Zarley

7 minutes ago, Jarndyce said:

Arguably, they will all do this - it's part of their job, and a professional responsibility.   I can only assume that @Zarley has been very unlucky in choice of pharmacist.

No, that's not the case at all. I'm on four meds for a condition that isn't very common on the island. While one of them has been in use for a while, one has a new formulation which has changed how it's metabolised, and the other two are quite new with one being less than a year old (less than a year outside of trials).

It's not terribly surprising that a high-street chemist isn't up to date on every new med for a condition they're rarely seeing in the population they serve. 

On 1/20/2024 at 8:44 PM, Jarndyce said:

What a superb show!   Collaterlie Sisters, Peter O’Hanraha-hanrahan, Ted Maul, Suki Bapswent - and, of course, the first TV sighting of Alan Partridge.

 

Did she ever find them?

10 minutes ago, Jarndyce said:

You could also ask your pharmacist - I believe they spend three or four years learning about drugs.    Maybe they’d be taken more seriously if they were less available…😉

High street chemists usually don't have any experience with some of the meds I'm on. I know because I've asked about possible drug interactions between meds prescribed by my GP and meds prescribed by my consultant. Each time they hadn't a clue so I had to get in touch with the consultant. I'm just glad they admitted they didn't know, rather than hazard an educated guess. 

5 minutes ago, quilp said:

Ha, yes. One consultant I had dealings with had a thing for "poor metabolisers." Nowt wrong with that, at least he took great care in adjusting the meds he was prescribing to suit his patients. 

Yes. It's amazing the different things that can alter the absorption rate of various meds. Grapefruit is somewhat well-known for interfering with some meds, for instance. Calcium (such as in antacids) is another.

I can't take any "daily multi" type supplement that includes any mineral within twelve hours one of my meds, as any mineral can decrease the absorption rate by more than half, which would quite frankly be a disaster as it would lead to drug-resistance, possibly to a whole class of meds. The mechanism behind this was also explained to me in explicit detail. It was fascinating; shame I can't recall most of it. 😂

It's great having a doc who really knows his stuff and pays close attention to detail. 

17 hours ago, quilp said:

Branded Solpadeine 'Max' contains 12.8mg of codeine in a single tablet and an Ibuprofen prep with around the same (13.6mg?).

The effervescent version of 'Max' also contains 30mg of caffeine (2 tablets being slightly stronger than the average heaped spoon of Nescafé). People can experience a pleasant little 'lift', a buzz, and overtime, potentially becoming quietly addicted. Like someone very close to me, in fact. Also worked with a fella who would take up to 10 doses of the 30/500's a day for that very reason and made no bones of it. The paracetamol at those levels would surely be detrimental to one's liver, possibly deadly to some people but his body had adjusted to it over the years. Ridiculous amount of sodium in the effervescent tablets too.

Loads of people doing it for the wrong reasons, impervious to the obvious warnings and risk of abuse. Prime example of wilful ignorance.

Paracetamol helps the body absorb codeine so you get more bang for your codeine buck, so to speak. That's the main reason they combine it; deterring overuse is just a bonus.

I forget the exact chemistry, but it was all explained to me in detail by my consultant in Liverpool, who I've recently mentioned in another thread is a pharmacologist, amongst other things. He doesn't half go on about meds and body chemistry and absorption rates, given the chance.

Paracetamol evidently boosts a few meds, mainly pain-relief types IIRC, so I've renamed it paraCHEATamol. 😎

17 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

If these announced losses today are anything to go by then we need the wind farm up ASAP. Although MUA claim that with "adjustments" the loss is "only" £14M.

Another rise in charges coming in April though...

 

"...a phased introduction to reduce the immediate impact on customers."

We're being slowly boiled alive like frogs. Ribbit ribbit croak!

Sorry. Sometimes if I didn't laugh, I'd do nothing but cry.

3 hours ago, Banker said:

Of course a lot of tenants in social housing are receiving benefits which are increasing by 8.1% so more than rent increases and a lot of tenants have multiple incomes coming into households 

When there are multiple incomes coming into a household where anyone (or everyone) is on benefits, the benefit pay out level is adjusted accordingly and you never come out of such adjustments better off than if you'd been a person on your own. Sometimes you can come out of it worse off.

Unless of course if the person receiving benefits isn't entirely honest about their living arrangements, but there are fewer of those sorts about than the Daily Mail would like you to think.

18 hours ago, woolley said:

Flags don't really have a point that's of any use for your stated intent. You'd have to insert it piecemeal.

Piecemeal? Not really, that's where a flagpole comes in handy as a one-shot delivery system. 

Is there any reason why the RNLI couldn't use the airport's boat and associated equipment? Surely that would save some time getting to the scene.

They would have to have regular practice sessions to ensure they're familiar with the set up, but at least they already have all the vital basic training the airport crew lack.

18 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

We have Peel....

And the rest. I've always heard there's no prostitution anywhere on the island because there are too many willing amateurs everywhere. Probably just as true in Victorian times. 

4 minutes ago, newaccount said:

Please lock this thread it serves no purpose

No point. The whackadoodles would just start a new one. At least it's all corralled in this one thread. 

You don't have to read it, you know. 

