Category: Health

Still Non-Compos Mentis Et Corpore

Health

…which is to say that this latest attack of the Dreaded Lurgies, while not as severe as the previous one, is still holding me down and making life miserable — or maybe it’s the meds;  whatever, I’m feeling crap.

Please forgive the paucity and poor quality of recent posts.  Like Snowball, I shall Just Try Harder once normal health is restored — on Friday, by my calculations.

In the meantime… (“Quick, throw ’em a gun pic — that should do.” — Ed.)

That’s a matched pair of Uberti 1873 “Cattleman” revolvers, in the manly .45 Colt chambering.

Notes From The Doctor’s Visit

Health

I had a chance to chat to my GP yesterday about a couple of matters, and some interesting stuff came out.

First:  I’ve reached my “goal” weight of 220lbs — my weight after boot camp in the army back in 1977 — so I asked the doc whether I should keep doing the weekly Ozempic jab.  His response was that in addition to its weight-loss properties, Ozempic has been shown to lower the risk of heart disease by over 20%.  While I myself have a very healthy heart, my family (especially on my mother’s side) has had a history of heart issues (bypasses, stents etc.), and indeed several have died from heart disease.  So the doc suggested that I keep taking the Ozempic because as I’m almost 70, this would be a prudent prophylactic measure.  (This is also true of my gout medication, which I continue to take — albeit at a half-tab strength — even though I haven’t had a gout flare-up in well over a dozen years.  But as he pointed out, maybe it’s because of the daily half-tab that the flare-ups no longer occur.)

Second:  I had read in the Daily Mail  (can’t find the article, but it’s not important) that one should not take blood pressure meds (e.g. Valsartan) close to when you have your coffee.  The reason given was that caffeine takes away the slow-release coating on the drug, and instead of the magic ingredient trickling into the system over a few hours. it all gets dumped into the body in one shot.  In some people, this can be problematic.  The doc confirmed this, and suggested that I take my BP med (and all my other meds) at bedtime instead, saying that studies have shown that most drugs work better anyway when taken thus.  (The problem is that most people forget to take their drugs at night — but as I already have to take my glaucoma drops every night before bed, I can just add my meds to that routine, no problem.)

Corollary:  One of the reasons I continue to read the awful Daily Mail is because occasionally among the celebrity dreck and panicky headlines can be found articles of real value.  Among American online publications, such articles are seldom published because there’s no blood, there are no politics / celebrities and no scare headlines to be had.  (I have never, for example, got any such articles out of Breitbart or any other of the U.S. news sources I peruse on a daily basis.)  In this particular case, the information was extremely helpful.

So the Daily Mail doesn’t always suck.

Health News

Health

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

Disaster, Plagues and Poxes

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?

Health

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

Bureaucracy, Gummint, Health

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.