May Is Busy with Health Observances

I haven't checked to see if May is the busiest month when it comes to health observances, but if it's not, it's way up there. Do campaigns for specific causes have any impact on you? I have a personal interest in this because of Sepsis Alliance, which brought about Sepsis Awareness Month this past  September.

Anyway, for the busy month of May, this is what I found for the United States:

Arthritis Awareness  Month

Better Hearing and Speech Month

Global Employee Health and Fitness Month

Healthy Vision Month

Hepatitis Awareness Month

Lupus Awareness Month 

Melanoma/Skin Cancer Detection and Prevention Month^®

Mental Health Month

National Asthma and Allergy Awareness Month

National Celiac Disease Awareness Month 

National High Blood Pressure Education Month

National Mediterranean Diet Month

National Osteoporosis Awareness and Prevention Month

National Physical Fitness and Sports Month 

National Toxic Encephalopathy and Chemical Injury Awareness Month 

Ultraviolet Awareness Month

And then there are weekly observances:

May 6 to 12

Children's Mental Health Awareness Week

North American Occupational Safety and Health Week

National Stuttering Awareness Week

Air Quality Awareness Week 

May 13 to 19

Food Allergy Awareness Week

National Alcohol and Other Drug-Related Birth Defects Awareness Week

National Women's Health Week

May 14 to 18

National Neuropathy Awareness Week

May 21 to 27

Recreational Water Illness and Injury Prevention Week

And now for the daily observances

May 12: Cornelia de Lange Syndrome Awarenesss Day

May 14: National Women's Check-Up Day

May 18: HIV Vaccine Awareness Day

May 19: Hepatitis Testing Day

May 20: National Asian and Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

and World Autoimmune Arthritis Day

May 25: Heat Safety Awareness Week

May 30: National Senior Health & Fitness Day

May 31: World No Tobacco Day

Are there any here that surprise you?

A self-indulgent post today

I've been doing this blog for almost a year now and one of the things I find most fun about it is checking to see who visits the blog. Don't worry, you're still anonymous, but my stats program tells me from what country people visit and the search words or phrases that are most commonly used.

I'm always pleasantly surprised when I see people visiting from countries I can only dream of visiting and I have to admit that there are times when I check my map to make sure I know where the country actually is. I'm proud to say, I usually am pretty close.

Interestingly, the two most popular search strings are "broken hips in the elderly" and "spelling tricks". I can almost guarantee that at least one of those two, particularly the broken hip one, will show up once a day.

I will try to find more information on that because it is such a popular topic. I'll also address it on Help my Hurt, as it is a common source of pain and debilitation for the older people in our population.

I'm happy that people are finding this blog to be a good resource because many are return visitors - I figure if it's not a good resource, people wouldn't come back, right?

As always, I love comments and suggestions, so please don't be shy.

News for Today:
Rare skin cancer deadlier than melanoma, yet studied little
Blood test for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's may soon be available in U.S.
Drug warning linked to less help, more suicides
Medical errors cost US $8.8B, result in 238,337 potentially preventable deaths: HealthGrades study
Birth control choices expanding for women over 40
Child sleep problems linked to later behavioral difficulties
Sleep problems common in children with ADHD
Depression increases risk of Alzheimer's disease
Cavities in Children Reduced Over 60 Percent by New Experimental Chewable Mints

Skin cancer in the news again

I know that the chances are pretty high that there are least a couple of readers who use tanning beds or who tan deeply in the sun – I like to think that most don’t. However, in a new study, there are still high school students who ignore all the messages and continue to use tanning beds. To me, tanning beds are akin to cigarettes. Both are terribly dangerous and can cause death.

In palliative care, I looked after people who were dying of skin cancer. I know people personally who died of skin cancer. I also know people who are at very high risk of it. The fact that my generation and higher is seeing a lot of skin cancer isn’t surprising to me. After all, we did go out in the sun as kids and, especially if you are fair like me, we got burned, burned, and burned again. I had burns so bad that they are treated in hospital emergencies if a kid gets them now. Huge blisters on my shoulders and nights and days of agony because I couldn’t lie down or move without being in a lot of pain. And the dehydration that went along with it. Miserable, it was so miserable.

But now that we know how dangerous it is, why is it that people don’t listen? It must be part of that it will never happen to me syndrome. People don’t step into the path of a truck that is barrelling down the street because the results are instant. But they don’t mind paying for the privilege of being under a light that will change the colour of their skin and increase their chances of developing skin cancer because it won’t happen for several years to come. Or, they take the free route and lie baking under the sun. According to Statistics Canada, there will be approximately 4600 new cases of melanoma in Canada in 2007; there will be 900 deaths of melanoma in Canada in 2007. According the National Cancer Institute of the US National Institutes of health, there will be approximately 59.940 new cases of melanoma in the US in 2007 and 8100 deaths from melanoma in that same time period.

I’m not against sunshine. A previous blog entry was about how I felt that we were going overboard by not going out in the sun. But going out for 20 or 30 minutes to get some sunshine and to get its benefits isn’t the same as lying in the sun for hours to get that perfect tan. There is no perfect tan.

News for Today:
Over-the-counter diet drug recalled
Looming obesity epidemic requires action: experts
Too fat? Common virus may be to blame: study
High alcohol consumption increases stroke risk, Tulane study says
Survey reveals disparities in skin cancer knowledge, protection among high school students
Americans Using Painkillers More Than Ever