Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with medicine

Anxyliotics for draconian drug laws in S E Asia?

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 08:06:02 -0800

Can I take my benzos in transit through KL international airport? I will be catching a connecting flight through Malaysia and want to know whether I will be able to bring prescription drugs safely. I am aware of arrests of drug smugglers who were just passing through Malaysian and Singaporean airports as well as the problems people such as Grooverider have experienced in similarly draconian countries such as Dubai. I also appreciate that, if in doubt, it's best not to take a risk.

Regardless, I want to know if there is a substantial difference between carrying illicit drugs and medicines through the airport. I have a flight connection at Malaysia and want to know whether am I actually allowed to bring my benzos with me. How risky actually is it? Will I need to bring a valid prescription or will that not help me. Or is it fine as long as I am bringing obviously legit medicine rather than unlabelled baggies of loose powder. For obvious reasons I'd rather avoid any run-in with the authorities but part of me has to believe that the drug laws are vaguely reasonable with respect to medicines.

Added a procedure or product to Australia's Medicare?

krisjohn — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:35:15 -0800

Are there any public advocacy groups in Australia to help people with debilitating illnesses get new medical products and procedures added to Medicare?

Paging Dr. House

ohyouknow — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:13:06 -0800

Help me find a Dr. House in (or near) Los Angeles for my father. For over a year now my father has been having difficulty breathing (he's never been a smoker). I think his lungs are only processing about 50% of the oxygen he inhales with each breath he takes. I won't go into all of the symptoms and details because I know you aren't his doctor, but he's been seeing pulmonary specialists for a full year and no one can figure out what's going on. They've ruled out a lot of things, but there is no diagnosis yet. The only real clue they have is that steroids have been the only thing that helped him completely--but as soon as he stops taking them he's back at square one.

Am I crazy naive to think there might be a corollary to Dr. Gregory House out there in the real world? I've tried running Google searches to no avail... Thanks Mefites!

How do you negotiate a bill for medical services already rendered?

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:09:01 -0800

What approaches have worked for you to reduce the size of a medical bill after services have been rendered? A friend went to her gynecologist after getting an abortion. Among other tests, the office ran STD tests that wound up costing over $900.

Clearly there's been an exchange of fluids if there's an abortion, so it just makes sense to test for STDs. However, her insurance only covered catastrophic injuries etc., not "routine" tests, which these were considered. None of these tests were covered by her insurance.

She did not realize this, though of course she should have, is an adult, and is ultimately responsible for the bills. I recognize that, but I'm still ticked off about the situation. The health clinic in the area offers free STD testing. Every doctor I've ever been to knew exactly what was covered by my insurance, and how much they would be getting, before providing any services to me.

I feel like her doctor's office failed to take her total well being into account. I think they took advantage of her lack of understanding the situation and essentially robbed her. I'm assuming they had no legal obligation to mention any alternate places to get the testing done, but I'm certain they had a moral one, and I'm kind of furious about it.

Hopefully the above venting also provided sufficient background for the question. I've seen previous threads that talked about how medical bills can be negotiated. Is this a case where negotiating is possible? What tactics would you recommend or have worked for you in a similar situation in the past? Who, title-wise, should she insist on speaking to?

Can I take this expired cough syrup? Just for tonight?

tastybrains — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:25:25 -0800

Terrible cough, too late to leave the house in search of remedies -- can I take this expired (expired April 2009) prescription Tussionex cough syrup or is there a better solution in my house? It's after midnight and the shiny new cough I developed today has gone from irritating and annoying (earlier this afternoon) to the kind of hacking cough that hurts my whole body. It's too late to go to the drugstore, and I can't even lay down for 5 minutes comfortably.

I have most of the bottle of Tussionex from when I had a horrible chest cold around my sister's wedding last April ... so it's about 18 months old. Do you think the medication itself is still safe to take?

Other things I have tried so far....

