Excess Deaths

[yogi]

I can monitor how much memory a program consumes and Google Chrome was at the top of the browser list. That's not to say it was exceptional, but it was over a gig compared to other browser being just under a gig for the same URLs being active.

I am fortunate in some ways regarding the blood circulation in my legs. It's not as bad as it could be and that means the compression stockings do not have to be as strong as they come, nor do I need to wear them 24/7. I use the TED version designed to lessen the occurrence of of blood clots and they have a strength of around 20 mmHG. That's the lowest strength available. Also, I only wear knee length and I like the closed toe version. They get put on around 6:30AM every day just before breakfast and after doing my thing in the bathroom. At night I get to bed around 11:30PM which is when I replace the compression stockings with regular stockings. My toes get cold if I don't do that. LOL That is the routine from the original doctor who prescribed them about a dozen years ago. As things get worse the strength might ave to be increased and I may have to keep them on all the time. The justification for not wearing them at night is that my feet would be elevated (presumably above my heart) so that the blood would flow back to the heart easily. Blood sitting around in the lower extremities is what causes the clotting.

Also, I use the Futuro brand which happens to be inexpensive at Walgreens and Walmart. I can get a pair for less than $15 most of the time. I'd guess that I retire used socks too early in that I only wear a single pair for about a month. Actually I rotate between three pair so that I don't need to buy replacements all that often. The Futuro stockings have the desired rating and they have served me well so far, but they obviously are made cheaply. I have a few other brands that have much better cloth and fit a lot more snugly. Those, however, start at around $40 a pair. I keep them on hand for going to weddings and such. LOL Otherwise the Futuro are unisex white.

More than you wanted to know, I'm sure.

[Kellemora]

Due to my heart, my feet are always ice cold, most of the time so are my hands, perfusion index 0.2 or lower, unless I can warm them up enough to get it a little higher so the pulse oximeters will read right.

All year round, I have an electric heating pad at the foot of the bed, draped over the edge, and held in place by a sheet over the top sheet. Under the bottom sheet, I have a foam rubber pad, also draped over the edge, because I hang my feet over the end of the bed until I'm ready to go to sleep. Unless I have them propped up on the doggie steps for a while before turning over.

I normally sleep on my right side, but this past year or so, I will occasionally turn on my back for an hour or two to help me breathe a little better, and hopefully get my heart rate back down. It jumps up at weird times, and always in the morning for no apparent reason, other than the sun came up, hi hi.

I have a few pairs of compression socks now. The one's I like the best are called Copper Fit. I don't know the price because Debi is who has bought them all for me. Plus she gave me some she had to wear for a while after her back surgery.
All of ours are black, no white ones among them.

I put mine on in the morning, and don't take them off until bed time. But then I may skip a day or two per week to let my feet air out better, and use some Vicks Vap-O-Rub on my toenails with white loose socks overnight.

[yogi]

As far as I know there is nothing wrong with my heart. The circulation problems I have are due to venous insufficiency. Some people claim that can be brought about by sitting too much such as an office worker would do. The clots formed in my left foot apparently hung around for some time before they broke loose and decided to sit in my lungs so that I could not breath very well. That experience is how I know what you must be going through every day of your life now. Not being able to breathe was bad enough, but the threat of the clots breaking loose and lodging in my skull was frightening. Of course I didn't know any of that when it all happened and didn't learn about it until I was in the ER. The blood clots in the feet damaged the check valves (don't know how else to describe them) located in the veins. Thus I now have a reflux situation that makes it difficult, but not impossible, for the heart to pump the fluid back up. A combination of blood thinners and the anti-embolism stockings seem to be keeping things under control. My shins get skin ulcers from time to time due to this venous insufficiency but a little first aid takes care of that.

I looked up the Copper Fit socks and they are less expensive than the Futuro brand that I get. That is likely due to the fact Copper Fit are simply compression stockings and not the TED anti-embolism type. The difference is in the compression. It's a gradient in the TED socks where the foot has more compression than the calf. Both will help with leg fatigue, but the TED stockings specifically are designed to treat DVT (deep vein thrombosis) which is what I have. The TED's might help keep your tootsies a little warmer in that there is more compression in that part of the stocking. You might try a pair to see if there is any difference. Unfortunately, the cheaper ones only come in white.

I used to sleep on my left side almost exclusively. I simply was uncomfortable on my back or the right side. But then old age provided my hips and knees with arthritic pains so that there are times when sleeping on my side aggravates the arthritic pain. So, now, most of my night is spent on my back which for some odd reason is now a more comfortable position than my side, even sans the pains. Strange things happen to the body as you age. But then, you knew that already.

