Health Update

I'm really terrible at post titles. I mean, starting with a title of "Health Update" sounds ominous. Is something wrong? Was something wrong but now there's good news? It's actually none of the above.

I had my annual physical recently, and my doctor said I'm in great shape. In his follow-up report after receiving the blood test results, he wrote that I'm in "very good health" with my liver, kidneys, thyroid, etc. all normal and to come back in a year. This all sounds great, but I'm not completely convinced. First, my weight is up 6 pounds from last year. Now, I wouldn't recommend attending two holiday parties and a food testing event in the days before my physical, but I don't think that accounts for a 6-pound gain. Plus, while my total cholesterol (171) is in the okay range, my LDL, or bad cholesterol, is at 112 which falls into the high range. 

I saw the results on the doctor's online portal before the medical assistant or physician assistant called me. He shared the note from the doctor about my good health, and I asked him about the LDL number. The PA/MA said that I need to exercise more, have more salad, and eat less chips and fried foods. How does he know about my eating habits? I mean, I'm helping the economy and saving money by buying chips/salty snacks that are on sale at Costco! 

Fine. I'll start eating more celery. (Is celery with ranch or peanut butter okay?) I also just bought a pickleball racket, so I hope to hit the courts this winter since I definitely don't want to do any outdoor exercising. Stupid winter!

Photos are a screenshot of Brewster's Millions and from this Forbes article.

My Health Report

I recently went to the doctor for my annual physical. A few days after the appointment, the office posted lab results and the doctor's comments on a patient portal. This is what my doctor wrote:

EXCELLENT LABS LIPIDS VIT D NO DM OR ANEMIA SUGAR 87 CHOL 192 WITH HDL 52

GREAT HE IS AGAIN IN VERY GOOD HEALTH F/U ROUTINE IN ONE YR NL VIT D 33

Several thoughts about this. FIRST, WHY ALL CAPS? THIS ISN'T TWITTER!

There's probably a good lesson here that I should not send any direct messages.

While my sugar is 87, what is my watermelon sugar?

I thought my doctor and I had a good relationship, so it's a little rude that he wrote F/U in the summary.

Overall, this report seems good. My LYM% and LYM# are low and my GRAN% is high whatever all of this means. My LDL cholesterol number is high too. However, the doctor didn't seem at all concerned about this. 

As the weather has gotten colder over the last few weeks, I'm becoming less and less active. Even sloth-like. Therefore, I was a little surprised that my weight stayed pretty much the same. Actually, my weight is up 0.022 pounds from last year. That's right, not 2 pounds or even .2 pounds, but 0.02 pounds. The difference might be that I wore a heavier shirt on the scale this year!

The doctor seemed tired. It's clearly been a tough year for him because of COVID. 

Oh, thinking about Chadwick Boseman's passing, I asked whether I needed a colonoscopy. Traditionally, this isn't done until you are 50, but there have been some reports suggesting that this should be done at 45. I'm 45. He said that as long as the blood labs came back well (which they did), I should wait to do this until around 47.5 (to "split the difference") and definitely after COVID ends.

So that's my health report. Tune in soon for my annual Hanukkah post, and please check out and like the Pickles at Chanukah Facebook page. You'll be surprised to see how this tradition is growing! 

Sean Versus The Sun

The title of this post probably isn’t as catchy as Joe Versus The Volcano, but I like it.

I recently went to the doctor for my annual examination. While I had high cholesterol in the past, my numbers have been fantastic lately, well within the normal range. All of my other blood results came back fine too except for this item:

Vitamin D, 25-Hydroxy - 24.8 ng/mL (30.0-100.0)

So I now have low Vitamin D numbers. Here are the actual notes from my doctor:

Excellent labs lipids
No dm or anemia

Chol 163 great
rtc one yr and pm
He is in good health
sl low vt d 25 so take otc vit d once a day and get some sun exposure to help bones heal well and remain strong
Not a major issue however

I’m not a doctor, but I’ll decode this message to the best of my abilities.

Excellent labs lipids

Damn right I have excellent lab lipids. Take that lipids.

No dm or anemia

I guess no direct messages for me on Twitter or Facebook for the next year, so just email me instead.

Chol 163 great
rtc one yr and pm

For the next item, I believe this means that I need to go to Reston Town Center once in the evening during this year.

The rest seems rather self-explanatory though I’m not sure why I need to attend the Offshore Technology Conference.

Back to the low Vitamin D numbers, I decided to look at my lab results from the last few years and found that they were not part of the documents. Did they not test this in the past? Basically, have I always had low Vitamin D numbers? If this is something new, I have a theory as to why my numbers are low. The weather.

