YOU Are Important to your loved one -
Yes you are :-)
Do have a look at "The Signs of YOUR Burnout"
Have a look at your Respite options
https://www.liftedcare.com/whos-caring-for-you-5-ways-to-beat-carer-loneliness/ If you’re caring for a person with dementia, the loneliness can sometimes feel overwhelming. Here’s a few ideas that might help you feel less isolated.
Caring isn’t just hard work, it can be incredibly lonely and isolating too. If the person you love has dementia, the loneliness often intensifies as their illness progresses. So is carer loneliness simply an inevitable part of the dementia journey? Or are there ways to prepare and protect yourself from the pain it can cause?
Loneliness in the early stages of dementia
Could this be YOU?
The person you love is still fairly independent and the physical tasks of caring aren’t too arduous just yet. But short-term memory loss is taking its toll. As you steel yourself for the long road ahead, small, seemingly trivial things begin to bother you, and make you feel… lonely.
‘We used to love watching a good thriller together on TV and enjoyed guessing ‘whodunit’. But he can’t follow the plots anymore. It sounds silly because his dementia is still quite mild, and I have a lot to be grateful for, but when we watch TV together now I feel lonely. I’m already missing him.’
Theresa
Loneliness in the mid stages of dementia
Could this be YOU?
The practical tasks involved in caring are becoming more demanding. You sometimes feel exhausted, but the changes in your relationship are more difficult to deal with than any physical tasks. You often feel desperately lonely.
‘I know I’m lucky to still have her with me, but there’s no conversation at all. I try chatting away, as I always have and occasionally I get a response…but usually there’s nothing. Sometimes she looks straight through me. That’s when it really hits me that I’m on my own.’
Bill
Loneliness in the later stages of dementia
Could this be YOU?
If the person you love has moved into a care home, the physical strain may have eased, but the loneliness can feel acute. It’s hardly surprising that many carers find this the loneliest time of all.
‘I visit him every day, but I dread going back home because the loneliness is unbearable. I know I need to keep busy and I could do all those hobbies I used to enjoy, but I can’t muster any enthusiasm. The light has gone out of my life.’
Mary
Did you know?
Loneliness can be as harmful to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes per day.
Are you feeling lonely? 5 ways to help yourself
1.Be kinder to yourself
Your feelings are normal and natural. Even if your loved one’s dementia is still very mild, you are still experiencing loss. You may also be experiencing anticipatory grief (or ‘living grief’) as you look ahead and wonder what might happen next. Don’t underestimate how difficult and painful this process can be. Berating yourself won’t help you (it will probably make you feel a whole lot worse) and it definitely won’t help the person you love.
2. Be honest with family and friends
A dementia diagnosis affects everyone in the family – not just you – so don’t be afraid to share the load. Relatives and close friends often want to help, but don’t know how. A simple phone call, explaining how you feel, might be all it takes to get them onboard, and make you feel less alone.
3. Stay in touch
Try to make sure you have some contact with the outside world every day. Even if it’s just chatting to a neighbour, having a quick coffee with a friend or talking to your grandchildren on Skype.
4. Take a break
This might sound easier said than done, however most carers agree that respite is the best way to combat loneliness. Go here to find out more.
This is YOUR Team
and those all-important Men's Sheds
not forgetting your hidden Very Own Man Cave - Your own INCREDIBLE AND INGENIOUS Hidden Rooms AND Furniture.
but I am a Male
and DO Look after Yourself
with Mindfulness of your Breath
Feel you need more support?
It’s normal to feel sad or worried sometimes, especially when life gets tough. Sometimes, you might need some help to feel better again. If you’re struggling with your mind, support is available. There are a range of services and organizations that can help.
The Benefits of Friendship
Strong friendships are a critical aspect of most people's emotional well-being. Research indicates that close friendships are associated with greater happiness, self-esteem, and sense of purpose. These bonds are even associated with physical outcomes, such as lower blood pressure and a longer lifespan.
In caring for my Don, I found that I lost some of my friends. I was just not able to leave Don and go to ... So some just sort of faded away. This hurt!!! But, I then discovered a whole new set of people who, it turned out, had looked after/were currently looking after, their loved one. They KNEW Exactly what I was going through. It was just what I needed. Someone who Actually knew what I was going through at 'that' time. As these friendships deepened, I felt lest lost, more secure in my everyday caring of Don, and... I could openly ask any questions I needed to ask - regardless of whether I considered them trivial, momentous, or I was somehow curious as to 'How' I could manage this... that had happened again just last night. HOW to handle, WHAT could I do, and above all, How Not to panic. I knew I could call on them whatever the hour, and thus it proved. I missed my 'old' friends, but in making these new friends, I could look after Don better and be 'totally understood' whenever I just turned up to their door and said "Whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"... I found that I could cry, ramp and rave, and generally 'lose it' and know that I was being Totally understood. This was Freedom. This was Wonderful! At last, someone who knew Exactly what I was going through, day after day, night after night... As it turned out, this ongoing, unquestioned support enabled me to look after my Don for that last 23 years of his natural life. Thank you.
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Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
The incredible worth of finding the laughter!!! :-) Because laughing with others reduces stress and releases happiness hormones :-)
We care out of Love, and some care out of Obligation, but whichever it is for you, YOU need all the help you can get. These webpages will help guide you and hopefully reduce your Stress levels and the sense that Everything is Too Hard, Too out of control, and anyway, YOU are just Too Tired to care, for now.
And do remember that MOST IMPORTANT PERSON - Yes!!! YOU... For without YOU, your loved one's feelings of security, peace, ability to react with others, are all at stake. You have taken on this task as the Most Difficult Thing YOU will ever do within Your Lifetime. It is ultimately your Gift to your loved one. The gift of being Loved.
... not only for their ongoing care, but to keep up their spirits and let them know that whatever they are going through, whatever is happening 'Yet Again', that you are There - for Them. YOUR loved one's task is to make this role easier on both of you by being attentive, helping where and however they can, as you fully realize that this Important Task you are undertaking is not for the faint-hearted; but it IS for the Long Term...
Talking to doctors, nurses and others can be daunting. The most important thing to know is that you have a right to talk to them. You have the right to tell health professionals what you think is important for the person you care for and to ask questions. It's OK. They don't Know everything... Like your loved one's reaction to the latest medication change; the worsening of their heart, bowel, lung, back pain... symptoms, and how you were up most of the last night calming, changing pads and the bedclothes, soothing to sleep... all the while juggling their low mood, tendency to isolate themselves, meals, medications, doctor appointments, exercise regimes... their Other health aliments... This is Exhausting!!!
And do remember that MOST IMPORTANT PERSON - Yes!!! YOU... For without YOU, your loved one's feelings of security, peace, ability to react with others, are all at stake. You have taken on this task as the Most Difficult Thing YOU will ever do within Your Lifetime. It is ultimately your Gift to your loved one.
https://www.naturalelementsforlife.com.au/immune-system
Some Tips on YOUR S T R E S S Management . . . and of course :-) Eat Well during this time!!!
Often caregiving is for the long-haul and can take a major toll on your own health. Do look at 'dipping your toe in the water' and asking for some Respite.
NO, it's not 'Just YOU'. However, what it DOES mean is that you recognise that it takes a TEAM to look after your loved one. It doesn't have to be just YOU!!! Yes, I know that you can do it, but what if Your health fails, who then looks after your loved one? Or would you have to have an urgent look at nursing home placement? For me, the deciding factor was just that. What if MY health failed? What if I fell and needed hospital care? Who would look after Don?
https://www.naturalelementsforlife.com.au/immune-system
Some Tips on YOUR S T R E S S Management . . . and of course :-) Eat Well during this time!!!
Your pH levels
Choosing 'YOUR Team'... Always best to involve their Home Care Organization. Spell it out - EXACTLY HOW IT 'IS'. No sugarcoating, no pretending YOU can handle all of this. And NO, it is Not OK to 'stick it out'... We're talking about Your life here...
Take just yesterday. You had inadvertently slept in because you were Totally Exhausted having spent part of the night changing the bed, soothing your loved one's anxieties, guiding them to the bathroom - again, cleaning up the spillage, and then soothing and tucking them into bed... What is truly Scary, is that this has almost become the norm - almost Every night. Someone you know had suggested that you get in help - like from a Provider, but it doesn't seem to you that it is needed - not just yet anyway. Please reconsider... e.g. It takes time to ring MyAgedCare on 1800 200 422 (over 65 years of age), get all the information together and answer All those questions over the phone. Then there is the RAS who come into your home and ask you More questions and fill in yet More forms. Does your loved one have an ACAT?
A What??? This needs to be arranged (you can ask your GP to help if you like), otherwise it can be arranged for you by the MyAgedCare team. An appointment will be made with an ACAT (Aged Care Assessment Team) member who will visit you in your home and determine what level of care would best suit your loved one. This alone may take a few months as they can get quite busy... In the meantime you will have needed to gather up all your financial information and answer even more questions - to determine if your loved one can contribute $ toward their care. And so it goes... Probably best to get started now, even if it does seem to you to be 'Too Early'.
What a Carer Actually DOES:
Carer self-assessment checklist:
As a carer, there are a number of things to consider to make sure both you and the person you care for remain as healthy as possible, both physically and emotionally. By doing a carer needs assessment and self-assessing your own situation, you will better know what resources you may need to draw on in the future.
A good place to start for a self-assessment is to note down how many hours you spend each week helping, supervising or prompting the person you care for with, for example:
Knowing how much time you spend on these home care activities will also help you when you are assessed for Government carer support services.
Print Resources Different people have different needs for information at different times during an illness. Patients will also have different needs from their carers. To support these different needs the following list of resources has been compiled based around topics relevant to patients and their carers. The source of the information is included, note that some information is from outside Australia.
https://www.caresearch.com.au/tabid/7015/Default.aspx#BGL
In the meantime, have a look around and learn what's available in your own community
If your health fails, who looks after your loved one? I know that we Carers are good; BUT lack of sleep and less time for YOU, takes its toll... I know this sounds trite, but YOU need to eat well. Stress and Depression can take their toll on your health too!
And here is a handy List of Contacts … and remember, there IS Help when YOU have to go into hospital. Watch video Caring for the Caregiver.
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H O M E is where the Heart is...
Most Australians want to grow old and receive care in their own homes, research conducted by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety shows.
A survey of more than 10,000 Australians reveals that 80 per cent of older people want to remain in their current home and 62 per cent want to receive care services in their own home.
Things can sometimes happen quite quickly eg. hospitalization and your condition may mean you cannot return to your own home. This can be devastating for both you and your loved one.
Having your own home prepared in advance (sometimes Years in advance), can not only be helpful for you to return to your own home, but can be the difference between this decision and having to move permanently to a nursing home.
and of course, there is always Chocolate :-)
Help IS at hand -
Lists and explains those Essential people and Specialists you can turn to for that All Important HELP...
In my 23 years of hands on care in the home, the Most Important thing I ever did, was to co-ordinate this Team. I was the one who wrote of "What has changed since your last visit", and insisted Everyone who attended Don read it first, Before they started their shift with him.
Every time we went to the GP (and this was a Lot; what with all the falls... and adverse reactions to almost all the medications...), I stood there and Insisted the Doctor read the summary first, 'Before' attending to Don. It was interesting that the A&E staff would say to me, "Where did you get this? This is like gold. Can we take a copy?" I always smiled and said, "Yes" :-)
We care out of Love, and some care out of Obligation, but whichever it is for you, YOU need all the help you can get. These webpages will help guide you and hopefully reduce your Stress levels and the sense that Everything is Too Hard, Too out of control, and anyway, YOU are just Too Tired to care, for now...
Caregiving isn’t necessarily a women’s problem or a man’s problem—it’s an organizational challenge, especially when nearly 70% of working caregivers experience work-related challenges as a result of their dual working-caregiver roles (AARP).
Most of the 'work' of Carers is done in isolation, in the home, far away from the ordinary duties and obligations of everyday life. To your neighbours, acquaintances, friends and colleagues, you appear to be the same person they have always known. They may comment occasionally that you are 'looking tired' but with little real understanding of just what you are going through, every day and every night. They get used to you saying that you cannot join them for an outing, a trip, even time out for a coffee... and eventually will give up even inviting you. This Hurts! You long to explain what is happening. Why you are just SO tired all the time, and that what happened again, just last night, threw you right out of the loop.
When caring for my Don, and reading ahead about the disease and what to expect in the longer term, for my own 'Survival' I developed a saying :-)
"Step Back", "Step Back", "Step Back", and kept repeating this to myself as I, quite literally, stepped back and then back again, placing an ever increasing distance between the disaster that had just happened - a fall, the cleanup, the seemingly impossible task of... and my loved one. I did this because it was only by physically distancing myself from the ... that I was able to think clearly and constructively about what to to next. Sometimes I would "Step back" so far that I would end up at the other end of the verandah, other times I would end up at the other end of the hallway... But it Worked!
My thinking was that by quite physically removing myself from the ... that the emotional reaction became less and I could then concentrate on the physical disaster that had just happened. Then, standing quite still, I would work out the best way to tackle the ... Step One, Step Two, Step Three and Step Four. Only then would I move toward Don and begin the clean up and recovery task.
Caregiving is Relentless. It is is Exhausting. It is Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! But it still needs to be done. This task you have taken on is the most difficult thing you will ever do within your lifetime. At its best, it is called a 'learning curve'. At its worst, it is called Hell.
Scroll through these headings at your leisure. Read only short excerpts at a time. Read only those things that are relevant to You At This Time. And Forgive Yourself on a daily basis. You are not superhuman, and no-one expects it of you, except perhaps YOU.
Know too that this time will pass. That in years to come you will look back and wonder how you ever lived through it. There is a deep satisfaction in caregiving. It elicits All the emotions. You will face fear, doubt your own ability to cope, laugh, cry and scream about the injustice of it all, and just Do It.
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Our lungs are amazing organs which help us breathe and exchange oxygen (O2) with carbon dioxide (CO2). This process is about removing excess carbon from our cells and blood which assist in balancing the acidity and alkalinity levels in our body, this helps us maintain pH level of 7.4 in our blood. This is also a similar ideal pH level of water and soil for growth.
This balance is maintained by 3 main organs working together to keep the balance. These 3 organs include the brain, heart and lungs. 2 independent parts of the brain work together, one to monitor oxygen levels in the blood and the other monitors the carbon dioxide levels.
https://www.medicalsearch.com.au/how-your-lungs-balance-your-body-s-ph-level/f/21406
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An interesting article to have you thinking - click here. These are the Daily Tasks you undertake when you 'make your own home...'
YOU Can take Control...
and Those Visiting Relatives ...
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3. 26. 20 / BY VICTOR TANGERMANN WE FINALLY HAVE A NAME FOR THAT SHITTY CORONAVIRUS FEELING
"WE KNOW THIS IS TEMPORARY, BUT IT DOESN’T FEEL THAT WAY, AND WE REALIZE THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT."
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Summary. During the global pandemic, a palpable sense of collective grief has emerged. Grief expert David Kessler says that grief is actually multiple feelings that we must manage. In an interview with HBR, he explains how the classic five stages of grief - denial, anger,...more
Psychology | That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief
If we can name it, perhaps we can manage it. We turned to David Kessler for ideas on how to do that. Kessler is the world’s foremost expert on grief. He co-wrote with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief through the Five Stages of Loss. His new book adds another stage to the process, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief. Kessler also has worked for a decade in a three-hospital system in Los Angeles. He served on their biohazards team. His volunteer work includes being an LAPD Specialist Reserve for traumatic events as well as having served on the Red Cross’s disaster services team. He is the founder of www.grief.com, which has over 5 million visits yearly from 167 countries.
Kessler shared his thoughts on why it’s important to acknowledge the grief you may be feeling, how to manage it, and how he believes we will find meaning in it. The conversation is lightly edited for clarity.
HBR: People are feeling any number of things right now. Is it right to call some of what they’re feeling grief?
Kessler: Yes, and we’re feeling a number of different griefs. We feel the world has changed, and it has. We know this is temporary, but it doesn’t feel that way, and we realize things will be different. Just as going to the airport is forever different from how it was before 9/11, things will change and this is the point at which they changed. The loss of normalcy; the fear of economic toll; the loss of connection. This is hitting us and we’re grieving. Collectively. We are not used to this kind of collective grief in the air.
You said we’re feeling more than one kind of grief?
Yes, we’re also feeling anticipatory grief. Anticipatory grief is that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain. Usually it centers on death. We feel it when someone gets a dire diagnosis or when we have the normal thought that we’ll lose a parent someday. Anticipatory grief is also more broadly imagined futures. There is a storm coming. There’s something bad out there. With a virus, this kind of grief is so confusing for people. Our primitive mind knows something bad is happening, but you can’t see it. This breaks our sense of safety. We’re feeling that loss of safety. I don’t think we’ve collectively lost our sense of general safety like this. Individually or as smaller groups, people have felt this. But all together, this is new. We are grieving on a micro and a macro level.
What can individuals do to manage all this grief?
Understanding the stages of grief is a start. But whenever I talk about the stages of grief, I have to remind people that the stages aren’t linear and may not happen in this order. It’s not a map but it provides some scaffolding for this unknown world. There’s denial, which we say a lot of early on: This virus won’t affect us. There’s anger: You’re making me stay home and taking away my activities. There’s bargaining: Okay, if I social distance for two weeks everything will be better, right? There’s sadness: I don’t know when this will end. And finally there’s acceptance. This is happening; I have to figure out how to proceed.
Acceptance, as you might imagine, is where the power lies. We find control in acceptance. I can wash my hands. I can keep a safe distance. I can learn how to work virtually.
When we’re feeling grief there’s that physical pain. And the racing mind. Are there techniques to deal with that to make it less intense?
Let’s go back to anticipatory grief. Unhealthy anticipatory grief is really anxiety, and that’s the feeling you’re talking about. Our mind begins to show us images. My parents getting sick. We see the worst scenarios. That’s our minds being protective. Our goal is not to ignore those images or to try to make them go away — your mind won’t let you do that and it can be painful to try and force it. The goal is to find balance in the things you’re thinking. If you feel the worst image taking shape, make yourself think of the best image. We all get a little sick and the world continues. Not everyone I love dies. Maybe no one does because we’re all taking the right steps. Neither scenario should be ignored but neither should dominate either.
