Tag: medicine

B Ø N K

Going from a half dose of two antidepressants to no dose of any antidepressant is a ride. And by “ride” I mean “rusty Tilt-A-Swing-A-Clank-A-Whirl operated by carnies at the County Fair.”

I woke up at 3:30 pm today feeling hung over. The day went slowly for three hours while caffeine and my last remaining head pill (Adderall) took effect and I got some minor stuff done and dorked. I showered, felt better, and needed to go for groceries; my brother was arriving for a visit for a few days and a full larder was a necessity.

Then I went to Trader Joes to get food. As I was checking out my stuff I got the sweats, blurry vision, stomach upset, headache, and total exhaustion. It was like a sugar low plus jet lag plus the flu, all at once.

I made it home, stuffed the freezer and fridge things in their place, and told my brother and mom that there was easy food there for them to eat. I then drank a liter of Orangina and ate some yogurt and collapsed.

There’s a Dead Man’s Party in my hippocampus and you’re all invited!

The Prescription

This is the story about how refilling one generic prescription that I have been on for more than a year has taken the whole week so far and is not done yet. I present to you the combined effects of: tightly coupled systems; similar numbers; incompetent yet confident clerks; persistent computer errors that are not corrected; supply chain mishaps; and poorly handled mergers. Ladies and gentlemen, come with me on a fantastic voyage to: THE PHARMACY!

cut for length, this was so crazy

Arthur Lee needs your Love

This was received from Mike Watt:

Arthur Lee from Love has recently been diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) and has undergone 3 weeks of aggressive chemotherapy. Doctors are hopeful for a full recovery, but Arthur still faces more chemo, extensive hospital stays, and a possible bone marrow transplant. Arthur Lee has no health insurance to cover his growing (over $100,000+) medical bills.

Arthur Lee (Love) is a man larger than life. A flamboyant artist with a trail of myth and mythology that follows him like a purple feathered boa. His band Love was the first rock band signed to Electra, and Arthur is responsible for talking Jac Holtzman into signing the Doors. Before all this, in 1964, Arthur gave his friend, an unknown Jimi Hendrix, his first appearance on record (the Arthur penned My Diary, by Rosa Lee Brooks). Love’s third recording, “Forever Changes”, is still widely considered to be one of the great rock n roll discs of all time. Love were true artists, but not “careerist”. They preferred living together in “the castle” near Griffith Park, to life on the road. Arthur even turned down invitations to perform at the Monterrey Pop Festival and Woodstock.

In the 90’s Arthur spent eight years behind bars for “allegedly” shooting off a gun in his apartment. When he was released, he wasted no time getting back to the road and his music. During the past four years, Arthur has performed “Forever Changes” to sold out audiences and fantastic reviews throughout Europe and the United States, backed by the local group Baby Lemonade, and a string and horn section. Just when he thought his bad times were finally over, he learned he was sick.

To help cover his medical expenses, Spaceland Productions, Bruce Solar from The Agency Group, and Mark Linn from Delmore Recording Society are producing a benefit concert / tribute for Arthur. We would like to extend a warm invitation to those bands and performers who want to be part of this benefit to honor one of the greatest singer / songwriters of our time.

The concert will be held in late May / early June; we are looking at venues of all sizes: The Avalon, El Rey, Disney Hall, or Greek Theatre with the line up determining the location. Artists we are currently speaking with include X, Calexico, and Cake. Baby Lemonade is available to back up any singer and there will be a string section as well.

We are looking for artists to perform a few of Arthur’s songs that capture the spirit and magic of Arthur Lee & Love. All proceeds will go to Arthur’s medical expenses.

For further information please contact:

Mitchell Frank or Liz Garo: 323 662 7728
Bruce Solar: 310 385 2800
Mark Linn: 615 480 6923

Thank you.

Prescription Drug Safety Initiatives: Almost There, Guys!

I picked up my prescription yesterday and noticed that there is a new sticker on the bottle. This one is on the cap and describes the pill. It says:

THIS MEDICATION IS AN OBLONG SHAPED ORANGE CAPSULE AND SAYS “ADDERALL XR” ON THE FRONT AND THE BACK

The pills are indeed orange and capsules. They are not oblong, though, they’re just rounded cylinders like other capsules. And they say ADDERALL 20 MG on one side. Since the information was wrong but not clearly horribly wrong, I just took my pill and wrote it off as the usual incompetence. In short, the whole effort was a net negative.

