As in—I have to refrain from aspirin and blood thinners for the next 7 days because of a routine medical test…
As in—all painkillers but Tylenol are in this category.
As in—no amount of Tylenol works at all for me, except to give me an uncomfortable throat—I think I may be allergic to it.
As in—remember that knee I’m recovering from? Thank you, Paula, for the topical ointment…
I’ll be real glad when this is all done and the knee is better.
Meanwhile, I limped downstairs a couple of days ago to adjust some not-working equipment for the tank. This caused the autotopoff to pour fresh water into the system. We have some not-happy critters.
This means I have to trek up and down stairs adjusting the salinity back up where it belongs. Then we have to lift the heavy lid off so one of us can reach in and adjust the very unhappy several-hundred-year-old clam who pitched himself off his ledge and onto the sand where he could be in danger and get trapped….
Ow. Ow. Ow. I need to test the salinity and do the adjusting, and Jane will help me with the lid and the clam.
I want my knee to be all better. Now.
It’s way better than it was, but I have to watch it and walk only on the flat—we walked uphill to visit Joan, and that’s what caused this little setback.
I really can recommend those 8’x4″ Ace bandage wraps to help support, hold the knee together. 🙂 The Velcro on one end works better than the little metal clips.
I have an analgesic cream called Trixaicin, which is 0.75% capsaicin. I don’t know if it has any other pain reliever in it, but I believe it’s also prescription strength, unless they’ve removed that restriction. I got it when my left knee started acting up. They gave it to me while I was waiting for the MRI appointment to come around, and then the follow-up with the orthopedist……it doesn’t seem to do much for me, until a few days after I first put it on, and then it’s like having a fire on your skin. I’m not sure I really want to keep using this stuff for the various aches and pains that are currently afflicting me, such as my left biceps tendon…..
I use a small gel-filled pack that can either be microwaved (or boiled) or frozen. My mother made a bunch of heavy fabric pads filled with field corn and microwaves them for about 3 – 4 minutes for a very large one that she uses on her back. The pads are sewn as a bag, and then several chambers are made by sewing along the length and the width of the pad after it’s filled with the corn, and then sew the open end up and use. It’s kind of like a quilt, but with corn instead of batting….
For knees, when you can’t take ANYTHING that might be a blood thinner, the tried and true is Vicodin. Yes, it needs a serious prescription. Yes, it’s a narcotic. But it works, and I found I could continue to work when taking it where stronger stuff knocked me out. (Vicodin is 5gms of Hydrocodone plus Tylenol. Hydrocodone is an analog of codeine, but with substantially less side effects, at least for me.) (Full disclosure: I had an ACL replaced in 1983, then finally a total knee replacement in 2010 when the osteo-arthritis finally got to the point where pain killers stopped being able to control the pain.)
Norco seems to be the same as Vicodin: 10mg of Hydrocodone + 325 mg of Acetomenaphin (Tylenol). Nor more than 3000 mg of Tylenol per day for the senior set is what is recommended.
And I don’t suppose Lidoderm patches would work on a knee.
Thanks, all. SO far the topical is making it endurable. But if it gets worse, I’ll talk to the doc.
My sympathy on the limited selection of pain relievers. (Some anti-depressants have the same kind of limitation – fortunately I can take Tylenol, or I’d have been up the creek.)
Slightly OT – I think you once mentioned that you use Splenda as a sugar substitute.
“A Duke University study that found that Splenda (sucralose) reduces the amount of ”good bacteria” in the intestines, increases the intestinal pH level, and leads to increased body weight.”
The Latest Scientific Evidence Should Be the Death Blow to Artificial Sweeteners
http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/why-humanity-shouldnt-be-playing-games-artificial-sweeteners?paging=off
Saw that. The amount we use is minuscule compared to the amount in the study, however. Neither Jane nor I, thank goodness, has a real yen for sweets. But I find it interesting. Not too much work beyond rodents yet with a sample of 7 people, but certainly a direction for further research.
Just reading today that Pepsi is using a D-Tagatose sweetener in its diet products. Not certain how this one behaves. Sucralose doesn’t break down with heat, so you can cook with it, but everything thus far that’s using the D-Tagatose is cold, like ice creams, soda,
It seems a bit silly to extend a message of concern and best wishes to a clam, but this isn’t just your ordinary clam. I confess I’m a mollusc-fan but CJ’s saltwater aquarium clam has a velvety blue mantle that’s really gorgeous. Pictures don’t do it justice. [What species is it by the way?] Anyhow, I hope the stressed creature is speedily restored to bivalve contentment.
I too must express my best wishes for a venerable clam.
I hope your own physical condition improves – also being aged, I too am beginning to fall apart.
Does the venerable clam have a name? What kind is it?
