Tag Archives: news

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Who snew?

Who snew the snow was falling deep
with votes to vote before we sleep
we’ll march for miles with votes to keep
breach of promise makes us weep

I go pogo Hellno no no
who snew the snow won’t make school no go
cold students trudge to bus oh so slow
school on a snow day sorrow blow woe

who snew the temperature would snow melt?
icy drips and drops from trees pelt
my cat on leash slips grumpy fur felt
my vote is cast against gilt hair hell bent

Who snew that science snews would soon die?
fentenyl kills like a drive by
kills more than heroin or meth, oh my my
science silenced while liars cry die

Who hopes for sanity not war?
who casts a vote to help the poor?
who snows the prophets words once more
are used to profit from human gore

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drkottaway’s werewolf theory

Papers about antibodies and immune system responses are proliferating. About Chronic Lyme disease, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, long haul Covid-19. We are near the tipping point of understanding vastly much more about the immune system, though understanding what is happening and being able to “fix” it are poles apart. You have to invent the germ theory before you can invent an antibiotic.

Allopathic medicine currently says that behavioral health disorders are caused by “neurotransmitter imbalances” in the brain. That’s a bunch of vague hooey, isn’t it? There is one mouse neuron that has been studied and has 300 different kinds of receptors for serotonin. Scientists blocked one and the mice acted obsessive compulsive. That was one kind of receptor. They are trying to figure out the other 299 and what they do in combination. Does this sound like we understand the brain? No, it doesn’t.

BUT there are papers about antibodies. Antibodies can mimic neurotransmitters, like dopamine, like serotonin, like adrenaline, like norepinephrine. Hmmmm. With multiple different types of receptors for each neurotransmitter, the antibodies could be specific for some receptors and not others. The antibodies could block the receptor, like the wrong key in a lock. Or the antibody could act like a key and turn the receptor on.

One barrier to understanding Long Haul Covid-19 and chronic fatigue as autoimmune diseases is that they do not cause a rise in the usual inflammatory markers. Those are the ESR (erythrocyte sedimentation rate) and CRP (um, I forget — oh, C-reactive protein). This does not mean that there is no inflammation or that these are not autoimmune disorders. This means we have not found a diagnostic marker. Rheumatoid arthritis can be “sero-positive”, with a positive rheumatoid factor marker. Or it can be “sero-negative”, with a negative rheumatoid factor lab, but it’s still rheumatoid arthritis.

What does this have to do with werewolves? Great question! I am thinking about the adaptive advantage of making antibodies to our own neurotransmitter receptors. How could that POSSIBLY be an advantage? What it means is that when someone is very very ill, or very very stressed, or both, at a certain point the immune system starts making crisis antibodies. These cause neurotransmitter and other symptoms. Brain fog, obsessive compulsive disorder, anxiety, muscle pain, fatigue and on down some very long lists. A recent study of fibromyalgia patients looked at 8 antibodies. One was an antibody to the GABA receptor. All of the patients had some of the antibodies, none of them had all of them, and they all had different patterns. So there is no marker and the neurotransmitter antibody could explain brain function changes.

Why werewolves? I am thinking of the old legends that are embedded in multiple countries and languages. Werewolves, demons, vampires, angels. My fourth pneumonia has left a problem: I can’t tolerate gluten any more. We did the antibody tests last week. I think they will be negative, because my gluten intolerance is relatively mild. I can have a tiny bit. People with bad celiac really can’t have any. I may have an antibody that is either a low level or one that has not been described yet. So with repeated infections, four pneumonias plus the exposure to my mother’s antibodies to tuberculosis in the womb, I now have what is looking like a permanent change in diet. This pneumonia started in March 2021, so it’s over a year. I had diverticulitis after that in August. I ate a piece of tempura two months later and thought, ooops, that has gluten! The next day I hurt in the same place as the diverticulitis and decided that I would stay well away from gluten for a while.

The adaptive advantage of having antibodies that change our diet or character or make us stronger or weaker would be to force us to change. To leave a community. To ask for help. To hide during a pandemic. To fight or be suspicious of everyone. Being a grumpy werewolf might save your life in a pandemic, as long as you don’t break any laws and eat someone. A friend likes the dark and hibernates and likes protein best: vampire or bear? I am not sure, maybe a vampire bear. Chronic fatigue seems to “save” or at least stop people from working 20 hours a day and driving themselves to illness. I am not saying that chronic fatigue is good or fun: but it might be adaptive. Brain fog and stiff muscles: zombies, anyone?

