Posts by hollowhawk13

I need some advice here,

Can spirometry results be skewed if you’re dealing with a nasty cold, a persistent cough, and a sinus infection right when you take the test?

This is all for a new job—a proper office position—which requires a spirometry test as part of the medical clearance.

I went in to schedule the appointment, but the nurse just tells me, "We can do it right now."

I tried explaining to her that I was running a fever just a few days ago, that I’ve been coughing constantly, and that my sinuses are absolutely draining—just full of congestion and mucus. I asked to push it back a few days, but she insisted it wouldn't matter. To make matters worse, while I was actually blowing into the tube, I had a coughing fit because my throat felt so blocked up.

Anyway, I haven't received the official report yet, though I did beg her to tell me how it looked.
She mentioned that my primary numbers seemed fine—I think they were over 80%—but that one specific parameter regarding the small airways (she was pointing at some curve on the graph) was significantly low.
Please, can someone tell me if a sinus infection could cause a result like that? And more importantly, if the results come back looking poor, could that prevent me from getting cleared for an office job? A few years back, I had a spirometry test and everything was perfectly normal. I don't have asthma or anything like that, though I am a smoker.
Thanks in advance for any insight.

Daniel Palmer22 said:To whom it may concern,

I’m looking for some gastroenterology advice here. My daughter is 11 years old—a fifth grader—and she’s been dealing with daily abdominal pain for two months now. Our primary care physician initially sent us for urine tests: a culture, sediment analysis, and a standard urinalysis. Everything came back within normal ranges, except for a high concentration of Ca oxalate in both tests. We were told to stick to a diet rich in citrus—lemon juice, mandarins, that sort of thing—and just use painkillers when the discomfort becomes unbearable. After ten days, the pain intensified, so we headed to the pediatric ER. Blood work and urine tests (aside from the Ca oxalate) were all fine. An abdominal ultrasound showed nothing unusual. We also ran stool tests; everything came back negative for Salmonella, Shigella, Yersinia spp, parasites, and Campylobacter spp. However, they did detect H. pylori antigen. Her treatment plan was seven days of Fromilid (250) twice a day, Amoxicillin twice a day, and Nexium (20g) twice a day, followed by another three weeks of Nexium 1x1 alongside a specific diet. In the meantime, the pain hasn't budged. It usually wakes her up around 5:00 AM, and she’s sleeping an incredible amount lately. Painkillers aren't helping—in fact, they’ve actually started making her vomit. We've also switched her to a gluten-free diet in the interim, but there hasn't been any progress whatsoever. Following all of this, her blood serum was sent to Washington, D.C. for AGA, EMA, and TTG testing. Now, we've been given yet another different diet and a prescription for Ares (10mg) once a day for two weeks. I would be so grateful for your thoughts or perhaps a suggestion for any additional testing we might have missed. Before this, she’s never been seriously ill—she’s only taken antibiotics three times in her entire life up to age 11—she isn't overweight, and she eats relatively healthy, including plenty of fruits and vegetables. Over these last two months of juggling various dietary restrictions, she has lost three pounds and just doesn't have much of an appetite. Thank you in advance for your help.

Eleven years old—that's fifth grade, right? All the new teachers, new subjects, shuffling from room to room... school started just two months ago. What kind of pain is it, exactly? Does she have to take medication immediately when it hits?
Can she still function when she's hurting? I mean, is she able to go to school, study, participate in sports?
Does the pain subside if she manages to distract herself with something else? And you say this happens every single day? Is it a constant ache all day long, or just brief episodes?
Look, I’m no doctor, but we are talking about those pre-pubescent years where everything shifts—both physically and psychologically.
(We dealt with something similar, though it was headaches, and I know kids who vomit every single morning before heading out the door to school).
Once you’ve run all the tests—and it looks like you’ve already covered a lot of ground—and ruled out the physical causes, I’d probably look into seeing a psychologist too. Two months of persistent pain feels like a long time; surely a physical cause would have surfaced by now?
P.S. You might want to do a little digging into "abdominal migraines."

