Antibiotics Files, Part 1

Every person on earth tells lies, excluding maybe yet-to-be canonized saints and Al Franken. We say things we know are not true, things we think are true that are not, and things that that just pop into our head, their truthfulness unimportant. We say things that are off-base and misguided. Not all these are equally abominable, but all require some sort of recognition of fault, in my opinion.

My Confession:

In my last post I wrote in my “Quick Facts” section: “The common cold is a virus, not a bacterial infection. Antibiotics cannot cure your cold. You know this; stop playing dumb and asking your doctors for them anyway.”

This was off-base and misguided. People are not asking doctors for antibiotics. Doctors are shoving them down our throats.

Last week, I made my own doctor visit for a sore throat I had had for ten days. I sat on the paper covered bed, opened wide as the Physician’s Assistant cocked her lit magnifier towards my throat and nodded, zombie-like, when she said “That looks bad. Let’s get you on antibiotics.”

Six days into antibiotics, my throat looks EXACTLY THE SAME AS IT DID WHEN I STARTED. Swollen, discolored and helpless.

So why did I fall for it? Why, even after her rapid strep came back negative, did I not say “Um, are you sure, lady?” Why was I able to say that so confidently to my roommate when she offered me her unused Amoxicillin pack, but choke when the PA prescribed the same thing? Why?!? Because although my P.A.’s answer to my question of whether or not this would work was not a definite yes, it was a definite “I hope so and am banking on it.” Her hope rubbed off on me. I abandoned my wariness of the drugs. I was on board the antibiotics train because she was. I wanted to go where she was going.

In fact, the rail attendants shoved me off in "antibiotic misuse hatred" land, which is a far cry from "fully healed thanks to antibiotics!"-ville, but really not that far from where I started. A week into antibiotics my sore throat pain is just as intense as it was before. With my Ibuprophen supply dwindling, I decided to finally go homeopathic; (my inability to do so earlier is probably why this thing mutated so severely in the first place). I did a few salt gargles, but they reminded me too much of accidentally lapping sea water while trying to soothe an expanding sunburn at a crowded beach. I tried an apple cider vinegar gargle. That one led to seething pain and a whole bunch of extra swollen-ness. The morning after apple cider, I wondered if my throat would ever feel normal again.

Then I tried a cayenne pepper gargle. Its slight sting, lingering tingle and subsequent numbness was the trick I was looking for.

I have since adopted the cayenne as my pain-reliever of choice. I carry my concoction around in a pink travel mug, to work, the movie theater, friends’ houses. My mug has become my own version of an a smoker's cig pack. I always have it within reach. When feeling slightly detached from conversation I catch myself drumming it with my finger nails, my gaze drifting as I compute the shortest distance to a location socially acceptable for me to gargle and spit. It has truly become the only source of relief I’ve found in this seemingly endless infection.

As I trudge it out, I continue to take my antibiotic pills three times a day. They are like the placebo pills of a birth control pack, except that the introduced antibodies would mutate into suberbugs if I didn't take them.

I will take them all. I will not let them beat me, and I will not board that train again.

Insane in the Mucus Membranes

Here in Colorado in February, we’re experiencing the typical blackoutdrunkepileptic winter, which is to say that the season of "winter" is too mentally unstable to chose between springy and frigid cold weather, so it just oscillates between the two for about six months. Though it’s not scientifically proven that cold weather makes the human body more susceptible to the common cold, catching a cold seems to go hand in hand with drastically changing temperatures. And with the cold, comes the snot.

Mucus, like everything in the human bod, can be disassembled at the cellular level, where mucus cells are produced in mucus glands in the mucus membrane. Mucous membranes are numerous in the human body, lining areas including the stomach, mouth, lips, eyelids, ears, genital area and anus, though not all secrete mucus. (Or at least not all the time). The cells are rich in proteins and water. The wet, sticky texture of mucus allows it to trap infectious agents including fungi, bacteria and viruses from damaging the protective tissue, or epithelium, in the aforementioned areas. In the nose, mucus traps the agents and holds them there in booger form until ejection.

A runny nose is often a reaction to a sort of ice/heat pack effect on the nose. The nose contains cilia, which are sensory organelles that sweep mucus toward the back of the throat. During cold weather the cilia become sluggish and the mucus becomes thicker. When reintroduced to warmblooded-friendly temperatures, the mucus thaws and runs out the nose until the cilia can shake it off. As for the heat pack effect, spicy food numbs the cilia temporarily useless, causing the should-be medical condition “spicy food nasal drip.” (Author’s note: I am writing this next to an empty bowl of spicy green chili and a resultant mountain of tissues. I‘m not just getting this stuff from wikipedia, I swear.)

