Recently I was having lunch with my mom after one of her doctor's appointments and like always she was consulting with me. Now just so you know off the top - I am not a doctor. I am one of those people with years of experience in pharmacies, health food stores, medical research and clinical diagnostics but I am no doctor. I vacillate between recognition of their years of intensive study and therefore remarkable knowledge of the body and their easily bought (no, too harsh), influenced choices when it comes to prescriptives.

Now back to my mom. She's got a whole host of problems which I won't get into but in addition to her previous drug regimen she now needs an additional drug for cholesterol and a different blood pressure drug. The doctor was actually paying attention that day (I mean this literally - she lost nearly 50 pounds which was more than 20% of her body weight and he didn't notice before). So, he went to their stores and brought out a bunch of samples. One of them was a new drug and he explained that it wasn't available as a generic. And a second one was an old drug.

This all confused my mom and maybe this is weird to you too. Drug companies pay millions to develop new drugs. For that money, they've got the FDA in their pockets such that there will be patent protection for the production of the drug for anywhere from 10 to 20 years. So no generics can be legally made and sold. After I related this to mom, I said that that was why he had mentioned the 'new' drug and was concerned about her being able to afford it.

With regards to the old drug - I told her that most doctors are 'encouraged' to promote new drugs so that big Pharma can make money. Old drugs make them nothing. And if you've seen The Fugitive you'll remember that doctors are 'courted' by drug companies. They sponsor

conferences and meetings all over the world to not only help the dissemination of medical information but also as self-promotion. The kind of Old Boys' Club mentality that it would be great to eliminate but given the state of politics (and especially special interest's groups hold on political cojones) is unlikely to happen any time soon.

And speaking of the negatives of Big Pharma, I was recently asked about vaccinations with respect to my own kiddos. The old argument of vaccines causing autism came up and I had to remind the person I was speaking to that we (in Canada) do not get the same vaccine formulations that other countries do. Our regulations are different and an across the board comparison is not accurate. That stated though, another issue I have with big Pharma is how they have vaccination drives for batches of vaccine that are about to expire. The next time you see a push for a vaccine that should have been delivered en masse already (like an influenza vaccine push after January) it may be due to someone noticing that huge numbers of units are going to be thrown out if they don't get out the door.

This isn't to say that vaccine campaigns are always suspect. The recent ones for Mumps Measles Rubella and Varicella or Diptheria, Pertussis (acellular, a) and Tetanus are valid and should be seriously considered by all parents. It used to be that a child could not attend any public school until all vaccinations were up to date. Now things are definitely different. With the recent decline in compliance, herd immunity is down and most all of these are making comebacks in the developed world.

I know this is diverging but I thought I'd include a few pix of what these bad-boys can do.

In order: Measles - identified by cough, runny nose and red eyes - fever in excess of 39C/102F, rash and sometimes spots inside the mouth. Complicated by diarrhea, pneumonia, encephalitis (swelling in the brain), corneal ulceration/ scarring which would lead to vision problems to blindness. Oh yeah and a fever of 40C can mess up the brain forever.

Mumps - noticeable and painful swelling of the parotid (salivary glands) and testes (also painful for adolescents or adult males that can in rare cases lead to infertility), fever and headache.
Both have recently been enormous problems in the western world with outbreaks dominating diagnostics in many countries.

Rubella - a personal favorite of mine because a schoolmate had it 6 times in 2 years. (And to this day she's mad at me for giving her scarlet fever. sheesh.) Also has a rash, swollen glands, joint pain, headache and conjunctivitis. Mostly a danger to pregnant women as it causes spontaneous abortion and congenital rubella syndrome (heart, brain, eye and ear defects which are permanent, low birth weight, prematurity, anaemia, hepatitis, "blueberry muffin skin lesions" and low platelet levels or thrombocytopenia which causes wound healing problems.)
 

Varicella - perhaps better known as herpes / chicken pox / shingles. The pic above is shingles because just about everyone knows what Chicken Pox looks like. They're vaccinating for this because of the increased risk for serious Staph and Strep infections of the lesions.
To note in the shingles pic - the rash is only on half of the body. Usually front and back and there can be limb involvement. This rash is painful in 80-odd% of cases. Really Painful.

Diptheria is one I won't forget seeing as my mom had it as a small child. It causes sore throat (inflamed neck = bull neck), usually low but in rarer cases high fever, adherent pseudomembrane which may require medical intervention to maintain breathing and can lead to heart problems and death. (My mom was sent home to die 3 times.)

