@kaylamellis_
We have forgotten the way diphtheria used to wipe out entire villages. We have forgotten where the Iditarod came from. I fear the antivax movement and the raw milk fad are about to give us a terrible reminder. And I fear we won't be able to get serum there fast enough.
@jtrebach
I’m surprised more people haven’t died, honestly. LD50 is what, 50-100mg/kg? A child or someone with a heart condition not noticing the label could get to more than half a gram of caffeine off one refill.
@mhdksafa
I have an EKG-confirmed mask intolerance. It makes me tachy, no one knows why, cardiologist is disinterested in finding out.
I *still* wear a mask to the grocery store (and everywhere else), and furthermore, I don't whine about it. Thank science for nadolol.
@trishnphilly
What the fresh hell is this? A history of drug use doesn't preclude *dozens* of conditions that can cause severe paresis. That nurse needs to be either re-trained or fired. No one should be treated that way, and that attitude will get someone killed when she misses a stroke.
@mattbc
@CDCDirector
So... I'm an essential employee, because I'm part of vaccine supply chain, working my ass off to try to end this mess. But it doesn't matter if I die, because I have multiple comorbidities. Does anyone have a phone number for Schroedinger? The pay is probably better as his cat...
@imhopin
Thank you. Because of vaccines, my 8 year old doesn't know what polio, diphtheria, or measles are. He does know what COVID is. And he now knows that he is protected from it. Big hugs.
@mdwstdietcoke
1. When you become a parent, you are signing up for brightly colored toys everywhere. Deal with it. Let your child(ten) enjoy it.
2. I absolutely do not want spray paint on something my toddler will almost certainly put in their mouth.
@GAFGRM
@kaylamellis_
I find it's a 50-50 split between liberal crunchy granola moms who fear 'chemicals' and conservative 'don't tell me what to do, government!' moms who trust no expertise and think some random person on the internet is more reliable.
@lizzyinyyc
For me, wearing a mask IS hard. I have an EKG-confirmed mask tolerance problem. It aggravates my congenital tachycardia, we don't know why. But I still wear an FFP2. 1, if I have trouble with the mask, I can't risk the virus. And 2, I can't risk passing it to someone higher risk.
@happyhexer
@tiredasfmilf
@LazarusLong13
I really do have allergies (and several other long-standing chronic conditions that mimic COVID symptoms), I go through a lot of BinaxNOW verifying that it's still allergies, and I still don't go anywhere without an FFP2 mask.
@RealityOfPrey
@mhdksafa
I have autism-related sensory issues, and it’s definitely possible that sensory issues are triggering a stress response (stress makes me very tachy). There’s also a possibility that I have POTS.
@rcg1812
I’d love to have you as my doctor. Mine explains NOTHING. He had me come in after a monitor turned up ventricular tachycardia. I have never heard the words ventricular tachycardia out of his mouth. I know what it is only because I have google.
@shitp0sterMD
@kaylamellis_
A remote village in Alaska had a diphtheria outbreak. The Iditarod commemorates the desperate race against time by dog sled to get diphtheria serum there before it was too late. Also what the movie Balto is about.
@myrnakjensen
@2A_AllDay
Middle school girls can be catty to each other, yes. But being catty won't cause you to test positive for benzodiazepines. And unless one of the girls was epileptic, it's unlikely any of them have ACCESS to benzodiazepines. 12 yo can't pay street prices.
@JosephFrogman
@jtrebach
And if you happen to have an undiagnosed heart condition, that may not matter.
I also weigh significantly more than 6kg. I also went 37 years without realizing that I have a congenital cardiac arrhythmia. I can't tolerate a single can of Red Bull (half the caffeine).
@carita_paige
@kaylamellis_
'Yes,' I assured him. 'He's vaccinated for everything, on the CDC schedule.' Vaccines cause adults, not autism. And autism doesn't scare me. Measles, tetanus, diphtheria, polio, influenza scare the shit out of me.
@DrJenGunter
Men who want a subservient robot with all the personality of a turnip get exactly what they always dreamed of, women don't have to deal with misogynist losers...
Everybody wins!
@DrMLivingston
Got the updated vaccine yesterday. But I'm still wearing an FFP2, and I will be for the forseeable future. I have a medical mask intolerance, and don't do great with it. But if I have a hard time with the mask, I'm pretty sure I'd have a much harder time with the virus.
@jmugele
When my paternal grandfather died, I was 36. I made the hour drive in 50 minutes, hoping to say goodbye. I was too late. I went to his desk for the binder with his arrangements, and was unsurprised to find a DNR. He was a retired physician. He knew. And it was the right choice.
