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This Might Hurt is a documentary about a revolution in the understanding and treatment of chronic pain that has been quietly brewing over the last few decades. We know that millions of people around the world suffer from chronic pain and other debilitating bodily symptoms. Medication (such as opioids) don't often help, or carry intolerable side effects, and traditional cognitive-based psychotherapy doesn't seem to fare well either. Can we do better? Increasing evidence accumulated over the last few decades suggests that focusing on hidden powerful emotions may make all the difference, at least for some people. It all dates back to an iconoclastic New York City physician named John Sarno, (NYT link, archive.today version here) whose mission to rid the world of back pain inspired a legacy of controversy and devotion.
A young member of my non-immediate family died very suddenly a few weeks ago, leaving behind her husband and two pre-teen children. Mrs. Gefilte and I are trying to figure out how best to support them through the coming months.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) can cause significant distress and suffering, and while the usual treatments (such as SSRIs and cognitive-behavioural therapy) can help, many patients are often left with residual troubling symptoms. Enter Dr. Michael Greenberg, an American psychologist and former OCD sufferer who seems to have had a breakthrough in understanding the psychological underpinnings of OCD: it all boils down to the tension between expressing needs and fear of the consequences of doing so. This then leads to rumination, which is easier to stop than you might think.
Fall is here, and it's time to break out the sweaters. Problem is, I've gained some COVID weight and I'm finding that it's impossible to find sweaters that fit me properly. I'm a 5' 7" cis guy, and every sweater I try on that fits comfortably around the torso is way too long, both in the sleeves and at the waist. Any ideas where I can find sweaters that fit? (I'm in Ontario, Canada, for what it's worth, but willing to order things online if there's a decent return policy.)
So, it looks like Mrs. Gefilte and I will be heading to Vancouver in November for a conference. We'll be in the area for a week before the event and would like to visit Victoria and possibly Tofino as I've never been to either. Keeping in mind that the weather is likely going to be sub-optimal, what are some things worth doing? Are there other places on the island that would be better-suited for November weather?
Mrs. Gefilte and I are invited to a family wedding in Manhattan in a few weeks. We haven't been to the US since the onset of COVID, and with all that's changed in the last two years, we're feeling a little unsure about how best to proceed. Enlighten us, o NYC Mefites!
Another database question. Help me again, Metafilter!
Mrs. Gefilte is currently involved in providing admin support for a large project. The gist of it is that many dozens of external organizations are being invited to participate in a series of workshops which are being held over Zoom. Participation in these workshops needs to be tracked for future reference/analysis (i.e. who was invited, who attended, which organization(s) do they represent, which workshops did they attend, etc.) The current setup isn't working well.
So, here's what I'm trying to do -- I have a simple database with a list of names and demographics. I'd like to be able to generate templated documents (e.g. letters) in PDF form that incorporate fields from the database (e.g. name, date of birth, etc.) I'm using LibreOffice for this right now, and it works okay but is a bit of a pain. Is there a standalone software product that will do this? Caveat: likely can't be cloud-based because of the sensitivity of the data and PHIPA regulations.
Lady Gefilte and I have been fostering a wee FIV+ feline fuzzball from our local humane society. He came to us about 3 months ago with a florid upper respiratory infection and ongoing diarrhea. Fast forward until today, and not a whole lot has changed in terms of the various bodily fluids he's ejecting on a daily basis. Is this normal for him? Has anyone had a similar situation?
So, we bought a century home (circa 1895) six months ago here in Ontario and are slowly discovering all the quirks of owning this old gal. As you might expect, temperature control is proving tricky: the first floor is quite chilly all year round, while the second floor is hot in summer and cold in winter. We're planning to upgrade the attic insulation, but the other question that has come up is how to insulate the basement - more details inside.
Mrs. Gefilte and I are looking to help out my sister-in-law with some child-minding (kids are 4 and 6) and I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for games that we can play online together, remotely.
The wife and I would like to spend some time on Vancouver Island come summertime. We're experienced day-hikers and have done our share of camping-lite in Ontario (i.e. cabins/yurts with a grill and composting toilets) but would also like to get a little more experience with seeing more remote areas.
Medical assistance in dying (MAID), known elsewhere and previously as physician-assisted death, assisted suicide, and voluntary euthanasia, has been legal in Canada since 2016, following the historic Supreme Court decision in Carter v. Canada, in which two women, Gloria Taylor and Kay Carter (represented by her family posthumously), successfully challenged the government's restriction on MAID. But that was not the end of the story.
So, Mrs. Gefilte and I are considering a move from Toronto to regions north of the city. Can we find somewhere to live that balances our commute times without being driven mad by suburban blandness?
