How Celiac Disease May Affect Your Risk for Gallbladder Disease
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on verywell.health.
I am posting, as I am a coeliac, who has had gallstone problems and want to be able to find the article easily in the future.
Moonshot Is The Spanner In The Covid-19 Works The Country Needs
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Times.
This is the sub-title of the article.
Antivirals like molnupiravir are the third line in our long-term fight against coronavirus.
The article describes how scientists in Oxfordshire looked for an antiviral that could be Covid-19’s nemesis, which Tom Whipple called molecular kryptonite.
The American pharmaceutical[ molnupiravir has been the first antiviral to be licenced for Covid-19, but it is pricey.
But helped by the Diamond Light Source, it appears that, progress has been made in Oxfordshire.
Tom Whipple says this.
After 18 months of study they last week gained funding from the Wellcome Trust to narrow the options to one, in a project called Covid Moonshot.
And this.
The goal of Moonshot is a generic drug that is cheap, plentiful and, a stipulation of the project, off-patent from the beginning.
Has the Diamond Light Source has struck again?
- The Diamond Light Source And COVID-19
- The Diamond Light Source And Ebola
- The Diamond Light Source And Malaria
The Diamond Light Source might have cost £ 400 million and needs a budget of £ 40 million a year to run, but it is certainly starting to pay back the investment.
Pfizer Booster Dose Offers Exceptionally High Levels Of Protection Against Covid And All Variants, Study Shows
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the Independent.
The title says everything except that the protection is 95.6 % from a study of 10,000 people.
How are the anti-vaxxers going to explain that one away?
Perhaps if the old one-two works in boxing, it also works with vaccines.
I Had My Covid-19 Booster Jab Today
I had my second Covid-19 vaccination on April 19th.
Yesterday, I received a text message and an e-mail inviting me to book a booster jab.
I was able to book the jab for 9:45, this morning, when I had it in a local pharmacy.
There seemed to be a big difference in attitude this time. For the first two jabs, there was a positive almost happy atmosphere, but today it was much more subdued, with everybody waiting looking almost miserable.
Could it be, that everybody getting fed up with the covids?
Enforcement Of Covid-19 Vaccine Passports Comes Into Effect In Scotland
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on ITV.
I am going to Edinburgh on Wednesday and thought I had better check if I needed a Covid-19 passport.
This paragraph describes where I will need one.
The policy will now be enforceable for nightclubs, strip clubs and unseated indoor events with more than 500 people, unseated outdoor events with over 4,000 and any event with more than 10,000 people.
As I’m only likely to have lunch with less than five fully-vaccinated friends, I’m fairly certain I won’t need one.
I’m also certain at my age, I won’t be visiting any strip clubs.
And given the going on you get with hypodermics in the average night club, I wouldn’t visit any of those if you paid me thousands of pounds.
It should be remembered that my family has issues with identity cards and their cousins.
My father ceremonially burned his wartime one, when he found it around 1955 and gave me a warning about ever letting governments introduce them.
Defibrillators Installed At Every Southern And Thameslink Train Station
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Argus.
The title says it all!
It is obviously a good development.
I also think, that there should be instructions by the defibrillator, as to the quickest way to call medical help.
Goodbye To My Gallstones
It is now some weeks since I said goodbye to my gallstones.
They were in my bile duct and were discovered by using an ultrasound probe on an endoscopy at Homerton Hospital. I didn’t even put on a hospital gown.
I had that endoscopy, as I did my two previous ones at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge to check for coeliac disease without a sedative, as Addenbrooke’s likes to be efficient and cutting out sedatives reduces the manpower required, cuts the need for recovery beds and allows patients to drive home.
After this endoscopy, I came home the way I arrived – on the bus!
I would say that a good endoscopy operator should be able to do the procedure without a sedative. Although in this case, the nurse holding the oxygen tubes up my nose, was stroking my beard to calm me down. Not that I needed it! But it was a nice action!
I had the removal of the gallstones with a sedative, but I only remember the anaesthetist saying something like “Lovely” as he threaded the camera and attachments down my throat.
They broke into my bile duct from the duodenum and then inserted a balloon, which was then inflated to flush the stones back into my duodenum.
I must have dropped off and I woke without any pain or even discomfort.
