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Post by Phalon on Jun 29, 2019 5:08:40 GMT -6
Hhhmmm.
It's a myth, disproven by science, that you lose heat through your head - or more accurately, that you lose heat through your head any more than you would lose heat through any other large portion of your body that's exposed to cold. Feet (and hands) are a different story - they get cold faster because they are extremities, but also because of all the nerve receptors in them; you feel the cold more because of all those tiny nerves.
Shoulders? I dunno. Maybe you're feeling cold with them exposed because what would be exposed in a sundress doesn't have a lot of fat or muscle to work as insulation?
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Post by Mini Mia on Jun 30, 2019 3:01:43 GMT -6
Good to know. Turning up the a/c was a failed experiment. My hot flashes don't like warmer house temps. Now, had I tried this experiment a few weeks ago when my hot flashes were more or less dormant, who knows what I would have discovered. Maybe no difference. Even when my hot flashes disappear for brief amounts of time, my core body temps still runs hotter than it used to do. Or ... it still kicks on when I start to warm up. I find that my body 'furnace' doesn't kick on if I'm cold ... but it doesn't take much warming up before my body ramps up the heat. So ... it's a real pain in the backside that I can no longer cover up when I'm freezing. It's either freeze, or play on and off with the blanket. Just thankful the hot flashes seem to not be as intense as they were in the beginning. But, intense could pop up again at any time ... just gotta deal with it.
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Post by Phalon on Jun 30, 2019 6:30:35 GMT -6
Yeah, even with my feet hanging outside of the covers, I still do the off and on with the blanket thing sometimes. I don't get that intense feeling like I'm boiling from the inside out though.
The weather warmed up considerably this week, into the 80s, and it got very humid. I got uncomfortably hot at times in the sun, but it wasn't the same kind of uncomfortable as hot flashes. I'm hoping the intense heat of the flashes are gone for good, but we've both been there before!
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Post by stepper on Jul 21, 2019 13:20:37 GMT -6
I'm taking a break from making calculations, but I'm seriously looking at retiring. The big question being, can I afford it. It's going to be close so maybe not quite yet. But recent events are moving me in that direction. A major reorganization at work is one of the main motivations for this, I'm especially unhappy with how it appears things will work out and with potential complications from the re-org. But there are additional factors and that's why this post ended up here. I'm not the fittest person around, neither am I at death's door. All of a sudden this isn't the case for some close friends and is the reason I have been otherwise absent.
First, the next door neighbor is now receiving hospice care. He has CLL (leukemia) and has been kept going for several months due to an experimental medication, but it has only been a question of when and we've known it for some time. "When" is getting closer. He also suffers from COPD so he's constantly on oxygen and never ranges far from his nebulizer - which they now inject with morphine so that when he has an attack the pain is quickly reduced so he can breathe. His wife who also has problems was told by her doctor she needed an angioplasty really soon. She said she'd so it as soon as her great grand child is born, but the doctor said do it within a week or you won't be her for that event, so she went in for the procedure. Except things were worse than anticipated - short version: after deciding that it wasn't going to work because she was too blocked, and having much trouble getting her to stop bleeding after the unsuccessful procedure, they moved her to another hospital. Then they did open heart surgery on her and discovered she had to have a triple bypass, and had to have a heart valve replacement. Along with this she is also in stage four kidney failure. She's going to be in the hospital and rehab for something like six months (provided she survives), and she still has two clogged up carotid arteries that require attention but they'll have to wait until she's better than she is right now. While all this is happening a friend in Florida got quiet. She beat stage 3 colon cancer about 6 years ago and had been getting checked ever since. Except the only thing they looked for was the specific antigen for the cancer she had back then. What they found was that her current problem was a main tumor in her mesentery that had metastasized to two locations including her liver. Since chemo wasn't working for her they tried an experimental med. It attacked her liver and in less than two weeks she was dead. She was only 56. (She donated her body to science so she hasn't been interred yet.)
