Australia and my health

I am classified as permanently disabled and have
had 12 surgeries over the last 4-1/2 years. My
back is held tegether with two slugs of concrete
and I have arthritis in my left ankle, my right
shoulder, and across my lower back. Add to that
chronic insomnia treated nightly by Ambien CR.

On my two week holiday in OZ (Nov 29 - Dec 13),
I was able to walk without my cane, took no pain
killer for the arthritis and no sleeping pills.
I joked the Southern Hemisphere was doing wonders
for my body.

I came home with a severe case of Montezuma's
Revenge. Last night I needed a sleeping pill and
today had to take pain killer twice.

My take is that even though I was near an ocean
for half of my holiday, the humidity was lower
than it is here (95% today) and the weather was
warm during the day and mild at night. My wife
has agreed that moving somewhere warmer would be
very beneficial. Too bad OZ has that 55 year old
immigration restriction!

Dick

On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:59:55 +0000 (UTC), (Dick
Adams) wrote in :

I am classified as permanently disabled and have
had 12 surgeries over the last 4-1/2 years. My
back is held tegether with two slugs of concrete
and I have arthritis in my left ankle, my right
shoulder, and across my lower back. Add to that
chronic insomnia treated nightly by Ambien CR.

On my two week holiday in OZ (Nov 29 - Dec 13),
I was able to walk without my cane, took no pain
killer for the arthritis and no sleeping pills.
I joked the Southern Hemisphere was doing wonders
for my body.

Thanks for the interesting post, Dick! Have you informed
your G.P. or specialist about this?

It may not be a "joke" of course! I can think of three
possibilities off the top of my head.

I don't know your present location, but the increased
warmth and lower humidity could have something to do with it.

However, if you have traveled around the US much, have you
experienced similar relief in, say, southern California, Texas,
or Florida? [Assuming that you have spent a couple of weeks
in any of these.]

If so, the weather or prevailing climate may not be the major
factor.

Admit that am guessing a bit here, depending where you are in the
USA, both temperature and humidity are controllable in your home.

Still, would assume that you have spent some time in hospitals,
and usually their average temperature and humidity are pretty
closely regulated.

Other possibilities? Of course. The Southern hemisphere has
much lower levels of pollution than the Northern Hemisphere. A
few years ago, ran across the interesting observation that the
last bit of unpolluted air in the US was recorded at a testing
station in the Arizona desert around 1965, from memory.

Normal home air conditioning and heating doesn't do much to
remove fine dust and other particulate matter. In a dry area,
with low humidity, a window mounted evaporative air conditioner
will do a pretty good job of washing out dust.

However, they aren't so great at removing volatile pollutants, as
the water is recycled through the filters until the level in the
tray falls low enough to add a bit of "fresh" water from the city
water supply.

In other words, most of these are designed to control temperature
and humidity, not to actually try to "purify" the air.

However, there are air purifiers on the market which can
be used inside the living quarters which are somewhat more
sophisticated. I haven't actually investigated the
specifications of various brands, but would think that most
would expose incoming room air to a preliminary filter, expose it
to high energy short wave ultraviolet to hopefully kill most
pathogenic bacteria and viruses, then run it through an activated
charcoal filter to adsorb most harmful volatile pollutants.

I'm not suggesting that you rush out and buy such units, but
if you obtained such a degree of relief from symptoms in a mere
fortnight [2 weeks] holiday in Australia, it might be worthwhile
to rent such appliances for a couple of weeks, and see if they
ease your symptoms.

Some suppliers, in Australia at least, offer a 30 day money back
guarantee if the appliance fails to do what it claims.

Of course, our trade practices laws are somewhat more strict than
those in the USA.

As an aside, consider the following news item:

-----------------
Petrol scammers face class action

"A class action is expected to be launched early next
year against a petrol distributor fined $470,000 yesterday for
watering down its premium fuel blends in northern New South
Wales. . ." [more at]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...section=justin

[At least it was breaking news when looked at it earlier this
morning. "Petrol" is the Aussie term for "Gasoline", and in the
USA, a "scam" would probably be called a "con".]

---------------------------

Still another possibility is permissible food additives, or
genetically modified foods.

A few years ago I got a bit of a laugh about a newspaper
editorial cartoon in which a married couple were shopping
in a supermarket and wheeling their supermarket trolley through
the fruit and vegetable section. He says to his wife "I'm not
sure that these genetically modified foods are safe".

A tomato in a nearby bin exclaims "I heard that!" :-)

Such products have been available in the USA for years, but
most Australians are still pretty wary about them.

----------------------------

There are other possibilities, of course. The human body, in a
pleasurable situation, releases hormones which can reduce
discomfort or pain.

As a question, do you notice that your pain perception is worse
when you wake up in the middle of the night, when it seemed less
noticeable when watching an interesting movie or T.V. show, or
reading a book?

The conscious mind can only adsorb a given quantity of
information at any given time. A lot of it is concerned with
incoming visual information.

If any reader wants to check this info, there is a very simple
test. The human brain is largely occupied in processing visual
information.

The test is absurdly simple. Turn on a radio to a talk show
program, set the volume low and walk slowly away, to where you
can no longer follow the dialogue.

Depending on your hearing and the volume setting, say this
is 3 metres, a bit over nine feet. Stop at this point long
enough to convince you or others that you cannot repeat it.