Pertussis, also known as Whooping Cough. This one is quite common in the north of Canada and causes a type of cough that is so persistent that the person doesn't get much time to breathe - hence the whoop. Technically called a paroxysmal cough. It is so severe that it can cause eye hemorrhages, rib fractures, incontinence, hernia, fainting, inspiration of vomitting and even vertebral artery dissection. If that didn't spell it out - hey, it's serious!

Tetanus. This one got some press recently when Selma Hayek teemed up with Pampers to distribute vaccines to the third world. This bacteria is of the same parent group that includes botulism (yes, botox), gangrene and an overwhelming intestinal infection known as C.diff. Tetanus causes the muscles of the body to contract (opposite of botulism). It's painful - very painful. Think of a muscle spasm that you may have had in your leg or back and multiply it by all the voluntary muscles of the body. In the industrialized world the fatality rate is about 11% but elsewhere it's more like 50-75%. High fevers, sweating, increased heart rate and blood pressure go with it - but that's no surprise given the muscle contractions. Lockjaw is also a common first sign.

So vaccines in general good.
Big Pharma not always good. I think of them like any big business of today (or say the Catholic Church of the dark ages) with so much power - it's easy to be corrupted. And if a church can justify killing thousands if not millions what can a corporation justify doing?

I'm not sure if that should read mistake or mistakes - either way, please don't do what I did.

They've got a new-fangled panoramic X-ray machine that was a little scary for her because she has to hold onto this huge machine that is all around her and moves around her but no big whoop.  Then they started with the more conventional ones.  This was also a bit scary but she got through it.  Now once the dentist got there to look at the X-rays I really expected him (in this case, him) to say something like "Yup, she's got teeth.  See you in a year."  That's not what happened.  At  All.

Turned out she has more cavities than teeth.  Over 30 for her little mouth of 20 teeth.  So many that the dentist described that it would take 4 or 5 sessions in the chair with some kind of mild sedation, drilling (complete with the smell of burning teeth), needles, etc.  i.e. TRAUMA
Then he went into a description of a surgery to do the same thing all at once.  The cost difference - in the chair about $4000 - with some form of sedation. About $3000 without. (Yeah, like I'm going to cheap out on pain meds.)
As a surgery - - you guessed it, $5000.  She's 4.  With 20 teeth.  That means for the 2 or 3 remaining years they will be in her mouth, they will have cost about $300 each.  Now unless the toothfairy is real and pays hard currency - even with inflation, she's not paying out 3 bills.  So why do people pay for this fix?  The rot can infect the soft tissues, bones of the jaw, get into the blood and cause septicemia and of course could rot the adult teeth before they even break the surface.  Cavities before the teeth come in - not a great options.

So by this time you may be asking yourself - with all of the listed wrongs - what is Wrong #1?  Ah, if only I had remembered my mother's off-handed comment to me sooner.  When I was a teenager, my mom made a comment to me that for some reason I remembered.  She said that she loved my breath as a little kid.  Now my mom is European and says lots of weird things out of the blue.  Why I should remember this one - I don't know.  But what I didn't realize was what it really implied.
I asked what she meant by sweet - she said not like candy (which would be a bad thing - like diabetes) but different.  Now, I remember my little one's breath before it changed.  It smelled like crisp apples.

I bought 4 boxes of the 100 calorie Oreo wafers. I like them and there was a double coupon offer so, hey, yeah 4 boxes. It wasn't until I was prepping for a home show for You Get Well Soon that I noticed that of these boxes that I had bought ONLY 2 months ago 3 had already expired. So I thought I'd check out all the snacks I could find in Costco that would otherwise be appropriate for the business. Lo and behold, not 1 and I mean that literally, not 1 had a date later than November. Most had September. September? It's August!

I was in the health food store and heard the clerk speaking with a customer about how if everyone in the world ate the way we did (in North America) the Earth would run out of food in just a few years. But the more I thought about it the more I was angered. It's not the way we eat it's got much more to do with the fact that we don't grow food for consumption we grow food for profit. Every grocer has to have 'enticing'displays so that we'll buy their food. How much waste is involved in that process? And when we don't buy - it all goes to waste. What about the food we do buy? Do we eat all of it or isthere waste in that process too? This doesn't even include restaurants - even more waste. We are training ourselves, our children and the rest of the world to waste food at a rate many times (orders of magnitude) higher than that at which we consume.

And so I am brought back to the expiry dates. It would seem as though the producers of the snack foods mentioned in the first paragraph are not experiencing enough waste - because clearly waste = profits. It must, right? If the food expires before the store can sell it - it's tossed (at a loss) and then the store will have to order more. And so the cycle continues. It's a SCAM and it's time we as consumers started talking to not only our local stores, news and everyone we know. It's time we took the argument to the producers - not only by not buying their products (because we're talking about pretty much all snack food producers) but directly talking to them. Letting them know that we're on to them and we want honesty - not scams.