Quick Facts on Mucus:

-Mucus is spelled "mucus" as a noun and "mucous" as an adjective. Sounds like Mufasa or Moukassa.

-Your body makes 1 litre of mucus a DAY! Sick!

-People with strong immune systems are more likely to develop symptomatic colds, as the symptoms of the virus occur because of a strong immune response. People with weak immune systems become asymptomatic carriers who unknowingly spread it to others.

-The common cold is a virus, not a bacterial infection. Antibiotics cannot cure your cold. You know this; Stop playing dumb and asking your doctors for them anyway.

-Attempts at creating a common cold vaccine have also been proven futile, as viruses are varied and rapidly mutating.

-If you're experiencing mucus overload, best to just let it ride.

Moussaka--sounds like mucus, tastes totally different

Is it Love or Heart Failure?

Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire Elizabeth Taylor was hospitalized last Friday for Congestive Heart Failure. She has officially been suffering from CHF since 2004. My unofficial theory is that she has been showing symptoms her entire life. The symptoms of CHF are strikingly similar to those of being in love, which Elizabeth Taylor did a lot.

CHF is when blood can‘t make it away from the heart and into the far reaching nooks of the body. Causes include high blood pressure, narrowed arteries, a past heart attack, congenital heart disease or a past heart valve problem. Meanwhile, Phenylethylamine (PEA, or “love chemical”) is an alkaloid, or chemical with a nitrogen base, that occurs naturally in the brain. It is released with highest frequency during the early stages of a budding romance, the first 6 months to three years.

A symptomatic breakdown:

CHF--Rapid/irregular pulse. Blood is flowing into the circulatory system at half its normal rate (35% verses 65%).
PEA--Running pulse. You’re thinking about sex.

CHF--Shortness of breath. Not enough oxygenated blood is making it to the lungs.
PEA--Heavy breathing. Still…thinking about sex.

CHF--Weight gain. Your metabolism is slowing with the lack of blood flow.
PEA--Heady emotions. “Do I look fat in this dress?”

CHF--Swelling of feet and ankles. The blood is just not flowing there.
PEA--Sweaty palms and shaky knees. Um, it’s a stretch.

CHF--General restlessness. Your heart is sick!
PEA--General restlessness. Your heart is sick!

What can we take away from this? Very little, if anything. Happy Valentine's Day. And shout out to the single ladies.

Life with Camry

Humans can’t get enough of longing for the unobtainable. If only--the ubiquitous phrase. If only I had cable, I could waste away more hours watching the NBA’s ridiculously long season. Or a smaller waist line, then I’d definitely get a man worth keeping! My personal favorite: if I could only get this girl/guy I’m obsessed with to notice me, I’d stop being such a douche bag to my friends. Life is deemed imperfect and empty until the next obsession comes along, creating a cyclical pattern of lust, greed and insecurity.

This winter I’ve developed one of my own. If I could only I could speak the language of my 1995 Toyota Camry, life would be a lot easier.

We haven’t been in each others’ lives that long and I’m really trying to understand her. I try to drive carefully and check her oils regularly. I even dropped a couple pay checks to get her rear struts replaced. Still, she locks her rear tires when I brake, spins them when I accelerate. She encourages unknown men to break her rear window and feel around her insides when I’m not there. Recently she locked my key in the ignition and instead of just telling me to reposition the mug in the cup holder so she’d be fully engaged in Park, she laughed at me.

She’s kind of a tease.

Okay, but is she suicidal? See she's does this thing with her gas pedal a couple times…I’ll let off and she’ll just hold it there for a second. And another second. Aaaand, there are break lights in front of us, COME ON, STOP IT, IS THIS SOME SORT OF A SICK GAME TO YOU?!? To which she’ll finally let off with a mocking rumble rumble.

The U.S. Department of Transportation says it’s not an electrical flaw. Nope, nothing wrong with her noggin ma’am, just her floor mat and/or her sticky gas pedal. SURE. Me, I think she's bat shit crazy and wants to go visit her Camry friends in recall land. I can picture them having planned this on the assembly line, exchanging VIN numbers and washer rings, “Guys, if we aren’t already totaled in 15 years, let’s all start sticking the gas pedals, okay?”

