A number of months ago I had an uncharacteristic spike in my blood pressure of 191/110 mm hg. Although my life is sometimes blessed with an abundance of stress, I was unable to identify a triggering event or cluster of problems which could account for the reading. But bear in mind that we are not always conscious of all the stresses that might be having an effect on us.
Since then, I have paid almost daily attention to what my blood pressure is doing. (It is worthwhile to note that it is the "resting" blood pressure that is indicative of what is going on with your vascular system.) As an example, it could have been quite a hot day and I was driving a car and got quite overheated because the air conditioner was not functional. If I was just short if heat stroke for example, this could have some substantial impact on my blood pressure.
Paradoxically, I have, since that high spike, virtually eliminated the occasional use of the beta-blocker Metaprolol, a Mexican drug equivalent to Toprol XL. My blood pressure has reduced to my target values (116/76) with only dietary changes, (a sharp increase in ingested potassium bearing foods, supplementation of potassium chloride and potassium gluconate, and some reduction of sodium chloride), and a moderate increase in daily exercise.
On Monday nights, when I competitively teach chess to a group of students, the blood pressure generally climbs to about 135/88, but that is, after all, a rather challenging sporting event, with more than five hours of continuous rapid chess. By Tuesday the blood pressure is back to normal, or actually better than normal for a sixty-six year old unmedicated male.
(This post was first inspired by questions put by a woman on Skin Cell Forum earlier today who is scheduled for a surgery on her knee. This woman has had so many surgeries for so many different things, that I doubt she could even count them all with any sort of accuracy. One could refer to her as a surgery addict. Of course I didn't do that.)
Certainly the risks of laparoscopic and arthroscopic surgery are lower than conventional surgeries. Perhaps one of the unfortunate consequences of this is that they are often done as the first resort rather than the last.
Doctors could not maintain their lavish incomes and lifestyles with just good advice. They MUST do surgeries and prescribe fancy expensive new stuff. And they do so on a massive scale. I'm not going to get on a rant here. But I expect I will have more to say on this subject shortly in the thread on my blog titled A Letter To the Eye Surgeon. If memory serves it is in the March Archives.
In the meantime, the two threads in General Health here, (on the forum) one of the same name, and Biting the Dentist are relevant to the subject. It is a fact of life that there are a great many avoidable surgeries and other medical procedures. We place ourselves too readily in the hands of these experts and trust them far more than is warranted by the facts.
Doctors as a group are no more trustworthy than politicians, lawyers, or used car salesmen; all about equally rapacious and opportunistic. I stand ready to defend my remarks.
Meanwhile, since experience tells me that no doctor is going to show up and actually defend his profession, don't just listen to me. Read the various books of Lewis Thomas, a physician who does not even bother to append M.D. after his name on his works.
About Me
- Anthropositor
- Deep South, United States
- Consultant, inventor, mentor, chess coach,. Current projects involve No Till Farming and staving off blindness due to cataracts among other projects. I also do confidential ghost writing (without taking any published credit. My current blindness makes me put this on hold for a while. I should have one eye working again in about four months. Fact, fiction, all subjects considered. I have heard My daughter Jennifer is alive. I would love it if she were to contact me here. I understand she would like to know me. I have sent a message by circuitous route. I can only hope. My posted Email works as well. We have four decades to catch up on.
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9 comments:
damnit! I just lost about 3 paragrapsh worth of message to you, and now I have to run...
In short: I'll be back. Thanks for the comment and the message. I will commit more time to your blog monday...
If you want to attract some active readership - simply visit the blogs you like/respect/enjoy and speak freely. Bloggers, are for the most part, friendly and happy for YOUR readership. We generally will return Tit for Tat hits... Don't worry too much about the Cheesecake. Lay out a big juicy stake of a post and people WILL want to come take a bite and offer their opinions. Thanks for dropping by my blog. Take a trip through my blogroll and make some new friends! I'm sure they will love to reciprocate your blog.
Thanks Fade,
I have been operating on the principles you have suggested expecting that that would be enough. Maybe it will be eventually.
The surprise to me is that more actual complex conversations have not evolved. Questions haven't been put. Ideas other than my own have not been put forth.
I know that I am a comparative late-comer to computers and the net, or rather that they came late to my life, but it is quite a surprise to me how much useless blather most blogs are. It IS a delight when I eventually stumble on a gem though.
And it may be partly my fault for having interests too broad to be categorized in a more focused way than "ideas."
I am told that "meta-tags" and "search spiders" may have something to do with readership. Not quite sure what these things are yet, but I don't want to open the floodgates to all the idiots, airheads and loonies out there.
Linking is another thing I have not sorted out yet. I surmise that there must be some downside to it or someone would have linked to me by now.
It's funny. In person I have always been able to draw a pretty good crowd reasonably quickly. Body language and tone of voice I suppose.
And on Skin Cell Forum, where I may get a little gruff about uninvited spammers or the hundreds of lurkers who just come and do nothing, or worse; say something incredibly, dangerously stupid, I have been received with much more warmth than heat. Several other forums I have left after two or ten or twenty visits.
