Crux

Stage 2... Before and after NA

It's a no-brainer to avoid the slice-and-dice if you suffer no disability. By definition, your contracture is only Stage 0 and docs advise you do nothing until stage 1 or 2. I'd tell you my own Hx with Dup's, but anecdotal information won't help because the manifestations and progression of the disease vary greatly from individual to individual. Sufficient to say that I first noticed a nodule from the painful pressure spot it created on my palm when grabbing rock. Now have stage 2 contracture at metacarpal phalangeal joint at one pinky, but it took a long time to come to that. It's more common than you might think, and although it's directly inherited it often does not present detected manifestations. Therefore, one or both of your parents have it, even though it may not have been noticed. Your case evidently is quite noticable, even though it might be decades before you will be compelled to seek treatment. In the meantime it will progressively require adaptation in what you can do with your hands, depending on what you do and what fingers are eventually affected, if any. Obviously, the condition might already be presenting some concern while rock climbing, but pressure sensitivity and pain related to early contracture (nodule) may subside as your adjacent tissues get used to it. For future reference: Dr. Kline's Dupuytren's Center - Ontario, OR Walt's Dupuytren's Contracture/Medical Site Dr. Eaton's Hand Center - Jupiter, FLA

Went to REI the other day to get some goldline and new cap for the SVEA, and all I find is a thrift store. WTF?

Surely Oly deserves some credit for the appropriate mention of domestic terrorism.

Fwiw, the collagenase trials are going nowhere. Moreover, a radical fasciectomy, the intervention typically practiced by most U.S. hand surgeons for Dup's, is very traumatic, causes disfigurement, and requires months of painful post-op recovery to restore use of the hand. (It also requires an operating room and surgical staff.) But you will probably have to do something sooner than later, else see your climbing career done a lot sooner than later and what else. The contracture typically progresses, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. If you don't really use your hands, then you can probably get by until the day you find you can't release the steering wheel of your car. After that, the contracture can get to the point where it starts driving your fingernails into your hand, but the doctor who told me that confided he only had to amputate the fingers in the case of a demented elderly woman who apparently didn't notice or care that she couldn't climb rocks or drive cars anymore. Anyway, an alternative procedure for treating Dupuytren's was recently developed in Europe and for most persons who require Tx for the contractures it's probably a superior option. Called a needle aponevrotomy, it's an outpatient procedure that produces minimal trauma-- the patient is good to go in a matter of hours -- and over the past few years several clinics that offer the procedure in the U.S have been established. Treatment with the NA requires around twenty minutes. That's it. It might cost about the same as a root canal, but it takes less time and probably doesn't hurt nearly as much after the local wears off. In contrast, the recovery time, medical costs, and risks that are involved with aradical fasiectomy are greater by a magnitude. Based on what I've learned, the needle aponevrotomy for Duypuytren's is sort of like using orthoscopic surgery for the knee in contrast to taking the whole joint apart to remove an offending bit of cartilidge.

Nope... stretching exercises are known to exacerbate the condition if anything. Been there, did that. Stopped doing it when second opinion told me I was making things worse.

You are correct, almost. The reason McDonalds lost that suit was because the company's own documents got out during the trial and proved that it not only knew the coffee it served was boiling hot (as was ordered by top-level management), but that its actuaries had accurately forecast the numbers of customers who would suffer serious burns annually as a result of having boiling coffee dumped on their laps as they sat in their cars at the drive-up windows. Whereas executives had explicitly determined the company would lose dozens of customers annually to third degree burns, the profits it paradoxically related to serving its coffee boiling hot appeared to clearly justify the costs. Consequently, despite the known peril it presented to its customers, the company maintained focus on providing a product that would be at an optimal temperature about 20 minutes after it was served. That was the key: So that customers would have HOT coffee with their Egg McMuffins after they arrived at their corporate cubicals first thing in the morning, McDonalds had determined its coffee must be served dangerously hot at the drive-up window. That way the customers would be more likely to come back for more the next day. Well, most of the customers anyway. Treatment of the plaintiff's injuries required serial debridements of necrotic tissue of the pudenda. To be sure, the burns were critical by medical standards and severely painful over a long time, and she wasn’t coming back for any refills. During the trial, it was found conclusively that McDonalds had been willfully inflicting third degree burns upon hundreds of customers, as evidenced by its own explicit documentation of that business practice. Ironically, for the duration of that practice, profits were indeed maximized. Makes me wanna cry. Burn me baby, burn my big quarter-pounder mac with cheese. mC

That's right, it wasn't your lawyers. Without a warning, your computers did it.

Ergo propter hoc...