It’s a crocea clam, fairly shallow water, both filters the water and lives by photosynthetic commensal zooxanthellae [bacteria] that live in that blue mantle.
It’d be hard to estimate its age, but it has many, many growth rings, which are not annual, but seasonal. Its species only gets about 6″ long, but it’s reached that, and since year olds of its species are only the size of the end of your thumb, it’s been around a while. The oldest living animal ever met on Earth was a plain brown clam, killed by scientist-collectors, later estimated to have been 500 years old and then some. They were quite sorry. [I’m not fond of collecting animals and killing them. If I were running the program, we’d do our studies by doing our darndest to keep them alive and call that part of the study.]
Anyway, the clam is alive and well, fluffed up and happy today. We just call it, respectfully, The Clam. I don’t know its history. I got it from a fish store, but it may have had several owners before me, or it could have been collected in the wild, by people who at least have come to value these as worth money, so they aren’t eating them.
Crocea eh? This explains much. When I first saw The Venerable Clam I thought, “except for the less ‘foldy’ shell and the size, that mantle looks like a mini giant clam (oxymoron)” Croceas are also in the tridacna genus like giant clams! After a bit of research I was surprised that TVC ended up down in the sand. Apparently “boring clams” in captivity don’t tend to bore, but I thought they anchored to stuff, byssal threads and all that, so weren’t capable of suicide dives. I might suspect some sort of fish conspiracy except that the clam looks heavy and the fish seem to be too flighty for sustained collective action. Anyway, glad The Venerable Clam is back on station.
That happened to the oldest bristlecone pine in the world too! After it was cut down and the rings counted, it was found to be older than Methuselah, the current record-holder.
Apropos non-nutritive sweetners: check the ingredient list of your toothpaste. If it has, say, Sorbitol, as Colgate Total Whitening has, the bacteria in your mouth will digest it and you’ll wake up with that acidic taste in your mouth, which isn’t what your dentist would want.
Looked up Crocea Clam – it is really quite beautiful – and expensive.
I hope you’re feeling much better and the venerable clam-in-residence is quite, er, happy as a clam.
Having said so, I have no real idea if, say, a clam ever has an existential crisis wherein the clam wishes to be happier as some other critter.
Nope, don’t know where that came from either.
I have been AWOL from the blogosphere for a bit, attempting to do this, that, or the other. Not sure how well I did either, but, well, one attempts.
I may have made some ptogress in writing, but it’s not quite yet showing up “for real.” Still, slightly encouraging.
A certain feline insists he’s being ignored and wishes to go Outside for a few minutes, so we’re off to do that before I resume doing more of this, that, or the other. 😉
Perhaps falling off his perch like Humpty Dumpty has kept him from being “boring clam” 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
This must be getting annoying. Why not bite the bullet, CJ, and get the knees replaced? I did, and am the better for it. I suspect that you also have a high level of ambient pain, which you won’t notice until it is gone. I was in so much pain that I couldn’t even feel the injections into the joints the first time they did them. What aches I have now are minuscule by comparison, and I can now feel those which are in other parts of my body as well. I am losing weight because I can be more active without the exhaustion which pain brings. There are the two to three months where you will need PT, but months are nothing in comparison to years of pain!
Oh, they’re a long way from that, but I appreciate the suggestion, Tommie. This injury happened due to a misstep, then going to a con where I had to walk a lot — a whole lot–and then a re-sprain in the opposite direction. The injection cured the bursitis on one side, and that’s pretty good now, but I think the steroid didn’t reach the opposite side, where I still have some problems.. Couldn’t see to it because the endocrinologist put me in for some tests which just filled my dance card, but now that I am allowed to take the antiflammatories the orthopedist wanted me to take (as of today) I may have some relief. If that does it, that’ll be it, but if it doesn’t, the orthopedics wing and I are going to have another go-round…sigh.
But feeling better this evening, now the tests are donea and I can again take the stuff I was supposed to be taking for the knee.—When it rains, it pours…
We got this clam from a person who may have had it in his tank—and it cost less than some that are under an inch long that are being aqua-cultured (farmed)
The rascal rarely has byssal threads, and always has positioned himself where he likes. He also exuded a second knob onto his bottom, for what reason I can’t figure, but he seems now to be resorbing it.
Tridacnas succeed well in marine aquaria, and grow well—I know a fellow who has a maxima the size of a punch bowl.
SOme fish will perch in them. But they should never nip the clam…which causes it to close very fast. If you are ever trapped by a giant clam, stick your foot and the clam straight up and wait. Eventually it will release, if you don’t wiggle. Occasionally people have had to do this to free a butterfly fish that has made an exploratory nip and gotten his nose caught. Unfortunately this is rarely survivable for the fish.
I know no few people who have had a clownfish pair decide to nest in their clam. The clams don’t really seem to mind this.
But Wiki is quite wrong when it maintains these clams close slowly.