Sooo...I'm finally smack in the middle of finals time and just got through pharmacy literature this afternoon.  I'd have to say that writing a 5 page evidence-based argument supporting a clinical decision in just 2 hours time can be extremely taxing on the hand (not to mention mentally stressful due to time pressure), especially since I have not really flexed my handwriting muscles ever since the days of taking non-stop AP exams at the end of senior year (especially AP Lit & Comp...heck I still remember those !@#$...3 essays in one sitting...you guys remember those?...lol).  Ever since then, every essay has been typed - such is the life of the technologically spoiled generation. 

Anyways, my hand was so fatigued that by the end of the exam, I was basically just trying to hold my pen steady and was almost purely using forearm motions to write, which I can tell you is incredibly inefficient.  This only makes me wish that I were ambidextrous... I think in my sophomore year of undergrad, I actually tried to become ambi by writing one page a day with my left hand in a composition book.  I gave it up after a month.  Though I did make some progress as my left-hand writing became more legible and fluent, I wasn't anywhere near a comfortable level to be using it in a practical situation.  Ah well... limited right-hand functionality for a couple days, therefore negating any possibility of playing Starcraft I guess.  Not that I can afford it with therapeutics final coming up next.  With that said, I have not updated in a while, and thusly do I post today's photo post with the theme of *phyto*.

I also started doing a post on Earth Day which was on April 22nd, but never finished it due to having a !@#$load of stuff due the week after. I'll probably finish it up post-finals, even though it'll be a bit late by then. But hey, at least I updated for now.

I may have slept in a pretty awkward position last night because my neck, back, and shoulders felt achy the entire day.  I felt like I had no energy to do anything and as a result, I didn't even run today or do anything productive for that matter.  Usually, I take a hot shower when I feel tight or stiff and it helps to loosens the knots I feel like I have in my body for the most part, but it wasn't so effective today.  I could have really used a massage (despite the fact that I normally can't even handle it because I'm ticklish behind my neck -_-') My mental condition pretty much reflected my physical condition...to put it plainly, I felt like crap.  One day of Spring Break wasted and I probably can't make my goal of 30 miles by Sunday either. The aches didn't subside throughout the day as I had hoped.  I took a nap, trying to make sure that I would fall asleep with my body in a natural position, but when I woke up, I just felt even more cranky.

Anyways, I had recurring thoughts about resorting to drugs - my first thought was APAP since it seemed like the nature of my pain was musculoskeletal, but in the end I just decided not to use anything.  It's funny that I'm a pharmacy student, yet I rarely use drugs for anything.  I think the last time I used any oral drug at all was...about 4 years ago. I remember once, I had a very minor subcutaneous surgery and the physician prescribed antibiotics to prevent my wound from getting infected.  I didn't even pick up the Rx...  I'm not against antibiotics, but I just think drugs are a little overused in general, and in my case, I didn't think it was necessary for such a superficial cut that could easily be kept clean. 

     Painkillers are some of the most overused (and abused, in the case of some prescription-only) drugs out there.  There are cases of people who take aspirin (not for reducing cardiovascular risk) or Tylenol everyday without really needing it, maybe thinking that hey if they prevent pain, maybe I'll just take it anyways (as prophylaxis?) just in case.  And when it comes to opiates, it's ridiculous how people try to get their hands on hydrocodone (Vicodin) when they don't need it for pain...some people actually try to get it to sell on the streets.

     Another commonly overused type of drug is antibiotics.  When people get a cold, a lot of times, they will go to a see a physician.  Truthfully, it's generally pointless to see a physician unless you are a child, elderly, or are at some kind of health risk (e.g. immunocompromised), or you have a really high fever because there is nothing a physician can really give you to help you unless you are in real pain or discomfort - then you might get something for the pain/discomfort but not to treat the infection.  But people do it, and they ask (sometimes demand) that physicians give them something for it.  In essence, they are asking for antibiotics which do nothing for viral infections.  It's bad practice for physicians to give in, but it happens quite a lot, though I think it's a lot better than it was in the past.  In some places, such as Hong Kong, you don't even need a prescription for certain antibiotics, and people will buy them all the time to self treat problems that are most likely not going to be helped by Abxs.  First of all, they don't even work for viral infections, which is what most people get, and second of all, assuming it actually is a bacterial infection, you don't even know what kind of bacteria it is and whether the Abx you're using is going to help against that particular type of infection.  Thirdly, it's because of such overuse and misuse that Abx-resistant strains of bacteria are becoming a bigger problem - I find this extremely scary because resistance can be transferred cross-species...meaning that one species that is not pathogenic can develop the resistance, then *gift* that resistance to other species that are pathogenic and can cause people to die.

     Finally, there are people who take maintenance medications for chronic conditions such as diabetes or high blood pressure and think that just because they're taking meds, the drugs are going to take care of their problems.  A friend of mine even had a lady who came into her pharmacy to pick up her diabetes medication and *chocolate ice cream* at the same time.  These are the kinds of things that really make me want to facepalm... honestly, the drugs will help, but I think the expectation is a bit too high if you think taking them allows you eat all the sugary foods you want when you have diabetes -_-''  if you care at all about your health, you should know not to rely solely on drugs to solve your problems.  If there's one thing I learned from my time in pharmacy school, it's that *sometimes*, the best treatments are either non-pharmacological, or a combination of drugs and non-pharmacological measures, and that diet & exercise is possibly one of the most preventative measures that you can take and yet it costs only nothing but some time and maybe some money, but nothing compared the annual costs of maintenance medications for a ton of conditions you could have prevented altogether. 

Anyways, with that said, I spent most of the day reading about various resistance exercises that could potentially help with postural/spinal-related pains.  Exercise Prescription (ExRx) has a ton of great info on anything and everything exercise-related that I found to be really useful.  They even have some nice breakdowns of the physics behind different types of motions you can perform with your body.  Hopefully I'll be able to recover from this episode of blah-ness and not need it anyways, but I'm probably going to try some postural-remediating ones tomorrow. 

And with that, the upload for today - for those people who like to go to weblogs, scroll through them and look at the pictures without reading, then post a comment about the picture, all in 15 seconds or less ;P

Panoramic taken from the top of the Rockefeller Center in NYC.