- Hot toddies this afternoon.
- Decaf tea with lemon & honey (and now I'm out of lemon).
- Neti pot (since there is also some sinus crap going on).
- Ran hot water into a plugged sink with a towel over my head and the sink and breathed the steam for 10 minutes.
- Mucinex (guaifenesin).
- Cough drops.
- Willing myself to stop coughing.

Most thing (except the last) have been soothing but I'm still coughing like crazy and can't rest. What to do?

Tomorrow I plan to go to the pharmacy to see if I can get something better, though I think the best I'll do is get some "original" NyQuil so I can be knocked unconscious at night.

Lasers are cool. Literally.

pzarquon — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:16:52 -0800

Where can I find level-headed, researched, sound information on "cold lasers" or "low-level lasers" as medical treatments? I've been tasked with researching something called "cold lasers" or "low-level lasers" as medical tools, which is apparently used both for post-procedure pain reduction, as well as a "non-invasive" way to achieve liposuction-like weight-loss results. Unfortunately, the latter use means just about everything on the web about the technology comes across as a hard pitch for a sketchy treatment.

As far as I can tell, manufacturers and brand names include Erchonia, Zerona, CoolLipo, and the like.

Just about every mention, whether for pain or weight loss, talk about FDA approval. But I can't find any specific FDA report or listing, nor any details on the laser's approved uses. Is there a handy list anywhere of all the FDA approved things out there? And a search of the "reputable" web resources that I can think of like WebMD have very little to say.

The assertion is that these techniques are so new, that there's limited information available. But that's also what you'd say if you wanted to sell me snake oil.

On the other hand, it appears a lot of "reputable" (though I will put that in quotes), or at least established, clinics that do plastic surgery offer this, usually as one of many options. More than a few local TV stations have done segments, as YouTube demonstrates. But cosmetic surgery as a whole is already a mixed bag -- where a dentist or other outpatient practitioners could easily be moonlighting in liposuction.

This eHow article is just about the only fairly level-headed write up I can find. Everything else merely repeats the same points about how awesome these lasers are. Is there any "there" there, or are people basically switching the price tags on a PowerPoint laser pointer and selling hope?

The dude who said too much.

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:19:50 -0800

Told my doctor I smoked pot, now I just got a disconcerting letter from my insurance company. First of all I live in Ohio, in case that matters. I experienced a heart arrhythmia a few months back and went to the ER for it. When meeting with a cardiologist about it afterwards we went through a number of lifestyle questions one of which was do you do any drugs. I answered honestly that yes I do smoke pot once or twice a week.

I asked if this could be a cause of the problem and he said that was highly unlikely and as long as I used in moderation that shouldn't pose any specific problem with my heart.

Now I just got a letter from my insurance company saying before they could process my claims for the incident they need more information.

It says - Diagnosis: History of Cannabis Abuse
and asks for first date of symptoms, treatment and my drivers license number. Where I've sought treatment, when I started, when I quit and how often I used.

I am pretty much shocked, I assumed my statement to the doctor was going to be safe and confidential.

So yeah, anyone else experience this? Am I screwed? Will I get my license revoked? How do I respond to date stopped when I used just a few days ago. Are the insurance folks permitted to share this info with the police? Is this just an attempt to scare me out of filing the potentially expensive claim with them?

Any info or advice would be much appreciated.

Your Most Stunning Photographs of Disease, Please.

foxy_hedgehog — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 06:28:59 -0800

I'm compiling a set of 30-40 photographs related to any and all aspects of disease for a high school visual literacy project. The students are high school juniors who are struggling with literacy and writing. I'd love your suggestions for compelling, diverse, and striking images and sites that have collections of same. The theme is deliberately open-ended, and can include images from medical and scientific history as well as depictions of illnesses, medical epidemics, and attempts to treat and cope with disease. This could include everything from Sebastiao Salgado's photographs of the distribution of the polio vaccine in India and Africa to the (in)famous Benneton "Pieta" photograph. The goal is to find images that provoke thought, convey information, and tell stories.

