• Re: Health Postings

    From Daryl Stout@1:19/33 to Ardith Hinton on Sat Aug 22 20:30:00 2020
    Ardith,

    Thank you for your interest & continued support of this echo.
    When you asked a similar question a couple of years ago, I replied as follows (and feel much the same way now):

    Well, someone posted out the policy with items from WebMD, and even
    though I was giving credit to them (like doing such with doing a term
    paper in college), I decided it was better not do do it.

    I can relate. Dallas & I have been so busy with taking care
    of our daughter that we don't answer as often as we'd like to. We do appreciate the input we get from readers like you who seem to keep
    coming back, though. :-)

    This is one of my favorite echoes. Years ago, there was another medical
    echo "Ask A Nurse" on the FIDONet backbone, but it disappeared long ago.

    For various reasons, I also split long messages.

    Maybe not so much now, but some readers or BBS programs may "choke"
    on long messages.

    In this particular echo I think it would be "overkill" to
    post more than one or two such articles each month. Although we could
    use more traffic here & they may interest many of our readers, I
    wouldn't want to see messages overlooked amid a slew of material
    written by third parties.... :-Q

    As noted above, I decided not to do it. Folks can look it up on the
    WebMD site. I do have it locally, though.

    It seems to me that readers here often have difficult & potentially time-consuming situations to deal with. They may also be
    less likely to read &/or respond to these articles if they get too many within a very short time. But Dallas & I have a lot to say to people
    who have been diagnosed with sleep apnea, e.g., and can't be bothered learning to use a machine which might save their lives... or who don't recognize the symptoms. SURVIVOR is an attitude, not a diagnosis.

    This is true. With the darn sinus attacks, and hacking right after I
    eat, and at bedtime, I can't wear a CPAP mask. They did allergy tests
    on me, and have no idea why I have the problems.

    What really gets me interested in some medical condition is that
    somebody I care about has it... or, failing that, how they deal with
    it. Years ago I read a book written by a nurse in which she spoke of a young girl who didn't really understand why she was in hospital, but accepted it because her mother was there. I don't recall now whether
    the nurse specified why she was in hospital. What matters AFAIC isn't
    so much the diagnosis but the fact that Dallas & I were there for our daughter when she was in hospital, and I'm very glad to report that
    she's still alive & kicking twenty years later. The odds weren't so favourable in those days... and a lot of her ward mates died.

    Arkansas Urology is doing a big deal on "Men's Health" in the coming
    weeks, especially in screenings for prostate cancer. While I have BPH
    (enlarged prostate, part of growing old), there's no sign of cancer.

    Sounds like a reputable source, which is always a concern in echoes like this one, and I like the idea of including both males & females.... :-)

    Before my wife died 13 1/2 years ago, I had a separate mens and ladies area...The Barber Shop for the men...and The Beauty Shop for the ladies.
    They were separate areas where I didn't look at the women's area, and
    she didn't look at the men's area. I know some get paranoid of having
    other folks see topics...but at least I could set the poster's ID to
    anonymous.

    Are there any copyright restrictions on the material, BTW? I think that's something we need to be careful about... particularly if
    you intend to post entire articles from this site. Some people get
    around such problems by quoting a few brief excerpts & saying "You can read the rest at [blah blah]."

    I decided not to do it...folks can look at WebMD and other related
    sites for the info.

    Breast Problems (both men and women can get breast cancer)


    I knew that... but a lot of others don't. People need to
    know it's not just elderly, overweight men who have heart attacks or
    sleep apnea & it's not just large-breasted middle-aged women who have breast cancer. Spread the word, my friend... just do it gradually
    enough that even I can keep up. :-))

    The top 5 cancer killers (I don't think a single family has escaped
    the scourge) are:

    1) Heart Disease (men and women)
    2) Breast Cancer (men and women)
    3) Colon Cancer (men and women)
    4) Prostate Cancer (men)
    5) Cervical and Uterine Cancer (women)

    I don't know of anyone who likes a colonoscopy, especially the prep work...but if I want to keep from getting colon cancer, I'm going to do
    it. My next one is in April.

    Daryl

    ... Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Naked.
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