MEDICAL MATTERS

[plaques]

British Gas,

Just change suppliers. Hit em in their pockets and do yourself a favour at the same time.

[Stanley]

Off Topic

Agreed but have you ever seen a worse time to do it?

[Whyperion]

Dr John Campbell on the latest covid vaccine study in Taiwan . Rather a long one at 18 minutes. He paints a rather disturbing picture that a study of young people taking up the vaccine showed irregular heart problems that have never been discussed at this level before. Campbell The report suggests that the Pfizer vaccine on this age group may be inflicting a high percentage of heart problems, over 4% that could be very serious in the wrong circumstances. He also suggests that since the current vaccines seem not to be affective on the new strains of the virus why are we dosing people up with them?

Worth listening to

Depends what he means by Current Vacines. My understanding is that the Over 60s general boost vaccine is the Moderna one , I think tweaked to cover the most recent two covid variants as well. As to ( Taiwan - was there a danger of a general flow through the population on that island of Covid 19). Taiwan, the problem statistically is IF there was a covid infection would the outcome be worse than the vaccine 'side effects' ? Having said that , what is it in the Pfizer vacine that would so give a heart irregularity - there must be some cause of vaccine stressing or plugging into a specific messaging receptor system.

[Tizer]

`Statin pills rarely cause muscle pain or problems, study finds' LINK

[Big Kev]

`Statin pills rarely cause muscle pain or problems, study finds' LINK

I must be rare

[Wendyf]

Colin too. This isn't new research, Oxford University have been looking at the same study for at least 10 years. They are too tied up with the pharmaceutical companies for my liking.

[Stanley]

I think you all know my attitude to statins, or any other drug that is recommended as a daily fix 'in case of'. I don't need them, my BP is fine and have always refused them. This study alters nothing for me.

[Big Kev]

The Ramiprill will keep your blood pressure nice and stable, studies in 2008 found that statins also reduced blood pressure in some cases.
The original purpose of simvastatins was to reduce cholesterol, mine was 5 mmols (I think that's how they measure it) and I started taking them. Various aches and pains later and I stopped about 15 years ago, the aches and pains went and my cholesterol level is now around 4.5.

[Tizer]

We'll see more of this. It might get blamed on `criminals' but we can be sure Russia and/or China will be the ultimate cause. It's another war of attrition...
`Advanced cyber-attack: NHS doctors' paperwork piles up' LINK
`Doctors say it could take months to process mounting piles of medical paperwork caused by a continuing cyber-attack on an NHS supplier. One out-of-hours GP says patient care is being badly affected as staff enter a fourth week of taking care notes with pen and paper. The ransomware attack against software and services provider Advanced was first spotted on 4 August. The company says it may take another 12 weeks to get some services back online. Criminal hackers took offline seven of Advanced's health systems, including software used for patient check-ins, medical notes and the NHS 111 service.'...

[Stanley]

I haven't seen anything in the news about it at all Peter. Could it be that a zombie Parliament has something to do with the delay?

[plaques]

Colne Health centre 'Richmond practice' has gone onto a new telephone number, I tried 15 times yesterday and got shut off each time. 4 times this morning with the same result. I shall be driving past this morning so I will call in to ask what the problem is. My query was not important but what if it was???

[Tizer]

I haven't seen anything in the news about it at all Peter. Could it be that a zombie Parliament has something to do with the delay?

It's a good time for putting out your bad news when we're all distracted with Tory chaos and Ukraine war. Another bit of news last week that you probably won't have seen is that the regulators have dropped all their actions against the senior HBOS executives after 6 years of investigation over the failure of the company in 2008-09. There was a mention in The Times on Saturday and I've now found this on the FT dated 26 August...
`HBOS managers escape regulatory action after 6-year probe: Inquiry closed following ‘rigorous and forensic investigations’ into crisis banking scandal' FT
`UK regulators will not take any action against the managers of collapsed bank HBOS, coming up empty-handed after a six-year probe into the failure of the £25bn lender during the 2008-09 financial crisis. The Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority said on Friday that “no enforcement action should be taken” against those responsible for one of the UK’s worst banking scandals and that they had closed their investigations.'...

[plaques]

Colne Health centre 'Richmond practice' has gone onto a new telephone number, I tried 15 times yesterday and got shut off each time. 4 times this morning with the same result. I shall be driving past this morning so I will call in to ask what the problem is.

The answer was,,, problems with the new number. Use the old number 01282 731731 until its resolved.

[Stanley]

We almost get to accept cock-ups as the norm don't we. I suppose it's all part of re-educating the great unwashed to accept their lot in life. My own personal cross is having to put up with BG cocking up my gas bill for 11 months.
Back to topic.... That's good Ken, you can enquire about your piles now!

