I'm no expert, but I have two pending friend requests, and I *think* that this is accurate info: I just tried to look at the profile of the two people who have sent me requests - for both of them, I can ONLY see their basic info (and that disclaimer "so and so only shares info with people she knows....") UNLESS I friend them OR send them a message. (IOW, if they sent a friend request to you, and included some message, then that doesn't "count" as a message; if they find your profile and click on "send message" (as opposed to "send friend request"), THEN you can see their profile for a month (at least that's how it used to be - not sure if the new privacy changes have changed that....). I'm virtually certain that the person won't know if you're hitting "ignore," except that you obviously won't show up on their friend list (duh), and they might be persistent - but they may just think the request got lost in cyberspace. I don't know that there's anyway to see if someone is looking at your profile.

Hilarious responses. I would have THOUGHT lots of snarky things, but I have absolutely no doubt that what I actually would would have done was looked very matter-of-fact and said, "Lawyers and doctors, eh? That's nice, but just think how much better they would have done if they'd been fortunate enough to be homeschooled. Well, de gustibus non disputandum est," and THEN turned my back. (I admit the quote doesn't exactly fit, but *she* probably wouldn't know that!) (And why does the whole hs/public school/private school issue have to be a competition? Sigh.)

Well, her family doctor (and I am one, so know the training that FPs have....) SHOULD know enough about this to either: 1) (at minimum) make an adjustment to the med asap, or 2) make an adjustment to the med after calling (right then and there) a child psychiatrist or pediatric neurologist for an interim recommendation, or 3) get you in to see someone at CHOP sooner rather than later. (In fact, I would specifically request that your family doctor CALL FOR YOU and get an appointment - it's sort of like taking an ambulance to the ER gets you in immediately, whereas walking in off the street gets you 8 hrs sitting in the waiting room! This is a situation where you should not have to wait for an initial evaluation.) I hope it goes well - it sounds as though you're on top of things!

LOL - just saw your link above! I love being right (about the short e/long e thing). However, just to keep from getting between you and keptwoman, I must say that the ONLY time I had to "point wildly" (as keptwoman said) was near Canberra (but not IN Canberra - sort of out of the big city a bit!), when I was just trying to get a slice of pizza. The woman at the counter could NOT understand me, and I could NOT understand her - but the really bad thing was she couldn't seem to understand my pointing EITHER :lol: I got a Coke. :D I would recommend that you and keptwoman try to keep the peace, but it might sound like ... kip the .... oh, never mind! And to the OP: yes, NZ was lovely! (Dh and I personally would choose Australia, but NZ would be a close second) I usually try to decide life-altering choices like this by factoring in the "will I regret it?" score: 10 years/20 years, etc. from now, will you and your family say, "I wonder how it would have been if only we'd moved to NZ...."

I'm so sorry, Momto5girls! I have a number of (geriatric) patients on Risperdal (or similar meds), and TD certainly *can* be a side effect. But please don't beat yourself up too much, since Risperdal is an accepted and often necessary medication for children with autism - and like most meds, there's always a risk-benefit balance. Also, even though the movements can be irreversible, they are not *always* irreversible. Have you followed-up with your daughter's doctor? I would expect that he (or she!) has been following any (what we call) abnormal involuntary movements. There are *other* meds that can be given to counteract some of the TD movements, but you should discuss this with your daughter's doctor asap. Also, depending on exactly WHY your daughter is needing an atypical antipsychotic agent like Risperdal, there may be substitute meds she could take that would be as effective, yet with fewer side effects --- meds that we weren't prescribing 5-6 yrs ago (so again, please don't beat yourself up - it sounds as though you are doing the best you can with loving intentions). You may have already found this sort of info on the web, but there are some other links at the bottom that might be helpful: What is Tardive Dyskinesia? Tardive dyskinesia is a neurological syndrome caused by the long-term use of neuroleptic drugs. Neuroleptic drugs are generally prescribed for psychiatric disorders, as well as for some gastrointestinal and neurological disorders. Tardive dyskinesia is characterized by repetitive, involuntary, purposeless movements. Features of the disorder may include grimacing, tongue protrusion, lip smacking, puckering and pursing, and rapid eye blinking. Rapid movements of the arms, legs, and trunk may also occur. Involuntary movements of the fingers may appear as though the patient is playing an invisible guitar or piano. Is there any treatment? There is no standard treatment for tardive dyskinesia. Treatment is highly individualized. The first step is generally to stop or minimize the use of the neuroleptic drug. However, for patients with a severe underlying condition this may not be a feasible option. Replacing the neuroleptic drug with substitute drugs may help some patients. Other drugs such as benzodiazepines, adrenergic antagonists, and dopamine agonists may also be beneficial. What is the prognosis? Symptoms of tardive dyskinesia may remain long after discontinuation of neuroleptic drugs; however, with careful management, some symptoms may improve and/or disappear with time. What research is being done? The NINDS conducts and supports a broad range of research on movement disorders including tardive dyskinesia. The goals of this research are to improve understanding of these disorders and to discover ways to treat, prevent, and, ultimately, cure them. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) National Institutes of Health, DHHS 6001 Executive Blvd. Rm. 8184, MSC 9663 Bethesda, MD 20892-9663 Tel: 301.443.4513/866.615.NIMH (-6464) 301.443.8431 (TTY) Fax: 301.443.4279 National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) P.O. Box 1968 (55 Kenosia Avenue) Danbury, CT 06813-1968 Tel: 203.744.0100 Voice Mail 800.999.NORD (6673) Fax: 203.798.2291 WE MOVE (Worldwide Education & Awareness for Movement Disorders) 204 West 84th Street New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212.875.8312 866.546.3136 Fax: 212.875.8389 Source: National Institutes of Health; National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

