HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: richard@octel.com (Richard Karasik)
Subject: DISH
Organization: Octel Communications Corporation
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 20:36:04 GMT


This is a request for info on current state of affairs with DISH

I have DISH which is "diffuse ideopathic skeletal hyperostosis"
which appears to be doctor talk for "I dont know whatinhell is going on but
your anterior spinal ligament is turning to bone" GREAT.

I have worked through 3 arthritis specialists and several sports doctors
and all they can do is tell me to live with the pain. In all of the write ups
there is supposed to be minimal or no pain -- HAH!

I recently underwent an MRI scan in my area of pain T6 or so -left side
close to the spine and the doctor-speak report said
"aside from marked flowing osseous calcification typical of DISH, the patients spine
is grossly normal"

PISS ME OFF -"grossly normal" - like calling tom thumb "largely tiny"

The point is I am in rather severe pain a good part of the day -it is positional
(I know dont move my arm that way :)) especially if I try to exercise.
My back goes into spasm about 19 times out of 20. Some days I can walk for 7
miles and just have a hint of spasm forming between my shoulder blades -other
days I can walk 40 feet and have my back go into spasm, and continue to spasm
every 40 feet. The only interesting connection I can make is that when my lower colon
is full -the pain is worse in my upper back. Doctors have said that varying the 
internal pressure will vary how this kind of a "trigger point" will
respond. I want to get somebody's finger off the damn trigger.

Any thoughts out in netland on what you've been hearing so far -ie
Am I a total psycho whacko -or is there some place to look for
pain alleviation from a seemingly harmless process that is not putting
bone spurs into my nerves (or so Im told) - According to what Im
reading elsewhere its probably due to vitamin D abuse as a child (smirk smirk)

Thanks
RIchard
-- 
Richard Karasik
=================================================================================
|richard@octel.com              || Are you suffering from the Columbus Syndrome? |
|Octel Communications Corp      ||    ie  discovering something that isn't lost! |
|890 Tasman Drive               ||===============================================|
|MS 05/04                       || Speaker for the dead - among them:            |
|Milpitas, CA 95035             ||       Liberty, Justice, Freedom               |
=================================================================================
Newsgroups: sci.med
From: news@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: What to tell child their taking?
Organization: The Ohio State University
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 03:50:33 GMT

This article was probably generated by a buggy news reader.
From: Craig_Everhart@transarc.com
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Deodorants Harmful?
Date: 30 Dec 92 05:01:57 GMT
Article-I.D.: transarc.gfEPbZL0BwxI4D9K0c
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Excerpts from netnews.sci.med: 30-Dec-92 Re: Deodorants Harmful? Diane
Bailey@cix.compuli (1436)

> Clearly many substances can cause problems in humans without
> actual being present in the tissue at the site of the eventual
> problem.  ... I'd seriously hope that some better answers on aluminium
> might emerge than this, especially given the dreadful prognosis
> of Alzheimers.

Isn't this a non-sequitur?  What other evidence is there to correlate
aluminum with Alzheimer's?  Why not concern oneself over a possible
connection with, say, rhodium as much as one with aluminum?

The hideosities of Alzheimer's disease are substantial, granted.  But
even if one grants that trace elements can have nasty effects on body
parts where they don't reside, why pursue a connection between aluminum
and Alzheimer's if the only study that found a connection was completely
in error?

At what point does a belief become un-falsifiable?  At what point does
it become un-justifiable?  And, to cap, at what point can one make up
all kinds of other possible beliefs, just as frightening, that have as
much evidence for them as does a given belief?

Myself, I'll confine my hopes to wishing for some better answers on
Alzheimer's disease.  Pursuing hopes for better answers about aluminum
seems about as relevant as hoping for better answers to the titanium
question.

		Craig
From: eclark@gauss.math.usf.edu. (Edwin Clark)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: graphical display of medical records
Date: 24 Dec 92 13:09:43 GMT
Organization: Univ. of South Florida, Math Department

I have a son who has been in numerous psych wards and hospitals.
Several times I have attempted to read the records--especially the
medication records--over, say, a period of a year during which he has
been on many different drugs simultaneously with numerous
PRN's. I have been discouraged by how difficult it is to read
these records and get a good picture of the data. Are there any 
places out there that keep all this in a computer and at the touch of 
a key can get graphical displays of the data? 

