A useful compendium of health risks associated with excessive computer usage: Is Your Computer Killing You? RSI, eye strain, deep-vein thrombosis, insomnia, etc.
A little app that I find useful in reminding me to take occasional breaks is Workrave. Though I've gotten all too good at ignoring it.
Time for a break.
At our Sixth Day of Christmas party yesterday, Delf started talking about burns from hot peppers, which reminded me of a crazy thread that I read a while back, Listening to habeneros, and of a sure-fire cure for hiccups from Diane Duane.
Me, when I get hiccups, I just take a very deep breath and hold it for as long as I can. If it doesn't work the first time, it does on the second attempt.
Cure #1, letting a large spoonful of sugar dissolve in the mouth, is the only cure that's ever worked for Emma.
Here's Diane Duane on curing hiccups:
Hiccups are the result of a blood serum …continue.
(Originally posted to Personal at EraBlog on Sat, 11 Oct 2003 18:15:39 GMT)
I have gout. It's an unpleasant form of arthritis. Once or twice a year, one of my lower joints will swell up overnight. Usually, it's struck one of my knees, though the last few attacks have all been in my feet. The knee attacks have all been extremely painful initially and I've required prescription painkillers to get to sleep at night. Just bending my knee a few degrees is enough to make me break out in a cold sweat. Fortunately, after a few days, the pain decreases to the point where it's annoying but tolerable.
Oddly, the feet …continue.
(Originally posted to Toastmasters at EraBlog on Thu, 24 Apr 2003 06:08:36 GMT)
I gave the following speech to Toastmasters on March 5th, 2003, as Speech #3, "Organize Your Speech".
SLEEP APNEA
My wife is a cyborg.
That's not to say that she's the Terminator. Nor even that she's the six-million dollar woman, although I do value her greatly. She calls herself a cyborg because she sleeps with a breathing machine. At night, she wears a mask over her nose to force air into her lungs.
When I first met her, she complained of being tired all the time, of not getting a good night's sleep, of feeling stupid. When she drove …continue.
(Originally posted to Personal at EraBlog on Tue, 22 Apr 2003 16:04:19 GMT)
I've been too busy in the last few weeks to post anything here. Mostly because I've been busy with work. Partially because I'm too disgusted with Iraq to say anything useful: Win the war and lose the peace. Feh!
In the last few days, I've been at home taking care of Emma. On Friday morning, she had a Morton's neuroma removed from her left foot. A nerve running through the space between a couple of her toes had become enlarged to about a centimeter in diameter, and it had been causing her a lot of pain. She …continue.