The Washington DC weather is likely to be the wettest in history. It seems like rained every day over a several month period in the summer and fall, and even if wasn’t raining, it was still cloudy.

Since it’s unlikely that I’ll get much sun in what sounds like it will be a cold and snowy winter, I guess I’ll start taking Vitamin D tablets to go with my fish oil pills. Pharmaceutical companies win again!

Random Ramblings & Links

* Someone I've known for over 39 years, who is just like a brother to me, is growing an awesome mustache for Movember. Please support him!

* I've been taking fish oil pills for over a decade to help my cholesterol and recently bought a bottle containing 400 pills. It's somewhat amazing to think that since I take one pill per day, I'll probably have to buy a new bottle at the beginning of 2019.

* Why do I have significantly more gray hair in my right sideburn than my left sideburn? Shouldn't it be about the same?

* James Santelli, a news producer for KDKA in Pittsburgh, created a tournament bracket including times and locations for an American Invitational Tournament, also known as, the Soccer NIT. The idea is that teams that didn't qualify for the 2018 World Cup, like the US, Italy, Chile, and Ireland, would play a separate soccer tournament. James also brilliantly made the schedule so that there would be no overlap between the World Cup and American Invitational Tournament matches. I hope this happens!

* I wrote a letter to the editor to my local community newspaper based on last week's blog post about Jerry Falwell, Jr. I'm definitely approaching old man territory.

* I don't understand how my two older kids can sleep just fine with no blankets or covers while I need a top sheet, comforter, and a blanket or two to keep my feet warm or else I don't sleep well.

* Not cool, Dole bananas, not cool. Why are the peels opening?

* Kristen Bell is helping create (and hosting?) a TV series where former high school classmates will perform their high school musical one more time. My Facebook messages were blowing up (is that term still used?) yesterday with friends and classmates wanting to enter. I know that the world has been waiting 25 years for me to revise my role as Government Man in Lil' Abner, so let's do this Kristen Bell!

* Finally, two Pittsburgh related things.

1. If you live in Pittsburgh's Eastern suburbs, please support the non-profit Lost and Found Pharmacy. Shannon and her husband Sean (who I've met) do really good work and were recently featured in the Post-Gazette.

2. It seems too early to think about, but if you're in Pittsburgh or want to give a Pittsburgh-related gift, check out Heidi's 2017 Holiday Shopping Guide.

Sean Goes To The Doctor

I had my annual physical earlier this week. This seemed like a bigger deal this year because I'm now 40. I thought that a colonoscopy was in my near future, but it turns out that I don't need one of those until I'm 50. Woo Hoo! The physical turned out to be no different than any other one with one exception: an EKG. I've never had an EKG before, but it's really quite easy. You lie down on the table and the physician's assistant puts stickers all over your body like this.

The difficult part is removing the stickers one the EKG is over, particularly when the stickers are attached to your chest hair. Oh, I also found two stickers by my ankles when I went to sleep 15 hours after the appointment.

Anyway, the EKG results were good. My blood pressure and heart rate were also good. My weight was down slightly, and I'm right at where I want to be. Unfortunately, I'm still in the 5' 7" height range, so my growth spurt still hasn't happened yet. Maybe next year!

Now the big stuff. My cholesterol results:

Good again! My cholesterol was significantly higher about 10 years ago, but I've been fine lately. Basically, I'm healthy as a horse. Well, presumably, a healthy horse. You don't want your health to be compared to a sick horse.

Based on all of these results, I think I was robbed by People Magazine. Forget David Beckham. I should be People's Sexiest Man Alive! I guess Beckham just has a better publicist.

Play A Doctor On The Internet

When I went to my doctor for a routine physical about a decade ago, my doctor noticed that I had high cholesterol. He suggested that I start taking fish pills twice a day. I have done so nearly everyday since, and my cholesterol levels have been down for years.

On Wednesday, The Washington Post published an article titled "Fish oil pills: A $1.2 billion industry built, so far, on empty promises" questioning the value of taking fish pills. The article focuses on fish pills and heart disease, though heart disease has never been a concern for me.

So this got me thinking. Should I continue taking the fish pills? It may not be helping me but I don't think they are hurting me. Is cutting back to just taking one per day an option?

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Cholesterol Update

In the months before I started this blog, my weight was at its highest, and my doctor was concerned about my cholesterol levels. I guess regularly eating bagels and cream cheese, Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls, cheese sandwiches and always having Chewy Chips Ahoy cookies around the house were contributing factors. As I’ve shared before, my doctor suggested that I start taking fish pills, and I significantly reduced the amount of the aforementioned foods that I ate. At my annual physical this summer, I got my cholesterol results and feel the need to share them here in a fun and exciting chart. Please note that the totals were significantly worse in 2005, but I only seem to have the records easily accessible for the following dates:

With the exception of picking NFL games (more on this tomorrow), I’m awesome (though you know that already)! To celebrate Swiss Cake Rolls for everyone!

