kurtster wrote: 
Can you make your own less expensively with one of the various brands of protein powder and soy or almond milk or something?

 DaveInSaoMiguel wrote: 
depends on how you hold the henway

 Bill_J wrote:

But how much does it whey? 

 sunybuny wrote:

It's my whey, or the high whey.

 kurtster wrote: So, is this just plant whey, dairy whey or both I wonder?

A new shortage that appears linked to the baby formula shortage.  Adult protein drinks such as Boost and Ensure.  The same bases are apparently used for both, one of which is whey.  There is an ongoing shortage of whey that goes back about 8 months ago and resulted in spot outages of these drinks. There was also a recall on a couple of brands then as well.  Boost made by Nestle was not one of those, but Ensure was. Now they are out of stock nearly everywhere.

Not only used by ordinary consumers like me, but also heavily used in places like nursing homes.  I've been using Boost ever since I had my teeth pulled and have actually developed a like for it. 2 to 3, 24 bottle cases per month.  Now suddenly a major part of my diet has become unavailable.  It is also good for emergency food with a shelf live of up to a year.  No details or any resolutions for this shortage are to be found, so far.

wtw?

Human Mini-Brains Grafted Into Injured Rats Restored Their Sight
ByShelly FanFebruary 7, 2023

Nearly a decade ago, mini-brains shot onto the neuroscience scene with a hefty promise: understanding the developing brain and restoring injured brains.

Known as brain organoids, these tiny clumps of brain tissue—roughly the size of a lentil—look nothing like the three-pound organ piloting our lives. Yet under the surface, they behave eerily similar to the brain of a human fetus. Their neurons spark with electrical activity. They readily integrate with—and subsequently control—muscles, at least in a dish. Similar to full-blown brains, they give birth to new neurons. Some even develop the six-layered structure of the human cortex—the wrinkly, outermost layer of the brain that supports thought, reasoning, judgment, speech, and perhaps even consciousness.

Yet a critical question haunts neuroscientists: can these Frankenstein bits of brain tissue actually restore an injured brain?

In 1st, US surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
gosh man. I do hope this can be resolved soon. What a turn of events...

JFW has had an ongoing issue related to a Fall 2020 work injury (kicked in the face by a child!) and after several visits with the surgeon, tests, MRIs etc., has just this week been cleared for C5 or C6 disc replacement surgery. The surgeon who she's been working with is based in Colorado and flies up a few times each month to our regional medical center here; as far as I know, there's no other surgeon in the area who does this. Aaand he just crashed his plane and died. Talk about being torn: obviously a tragedy, he didn't have to come to us—I'm sure he could have been just as busy made just as much money if he'd stayed put... but our immediate reaction has to be "how does this affect JFW?" because she's been living with this disability for a while, and the state worker's comp people are going to have the same questions. Oy.

 kurtster wrote:
That's quite the memory lane there kurtster.  

My understanding is that CBD will not provide any near-term pain relief but could contribute to improving chronic conditions over time.  THC is required to distract from the pain.  

My impression is that CBD can be effective for some conditions but is being over-sold as medicine in many quarters.

 westslope wrote: 
My opinion based on 55+ years of observations and having dealt with sciatica as mentioned below, cannabis is a distraction of the pain at best.  Sciatica is too sharp of a pain, an issue for most pain meds, except say something like my favorite, dilaudid.  Never met a pain it could not handle.  Morphine and demoral for that matter do nothing for me for pain, just make me stupid, if I'm lucky or a headache if I'm not.  It is not a fun kind of stupid either.

Sadly, but other than physical therapy which I went through to avoid certain movements so not to trigger it, Advil or ibuprofen probably would work best.  About 20 years ago I slipped and fell on some ice in the parking lot at work and nailed my right hip hard.  With many available choices and there were many, Advil was the only one that worked.  I took 400 units every two hours for at least a month.  The Rx dose for ibuprofen is 800 every 4.  I did it every two hours to keep the serum level constant so there would be no pain issues in the third hour when it starts to drop and wear off and the first hour where it kicks in again.  It did get to be mentally weird after about 2 weeks and thinking was affected and a strung out feeling began to become present.  But it was the only thing that worked for me.  Also extremely important is to constantly eat while doing this so your stomach does not get damaged by the all the NSAIDs.