[Kellemora]

Wow, what you have seems to be more scary than what I have.
I have these bright red splotches show up, sometimes with blood fluid under them in a small bubble.
I've shown them to the doctor a few times, and he ruled out any type of psoriasis.
I had small splotches which actually bled last year, which is why I always carried a styptic pencil with me.
But these are different. They start out bright red then slowly change to dark red then brown, then tan, and will almost disappear completely.
Another doctor I see said it is more than likely a side affect of one of the new drugs I'm on.
Since that's when they started, he's probably right. These new drugs make me itch all over big time.
Makes it hard to sleep at night sometimes, so I load up with Benedryl hi hi.

What I like about the Copper Fit over others I have, is the toe area is extra large with no compression, and right behind the toes there is a higher compression area, which is good in my case.
I don't know the brand names of any of the rest I have, and some of them seem to be too tight, and others not tight enough.
I really hate the ones that have ribbing in the upper part of the sock, or the thicker ones too.

I used to sleep on my left side, probably for most of my life up until around age 25 I guess.
Then out of the blue, I simply could not sleep well on that side, so switched, which was uncomfortable to me for a while.
But now, that is the most comfortable position for me, and I couldn't sleep on my left if my life depended on it.
My arms and legs just don't handle that position anymore, hi hi.
However, more recently, I find in order to breathe, I have to change to my back in the middle of the night.

[yogi]

Potentially the DVT is sudden death should the clots end up in the wrong places. In that regard my condition seems a bit more lethal than yours, but the good news is that should some major disaster occur, it's instant darkness for me. That is, it's instant if it's in the right place, such as the heart or brain. Clots can damage just about any organ in the body and not be fatal but a life long dysfunction of the organ. My feet is where the clots were forming but many folks get them in the upper leg or even in the torso. Those people have a lot more to worry about than I do. For me the blood thinners (which recently cost me a mere $800 for 90 pills) are all I need to keep things under control.

The leg ulcers are small but ugly as sin. My shins have thin skin to begin with and the poor circulation doesn't help. It wasn't until I lived in Missouri a couple years that the shins turned deep red and the skin became flaky. I went to a dermatologist and she was clueless. She tried a few meds and they only made my legs worse, plus they induced bruises due to their interaction with the anticoagulant I'm taking. To her credit she knew when to give up and send me to a wound care clinic. I thought she was nuts but went anyway. I had nothing to lose. The doctor there knew right away what was the problem because he was a cardiologist, a person who knew a thing or two about vein problems. He did some tests and the nurses showed me how to patch up any leaks, which fortunately have all been minor. Since he didn't practice cardiology anymore he suggest I go see a cardio vascular specialist who most likely can do something to improve the situation. That was all about five years ago and I have yet to see that cardio specialist. I'm holding my own if not getting very slightly better. All that can change quickly, of course, but for now I'll just keep up with the first aid.

The TED stockings I use are similar to what you describe. The toes are loose and right in back of the toes is where the higher compression takes place. As the sock goes up the leg the compression lessens from 20 mmHG to about 14 mmHG. You don't want to cut off the circulation at the knee cap if possible. My legs tingle occasionally and on some occasions I experience numbness. That's about it for problems and I can live with that. I think.

[Kellemora]

I guess I'll have to digress and stop complaining about lil ole me, when you have those kinds of life threatening issues.

My goal of making it to my office each day, is sorta like a child running to his mother for comfort.
So, instead of stress, I see it as getting to relief.

[yogi]

My description of the DVT experiences I had are accurate, but not as dangerous as my comments might have made it sound. The thrombi in my feet did travel up to my lungs which was very traumatic but not as dangerous as if they reached the heart or the brain. A simple injection to dissolve the clots and 5 days of observation took care of that. I had a second similar episode because the primary care physician I was seeing at the time was ... unfamiliar with the proper treatment to put it nicely. I ended up seeing a hematologist for some other reasons, but he is the one who encouraged me to stay on the blood thinners forever and to wear the stockings. That was working fine until I got to Missouri. The warfarin blood thinner failed to do its job when the dermatologist was experimenting on me with meds. Clots formed and my legs became swollen, but that was all that happened. A visit to my doctor here fixed that by changing the anticoagulant to a different, and way more expensive, type. So, the long and the short of it is that the clots were a problem about a dozen years ago, but they really haven't cause any issues of major concern since. So, aside from the ugly shins there is not much difference in my health as a result of the DVT problem.

