Can you donate blood if you smoke cigarettes?
Smokers can donate blood. But you shouldn’t smoked within the last 4 hours before blood donation.Here i have listed few eligibility criteria for blood donation.Eligibility to Donate Blood:Any donor, who is healthy, fit and not suffering from any communicable diseases can donate blood on regular basis.Donor must be at least 18 years age and having a minimum weight of 50Kg to donate blood.A donor can donate blood, once in 3 months. This means there should be a minimum gap of 120 days on your last donation of blood.Pulse rate must be between 50 to 100 mm without any irregularities.BP Systolic 100 to 180 mm Hg & Diastolic 50 to 100 mm Hg.Non-Eligibility:Donors should not suffer from HIV+, hypertension. Cardiac arrest, epilepsy or diabetics.If donor has been treated for malaria should avoid blood donation for next three months.If donor consumed alcohol within the last 24 hours before blood donation.Medical treatments like acupuncture, ear piercing & tattoo are also not eligible for few limited period.Donor should wait for 12 months after receiving a blood transfusion from another person.Travelling to abroad make blood donors not eligible to donate blood for limited period of time.Dental procedures & other oral surgery should wait for few limited days.As for smoking, you shouldn’t smoke within the last 4 hours before blood donation.Donors with major surgery should wait at least 6 months and 2 months for minor surgery for your next blood donation. And this may vary based on the type of surgery you undergone.Four months after having an endoscopy.Preparation to Donate Blood:Prepare yourself by having healthy enough fruit juice and water before you donate blood.Avoid donating blood in empty stomach. Eat three hours before your donation. Avoid fatty foods & Eat food which is rich in iron.Post Donation Care:Have some rest for few minutes after donation. Do not drive after donating blood.Have some healthy food with high protein content & fruit juice with high sugar content which will help to rejuvenate the blood sugar back up.Do not consume Alcohol for next 8 hours after blood donation.Avoid going for heavy body workouts such as gym, dancing, running etc at least for next 24 hours of blood donation.If you are a Blood donor, or interested in donating Blood, register at VMEDO mobile application, the link is https://play.google.com/store/ap...
What are the side effects of prednisone?
To anyone reading this PLEASE DO NOT TAKE PREDNISONE UNLESS YOU REALLY HAVE TO AND ARE BEING TREATED BY AN EXPERIENCED M.D. I personally had a terrible experience with presnisone.My experience:I was prescribed prednisone 150mg (I know EXTREME dose) by an N.D. in February. This N.D. believed I had PANDAS, an autoimmune disease. Prednisone works for autoimmune diseases by suppressing the immune system, thus sort of tranquilizing the attack. But this doctor didnt even do any tests to see if this was a possibilty. She prescribed a preposterous dose of 150 mg, which is unheard of in the medical community, and didnt even inform us of the possible dangers. Turns out the prednisone didnt work, and I had to spend 2 months tapering off of it. During this time I had some pretty bad side effects. The most prominent one was the restlesness and insomia. I struggled to get to sleep the entire night and when I did, I woke up pretty soon after with an intense urge to urinate. I was also extremely irritable and this affected my whole family. I also noticed severe depression(and I have NEVER struggled from depression). I am off prednisone now and my sleeping and mood are getting back to normal, but what prednisone did to my body is another story. I very quickly started to see a moon face develop when I started prednisone. I also gained 25 pounds. Now the moon face does go away overtime, but it can be a tedious wait for the change to happen. This is what it did to my face.Before (normal)After prednisoneAnd yes, it did cause those postules on my face. This is a flare up of foliculitus caused by a supressed immune system. It is important to note that when your immune system is supressed, you are more vulnerable to flare ups of other medical conditions.There are an enumerable amount of other side effects, but these are some of the more immediate ones and the ones I noticed.Edit:About 6 months later I had fully recovered from the side effects of the drug. If you are tapering off prednisone dont lose hope becuase the side effects do dissolve.Updated picture:Never lose hope.
How is it possible for a surgeon to inadvertently amputate the wrong limb on a patient, or to amputate at all on a patient who doesn't require amputation?
True story.In 2010 my husband was scheduled to have a total knee replacement on his right knee. He was admitted the day before because he needed to have six units of platelets transfused because of a clotting problem.Things that went wrong:Nurse couldn't get the IV started because she wouldn't listen to us about which vein to stick. After her fourth attempt I made her get another nurse who listened and was able to get it on her first try.They only transfused one unit of platelets. When I asked they told me all six units were in the one bag. I'd read the label. It was one unit. His PT/INR the next morning was only one point higher than the day before.They didn't bring him a lunch tray or dinner tray. I had to go buy him his meals.A second IV site started later the first evening infiltrated and his arm was swelling. A nurse tried to tell me that was a normal reaction. I had to stop the IV fluids myself before the skin broke open.Day of surgery they take him down to pre-op. He requested that I go with him. While there a nurse came in, looked at an IV site in his left hand and commented, “They shouldn’t have started the IV in the hand we’re taking.” Yes, you read that correctly. Just then the doctor walked in and started asking questions about his platelet count. I finally spoke up when the nurse came back in and said she was going to take the IV out and prep his hand and arm. When I questioned as to why she was prepping his left hand for a right total knee replacement, she looked at me like I was green, then stated, “Oh, I didn’t look at his chart yet.” Yeah, you read that correctly, also. She was just going to proceed without even reading his chart!Things done right:I canceled the surgery and took my poor bruised husband home. I got him another doctor and he had a successful total knee replacement at a different hospital.Shit happens. You have to cover your own ass.ETA: Thanks to Sarah Madden and Mark Roberts for the edits!
When you go into the hospital does your pain level (1-10) determine how fast you are admitted?
The 1 to 10 pain scale was developed at a period of time when the powers that be were worried that we were NOT giving enough narcotics.Now they worry that we give too many. That should tell you something about how much government intrusion we need into the management of acute pain. PLEASE Note… acute pain. Most of the things that have been done to combat the opioid crisis, which for the most part is chronic use, only gets in the way of honest treatment of acute pain control.Back to the 1 to 10 scale. Almost everyone has 9 or 10 out of 10 pain…bee stings, ankle sprains, migraines, lacerations…EVERYTHING! People in pain want you to know that they are hurting and that they need attention. We see many people with different types and degrees of physical pain daily. Most non medical types only see their own severe pain infrequently (hopefully). The only patients who can accurately quantitate a level of pain are real chronic pain patients. (I exclude drug addicts, although withdrawal hurts; I'm referring to cancer, post operative, severe arthritis, etc.)For the rest of you, here's my partial relative scale (and I've had major surgery and been a patient post op in the ICU)1 - No Pain2- Minor procedures w/o anesthetia, urinary catheter insertion NG Tube placement, migraine headaches or arthritis5 - Serious fracture of lower arm or leg (nobody can eat at 5 or above)7-Late labor pains, I'm a guy, I've had a kidney stone, delivered babies in training and feel that my stones at least only grazed 5. Bless you ladies you are magnificent.10-pulled out of a wreck and brought in smashed to kindling in mortal agony.11 out of 10, chewing gum, complaining that they've been waiting in the ER on the Saturday night of a 3 day weekend for 2 hours with this headache that started 4 days ago and I don't want to see that stupid nurse that I saw last week or any foreign doctor ’cause they don't know nothing.And that is why I feel that the 1 to 10 pain scale while sort of an iconic mandate…is 99.8% worthless.