Category: Health issues

Uh-oh. Covid.


The red line beside the “T” indicates that the Covid test was positive.

I knew the risks of picking up contagious diseases during air travel, which is why I went so far out of my way to get this year’s new Covid and flu vaccines before my trip to Scotland. The second evening after I returned home, I started feeling like I was getting a cold. I felt miserable and feverish during the night, so the next morning I did one of the at-home Covid tests. It was positive.

We know that it’s possible to get Covid even though one had the vaccine. The severity of the Covid, though, should be reduced into a “mild” case. My fever wasn’t all that high — 101.8 at its highest. But on day 2 of Covid it’s impossible to know what course it will take. After some Googling, I described my condition to ChatGPT and asked for advice. “Call your doctor,” was the bottom line. I called, they said I should come in, and an hour later I was in the doctor’s office, where another Covid test was positive. It did indeed look like a mild case, but out of an abundance of caution the doctor recommended Paxlovid.

At the pharmacy, I went to the drive-by. I was shocked at how much Paxlovid costs, though my Humana Medicare Advantage insurance paid for most of it. I checked the Humana app this morning for the official numbers. The pharmacy billed Humana $1,406.66 for the Paxlovid. My share of that was $132.74. Yikes!

It’s now day 3, and I’m feeling better. This is the first time I’ve had Covid. I do my best to avoid colds and flu by avoiding public places probably more than I should. I’m just glad that I got Covid on the way home, rather than on the way to Scotland. What a way that would be to ruin a trip.

It really isn’t fair that people my age have Medicare, while younger Americans must try to get by in a health-care wilderness. The obvious solution is Medicare for all. Republicans will do everything possible to see that that never happens.

Protein bombs for the protein wars

On July 27, the New York Times had a very nice piece on protein and fitness — The Protein Bar Arms Race. Specifically it’s about a new entry in the market for protein bars — David bars. These bars have 28 grams of protein at the price of only 150 calories.

It happens that I was on a diet for about three months. I’m also trying to gain some muscle. To do both at the same time is difficult, especially at my age. The only hope is in keeping carbs and calories down while keeping protein up, plus resistance training and a creatine supplement. These are my doctor’s orders, actually. Because I’m healthy and can have a long “health span” if I behave myself, he says that gradual loss of muscle mass over the years is what’s most likely to put me out of commission someday if I don’t head it off. Walking is not enough, he said (but keep walking). Resistance training is essential. He prescribes 30 minutes of resistance training three times a week. He practices what he preaches. He’s as lean as a whippet and as fit as fiddle.

I used to think that resistance training always involves gyms and machines. But I’m learning that, these days, more and more people are doing their resistance training at home using inexpensive hand weights and a video routine. There are many of those on YouTube. A good video routine will keep you moving, as though you’re doing circuit training. So it’s good for your aerobic fitness as well as your muscles. My weakness is staying with it. I’ll try.

The David bars are pretty pricey. They can be ordered from Amazon, though they’re shipped directly from David’s. I’ve tried only the fudge brownie flavor so far, and they’re quite good.

Diet theory


A diet burger made from mashed pinto beans, whole-grain (hulled) barley, wheat germ, and seasonings

There is a movement that argues that diets don’t work, and that people don’t have to be lean to be healthy. Diets don’t work, they say, because, when people lose weight on a diet, they almost always gain it back.

Of course they gain it back! What would be the fun of eating lean all the time? There’s a fix for gaining the weight back: Do another diet.

Thus I often say that I’m an experienced dieter. The real trick with dieting, though, I would say, is to not wait too long to start a diet when you need to start a diet. For most of my adult life, my weight has cycled up and down by about ten pounds.

Gaining ten pounds is great fun. One feels lean after a successful diet, and one wants to celebrate. But eventually that will catch up with you, and another diet cycle must begin. The relative length of the cycles, for me anyway, is not that bad. A diet usually lasts for three to six months. Whereas a live-it-up spree can last from two to four years. If I had better discipline, I’d start a diet after gaining five pounds. That doesn’t work for me, though, probably because at five pounds I can still pretend that my belt isn’t getting too tight.

