Great listener

I have a childhood friend recently had an incident that made her have a crying meltdown . It was extremely new to me as she has always seems so calm and cool towards anything . I guess everyone has a breaking point , and somehow the bullying doctor hit that point of hers. 

She went to a doctor lately for some advice on her mother's condition , and the end result was told can be resolved with surgery. So they agreed to go for the surgery without much hesitation . But what they did not expect was right after the surgery , the condition may look worse than before , in fact it will look unusual until it settles down after a month or few months . Right after the surgery they went straight back to the doctor in the evening on the day of discharge as it is a day surgery , the doctor was a little ticked off and started screaming at them saying it is NORMAL ( exclamation marks to the maximum ) . My friend said he gave both her and her mother a LECTURE about them not understanding the word NORMAL . Well I thought , from her side of story , he is definitely ABNORMAL  *lol* 

So poor friend of mine rang me up late night started sobbing and complaining her bad experience to me over the phone . After listening to her half sobs and half story , I figure that it's probably the summation of bad communication skills and heavy workload of the doctor in the clinic . That aside , but I think patients deserve the reassurance they need . I comforted her by saying he was a good doctor but just lacking communication skills and patience , but then again I don't know if I would do the same as the doctor if I was a doctor working in that kind of clinic and in This country of mine , Malaysia. Friend of mine then said she would boycott that doctor and I offered to go look for a new doctor with her . 

So this is what I do as a pharmacist , even before I was working in private sector . We cover doctors asses in the government hospital , we help each other and that way we could save lives together . I don't agree with pointing fingers , some doctors bad mouth that retail pharmacist starting customers on high blood pressure drug unethically , and some pharmacist says doctor just get paid to give out MC so patients get to be excused from work . Hey , I think our country has enough racial and political issue , we don't need another professional 'beefing' issue . 

To me that's plain stupidity . 

Don't you agree ? 

P I G skin lining

I find this skin lining absolutely amazing , because apart from this animal's lining no other animal lining needs an obvious signage to be place clearly next to the product . Being closely related to this animal , as in my Chinese zodiac sign is THE boar , I am proud of it .

Well that's an excellent way to warn or tell everyone , to think before you 'touch me' . How I wish I could have that signage on me because that's the exact message I like to send to everyone else . I don't like to be touched except when I am having a spa or hair cut ( both I dislike but am force to once in awhile ) . Roomie says I am not an affectionate person . Well said I figure . 

Speaking of pig skin lining , I have some pharmacist story to tell . 

We have gelatin capsules that are porcine origin , so we have to put up a signage notifying our customers about it , just like that pig skin lining leather for shoes . I remembered typing those signage , designing them getting it approve by the management . It wasn't something I could not do in minutes , but I was really really really really  ( Carly Rae Jepsen song singing in my head ) tempted to put up a signage that says : 

      DON'T EAT ME OR TOUCH ME ! 

( even if you will die without me , because you won't go to heaven if you did )       

And that little devil was ringing and talking in my ears going : do it do it ! The angel on the other side said : don't be a racist and mean pharmacist . The logical mini drug queen immediately pops up and say : You would loose your job if you did that , so in the end my brain speaks louder than my heart , and I went on and type : 

        NOT suitable for Muslim

             and Jewish of faith  

(Contains ingredients of porcine origin ) 

The management approved the sign and pheww ! So I was that close to getting into trouble . 

When I was fulfilling my compulsory service and working in a government hospital , we had to remember which injections and implants products were porcine or bovine origins by heart . Some might say aren't they written in the pack ? Obviously not !! Because most of these medications are imported and places of manufacture are European origin or The USA , so the pharmacist would have to sit down and read all the information leaflet in the package , go onto the website and do your research , and some times send email or online chat to the manufacturing company to find out ( if you highly suspect it is porcine origin ) , and make a report if it is and get signature and approval from management to send out an email to ALL staff working in the hospital . In the end , update the table /record in the file in the shared folder to be viewed by all the paramedics working in the hospital . This is what a DIS ( drug info system) pharmacist does .

We keep an eye and remind the fellow clinical doctors in prescription selection just in case they might have overlooked that bit of information. 

So yessshhh , for those who didn't know , we don't sit there and just warm chairs . 