Anticipatory grief is the mind going to the future and imagining the worst. To calm yourself, you want to come into the present. This will be familiar advice to anyone who has meditated or practiced mindfulness but people are always surprised at how prosaic this can be. You can name five things in the room. There’s a computer, a chair, a picture of the dog, an old rug, and a coffee mug. It’s that simple. Breathe. Realize that in the present moment, nothing you’ve anticipated has happened. In this moment, you’re okay. You have food. You are not sick. Use your senses and think about what they feel. The desk is hard. The blanket is soft. I can feel the breath coming into my nose. This really will work to dampen some of that pain.
You can also think about how to let go of what you can’t control. What your neighbor is doing is out of your control. What is in your control is staying six feet away from them and washing your hands. Focus on that.
Finally, it’s a good time to stock up on compassion. Everyone will have different levels of fear and grief and it manifests in different ways. A coworker got very snippy with me the other day and I thought, That’s not like this person; that’s how they’re dealing with this. I’m seeing their fear and anxiety. So be patient. Think about who someone usually is and not who they seem to be in this moment.
One particularly troubling aspect of this pandemic is the open-endedness of it...
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Your Backup Brain
There's a "second brain" in your stomach. It influences:
And you thought it was all in your head!
https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/articles/201111/your-backup-brain
One of the easiest ways to manage stress, where you are or what time it is. Breathe in deeply through your nose and out through your mouth, holding each inward and outward breath for 5 seconds. Repeat for 3 to 5 minutes.
Oh! and don't forget the Healing Powers of Water...
and do remember - even if your loved one has had to go into a nursing home - YOU are still NEEDED
Questions for carers to ask the team caring for your loved one
Some of the questions found here may not be relevant to the stage of care of your friend or family member. But it is always good to clarify and ask any questions of the team caring for your loved one that you may have. No question is ever a wrong question, and your health care provider will always aim to answer all the questions you may have.
These professionals are Your TEAM - those people you can turn to when you do not know what/ if anything... you can do to help your loved one...
You only have to ASK. SO, next time your loved one is in the hospital, ask to speak to a Social Worker. They have those practical skills - like what paperwork do I have to fill in now - How?
And - when the time comes when you have to place your loved one in the Nursing Home or Palliative Care - the Social Worker is your saviour. They know all about the paperwork, the arrangements that have to be made... They will work in the background with the Doctors, the Nurses, the hospital staff... and get it done... This relieves YOU to concentrate on your loved one. To reassure them. To be with them. And to just 'be there' where you are Needed...
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Help IS at hand -
Lists and explains those Essential people and Specialists you can turn to for that All Important HELP...
Find a short-term stay in a nursing home (Respite) to give YOU a break :-) to visit your parents, attend a friend's wedding, or just chill out! for awhile...
https://www.agedcareguide.com.au/global-search?q=Respite
this site is also useful if looking for long term care.
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Oh! and don't forget the Healing Powers of Water...
and do remember - even if your loved one has had to go into a nursing home - YOU are still NEEDED
But I am a Male!
“But really, I’m not a caregiver now, and I don’t see myself becoming one anytime soon.”
“Yeah, but I’m not even the caregiving type. Isn’t that a women’s problem?”
I think I'm a Carer. What do I do now?
Put together 'Your Team'.
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Carers are generally happy with the standard of aged care support provided to the people in their care, but a national survey indicates that both aged care providers and the aged care system need to do more to address their needs.
Elena Katrakis
The demand for unpaid carers was currently at an all time high and was set to increase in the future, she said.
Carers can contact Carer Gateway on 1800 422 73, to speak to trained worker in their local area and help find services and support.
A Carer is any individual who provides unpaid care and support to a family member or friend who has:
The 2020 National Carer Survey Report released by Carers NSW canvassed responses from almost 8,000 carers across the nation. Of those, 2,477 said they were caring for someone using aged care services and 2,615 were looking after an NDIS participant. Both NDIS and aged care services were less likely to meet the needs of carers than the people they were caring for.
The survey shows there are more than 2.65 million unpaid carers in Australia, who will provide nearly 2.2 billion hours of care in 2020 at an estimated value to the economy of $1.5 billion a week.
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§ Your sleep problems may actually be a breathing problem
§ Most sleep aids are making your sleep problems even worse
§ You’ll continue to gain weight until you treat this one problem
§ Oxygen is a necessity of Life and of Combustion. It constitutes about 2/3 rds of the weight of our bodies, and one fifth of the weight of the air
§ People who sleep less than 5 hours or more than 9 are at higher risk for dying
§ Most doctors misdiagnose this simple yet chronic sleep/breathing disorder
§ Overbreathing is a prime contributory factor in snoring and sleep apnoea.
§ Many people with cold hands and feet are the beginning symptoms of a sleep breathing disorder
§ You can have hot flashes, night sweats and mood swings and NOT be going through menopause
§ Your jaw shape affects how well you sleep
§ Non-creative people sleep better than creative types
§ Most sleep aids are making your sleep problems even worse
§ Oxygen is a necessity of Life and of Combustion. It constitutes about 2/3 rds of the weight of our bodies, and one fifth of the weight of the air.
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"All this dirty air does not just clog vistas; it also clogs the lungs and the respiratory system. Basically, tiny pollutants 50 times smaller than a human hair can enter the lung and sometimes get into the bloodstream, compromising the immune system. Without normal healthy mucosa, the nose and lung lose the ability to slough off bacteria and viruses typically inhaled.
------- propofol and dexamethasone. Propofol for intubation and sedation and dexamethasone for the lungs’ inflammation due to the COVID virus attacking the lungs before it makes its way to all other vital organs.
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Lungs normally clear pollutants through the removal of viruses and bacteria by coughing. Healthy nose hairs also block the inhalation of pollutants. But chronic air pollution compromises the ability of the lungs to do their job. The natural mucociliary escalator dries up and cannot do its job of keeping us healthy.
Further compounding these situations, there’s a low level of vitamin D that comes about from the lack of sunlight. It is well known that those who live in the Northern Hemisphere tend to have lower levels of this essential nutrient. Those living in densely polluted regions will not have the opportunity for sunlight that causes the liver to produce this important disease-fighting vitamin. All of which suggests that the coronavirus may be much less of a problem in areas that are not as crowded, have better sanitation, and lower air pollution than in other zones."
https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2020/03/pollution-in-china-and-iran-are-worsening-the-coronavirus.html
If we were able to breathe “naturally” for even a small percentage of the more than 15,000 breaths we take during each waking day, we would be taking a huge step not only toward preventing many of the physical and psychological problems that have become endemic to modern life, but also toward supporting our own inner growth—the growth of awareness of who and what we really are, of our own essential being.
There is a profound effect to people’s health when they start dropping off a few of those thousands of breath. If 15,000 is about normal what would life be like if we reduced that to 10,000 breaths a day or less?
1. Breathing detoxifies and releases toxins.
The Calm
The Calm Breathing Room starts at a calming pace of five breaths per minute for one minute and then slows you down even more into a breathing rate that relaxes you and allows you to sink into a state of calmness and relaxation, which releases stress and allows your body, mind and soul to experience peace.
www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/breathing-exercises-for-anxiety
This is just SO true. Many thanks for drawing attention to this All Important Aspect of our lives. Breathing just cannot be underestimated. It's called, Living Your Life...
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Respite for Carers on the Gold Coast
Print Resources Different people have different needs for information at different times during an illness. Patients will also have different needs from their carers. To support these different needs the following list of resources has been compiled based around topics relevant to patients and their carers. The source of the information is included, note that some information is from outside Australia.
https://caresearch.com.au/caresearch/tabid/1262/Default.aspx#BGL
Living on the Gold Coast?
Our Angels Carer Support Group are being helped by these Tradespeople... Those who are Caring for others give all of their time 24/7 for the well-being of their loved one. It is a relentless, loving and all exhausting time in their lives, and those for whom they care... Rob Cinelli of LJ Hooker, Shop 2/10 Fifth Avenue, Palm Beach Qld 4221 has been helping us with practical help and suggestions.
Even home renovations we now have the time to do. Their help is making our lives that much easier.
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https://www.caring.com/caregivers/family-caregivers/#a-snapshot-of-family-caregivers-of-seniors-today
New to Caring/ unsure how to continue in your increasingly fraught and more demanding role for your loved one? Easily set out important info...
- - - - - - - - - - Are you a Carer and worried about what Help you can get? Like... NOW...
Since 6 April 2020, the full suite of services ARE NOW available using a network of Carer Gateway regional service providers. Do have a look at the National Carer Gateway for services that will help YOU, the carer, care for your loved one...
Your loved one is on the NDIS? Look here: NDIS - Be prepared
Mental Health resources under the NEW Wellways: https://www.wellways.org/understanding-mental-health/information-and-resources/mental-health-and-disability
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Help IS at hand -
Lists and explains those Essential people and Specialists you can turn to for that All Important HELP...
· A GP (for general/referrals/other Health Services ) - go to the HealthShare.com.au
Make better health choices - Search for a health professional, specialty or health topic.
You can also access the Free Beyond the Basics (English) patient content in UpToDate by simply typing a term or phrase in the "Search Patient Content" box. Look up your specific question — anything from a symptom you're concerned about to a condition or treatment you've been discussing with your healthcare provider.
After you read the information in UpToDate, you will have the tools and the confidence to ask the right questions and have important conversations with your healthcare provider. Remember to print the information you find in UpToDate so you can discuss it with your healthcare provider.
UpToDate® is the premier evidence-based clinical decision support resource, trusted worldwide by healthcare practitioners to help them make the right decisions at the point of care. It is proven to change the way clinicians practice medicine, and is the only resource of its kind associated with improved outcomes.
Bulk Billed Telehealth:
In a major boost for primary health care, the Australian Government is further strengthening telehealth arrangements as recommended by the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) and other medical experts. April 2021
https://www.health.gov.au/ministers/the-hon-greg-hunt-mp/media/continuous-care-with-telehealth-stage-seven
https://croakey.org/what-will-new-restrictions-on-telehealth-mean-for-healthcare-access/
Continued telehealth services...
Under stage seven of telehealth reforms announced, Medicare-subsidised telehealth services, introduced as a key part of the COVID-19 response, will now promote patients receiving continuous care from a patient’s regular GP or medical practice.
Since 10 July 2020, Minister Hunt announced stage seven of the telehealth reforms as part of the Australian Government COVID-19 response. Further information is available on the webpage - continuous care with telehealth stage seven release.
Telehealth GP providers will be required to have an existing and continuous relationship with a patient in order to provide Telehealth services. A relationship is defined as the patient having seen the same practitioner for a face-to-face service in the last 12 months, or having seen a doctor at the same practice for a face-to-face service during the same period.
“The extension will ensure that Australians can continue to see their GP, renew scripts and seek mental health support from the safety of their own home. This allows vulnerable Australians to feel protected and supported during these unprecedented times,” Minister Hunt said.
People in isolation or quarantine for COVID-19 can see any eligible health provider through new telehealth items. Patients in vulnerable groups can additionally see a health provider via telehealth for a non-COVID-19 matter if they have seen that provider, or another provider within the same practice, face-to-face at least once in the previous 12 months. Additional guides to these services for providers are available via MBS Online. All services provided using the new MBS items must be bulk billed.
Contact your GP doctor, mental health practitioner or midwife by phone, especially if you have cold or flu symptoms and explain your situation.
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended health care, with telemedicine emerging as a strategy to reduce risk exposures for patients and clinicians. Originating from the Greek root tēle-, tēl-, tēle meaning “far off, afar, at or to a distance,” telemedicine encompasses virtual clinical services. Video visits, in particular, can be effective for many types of clinical care and offer convenience and savings for patients. As care shifts to this virtual modality, however, there is a risk of jeopardizing the meaningful human interaction that is critical to clinical care and impactful to patients and clinicians alike.
The communication challenges of telemedicine, further compounded by COVID-19 related stress, call for strategies to help clinicians forge meaningful interactions with patients during virtual visits.
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The Legal Toolkit provides practical information and video about the law at end of life for the aged care sector. It contains useful resources on end of life legal issues commonly encountered in aged care to help you to know the law and to support your practice. To find out more, read our Legal factsheet (701kb pdf).
02 March 2020
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Talking informally with other Carers Does Help!
Angels Carer Support Group - for present and past Carers, who pass on those Essential tips of how to survive Caregiving...
Held the last Tuesday of each month at St. Paul's Anglican Church Hall, 69 Palm Beach Ave, PALM BEACH - Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 26th April 2022, as usual start at 1pm and finish around 3pm. The companionship is Beyond Your Expectations! There are Tips and Ways of Coping that you may not have thought of. Many friendships have been forged. We know that by speaking out about What IS REALLY HAPPENING we learn to Relax with our decisions. This makes Caring just SO much easier. A place where you KNOW you are being UNDERSTOOD - AND HELPED - Unconditionally...
Come about 1.00pm for that cuppa and a chat. Often we have Speakers on subjects of interest to us as Carers - they start about 1.30pm and go to about 3.00pm. Other times we just sit, relax and enjoy each other's company and support each other as we face the daily caregiving tasks. Sit and chat, and take a brief break - for YOU :-) Father Phillip is a Great Supporter of the Angels. Our next meeting is on the 29th March 2022. 1pm - 3pm as usual in the church hall.
YOU are most welcome to join us :-) Do take CARE of YOU too...
and to find out what else is going on in the Palm Beach area: http://palmbeachgoldcoast.net.au/events/
Living on the Gold Coast? Our Angels Carer Support Group are being helped by these Tradespeople... Those who are Caring for others give all of their time 24/7 for the well-being of their loved one. It is a relentless, loving and all exhausting time in their lives, and those for whom they care... Rob Cinelli of LJ Hooker, Shop 2/10 Fifth Avenue, Palm Beach Qld 4221 has been helping us with practical help and suggestions. Even home renovations we now have the time to do. Their help is making our lives that much easier.
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In Crisis?
There is help - Womensline 1800 811 811. Anytime - 24/7.
DVConnect Womensline is the only state wide telephone service offering women who are experiencing domestic or family violence 24 hours a day 7 days a week. They offer free , professional and non-judgemental telephone support to you, wherever you live in Queensland.
Calls to 1800 811 811 are free from any public phone.
21 April 2022
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) at a glance
This infographic provides a quick view of the current coronavirus (COVID-19) situation in Australia. Updated every afternoon based on the data we receive by 3.00pm from states and territories.
Omicron Propagates 70 Times Faster than Delta in Bronchi: Study
A preprint reports that the new SARS-CoV-2 variant multiplies faster in human bronchial tissue but slower in lung tissue than the Delta variant, potentially explaining how it’s spreading from person to person so quickly.
4. 14. 20 / BY DAN ROBITZSKI
FDA APPROVES TEST THAT SCANS YOUR SPIT FOR CORONAVIRUS NO MORE STICKING SWABS ALL THE WAY TO THE BACK OF YOUR NOSE.
The FDA just issued an emergency use authorization to a new coronavirus test that analyzes saliva instead of relying on a nasal swab wedged all the way into the back of the nose.
If the new test, developed at the Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository (RUCDR) is deployed at scale, it could help make testing far more accessible. It would also make administering tests much safer for medical workers.
How Are Antibodies Produced and What's Their Role in the Immune System?
Medical Reviewer: Poonam Sachdev, MD Medically Reviewed on 11/29/2021
Antibodies, antigens, and the immune system:
Antibodies are proteins made by your immune system to try and protect you. Antibodies are created when your immune system reacts to toxins, pollen, and infectious organisms. Your body is constantly making antibodies, so it has a constant supply ready to fight thousands of different threats.
In the immune system, antibodies work against antigens. These are infections and the poisonous substances that they may produce. Antibodies react to antigens either on the surface of infected cells or in the substances they produce. Antibodies leave a mark that flags these cells as foreign and dangerous—this lets other antibodies know a foreign cell needs to be destroyed. The immune system's antibodies wipe out the infection, as well as other health-threatening cells, proteins, and chemicals.
The immune system:
Antibodies are an integral part of your body’s immune system. There are different kinds of antibodies, but all are necessary to the immune system to fight foreign bacteria and viruses.
Your immune system is composed of organs, cells, and chemicals that all work together to fight infections that threaten your body. In addition to antibodies, important parts of the immune system include white blood cells, the complement system and the lymphatic system, the spleen, the thymus, and bone marrow.
Your immune system is extremely effective. By creating certain targeted, tailor-made white blood cells, it adapts, altering in response to every bacteria and virus you encounter. These changes allow the immune system to quickly defeat infections if they make their way into your body again. A strong immune system will destroy foreign threats before they can multiply and make you ill.
There are certain infections that you’ll fight over and over again because there are so many different versions of the virus. Illnesses like the flu and common cold come in many "models," each vulnerable to its own unique antibodies. So, when you catch the flu you don’t gain immunity against all the other versions of the flu.
The immune system can be overactive or underactive. Overactivity might look like an allergic or autoimmune disease. Underactivity, also known as immunodeficiency, can have genetic causes, can result from treatments like medications or chemotherapy, or can occur after contracting another disease.
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What We Know About How Masks Can Slow Disease Spread
Not all masks are created equal, and how they are worn makes a difference too.
Diana Kwon July 8, 2020
N95 respirator: Tight-fitting single-use masks typically made with synthetic materials such as polyester and polypropylene. These masks are able to filter out at least 95 percent of both large airborne droplets and aerosols.
Surgical/medical masks: Loose-fitting single-use masks made with three or more layers of synthetic materials. These can filter out large airborne particles, but some aerosols can leak through, and particle-containing air is able to flow around the edges.
Fabric masks: These often-homemade masks vary widely in their construction and effectiveness. Aerosols are likely to leak through, and particle-containing air is able to flow around the edges. With appropriate washing or a couple of days to decontaminate, fabric masks are reusable.
"Health just got more complicated in the age of COVID. Just for starters, wearing masks is a health hazard because it cuts down on oxygen intake and forces one to breathe back in higher concentrations of CO2. Not a good idea over the long run as many people are just beginning to find out. Reports of bacterial pneumonia and other infections from wearing masks are coming in."
https://drsircus.com/general/health-sickness-death-and-covid/
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The Scientist: How does the physics of coughs and sneezes play into the transmission of diseases such as COVID-19? Lydia Bourouiba: Right now, we believe [SARS-CoV-2 is] transmitted mostly through the respiratory tract. The infection occurs in the respiratory tract and emissions from the tract are the propulsion mechanism of the virus into the environment and toward others. It’s very important, therefore, to understand not only the distances but also the timescales of exposures. The virus is never emitted in the air on its own. It’s always in the mucosalivary secretion that is emitted from either breathing out, coughing, or sneezing. In all cases, you’re creating a cloud, but the drop-size distribution and the energy of the gas will be different.