Can we do anything to prevent ourselves from getting these mysterious but probably autoimmune disorders? Yes. Lower stress. BUT WE ARE IN A PANDEMIC. Yes, but we can still lower stress. Here are three things to do:

  1. Do not work yourself into the ground, into illness, into the grave. Take breaks.
  2. BREATHE. A simple exercise to quiet the nervous system is to breathe in four seconds and out for seconds. You have to pay attention or count, unless you do it as part of facing a wall meditating, but it works. The veterans I worked with agreed that this works and they are not an easy crowd to please.
  3. LOLCATS or whatever makes you laugh. Sit under a tree. Throw rocks in the water at the beach. Play with a child’s toy with or without the child. (Remember to share.) Sit in a rocking chair and rock gently. Go for a walk, slowly, no ear buds. Listen to the birds. Watch the tops of trees move in the wind. This quiets the sympathetic fight or flight response and switches us to the relaxed parasympathetic. Do this every day at least once.

These all quiet the nervous system which in turn quiets the immune system.

But wait, some people are in a war zone or a disaster zone or an earthquake! Yes. Help them. Get them out. Send something locally or internationally. Give something to your local “buy nothing” group or Heifer or one of the groups in your town: Rotary, Soroptmists, Elks, your local Area Aging help group.

And that is Drkottaway’s Werewolf Theory, a work in progress, under study. I need NIH West. Contact me to start the fund drive.

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References:

Overview of fibromyalgia: https://www.verywellhealth.com/autoimmunity-neuroinflammation-in-fibromyalgia-5197944

Fibromyalgia as an autoimmune disorder: https://spondylitis.org/research-new/fibromyalgia-might-be-an-autoimmune-disorder-a-new-study-says/

They have given human antibodies from fibromyalgia patients to mice. The mice get fibromyalgia. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41584-021-00679-y

I took the photograph of Sol Duc today.

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Covid-19: A tiny bit of good news

This: https://www.healio.com/news/primary-care/20211216/teen-drug-use-decreased-during-pandemic-survey-finds.

“Since 1975, the Monitoring the Future survey, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, has been tracking substance use among adolescent students in the U.S.”

The numbers are interesting, aren’t they? “There was a sharp decrease in reported use (of alcohol) among 10th graders, from 40.7% in 2020 to 28.5% in 2021, and a mild decrease among 12th graders, from 55.3% in 2020 to 46.5%.”

What do YOU think the cause is? More parental supervision or less in person time with peers or something else or both? The news yammers about increased behavioral health issues and “crisis, crisis, crisis” but hello, it’s normal to be stressed during this. Learning to handle stress is important and useful. My elderly patients who lived alone came in to clinic after the first couple months of Covid-19, because they needed human contact. Since I had a one doctor clinic with me and a receptionist, my clinic was safer than the grocery store. We screened everyone for Covid-19 symptoms before they came in and diverted them to the testing site if they had symptoms. Only two of my people got Covid-19 by the time I closed, and both had traveled out of state. Neither one came in to clinic. They went and got tested because of symptoms.

Anyhow, I think it’s both parental supervision and less peer time in person. There is still a significant amount of alcohol consumed. A previous study of well off and very well off households showed increased risk of addiction by age 22 and 25 because 1. money 2. opportunity 3. parents more inclined to be in denial. Parents would turn a blind eye if grades were good. The biggest correlations for NOT being addicted were 1. family dinners and 2. parents who yapped about drugs/alcohol/addiction quite a lot. Caring, I think. Not giving up as the child enters their teens, but staying present and opinionated. Not to mention setting an example of moderation. The households where the parents use methamphetamines or heroin locally are higher risk for the teens.

More here: https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/trends-statistics/monitoring-future

This fits the Ragtag Daily Prompt: enigma.

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hypertension: The 2017 Clinical Guidelines

A visual guide to the new hypertension guidelines: https://www.medpagetoday.com/cardiology/hypertension/69399
In writing: http://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/ten-points-to-remember/2017/11/09/11/41/2017-guideline-for-high-blood-pressure-in-adults
I don’t watch television news, so I always hear about these things from patients first. “What do you think of the new hypertension guidelines?”

“Haven’t heard about them yet, so I don’t know.” Seems pretty embarrassing really, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t I be alerted as a doctor before it hits the news?

