MEDICAL MATTERS

[Stanley]

I note that the numbers are very small but even so parents will still have one more thing to concern them. Watch the reaction on social media.
More serious I think is the halving of attendance at A&E, such a contrast with six months ago. Problem is that this includes serious emergencies like stroke as well. I doubt if the incidence of them has halved. It even extends to cancer referrals by GPs. Someone is making the same calculations I have about relative risk.

[Whyperion]

Odd notes that some coming in with Covid have had other lung/heart problems diagnosed (long standing from earlier mis-diagnosed), took some time as too often in medical places the looking at one thing and seeing a symptom draws the wrong conclusions for a long time, expertise and imagination are both needed plus the correct diagnostic facilities.

Covid and other viruses will have long term health effects particulary on hearts including the young children symptoms

[Stanley]

Why do nose and ear hairs grow faster as you age?

[Tizer]

To make up for the ones growing more slowly on your head?

[Whyperion]

To make up for the ones growing more slowly on your head?

Gravitational effects ? lots of other things droop

[Stanley]

Don't think so Tiz. They are growing as well. Getting close to a haircut yet again.

[Stanley]

Looking at the forecast a haircut is on the cards. Why is it that as soon as it grows at all my head itches? One of life's little mysteries...

[Tizer]

How is Mrs Tiz getting on with her eye drops Tiz? I asked my ophthalmologist to change my prescription to the preservative free version after I realized that the constant sore throat I had been suffering for over 2 months could be linked to the drops. After about 10 days of using the Monopost drops my throat cleared as did the red eyes and eyelids.

Mrs Tiz gradually got eye irritation and a sore throat so she called the doctor today and he's arranged to change her prescription to the same as the one you have, Wendy.

[Wendyf]

I hope it sorts the problems out for Mrs Tiz. It took about 10 days for my throat to settle and now the slight disturbances in my vision have gone too which must have been caused by damage to the surface of my eye. There is more plastic waste involved in the Monopost drops as they are in daily dose size tubes, but what the hell!

[Whyperion]

Maybe placeable among (Blood) Donors, but work on detecting Prions for the past six years has been going on, to find better and more reliable tests for Prions in Blood, and presumably other organs (Transmission other than ingestion include(*) via eyes or wounds as well as transplants from an infected individual). https://journals.plos.org/plosone/arti ... ne.0216013 Of a question from me, as I cannot find it on a simple search is it is possible to remove the prion (itself a bit of a misnomer) from blood, given that they are among the smallest protein-coding strands in existance so mechanical filtration is going to be difficult ? Thankfully the incidence of prions with the main route of ingestion diminishes with careful management of the food chains in animals and humans and for some reason, at present, prion caused diseases only become evident and cause problems to the host as the host gets older in age- this is probably due to the proteins in brain cells natually being less able to have a normal coating and the coating changing effects of prions result in oils disolving brain cells.

(*) although chemical changes to the 'host' can come from an inherited or random gene fault at conception, which causes 'straight' proteins rather than ' single helix/coiled ' ones. The coiling (to me) appears to be the oil repellent part of nerve/brain cell etc coatings.

[Tripps]

Do you have some medical expertise / training to speak so knowledgeably about prions?

Don't they relate to CJD and BSE?

Personally I can only cope with one major public health crisis at a time.

There's only so much worrying I can do. I think I'm saturated.

[plaques]

Spooky. Whyperion mentioning prions. As far as the UK is concerned the expert is Prof John Collinge. Prion Why do I know this, because Mrs P used to work with his mother at Burnley General Hospital. He specialised in mad cows disease where the prions had the opposite spin to the normal ones in the brain. That's all I know.

[Whyperion]

Sorry Tripps, too much binging on Protein/ RNA / DNA changing things (Its possible my heart condition was caused by a virus and possibly the way my brain thinks nowadays too). Also the way Trump, for example , personifies Covid-2 Virus as if there is an element of deliberate sentience in the outcomes of infection so I thought I would wander to Prions. addtionally someone said to me that vCJD and BSE were scares because not many folk died from the diseases , I had to correct them that the reduction in expected numbers was as a result of changing how animal products were processed and fed to consumers and other animals. I had not realised that the research was ongoing, particulary for better tests , transmission and how the things actually worked. Prions are actually in your Brain / nerve system, the diseases affect how those prions work - or fail to work - in a highly specialised chemical chain way (that actually spins into electro-chemical means) . really odd and I do not claim to follow the whole chain of the biology - I dropped all bar Physics at school because I could not remember the detail but i can get an overall gist, and hopefully simplify it enough for most folk to follow.

