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Archive for March, 2008
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Weird Health Wednesdays: Funny Signs, Pretty Pictures
Well, if the doctor thinks it’s okay. . . . (Flickr member: SharkeyinColo) Actually falling off a mountain is probably not this funny. (Flickr member: John.P) This sign gets right down to business. Ignore its warning and DIE. (Fllickr member: thepodger) And from the Wellcome Image Awards 2008, some spectacular biomedical visuals: Villi from the small intestine (Stephanie Schuller, Wellcome Trust) Colon cancer cells (Lorna [...] -
Traveling with Asthma
Kids sure give Spring Break an entirely different spin than it used to have in college. Instead of grabbing some friends and heading out of town at the last minute, you know the prep work that trips with children entail. The packing. The snacks for the car or plane. The books and games and toys. The coordination of driving [...] -
Horton Hears a Who!
Well. Not only am I posting very late today, but I have absolutely nothing to say about asthma, children’s health, or air quality, all because I went to see Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! this morning. See, the awesome thing about working from home is that I’m available for field trips. And the difficult thing about [...] -
Saturday Links: Inspiration Edition
What can you do if you have severe, brittle asthma or you’ve been legally blind since infancy? Stephen’s Racewalking a Marathon In Rome, no less. While his preparations included both a portable nebulizer and a medical evacuation plan because of his unpredictable lungs, he’s competing anyway. His words: I’ve missed out on way too much of this world [...] -
The Friday List: 4 Asthma Tips Your Doctor Didn’t Tell You
Maybe you’ve got a great doctor or ran into an excellent nurse or RT who did pass these along, but I learned them from other asthma parents. 1. Brush or rinse after steroids. Inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) can cause thrush but they’re also hard on teeth, big time. I ran into a messageboard mom years ago who never [...] -
So We’re Getting the Weaker Smog Restriction (Thanks, EPA!)
The Environmental Protection Agency passed up a strict, progressive new smog standard for a more modest limit yesterday. And if you want to know what happens when ozone pollution gets bad, check out Tuesday’s post on the horrifying smog in Beijing, site of this summer’s Olympics. Obviously, I don’t have the scientific credentials to claim we can [...] -
Weird Health Wednesdays: A Funny Commercial, Dog CPR, and Malaria Money
“He was injured. Injured bad.” You just have to watch this health insurance commercial first. Innocent, but sort of NSFW: Louisiana Firefighter Saves Dog with CPR I didn’t even know this was possible. Apparently, it’s a mouth-to-snout thing, and the firefighter did infant-type chest compressions on the tiny dog he pulled out of a mobile home fire. And [...] -
Asthma and the 2008 Olympics
Do you know who Haile Gebrselassie is? He’s an Ethiopian runner and the marathon world recordholder, and he just pulled out of that event for this summer’s Olympic Games. Gebrselassie has asthma, so he’s worried about running such a strenuous race in the thick smog in Beijing. Yes, the air pollution in Beijing is that bad, and [...] -
What’s Airway Remodeling?
From last week’s post about inhaled steroids: I’ve read some info on airway remodeling… the concept being that untreated asthma makes permanent changes to the airway that makes treatment later on more difficult. I don’t know how valid it is… but I would probably tend to come down on the side of inhaled steroids rather than [...]
