Crohn’s Disease Symptoms Unpredictable.

Prednisone for Crohn’s

Crohnies may find the following interesting.  My Crohn’s disease symptoms appear to be partially unpredictable.  You never know how you will respond to a new medication, different food or just change over time.  Prednisone, Lidocaine gel, Azathioprine, Remicade and many other related medications all seem to help with symptoms most of the time but it seems some type of flare or odd symptom always comes popping out at an inconvenient moment.

I had the flu shot but I believe I had a mild version of the flu anyways characterized by a lot of hot/cold flashes and uncontrolled shaking.  The mild flu seemed to trigger a very unpleasant short crohn’s flare which I thought was not going to go away but fortunately it did not last.  I have not had anything that painful for a couple years.  I contacted both doctors during this flare and asked for some type of heavy duty pain medication for the pain in my rear end.  Doctors are reluctant to hand out strong opioid type medications these days because of the opioid crisis so that was a slow battle.  I was going to go into the hospital and refuse to leave until they treated the symptoms but the symptoms resolved completely by themselves before any new medication was given.  Who knows why?

The GI doctor seems to be pinning the main long term symptom control on a heavy Remicade infusion dosing schedule.  I believe this is gradually working.  It better work.  I saw one Remicade bill on my insurance for $56,000 which I consider to be impressive.   I couldn’t even pay for the copay of one dose without MAPP insurance and I get a dose every six weeks.

Prednisone made a dramatic improvement in an earlier flare that I had and  there were no side effects at all while I was taking it.  There has been a long term change in my symptoms after taking prednisone but I don’t know how long that will last.  Doctors do not like prescribing prednisone because of potential side effects.

I have been taking Azathioprine for many years.  It does give me a lot of skin tags but other than that I don’t even notice any effects.  I take a variety of other medications for Crohn’s related problems which tend to make me a little tired and fall asleep in public if I relax.  I slept through the latest Star Wars movie while snoring loudly which probably irritated everyone near me in the cinema.  My son tried unsuccessfully to keep me awake during Star Wars but it was hopeless.

I have not been impressed with diet based treatments for Crohn’s.  Unless I eat something in large amounts that would upset anyone’s digestion I have not noticed a correlation between diet and Crohn’s flares.

This has just been my experience and all Crohnies may have different results with the same medications or food.  So far my GI tract is intact and I would like to keep it that way without any modifications from happy knife wielding surgeons. My normal GI tract has lasted a long time with these symptoms which seems to surprise the doctors.  Hopefully I will die of old age long before Crohn’s disease kills me with some lovely side effect.

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President Trump’s SOTU Speech.

President Trump’s state of the union speech was fairly reasonable and presidential in my opinion.  I don’t agree with every policy Trump advocates but this speech was acceptable.  Some of the hero guests he pointed out were even inspirational.  The North Korean defector whose legs were amputated and used crutches to escape through China was an excellent example of this group of people.

His proposed pathway to citizenship for daca dreamers is just common sense and in line with the values of the United States.  His idea of a “Great Wall” across the southern border of the United States could be done but is not needed and would be a severe eye sore across many areas of pristine landscape.  Walls are appropriate for many border areas but drones, other technological devices and an increased number of border agents would be a more intelligent solution.  Great Walls are ugly in an open landscape, they are not cheap and they can be breached.

Changing the Afghan war rules of engagement was the appropriate thing to do.  Obama’s rules of engagement were getting Americans killed.  Wars are not won and ended by choir boys.

Trump’s personal life and harsh stupid statements do not concern me as much as the policies he advocates for our country.  Not everything Trump advocates is wrong and Democrats should work with him on areas that are clearly acceptable to anyone with some common sense.  Democratic obstruction will only cause their party to lose the next election.  If Trump stays with the tone and policy he demonstrated in this speech he will win the next presidential election no matter what the democratic party does.

 

The Joy of Cloning!

Manchurian Apricot Fruit Tree in My Wisconsin Garden.

