chloroquine monday

I got back on Saturday night (Sunday morning, really) from a week-long trip to Guatemala and Belize with friends. The eight of us spent two nights in Antigua, two in El Remate (near Tikal), two in San Ignacio, and two in Caye Caulker. After that, four of us left so we could attend a wedding on Sunday, and the remaining four stayed for two days of diving. Details to follow, before I forget everything...

Anyway, we were advised to take precautions against malaria, so we all started on a chloroquine regimen about a week before the trip. The pills are supposed to be taken weekly, on the same day each week, for a week before and four weeks after exposure. I took the first dose on a Monday, and I didn't feel any severe side effects (a little headache maybe), but one of my friends experienced some dizziness. "Chloroquine Monday", as we've been calling it, hit again on the day we spent hiking all over Tikal. Most of us were okay but the same friend had really bad nausea and fatigue all day. I just took the third dose last night, and again it wasn't too bad, but nevertheless I will be quite glad when we're all done.

you know you're old when...

...no matter what kind of social gathering you're at, if there are ten or more people, at least one has had knee surgery. Sigh.

warning: much whining follows

On Saturday, I sprained my knee getting off a chairlift, which meant the end of my ski weekend. I spent Sunday in the lodge watching football, which would have been kind of okay, except I also had stomachache (probably from eating ramen and s'mores all day).

On Monday, I came down with a horrible cold and went home early. On Tuesday, I stayed home entirely, due to being incapacitated by that cold. On Tuesday night, D came home from work with my cold. Due to both our colds and my knee not recovering very quickly, we had to cancel our Tahoe trip for next weekend. Grr.

This morning, I went to the dentist and had some fillings. During the process, the dentist said "hmm...", took a bunch more x-rays, and then told me I'd have to come back for more fillings. Twice.

It is really not my week. I wonder if I should hide in a bunker on Friday.

now you tell me

I went to the dentist this morning. After looking at the x-ray, the dentist told me that I had two new cavities. We then had a conversation that went something like this:

her:	How's your flossing going?
me:	Good! I floss almost every day now.
her:	Hmm. <long pause> Do you use Glide floss?
me:	Huh? Yes...why?
her:	Oh. Yeah, it really doesn't work very well. Switch to something else.

Apparently Glide, although really easy to use, is not actually effective, partially because it slides over your teeth so easily that it doesn't catch much food and/or plaque. She said she'd had another patient a few months ago who had a similar problem, despite flossing every day with his children.

Anyway, she prescribed new floss, new high-fluoride toothpaste, and a fluoride varnish. Then, as I was leaving the office, I was given a standard freebie bag. Inside was a toothbrush, toothpaste, and Glide. When I pointed that out, the dentist laughed apologetically and told me it was not an endorsement. Sigh.

vision problems

I was talking to a friend today who said she recently discovered her glasses prescription had gone up. She mentioned that she was pretty bummed when the optometrist "went up two clicks" and everything got clearer. That sounded really familiar to me.

I first got glasses when I was seven or eight years old. For the next six years, my prescription increased every year. Walking into the exam room, the only question on my mind would be, by how much? As the machine kept clicking up, I'd start to get a sinking feeling in my stomach, because when I came back out with a particularly bad prescription, my parents would frown and scold me for reading too much (in the dark, in the car, while walking).

As I got older I started to recognize the optometrist trick of renaming the same two powers "1 or 2? 3 or 4? 5 or 6?" and I also became very good at guessing letters by shape even when they were quite blurry. At least once I tried to game the system so my prescription would come out lower. In retrospect this seems completely stupid, but I guess my ten-year-old self was more concerned about parental approval than being able to see clearly for the next year.

not following instructions

My HMO periodically sends out health newsletters. One of the common themes is "how to take care of your bones". I've heard the recommendations many times: take calcium with vitamin D, walk, run, and lift weights. Ironically, although one would think the calcium recommendation would be the easiest one to follow, it's the only one that I find difficult. I have three or four bottles of assorted vitamins in my desk at work, and they're all over four years old. (I wonder if vitamins go bad?)

American paranoia

There are so many things that we are paranoid about in this country, that people in other countries seem not to worry about.

The list of foods that pregnant American women "can't eat" grows longer every year: alcohol, sushi, raw meat, processed meat, pate, most seafood, soft cheeses, unpasteurized milk/juice, caffeine. I even saw a pregnant woman the other day avoiding beans. I have no idea what could possibly be wrong with eating beans. In Europe, pregnant women drink wine. In Japan, pregnant women eat raw fish. Neither seems to be a problem.

We refuse to let children eat peanuts and shellfish at a young age, in case they happen to be allergic to them. Yet, I wouldn't be surprised if we had the highest incidence of food allergies in the world.

