Here’s a summary of the video:

• I noticed over the last several years that I wasn’t able to spend as much time on the computer as I used to. My eyes were getting dry and irritated.
• A friend introduced me to Acuvue Oasys contact lenses. I noticed a difference instantly upon putting them in. I hadn’t realized that before, when I was wearing Acuvue 2 contact lenses, that I could actually feel the lenses in my eyes.
• My doctor also instructed me to use Clear Care solution to take care of my contact lenses. This is an acidic soluiton that reacts to a platinum disc inside of a case. You leave your lenses in it overnight, and it cleans your lenses, while converting the solution to saline.
• If you’re looking for contact lenses for dry eyes, I highly recommend the Acuvue Oasys and Clear Care combination!

Apparently, the problem is that most contact lenses are made with too much water. The contact lenses dry out during the day, and then wick moisture from your eyes. Which is a bad thing. One alternative is to switch to Gas Permeables, but they require an adaption period – though the vision they provide is supposedly superior to soft lenses.

Lenses like Acuvue Oasys are made with a Silicone Hydrogel, which contains less water than most lenses. Apparently this doesn’t fix dry eye discomfort for everyone, but it definitely works for me. Silicone Hydrogel is also used to make lenses that can be worn for 30 days at a time without removing them. That just sounds painful to me!

The Clear Care lens care system is a hydrogen peroxide system, which works great for me. For times that I’m traveling though, it’s not always convenient for me to use this system. In these cases, I’ve been advised to use straight saline solution because the chemicals in the multi-purpose solutions will get embedded into the lenses. I’ve got to wonder if I can just use hydrogen peroxide instead of the Clear Care system, though It would be much cheaper! (PS don’t try this – of if you do, it’s at your own risk. you may end up like this poor girl)

You can buy Acuvue Oasys lenses at 1-800-CONTACTS, and Clear Care at Amazon.

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A couple of weeks ago, I had one of my popular sinus infections. I already knew that I had a sinus infection, and I had just had another one a few months prior. So, I called up the doctor that I saw when I had my last sinus infection, and said “hey doc, I have the exact same symptoms as last time – can you call in a prescription for me?” 30 minutes later, I was picking up my prescription at Walgreens. Instead of costing me something like $300, like my last sinus infection, I got out of this one for about 30. This is what healthcare should be like!

Then it dawned on me. Why is it, with all of this health information that’s available on the web, and all of the new ways that people can interact, that there has been hardly any change in the doctor/patient relationship? Well, I know, that’s a dumb question, but in a more agile world, things would be different. Here’s a potential use case:

- I get another sinus infection.
- I log into a sort of “My Healthcare” interface.
- The interface has quicklinks for some of my most common health problems
- I click on “sinus infection.”
- There’s a check-list of questions, perhaps mentioning some symptoms I may have that may be a sign of a different condition.
- After verifying that I have the correct symptoms for a sinus infection, the system recommends some prescriptions for me.
- I’m given the option to choose other prescriptions that may work. I’m picky about my antibiotics.
- My prescription request is sent to my doctor’s “people” for approval, or possible escalation, and I’m sent status notifications via SMS or e-mail.
- I pick up my prescription. I save time and precious energy, and my doctor is freed up to treat people who actually need his help.

I was once a Kaiser Permanente patient, and they had made some good strides towards “automating” some healthcare processes. I was even able to e-mail my doctor. Still, the experience was far from being like the above.

I would think that with the increasingly prevalent DIY attitude of people, the amount of health information available on the web, the advances in social media, and the outrageous costs of healthcare in America conditions would be ripe for a revolution.

Of course, maybe it’s already happening (very gross video from a member of a kadavy.net spin-off community):

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Then one day I was reading an old book on holistic medicine. Of course, the first thing I wanted to know was how could I prevent being constantly congested. The book said that foods such as wheat, meat, and dairy often contributed to excess mucous production – and thus, sinusitis. I was miserable, and clearly willing to try anything, so I cut out all three of those things the very next day.

Within two days, the difference was incredible. My head had cleared up, I had boundless energy, and other problems – such as a patch of eczema that I had on my eyelid for years – all cleared up. My armpits didn’t even smell – which is an odd observation, but remarkable, so I’m remarking upon it.

I continued with this “fast” of sorts for about a week. Through a bit of experimentation I was able to place the blame for my sinus woes (and that eczema thing) on wheat. Since I re-introduced animal products like meat and dairy, my armpits just smell like a normal person’s.

“Wheat!? You can’t eat wheat!?,” is the usual response of anyone whom I tell this to. Yeah, that’s right – I can’t eat bread, pasta, flour tortillas (burritos), cupcakes, crackers, cookies, brownies, cake, or even drink beer. This means staples such as pizza and sandwiches have been out of my diet – except for the occasional (regretted) indulgence – since I discovered this problem seven months ago. It hasn’t been easy, but it’s been quite worth it.

How could you avoid something as ubiquitous as wheat? Good question. Fortunately I had the advantages both of living in the hippie capital known as San Francisco, and working at a hippie company; so knowledge on this subject was pretty easy to find. I discovered grains such as quinoa, and millet, and these other things called “fruits” and “vegetables.” The whole experience of trying to restructure my diet had me looking at food totally differently. Ultimately, I found it easiest to just eat Thai and Indian food every day, but there are websites dedicated to wheat and gluten free diets, if one is so inclined.

Not only did the experience have me looking at food differently, it also had me looking at medicine differently. How could I see so many GPs, allergy specialists, ENT specialists, and dermatologists without a single one of them saying “you know, you should look at your diet?” How many other people are out there with health problems related to food allergies and intolerances that are being underinformed by their doctors? I get the sneaking suspicion that somewhere in the depths of that problem lies the fact that there’s so much money to be made pumping people full of drugs.