I think this simple tool would be almost revolutionary.
My feeling now is that  many places -- all I have come into
contact with-- have a very local view of the treatment and very
seldom or never take a global view. 

I have finally decided I will have to do it myself at least
for my son's records. But does anyone know why it it is not
universally done in this age of computer graphics? Are there
any packages available out there?

Edwin Clark



--
W. Edwin Clark
Mathematics Department
University of South Florida
Tampa, FL 33620-5700
From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Income vs. pay  (was: physician's incomes)
Date: 22 Dec 1992 13:16:58 -0600
Organization: CS Dept, University of Texas at Austin
NNTP-Posting-Host: im4u.cs.utexas.edu

-*----
In these statistics, it is also important to distinguish income
from pay.  In any profession with highly paid members, their
average income will be quite a bit above their average pay
because many are able to save and invest a significant portion of
their *pay* early in their life and enjoy *income* from this
investment later in their life.  Thus, many physicians,
engineers, and lawyers who are over fifty have incomes that are
significantly greater (sometimes many times greater) than the
salary they command.
From: wats@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM (Bruce Watson)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Nicotine Withdrawal Help Needed
Date: 30 Dec 92 18:09:05 GMT
Organization: Alpha Science Computer Network, Denver, Co.

In article <8283@news.duke.edu| das@canctr.mc.duke.edu writes:
|I am trying to quit smoking for health reasons (what other reasons are
|there? :-)  ). 
|
Social reasons.

|The main point is:  I'm going crazy!!!  I'm climbing the walls.  My hands are
|shaking.  I can't keep a thought in my head long enough to work out a
|coherent sentence much less an entire paragraph.  I'm not gonna make it if
|I can't find SERIOUS motivation, and soon.  I figure if I can go at least 24
|hrs without cheating by Friday at the latest, I'll have a better chance than
|I've got right now.
|
Drink plenty of fruit juices, get a lot of exercise. If you can get by for
five days, you've got it made. Good luck, you can do it.

-- 
Bruce Watson (wats@scicom) Bulletin 629-49 Item 6700 Extract 75,131
From: eclark@gauss.math.usf.edu. (Edwin Clark)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Peter Breggin, _Toxic Psychiatry_ (Q)
Date: 24 Dec 92 12:10:04 GMT
Organization: Univ. of South Florida, Math Department

In article <1992Dec17.001057.10783@genie.slhs.udel.edu> nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Nancy Lebovitz) writes:
>In article <24417@alice.att.com> ark@alice.UUCP () writes:
>>In article <1992Dec15.155632.21024@athena.mit.edu> jgnassi@athena.mit.edu (John Angelo Gnassi) writes:
>>
>>> If a patient with a psychiatric disorder is lucid, evidences
>>> understanding of the situation, is not in immediate danger of harming
>>> self or others, they can walk out AMA - Against Medical Advice.
>>
>>Does anyone else remember the article written by the journalist who
>>walked into a hospital one day, claiming to hear voices, with the
>>intent of seeing what happened and writing about it?
>>
>>He told the doctor(s) that he heard voices in his head saying things
>>like `Thud.' in a normal tone of voice.  Any other questions he answered
>>truthfully.  After a while he said the voices had stopped.  At no time
>>did he do anything to suggest that he might harm himself or others.
>>
>>What he found:
>>
>>	Even though he continued to behave as a journalist,
>>	and would have admitted what he was doing had anyone
>>	asked, no one did.  They did make notations in his
>>	records, though, saying things like `Patient engages
>>	in writing behavior.'
>>
>>	He had a very hard time getting out.  Indeed, if I remember
>>	correctly, the only reason he was let out at all was that
>>	before going in, he made sure several other people knew
>>	what he was up to so that he could bring them in to testify
>>	on his behalf.
>>
>>This may, of course, be an isolated incident.  Can someone point me at
>>the article?
>


Did the journalist "patient" have  private insurance--if not
who was  picking up the tab? I have heard stories of cases in
which patients miraculously recovered when their insurance ran
out. 

eclark@math.usf.edu




--
W. Edwin Clark
Mathematics Department
University of South Florida
Tampa, FL 33620-5700
From: MIWHC@CUNYVM.BITNET
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Women Doctors
Date: 26 Dec 92 15:24:33 GMT
Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center


     I am looking for any sort of data/statistics on how patients feel about
women doctors. As yet, I have found nothing. I get the impression that both
older men and women prefer men doctors, middle-aged men prefer men doctors,
middle-aged women prefer women doctors and both younger men and younger
women prefer women doctors.
     These are only impressions I have received from speaking with various
women doctors about their patients. Obviously, the fact that women are finally
becoming doctors in much greater numbers must have something to do with this,
but I am more interested with the quality of the medical care.