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/how-our-exhalations-help-spread-pathogens-such-as-sars-cov-2-67763
TS: What happens with our fluids when we do something like sneeze or cough?
LB: The exhalation is very much like a cloud . . . but it’s a [cloud] with a much higher momentum for coughs and sneezes. It . . . is moving around like you see when you have condensation on top of a pot. And it also contains this payload of droplets, like real clouds outside, [with] swelling and motion and turbulence inside.
Amanda Heidt 30 July 2020
Jul 26, 2021 HUMAN INTEREST HEALTH & CARE
Australia must get serious about airborne infection transmission – here’s what we need to do
Early July last year, the federal government announced a four-stage plan to bring the country back to something resembling normality. Acknowledging it will be impossible to eradicate COVID-19 completely, the plan focuses on a variety of steps – most notably vaccination – to enable the country to live with the virus.
However, if we want this plan to work, there’s one crucial control measure yet to be considered: protection against airborne transmission of the infection in public indoor spaces.
We need to modernise our indoor environments to protect Australians from respiratory infections, and more broadly, from all indoor air hazards. This includes indoor exposure to pollution originating from outdoors, such as bushfire smoke.
The evidence is in: The body of scientific evidence pointing to airborne transmission as the key route by which SARS-CoV-2 spreads is now overwhelming.
Put simply, over the past 18 months, we have come to understand most people become infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 by inhaling it from shared air. The risk is predominantly indoors.
Consequently, every public building should have control measures in place to provide adequate ventilation.
But this information hasn’t been communicated to Australians – many of whom remain focused on hand washing and cleaning surfaces. These are good practices, but because SARS-CoV-2 spreads predominantly through the air, they likely provide only a marginal contribution to infection control.
While the World Health Organization has recently released a roadmap to improve indoor ventilation in the context of COVID-19, many Australian public spaces are significantly under-ventilated.
We don’t know exactly what proportion of infections would be prevented by improving ventilation in public places, but the evidence indicates this could drastically reduce the risk.
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) at a glance:
COVID-19 - Long COVID: Symptoms experienced during infection may predict lasting illness
Earlier in the pandemic, it appeared that the majority of people infected with the coronavirus experienced mild-to-moderate symptoms and generally recovered within two to three weeks, depending on the severity of their illness. However, as time has passed, it’s become clear that some people, regardless of the severity of their disease, continue to experience symptoms beyond the acute phase of infection.
This has become known as “long COVID”. Emerging evidence suggests that these patients experience a range of persistent symptoms and health complications. These may have a significant impact on their quality of life, physical and mental health, and ability to return to work. But understanding long COVID is difficult. Its reported symptoms are highly varied, making it difficult to define.
Read more
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ABOVE: MODIFIED FROM © ISTOCK.COM, JANIECBROS
SARS-CoV-2’s Wide-Ranging Effects on the Body Researchers’ painstaking examinations have to reveal how the virus wreaks havoc in multiple organs and tissues. Diana Kwon Sep 1, 2021
When the first wave of the pandemic hit the US East Coast last spring, clinicians expected to see patients suffering primarily from a respiratory ailment that, in severe cases, left people needing mechanical ventilators to breathe. But Harvard Medical School’s Haytham Kaafarani, a trauma surgeon and critical-care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, and his colleagues noticed an unexpected surge in patients with complications in another part of the body—the gut—ranging from nausea and a loss of appetite to severe intestinal obstruction. According to Kaafarani, gastrointestinal surgeons were consulted frequently for “many, many symptoms that showed up.”
Now, with SARS-CoV-2 having infected more than 100 million people and counting, it’s clear that the virus can indeed lead to extensive damage outside of the lungs—damage that has contributed to a total of more than 3 million deaths to date. Over the past year and a half, investigators around the world have documented a wide range of symptoms in the blood, heart, kidney, gut, brain, and many other parts of the body. Some studies suggest that nearly a third of all COVID patients experience such symptoms—and this proportion rises to more than two-thirds of those who are critically ill, Kaafarani says. “The one thing we know for sure that we did not know a year ago is that COVID-19 certainly has extra-pulmonary manifestations.”
In addition to revealing where COVID-19 leaves its trail of damage in the body, patient assessments, postmortem investigations, and experiments with human cells and tissues have provided hints of the mechanisms through which many of these complications may arise. Single-cell sequencing analyses have revealed that cell surface receptors called ACE2 and TMPRSS2, which are used by SARS-CoV-2 to enter our cells, are widespread. And PCR has revealed the presence of viral RNA in various tissues, hinting at the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 can infect cells outside the respiratory system, though direct evidence of such infection is still limited. Another possibility is that the runaway immune response and blood clotting that SARS-CoV-2 infections can trigger may be to blame for the complications seen around the body. (See illustration.)
and
https://drsircus.com/general/you-dont-want-to-know-whats-coming/
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What to expect after your COVID-19 vaccination
Updated 9 November 2021
COVID-19 vaccination side effects: how to manage and when to report them
updated 2 July 2021
COVID-19 vaccinations are an important part of the national strategy to protect our health during the current pandemic and into the future. As with other vaccines, some people may experience mild and temporary side effects after a COVID-19 vaccination.
This article explains what to expect, how to manage any symptoms, how to report side effects and why reporting them is an important part of ensuring the safety of all vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccine.
Updates have been made to this article to reflect the new recommendations announced 17 June by the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI), and the new TGA provisional approval announced 25 June.
How to report an adverse event
You can report adverse events to your healthcare provider and ask them to report on your behalf, or you can report to the NPS MedicineWise Adverse Medicine Events Line on 1300 134 237 (8 am–8 pm AEST/AEDT 7 days a week). Alternatively, you can report to your State or Territory health department or directly to the TGA.
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What to Do If You Have an Allergic Reaction after Getting a COVID-19 Vaccine
Updated Mar. 4, 2021
If you get a COVID-19 vaccine and you think you might be having a severe allergic reaction after leaving the vaccination provider site, seek immediate medical care by calling 911.
If You Have a Severe Allergic Reaction to a COVID-19 Vaccine
If you had a severe allergic reaction—also known as anaphylaxis—after getting the first shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, CDC recommends that you not get a second shot of that vaccine. If the reaction was after an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine (either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna), you should not get a second shot of either of these vaccines. Learn which COVID-19 vaccines need a second shot.
An allergic reaction is considered severe when a person needs to be treated with epinephrine or EpiPen© or if they must go to the hospital. Learn about common side effects of COVID-19 vaccines and when to call a doctor.
If You Have a Non-severe Allergic Reaction to a COVID-19 Vaccine
If you had an immediate allergic reaction after getting a shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, you should not get a second shot of that vaccine, even if your allergic reaction was not severe enough to require emergency care. If the reaction was after an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine (either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna), you should not get a second shot of either of these vaccines. An immediate allergic reaction happens within 4 hours of getting vaccinated and may include symptoms such as hives, swelling, and wheezing (respiratory distress). Your doctor may refer you to a specialist in allergies and immunology to provide more care or advice. Learn about getting a different type of vaccine after an allergic reaction.
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) knowledge of cancer is dangerously superficial. They do get it right about cancer being the leading cause of death worldwide, but that is about it. The rest is less than helpful, so no wonder why nine million people die of cancer each year.
Cancer claimed far more lives in the U.S. last year than did COVID, yet we’re doing almost nothing to prevent it. Why are we doing next to nothing to reduce the death toll from cancer and heart disease, yet we nearly destroyed modern civilization over COVID fears? The answer should shake us to our core. The entire medical-industrial complex is based on pharmaceutical terrorism, which is very much a part of the training doctors must endure during medical school.
WHO’s description of what causes cancer is sad. It leaves one with the feeling that they do not want you to know anything or that they do not know anything, except for mainstream recommendations like surgery, chemo, and radiation therapy. And, of course, they want you to employ all their dangerous diagnostic tests that only provoke cancer and increase your chances of dying.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-how-many-americans-have-died-after-taking-the-covid-vaccine
DECADES OF FAILED “TIPPING-POINT” PROPHESIES
MAY 24, 2021 CAP ALLON
"Fear prevents us from thinking. The emotional panic that accompanies fear actually shuts down the prefrontal cortex, or the rational thinking part, of our brains. A populace that stops thinking for itself is a populace that is easily led, easily manipulated, and easily controlled," writes my friends at Electroverse, a cold climate site."
"Fear is the mind slayer. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," said Franklin D. Roosevelt. Fear is the most dangerous virus, and it seems like a good percentage of the population is suffering from COVID fear. The big or most crucial question is how to save yourself from the fear of COVID because no virus is more dangerous than fear."
https://www.the-scientist.com/features/how-environmental-noise-harms-the-cardiovascular-system-68786
Who benefits from vaccines?
Individuals benefit, in the short and long term
Efficacy
Efficacy refers to how well a vaccine performs in preventing new infections as it goes through scientific testing.
An effective vaccine protects an individual against a specific infectious disease and its complications. In the short term, vaccine efficacy is measured by its ability to reduce new infections. The longer-term goal is to reduce serious complications and death.
All vaccines currently used in Australia produce high levels of protection that are enough to prevent disease in most vaccinated individuals. In countries where the use of vaccination is widespread, there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of people who become ill and die from formerly common and severe infections.For example, the whooping cough vaccine prevents disease in 85% of recipients, while the measles vaccine prevents disease in 95% of recipients from the first dose alone. The remaining proportion of individuals may not be fully protected and remain at least partially susceptible to infection. This may be due to genetic factors, or to the presence of other medical conditions that affect their ability to mount a protective immune response to the vaccine. These people are also protected when herd immunity has been achieved.
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Mucosal Vaccines Protect Mice from Viruses, Cancer Scientists use a protein found in mucus membranes to ferry vaccines to the lymph nodes. Emma Yasinski June 1, 2021
Vaccines against poxvirus and melanoma induced more memory T cells (shown) in mice when they entered through the lungs than when administered via another route. FLICKR, NIAID
EDITOR’S CHOICE IN IMMUNOLOGY K. Rakhra et al., “Exploiting albumin as a mucosal vaccine chaperone for robust generation of lung-resident memory T cells,” Sci Immunol, 6:eabd8003, 2021.
Most vaccines are injected into muscle, where they induce systemic immunity. A goal of many vaccine developers is to engineer inhalable formulations that would build up powerful immunity localized in the mucous membranes that line organs such as the lungs. But to do so, vaccines need to breach that mucous membrane and head to the lymph nodes within the lungs, where they can instruct the immune system to generate memory T cells, key players in long-term immunity.
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What you need to know about coronavirus:
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Jun 02, 2021
HEALTH & CARE COVID-19
Could a simple pill beat COVID-19? Pfizer is giving it a go
While the focus has been largely on vaccines, you might have also heard Pfizer is trialing a pill to treat COVID-19.
It almost sounds too good to be true. Indeed, the results are very preliminary – but it’s a promising approach.
Where most antiviral agents we’ve tried to treat COVID-19 target the inflammatory and immune response resulting from infection, Pfizer’s pill directly targets SARS-CoV-2 – the virus itself. Targeting SARS-CoV-2 A virus like SARS-CoV-2 must enter a host cell to reproduce. It does this using its spike protein (a protein on the virus’ surface) to attach to the cell, and then it uses the cell’s own proteins to gain entry. Once inside the cell, SARS-CoV-2 removes its outer coat and releases its viral RNA (ribonucleic acid, a type of genetic material). This acts as a template, allowing the virus to replicate, and then infect other cells. At any point of this life cycle the virus could be vulnerable to an intervention.
But in 2020, Pfizer/BioNtech identified a small molecule – PF-00835231 – that blocks the SARS-CoV-2 3CLpro protease. It was originally designed against SARS-CoV-1, but the enzyme in the two viruses is almost identical. PF-00835231, both alone and in conjunction with remdesevir, appears to reduce the replication of a range of coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2 in cells in the lab. It also reduced viral replication in a number of animal models, with no adverse safety signals. But it’s important to note this research hasn’t yet been peer reviewed.
What now? Pfizer/BioNtech are taking two drugs to clinical trials for COVID-19: PF-07304814, an intravenous injection for use in patients hospitalised with severe COVID-19 and PF-07321332, an oral agent – or pill – that could potentially be used earlier in the disease. Both are formulations of a 3CLpro inhibitor.
These phase 1 trials, which began in March, represent the earliest stage of drug development. These trials select healthy volunteers and use different doses of the drugs to establish their safety. They also look at whether the drugs elicit sufficient responses in the body to indicate they could be effective against SARS-CoV-2.
The next step would be phase 2 or 3 trials to see if they improve outcomes in COVID-19. Usually this process takes years, but as the pandemic continues to rage globally, Pfizer says it will do this in a matter of months, if phase 1 trials are successful.
Pandemics
Published on May 17, 2021
Members of the public could be putting themselves more at risk from contracting coronavirus by wearing face masks, one of England’s most senior doctors has warned. Jenny Harries, deputy chief medical officer, said the masks could "actually trap the virus" and cause the person wearing it to breathe it in. Not only the virus, we are learning, but a host of bacteria, fungus, yeast, and molds, which are potentially more deadly than COVID-19 and any of its variants.
Track COVID-19 Vaccines Advancing Through Clinical Trials
Find the latest updates in this one-stop resource, including efficacy data and side effects of approved shots, as well as progress on new candidates entering human studies.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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2020 Dec 9;11:590459.
doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.590459. eCollection 2020.
A Network-Based Analysis Reveals the Mechanism Underlying Vitamin D in Suppressing Cytokine Storm and Virus in SARS-CoV-2 InfectionoV-2 InfectionFiroz Ahmed https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33362771/
SARS-CoV-2 causes ongoing pandemic coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19), infects the cells of the lower respiratory tract that leads to a cytokine storm in a significant number of patients resulting in severe pneumonia, shortness of breathing, respiratory and organ failure. Extensive studies suggested the role of Vitamin D in suppressing cytokine storm in COVID-19 and reducing viral infection; however, the precise molecular mechanism is not clearly known. In this work, bioinformatics and systems biology approaches were used to understand SARS-CoV-2 induced cytokine pathways and the potential mechanism of Vitamin D in suppressing cytokine storm and enhancing antiviral response.
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Sewage Sampling Robots Speed SARS-CoV-2 Detection
An automated wastewater monitoring technique could enable researchers to predict outbreaks of the virus up to a week in advance. ABOVE: © ISTOCK.COM, May 2021 As well as shedding SARS-CoV-2 virus through nose and throat secretions, infected people can, even when asymptomatic, excrete the virus in their stool. Because of this, wastewater sampling has been under investigation since the beginning of the pandemic as a way to monitor levels of the novel coronavirus in whole populations.
Blood Pressure Meds Can Affect COVID-19 Care
High blood pressure is the most common chronic health condition among COVID-19 patients who require hospitalization, according to one of three studies presented at a virtual meeting of the American Heart Association on Thursday.
Aug 24, 2020 COVID-19
The physical effects of coronavirus: how coronavirus impacts the outside of our body.
Since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, we’ve all been well informed about the signs and symptoms to look out for. Things like shortness of breath, fever, and flu-like symptoms have been on the global radar since March. While we’ve written before about some of the unexpected symptoms of coronavirus, new studies have now shown that there may be even more physical symptoms associated with the disease than we originally thought.
As more people are diagnosed, treated and observed, it’s becoming clear that more than just the lungs are being affected. Researchers have realised that there are several skin and hair conditions that are being associated with an infection of coronavirus.
As the world continues to battle coronavirus and the global infection rate, we’re seeing more and more impacts, symptoms and side effects on the human body. It’s becoming increasingly important that we continue to do the right thing in order to protect ourselves and our community if we are ever going to return to normal.
Stay at home, wear a mask, keep vigilant.
By Rianna Manuel
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June 08, 2021
HEALTH & CARE COVID-19
The mystery of ‘long COVID’:
Why up to 1 in 3 people who catch the virus suffer for months
Most people who get COVID suffer the common symptoms of fever, cough and breathing problems, and recover in a week or two.
But some people, estimated to be roughly 10-30% who get COVID, suffer persistent symptoms colloquially known as “long COVID”.
The most common symptoms we (Louis and Alex) hear from sufferers in our long COVID clinic in Melbourne are fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pain, heart palpitations, headaches, brain fog, muscle aches and sleep disturbance. But it can also include very diverse symptoms like loss of smell and taste, increased worry – especially in relation to one’s health – depression, and an inability to work and interact with society. In some of these people, it’s almost as if there’s a process that’s affected every part of their body.
Another feature for many in our clinic is the disconnect between the severity of their initial COVID illness and the development of significant and persisting symptoms during recovery. Most of our patients in the long COVID clinic had a milder illness initially, are often younger than those who’ve been hospitalised, and were healthy and active before getting COVID.
How many people have long COVID?
It’s very difficult to determine what proportion of people who get COVID end up with persistent symptoms. At this stage we don’t know the exact rate.
In our ongoing study of COVID immunity at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) we found 34% of our participants were experiencing long COVID 45 weeks after diagnosis. For most people, the outcomes are good. After nine months, half of our patients have returned to close to normal activity and have been discharged from the clinic. However, there’s a group of patients whose improvement is slower. They’re often young and previously high functioning. They have limited ability to work, exercise and socialise. Their return to work and other activities needs to be carefully managed, and they need to avoid doing too much too quickly.
It’s essential these patients’ persisting symptoms are acknowledged, and that they get support from their family, employer and a multidisciplinary medical team.
Seizures Common in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients
The death rate was higher among those who experienced the seizures, according to a study conducted during the early days of the pandemic. Emma Yasinski Apr 12, 2021
as the pandemic raged on, it became clear that the virus is able to affect tissues throughout the body and that cognitive effects, from confusion to strokes, are common. Last week, for instance, a study in The Lancet Psychiatry showed that one-third of patients were diagnosed with a neurological or psychological condition within six months of contracting COVID-19.
See “COVID-19’s Effects on the Brain”
Westover’s group collected data on 197 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, 19 of whom experienced nonconvulsive seizures. Patients who experienced the seizures were four times more likely to die in the hospital than were their counterparts with similarly severe disease but no seizures.