My first rule for dieting is to count calories, aiming for 1,200 calories a day. That’s enough to have a reasonable chance of getting enough protein. It would be possible to have a doughnut-only diet and lose weight on 1,200 calories a day. But that would be miserable, because one’s glucose level would cycle wildly.

It’s the simple carbs that have to go — bread and pasta, for example. Then, each day, one must figure out how to get enough protein and stay under the calorie target. Fiber is the dieter’s friend. You can have pretty much as much low-carb vegetables as you can eat. The fiber keeps the microbiome well fed, and I think that helps keep the appetite under control.

On a diet, you’re going to be hungry for part of the day. But that’s not so bad if you keep the carbs down, and thus the need for insulin. The current trend in dieting is intermittent fasting. I aim for 19-5 — two meals a day between noon and 5 p.m. I’m moderately hungry in the mornings, but I never go to bed hungry.

There’s pasta, bread, and potatoes in my future. But not yet.

The maintenance of the spine


A 6-inch Chirp wheel. Click here for high-resolution version.

If you watch children playing, you’ll see that they flex their bodies, vigorously, in pretty much every way that a body can be flexed, including their spines. We older folks stop doing that, and so we pay for it.

Last year I had a serious round of back trouble. It was so bad that I could barely stand up straight. I literally had to crawl to the bathroom at night. I crouched and waddled down the stairs in the morning to make coffee. The problem was far worse in the morning and got a good bit better during the day. After a few days I swallowed my pride and denial and went to the doctor.

A CT scan showed no obvious problem. (In fact, the doctor said, my hip joints looked very good.) The doctor could not make a clear diagnosis. It was one of two things. It might have been piriformis syndrome. That was the diagnosis I favored, because I believed I had injured the piriformis muscle with some very foolish lifting the day before the pain started. Or the problem could have been an ordinary lower-back problem, which is so familiar to so many people. Either way, the treatment was pretty much the same — physical therapy, exercise, some pain relief, and wait. The pain gradually subsided, and after a month I was 98 percent back to normal.

Little intermittent twinges persisted, though. And I knew that the doctor was right when he said that the problem would come back unless I did something about it. He recommended regularly doing the exercises that the physical therapist showed me, along with yoga. And, he said, keep walking.

I realized that the exercises the physical therapist showed me, as well as the recommended yoga moves, do pretty much the same thing. They flex the spine in every possible direction, and they strengthen and stretch the muscles around the spine. They do the things that come so naturally to children.

A few days ago I came across an article at Wired magazine, “Work Has Given Me Tech Neck. This Device Is Helping Undo the Damage.” The article was selling something (Chirp wheels). But as I watched some videos on how to use it I saw that the wheels can manipulate the spine much more intensely than yoga can do. It’s pretty difficult to flex the spine backwards. The wheel uses body weight to do that, and it can operate on the entire length of the spine including the shoulders and lower neck. So I bought one.

We older folks aren’t eager to get down on the floor. But we ought to, because it’s good for us. That alone is beneficial, I think, because we have to practice getting up. I can still do it just fine — sit cross-legged, shift forward onto the knees, then stand up, preferably without using the hands. But I avoid it.

When you hear your back making little cracking sounds, that’s a good thing! I think it means that the spine is flexing. I spend too much time at the computer. I tend to get cricks in my shoulders. I hope this will help.

Amazon has Chirp wheels as well as similar wheels from competitors.

The political situation

I haven’t posted lately about the political situation because I don’t think I have had much to add. I would emphasize, though, that as the media show their timidity and corruptibility, the intelligentsia are coming to the rescue. I rely on Substack, particularly Heather Cox Richardson, Lillian Rubin’s the Contrarian, and Paul Krugman, who posts pretty much every morning.

The timidity of the media is alarming. This morning, for example, the New York Times said that Trump “contradicted” Emmanuel Macron in a press conference at the White House. But Macron didn’t just contradict Macron. He corrected Trump’s lies (about Ukraine). He even interrupted Trump to do it, in the middle of a lie.

