I, for one, most certainly do not.
Guess youâre not a buddhist, either.
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Yep, COVID, just like the flu, has continued to mutate and change with new strains showing up. New vaccines are needed. They advertise for flu vaccines too and have done so for years, but itâs funny that it doesnât get the same type of attention that a COVID vaccine does. And they are far from the only vaccine treatment that has gotten updated with advancement in medicine and science.
On the topic of cravings - wouldnât it be great if they could one day isolate the mechanics of how this works enough so that you could just get a small dose when a craving hits really badly, but 1) you either absolutely should not be eating it, or 2) you have no way to get the item you want? Get a little mini-pop that will make you stop drooling in front of that Korean fried chicken place, and then it goes away and and your back to normal 2-3 hours later, when youâre far away.
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I was at Costco yesterday; they have all sorts of new holiday luxury food items.
I saw a box of French (?) butter cookies with piped white cream filling, Saint Pierre maybe. I looked at the boxes a while, such an incredibly beautiful design, creamy pale green box. I realized I was so taken by the box design, didnât buy. Maybe if theyâd been sampling them, I might have bought.
If I limit my grocery trips I can also limit these temptations.
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Different strokes for different folks. Iâd rather work through the craving in some way (including deprivation, if needed) than take something that rewires my brain. But that is just me. And something that makes me lose interest in food or my favorite adult beverage is an absolute nonstarter.
Also, the danger of everything else that class of drugs has as far as stomach paralysis and other issues (muscle and bone loss, I believe are also issues) and itâs a firm no for me. Fortunately, I do not have diabetes and am not pre-diabetic either.
YeahâŚtrue and this is not the intended use of Wegovy/Ozempic. In the fantasy land version that I was musing about, it certainly wouldnât be these medicines that we are using. Iâm was musing about someone who understand the bio-chemical mechanisms of cravings that would be able to make a way to counter that surge in whatever is causing the cravings to hit. But woooooshhâŚ
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+1
And this is really the quiddity of the Buddhist ethos.
Itâs not about avoiding temptations, or ridding oneself of them.
Rather, itâs the journey to develop the equanimity to observe the temptation and let it go without a struggle.
The more you resist it, the more it tempts you.
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Addiction to harmful substances is hardly just a matter of giving into temptation that can be fixed with Buddhist ethos.
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I take it from this that you have little in the way of a science or biology background. Not a criticism but an observation.
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The question is: how do we know when itâs âsafe,â for whom, for how long, under what conditions, who defines âsafeâ and how, etc. The risk analysis is going to vary from person to person, as well. And people are going to influenced by, well, âinfluencersâ of all types, including AI.
Everything is a cost-benefit analysis.
Evidence based science is always changing and in flux (for that we should all be grateful).
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Remember when eggs and dietary cholesterol was demonized, and now we know that dietary cholesterol has little effect on blood cholesterol (and the real risk factor is saturated fats)?
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Or when parents were told to keep kids away from peanuts to avoid developing peanut allergies? When nowadays the takeaway from most pediatricians and family practitioners is to expose your children at an early enough age to peanuts in order to avoid developing peanut allergies?
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Or how about during the âlow fatâ craze when people used to think that eating dietary fat actually made people, um, fat? When itâs actually much more nuanced than just âeat fat, get fatâ?
We all try to do best we can based on available data and information, and adjust accordingly as we get more and better info.
Donât let perfection be the enemy of good.
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How will I now its safeâŚwait a bit. I donât have any life threatening or urgent healthcare mattersâŚso wait. When I mean wait, let it sit on the market and let others report the side effects. Let a reasonable amount of time pass. For one thing, do NOT listen to the marketing crap, especially the stuff that gets prime time TV advertsâŚ.and yes, I talk to my MD and do basic research. But take MDs pushing newer drugs with caution. Why, see how Oxycotin was marketed through MDs.
If I had a life and death situation, Iâd probably jump but if not, wait. Otherwise, nothing wrong with a little caution. And everyone has a different level of caution.
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I agree. I was born 1955 and I was very grateful to have the opportunity to get the covid vaccines and every new version when it was time for me according to the guidelines.
I remember all those things, including when margarine was heavily prompted as being healthier than butter. I also remember seeing a sign at the Stanford University Student Union cafeteria that warning about the high cholesterol in shrimp. In 1986.
I also remember getting measles, mumps, and chicken pox before vaccines were available, and getting the sugar cube polio vaccine in a public school cafeteria.
âEvidenced-basedâ is heavily promoted these days. It means something different with every study and there will never be anything close to perfection. I do cost/benefit for me.
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My initial response is because that is who patients come to for help. Certainly if there were not people desperate for help, that wouldnât work, right? I think it is desperate people, and not MDâs that make the market work.
But I am admittedly biased, and it behooves* you to be quite cautious. It sounds like not only are you in relatively good health, but so are most of the people you care about!
@Madrid , and I remember classmates with polio, and smallpox vaccines (according to the CDC)! Sadly those are back.
*I had to look that up to see if that worked!
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I had both hips replaced about 7 years ago - 2 months apart. Hydrocodone prescribed (liberally). If you need more let us know. I knew it was time to stop taking it after the first two weeks. A little discomfort but no pain. On night 15 I decided to take one just to go asleep. I didnât go to sleep. My mind kept whirring/thinking. It didnât matter if it was about good things or bad things. They were all happy thoughts. I donât know how else to describe it. I can only assume that once the drug is through with the pain it moves on to your brain. So I wonder how many people crave it for the happy thoughts and not so much the pain.
Also, I know the Sackler bunch and their sales reps are responsible for the Oxi epidemic.,Doctors bought into it. But I donât think you can blame the patients. Just musing here, thatâs all.
The way Oxycontin was marketed is pretty despicable. Thereâs plenty written and reported on it. But hereâs moreâŚfor those who donât know. Yes, Purdue is the exception but they didnât care who it hurt and information and documents show they knew what they were doing. Of course they tried to settle and stay out of the penitentiary but the SCOTUS rejected it. Not all pharma is bad obviouslyâŚbut caution and a little skepticism is always good.
In any case, my nephewâs cousin (not related to me) was in an auto accident. The MD rxâed her Oxycontin. Her mother asked if it was safe. The cousin said, yes, the MD prescribed it. Turns out she got hooked bad and went down the slippery slope of addiction in a bad way. Good kid, good family, smartâŚ.but unlucky. Sheâs one of hundreds of thousands harmed, and untold dead from Oxy. YMMV, but stop and look at the things carefully.
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Of course not! But Iâm not into blaming.
I know a lot of nephews, and I know a lot of doctors, myself and my husband included. I donât know what you mean by âbought into itâ, but I know I have sometimes struggled when telling desperate families to wait because I just donât know. I am grateful I did not have to engage in that pain battle, but I have had to help families engage with other âdemonsâ.
Iâm talking about people looking for relief, and the health care providers that are there for them. Most of them trained to âlook at things carefullyâ, but some on the front line, know this is both an art and science, especially when dealing with chronic illness.
Somebody took a chance on new treatments for things like breast cancer, schizophrenia, and even with a hip transplant, and many of us have them to thank.
Anyway, I am ready to get back to my pepper jelly.
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I had no idea that Purdue was involved with the original Oxi problem. Interesting. Thank you.
You brought it up and kept changing your post. Good luck with the hot pepper jelly.
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