My tests are in: I'm fine but the doctor is concerned

[Hepcat22]

Concerned that my results are too good for my age (65) and better than his.

I grew up breathing cotton poison, DDT, and rubbing mercury on hundreds of silver coins. And everything we lived in and used was painted with lead paint. The county sprayed burnt motor oil on all the dirt roads. I swam in creeks, sloughs, rivers, gravel pits, rock quarries, and public pools. I chopped, cut, sawed, and hacked all sorts of asbestos floor tile and insulation boards for over 30 years. Used tons of perchloroethylene, tolulene, xylene, and methanol. Got my brains bashed in trying to play college football. I smoked cigarettes for 25 years. I've drank enough vodka and gin to float a barge.

My blood pressure averages 115 over 65. My glucose (sugar level) is 82. Total cholesterol is 157. Liver tests dead center normal. Weight is 178 (wife says people should never weigh over 10 lbs more than they did in college so I need to lose three pounds).

[Dougie Brootal]

Concerned that my results are too good for my age (65) and better than his.

I grew up breathing cotton poison, DDT, and rubbing mercury on hundreds of silver coins. And everything we lived in and used was painted with lead paint. The county sprayed burnt motor oil on all the dirt roads. I swam in creeks, sloughs, rivers, gravel pits, rock quarries, and public pools. I chopped, cut, sawed, and hacked all sorts of asbestos floor tile and insulation boards for over 30 years. Used tons of perchloroethylene, tolulene, xylene, and methanol. Got my brains bashed in trying to play college football. I smoked cigarettes for 25 years. I've drank enough vodka and gin to float a barge.

My blood pressure averages 115 over 65. My glucose (sugar level) is 82. Total cholesterol is 157. Liver tests dead center normal. Weight is 178 (wife says people should never weigh over 10 lbs more than they did in college so I need to lose three pounds).

goddamn! sounds like you figured out the secret to eternal life!!! pass the gin and asbestos!!!

[Hepcat22]

goddamn! sounds like you figured out the secret to eternal life!!! pass the gin and asbestos!!!

Sometimes when I went to that prissy assed Whole Foods on Ponce in downtown Atlanta the checkout girl would ask me, "Paper or plastic?"

I replied, "Asbestos."

"Pahdon?"

Damn I hate that place - except for the good looking women who shop there. I think they're models or TV news babes. :devil2:

[Dr Steve]

Concerned that my results are too good for my age (65) and better than his.

I grew up breathing cotton poison, DDT, and rubbing mercury on hundreds of silver coins. And everything we lived in and used was painted with lead paint. The county sprayed burnt motor oil on all the dirt roads. I swam in creeks, sloughs, rivers, gravel pits, rock quarries, and public pools. I chopped, cut, sawed, and hacked all sorts of asbestos floor tile and insulation boards for over 30 years. Used tons of perchloroethylene, tolulene, xylene, and methanol. Got my brains bashed in trying to play college football. I smoked cigarettes for 25 years. I've drank enough vodka and gin to float a barge.

My blood pressure averages 115 over 65. My glucose (sugar level) is 82. Total cholesterol is 157. Liver tests dead center normal. Weight is 178 (wife says people should never weigh over 10 lbs more than they did in college so I need to lose three pounds).

Hepcat, was your post truncated? Is there a question in there? ;-)

One thing you really need is a yearly chest X-ray, in my humble opinion. People who worked in asbestos and smoked are at increased risk for a thing called "mesothelioma", which THE LAW OFFICES OF JAMES SOKOLOVE will attest to. The odds are overwhelming that you WON'T develop this, but it'd be nice to catch early if you ever did.

Other than that, your BP, blood sugar, liver tests and weight all rule. The other thing guys over 50 need are a periodic colon cancer screen (read: colonoscopy) and prostate cancer screen (read: finger up the ass and a PSA blood test).

Hang in there, budday. It sounds as if all that crap you did as a young man merely made you stronger. :smile:

[Hepcat22]

Hi Dr. Steve,

I posted that after reading a review of yet another book about the horrible dangers facing our children.

(Poisoned Profits: The Toxic Assault on Our Children by Philip Shabecoff and Alice Shabecoff) These two dickheads should call the book "Scaring for Profits". We are becoming a nation of pussys.

And yes I get chest x-rays every couple of years. And just had the finger test and PSA readings which are always good. But I do have regular bouts of prostatitis for some reason - something about the way my bladder is built.

