Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Woke up: 430a

Breakfast
coffee

Snack
chips

Lunch
Beef vegetable soup
Whole grain bread.

Snack
None

Dinner
Leg quarter BBQ chicken
1.5 cup pasta roni

Genes May Help Some People Bear Pain

(HealthDay News) -- People who tolerate pain better may just be blessed with better genes.

Scientists say levels of a molecule called BH4 -- required for the production of major neurotransmitter chemicals -- influence the body's sensitivity to pain.

The team of international researchers, based at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Boston, say BH4 levels might also determine a person's vulnerability to chronic pain.

Reporting in the November issue of Nature Medicine, they found that a certain set of variations in a gene that's involved in producing BH4 appear to reduce a person's pain sensitivity.

"This is the first evidence of a genetic contribution to the risk of developing neuropathic pain in humans. The pain-protective gene sequence, which is carried by about 25 percent of the population, appears to be a marker both for less pain sensitivity and a reduced risk for chronic pain," study senior author Dr. Clifford Woolf, director of the Neural Plasticity Research Group at MGH, said in prepared statement.

"Identifying those at greater risk of developing chronic pain in response to medical procedures, trauma or diseases could lead to new preventive strategies and potential treatments," Woolf said.

In research involving hundreds of volunteers, the scientists concluded that people with a protective GCH1 haplotype -- a set of variations in the gene that are inherited together -- were less sensitive to pain. This GCH1 haplotype reduces production of BH4.

"Our results tell us that BH4 is a key pain-producing molecule -- when it goes up, patients experience pain, and if it is not elevated, they will have less pain," Woolf said.

"The data also suggest that individuals who say they feel less pain are not just stoics but genuinely have inherited a molecular machinery that reduces their perception of pain. The difference results not from personality or culture, but real differences in the biology of the sensory nervous system."

Source

Very Ouchy

I'm terribly cranky and very easily irritated today. My mid back is very tight. I'm continuing the hyperness that started on Tuesday afternoon. Everything aches (and Coleen says I need to up my dose of Cymbalta, but the doctor is still out of town.) Just wanted to record this here so I can see if there is a pattern, as I suspect. I THINK I'm PMS. But I've stopped tracking all that.

::sigh:: Wouldn't it just have been easier for everyone, Mike, if you could have just spent a little time and energy on me. ::sob::

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Got up 6a
BP 124/72

Breakfast
Raisin Bran
1/2 c 1% milk
Coffee

Snack
Strawberry Yogurt

Lunch
Split Pea and Ham Soup
c raw veggies

Snack
none

Dinner
way to much junk

BP 164/72
Bedtime 10p

State of the Air 2006

How did your county do?

Healt Update 10 25 06

Still feeling pretty crummy. The doctor, who got called out of the country on a family emergency while I was having a drug withdrawal crisis, says I have "pre-diabetes". Not sure it's related. Basically pretty achey, not sleeping well, and cranky.

The problem with deciding if I'm sick is that so much of my life is spent while enduring what most folks consider crisis. That pretty much describes the last month or so. Crisis. I'm hoping the next little bit will settle down and let me get some breathing space.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Woke up around 7a. BP 105/55 (it was 116/72 when I went to bed)

Exercise
Mild stretches, walked to store

Breakfast
Half a bagel, a slice of ham and cream cheese
Large coffee

Snack
Low Fat Pumpkin Muffin, medium

Lunch
1 cup seafood salad

Snack
Bagel

Dinner
Pork kabobs
Broccoli

BP 124/74 8p
Bed 8p

Why phones, keyboards and mice make me sick

from Computer World

You've got antivirus software protecting your network, PCs and workstations. Nice going! But what about the "computer viruses" Norton can't help you with?

Don't look now, but your desk and everything on it (especially your keyboard) is a horrible science project; a thriving freak show of an ecosystem teaming with nasty, microbial sea monkeys. Your cell phone is even worse.

The good news is that, in the past two years, new products have emerged that do for phones, keyboards and mice what antivirus software does for your operating system. The bad news is that you're probably not using any of them.

As an IT professional, your chances of infection -- and spreading the infection within your office -- are alarmingly high.

It's especially alarming this time of year. Flu season is upon us. Flu, or influenza, is caused by RNA viruses from the Orthomyxoviridae family. Between 5% and 20% of the U.S. population catches the flu every year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Flu sufferers usually feel fatigue and soreness in the throat, head and elsewhere and get sick for a week or two. Most survive, but it's not fun. Some aren't so lucky. Influenza kills hundreds of thousands of people worldwide each year unless there is a pandemic, when millions are killed. Even vaccination is no guarantee that you'll be protected.