Me, I'll play along. Take her to the dealership, then maybe give her a little wax rub if she starts behaving. Maybe I'll never speak Camry, but who doesn't like to get rubbed down?

Forces in Yoga

When Janet Tsai steps in front of her Saturday morning yoga class, she's got a different vantage point than most instructors.

Instead of seeing her students like this...



She sees them like this...


Janet is a Ph.D student at the University of Colorado; her focus is engineering education with a twist (er, ardha matsyendrasana). Janet studies forces in yoga, or how fundamental laws in engineering can be identified in basic yoga poses.

An example: Janet shows Newton’s Third Law in sukasana, or the "easy sitting pose".

“Your sit bones contact the earth as your mass is pulled down by gravity. At the same time, you can feel the equal and opposite reaction of the earth as it supports your weight, pushing back up exactly equally and oppositely. Notice that your bones do not actually sink down into the earth, and the earth does not actually lift you up — instead, it’s exactly equal and perfectly matched.”

Janet breaks her research down further to show physics concepts happening in isolated body parts: torsion in a twisting spine; torque and lever arm in a bent arm. She says this example of torque is more universally accessible than, say, the infamous wrench and pipe.

“What if I’ve never used a wrench, what if I don’t know what (torque) feels like. That’s what everything else is based on. If you don’t know that first step then the rest of it’s going to be shaky. If we make people tangibly feel (torque), then they’ll have a sort of self-reliance.

Janet once counted how many free body diagrams in an introductory textbook related to structures such as cars, rockets and airplanes, then noted how many men verses women were pictured in the book. “Six women in the entire book,” she says. This is what Janet, through yoga, is trying to change.


Engineering & Yoga’s Hot Asian Lovechild

As a high schooler in Fort Collins, Janet was far from turned off from the supposedly masculine career of engineering. She was big into robotics club--“I loved creating things“ and “Guys made fun of me sometimes but it was no big deal because I was the smart Asian kid”. She proceeded on to the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, where she was part of the program’s first graduating class of 2006. The school has a unique 50-50 male to female ratio, something that Janet took for granted at the time.

When she landed her first job “laying out the curves” on robots for the company I-Robot, the lenses were abruptly removed. The company sent her to supervise factory production of their products in Shenzhen, China. “Literally, I was the only woman always,“ she said. “I was frequently mistaken for an escort.

“I felt like I was between masculine and feminine because I had to be ‘manly’ all the time.”

Janet found release in yoga. She began doing yoga constantly--in her room; her hallway; the massive seven studio center she belonged to in Hong Kong. When the year was up Janet was sent to Boston, where yoga got smoother and engineering got rough. Massive recession lay-offs in Janet‘s department meant endless work on her desk. After two years she abandoned her robotic dream job and moved back to Colorado.

In Boston she had taken a yoga teacher training course in Ashtanga-based Vinyasa, which is a classical yoga philosophy that guides its practitioners through eight steps of separation with the impure before achieving bliss. When she settled in Boulder, she began to experiment with different studios and styles. She learned the more flow-based Colorado (er, California) style, as well as Anusara, a form of yoga grounded in the Tantric philosophy. Tantric is a “heart-centered" philosophy--instead of realizing a separation of mind and body, the mind and body are connected. "It teaches you that everything you need is within," Janet says.

The practice helped her put her engineering experience into perspective.

“I realized that I can actually see things in a different way than most of the people I work with in engineering…and maybe I can try to change it.”

Janet applied and was accepted into the engineering education PhD program at CU Boulder, just as she broke into the heavily saturated Boulder yoga community and landed a teaching position. The forces of yoga became stronger (or, the arrows on the free body diagrams became more defined).

Though Janet is still trying to get monetary support for her forces in yoga research, she believes in her cause. "We can empower these students," she says. "We can give them mechanical intuition." Still, the department doesn’t traditionally fund the unconventional, so it’s been an uphill battle.

One thing CU Engineering does offer in no short supply is men, many of whom Janet insists interact with no women outside of their families.

“I try and wear a skirt once a week,” she says, smiling.



Janet‘s site: http://forcesinyoga.com/pa/Home.html

*CALLING ALL ENGINEERS: What are your thoughts? Related experiences/ideas to share? Nerdy jokes to replace "forces of yoga getting stronger"? Please comment!