(External Article) For Seniors, Giving Up Car Keys Can Be Traumatic
Funny South Park episodes aside, this is an increasingly sensitive topic that should be handled by the family. Not only should seniors be gently eased from driving responsibilities, but as families we should be creating alternatives so that they in no way lose their independence.
In response to the following article on Physician’s Practice:
Patient Compliance: Why Must It Be So Hard to Follow Doctors’ Orders?
I am fairly good about following doctor’s orders in some matters, but I do have a busy life and long term habits are hard to change. If you want a person to change their habits, sending them home with a packet of things to adjust immediately is going to be impossible and sets your patients up for failure. It takes a minimum of three weeks to change just one habit, and it is hard to change more than one thing at a time (and it takes three to six months of continuous practice before a habit has truly stuck).
Here’s a suggestion: You can still give out that packet of things to change, but try stressing whatever is most important. Say, “Eventually, you are going to have to adjust your lifestyle or x,y,z will happen, but if can only change one thing right now, it is most important that you do THIS. Do you think you can handle that?” If the patient seems confident that they can adjust that one habit (such as taking medication regularly, or getting more exercise), tell them you are going to check back on their progress in 2 or 3 weeks and schedule a follow up appointment accordingly. If the patient seems hesitant to you (or downright resistant), ask them, “well, which of these habits do you think you CAN change now?” It may be something smaller or much less in importance, but perhaps they need a confidence booster before tackling more serious changes. Besides, if the change you really want them to make totally doesn’t fit into their lifestyle, no amount of threats or bullying is going to cause them to change.
In addition, have the materials available to make their lifestyle transitions as easy as possible. If you want them to quit smoking, a listing of smoking cessation classes at various times would be beneficial. Even better, if you have a great staff you could have them schedule those first classes with the patient. They are more likely to attend if they have something already on the calendar before they leave your office, rather than having to make those appointments themselves. Want them to eat better? One doctor in California keeps a listing of healthy recipes that are tasty and easy to make and dispenses them like prescriptions. Go a step further and tell them to call you when they make it and tell you if they liked it or not. Set up that expectation. If they really need to exercise, a list of gyms by their home and work address is easy to locate on the internet, or you could try passing out pedometers and having them keep track of their steps. Or maybe you could ask what roadblocks are stopping them from exercising (which is usually time constraints) and come up with a mini-workout that works for them. Make that mini-workout a part of their office visit. Play tapes like Leslie Sansone – Walk Away the Pounds (Get Up and Get Started 1 Mile / High Calorie Burn 2 Miles) in your waiting room and have staff to encourage sitting folks to try it while they wait for their appointment.
Most people drag when it comes to the initial hurdle of setting up a change. The easier you make it for them to adjust their lifestyle initially, the more likely they are to continue that habit and make the changes that you want to see.
Popular supplement – saw palmetto extract – has no effect on prostate health: study
The most widely used over-the-counter supplement for prostate health is no more effective than a placebo in treating men’s lower urinary tract symptoms.
General article provided by Consumer Affairs.
Consumer Affairs: How to Read Food Expiration Dates and Lot Codes
Just in case you needed yet another reason to quit smoking, I found this wonderful post on all the toxic additives Big Tobacco puts into your smokes. One wonders what the increased cancer risk is between natural, organic tobacco smoking and the horrorshow that is today’s modern cigarette.
Freedom of Medicine and Diet: Misbranded Tobacco Cigarettes post
There are many products to help us with the common cough. Currently, some things you might find include:
antihistamines (eg, brompheniramine, chlorpheniramine, loratadine, and diphenhydramine) which help you to produce less mucus by blocking histamine. Most of them can cause drowsiness and some (such as diphenhydramine) are also packaged as both antihistamines (Benedryl) and sleeping pills (Unisom & Nytol). Later antihistamines, such as loratadine (Claritin) are supposed to be non-drowsy, although truthfully it can be said they cause drowsiness in a much smaller group of people.
decongestants (eg, phenylephrine and pseudoephedrine) which help dry you up by constricting blood vessels. Narrower blood vessels in your sinuses reduces inflammation, but narrower blood vessels elsewhere can be bad if you have conditions such as high blood pressure, arrythmia, or history of stroke. Phenylephrine used to be prescription only (as Entex) and it was pulled from the market voluntarily because a study showed it may increase the risk of stroke. But when the restrictions on pseudoephedrine (Sudafed) tightened to try and reduce the presence of meth (of which, Sudafed is a key ingredient), phenylephrine reappeared as a lower dose over-the-counter. Pseudoephedrine has been linked to heart attack and arrythmia at higher doses, which is why you no longer can buy “little white crosses” or “pink hearts” through the mail. Those “stay-awake pills” were nothing more than 60mg-120mg doses of pseudoephedrine.
antitussives (eg, codeine, dextromethorphan, and benzonatate) are supposed to reduce the cough reflex.
expectorants (guaifenesin) loosen mucus and help you cough it up.
HOW THE FDA AFFECTS YOU:
A little history is necessary to understand the problem we face with some cough medicines today. The original FDA in 1906 was concerned more with accurate labeling than drug safety, and primarily people were worried about dangerous food additives rather than medications. Food and drug labels had to be accurate, and the presence and amount of eleven dangerous ingredients, including alcohol, heroin, and cocaine, had to be listed. In 1938, a new act expanded the FDA to allow them to perform inspections, control cosmetics, and to make it illegal to make false or misleading claims about medical products. This also brought about the first prescription-only medications. But it wasn’t until an amendment in 1962 that the FDA made it necessary to really prove the safety and efficacy of a drug before it went on the market. The problem was what to do about commonly used drugs that had been out long before 1962. Well, those drugs pretty much stayed on the market. That’s why we have stuff like aspirin over-the-counter, even though we still aren’t 100% sure exactly all that it does to the human body. In the past couple of years, the FDA has begun a program to evaluate and possibly remove drugs from the market that were brought out before 1962.