Now close your eyes for a few moments, and you should hear it
clearly. Open your eyes, walk another three or even six metres,
repeat the experiment.

Why does it work for most people? Simply because the brain
doesn't have to analyze visual info, and can pay more attention
to audio input.

In the same way, operators of heavy and noisy earthmoving
equipment can talk to each other. Their brain simply filters out
the range of frequencies that the equipment normally produces.

I came home with a severe case of Montezuma's
Revenge. Last night I needed a sleeping pill and
today had to take pain killer twice.

Not all that unusual in travel, especially if drink unfamiliar
water.

As an example, what we tend to call the "common cold" is
actually produced by a large range of viruses. When I first
migrated to Australia, had a few in succession, until my
antibodies adjusted to the local varieties.

Were I to return to the USA, would probably have the same
sequence of events.

My take is that even though I was near an ocean
for half of my holiday, the humidity was lower
than it is here (95% today) and the weather was
warm during the day and mild at night. My wife
has agreed that moving somewhere warmer would be
very beneficial. Too bad OZ has that 55 year old
immigration restriction!

Last time I checked, there were a large number of possible
visas. At one time, if you were to start a business here which
would employ a few Australian workers, the age limit didn't
matter much.

I don't know if this still applies, but one of the migration
agents on this group may have current info.

In any case, there are other countries in the southern hemisphere
which have varied immigration requirements.

Again, though, I still think you ought to spend some time with
your local doctor mentioning the relief you felt on your visit to
Australia.

Cheers,
Kangaroo16
Sydney, 4:57 PM Wednesday, 19 Dec. 2007

Dick

kangaroo16 wrote:
(Dick Adams) wrote:

I am classified as permanently disabled and have
had 12 surgeries over the last 4-1/2 years. My
back is held tegether with two slugs of concrete
and I have arthritis in my left ankle, my right
shoulder, and across my lower back. Add to that
chronic insomnia treated nightly by Ambien CR.

On my two week holiday in OZ (Nov 29 - Dec 13),
I was able to walk without my cane, took no pain
killer for the arthritis and no sleeping pills.
I joked the Southern Hemisphere was doing wonders
for my body.

Thanks for the interesting post, Dick! Have you informed
your G.P. or specialist about this?

I see two next week.

It may not be a "joke" of course! I can think of three
possibilities off the top of my head.

I don't know your present location, but the increased
warmth and lower humidity could have something to do with it.

However, if you have traveled around the US much, have you
experienced similar relief in, say, southern California, Texas,
or Florida? [Assuming that you have spent a couple of weeks
In any of these.] …..

Not since the problems started.

Other possibilities? Of course. The Southern hemisphere has
much lower levels of pollution than the Northern Hemisphere.
A few years ago, ran across the interesting observation that the
last bit of unpolluted air in the US was recorded at a testing
station in the Arizona desert around 1965, from memory. …

Is there any medical evidence that pollution has an adverse effect
on arthritis.

Dick

On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 14:36:52 +0000 (UTC), (Dick
Adams) wrote in :

kangaroo16 wrote:
(Dick Adams) wrote:

I am classified as permanently disabled and have
had 12 surgeries over the last 4-1/2 years. My
back is held tegether with two slugs of concrete
and I have arthritis in my left ankle, my right
shoulder, and across my lower back. Add to that
chronic insomnia treated nightly by Ambien CR.

On my two week holiday in OZ (Nov 29 - Dec 13),
I was able to walk without my cane, took no pain
killer for the arthritis and no sleeping pills.
I joked the Southern Hemisphere was doing wonders
for my body.

Thanks for the interesting post, Dick! Have you informed
your G.P. or specialist about this?

I see two next week.

Excellent! They are the ones to ask!

The following article may be of interest.


Arthritis

"Arthritis is a very common medical condition, estimated
to affect around seven million people in the UK.

However, it is not a single disease, but comes in around 200
different forms. . . .

.. . . The two most common forms are osteoarthritis and rheumatoid
arthritis. [More at]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/me...es/2940229.stm

If you do a Google search using the string

arthritis pollution link

This will get you about 248,000 returns

For more detailed medical info on Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA)

http://www.merck.com/mmpe/sec04/ch034/ch034b.html#

Osteoarthritis (OA)
http://www.merck.com/mmpe/sec04/ch03...034-ch034e-524



It may not be a "joke" of course! I can think of three
possibilities off the top of my head.

I don't know your present location, but the increased
warmth and lower humidity could have something to do with it.

However, if you have traveled around the US much, have you
experienced similar relief in, say, southern California, Texas,
or Florida? [Assuming that you have spent a couple of weeks
In any of these.] …..

Not since the problems started.

Other possibilities? Of course. The Southern hemisphere has
much lower levels of pollution than the Northern Hemisphere.
A few years ago, ran across the interesting observation that the
last bit of unpolluted air in the US was recorded at a testing
station in the Arizona desert around 1965, from memory. …

Is there any medical evidence that pollution has an adverse effect
on arthritis.

Hopefully you might come across some solid info on the Google
search suggested.

In any case, am confident that your doctors will be interested
in hearing about the easing of your symptoms on the Australian
visit, and this might suggest some other reasons.

If you can fax them, email, or provid them them a copy of your
post, this might give them a bit more time to check on some
other possibilities.

Cheers,
Kangaroo16
Sydney 3:37 PM 21 Dec.2007

Dick