So, aside from knowing me being a dangerous thing recently, I'm acquainted with several people who have experienced significant problems. I'm thinking I want to get to enjoy being retired some before I run into comparable difficulties. Except I have to be able to afford it. Retiring will be a significant reduction in income and I want to try to keep it from being a disaster.
I'm not expecting return comments to all this; some times it helps to write things down and this is one of the more comfortable places to vent. That's one of the reasons I'm surprised more people don't come here...
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Post by Phalon on Jul 22, 2019 7:07:12 GMT -6
It's hard to watch people around us experience the types of devastating illnesses that you're describing, Step - not only because we're sad for them and their families, but also because it gets us thinking about our own mortality, even more so as we age. People handle this differently - some positively, and others, negatively. A perfect example would be my two co-workers who both turned sixty this year. One is a breast cancer survivor going on 6 years, who was also diagnosed with diabetes two years ago; she took control of her health, lost a bunch of weight, took a more holistic approach to her illness and has never been more fit. The other, who physically has nothing wrong and gets a clean bill of health at his yearly physicals, "suddenly" turned into a hunched-over old man on his 60th birthday - all because he dwells on the health problems of his older friends, and constantly projects them onto himself. It's quite sad actually; he's making himself old because he's got all this anxiety about turning "old".
Regarding being able to afford retirement, and the changes at your workplace that have you unhappy - is it possible to reduce your hours to maybe 3/4 time? That way you'd keep your benefits, and have income until you're financially able to completely retire. Or retire from your current position, find something part-time that's less stressful, and allows you some free time to enjoy things more?
As a firm believer in the benefits of venting, I agree. Sometimes when just even talking it out or writing it down, a light bulb appears. Wish you luck in figuring out what's going to work for you.
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Post by Mini Mia on Jul 23, 2019 0:05:04 GMT -6
A few weeks ago we lost a member of my Church. It wasn't expected at all. She went to Florida on vacation with her sister and great-niece. She hadn't been there long when she passed out. It was a heart attack, and she died a few days later. Her husband had died a couple months before.
There's a woman on YouTube, Phyllis Stokes. I like to watch her videos. This has not been a good year for her. She started having health issues after her February 14th video, and didn't post another video for a couple of months.
She let everyone know what was going on with her. And then updated us with another video a month after that.
And another update a month later.
And then, a month later she had very sad news to share with her viewers.
She plans on starting back up with her cooking videos very soon. But she's still having issues with her health.
An extra video from 2016.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 23, 2019 5:30:15 GMT -6
Achoo, achoo, achoo! Sniffle, sniffle.
Ragweed season has just started (bluck), the worst time of year for my allergies. And wouldn't you know it, I've had to change my allergy regimen completely a few weeks ago....because the medication I take was working too well!
More later....I'm a late bird this morning.
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 23, 2019 18:30:34 GMT -6
Bless you. I've been sneezing a lot of late. I've been going to bed without taking my 24-hour allergy pill. Just too lazy to take it.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 29, 2019 5:20:44 GMT -6
I haven't been taking my 24-hour allergy pill either - not out of laziness though, but out of necessity. As I mentioned, it was working too well. This year, since early spring, has been incredibly bad for allergy sufferers and even those that don't typically have allergies. All that rain we had created a lot of mold and fungus in spring, that flourished when the heat hit, and coupled with pollen, it's been an outside world of unending allergens. Even the dog had bronchitis; the vet said that she was the fourth animal treated just that day for bronchitis - 2 other dogs and a cat.
The 24-hour Allegra I was taking without fail every day did everything it was supposed to do - it stopped the sneezing, runny nose, itchy throat, and watery eyes. It didn't clear my sinuses though; they were still full, and I couldn't get it out by blowing my nose - nothing would come out, and instead (as gross as it sounds), it'd slide down the back of my throat.
