Day: 04/26/2015

Babies Feel Pain Much Like Adults

http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/04/23/babies-feel-pain-much-like-adults/83823.html

Newborn babies experience pain much like adults and may even have a much lower pain threshold, according to a new Oxford study. The findings have important implications as many procedures are still performed on babies without painkillers.

As recently as the 1980s it was common practice for babies to be given neuromuscular blocks but no pain relief medication during surgery…

When babies are exposed to unrelieved pain, is it an indicator of being sensitive to chronic pain conditions as adults?  When neurons in the brain are exposed to certain levels of pain, I don’t think they ever recover and go back to the way they were before the exposure.  That’s why experts say that adequately treating acute pain is so important — because acute pain can easily turn into chronic pain, which then turns into intractable pain that doesn’t respond to treatment.

Plastic containers continue to pile up on land and sea

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/plastic-containers-continue-to-pile-up-on-land-and-sea-042715.html

It’s not just plastic bottles and food containers that are the problem. 5 Gyres, a non-profit environmental group focused on plastic pollution, is trying to bring attention to the problems posed by tiny plastic grains, known as microbeads and used in a large number of cosmetics and personal care products.

The group says these microbeads eventually make their way to our waterways and wildlife, and eventually are ingested by humans through the food chain, toothpastes or other body products that contain microbeads…

Concerns about plastic pollution have gained momentum since February, when a marine study calculated that between 4.8 million and 12.7 million metric tons of plastic waste enters the oceans from land each year. That was 3 times the amount anyone thought…

I just want to say thank you to products like Daisy Sour Cream and Nestle’s cocoa, which come in reusable plastic containers.  Choosing products that come in reusable containers means you should never need to buy plastic containers like those made by Ziploc.  I know, it’s a small thing, but everyone needs containers to store leftover food — I think it’s better than throwing the food away.

Hologram Stephen Hawking consoles One Direction fans with multiverse theory

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/04/26/hologram-stephen-hawking-consoles-one-direction-fans/21176577/

Then, finally, someone asked the question we’ve all been wondering: “What do you think is the cosmological effect of Zayn leaving One Direction and consequently breaking the hearts of millions of teenage girls across the world?”

Hawking’s response, according to BuzzFeed: “Finally, a question about something important.” He elaborated with some advice: “My advice to any heartbroken young girl is to pay close attention to the study of theoretical physics. Because one day there may well be proof of multiple universes.”

“It would not be beyond the realms of possibility that somewhere outside of our own universe lies another different universe. … And in that universe, Zayn is still in One Direction,” Hawking pointed out, giving hope to countless fans who are suddenly interested in majoring in theoretical physics in college.

And in a proposition no one has ever thought of before, Hawking suggested studying physics may lead to greater things: “This girl may like to know that in another possible universe, she and Zayn are happily married.” …

The Remains Of The Day

I admit, I don’t know much about intravenous drug use, so I’m not sure what this is.  I guess it could be used for an insulin shot, but somehow I doubt a diabetic would leave this kind of stuff behind.  The plastic piece in the bottom right-hand corner looks a little like a needle, but I don’t think it is.  Still, it appears this is from heroin use… And now all those pictures I took of empty alcohol bottles look rather quaint compared to this.

I also took a picture of an unused tampon today, if you can believe it.  Damn, those things are expensive… too expensive to be discarded as trash.  I guess I’m lucky I didn’t come across a used one.

(Photo taken on Sunday around 7pm.)

Thinking of you, Natalie Fuller

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-demons-got-my-beautiful-loving-daughter/2015/04/20/cdaaa338-dfc2-11e4-a1b8-2ed88bc190d2_story.html

My daughter, who lost her battle with mental illness, is still the bravest person I know

I lost my darling daughter Natalie to mental illness last month. She killed herself a few weeks short of her 29th birthday by stepping in front of a train in Baltimore…

While Natalie seemed happier and more productive on meds, she missed the high of occasional mania and she hated the weight gain that is a common side effect of the drugs she was taking. Stable, she would sometimes declare that she wasn’t sick after all and didn’t need medication — another very common reason people give for quitting their meds…

Natalie was a believer that treatment worked and that the mental health system needed to be reformed so other people received the kind of care she had when she was in crisis. She told her story in a documentary short last year about the criminalization of mental illness. She dreamed of being a peer counselor. She said she wanted to help others as she had been helped — until she became convinced that she was beyond help…

My daughter lived more than six years with an incurable disease that filled her head with devils that literally hounded her to death, and she did it while laughing, painting, writing poetry, advocating and bringing joy to the people around her. She was the bravest person I have ever known, and her suicide doesn’t change that…

Buds Love The Rain

Even though it’s been raining in the Q since dawn, my mountain is covered with gray clouds, and the temperature is beginning to drop even more (giving me quite a headache), I have it on good authority that buds love the rain as much as they love the sunshine.

Anyway, a rainy day, especially on a Sunday, is a perfect excuse to nap the day away.  (Hey, that rhymes.)

(Photo taken 3/13/2015.)

