The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Tae:

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Posted on entry Update on Teresa ::: September 17, 2008, 12:09 AM:
I'm glad you got out of the hospital. People die there. If you got to the point of a stress test, then your cardiac markers were negative. Positive stress and negative troponins is a great deal.
Posted on entry Heat Stress ::: September 02, 2008, 03:29 PM:
There are some articles in the literature which suggest that once you suffer a heat illness, you are more prone to other episodes.

I'd recover as Jim suggest, and reintroduce yourself to exercise in a gradual, well-hydrated way.

Acclimation is key.
Posted on entry Cold Blows the Wind Today ::: December 19, 2005, 11:59 PM:
A lot of info about Raynaud's

The two sentence read: alpha-adrenergic induced vasopasm. Treated with alpha-adrenergic blockers or nitroglycerin paste over affected areas.
Posted on entry Cold Blows the Wind Today ::: December 17, 2005, 03:41 AM:
Could someone explain what causes paradoxical undressing? I ran across that while looking up hypothermia, and I'd never heard of it before.

I remember talking about this a couple years ago in alt.folkore.urban. The consensus was that - and I think it was already mentioned above, people get stupid when cold, and take off their clothes rather than keep them on.

The incidence of this happening in the general frozen public is about one in four. One year Sweden counted up all the peoplesicles found in flagrante delicato and determined that two thirds of them had drugs or alcohol in their systems.

They didn't come right out and make the correlation between drinking and taking your clothes off in public, but as also mentioned above, being cold and drunk makes you even more stupid than either one alone.

There was some other Swedish study - which rates mention in that it is only one of twenty-five Medline articles that make reference to 'drunkards', which tried to create a link between atherosclerosis, alcohol, hyperthermia and the winter lambada.

Artherosclerosis might cause paradoxical peripheral vasodilation, which, much like alcohol, will cause one to feel warmer than they really are. The Germans reference this and introduce another whacky behavior of the cold and nearly-dead - "terminal burrowing behavior".

Those Germans.
Posted on entry Sweetness and Light ::: November 22, 2005, 11:07 AM:
Tae: I hope you don't mind my asking, but are you the author of the "Paramedic from Hell" series? If so, thank you -- I enjoyed those immensely.

Ah yes, that was me, though I now cringe at my lack of writing and parsing style when I read some of the stuff today.

In my defense, I typed essentially one long paragraph and posted using my trusty Apple //e and my not so trusty dialup connection and hoped that it went through.

Never occurred to me that I could write using a word processor and post in a more lesiurely fashion.

Posted on entry Sweetness and Light ::: November 22, 2005, 02:33 AM:
eleanor, illness is ALWAYS EXPECTED to raise your blood sugar. this is common and universally known.

Hypoglycemia commonly occurs in sepsis (overwhelming blood infections), kidney and liver failure. The zebra in the differential would be an insulinoma (insulin-producing tumor).
Posted on entry Sweetness and Light ::: November 21, 2005, 02:21 AM:
That isn't the reason I'm permanently deferred from donating blood, but it's certainly more interesting.

Uh uh, not gonna touch that. The exclusion criteria can get ... personal.
Posted on entry Sweetness and Light ::: November 21, 2005, 01:57 AM:
Unless you're living in the tropics where microfilarians are a major problem.

Agreed. Let's just hope Vicki doesn't live in the tropics, or the albuterol MDI she just got isn't going to do spit for her.
Posted on entry Sweetness and Light ::: November 21, 2005, 01:41 AM:
You can get a monkey to pass medical school by teaching him to say "It varies." The monkey will graduate in the top half of his class if you can also teach him to say "We see that sometimes."

However, when you hear hoofbeats you think horses - not zebras.

An elevated eosinophil count is most commonly associated with antigen-antibody responses - such as asthma and allergic reactions. Including 'parasites' too high up in the list of differential diagnosis will net you a harsh pimp session and a required presentation on liver flukes.
Posted on entry C4H12N2 ::: November 20, 2005, 02:34 AM:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/007012.html#102880
Posted on entry C4H12N2 ::: November 20, 2005, 02:25 AM:
Actually, if the FD arrived before the PD, they'd be a little smarter about it and dump coffee grounds, cinnamon, and a little water into the pan and let it burn. I could always tell I was going to a code 99 by the smell of burnt coffee and cinnamon as I walked up the stairs.
Posted on entry Sweetness and Light ::: November 20, 2005, 02:06 AM:
Thiamine given with D50 because of Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome

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