[Tizer]

Mrs Tiz has returned from a one-week trip to N. Ireland with the local U3A Geology group. She enjoyed it and visited some very interesting places (for geologists!) but her luck changed on the way back. First, their EasyJet flight to leave Belfast got delayed in Germany due to problems at the airport, then delayed again after landing at Belfast again due to ground operations. They arrived at Bristol Airport in the early hours of Sunday morning and therefore missed the evening bus for the one-hour trip to Taunton. No more buses and no taxis available from Taunton. They had to club together and order taxis from a big firm so she ended up with 4 of them sharing a £140 trip home - at least they were taken to their front doors.

Second, on Sunday she felt unwell and tested +ve for Covid and we've since heard from a number of the other members who are also +ve. She's got cold type symptoms so it seems mild. I've tested -ve so far. There was a lady in the U3A group who was coughing all the time and may have been the source of the infection, especially because she seemed to have mild dementia and shouldn't really have gone on the trip. For example she kept packing her bags thinking it was time to leave and the others had to keep telling her she was wrong. She was also prone to falling over. Fortunately one of the group knows who her daughter is and will warn her.

[Wendyf]

I hope Mrs Tiz gets better soon. Do you have access to antivirals if you get Covid Tiz?

[Tizer]

Mrs Tiz seems OK, it's affecting her like a bad cold - sniffles, weary, weak - and she doesn't feel threatened by it. As for your question, my first response was `I've no idea' so I asked google. As far as I can tell I would only be eligible if I was `at highest risk of getting seriously ill from COVID-19'. Officially I don't fall in that category. My poor breathing would make serious Covid more difficult for me but I'm not even diagnosed as COPD. After all the testing about 12 years ago I was told they couldn't find any cause and I would `just have to live with it'. I didn't qualify for an inhaler because my breathing test was just inside the OK limit. Of course if I did get into serious trouble with a respiratory disease my breathing problem might get taken more seriously! Thanks for asking about it!

But the important thing is that at present I'm feeling no different to normal! I suppose it might be one more of those strange but relatively common instances were one partner gets it but doesn't pass it on to the other.

[Whyperion]

Check if probs with GP for one or both types of asthama inhaler - they can help with cough, but the present covid does seem more back of throat and endless running nose, will also leave you knackered for six weeks. Keep up the Vit C input esp fresh and tinned fruit and herbal /fruit teas (rather than coffee or bush teas)

[Stanley]

Please give Mrs T my love Peter and tell her I'm sorry a good trip ended so badly.
I'm booked for my Flu and Covid booster jabs on the 22nd. Fingers crossed!

[Tizer]

She'll see your concerns when she does her daily read of OG! She's coping well, and up and about. I'm still in normal health, thank goodness. Coincidentally, her sister and sister's husband who live near High Wycombe are both recovering from Covid. They're younger than us but had worse symptoms.

Although in today's news, this story has been developing for at least 7 years but I'm glad to see it's being taken seriously. Because of my past experience with analysis of very low concentrations of chemicals I've long thought more could be done in this way for disease detection. If James Lovelock hadn't invented his super-sensitive detector for chemicals in the atmosphere we wouldn't have got warning about the ozone hole early enough to change our ways...
`Super-smeller helps scientists develop test to spot Parkinson's' LINK

[Cathy]

Good story Tize, hopefully a lot more will come of it to benefit more people.
When my daughter was a youngster, I always knew if she wasn’t well, because to me, she smelt different.

[Stanley]

That reminds me of all my dogs, when I had a pee they had a sniff. I'm sure they were checking my health. We've used them as diagnosis tools for some diseases for many years haven't we. We just needed something as sensitive as their noses!

[Tizer]

...and that's where James Lovelock came in!

[Stanley]

I didn't know that Peter....

[Tizer]

Scientists had been using flame ionization detectors (FID)and thermal conductivity detectors (TCD) to measure the amounts of chemicals in living tissues, seawater, the atmosphere etc. Alone in his workshop he invented the electron capture detector (ECD) which was up to a thousand times more sensitive than FID and a million times more than TCD.
-------------------------------------------------------------

Covid update...Mrs Tiz is gradually getting better, still weary, dry throat and sniffing but on the way up. I've been fine - until 01.00 last night when I woke up with coughing, running nose, mouth like the bottom of a budgie's cage and lots of mucus to clear. I thought it might be a secondary bacterial sore throat but a Covid test this morning showed +ve. I suppose I would get me sooner or later but it's a bit annoying when you've fended it of for so long! Never mind, I could be worse. Got to get better in the next two weeks so I'll be able to go on our Cornwall holiday!