We use anti-bacterial soaps and lotions for everything, on an everyday basis. I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure the more that we use anti-bacterial products, the stronger the remaining bacteria become. I'll bet the US has more drug resistant bacteria than any other country, by now.

I can't think of any other examples off the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure there are more...

high tech dentistry

I went to the dentist today for a routine cleaning. My dentist had moved to a newer and larger office.

The first thing I noticed was that the patient chairs were much nicer. Doctor Jane explained they were also massage chairs, and asked me if I wanted to try, but I was in a hurry and passed.

During the cleaning (which is mostly done with some fancy high pressure water device instead of with manual scraping, which is one of the reasons I like my dentist), she noticed my lips were chapped and pulled out a tube of Vaseline (yay!).

After the cleaning, she did my dental x-rays with a new fancy digital x-ray machine. Instead of having to bite those little cards which have sharp edges and hurt your mouth, I bit on a round-ish digital sensor thing. Afterwards, the x-rays came up instantly on the computer, where Doctor Jane was able to zoom in and show me where my old fillings were going bad (boo!).

Later on, when I was setting up my followup appointment, the receptionist gave me a nifty printout detailing the services that I would be receiving, as well as the cost breakdown (the insured portion vs. the part that I would be expected to pay). Very cool.

prescription

For curing mid-afternoon onduty headache: Run six miles, take a shower, and then eat yummy mint frozen yogurt with chocolate sprinkles. Headache will be gone by the time you get back to your desk. No guarantees on how long it will stay away, if you persist on going back to your desk.

duh

Last week, after running three times in a six days, I started to have some back pain. I've actually had occasional issues with back pain since college, usually lasting a week or so, and with months and sometimes years between episodes. I tried stretching, resting (1-2 days), and ignoring the problem, but nothing worked until yesterday, when D suggested Salonpas. Only after he mentioned it did I remember that last time it was indeed Salonpas that cured me. Four hours later I was sitting upright, standing up normally, and carrying bags of groceries (okay, one bag). Chalk up another one for wacky Japanese remedies.

two puffs

I've always had bad eyes. When I was about two, an eye doctor decided I had a problem focusing with both eyes, and he gave me a pair of 3D glasses and put a red-and-blue screen on our TV, so I'd have to focus properly. I got glasses when I was almost eight, contacts when I was eleven, and over the years I've switched through four types of contacts (extended wear, disposable, "Night & Day", and now RGP) and lots of brands of contacts solution.

You would think I'd be used to going to eye doctors by now, but there's still one part that I hate: the glaucoma test. You sit and look at a little red light, and someone shoots a "little" puff of air into your eye. A long time ago the machine used to make a little noise right before it shot out the air, and I would instinctively blink, which would invalidate the test. One time it took me about five or six puffs per eye before they were able to get a reading. Machines have gotten better over time, so recently I've been averaging about three puffs. Today it only took two! Afterwards I was thinking it seemed like the amount of air has decreased since last time, but maybe I'm just all zonked out from my "non-drowsy" allergy medication.

sushi = cure for everything

As I mentioned previously, I had a horrible stomach flu last week.

The first day, I drank apple juice and ate nothing. The second day, I had half a packet of oatmeal and half a bowl of rice porridge. On the third day, I felt like I could eat, but I still wasn't hungry and nothing tasted very good, so I think I only managed a bowl of noodle soup. On the fourth day, someone ordered in a big tray of sushi for lunch (this was in Houston). All of a sudden, I found myself starving, and I ate at least 10 pieces of sushi (mostly tuna rolls).

Apparently, the best cure for stomach flu (at least for me) is lots of raw fish.

out of commission

I went to bed on Sunday night after a busy day and a yummy dinner, and everything was fine. I woke up on Monday morning with a horrible stomachache and was barely able to get out of bed. It wasn't a great time for me to be sick, since I had a couple of things I wanted to finish at work for a Tuesday deadline, but I really couldn't even sit at my desk for more than a few minutes, let alone think about driving to work. After a day and a half of sleeping and not eating anything, I seem to have achieved a state where I'm a bit tired but fine as long as I don't move too much and don't eat anything. I really hope things improve in the next day; I'm supposed to get on a really early flight on Thursday morning. Sigh.

fully vaccinated

This morning I went to see a travel nurse. I figured that since I'm going to both Southeast Asia and South America in the next few months, I should see about getting some vaccines. As it turns out, there's actually quite a list of diseases to worry about when traveling. Luckily, I'm up to date on HepA, HepB, TDaP, and MMR, so today I only had to get shots for Typhoid and Yellow Fever, as well as a script for some Malaria pills. After he finished with my vaccines, the nurse pointed out that now I'm pretty much good to go even for Africa, although for that he recommended a polio booster as well. Hmm, Africa...

one in a million

Today, someone said to me, "you're one in a million!". No, it wasn't a co-worker praising my brilliant coding skills, or a friend admiring my wit and charm. It was my dentist, commenting on my fused tooth.

