Medical Questions I'd Like Answered...

[Maj]

I did something at work tonight (no idea what) to aggravate the 9 month old, just short of completely healed hamstring tear. My question is should I go to heating pad or ice pack when I get home tonight?

Grek's got it on the RICE. Do you have health care that will cover physical therapy? (If you've already mentioned this, I'm sorry to ask it again.)

[Josh_Kablack]

Had two months of physical therapy following initial injury. Last night''s re-aggravation was not severe enough to warrant leaving work for the ER. (Which is really the only option for a friday-night second shift injury going into a holiday weekend.) Even if I opened a new claim, there's zero chance of physical therapy until at least Tuesday morning.

What had me baffled is that it was not a sudden and obvious re-injury, in which case I would have defaulted to cold, but rather it was a slow build.

[Maj]

Well, it's good that you have the opportunity to go back, but it kinda sucks that you'd have to. I hope you heal quickly.

[Grek]

Ideas for something that'll get rid of the tired but wired effect when starting an anti-psychotic?

[Koumei]

Obviously it's going to vary from drug to drug and person to person, but the one time I was on an anti-psychotic, I found ending the day with a hot bath and cup of non-caffeinated tea helped. Also lying on your back for a bit, with a hot water bottle or heat back under the head/neck.

[maglag]

Obviously it's going to vary from drug to drug and person to person, but the one time I was on an anti-psychotic, I found ending the day with a hot bath and cup of non-caffeinated tea helped. Also lying on your back for a bit, with a hot water bottle or heat back under the head/neck.

Hot bath should be included at the end of every day. Good stuff.

[Stahlseele]

Chocolate and a purring cat.

[Starmaker]

How do I fake a blood iron test?

Long story short, I'm anemic, I failed a blood iron test and was rejected by a prospective employer. My options are:
- starve
- get a shitty job and die to an untreated condition
- get this job, go private, recover

The problem is, those other guys demand a medical exam, too. I don't know yet what it will entail - perhaps a cursory checkup where they see if I can breathe, find my nose, and understand metaphors, perhaps yet another blood test.

So how do I increase my chances of passing the test? Suppose I eat a couple tablets of chewing iron (maltofer)? A pack of chewing iron? Ferrous syrup? Get an injection? I'm considering making it like Cheeto Benito and having my face painted orange at a beauty salon, but it won't help me if the test is mandatory. I'm also considering asking a doctor about birth control but the examination is next week and it won't be of help with that.

(And yes, of course I want to get treatment. But I need a job to pay for treatment.)

[OgreBattle]

Obviously it's going to vary from drug to drug and person to person, but the one time I was on an anti-psychotic, I found ending the day with a hot bath and cup of non-caffeinated tea helped. Also lying on your back for a bit, with a hot water bottle or heat back under the head/neck.

Doing what cats like to do seems like good advice for stress relief

[RobbyPants]

Doing what cats like to do seems like good advice for stress relief

Knocking shit off the counters and walking with cat-litter-paws all over my goddamn cutting board?

[Stahlseele]

Sure. It pisses off people.
Which is highly rewarding usually.
At the very least, it will give you attention.
Maybe even physical contact by being picked up and set down elsewhere.

[deaddmwalking]

Acting like a cat would be nice if you also didn't know that you would have to clean it up. Knowing someone else will clean up your mess and the worst they're going to do is put your picture on the web to 'shame' you makes it much better than if you trash your own place.

[Eikre]

How do I fake a blood iron test?

Long story short, I'm anemic, I failed a blood iron test and was rejected by a prospective employer.

First of all, much sympathy that you're being excluded for this sort of bullshit. We will be counting on you when we prepare the guillotines.

May we surmise that you're already taking iron supplements? That's usually the first and last treatment.

If you were genuinely and wantonly inclined to seeing a result tomorrow, you could conceivably arrange a blood transfusion. Athletes do this to enhance their performance so maybe there's a Dr. Playgood who could make this less of an insane endeavor, but, uh... It's actually something you can do at home with simple equipment and a like-blooded friend, if you're feeling cavalier about risking a stroke.

I'd like to see Frank get his eyes on this.

[erik]

Real doctors can get in trouble for giving medical advice on how to commit fraud, however well intentioned.

[Shiritai]

How do I fake a blood iron test?

Depends on the blood test. Did they run a complete iron panel? Did they give you the test results? Blood doping using someone else's blood would definitely solve your problem, but there might be easier ways depending on why you failed and what tests they ran.

[tussock]

Just take iron, it's readily absorbed, cheap cuts of meat work, but edible iron at a chemist should be even cheaper if you're not a meat eater. Most of that stuff will be take with meals.

You do also need vitamin C, to absorb iron, fruit and veg, but it's not easy to be low in it. Still, vitamin C powder should also be super cheap at any sort of health place, even the fake ones, like a year's supply for a few bucks, it's widely used industrially.