I need to include background information on the photos (such as context, description, photographer, title, date, and any copyright information) so any suggestions that have this would be very helpful.

Many thanks for your thoughts and suggestions!

I have a multi-day Scrabble tournament soon and a brand-new cold. Help!

iftheaccidentwill — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:04:36 -0800

I have a multi-day Scrabble tournament soon and a brand-new cold. Help! I've searched AskMeFi but haven't had any luck; if I've missed something feel free to point it out and I'll (try to) delete my question.

I can feel a cold coming on (Sunday). I'm congested and have a sore throat. On Wednesday I'm flying half way across the country to play in a multi-day Scrabble tournament. This means 8 hour days of nerding it up.

Generally I do not take cold medicine, so I'm a bit at a loss here. What should I take (day and/or night) so that I can minimize symptoms but, most importantly, not be a zombie. I'm going to need to stay somewhat energized and fairly sharp. Several of my classmates have had a cold recently, and it lasted for quite a long time. No idea if this is the same thing, or something new and improved.

Also, so far as I know, there is no drug-testing program, so if you know a cold medicine that will also give me super-duper powerful anagramming abilities, that'd be peachy.

Spanish in Washington Heights?

chrisalbon — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:00:28 -0800

New-York-Filter: How big is the Spanish speaking community around Columbia University Medical Center? How many of their patients are Spanish speakers? A friend is thinking of applying for residency next year at Columbia University Medical Center in New York (here is a map). My friend speaks Spanish and wants to work at a hospital with many Spanish speaking patients.

Can any New York Hiveminders tell me:

1) How big is the Spanish speaking community around Columbia University Medical Center?

2) How many (roughly speaking, guesstimates obviously okay) of their patients are Spanish speakers?

Any answers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

What the knot?

Brennus — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:09:31 -0800

What is special about a square surgical knot? It seems like the regular kind of knot I use to tie my shoes, just using a very specific hand technique. Is there any advantage to this knot tying technique?

No medicine for babies?

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:41:53 -0800

I'm expecting a baby in a few months and have questions about medicating infants and toddlers. I always thought you give babies motrin when they're teething really badly, baby allegra when they have sinus infections, etc. However, all my friends seem to either be dead-set against baby Motrin or use it very, very sparingly. What's the cause for alarm? To be clear, I'm not going to give my baby dramamine when he won't sleep, and I know not to give him Benadryl and cough medicines until he's much older. But I got lunch with my friend who has a teething toddler yesterday, and the kid was clearly miserable--grouchy, drooling, gnawing on everything, biting her fingers, and apparently hadn't slept for more than two hours in two days because her eye teeth (the most painful teeth to appear) were coming in. I asked my friend if Motrin helped and she acted like I'd advised administering arsenic. She said she never gives her baby any pain medication for teething. Another friend has a baby with a severe sinus infection that puts her at risk of an ear infection. The pediatrician gave the mother an Rx for baby allegra for the congestion and then advised her to mix up some amoxicillin if the baby started running a fever. When I checked up the next day, the friend's baby was indeed running a fever, so the mother had given her amoxicillin but not allegra, even though the congestion got worse. The doctor hadn't advised her to stop the allegra dosage either, but my friend felt uncomfortable giving both meds.

This might be too wordy, but I guess I'm just curious about my friends' aversion to baby meds. Will giving a baby Motrin for teething mess up his ability to handle pain later? I'm someone who eats fistfuls of Tylenol when I have a headache and am a big fan of Western medicine (maybe because my mom gave me too much Motrin when I was little ? :) so I'm interested to know why other parents are squeamish about meds that ease teething pain or congestion.

Of course, I'll ask my pediatrician about this when I see her next, but clearly , but I wanted to ask a forum of people who are not my well-meaning but highly judgmental friends, in case they report me to child services!