SAFETY OF COUGH MEDICINE QUESTIONED:
Between 2004 and 2005, the CDC reported more than 1500 emergency room visits in which children under two were given some form of cough medication. About 10 of 90 sudden infant deaths involved children under 12 months being given a cough medication, many of them were NOT under a doctor’s supervision at the time. Even worse, various placebo studies over the last twenty years have indicated that cough medications simply don’t work in young children, yet some doctors are unaware of these new studies. Children under 2 also don’t have the ability to process codeine, making it much more lethal.
IMPORTANT NOTES TO REMEMBER! WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
- Don’t give children medicine labeled for adults. Children process medications differently because their livers, etc. aren’t fully developed. It is also more important to base children’s medication on an accurate weight as they have less margin for error. Most bathroom scales are not terribly accurate.
- Buy products with child-resistant caps, but also keep medications out of reach of children and pets. Children are sometimes better at figuring out how to open a bottle than their adult counterparts. And I still tell with horror the tale of the woman who gave her new puppy a prescription of hers to play with. “But it was childproof!” she protested as I explained childproof did not mean puppy-proof. Sure enough, the dog ate the bottom of the bottle right off and then ate her pills and had to be rushed to the vet. I sure hope that woman never has children. Can you imagine giving your child a pill bottle as a fun rattle?
- Don’t go by the brand name. Always check the ingredients list to make sure you aren’t mixing two types of drugs. You can only take one of each category at a time. That means only one type of antihistamine, only one type of decongestant, only one type of pain medication. (Acetaminophen and NSAIDs are pretty much the only type of OTC pain medications which can be taken together on the same day, and that’s another topic altogether.)
- I repeat, FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS. Don’t give more medication than is called for, especially not to your kids. More is not always better. In fact, cough medications may not even work on children as the final studies are still out.
- Use the measuring devices provided with the medication. Don’t use regular silverware to measure out a spoonful. Even kitchen measuring spoons don’t have to be all that accurate.
Medications are not the cure all for every ailment. People get sick, adults catch 2-4 colds a year and kids usually get 3-10 annually. That’s NORMAL. And no medicine can cure the common cold, it only lessens the symptoms to make the cold bearable while it runs its natural course. If your child has a common cold, no medicine is required to make your child well. It will take care of itself in a few days. Now if your child exhibits symptoms that may point to something worse than a simple cold, contact their doctor right away. Don’t wait! A phone call doesn’t hurt anything and nurses on the phone will be able to tell you whether or not your child needs to be seen. Things to be concerned about include high fever (higher than 102), rash with fever, a cough or congestion bad enough to inhibit breathing, or a ‘cold’ that refuses to get any better after 3-5 days.
Article: Pediatricians Call For Stricter Toxic Chemical Rules
Well, what else is new. We are poisoning the very place we live.
But meat industry calls the findings ‘misleading’
This article was NOT written by me. Generally, I avoid copying articles for the blog and prefer to link to the original websites, however this was sent via email only and does not seem to include a corresponding web link. If you would like to recieve Bottom Line’s Daily Health news for yourself, please check out their website at
http://www.bottomlinesecrets.com/index.html
- Buy organic. Certified organic products cannot include GMO ingredients.
- Read labels carefully. Some smart marketers already use a “non-GMO” label on their products and soon you’ll begin seeing a new “Non-GMO Project Verified” seal on thousands of products. This means that the product, even if not organic, has met a uniform non-GMO standard and undergone third-party verification. Also, for dairy products, either buy organic or look for those that are labeled “No rBGH or rbST” or “artificial hormone-free.”
- Beware of red-flag ingredients. Some ingredients are all but certain to be genetically modified if they were grown here in the US. These include soy (an estimated 93% is genetically modified)… sugar beets (95% GM)… corn (86% GM)… and cotton (used for cottonseed oil, 93%).
- Download a free non-GMO shopping guide. To help identify healthier alternatives to the hundreds of unlabeled GM foods, download a free non-GMO shopping guide at http://www.NonGMOShoppingGuide.com . If you have an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, visit the iTunes store for a free ShopNoGMO application. Use these to create a personalized non-GMO favorites list.
| Artificial Sweeteners | Margarine |
| Baking Powder | Mayonnaise |
| Bread | Meat Substitutes |
| Candy | Peanut Butter |
| Canola Oil | Protein Powder |
| Cereal | Rapeseed Oil |
| Chips | Salad Dressing |
| Chocolate | Soda |
| Cookies | Soy Cheese |
| Cornmeal | Soy Flour |
| Cornstarch | Soy Protein |
| Cottonseed Oil | Soy Sauce |
| Crackers | Sugar that is not 100% Cane |
| Dairy Products from GM-Treated Cows | Tamari |
| Enriched Flour (all kinds, not just white) | Tempeh |
| Food Additives | Tofu |
| Fried Foods | Tomato Sauce |
| Frozen Yogurt | Vegetable Oil |
| High-Fructose Corn Syrup | Veggie Burgers |
| Hot Dogs | |
| Ice Cream | |
| Infant Formula |
Jeffrey M. Smith, founder and executive director, Institute for Responsible Technology, Fairfield, Iowa, and author of Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette (Yes! Books). Smith is the producer of the documentaries, “Hidden Dangers in Kids’ Meals” and “Your Milk on Drugs — Just Say No!”