For the past 23 years, I've been under the care of a consultant* who is a virologist, immunologist and pharmacologist who has published more peer-reviewed papers than most of us have had hot dinners. He says it is far safer to have the vax than not. I'd take his word for it over an orthopaedic surgeon's any day of the week, and twice on Sunday. 

*He practices in Liverpool, and goes by Professor rather than Dr. or Mr. Just FYI. He's a lovely man. Very down-to-earth despite having a brilliant mind.

15 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

Alf says she's been more than satisfactory...

While I do not begrudge anyone a love life, I have to wonder if this (alleged?) relationship of theirs hasn't gotten in the way of her doing her job. Him too, for that matter. 

18 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

It actually derives from the Norse/Germanic  'hus-ting' where 'hus' was house and 'ting' was a meeting and so related to the derivation of Tynwald.  So if anywhere is entitled to use it's us (and Iceland).

Thanks, Roger. Learn something new from you nearly every day. 

5 hours ago, Banker said:

Cabinet office is the one that needs reducing, absolutely scandalous increase in numbers and no one can really say what they’re actually doing, KLB has achieved nothing 

KLB has been a huge disappointment. She certainly won't get my vote again. I feel duped. I went to the pre-election hustings and spoke to her personally as well. She promised the earth and has delivered nothing.

BTW, do they call them "hustings" because it's just a hustle? 

17 hours ago, Lilly said:

Can you explain? DAS Boot- is it a film?  And Shirley?   Sorry, l didn't  understand it?  Apologies, Zarley, if it is blaringly obvious to everyone else.

 

"Das Boot" is German for "the boat". It's also the name of a 1981 German film, which was based on a 1973 autobiographical novel by a German war correspondent who spent time on a German u-boat in WWII. In 2018 it was also made into a four season tv series. 

"Shirley" is a play on "surely". It's a rather lame joke from the 1980 disaster-film parody "Airplane!". 

 Hope that helps!

Edited to add... Lilly, I don't know if you're aware, but Amadeus is from Germany, which is why I used the German term for boat. 

1 hour ago, monasqueen said:

Das Boot is in now.

Will it go out again?

Yes, it's going, much to the relief of a friend whose MiL has over-stayed her visit due to the storm. 

10 minutes ago, Amadeus said:

Ze boat ze boat 

 

Das Boot, Shirley? 

I have difficulty feeling any sympathy for the people who bought into the payroll schemes such as AML sold. They were motivated by greed (both sides), pure and simple.

Paying yourself via an offshore loan, with no intention of paying it back, with the intention to avoid paying tax, is so obviously morally wrong regardless of whether or not it was technically legal at the time. 

If you give in to greed, don't be surprised when it bites you in the ass at a later date. 

23 hours ago, HiVibes said:

But what if...  you get sent from various branches of the then Lloyds due to them not having stock of the item, each time having to park nowhere near and then finally end up driving to boots in Douglas because only they have stock and your now agitated disabled passenger who needs to have those meds at a certain time of day has to wait even longer as you yet again don't use the blue badge which is there to help them.  Using a blue badge to help them get what they need in an urgent situation is not an abuse and its pretty silly to argue it is. 

But what if...

All the non-disabled parking spaces are taken by alien space ships? Eh? What then? 

It's about as likely to happen as your convoluted scenario. 

11 minutes ago, Fred the shred said:

It is very easy to judge and sometimes circumstances make for difficult decisions, if for instance you took someone with a Blue Badge to the doctors and the doctor gave them a prescription would you then drive them home and then venture out again to visit the chemist to have the prescription made up or escort them back to the car and drive to the nearest chemist and pop in to get the prescription serviced. Things are not always black and white . 

In this scenario the best course of action would be to go to the chemist with the holder of the Blue Badge still in the car, and park in a NON disabled parking spot while you nip into the chemist, leaving the disabled person in the car. It's not rocket science. 

2 hours ago, Lilly said:

your heart is a muscle you benefit from using it.

So true; in the metaphorical sense as well. ❤

On 1/19/2024 at 4:55 PM, Roger Mexico said:

There was an interesting article in the Guardian on this a couple of days ago:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/17/china-population-decline-accelerates-as-birthrate-hits-record-low

The population of China actually fell last year by 3 million.  Some of this may be a post-Covid thing, but the birth rate has also been plummeting.  Note the graph showing that the official ending of the one-child policy made very little difference and none beyond the first year.

The one child policy ended in 2015, so that means people who are currently of child-bearing age are still from the one child era. It was fairly well known that many Chinese couples chose to abort (or even abandon) female offspring in favour of a sought-after son, resulting in a skewed ratio of far more boys than girls being born. 

I have to wonder if this is a large part of what's behind their falling birth rate. You need women to have babies and China probably just doesn't have enough women to keep the rate stable at this point in time, particularly when you add in all the other problems like cost of living. Maybe that will start to change in a dozen or so years, when the effect of a rebalanced ratio can be felt. 

2 minutes ago, CrazyDave said:

Dick 

Yes, you are. We know. Do you not have anything interesting to add to the conversation? 

8 minutes ago, CrazyDave said:

Dick.

Why the obsession with telling us what you are? We already know.