MEDICAL MATTERS

[Marilyn]

Ouch.
Help.
Sibling abuse... ...defending myself under the Genoeva Convention..

[Marilyn]

Only joking. I am sure it isn't a tumour.
( I am actually a bit concerned you have had headaches lately)

[Stanley]

My mother would have said that my blood was too rich and given me a sulphur tablet.....

[Tizer]

When I had a severe cold over Christmas my nose bled each time I blew it. We seem to have had a type of virus going around that has particularly affected the nose and throat - more coughing and mucus than usual. Perhaps it's the same one in Australia - after all, a virus can travel the world as fast as a jumbo jet and doesn't need a passport!

[Stanley]

That may have been what triggered mine Tiz, I had a slight snuffle and a touch of sore throat but it never developed into anything serious. My immune system must be working well!

[EileenDavid]

Well I am back in the operating theatre tomorrow. The retina is detatching again due to the healing process causing scar tissue. Went for my check up after 2 weeks and everything was fine, the 6 weeks after that the vision was bluring again. The Doctor asked me to go to my opticians again for another eye test and to get the report which I did. The appointment booking centre clerk wouldn't give me an appointment until the 31.01.2013 and was rude into the bargain. I asked my optician if he would send the report to the consultant direct and he did. The consultant's secretary phoned me to say an appointment had been made for the emergency clinic on Friday and they are operating again on Monday. So won't be on site for a couple of weeks again. Eileen

[Cathy]

All the best Eileen, I'm sure it will all be worth it and you'll be back on here before you know it.

[Wendyf]

Hope it goes well Eileen, I have been wondering if you are OK, we have missed you over the last few days.

[Tizer]

Best wishes for the op, Eileen!
Talking of medical matters, I made a document just now displaying the medications used by Mrs Tiz's parents that can be given to the carer's to help them. What amazed me was the number being taken by her father - he has Parkinson's and heart trouble and he's got 14 different prescibed medications to take or use each day. It makes you wonder how much undesirable interaction takes place between them, but the doctors would say it's a balance of that versus the good they do.

[Stanley]

Eileen, I shall have everything crossed for you! Good luck with it and a steady hand to the surgeon!
The plethora of pills is worrying isn't it. I've got to the stage now where I take nothing but my three Metformin a day and feel better for it. Even the vitamin supplements and the Wimp's aspirin seem to have a bad effect on me. I suspect that because I have avoided processed foods for years and always read the labels I'm about as free of toxins as it's possible to be these days and so I'm very sensitive to almost everything.
Remember when Doc had his scare? A few months afterwards his blood pressure was that low he was collapsing and when he went back to the dovctor they found that he was still on the emergency high blood pressure medications they had put him on immediately he had his heart attack. He didn't need them and it was what was causing his low blood pressure!

[David Whipp]

The various doctors I'm seeing all seem keen to keep my medication to a minimum.

Last week, I saw a dermatologist who prescribed a different anti-histamine. His advice was to phase in the new tablets as the old ones were phased out.

A week later, the problem of random swellings has decreased (but not disappeared) and the new tablets have less of a sedative effect, so I should have more get up and go!

I try to understand what each drug is supposed to be doing and quiz doctors about the effects and interactions. Everyone has been willing and patient enough to do this.(ouch! - no pun intended)

[Stanley]

It must be a problem if the medication is for something serious. However, it's a slippery slope from essential treatment into over-medication and it's good that your doctors are aware of it. The problem often lies with the doctors, if they have a tool, they want to use it. In days gone by many conditions would clear themselves up with time but this isn't allowed these days. If there's a pill, use it!

[Tizer]

...the new tablets have less of a sedative effect, so I should have more get up and go!

Don't tell the doctor you want `get up and go' or he might give you a laxative!

[Stanley]

Laxatives.... Now there's a fascinating subject! I can remember the days when 'keeping your bowels open' was almost an obsession with many people. I'll bet that laxatives kept the chemists going in those days. There was also the associated market for pills to make you pee. 'Pee Green' pills were common in my youth, you had to flush your kidneys or you died! Carter's Little Liver Pills were popular.

[Tizer]

Another obsession was `cleansing the blood' and a favourite for this was the sulphur tablets that I remember selling when I worked at Boots. You could get them in different colours and flavours! I still don't know how sulphur was supposed to cleanse the blood. I had a look on the Web and instead found this fun page about Liverpool history listing various remedies - here it's `sulphur and treacle to cleanse the blood', but do they mean a mixture of the two or each separately? There's also things like `cinder tea for babies wind', `no nit oil' and `carbolic smoke balls'. LINK

[Stanley]

I remember my mother giving us sulphur tablets in the spring and 'brimstone and treacle' was another version of the same thing, flowers of Sulphur mixed with molasses. Ernie Roberts tells in the LTP how his mother put flowers of sulphur in a paper tube to blow down his throat when he had a very sore throat. He blew first and got a good hiding! Flowers of sulphur burned on a tin lid was used to fumigate rooms if someone had been ill in there with an infectious disease. Another old blood purifier was 'Armenian Bole'. I remember when I had a carbuncle the farmer's wife, Mrs Metcalfe, in the farm above Wendy's gave me enough to cover a sixpence to help clean my blood which she said was causing the carbuncles. Baker's yeast was another standby for the blood.

[Stanley]

Daughter Margaret had her cochlear implant switched on 14 days ago. She says it is a different world! Wonderful......

[Cathy]

Well done Margaret, all the best for the future.

[Tizer]

Ask her if she can get Radio 4 on it!

[Stanley]

From what she tells me it may be possible. A good use of technology, life-chaging. She says she showed it to Janet and how she could take it off and replace it. I can imagine how fascinated she'd be with it.

[EileenDavid]

Congratulation Margaret on your implant. Not been on site for ages only allowed short bursts on computer. Eye still needs another op to correct the retina which will happen on the 05.04.2013, then at some later date they will remove the oil bubble. Eileen

[Wendyf]

Good to hear from you Eileen, I've been wondering how you are getting on.

[Stanley]

Good luck with it Eileen. The implant is part of Margaret's life now....

[EileenDavid]

Thanks for the good wishes. As Arnie would say I will be back Eileen

[Tizer]

I hope it all gets sorted to your satisfaction Eileen. I'm now in the 5th week of my `hobbling about' due to what the doc says is a `hamstring injury' to my left thigh (at the back where the thigh meets the pelvis). I can only think it was all that time I spent on a stepladder decorating for weeks. Very painful and I can't walk far or stand for long; when sitting or lying in bed it's difficult to get my leg into a painless position. The doc has referred me for physio but says it will be a while before I get an appointment. In the meantime he gave me codeine but it doesn't have much effect and I'm finding paracetamol better. Mrs Tiz is having to do do my jobs, which sounds like life is easy for me, but I'd swap back any time and I'm sorry for her being overloaded what with parental responsibilities too. She's surrounded by invalids! Doc says what I've got is the same as footballers get, but that's not much consolation.