A Robust View On Homeopathy In The Times
Professor Michael Baum is an amazing doctor and surgeon, who I have had the pleasure of meeting.
In The Times today, he has a letter published about accreditation of homoeopaths to the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA).
He writes this memorable sentence.
From now on they will be able to check if their homoeopathic doctor is a fully trained quack or simply someone masquerading as a quack.
I do not believe in anything that can’t be scientifically proven by rigorous methods. The three at the top of my list are religion, homoeopathy and many of the zanier and animal-unfriendly aspects of Chinese medicine.
To Live A Long Life Keep Your Waistline At Half Your Height
This is the headline of an article in the Sunday Times reporting on a study from the City University.
I’m 1.71 tall and my waist is about 80 centimetres. Although I have no proof, I think I’m the same size, as when I left Liverpool University in 1968.
So I think I qualify.
But then so did C and our youngest son and both are not here now!
Two personal stories would appear to support the research.
One of my father’s heroes as he saw him box, was the incomparable Ted “Kid” Lewis. The Aldgate Sphinx was probably a similar size naturally to both my father and myself, although towards the end of his boxing career, he fought and won at light-heavyweight. But he lived until he was 75.
I also used to live in Newmarket and knew several retired jockeys well past sixty. Many were still trim and seemed to be pursuing a very active live. Someone should research the health and life of jockeys!
For these reasons, I intend to stay this size for the rest of my life. Especially, as it’s so much cheaper, as I don’t have to keep buying new clothes.
Does The NHS Need Physician Associates?
There have been reports about using these in the NHS over the last few days. One article in the Independent is entitled, NHS patients to be seen by doctors on the cheap. It starts with.
Patients will increasingly be seen by “physician associates” rather than doctors under Government plans despite fears they are “doctors on the cheap”, according to a report.
I have seen a lot of doctors and hospitals over the last ten years, what with the death of my wife and son to cancer and my stroke. What is different now, to what I remember of the NHS in the 1960s and 1970s, is that nurses now play a larger role.
Does anybody bother?
Some might, but I’ve never heard anybody complain, that the nurse did a job, that a doctor might have not delegated forty years ago.
So when it comes to physician associates, I have an open mind.
Or I did until I read the letters page of The Times today, where four serious letters from eminent medical professionals were very much supportive of physician associates.
Now I’ve changed my open mind to one that is totally in favour!
Two Coeliacs At The Football
At the football last night, the stand wasn’t full and we could sit where we liked.
I ended up sitting next to this guy about my age and as one does we got talking.
It turned out he was another coeliac, who like me bad been diagnosed in later life. In his case, it had been twelve years ago at Ipswich hospital.
We swapped stories about bread and recipes, but what surprised me was that he’d never seen or heard of Nakd bars. So I gave him a piece of my half-time snack. Quite a few of my non-gluten-free friends in London eat them, as they tick so many boxes and they are pretty easy to find in most supermarkets.
Is Drug Packaging Distinctive Enough?
I take quiet a few medicinal drugs. Every day, I test my INR and then put the drugs for the next twenty-four hours in an old black 35 mm. film canister, which fits neatly into the bag I generally carry or a pocket of my coat.
When I go away for a few days, I put the required drugs plus a few for luck, in a white film container, which I then transfer to the black one every morning.
Look at these two pictures of two strips of drugs.
One is Spirolactone and the other is 1 mg. Warfarin. When I went to Glasgow because I was in a hurry, I took two Warfarin instead of two Spirolactone. It didn’t matter in this case, but for others similar mistakes could be more serious. A contributory factor in this mistake, was that Boots have started to give me a differently packaged brand of the Warfarin.
The top side of the drug packaging should be distinctive. I think too, that the old brand of Warfarin had the writing on the back in the same colour as the drug. i.e. brown in this case. The new one is just an anonymous black.
Centralised Stroke Care Is Good For You
I had what some doctors have described as a serious stroke, although I think it might not have been that severe, although it did leave me with damaged eyesight.
I had the stroke in Hong Kong and within about an hour, I was in hospital receiving the special clot busting drug.
