Is it safe?

I like my dentist. No, I really do.

I like her because she and I have the same attitude towards procedures: we both prefer to err on the conservative side. I know she wouldn’t recommend something if it wasn’t strictly necessary.

I like her because she’s smart and cheerful and cute. I like her because she and her husband are cool people, and I wish we could hang out together, my family and her family. We at Chez Walnut don’t get out much.

I like her because she doesn’t resemble Laurence Olivier . . . not often, anyway.

But as much as I might like her, it’s hard to keep a smile on my face when she comes at me with the drill. Wait. That deserves caps: The Drill. The DRILL.

It isn’t so much the pain as the anticipation of pain; and it isn’t so much the anesthetic injection as that horrible fat-faced feeling which seems to last for hours afterwards (because it does). Not to mention that awful unscratchable itch which presages the return of feeling . . . oh sweet Lord, it’s a good thing I bite my fingernails to the quick, or I would have scratched myself so raw I’d only be presentable for a George Romero flick.

But I’m all better now; I even ate a hamburger for dinner. Thank God for Motrin.

***

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Cure for cancer? Not.

Don’t forget the contest.

This DCA story keeps dogging me. A cheap drug which kills all cancers! But Big Pharma won’t let the cat out of the bag, because it’ll kill their billion-dollar profits! Does a story get any sexier than that? Think about it: cancer fears; a discovery that would spark hope in millions of patients and their loved ones; and a great whopping conspiracy theory to top it all off. Wow.

The other day, I spent at least an hour reading about it on Daily Kos, and this morning, Dean asked me about it. Well, here’s my reply to Dean.

My credentials, such as they are, for those folks who wander in from a Google search for DCA or dichloroacetate: I have an MD/PhD, and the PhD is in cancer biology. Full disclosure, though: I’ve never been involved in cancer research and my PhD was awarded in 1990. A lot changes in 17 years, believe me, and at best I’m only an armchair cancer biologist.

Follow me below the fold.

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Jailbirds

I can’t remember what they’re supposed to be called. Certainly not prisoners. Clients? Guests of the State’s hospitality?

I live in a prison town. The economy here, depressed as it is, would tank were it not for our local maximum security prison. Since I share my Wednesday OR day with our general surgeon, I’m here with the jailbirds. At least two correctional officers accompany each shackled . . . um, client. Yeah, let’s go with client. Sometimes more than two if they’re especially nasty.

Due to my contractual disagreements with the State, folks with ENT problems get shipped down to Eureka. I’ve never felt motivated to reopen discussion with the State; they low-balled me when I first came to town, then took more than a year to pay me for the two patients of theirs I saw in the ER. Not a great way to make nice with the doctor. And you know something? I don’t miss it. I’m busy enough as it is.

In training, I didn’t mind the clients. We had a whole floor full of them. Many of them were either gang members or drug dealers, and neither group had any animosity towards the doctors who were, the clients realized, only trying to help them. True, we had the occasional sociopath — like the 60ish-year-old white dude who listened carefully to everything and learned the names of our female residents’ spouses and children — How’s Julie? Doing okay in third grade, I hope? At Clover Elementary, wasn’t it? — but most of these people were nicer than our standard trashy fare. (I’m not talking about the poor folks we treated by the thousands. I’m talking about the occasional TRASH who made our lives miserable.)

But I suspect this crowd is different. Ours is a maximum security prison, best known for having been at one time the home of Charles Manson, but also host to the occasional lethal riot. Many of these folks are lifers who have absolutely nothing to lose. They’ve hit rock bottom, chipped themselves a cave, and crawled in beneath the gravel.

I’ve been thinking about these folks ever since Ahnold gave his state of the State address last night. I listened to it on NPR, on my drive home. He wants to build more prisons due to the overcrowding problem.

I’m wondering if there would even be an overcrowding problem if we decriminalized drug use. I doubt it. Our local prison would still be full, I’m sure, but I’ll bet the medium security prisons would suddenly find empty cells to spare.

But hey, what do I know? I just pick boogers and scoop wax for a living.

D.

Medical quiz: Answers

Here at Balls and Walnuts, we’re tasty, testosterone-rich, and educational! Fill your mind with knowledge below the fold.

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Another medical quiz

I’m humbled by my readership’s vocabulary skills, and you know, I don’t do “humble” well. So, to restore my ego’s place in the firmament, I thought it would be fun to have another medical quiz, given that this one was quite popular.

Meet me below the fold for a medical vocabulary quiz.

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Snake oil

Every so often, I get eNastygrams kvetching about my stance on ear candles. The less obnoxious complainers employ the “Oh, you should just try it!” argument, while the nastier ones suspect I’m trying to keep all that ear wax business to myself. Neither group can be dissuaded from their religious faith in ear candles; my counter-argument, that candles are unsafe and ineffective, falls on wax-filled deaf ears.

Medical conspiracy theorists abound. To them, we who practice “Western Medicine” are blinkered buffoons at best, greedy bastards at worst, due to our allegiance to drugs and treatments which seem downright destructive. In truth, our allegiance is to evidence-based medicine, but that has no sex appeal — not like all-natural herbs, touch therapy (which involves no touching at all; the practitioner’s aura heals the patient’s aura, thereby oh whatever), or omigod (literally) angel therapy.

Most folks seem to regard alternative medicine with tolerant skepticism. The argument, it can’t hurt and it might help, often wins people over. And, true, most of these treatments can’t hurt — not in any obvious way.

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