I Think

In my situation (GERD) I've got a mild hiatal hernia (not uncommon), among my other current health issues. However, seeing a doctor if there is/was bleeding of the esophagus in the past in order to check if the tissue is OK now is wise.

Omeprazole is much cheaper than Nexium is just as effective being nearly identical at reducing GERD. However, if there's an ulcer, Nexium may be better.

Every situation is different. I read your link, osso. I could put a chain on my gate, in such a way that the post could not be bent again, but anybody that wants in badly enough is not going to let a locked gate slow them down. I did search my aluminum ball bat and moved it to a handy spot. I really don't think I will see him again.

I just thought of a young man I knew some years ago, at the apartments. He decided to pick on me for a reason I don't know and he would throw cigarettes all around when he knew I was doing clean up. He would watch through the blinds and when my back was turned he threw them. He had some kind of situation where he was forced to move out. A few months later, when my nephew was getting married, we were sitting with family, when the best man appeared. It was the same guy. He fell all over himself apologizing. We buried the hatchet. Don't know what happened to him after that. Haven't seen him at all.

That bleeding thing was enough years ago that I will let sleeping dogs lie.

Now there's a good short story..

then I'd use any generic form of Nexium. Omeprazole...or Prilosec, whichever is cheaper. Prilosec is OTC these days.

I've no answers on any of this, listening. I'm wary of prilosec et al since they seem to be forever once you take them.

I've never been known to my self as a burper/farter, I'd call it 'no problemo'. We all do, but I've not been a major player in it.

Then one non sunny day, I started burping a lot, and what was that about? That was from one day not much, to one day explosive. That lasted a few days, diminishing. My take was that I was probably dehydrated as any other time I'd had a momentary problem, water taken slowly fixed it.

That one or two days carried on, not as badly. I watered up. I usually take plenty of water, but Burp!! This carried on for a couple of months and I traced it to after eating thick carb (toast for example, or my cheese souffle) and read all sorts of wild online stuff (I'm your average allopathic med person with some room for alternate).

I read a lot about gut bacteria and could/can see the point of many of those articles, which varied among themselves. But - my gut bacteria have been lifetime good behavers. I have reveled in food adventures, including chiles, which I've been exploring more lately. Some will say I destroyed the gut bacteria with drink, but, be realistic, not in one day. At this point, I take it as one dehydrated day that set up a rhythm, but just drinking more water didn't immediately fix it, though less burps gradually happened.

I started warily looking at yogurt blurbs for the bacti populations. I've hated yogurt since 1950 when my mother made it herself (her friend Mildred probably pushed her) in our NYC apartment (see Gaylord Hauser). I was eight and I then knew what horrible meant. In later years, I could take yogurt in the odd dip, but not the f/k in ice cream. So now my exploring what I take as good by hearsay, just to see, has led me to making some batches of smoothies, with, uh, yogurt from the market.

Yogurt non fat is added sugar city, so that is all a tangle Go ahead, try to find full fat stuff in the dairy aisle. Some, sure, but Not Fat is winning over Avoid Carbs.

I need to meet with my grocery manager. He likes me, as a friendly patron.

Plus, for those who only get vitamin d by store milk, a little fat with it is a good idea.


The burping etc. has stopped, back to normal.
I do hope it wasn't the yogurt.

More -

It was some of my own homemade bread that made me burb. Oh, no, gluten wreck in one day! But maybe, maybe, as I was watching what I ate.

Non related to that, the next bread I made was a real sourdough. My longtime favorite bread book is by Carol Field, The Italian Baker, and I'd made a lot of her breads many times, but not let those with biga (starter) take as long as she said was possible, but I've been doing that lately... she says they can go to 24 hours.

Coincidently, there was a recent article in (I am guessing) the Guardian by someone about how sourdough devolves gluten as it is working... so that the best breads are the real old time baker's sourdoughs.

If I run across it again, I'll post.

I lay my internal problems to too much beer and tobacco and lots of meat, much of it processed, and canned vegetables, to the exclusion of most other nourishment. I thought at the time, and could have been right, that the esophageal bleeding was triggered by aspirin and alcohol, ingested too closely together. But, once started, it did not seem to heal. Various diets and alternative products would stop it, but inevitably it would return. Until I had Nexium, which is also over the counter now. That stuff did me so much good, I have to praise the big pharma leeches for it. I would not take any of these products all the time, but on occasion, I see no harm. One side effect of Nexium, if taken all the time, it can help make the bones brittle. So I read, back then.

Yesterday, as I went in the office to pass on a bit of information, a man of about thirty years came in with me. He grabbed the stage. His diatribe, repeatedly punctuated with "I am so pissed off" boiled down to, he parked his oversize pickup about three inches over the line, in a handicap space. The man assigned that space sprayed adhesive on the truck windshield and pasted stickers all over the glass. There was a note, a warning to never park over the line again. The word asshole was used. The babbling man said, "I checked into it. If I had caught him vandalizing my truck, I could have legally shot him." He mentioned that he missed a day of work - $200 - over it. He wants now to be compensated. As I returned to my duties, I saw the manager walking across the property with the man. I mentioned to the assistant manager, "One or both of them will probably have to go." That was when I found out who the handicap space owner is. I told her I had met him and he had not seemed that kind person. But she said bad behavior is coming out by increments. I said, "Likely that's why he moved last time." She nodded.