Well, I'm not from there, and will be interested in authentic Kiwi answers - but from visiting NZ, my observation was that they don't seem to pronounce a "short e" sound at all as Americans do. It always sounded more like a "long e" sound to me --- so 'air' sounded like 'ear', 'fare' sounded like 'fear', and so forth. In your example, I would have expected 'set' to sound like 'seat' not 'sit', but maybe my theory is wrong! I'm from the southern U.S. (but don't have much of a southern accent), but when I was living in England, the Brits thought I was from Australia. When I traveled to Australia, everything sounded ... fine. I had always thought that Aussie accents and Kiwi accents were similar, but not at all! It was actually surprisingly hard for me to understand the New Zealanders.

Thanks for being there .... I'm off this weekend, but did have to send a lady with a broken hip to the ED this morning at 3 a.m. --- felt so bad for the ambulance drivers, as I hear the roads are just awful! We're at about 25" and it's still coming down really hard. Stay safe and warm.

Sure sounds like cases of malaria I've seen in practice. (Also sounds exactly how my mom describes my dad from their honeymoon (he was just back from the Korean War): high fevers, vomiting:tongue_smilie:, sick as a dog ... then .... just fine, wanting to go play golf (!) .... then sick as a dog....then just fine. I don't think she has very happy memories of their honeymoon. :glare:)

Truly "best friend" was college roommate (who introduced me to dh), but I guess she's disqualified under your rules :) , so other 3 really good and close friends came: 1) as introduction from my closest friend (when ds was little; her dd is same age as my ds, so the children have grown up together, albeit about 1.5 hrs apart; we're completely at the same 'place' in life) 2) from previous church (she's a little older than I and never-married; that is, we're not at the same 'place' in life) 3) from previous church (she's a little older than I and has a large, nearly grown family; that is, we're not at the same 'place' in life). Why do you ask?

It wouldn't bother me, but it does make me think that Seinfeld was onto something: "There's good naked, and there's bad naked." This doesn't sound like good naked to me.

As a doctor, I can not disagree with anything you say - especially the bolded part. Regulations mandate things like how often I must see my long-term care patients (whether they need it or not) and how often I have to try to taper and/or discontinue certain types of meds. Meanwhile, insurance companies mandate what meds people can get --- and it's not like they pick a drug and stick with it --- no, they change it, seemingly at random, every few months. (For example, Mrs. S was on Drug Z 20 mg once a day. I get a notice saying that it has to be changed to Drug Z 10 mg twice a day. So I switch it, so that her ins. will pay for it. Three months later, I get a notice that they won't pay for Drug Z at all now - they will, though pay for Drug Y 40 mg once a day. So I switch her. About 6 months later ... Drug Z is in the catbird seat once again, at 20 mg once a day. Each switch requires 1) a phone call, 2) a new Rx, 3) a new note in the chart, 4) a nurse to cancel the old order, 5) a nurse to start the new order, 6) a second nurse to check and verify the order (this is in an assisted living facility), 7) the pharmacy where the med is delivered from to make another delivery and to pick up the old med, and 8) possible blood work to monitor every switch to the new med. This happens on at LEAST 3% of my patients every couple of months. It's a huge SCAM in my opinion, perpetrated by the insurance companies who are constantly making deals with the pharmaceutical companies. It has NOTHING to do with improved patient care AT ALL. These med change requests are SOLELY on the basis of economic advantage for the ins. company.) Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Medicare has not paid me (for all those mandated visits) for how long? 54 weeks. Yes, weeks. I still take Medicare patients, and I still treat them to the best of my ability, because I consider it a privilege to work with elderly patients. But if we think that gov't-run ANYthing is going to be more efficient, more concerned with patient-care and outcomes, and more compassionate to the needy and vulnerable among us ... think again. We need reform, but we need insurance reform, Big Pharma reform, and tort reform. We do not, imo, need the gov't trying to manage the relationship between doctor and patient. (Whew. Didn't realize there was such a rant in there :)!)