You don't get the flu or other infections randomly. You get sick when germs enter your body -- usually through your mouth or nose, and those germs usually are delivered there by your hands.

Germs can spread through the inhalation of infected airborne sneeze droplets or through direct contact, such as by shaking hands. But some 80% of flu cases are contracted by touching an infected object.

Most germs, including the influenza virus, can survive for only about five minutes on your hands, but they can live for up to two days on phones, keyboards, mice and other surfaces.

Most people fear germs from shaking hands, flying in airplanes or touching bathroom doorknobs. But the dirtiest objects for office workers are phones, desks, keyboards and mice, which have orders of magnitude more germs than anything else you're likely to come in contact with at work.

Several studies conducted in the past few years at the University of Arizona found that telephones are the most germ-infected objects in our lives, followed by desktops, water fountain handles, microwave door handles, keyboards and mice. (Famously, these studies, headed by microbiologist Charles Gerba, revealed that keyboards have 400 times more bacteria than an average toilet seat.) Here are the relative germ densities of frequently touched office equipment:

• Phone: 25,127 germs per square inch
• Desktop surface: 20,961 germs per square inch
• Keyboard: 3,295 germs per square inch
• Mouse: 1,676 germs per square inch
• Fax machine: 301 germs per square inch
• Copy machine: 69 germs per square inch
• Toilet seat: 49 germs per square inch.

As you can see, the easiest way to get sick in a public restroom is to use your cell phone in there.

Why phones, keyboards and mice are so dirty

The bacteria crawling all over your phone, keyboard and mouse right now may include hundreds of different types, including E. coli, Klebsiella pneumonia, streptococcus, salmonella and staphyloccus aureus (a.k.a. "staph").

Staph can cause anything from pimples, boils and cellulitis, a bacterial infection of the skin, to fatal diseases like pneumonia, meningitis, endocarditis and toxic shock syndrome. Gerba tested 25 cell phones and found staph on almost half of them. Cell phones are extra infected because we hold them against our faces, breathe on them, touch them with our filthy mitts and keep them nice and warm in our pockets.

Keyboards and mice are disgusting mainly because we eat and drink at our desks. All that food feeds and nurtures colonies of bacteria and fungi.

Making matters worse, we move our hands from keyboard, to mouse to phone and back to keyboard all day. It's the microbial circle of life.

If you're the kind of person who reads Computerworld, you're touching phones, keyboards and mice all day. Worse, as an IT professional, you're probably using multiple keyboards and mice used by others. Not only are you more exposed to bugs, but you may be one of the main spreaders of these germs in your office.

So, Typhoid Mary, what are you going to do about it?

How to protect yourself

Sure, you can clean your phone, desk, keyboard and mouse with disinfectant once in a while (don't spray anything directly on the keyboard -- use wipes), but you're likely to forget, and most disinfectant products are mildly toxic anyway. You can also buy special condoms for your cell phone, but people will talk.

A better approach is to take advantage of a new and growing mini-industry of antimicrobial phones, keyboards and mice. Most of these new gadgets are coated with material that includes modified silver, which you'll see described as "nano sliver" or "silver ion."

(One company called Unotron bucks the antimicrobial coating trend by simply making their keyboards and mice washable.

Silver has been known for millennia for its antiseptic action. The Romans used silver to keep water and food from spoiling. Today, the water tanks of ships, airplanes and spacecraft are often coated with silver to keep the water potable for months.

(Note that the use of "colloidal silver," taken internally as an "alternative medicine" and claimed by proponents as a cure for diseases like AIDS, can be dangerous, leading to argyria, or silver poisoning, and other illnesses.)

Very recently, researchers have learned how to break silver down into smaller-than-natural particles. These nano silver particles can more easily connect with and penetrate germs. Scientists have in recent years learned to fine-tune the size and concentration of silver nano particles to more effectively kill bacteria, viruses and fungi.

Unlike antibiotics, silver doesn't promote the formation of resistant superbugs. Resistance is futile.

Antimicrobial silver is increasingly used in a wide range of products, from athletic gear to food containers to underwear to hospital bed sheets.

Silver sounds expensive. But you don't have to be Howard Hughes to afford -- or want, for that matter -- silver-based germ-killing gadgets. Here are the antimicrobial cell phones, keyboards and mice, designed for consumer or business office markets, that kill germs:

Cell Phones

Samsung SGH-E620, SGH-E640, SCH-S140, SCH-869

These phones have a finish that includes nano silver.

