Oh? So there is till hope? :bday:

Check your ears.

They're on there tight - someone else had the same thing happen a week ago. I've had everything under the sun stolen from me at one time or another, I'd chop off hands for theft if I had anything to say on the topic.

And I'm thus-wise stupid cautious about leaving my bike anywhere for more than 6 seconds without supervision or an eyeball on it.

:thumb:

Isn't it usually underground?

Got my general blood tests this morning and a hep-C screen topped off with a flu shot.

#pincushion

Well this has gone on long enough. In southern Belize, in areas carved out of the rainforest and the adjacent costal wetlands, they go in once a year with basketball and larger sized rocks. It takes a surprisingly short time to pack them down. Sometimes they come in with softball size stone later on. I put a suspension fork on my giant hybrid so I could ride to town.

I have mixed feelings about the Hep C "awareness" advertisements we are all seeing.

The good news is we have new treatments for Hepatitis C that can cure it in 12 weeks, one pill/day for 12 weeks.

The not-so-good news is that the pill costs roughly $1000 each. I suppose that goes to pay for the fancy advertising.

I imagine the price will come down over time.

And so do Twins fans - with affection when they're decent and out of derision when they're bad.

Tell me about it.

Is this a common thing in offices? I've never worked in one.

lol

All morning I've been trying to freeze my wife's and my credit. It can't be done online, from here anyway, and my sil says we shouldn't use our smartphones. Any idea why? That is the only option we have. Cert. mail might be the solution. Certainly they would find something wrong on the form, and it would take months of backing and forthing. I have a great deal of faith in the system.

Hey [MENTION=107711]datlas[/MENTION],

Can you think of a single instance where you were talking with a patient about his condition and the patient says, "You know, I saw this commercial on TV about drug X which can treat this." And you were like, "Oh really? I never heard about a treatment for this. I need to look it up. Thanks for the tip!"

Nope.

Actually, I wish drug advertising to consumers did not exist. It's banned in most countries. I don't like it partly because patients come in asking for drug X because of the advertisement...but really, what bothers me even more is that the FDA regs are such that the advertisements must give warnings of rare but serious side effects, so if I think a patient REALLY NEEDS medicine Y, the patients are often reluctant or scared because of the warnings they heard on TV.

Sigh. Time to retire.

Friend of mine had this hat last night in the house - really wanted to wear it in on casual friday today:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....QL._SY355_.jpg

I get tons of advice from Dr Google. People google what's been going on with their pet, then come in and give me all kinds of 'helpful' ideas. So common nowadays that it's almost a cliche, it's an everyday thing.

I've become really good at saying 'shut up and let me talk, then if you have any unanswered questions or insightful thoughts, you will get your turn when I am done.' Very nicely of course, people seem to take it well so I think I'm finessing it ok.

Mostly I think those types of people just really want to be involved in their pet's care. My style is that I give people enough info to understand the pros and cons of their options, then I make my recommendations. But all decisions are kind of mutual things, in vet med there's always considerations beyond what's best medically- quality of life, cost, logistics.

So sometimes even the people who come in with their notes and google search results and talk over me 5 times in the first 10 min of the appointment commonly start to chill out at some point during our consultation, when they start to realize that I actually am going to involve them in the decision making.

But boy it gets tedious, asking grown adults to please not interrupt me...

Uh huh

I need one with bike gear on it.

And why he is not in the Hall of Fame completely baffles me. One of the three top pitchers of his generation.

Am I imagining things or have warnings in ads changed a bit? I seem to have noticed only recently that most (if not all) drug adds now include, by way of example, "Don't take Trulicity if you are allergic to Trulicity or its ingredients." Duh.


And I remember back in the day a very shot spot for Lipitor. In consisted of a man walking into his home and saying to a woman, who I assume was supposed to be his spouse, "I asked my doctor about Lipitor." That was it. No explanation as to what the drug was supposed to treat.

I think there are roughly 3 types of advertisements (or 4, see below):

1. Disease awareness..."See your doctor about new treatment for XXXX" no warnings or medicine names.
2. Drug name awareness "See your doctor about lipitor" or the Claritin "Blue Skies" song. No mention of what the medicine is for.

These two do not require any warnings.

3. Drug + Disease, ie. I got my cholesterol down with Crestor! These require warnings of common side effects as well as uncommon but dangerous ones. I don't like these at all

4. OTC drugs and supplements. No need to give any warnings even though they give the names of the drugs and what they treat, etc.

This is my impression but I am pretty sure it's accurate.

I just assumed it was a Medicare thing since it was scheduled after a Medicare wellness check recently.

Remember this one for Xenical, which I believe was a fat absorption blocker?: "You may experience gas with oily discharge, increased bowl movements, an urgent need to have them and an inability to control them."


No pun intended, but I'll pass.