For C.I., When I first signed up on Angies list I also got phone calls from people asking if I needed repair work of some sort. I explained to at least 6 contractors that I had not contacted their company. One man was very angry claimed he paid a lot to join a list, so I reported him to AL. Oddly enough, there was no mention of him on the list, I don't know who he was paying but I have found several sites who claim to do the same thing for free. I suspect they somehow can track people looking up businesses on Angies list.

However, if you had a bad experience I would encourage you to report it to AL. I'm not suggesting you give it another try just it might help HQ's to determine if someone is hacking their site. My bad experience happened right after I looked up remodeling companies, I didn't ask anyone to call me, but a bunch of contractors did, it was very confusing. I've been a member for 2 years now and
that bad experience has not been repeated.

As a matter of fact, we even got one call today, and we've stopped our with AL membership a couple of months ago.

Wow, that's awful. I don't work or invest in AL, but I'd call and raise hell if I were you.

Try to picture this. Most contractors are hungry for business, and when they find a telephone number like ours where they think we need some work done, the phone calls becomes endlessly. We did complain to AL but to no avail. They said they can't control the phone calls.

Why anyone would pay money to get hounded by phone calls on a regular basis is beyond my comprehension. AL must be pretty successful!

I have a bigger problem with those callers claiming to be mortgage, credit card, or extended warranties for cars I own. We also get calls (all recorded calls) from people selling medic alert systems, home security systems and of course the guys who call claiming to be Microsoft trained specialists who have detected a virus on our computer. I've gotten a call from someone I assume is not in this country offering cheaper meds. Turns out they were peddling diabetes medication, I said I'm not a diabetic and he asked, "well, who is the diabetic in your house?" I hung up, but my husband had just been diagnosed with Type II diabetes but the only people who knew were his doctor, pharmacy, health insurance company and me. So what do you think? Were they just lucky? Or
does someone have access to his private medical information?

Anybody or any company can be hacked to benefit scammers.

Hackers have been known to have broken into many institutions, software and high tech companies, retail chains, military, and government computers. It wouldn't surprise me to learn they've also hacked into hospital/med records.

The key is for all web links that require a password, use the most combinations of numbers, small and cap letters, and symbols - the longer the better. Never use your own name or birthday, and use different passwords for different sites.

It was tough today, taking up old flooring aggregate, preparing to do repair to the under floor and then pour new concrete. It was much more extensive than anything I've come across in many years working there. The last resident was a heavy man and it didn't take long for him to start moving the floor by merely walking on it. The original carpenters used a sub flooring too thin, laid over two foot centers joists. Aggregate pours like concrete, but it cannot hold up the same way. It cracks as the joints of the sub flooring moves. Then it crumbles. The man asked us to check it out. I went up and took a look, but the man was not home. I had a few things with me, because there were a few unrelated items to be attended to. I laid an unopened, clean, tube of caulk down and forgot to pick it up. The man called the office a bit later and said that I had callously mistreated his valuable furniture by putting the tube of caulk on it. He was irate. We were banished from entering his home, unless he was there at the time. So, when were we going to repair the floor? He was informed that he would need to move his furniture out of the way, on his own, before we could work on it. He said he would speak with his lawyer. There was a standoff that continued, until his lease was up. He was not allowed to renew. So, I have a big empty apartment to work in. I should have the floor poured on Monday. There are piles of debris that I am going to try to persuade the other maintenance guys to carry down.

Speaking of the other guys, I like them both. They are polite and they work steadily. The thing is, however, they don't follow the same thought processes as me. They are hard to work with at times. Yesterday, I helped them finish up an apartment for move-in today. The one that does make readies all the time had his stuff scattered all over the place, so that I just plain gave it up when attempting to paint the baseboards. The hot water tank had a leak. After it was emptied out, the man working on it asked me about ways to move it out of the cabinet. It had PVC pipes running down in front of it. I showed him how the lines were not all glued at every joint, since it was not a pressurized line. But, the bigger pipe on the floor would not move. It stuck up nine inches. I told him we could cut it near the floor and then slide the tank out. We could have been sliding the new one in in just fifteen minutes. But he and the other guy got together and told me not to cut it. Then they shoved the tank against the back wall and attempted to lean it forward. But the water line came out of the wall so low that it couldn't move. They went out and fetched a wrecking bar and other tools of destruction and slammed and beat that tank, until it limboed past the pipe. They lifted it over the pipe on the floor and laid it in a wagon that I keep on the site. I had long since given up and went home fifteen minutes early.

Edgar, that sounds like heavy labor, please don't do things that could disable you.

If I get overly tired, I find a cool spot and sit down.

I know that's easier said than done. Some times I do some heavy work, and even keep going when I know I should stop to rest. It hasn't happened in the past couple of years, but there's nothing that says I've changed about working around the house. I go to a place where they sell pebbles and stones, and I've been going there for years. Some decades ago, I even had them deliver three tons of pebbles for my back yard, and I transferred all of it from my front yard to the back of the house without a wheelbarrow. I have rocks all over my gardens.
You know, low maintenance.....

I like that low maintenance idea. And, yes, I go a little longer than maybe I should, but it's short days. I sat down at 11:30 this morning and didn't get up until time to prepare to leave.