I think it’s mostly people in the thread are over exaggerating how common it actually is to ban them for a humorous effect. Maybe overly litigious society, schools don’t want to be sued because some dumb bully throws a peanut at a kid who can die from it. Peanut bans are becoming a thing in Europe though. A quick googling will show that. I found a proposal in European parliament. Here’s the BBC talking about banning them on all public transport:
But all that aside, the increasing allergies across the industrialized world is really interesting though, and not a United States specific thing. A lot probably has to do with eradication of parasites. Much of the immune system parts responsible for allergies don’t have any role in response to bacteria or virus, but are intended to fight off parasites. And this is a gross over simplification, but the basics are without any parasites to fight off (since they’ve been eradicated in the industrialized world) it gets dysregulated and starts reacting to benign targets.
If you’re in Europe, we’ll I’ve got news for you, 2/3rds of European schools have at least one child with an anaphylactic peanut allergy. So peanut allergies are not just from excess freedom it would seem.
Any source that he advised Obama? I’m curious because it sounds like Obama wasn’t a particular fan of his:
"We dropped more ordnance on Cambodia and Laos than on Europe in World War II, and yet, ultimately, Nixon withdrew, Kissinger went to Paris, and all we left behind was chaos, slaughter and authoritarian governments that finally, over time, have emerged from that hell.”
Mr. Obama noted that while in office he was still trying to help countries “remove bombs that are still blowing off the legs of little kids.”
People say the content of the meme in all seriousness all the time too is mainly why, thinking the doctor is responsible for that cost. I didn’t want it to become an attack on OP though, not my intent. And maybe my comments will encourage more wholesome memes about evil health care administrators and insurance company execs instead, the true enemy, haha.
That’s true! But the mri costs are billed by the facility and hospital and generally have nothing to do with the doctor. Doubly the insurance and hospitals play games with each other, so the billed amounts end up being way more if not paying with insurance. I get bugged by memes and statements suggesting that doctors are the driver of the cost when it’s actually insurance companies, health care facilities, hospitals, medical equipment companies, and pharmaceuticals that are primarily driving all of this. Your doctor probably wanted to be sure there was nothing dangerous or abnormal. If it only showed arthritis there’s usually not much more that can be done besides pt and nsaids. Even the radiologist fee is a small part of the actual mri charge. Doctors just want to get people the tests and treatments that are indicated, but are the person people actually interact with so tend to take all the blame. I agree with you our health system is a mess.
Unfortunately doctors have no magic fixes for back pain related to muscular strains or degenerative disease/arthritis, which is most back pain. Treatments are basically physical therapy and nsaid medications. Surgery for low back pain from degenerative disease/arthritis alone has poor evidence with most randomized trials suggesting no difference. Even opiates fail to show any superiority over nsaids (like ibuprofen or naproxen) for back pain. Not saying don’t see your doctor about bad persistent back pain, there’s always edge cases or bizarre causes that may need addressing. But unfortunately no magic bullet for the vast majority of typical low back pain.
Review on surgery indications in back pain ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10107811/#mja251…
Randomized trial of opioid and nsiads in back pain, hip pain, and knee pain from degenerative disease/arthritis pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29509867/
Also, I know it’s a meme, but the billing code doctors use for even the most complicated of visits going over an hour and involving multiple potentially life threatening conditions or treatments isn’t anywhere close to $3000. Let alone a visit for routine back pain which wouldn’t qualify for anything like the highest billing codes.
You’re right it wasn’t a very scholarly article, that article was just the first thing that pops up on a Google search meant for people who weren’t familiar with Olestra, was mostly intended as a joke.
To take it more seriously though, a lot of those studies took place after a formulation change, so the later incarnations may have been better. It’s also possible that some of the reports came from people consuming large amounts of it at once. The studies I saw that didn’t show much difference all had a relatively small amount of chips ingested (see studies cited by article here www.acsh.org/news/1996/…/whats-the-story-olestra#…), for instance one of these studies was a double blind crossover with only 2 Oz of chips. I’m not aware of studies that would simulate downing a whole can of Pringles with Olestra at once. It was often included in snack foods that people don’t always moderate themselves on. Many of these studies, like the one you cite, were run by the manufacturer so important to be skeptical of the methods. They apparently started to fortify it with fat soluble vitamins to address concerns it could exacerbate deficiencies of those vitamins (besides basic science which should logically suggest this would happen, there’s evidence to back that up as well jn.nutrition.org/article/…/fulltext). The principle of every stool softener on the market now is that it’s something your body cannot absorb that will remain in the gi tract, eat enough Olestra or anything like it and it’ll have an impact on your stool consistency, just a matter of dosing. Animal studies also suggested it doesn’t cause weight loss and may even lead to increased weight. In the end it stopped being sold in the US altogether, because why go to all that trouble for something that probably doesn’t have any benefit.
It’s tough though, common symptoms are common. Many side effects you see on medications or things like Olestra may not even have anything to do with the product and were just coincidence or nocebo effect.
It depends on the journal. I’ve only published in medical related journals, but some journals don’t charge a fee if the article remains closed access. Some journals just have an embargo period, so you may be free to republish to pubmed central or something similar after a year or two. Open access of course always costs money, or more if they do charge a publishing fee. A lot of nih grants have requirements to make it open access within a year, so some publishers at least are just embargoing for a year now.
You’re right, I was clarifying sometimes with the eye you might perceive black as opposed to the brain where you generally won’t, but it may not be universally true. Sorry that happened though, strokes suck.
Ah, if it was truly blind in one eye that would be a retinal artery occlusion which is a stroke equivalent, just affecting the retina itself instead of the brain. That one you can see black sometimes. If it’s the visual brain centers in the occipital lobe, it’ll be half the vision in each eye, and that’s the one where field of view is just narrower and you don’t really perceive any dark area.
But as you said, point is this stuff is confusing, if any doubt, go to the hospital. Doctors would much rather a false alarm than people showing up too late to do anything.
Have them smile is very key for the face one. Faces aren’t perfectly symmetric. People often use the phrase facial droop which is a somewhat misleading phrase. Older individuals with looser skin and wrinkles there may be a “droop” but not otherwise. It’s really the lack of activation of the lower facial muscles on one side that helps you tell. Facial muscles help move the side of your mouth both up and down, and they both get weak in a stroke affecting the face. So unless someone has a lot of loose skin it’ll probably just look kind of flat. So again, have them smile, the inability to elevate the corner of the mouth or decreased ability to do so is key.
There’s also a lot of misleading graphics out there with upper facial weakness too, like inability to close the eye. That can happen with certain strokes, but it’s much more common for only the lower face muscles to be weak, with the eye and forehead muscles being fine.
Here’s a good example of what it’ll usually look like irl:
This is someone trying to smile, the side affected by the stroke would be the person’s right side (left side of the picture), not the side that’s “drooping” that’s actually the normal side.
It’s not uncommon. Especially strokes affecting the non dominant side of the brain, people often don’t realize there’s anything wrong. Takes other people around you to tell to you that something is wrong.
You shouldn’t feel bad, it could happen to anyone. Just depends on where the stroke is in the brain if someone is capable of recognizing it themselves or not.
An especially difficult one for people to detect on their own is strokes that are affecting visual centers of the brain. People expect they’ll see black or something. But you don’t see anything at all, field of vision is just narrower. It’s like, you don’t see black out the back of your head normally right? Usually if people notice anything it’s that they’re bumping or tripping into stuff on one side, or like driving and get in a car accident because they’re not perceiving one half of what’s in front of them.