Monkling's Blog » Health

Shocking Research

Monkling — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:25:59 +0000

Research proves that you can taser your friend and if your friend thinks you’re doing it with his best intentions in mind, it won’t hurt. Really. It says it right here. Fine, maybe I exaggerated just a tiny bit. In any case, I have a few questions about this study.

First of all, I’m no psychologist but wouldn’t common sense tell you that if you’re nice to someone and if they feel like you truly care about them, it will improve their overall mood and outlook? Likewise, if you feel crappy and are having a really awful day, every pain, whether physical or mental, will seem worse?

Next big question: who the heck thinks up these experiments? Is there a big room full of scientists and researchers saying, “How can we test the affect of a good mood on the perception of pain? I know! Let’s make people give their friends electric shocks!” Then all the other scientists in the room cheer because it seems like a great plan. I say whoever had the brilliant idea should be the first guinea pig.

A friend once told a story about what she considered an important part of how she taught her students. If she needed to critique a paper, she would always point out two good things about what they had written before getting to the part where she felt they could do better. I’m betting she never read any studies to figure out a person just might be more receptive to criticism if they don’t feel you think their entire paper is horrible.

That brings me back to my first point – common sense. Maybe all these brilliant people discount common sense and think unless you prove something in an experiment, it’s not real.

At the end of that article, they mention that a doctor’s bedside manner can affect how much pain a patient is in. That means Dr. House’s patients must be in a whole lot of pain!

Medical Procedures

Monkling — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 01:45:16 +0000

When you hit 50, you start getting nagged. “You know, now that you’re 50 you really should …”

Now normally I don’t do what I’m told. The second someone tells me I should do something, it makes me not want to do whatever it is. The thing is, as far as my health goes, I do like to make sure I keep on top of things. I figure right now I’m the healthiest one in the family & I need to keep things that way. I just don’t have time to be sick. Thus, I found myself a couple of weeks ago in the office of a GI doc arranging for a colonoscopy.

Don’t worry. I will not go into any of the gory details. I will tell ya, when they say the prep is worse than the test, they aren’t kidding. Also, although I sort of knew what to expect, I really had no idea. Luckily I knew enough to not make any plans for Sunday.

Also, here’s a tip for anyone who may one day need to have this done. The first tip is Butt Paste. Seriously. Granted some of the other ointments may also work but they smell. Second tip – some sort of nice, soft, gentle (flushable!) wipe. Seriously, you want these things.

Now on to my one complaint about the test (aside from the whole prep thing). If you were an anesthesiologist, wouldn’t you think that, considering what the person just went through the previous day, there is a damn good chance there will be some degree of dehydration?? And I do know my veins. If I’m telling ya the left side isn’t good, then, damn it, I mean it. But no. He had to try sticking something in my left arm first.

Gee, big surprise when that didn’t work out too well. He then went with my left hand. I sat with an ice pack on it for a couple of hours after I got home. Most of the back of that hand is nicely colored – if you like red & purple.

And so, they found absolutely nothing. I am fine. Which, in my opinion, means I don’t have to do this again until I’m 60. Maybe next time when I tell them my left veins aren’t good, they’ll listen to me.

Peanut Butter Recalls

Monkling — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:24:04 +0000

Please tell me people aren’t quite that dumb. I was looking at the FDA website to see just which products were recalled. I don’t really have any peanut butter products, just plain old peanut butter & wanted to make sure that wasn’t on the hit list.

On the page that describes the peanut butter salmonella issue, there is this statement:

Do not eat products that have been recalled and throw them away in a manner that prevents others from eating them.

I’m sorry but if you know your product was recalled and you eat it anyway, you deserve to get food poisoning. You are a complete idiot and, as punishment for being a complete idiot, you get to puke your guts out for a few days.

And how does one throw something out in a way that prevents others from eating it? I’m thinking if you’re throwing stuff out, you’re not setting it out on your front porch with matching dishes and silverware. I’m assuming it would go into a trash barrel. Are you supposed to lock your trash up? Perhaps you need to put warning labels on the trashcan saying, “Caution! Eating garbage may be hazardous to your health!”

If anyone is interested in seeing a list of recalls – while the FDA does have the info on their website, you have to click a hundred different links to see the complete list. This website has a list with everything on one page.

I was happy to see that Jiff wasn’t on the list. Now, after all this talk about peanut butter, I’m getting hungry. I think I’ll go make a peanut butter sandwich.