What’s happening is horrifying. Yet history is going to understand perfectly well what is happening, in spite of Republican and MAGA attempts to flood the zone with lies, and even though plenty of chumps still believe them. It’s the smartest and best people in the world up against a ship of fools who want to own the earth and control us all. I hate waiting for justice. But I continue to believe that we will have it.

Alcohol as an institution


At the Belhaven pub, Dundee, near the fireplace

I am nine days into a dry January. We all seem to be rethinking alcohol these days, and that can only be a good thing. But, speaking only for myself, I don’t think the time has come for me to give up alcohol.

A lot of ink has been spilled of late after the Powers That Be reversed course and told us that even light drinking has no health benefits. Most of what has been written, though, has a one-size-fits-all tone and seems to forget three important things.

The first thing is that, genetically, one size does not fit all. There are genetic differences in how people metabolize alcohol. This is a little complicated, but it’s worth understanding. The differences have to do with how quickly a certain enzyme cracks apart the alcohol molecule, and how quickly a different enzyme detoxifies the cracked-apart byproduct.

The second thing is that, genetics aside, we are all very different. How old are we? How healthy are we? How stressed are we? Do we tend more toward bad habits, or more toward good habits? When we drink, what do we drink, and how much?

These are all factors that change throughout our lives. The day probably will come when, at a certain age, I will stop drinking because of my age, just as I have realized that, because of my age, I should drink less. Consider Queen Elizabeth II. Her doctors advised her, at the age of 95, to stop having her evening cocktail. She was 96 when she died. I seriously doubt that alcohol shortened her life or impaired her health, even though, on average, Britain, like most countries, has a big drinking problem.

The third thing is that alcohol is an institution. Institutions provide social glue. Alcohol as an institution has many forms — a glass of champagne at a celebration, a pint at a pub with a friend, wine with dinner, cocktails at a reception. The growing of grapes and the making of wine are an art as well as an economic institution, as is the making of fine whiskey and the brewing of beautiful ales. Pubs are a social institution of which I highly approve. These institutions are ancient. People have been making alcohol for at least 10,000 years. Even the most important of Christian sacraments requires wine.

The genetic mutation that allows humans (and some other primates) to efficiently metabolize alcohol was definitely a good thing. That mutation occurred about 10 million years ago, and it allowed our ancestors to eat fallen fruit that had started to ferment. Other fruit-eating animals can metabolize alcohol — birds, for example. Dogs are not fruit-eating animals, and they don’t have the mutation. Bees, because they consume nectar, can metabolize alcohol, and to do it they use the same enzymes as humans.

In short, for humans and some other animals, it would be perfectly correct to think of alcohol as a kind of food, even though it’s an optional food and clearly not something that we can make a diet of.

As for my dry January, my goal is January 25, not January 31. That’s because January 25 is Burns Night, an annual Scottish institution (with toasts!) that I’ve been happy to adopt. Burns Night marks the death of Robert Burns, January 25, 1759. Burns was only 37 when he died. But I don’t think it was alcohol that did him in.

The 2024-2025 Covid and flu vaccines


The influenza B virus. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

I had not had a Covid vaccination since 2021, and I had never had a flu shot (though, lucky for me, it has been more than 30 years since I’ve had the flu). Because I’m going to be on two long flights and two long train rides next month, I figured it was time to go get some shots.

At first I thought it was strange when my doctor’s office said that they don’t have the vaccines. They referred me to the dominant pharmacy chain here, CVS. Then I realized that it’s probably not efficient for small rural practices to keep those vaccines when the pharmacies are doing the job with greater efficiency. I’d never had a shot at a pharmacy before; this is new to me. But I understand that, since 2009, all fifty American states have given pharmacists the right to vaccinate. The pharmacist who gave me the shots said I was her 40th flu shot that day.