In addition to the patients who experienced seizures, 48.7 percent of the patients showed epileptiform discharges, which Shafi describes as “little sparks of epileptic activity lasting less than a second.” In some cases, these sparks can cause damage, while other times they serve as a sign that a patient’s brain is not functioning normally and may be at a higher risk for seizures. Westover says that he was “shocked” by the epileptic discharges. “We were betting on less than five percent” of patients experiencing these types of abnormalities, he explains. Their prevalence may suggest that COVID-19 affects the brain more than scientists currently know.
“We were waiting for a study like this because we didn’t have much information on a bigger scale on what was going on physiologically in the brain of a patient that has COVID,” says Maria Bruzzone, a neurologist at the University of Florida who was not involved in the study.
The number of seizures was similar to what would be expected for patients hospitalized with other illnesses. “Maybe what this tells us,” says Bruzzone, “is that seizures in these patients is not COVID attacking the brain or causing brain disease. This is because of the severity of the disease or the severity of the hypoxia.”
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YOUR own health... If YOU get sick, who will look after your loved one?
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Could a glass of wine diagnose long COVID?
GEORGIA LEA, MD | CONDITIONS | MARCH 12, 2021
Acute COVID-19 infection ranges from no symptoms (asymptomatic) to life-threatening. What about long COVID (the symptoms occurring more than three weeks after infection, also known as post-acute COVID syndrome)? Could there be thousands of people with “mild” long COVID who don’t know it? Could there be legions of people with new low-energy levels being misdiagnosed as depressed, stressed, having a sleep disorder, or being labeled “lazy”? The inability to tolerate a glass of wine or a bottle of beer could be an important clue to their true diagnosis.
The term “long COVID” represents at least four different syndromes, including those that result from organ damage or an ICU stay. Of these syndromes, post-viral fatigue syndrome (PVFS) is the only one that causes alcohol intolerance without organ damage. When I refer to long COVID in this article, I am referring to the PVFS type only.
My personal experience with long COVID has been straightforward. The onset of fatigue, muscle aches, muscle twitches, headaches, and problems thinking followed a documented case of COVID-19, and my ongoing symptoms are severe enough to be undeniable. My energy level averages about 50 percent of my prior normal, nine months after the initial infection. But I wonder about the thousands of people who have long COVID that may not even recognize it. 10 to 30 percent of all COVID-19 infections result in fatigue lasting longer than three weeks. There is no test for long COVID, and though it is gaining recognition, few American medical providers know how to screen for it.
How coronavirus affects the entire body
By Maggie Fox, CNN 11 July 2020
How coronavirus affects the entire body Coronavirus damages not only the lungs, but the kidneys, liver, heart, brain and nervous system, skin and gastrointestinal tract, doctors said Friday in a review of reports about Covid-19 patients.
The team at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City — one of the hospitals flooded with patients in the spring — went through their own experiences and collected reports from other medical teams around the world.
Their comprehensive picture shows the coronavirus attacks virtually every major system in the human body, directly damaging organs and causing the blood to clot, the heart to lose its healthy rhythm, the kidneys to shed blood and protein and the skin to erupt in rashes. It causes headaches, dizziness, muscle aches, stomach pain and other symptoms along with classic respiratory symptoms like coughing and fever.
"Physicians need to think of COVID-19 as a multisystem disease," said Dr. Aakriti Gupta, a cardiology fellow at Columbia who worked on the review, in a statement. "There's a lot of news about clotting but it's also important to understand that a substantial proportion of these patients suffer kidney, heart, and brain damage, and physicians need to treat those conditions along with the respiratory disease."
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https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/sars-cov-2-can-infect-human-brain-organoids-67723
It’s becoming increasingly clear that COVID-19 causes not only respiratory ailments, but also a wide variety of neurological symptoms—from the common phenomenon of losing taste and smell, to more recent reports of ischemic stroke, delirium, and hallucinations—raising questions of whether such symptoms are a byproduct of various disruptions SARS-CoV-2 causes throughout the body, a consequence of the trauma of being hospitalized with COVID-19, or if they could be due to viral invasion of neural tissues. Earlier this year, Eric Song, a graduate student in immunologist Akiko Iwasaki’s lab at Yale, and PhD student Ce Zhang started to investigate whether SARS-CoV-2 was capable of infecting neurons of the central nervous system.
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Bicarbonate Proves to be Cheapest Fastest Safest COVID Treatment
Published on February 22, 2021
The new bicarbonate research adds to the lengthening list of treatments. And it is no surprise to anyone who knows how and why bicarbonates work. Doctors and health care officials should, but do not know or even want to know, that viral infections are unanimously sensitive to pH changes. The simple alkalinization of the blood reduces the cells’ susceptibility to viruses. Meaning bicarbonates can be taken orally as a preventative, and as we find out below, can be nebulized and even pumped into the lungs in ICU patients when their lungs are impaired.
Conclusion:
There are three forms of bicarbonate. There are sodium, potassium, and magnesium bicarbonates. They are nontoxic primary alkalizing agents for the prevention and treatment of cancer, liver disease, Type I & Type II diabetes, Lupus, heart disease, pharmacological toxicosis, vascular surgery operation, tonsillar herniation due to cerebral edema, lactic acid toxicosis, and hyponatremia or low salt or loss of salts due to excessive or over-exercise. Research by British scientists at the Royal London Hospital shows that sodium bicarbonate can dramatically slow chronic kidney disease progression. Yet, the debate and ignorance around these simple medicines continue.
The United States army acknowledges that sodium bicarbonate is the medicine of choice to clear Uranium toxicity from the kidneys. It is the only medicine rated to do that. Bicarbonates are also the ultimate form of chemotherapy, and one can only laugh (or cry) at the mile-deep lunacy that prevents all doctors from accepting this fact.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/why-is-obesity-tied-to-severe-covid-19/ar-BB18PmRq?ocid=DE_20200908_ENUS_coronavirus_5
Obesity may be one reason some countries or communities have been hit hard by the virus, researchers say. In the United States, the obesity rate among adults has climbed for decades and is now at 42 percent. The rate is even higher among Black and Hispanic Americans.
A person who is 5 feet, 7 inches tall is considered obese starting at around 190 pounds, or a body mass index of 30. The increased risk for serious COVID-19 illness appears more pronounced with extreme obesity, or a BMI of 40 or higher.
Researchers say multiple factors likely make it harder for people who are obese to fight a coronavirus infection, which can damage the lungs. Carrying around a lot of extra weight strains the body, and that excess fat could limit the lungs' ability to expand and breathe.
Another issue is chronic inflammation, which often comes with obesity. Inflammation is a natural way our bodies fight harmful intruders like viruses. But long-lasting inflammation isn’t healthy and could undermine your body’s defenses when a real threat arises.
Enthusiasm over evidence? What the Israeli vaccination data actually show. DANIEL HOPKINS, MD | PHYSICIAN | FEBRUARY 23, 2021
Doctors are worried about the "public perception" when the elderly die right after getting the vaccination. What would YOU think if your mother died the day after she received the COVID shot?
No Vaccine Trials Made on the Elderly Vaccinate Them Even if it Kills Them?
Published on January 12, 2021
Dr. Kelly Moore, "associate director of the Immunization Action Coalition, said, "Since they [the COVID vaccines] haven’t been studied in people in those [elderly] populations, we don’t know how well the vaccine will work for them. We know that most vaccines don’t work nearly as well in a frail elderly person as they would in someone who is fit and vigorous, even if they happen to be the same age."
Covid-19 vaccines have not been tested in the frail elderly, many of whom are residents of long-term care facilities. Therefore, there is NO evidence that the vaccine is safe or effective for the elderly. Jon Rappoport says, "If this doesn’t give the frail and elderly and their families pause for thought, nothing will."
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How Your Lungs Balance Your Body's pH Level
Supplier: AirPhysio Pty Ltd By: Paul O'Brien AirPhysio 12 November, 2019
=Respiratory Conditions=
When the lungs are working correctly we have a simple process where our lungs excrete mucus (which captures up to 90% of all foreign particles) which sits on top of hairs known as cilia. This mucus is transported at around 1 centimetre per minute and is swallowed (we swallow around 30 millilitres per day). This process is called the mucociliary escalator and is responsible for helping to maintain the hygiene of our lungs.
This process helps to filter our particles before they reach our alveoli (air sac) where the gas exchange of O2 and CO2 happen.
When we get an infection in our lungs, 2 important immune responses happen:
The only issue with these 2 conditions are that they restrict the amount of oxygen which reaches the alveoli (air sacs) which reduces the amount of oxygen in the blood. As a short term fix, the blood increases the amount of hemoglobin to assist in mitigating this. If this occurs long term (i.e. long term inflammation and/or mucus plugging), then it can result in an imbalance of O2 and CO2 in the body, resulting in the conditions mentioned above.
These Respiratory Conditions usually develop into one of the following:
1. Asthma - An immune deficiency conditions where the lungs react to a specific Alligen or parasite attack by creating mucus hyper secretion, inflammation and Bronchoconstriction (a condition where the muscles in the airways constrict to force the alligen/parasite out of the lungs).
2. Acute Bronchitis or Chronic Bronchitis - A reaction to an infection of the lungs where the lungs react by mucus hyper secretion and/or inflammation. Chronic Bronchitis (also know as 1 condition of COPD) is from a long term condition of Bronchitis (usually 3 months or more) over a 3 year period.
3. Bronchiectasis - This is a condition where the cilia (airs on the airway walls) and/or airway walls are damages. This can occur from a thing TB or uncleared mucus from an infection over a long period, or even something as simple as old age. This leads to a damaged area of the mucociliary escalator where mucus pools in and starts to block the clearance process of the lungs, leading to further complications.
4. Cystic Fibrosis - This is a hereditary condition where the mucus which is sticky and thicker due to dehydration. This leads to an inability for the mucociliary escalator to work efficiently
The consistency of the mucus is essential for capturing of the particles and then being transported out of the lungs. If it is too dehydrated and thick, it slows the process and doesn't transport as easily creating blockages and inflections. If it is too hydrated and not sticky enough, it doesn't ride easily on top of the cilia (hairs) and may slide down onto the skin, making it harder to transport and causing further infections and inflammation.
Treatment of Inflammation and Mucus Hyper Secretion
The inflammation is usually treated through medical known as Corticosteroids, which the excess mucus is usually treated using either a PEP or OPEP device like AirPhysio. These devices expand the lungs when blowing out, helping air to get behind the mucus to assist in pushing it up and out of the lungs to be swallowed or coughed out naturally. They also help to splint open the airways and push medication further into the lungs, improving deposition.
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Orthomolecular Medicine News Service Protocol to repair COVID cellular damage.
Several studies have now confirmed that people who become infected with the COVID-19 virus, including those who are asymptomatic, often experience some cellular damage. This damage has been shown to occur in tissues in the lungs, the kidneys, the liver, the heart, the brain, the throat, the intestines and nerve cells. Damage to the nervous system is implied by headaches and difficulty with the sense of smell or taste. Difficulty in breathing may continue. However, in some cases this damage is not obvious to a cursory medical examination. Since the experience with this virus is so new in the world of viral infections, how much damage has been done or how long it may take the body to repair this damage is unknown. Therefore, it is prudent to take precautions to repair this damage, using cellular repair protocols that are proven. Volume 17 (2021) Release #DateSubject
Vol. 17, No. 02 January 15, 2021 A Health Crisis Exposed by the COVID Pandemic
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/09/pfizer-covid-vaccine-nhs-extreme-allergy-sufferers-regulators-reaction
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Full report released into the timeline of COVID-19 outbreak in Sydney nursing home
Of all COVID-19 deaths in Australia, 74% were in aged care homes. Infection prevention and control has often been neglected in aged care, but a new report is recommending that after COVID-19, all aged care staff should receive consistent infection control training.
https://hellocaremail.com.au/infection-control-must-embedded-aged-care-culture-new-report/
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Algorithm Spots COVID-19 Cases from Eye Images: Preprint
A small study shows artificial intelligence can pick out individuals with coronavirus infections, but ophthalmologists and AI experts say the approach is far from proven to be capable of distinguishing infections with SARS-CoV-2 from other ills. Anthony King Sep 21, 2020 https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/algorithm-spots-covid-19-cases-from-eye-images-preprint-67950
Currently, screening for coronavirus infection involves CT imaging of the lungs or analyzing samples from the nose or throat, both of which take time and require professional effort. A system based on a few images of the eyes that could triage or even diagnose people would save on both costs and time, says Fu. But the investigation by Fu’s team is preliminary and both ophthalmologists and AI specialists say they’d want to see much more information on the technique—and its performance—before being convinced it could work.
Volunteers at Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre in Fudan each had five photos of their eyes taken using common CCD or CMOS cameras. Of 303 patients, 104 had COVID-19, 131 had other pulmonary conditions, and 68 had eye diseases. A neural network tool extracted and quantified the features from different regions of the eye and an algorithm recognized the ocular characteristics of each disease. A neural network is a series of algorithms for solving AI problems, learning as it goes along in a way that mimics the human brain. The researchers then carried out a validation experiment on a small dataset from healthy people, COVID-19 patients, pulmonary patients, and ocular patients.
Of 24 people with confirmed coronavirus infections, the tool correctly diagnosed 23, Fu tells The Scientist. And the algorithm accurately identified 30 out of 30 uninfected individuals.
Coronavirus infections, not just those caused by SARS-CoV-2, have long had associations with the eye, causing inflammation of the transparent membrane that covers the inside of the eyelid and whites of the eyeball, a condition called conjunctivitis, or pink eye. The eyes also offer a route to infection for respiratory viruses, including coronaviruses.
Human coronavirus NL63, which causes common cold symptoms, was first identified in 2004 in a baby with bronchiolitis and conjunctivitis. Subsequent studies showed that a minority of children infected with this coronavirus suffer from this eye condition.
Although conjunctivitis remains a potential symptom of coronavirus infections, less than 5 percent of COVID-19 patients actually present with eye symptoms, notes Daniel Ting, ophthalmologist at the Singapore National Eye Centre, who has published on this topic and deep learning in ophthalmology. “If you look to develop an AI system to detect COVID-19 based on [limited numbers of] eye images, I think the performance is not going to be great,” especially given the low prevalence of eye symptoms. He doubts the performance of the algorithm also because “a lot of eye manifestations could be due to reasons other than COVID-19.”
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Scientists warn of potential wave of COVID-linked brain damage
July 8, 2020, 11:23 PM By Reuters
LONDON — Scientists warned on Wednesday of a potential wave of coronavirus-related brain damage as new evidence suggested COVID-19 can lead to severe neurological complications, including inflammation, psychosis and delirium.
A study by researchers at University College London described 43 cases of patients with COVID-19 who suffered either temporary brain dysfunction, strokes, nerve damage or other serious brain effects.
https://academic.oup.com/brain/advance-article/doi/10.1093/brain/awaa240/5868408
Preliminary clinical data indicate that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is associated with neurological and neuropsychiatric illness. Responding to this, a weekly virtual coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) neurology multi-disciplinary meeting was established at the National Hospital, Queen Square, in early March 2020 in order to discuss and begin to understand neurological presentations in patients with suspected COVID-19-related neurological disorders.
https://drsircus.com/general/vitamin-d-ivermectin-better-solutions-to-covid-than-vaccines/
COVID-19 Vaccine Bombshell: FDA Documents Reveal DEATH + 21 Serious Conditions As Possible Adverse Outcomes: https://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/covid-19-vaccine-bombshell-fda-documents-reveal-death-21-serious-conditions-possi1
06 December 2020
COVID-19 Symptoms in Kids Most Often Headache, Fever:
App Data: The COVID Symptom Study app aims to help patients and healthcare providers identify patterns in user-reported data.
Lisa Winter Sep 8, 2020
Asymptom-tracking app indicates that children experience different COVID-19 symptoms than adults, The Guardian reports. While a persistent cough and a diminished sense of taste and smell are common among adults, the app has found, children with the virus most commonly experience symptoms such as headache, fatigue, and fever, among others.
More than half of the 198 children in their system who tested positive for the virus experienced fatigue and headaches, according to The Guardian. Fever occurred in around 50 percent. Around one-third of the kids had sore throats, and a minority of children exhibited a skin rash or experienced diarrhea.
“We need to start to telling people what are the key symptoms at different ages rather than this blanket obsession with fever, cough, and lack of smell,” Tim Spector, an epidemiologist at King’s College London and co-leader of the project, tells The Guardian. He suggests that children showing these symptoms should be kept home from school, though not necessarily tested.
Dozens More Cases of Neurological Problems in COVID-19 Reported
SARS-CoV-2 generally attacks the lungs, but researchers are also stressing its effects on the brain in a fraction of patients. Amanda Heidt July 8, 2020
Newly described case reports add to growing evidence that COVID-19 infections can result in severe, long-lasting neurological complications—including inflammation, psychosis, delirium, nerve damage, and strokes—even among patients experiencing mild cases of the virus with few other symptoms. In some instances, the new study claims, these neurological effects were the first manifestation of the disease.
ts from China’s Wanzhou District, found that more than 90% of both groups had steep declines in levels of SARS-CoV-2–specific immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies within 2–3 months of infection.
The dramatic reduction in IgG antibodies has created doubt over whether SARS-CoV-2 infection provides long-term protection against subsequent exposure to the virus, and could impact procedures for healthcare workers along with any future plans to issue ‘immunity passports’ for the disease.
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Yes you are :-)
Do have a look at "The Signs of YOUR Burnout"
Have a look at your Respite options
https://www.liftedcare.com/whos-caring-for-you-5-ways-to-beat-carer-loneliness/ If you’re caring for a person with dementia, the loneliness can sometimes feel overwhelming. Here’s a few ideas that might help you feel less isolated.
Caring isn’t just hard work, it can be incredibly lonely and isolating too. If the person you love has dementia, the loneliness often intensifies as their illness progresses. So is carer loneliness simply an inevitable part of the dementia journey? Or are there ways to prepare and protect yourself from the pain it can cause?
Loneliness in the early stages of dementia
Could this be YOU?
The person you love is still fairly independent and the physical tasks of caring aren’t too arduous just yet. But short-term memory loss is taking its toll. As you steel yourself for the long road ahead, small, seemingly trivial things begin to bother you, and make you feel… lonely.
‘We used to love watching a good thriller together on TV and enjoyed guessing ‘whodunit’. But he can’t follow the plots anymore. It sounds silly because his dementia is still quite mild, and I have a lot to be grateful for, but when we watch TV together now I feel lonely. I’m already missing him.’
Theresa
Loneliness in the mid stages of dementia
Could this be YOU?