First of all, these guidelines are NOT JNC 9.

What is JNC 9, you ask?

One of the messy complications of medicine for people in the US and in the world, is that there is not ONE set of guidelines. There are multiple sets of guidelines. Take mammograms, for example. The US Preventative Task Force* said that the evidence in their review could not differentiate between yearly and every other year mammograms. They said you could do it every other year. The American Cancer Society and the Susan Koman Foundation yapped and had different guidelines, do it yearly. So as a physician I have to not only pay attention to the guidelines but know who is putting them out. The radiologists wanted yearly mammograms too, surprise, surprise.

And do you think some of it is driven by money? Well, it’s the US.

JNC 8 is the Eighth Joint National Committee and put out guidelines in 2014. Their job is to review all of the big hypertension studies since JNC 7 and put out new guidelines. JNC 8 took over a year, was multidisciplinary, and the final document was 400+ pages.

They said that if a patient was over 60, their blood pressure should be taken standing up, and the goal was under 150/90. Under 60, sitting, goal under 140/90. Normal is 120/70 and below.

Then there are pages and pages of recommendations about which medicines to use and in special circumstances, that is: diabetes, kidney failure, heart disease, atrial fibrillation, etc, etc.

The cardiologists promptly started yelling about how JNC 8 is wrong and they put out a huge study saying that people have less heart attacks if their blood pressure is 125/80 or below.

But… the heart is not the only organ in the body. My patients are 77% over age 50 and 48% over 65. Once a person hits 80, their blood pressure may drop when they stand up. Most do. And low blood pressure, well, it’s bad for the over 80 crowd to get poor blood flow to the brain or to the kidneys or to faint and break things. That is why JNC 8 is multidisciplinary: because we need geriatrics and psychiatry and ortho and family medicine to be part of the guidelines.

So these NEW and IMPROVED guidelines. Well, who is putting them out? American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, and a bunch of other mostly heart related organizations. And they are comparing it to JNC 7, not JNC 8. JNC 8 is being ignored. This document is a mere 192 pages, with the “short” version being 112 pages.

It says that blood pressure 130/80 to 140/90 is stage I hypertension, not prehypertension, and that we should treat it with lifestyle changes. Drugs are still to be recommended at anything over 140/90, though honestly, I start with lifestyle there too. Over 180/120 is now “hypertensive crisis”, consult your doctor immediately. 140-180/90-120 is stage II hypertension.

How will this change my practice? I am still thinking about the new guidelines and who has skin in the game. The AAFP (American Academy of Family Practice) put out a link to the guidelines and then a cautious comment to the effect of “We are studying how we should respond to this.”

Before this came out, I would tell people the JNC 8 goals. I do stand the people over 60 up, most of the time. I also tell people that the cardiologists want their blood pressure lower. And then that the cardiologists mostly ignore hypertension and cholesterol guidelines anyhow. If I follow the guidelines and then the patient sees a cardiologist, the cardiologist usually changes something. Guidelines be damned.

It comes down partly to a patient’s goal. I have people come in and say, “I don’t want to die of dementia!!” I see that as an opening. “What DO you want to die from?” People have different ideals. Some say, “I don’t want to die!” but then many do think about it. Sometimes this changes their ideas about what they want treated and what they don’t want treated.

Not everyone’s blood pressure drops in their 80s. Some people develop hypertension in their 90s. I tell them. They say, “I’m not taking a drug!”

I reply, “Let’s talk about strokes.”

They usually are not afraid of sudden death, but they don’t want the disability of a stroke. Many choose medicine after all.

One of the issues with guidelines is complexity. I could spend 20 minutes with a patient just talking about hypertension guidelines and choices of drugs and side effects and why they should be on an ace inhibitor or ARB if they have diabetes…. and there are guidelines for EVERYTHING. Sometimes conferences feel like all the specialists yelling: only half of diabetics are controlled, only one third of hypertensives are controlled, family doctors aren’t screening for urinary incontinence enough, osteoporosis, lung cancer, stop smoking! And then what my patient really needs is to talk about their adult child, in jail for addiction, and how frightened they are about overdose and the grandchild and the future…..

JNC-8 flowchart: http://www.nmhs.net/documents/27JNC8HTNGuidelinesBookBooklet.pdf
JNC-8: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1791497
*lots of guidelines: https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/