It's weird to see my brother weak. It does hurt, but I try not to dwell on it and have it plastered and glowing all over my whole body like my mom does. Save some face in front of people in the hospital, jeez. Doesn't make things any better for anyone.
So apparently my brother is experiencing an exacerbation of his ulcerative colitis: a condition in which your colon/rectum is inflamed, which causes you to have uncontrollable, frequent diarrhea. He's had a high fever over the past weekend, with abdominal cramps that are 8-10 on the pain scale, and an extremely bothersome stiff neck. When he told me the other day he had a stiff neck, I immediately asked him if he was sensitive to light and he said no. Hallmark symptoms of meningitis: fever, nuchal rigidity (stiff neck), and photophobia. After that, I had doubts that it was meningitis because usually the symptoms appear suddenly within 24 hours and the neck thing was probably caused by him lying down on his pillows for the whole weekend.
At the hospital, I watched and listened to the doctor interviewing my brother about what was going on. It was interesting to watch because we've basically been learning these interview techniques for the past year. He asked the pain scale -- in which we pride ourselves on if we remember -- and after my brother mentioned the stiff neck, the doctor followed with the question, "Do you have any sensitivity to light?" (Point for Cristina!) Then as my brother started to describe in detail how his neck felt, with tightened muscles that went from the back of his head, down his neck and across part of the back of his shoulders, I whispered under my breath, "Tension headache." When the doctor gathered the information, he told my brother that he was assessing for meningitis but he doesn't think that's what it is, and that he wasn't too worried about the neck stuff because it's probably just a tension headache (2 points!!!!!!) due to stress. After some other information was exchanged, the doctor stepped out of the room and I said, I SO SMART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BEST PHARMACIST EVAAARRR!!!!!!!!!1
In my head, of course.
Dude, I don't know why it's such a good feeling to me when I experience the applicability of things we learn in school to real life. So valuable. I love it.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Lesson 19: Brainwashed
Pharmacy school has embedded into my head an entirely new perspective on different aspects of the food and drug industry. I am very hesitant to recommend any products that are not FDA-approved and I have grown extremely critical of health claims made by my friends that I have not personally come across and evaluated myself.
Here's an example: a few weeks ago, my best friend and I were at IHOP talking about what we put in our coffee, and I told her that I try to stick to Splenda instead of using table sugar. She told me that she doesn't use Splenda because it's a neurotoxin. Right after she said that, I probably failed trying to hide the biggest look of skepticism on my face. I really held myself back from saying, "That's a bunch of bullshit. Where did you get that information from?" So the other day, I went on a PubMed search to look for specific articles in peer-reviewed journals and used the key words "Splenda" and "neurotoxin." I couldn't find anything proving it was a neurotoxin. I then gave it the benefit of the doubt and typed "Splenda" and "toxicity" and I actually read the toxicity profile.
One thing I found was about a chemical called 6-CG, which has already established literature on its neurotoxicity. Although sucralose (Splenda's chemical name) has a metabolite 4-CG, which is similar in chemical structure to the neurotoxin, it itself has not had any reports of neurotoxicity whatsoever. In fact, none of the sucralose metabolites have shown any neurotoxicity.
I gave into my inner nerdiness and even looked at thetruthaboutsplenda.com and researched the article that they claimed to support the belief that Splenda is somehow bad for you because it's not "natural." I could pick the article apart right now, but I will spare you all the boredom. I would've also given it more credibility if it wasn't funded by the Sugar Association, Inc., which is also in charge of the website. And to think that they tried to make us believe this was really an independent study.
See how bad it is? I'm relying more and more on hard, scientific justification for any claims I ever hear, especially if they're health-related. I have to admit that this is beginning to affect the way I think in general now, as I am putting science on a much higher pedestal than before... almost like I won't believe it until I see it. Sometimes I don't know if I'm being smart or just being stubborn.
Here's an example: a few weeks ago, my best friend and I were at IHOP talking about what we put in our coffee, and I told her that I try to stick to Splenda instead of using table sugar. She told me that she doesn't use Splenda because it's a neurotoxin. Right after she said that, I probably failed trying to hide the biggest look of skepticism on my face. I really held myself back from saying, "That's a bunch of bullshit. Where did you get that information from?" So the other day, I went on a PubMed search to look for specific articles in peer-reviewed journals and used the key words "Splenda" and "neurotoxin." I couldn't find anything proving it was a neurotoxin. I then gave it the benefit of the doubt and typed "Splenda" and "toxicity" and I actually read the toxicity profile.
One thing I found was about a chemical called 6-CG, which has already established literature on its neurotoxicity. Although sucralose (Splenda's chemical name) has a metabolite 4-CG, which is similar in chemical structure to the neurotoxin, it itself has not had any reports of neurotoxicity whatsoever. In fact, none of the sucralose metabolites have shown any neurotoxicity.
I gave into my inner nerdiness and even looked at thetruthaboutsplenda.com and researched the article that they claimed to support the belief that Splenda is somehow bad for you because it's not "natural." I could pick the article apart right now, but I will spare you all the boredom. I would've also given it more credibility if it wasn't funded by the Sugar Association, Inc., which is also in charge of the website. And to think that they tried to make us believe this was really an independent study.
See how bad it is? I'm relying more and more on hard, scientific justification for any claims I ever hear, especially if they're health-related. I have to admit that this is beginning to affect the way I think in general now, as I am putting science on a much higher pedestal than before... almost like I won't believe it until I see it. Sometimes I don't know if I'm being smart or just being stubborn.
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