Bramptonites of Ontario! The Mrs. and I are thinking of getting out of dodge (e.g. Toronto) in the next year or two, and Brampton seems like a possible stepping stone to tide us over until we can work towards moving way out further west in the long term.
How is downtown Brampton (e.g. around Gage Park) these days? Is it somewhere that is worth considering in terms of living? Proximity to the GO train is a plus and I've heard rumours of revitalization coming down the pipes, but is it an enjoyable place to live now?
So, subsequent to my previous question, I ended up leasing a 2015 Prius, and so far it's been great. The lease is almost up, and I'm thinking of buying the car, but have a question.
This question comes from Mrs. Gefilte.
She is wondering if any women out there have tried using oral minoxidil (Loniten) for androgenetic alopecia (female pattern hair loss). Her dermatologist suggested trying it since the topical stuff was causing too much scalp irritation. Apparently some people have had success, but the risk of growing hair in unwanted places is a bit scary. Looking for any further anecdotes about using this stuff and what effect it's had, for better or for worse.
We just got back from a trip to the Middle East, where we really enjoyed munching on dried carob pods as a snack. BUT WE CANNOT FIND THEM HERE AT HOME. Where, oh where, can we find some dried carob pods in Canada?
So, we bought our house a few years ago. It's a small one-story job, built around 1940 or so. The previous owners told us that the basement flooded years ago due to backup from the sewer system and after that episode, they installed a backflow prevention valve and a sump pump. I'd love to know more about how this basement is protected from moisture since I can't seem to figure it out myself.
I am a doctor (but, of course, not your doctor). I'm in a situation where I need to use a piece of magnification equipment in an operating room, but the hospital has relocated all these particular pieces of equipment (colposcopes, if you're curious) to a different out-patient facility. I'd really like to find a an inexpensive and portable alternative.
So, we've been in our house for a year, and we're tired of the cat using the basement rec room as a personal vomitorium. Said room is carpeted; said carpet is now disgusting. We want to rip it up and replace with laminate. The question is, how to deal with the subfloor.
So, the shower grout is getting very mildewy despite my best attempts to clean, scrub, brush, etc. The bathroom is not ventilated particularly well, which only compounds the problem.
I've seen these amazing "Drill Brushes, advertising effortless, "manly" cleaning. Do they actually work? Will it clean the grout without damaging the tiles? Has anyone tried one?
Anecdotally speaking, the number of internationally acclaimed male pianists greatly outnumbers the number of similarly acclaimed female pianists. Could it all be because of differences in hand span? CBC Radio's show The Doc Project found that this indeed may be the case. But not to worry! Piano keyboards made for smaller hands are indeed available, courtesy of a textile manufacturer in, of all places, Titusville, PA.
Mrs. Gefilte and I have a ten year old Maytag/Whirlpool top-loading washing machine with a direct-drive motor. It's been working fine for a while, but lately, intermittently, clothes will still end up sopping wet after the spin cycle. It's now constant, and very annoying.
We moved into our little one-story house in Toronto a few months ago and one thing that came up on the home inspection was that our pot lights are not covered by vapour boots. Since then, I spoke to an insulation guy about upgrading the insulation in the attic and he suggested that instead of putting in vapour boots, switching all the pot lights to LED would be more affordable/easier; he suggested replacing the halogens with LEDs as they burnt out.
Well, one bulb has burned out. I'm confused about the replacement choices.
My sister-in-law and her family (hubby and 2 kids < 3 years old) are going to be in Canberra on sabbatical this year. Help us find somewhere to live!
My fiancee is considering a career change and is looking at options in the vet tech field. It seems like there are plenty of job opportunities where we live (Toronto) but not a lot of reliable information about salary, working conditions, etc. compared to info from the US.
This might be a bit of a stretch, but does anyone have any experience dealing with kosher caterers in Toronto? Recommendations or ones to particularly stay away from?
Hallo. I just arrived in London today for a conference and I'm very tired. I brought my Moto G (1st gen, I think -- not LTE) from Canada, and bought a pay-as-you-go SIM card from EE. Phone and text work fine, but data speeds are miserable -- 0.15 download/upload. It's only connecting on the EDGE network, and I can't get it to use HSPDA. Am I screwed re: data speed? The people at the EE store weren't very helpful; they variably said the speed would improve in a few hours, or that it wouldn't improve at all because it's a Canadian phone.
So, back in grade 5 (or 5th grade, as we called it in Brooklyn), our teacher had us all write to various sports teams and basically ask for free stuff. I ended up deluged with schedules, stickers, postcards, and a few autographed photos. Somewhere along the way, I also picked up about a hundred autographs (on 3 x 5 index cards, with neatly handwritten descriptions) of baseball players from the 40s-70s. How can I find out if this load of presumed shite is worth anything?