Motorola i870

The phone uses a silver-based AgION antimicrobial coating. AgION is the brand of AgION Technologies, which makes coatings for a wide variety of products.

LG F2300

LG claims that 99.9% of all bacteria that makes contact with the phone's silver-based coating is killed within three hours.

Keyboards

Genius SlimStar 310

This keyboard is waterproof and has been dipped in an antibacterial solution and the keys are electroplated in a silver coating.

Fellowes Microban Keyboards

A wide variety of household and industrial products are coated with Microban's antimicrobial polymers. Microban is a brand of antibacterial coating based on Triclosan, rather than silver.

Although Microban has been around for decades and is used in hundreds of products, Fellowes may be the only PC peripheral maker that uses it.

Mice

Iogear Germ Free Wireless Laser Mouse

Iogear uses a titanium dioxide (TiO2) and silver (Ag) nano-particle compound to kill a broad spectrum of nasty germs.

Fellowes Microban Mice

Like Fellowes Microban-coated keyboards, their mice are dipped in the stuff. The company even sells antimicrobial mouse pads.

Elecom Corporation "M-ABUR" series USB mouse

The M-ABUR mouse may be available only in Japan.

Still Feeling Crappy

Still feeling WAY below good. Symptoms are diminishing (twitching brain, pulsing eyes, and auditory hallucenations stopped sometime during a very sleepless night), but I'm still voraciously hungry, disoriented to the point I cannot multi-task at all, and have difficulty finishing thoughts and sentences. A bit of difficulty getting what I am thinking out verbally. Sometimes I've had to totally stop talking and work my way back through what I was trying to convey. This does not seem to be affecting this form of communication. Interesting.

Found an article about Reasons to Have Sex that I thought was interesting. One of the reasons supports what I have claimed all along, that sex--specifically intercourse--helps me moderate my moods. LOL You know, they just need to stop wasting money on studies and come and ask me what *I* think. ::giggle::

Tests Are Coming Back

Well, bugger. LOL Things are not as they have seemed. Oh, I'm healthy. No problem there. Mammogram came back fine. (I keep telling them my mom had breast cancer and I have taken a vow NEVER to have anything she has had--hence having fibromyaliga or some sort of enviro sensitivity for three years.

Not sure what the doctor is up to. She has ordered a lot of tests and thinks I might be "pre-diabetic". She also wants to see about my having too much testosterone -- something I have joked about for years. I'm one of the best men I know, on some levels. LOL

Okay, feeling to crappy to continue this right now. Took a break to work on the house and it involved going into the garage and opening old boxes. Found some COOL stuff, but between the increasingly bad withdrawal symptoms (YES, I'm still dealing with that), moving the cubical walls yesterday, the last few days of an astonishingly easy but still there period and who knows what else, I am in pretty bad shape. Jenni said "come play our cows". So that is what I am doing.

OWIE!

Just got bitten by a spider. Argggh. It hurts. But it looks like a pretty standard spider bite--ie, not like the black widow bite I got a decade ago that made me so sick. I DO NOT need to feel crummy right now.

Food And Exercise 10.6.6

Better Today

I lay in the middle of the empty master suite, just getting the feel of it, arranging things in my mind. Wouldn't mind doing something really radical, but will probably stick with the bed between the windows. Ironic that I have one of the biggest beds you can get and I use less than a single bed's worth of space. But that could work out. LOL If I decide to cam a lot, I can set the cam to only see the side of the bed I don't use. It will look like I make the bed.

Anyway, while laying there I decided to do a bit of stretching. Ended up with 20 leg lifts, 10 each side leg lifts and a variety of stretches and yoga positions. I hope I can keep the furniture to a minimum so I have room to do this every morning. Just feel better when I start the day with some floor exercise.

Breakfast: 730a
Jack's Sausage and Egg Bisquit

Snack:
Large Coffee and flirts

Lunch:
Subway Italian BMT, 6"

Dinner:
3 pieces chicken
1/4 cup collard greens
2 Tbs mashed potato/gravy
12 oz cola

Oh, Weight Last Night

was 310. The same weight I was when I got married. So I need to lose 60 pounds to get down to my low weight since I've been here, before I got fibro

Food And Exercise for 10.5.06

Not one of my best days:

No exercise.