I went to a CVS in the little town of Walnut Cove at 6 p.m. on a Friday. The sign said that walk-ins are welcome. I had some questions, and I found that the pharmacist was very well informed. She answered all my questions. Though proof of immunization is not required at present for airline passengers, I asked for some documentation just in case. She gave me two printouts. For the Covid vaccine, I got the “MODERNA 2024-2025 COVID 12YR+,” in which the 12YR+ means that it’s the version of the vaccine for people older than 12. For the flu vaccine, I got the “FLUAD TRIVALENT 2024-2025 SYR,” from a company named Sequirus, Inc. This vaccine is optimized for people over 65. It includes something called MF59, an oil-in-water emulsion that, for reasons not fully understood, increases the effectiveness of the vaccine, which may be important for older people whose immune systems aren’t what they used to be.

The shots cost me nothing. My Humana Medicare Advantage coverage paid for it. I can see online in my Humana account that Humana paid CVS $89.71 for the flu shot and $156.13 for the Covid shot.

As expected, the next day I didn’t feel exactly sick; malaise is probably the best word. I had a low-grade fever of 99.7 the day after, but my temperature was back to normal on day 2. My upper arm is a little sore, but only a little. That’s just what we are told to expect. It’s OK to get the Covid vaccine and the flu vaccine at the same time, but you probably want to time it so that you have a couple of days off to deal with the after-effects.

Modern medicine is a miracle. Yes, drug companies want to gouge us where they can. But I also think that vaccine technologies are far more advanced and far safer than lovers of conspiracy theories will ever admit. The flu and Covid vaccines are products of international cooperation. In addition to the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is the World Health Organization and the health agencies of other advanced countries, all cooperating on the science and delivery of these vaccines. There is a huge amount of global research on vaccines and their effectiveness.

I have never had Covid. And, by the way, you can still get four free Covid test kits from the U.S. Department of Health & Human services by going here.

Almost ice cream

You do have an ice cream machine, don’t you? They actually work, and they’re not very expensive.

I’d be lying if I claimed that I can make a frozen dessert that’s just as good as ice cream but healthier. But it’s possible to make satisfactory substitutes, and with less work, too. Making real ice cream is a big job. You have to cook a custard, then chill it for hours, then freeze it. And the ingredients are heart-stoppers — egg yolks, cream, and sugar.

Bananas work remarkably well to make no-cream ice cream smoother and less icy. The ice cream in the photo is made from a banana, some dried dates, plain soybean milk, a touch of nutmeg, and a few drops of vanilla. Whiz it in the blender, then put the mixture in the ice cream machine.

The mystery of ketoprofen

I don’t often use medications, but there is one — now hard to get — that is like a miracle for me. It’s ketoprofen, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) which I assume, given the -profen suffix, is a relative of medications such as ibuprofen.

Back in the 1990s, ketoprofen was available without a prescription. It was sold over the counter as Orudis KT. In my working days, I often had tension headaches. Aspirin, acetominophen, and ibuprofen would barely touch my headaches. One day I saw a TV commercial for Orudis KT, advertising it as a miracle headache remedy. I went out and bought some.

One Orudis KT tablet was a tiny 12.5 milligrams. For comparison, one aspirin is 325mg, one acetominophen tablet is 500mg, and one ibuprofen tablet, such as Aleve, is 220mg. I could take one Orudis KT tablet for a worst-case headache, and 30 minutes later I’d forget I ever had a headache. There were never any side effects. I called them my “little green pills,” and people I worked with would often come to me to beg for one if they had a headache. How could a tiny 12.5 milligrams of something be so effective?

Then in 2005 Orudis KT was taken off the over-the-counter market and was available only by prescription. Clearly I was not the only person who found it remarkably effective. Some of the last remaining bottles of it sold for very high prices on eBay — $30, $40, $50 and more. After that I couldn’t get Orudis KT anymore.

A few years ago a friend in California gave me some ketoprofen that his doctor had prescribed after surgery. Each capsule was a ridiculous 200mg, more ketoprofen than I would ever dare — or need — to take. A few capsules lasted me several years. I’d open the capsule and take out just enough of the powder to come to 12.5 milligrams. Then that ran out.

A couple of weeks ago, I asked my doctor if he’d prescribe some ketoprofen, just so I’d have it for minor aches and pains. I told him how effective it was in small doses and said, “Surely I’d be better off with 12.5 milligrams of ketroprofen rather than 220 milligrams of ibuprofen?” He agreed. He also said that he didn’t know why the drug company took it off the over-the-counter market, but his guess was that it was a way of making more money from it. “Most people don’t know about ketoprofen,” my doctor said. I believe ketoprofen is much better known in Europe and Canada than in the U.S.