But keeping wheat out of my diet has just plain gotten old, so I’m seeing an accupuncturist with the hopes I can have that allergy (and a few others) eliminated. You can bet that if she can make it so I can eat pizza and drink beer again, you will hear about it right here.

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———-

After this post I’m sure I will be the blogger who talks about mucous more than any other. It truly isn’t by design. If you don’t want to read a gross post, I’d suggest not reading further.

In the mood for a gross post, are we?

I recently went to an Ear Nose and Throat specialist because it seems that I have a constant sinus infection: not so much the fatigue or sore throat, but an abundance of mucous that is yellow or green – especially in the mornings. So, I went to the ENT, and she stuck a camera on a metal pole up my nose. I didn’t think to ask her to record it so I could show it to all of the curious amongst you, but it was pretty interesting and thankfully painless. Turns out I don’t have any abnormalities such as a deviated septum, which would may cause surgery to repair. Instead, it’s likely allergies, and the futile standard treatment of Claritin (loratadine) and Sudafed (pseudoephedrine) just isn’t cutting it.

So she said she was going to introduce me to “sinus showers,” and I was thinking “yeah, I’ve had those wimpy saline things from the store, they don’t do much,” but instead she gave me this roughly 8-ounce bottle with a tube in it called Sinus Rinse, and tells me to fill it up with warm water and the Sinus Rinse mixture twice a day, and shoot pretty much the entire thing into a nostril, thus causing the contents to rush into my sinuses and out the other nostril.

It really is a pretty big bottle, too.

And yes, I’ve done it. Don’t believe me? You wouldn’t want to see it, it’s gross. No, really. Oh, okay, if you insist and you have a strong stomach, then look at this picture. When I’m done shooting the stuff up my nose, I’m supposed to blow my nose to get all of the excess out, but the doctor informed me that the most common side-affect is that throughout the day I may randomly have water shoot out of a nostril. Sure enough, this did happen while I was leaning over my guitar one evening.

Now that I’ve got the hang of it, I look forward to my “sinus showers.” I think I got a little too overzealous with it the first couple of times, because I was sneezing like crazy – there was no mucous to intercept allergens. The SinusRinse only came with a few packets, but thankfully the doctor informed me that I could just use 1/4 tsp. each of salt and baking soda, and that has worked fine. The doctor told me to try it for a month, and sometimes a patient’s body will just learn to make thinner mucous, but some people just have to keep this 3 minute ritual a part of their daily lives. Anyway, SinusRinse, or something like it, seems to be a pretty good sinus treatment that I was totally unaware of until last week.

[UPDATE: 07/11/2005 11:12PM]
I have been using SinusRinse for over a month now, and I can’t believe what a difference it makes. Sometimes I wake up feeling totally debilitated because I have so much drainage and congestion, and I am so glad that I have some sort of heavy duty nasal irrigation.

On tip I have found though: I was having quite a bit of abdominal pain when I first started using the SinusRinse, but it turns out it helps if you use fresh baking soda. I never thought such a thing could make one sick.

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[UPDATE: 09/15/2008] I’ve summarized what I’ve learned since writing this post in a special mucocele section of the site.

Right before New Year’s, I noticed a lump inside of my lower lip. Now, being the hypochondriac that I am, I was naturally petrified that I had Oral Cancer. Why? I’m certainly not at risk. I don’t have a family history of Cancer. I’m 25, not a smoker or chewer, and am otherwise healthy. Because any Google search for “lump in mouth” or lump in lip will likely have even a reasonable person convinced that this is a sure sign of Oral Cancer.

Fortunately, I don’t have Cancer – well, at least not in that growth that was in my mouth. It turns out I had a Mucocele, which is a kind of mucous retention cyst, and is apparently quite common, or at least it is to an Oral Surgeon. It’s funny though, that if you search for the symptom: “lump in mouth” along with my diagnosis: mucocele, on Google, you will get zero pages. Until now. Even the page on Mucoceles I keep linking to describes it as a “transparent structure“. Who is going to go to the doctor and say “I have a structure in my mouth?” So for all of you people out there who are frantic about that lump in your mouth. Don’t get health advice from me. Go see your doctor. But it may just be a Mucocele.

So here is almost exactly what they did about my Mucocele (warning: gross pictures). It took about ten minutes, and they just used Novocain, followed by Ibuprofen for pain relief. I had to eat alot of soup for a couple of days, and it hurt to smile for a bit afterwards. This was easily remedied by pinching my cheeks together with my hand when I smiled, which looked ridiculous and made other people laugh, which made me laugh, so I had to pinch harder and I looked more ridiculous – it was quite the vicious circle. I was ready to eat nachos with gusto after about five days.

They did a biopsy, just as a precaution, and it was quite amusing:

Multiple sections show stratified squamous epithelium covering fibro-collagenous tissue containing lakes of mucinous material. Viable and necrotic polymorphs and lymphocytes are entrapped in the mucin. Regional mucous gland lobules exhibiting ductal ectasia, acinar degeneration, stromal fibrosis and an infiltrate of lymphocytes and plasma cells are also seen. Regional striated muscle bundles are also noted in the stroma.

Then there was the important part:

Diagnosis
Mucocele

So I live a few more days.

Oh, and here is my good semantic deed for the day:
Lump in Mouth
Lump in Lip

If you think you have a mucocele, you should see a dentist or doctor. Now might be a good time to get a health insurance plan, or a dental plan.

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