It also recently left me with an incredibly dry mouth - like really uncomfortably dry. On LX's suggestion, I switched to 12-hour Children's Allegra, twice a day. It's what she uses; because of her Sjogren's she can't take anti-histimines, because they just make the dryness worse, but she's got to take something, or her asthma kicks in. The children's Allegra worked ok for my allergies (though not great), and definitely didn't leave me as dry as the adult 24-hour tablet. I ran out of it recently though, and Hubs couldn't find it at the drugstore, so got the 12-hour adult version instead.
I only take it once a day, but it's double the strength of the children's version, and I'm back to having a dry mouth. And none of this has done anything for clearing up what's in my sinuses. Blah.
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 29, 2019 12:17:50 GMT -6
What if you cut it in half, and took it twice a day?
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Post by Phalon on Sept 2, 2019 6:46:57 GMT -6
I had tried that a couple of times. The caplets don't cut cleanly though - they shatter. And if I thought the children's Allegra, which start to dissolve in my mouth immediately before I can swallow them (they are meant to dissolve), tasted bad, the shattered adult pills are a million times more gross!!!!
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 2, 2019 12:35:05 GMT -6
Do you like pickles? My aunt always had a pickle ready whenever she gave my cousin nasty tasting medicine. The pickle helped get rid of the aftertaste. Any sharp, tangy food/candy item should work, I suppose. Although, anything sweet might make it worse. Haven’t tested it out, so wouldn’t know.
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Post by Phalon on Sept 3, 2019 4:54:42 GMT -6
LMAO! Don't tell Hubs, the pickle aficionado, who eats pickles with each and every meal. He calls pickles "palate cleansers", and though they very well may be, he says it so often, it's become a family joke. This'll only egg him on.
(Actually, I just told him because he asked why I was laughing. It cracked him up too, "Pickles are palate cleansers, you know."
"Yes, Dear. Apparently.")
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 3, 2019 23:48:37 GMT -6
Hubs: 1
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Post by Phalon on Sept 4, 2019 4:59:49 GMT -6
Yes. And it pains me to know it!
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 5, 2019 22:55:13 GMT -6
Orlando Bloom has been drinking Apple Cider Vinegar for 20 years. Whoa. If I had kept up with it, I would have been drinking it for over 30 years. I drank it for many years before getting out of the habit of it.
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Post by Phalon on Sept 6, 2019 5:03:34 GMT -6
Whoa, indeed! I thought he was barely out of his 20s, let alone to be doing anything for 20 years.
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 6, 2019 10:46:07 GMT -6
And I love that they’re going to save the company.
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Post by Phalon on Sept 7, 2019 4:58:38 GMT -6
It's a pretty cute little story in the Jimmy Fallon clip how something like apple cider vinegar played a role in their relationship, even more so now that they invested in the company.
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 7, 2019 12:03:18 GMT -6
Yeah. I hope it works out for them. Both the relationship and the company.
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 8, 2019 19:46:22 GMT -6
I've noticed if I skip a day between allergy pills, it still seems to work. It's when I go without for longer that I start sneezing ... what if you took a pill every other day, or every third day?
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Post by Phalon on Sept 10, 2019 4:54:01 GMT -6
It might work if the ragweed wasn't so bad this year. Once that's done, I think I'll give it a try.
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Post by Phalon on Nov 9, 2019 8:45:18 GMT -6
Had a full cholesterol panel done, and whoo-hoo - everything is borderline high!
Weird to whoo-hoo borderline high, but borderline is the key word. Last time I had it checked, it was high.
I attribute it to not snacking after dinner...which is also the reason I lost 15 pounds!
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Post by stepper on Nov 10, 2019 19:54:53 GMT -6
I had to have the panels done recently too. Surprisingly enough, all of the levels were good. Even my A1c was 5.7 and that's good considering the goal is <7. The thing that wasn't so great was my weight - I found your 15 pounds. Congratulations on that one by the way. I'm sure it involves the Imp somehow. She may have directed the pregnant cat onto my porch too. You want a kitten? Anyway, it's getting harder and harder to lose weight - especially at this time of the year.