My doctor did mention a colon scope test next year.

Thanks for being here to answer stuff for us Ron&Fez fans.

[drjoek]

Concerned that my results are too good for my age (65) and better than his.

I grew up breathing cotton poison, DDT, and rubbing mercury on hundreds of silver coins. And everything we lived in and used was painted with lead paint. The county sprayed burnt motor oil on all the dirt roads. I swam in creeks, sloughs, rivers, gravel pits, rock quarries, and public pools. I chopped, cut, sawed, and hacked all sorts of asbestos floor tile and insulation boards for over 30 years. Used tons of perchloroethylene, tolulene, xylene, and methanol. Got my brains bashed in trying to play college football. I smoked cigarettes for 25 years. I've drank enough vodka and gin to float a barge.

My blood pressure averages 115 over 65. My glucose (sugar level) is 82. Total cholesterol is 157. Liver tests dead center normal. Weight is 178 (wife says people should never weigh over 10 lbs more than they did in college so I need to lose three pounds).


YOU SON OF A BITCH:tongue:

[KingModem]

Concerned that my results are too good for my age (65) and better than his.

I grew up breathing cotton poison, DDT, and rubbing mercury on hundreds of silver coins. And everything we lived in and used was painted with lead paint. The county sprayed burnt motor oil on all the dirt roads. I swam in creeks, sloughs, rivers, gravel pits, rock quarries, and public pools. I chopped, cut, sawed, and hacked all sorts of asbestos floor tile and insulation boards for over 30 years. Used tons of perchloroethylene, tolulene, xylene, and methanol. Got my brains bashed in trying to play college football. I smoked cigarettes for 25 years. I've drank enough vodka and gin to float a barge.

My blood pressure averages 115 over 65. My glucose (sugar level) is 82. Total cholesterol is 157. Liver tests dead center normal. Weight is 178 (wife says people should never weigh over 10 lbs more than they did in college so I need to lose three pounds).

:clap: That is awesome! I had the same type of thing said to me last year when I got a physical and he said "You drink that much!? We need to have your liver enzymes checked immediately!" Then when the tests came back, he said, "Wow, your liver is working less than normal, which means that it is in great shape."
I cant wait to get home to call my mother and tell my girlfriend that you made it, so will I! Hepcat's my hero.

[Dr Steve]

wow, the whole breathing DDT thing brings back memories...when I was 10, they used to come through the neighborhood fogging the whole place with DDT suspended in oil. We kids would chase the truck down, playing behind it in the fog while the driver would just smile and wave. Our lungs had to be saturated with DDT and aerosolized crude oil.

Then of course when I was a kid, my dad took me to an ASBESTOS MINE to hunt for rubies. Then I smoked 3 packs of cigs a day for way too long and still drinks my beerce every day.

The thing about all this is that none of it dooms you to die an early, horrible death, it just increases the risk. There are a few hundred-year-olds still living out there who drink their moonshine and smoke their unfiltered Camels every day. Some of us can get away with it! The day I have a blood test that tells me "Patient X will never die of cancer or emphysema no matter how much he smokes" I'll tell Patient X to smoke all he wants.

[Thebazile78]

....

The thing about all this is that none of it dooms you to die an early, horrible death, it just increases the risk. There are a few hundred-year-olds still living out there who drink their moonshine and smoke their unfiltered Camels every day. Some of us can get away with it! The day I have a blood test that tells me "Patient X will never die of cancer or emphysema no matter how much he smokes" I'll tell Patient X to smoke all he wants.

They're getting closer every day, don't you think?

I mean, without PSA blood tests and the new (rushed-to-practitioners, but new nonetheless) ovarian cancer blood test (which is returning a lot of false positives) we'd still be slashing and poisoning people indiscriminately if their initial tests turned up a positive. Treatments have come leaps and bounds because of those tests. (OK, more the PSA test than the ovarian cancer test, but that's a big deal.)

Wouldn't a logical "next step" be a blood test along the lines of the BRCA-1/BRCA-2 genetic test for breast (and ovarian/uterine/endometrial) cancers for every kind of cancer? I know that genetic marker tests aren't the fail-proof diagnostic tool we all wish they were, but it's not outside the realm of possibility that we're going to be heading in that direction sooner than we think. (Science is so cool that way.)