It’s also totally great that they put this on the cap, so that when people who take lots of pills open up all of them to put their daily doses in the little pill reminder boxes, they’ll put the wrong cap back on later and panic when the small round blue pill that says “HCD 1.6” on it is under the cap that claims large rounded white pills that say “Glucophage”.

Elliot Valenstein, the history of lobotomy, and more

“Physicians get neither name nor fame by the pricking of wheals or the picking out thistles, or by laying of plaisters to the scratch of a pin; every old woman can do this. But if they would have a name and a fame, if they will have it quickly, they must do some great and desperate cures.” —John Bunyan

Great and Desperate Cures: The Rise and Decline of Psychosurgery and Other Radical Treatments for Mental Illness

Interview with Elliot Valenstein on the History of Lobotomy

Elliot Valenstein’s page at umich

The War of the Soups and Sparks, The Discovery of Neurotransmitters and the Dispute Over How Nerves Communicate, by Elliot Valenstein.

Alcohol, table saws, and flannel shirts just do not mix.

mendel send me this medical shop talk forum thread, which contains stories about emergency room patients from doctors and other ER folks on the theme: “Things I Learn from my Patients”.

We’ve all seen the funny/awful lists of things in butts, or heard about lamers who beg for drugs, etc. Hey, I watched that TV show sometimes too in the 90s. I don’t think they ever had a patient on E.R. with a lost TV remote located in an abscessed gluteal fold, though.

UCI Medical School keeps getting better and better

Latest hoot: The two docs who head up their Cardiology Division are neither board certified nor California licensed.

May require bugmenot to read. Short version:

The men who run UCI’s cardiology program, Jagat Narula and Mani Vannan, have not been certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine either in internal medicine or in cardiology. Most cardiologists meet those prerequisites before setting up a practice.

In addition, neither Narula, the division chief, nor Vannan, the associate chief, have California medical licenses. They are among a small group of doctors who practice in the state under a legal provision intended to give universities flexibility in hiring professors temporarily. They are licensed in Pennsylvania.

The face of evil

There’s a new vaccine for cervical cancer caused by human papilloma virus (HPV). In its latest trials, it is 100% effective in preventing precancers and noninvasive cancers. Since 70% of cervical cancers result from high-risk strains of HPV, this is incredibly good news. Currently there are about 10,000 cases of cervical cancer in the U.S. alone each year, and roughly 3700 deaths. The amount of death and suffering that could be saved if this vaccine was universally available is amazing. One estimate is that a quarter of a million lives could be saved a year worldwide if this was widely distributed.

Does anyone think this is a bad idea?

Yes, someone does. Organizations like the Family Research Council, the Abstinence & Marriage Education Partnership, and other sexual conservatives think that vaccinating minors against a sexually transmitted disease will encourage promiscuous sex. From their point of view, HPV infection only affects sexually active women with multiple partners and gay men. HPV is also their great example of why condoms “don’t work”, because it can be spread by skin contact other than the penis itself. So, no HPV problem means that condoms are 100% effective; can’t have that.

Some pretty rich quotes from the FRC are in this article from New Scientist.

So, here we have a disease that kills thousands upon thousands of people a year, and causes incredible amounts of fear and pain even when it doesn’t kill. It’s spread by a virus. We have a vaccine that wipes it out. And these people don’t like it because it might encourage extramarital sex among teenagers. Because to their mind their sky god has told them that sex outside of marriage is worse than death.

This why I am no longer a Christian. And why I am not the agnostic I was before Christianity, but a thoroughgoing atheist. This kind of behavior outweighs any good that may result from spirituality. Look, you can do what you want for your religion: wear 17th century clothing, refuse military service, eat a restricted diet, carry a little knife everywhere, wear magic underwear. But if you tell me that a quarter of a million people a year need to die for your abstraction you are my mortal enemy. I’m really uninterested in your arguments.