(Part 3) Top products from r/AskDocs

Sure. These are moldable ones for your ear that look much more comfortable but i'm not sure how reusable they would be.

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Moldable Putty Ear Plugs

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Reusable - These are a bit more expensive but if you're going to be using often then they might be worth the extra cost.

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I looked around a little bit, but if you want you can go ahead and few other brands/types that will work good for you. The other option was these little like acorn pine tree looking things. They looked a bit scary/painful to me but they might work great who knows. These seem more friendly.

>The vast majority of a CCT’s training is on lead II, so that’s where I focused.

Bahahahahaha!

So you are trained to interpret a single lead - ie a rhythm strip - so presumably you can spot elementary rhythm abnormalities and suggest to a nurse when they should maybe call a doctor? Good for you!

None of that qualifies you to opine on the OP's 12 lead ECG and it certainly doesn't qualify you to espouse entirely unfounded opinions on potassium homeostasis. If you think it does, then you do undoubtedly need more training, because - as the saying goes - a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

BTW the link was for your benefit, not mine. But the book below has served generations of medical students and would be a good intro to the 12-lead ECG for you.

Best wishes.

https://www.amazon.com/Made-Easy-John-Hampton-DPhil/dp/0702046418

Here's a dissertation on the topic of unassisted childbirths: http://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1387&context=etd

The estimate is 5,000 in North America per year. There are many valid reasons to consider it. My wife did not feel respected at all in her first labor. So we are planning for an unassisted (home) childbirth for our child on the way. She feels safer birthing at home than at the hospital. We much better prepared this time around, read books (Labor Progress Handbook, Husband-Coached Childbirth, Spiritual Midwifery, and Guide to Childbirth), and taking a Bradley Method course.

If someone is courageous/desperate/traumatized enough to consider unassisted home birth and share such with you, your conversation with her will likely be more productive by starting with finding out her reasons. This will likely help you meet her where she is. Feel free to post back about how the conversation evolves.

You are being unreasonable.

The point of the scan was not really to evaluate the palpable abnormalities, it was to look for internal signs of disease (like a mediastinal mass, an enlarged spleen, bony lesions, etc). Having seen none of those things, you should be reassured.

Now the lymph nodes do sound abnormal both in size and density/enhancement, but the number of conditions that might cause that could fill a book like this one:

Atlas of lymph node pathology

So further evaluation with biopsy may be necessary​.

Everything seems to be in order. Hope none of this amounts to anything!

well at least you are trying to be helpful.

But no, has nothing to do with tinfoil hats. Yes some of it is anecdotal (my personal experience and the experience of several other people I know who have had the same procedure and the same results...i.e. complete elimination of chronic migraines), but there is also a mountain of evidence out there to support those claims.........including a book written by a world renown dental surgeon:

http://www.amazon.com/Whole-Body-Dentistry-Complete-Understanding-Impact/dp/0967844312

As well as several other dental surgeons speaking out on the subject......here is an example on Dr. Oz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf2t53ytNa8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd7c_3-OWq8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKOrgMVfvFk

I actually recommend, as a first step, to pick up a copy of the book Treat Your Own Back.

Many people have reported good results using the Mackenzie method at home. If you don't get results, you could go to a GP, or, you could consider trying physiotherapy as a first step.

He'll love you forever

I listened to a podcast with Matthew Walker, the author of Why We Sleep which then lead me to buy the audiobook. One of the first things he talks about in the book is that whether we’re a night owl or morning lark is largely determined by genetics. So, the fact that you have a hard time waking up early is likely going to be hard to change, unfortunately.

The podcast was with Joe Rogan. . It’s quite a good listen!

House of God

https://www.amazon.com/House-God-Samuel-Shem/dp/0425238091/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480360800&sr=1-1&keywords=house+of+god

I know you feel this is physiological, but if you give this book a proper go I think it could work for you.

It worked for me!

It's a lot more than sleep hygiene, read every page.

https://www.amazon.com/Effortless-Sleep-Method-Incredible-Insomnia/dp/1456492543

http://www.amazon.com/Treat-Your-Own-Rotator-Cuff/dp/1598582062/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1404936538&sr=8-2&keywords=treat+your+own+shoulder

> They used forty-five healthy college-aged students (twenty men and twenty-five women with an average age of 20.7 years old) and placed surface electrodes on the four muscles during the randomized order of the rehabilitation exercises. They found five exercises that had optimal utilization of each of the four scapular muscles: horizontal abduction with external rotation, side lying external rotation, side lying forward flexion, and prone extension. Wilk, Meister, James and Andrews (2002) also discussed the importance of scapular muscle strength and stability in the rehabilitation of shoulder impingement syndrome.[14] They found that rehabilitation techniques for restoring this strength are manual resistance to the scapula during protraction and retraction as well prone horizontal abduction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impingement_syndrome#Treatment

Can't explain why it says "five exercises" and only mentions four.