Morning sickness

My FB account has turn into a baby album in 2 short years . My friends are either expecting or having their first child , at sooooooo young . Well I figure apart from me , the rest of the world prefer to have their babies at a younger age because it is so much easier to avoid bad shapes post pregnancy as recovery is better. It's all about collagen and skin elasticity to deal with stretch marks and skin folds after all . 

I figure as a pharmacist and also good friends to them , I owe them a blog about morning sickness . I get morning sickness too , especially Monday morning when I see the to do list is longer than my toilet paper rolls flatten out .

Not every preggy gets morning sickness . And it certainly does not mean that the lady is unhealthy to have morning sickness. If you are not worried , because you had your first child and you did not have morning sickness then you are wrong . Each pregancy is different and you may not be morning sickness free for the second pregnancy , unless you have decided to implement the one child policy in your familyland . 

Many ladies believe taking drugs during the first trimester is harmful , I must clarify this mistake as it is not the case . The reproduction , limbs , and all parts important development is actually during the second trimester . The antiemetic drugs available to help with morning sickness has quite a few different one , some are stronger and dearer , usually for complicated cases when normal maxolon ( trade name ) also can be called metoclopramide (drug name ) . Medications are divided into many categories , pregancy category for instant . Just like restaurant cleanliness grade , category A is completely safe . 

My hot mama friend who had morning sickness throughout the first 6 months category ended up suffering for low birth weight and the child was certainly weak upon birth and all because she believes that no medication is the best remedy . Which sometimes isn't the case if you think further . 

Maxolon does not work for all preggy , so ......

Ondansetron ( drug name ) or Zofran is a anti-emetic for very complicated morning sickness . It 's funded in the government of Australia and Europe under the PBS but not in our country . And the tablets are really expensive , I am talking about few hundreds per box , and the box has only 8 tablets LOL ,but if you need it you 'll need it . Generic is available but no one would want second best for their child anyway , right ? 

Ok , you may want to ask what causes it ? Well , i am just going to say luck ?? Some say it is heriditary , if you mom has it you will ? Or some say if your child have lots of hair at birth , you would suffer morning sickness badly ? Too many stories I have heard but strong link to one single factor . So , I'll say best of luck and enjoy your pregnancy as much as you can . 

After all not all ladies have the chance to be pregnant and a mother . 

Organic vs synthetic

Back to no  n e e d  so strong for our face and body . My customers usually ask what do you use on your face , to have such fair skin ? What about organic product ? Are they good ? 

Let's look at them closely . Go through their pros and cons separately and then you could make your final decision yourself .  Organic product is a very strong marketing tool these days , people spend thousands dollars on their packaging and advertising to promote them , therefore they certainly don't come cheap . In comparison to the normal product , organic products are 20% dearer in price in general . 

The product are genuinely very simple products , with no additional preservative and parabens in the making , so they normally have very short expiry. For true organic products , 28 days after the making of the product , it should be discarded . Which make selling of such product in a commercial way is literally impossible , so go figure yourself . 

Natural products don't work if you are old , as in when you literally can afford them you are too old for it . Why ?? Because by the time you get to that age , you  would have expose you skin and hair to all sorts of chemical , and organic products would not give you the satisfactory result that your body is use to , and you would give up using it in no time . Think about it even Johnson and Johnson is chemical , so your body has been train to work with much stronger products , you think organic products are going to give you 'drastic' change ?? No . In no time you would frustrated with the money you've paid and then your friends would have paid you a 'compliment' saying your hair look so 'normal' , as in no difference . The thing with organic is about starting all over , meaning training your scalp to start all over with organic , you would have to go through a phase of being flat haired , pimple breakout , dull hair and skin before the hair and skin  goes back to it 'caveman' condition . Then they are said to be back to the original 'setting' of the skin , and that's when your friends would ask what do your use ? And you can answer -just organic soap *smug*  ! 

And if you are so lucky not only having  money but also the luxury of doing nothing , meaning a lot of time to spare , then you could start making your own shampoo and face soap at home . Now that's REAL organic . 

Synthetic products are not all bad , when you get older , such as those perimenopausal and menopausal women , I think you would need things that would work , and I reckon it's only synthetic products could give such prominent results . 

If you have the time , check out my hair dye blog for more understanding on organic hair color .