hiddenscout44 said:The thing is, they're both right: why on earth would anyone do work they aren't getting paid for?
But then again, you look at professors today and they're basically just ghosts—they don't even do what we're actually paying them to do. Like, instead of teaching kids how to read, they just dump homework on us parents and expect us to be the tutors. I get that practice makes perfect, but why am I the one grinding with my kid when I’m already paying the school and the teachers to handle that during class hours? I remember back in elementary school, we had to practice reading during school time, and if you didn't nail it, your grade took a hit. My parents never sat down to drill me on reading (and yeah, my grades suffered because of it), but nowadays, it's totally standard for parents to have to teach everything at home. So what's the point of school then? It's honestly depressing that I have to tell my kid not to burn herself out over schoolwork—to learn what she can, sure, but not to obsess over the grades... because a GPA isn't some indicator of her actual worth or what she truly knows.

And while we're on the subject of religion, it sucks that those of us raised Christian—even though we've woken up from that sheep mentality—have to fight this battle against religious extremists ourselves. We're trying not to subject our kids to that brainwashing, while people from other faiths are basically playing dead and sending their kids to those classes just out of fear (I've seen it happen at my little girl's school)

Personally, I think if the school administration—the principal and whoever else is running the show—actually put in a modicum of effort, they could organize this whole thing regardless of those pesky agreements with the Vatican or the general mess that is our federal government.
It just takes a little initiative instead of being completely useless, as you put it.
Why should a teacher be expected to babysit kids if there isn't a paycheck attached to it? They shouldn't.
But with some sort of coordinated plan, you could pull in the librarian, the guidance counselor, the counselor's aide, or even an assistant—and let's face it, our local school district has plenty of those floating around. It’s all about willpower and actual organization. Schools always have staff members who aren't tied to specific classroom hours; they could easily be slotted into the schedule.
And that leads me to a question: those teachers who run extracurriculars—like choir, art club, dance, or chess... are they actually compensated for that? Is it part of their official contract hours, or are they just volunteering their lives away?

Richard Fowler13 said:I have to disagree with you, and frankly, given the legal framework we live under, I suspect a court wouldn't side with you either; she could have relayed what he said, provided she omitted his specific identity.

I don't quite follow the comment about him retiring—is that supposed to be a bad thing? The man has decades of experience, most parents are satisfied, and his professional references are stellar.

I'm not going to get bogged down in the specifics of how religious education is organized in our public schools, because the system is what it is. Schools are doing their best to balance things within the current constraints. Unless the federal regulations change, we aren't going to see any fundamental shift in how things work.

As for this mother, I won't dwell on her too much, but she strikes me as one of those high-maintenance, exhausting types of parents...

Sent from mTalk

Now, these are exactly the kinds of assessments I live for.🙄

Richard Perez3 said:Word.
I am totally with you on this.
It actually just popped into my head—a friend of mine was telling me (our kids go to the same school, just different first grade classes) that she absolutely lost it the other day. Turns out her daughter wasn't even going to the library with the teacher like they agreed during those two hours of religious ed. Instead, the teacher just had her sit there listening to...

...Islamic studies.
🤦

🤣
God, the things you have to wade through on this site lately.🤦

Robert Rodriguez9 said:Why would a high school even allow that? The district doesn't pay the staff—the state does. If they want to pay for extra hours, they can deal with it themselves since they already signed that agreement. Right now, everything is strictly voluntary.

I'm with Richard Fowler13 on this one. 👍 A friend of mine has a kid who had this exact same teacher, and she can't say enough good things about him.

Well, let’s be clear—the school district handles the scheduling, not the federal government. If they wanted to, they could move religion classes—just like any other elective—to a different block. It doesn't have to be the first period or the last; there are plenty of slots in between.
It’s funny, though—our teacher once told us it was "logistically impossible" to fit the religious studies class into the schedule when she thought only a couple of kids were interested. But the second she realized half the class was actually signed up? Suddenly, it’s perfectly doable. Quite the convenient shift in logic, wouldn't you say?