Well, your signature is a start! I like that one! I am having a similar issue with my 12 yr old - he doesn't USE the particularly awful words, but he knows them (although clearly doesn't know what most of them mean). I've talked with moms of even older kids, and the consensus seems to be that words that *we* consider exceptionally profane just simply don't have the same meaning any more. I don't know if that's true - I'll be interested in seeing others' thoughts on this. I see words that are just awful (to me) on young acquaintances' Facebook pages - and they just seem to be filler words - certainly they don't have the meaning that *I* would associate with them. For now, we talk about how those words are "substitutes" for even worse words, we talk about Scripture that tells us what is in your heart comes out of your mouth, we talk about what the words mean (well, a few I simply don't explain - but just say that they are really vulgar, or really rude to women, or whatever is the case) and so forth. I'll be interested in hearing others' solutions.

I can't speak to Ecce or Oxford, but we used a bit over a year of Cambridge (yes, we just had to drop Latin last year, but doing so made us both a bit more sane, so I have to see the silver lining!), and the stories were (imo) VERY high interest for boys. I recommended the book to my friend who is a mom of two girls and she came back a month or so later, looking at me like I was crazy! Examples (and somehow they look worse in English than in Latin :)): - The father goes to buy a slave, doesn't like this one, doesn't like that one, sees the servant girl that the slave-seller has, LIKES that one, buys her, takes her home, and his son LIKES the slave girl and the cook LIKES the slave girl (she's pretty), and the mother (wife) DOES NOT like the slave girl. - Something about the customer getting a shave and (I don't really remember) telling an (?off color) joke and the barber cutting his neck and "the blood flowing down." -The son breaks the nose off a statue when he's horsing around ... and so forth. Of course, the whole story is building toward the climax of Vesuvius erupting and destroying Pompeii (and some of the characters we'd come to know) - so there was definitely anticipation because of that. Anyway, not to stereotype, but Cambridge was a good fit (while it lasted) for MY son. It was much more fun for him to be reading right away, rather than memorizing words "in a vacuum" so to speak.

I am! The College of William and Mary in Virginia (lol), class of 1982. We live about 3 hrs from there and go back at least once a year. LOVE the 'burg!

Was it tough because the D students weren't ready for the R-level discussion? Or was it too many kids? Or was it because they weren't reading the same books? As far as hands-on activities, do you find that the older kids enjoy them? In the group we'll have, I'm wondering if they're ... jaded! Thanks!

Thanks, PollyOR. I was just trying to add some first-hand accounts to TOG's suggestions.

Has anyone been in a TOG co-op (dialectic level)? How did you structure your time? We'll be setting one up for this coming year, and would love to hear from some btdt folks! Thanks.

Well, my dh (an archaeology/history major) *really* wanted to name our son after the great Hittite king, Suppiluliuma (pronounced, as best I can tell, 'Shu pil ooli oomash'). I said, "Great thinking, honey. No." The funny thing is, though, that 10 years later, dh met the husband of someone he works with - they got to talking, and it turned out that this man (an archaeologist/anthropologist) *really* wanted to name his son after the great Hittite king, Suppiluliuma. Dh's colleague's wife apparently said, "Great thinking, honey. No." So, your sister could stand with Sup....'s mother as the only other woman in history to allow such a thing! (Well, there was also a Sup... II, but your sis would still be in a VERY exclusive club!)

I'm currently reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (about the German Occupation of Guernsey during WWII). There's a surprising amount (to me at least!) of info about that time period, given the format of the book (letters between many characters) and the title!