Overdose, underdose, or just-right dose

Willie0248 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:08:20 -0800

Hey Hive Mind - Mind Helping Me Understand Medicine Dosage? The recommended dosage on OTC medicines has always confused me. Every medicine separates its dosages into two groups: Adults over age twelve, and kids. So how did they make that distinction, but no others? Should I be adjusting my dose based on my size?

Sometimes I will be hunkered down under a blanket with a particularly egregious headache wondering why those two aspirin I took aren't working at all, and I can't help but think it might be because the bottle recommended I take the same dose as a 75-pound preteen girl. I'm a gorilla of a man! 220 pounds! I can bench press a house! Surely I should be taking a larger dose than little Suzy Pigtails.

Same deal with vitamins and supplements - I like to take a multivitamin and fish oil capsules, but I wonder if being such a large gentleman means I should take more.

What do you think, Hive Mind?

What are the most useful iPhone apps for a newly qualified doctor?

ianK — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:49:50 -0800

What are the most useful iPhone apps for a newly qualified doctor? I will be starting my housemanship/internship next week and would like to have some easy to reach reference material to carry around on ward rounds, on calls etc.
I would also appreciate non-medically related app suggestions that people find useful for work.
Thanks in advance!

Am I being rational?

H. Roark — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:39:12 -0800

Alternative medicines for a young kid - am I making too much of it? I'm trying to figure it if my position is irrational or I am overreacting to the situation. The situation:

- My lovely wife is very health conscious and mostly dismissive of western medicine. She also has recently had some serious health issues which has made her even more proactive about health.

- I am pretty much the opposite. I value health but almost never go to the doctor and eat what I want, irrespective of it's omega content. I very much respect science and double-blind studies and FDA regulatory processes. I have never been to an acupuncture clinic but would have no big qualms about going for an ailment.

- Kiddo (3 years old) is healthy.

The dispute is that my wife takes kiddo to the acupuncture clinic regularly, with the needles and whatnot, for just normal "health tuneups". There are also visits when kiddo has cold for removing congestion, and at one point giving some "tincture" from the clinic to the kiddo which she knew I would object to. Kiddo complains one night when I'm flying solo that she cant go to bed because she "hasn't had her herbs" yet...

I'm concerned about a couple things -
- I dont want kiddo to have a psychological attachment where she thinks its normal to constantly eat herbs and go to the doctor twice a month as normal healthy living. It seems like a path towards hypochondria to me.

- I dont trust the non-FDA tinctures, especially when used just for "maintenance" and on children.

- I dont like that when I discuss it with the 'missus the conversation gets lost in hand-waving about how 5000 years of Chinese cant be wrong and my basic request to keep preventative health doctor/alt-med office visits to a minimum seems to be ignored.

Am I overreacting here? Is there some good reason why we should raise our kid to think its normal to go to the alternative medicine guy (or any doctor) every couple weeks? (I could buy that, but its completely foreign to me.) Is this all so harmless (tinctures included) that I should just skip the fight?

Thanks for your time and opinion.

Uh...hang on, just give me a minute.

Demogorgon — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:34:31 -0800

What is the most important scientific question of our time? I volunteer at an observatory for a local amateur astronomers' society and one of the guests at a recent star party came up and asked, "What do you think is the most important question science has to answer right now?" Obviously, there is no right or wrong answer, but after the party was over a lot of us were still talking about this question and I ended up learning a great deal from my fellow club members that I might otherwise not have.
The next time this question gets asked I want to be prepared to offer a variety of answers from differing fields and opinions. I don't expect to represent every answer as an expert, but I'd like to be able to give a few more examples than I was able to, and then correlate them to some book recommendations from the answers in this thread about introductions to your field.
I also think it is important to frame the question in a way that can be meaningfully answered, i.e. "What is the most important scientific discovery about to be made?" or something like that.
Of course, I had my own answer in mind, but as a relative layperson to that branch of study I had a really hard time articulating why it was so important to "science." Therefore, if you are uniquely affiliated with a specific field that you think will produce a game-changer, feel free to get as technical as you're comfortable doing.

Thanks!

