OT Disputing medicine charges

[krw]

Nice try at an excuse.

[knuckle-dragger]

If addiction to nicotine is really the problem (often not the case as shown by the fact that the following frequently doesn't work) she should try an electronic cigarette. Much much cheaper than actually smoking and doesn't include the nasty products of combustion of tobacco. In fact nothing is burnt at all. You get your nicotine depending on the dose you choose as a super-high level (36mg) down to no nicotine. For most people the super-high will have you feeling as though you've just smoked a pack without stopping. Usually you'll feel nauseous. Pick a normal level (11mg or 18mg) to start. It allows you to effectively continue smoking without the bad effects. IOW it's not a smoking-cessation remedy. Unlike the vastly over-priced OTC pharmaceuticals you don't have kow-tow to the touchie-feelies and you can have all the other benefits of smoking (something in the hand, the sucking, the ritual of preparation, etc).

Because of the political-incorrectness it's impossible to do a reasonable study but some people find that they still crave the cigarette even though they have an on-demand ingestion of nicotine at at least replacement level and in "burst mode" like you'd get with a normal cigarette. This shouldn't happen if the problem with cigarettes is nicotine or even in the mannerisms of smoking but no one wants to do a reasonable study.

[benick]

Ditto for me too...On those occasions I can't sleep I just put on a boring show and relax in the recliner till I fall asleep...It also saves the wife from my tossing and turning...When I worked construction I could fall asleep at the kitchen table after supper some nights...Same for when I was in the service..I could fall asleep in the back of a truck bouncing down the road..LOL..

[Robert Green]

I based my comment on how difficult it's been for people I know to quit. Part of the problem is that unlike heroin, you can walk along the city streets and a) see people smoking, b) smell people smoking and c) see a dozen places to buy cigarettes. The deck, until recently, has been very heavily stacked against the smoker who's trying to quit. At least with heroin, you have to go seek it out - you're not bombarded with cues that lead back to the habit. Maybe it all comes down to one of the chapter headings in my old, old abnormal psych textbook, taken from an old Spanish proverb:

"Habits are first cobwebs, then chains."

-- Bobby G.

[Robert Green]

ingredients

Ouch. That's serious business. When I was read the riot act about how even a tendon transplant would change my life I got very hinky about doing it. My surgeon, who pioneered the only technique that had more than a 50% success, sealed the deal by getting killed. I'm glad to hear you've done so well. The new immunosuppresants are miracle drugs, but they are also very powerful drugs with lots of caveats and tradeoffs. Since a tendon problem is usually not threatening, I was not in the same place you were in.

Yes, he was responding to a life threatening injury of one his patients in a car crash when he got into one himself. Very sad. All I can say about the tendon problem is that it's stable but progressively getting worse. I am at stage 3. Some MDs have recommended amputation. )-: Not ready to go that route but maybe when I get to stage 4. There are also some interesting experiments going on with artificial and animal tendons, but that still leads to anti-rejection drugs and their boatload of side effects. The tendon problem came about, FWIW, as a side effect of taking Cipro as an anthrax prophylactic. In some people and in combination with other drugs it makes tendon tissues inelastic like old rubber bands left in the sunlight. Surgery success rates are very low in such cases because of the systemic tendon deterioration.

Good for you. Controlling your diet is almost as hard as "keeping kosher." There's sugar stuffed into everything these days. If I were to invest in a business, it would be sugarless *edible* versions of all the popular sweets. The Pepsi Generation is going to soon turn into the Diabetes Type II Generation.

-- Bobby G.