Ridin that train

You will have to excuse the lack of formatting my html skills suck.  Just bear with me for the next week.

Medical topic of the day:  Toot toot! Today we are discussing cocaine which my good friend Midge describes as a psychological disaster. So get on board cause we are riding that train!

Off the Top Of My Head:  I know cocaine is a stimulant and can cause heart failure in even the heartiest of people regardless of age.  I know it is extremely psychologically addictive.  It is not good for you.  In the early days it was used as a local anesthetic and also as an anti-depressant.  Freud prescribed it to almost all of his patients.  It is a good vasoconstrictor and is still used to stop nose bleeds.  Rarely it is used as a anesthetic for some types of eye surgery.

My Research Today:  18% of adults in the US have tried cocaine at least once.  It has many many street names.  Referred to as the "caviar of street drugs" it is an expensive and dangerous drug to abuse.  Cocaine is abused in two forms.  The pricey kind which is powdered and can be insuffulated (word of the day - means to suck it up yer nose) or dissolved in liquid and injected into your veins.  The cheap kind is crack rock which is smoked and can be paid for by knocking over a parking meter.  I have a cousin who used to repair parking meters and he said that is common.  I don't know what is more disturbing about that, the fact that you would knock over a parking meter to feed your habit or the fact that crack dealers take quarters.

Which ever way you absorb cocaine it gets you high as fuck, really fast.  How does it do this?  Well it interferes with your neurotransmitters, blocking norepinephrine, dopamine and seratonin from being reabsorbed.  Cocaine has a relatively short half-life for a stimulant lasting only 30 minutes to two hours and shorter if injected or smoked.  The higher you get, the bigger the toll it takes on your body.

Tried to insert picure of Rick James here with caption of "It's a hell of a drug." but couldn't figure it out.  Sorry.

Cocaine causes tachycardia and hypertension and can cause arrythmias leading to heart failure.  The vasoconstrictive aspect can cause strokes even in perfectly healthy people.  If you would have cut Rick James head off in the 80's it probably would have shot blood to the moon.  The excessive activity during your high along with the vasoconstriction can cause rhabdomyolisis leading to acute kidney failure.  People who prefer snorting cocaine typically develop sinus damage and perforation of their nasal septum with chronic use; lung damage may also occur.

A lot of people believe cocaine is a aphrodisiac sometimes even rubbing it on their wiener during sex which is a good way to kill your girlfriend or wife, FYI, the vagina has a lot of mucosa in it.  In actuality cocaine limits blood flow to the penis so if you want the most flaccid, smallest, raging boner of your life do cocaine before sex.

If you want to see how bad cocaine addiction can be go to a Cocaine Anonymous meeting.  I went to school with a recovering addict and they lose everything.  He lost his job, his house, his wife and his kids and was living on the street before he got help.  He told me that when he was using he could snort $800 to $1000 up his nose in one night.  Crack addicts will and actually have sold their own children for another hit.

So how many times do you have to use for cocaine to kill you or make you an addict?  Just once depending on your physiology and psychological constitution.

Also keep in mind before you use that cocaine is never sold as a pure product by the time it gets to your nose.  Lets look at a short list of stuff cocaine is cut with for distribution: 

Talc (Baby powder)
Corn starch
Vitamin C
Milk powder
Baby laxative - YUM!
Powdered local anesthetic like lidocaine
Levamisole (A deworming agent for dogs) ALSO YUM!

So there you go.  Don't use cocaine.

Quest to 180:
Still holding at 227 - I am getting very frustrated with my lack of weight loss despite my activity level.
Activity today was 30 minutes on the ellipitical trainer. I got in almost 14K steps too.
Feeling ok today but very tired.

The MAN:
Confidence level is low.  I am finding it more difficult to improve my confidence level.  If anyone has any tips it would be great.

I will talk at you tomorrow.  Thanks for the topic, Midge.  Keep them coming and anyone is free to email me with any topics they would like me to feature.