Recently Chinese scientists cloned a monkey which has similar physical characteristics to humans.  The obvious question is when will someone clone a human being.  I believe that it is inherently wrong to create higher animal life by these types of techniques if the animal life will suffer in any way due to botched experimentation.  It is not possible to perfect cloning of higher animals using our current technology without causing severe suffering to many failed experimental animals and even the suffering of an animal has importance to me.

Cloning experimentation on humans will be done by some unethical group in the near future because it is clearly possible and there is always some organization that wants to be the first to make scientific progress.  I am totally opposed to allowing human cloning because I consider it evil based on my cursory reading of the Bible and common sense.  Just because science makes it possible doesn’t mean it should be done.

Human cloning is pretty grim stuff but cloning plants in my garden is great fun.  I am not the first person to discover the joy of cloning.  Some of the native fruit plants in my garden can be cloned and grown into new plants easily because they are not grafted onto any special root stock.  I plan to eventually do some backyard cloning of native fruits and exceptional houseplants for my own enjoyment.  I may even sell clones of any of my plants that it is legal to propagate for resale.  It is possible to make many clones very quickly using cloning powder and an appropriate container.  Commercial nurseries must be making a hefty profit using this technique because it seems incredibly simple on the small scale that I will be doing for relaxation.

I would just buy more plants but the darn things cost too much and my cash is in real short supply at this time in my life.  I particularly would like to clone my Jostaberry bush because they taste so good and yet they have a unique black color which kind of looks unappealing to an uninformed berry thief.  I’d like to make a hedge out of the Jostaberries rapidly using cloning techniques so they would perform the dual purposes of giving me privacy to eat my berries in peace along with providing the berry crop itself.  I doubt that these berries would sell that well due to their appearance but the taste is great.

My Juliet cherry bush is another likely candidate to clone for a hedge combined with a cherry crop.  The cherries have an excellent sweet quality just like sweet cherries from commercial orchards.  I am sure these cherries could be sold if any survive my ravenous plundering of the final crop.  I suppose I will need some netting to stop the birds from beating me to the plundering.  We should actually get a small crop of cherries this year.  I had to severely prune my cherry bush to fit it in my car when we moved to Hartford so I missed a full year of production and reduced future production for a few years.

In my opinion cloning of plants is great but cloning humans not so much.

 

 

 

Government Shutdown = No Congressional Pay.

Why does Congress get paid if it can’t do its job?  Congressional pay should be stopped along with any benefits such as subsidized government health insurance for Congress until they pass a budget.   Anyone else would not get paid if they were this incompetent.

American soldiers will soon be faced with the prospect of delayed paychecks if the government shutdown continues.  They are working and deserve pay for their dangerous jobs on a timely basis.

I am in favor of some type of amnesty for illegal immigrants especially those covered under DACA but the Democrats are wrong to shutdown the government over this issue.  In the long term I favor some type of merit based immigration with exceptions for immigrants being persecuted in their country of origin.  The correct place to address this issue is to win the next election and do what the American people’s vote indicates.  I don’t really like all the policies of Democrats or Republicans but they should find a way to get the basic business of government done without resorting to government shutdowns.

The following actions should be taken in the event of government shutdowns due to congressional incompetence:

1.  Members of Congress should receive no pay for the remainder of their terms if they vote against any budget during a shutdown.
2. Congress should receive no subsidized government benefits or perks such as health insurance.  This should apply anyways until there is 100% health insurance coverage for every American.  Congress can buy 100% of their own health insurance like everyone else.
3. If the government shutdown continues long enough that soldiers are not paid on time then members of Congress should not be allowed to run for election again because they can’t get their job done.  New people are needed to get the job done.

These actions may require a constitutional amendment to implement but they could also probably be passed by Congress under some conditions.

 

It’s too cold.

Engels

It’s too cold outside and everyone here has the flu.  That’s the best I can do today.

 

Holiday Visitors!

We have had some enjoyable holiday visits this year but today someone visited us at our house while walking by. I haven’t seen many relatives from my side living in Hartford so this was a surprise.  

Chess champion.