Doctor Doctor Give Me The News

I visited my doctor last week for my annual physical. Actually, annual may not be the correct term as my previous trip took place in January 2007. (Wait a second. I had an appointment in January 2007 and then another one in September 2008. That is annual; sort of. I love having internal debates with myself!) So I arrived at 8:25 for an 8:30 appointment and waited. Two other patients who arrived after I did got called back. Was my doctor running late? Does he not like me anymore? Why is one medical assistant talking about Jessica Alba dating Justin Timberlake? Fortunately, another medical assistant corrected her a few minutes later, because I didn’t want to tell her that she had the wrong Jessica.

Finally, around 8:45, they called my name and directed me to the scale. I had been looking forward to this since I made the appointment so I could see what my weight is now as compared to January 2007. The result: I am 4 pounds lighter than 20 months ago. However, I disagree. The nurse assistant had me go on the scale immediately after I came back. I got weighed while wearing all of my clothes including my shoes and still had my wallet, keys and cell phone in my pocket. I don’t think this was the case during my previous trip, but since I was already behind schedule (I was going straight to work after the appointment), I didn’t question her. My guess is that I’m at least 7 pounds lighter now (and probably even more after all of the running I did refereeing soccer games this weekend).

During my last appointment, the doctor recommended that I start taking Omega-3 Fatty Acid, or as I generally call them, fish pills. Since there’s nothing else exciting to write about my trip to the doctor, I wanted to share with you my cholesterol results.

Cholesterol Total: 1/2/07 – 165, 9/22/08 – 160
Triglycerides: 92, 57
HDL (I think this is the good cholesterol): 34, 46
VLDL: 18, 11
LDL: 113, 103

While I think these numbers are an improvement, if anyone else knows anything about cholesterol, please feel free to chime in below.

My Cholesterol

I learned a few years ago from my doctor that I have high cholesterol. Much of this was directly related to my eating habits as I regularly ate cheese sandwiches, cream cheese (with bagels not out of the container), eggs and Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls. I had my annual physical last week and received my latest cholesterol numbers. While my good cholesterol (HDL) is low and my bad cholesterol (LDL) is high, my overall cholesterol is OK. I have no idea how this is possible.

Anyway, to help improve my good cholesterol my doctor directed me to take Omega-3 Fatty Acids. This sounds innocent enough since you can buy Omega-3 over the counter. However, do you know what this stuff is? It is fish oil in pill form! The Omega-3 pills contain herring, anchovy, mackerel, sardine, sprat and salmon ingredients. Tasty! I also didn’t mention that these pills are bigger than your average marble. These monster pills are difficult to swallow, although to be fair, I don’t take pills very well, so this may just be me.

I’m supposed to take these pills twice a day, and I’ll go back to my doctor in two months to see how my good cholesterol is doing. Wish me luck!

Cholesterol Update

While I was away from my desk yesterday afternoon, I received a phone call from my doctor's office. They left a message saying that my cholesterol is "much better" and that it wasn't necessary for me to call them back. Naturally, I called them back because I wanted my cholesterol number (is my cholesterol reading more or less than the guy being chased by his cholesterol number while skiing in the Lipitor commercial?). I'm still waiting for an answer, because the person who has my information was with a patient. Hopefully, I'll hear back on Monday.

In the meantime, to celebrate my better cholesterol reading, cheese omelets everyday!!

The Post About...Nothing

This post will be like a Seinfeld episode, except that it will most likely not be funny. Nothing exciting is happening. The news and conversation around the area is dominated by the weather. EVERY major school district in the DC Metro area was closed today. The Federal Government and my office closed at 3:00. All for about 3 inches of snow so far today. But there is a WINTER STORM WARNING until 1:00AM where we may get another few inches. Like every snowstorm, the grocery stores are probably low on milk and toilet paper.

In an entirely unrelated note (this could be played by Kramer), I went to see my doctor yesterday as a follow-up from August when I had a high cholesterol reading. Before August's appointment, I had some form of cheese (cheese sandwiches, pizza, etc.) and Little Debbie Swiss Cake rolls almost everyday. I am optimistic that my cholesterol reading will be much better, not only because I have cut back on cheese, but I have also lost 16 pounds since the appointment! Granted I gained 10 pounds on my honeymoon just before August's appointment, but hooray for me.

SERENITY NOW!