And don't even get me started on the timing. My kid finishes their core classes around 1:05 PM, only to have an Italian language elective starting at 2:00 PM. Why? Because the instructor works across three different districts, so the entire school schedule has to bend over backward just to accommodate one person's commute!

Back when my kid was in second or third grade, this teacher—talking specifically to the kids who didn't take religion class (my child was always right in the MIDDLE of the scheduled period)—basically told them they were free to just head home. I absolutely lost it. I mean, I wasn't about to have my kid wandering around in the rain for no reason, trekking back and forth while we're both stuck at work. Some of these kids don't even live near the school, so what exactly was their plan? When I finally marched up to her to address the situation, she came up with this "brilliant" solution: the kids could just sit in the little utility room where the janitors hang out and doodle on things—and of course, someone is always going to be "keeping an eye" on them. Should I mention that this bright-eyed, overachieving young teacher had just moved here from Boise a few years ago and can barely string a coherent sentence together? I actually ran into her at a social gathering recently, and she says to me, with that unmistakable regional accent of hers: "Oh, everything is just wonderful, straight A's... except for that one C." 😵😵😵

Fast forward to fifth grade, and there's religion class again, right in the middle of the day, naturally. That is, until the homeroom teacher realized that suddenly—unlike in fourth grade—more than half the class wasn't attending. So, of course, they moved the class to the very last period.

Richard Fowler13 said:That teacher is truly top-tier, honestly one of the best out there, and he does an incredible job getting the kids ready for middle school.

It’s pretty common for parents to go back to him for their older kids too if they had a good experience the first time—and frankly, that’s all the endorsement you need!

He has this very distinct way of dealing with parents; he basically doesn't give them much room to second-guess his methods, which is exactly why people react the way they do.

As for that woman who went and posted their private messages along with his personal info for everyone to see without his consent—not to mention the local news picking it up—everyone involved violated privacy laws, and that is precisely why a lawsuit is on the table.

Sent from mTalk

I honestly think there’s a solid legal basis for a lawsuit here—specifically because the high school failed to provide any actual oversight for those younger kids during their religious studies elective. It’s mid-day, right in the middle of the school schedule, and they’re just left hanging without a teacher, a librarian, or even a guidance counselor watching over them. It’s negligent, plain and simple. Think about it—other electives, like Spanish or computer science, are never scheduled in that mid-day slot. They’re always tucked away at the end of the day or moved to the afternoon shift to avoid this exact kind of chaos. But instead, they leave these kids essentially unsupervised. Honestly, it's the kind of bureaucratic incompetence that makes you want to lose your mind.

In the meantime, I managed to dig up just this much:

Latent
– herpesviruses
• HSV latency within sensory ganglia
• HSV-1 eye and facial infections
– latent in the trigeminal nerve
• HSV-2 genital infections
– latent in the lumbar and sacral ganglia

whatever that actually implies...

I just had some neurotropic virus testing done at a local clinic, and I’m staring at these results feeling completely lost:

HSV IgM Positive
HSV1 IgG Negative
HSV IgG WB Negative
HSV2 IgG Negative
HSV2 IgG WB Negative

From what I gather—and please correct me if I'm wrong—if the IgM is positive, it implies an active infection, whereas a positive IgG would mean we've developed antibodies or have encountered the virus at some point in the past. Usually, HSV1 is associated with oral herpes and HSV2 with genital, right?

But here’s the thing that's tripping me up: this positive HSV IgM result doesn't specify whether it's HSV1, HSV2, or if there's some other variation of herpes out there. Why isn't it more specific? (Mind you, I don't have any symptoms for either type!)
Could this also potentially indicate a current infection with varicella zoster, cytomegalovirus, or Epstein-Barr? Or am I totally off base there regarding how those fit into the HSV category?

Also, the reference range for this HSV IgM is listed as positive if it's above 1.1 and negative if it's under 0.9. However, my report doesn't list actual numerical values—it just says "INDEX." What on earth is that supposed to mean?

And then there's this note: "interpretation of results is based on paired samples." What does that even imply in this context?

To top it all off, someone actually scribbled "Hsv?" at the bottom of the report in ballpoint pen.

Can anyone help me make sense of this mess?