I'd love to get my girlfriend a session with a pet photographer for her birthday - she's dropped hints about wanting to get some great photos or a portrait of her beloved cat. Any recommendations for good photographers/artists in Toronto?
I work in a medical clinic with a few other doctors, and we're trying to come up with a way to centralize our "favourites" when it comes to referrals -- which specialists do we usually refer to, where can patients go for physiotherapy, etc. I'm trying to find a simple way to implement this but so far not having a lot of success.
So, I think I'm ready to give up my slightly banged-up 2005 Civic. The lady and I would like to get a hybrid, since we're mostly doing city driving (with the occasional weekend jaunt). I've been shopping around and trying a few models out, but I would appreciate any personal experience with these cars...
We're planning to drive from Kelowna to Vancouver in the middle of September, and we'd like to take a scenic route and perhaps stay overnight somewhere in the middle. Problem: we're getting conflicting advice about which "scenic" route to take!
Hi all, the girlfriend and I are planning a trip for the August long weekend, and we'd like to go somewhere where we can do a moderately exertional day hike (i.e. 5-6 hrs or so). We were thinking about heading to the Bruce peninsula, but despite our combined Google-fu, we're having trouble locating specific hikes (as in, "Start at point x, see nice things y, finish at point z") that meet our criteria. We're going to be getting the reference guide to the Bruce from the library, but I was wondering if anyone had specific ideas about good, scenic day hikes that would be feasibly within a 3-4 hour drive of Toronto. Areas other than the Bruce also considered! Bonus points for access to a beach in the area (e.g. on Georgian Bay or a lake).
Six years ago, PBS's feature documentary program, Frontline, aired Sick Around the World, a documentary examining health care systems around the world -- and specifically how all those featured were generally superior to the American system. (2008 MeFi post)
Today, the American Senate subcommittee on primary health and aging brought the debate over single-payer care to Washington. C-SPAN has a fine video of the hearing, which features seven witness representing health care systems and think tanks from around the US and the world.
In my line of work (doctoring), there are a lot of PDF files that I use, for example, handouts for patients, copies of guidelines, referral forms for particular clinics, etc. I'd love to be able to organize them hierarchically but also access them in a way that lets me search for keywords or tags and returns results quickly and dynamically, with the ability to easily print said PDF results. Are there any programs (for Windows) or cloud-based sites that might make this easy?
Ideally it would be great to have a little search bar that could just sit on my desktop, but that would just be icing on the cake.
Oh, and I've tried Mendeley - it works somewhat well for this, but it's a hassle to print files unless you open them up in Acrobat Reader or another external program.
Should viewer discretion be advised for pictures of children with congenital deformities? One Ontario woman doesn't think so: "I am 'deformed' and reading that viewer discretion warning ahead of the article (amounted) to telling me that every time I left the house I should wear a similar warning."
So, I'm due to travel to San Francisco tomorrow from Toronto, via San Jose. I was planning to get to my hotel in San Fran using Caltrain, but lucky me, my flight's been changed to one later in the evening and I don't think there's any conceivable way I'll be able to catch the last train from Santa Clara. Any tips on how I might be able to get from SJC to SoMa in San Francisco without spending an arm and a leg?
Can you decode these hastily-written Chinese characters? Here's a picture.
Normally, waking up is a struggle for me, involving many uses of the snooze button. I was in Europe for almost two weeks in late May, and while I was there, I found that I was waking up rather early every morning, before my alarm clock, and felt incredibly refreshed and ready to go.
Hey all,
I'm in Paris until Wednesday morning (the 30th), and having never been here before, it's a bit overwhelming! Anyone in town feel like getting together for a bite to eat or something to drink over the next two days? I'm staying near Ménilmontant, but I'm willing to travel, especially if you have suggestions for places to go!
Has anyone used one of those combination ECG/pulse oximeter/electronic stethoscopes that seem to be flooding eBay from various Chinese distributors?
How can I find out what killed my father?
Where can I find interesting papers, discussions, blog posts, etc. about the disparity between benefits to personal health and population health when it comes to medical interventions and the ethical implications therein?
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled today, in a 6-3 decision, that a person cannot give advance consent to sexual activity while unconscious.
Why do the elevator buttons seem to be moving? My eyes deceive me!
The local bulk food store stocks dehydrated vegetable flakes, which from what I can tell are include potatos, onions, leeks, carrots, and peppers. The label in the store doesn't indicate any preservatives in the mix.