@sillyworldI3
@kaylamellis_
They don't prescribe opioids for that - these days, it's hard to get it prescribed even when it's indicated for things like serious car collisions or post-op. And the (live) oral polio vaccine is no longer used in the US. Injected polio vaccine is dead virus. It can't cause polio
@1NativeMom
@ashishkjha
And THIS is why I flat-out refuse to fly until my child can be vaccinated. Honestly, I don't intend to fly until it has a vaccination/negative test mandate.
@SLRRLS1
@SPuro88
That time never existed. People spoke about it less in years past, and you never personally saw it because you're white. It absolutely happened, likely even more than it does now (which is saying something.)
@jmugele
When my maternal grandfather died, I saw a copy of his DNR as we were cleaning out the house. I was horrified. In my defense, I was 13. My mom then explained exactly what would have happened had they attempted to code a man with severe osteoporosis. And then I understood.
@MamaDoctorJones
Enantiomeric drugs are now required to be tested with both enantiomers, and they are no longer sold as a racemic mixture. We now test whether they can tautomerize.
And the COVID vaccines are not enantiomeric molecules. They cannot do what thalidomide did.
@dremilyportermd
Also, I'm a chemist, not a doc, so correct me if I'm wrong... but I'm pretty sure that if your body's pH strays much away from... what is it, 7.4? you wind up with a serious case of The Deads. If eating acidic or alkaline foods changed your pH, lemonade would be deadly poison.
@RyanMarino
I don't tolerate masks well, but pulse ox says it's not a gas exchange problem - I oxygenate fine. (Cardiologist and I aren't sure - best guess is mask triggers autistic sensory mess, which triggers dysautonomic tachycardia.) I still wear it - COVID would trigger the tachy worse.
@KSVesq
When I was small, stockings in my family were just for the kids - neither parent had one. As my sisters and I figured out how it worked, we took matters into our own hands - we'd get each of them a 2L of their favorite soda and their favorite candy bar and insisted it was Santa.
@RN_Atheist
A few months ago, my wife and I had our Tdap boosters come due, so the kiddo got to tag along while we took care of that. He was surprised he didn't need one - we'd gotten flu and covid vaccines recently. We explained that his dTap was up to date.
@GYamey
@DrJenGunter
How is someone with both an MD and an MPH failing so damn hard at something I mastered in 5th grade health class? Vaccines were pretty straight-forward.
And to then do THIS with that abject failure? English does not have adequate words for that.
@Velvetpage
@MrHerriot
Testing is why I'm not currently quarantined. My sister had a known exposure (her unvaxxed boss) and got breakthrough. But we knew before my wife, son, and I could make it up to join the rest of the family.
@S_L_Sanderson
Because knowing that it happened, and being sad/angry that it happened, motivates us to ensure that it never happens again. We can't fix the future without acknowledging and understanding the mistakes of the past.
@MamaDoctorJones
Thalidomide was also a direct result of our not fully understanding the pharmacological implications of enantiomer chemistry. Enantiomers are mirror image molecules - separating them is extremely difficult, and at that time, we did not try.
@JasonMordino
They're *preschoolers*. Who cares? At most, they think underpants is a funny word. (They're not wrong.) People are projecting adult issues onto extremely young children, and it's ridiculous. (It's ridiculous when we make it the girl's problem in high school, too.)
@OUnderfolder
@jtrebach
Funny thing about heart conditions - you don’t always know you have one until it tries to kill you. My congenital arrhythmia wasn’t diagnosed until I was 37. My best friend in college died of a combination of influenza and a congenital heart defect she didn’t know she had.
@DocLibertarian
@UrbanInuk
Not okay. You don't get to mock a culture to create mnemonic. I studied trigonometry. I know the difference between the sine, the cosine, and the tangent, I had never even *heard* of SohCahToa or whatever this bullshit is. I was struggling with what this had to do with math.
@kajsa_1111
@Pdogisbak
@DrJenGunter
Oh, you mean that I’m autistic and look at cameras funny? Again, that predates COVID by more than 30 years. Sorry to disappoint you.
@dremilyportermd
My fully vaxxed 2nd grader is one of a handfull in his class who wear a mask. He's the only kid I've seen at school wearing a KN95-spec mask - most are cloth or surgical. We've leaned hard on the science (he knows what I do for a living, and that I'm part of vaccine supply chain)
@carita_paige
@kaylamellis_
anti-vax movement. It scared him. He was aware that my kiddo is autistic, and had heard the 'vaccines cause autism' BS. And as we sat there watching my son play, he turned to me and asked 'Allison, is Kai vaccinated?' He needn't have worried - his granddaughter is a scientist. 2/
@jtrebach
These people realize that blood thinners don't actually change the viscosity, right? Blood like 'sludge' would give you a serious case of The Deads. The human heart ain't circulatin' that...