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Post by Phalon on Nov 12, 2019 8:17:40 GMT -6
Congratulations on your good levels! Doc wants me to have mine redone in three months. (Psst...this time I will follow the 12-hour fast rule/72 hour no-alcohol rule. I didn't tell the lab tech, but I only fasted for not quite 9 hours last time because I had a late dinner after driving BP back to college, and I wasn't even aware there was a 72 hour no-alcohol rule. Since the test was on a Monday, I'd had a couple of beers over the weekend, and a few Bailey's and coffees with friends Saturday night. I don't know if that would have affected the results much, but it just may have pushed the levels from normal to borderline.)
I do! Unfortunately, Hubs doesn't - not yet anyway. It's still too soon for him, after Ranger, although every time we watch LX's cats, there are more cracks in his armor.
OMG, tell me about it! It used to be anything I'd gained over the winter, I'd almost immediately drop going back to the nursery in spring. Then I turned 50. Then a couple years later, menopause hit. My metabolism slowed to a crawl.
I seriously want to lose 10 more pounds, which would put be back at the weight I've been at most of my adult life (and back in all those size 4 jeans that have been hanging in my closet for the last five years, that I keep refusing to take to Goodwill!). With the holidays coming up, that might be a pipe-dream though!
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Post by Phalon on Dec 15, 2019 9:42:35 GMT -6
WTF?!!! No hot flashes to speak of for like nine months, and all of the sudden in the last few days, they're back. PFFT!
I think it might having something to do with heat - first uncomfortable one was when driving BP home from college, and she had the heater in the car turned up. Last couple of nights too, were blankets on, blankets off, and on again. Maybe the new furnace is too efficient?
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Post by Mini Mia on Dec 15, 2019 22:58:39 GMT -6
Yeah. As long a I don't reach a certain amount of warmth, I'm all right. But let the temperature rise past a certain point, and I go from cold to cooked in a flash. I had the house at 65 and sleeping under the comforter, but I'd wake up in the morning roasting. I have the house at 63 now, but still wake up overheated. I've decided its just a morning thing and there's nothing I can do about it. For whatever reason, my body just wants me to throw off the covers, only to pull them back up over me a few minutes later ... and rinse and repeat. My body doesn't seem to realize, nor care, that I don't have a sense of humor when it comes to being uncomfortable.
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Post by stepper on Dec 16, 2019 21:17:41 GMT -6
Yeah. As long a I don't reach a certain amount of warmth, I'm all right. But let the temperature rise past a certain point, and I go from cold to cooked in a flash. Yesterday was in the 80s, today was upper 70s, and tomorrow morning it'll be in the 30s. Even worse, Wednesday morning will be below freezing! What's with that? I have the same problem - although it isn't just my body that seems to feel that way.
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Post by Mini Mia on Dec 16, 2019 23:48:25 GMT -6
The heat kicked on earlier, and I started roasting, so I turned it down to 62. I think it may be because I had on really warm house shoes. I had put them on because setting the house on 63 causes my feet to get ice cold. I kicked off the house shoes. My feet are still toasty at the moment, but once they cool down, I'll probably be cold all over once again. It's been raining all day, and the dampness makes it even colder than ever.
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Post by Phalon on Dec 18, 2019 6:45:56 GMT -6
Uhm...cuz it's winter? HA!
I think my sinuses would burst if the temperature went from the 70s to below freezing in a 24 hour period!
Could be. My feet being too warm is usually what sets off my hot flashes at night, while watching T.V.. Whip off my socks and immediately cool down. I still sleep with my bare feet sticking out of the covers!
I think my "Return of the Hot Flashes" horror story sequel last week may have been triggered by way too much coffee, even for me. I'd been drinking a lot more than I typically do, and not much of anything else...I think I went a day or two without even having a glass of water!
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