[Stanley]

A boyhood friend of mine was a brilliant scholar (He also had a photographic memory which in the end was a curse). Despite TB of the hip that curtailed his studies he sailed through to a doctoral thesis which examined the boundary between a protein and a live virus. It was so advanced that his assessors couldn't judge it for three years until other researchers had caught up with him, he got the doctorate. Years later I realised that in the late 1950s he was actually studying Prions but at that time they were virtually unknown.

[Tizer]

Do you have some medical expertise / training to speak so knowledgeably about prions?
Don't they relate to CJD and BSE?
Personally I can only cope with one major public health crisis at a time.
There's only so much worrying I can do. I think I'm saturated.

Me too, and I'm a scientist (or was, as younger scientists will tell me ). Covid is enough to deal with now, thank you.

I've also got hay fever to cope with at present. I'm sitting here typing with one hand and holding a handkerchief `to by dose' with the other. Bouts of sneezing every few minutes and nose streaming continuously. It wears you down. I had it earlier in the year (tree pollen) and today it's started again, different trees perhaps. It makes me wonder what happens if someone has covid-19 and hay fever at the same time - it could be terminal! It's tricky too if I go outside like this - folk will think I've caught the dreaded lurgy and I certainly couldn't wear a mask.

Fortunately it didn't happen yesterday and I made my first journey out in the car since mid-March to visit a local garden centre that has just opened again. It wasn't busy, which made social distancing easy, and they had staff wearing face protectors and windows at the tills. It was a lovely warm sunny day and I really appreciated being able to drive with the window open and feel the wind in my hair (what's left of it!). it's in times like this that you realise how important are little things like that.

[Whyperion]

tiz, maybe one of those plastic full face masks - as used if you are strimming, I did find the piritonze (?) or shop generic useful against hay fever, you dont get so much in barnoldswick- the higher climate and cooler winds tend to blow it away.

[Tizer]

It's now 5.00pm and I've been largely out of action all day due to the hay fever. This is the worst I've ever experienced and it's as bad indoors as out. Mrs Tiz ventured out and noticed that the council has cut the grass verges today, so I'll blame it on them! I didn't have hay fever until about 10 years ago and since then have had it some years but not others. Today beats it all. Tissues are no use, I'm having to use handkerchiefs and going through them at a rapid rate. It's like having a water tap up my nose.

[Whyperion]

I did put up with the sore eyes for me (always in exam season). Went over to the treatments and preventatives on a recommendation, they do work well for a small price

[Stanley]

Commiserations Tiz, I can imagine how bad that is. Even I have sneezed a couple of times this last day or two and I am not a sufferer. Once again, how lucky I am.
Susan and I have decided that on balance, a pedicure in the back yard in the open air is a better bet than me cutting my own toe nails, I have difficulty seeing them! She is tested regularly and the chance of infection is very low.
I know what you mean about fresh air. I love my walks and have always taken breathing very seriously. The air in Barlick first thing in the morning is like wine. Valley Gardens is full of blossom it would be torture with hayfever!
Best of luck with it and I hope it eases soon.

[Tizer]

So far this morning I'm practically free of the hay fever but I had a bad night and had to take one of the Loratidine tablets at about 04.00. I may still be under its spell of course. The tablet didn't help me at all yesterday.

[Stanley]

I shall be thinking about you Tiz. Light shower of rain in the night here. I wish you the same!

[Tizer]

Now taking a loratadine tablet and squirting Beconase up my nose. Not sneezing and much less sniffing but still a bit under the weather. I don't know why this year seems so much worse than previous years.

[PanBiker]

I don't know why this year seems so much worse than previous years.

Could it be that we are experiencing cleaner air and better growing conditions for the plants and trees?

[Whyperion]

Tizer, question, because i spent too long chasing geese round the internet earlier in the week. On the Covid tests, the BBC makes an observation.

". Current antibody tests don't distinguish between the presence of neutralising antibodies, which would clear any new infection, and non-neutralising antibodies. "
I cannot remember seeing a difference on these being thrown up on BBC TV programmes or similar. (note we have discussed T - Cells in their flavours so it is not them), what the point of a non=neutralising antibody it seems an odd phrase to use

[Stanley]

I like Ian's suggestion. When the Clean Air acts were brought in and coal smoke was sharply reduced one unintended consequence was the flare up of mildew and rust attacks on plants, particularly roses. Similar effect with pollen and hay-fever?