Last Commented Health Blogs (955)

0.01% sounds like a small amount. It's the amount of Sodium Benzoate found in many canned drinks. According to Drugs dot com, "Sodium Benzoate is an antimicrobial preservative and flavoring agent used in the food industry and a tablet and capsule lubricant used in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry."

Flavoring agent? Those drinks always have an aftertaste. Who are they trying deceive?

According to chatillion... "That must be the chemical taste found in Pepsi products like Mountain Dew and Lipton Tea." Seriously, I try my best to avoid products with Sodium Benzoate.

That must be a cousin to Sulfur Dioxide, a preservative sulfite on dried fruits that is known to cause serious health problems, including breathing problems, life-threatening allergy-like symptoms or, in rare cases, death.

When shopping for dried fruits, if Sulfur Dioxide is in the list of ingredients, the package goes back on the shelf.

Thanks, but no thanks!

Simple formula

Think as your body as a car

The gas tank is your energy/fat stores

The faster you drive the more energy you need

The bigger your tank the further you can travel without needing more fuel

If you don't drive fast you don't use much fuel

So next time you feel like overfilling your tank or complain about your low MPG and how your car no longer looks and drives like new,you only have yourselvs to blame

Oh and trump and the big fat guy in the red suit

Q-TIPS is a brand name for cotton swabs. I've tried different brands and always return to Q-TIPS. A generation ago they made them with wooden sticks. The wood was replaced with a plastic tube but the cotton on the tube didn't stick well and white paper sticks replaced the plastic.
In layman's terms, Q-TIPS with paper sticks suck. I'm sure it's a safety factor, but they give way when you try to dig into the ear canal. I remember the old days having control with wood sticks. I'm thinking someone dug too deep and damaged their ear drum. Yes, very possible. Worst case would be the stick splintered. THAT would be painful!
I did find some long wooden stick cotton swabs used for cleaning electrical equipment, but they were low quality and I'm sure they would splinter.
I found good quality wood stick cotton swabs on a trip to China. it was great! That with a small bottle of alcohol I was in ear cleaning heaven. On my return to the U.S. Chinese customs stopped my carry-on through their scanner and asked if I had any beer. No... but the little bottle had leaked and set off an alarm. Seeing it was packaged with the cotton swabs, I didn't need to give explanation (or go to jail) but it was discarded and I didn't have a chance to bring them home.
Hopefully, I'll have a chance to return to China for the Chinese New Year in February and plan to buy more swabs. This time I'll leave out the alcohol.

Every year or so I read a story about someone who had a bad reaction to Botox lip injections where they have puffed up lips that required surgery to correct. The one I saw this week was similar, but the woman was lucky and quickly received medical treatment. It took months for the Botox to dissipate and the swelling to go down. She was one of the lucky ones.

Not so lucky was a woman who starred in a TV realty series. Her upper lip puffed up but I haven't seen any followup stories to see if the swelling went down. As far as I know the disfigurement was permanent.



She appears to be the 'poster child' for Botox injections gone wrong.

Anyone had one ?

What part of your body and did you have any strange sensations or unusual reactions/side effects

One week ago today I got the beginning stages of pneumonia.
I suspect, that I got infected from the combination of a handshake
between myself and another photographer I met, while photographing a female wild
bald eagle, and the fact that my nose was running a bit from being out in the cold
for an extended period of time.
As I wiped my nose with a tissue, the bacteria now on my hand likely got onto the tissue
and then transferred to the moist mucus membranes of my nostrils.
Of course, since we can't actually see anything as small as a bacteria with the naked eyes, it wasn't actually witnessed by me. Yet, it seems a reasonable explanation.

This is also slightly supported by the following. The other photographer, who I met for
the first time that day, asked me for my website. So, I gave him a business card,
and requested that he email me, and then I would respond with a link to that webpage.
He did so that night.
In the morning I responded with that webpage link along with a statement that it was nice to meet him and if he had any questions about the photos, I would be happy to help.
I also mentioned that somehow I got infected with pneumonia that day and wasn't feeling all that well at that moment.

Usually when I send someone my webpage I initially get a thank you and subsequently all sorts of compliments about the photos. From that guy - no response. Guilt ?
Is it possible he was still recovering from pneumonia and shouldn't have been shaking hands ? Perhaps.

Regardless, I am doing worlds better than I was last Thursday. That was the peak
of the infection. Both Wednesday night & Thursday night, I had to sleep sitting up,
or I literally would have drowned from my own mucus. I had no appetite. I was dizzy,
My world was confined to my bed and my bathroom and the internet,
It snowed Wednesday night and my cable TV has been wiped out since.
Somehow, I still get internet and phone. Same cable.
I have had this happen years ago, so I do know that it is possible.

