Rubes

I have heard orthopedic surgeons say that shoulder reconstruction is a lot tougher for QBs to come back from than knee reconstructions are for other players. It just takes a longer time to get their strength and accuracy back, if they get it all the way back at all.

The Toxic Avenger was a classic...

When I hear what comes out of pro athlete's mouths these days, and think about how much money they rake in, it makes me believe just about anything is possible.

I thought the house wins on 00?

And I thought I was feeling the hate from the Clayton thread...

Well said.

Me too, Cindy. Me too.

Absolutely, yes. Which is why people like me do research into ways of persuading doctors and other providers to prescribe antibiotics more judiciously. Unfortunately, there are a lot of barriers to overcome. It's easy to rag on doctors for over-prescribing antibiotics, and I do it all the time, but you have to keep in mind that the vast majority of the time there is no way to know if a particular illness is viral or bacterial. Most upper respiratory infections are viral and don't need antibiotics, but still in most cases there isn't a simple test to tell you if it's bacterial. And you can't tell just by signs and symptoms, even though a lot of docs (and patients) may try to convince you otherwise ("green snot" does not equal bacterial infection, for example). So often we try to convince docs that they don't need to prescribe an antibiotic, but what if that patient turns out to actually have a bacterial infection? Again, in most cases, it won't matter -- a lot of them will resolve even without antibiotics (otitis media being a good example). But a small minority of cases will not get better, and may get a lot worse. Would you want to be the doctor that didn't prescribe antibiotics for that sore throat that ended up developing into a potentially life-threatening retropharyngeal abscess? Psychologically, it would be very hard. Economically, it could be devastating. It's why we now have "defensive medicine", and we know who to thank for that.

I agree, the best part of the speech was that it ended.

Oh well, I guess he'll just have to make do with his other two.

Who cares if it's accepted as mainstream. I think they'd settle for just "accepted". Unfortunately, "acceptance" isn't a word easily understood by many.

First school EVER to have the top picks in the NFL and NBA drafts the same year. Woo hoo!

For a minute there, I thought he was talking about me...

It's definitely true that there are a lot of doctors out there who are not entirely up on their info. All doctors are not equal. It really is important to find a doctor that you're comfortable with, and who you can be confident in. As for why they always prescribe antibiotics for sore throats, there has been a lot of research on it. It has a lot to do with patient expectations, perceived patient expectations, perceived satisfaction, lack of an understanding of the main causes of sore throats, the desire to quickly and easily end the encounter by handing out a prescription instead of explaining why you don't need an antibiotic, etc. Lots of factors come into play.

Agreed.

True. Some headaches are caused by dehydration. Water is a lot cheaper than Gatorade, though, unless you like the expensive bottled kind. The problem with Gatorade is that it contains a lot of sugar and salts, probably not the greatest for those who don't need extra in their diet. Then again, a lot of headaches aren't due to dehydration.

This is precisely what my research is all about.

I believe if you want to try them, go right ahead. If they work for you, great. Unfortunately, there is no particular reason to think that these cure-alls would work any better than, say, standing on your head and sprinkling shredded parmesan cheese on your scrotum. If you really want to know if something works, probably the best you can do is a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial. Of course, nobody is going to do that with these remedies, so we'll probably never really know. Which is not to say that they don't work. It's just that I have no reason to believe in them. They may sound better than the standing-on-your-head-parmesan-cheese thing, but that's really all. But when they start talking about vinegar killing the bacteria for sore throats, that just tells me they don't have a real good idea what's going on. Of course, there are plenty of things we do in medicine that aren't backed by rigorous RDBPCTs, but unfortunately that's just the way it is, and we do the best we can. Sometimes that means trying things that don't always make the most sense.

Mike-Mayer wasn't so bad. We had Jakowenko? Damn, poor guy must have been tortured as a kid...

Who the hell is Scgibek?

Too bad the vast majority of sore throats are caused by viruses.

Why bother going to detox?

Yes, the liberals did it.

'Cause Willis is just now rounding into form.

JP can suck for all I care, just as long as he wins a Super Bowl.