health

Blink-o-vision

I know television marketers talk about “capturing eyeballs,” but this is ridiculous:

They say the constant miniaturisation of technology will lead to TV sets being shrunk to the size of contact lenses and powered by body heat.Channels could be changed by voice commands or a wave of the hand, says a report on the future of home entertainment.

Ian Pearson, a ‘futurologist’ who advises companies on new technologies, said of the TV contact lens: ‘You will just pop it into your eye in the morning and take it out at the end of the day.’

Digital tattoos, meanwhile, will pick up on the emotions portrayed by actors in TV shows and create impulses allowing us to feel the same emotions.

Via TV Squad, with whom I agree this sounds like an exceptionally bad idea. Why not just induce hallucinations the old-fashioned way? (Via Gerry Canavan.)

Back to the beginning

So I followed up with my orthopedist yesterday evening, after my most recent MRI*, to get a handle on how far I’d progressed (in either direction, good or bad) with this herniated disc of mine.

And, well, long story short: I apparently haven’t. The new MRI shows the disc pretty much exactly where it was over the summer, before the weeks of physical therapy and my three steroid injections. There’s some relief in knowing it hasn’t gotten worse — which was a concern; I do sometimes worry about nerve damage — but there’s the disappointment, on the other hand, that it hasn’t gotten better.

For now, then, it’s back to a game of wait-and-see. I’ll try to avoid the things that aggravate the pain — like, unfortunately, sitting and bending over too much — while continuing the things that seem to help. Surgery is obviously an option, but it’s one that I want to avoid, and certainly avoid in the short-term. There’s no guarantee that it would work, and, worse yet, there’s the very real possibility that it could make things worse. While the herniation hasn’t shrunk by itself, and I do still have to cope with pain in my leg and lower back when it presses in on the nerves, it could be significantly worse. I do believe the pain has gotten a little better overall, and I’ve become better at coping with the problem.

And it’s worth remembering that this has only been a problem since around last May. There’s no reason to think it won’t continue to heal on its own, much less that it will grow progressively worse. It’s no fun being in pain, or worrying about being in pain — it tends to adversely color everything else — but I’m still hopeful.

* The MRI was about as uncomfortable as I remember it being. I’m not overly claustrophobic by nature, but it was a tight fit, with my arms somewhat awkwardly pinched at my sides. And that machine can really heat up when it starts going. Then again, I kept holding out for the call that signaled we were halfway done — just ten more minutes, ten more minutes — so I was surprised when, instead of that call, the tech pulled me out and said we were done. Still, should I ever need an MRI again, I think I’m going to opt for the open variety if I can.

What’s up, doc?

So I went to my orthopedist this afternoon. As I’ve mentioned a few times before, I have a herniated lumbar disc, which has been causing me discomfort and pain, mostly in my left leg, since this past spring. Lately, I’ve been noticing more a pins-and-needles sensation, mostly in the left foot, and mostly when I stand after having been seated for any length of time. It’s like the sensation you get when your foot’s just falling asleep or just about to wake back up.

I’ve also been noticing more occasional twinges in my lower back, which has been relatively pain-free until very recently — to the extent that I first mistook my original symptoms for a pulled hamstring or something less serious like that. There’s still enough pain to go around, and plenty of it still in the leg, but overall the sciatica has definitely improved, I think.

This new sensation isn’t painful — and it’s usually, if not always, fleeting — but it is a little disconcerting, and I am worried about it getting worse. (Ever tried walking on a fully asleep leg?) I’m worried also about possible nerve damage that the still-herniated disc might be causing.

So I had a chat with my orthopedist, along with a quick test of my reflexes, and then he wrote me a scrip for a new MRI. I’m not exactly looking forward to that — I’m not claustrophobic by nature, but a closed MRI seems designed for the sole purpose of making people claustrophobic — but it will give us a sense of how I’m healing (or not) and what to do next. I was reassured that this might very well be the condition getting better — a centralization of the pain and the nerve itself waking back up. We’ll take a look at the new MRI and try to figure out if that’s the case — or, I guess, what to do if it’s not.

I try not to complain too much about all of this. I have at least a couple of friends with similar back problems, but whose symptoms and pain have been much more severe than my own. Even in New Orleans last March, which is presumably where I first truly injured my back, and where I could barely get in and out of bed, the fact remains that I could get in and out of bed. This has inconvenienced me and made many simple things difficult, but I haven’t been confined to my bed or incapacitated. by the pain. I’ve been relatively lucky.

I’m just hoping my luck continues to hold. In the meantime, I’ll keep doing my stretches and icing my back as needed.

The sweet smell of success?

As if their joke — it was a joke, right? — body spray wasn’t weird enough, now Burger King wants you to ditch your friends for food. Friendship is fleeting, but the Whopper’s flame-broiled empty calories are forever. [via]

As to the body spray, Burger King might be interested in a recent study that suggests it’s not how you smell, but how confident thinking you smell good can make you. [via]

Then again, as Maureen F. McHugh says, “I am willing to be convinced that food could be a fragrance….But fast food? It’s a terrifying world.”