@carita_paige
@kaylamellis_
Toward the end of my grandfather's life, I brought my 5 year old up to visit for the afternoon. Papa was a retired doctor - old enough that he lost friends to polio, and had colleagues lose children to measles. He watched the news every day of his life, and saw the 1/
@SheaKitten
@dremilyportermd
No known medical conditions doesn't mean no medical conditions. A college friend with no known medical conditions died of influenza our sophomore year - she had an undiagnosed congenital heart defect. A year ago, I'd have told you I had no heart conditions - and been wrong.
@MamaDoctorJones
One enantiomer of thalidomide is safe. The other is not. Unfortunately, one, it was sold as a racemic mixture, and two, that particular molecule tautomerizes in vivo, so even if you give the correct one, it will convert.
@BadMedicalTakes
Some people think it's lovely in salsa. Some people think it tastes like soap. It's probably genetic.
But whichever category you're in, it does not chelate metals.
@shesinscrubs
@cur_mudgeon
Anyone who has a problem with basic preventative medicine, in the middle of a samn pandemic, shouldn't be working in healthcare. Cry me a river, build me a bridge, and get over it. If you have a problem with precautions to protect you and patients, this is not the field for you.
@SLRRLS1
@SPuro88
The other factor is the rise of social media. Thirty years ago, someone living in Seattle would never hear the awful shit some racist ass said to a doctor in New Orleans. Now, it flashes around the globe in a matter of hours.
@SandwichPope
That is a person who needs to find a new career. There are three valid reasons to refuse to fill a scrip.
1. Patient has a documented allergy/intolerance to it.
2. It has a dangerous interaction with something else the patient is taking.
3. It's out of stock.
@MarkELindsay
Obligate carnivore… if that cat survived any length of time as a ‘vegan’, she had a mouse problem Snow was helping her out with… didn’t even have the decency to say thank you…
@DavidLKeating
@michaelmina_lab
I was positive my son had allergies. He's too young to be fully vaccinated. (He's had dose 1) But we weren't spending the weekend with family until we KNEW. (COVID negative - it IS just allergies.)
@JeromeAdamsMD
We need many things. We need N95s. We need available testing. We need guaranteed sick pay. We need single payer healthcare. We need mask and vax mandates.
We also needed the last administration not to turn a lethal virus into a political dog whistle. That is why it got this bad.
@StephenDorner
And on the flip side, I had to discontinue an SSRI. I just switched over to Welbutrin. I'm on a super-low starter dose. We don't even know if it WORKS yet. And ExpressScrips is already nagging at me to fill 90 days' worth.
@StephTaitWrites
I'm so sick of the 'but pre-existings' argument. One, many pre-existing conditions can go undiagnosed for years - you can know that you do have one, you can't know that you don't. The virus doesn't care either way, and the outcome is just as tragic either way.
@acweyand
@JELLO
I read in some high school health textbook that ‘most women lose less than a tablespoon of blood’. Ahahahaha! Tell me your book was written by a man without telling me…
@fuzzymittens
@MissRiRi33
She's, what... four? Five at the most. Kids have no impulse control at that age, and broken routines around the holidays are HARD. Kids are trying. What's adults' excuse?
@hjelle_brian
Being unvaccinated in the US is a choice (barring the two or three true contraindications), and one easily rectified. Being immune compromised is not.
@NjbBari3
I struggle with masks. They aggravate my tachycardia, the cardiologist isn't sure why. So I... went through trial and error to find what respirators I mostly tolerate, and take the beta blocker said cardiologist gave me. Because if I can't handle the mask, I can't risk the virus.
@MDaware
Trouble is, whether you sit around my dinner table or not, you and I both go to the grocery store. We both wind up in the ER if we break a wrist. Your kid goes to school with mine. Yeah, I care if you’re vaccinated.
@DrAliSKhan
If I had a child under 15 months at that day care I might well sue the parent who violated quarantine. Once measles diagnosis was confirmed, they KNEW. They just didn’t care.
@jtrebach
How... how do you accidentally electroplate a turkey. Yes, the brine is conductive, but how do you accidentally put two metal leads in your turkey brine and pass a current through your gd turkey?