Again, this is purely my experience.  Not advice of any kind.  Bear in mind that many pain meds work differently in men and women and then just by the individual.  There is no one size fits all option.  You cannot be stupid about this because you could kill yourself accidentally.

Cannabis is nice for general low level constant or chronic pain.  I cannot speak to CBD oils, yet.  Never tried it.  We are about to try it on my 94 yo mother who is suffering terrible pain from rheumatoid arthritis.  There was a once a month infusion that I forget the name of that did give her some relief but the supply has been diverted to CV19 use.  A nurse has so far been able to get a dose for her awhile ago, but it looks iffy going forward.  So we're going to try CBD.  Got nothing to lose and everything to gain.  The pain is bad enough that she did bring up buying a one way ticket to Oregon because it was getting that unbearable.

Oh and THC and cancer ... with all the chemo I went through, it was not something I enjoyed at the time.  But each round of my chemo sessions lasted for 6 straight days at a time, nonstop the whole 6 days.  Nothing was enjoyable.  Not even food as I usually stopped eating by the third day and lived on IV fluids for the duration.  I had what is called a dual port lumina that took two lines in at the same time instead of one.  I would very often have 5 individual infusion pumps going at the same time daisy chained into the two lines in. I had two weeks off in between rounds and could have had some if I wanted to.  Nope, I think I tried it once, but it just wasn't something enjoyable.  I wanted nothing extra anything in me.  I wanted everything and anything out of me instead.  Then again most people do not have week long chemo sessions.  Most are a 4 hour bag once or twice a week or once a month depending on a lot of variables.

THC does have value in long term cancer care where the patient loses their appetite because the chemo makes everything taste so nasty you have to get hungry enough to eat, period.  The munchies will drive a stoned person to food.

Pardon the trip down memory lane.  One thing led to another and it sorta just happened.

 Steely_D wrote:
Absolutely, no disagreement there.   From all appearances, cannabis is much better than most alternatives for sleep disorders, mild anxiety and relatively mild, chronic pain.

My personal observations of obese people, especially those with fibromyalgia, people with late-stage cancer and folks with nasty sciatic pain leads me to conclude that cannabis is simply not strong enough.  

Let's see if I can share a personal anecdote without getting sued.....

The neighbour is a RMPC# of!ficer, he is currently grounded for health reasons and is unlikely to ever work in the field again.   This work is tough.  You wear all this heavy equipment and in many cases, you spend the day SITTING.   Then you add in the murder of a colleague, the unique pleasure of having to cart severed limbs off a rail line, and not so long ago the lovely experience of a 300 lb. F-N woman who breaks your leg because there was no backup available for that particular call to a local bar.....   sound stressful enough?   Any of you want this job?

The poor man now suffers severe sciatic pain.  It is easily observable in his gait and posture.   Some of BC's finest and strongest bud is still not strong enough to distract from the pain.  A mutual friend is still working on more concentrated forms of THC and I honestly hope it works.....

————————————————————-

To fully understand this case, it is important to know that the individual was not fond of exercising.  He looked overweight and out of shape from the first time I met him.    It is super important to regularly exercise with a job like this.  

 westslope wrote:

Same thing I thought in 1983, which I think is part of why I got admitted: when we look for ways to help patients we need to look at everything, don't we?

FWIW, I avoid the sciatic pain trap by using an exercise hoola hoop.  Looks silly.  My torso muscles love it.

 Steely_D wrote:
I believe I was the one who originally posted that question.  The reason why I posted it is because 

a)  I believe that cannabis can be useful for pain because of the way it distracts the patient from the pain, it does not eliminate or cover up the pain, and 

b) my perception is that most cases of sciatic pain are just too painful for cannabis to work effectively.

As soft, relatively safe medicine for treating mild pain, clearly cannabis is wonderful.   Thoughts Steely?

 cc_rider wrote:

My "insurance" won't cover one for me until I'm 65.

 cc_rider wrote:
shingrix?

Got the first shot of the shingles vaccine today. Horror stories about symptoms finally made me pull the trigger - anything to avoid that living Hell.
Updates as they become available...
c.

”Question: Does cannabis actually help with the sciatic pain?”

You know what’s freakin’ awful? When I interviewed to get into med school (1983?) one of the questions they asked was “what do you think of marijuana as a medicine?”

You’d think by now it wouldn’t be controversial.