Uneccessary Health tips

[hermanntrude]

I just found this article online:

(HealthDay News) - Many diabetics need to inject themselves with insulin to help regulate their blood sugar.

Here are instructions on how to administer an insulin shot, courtesy of the American Academy of Family Physicians:

• Thoroughly wash your hands before handing any of the equipment.
• With an alcohol swab, clean the area of the skin to be injected, as well as the top of the insulin bottle.
• Pull back the syringe's plunger, insert it into the insulin bottle, and push the plunger so that air is injected into the bottle.
• With the bottle upside down, pull the plunger back again until the syringe is filled to the appropriate amount of insulin.
• If there are air bubbles, tap on the syringe with your finger, or inject the insulin back into the bottle and refill the syringe.
• Pinch a section of skin, usually on the thigh, arm or stomach, and inject the contents of the syringe at a 90-degree angle.

I'm rather shocked to find it. First: why does anyone except the diabetic and their guardians (if they are young or infirm) need to know how to deliver an insulin shot? I've often met people who believe that if a diabetic is found in what the nurses insist on childishly referring to as a "hypo" they should be given a shot. This belief is dangerous and unfounded, and the posting of any article which suggests that anyone needs to give a diabetic a shot who isn't diabetic only adds to it

second: most of the information, while useful to some i'm sure, is rather out of date and doesn't apply to a large proportion of diabetics. it's fairly rare to use disposable syringes any more, most diabetics have a device which looks like a pen and has changeable needles and insulin cartridges. Some have insulin pumps which inject through a cannula

other points to mention:

• the article makes no attempt to mention dosage, so the information is useless anyway.
• Alcohol swabs are all very well and probably great advice but I havent used one in about 18 years (during which time i probably did 20,000 injections) and never ONCE got infected.
• When advising a patient to inject into their stomach, doctors ought to point out that if you repeat the process 20,000 times you'll get scar tissue building up there and look really stupid.
• 90 degree angle to what?

seriously crappy journalism

 

[#juan]

Unnecessary health tips: Don't look into laser with remaining eye...

 

[hermanntrude]

a friend of mine was messing about with a laser and managed to burn a chunk out of his watch by accident. It was an IR laser so invisible. No-one EVER went into that lab without the goggles on. It just wasnt safe.... you could never be sure whether there was some bit of optical instrumentation reflecting a beam into your face.