@drseanmullen
Even if herd-immunity were possible with a non-sterilizing vaccine, people weren't willing to do what it would take to get there. An astronomically high vaccination rate, and universal masking to prevent spread (and thus mutation) long enough to build immunity.
@OUnderfolder
@jtrebach
Indeed. But if you buy a Red Bull, you know that’s full of caffeine. That’s the entire POINT.
If someone says ‘hey, want some lemonade?’, you expect that to contain water, lemon juice, and sugar. Maybe some other fruit. You don’t expect the caffeine of 3+ Red Bulls.
@Cherie_Stabler
The kids already know those words and the words themselves don’t bother me. That tone from a teacher, regardless of whether swear words are used, is uncalled for. 6th graders are impossible - if you can’t handle that appropriately, this is not the age group for you.
@jtrebach
Laboratory-grade high-purity grade (99.995% trace metals basis) EDTA costs $1-2 a gram. Yes, I would expect pharma-grade to be a bit more expensive… but not 3-5 orders of magnitude. The system is broken.
@BadMedicalTakes
So Kristan is saying that emf is a nematode? I think they’ve confused 5G with tapeworms, ‘cause I don’t know how else ivermectin would help…
@WFKARS
I have explained that if *I* pick up the toys, after asking him to do it, they will be sentenced to one week in toy jail. But for goodness sakes, they wouldn’t get destroyed. (I’ve never had to actually do it. But they’d just go in a box in the garage for a week)
@saltywidowrn
I mean, it's not an antibiotic. It won't cure any bacteria or virus. Neither will Tylenol, and no one argues about that being medicine. So, yeah, I file it under medicine, with less risk of overdose than anything with a childproof cap.
@AlanaKinrich
@wishingbee
Some people in the disabled community refer to that as ‘temporarily able-bodied’. Because time doesn’t care - telomeres still shorten, bodies still wear out. Biochemistry still happens - autoimmune conditions are still a thing, and so are spiky viruses. And fate doesn’t care -
@Zeblackcat
@WFKARS
One, myocarditis is extremely treatable - rest and anti-inflammatories. Two, it appears to be at least partially a testosterone-mediated reaction. We're seeing it in teenage boys, we're not seeing it in children. Three, the virus is a lot more likely to cause it than the vaccine.
@Craig_A_Spencer
Pfizer and Moderna need to get over themselves, and tech transfer the vaccines. We need production facilities on the ground in Africa, in southeast Asia, in Central and South America.
@_nomadic_soul
I work in an industrial chemistry lab. My wife is a stay at home mom. And yes, she usually does the dishes - because I have neurosequencing and sensory struggles with it. On the other hand, I usually do the laundry, because I'm better at it. We both cook.
@ashishkjha
Polio causes paralysis in <1% of patients. Most are asymptomatic. And yet we vaccinate for it, because when polio is bad, people die, and even the ones who survive paralytic polio have lifelong complications.
Sound familiar? We have no idea what COVID will have caused in 20 years
@emilykmay
As an autistic parent of an autistic child, I HATE blue pumpkins. We are not obligated to announce our diagnosis to random strangers to get a few funsize candy bars. You can accept us as we are. Otherwise, bring in the pumpkin and turn off the porch light.
@RyanMarino
Personally, aside from the raging tachycardia, I'm a helluva lot more functional on Adderall. (ADHD, with an absolute contraindication to ADHD meds. It's... fun...) Yes, it's a powerful stimulant, but people always seem to want to make it more special than it is.
@CanadianKayMD
Antibiotic resistance scares the crap out of me. The number of times I have told urgent care docs 'no, no - I brought him in for a strep swab. If it's negative and you think he has a virus, just tell me and I will take him home and give him Tylenol and ginger ale'.
@LenaRomaMora
@nohomelikeplace
What were they going to do? Powering an oxygen concentrator with an inverter requires HAVING an inverter. Getting him to the hospital requires knowing how to drive on ice - Texans don't know how to do that, and even northerners aren't as good as they think they are.
@MDaware
1, luciferase is a naturally occurring enzyme - it's why fireflies light up. 2, humans like the biological infrastructure to use it. 3, it's frakking expensive. 4, There's not enough total volume in a vaccine to do anything. 5, Your cell phone is a MUCH better tracking device.
@Supermansings
Oof. That is a special hell for everyone involved.
We made it almost 6 years before we had a pediatric ER visit, and while we were a mess, our local ER staff were unfazed. (Kid horsed around. Kid fell. Kid bit through his lip.) But damn I'm glad they're there when we need them.