I just made an interesting discovery. One of the meds I take is focalin (dexmethylphenidate). It's a supercharged version of Ritalin. Not quite as strong as desoxyn (methamphetamine) but very close. I take it for ADD and a couple of other problems. It's always been something of a mystery why stimulants help people with ADD and ADHD (although some recent research has shed some light on this). It was always considered a paradoxical effect. In fact, it's one of the ways you can diagnose AD/HD. If Ritalin, Focalin, Adderall, etc. calm you down or even put you to sleep, the odds are good that you have the disorder. If not, these drugs will just get you wired out of your mind.

Anyway, I found out that taking a couple Focalin completely alleviates the attacks. This is bizarre even for me. I was on desoxyn for several years and I would often take it as a sleep aid but it never did anything to help with anxiety.

The point - if I can honestly claim to have one - is that different people respond differently to the same chemical compound so the only meds that are right for you are not the one's someone says are right, but the ones that you know from your own experience are right. I respect my doctors and their professional expertise, but I also respect my own perceptions and realize that I understand myself better than they ever can.

Too often doctors get a pass even when the advice they give is not necessarily tailored to your specific needs and physiology. I'm not saying you should disrespect them, but they need to learn to respect our opinions and sensibilities as much as they expect us to respect their advice. Once you find a doctor that can do this and can admit that medicine is far from an exact science, latch on to them and don't let go - they are a rarity.

People are definitely becoming more intelligent consumers of health care services and more informed generally. Women have had it particularly rough since the medical profession has historically been dominated by men. I think there's been a lot of improvement in the receptiveness and responsiveness of medical professionals in recent years but there's still a lot more they could be doing.

For example, I just recently read an article about follow-up care for people who have been prescribed atypical anti-psychotics. Despite the name, many of these drugs are used not just for serious psychiatric disorders but also as mood stabilizers, antidepressants and host of other "off-label" applications. However most can cause a variety of serious health problems including hypertension, unhealthy blood lipid levels, impaired liver function, etc. Around 70% of the doctors did not follow up with tests for such side effects. Although in the short run most would not be life threatening, serious consequences are almost certain in the long run.

A week or so ago I had an interesting experience of my own. My insurance company wouldn't approve a prescription for Nexium twice a day unless I had an esophageal endoscopy (among other requirements). Since I had no intention having anything shoved down my throat, I found a practice that was using the new pill-cam. It looks like a large vitamin capsule. It has a tiny camera and strobing led's. They glue a couple of receiving antennae to your chest - look just like EKG leads. You swallow the capsule and for the next 15 minutes it takes snapshots of your esophagus. It's pretty cool.

The point is, the doctor wanted me to do the normal endoscopy. He had some good reasons, not the least of which was the fact that it would be covered by my insurance. But when I explained that I would only consider doing that if the pill cam didn't give acceptable results, he understood and respected my opinion.

Ahhhh, the joys of living in an old house. Mine isn't ancient. It was built in the late 60's and it was state of the art for that time. Heck, I actually have 100 amp service at the electrical panel plus a separate line for the water heater. Even so, with all the electronics and other do-dads of modern life, I still have to worry about overloading individual circuits. Plus there's my propensity for brain-dead, bone moves that even I think were incredibly stupid in retrospect.

Like the time I decide to connect a treadmill up to a wall outlet controlled by a switch. It worked ok for several weeks. Then we began to smell the "blue smoke of death". It's a little llike the blue screen of death but for electrical components - and the fact that it is what you might call a FIRE HAZARD. I really did know that wall switches are normally rated to only handle about 300-600 watts. But sometimes I have trouble connecting relevant facts. It's hard to explain, but I can know something is true and still think it's ok to do something that completely contradicts that known fact. Weird.

It took me a while to get my sh*t together, but I finally replaced all of the outlets on the circuit with 3 prong grounded versions. Also replaced all of the switches - once I figured out which wires were going where. I had to use pigtail wires to ground them to the electrical boxes, but once you get the hang of it and learn how to muscle a bundle of 12-10 gauge solid core wires, it's not so bad.