The practical tasks involved in caring are becoming more demanding. You sometimes feel exhausted, but the changes in your relationship are more difficult to deal with than any physical tasks. You often feel desperately lonely.
‘I know I’m lucky to still have her with me, but there’s no conversation at all. I try chatting away, as I always have and occasionally I get a response…but usually there’s nothing. Sometimes she looks straight through me. That’s when it really hits me that I’m on my own.’
Bill
Loneliness in the later stages of dementia
Could this be YOU?
If the person you love has moved into a care home, the physical strain may have eased, but the loneliness can feel acute. It’s hardly surprising that many carers find this the loneliest time of all.
‘I visit him every day, but I dread going back home because the loneliness is unbearable. I know I need to keep busy and I could do all those hobbies I used to enjoy, but I can’t muster any enthusiasm. The light has gone out of my life.’
Mary
Did you know?
Loneliness can be as harmful to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes per day.
Are you feeling lonely? 5 ways to help yourself
1.Be kinder to yourself
Your feelings are normal and natural. Even if your loved one’s dementia is still very mild, you are still experiencing loss. You may also be experiencing anticipatory grief (or ‘living grief’) as you look ahead and wonder what might happen next. Don’t underestimate how difficult and painful this process can be. Berating yourself won’t help you (it will probably make you feel a whole lot worse) and it definitely won’t help the person you love.
2. Be honest with family and friends
A dementia diagnosis affects everyone in the family – not just you – so don’t be afraid to share the load. Relatives and close friends often want to help, but don’t know how. A simple phone call, explaining how you feel, might be all it takes to get them onboard, and make you feel less alone.
3. Stay in touch
Try to make sure you have some contact with the outside world every day. Even if it’s just chatting to a neighbour, having a quick coffee with a friend or talking to your grandchildren on Skype.
4. Take a break
This might sound easier said than done, however most carers agree that respite is the best way to combat loneliness. Go here to find out more.
This is YOUR Team
and those all-important Men's Sheds
not forgetting your hidden Very Own Man Cave - Your own INCREDIBLE AND INGENIOUS Hidden Rooms AND Furniture.
but I am a Male
and DO Look after Yourself
with Mindfulness of your Breath
Feel you need more support?
It’s normal to feel sad or worried sometimes, especially when life gets tough. Sometimes, you might need some help to feel better again. If you’re struggling with your mind, support is available. There are a range of services and organizations that can help.
The Benefits of Friendship
Strong friendships are a critical aspect of most people's emotional well-being. Research indicates that close friendships are associated with greater happiness, self-esteem, and sense of purpose. These bonds are even associated with physical outcomes, such as lower blood pressure and a longer lifespan.
In caring for my Don, I found that I lost some of my friends. I was just not able to leave Don and go to ... So some just sort of faded away. This hurt!!! But, I then discovered a whole new set of people who, it turned out, had looked after/were currently looking after, their loved one. They KNEW Exactly what I was going through. It was just what I needed. Someone who Actually knew what I was going through at 'that' time. As these friendships deepened, I felt lest lost, more secure in my everyday caring of Don, and... I could openly ask any questions I needed to ask - regardless of whether I considered them trivial, momentous, or I was somehow curious as to 'How' I could manage this... that had happened again just last night. HOW to handle, WHAT could I do, and above all, How Not to panic. I knew I could call on them whatever the hour, and thus it proved. I missed my 'old' friends, but in making these new friends, I could look after Don better and be 'totally understood' whenever I just turned up to their door and said "Whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"... I found that I could cry, ramp and rave, and generally 'lose it' and know that I was being Totally understood. This was Freedom. This was Wonderful! At last, someone who knew Exactly what I was going through, day after day, night after night... As it turned out, this ongoing, unquestioned support enabled me to look after my Don for that last 23 years of his natural life. Thank you.
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Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
The incredible worth of finding the laughter!!! :-) Because laughing with others reduces stress and releases happiness hormones :-)
We care out of Love, and some care out of Obligation, but whichever it is for you, YOU need all the help you can get. These webpages will help guide you and hopefully reduce your Stress levels and the sense that Everything is Too Hard, Too out of control, and anyway, YOU are just Too Tired to care, for now.
And do remember that MOST IMPORTANT PERSON - Yes!!! YOU... For without YOU, your loved one's feelings of security, peace, ability to react with others, are all at stake. You have taken on this task as the Most Difficult Thing YOU will ever do within Your Lifetime. It is ultimately your Gift to your loved one. The gift of being Loved.
... not only for their ongoing care, but to keep up their spirits and let them know that whatever they are going through, whatever is happening 'Yet Again', that you are There - for Them. YOUR loved one's task is to make this role easier on both of you by being attentive, helping where and however they can, as you fully realize that this Important Task you are undertaking is not for the faint-hearted; but it IS for the Long Term...
Talking to doctors, nurses and others can be daunting. The most important thing to know is that you have a right to talk to them. You have the right to tell health professionals what you think is important for the person you care for and to ask questions. It's OK. They don't Know everything... Like your loved one's reaction to the latest medication change; the worsening of their heart, bowel, lung, back pain... symptoms, and how you were up most of the last night calming, changing pads and the bedclothes, soothing to sleep... all the while juggling their low mood, tendency to isolate themselves, meals, medications, doctor appointments, exercise regimes... their Other health aliments... This is Exhausting!!!
And do remember that MOST IMPORTANT PERSON - Yes!!! YOU... For without YOU, your loved one's feelings of security, peace, ability to react with others, are all at stake. You have taken on this task as the Most Difficult Thing YOU will ever do within Your Lifetime. It is ultimately your Gift to your loved one.
https://www.naturalelementsforlife.com.au/immune-system
Some Tips on YOUR S T R E S S Management . . . and of course :-) Eat Well during this time!!!
Often caregiving is for the long-haul and can take a major toll on your own health. Do look at 'dipping your toe in the water' and asking for some Respite.
- This does NOT mean that YOU are a lesser Carer.
- This does NOT mean that YOU cannot cope.
- This does NOT mean that YOU are failing to look after your loved one.
NO, it's not 'Just YOU'. However, what it DOES mean is that you recognise that it takes a TEAM to look after your loved one. It doesn't have to be just YOU!!! Yes, I know that you can do it, but what if Your health fails, who then looks after your loved one? Or would you have to have an urgent look at nursing home placement? For me, the deciding factor was just that. What if MY health failed? What if I fell and needed hospital care? Who would look after Don?
https://www.naturalelementsforlife.com.au/immune-system
Some Tips on YOUR S T R E S S Management . . . and of course :-) Eat Well during this time!!!
Your pH levels
Choosing 'YOUR Team'... Always best to involve their Home Care Organization. Spell it out - EXACTLY HOW IT 'IS'. No sugarcoating, no pretending YOU can handle all of this. And NO, it is Not OK to 'stick it out'... We're talking about Your life here...
Take just yesterday. You had inadvertently slept in because you were Totally Exhausted having spent part of the night changing the bed, soothing your loved one's anxieties, guiding them to the bathroom - again, cleaning up the spillage, and then soothing and tucking them into bed... What is truly Scary, is that this has almost become the norm - almost Every night. Someone you know had suggested that you get in help - like from a Provider, but it doesn't seem to you that it is needed - not just yet anyway. Please reconsider... e.g. It takes time to ring MyAgedCare on 1800 200 422 (over 65 years of age), get all the information together and answer All those questions over the phone. Then there is the RAS who come into your home and ask you More questions and fill in yet More forms. Does your loved one have an ACAT?
A What??? This needs to be arranged (you can ask your GP to help if you like), otherwise it can be arranged for you by the MyAgedCare team. An appointment will be made with an ACAT (Aged Care Assessment Team) member who will visit you in your home and determine what level of care would best suit your loved one. This alone may take a few months as they can get quite busy... In the meantime you will have needed to gather up all your financial information and answer even more questions - to determine if your loved one can contribute $ toward their care. And so it goes... Probably best to get started now, even if it does seem to you to be 'Too Early'.
What a Carer Actually DOES:
Carer self-assessment checklist:
As a carer, there are a number of things to consider to make sure both you and the person you care for remain as healthy as possible, both physically and emotionally. By doing a carer needs assessment and self-assessing your own situation, you will better know what resources you may need to draw on in the future.
A good place to start for a self-assessment is to note down how many hours you spend each week helping, supervising or prompting the person you care for with, for example:
- mobility (moving around the house, turning someone during the night)
- personal hygiene (bathing, dressing, using the toilet)
- eating and drinking (making sure they eat and drink, preparing food)
- make sure they are drinking enough Water
- communication and social participation (organizing social activities, help with communicating their needs to you or others)
- health and treatment (giving medicine, therapeutic exercises)
- safety (checking water temperature, making sure someone does not injure themselves or others)
- behaviour (supervising and understanding why people act the way they do).
Knowing how much time you spend on these home care activities will also help you when you are assessed for Government carer support services.
Print Resources Different people have different needs for information at different times during an illness. Patients will also have different needs from their carers. To support these different needs the following list of resources has been compiled based around topics relevant to patients and their carers. The source of the information is included, note that some information is from outside Australia.
https://www.caresearch.com.au/tabid/7015/Default.aspx#BGL
In the meantime, have a look around and learn what's available in your own community
If your health fails, who looks after your loved one? I know that we Carers are good; BUT lack of sleep and less time for YOU, takes its toll... I know this sounds trite, but YOU need to eat well. Stress and Depression can take their toll on your health too!
And here is a handy List of Contacts … and remember, there IS Help when YOU have to go into hospital. Watch video Caring for the Caregiver.
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H O M E is where the Heart is...
Most Australians want to grow old and receive care in their own homes, research conducted by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety shows.
A survey of more than 10,000 Australians reveals that 80 per cent of older people want to remain in their current home and 62 per cent want to receive care services in their own home.
Things can sometimes happen quite quickly eg. hospitalization and your condition may mean you cannot return to your own home. This can be devastating for both you and your loved one.
Having your own home prepared in advance (sometimes Years in advance), can not only be helpful for you to return to your own home, but can be the difference between this decision and having to move permanently to a nursing home.
and of course, there is always Chocolate :-)
Help IS at hand -
Lists and explains those Essential people and Specialists you can turn to for that All Important HELP...
In my 23 years of hands on care in the home, the Most Important thing I ever did, was to co-ordinate this Team. I was the one who wrote of "What has changed since your last visit", and insisted Everyone who attended Don read it first, Before they started their shift with him.
Every time we went to the GP (and this was a Lot; what with all the falls... and adverse reactions to almost all the medications...), I stood there and Insisted the Doctor read the summary first, 'Before' attending to Don. It was interesting that the A&E staff would say to me, "Where did you get this? This is like gold. Can we take a copy?" I always smiled and said, "Yes" :-)
We care out of Love, and some care out of Obligation, but whichever it is for you, YOU need all the help you can get. These webpages will help guide you and hopefully reduce your Stress levels and the sense that Everything is Too Hard, Too out of control, and anyway, YOU are just Too Tired to care, for now...
Caregiving isn’t necessarily a women’s problem or a man’s problem—it’s an organizational challenge, especially when nearly 70% of working caregivers experience work-related challenges as a result of their dual working-caregiver roles (AARP).
Most of the 'work' of Carers is done in isolation, in the home, far away from the ordinary duties and obligations of everyday life. To your neighbours, acquaintances, friends and colleagues, you appear to be the same person they have always known. They may comment occasionally that you are 'looking tired' but with little real understanding of just what you are going through, every day and every night. They get used to you saying that you cannot join them for an outing, a trip, even time out for a coffee... and eventually will give up even inviting you. This Hurts! You long to explain what is happening. Why you are just SO tired all the time, and that what happened again, just last night, threw you right out of the loop.
When caring for my Don, and reading ahead about the disease and what to expect in the longer term, for my own 'Survival' I developed a saying :-)
"Step Back", "Step Back", "Step Back", and kept repeating this to myself as I, quite literally, stepped back and then back again, placing an ever increasing distance between the disaster that had just happened - a fall, the cleanup, the seemingly impossible task of... and my loved one. I did this because it was only by physically distancing myself from the ... that I was able to think clearly and constructively about what to to next. Sometimes I would "Step back" so far that I would end up at the other end of the verandah, other times I would end up at the other end of the hallway... But it Worked!
My thinking was that by quite physically removing myself from the ... that the emotional reaction became less and I could then concentrate on the physical disaster that had just happened. Then, standing quite still, I would work out the best way to tackle the ... Step One, Step Two, Step Three and Step Four. Only then would I move toward Don and begin the clean up and recovery task.
Caregiving is Relentless. It is is Exhausting. It is Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! But it still needs to be done. This task you have taken on is the most difficult thing you will ever do within your lifetime. At its best, it is called a 'learning curve'. At its worst, it is called Hell.
Scroll through these headings at your leisure. Read only short excerpts at a time. Read only those things that are relevant to You At This Time. And Forgive Yourself on a daily basis. You are not superhuman, and no-one expects it of you, except perhaps YOU.
Know too that this time will pass. That in years to come you will look back and wonder how you ever lived through it. There is a deep satisfaction in caregiving. It elicits All the emotions. You will face fear, doubt your own ability to cope, laugh, cry and scream about the injustice of it all, and just Do It.
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Our lungs are amazing organs which help us breathe and exchange oxygen (O2) with carbon dioxide (CO2). This process is about removing excess carbon from our cells and blood which assist in balancing the acidity and alkalinity levels in our body, this helps us maintain pH level of 7.4 in our blood. This is also a similar ideal pH level of water and soil for growth.
This balance is maintained by 3 main organs working together to keep the balance. These 3 organs include the brain, heart and lungs. 2 independent parts of the brain work together, one to monitor oxygen levels in the blood and the other monitors the carbon dioxide levels.
https://www.medicalsearch.com.au/how-your-lungs-balance-your-body-s-ph-level/f/21406
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An interesting article to have you thinking - click here. These are the Daily Tasks you undertake when you 'make your own home...'
YOU Can take Control...
and Those Visiting Relatives ...
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3. 26. 20 / BY VICTOR TANGERMANN WE FINALLY HAVE A NAME FOR THAT SHITTY CORONAVIRUS FEELING
"WE KNOW THIS IS TEMPORARY, BUT IT DOESN’T FEEL THAT WAY, AND WE REALIZE THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT."
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Summary. During the global pandemic, a palpable sense of collective grief has emerged. Grief expert David Kessler says that grief is actually multiple feelings that we must manage. In an interview with HBR, he explains how the classic five stages of grief - denial, anger,...more
Psychology | That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief
If we can name it, perhaps we can manage it. We turned to David Kessler for ideas on how to do that. Kessler is the world’s foremost expert on grief. He co-wrote with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief through the Five Stages of Loss. His new book adds another stage to the process, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief. Kessler also has worked for a decade in a three-hospital system in Los Angeles. He served on their biohazards team. His volunteer work includes being an LAPD Specialist Reserve for traumatic events as well as having served on the Red Cross’s disaster services team. He is the founder of www.grief.com, which has over 5 million visits yearly from 167 countries.
Kessler shared his thoughts on why it’s important to acknowledge the grief you may be feeling, how to manage it, and how he believes we will find meaning in it. The conversation is lightly edited for clarity.
HBR: People are feeling any number of things right now. Is it right to call some of what they’re feeling grief?
Kessler: Yes, and we’re feeling a number of different griefs. We feel the world has changed, and it has. We know this is temporary, but it doesn’t feel that way, and we realize things will be different. Just as going to the airport is forever different from how it was before 9/11, things will change and this is the point at which they changed. The loss of normalcy; the fear of economic toll; the loss of connection. This is hitting us and we’re grieving. Collectively. We are not used to this kind of collective grief in the air.
You said we’re feeling more than one kind of grief?
Yes, we’re also feeling anticipatory grief. Anticipatory grief is that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain. Usually it centers on death. We feel it when someone gets a dire diagnosis or when we have the normal thought that we’ll lose a parent someday. Anticipatory grief is also more broadly imagined futures. There is a storm coming. There’s something bad out there. With a virus, this kind of grief is so confusing for people. Our primitive mind knows something bad is happening, but you can’t see it. This breaks our sense of safety. We’re feeling that loss of safety. I don’t think we’ve collectively lost our sense of general safety like this. Individually or as smaller groups, people have felt this. But all together, this is new. We are grieving on a micro and a macro level.
What can individuals do to manage all this grief?
Understanding the stages of grief is a start. But whenever I talk about the stages of grief, I have to remind people that the stages aren’t linear and may not happen in this order. It’s not a map but it provides some scaffolding for this unknown world. There’s denial, which we say a lot of early on: This virus won’t affect us. There’s anger: You’re making me stay home and taking away my activities. There’s bargaining: Okay, if I social distance for two weeks everything will be better, right? There’s sadness: I don’t know when this will end. And finally there’s acceptance. This is happening; I have to figure out how to proceed.
Acceptance, as you might imagine, is where the power lies. We find control in acceptance. I can wash my hands. I can keep a safe distance. I can learn how to work virtually.
When we’re feeling grief there’s that physical pain. And the racing mind. Are there techniques to deal with that to make it less intense?
Let’s go back to anticipatory grief. Unhealthy anticipatory grief is really anxiety, and that’s the feeling you’re talking about. Our mind begins to show us images. My parents getting sick. We see the worst scenarios. That’s our minds being protective. Our goal is not to ignore those images or to try to make them go away — your mind won’t let you do that and it can be painful to try and force it. The goal is to find balance in the things you’re thinking. If you feel the worst image taking shape, make yourself think of the best image. We all get a little sick and the world continues. Not everyone I love dies. Maybe no one does because we’re all taking the right steps. Neither scenario should be ignored but neither should dominate either.
Anticipatory grief is the mind going to the future and imagining the worst. To calm yourself, you want to come into the present. This will be familiar advice to anyone who has meditated or practiced mindfulness but people are always surprised at how prosaic this can be. You can name five things in the room. There’s a computer, a chair, a picture of the dog, an old rug, and a coffee mug. It’s that simple. Breathe. Realize that in the present moment, nothing you’ve anticipated has happened. In this moment, you’re okay. You have food. You are not sick. Use your senses and think about what they feel. The desk is hard. The blanket is soft. I can feel the breath coming into my nose. This really will work to dampen some of that pain.
You can also think about how to let go of what you can’t control. What your neighbor is doing is out of your control. What is in your control is staying six feet away from them and washing your hands. Focus on that.
