Archive for the 'medicine' Category

Turned out nice

Published
by
blogmywiki
on November 1, 2007
in medicine and radio
. 0 Comments

Two nice things happened to me today.

  1. The doctor’s receptionist casually mentioned in passing that my chest x-ray was normal. I’ve been dreading the result for weeks…
  2. Alone in a lift at work, the door opens… and Alan Johnston walked in.  Very odd, very very nice. Suddenly face to face with what is now a very famous face. I had 30 seconds alone, chatting with Alan. Put a great big smile on my face.

Colour me wheezy

Published
by
blogmywiki
on October 24, 2006
in asthma and medicine
. 5 Comments

garish tabletsI’m the lucky winner of asthma, and a chest infection has pushed it to a slightly scary place. So I’m currently on a short course of antibiotics and steroid tablets.

I made the serious error of reading the information leaflets for contents and side-effects. Just reading the possible side effects of prednisolone alone is enough to make you feel ill, even if you weren’t before: puffy swollen face, trouble sleeping, sore throat, pains, bruising, abdominal pain, headache, water retention, signs of diabetes…

But what really bothers me is that both these drugs contain artificial food colourings - my steroid tablets contain Ponceau 4R and Sunset Yellow which, in a nice irony, can cause asthma, the very thing I’m being given them to treat! The amoxicillin meanwhile is a technicolor cocktail of Sunset Yellow, Carmoisine, Brilliant Blue (brilliant!), Quinoline Yellow and Titanium Dioxide…

Why are they so garishly and artificially coloured? It’s not as if I had any choice and would have shunned dull-looking capsules for something funky.

Ah, they come for the amoxicillin, but they stay for the Methyl Parahydroxybenzoate (E218)!