What Each State Has Per Capita Than Any Other

http://distractify.com/matt-buco/we-are-shamefully-number-1/

Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that this month is Mental Health Awareness Month, and New Mexico has more mental illness per capita than any other state.  And yet, is there any acknowledgement from New Mexico’s Department of Health?

https://painkills2.wordpress.com/2015/04/23/new-campaign-launched-to-raise-awareness-about-chronic-disease/

And guess what Texas has more of per capita than any other state?  C’mon, guess…

“State cop ahead with a bad attitude PMS and a gun”

http://krqe.com/2015/04/24/new-mexico-highway-sign-gets-attention/

HONDO, N.M. (KRQE)- It’s a New Mexico highway sign that definitely catches your attention. It basically says slow down because there’s a cranky cop with a gun waiting for you.

“State cop ahead with a bad attitude PMS and a gun,” that’s what a sign says coming into Hondo on Highway 380 near Ruidoso.

Joe Switzer owns Tangle Y Wood-N-Art and the sign, just off the highway. He says although it may seem like he has something against state police, he has a lot of respect for the officers that patrol the area and they’re his friends.

“I put the sign up kind of as a joke for them and to help them to try to get people to slow down traveling through the Hondo valley,” said Switzer…

The sign has been making people laugh, and think twice about speeding.

As for Officer Dias, he gets a kick out of the sign. “No hard feelings, it’s funny and it gives awareness,” he said.

The store owner says he changes the sign from time to time with funny or patriotic messages. His favorite is “Cremation: last chance at a smoking hot body.”

Okay, okay, some women get a bad attitude when they’re PMSing, but it’s not like it’s our fault. 🙂

Freddie Gray protests turn violent in Baltimore

http://krqe.com/ap/freddie-gray-protests-turn-violent-in-baltimore/

BALTIMORE (AP) — A protest over the death of Freddie Gray, who was critically injured in police custody, started peacefully with thousands marching through downtown streets before the demonstration turned violent and volatile.

The chaotic scene Saturday night prompted the first public remarks from Freddie Gray’s twin sister, who pleaded for peace at a news conference alongside the mayor.

“My family wants to say, can you all please, please stop the violence?” Fredricka Gray said. “Freddie Gray would not want this.”

Just before nightfall, groups of protesters marched from City Hall to the Camden Yards baseball stadium, where the Baltimore Orioles played the Boston Red Sox. Fans were told to briefly stay inside the stadium until the police were able to clear an intersection outside of the venue.

Meanwhile, a smaller “splinter group” looted a convenience store and threw tables and chairs through storefront windows, shattering the glass. One group smashed the window of a department store inside a downtown mall and, at one point, a protester tossed a flaming metal garbage can toward a line of police officers in riot gear as they tried to push back the crowd…

Fire officials said roughly 1,200 protesters gathered at City Hall Saturday afternoon to protest Gray’s death, which has prompted near-daily demonstrations since his death on April 19…

https://painkills2.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/thinking-of-you-freddie-gray/

Lovelace Medical Center

A Master Lock for a garbage can… Makes you wonder who would steal a garbage can.  I mean, I noticed a few homeless people in the area, probably because there’s a church (affiliated with the hospital) right next door. But I can’t imagine a homeless person would want to cart around a garbage can.

And I have to wonder if a garbage can is worth anything, especially since it’s made out of metal. But that doesn’t make sense either.  So I guess it would have to be vandals who steal garbage cans, and that’s just… sad.

(Photo taken 4/21/2015.)

Police Chief Lanier speaks the truth about bud

http://www.cannalawblog.com

Want to improve police-citizen relations? Stop arresting people for marijuana. Want to stop wasting taxpayer dollars and diverting the police from more important things? Stop arresting people for marijuana. This too only makes sense. Yet few police forces seem to realize these things and even fewer have the guts to come out and say it.

Cathy Lanier, the police chief for Washington DC does, as she recently made this clear to the American News Women’s Club:

All those [marijuana] arrests do is make people hate us. Marijuana smokers are not going to attack and kill a cop. They just want to get a bag of chips and relax. Alcohol is a much bigger problem. But I’m not policing the city as a mom, I’m policing it as the police chief — and 70 percent of the public supported this…

Are you taking Zohydro?

http://www.pharmaciststeve.com/?p=10167

4/24/2015, Pernix Therapeutics Closes Acquisition of Zohydro ER Franchise

MORRISTOWN, N.J.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Pernix Therapeutics Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq:PTX) (the “Company” or “Pernix”), a specialty pharmaceutical company, announced today that it has closed its acquisition of the Zohydro® ER (hydrocodone bitartrate) franchise, comprising three extended release hydrocodone products, including an abuse-deterrent pipeline and all related intellectual property. Pernix first announced the agreement with Zogenix, Inc. to acquire this franchise on March 10th…

A transition to Zohydro ER with BeadTek is in process with the goal of no disruption to patients’ therapy, and all previous dosage strengths will be available in this new formulation. The original formulation will no longer be manufactured after May 4, 2015…

If you’re taking Zohydro, after the formulation changes, I would really appreciate hearing from you as to whether there’s a difference in efficacy and any additional side effects.