Finally, it’s a good time to stock up on compassion. Everyone will have different levels of fear and grief and it manifests in different ways. A coworker got very snippy with me the other day and I thought, That’s not like this person; that’s how they’re dealing with this. I’m seeing their fear and anxiety. So be patient. Think about who someone usually is and not who they seem to be in this moment.
One particularly troubling aspect of this pandemic is the open-endedness of it...
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Your Backup Brain
There's a "second brain" in your stomach. It influences:
- our mood,
- what you eat,
- the kinds of diseases you get,
- as well as the decisions you make.
And you thought it was all in your head!
https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/articles/201111/your-backup-brain
One of the easiest ways to manage stress, where you are or what time it is. Breathe in deeply through your nose and out through your mouth, holding each inward and outward breath for 5 seconds. Repeat for 3 to 5 minutes.
- Listen to a mindfulness routine. There are so many apps and videos to guide you. Try Calm or The Mindfulness App to start.
Oh! and don't forget the Healing Powers of Water...
and do remember - even if your loved one has had to go into a nursing home - YOU are still NEEDED
Questions for carers to ask the team caring for your loved one
Some of the questions found here may not be relevant to the stage of care of your friend or family member. But it is always good to clarify and ask any questions of the team caring for your loved one that you may have. No question is ever a wrong question, and your health care provider will always aim to answer all the questions you may have.
These professionals are Your TEAM - those people you can turn to when you do not know what/ if anything... you can do to help your loved one...
You only have to ASK. SO, next time your loved one is in the hospital, ask to speak to a Social Worker. They have those practical skills - like what paperwork do I have to fill in now - How?
And - when the time comes when you have to place your loved one in the Nursing Home or Palliative Care - the Social Worker is your saviour. They know all about the paperwork, the arrangements that have to be made... They will work in the background with the Doctors, the Nurses, the hospital staff... and get it done... This relieves YOU to concentrate on your loved one. To reassure them. To be with them. And to just 'be there' where you are Needed...
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Help IS at hand -
Lists and explains those Essential people and Specialists you can turn to for that All Important HELP...
Find a short-term stay in a nursing home (Respite) to give YOU a break :-) to visit your parents, attend a friend's wedding, or just chill out! for awhile...
https://www.agedcareguide.com.au/global-search?q=Respite
this site is also useful if looking for long term care.
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Oh! and don't forget the Healing Powers of Water...
and do remember - even if your loved one has had to go into a nursing home - YOU are still NEEDED
But I am a Male!
“But really, I’m not a caregiver now, and I don’t see myself becoming one anytime soon.”
“Yeah, but I’m not even the caregiving type. Isn’t that a women’s problem?”
I think I'm a Carer. What do I do now?
Put together 'Your Team'.
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Carers are generally happy with the standard of aged care support provided to the people in their care, but a national survey indicates that both aged care providers and the aged care system need to do more to address their needs.
Elena Katrakis
The demand for unpaid carers was currently at an all time high and was set to increase in the future, she said.
Carers can contact Carer Gateway on 1800 422 73, to speak to trained worker in their local area and help find services and support.
A Carer is any individual who provides unpaid care and support to a family member or friend who has:
- a disability,
- mental illness,
- drug and/or alcohol dependency,
- chronic condition,
- terminal illness or
- who is frail. Across Australia, there are approximately 2.65 million informal carers, around 10.8% of the population; 861,600 primary carers and 1.79 million non-primary carers (ABS 2019a).
The 2020 National Carer Survey Report released by Carers NSW canvassed responses from almost 8,000 carers across the nation. Of those, 2,477 said they were caring for someone using aged care services and 2,615 were looking after an NDIS participant. Both NDIS and aged care services were less likely to meet the needs of carers than the people they were caring for.
The survey shows there are more than 2.65 million unpaid carers in Australia, who will provide nearly 2.2 billion hours of care in 2020 at an estimated value to the economy of $1.5 billion a week.
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§ Your sleep problems may actually be a breathing problem
§ Most sleep aids are making your sleep problems even worse
§ You’ll continue to gain weight until you treat this one problem
§ Oxygen is a necessity of Life and of Combustion. It constitutes about 2/3 rds of the weight of our bodies, and one fifth of the weight of the air
§ People who sleep less than 5 hours or more than 9 are at higher risk for dying
§ Most doctors misdiagnose this simple yet chronic sleep/breathing disorder
§ Overbreathing is a prime contributory factor in snoring and sleep apnoea.
§ Many people with cold hands and feet are the beginning symptoms of a sleep breathing disorder
§ You can have hot flashes, night sweats and mood swings and NOT be going through menopause
§ Your jaw shape affects how well you sleep
§ Non-creative people sleep better than creative types
§ Most sleep aids are making your sleep problems even worse
§ Oxygen is a necessity of Life and of Combustion. It constitutes about 2/3 rds of the weight of our bodies, and one fifth of the weight of the air.
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"All this dirty air does not just clog vistas; it also clogs the lungs and the respiratory system. Basically, tiny pollutants 50 times smaller than a human hair can enter the lung and sometimes get into the bloodstream, compromising the immune system. Without normal healthy mucosa, the nose and lung lose the ability to slough off bacteria and viruses typically inhaled.
------- propofol and dexamethasone. Propofol for intubation and sedation and dexamethasone for the lungs’ inflammation due to the COVID virus attacking the lungs before it makes its way to all other vital organs.
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Lungs normally clear pollutants through the removal of viruses and bacteria by coughing. Healthy nose hairs also block the inhalation of pollutants. But chronic air pollution compromises the ability of the lungs to do their job. The natural mucociliary escalator dries up and cannot do its job of keeping us healthy.
Further compounding these situations, there’s a low level of vitamin D that comes about from the lack of sunlight. It is well known that those who live in the Northern Hemisphere tend to have lower levels of this essential nutrient. Those living in densely polluted regions will not have the opportunity for sunlight that causes the liver to produce this important disease-fighting vitamin. All of which suggests that the coronavirus may be much less of a problem in areas that are not as crowded, have better sanitation, and lower air pollution than in other zones."
https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2020/03/pollution-in-china-and-iran-are-worsening-the-coronavirus.html
If we were able to breathe “naturally” for even a small percentage of the more than 15,000 breaths we take during each waking day, we would be taking a huge step not only toward preventing many of the physical and psychological problems that have become endemic to modern life, but also toward supporting our own inner growth—the growth of awareness of who and what we really are, of our own essential being.
There is a profound effect to people’s health when they start dropping off a few of those thousands of breath. If 15,000 is about normal what would life be like if we reduced that to 10,000 breaths a day or less?
1. Breathing detoxifies and releases toxins.
The Calm
The Calm Breathing Room starts at a calming pace of five breaths per minute for one minute and then slows you down even more into a breathing rate that relaxes you and allows you to sink into a state of calmness and relaxation, which releases stress and allows your body, mind and soul to experience peace.
www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/breathing-exercises-for-anxiety
This is just SO true. Many thanks for drawing attention to this All Important Aspect of our lives. Breathing just cannot be underestimated. It's called, Living Your Life...
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Respite for Carers on the Gold Coast
Print Resources Different people have different needs for information at different times during an illness. Patients will also have different needs from their carers. To support these different needs the following list of resources has been compiled based around topics relevant to patients and their carers. The source of the information is included, note that some information is from outside Australia.
https://caresearch.com.au/caresearch/tabid/1262/Default.aspx#BGL
Living on the Gold Coast?
Our Angels Carer Support Group are being helped by these Tradespeople... Those who are Caring for others give all of their time 24/7 for the well-being of their loved one. It is a relentless, loving and all exhausting time in their lives, and those for whom they care... Rob Cinelli of LJ Hooker, Shop 2/10 Fifth Avenue, Palm Beach Qld 4221 has been helping us with practical help and suggestions.
Even home renovations we now have the time to do. Their help is making our lives that much easier.
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https://www.caring.com/caregivers/family-caregivers/#a-snapshot-of-family-caregivers-of-seniors-today
New to Caring/ unsure how to continue in your increasingly fraught and more demanding role for your loved one? Easily set out important info...
- - - - - - - - - - Are you a Carer and worried about what Help you can get? Like... NOW...
Since 6 April 2020, the full suite of services ARE NOW available using a network of Carer Gateway regional service providers. Do have a look at the National Carer Gateway for services that will help YOU, the carer, care for your loved one...
Your loved one is on the NDIS? Look here: NDIS - Be prepared
Mental Health resources under the NEW Wellways: https://www.wellways.org/understanding-mental-health/information-and-resources/mental-health-and-disability
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Help IS at hand -
Lists and explains those Essential people and Specialists you can turn to for that All Important HELP...
· A GP (for general/referrals/other Health Services ) - go to the HealthShare.com.au
Make better health choices - Search for a health professional, specialty or health topic.
- Choose from 92,000 Australian health professionals FIND A PROFESSIONAL
- Search over 370+ health topics SEARCH HEALTH TOPICS
- Get free answers to your health questions ASK A QUESTION
You can also access the Free Beyond the Basics (English) patient content in UpToDate by simply typing a term or phrase in the "Search Patient Content" box. Look up your specific question — anything from a symptom you're concerned about to a condition or treatment you've been discussing with your healthcare provider.
After you read the information in UpToDate, you will have the tools and the confidence to ask the right questions and have important conversations with your healthcare provider. Remember to print the information you find in UpToDate so you can discuss it with your healthcare provider.
UpToDate® is the premier evidence-based clinical decision support resource, trusted worldwide by healthcare practitioners to help them make the right decisions at the point of care. It is proven to change the way clinicians practice medicine, and is the only resource of its kind associated with improved outcomes.
Bulk Billed Telehealth:
In a major boost for primary health care, the Australian Government is further strengthening telehealth arrangements as recommended by the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) and other medical experts. April 2021
https://www.health.gov.au/ministers/the-hon-greg-hunt-mp/media/continuous-care-with-telehealth-stage-seven
https://croakey.org/what-will-new-restrictions-on-telehealth-mean-for-healthcare-access/
Continued telehealth services...
Under stage seven of telehealth reforms announced, Medicare-subsidised telehealth services, introduced as a key part of the COVID-19 response, will now promote patients receiving continuous care from a patient’s regular GP or medical practice.
Since 10 July 2020, Minister Hunt announced stage seven of the telehealth reforms as part of the Australian Government COVID-19 response. Further information is available on the webpage - continuous care with telehealth stage seven release.
Telehealth GP providers will be required to have an existing and continuous relationship with a patient in order to provide Telehealth services. A relationship is defined as the patient having seen the same practitioner for a face-to-face service in the last 12 months, or having seen a doctor at the same practice for a face-to-face service during the same period.
“The extension will ensure that Australians can continue to see their GP, renew scripts and seek mental health support from the safety of their own home. This allows vulnerable Australians to feel protected and supported during these unprecedented times,” Minister Hunt said.
People in isolation or quarantine for COVID-19 can see any eligible health provider through new telehealth items. Patients in vulnerable groups can additionally see a health provider via telehealth for a non-COVID-19 matter if they have seen that provider, or another provider within the same practice, face-to-face at least once in the previous 12 months. Additional guides to these services for providers are available via MBS Online. All services provided using the new MBS items must be bulk billed.
Contact your GP doctor, mental health practitioner or midwife by phone, especially if you have cold or flu symptoms and explain your situation.
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended health care, with telemedicine emerging as a strategy to reduce risk exposures for patients and clinicians. Originating from the Greek root tēle-, tēl-, tēle meaning “far off, afar, at or to a distance,” telemedicine encompasses virtual clinical services. Video visits, in particular, can be effective for many types of clinical care and offer convenience and savings for patients. As care shifts to this virtual modality, however, there is a risk of jeopardizing the meaningful human interaction that is critical to clinical care and impactful to patients and clinicians alike.
The communication challenges of telemedicine, further compounded by COVID-19 related stress, call for strategies to help clinicians forge meaningful interactions with patients during virtual visits.
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The Legal Toolkit provides practical information and video about the law at end of life for the aged care sector. It contains useful resources on end of life legal issues commonly encountered in aged care to help you to know the law and to support your practice. To find out more, read our Legal factsheet (701kb pdf).
02 March 2020
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Talking informally with other Carers Does Help!
Angels Carer Support Group - for present and past Carers, who pass on those Essential tips of how to survive Caregiving...
Held the last Tuesday of each month at St. Paul's Anglican Church Hall, 69 Palm Beach Ave, PALM BEACH - Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 26th April 2022, as usual start at 1pm and finish around 3pm. The companionship is Beyond Your Expectations! There are Tips and Ways of Coping that you may not have thought of. Many friendships have been forged. We know that by speaking out about What IS REALLY HAPPENING we learn to Relax with our decisions. This makes Caring just SO much easier. A place where you KNOW you are being UNDERSTOOD - AND HELPED - Unconditionally...
Come about 1.00pm for that cuppa and a chat. Often we have Speakers on subjects of interest to us as Carers - they start about 1.30pm and go to about 3.00pm. Other times we just sit, relax and enjoy each other's company and support each other as we face the daily caregiving tasks. Sit and chat, and take a brief break - for YOU :-) Father Phillip is a Great Supporter of the Angels. Our next meeting is on the 29th March 2022. 1pm - 3pm as usual in the church hall.
YOU are most welcome to join us :-) Do take CARE of YOU too...
and to find out what else is going on in the Palm Beach area: http://palmbeachgoldcoast.net.au/events/
Living on the Gold Coast? Our Angels Carer Support Group are being helped by these Tradespeople... Those who are Caring for others give all of their time 24/7 for the well-being of their loved one. It is a relentless, loving and all exhausting time in their lives, and those for whom they care... Rob Cinelli of LJ Hooker, Shop 2/10 Fifth Avenue, Palm Beach Qld 4221 has been helping us with practical help and suggestions. Even home renovations we now have the time to do. Their help is making our lives that much easier.
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In Crisis?
There is help - Womensline 1800 811 811. Anytime - 24/7.
DVConnect Womensline is the only state wide telephone service offering women who are experiencing domestic or family violence 24 hours a day 7 days a week. They offer free , professional and non-judgemental telephone support to you, wherever you live in Queensland.
Calls to 1800 811 811 are free from any public phone.
21 April 2022
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) at a glance
This infographic provides a quick view of the current coronavirus (COVID-19) situation in Australia. Updated every afternoon based on the data we receive by 3.00pm from states and territories.
Omicron Propagates 70 Times Faster than Delta in Bronchi: Study
A preprint reports that the new SARS-CoV-2 variant multiplies faster in human bronchial tissue but slower in lung tissue than the Delta variant, potentially explaining how it’s spreading from person to person so quickly.
4. 14. 20 / BY DAN ROBITZSKI
FDA APPROVES TEST THAT SCANS YOUR SPIT FOR CORONAVIRUS NO MORE STICKING SWABS ALL THE WAY TO THE BACK OF YOUR NOSE.
The FDA just issued an emergency use authorization to a new coronavirus test that analyzes saliva instead of relying on a nasal swab wedged all the way into the back of the nose.
If the new test, developed at the Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository (RUCDR) is deployed at scale, it could help make testing far more accessible. It would also make administering tests much safer for medical workers.
How Are Antibodies Produced and What's Their Role in the Immune System?
Medical Reviewer: Poonam Sachdev, MD Medically Reviewed on 11/29/2021
Antibodies, antigens, and the immune system:
Antibodies are proteins made by your immune system to try and protect you. Antibodies are created when your immune system reacts to toxins, pollen, and infectious organisms. Your body is constantly making antibodies, so it has a constant supply ready to fight thousands of different threats.
In the immune system, antibodies work against antigens. These are infections and the poisonous substances that they may produce. Antibodies react to antigens either on the surface of infected cells or in the substances they produce. Antibodies leave a mark that flags these cells as foreign and dangerous—this lets other antibodies know a foreign cell needs to be destroyed. The immune system's antibodies wipe out the infection, as well as other health-threatening cells, proteins, and chemicals.
The immune system:
Antibodies are an integral part of your body’s immune system. There are different kinds of antibodies, but all are necessary to the immune system to fight foreign bacteria and viruses.
Your immune system is composed of organs, cells, and chemicals that all work together to fight infections that threaten your body. In addition to antibodies, important parts of the immune system include white blood cells, the complement system and the lymphatic system, the spleen, the thymus, and bone marrow.
Your immune system is extremely effective. By creating certain targeted, tailor-made white blood cells, it adapts, altering in response to every bacteria and virus you encounter. These changes allow the immune system to quickly defeat infections if they make their way into your body again. A strong immune system will destroy foreign threats before they can multiply and make you ill.
There are certain infections that you’ll fight over and over again because there are so many different versions of the virus. Illnesses like the flu and common cold come in many "models," each vulnerable to its own unique antibodies. So, when you catch the flu you don’t gain immunity against all the other versions of the flu.
The immune system can be overactive or underactive. Overactivity might look like an allergic or autoimmune disease. Underactivity, also known as immunodeficiency, can have genetic causes, can result from treatments like medications or chemotherapy, or can occur after contracting another disease.
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What We Know About How Masks Can Slow Disease Spread
Not all masks are created equal, and how they are worn makes a difference too.
Diana Kwon July 8, 2020
N95 respirator: Tight-fitting single-use masks typically made with synthetic materials such as polyester and polypropylene. These masks are able to filter out at least 95 percent of both large airborne droplets and aerosols.
Surgical/medical masks: Loose-fitting single-use masks made with three or more layers of synthetic materials. These can filter out large airborne particles, but some aerosols can leak through, and particle-containing air is able to flow around the edges.
Fabric masks: These often-homemade masks vary widely in their construction and effectiveness. Aerosols are likely to leak through, and particle-containing air is able to flow around the edges. With appropriate washing or a couple of days to decontaminate, fabric masks are reusable.
"Health just got more complicated in the age of COVID. Just for starters, wearing masks is a health hazard because it cuts down on oxygen intake and forces one to breathe back in higher concentrations of CO2. Not a good idea over the long run as many people are just beginning to find out. Reports of bacterial pneumonia and other infections from wearing masks are coming in."
https://drsircus.com/general/health-sickness-death-and-covid/
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The Scientist: How does the physics of coughs and sneezes play into the transmission of diseases such as COVID-19? Lydia Bourouiba: Right now, we believe [SARS-CoV-2 is] transmitted mostly through the respiratory tract. The infection occurs in the respiratory tract and emissions from the tract are the propulsion mechanism of the virus into the environment and toward others. It’s very important, therefore, to understand not only the distances but also the timescales of exposures. The virus is never emitted in the air on its own. It’s always in the mucosalivary secretion that is emitted from either breathing out, coughing, or sneezing. In all cases, you’re creating a cloud, but the drop-size distribution and the energy of the gas will be different.