The existence of heel spurs on x-ray doesn't mean much. I.e. you can have heel spurs and not have any pain at all.

This is all consistent with pityriasis rosea. Things change over time. Try reading: https://www.amazon.com/Lives-Lesions-Chronology-Dermatopathology/dp/0893520950

According to Richard Machowicz, former Navy Seal, cold showers "cut a toughness groove in your brain."

DO NOT DO THIS without doing a lot of research first. It should be a last resort. Turbinate reductions are a lot more dangerous than ENTs admit, and they rarely look into the underlying cause of your problems before doing them (such as allergies.) Before you even consider them, join the Empty Nose Syndrome Facebook group managed by Dr. Houser and ask them some detailed questions about the exact procedure your ENT is contemplating and the reasons why. It has a few hundred people that were told their procedure was perfectly safe (or not even told that it was going to be done) and many are so miserable they're suicidal. Some of them know far more about these procedures than the average ENTs from spending years reading every scrap of research that comes out hoping to find a cure or at least understanding their condition.

I myself had the most conservative and safe type of turbinate reduction done last year, and my ENT told me he'd be even more conservative than usual, and I wish more than anything I could undo it. I've been in horrendous discomfort since, which has only in the last few months improved to "moderately bearable." To this day the dryness and general "off" and painful breathing feeling is extremely distracting and depressing. And there's nothing they can do.

The thing about the turbinates is once you touch them, you can't fix them. So if you end up getting ENS, which your doctor (as mine did) will tell you is impossible to get without a total resection, you're pretty much stuck with it for life, and it's considered a major suicide risk, that's how much fun it is. As a young guy, it's life changing.

I would do a ton of research first, including reading this book, and try all sorts of other remedies such as daily saline rinses using the squeeze bottle and packets.

As a last resort I'd do a septalplasty only without turbinate reduction, and only then would I do a turbinate reduction, and ONLY from an ENT that recognizes the risk of ENS and is more likely to be careful about preserving tissue.

Not a doctor nor a psychiatrist, but I've had to deal with mental illness in my family. The inability to recognize clinically evident symptoms is called anosognosia and treating for it is difficult and unintuitive.

I want to mention a book for OP and any others dealing with potential anosognosia in their life:

I Am Not Sick, I Don't Need Help by Xavier Amador--written by a psychiatrist whose brother developed schizophrenia. He gives excellent advice to those wanting to advocate on behalf of family with no insight into their illness.

> They are not being subjected to this abuse for the purpose of slavery and degradation.

Hmmm... you sound like you've just read the hype in the west. FGM is so very hard to stop, precisely because in the vast majority of cases it's not "slavery and degradation.". See the 3,000 Maasai women (who have been subject to infibulation) protesting against in favour of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_Q9hRH6fCo

Like male circumcision, there are plenty of peer reviewed scientific studies, cultural research reports, and personal testimonials, that show female circumcision is not a barrier to sexual orgasm and enjoyment.

You'll often come across members of the medical community saying that FGM has no "health" benefits, and if women have their clitoris amputated, then their sex life comes to an end. Then they say that MGM has lots of "health" benefits and that men's sex life is not affected.

But it's a myth that many women who have suffered FGM are unhappy and cannot have great sex lives. That's why they queue up to have their daughters' circumcised.

Female Circumcision & Sexual Response

The truth about the female clitoris

The visible part - the glans clitoris - is only a small part of the whole clitoris. So when a woman suffers partial or total amputation of the external clitoris when undergoing FGM, only a small part of her clitoris is removed. Thus she often can enjoy a full and satisfying sex life.

