Sorry I haven't posted for a couple days----

It's been a crazy week here.

I had my screening colonoscopy on Thursday. If you are over 50, and have not yet had one, what the hell are you waiting for? Whatever anyone tells you about how "horrible" and "awful" the preparation is, no, it's not. I took a bunch of pills (I have a sensitive gag reflex and the liquid prep wouldn't work for me) and it just wasn't that bad. You have to fast (clear liquids only) for 24 hours beforehand, which isn't a lot of fun, but my guess is that colon cancer is a lot less fun. The procedure itself is painless, and I was in and out of the endoscopy center in under 2 hours. We as a society moan and complain about how much healthcare costs, but we put off getting necessary screenings that most insurances pay for because we're too busy or we don't want to be inconvenienced or it's unpleasant. Then we bitch about expensive treatments that could very well be prevented if we took better care of ourselves in the first place. We can all do better (me included) to lessen the burden on the healthcare system. I want to live a lot healthier in the second half of my life than I did the first 50 years.

I went to the most AWESOME seminar on Tuesday evening in Hickory. It was presented by the Compounding Pharmacy, and the subject was on bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. The scheduled time was 2 1/2 hours, it went three with a five minute break, and it was absolutely fascinating. Pat Mixon, who along with her husband own the pharmacy, knows her stuff inside and out. I urge any of you who are in the Piedmont of NC are and are interested in bioidentical hormones, call the pharmacy 828-324-4115 and make a reservation to attend one of the upcoming seminars.

Pat covered a number of topics in the seminar, including why the drug companies are so against bioidentical hormones (can't be patented), why we are unlikely to get large studies done on the efficacy of bioidentical hormones (drug companies won't financially support something they can't profit from). We talked about how changing one molecule in the composition of a substance can dramatically alter the make up (think carbon dioxide versus carbon monoxide), and how to pick apart an article on hormone replacement therapy. She gave numerous examples of how even health care professionals (who should know better) interchangably use the words progesterone and progestin (I've seen this repeatedly). Her best line was something about how women who have heavy bleeding are shocked to discover the products in the maxi pad aisle don't come in "single mattress size". Everyone in the audience (about 30, and several were men) just howled! A great evening all in all.

I promise to be more consistent in posting this week! I have a couple articles I am reviewing to share with you. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone, it's going to be 75 degres here in NC, great spring weather.