HealthyConcerns.com

Where politics, health and Mother's Day intersect

This Mother's Day two bloggers are organizing a BlogSwarm that I would like to bring to your attention. Bridget Magnus (aka ShortWoman) and The Arch Crone are sponsoring a Mother's Day event to bring attention to the women who are victims of not being able to get an abortion. You can read more
about it here.

If you read ShortWoman's post you'll see that this BlogSwarm is in response to a pro-life publicity stunt, a "funeral procession" in honor of aborted fetuses.

See, there's a lot of talk about those fetuses, and there's a lot of talk about maternal health...BlogHers Act particularly focuses on it, as one example.

But ShortWoman and ArchCrone wanted to draw attention to maternal death. (Which is still shockingly prevalent I might add.)

If you want to learn more about what they're planning, visit this post.

Me? I'm happy to see people focus on the persons who are already actual persons.

Defend the MOTHERS Act against misinformation campaign!!

This comes direct from the blogosphere's foremost authority on postpartum depression, Katherine Stone from Postpartum Progress. As you may know Katherine guest blogs on BlogHer about postpartum depression and has spearheaded our efforts in the regard, including leading the charge on the Blog Day for The MOTHERS Act that BlogHer co-sponsored back in October. At that time the response was so immediate and passionate that the Senate had bumped up their schedule to work on the legislation, but since then a misinformation campaign has sprung up and is currently being louder and more insistent.

We need to reengage and reenergize. According to Katherine:

It's time to talk about the Melanie Blocker Stokes (MBS) MOTHERS Act again. I know, I know. We've heard this all before, you're thinking. I already called my Senator, you're thinking. I already wrote about this on my blog, you're thinking. Sheesh!, you may even be thinking. Well, apparently everything you and I have done so far in support of this bill hasn't been enough. As you may know, there are some people who are completely convinced that the MBS MOTHERS Act is a conspiratorial plot by the government to drug pregnant and postpartum women, and it must be STOPPED AT ALL COSTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You and I know that's not true. So we've kind of ignored the negative campaign -- been slightly pissed and sometimes even truly annoyed but gone on with our day because it's silly and we have lots of more important things to worry about than some misguided folks. But the U.S. Senate can't ignore it when lots and lots and lots of people speak out. That's how they work, right? Polls. When they hear from lots of people on a certain issue, they tend to go in that direction. Right now our Senators are hearing from a whole host of people who think it's a really bad idea to pass this bill -- a bill that provides funding for increased research into the cause and treatments of postpartum mood disorders, provides better training for healthcare providers and provides for an awareness campaign so that more women will know about these illnesses and realize that they can get help. Those people, bless their hearts, are very vocal and have every right to be vocal about what they think. Conversely, those who believe in the MBS MOTHERS Act are not being anywhere near vocal enough. Our Senators are NOT HEARING from enough of those of us who support it. If this trend continues, this bill will not pass. What happened to us, and to hundreds of thousands like us, and to our friends and sisters and mothers and girlfriends will keep happening. Women will continue to think they've gone crazy, never to return to their old selves. They will continue to live in fear of speaking up and telling someone about it. They will continue to be afraid to lose their children. They will continue to suffer, hurting both their health and the health of their children, because they won't get treatment. Some might even kill themselves, or become so ill they harm their children. That is unacceptable to me. Is it acceptable to you? I started this blog because I was damn well not going to let anybody go through the isolation and terror and ineffective treatment from an untrained doctor that I received. Don't you feel the same? Postpartum Progress readers, and anyone who cares about postpartum mood disorders, I humbly ask you to complete two very easy assignments: 1. Click this link and sign this petition to support passage of the MBS MOTHERS Act. It is as easy as pie. Thanks to the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance for getting the petition going. All you have to do is fill out your name and address and click send, and it will be sent all the proper places. The petition is also supported by Postpartum Support International. 2. Forward the petition link to everyone you know and tell them to sign their name to it as well. We need thousands of people to do this. Not just a few hundred. Seriously, thousands. Get clicking.

I know that lately I've also asked you to donate (and you still totally shoud) but can you also please click and blog?

I just did, won't you join me?

Help save women's lives (and by extension, help save communities)

BlogHer launched the BlogHers Act activism initiative at last year's annual conference, and since then we've undertaken such projects as a Blog Action Day for the MOTHERS ACT, and a series of podcast interviews about postpartum depression and postpartum hemorrhage, among other topics.

Today we launched a BlogHers Act project that goes right to the bottom line: Raising funds to endow five different projects across the globe that directly address the health and welfare of women and children. We're partnering with Global Giving on this initiative, and we'll be tracking how much money the BlogHer Network can collect between now and Mother's Day in May.

BlogHer now reaches about 8 million unique visitors per month across our entire network. Just imagine the possibilities...won't you help turn them into reality?