My dad's side of the family has a tendency towards weird teeth. My cousin and I were both missing two baby teeth, and her brother was missing one, but had a fused baby tooth. I think they both have normal adult teeth, but I continue to be missing two teeth, and one of the adjoining teeth came out as a fused tooth. It looks like two teeth somehow got smashed together, but there is only one root. On the bright side, because of the resulting extra space in my mouth, I've been allowed to keep all four of my wisdom teeth.

Anyway, apparently my new dentist also has a fused tooth, so she was excited to see mine. Maybe we're related.

pill popping

I went to the doctor about a week ago about some persistent foot pain. She diagnosed it as tendonitis, and prescribed 600mg of ibuprofen, to be taken three times daily, with food.

My biggest problem with this is that I don't usually eat three times a day. I've actually taken to getting up earlier and trying to get to work in time to eat breakfast at 10am, so that I can take my pills earlier in the day. Unfortunately, I still have to adhere to the 4 hour rule, so I can't take another set of pills until after 2pm, and I have to wait until I eat again, which is generally at dinner time.

Also, 600mg works out to 3 (over the counter) tablets, which means 126 tablets over two weeks. I've already finished bottle I had lying around (expiration date: January 2005), and am now raiding the first aid cabinets at work.

I never understood before why people talked about it being hard to keep to a medication schedule, but given my difficulty with a two-week regimen, I can only imagine what it's like for victims of chronic illnesses.

ick

I wish I could plan being sick. It's just my luck that I always have a whole bunch of meetings on the days that I'm sick, so that I end up coughing and sneezing all over everyone and potentially making them sick too. If I knew ahead of time, I could work it into my schedule. If we can't cure the common cold, at least we should be able to detect it a few days beforehand?

hard contacts vs soft contacts

Yesterday when I was playing pickup, a rebound deflected off of an arm and hit me in the eye. I was wearing hard contacts due to some dry eye issues, so it hurt more than usual, and my left contact popped out and fell on the ground. I yelled at everyone to stop moving, picked it up, rinsed it off in the water fountain, and popped it back in.

To me, that incident perfectly illustrates the pros and cons of hard contacts. It hurts pretty bad when you get hit in the eye. Also, if you step on one, it's done. On the bright side, you can use plain water to rinse them, and you don't have to worry about them drying out your eyes.

Actually, there are a couple additional downsides. Hard contacts are less comfortable in general, since you can kind of feel them in your eye all day. If you ever get a speck of dirt in your eye while wearing hard contacts, it'll hurt like hell. Plus, no one has made disposable hard contacts yet, so there's all that cleaning overhead and worrying about losing them.

I've been switching back and forth depending on how dry my eyes are in a given week.

dentists

I keep forgetting to schedule my next dentist appointment. It just isn't the kind of thing you have a lot of motivation to remember.

Although, I've been mostly lucky when it comes to teeth. I still have all of my wisdom teeth, and none of my dentists have ever suggested pulling them. I've never had braces, and I've never had a root canal. (Knock on wood.)

Once I did have to have four fillings, but I made him do them all together so I wouldn't have to have novacaine twice. I don't understand why dentists think it's better to come back again and again, for multiple fillings. I swear the worst part of going to the dentist is when you can feel him aiming that needle all around your mouth. Ugh.

cure the common cold. please?

I'm so sick of being sick. I came down with a cold somewhere between one poker game (at work) and another (at Stanford) two Thursdays ago. I was miserably ill for the entire weekend, ended up taking two days off of work, and finally went back with a residual cough and some congestion. The congestion cleared up a couple of days later, but I'm still coughing.

The worst part is when it gets better, to the point where I think to myself, gee, I'll wake up tomorrow and it'll be gone! Then, I wake up, and have an uncontrollable coughing fit, and start the day with no voice.

Last weekend I tried to pretend everything was fine, but it kept getting worse, until I couldn't eat because the swallowing part was hurting my throat. This weekend I gave up and decided to just veg out. I'm hoping after two days of basically nothing but books and TV, this cold will finally decide I've offered it enough rest, bland food, and vitamin C, and leave me alone. Yes, I'm anthropomorphizing my cold. It's mean and diabolical and I hate it with a passion.

On the bright side, I've had lots of time to experiment with home remedies, and I've concluded that the best things for a cough are: my old staple of Ricola cough drops, Japanese green tea, New Zealand honey, and Pi Pa Gou, which is like a thick minty cough syrup from Taiwan that actually tastes good. Also, Nyquil and a big stack of pillows are essential on the worst nights, since something about lying down seems to trigger coughing.