Google: benzodiazepenes false positive Benzodiazepines false positive found to occur when subject is being treated with once daily 1200 mg dose of oxaprozin - Daypro, a NSAID approved in 1993 by FDA for once daily Tx of rheumaatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. http://www.clinchem.org/cgi/reprint/41/1/115 FWIW: Oxaprozin is contraindicated for persons who have experienced asthma. http://health.howstuffworks.com/define-oxaprozin.htm Another hit: Fenton and collegues (1980) identified a 6.6 percent false-positve rate for benzodiazepines..." BENZODIAZEPINES -- Examples: Diazepam (Valium), chlordiazepoxide (Librium), flurazepam (Dalmane), oxazepam (Serax), lorazepam (Ativan), clonazepam (Clonopin).

A sinner if ever there was one. (The horror, the horror!)

We gotta stay the course. We need more tax cuts, no question about it. Right wing econ prof told me so. Ya see, people gotta unnerstand, when ya cut taxis, ya put more muney inta investerments, and that makes tha econumy grows so as there was more fer efferbuddy. Yer either for us or aginst us. That's why I'm proposing wwe outlaw flag burning queers from confiscatoring what the company needs to keep the DemercRats from caving into terror.

Very funny JB, yet strangely reminiscent of the behavior of a hired guide upon whose head I saw a rope dropped by a group of Mounties upon the Toof one day. Maybe it was the same guy. I'd have laughed at the time, but it wasn't a pretty sight, considering. Today is a different story. I laughed so hard my coffee sprayed.

This could be an amusing story to follow -- will stay tuned for classic sling-fest to be waged by the usual suspects. But presently notice that the civil charges now made by Plame comprise a list of events already proven to have or have not occurred as a matter of public record. Consequently, the outcome of her case might simply depend upon whether the charges prove admissible and then whether the offenses listed are punishable by a civil court.

A quick review of twentieth century body-counts will reveal that modern man has much more to fear from the secular left than from the 'religious right'. The only brainwahing I see going on is in primary schools and universities. Gov't sponsored, no less! Interesting point. But 20th century examples show us that it is not from excesses exclusively on the left or exclusively the right that we can expect high body counts. We can reflect upon Hitler and fascism on the right and Stalin and communism on the left, and observe extremely high body counts occurred in both directions. I believe it is all institutions that promote totalitariansim that we should beware, and it is arguable that religious fundamentalism, as an institution and regardless of its location, sometimes promotes totalitarianism.

The CEO of Verizon has specifically stated plans to intercept Google's revenues. Figure it from there.

Yesterday the conservative U.S. Supreme Court ruled that essentially everything the Bush administration is doing with prisoners in Guantanamo is in violation of Federal Law and the Geneva Conventions. In response, the President addressed the Whitehouse press corps and announced he will lobby the Republican Congress to overrule the court with legislation that will move the Presidency closer to absolute power.

Current topic newly posted on Wikipedia: Network Neutrality.

Telecoms and cable companies now provide a common technology from the consumer perspective; thus, cable companies are telecoms. Yes, there is more than one telecom, but respective telecoms have oppportunity to act as gatekeepers over all traffic routes, provided we give that to them. Its about pricing and market manipulation. As entrepreneurs innovate new, more efficient services, the backbone providers consistently want to confiscate the profits that result. By acting as gatekeepers, they will act as castlekeepers upon every bend in the river, with the right to exact a punishing toll upon every passing pilgrim and merchant. Naturally, these corporations want to make legal every aspect of what they want to do, and it is foreseeable that they will successfully lobby Congress to grant the authority and power pursued. Net Neutrality is a motion to maintain the status quo.