I know I'm in!

A couple of interesting posts about doctors and their perspective

Hat tip to Kevin MD for pointing me to two interesting articles this morning. I may not agree with some of the political paths Kevin MD goes down, but he always does point to the latest interesting bits of medical news, both in the blogosphere and in the mainstream media.

The first is an article from the SF Chronicle that asks: What's Your Doctor's Style?.

Written by a doctor it talks about three styles: The extremely anal doctor who tests for everything and leaves no stone unturned. The minimizing doctor who has a much more wait-and-see perspective. And the worst-case scenario doctor, who immediately thinks of (and hopefully eliminates) the worst possible result for every symptom.

I feel a little bit like baby Bear, but I gotta ask...isn't there a Just-Right Doctor who isn't too scary but also isn't too laissez-faire?

What impacts both your stomach and gives you a cough?

Because whatever does that? I have it.

Started last Monday now. Thought it was food poisoning. Nausea, light-headed, hot flashes. And then some chills too. Strangest thing was that even as Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday went by without me eating very much if anything, I wasn't feeling bad. Usually I need to eat every few hours or risk getting a bit shaky, unfocused irritable. For days though I had no interest in food, and wasn't feeling particularly unhappy about it. When I do eat...my body's not particularly pleased about it, if you know what I mean. varying levels of gastric disturbances ensue.

Not normal for me. I can usually eat like a truck driver no matter how sick I am.

Sometime around Wednesday I started getting this nagging little cough. Dry, but constant. Which over this long weekend has blown up into a big. miserable, hacking cough that keeps me from good sleep and is starting to give me very sore abs. Still dry, though. Not a lot of mucus roiling around in there.

Sore throat came and went over 48 hours. Right ear ached and felt like I'd just landed from a flight without clearing my ear, but that's clearing up.

What isn't clearing up too well is the cough. And the occasional swing between being hot and being cold. And the gastric rebellion if I dare to eat. And, for that matter, the lack of any appreciable appetite. I'm eating because I oughta, not because I wanna.

So, amateur (or, hey, professional) diagnosticians. What do you think?

An amazing post about being a survivor

Every now and then a BlogHer member writes a post that strikes a chord with everyone who reads it.

Pookielocks did it today with this post: Conquering Your Trauma Anniversary.

Practical and poetic advice about how to deal with memories and PTSD and everything else that comes with traumatic events of all kinds.

And the comments? Well, it's just like they say: If you knew everyone around you who had been raped or abused or assaulted, you wold be shocked. True of men. Frighteningly true of women.

Don't miss this post.

My bud Amy takes a turn at Newsweek's My Turn

Which I think is uber-cool.

You can check out her story of blogging and diabetes and online community here.

Congrats Amy...and keep on spreading the word about how patients and laypeople are using the Internet to improve our health care experience, not just annoy doctors with questions we got off of Google!

7 Pains you shouldn't ignore? Try basically EVERYWHERE

OK, perhaps I have a dark sense of humor, but WebMD's list of 7 Pains You Shouldn't Ignore actually made me crack up.

Why?

Because here's where such un-ignorable pains are:
Head
Throat
Jaw
Chest
Shoulder
Arm
Abdomen
Lower Back
Between Shoulder Blades
Leg
Calf
Feet

And "Vague, Combined, or Medically Unexplained Pains"

I'm sorry, but didn't they just ay you shouldn't ignore pain anywhere???!!!

I find it amusing. I'm dark like that.

Proof I am a shallow person

I found this new blog, 5 resolutions to Transform the Fashion & Beauty Industry via one of their BlogHer posts.

It looks like an overall interesting look at body image issues, and how the fashion and beauty industries can give themselves a makeover. (Heh, pun intended.)

But which post caught me eye and grabbed me?

The one featuring LOLCats, of course.

That doesn't make me a shallow person, does it?

We like email? Duh.

So Kevin MD points us to a urologist who did an unscientific sampling of his patient base and discovered this:

16 out of 24 respondants stated that email was their preferred method to communicate with the doctor or staff, and this was not age dependent.

24 out of 24 respondants stated that they had NO concerns regarding email security.

Well, duh. I'm not a digital native, definitely an immigrant, but email has become the communications tool of choice for me and everyone I know. In fact, I'd even take IM for a quick question or to make an appointment, if I could.

How often do you call your doctor and actually get a live person (not the exchange) and actually get your business done in as quick as the aggregate time it takes to a) write an email and b) read the reply when it comes?

Now, I agree with some of the commenters that people don't really have a vision of what a privacy issue would look like in this context. And that may be that for the majority of us there isn't really anything too scary to be discovered.

In any case, it's not just doctors. I'd prefer to deal with email and online interfaces for pretty much everything if I could. I guess I like dealing with computers better than dealing with people?

What do you think?