     It seems that the rate of malpractice suits are lower for women, but
again, I need data. I also get the impression from speaking with various
women dentists, physicians, optometrists and surgeons that women seem to be
much more concerned with the patient's fear, comfort, and general well-being,
while the male doctors I've spoken with seem to talk more about their
technique and various difficult cases. Again, no data.
     Thank You in Advance.

                                --- Michael Wofsey
Newsgroups: sci.med
From: ns14@crux3.crux2.cit.cornell.edu (Nathan Otto Siemers)
Subject: Re: Bashing, truth, etc.
Organization: Department of Chemistry, Cornell Univ.
	<BzKE9B.ICJ@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 22 Dec 92 16:46:18

>>>>> On Sun, 20 Dec 1992 15:41:34 GMT, hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) said:

 Herman> In article <1gvpgsINNm32@im4u.cs.utexas.edu> turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) writes:
>-*----



 Herman> Much of present established medicine was at one time
 Herman> considered quackery, or at least ridiculous.  The conspiracy
 Herman> as stated in the first paragraph is not a deliberate
 Herman> conspiracy, but it is not that far from what is happening.
 Herman> The conspiracy is there to keep people from deciding what is
 Herman> appropriate for them, and part of it is the acts of moralists
 Herman> and bureaucrats to keep substances from us "because we cannot
 Herman> act intelligently", those physicians who do not provide the
 Herman> patient with information, but TELL the patient what to do,
 Herman> etc.  Few physicians have the ability to put widely separated
 Herman> information together, and unfortuantely this is almost gone
 Herman> from our sorry excuse for an educational system.

 Herman> But the problems we face are often far more complex than our physicians
 Herman> have learned to handle, and a bureaucrat is usually even worse.  There
 Herman> is, in effect, a massive conspiracy to keep those of us who must use
 Herman> medical process from acquiring the information, and in many cases from
 Herman> making intelligent choices.  If anything, the situation is getting much
 Herman> worse, and if the regulation mania gets worse, we will only get such
 Herman> medical care as the bureaucrats are willing to permit.

	Bravo.


--
--
/  | / /__|  /  /---/ /__| /  | /    nathan@chemres.tn.cornell.edu
From: nyeda@cnsvax.uwec.edu (David Nye)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Nicotine Withdrawal Help Needed
Date: 31 Dec 92 01:32:41 -0600
Organization: University of Wisconsin Eau Claire

[reply to das@canctr.mc.duke.edu,]
 
>I am trying to quit smoking...  I'm going crazy!!!  I'm climbing the
>walls.  My hands are shaking.  I can't keep a thought in my head long
>enough to work out a coherent sentence much less an entire paragraph.
>I'm not gonna make it if I can't find SERIOUS motivation, and soon.  I
>figure if I can go at least 24 hrs without cheating by Friday at the
>latest, I'll have a better chance than I've got right now.
 
Do you drink much caffeine (coffee, tea, caffeinated soft drinks)?  It
turns out that the half life of caffeine is markedly prolonged in
patients undergoing nicotine withdrawal.  One cup a day will make you
feel like you are drinking ten.  Cutting way back on or eliminating
caffeine may help your withdrawal considerably.
 
Good luck with quitting.  It is very difficult.  Heroin addicts have
told me it's easier to kick heroin.  Most people don't succeed on the
first try.  You just have to keep at it until you succeed (Mark Twain
once wrote "It's easy to quit smoking.  I've done it many times.").
Mayo Clinic now has an inpatient program for nicotine withdrawal.
Trying to stop by gradually cutting down doesn't usually work as well as
going cold turkey.  Also remember that if you ever have just ONE
cigarette again, you're hooked.
 