Possible hack long term would be various forms of birth control that reduce bleeding, family planning or equivalent wherever you are would know all that stuff and freely advise on associated downsides.

The blood test you've had should be the entire problem, clearing up the anaemia also gives you relatively huge amounts of energy, iron's primarily used for oxygen transport, so being low is just constantly exhausting and that should just clear up.

[EightWave]

I second what tussock said. It has the added benefit of actually treating the anemia, rather than faking the blood test.

Anemia is an extremely common medical condition, especially among women. Failing a blood iron test is a reasonable reason to reject you for donating blood on that day, but super suspect as a reason to deny employment. Was your prospective employer a vampire?

[Nachtigallerator]

How do I fake a blood iron test?

Long story short, I'm anemic, I failed a blood iron test and was rejected by a prospective employer. My options are:
- starve
- get a shitty job and die to an untreated condition
- get this job, go private, recover

The problem is, those other guys demand a medical exam, too. I don't know yet what it will entail - perhaps a cursory checkup where they see if I can breathe, find my nose, and understand metaphors, perhaps yet another blood test.

So how do I increase my chances of passing the test? Suppose I eat a couple tablets of chewing iron (maltofer)? A pack of chewing iron? Ferrous syrup? Get an injection? I'm considering making it like Cheeto Benito and having my face painted orange at a beauty salon, but it won't help me if the test is mandatory. I'm also considering asking a doctor about birth control but the examination is next week and it won't be of help with that.

(And yes, of course I want to get treatment. But I need a job to pay for treatment.)

I'm terrified to admit that tussock is basically right: Oral iron supplementation is the treatment of choice to make the anemia go away. The packaging usually says to take it on an empty stomach, but normal people commonly find that utterly nauseating, so with meals is okay. Do avoid taking them with milk or milk products. Vitamin C helps with absorption but is not usually required as additional supplement. In the long term, you will want to review your diet: Red beans have high iron content if you don't want to eat much meat, and so do some fruits.

Faking the blood test is nothing I would recommend. What I would recommend is checking with your doctor whether your anemia is sufficiently explained by menstruation or if you need to check on other possible sources of bleeding like GI ulcers.

[Eikre]

Real doctors can get in trouble for giving medical advice on how to commit fraud, however well intentioned.

Yeah, I'm not wild about the idea.

But I am offering the benefit of the doubt in assuming that diet genuinely isn't working and that this is a more difficult problem for Starmaker that requires dedicated medical attention.

My understanding is that transfusions are among the legitimate treatments for intractable anemia. If they also happen to turn around the results of a single test for you on a short timeframe, then it's not beyond consideration that, if it were otherwise medically justifiable, you could take one hit to the pocket for a single treatment just to get your foot in the door and then deal with the problem rigorously under a better healthcare plan.

If I haven't made it clear, dietary supplements remain the only correct first step.

[Cynic]

So I've had lower back trouble for ages. But recently as I walk, along with the pain in my lower back, I also get an odd sensation in my ass. I almost feel like pooping but not. It's only vaguely uncomfortable but it's there in most movements that cause me to shift my body -- walking, sitting, you etc..

Internetting suggests that possible Sciatic nerve trouble. My current insurance only covers doctor visits but not chiropractor and prescription. How serious is this shit, I'm trying to figure out if I should go into the doctor for this shit or not because money...

[Maj]

Well, if going to the doctor is covered, then go, get information, and make decisions based on an actual diagnosis instead of just internet guesses. You should be looking at whether your insurance covers physical therapy.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

My mom just had her hip replaced about three weeks ago and it's popped out of socket twice in the past week to the point of requiring a visit to the emergency room. Is that a thing that happens? Last hip she got replaced they split her femur lengthwise and they had to wire it back together (the excuse given was that her skeleton didn't have enough "give" to it, which doesn't make sense to me but I'm not a doctor so whatever)

[RobbyPants]

Last hip she got replaced they split her femur lengthwise and they had to wire it back together (the excuse given was that her skeleton didn't have enough "give" to it, which doesn't make sense to me but I'm not a doctor so whatever)

I don't know anything about the first part, but the second part makes sense. The implant that goes into the femur is actually pretty long, and is inserted right down the middle of the bone.

[Username17]

Hip replacements dislocate fairly frequently. Sometimes it's a matter of doing a manipulation under anesthesia to put the head back in the cup. If it's happening a lot, it may require an additional operation to either put a larger cup on or replace the whole thing.

There was one hip replacement that I helped put in that just kept popping out all the time. It looked totally fine on XRay, and when we slotted it back in it would move normally. The angle was good, the placement was good, but for whatever reason when the guy actually externally rotated his leg, the muscles just didn't support the thing at all and it just fell out of the socket. I felt really bad, but the replacement that stayed in place pretty much looked exactly the same. Sometimes the muscles just don't want to cooperate.

-Username17

[Maj]

If the muscles don't want to cooperate, shouldn't that be a call for physical therapy so that they do?