Breakfast
Coffee

Snack 9a
Coffee
Low Fat Berry Peach Scone

Lunch 11a
sausage
serving Lay's chips

Snack
Fish sandwich

Dinner
Baked potato with cheese, sour cream and chicken
1/2 cup pasta
sm apple

Gained a Pound

But it's Jenni's fault. I was going to skip dinner, since I had a sandwich at 2p, but when I came home she had these huge baked potatoes ready to eat with shredded chicken, monterey jack cheese, sour cream . . .mmmmmmmmm. ::SIGH::

The TOPS meeting was awesome. It was the first time Michelle heard about Mike and Kathleen moving out, so she had to have the details. I have tried to be fuzzy on the details. She was immediately scandalized that Mike and Kathleen might be having an affair. I hastened to assure her that was not the reason they were sent away. That it was because I was being ignored. We talk quite a bit while waiting for the meeting to start. At one point I told her how I would go in and tell Mike I was tired, I was going to bed. . .and that he said he could never figure out how that was an invitation to join me. She was speechless. She could not believe that an intelligent man didn't recognize a come on like that. Which made me feel better. I kept thinking I was being unreasonable.

After the meeting Pam gave me her usual hug. Then she grabbed me again and held me tight and told me she loved me and she was so glad I was back and how much she needed me. ::sniffle:: I just need to get over whatever dysfunction *I* have that keeps me trying to make unworkable relationships succeed. I am surrounded by people who have shown their love and support for me in the past few weeks and I've wasted five years trying to get Mike to love me.

Going to try using this blog as a food journal/exercise journal. See next entry.

Moving All My Health Related Posts From My Hidden Personal Blog

Yeah, so much of what happens to me affects my health, I thought I should include some of that here so that maybe some day I can look back and say OH, NOW I UNDERSTAND.

Perking up from the husband and his gf moving out this past weekend. Thought for a brief time that I was relapsing into fibro. Between the cubicle walls we moved in from the old office and all the boxes they openned to sort from the last place in Denver (which was a hell hole . . don't get me started about the Danes and their filth.), I have had some muscular pain and a serious sinus infection.

But that is clearing up. Also had a sort of breakthrough the other morning when I was chatting with an old lover. He always tells me about all the sex he is having and sends me pics of the women he is doing. I'm not one, because he has a "no germ" policy and I have herpes (thanks all you scum who are positive and don't bother taking care). Every time he does this I've sunk into a depression. A year since I contracted herpes and, even though the husband is positive he doesn't want to risk having an "outbreak" if he touches me, I have only had a couple of brief, unsatisfying encounters with the now gone husband.

This have been very traumatic for me. First, because I worked SO hard to get over the rape and abuse of my childhood and first marriage. In the mid-80s I could not even bear to stand next to a man without shaking and I once fainted when I was kneeling between two men in the Temple. But I went through therapy and did a lot of dream and vision work to overcome this aversion. Once I was able participate enthusiastically in sex, I found it was a good therapy for depression. I oftened joked that I self-medicated for depression with caffeine and sex.

Of course, no sex during the last year means that the depression and self-loathing of the last year as I came to grip with being "diseased" and the pain and depression of suffering from chronic pain had the added strain of being undesirable and getting no hits of "oxytocin". To say nothing of the RAGE that the person I should most be able to count on refusing to do more than occassionally agree to talk about my needs, IF I staged a crisis.

The need to BEG for attention was so humiliating . . .I got so depressed and ended up totally absorbed in World of Warcraft. Which was totally sedentary and kept me closed up inside all the time on top of everything else.

Anyway, back to the breakthrough. I've decided to just accept the end of my sexuality. It still causes me to choke up a bit and get tears in the back of my eyes. But I have to be realistic. I prefer men and men are nothing but a pain in the ass. So I started my new path to sexless living by asking my former lover not to send me pictures or tell me about his sex life. I was very nice, I took the blame for it and asked him, as my friend, not to make it more difficult on me. He replied that he would be happy to do that.

Whew. Now, to find other outlets for the sexual energy. In the past when I have been hungry for touch I have eaten food. (In fact, I've been doing some thinking and realized that weight gain often follows "settling" into new relationship--ie, when the sex goes away, I eat more. Like to see one of the weight loss support groups address THIS. LOL I can't be the only one.) I am going to try to increase my exercise, although I know from experience that increased exercise means increased body awareness and increased sex drive.

Not sure what I will do, but I will figure it out.

Gaultier swaps Size O models for 'Size 20'

Fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier found his own way to comment on the 'size zero' debate - by putting a larger model down the catwalk to show off his clothes.

Dressed in a daring black corsetry, the plus-sized model dwarfed her fellow waif-like catwalk queens.

Clearly more of a size 20 than the controversial model Size 0, this voluptuous woman proved big is beautiful as she strutted down the runway at Gaultier's 30th anniversary show yesterday during fashion week in Paris.