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/how-our-exhalations-help-spread-pathogens-such-as-sars-cov-2-67763
TS: What happens with our fluids when we do something like sneeze or cough?
LB: The exhalation is very much like a cloud . . . but it’s a [cloud] with a much higher momentum for coughs and sneezes. It . . . is moving around like you see when you have condensation on top of a pot. And it also contains this payload of droplets, like real clouds outside, [with] swelling and motion and turbulence inside.
Amanda Heidt 30 July 2020
Jul 26, 2021 HUMAN INTEREST HEALTH & CARE
Australia must get serious about airborne infection transmission – here’s what we need to do
Early July last year, the federal government announced a four-stage plan to bring the country back to something resembling normality. Acknowledging it will be impossible to eradicate COVID-19 completely, the plan focuses on a variety of steps – most notably vaccination – to enable the country to live with the virus.
However, if we want this plan to work, there’s one crucial control measure yet to be considered: protection against airborne transmission of the infection in public indoor spaces.
We need to modernise our indoor environments to protect Australians from respiratory infections, and more broadly, from all indoor air hazards. This includes indoor exposure to pollution originating from outdoors, such as bushfire smoke.
The evidence is in: The body of scientific evidence pointing to airborne transmission as the key route by which SARS-CoV-2 spreads is now overwhelming.
Put simply, over the past 18 months, we have come to understand most people become infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 by inhaling it from shared air. The risk is predominantly indoors.
Consequently, every public building should have control measures in place to provide adequate ventilation.
But this information hasn’t been communicated to Australians – many of whom remain focused on hand washing and cleaning surfaces. These are good practices, but because SARS-CoV-2 spreads predominantly through the air, they likely provide only a marginal contribution to infection control.
While the World Health Organization has recently released a roadmap to improve indoor ventilation in the context of COVID-19, many Australian public spaces are significantly under-ventilated.
We don’t know exactly what proportion of infections would be prevented by improving ventilation in public places, but the evidence indicates this could drastically reduce the risk.
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) at a glance:
COVID-19 - Long COVID: Symptoms experienced during infection may predict lasting illness
Earlier in the pandemic, it appeared that the majority of people infected with the coronavirus experienced mild-to-moderate symptoms and generally recovered within two to three weeks, depending on the severity of their illness. However, as time has passed, it’s become clear that some people, regardless of the severity of their disease, continue to experience symptoms beyond the acute phase of infection.
This has become known as “long COVID”. Emerging evidence suggests that these patients experience a range of persistent symptoms and health complications. These may have a significant impact on their quality of life, physical and mental health, and ability to return to work. But understanding long COVID is difficult. Its reported symptoms are highly varied, making it difficult to define.
Read more
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ABOVE: MODIFIED FROM © ISTOCK.COM, JANIECBROS
SARS-CoV-2’s Wide-Ranging Effects on the Body Researchers’ painstaking examinations have to reveal how the virus wreaks havoc in multiple organs and tissues. Diana Kwon Sep 1, 2021
When the first wave of the pandemic hit the US East Coast last spring, clinicians expected to see patients suffering primarily from a respiratory ailment that, in severe cases, left people needing mechanical ventilators to breathe. But Harvard Medical School’s Haytham Kaafarani, a trauma surgeon and critical-care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, and his colleagues noticed an unexpected surge in patients with complications in another part of the body—the gut—ranging from nausea and a loss of appetite to severe intestinal obstruction. According to Kaafarani, gastrointestinal surgeons were consulted frequently for “many, many symptoms that showed up.”
Now, with SARS-CoV-2 having infected more than 100 million people and counting, it’s clear that the virus can indeed lead to extensive damage outside of the lungs—damage that has contributed to a total of more than 3 million deaths to date. Over the past year and a half, investigators around the world have documented a wide range of symptoms in the blood, heart, kidney, gut, brain, and many other parts of the body. Some studies suggest that nearly a third of all COVID patients experience such symptoms—and this proportion rises to more than two-thirds of those who are critically ill, Kaafarani says. “The one thing we know for sure that we did not know a year ago is that COVID-19 certainly has extra-pulmonary manifestations.”
In addition to revealing where COVID-19 leaves its trail of damage in the body, patient assessments, postmortem investigations, and experiments with human cells and tissues have provided hints of the mechanisms through which many of these complications may arise. Single-cell sequencing analyses have revealed that cell surface receptors called ACE2 and TMPRSS2, which are used by SARS-CoV-2 to enter our cells, are widespread. And PCR has revealed the presence of viral RNA in various tissues, hinting at the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 can infect cells outside the respiratory system, though direct evidence of such infection is still limited. Another possibility is that the runaway immune response and blood clotting that SARS-CoV-2 infections can trigger may be to blame for the complications seen around the body. (See illustration.)
and
https://drsircus.com/general/you-dont-want-to-know-whats-coming/
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What to expect after your COVID-19 vaccination
Updated 9 November 2021
- Side effects
- What to do if you are concerned about your symptoms
- Are there other more serious side effects?
- Can you catch COVID-19 from the vaccines?
- Can you go back to daily activities after having your vaccine?
- What to do next
- If you are not well for your next appointment
- Will the vaccine protect you?
- What you can do after you’ve had the vaccine
- How COVID-19 is spread
- Further information
COVID-19 vaccination side effects: how to manage and when to report them
updated 2 July 2021
COVID-19 vaccinations are an important part of the national strategy to protect our health during the current pandemic and into the future. As with other vaccines, some people may experience mild and temporary side effects after a COVID-19 vaccination.
This article explains what to expect, how to manage any symptoms, how to report side effects and why reporting them is an important part of ensuring the safety of all vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccine.
Updates have been made to this article to reflect the new recommendations announced 17 June by the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI), and the new TGA provisional approval announced 25 June.
How to report an adverse event
You can report adverse events to your healthcare provider and ask them to report on your behalf, or you can report to the NPS MedicineWise Adverse Medicine Events Line on 1300 134 237 (8 am–8 pm AEST/AEDT 7 days a week). Alternatively, you can report to your State or Territory health department or directly to the TGA.
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What to Do If You Have an Allergic Reaction after Getting a COVID-19 Vaccine
Updated Mar. 4, 2021
If you get a COVID-19 vaccine and you think you might be having a severe allergic reaction after leaving the vaccination provider site, seek immediate medical care by calling 911.
If You Have a Severe Allergic Reaction to a COVID-19 Vaccine
If you had a severe allergic reaction—also known as anaphylaxis—after getting the first shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, CDC recommends that you not get a second shot of that vaccine. If the reaction was after an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine (either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna), you should not get a second shot of either of these vaccines. Learn which COVID-19 vaccines need a second shot.
An allergic reaction is considered severe when a person needs to be treated with epinephrine or EpiPen© or if they must go to the hospital. Learn about common side effects of COVID-19 vaccines and when to call a doctor.
If You Have a Non-severe Allergic Reaction to a COVID-19 Vaccine
If you had an immediate allergic reaction after getting a shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, you should not get a second shot of that vaccine, even if your allergic reaction was not severe enough to require emergency care. If the reaction was after an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine (either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna), you should not get a second shot of either of these vaccines. An immediate allergic reaction happens within 4 hours of getting vaccinated and may include symptoms such as hives, swelling, and wheezing (respiratory distress). Your doctor may refer you to a specialist in allergies and immunology to provide more care or advice. Learn about getting a different type of vaccine after an allergic reaction.
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) knowledge of cancer is dangerously superficial. They do get it right about cancer being the leading cause of death worldwide, but that is about it. The rest is less than helpful, so no wonder why nine million people die of cancer each year.
Cancer claimed far more lives in the U.S. last year than did COVID, yet we’re doing almost nothing to prevent it. Why are we doing next to nothing to reduce the death toll from cancer and heart disease, yet we nearly destroyed modern civilization over COVID fears? The answer should shake us to our core. The entire medical-industrial complex is based on pharmaceutical terrorism, which is very much a part of the training doctors must endure during medical school.
WHO’s description of what causes cancer is sad. It leaves one with the feeling that they do not want you to know anything or that they do not know anything, except for mainstream recommendations like surgery, chemo, and radiation therapy. And, of course, they want you to employ all their dangerous diagnostic tests that only provoke cancer and increase your chances of dying.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-how-many-americans-have-died-after-taking-the-covid-vaccine
DECADES OF FAILED “TIPPING-POINT” PROPHESIES
MAY 24, 2021 CAP ALLON
"Fear prevents us from thinking. The emotional panic that accompanies fear actually shuts down the prefrontal cortex, or the rational thinking part, of our brains. A populace that stops thinking for itself is a populace that is easily led, easily manipulated, and easily controlled," writes my friends at Electroverse, a cold climate site."
"Fear is the mind slayer. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," said Franklin D. Roosevelt. Fear is the most dangerous virus, and it seems like a good percentage of the population is suffering from COVID fear. The big or most crucial question is how to save yourself from the fear of COVID because no virus is more dangerous than fear."
https://www.the-scientist.com/features/how-environmental-noise-harms-the-cardiovascular-system-68786
Who benefits from vaccines?
Individuals benefit, in the short and long term
Efficacy
Efficacy refers to how well a vaccine performs in preventing new infections as it goes through scientific testing.
An effective vaccine protects an individual against a specific infectious disease and its complications. In the short term, vaccine efficacy is measured by its ability to reduce new infections. The longer-term goal is to reduce serious complications and death.
All vaccines currently used in Australia produce high levels of protection that are enough to prevent disease in most vaccinated individuals. In countries where the use of vaccination is widespread, there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of people who become ill and die from formerly common and severe infections.For example, the whooping cough vaccine prevents disease in 85% of recipients, while the measles vaccine prevents disease in 95% of recipients from the first dose alone. The remaining proportion of individuals may not be fully protected and remain at least partially susceptible to infection. This may be due to genetic factors, or to the presence of other medical conditions that affect their ability to mount a protective immune response to the vaccine. These people are also protected when herd immunity has been achieved.
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Mucosal Vaccines Protect Mice from Viruses, Cancer Scientists use a protein found in mucus membranes to ferry vaccines to the lymph nodes. Emma Yasinski June 1, 2021
Vaccines against poxvirus and melanoma induced more memory T cells (shown) in mice when they entered through the lungs than when administered via another route. FLICKR, NIAID
EDITOR’S CHOICE IN IMMUNOLOGY K. Rakhra et al., “Exploiting albumin as a mucosal vaccine chaperone for robust generation of lung-resident memory T cells,” Sci Immunol, 6:eabd8003, 2021.
Most vaccines are injected into muscle, where they induce systemic immunity. A goal of many vaccine developers is to engineer inhalable formulations that would build up powerful immunity localized in the mucous membranes that line organs such as the lungs. But to do so, vaccines need to breach that mucous membrane and head to the lymph nodes within the lungs, where they can instruct the immune system to generate memory T cells, key players in long-term immunity.
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What you need to know about coronavirus:
- The symptoms
- The number of cases in Australia
- Tracking Australia's vaccine rollout
- Global cases, deaths and testing rates
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Jun 02, 2021
HEALTH & CARE COVID-19
Could a simple pill beat COVID-19? Pfizer is giving it a go
While the focus has been largely on vaccines, you might have also heard Pfizer is trialing a pill to treat COVID-19.
It almost sounds too good to be true. Indeed, the results are very preliminary – but it’s a promising approach.
Where most antiviral agents we’ve tried to treat COVID-19 target the inflammatory and immune response resulting from infection, Pfizer’s pill directly targets SARS-CoV-2 – the virus itself. Targeting SARS-CoV-2 A virus like SARS-CoV-2 must enter a host cell to reproduce. It does this using its spike protein (a protein on the virus’ surface) to attach to the cell, and then it uses the cell’s own proteins to gain entry. Once inside the cell, SARS-CoV-2 removes its outer coat and releases its viral RNA (ribonucleic acid, a type of genetic material). This acts as a template, allowing the virus to replicate, and then infect other cells. At any point of this life cycle the virus could be vulnerable to an intervention.
But in 2020, Pfizer/BioNtech identified a small molecule – PF-00835231 – that blocks the SARS-CoV-2 3CLpro protease. It was originally designed against SARS-CoV-1, but the enzyme in the two viruses is almost identical. PF-00835231, both alone and in conjunction with remdesevir, appears to reduce the replication of a range of coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2 in cells in the lab. It also reduced viral replication in a number of animal models, with no adverse safety signals. But it’s important to note this research hasn’t yet been peer reviewed.
What now? Pfizer/BioNtech are taking two drugs to clinical trials for COVID-19: PF-07304814, an intravenous injection for use in patients hospitalised with severe COVID-19 and PF-07321332, an oral agent – or pill – that could potentially be used earlier in the disease. Both are formulations of a 3CLpro inhibitor.
These phase 1 trials, which began in March, represent the earliest stage of drug development. These trials select healthy volunteers and use different doses of the drugs to establish their safety. They also look at whether the drugs elicit sufficient responses in the body to indicate they could be effective against SARS-CoV-2.
The next step would be phase 2 or 3 trials to see if they improve outcomes in COVID-19. Usually this process takes years, but as the pandemic continues to rage globally, Pfizer says it will do this in a matter of months, if phase 1 trials are successful.
Pandemics
Published on May 17, 2021
Members of the public could be putting themselves more at risk from contracting coronavirus by wearing face masks, one of England’s most senior doctors has warned. Jenny Harries, deputy chief medical officer, said the masks could "actually trap the virus" and cause the person wearing it to breathe it in. Not only the virus, we are learning, but a host of bacteria, fungus, yeast, and molds, which are potentially more deadly than COVID-19 and any of its variants.
Track COVID-19 Vaccines Advancing Through Clinical Trials
Find the latest updates in this one-stop resource, including efficacy data and side effects of approved shots, as well as progress on new candidates entering human studies.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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2020 Dec 9;11:590459.
doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.590459. eCollection 2020.
A Network-Based Analysis Reveals the Mechanism Underlying Vitamin D in Suppressing Cytokine Storm and Virus in SARS-CoV-2 InfectionoV-2 InfectionFiroz Ahmed https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33362771/
SARS-CoV-2 causes ongoing pandemic coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19), infects the cells of the lower respiratory tract that leads to a cytokine storm in a significant number of patients resulting in severe pneumonia, shortness of breathing, respiratory and organ failure. Extensive studies suggested the role of Vitamin D in suppressing cytokine storm in COVID-19 and reducing viral infection; however, the precise molecular mechanism is not clearly known. In this work, bioinformatics and systems biology approaches were used to understand SARS-CoV-2 induced cytokine pathways and the potential mechanism of Vitamin D in suppressing cytokine storm and enhancing antiviral response.
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Sewage Sampling Robots Speed SARS-CoV-2 Detection
An automated wastewater monitoring technique could enable researchers to predict outbreaks of the virus up to a week in advance. ABOVE: © ISTOCK.COM, May 2021 As well as shedding SARS-CoV-2 virus through nose and throat secretions, infected people can, even when asymptomatic, excrete the virus in their stool. Because of this, wastewater sampling has been under investigation since the beginning of the pandemic as a way to monitor levels of the novel coronavirus in whole populations.
Blood Pressure Meds Can Affect COVID-19 Care
High blood pressure is the most common chronic health condition among COVID-19 patients who require hospitalization, according to one of three studies presented at a virtual meeting of the American Heart Association on Thursday.
Aug 24, 2020 COVID-19
The physical effects of coronavirus: how coronavirus impacts the outside of our body.
Since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, we’ve all been well informed about the signs and symptoms to look out for. Things like shortness of breath, fever, and flu-like symptoms have been on the global radar since March. While we’ve written before about some of the unexpected symptoms of coronavirus, new studies have now shown that there may be even more physical symptoms associated with the disease than we originally thought.
As more people are diagnosed, treated and observed, it’s becoming clear that more than just the lungs are being affected. Researchers have realised that there are several skin and hair conditions that are being associated with an infection of coronavirus.
- Red eyes
- Reddish – purple discolouration on toes and feet
- Small red bumps and multiple flat patches
- Full body rash (specifically in children)
- Water blisters (more common for middle-aged patients)
- “Fishing net” like bruises (found in older people)
- Hives
- Hair loss
As the world continues to battle coronavirus and the global infection rate, we’re seeing more and more impacts, symptoms and side effects on the human body. It’s becoming increasingly important that we continue to do the right thing in order to protect ourselves and our community if we are ever going to return to normal.
Stay at home, wear a mask, keep vigilant.
By Rianna Manuel
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June 08, 2021
HEALTH & CARE COVID-19
The mystery of ‘long COVID’:
Why up to 1 in 3 people who catch the virus suffer for months
Most people who get COVID suffer the common symptoms of fever, cough and breathing problems, and recover in a week or two.
But some people, estimated to be roughly 10-30% who get COVID, suffer persistent symptoms colloquially known as “long COVID”.
The most common symptoms we (Louis and Alex) hear from sufferers in our long COVID clinic in Melbourne are fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pain, heart palpitations, headaches, brain fog, muscle aches and sleep disturbance. But it can also include very diverse symptoms like loss of smell and taste, increased worry – especially in relation to one’s health – depression, and an inability to work and interact with society. In some of these people, it’s almost as if there’s a process that’s affected every part of their body.
Another feature for many in our clinic is the disconnect between the severity of their initial COVID illness and the development of significant and persisting symptoms during recovery. Most of our patients in the long COVID clinic had a milder illness initially, are often younger than those who’ve been hospitalised, and were healthy and active before getting COVID.
How many people have long COVID?
It’s very difficult to determine what proportion of people who get COVID end up with persistent symptoms. At this stage we don’t know the exact rate.
In our ongoing study of COVID immunity at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) we found 34% of our participants were experiencing long COVID 45 weeks after diagnosis. For most people, the outcomes are good. After nine months, half of our patients have returned to close to normal activity and have been discharged from the clinic. However, there’s a group of patients whose improvement is slower. They’re often young and previously high functioning. They have limited ability to work, exercise and socialise. Their return to work and other activities needs to be carefully managed, and they need to avoid doing too much too quickly.
It’s essential these patients’ persisting symptoms are acknowledged, and that they get support from their family, employer and a multidisciplinary medical team.