When I took the prescription to the drug store, they didn’t have ketoprofen. The pharmacist said they had not stocked it for years and that it was available only in bulk in far larger quantities than the pharmacy would ever be able to sell. The pharmacist referred me to a “compounding pharmacy,” a specialized sort of pharmacy that mixes drugs and doses to order, particularly drugs that are not common. I got my ketoprofen!

From Googling I’ve learned that ketoprofen is very much used as a veterinary drug, particularly in cattle. It is very effective for fever and respiratory diseases in cattle, as well as for mastitis. This has been a problem in a few countries in Asia, including India and Bangladesh. There are about ten NSAID drugs which, when given to cattle, and if one of the cattle dies out in the open from whatever it’s being treated for, and if a vulture then eats it, the vulture’s kidneys may be fatally damaged. Apparently it’s only Asian vultures that are susceptible. Ketoprofen is actually used as a veterinary drug with chickens, ducks, and quail, as well as pet birds such as parakeets. As far as I know, no species of animal in the U.S. or Europe is harmed by ketoprofen.

Outsourcing is now an option


I grew the tomatoes on the upper shelf. The tomatoes on the lower shelf were part of my weekly vegetable pickup.

Technically, where I live is a food desert. The nearest grocery stores are about twelve miles away. A shocking number of rural people get most of their food these days from dollar stores such as Dollar General. Dollar General stores are everywhere. This makes it easier for me to believe the terrifying statistic that 70 percent of the American diet these days comes from ultra-processed foods.

It’s shocking how few rural people have vegetable gardens. And why should they? They don’t eat that stuff anymore. With transplants it’s a different story.

I’ve always had a garden, for better or for worse, in the fifteen years I’ve lived here. However, I do not enjoy — at all — summer gardening. It’s the heat, the humidity, the bugs, the ticks, the weeds, the briars, the gnats in the eyes. No matter how energetic my start in the spring, by summer the garden is always a wreck.

This summer I have an entirely new option. A young couple who live about two miles away (transplants from the Chicago area) have taught themselves to be superb gardeners. When they first moved here, they had day jobs. But this year they’ve quit their jobs and are making a living with their garden. Mostly they sell on Saturdays at an upscale farmer’s market in Greensboro. But, for a few local people like me, they started a weekly pickup of an assortment of vegetables — community supported agriculture. I was able to downsize my own garden this summer to a very manageable one row of nothing but tomatoes and basil, both of which are easy to grow and neither of which I’d be able to live without in summer.

These two young people taught themselves to garden, mostly by watching a lot of videos. In retrospect, I can see what a good idea that is. Old hands like me tend to garden the way we saw it done as children, and though we may experiment with newer methods, we never reach the state of the art. Whereas the garden I’m buying from this summer is a sight to behold. I’ve never seen anything like it other than at Monticello, or an abbey garden on Iona in Scotland. Almost half the garden is in flowers. They don’t till. Everything is perfectly mulched and well watered. The climbing system for such things as beans and cucumbers is ingenious, not to mention tall. They make their own compost, partly from the compostables they collect from their customers in Greensboro as part of the business. They even make enough wine for their own consumption, from native varieties of grapes.

There may well be some local young people — that is, young people who were born here and grew up here — who are interested in doing this kind of thing. But I don’t know of any. The reason for this, as I see it, has everything to do with the cultural decline of the rural deplorables. In a county that voted 78 percent for Trump in 2020, it’s safe to assume that 78 percent of the calories are coming from Dollar General and fast food from the nearest towns — Walnut Cove and Madison. These people — the people who are making America great again — eat their burgers and chicken sandwiches in the car and throw the bags, wrappers, and empty cups out the window onto the road.

Show me someone who lives otherwise, and the odds will be greater than 78 percent that that person is a liberal.


The nearby gardeners, at their booth at a Greensboro farmer’s market