What is this heart condition called?

heytch — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 07:29:25 -0800

What is the name of this heart condition, and is it genetic? The main artery supplying blood to the heart isn't developed properly in utero, resulting in major surgery and/or death of the baby post birth. Back in 1981 my mother gave birth to a baby boy with this disorder. The pregnancy appeared normal, but he only survived for 8 days after being born. My mother can't remember the clinical name of the disease, all we have is this description: The main artery in/to the heart was not developed, resulting in a fatal heart failure. Apparently a cure was developed only a few years later, in the mid 80s. It involves surgery, and can now be detected in utero and treated before the baby is born. The rest of my family members are healthy, but we have a very small sample size so I don't think a hereditary link would be obvious. As an added note, all the other children (incl cousins and children of cousins) are female.

Clearly, IANAD or med/nursing student, so I don't know where to even start googling. Are you? I am especially keen to know whether or not this condition is hereditary, in which case I need to watch out for it when I have children of my own. Thanks!

Maybe the askme crowd can tell me I'm overreacting?

Solon and Thanks — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:23:02 -0800

I messed up my eye - please help me figure out doctor stuff. This morning one of my contact lenses fell out without my knowing, and I spent some time trying to remove/fix the non-existent lens, as a result really nastily pulling at and irritating my eye. It now feels sort of bruised and sore on one side. My vision is normal and the sensitive area looks pink and irritated.

The internet is unhelpful but is pretty clear that minor eye problems can become bad if they get infected. I'm not sure if something is torn, but I don't want to mess around with my eyes. I'd like to see someone about it tomorrow if it doesn't feel better then.

My problem is inexperience in dealing with doctors, and the fact that I'm at school - my regular doctor and optometrist are far away. I do have insurance.

Is this something I should go find an emergency room for? To be honest I haven't been to one before and that seems over-the-top. Would urgent care places be prepared for eye-related things? Frankly, the small clinic in the local CVS is the most convenient place. My university (Ohio State) is huge and has a medical center, but I have no experience navigating it beyond getting prescriptions. Wondering where to go for things like this has always been an issue with me.

Any insight would be helpful - especially if someone has had a similar experience and does/doesn't think it's that serious.

Anti-depressants: do they eventually stop working?

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:11:48 -0800

Anti-depressants: do they eventually stop working? I have been diagnosed with anxiety and depression. I started receiving treatment ~2 years ago. The first drug I tried was Lexapro and it worked great, for a while. After 2-3 months of use, I started to becoming increasingly drowsy and unmotivated.

Next, I tried Prozac for it's reported 'activating' effects. I was on this drug the longest, but eventually started to experience side effects similar to those of Lexapro.

Now, I am on Cymbalta and am starting to think these exact same side effects are setting in.

Is this a common phenomenon? Is there something else I could try? Should I bring this up (again) to my doctor ASAP?

I have considered getting off SSRI's / SNRI's but they do, in fact, work very well at controlling my anxiety. I did realize but I had spent most of my (relatively short) life with pretty severe anxiety. I managed to find different mechanisms to control it and would outwardly appear very collected. There was a specific (and common) incident in college where I had to give a group presentation about a topic that I was very knowledgeable about--and I thought I was going to vomit moments before it was my group's turn to present. However, before starting medication I wouldn't have considered myself to have social anxiety. But certain things trigger an anxious response that I couldn't stop.

For what its worth, my anxiety and depression have diminished after starting these medications. The reason I bring this up is because today I felt "high" and "floaty" even though I didn't miss a dose of my Cymbalta and it got me thinking...

Automtaed Drug Discovery?

mpls2 — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 08:58:30 -0800

A question about automated drug discovery What are the obstacles to completely (or nearly completely) automated drug discovery, where machines use AI algorithms to come up with potential drugs, the molecules are produced, and then tested against an array of targets (similar to DNA microarrays)?

Thanks!

St. John's wort + ADHD medications?