People always say that no matter what problems you have somebody else has even worse problems. That's true from a statistical point of view but does that knowledge really diminish your own illness? No, it does not. You still have breathing problems no matter how many people in the world have worse problems. The big difference I've read about many times is in your response to your illness. I know of two people who didn't make it very far with their emphysema and neither of them had the determination and (more or less) positive outlook that you demonstrate. You show a strength I've not seen in many other people and it is an admirable quality in my humble opinion. And, don't go feeling awkward about "complaining" because you don't have it as bad as other people. I truly sympathize with your situation, and if it helps to complain, then so be it. That's what old guys do, right?

[Kellemora]

I'm glad to hear they were able to nip your issue in the bud before it caused any major problems.

I just got my 3-month listing of drugs my drug plan paid for, and which ones they didn't.
Sad, only two of my drugs are partially covered, but none of the rest of them now.
You go through there list to see what is covered and what is not, during the window when you can change.
Then two months after the window closes, they come out with a new formulary and most of what was covered, isn't.
Or if it is, it is moved up to higher tier so basically it is not covered. Even so, they raise the price for the insurance.

Being twice a widower, and taking care of them, and others, who all had lung problems, I know all too well what it gets to be like. I'm actually doing much better than either of those, but that is partly because of what they were allowed to do, vs what I am allowed to do, regarding medications and usages.
On number one, they didn't have some of the medications they do now, and what they did have was only used in hospitals, so she was a frequent flyer. Sorta the same with number two, except in her case, nurses came to our home to give her the same medications I can now give myself at home. In her case, I was able to obtain a continuous reading pulse/oximeter that made a printed out chart, and old job formerly used only by hospitals. It was big as a portable TV. Ran on electric, and the data could be recorded on a circular disks with ink-flo pens. Very old technology.
Today we have hundreds of brands of cheap pulse/oximeters, so I have three of them now, one at my bed, one at the kitchen table, and one here in my office. The oldest one I keep by the bed at night, I now wear around my neck so I have it if I am away from the house. Having these does save me from using up so much O2 when I don't need it set that high.
You also don't want to use too much O2 because it is possible to poison yourself with oxygen.

A couple of medical devices I would like to have, there is no way I could afford them, not even used ones.
And I've yet to get Medicare to allow me to have an auto-pap machine. My wife has a CPap machine, and I could buy a Bi-Pap machine easily enough, but with my CO2 issues, the doc recommends an Auto-Pap machine. Seems you have to have sleep apnea for Medicare to cover either CPap or BiPap.
It basically does something like when you do pursed lip breathing, only it works while you sleep to lower CO2.
Something could be done like that with a process like dialysis where they filter the CO2 out of your blood.
Had that for a while many years ago. I used to laugh because when I went to the clinic, the brand of filter used in the machine was made by Shell, hi hi. Even the package itself looked like a Shell oil can box, hi hi.

[yogi]

Medicare is similar to Social Security in that it was never intended to pay for all the medical care you need. Then, too, the pharmaceutical companies and medical suppliers often take advantage of the system and exploit the consumer in the process. Contrary to popular belief, the healthcare system in this country is not designed to pay for all your needs, especially not the federal or state government systems. Thus you are on your own to buy whatever they don't pay for, and if you can afford it. Which most people can't. What really irks me is the thinking in select parts of congress that wants to eliminate the government's involvement in healthcare altogether. If we can't afford it now with it being subsidized, how in all holy hell can we afford it if we had to pay all of it out of pocket?

One of the interesting aspects of all this has to do with my hearing. I lost a good part of it and apparently Medicare will pay for the exam that determined all that. They will not pay for the hearing aides, however. What sense does that make? Likewise with vision testing. They paid for the exam but the glasses were out of pocket expenses for me.

[Kellemora]

I pay for my drug plan, and for my supplemental insurance plan, and naturally Medicare takes out the cost of Medicare from my SS check before they send me any money. So we ARE funding the insurance programs ourselves already.
I could start talking about my friend in the UK, who has found almost nothing his family needs, and many other families, is covered at all.

I'm a diabetic so vision tests are free, however, I have to pay 45 dollars for a refraction to get glasses, which I also have to pay for, and man have they gone up in price too.
The last time I bought glasses, the price was a little over 250 bucks, now those same types of glasses are over 420 bucks. So I've not got new ones yet. I'm getting by with four-dollar readers for a couple of things but they are not good for distance.

I don't know about a hearing test. Seems I always had to pay for mine, so don't get them any more, other than the annual exam where they whisper something and asked what I said. I usually don't know because I didn't hear it over my tinitus.

Can we change this thread to a new one with a different title?

[yogi]

Can we change this thread to a new one with a different title?

Of course we can. I'll do it now, but it would have been perfectly fine if you started a new thread yourself.

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