"Net Neutrality" is a buzz phrase meant to aptly title political movement rising to counter the move by telecoms to gain control of the Internet as gatekeepers with full authority to decide who or what will pass and what will be paid. The telecoms are bitterly jealous of innovators on the Internet that have successfully used the Internet to make a lot of money. By this passion, the CEO of Verizon, for example, believes his company should be able to confiscate a share of the profits that Google makes. But Google says that since Google made Google, Google should get to keep its profits. And the rhetoric goes on. What is pertinent to you and I, as consumers of Internet services and citizens in a community increasingly enhanced by liberal access to the Internet, is that the telecoms now have profits coming in from the control they were given over the network operations of the Internet. The telecoms were given this control not because they are innovators -- as far is the Internet goes, they played little part in innovation -- but because they offered to provide maintenance and infrastructure growth in exchange for the profits. But now the telecoms want it all. They are jealous of what commerce goes over the Internet, and they want to intercept the revenues involved. All reasons in favor of the public good are smoke screens. The telecoms now want control over not just the top-tier network resources, but also control over the content transmitted over the network. Bit b bit, dollar by dollar. In my view, this immediately presents a threat to everything that made the Net what it is -- a triumph of individuality and entrepreneurship and yes, a landmark example of how the right kind of government contribution can improve our world in the most benevolent ways. To give control of the rest of the Internet (the content itself) to the telecoms (companies that are already profitably compensated for their technical services) will be to give up a piece of our freedom. The Internet is a vital medium of not only commerce, but also the free exchange of ideas. To consolidate this medium into the hands of a few corporate giants will be an action in parallel to those we have taken with other electronic media -- and few are happy with the result of those decisions, no matter where in the political spectrum they identify. It is in this unity of discontent with the media status quo that Net Neutrality has a chance of prevailing. If it does, then the Internet will continue to grow as it has to this day. Complaints that such a state will be one that discourages innovation are patently false. Net neutrality may be a clumsy selection of branding for a concept, but its purpose is noble. It is a matter of keeping the Internet a part of the commons where it can foster for all who partake a better life, and provide a conduit for all minds and ideas who venture forth. The notion that net neutrality is some big-government effort to lay its hands on the internet is propaganda crafted by the telecoms working through fake grassroots organizations created by the telecoms – this is how serious these companies are in their effort to win this battle. From websites like http://www.handsofftheinternet.com/ the telecoms are attempting to win support from individuals sympathetic to such rhetoric and who spew accordingly. Thus propagated is the lie that big-government is out to control the Internet against the wishes of the telecoms, and that the telecoms are out to defend us against the perils of "Net Neutrality" legislation. It’s pertinent to note the telecoms are making a bid for not billions but trillions here. The telecoms are hoping to make a comeback to their glory days of monopoly and telecommunications dominance, hoping to somehow one-up the new stars of technology with the ultimate takeover, and these telecom corporations are playing this one as hard and serious and deceitfully as the Bush Whitehouse played its bid to invade Iraq. To be clear, the telecoms are sparing no tactic in the battle for possession of the Internet. Should we allow the capture of this singularly great medium of free exchange, I've no doubt we will not see it back in our life times. Moreover, consolidated and controlled the way now sought by telecom lobbyists, the Internet will be the next fertile ground for dissemination of propaganda from a central, dominant power. Of course, that wouldn't be the end. These companies that now turn over communication records to the NSA upon demand of the President would never merge power with the government executive, would they? The CEO of the biggest telecom who just told the Senate majority leader to go fuck himself (under oath) would never be a CEO who would unite his corporate interests with the political interests of the Presidency, would he? Oh, but wait, that telecom CEO already did that, didn’t he? But what am I saying? If fascism is the merger of government and corporations, then is Net Neutrality a turning point for or against the facilitation of fascism? Surely selling out the Internet wouldn't sow the seeds for such a catastrophic merger of powers. And even if it did, there's really nothing to worry about. Your surfing really isn't that important, and besides, we would still have Fox News. (Ironic it may be, that the best kind of government action may now defend us and our posterity from the worst kind of government abuse. Provided, that is, that the Net Neutrality initiative continues to garner bilateral support and ultimately decrees by force of law that the content of the Internet shall remain as free as its people.) mC

Enough to see through your bullshit, deep as it is.

The Greeks distrusted electricity because it was a Persian trick There you go again with your Canadianian-centric world view! Now, as my daddy always said, nobody knows everything, and I'm no exception. So I won't speak for what the Greeks in Canadia thought about electricity. But here in the United Corporations of Amerikin, the Greeks loved electricity like nobody's business, just like Jesus. You can take that home with you -- anytime you are ready to give your big mouth a break and take a much needed rest from bellowing your incessantly shrill and hateful diatribes, that is. Oh wait. Wrong thread. Or something. Never mind.

True that, about electricity. Aristotle, I am sure, philosophically agreed. And speaking of philosphers, did not Socrates say, to have lived the un-electrified life is to not have lived at all? To be sure, dear Plato, what is real if not for the electrons heating our spheres? It is all about spherical neutrality, metaphysically speaking.

Let's see... the Internet was designed and initially built by government-funded researchers, correct? And then the hyperlink technology of the World Wide Web was invented by an individual, developed in concert with his peers, and essentially donated to the world community, correct? I think its clear that small-time innovators made things happen, things like this website, for example, and this is the type of innovation we stand to lose. Imagine, if you can, this site ever being the product of the “innovation” of an AT&T or Verizon or Microsoft or AOL or whatever power player has come along to leverage freely available technology into the stifling confines of its own brand name. For the kind of innovation that gave us what we have now, look to the likes of the company that hosts this site, or the guys who started this site, or the gang of geeks who wrote the software it runs on. For the kind of innovation that stifles, censors, and rules with a fascist hand, look to the gorillas – and today, unfortunately, that includes our government.

Ok it's France, now and forever France.