As Bronwyn remarked, you won't get very far if you are just *trying* to
quit.  If you have in the back of your mind even the slightest doubt,
you will fail.  You just have to decide that you will quit, no matter
what it takes, and never, use tobacco in any form again.  Once you have
that resolve, it actually is quite a bit easier to quit.
 
If you are married and your wife smokes, you should both try to quit at
the same time.  It is next to impossible for one spouse to quit when the
other keeps smoking.
 
>What are your worst horror stories
 
An article in JAMA earlier this year found that 1/3 to 1/2 of all
people who smoke die from it.
 
Good luck from a fellow nicotine addict in recovery (7 years).

David Nye
nyeda@cnsvax.uwec.edu
Newsgroups: sci.med
From: pwageman@visual.spk.wa.us (Peggy Wageman)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Pathological Intoxication
Date: 27 Dec 92 12:12:18 GMT
Organization: The Visual Market - Spokane, WA

I saw a movie where they made reference to a disorder called pathological in-
toxication where small amounts of alcohol produced a psychotic episode.  I've
never heard of this disorder, does it exist?  Is it like an allergic reaction?
Thanks,  Peggy Wageman
Newsgroups: sci.med
From: dbailey@cix.compulink.co.uk (Diane Bailey)
Subject: Re: Deodorants Harmful?
Reply-To: dbailey@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 14:09:00 +0000


In article <1992Dec28.095352.8870@visual.spk.wa.us>
pwageman@visual.spk.wa.us (Peggy Wageman) writes:

> Are deodorants that contain aluminum harmful?  And what would be the long
> term effects of using them?  Thanks,  Peggy Wageman

stefan.m.gorsch@dartmouth.edu replies in article
<1992Dec29.010727.20735@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>

> If you are concerned about the much publicized and probably
> incorrect association between aluminum and alzheimers, fear not.
> A study in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology in 1990 failed to
> find any statistically relevant association between aluminum
> containing antiperspirants and alzheimers.

Personally I'd like to know more about the basis of that study
before feeling reassured.  And I'm someone who has for twenty
years avoided consuming food or drink directly heated or stored
in aluminium containers, but had never made the connection
between the anti-perspirants I've used for thirty years and
aluminium until reading this thread.

It was reading the homoeopathic proving of alumina that first
alerted me to the dangerous properties, and then realising how
easily the metal was dissolved.  By 1929 Boericke had listed
confusion as to personal identity and being prematurely old,
amongst several others, as effects of alumina.

As for orthodox studies linking aluminium with complaints in
humans, I'm reminded of the enquiries which found no connection
between the accidental dumping into the water supply of a Devon
town of a truck load of an aluminium chemical and the well
documented complaints of many who drank the water.  On
examination one finds they were simply swayed by the orthodox
opinion that aluminium cannot pass through into the relevant
parts of the human body - "It's impossible so it cannot have
happened."

I'd like to know the epidemiological history of Alzheimers
(balanced for the increasing numbers living to greater age) in
relation to the introduction of aluminium cookware (1920s?),
drinks and food containers, cooking foil, anti-perspirants (both
roll-on and aerosol - 1950s and 1960s, but generally later for
men?), and the use of aluminium in the purification of water.
Although 10% solutions were being used medically (eg in
Tonsillectomy) probably long before any of those other uses were
introduced.  And is there an increased incidence of Alzheimers
amongst those that have been around aluminium casting or
soldering processes - since solder contains the metal, in
addition to lead, usually.

Diane
From: geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Preventing spread of late-term RSD
Date: 28 Dec 92 01:44:05 GMT
Reply-To: geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks)
Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh Computer Science

In article <BzFv85.BFE@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> graham@venus.iucf.indiana.edu writes:
>
>Finally, assume that all "standard" forms of treatment and therapy have
>been exhausted, such as nerve blocks, surgical sympathectomy, physical
>therapy, etc., and are no longer effective.
>
>Would it be a safe bet to say that amputation of the leg, say 5-6
>inches below the knee would stop it from spreading further?
>

Absolutely not!  The problem is most likely central to the site of amputation,
in the ganglia, not in the sympathetic axons.  I've seen 2 cases of
amputation for RSD, both of which were disasters, one of which resulting
in a malpractice suit against the surgeon.  It would be amazing if 
surgeons can still be found to consider such a procedure.

