News On A Strange Phenomenon

I normally would not use the blog to print something I just received but I know many of you use social networking sites and thought this might be of interest to many of you. It is a bit long, but please read through to the end.

Scientists and medical personnel are studying a phenomenon which seems to be slowly spreading across many highly industrialized nations. It is referred to it as “digital photo arm” or DPA. A 2009 study has concluded that social networking sites and the proliferation of smaller digital cameras and phones and other electronic devices with cameras are leading to more and more arm injuries. According to the report, professional photographers are also lamenting that the DPA phenomenon not only causes physical pain but also makes amateur photography really look bad.

So what is “digital photo arm”? The report defines DPA as “the process of taking one’s own photograph with a digital camera or other electronic device with a built-in camera for the purposes of publishing it on a social network site such as Twitter or Facebook or sending the photo via a cellular phone by means of a text message.”

The 2009 study includes this quote about “digital photo arm” from respected doctor, Dr. Jorge Blanco: “It is mostly arm injuries we are seeing. When we looked at the data from a major metropolitan area recently we have determined that approximately seventy percent of arm injuries in local emergency rooms over a four week time frame occurred after someone had tried to take their own photo with a digital camera or some sort of camera phone. We have also seen instances of some vision issues with some of these arm injuries. We believe this is due to the fact that some people do not realize how to properly set the flash on their camera. I dare say this is a scary phenomenon in today’s world.”

The report indicates such entertainment-type injuries are really nothing new. In the 1970s, medical personnel saw truck drivers and CB radio users who suffered from cramped hand syndrome (CHS) which occurred when the user gripped the handheld microphone for too long. In the 1980s, doctors saw a rise in what was called repetitive joystick button thumb trauma (RJBTT), this occurred when home video game users often and rapidly used the same thumb on a button on the video game’s joystick. Doctors and researchers were somewhat relieved as the video game industry designed more sophisticated gaming devices in the 1990s but with the expansion of cable and satellite television, these same doctors and researchers noticed an increase in what they refer to as video comas brought on by long, quiet hours of watching the same TV channel or network without a break. Children often slipped into Nickelodeon comas, adult females often slipped into Lifetime Network comas while adult males often found themselves in ESPN comas. The turn of the century and the increased use of the internet seemed to usher back in the age of people being able to injure themselves with devices meant mostly for entertainment purposes.

A respected kinesiologist, Dorothea Legg, recently said at a San Mateo conference on digital photo arm: “We could really stem the tide of all these arm injuries, if only those who were so eager to get their latest photo on Facebook or Tweeter (sic) or whatever would just ask someone to take the photo for them.” Legg’s remarks brought the conference attendees, seventy-five in total, to their feet in agreement.

Of course, some people may not have another person nearby when that photo just has to be taken. Doctors and photographers agree that investing in an inexpensive tripod and a camera with a timer should suffice. They also tend to agree that using makeshift tripods out of books or ladders or even chairs is not a good idea since doing so may lead to yet other injuries. Still, doctors do not believe the occurrence of digital photo arm will decrease anytime soon.

The study indicates this type of injury is here to stay. Some in the education community are scrambling to integrate a proper one-arm photo technique into digital photography and social networking workshops and classes with the help of professional photographers. Chester Voight, Professor of Monochromatic Themes in Modern Photography at the Weinheim Schlupp Institute of the Most Fine Arts says, “We have seen the data and believe this phenomenon should be addressed. We hope the effort we make to insert this good info into workshops and classes doesn’t get held up in a committee somewhere along the process because this type of information can help so many people. Today, DPA is a phenomenon but tomorrow it could become an epidemic. We believe educating people about this issue is a good first step, and in turn, we believe this will ultimately slow the number of DPA injuries.”

Concerned photographers are also weighing in on the digital photo arm debate. Roy Len Clyde, regional manager of K-Mart photography studios in southeastern Texas, had this to say, “When people had those clunky Polaroid cameras something like this DPA never happened. People would take a photo, set a timer and wait to peel off a strip of film to reveal the picture you had taken a minute ago. When we had those cameras like that at home this stuff didn’t happen because the cameras were just too darn big. Today, somebody might actually break an arm or suffer a concussion trying some of the stuff folks try with a digital camera. Hey, and we aren’t even talking about all the “armchair” self photographers who never take into consideration such photography staples as background and light and getting your blamed arm out of the shot. Maybe once we can get control of the digital photo arm phenomenon we can tackle issues such as the basics of good photography. Maybe the rise of DPA will ultimately lead to better photography skills for the whole world, professionals and amateurs alike. That is my hope.”

So, what can a person do to avoid the dangers of DPA? Those interviewed for the report, provide five options.
1. If you can, ask someone to take the photo for you.
2. If you do not have someone available to take your photo, then use a lightweight tripod and a camera with a reliable timer.
3. If neither of these options work for you and you just must take your own photo those in the know insist you use basic math skills to determine the appropriate distance of your camera lens to the tip of your nose remembering to factor in any zooming you may do with your camera. They add there is no shame in understanding you may need to use a protractor, calculator or a square rule, or all three, to get this measurement precise.
4. Enjoy April 1 by having a happy April Fool’s Day and not always believing what you read on the internet, or on a rare occasion, on this blog.
5. Smile and say “Cheese”.

