brightmarlin44 said:Am I with Pasteur?🤣 I guess I have some value after all.😁
Your topics are so Pasteurian—especially that whole "negative careerism" provocation, and now this pivot to preventative health. At first, I thought you were some guy focused on medical ethics, maybe using the forum to gather ideas for a research paper. After this post, though, I'm not even sure what you are anymore... I'm guessing you aren't a doctor—no actual MD would frame topics like this—but you clearly have some tie to the medical field... otherwise, who else would be thinking about prevention? Why is it so funny to you that I assumed you were from Pasteur?
Jamie Clark74 said: Here I go again...I smoked for 32 years—about 60 to 80 cigarettes a day...finally quit when I was 46...mostly because I wanted to be able to tell my younger son not to smoke without looking like a hypocrite. He was 13 at the time—how could I lecture him if I was still lighting up?
My older son is 42 now, still smokes, and has already had three spinal surgeries—fusions and mesh to hold everything together. His wounds just won't heal properly because of the smoking, unlike mine did after my own spinal surgery—a laminectomy for stenosis at L5-4 and L4-3.
It was already showing that I have some calcified plaque in my bilateral carotid arteries...and between that and dealing with Apnea, I’m using a CPAP machine at night. With all these issues, frequent X-rays keep showing "vascular calcification"...which tells my GP to keep a very close eye on my cholesterol levels. Luckily, it stays under 4"...but that really just means most of the damage was already done by the smoking.. The specialist told me the consequences were definitely from the cigarettes.
Now that I know I have Asbestosis too...I'm damn glad I quit about 18 years ago...because my pulmonologist says my lungs have recovered 100% since I stopped. It usually takes 10 to 15 years for lung capacity to fully bounce back from years of smoking.
If I were still smoking while dealing with Asbestosis, my breathing would be a nightmare. Honestly, I wonder if I'd even be alive...or if I'd have suffered a stroke by now.
In the last 15 years—I'm 64 now—so many people my age have passed away from lung cancer, heart attacks, or strokes.
Don't mess around with your health...especially if you have kids. You're killing them via secondhand smoke, too. My oldest son's kid almost certainly developed asthma from his dad smoking in the house and in the car. And to make matters worse, the kid is nearly 18 and he's already smoking himself..
placidfox55 is spot on—I've said it plenty of times before: you only need 30 minutes of brisk walking every single day to stay healthy. No excuses. If it's raining, find a building and walk the stairs, or just head to a large shopping mall...it'll do you more good than any gym workout ever could...and it's free.
🙂 😉 😎
Hi Jamie Clark74! I really like your honesty. I'm new to this forum, so I haven't read everything you've posted yet—just a bit. But from what I've gathered, it sounds like you and your family could use a small hospital, or maybe a whole team of specialists. 🙂 How did you end up with Asbestosis living in the States? I thought that was something localized to certain industrial areas near places like old factory towns in the Rust Belt... Hope you're doing okay now. Take care! And to everyone else struggling with circulation, I hope you stay strong and manage to kick the habit in the New Year!
You didn't mention if it's the same color as the surrounding skin—if it's shedding, how big it is, if it moves, or if there's any discharge... but my gut feeling? It sounds like an atheroma. You’re thinking along the right lines—it’s basically a buildup of fatty tissue caused by a clogged sebaceous gland. Usually, you just treat it surgically: a tiny incision at the top, squeeze out the sebum, pull out the sac... doesn't hurt, takes maybe ninety seconds tops. But again, I can't say for sure it's an atheroma without seeing it myself. That's just my lucky guess... Can't rule out skin cancer, though.
The odds of you catching HIV are incredibly slim, even if she actually has AIDS. Using a condom was definitely the right call. That said, if you're still spinning your wheels over it, just go get tested—if you're in Washington, D.C., head over to the Mayo Clinic.
Gregory Turner71, what's the deal with the hair? 😲 How often does it actually need washing—or should I say, how rarely? I'm guessing only after getting caught in a downpour...
By the way, everyone’s talking about how you need to bribe the surgeon. Why hasn't anyone thought about the anesthesiologist? In my book, their job is actually more critical. Anesthesiologists are the real MVPs—they do their thing quietly, and when things get messy with bribes and corruption, they're always the last ones people remember. :-) Jokes aside, a specialist who spent at least 11 years in medical school deserves $2667 bucks. It seems absurd to me that an abdominal surgeon—say, someone in their 50s who spends every single day handling stinking intestines—gets paid $2667. A doctor in an ambulance gets $2000, dealing with blood every day without even knowing if the patient is HIV+ or has hepatitis... A psychiatrist listens to endless misery all day long... An infectious disease specialist could catch something at any moment, often spending the first few days of treatment not even knowing what they're treating... A radiologist is constantly exposed to radiation... And internists performing procedures under X-ray guidance end up getting irradiated just as much as the patient—except for the patient, it's a one-time thing, whereas for the doctor, it's the tenth procedure of the day. I'm pretty sure nobody looks at it that way...
It’s not about cutting costs... seriously, before you start throwing insults around, maybe try educating yourself or at least showing some interest. Besides, if you took this angry outburst straight to the hospital director or the Secretary of Health—or whoever else you’re dreaming up—you wouldn't look tough; you'd just look foolish. Apaurin and Dormicum are anxiolytics/sedatives (not analgesics). You could have given your brother 30 mg of Apaurin and he'd still be in pain; the only difference is he'd be drowsy and sleepy, but the pain would be exactly the same... Dormicum causes amnesia. He'd be groggy, tired, out of it, and still in pain. Again, it's a sedative, not a painkiller. As for that third thing you mentioned—asking the doctor for "some kind of pill." Those "painkillers" you're talking about thin the blood, so he'd just end up bleeding like crazy after the tampon is removed, and he'd still be hurting just as much. So, we're left with local or general anesthesia. Local isn't an option because there's nowhere to apply it (the mucosa is covered by swabs, and that area hurts). General is off the table too, because it carries its own risks, and you don't put someone under general anesthesia without a damn good reason.
See? It's not a money issue... I really hope this post actually reaches you.