In any case, I will indeed look in on your friends in the hope of discovering more kindred spirits.
i don't think cheesecake will attract your desired audience. i think it will attract those from the majority of the population, those that think only about what presently confronts them with immediacy, those with no ambitions beyond the average or outside the box.
you've had no complex conversations or original ideas on your blog either because the reader feels his or her ideas are inferior to yours (if he or she even has any) or because they don't care enough about your ideas and the topics on which you focus to riposte.
ideally, you should be attracting those willing to work with you the way you desire while simultaneously molding malleable minds to defeat apathy, to foster curiosity, and to build motivation.
how?
well, with your blog, perhaps you're whispering mostly to the deaf. a megaphone should help attract those you seek.
and to convert the willing to your side, personal interaction is optimal. i'm guessing those highly interested in any science and/or art will be easiest to convince. perhaps it can be done online, as well, but it will be harder.
in any case, good luck.
Perhaps Auioe, but I can't help noticing that the cheesecake has been up for a day or so and two comments longer than a sentence or a paragraph have occurred.
I know there is a stereotype about geniuses that suggests that a certain ... indifference to libido is a part of the territory. Certainly, when we look at characters like Isaac Newton, it seems to hold water, but for every one like him, I can think of several at the opposite extreme.
Two notable names that come to mind are Albert Einstein, and Richard Feynman. These brilliant boys were not shrinking violets. They were not shy in the slightest degree.
I think perhaps it is the mid-level intellects that are often a little geeky, shy or withdrawn. I doubt I will lose too many worthwhile participants by posting an attractive picture. We will know more in a few weeks.
Meanwhile we can focus on some of the other subjects on the blog,
You don't have to tell me twice about doctors and their fuzzy ethics. The optician I recently worked for regularly adjusted patients RX's after their exam (Ex, going from -4.75, -3.25 to -4.50, -3.50 which are essentially the same prescription) in order to 'encourage' people to buy new lenses and frams, as well as convincing people go use Progressive lenses as oposed to bi focals, because Progressive lenses cost more.
At least the Chiropractor I worked for, while as asshole, was an ethical asshole.
(And don't even get my started on the idiot Drs. I had to deal with in the funeral business)
In response to anthropositor, via a response to auioe's comment:
"you've had no complex conversations or original ideas on your blog either because the reader feels his or her ideas are inferior to yours (if he or she even has any) or because they don't care enough about your ideas and the topics on which you focus to riposte."
As an initial aside, take note that this is the blog I read most frequently. Take note that this is also the only blog I read. I find myself in a state of information overload and non-technical reading falls to the wayside.
One deterrent to my active participation in discussion has been my comparative ignorance of the subject matter of several posts. Since I have been healthy most of my life I have been largely unconcerned with the quality of health care available to me. This limits my discussion in this area. I also know little about politics and tax law; however, I would like to change that. Regardless, I am comparatively ignorant of the subject matter. As such, I feel my ability to contribute new material (increasing the complexity of the debate) to be quite weak.
In light of your (anthropositor) recent posts I will participate more often in subjects which interest me, regardless of my ability to bring in new material.
I am quite verbose on topics which fall within my specialized interests. I often have interesting thoughts and questions related to those interests. Ordinarily, I record these ideas in brief to ponder at a later date. I will try to share some of the more generally applicable thoughts here.
If I inadvertently hijack some of your posts and threads in this fashion I hope it is not disruptive. Unless I am mistaken, that is (in a way) something you wish to happen here.
Then again, I could vanish into secrecy for several months again. I hope that is not the case.
About the libido inhibited geniuses:
John VonNeumann was purportedly a bit lascivious as well. From wikipedia, the females who worked around him at Los Alamos laboratory found it necessary to place cardboard on their desks to keep him from looking at their legs. I think that geniuses are not less sexually interested as much as they are less prone to share said interest with reckless abandon.
Speaking of doctors, you may be interested in this link:
http://nymag.com/health/bestdoctors/2007/33163/
"What’s Up, Docs?
A panel of anonymous physicians coughs up secrets of the trade.
* By Robert Kolker"
I too have been disgustingly healthy for much of my life. I am told that that is unlikely to continue into the distant future, but I have been beating the odds for a long time now and I see no particular reason to get pessimistic on the near term (meaning the next twenty years or so).
And I think it was Aristotle who said something like "the more I know, the more I realize how little I know."
Ignorance is at its most pernicious when it is not recognized by its possessor.
For seekers of wisdom it is a necessary first step.
Step boldly into challenging ideas. What's the worst that can happen?
And as to politics, politicians, and tax law. I pretty much have to be forced to think of these things by the assault of bureaucrats and inept or unscrupulous legislators or other scalawags.
Given my own way, I go wherever curiosity and my felt needs take me.
Adamlp,
Took a quick look at the link. Don't seem to be any ophthalmological surgeons represented unfortunately, which is what I am looking for at the moment, but these folks seem to be fairly iconoclastic. That can't be all bad. I'll look harder as soon as I can.
I'll keep an eye out for the book as well. Thanks.
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