No big deal, not a bronchial issue, no Covid, just a nasty upper-respiratory tract infection.  Z-pack, and I’ll be better by Thursday.

To be honest, I felt a little foolish at having wasted his time for so trivial a thing.  Still, his N.P. is a total doll, so it wasn’t a complete waste of my time.

Areas Of Expertise

It’s a common flaw in society to think that because someone is a success in one specific area that that success can be applied with equal weight in other areas.  The classic example is that of Albert Einstein:  brilliant mathematician, but political idiot.

How much credence, then, are we to give to this asshole?

Bill Gates forecasts another global pandemic ‘likely’ within next 25 years in ominous health warning.

Even worse, he conflates two unrelated scenarios:

War or another global pandemic, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates is cautioning that, if the world manages to avoid the former, the latter is a very real possibility within the next 25 years.

“A lot of unrest” in today’s age could spark a major war.

“If we avoid a big war … then, yes, there will be another pandemic, most likely in the next 25 years,” he continued.

And if we do have a big war, does that mean there won’t be a pandemic, you moron?

I should like to remind everyone that back in the early 1980s, Gates completely missed the oncoming tidal wave of personal computing, and in fact pooh-poohed the entire concept, saying that he saw that there’d be fewer than half a dozen PCs in existence, and that all humanity’s computing needs could be addressed by mainframe computers — to be fair, quite a common thought among Big Iron believers of the time.

So if he could be that spectacularly wrong in his own field, why should we believe anything he says about pandemics?

As they say, to ask the question is to answer it.

And They Want To CURE This?

Now I’ve heard everything.

Sexsomnia is a condition that causes people to engage in sexual activity while their brains are technically asleep. This can include masturbation, groping, sexual vocalisation and attempts to initiate sex with a partner.

Although sexsomnia is an uncommon condition, it’s unclear how many people suffer from the sleep disorder. It is believed to affect three times more men than women  [I bet it does  — K], however many people are unaware they suffer from the disorder; while others are ashamed to admit they have it.

Studies estimate that roughly seven percent of the global population experience it at least once, and many typically cannot remember what they did in deep sleep and many are ashamed of it.

Ashamed?  Of an involuntary condition?  What is the matter with these people?

Let’s be honest, here.  “…roughly seven percent of the global population experience it at least once”, and let us assume, as with most distribution studies of this type, that in a subset of that 7%, a vast number of these incidences are around the “once” frequency.

Which, in a global population of (say) 5 billion adults is about as close to zero as makes no difference.

In other words:  it ain’t gonna happen to you.

And if it does, if you’re in bed with (say) Paige Spirinac or Salma Hayek as opposed to Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi (sorry), it’s more of a blessing than a curse.  Or with your wife or girlfriend, or any woman who, on experiencing these nocturnal gropings, is not going to accuse you of rape (for, lest we forget, an involuntary/unconscious act).

I leave it to my individual Lady Readers as to their response to this hypothetical situation — knowing some of them as I do, my guess is that they will greet excuses of “But it’s my sexsomnia!”  with scorn if not actual violence, bless ’em.

Or they’ll get into the spirit of the thing and joyfully participate.  [checks for pigs flying past the window]

The only reservation I have is with the research methodology.  No way has this been observed, so to speak, in a controlled laboratory setting;  rather, of course, it depends on respondents’ experiences and memories — and when it comes to les questions sexuelle, most people lie like Clintons.

So ignore all the above;  and if you do suffer from sexsomnia, relax and enjoy your problem.

Question Answered

A Reader asks:

“Why do you always diss the UK’s National Health Service in your news roundups?  It’s not like we have anything like it.”

He’s referring to this sardonic comment under some catastrophe involving the above institution:

Basically — and even among a few otherwise-levelheaded conservative Murkins — a lot of people seem to wish that we had a similar institution (nationalized “free” health care) Over Here.

All I’m doing is simply pointing out the many and varied ways that such a system — even one like the much-vaunted NHS — can fuck up your life.

And that we should never.

Same Story, Different People

Here’s an Ozempic story.

I know that I seem to be talking about this topic a lot, because my own results have been pretty pleasing.  But as Nadine Dorries describes her own journey towards going this route, I’m pretty sure that a large number of my Readers are in a similar situation to hers — I know that my own symptoms were pretty much parallel to hers — and maybe this will help you.  Here’s Mrs. Dorries in a pre- and post pic:

Just as a reminder:  I went from 277lbs peak to just over 220lbs, although it’s taken me a while longer — about six months — but there have been other benefits.

After a quarter-century of taking blood-pressure meds, I may not have to take them for much longer.  (According to the last doctor I saw a couple weeks ago, my BP of 113/90 was better than hers — and because I’d been feeling so rotten, I’d forgotten to take my BP meds for two days beforehand.)  Here’s hoping.

I have had absolutely no side-effects from Ozempic.  I was briefly concerned that (please pardon the graphic description) that I’d gone from an everyday, set-your-watch bowel movement to very occasional visits to the toilet.  But as my doctor explained, my daily food intake had been reduced by two-thirds (maybe more, even), so that wasn’t unexpected.

Which leads to this point:  my relationship with food hasn’t changed.  I still have cravings for a particular taste or type of food;  but when it comes to actually eating it, I eat far less of it — sometimes as little as 25% of it in terms of quantity.  (Four cheese sticks becomes one, two fried eggs become one egg, half-finished, and so on.  Daily bread has turned into once a week, and one slice of toast instead of two per sitting withal.)

But all those other horror stories that people have ascribed to Ozempic?  Not one.

I will admit, as I’ve said before, that my muscle mass seems to have gone down along with the saddlebags of fat, but I’ve always been muscular — even over-muscled, perhaps — so that hasn’t bothered me at all.  My ass seems to have, shall we say, slackened somewhat.  But FFS, I’ll be turning 70 in November (!) so “old-man-flabby-ass” was always going to be in my future anyway.

I’ve been told to exercise, but that’s not going to happen.  My sole “exercise” is a 100-yard daily walk (uphill both ways, uh huh) to the mailbox to check the mail, and a similar uphill distance to our garage to get the car.  The new apartment is actually walking distance from a bakery (I know, bread ungood shuddup), so I’m planning on walking there whenever I need to get more bread;  the only problem is that north Texas is not, as we say, pedestrian friendly, so it seems that the health benefits of that quarter-mile walk may be somewhat offset by becoming some F-150’s hood ornament.  But I’ll give it a shot anyway.

The biggest bummer is that insurance does not pay for Ozempic and the other drugs of that ilk even though, as in my case, its original purpose is absolutely medical:  to address pre-diabetic or Type 2 diabetes conditions.  I have no idea why this is so.  But as New Wife puts it, it’s better than dying from diabetes-induced problems (heart attack, organ failure etc.).

So there ya have it.  It’s all food (or, less food) for thought.  Hope this helped.

Health Update

No, I haven’t been able to shake off this little (ahem) cough that has kept both me and New Wife from sleeping for over a week.

So last night:  desperate measures.  I cut my throat went to the local ER place, was given steroids, various stout cough suppressants and a “Z-pack” (antibiotics) which knocked me out…

…until 4 this morning, when I woke up coughing, and of course waking up New Wife as well.

So I took MOAR DRUGS and went to the living room to write this.  I should be okay by the weekend, but that’s what I thought before last weekend.

We shall see.

Worst part is that I had to curtail my range activities lest I alarm a dozen heavily-armed men with my gut-wrenching, organ-expelling coughs.  Tomorrow, I’ll talk about what I’d planned to shoot .  Right now, it’s back to bed.

Laters.