Yesterday though was real treat. The guy who built the house was a contractor who was building it for his own family, so he went all out in a lot of ways. The beam (joists?) for the floors and ceilings are massive 2x10 solid pine that are spaced to 12 inches on center. However I think he made a lot of it up as he was going along. Plus I think he tried to do some of his own electrical work and it shows.

There's this weird little enclosed alcove for the refrigerator - so it looks like it's built into the wall. But the back end is suspended over the garage. I'm still not completely sure how he managed this from a structural point of view. It's like a cantilevered platform. Except we're talking residential, wood frame architecture here, not Frank Lloyd Wright (and yes I know FLW started out designing homes in the Chicago area). The whole thing has the feel of an elaborate tree house - with electricity and plumbing.

Anyway, I had to get in there and replace the outlet - for various reasons. Turned out the outlet was just stuffed into the wall - with no support. Thank god he at least used 3-conductor wire and all the boxes are at least grounded. I'll spare you the details, but after some drilling, hacking and jury rigging, I got the new outlet in and the box secured to a stud. And I avoided killing myself - a small miracle all by itself.

It's times like this though that make me glad I'm such a pack rat - I just need to be a somewhat better organized pack rat - which I suppose is a contradiction in terms. I had to make a couple dozen trips to my basement lair, but I was able to find all the parts and pieces I needed to get this little project done and didn't have to make a single trip to Lowe's or Home Depot.

One tool which I highly recommend are any of the Gerber multi-tools. They're like a Leatherman but I like Gerber better. This little guy was very useful. I also recommend one of new, compact Lithium ion cordless drill/screwdrivers. They won't do the job of a 19.2 volt cordless drill, but they pack a lot of torque in a small package and can get you by in most cases - especially with the right bits and attachments.



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Edited for inappropriate language - nelsoc

there are no pills for a 'nelsoc' attack, but going for a run or a long hike or a bike or just chasing a white small dimpelled ball for hours does me wonders.

I guess you could say that I live in the suburbs. But it's not a typical suburban landscape. For about a half-mile radius it's mostly 1/2 to 2 acre lots. Plus there are still a fair number of open spaces - even after most of the area farmers planted condo seeds back in the 80's. As a result, we get a fair number of small furry forest animals popping in and out of the yard - even deer (too many deer), wild turkey and an occasional raptor. I especially like the hawks and falcon - keep those squirrels in their place.

One of our resident furries is a ground hog. Her and her mate have dug holes everywhere. They've got a couple by the foundation of the house, one under a sidewalk, one under a decrepit cement bird bath and, their primary legal residence (the one their waddling license), under an old wooden shed. We haven't seen the male in months and the female was keeping a very low profile for several weeks. We suspected, from some serious bite marks on her nose, that she had been gettin' jiggy and would probably have some baby ground hogs.

It turned out we were right and saw them for the first time a few days ago. There seem to be 2 and are already getting pretty big. They seem to like to sun themselves on the wood pile by the shed. The babies stay far from the house so we have to use binoculars to get a good look. They're incredibly cute.

But the baby possum trapped in the garage had to be even cuter. I had left the door open one night until late and it must have gotten trapped inside. The following night it set off a motion sensor so I went to investigate (unarmed). It was perched on a small shelf with its tail wrapped around a stray piece of wood. It seemed more exhausted (hungry?) than scared. It didn't look like it was going to move any time soon so I took an old broom handle and coaxed it to climb on. It was really adorable - holding on to the broom stick with it's little paws holding on and those little black eyes staring back at me. I feel so stupid for not having thought to take a picture.

I got him/her outside and deposited him/her in a planter. Also deposited some apple slices. I went back out about an hour later to check and he was gone. Didn't even nibble on the apple. I'm hoping that mom lives nearby and found her lost offspring.



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Edited for inappropriate langauge - nelsoc