Monday, February 27, 2012

Medical Worker Takes Me On!

Here is a comment from "Garfield." As usual this (medical?) person tried to negate everything I have said, and not just to enlighten or inform me, but to ridicule and insult me. Let's examine what he/she says! My remarks will be in black and in parentheses, his in red.


"You are absolutely incorrect in your assumption that desaturation causes brain cell death. It most certainly does not." (Really? So if you have a lack of blood flow carrying oxygen to the brain, or restrict the blood flow to parts of the brain due to Versed, this causes NO harm? So why is saturation of less than 90% considered an adverse event? You better start learning about oxygen saturation and the major problems it causes!) "Furthermore, you need to get your terminology correct. Apoptosis (or as you incorrectly spelled, "aptosis") (Typo, don't get your panties in a bunch!) is the normal pre-programmed death of cells. All normal cells are programmed to die. Every cell in your body is replaced in one year's time. Cells which are not pre-programmed to die are called cancer. (I think you better look at studies and/or definitions like this, Garfield. Apoptosis: understanding programmed cell death for th... [AANA J. 2010] - PubMed - NCBI or this Cerebral hypoxia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia These directly refute your statement. There are way too many citations for me to put up here. Do your homework!)

The degree of pain is determined by the dosage of anesthesia and has nothing to do with Versed."
"The only way you can achieve 100% reduction in pain is at the risk of killing a patient with an overdose." (Not asking for 100% pain reduction, and Midazolam is NOT a pain medication! Are you agreeing with me that Versed/Midazolam isn't a pain medication? That's a first!) "Do you think that is a good thing?" (Well, what do you think? What a stupid question, rhetorical or not!) "A 90% 02 saturation is not dangerous for the vast majority of patients." (emphasis mine; No matter WHAT you say, it's listed as an adverse event honey! Obviously this IS dangerous for the vast majority of patients or the saturation point would be lower for adverse event reporting. Here's a study opining that the saturation should be moved to 92%; Oxygen Saturations Less than 92% Are Associated with Major Adverse Events in Outpatients with Pneumonia: A Population-Based Cohort Study This is just one study. If it's bad for pnuemonia patients, why is it OK for Versed patients? Here's a quote, " By convention, saturations <90% represented hypoxemia..." Let's see, what else can cause this? It's Versed!) If you ride in pressurized commercial air, your saturation will be lower than that (which is why you get looped on one alcoholic beverage)." (I don't get looped because I don't use drugs like alcohol which are known to destroy brain cells. Is this why you are so sanguine about destroying brain cells in patients? Because you destroy your own through alcohol consumption? Just asking.)

"A little learning is a dangerous thing...drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring." Alexander Pope (Essays on Criticism) I say this back to you dear Garfield. You are making some major assumptions here that are not based in fact, merely your own (biased) ideas. I am not the "vast majority" of patients and I resent being catagorized like this and subjected to things that YOU find are acceptable risks. There's all the information in the world right here on the computer and you are not "drinking deep." Actually Garfield, if you are a medical person, then you have access to even more studies which show the risk of Versed. It is a manifestation of your love for using Versed that forces you to try to defend the indefensible. Versed is absolutely unnecessary. Versed is dangerous to far too many patients minds. Cognitive Impairment Following Sedation for Colonoscopy With Propofol, Midazolam and Fentanyl Combinations - Full Text View - ClinicalTrials.gov Medical people admit to 10% bad reactions to Versed. Personal experience with medical people leads me to believe that that number is under reported. Whatever, the 10% number times the "thousands of times Versed is used daily" adds up to an unacceptable number of adverse events. Do the math! All this for a drug that is used inappropriately and over prescribed.

2 comments:

  1. I neither ridiculed nor insulted you. I took issue with your statements, which are factually incorrect. I didn't call you "Honey," either, Honey. And I don't wear panties. Why are my facts "biases" and yours are the pinnacle of enlightenment? By they way, I am and always have been a non-drinker. You don't have to drink to know how a person gets drunk.

    As far as clinical trials to prove a point, you should know by know that there is a clinical trial available to prove just about anything you like.

    If you don't want to take Versed, that's your right. But save your vitriol for some other non-issue. A 90% O2 saturation is not dangerous. Any first year student of anesthesiology knows that.

    I pointed out your misspelling (you left out a syllable, not just a letter) of "apoptosis" simply to indicate you are unfamiliar with the term. You obviously don't have a clue what it means.

    "KNOW YOUR ENEMY. KNOW THE LAW" You are on a witch hunt for bad guys, and there are no more bad guys in medicine than in any other field.

    Maybe you should spend a quarter of a million and 15 years of your life investing in a medical education before you start a blog such as this. You are WAY over your head.

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  2. Garfield - you say you neither ridiculed nor insulted, but you're certainly doing so now - along with appeals to authority, poisoning the well, ad hominems and so on which do not befit one claiming the high ground (or one who avoids logical fallacies).

    Clinical trials are utterly pointless, you say? Fascinating. I trust you never base any personal recommendation on such a thing, nor do you use clinical trials in any way in the building of your medical understanding.

    You say "If you don't want to take Versed, that's your right". Well that's fine, assuming the patient knows what they are taking. Would you hazzard a guess at how many recipients of this drug are told that it's an amnesiac, not a sedative, and that a not insignificant proportion of patients will have a very bad reaction indeed? Do you imagine any of them are told they will have a waking nightmare, but not to worry - they'll probably forget all about it? Do you suppose many are told that the way it works is not at all well understood?

    Take a look at this:
    http://www.askapatient.com/viewrating.asp?drug=18654&name=VERSED

    Are you going to tell me that a tiny minority of patients - insignificant, dismissible - have a very negative experience?

    "This will relax you" is not providing informed consent. Oh, I know we're such tiresome people, busybodies really, demanding to know how our bodies and minds are being altered. Frankly, I give vastly more informed consent to my mechanic. "Informed" being the operative word.

    When the medical industry wants to pass responsibility along to a patient, as it does most of the time, it claims the patient has been properly informed. But when it comes to matters of convenience - such as having an amnesic, compliant customer, being informed appears to be the very last thing they want.

    You can cut the pompous, snide BS about spending $0.25M before being qualified to discuss what has been visited on the blog's host, and the same for every other victim of medical malpractice for that matter. Recipients of high dosage radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not need advanced degrees in physics to understand that they had been severely wronged and damaged. Do you really need more examples?

    You do a fine job at dispelling any lingering myths about yours being the caring, ethically driven profession, though, hats off there.

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