Thursday night, while I was sleeping, was when the war began.
My immune system detected that something foreign was inside my body and needed
elimination. So, T cells, antibodies, macrophages and other biological agents all
teamed up to kill the bacteria. They kicked bacterial butt. That's when things started improving. It made a HUGE difference. Every day I am getting a little better.
Yesterday, for the first time since last Wednesday, I actually ate 3 meals.
I also drove my car to a store to buy cough drops. I avoided coming in contact with anyone.

Physically, the main problem now, is that my immune system got a little confused
and also attacked my right knee. Perhaps it detected some scarred tissue from
playing on 4 softball teams all summer. That's a LOT of running on these old knees. Now is generally my heal & repair time from the spring & summer before next spring.
Well, instead, my right knee is now swollen, stiff and sore. I think that is also getting
a tiny bit better each day. I guess time will tell.

Today the cable repair person is finally supposed to be here. I won't let them in the house, nor come in contact with them, as I don't want them to get infected.
After I am completely well (not there yet), there is a 10 day period where I am
still contagious. Thus, I had to cancel Thanksgiving plans with family.
However, I definitely did not want any of them to get infected either.

So, I am feeling a bit better every day since Friday morning and well on the path to recovery.
That's the condition my condition is in.

The camera I have been using for the past 3 years is a Canon 700D.
It's been an excellent camera and I have sold nature pictures worldwide.
But, I figure that it was time to buy myself a Christmas present and do an upgrade to a 750D.
While there's several advantages, to me it's an upgrade in resolution from 18mp to 24mp.
So, I actually bought 2 of them and will keep one as a back-up in case anything goes wrong
with the initial one.

Both of the new cameras have been patiently waiting for me to pick them up at my P.O. box.
Yesterday, since it was mostly sunny (albeit cold), was the day I chose to pick them up and try them out.
I had previously bought 4 batteries and a charger for this model, so I had a couple of fully charged batteries with me.

Mostly, I took pictures of black cormorants. But, as luck would have it, I saw a couple of bald eagles.
Indeed, I got quite close to a female perched near the top of a tree near a bridge.
Thus, I got a lot of shots of her perched and later cleaning off her talons in Carnegie Lake.

I met another photographer and he emailed me this morning anxious to see my webpage.
I also met a couple of women and mentioned that they had just missed a bald eagle.
They asked if I got pictures, which I then showed them.
One of the women actually asked, "how did you know, that you would see a bald eagle to photograph today". She was serious. So, I replied that "I made an appointment through New Jersey Wildlife".
I waited about 5 seconds for effect and then said "just kidding. I didn't know. It's very random. I just got lucky."

It was very cold, and although I had lots of layers on, I ended up with pneumonia, which I am still battling. At home I found a unopened package of Ricola natural herb cough drops that I must have bought several years ago and probably have consumed a dozen of those so far. They help somewhat.
But, although I ate dinner, I only have had a banana and several sips of water since. I'm just not hungry and my throat is sore from hacking up phlegm. Sorry for too much information, but those are the facts. I don't feel very good.
It's about 1:30 pm and I'm going back to sleep, which I have to do sitting up, so I don't choke.

Sure, they have their places, in the right caring and trusted hands.
Especially over the past decades with more knowledge of the immune and inflamatory reasons for illness, much of which we create ourselves, with lifestyles literally to die for. Very die for. And it's especially true more in some fields than others. Some like to say these agents only treat symptoms, but more and more, they also reach for underlying causes, and in these regards, gene replacement therapy beckons huge. Best time ever to be sick VERY SICK. and there really are many ways to skin the proverbial cat. So try to be broad minder about caregivers. The best health professionals are so. My NP and acupuncturist and homeopath, etc. are open minded.

here in the northern latitudes, especially with the time changes, seems to get some folks blue. The old timers here call it "cabin fever"; modern term is seasonal affective disorder. Esquimos call some of it Amok, although their flavor often involves violence toward others. Remedied, for some, by daily treatment with a light box, but only using some frequencies. Antidepressants, and getting away, help others. I should know.

Spreading on the dark continent, once again, in spite of a marginally effective vaccine, which ain't easy to use. Storage/transport issues, and the usual religious/cultural public health barriers there. If it ever comes to our more civilised advanced places, in many parts of the populations, ignorance and sloth will also create challenges.