There are lots and lots and LOTS of causes of anemia (not just iron deficiency), so you just need to find out from your doc exactly what TYPE of anemia he thinks you have. There are anemias due to blood loss (e.g., monthly blood loss via menses), anemias due to vitamin deficiencies, anemias due to chronic disease, anemias due to your body not producing enough blood cells, and on and on and on. Make sure you find out exactly what kind he thinks you have (he'll know, because the blood cells (microscopically) look different, and other blood tests will help narrow down the causes), not just what he wants to treat you with. (That is, just because he put you on iron while he's investigating doesn't necessarily mean you have iron-deficiency anemia - although that is probably one of the more common anemias in women of child-bearing age.) HTH!

See, I had NO IDEA there was supposed to be medicinal value in it, at least in regards to PPD (anemia, I could grant you, or maybe immunologic boosting or something). I will assume it worked (re: PPD) in your case? (How bad would THAT be - for it NOT to have worked after you were able to chug it?!!) (Anyway, my silly comment was based on my education from long threads on the "old boards" about various things done to and with placentae. I don't recall that anyone ate it out of economic necessity, though.)

This is a phenomenal idea! - and not just for pediatric / spectrum behaviors.

Oooh - sorry - I wasn't trying to make you feel bad about your purchase! It's much more fun than Scrabble, imo - and with a cute case - well, you'll definitely get $10 of enjoyment out of it! (Hey - ADD the Scrabble tiles to the Bananagram tiles and play a marathon, or add a lot more people - that cd be v. fun!)

Well, if it's the game I'm thinking of, we always called it "Rapid Scrabble," and used Scrabble tiles without the board. When it got particularly heated, we called it "Rabid Scrabble." That was always excitement enough for us (you can actually draw blood :) !), so I'll be looking forward to seeing how others use the tiles....

I had my lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow) injected - with complete and blessed relief! (I went to a colleague who gave me the (essentially) pro forma speech about PT (doing it), braces (only work in about 50% of folks), NSAIDs (already took them). I said I just wanted the injection - and it was perfectly painless and completely effective (and that was about 8 yrs ago). Elbows and spines are different beasts, though. I have had a patient have a series of vertebral injections from the pain mgmt docs, and, as GVA said in her dh's case, his pain relief was good, but not permanent (see below). I have other patients (elderly ladies, mainly) who require knee injections 2-3x/yr - and they are able to walk with no (or less) pain - so they're relatively happy, since it keeps them from needing a wheelchair. (None would be candidates for knee replacement.) As others have said, steroid (cortisone or similar) injections are not completely without risk, but, on the other hand, a single injection is VERY unlikely to cause the problems that you MIGHT see with long term use. The injection might give you time and ability to focus on therapy (which might be too painful - or even impossible - before the injection), which could strengthen the muscles around the joint (in your case, your spine) - and THAT could take some of the pressure off the joint, so that you might achieve some long-term relief. (I'm not a physical therapist or a physiatrist, but am just speculating on a mechanism whereby an injection could provide longer-term relief, as it did with my elbow - once the pain was relieved, I was able to strengthen the muscles more effectively.) Ask your doc(s): > how sure is s/he that your bulging/herniated disc is causing the pain you're having? (Diagnostic imaging of the spine has a high rate of abnormal findings in asymptomatic persons. In studies of lumbar spine MRI evaluation in asymptomatic adults, herniated disks were found in 9 to 76 percent of patients, bulging disks in 20 to 81 percent, degenerative disks in 46 to 93 percent, and annular tears in 14 to 56 percent - from http://www.aafp.org/afp/20070415/1181.html) >what percentage of patients with your condition achieve complete relief? (from the same article: Epidural steroid injections may be helpful in patients with radicular symptoms that do not respond to two to six weeks of conservative therapy. Randomized trials have demonstrated short-term (i.e., weeks to months) but not long-term improvement in pain and disability with epidural steroid injections.29-31 >what percentage achieve partial relief? >what are the chances of Bad Outcome XYZ? (and what ARE x, y, and z?) >what are the other options? >how likely is it that your particular condition will deteriorate, and is there a way of predicting at what rate? >is there an optimal time to HAVE an injection if you decide to do that - iow, if you wait, will it be too late (you know, like you can only have an epidural during labor before a certain point....)? >how likely is it that you would need another injection - and would this particular doc consider repeating it once? twice? etc. >is physical therapy likely to be more effective after the injection? Best wishes, whatever you decide.