Seizures Common in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients
The death rate was higher among those who experienced the seizures, according to a study conducted during the early days of the pandemic. Emma Yasinski Apr 12, 2021
as the pandemic raged on, it became clear that the virus is able to affect tissues throughout the body and that cognitive effects, from confusion to strokes, are common. Last week, for instance, a study in The Lancet Psychiatry showed that one-third of patients were diagnosed with a neurological or psychological condition within six months of contracting COVID-19.
See “COVID-19’s Effects on the Brain”
Westover’s group collected data on 197 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, 19 of whom experienced nonconvulsive seizures. Patients who experienced the seizures were four times more likely to die in the hospital than were their counterparts with similarly severe disease but no seizures.
In addition to the patients who experienced seizures, 48.7 percent of the patients showed epileptiform discharges, which Shafi describes as “little sparks of epileptic activity lasting less than a second.” In some cases, these sparks can cause damage, while other times they serve as a sign that a patient’s brain is not functioning normally and may be at a higher risk for seizures. Westover says that he was “shocked” by the epileptic discharges. “We were betting on less than five percent” of patients experiencing these types of abnormalities, he explains. Their prevalence may suggest that COVID-19 affects the brain more than scientists currently know.
“We were waiting for a study like this because we didn’t have much information on a bigger scale on what was going on physiologically in the brain of a patient that has COVID,” says Maria Bruzzone, a neurologist at the University of Florida who was not involved in the study.
The number of seizures was similar to what would be expected for patients hospitalized with other illnesses. “Maybe what this tells us,” says Bruzzone, “is that seizures in these patients is not COVID attacking the brain or causing brain disease. This is because of the severity of the disease or the severity of the hypoxia.”
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YOUR own health... If YOU get sick, who will look after your loved one?
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Could a glass of wine diagnose long COVID?
GEORGIA LEA, MD | CONDITIONS | MARCH 12, 2021
Acute COVID-19 infection ranges from no symptoms (asymptomatic) to life-threatening. What about long COVID (the symptoms occurring more than three weeks after infection, also known as post-acute COVID syndrome)? Could there be thousands of people with “mild” long COVID who don’t know it? Could there be legions of people with new low-energy levels being misdiagnosed as depressed, stressed, having a sleep disorder, or being labeled “lazy”? The inability to tolerate a glass of wine or a bottle of beer could be an important clue to their true diagnosis.
The term “long COVID” represents at least four different syndromes, including those that result from organ damage or an ICU stay. Of these syndromes, post-viral fatigue syndrome (PVFS) is the only one that causes alcohol intolerance without organ damage. When I refer to long COVID in this article, I am referring to the PVFS type only.
My personal experience with long COVID has been straightforward. The onset of fatigue, muscle aches, muscle twitches, headaches, and problems thinking followed a documented case of COVID-19, and my ongoing symptoms are severe enough to be undeniable. My energy level averages about 50 percent of my prior normal, nine months after the initial infection. But I wonder about the thousands of people who have long COVID that may not even recognize it. 10 to 30 percent of all COVID-19 infections result in fatigue lasting longer than three weeks. There is no test for long COVID, and though it is gaining recognition, few American medical providers know how to screen for it.
How coronavirus affects the entire body
By Maggie Fox, CNN 11 July 2020
How coronavirus affects the entire body Coronavirus damages not only the lungs, but the kidneys, liver, heart, brain and nervous system, skin and gastrointestinal tract, doctors said Friday in a review of reports about Covid-19 patients.
The team at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City — one of the hospitals flooded with patients in the spring — went through their own experiences and collected reports from other medical teams around the world.
Their comprehensive picture shows the coronavirus attacks virtually every major system in the human body, directly damaging organs and causing the blood to clot, the heart to lose its healthy rhythm, the kidneys to shed blood and protein and the skin to erupt in rashes. It causes headaches, dizziness, muscle aches, stomach pain and other symptoms along with classic respiratory symptoms like coughing and fever.
"Physicians need to think of COVID-19 as a multisystem disease," said Dr. Aakriti Gupta, a cardiology fellow at Columbia who worked on the review, in a statement. "There's a lot of news about clotting but it's also important to understand that a substantial proportion of these patients suffer kidney, heart, and brain damage, and physicians need to treat those conditions along with the respiratory disease."
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https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/sars-cov-2-can-infect-human-brain-organoids-67723
It’s becoming increasingly clear that COVID-19 causes not only respiratory ailments, but also a wide variety of neurological symptoms—from the common phenomenon of losing taste and smell, to more recent reports of ischemic stroke, delirium, and hallucinations—raising questions of whether such symptoms are a byproduct of various disruptions SARS-CoV-2 causes throughout the body, a consequence of the trauma of being hospitalized with COVID-19, or if they could be due to viral invasion of neural tissues. Earlier this year, Eric Song, a graduate student in immunologist Akiko Iwasaki’s lab at Yale, and PhD student Ce Zhang started to investigate whether SARS-CoV-2 was capable of infecting neurons of the central nervous system.
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Bicarbonate Proves to be Cheapest Fastest Safest COVID Treatment
Published on February 22, 2021
The new bicarbonate research adds to the lengthening list of treatments. And it is no surprise to anyone who knows how and why bicarbonates work. Doctors and health care officials should, but do not know or even want to know, that viral infections are unanimously sensitive to pH changes. The simple alkalinization of the blood reduces the cells’ susceptibility to viruses. Meaning bicarbonates can be taken orally as a preventative, and as we find out below, can be nebulized and even pumped into the lungs in ICU patients when their lungs are impaired.
Conclusion:
There are three forms of bicarbonate. There are sodium, potassium, and magnesium bicarbonates. They are nontoxic primary alkalizing agents for the prevention and treatment of cancer, liver disease, Type I & Type II diabetes, Lupus, heart disease, pharmacological toxicosis, vascular surgery operation, tonsillar herniation due to cerebral edema, lactic acid toxicosis, and hyponatremia or low salt or loss of salts due to excessive or over-exercise. Research by British scientists at the Royal London Hospital shows that sodium bicarbonate can dramatically slow chronic kidney disease progression. Yet, the debate and ignorance around these simple medicines continue.
The United States army acknowledges that sodium bicarbonate is the medicine of choice to clear Uranium toxicity from the kidneys. It is the only medicine rated to do that. Bicarbonates are also the ultimate form of chemotherapy, and one can only laugh (or cry) at the mile-deep lunacy that prevents all doctors from accepting this fact.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/why-is-obesity-tied-to-severe-covid-19/ar-BB18PmRq?ocid=DE_20200908_ENUS_coronavirus_5
Obesity may be one reason some countries or communities have been hit hard by the virus, researchers say. In the United States, the obesity rate among adults has climbed for decades and is now at 42 percent. The rate is even higher among Black and Hispanic Americans.
A person who is 5 feet, 7 inches tall is considered obese starting at around 190 pounds, or a body mass index of 30. The increased risk for serious COVID-19 illness appears more pronounced with extreme obesity, or a BMI of 40 or higher.
Researchers say multiple factors likely make it harder for people who are obese to fight a coronavirus infection, which can damage the lungs. Carrying around a lot of extra weight strains the body, and that excess fat could limit the lungs' ability to expand and breathe.
Another issue is chronic inflammation, which often comes with obesity. Inflammation is a natural way our bodies fight harmful intruders like viruses. But long-lasting inflammation isn’t healthy and could undermine your body’s defenses when a real threat arises.
Enthusiasm over evidence? What the Israeli vaccination data actually show. DANIEL HOPKINS, MD | PHYSICIAN | FEBRUARY 23, 2021
Doctors are worried about the "public perception" when the elderly die right after getting the vaccination. What would YOU think if your mother died the day after she received the COVID shot?
No Vaccine Trials Made on the Elderly Vaccinate Them Even if it Kills Them?
Published on January 12, 2021
Dr. Kelly Moore, "associate director of the Immunization Action Coalition, said, "Since they [the COVID vaccines] haven’t been studied in people in those [elderly] populations, we don’t know how well the vaccine will work for them. We know that most vaccines don’t work nearly as well in a frail elderly person as they would in someone who is fit and vigorous, even if they happen to be the same age."
Covid-19 vaccines have not been tested in the frail elderly, many of whom are residents of long-term care facilities. Therefore, there is NO evidence that the vaccine is safe or effective for the elderly. Jon Rappoport says, "If this doesn’t give the frail and elderly and their families pause for thought, nothing will."
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How Your Lungs Balance Your Body's pH Level
Supplier: AirPhysio Pty Ltd By: Paul O'Brien AirPhysio 12 November, 2019
=Respiratory Conditions=
When the lungs are working correctly we have a simple process where our lungs excrete mucus (which captures up to 90% of all foreign particles) which sits on top of hairs known as cilia. This mucus is transported at around 1 centimetre per minute and is swallowed (we swallow around 30 millilitres per day). This process is called the mucociliary escalator and is responsible for helping to maintain the hygiene of our lungs.
This process helps to filter our particles before they reach our alveoli (air sac) where the gas exchange of O2 and CO2 happen.
When we get an infection in our lungs, 2 important immune responses happen:
- Mucus Hyper Secretion and Mucociliary Escalator - The 1st line of lung defense which captures up to 90% of all foreign particles. This is where the airways secrete thicker mucus so as to capture and remove pollutants from the airways before they it reaches the airway walls.
- Inflammation of the Airway Walls - The 2nd line of lung defense. This occurs if any particles, bacteria or viruses make it through the mucus and enter the skin cells of the airway walls. In this case, the airway walls fill with blood and fluid as the white blood cells are pushed into the muscle to help fight infection. By filling with blood, the tissue expands, causing heat and pain, i.e. the inflammatory condition.
The only issue with these 2 conditions are that they restrict the amount of oxygen which reaches the alveoli (air sacs) which reduces the amount of oxygen in the blood. As a short term fix, the blood increases the amount of hemoglobin to assist in mitigating this. If this occurs long term (i.e. long term inflammation and/or mucus plugging), then it can result in an imbalance of O2 and CO2 in the body, resulting in the conditions mentioned above.
These Respiratory Conditions usually develop into one of the following:
1. Asthma - An immune deficiency conditions where the lungs react to a specific Alligen or parasite attack by creating mucus hyper secretion, inflammation and Bronchoconstriction (a condition where the muscles in the airways constrict to force the alligen/parasite out of the lungs).
2. Acute Bronchitis or Chronic Bronchitis - A reaction to an infection of the lungs where the lungs react by mucus hyper secretion and/or inflammation. Chronic Bronchitis (also know as 1 condition of COPD) is from a long term condition of Bronchitis (usually 3 months or more) over a 3 year period.
3. Bronchiectasis - This is a condition where the cilia (airs on the airway walls) and/or airway walls are damages. This can occur from a thing TB or uncleared mucus from an infection over a long period, or even something as simple as old age. This leads to a damaged area of the mucociliary escalator where mucus pools in and starts to block the clearance process of the lungs, leading to further complications.
4. Cystic Fibrosis - This is a hereditary condition where the mucus which is sticky and thicker due to dehydration. This leads to an inability for the mucociliary escalator to work efficiently
The consistency of the mucus is essential for capturing of the particles and then being transported out of the lungs. If it is too dehydrated and thick, it slows the process and doesn't transport as easily creating blockages and inflections. If it is too hydrated and not sticky enough, it doesn't ride easily on top of the cilia (hairs) and may slide down onto the skin, making it harder to transport and causing further infections and inflammation.
Treatment of Inflammation and Mucus Hyper Secretion
The inflammation is usually treated through medical known as Corticosteroids, which the excess mucus is usually treated using either a PEP or OPEP device like AirPhysio. These devices expand the lungs when blowing out, helping air to get behind the mucus to assist in pushing it up and out of the lungs to be swallowed or coughed out naturally. They also help to splint open the airways and push medication further into the lungs, improving deposition.
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Orthomolecular Medicine News Service Protocol to repair COVID cellular damage.
Several studies have now confirmed that people who become infected with the COVID-19 virus, including those who are asymptomatic, often experience some cellular damage. This damage has been shown to occur in tissues in the lungs, the kidneys, the liver, the heart, the brain, the throat, the intestines and nerve cells. Damage to the nervous system is implied by headaches and difficulty with the sense of smell or taste. Difficulty in breathing may continue. However, in some cases this damage is not obvious to a cursory medical examination. Since the experience with this virus is so new in the world of viral infections, how much damage has been done or how long it may take the body to repair this damage is unknown. Therefore, it is prudent to take precautions to repair this damage, using cellular repair protocols that are proven. Volume 17 (2021) Release #DateSubject
Vol. 17, No. 02 January 15, 2021 A Health Crisis Exposed by the COVID Pandemic
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/09/pfizer-covid-vaccine-nhs-extreme-allergy-sufferers-regulators-reaction
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Full report released into the timeline of COVID-19 outbreak in Sydney nursing home
Of all COVID-19 deaths in Australia, 74% were in aged care homes. Infection prevention and control has often been neglected in aged care, but a new report is recommending that after COVID-19, all aged care staff should receive consistent infection control training.
https://hellocaremail.com.au/infection-control-must-embedded-aged-care-culture-new-report/
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Algorithm Spots COVID-19 Cases from Eye Images: Preprint
A small study shows artificial intelligence can pick out individuals with coronavirus infections, but ophthalmologists and AI experts say the approach is far from proven to be capable of distinguishing infections with SARS-CoV-2 from other ills. Anthony King Sep 21, 2020 https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/algorithm-spots-covid-19-cases-from-eye-images-preprint-67950
Currently, screening for coronavirus infection involves CT imaging of the lungs or analyzing samples from the nose or throat, both of which take time and require professional effort. A system based on a few images of the eyes that could triage or even diagnose people would save on both costs and time, says Fu. But the investigation by Fu’s team is preliminary and both ophthalmologists and AI specialists say they’d want to see much more information on the technique—and its performance—before being convinced it could work.
Volunteers at Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre in Fudan each had five photos of their eyes taken using common CCD or CMOS cameras. Of 303 patients, 104 had COVID-19, 131 had other pulmonary conditions, and 68 had eye diseases. A neural network tool extracted and quantified the features from different regions of the eye and an algorithm recognized the ocular characteristics of each disease. A neural network is a series of algorithms for solving AI problems, learning as it goes along in a way that mimics the human brain. The researchers then carried out a validation experiment on a small dataset from healthy people, COVID-19 patients, pulmonary patients, and ocular patients.
Of 24 people with confirmed coronavirus infections, the tool correctly diagnosed 23, Fu tells The Scientist. And the algorithm accurately identified 30 out of 30 uninfected individuals.
Coronavirus infections, not just those caused by SARS-CoV-2, have long had associations with the eye, causing inflammation of the transparent membrane that covers the inside of the eyelid and whites of the eyeball, a condition called conjunctivitis, or pink eye. The eyes also offer a route to infection for respiratory viruses, including coronaviruses.
Human coronavirus NL63, which causes common cold symptoms, was first identified in 2004 in a baby with bronchiolitis and conjunctivitis. Subsequent studies showed that a minority of children infected with this coronavirus suffer from this eye condition.
Although conjunctivitis remains a potential symptom of coronavirus infections, less than 5 percent of COVID-19 patients actually present with eye symptoms, notes Daniel Ting, ophthalmologist at the Singapore National Eye Centre, who has published on this topic and deep learning in ophthalmology. “If you look to develop an AI system to detect COVID-19 based on [limited numbers of] eye images, I think the performance is not going to be great,” especially given the low prevalence of eye symptoms. He doubts the performance of the algorithm also because “a lot of eye manifestations could be due to reasons other than COVID-19.”
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Scientists warn of potential wave of COVID-linked brain damage
July 8, 2020, 11:23 PM By Reuters
LONDON — Scientists warned on Wednesday of a potential wave of coronavirus-related brain damage as new evidence suggested COVID-19 can lead to severe neurological complications, including inflammation, psychosis and delirium.
A study by researchers at University College London described 43 cases of patients with COVID-19 who suffered either temporary brain dysfunction, strokes, nerve damage or other serious brain effects.
https://academic.oup.com/brain/advance-article/doi/10.1093/brain/awaa240/5868408
Preliminary clinical data indicate that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is associated with neurological and neuropsychiatric illness. Responding to this, a weekly virtual coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) neurology multi-disciplinary meeting was established at the National Hospital, Queen Square, in early March 2020 in order to discuss and begin to understand neurological presentations in patients with suspected COVID-19-related neurological disorders.
https://drsircus.com/general/vitamin-d-ivermectin-better-solutions-to-covid-than-vaccines/
COVID-19 Vaccine Bombshell: FDA Documents Reveal DEATH + 21 Serious Conditions As Possible Adverse Outcomes: https://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/covid-19-vaccine-bombshell-fda-documents-reveal-death-21-serious-conditions-possi1
06 December 2020
COVID-19 Symptoms in Kids Most Often Headache, Fever:
App Data: The COVID Symptom Study app aims to help patients and healthcare providers identify patterns in user-reported data.
Lisa Winter Sep 8, 2020
Asymptom-tracking app indicates that children experience different COVID-19 symptoms than adults, The Guardian reports. While a persistent cough and a diminished sense of taste and smell are common among adults, the app has found, children with the virus most commonly experience symptoms such as headache, fatigue, and fever, among others.
More than half of the 198 children in their system who tested positive for the virus experienced fatigue and headaches, according to The Guardian. Fever occurred in around 50 percent. Around one-third of the kids had sore throats, and a minority of children exhibited a skin rash or experienced diarrhea.
“We need to start to telling people what are the key symptoms at different ages rather than this blanket obsession with fever, cough, and lack of smell,” Tim Spector, an epidemiologist at King’s College London and co-leader of the project, tells The Guardian. He suggests that children showing these symptoms should be kept home from school, though not necessarily tested.
Dozens More Cases of Neurological Problems in COVID-19 Reported
SARS-CoV-2 generally attacks the lungs, but researchers are also stressing its effects on the brain in a fraction of patients. Amanda Heidt July 8, 2020
Newly described case reports add to growing evidence that COVID-19 infections can result in severe, long-lasting neurological complications—including inflammation, psychosis, delirium, nerve damage, and strokes—even among patients experiencing mild cases of the virus with few other symptoms. In some instances, the new study claims, these neurological effects were the first manifestation of the disease.
ts from China’s Wanzhou District, found that more than 90% of both groups had steep declines in levels of SARS-CoV-2–specific immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies within 2–3 months of infection.
The dramatic reduction in IgG antibodies has created doubt over whether SARS-CoV-2 infection provides long-term protection against subsequent exposure to the virus, and could impact procedures for healthcare workers along with any future plans to issue ‘immunity passports’ for the disease.
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