Catch My Breath

I’ve been trying lately to just catch my breath. Sometimes work and other obligations trip me up in this regard. This time though it’s a nagging health issue that has thrown me behind where I feel I should be. Seasonal allergies teamed with an elusive fever and an out-of-the-blue ear infection to make my world slow to a crawl. While my world took on a snail’s pace the rest of the world seemed to race right on by me.

During this time, Jennifer and I have been able to once again test that part of the marriage vow I suppose you could call the health clause, you know the part of the vow where you promise to care for one another “in sickness and in health”. At the start of this whole thing, I was a coughing, slobbering mess. I got a bit better in time. Somehow though, I transferred a portion of the sickness stuff to Jennifer. Since the family that coughs together can quickly get on each other's nerves together, we took a trip to see the doctor together. The most memorable part of the visit was when a nurse took our vital signs and then promptly handed us face masks. We then had to wait for a few minutes for the doctor to see us. As we stood there a slight distance away from others, face masks covering our mouths while strangers shot curious and slightly fearful glances our way, Jennifer whispered she felt we were suddenly lepers, sick and standing outside the rest of the group. We laughed through our congestion and those face masks. In sickness and in health, indeed. In time, the doctor emerged, provided his diagnosis and since then a slow recovery has followed.

I must admit while I find a certain charm in watching Judge Judy slice and dice small claims court cases into small pieces with her common sense, I know that the haze of over-the-counter allergy meds combined with the more ramped-up meds the doctor provided has to eventually wear off and will cause me to leave the comfort of the living room couch and return to the real world. The broken rattle I hear and feel when I inhale and exhale will disappear and take with it the cough that bursts out in to spasms I can’t control. The tasks I left undone at home, at work and anywhere else I venture will still be there with my name attached to them. For now though, I’m just trying to catch up to where I left off a week and a half ago. I’ll get there. Just let me catch my breath.

Blood Will Tell

As you grow older some things begin to become more commonplace. For instance, you may still feel like you are 25 years old until you do something really physical and your body unleashes all sorts of ways to tell you that you are not quite as young as you may feel. Those sorts of things just seem to happen more often as your age increases. You also find that while you may have at one time felt bold enough, strong enough and invincible enough to never darken the door of a doctor you now find yourself no longer willing to take unnecessary chances so you find yourself paying more frequent visits to your local neighborhood doctor.

Recently, I had such a visit. I should back up to provide a bit of context. This most recent doctor’s visit wasn’t to my regular doctor. Several years back, my body was inhabited for a time by a kidney stone. I’m a big boy, I can handle tough things. I’m only reduced to tears when someone nearby is chopping onions or when my favorite college football team loses. I like to think I can handle me some physical pain when I need to do so. Sometimes with pain, you just grit your teeth, suck it up and go forward. If it doesn’t kill you, you are made stronger. Kidney stones on the other hand, well, they truly are bad news. I have only had two attacks of these in my life. I hope I never have another. With the last attack, I broke into a sweat. I twisted my body in various ways in order to find relief to no avail. I laid on the couch, on the bed, on the floor. I would have laid on a bed of nails surrounded by angry, hungry wolves if I could have located such just to ease the pain. I also became physically ill with this attack. And I hurt. And hurt. And hurt.

Many of my fellow kidney stone sufferers will claim the pain you feel is comparable to the pain a woman feels in childbirth. I won’t go there. I can’t go there. I do know the pain I have felt with kidney stones is the most intense physical pain I have ever felt and that would include surviving a car wreck or two, a bike ride gone bad that saw me slide face first down some pavement and a few headaches that would not let me lift my head off a pillow. I also know during this last episode I took two heavy duty prescribed painkillers with a glass of water and it did not ease my pain one bit. Those pain pills may have as well been Skittles. A few days and literally hundreds of glasses of water later, the pain and the stone went away.

The kidney stone episode though led my regular doctor to eventually direct me to a kidney specialist in order to make sure there was no permanent damage and to make sure my kidneys got back to a normal functioning place. So, now, every so often, despite not having any more kidney stone attacks since those horrible summer days a few years back, I visit this doctor as well as my regular doctor.

This doctor runs blood work and then sits down with me and goes over how I am doing and reviews the blood work results. This, of course, takes all of maybe five minutes. Getting to this place though often takes hours. On my last visit to this doctor, I ended up spending close to two hours total in the office. And I spent maybe a grand total of five minutes with the doctor. And if I’m fine, I’m okay with that, I would rather the doctor spend time with someone who really needs his expertise than for him to be sitting with me when there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with me. Still, those few minutes during this visit were memorable for me.

