Lose Weight Or You Don’t Get the Operation
There has been a piece on the BBC about how doctors in Hertfordshire are saying overweight patients should lose weight before operations. Here’a more from an article in the St. Albans Review.
Overweight patients have been told to shift excess pounds before they are allowed operations such as hip and knee replacement, tonsil removal or gall bladder surgery.
It is hoped the new policy will result in patients being in a better state to recover following non-urgent procedures.
One doctor has recently told me, that obesity will bankrupt the NHS.
So I am all in favour of the policy of the doctors in Hertfordshire being replicated elsewhere.
A Quick Calculation
A doctor has just said that each faulty breast implant replacement will cost about £16,000
If there are 40,000 faulty implants in the UK, that works out at £640 million
My wife died of a rare cancer and that money spent on cancer research would help a lot more people and not just the vain and the stupid!
If you feel strongly about this, there’s an e-petition on the government’s web site.
Vinny Jones Shows He’s All Heart
Vinny Jones has got involved in publicity for the British Heart Foundation. The details and a video are here.
It should be remembered that his wife, Tanya, has had a heart transplant and I think he’s done work for the BHF before.
I actually think the whole concept of the video is rather good, as it’s very simply put together and you remember his message.
It Appears There’s No Breast Implant Database
For every car my father owned, he kept a book in which he wrote all the service details and modifications he made. He was typical of many in the 1950s and 1960s, who looked after all details of their cars.
Nowadays we don’t do that, but if you buy a vehicle these days and have it serviced properly, everything is recorded on a computer database. And when you buy a second hand car, you can usually have access to this data to check, you’re not buying a ringer.
According to a letter in The Times today from the president of the Royal College of Surgeons, there is no such requirement for comprehensive details to be kept on breast implants and other cosmetic surgical procedures. However, the letter states that for joint replacements, there is a very successful National Joint Registry, that is analysed to detect problems before they become serious.
Why is there no registry for breast implants and cosmetic surgery? Obviously, such a registry would put up the cost of the surgery! If this discouraged the vane idiots, it might not be a bad idea, but I suspect it wouldn’t as they’d just go somewhere outside of the reach of the registry.
It would appear that many of us take better care of our cars than our bodies!
More On Those French Breast Implants
The phone-in on Radio 5, this morning was all about the failing French breast implants. I’ve made my views clear before and my views haven’t changed.
As the phone-in proceeded, two thoughts occurred to me.
In the first place, if I do something that is dangerous, like driving a car or flying in an aeroplane, it is prudent to insure myself in case anything goes wrong.
Having an operation is a dangerous business, especially in a non A&E Hospital. A friend had a hip transplant privately in a good private clinic, but it all went wrong and he died. The general feeling is that if he’d had the same operation in the local hospital with A&E, he would have survived.
So before you have an operation, you should have insurance in case it all goes wrong! For most operations done by the NHS, this is the case. Another friend had a hip transplant that failed in I think Addenbrooke’s, so it was replaced and the second one is much better.
Judging by many of the women who spoke this morning, many had their implants inserted in clinics, where profit was the motive, not good care. Some can’t even have been that good, as they have now folded. But where is the insurance? Obviously, the patients didn’t check what would happen if all went wrong. But I suppose proper insurance, would have meant that the operation would have been too expensive.
The other thought occurred to me, when a doctor on the programme, said that implants of any sort, only rarely rupture.
C never had any form of plastic surgery, but she did have breast cancer.
It is interesting to note, how she might have got breast cancer. She had a Mercedes coupe, which could not be described as anything but a quality car. She was hit by another vehicle and the air-bag deployed as it should.
It left her with a large and deep bruise on her left breast.
And where did she get the cancer? In the same place as the bruise. She mentioned this to her oncologist and he said that he’d seen this sort of thing before. I also searched the Internet and found women who claimed their breast cancer occurred, where they had been hit hard by a tennis ball.
So when a doctor claims that a breast implant can’t rupture, I’m dubious!
Eating Healthily On The Cheap
The Government has got together with Ainsley Harriott to promote healthy eating on the cheap.
Where I live in Hackney my letter box is stuffed full of money off vouchers for kebab and burger houses.
This campaign will fail, unless the problem of junk food is addressed.
Perhaps the rates on all unhealthy eating places should be increased.
Good Riddance To That Tooth
I broke the tooth many years ago and a couple of dentists had tried to fill it, but it always caused me a certain amount of pain. I don’t remember how I broke it, but I think it might have been on a bread roll in a Michelin-starred restaurant in Italy. The only person, who could know is C, and she has been gone for over four years now.
After the stroke it got painful and no matter what I did, it was giving me pain. Since the stroke it seemed to have got worse and I often thought it smelt of something like rotten fish. It will be three weeks tomorrow, since I had the tooth finally removed in the Royal London.
Since then, I’ve been to dentists twice to have a look at it and one gave me some antibiotics. A few days or so a small piece of tooth came through the gum.
Yeserday though, another piece came out and it was about the size of a child’s front tooth. The gum bled a bit, but by the time I got to bed and after a whisky, it was OK.
I also slept very well and long and woke without any tooth pain. And that means also none in the left hand side of my face for the first time in a year.
Strangely, my left hand seems to be working better in the typing.
It’ll be interesting to see what my dentist says, when he reviews it all on Wednesday.
My only regret is that I’d had it out a year ago. Or even earlier.
The Scottish Toothache Cure
Since my tooth was taken out, I have been in quite a bit of pain. Today it is a lot better, as a splinter of the tooth has just appeared in my mouth. It probably sneaked out through the gum, by the side of another tooth.
I can’t take Ibuprofen and paracetamol has helped, but the only thing that has really dulled the pain has been a small Scotch and water. My father was the same and preferred it to any pain killer. But then if the eminent Hugh Pennington recommends it, it must be right.
Accessing Medical Records On Line
The government is thinking of allowing this.
I’m all for it!
At my previous doctor’s surgery, I was allowed to read my then paper notes with impunity and often did with the nurse when she gave me my B12 injection every couple of months or so. I found the free access very useful, but unfortunately my notes for the first twenty years of my life have been lost and they might have been very helpful in sorting out my various allergies in addition to the coeliac disease.
Over the last few years, I’ve often posted medical details and results of any tests, such as those for cholesterol, in this blog, so I can access them easily, if I need them.
Last summer, when I had the stroke in Hong Kong, some of what I had posted proved a help to the doctors and possibly hastened my recovery. It certainly cut down the number of blood tests.
So, the government’s proposal to put all our medical notes on line is to me a very positive step towards providing better health care. We should also be allowed to add our own comments and observations. For instance, I’ve just had a tooth extracted and that should be added, as should my supervised experiments with Keppra.
Drowsiness and Keppra
For most of this year I’ve been feeling drowsy at times.
Often during the day, I’d fall asleep on the floor and sleep for several hours.
A couple of weeks ago, I went to see my neurologist and he didn’t think I should get drowsy so easily.
He suggested one of two things.
- Take the two 250mg Keppra tablets together in one go with my statin, just before bed.
- Change the drug to something else.
I decided to try the first and it’s a case of so far so good. In the last two weeks, the drowsiness has fallen and for the last few days, I haven’t felt drowsy at all, except when I should be. I am keeping a database and will publish it in a month or so.
The Anonymous Widower 