Some Things REALLY Bother Me

You know something has made me angry when I make the time to Blog about it immediately. I was reading an article today about how half of US doctors prescribe placebos. For all of you immediately thinking of sugar pills those were only used in about 2% of the cases. More often it was vitamins and things like that. And no that doesn't mean they think it's all in your head.

"One example used in the survey asked the MDs to assume that a clinical trial for fibromyalgia had revealed that subjects who received a sugar tablet showed more improvement than a no-treatment group. The survey recipients were "asked to rate the likelihood of their personally recommending this treatment to non-diabetic patients with fibromyalgia"; how often they recommend a therapy "primarily because you believe it will enhance the patient's expectation of getting better," and so on." Well over half said they would be moderately or very likely to prescribe the treatment.

So far so good... no anger yet... and then I made the mistake of reading some of the comments. And someone had this to say, "I thought it was also pretty amusing that fibromyalgia was used as an example, since its essentially a catch-all group for 'patient says everything hurts but we can't find anything physiologically wrong with them' " Now feel my wrath. As someone that has been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia I really hate hearing someone say that it's a catch-all.... kind of reminds me of the thoughts I've heard about Borderline Personality Disorder in the world of psychology. The implication seems to be that it's not a real disorder. I beg to differ.

I am also reminded of my LOA when the doctor told me that Fibromyalgia doesn't really exist and it's all in my head. R-I-G-H-T!!!! Sorry just a little sarcasm there. I wish it was all in my head. At least then I'd have an aswer and a way to stop the pain.

My reaction is probably even stronger by the fact that I am in the middle of a flare-up. All of my muscles are hurting. I am not on any medication for the pain so I just have to suck it up and go on as best as I can. And now I need to get to work for another fun filled day.

What Me Work?

Since it has obviously been a while since I posted anything it's pretty much just been the daily grind. Nothing much going on. Everything pretty much is a blur. Without getting consecutive days off I really hadn't felt like I had any time off. After all every time I had a day off I had all kinds of errands and what not to do. With consecutive days off I usually try to get everything I can done on the first day (or even on the "Friday" night) and then the second day I rest. So that has definitely been taking a toll on me.

For the last 2 weeks I have been in training. I am loving it. Not only do we get consecutive days off but it's time off the phones. No calls... the work is pretty easy... and we have been leaving early. Too bad it won't last forever. *lol* But we do still have 2 more weeks to go of the in class training. Then we will be back on the floor. I am enjoying it while I can.

Don't Try This at Home

Been meaning to write this for a while... what else is new... I was on Yahoo one day, probably because it's my home page and is about the only way I keep up to date on news and there was an article about the Ig nobels. Think funny alternative to the nobel prize. It's real research and sometimes leads to the question, why on earth would you want to study that? So what did I learn? Apparently sperm will explode in Coca-Cola. They don't just die... the word used was that they explode.

It should be noted that they also said that it does not make for a good contraceptive because of how quickly sperm can swim. Well I am guessing there are other reasons that it doesn't make for a good contraceptive for other reasons as well. Just thinking about the acid content and the sugar content....

So what was the reason for the study? Women really were using Coca-Cola as a douche (That reminds me of a conversation at work the other day about the word "douchebag" and how someone didn't know what a douche really was... But I digress). I thought that was just an urban legend. Guess I was wrong. So that prompted the research. And as a side note apparently it will also kill the AIDS virus as well. I realize that a case of Coke isn't all that expensive but if you're looking for birth control does it not make more sense to just buy condoms and practice preventative birth control? What a novel idea....