Of course, the actual visit begins with the typical pleasantries and greetings followed by some general questions about my health. This is followed by the doctor poking and prodding my stomach, sides and back and then listening to my body through a stethoscope. One of the things this doctor always asks is how much water I am drinking. I know I do not drink enough water. I try. Well, some days, I try harder than other days, but I do try. I just know I have never consumed enough water to feel comfortable answering this question for this doctor because I know no matter my answer the amount I say will not be enough to please the doctor. He’s a kidney doctor. Water keeps the kidneys flushed. I could be consuming enough water to make the levels on a nearby lake drop daily into a drought stage and I feel like it would not be enough to ever answer this question adequately for this doctor.

Since the doctor had my most recent blood work results in his possession, one of the things we discuss is the results of this blood work. This is always one of those hold-your-breath moments because you never really know how it’s going to go. I had some weird results from this blood work one time before regarding my liver. Again, it happened once and now my regular doctor always checks this one specific result as if he were combing for clues at a crime scene. The one bad result was a shock then but between that check and the following check the results improved and have never reverted to that one time anomaly. Still, that one time just adds to the apprehension that the results which seem to be transcribed in some code similar to early attempts at creating a written language will bode ill for me.

The doctor indicates my blood work doesn’t show anything out of the ordinary and we continue to discuss things. Then, sort of as an aside to the whole conversation, the doctor mentions one thing that was just a bit off about my blood work. I braced myself, fearing bad news, knowing it likely meant having to drink more water and then to submit to more blood work or even more detailed testing. The doctor then revealed to me that the blood work indicated my phosphorous level was a bit low. I imagine a puzzled look came across my face. The doctor asked me if I knew how to correct this. I relayed to him I did not know. He said correcting my phosphorous level was through diet. I momentarily braced myself again for bad news. No doubt, this meant drinking even more water and adding bland, colorless vegetables to my diet. He then asked if I knew what foods would boost my phosphorous levels. Again, I had no clue as I was reeling just a bit from this news, anticipating the hammer to fall on my regular routine of life. The doctor laughed a bit and then told me the foods which would help me raise my phosphorous level were foods he normally would not ask kidney patients to consume…dairy products such as milk, ice cream and cheese.

I think for a moment I went totally blank until the voice inside my head blurted out into the halls of my mind, ‘did I just understand my doctor to say I need to be drinking more milk and eating more cheese and ice cream?’ I reached up to my beard and subtly tugged on it in order to make sure I was conscious and not in some dream state still sitting in the waiting room. I then heard the doctor chuckle a bit and say something to the effect that asking a patient to intake more dairy goes against everything he, as a kidney doctor, prescribes most of his patients. I told him I thought I was up to the challenge of getting my phosphorus levels up to where they need to be, especially if this diet was the answer. As he continued to talk though, I briefly considered asking him for a note that I could show to my wife detailing my low phosphorous levels and how the remedy is to eat more cheese and ice cream and drink more milk because I just know she would have trouble believing a doctor would say such in this day and age. Or maybe I need the note because I know she would have trouble believing I hadn’t made up such a thing.

The next thing I know, the doctor is leaving and ushering me out of this room and down the hall to take care of the co-pay. There is some discussion as to when I need to return for a visit before I am eventually out the door on this day.

I phone Jennifer and give her the good news. I am fine. Well, except for the low phosphorous levels. I then begin pleading with her to begin filling the week's grocery list with all sorts of cheeses and different flavors of ice cream. Even over the phone lines I visualized her rolling her eyes at me all the while wondering if she could somehow get through to my doctor and explain to him that his diagnosis will leave me begging for cheese on every piece of food to be served in our house for the next three weeks and how his plan to raise my phosphorus level goes against her loving concern for me to eat healthier.

My mind though raced with the possibilities the rest of the day. Chocolate milk. Chili cheese fries, chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, milk shakes, Cap’n Crunch cereal…with lots of milk, of course. Lasagna, nachos covered in queso, macaroni and cheese, banana splits, cheese whiz, triple dipped ice cream cones. Wow! I haven’t been this concerned with, ahem, getting healthy, in a long time!

Since that diagnosis I can say I have worked to up my phosphorous level. Milk, cheese, ice cream. Hey it’s tough, but you must do what you must do in order to get those numbers right. Iced coffee? Hey throw in some extra cream if you got it. Grilled chicken sandwich? Hey, if you don’t mind, add a few slices of cheese to that if you can. Cheetos? Do these come in an extra cheesy flavor?

I sit here now content that my phosphorus level will soon return to the level it belongs while looking at my calendar and the month ahead. Another busy one. Some work stuff, some fun stuff. Oh, and then there’s one day marked off for some sort of an appointment. Yep, a doctor’s appointment, a visit to my regular doctor. And yes, it’s one where there will be more blood work. And the realization that another needle will soon pierce my skin and remove some blood which will find it's way into a small tube to be transported to the lab and tested and eventually reported back to my doctor and to me makes me almost stop eating the moose tracks ice cream I have in my hand. It does dash my dream of a hamburger with six slices of cheese later today. Somehow, I already know, the results of that blood work will be, you guessed it, the fact that I need to cut back on my dairy intake. And, when that moment arrives, I will be struck with the realization that all along I should have been drinking more water.