One complication for me, was that I am on Warfarin, but I dropped my INR to one before the operation, so that there wasn’t blood everywhere.
I have had some after effects.
Where Has My Constipation Gone?
Since I was about sixty, I have suffered from constipation and my GP has prescribed a laxative.
I felt it was a family trait as my father was also a sufferer.
But since the operation, I have only taken one pill, that may not have been necessary.
My Appetite Has Returned
I am certainly eating better and I have not put on any weight.
Conclusion
If you have gallstones and removal is suggested, go for it!
Who Stole All The M & S Gluten-Free Food?
Over the last few weeks, certain gluten-free lines in Marks and Spencer have started getting difficult to find.
Some of the things, I like that have been difficult have included.
- Ginger snap biscuits.
- Gluten-free pies
- Scones
- Bloomer slices
- Gluten-free muesli
Note that my supper is usually something I cook myself from scratch or one of the many M & S ready meals, that contain no gluten. It is usually washed down by a bottle of Adnams low-alcohol beer and followed by some fruit. Tonight, the fruit will be one of my favourites, which are strawberries and bananas.
I did think that the shortage of the lines I mentioned was due to a supply problem.
But then, there have not been shortages of other lines, that I buy, that are not specifically gluten-free.
So is it some gluten-free suppliers are having problems? Possibly.
But!
Regular readers of this blog will know that I believe that those coeliacs on a long-term gluten free diet seem to be unlikely to suffer a severe dose of the dreaded covids. There was no battle with the second dose!
I know for a start that my immune system gives short shift to any viral invaders, as it did with the AstraZeneca vaccine before they came to a truce.
So have others, including some with more medical knowledge than myself, come to the same conclusion about coeliac disease, the immune system, gluten and the covids and have gone gluten-free for safety?
For example, I’ve heard that those suffering from long covid have been tested for coeliac disease.
I’d love to be able to analyse the sales of gluten-free food.
Historic Go-Ahead For Malaria Vaccine To Protect African Children
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the first paragraph.
Children across much of Africa are to be vaccinated against malaria in a historic moment in the fight against the deadly disease.
The vaccine has been developed by GSK, who have their headquarters on the Golden Mile in Brentford.
The vaccine is called RTS,S and is described like this in the first paragraph of its Wikipedia entry.
RTS,S/AS01 (trade name Mosquirix) is a recombinant protein-based malaria vaccine.
Approved for use by European regulators in July 2015, it is the world’s first licensed malaria vaccine and also the first vaccine licensed for use against a human parasitic disease of any kind. The RTS,S vaccine was conceived of and created in the late 1980s by scientists working at SmithKline Beecham Biologicals (now GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines) laboratories in Belgium. The vaccine was further developed through a collaboration between GSK and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and has been funded in part by the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Its efficacy ranges from 26 to 50% in infants and young children. On 23 October 2015, the World Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) and the Malaria Policy Advisory Committee (MPAC) jointly recommended a pilot implementation of the vaccine in Africa.
When you consider how fast the Covid-19 vaccines were developed, this might appear to have taken a long time to be developed. But then as Wikipedia states, “this is the first vaccine licensed for use against a human parasitic disease of any kind.”
I can’t describe this as anything other than good news.
Life After Pancreatic Cancer
The London Marathon always throws up human stories.
This one from the Argus, which is entitled Youngest London Marathon Runner Raising Funds For Medics Who Saved Her Life, is one of the best I can remember.
These are the first two paragraphs.
The youngest runner in the London Marathon is undertaking the challenge to raise money for the medics who saved her life by carrying out surgery to remove a tumour from her gut the size of a large grapefruit.
Lucy Harvey, from Poole, Dorset, was admitted to Poole Hospital in January 2019 with appendicitis, but the pre-op scans identified a mass on her pancreas.
This story has really touched me.
- My son died at 37 from pancreatic cancer.
- His daughter, who is now eighteen, was born with a congenital hernia of the diaphragm and was saved by heroic surgery in the Royal London Hospital by Vanessa Wright.
- I support pancreatic cancer research at Liverpool University, where I met my late wife in the 1960s.
- I raised a little bit of money, for the pancreatic cancer study I talk about in There’s More To Liverpool Than Football And The Beatles!.
My granddaughter now lives a reasonably normal life!
The Anonymous Widower 