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Banks  N3JXP      | "I have given you an argument; I am not obliged
geb@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu   |  to supply you with an understanding." -S.Johnson
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Peter Breggin, _Toxic Psychiatry_ (Q)
Date: 28 Dec 92 00:01:10 GMT
Reply-To: geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks)
Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh Computer Science

In article <BzBGJx.7Ev@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
>
>Here, again, put perhaps another way, is the point.  Suppose a kid
>is brought to you presenting with the usual symptoms of scarlet
>fever.  This generally is not a hard diagnosis.  With a little experience
>I've even done it myself.  So you say, "Well, it looks like scarlet
>fever.  Let's start him on X (I forget the preferred antibiotic)."
>And the very *next* thing you say is, "We'll need to get a throat
>culture.  We'll call you if it's not scarlet fever."
>

Scarlet fever was recognized and diagnosed by physicians for many years
prior to the ability to do throat cultures, or even the notion that bacteria
caused diseases.  Are you saying that prior to this, the disease 
Scarlet Fever did not exist?  

-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Banks  N3JXP      | "I have given you an argument; I am not obliged
geb@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu   |  to supply you with an understanding." -S.Johnson
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: fulk@cs.rochester.edu (Mark Fulk)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Non-physician bashing
Date: 3 Jan 93 19:25:04 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester

In article <1993Jan1.000114.3025@cnsvax.uwec.edu> nyeda@cnsvax.uwec.edu (David Nye) writes:
>...Those that go to
>alt.practitioners (other than chiropracters) on the other hand often go
>because it is novel and trendy.  They also seem to be more superstitious
>than mainstream patients, believing in things like luck, fate, and
>common superstitions.  These are the same people who would go to a
>fortune teller.

There are also those who don't want to confront the possibility that a
problem may lie within themselves.  A friend of ours is clearly, severely
depressed; although I'm not an M.D., her case is as obvious as George
Washington's nose on Mt. Rushmore.  (Extreme insomnia, negative attitude, a
permanent frown, frequent outbursts of hostility, long periods of inactivity, 
poor grooming, etc. etc. etc.)  She insists that she's just fine, nothing that
her herbalist can't cure, and by the way, would we mind picking up her herbs
for her because she doesn't feel like driving...

Mark
-- 
Mark A. Fulk			University of Rochester
Computer Science Department	fulk@cs.rochester.edu
From: lamontg@stein.u.washington.edu (Lamont Granquist)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: post-Prozac reactions
Date: 21 Dec 92 15:16:22 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Dec21.151622.2479
Organization: 'Operation: Mindcrime'

mdkline@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Mark D. Kline) writes:
>People struggle to find explanations for behaviors and feelings which
>seem out of character -- e.g., bursts of irritability, lapses in
>judgment, increased need for reassurance, as well as physical 
>symptoms -- which arise during periods of stress or in the context of a
>depressive illness.  It is always something - if it's not Prozac, it's
>PMS, it's not running enough, eating too much, or too little, or too
>much or too little of this or that.  Sometimes these explanatory models
>are right, or may be right, and sometimes they are very flakey.
>Sometimes people overlook the writing on the wall and round up the
>usual suspects, so to speak.  "The Prozac made me do it." Well, problem
>is, many people feel suicidal or homocidal who aren't taking Prozac.
>Large numbers of people taking Prozac don't seem to be any more violent
>or suicidal than large numbers of people taking other antidepressant
>medications.

Drugs typically have distinctive characterstics vs. genuine psychological
feelings.  Try using enough psychoactives so that you get an really good
feel for the boundary between your psychological mind and your genuine
feelings, and your biochemical brain and drug experiences.  You get to the
point where you are very sensitive to the difference.

Also, you seem to have about as much of a concept of what I mean by
"out of character" as most people who have never had it before think of
"clinical depression".  If you haven't experienced it, you just don't
really understand...

And Prozac didn't make me do a damn thing.  The feeling hit, and my mind
automatically went into its "we're on a drug, just sit tight and let this
feeling go away" mode -- same thing I do if LSD starts going weird.  If it
wasn't the Prozac, then its the only time I've ever gone into this state
while down at a complete baseline.

-- 
Lamont Granquist  lamontg@u.washington.edu
  "When dogma enters the brain, all intellectual activity ceases."
                                      -- Robert Anton Wilson