Anonymous — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:36:45 -0800

What are your experiences with St. John's wort? In particular, have you ever taken it at the same time as ADHD medications like Ritalin/Focalin (methylphenidate), Adderall (amphetamine) etc? Some sources seem to warn against taking then together, some say only that one will might decrease the effectiveness of the other, and many don't say anything at all, so I'd like to know if there's anything to worry about. Even if you have never taken the two together, I'd still be curious to hear what you thought of St. John's wort in general.

Throwaway email: sjwquestion@yahoo.com

(Please don't tell me to ask a doctor; I'm asking because the doctors that wrote all the information I've read seem to disagree.)

Emergency medicine in 1920

asockpuppet — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 18:34:02 -0800

I am a 40 year old man that died of a skull fracture in August, 1920. I was brought to the city hospital of our large metropolitan area by my brother. I died later that night. Cause of my skull trauma is unknown. What was my medical treatment like? What was the education and medical training of my doctors? How sterile was the hospital? What drugs would I have been treated with? What happened to my body and family when I died?

Asking because a former resident of the house I now own many years later died this way.

Getting through a nasty cold?

fogster — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:44:27 -0800

I started feeling stuffy tomorrow, and today I have an awful cold. Tomorrow, I don't have the time to put up with a cold. Is there medication that actually works well enough to help me get through the day? How do I know if I'm contagious? Yes, I feel silly posting all of this as if I have never had a cold before. But I realized that I've gone most of my life obvious to what do about colds, other than suffer.

I already read the To Dose or Not to Dose question here about ways to recover from a cold. I'll stop by the supermarket for some zinc lozenges, and I plan to get an unreasonable amount of sleep tonight. But it seems unlikely that I'll be magically recovered in the morning.

What can I do to minimize the effects? I'm coughing, stuffy, and have an awful runny nose. I recently found allergy medication that makes a remarkable difference, so I'm feeling hopeful that there's a cold medicine that will actually suppress my symptoms enough that I can get in a full day of work without sneezing, coughing, or blowing my nose every 5 minutes. Does anyone have any recommendations?

I also have no idea how to know if I'm contagious. The only thing worse than calling in sick the day after a long vacation would be coming in sick and infecting the whole office with a miserable cold. Is there a way of knowing if I'm contagious?

Again, I'm not looking for actual cures, just things to help suppress the symptoms while I'm at work. Thanks in advance!

Does injecting tesosterone in a vein require an immediate trip to the hospital?

double block and bleed — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 07:21:32 -0800

I may have accidentally injected testosterone into a vein. Do I need to go to the ER or can I wait until my endocrinologist's office is open tomorrow? I am a man in my late 30's and I have hypogonadism, my body makes little or no testosterone naturally. Every two weeks, I inject 1 ml (200 mg) of testosterone intramuscularly into my thigh.

About 15 minutes ago, I injected my medicine. When I removed the needle, about 1/4 of a ml of blood welled up from the injection site. This has never happened to me before. I'm wondering if I accidentally hit a vein and shot some or all of the medicine into it.

I've been on metafilter long enough to know that the answer to this type of question is "Go see a doctor" and I will. I just want to know if this is something that can wait until tomorrow or if I need flashing lights and sirens.

Note to my friends from not America: today is a holiday here

Drugs are bad, mmmkay?

inoculatedcities — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:29:27 -0800

Recommend an excellent, comprehensive book on the history of antibiotics? After burning through Penny Le Couteur and Jay Burreson's Napoleon's Buttons and Michael Pollard's The Botany of Desire I've decided to seek out books with a similar, historical approach to other interesting molecules.

In particular, I'd love to read a comprehensive history of antibiotics (especially a technical one that's not aimed at lay audiences/bestseller lists like the admittedly still quite good books I mentioned above). I know Thomas Hager's The Demon Under the Microscope is a popular book that chronicles the discovery and history of sulfonamides, but I'm looking for something that covers the whole spectrum of modern antibiotics. Any recommendations would be most appreciated.