Learn how large the female clitoris is; and how the external glans clitoris is just a small part of it:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/28/cliteracy_n_3823983.html
http://womenshealth.about.com/cs/sexuality/a/clitoraltruthin.htm

http://www.amazon.com/The-Clitoral-Truth-Secret-Fingertips/dp/1583224734

”Why Some Women Choose to Get Circumcised” — The Atlantic Magazine

“An anthropologist discusses some common misconceptions about female genital cutting, including the idea that men force women to undergo the procedure”:

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/04/female-genital-mutilation-cutting-anthropologist/389640/

”Fuambai Ahmadu explains how female circumcision is empowering and culturally enriching, and why she chose to get circumcised” — BBC Interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV6UfEaZHBE

”Fuambai says circumcision is an essential part of her culture and she doesn't feel mutilated” — Insight Interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adbxVctxoMU

"3,000 Afrian Maasai women protest in favour of FGM and against the government banning it" — Note how the men are ordered to keep quiet!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_Q9hRH6fCo

”Circumcised Women Fight Back”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk-KC75YUBY

"FGM: Maasai women speak out" — The activists leading this (anti-FGM) movement have failed to understand the cultures behind the practice, and their ignorance is dangerous. Legislation, particularly the criminalization of FGM, and other external pressures that do not take local culture into account can have deadly consequences:

https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/fgm-maasai-women-speak-out

”Seven things to know about female genital surgeries in Africa” — By the public policy advisory network on female genital surgeries in Africa. Western media coverage of female genital modifications in Africa has been hyperbolic and one-sided, presenting them uniformly as mutilation and ignoring the cultural complexities that underlie these practices:

https://www.sfog.se/media/295486/omskarelse_rapport.pdf

"International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology" — a peer reviewed journal of international renown:

Female genital cutting in this group of women did not attenuate sexual feelings:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-0528.2002.01550.x/abstract

"The Journal of Sexual Medicine" — a peer reviewed journal of international renown:

Pleasure and orgasm in women with Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C):

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17970975

"The New Scientist" (references a medical journal)

Female Circumcision Does Not Reduce Sexual Activity:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2837-female-circumcision-does-not-reduce-sexual-activity.html#.Uml2H2RDtOQ

"Journal of General Internal Medicine" — a peer reviewed journal of international renown:

Female "Circumcision" — African Women Confront American Medicine:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1497147/

Medical benefits of female circumcision: Dr. Haamid al-Ghawaabi [Unscientific opinion — no different to the sort of stuff spouted by western Doctors about the wonderful "benefits" of male circumcision]:

http://islamqa.info/en/ref/45528

"Pediatrics (AAP)" — a peer reviewed journal of international renown:

Genital Cutting Advocated By American Academy Of Pediatrics:

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/102/1/153.short

There is a lot of fear in this thread.

Not that I think his advice is 100% infallible, but I highly recommend reading [this book](How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor: One of America's Leading Pediatricians Puts Parents Back in Control of Their Children's Health https://www.amazon.com/dp/0345342763/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_U9D4AbX6M290V) about fever and childhood disease by a pediatrician called Dr. Mendelsohn.

His bottom line is basically this: unless the child has been poisoned or is suffering from heat stroke, the fever will not rise to a dangerous level (above 106.5). So the fever itself, meaning lowering the fever, is not a reason to go to the ER.

However, pneumonia is serious. To me, the fever returning so soon means you should continue to have a non-ER doc check for signs of the pneumonia returning every couple of days.

The last point Dr. Mendelsohn would make, I think, is that you should be a little slower to give medicine to lower the fever unless it's preventing your daughter from getting adequate sleep. Fever is an important part of the body's toolkit for fighting disease and infection, and sometimes repeatedly lowering it with medicine can prolong or interfere with that fight.

To give an example, there are people who are born with an immune system deficiency that makes it impossible for them to get fevers. This is a serious problem, and when they contract a cold or develop an infection, they are often placed in the medical version of a sauna to raise their body temperature so that their immune system has a better chance of defeating the pathogens. Giving Motrin or Tylenol at the first sign of fever is kind of the opposite of that.

Oh, and concentrate hard on fluids.

You’re welcome. Again, don’t panic or start googling about CD or gluten, unless you simply want to look up questions to ask the doc (here’s a great resource for that). If you’re symptoms are mild, there is nothing that is going to change your situation in the next few days, for better or worse, so there is no need to panic more, although, if you have that feeling you mentioned of impending doom, take that very seriously and go to a hospital. Otherwise, make an appt to see your doc, ask lots of questions, and most important, listen to your body. If you’re not happy with that doctor’s findings, get a second opinion.

My answer to your question is a question, what is causing the anxiety/depression/PTSD? That might get a little personal, so let’s go this route: extreme psychological states of any sort, i.e. stress, can have negative affects on the body, mentally as well as physically. It could, however, still be diet related. Yes, improper nutrition can cause mental deficiencies, not limited to anxiety, depression, and panic attacks. If anyone questions that, check out Jennifer Esposito’s personal story as an example.