Since I seem to be on a roll writing about rear ends (politicians and fatty stools) I might as well go ahead and post this piece now that I’ve gotten all the results in. As near as I can figure, I’ve got about 7,000-8,000 people reading this blog daily, so given the percentage of people who are afflicted with hemorrhoids, this should be of interest to at least a couple of thousand. If you don’t have a hemorrhoid, if you don’t know anyone who has a hemorrhoid, and if you don’t think you will ever get a hemorrhoid, you can quit reading now.

When MD and I were in Dallas a month of so ago visiting our kids, I went to visit (as I usually do when in Dallas) a friend I’ve known for years (let’s call him Jack, not his real name). As we were talking he was squirming around on his couch, looking like he was in some kind of discomfort. I asked him if he was having a problem, and said no. At that point his wife, who was bringing us some coffee, said, “Tell him; he’s a doctor for God’s sake.” Jack then sheepishly told me that he had a bad hemorrhoid that was intensely painful. I asked him all the appropriate questions and diagnosed him as having a thrombosed hemorrhoid that needed treatment.

Jack said he would call is doctor and try to get in. I told him that I had fixed countless thrombosed hemorrhoids, and that if I had the tools I needed, I could fix it for him in a flash. I made a couple of calls and found out that I could get all the necessary equipment at a drugstore nearby. Off we went to gather the stuff. We returned with a latex gloves, a scalpel, a couple of syringes and needles, a bunch of gauze 4X4s for packing after the surgery, and a bottle of xylocaine (an injectible local anesthetic). I recruited Jack’s wife as my assistant, and we got him down on the bed. I had his wife spread his cheeks so that I could get to work. I immediately realized that I had made one of the cardinal errors of doctoring: I had failed to examine the patient before I made the diagnosis.

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A study came out a couple of weeks ago that has thrown the statin worshipers into a blind panic. The study, published in an obscure journal, indicates that people who have low LDL-cholesterol (LDL) levels have a higher risk of developing Parkinson’s disease (PD). The authors of the study didn’t actually test to see if statin drugs caused the lower LDL levels that are associated with PD, they simply made the case that patients with PD have lower LDL levels than those who don’t. In fact, the control group (the subjects without PD) contained many more people taking statins than did the study group of patients with PD, which could conceivable lead to the conclusion that statins somehow prevent PD. The authors made such a case:

In summary, our study shows an association between lower LDL-C and the occurrence of PD. This may be interpreted either as linking lower LDL-C levels etiologically to PD, or as cholesterol-lowering agents having a neuroprotective effect as regards PD. [My bold]

Despite the authors making this statement and the data itself showing what could be considered a protective effect, the pro-statin folks went ballistic. Just the idea that perhaps lowered LDL might be a factor in PD was enough to set them off at full bellow on the idea that should people actually believe this and stop taking statins, thousands of them–no, millions–might die of heart disease and/or stroke.

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Apparently there is custom or a game spreading through the web called blog-tagging. The rules of this noxious pursuit are that someone ‘tags’ you, you tell 5 little known things about yourself, then you ‘tag’ 5 others to do the same. It’s like an evil chain letter. A few days ago Regina Wilshire tagged me. I was going to let the spread of all this stop at me, but then I thought about it a little and decided that I could reveal 5 fairly innocuous things about myself without divulging any of my many perversions.

Unfortunately, since graduating from medical school and immersing myself in the practice of medicine and child rearing, my life has taken a turn for the dull, dull as dishwater in fact. Before medical school, however, I was a little different. I had a lot of bizarre interests that I pursued with a vengeance, most of which even my good friends don’t know about.

So, speak we now of the young pre-medicine Mike Eades and the 5 things few know about him.

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