If food packaging was really that poor - for snack foods in particular - than none of us would be alive today to be scammed. Expiry dates on snack foods is a pretty new phenomenon. So we who are older than 10 years old have eaten food from the pantry (that had been there for more than 2 months - I can almost guarantee it) all of our lives. I have had such food and I know it was more than a year old. And guess what - tasted great. It is highly unlikely that the packaging available has gotten less effective over the last 30 or 40 years. So what is the difference? The manufacturers have realized a new way to increase their profits - WASTE.

Nothing makes me more crazy that waste - especially when it's for no reason. If it makes you crazy too - I Want to hear about it. We can stop this - but first we have to be aware. Then let those in the biz know that not only are we on to them - but we won't stand for it!

Help me out on this one and we'll all benefit!

Reposted from yougetwellsoon.wordpress.com

I was reading the Yahoo! news again - clearly I'm addicted, and caught an article on 20 things not to buy used. It brought to mind a few horror stories but one that seems pertinent to the topic - skin infections.  On the list are things you'd expect like laptops, plasma / LCD TVs, mattresses but also undergarments and footwear.  And that's when my memory clued in.  (Well it clued in with the laptops one because I have a used laptop and I can honestly say I'll never do that again - ever, ever, ever!)

My grandmother worked in a garment factory in Winnipeg forever.  I remember going to the strangest shops when I lived there because she knew all the places to buy direct.  Naturally when I was little I found this terribly embarrassing.  Now, not unexpectedly, I miss it.  And her - but that's a different blog.  Point being, these are not the cleanest of places.  There are all manner of rodents and bugs.  Even if you could get past this - think of where the fabrics were made.  You've got all those rodents,  reptiles and bugs to think of and those that were on the transport vehicles to get them to the factories and stores and ultimately to you. Yikes!

I remember when I was younger and got new clothes that I wanted to wear them right away.  You try them on in the store, why not wear them a bit longer.  Well I think a few illustrative stories will never let you forget the why.  Story 1.  I was working in a lab with some summer students and didn't know this one girl very well.  I had noticed something on her upper back/ shoulder but since clothes covered it up most of the time didn't say anything.  (A rarity for me I assure you.)  That was until she wore this really  nice sarong as a dress and the area was very noticable.  So the first thing I did was ask if she was aware of an unusual patch of skin on her back.  Oh yeah, she replied I've had it for a while.  Next question: Do you wash your clothes before you wear them the first time?  No.  Ah, please start doing that.  And I went into the explanation of bugs etc. that started  off this blog.  I also told her Story 2.  Having been a starving student for many years, I shop for bargains and I was shopping in Winners one day trying on tanks.  Well, I remember the incident specifically because it was a really tight-fitting tank (for sport) and I had removed my bra to try it on.  This led to a year-long battle with what I finally learned was ringworm.  You'll know ringworm when you see it because it literally is a pinkish, circular ring around your normal skin tone and it's about 4-8 mm in diameter.  Ringworm is a parasitic fungal infection caused by several different species of fungus that feed on keratin in the outer layer of skin, hair, and nails. And here was the key for my 'catching' it - the fungus thrives on warm, moist skin - like the skin under the breasts.  Apparently it survives directly on cloth for a time because I sure got it.

The follow-up to this ringworm tale of woe is that none of the topical steroidal creams normally used to treat it worked.  Neither did tea tree oil (which is supposed to kill fungus) or really any 'treatment' cream.  So I did what I do and tried to reason out how to get rid of this.  It could be like other fungal infections and run its course and since it didn't really bother me particularly this was an option.  But I did remember from that medical micro course that I had to take that fungi have the same metabolic pathways as human cells which means that most anything used to kill it will kill our cells.  Kind of a problem.

I was in the shower one day and was looking at the bottle of dandruff shampoo that my boyfriend had - Nizoral.  I figured, I've lived with this for so long why not try the antifungal shampoo - and wouldn't you know it - within a couple of tries, the ringworm was gone.  Totally gone - after over a year of it.  Needless to say, this is what I recommended to the summer student and ever since I always have a bottle of Nizoral in the medicine cabinet - ok, whole closet of remedies, potions, etc.
The take home lesson - yup there are lots of things to not buy used.  Apparently there's also a reason to carry wash wipes with you into change rooms.  Oh yes and wash clothes before you wear them.  (I never could be brief and to the point - guess that career as Twitter-master is right out the window.)  Trust me it's easier and far kinder to your skin.