But if I’d had that stroke in London, I would have probably had that drug in the ambulance and I would have been in hospital within thirty minutes.
In common with Manchester, London has centralised stroke care in what are called hyperacute stroke units or HASUs. And according to research published in the BMJ, they work well and save lives and money for the NHS. Read all about the system in the Guardian. The article finishes like this.
So what’s stopping this system from being rolled out in other metropolitan areas? It’s a question that Morris’s collaborators are seeking to answer, by studying the potential barriers and facilitators of country-wide stroke unit reconfiguration. Morris himself wants to look at the cost-effectiveness of the exercise: does the improvement in care and reduction in hospital (and hospice) stays make the reconfiguration worthwhile?
There are a few hundred people alive today who would undoubtedly answer “yes”.
My life may not have been saved by a HASU, but I did have similar care.
Admittedly, not every hospital could have a HASU, but most metropolitan areas could and should.
If you take where I used to live near Cambridge, and you draw a thirty-minute ambulance ride area around Addenbrookes hospital, you would enclose about 300,000 people. So it is not just the large metropolitan areas that would benefit.
Everyone possible, should be within range of a HASU.
Lose Weight Whilst You Sleep In A Cooler Bedroom
It sounds too good to be true, but read this article from the New York Times.
Is This The Future Of Patient Monitoring?
As anybody who has spent time in hospital connected to a traditional heart, blood pressure, pulse and temperature monitor will know, it is not an easy process. Leads fall off, moving around is difficult and you are often in need of staff. I’ve only spent time recently in good hospitals, where they were enough staff to check on me regularly and that includes two NHS hospitals. But in one NHS hospital, I had a private room and a quick visual check as the nurse passed by wouldn’t have been possible.
In some ways the current system is like driving a car without a fuel gauge and every few miles, you have to get out to dip the tank to see if you’ve enough fuel to carry on.
But then enter the engineers!
I have just watched this story on BBC Breakfast Here’s the first three paragraphs.
The NHS is starting to test a sticking-plaster-sized patient-monitoring patch.
Placed on the chest, it wirelessly transmits data on heart rate, breathing and body-temperature while the patient is free to move around.
Independent experts say the system, developed in Britain, could ease pressure on wards and has the potential to monitor patients in their own home.
I think we all have to remember, that this is the first device. No-one would be able to predict how far this technology will go. And how a healthcare system like the will be able to use it in the future!
On the other hand, there is also this statement in the story.
But the Royal College of Nursing says there is no substitute for having enough staff.
In some ways that shows what a good system it must be, as the Luddites and Nimbys always try to stop good developments.
Read more about the company; Sensium Healthcare, behind the development here.
As it’s got one or more ultra-low power chips in there somewhere, is this another application of technology from ARM?
Wasting My Licence Fee
The BBC has just broadcast an interview with some Islamic nutcase.
Why is the BBC wasting my licence fee, giving fantasists like this time on the airwaves?
He might even be able to find out if jihadists go to heaven in a few days or weeks!
INR Results Of A Coeliac Using Warfarin And Taking Terbinafine
This graph shows my INR a period between the 20th of May and the 25th of June.
I should say that I have a degree in Control Engineering from Liverpool University.
My aim here is to keep my INR between two and three, with a target value of 2.5.
Since starting to self test, I normally take around 4 mg. a day of Warfarin, but I have found that five is a better dose for when I’m taking Terbinafine, which has been prescribed by my GP for a fungal infection. The drug is well-known to affect the action of the Warfarin.
So now I take 5 mg. unless the INR is 2.8 or more. In which case I reduce the dose from five to four. On the other hand, if the level is 2.2 or below, I increase it to six.
The average INR value for the period shown was 2.6 with a standard variation of 0.2.
The peak at the beginning of June may have been caused by a B12 injection or hot weather. Both of which seem to raise my INR.
You will notice that the INR went up around the beginning of June. I can’t be sure, as I don’t have the dates, but this may have been caused by having a B12 injection.
The Anonymous Widower 