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Side Assaults and Medication Induced Nightmares

If you are on maintenance medication for depression or your heart or some other long-term illness, one thing you should always be aware of when taking a new medication is its effect on your dreams.  Your doctor may not care about your fruitful dream state, but you care because you must. Your dreams are the pathway to a prescient future.

Sometimes, the medicine-induced dream-influencing doesn’t happen for a few months, or the fitful sleep arrives in dribs and occasional drabs that leads to a dribbling memeing.  I discovered, through trial and error, and the momentary comparative experience, that Benicar, my blood pressure medication, was indicating horrific nightmares for many months.

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Living with MRSA: Nearly Ten Years On

I have MRSA – to be specific I have HA-MRSA.  MRSA is a superbug – its full is name methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria – the HA denotes I contracted it in hospital – if I had contracted it outside of hospital it would be denoted CA-MRSA – community acquired MRSA.

Superbugs are a group of microorganisms that are resistant to at least one or more commonly used antibiotics.  The commonly accepted list of superbugs is as follows:

MRSA  – (Staphylococcus aureus strains resistant to multiple antibiotics) , VRE (Enterococcus species resistant to vancomycin), PRSP (Streptococcus pneumoniae strains resistant to penicillin), ESBLs (Escherichia coli and other Gram-negative bacteria resistant to antibiotics such as cephalosporins and monobactams) and multiple drug-resistant Clostridium difficile.

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Sleeping in Public at the Queens Mall in New York City

I work near a bunch of shopping malls in Queens.  There’s one mall, in particular, that I call the “Sleeping Mall” because random men, throughout the day, flop on couches and take over chairs for hours at a time to sleep in public.

I can understand this sleepy behavior if you’ve been shopping all day and you sit down to rest your feet and you happen to nod off — that happens to all of us at times — but these men are dedicated, daily, regular ,snoozers who, as you can see in this photo from yesterday morning, even remove their shoes and fall over because they are so thoroughly swimming in deep REM tides.

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The Joy and Necessity of Diaphragmatic Breathing

One of my worst habits is holding my breath.  If I’m in a stress situation, I stop breathing.  If I am in high-concentration mode, I stop breathing.  When I tend to exercise — even during my Yoga asanas — I tend to forget where I am and hold my breath instead of breathing properly.

The reason it is a bad idea to hold your breath — except when you’re under the water and such — is because holding your breath spikes your blood pressure something awful.  Your face changes color.  Your heart rate rises.  Your whole innards are about to explode through your noggin.

Learning how to effectively breathe is key — not only during Yoga and aerobic exercise — but during your regular, ordinary, life as well.

The problem with our breathing is that so few of us do it properly.  We breathe by expanding our ribcage instead of dropping our diaphragms and extending our stomachs.

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Crocs: I Hate You, Now DIE!

When a person is in pain, they will go to any lengths to help ease the suffering.  Ever since my unfortunate Times Square Tripping accident, my left foot has not quite been right.

I’ve had a touch of Plantar fasciitis since the accident and that gives me a bit of heel pain when I walk — and I walk a lot!   A couple of weeks ago, I also wrenched the middle toe on the same foot during a hurried Yoga session — where I learned the hard way to always be present and breathe.

I’m obsessively on the lookout for good and proper shoes, and I’ve heard a lot about Crocs being a great and comfortable shoe.  I never stepped a foot into the mouth of the crocodile because Crocs were hard to find, and because I hate ordering shoes online.

It often takes forever to get shoes delivered — even if you overpay for overnight shipping.  Crocs.com, I discovered the hard way this week, are no better than the Payless when it comes to getting the right shoes on your foot in the nick of time.

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