Want to stay alive? Survival secrets from an expert who REALLY knows
By
Dr Jan Garavaglia
UPDATED:
22:35 GMT, 27 July 2009
As a forensic pathologist, I’ve handled thousands of cases over the
past 20 years. Normally, I don’t get emotionally involved; it’s my job
to find answers and come up with a cause of death. People are counting
on me to keep my emotions out of it.
But one day the body of a
ten-year-old boy lay on the stainless steel table before me and I
couldn’t help thinking that he would never graduate from university,
never buy his own car, never fall in love and he would never have a
family of his own - all the dreams I had for my own ten-year-old son.
As
it happened, this boy died of a terrible, tragic error. The lab report
showed he had a high level of methadone in his blood, enough to kill
him.
Road rules: Car windows rolled halfway down cause the most traumatic injuries
Methadone is a legal drug for weaning addicts off heroin. It’s often
used for the management of pain, and its illicit use is a growing
problem.
There must be a mistake, we thought. How would a ten-year-old kid get his hands on methadone?
It didn’t make sense, so we repeated the tests.
Again,
they came back positive for lethal levels of methadone. We talked to
the boy’s mother. What we discovered was that he was being treated with
another drug, methylphenidate. For several days prior to his death, he
had been feeling uncharacteristically groggy and sleepy. Concerned, his
mother notified the doctor, who suggested cutting the pills in half.
She
did so, but his lethargy continued until the time he was found dead in
bed. We tested those pills and discovered they were not methylphenidate
at all. They were methadone.
The two drugs are very close
alphabetically and the unthinkable had occurred: a pharmacy error. My
heart went out to this mother, who was doing everything right to help
her son but in the end was failed by a sometimes imperfect health-care
system.
Sadly, this is not an isolated occurrence. Pharmacies do slip
up. Some slip-ups, like a misspelled address, for example, won’t hurt
anyone, but many other errors could cause serious discomfort, harm or
even death. As I have discovered in my work, many deaths don’t need to
happen.
Yes, everyone dies eventually. You can’t prevent that,
but you can prevent it from happening prematurely. And you can do it
with the simplest life-saving acts, whether it’s strapping on a seat
belt correctly, making subtle changes to your diet or following your
doctor’s orders.
That’s not all, either. There are other actions
you might not be aware of that can save your life. For example, did you
know that open or partially open car windows increase the risk of more
severe injuries in an accident? There are many lessons that can be
learned from the dead - lessons that can help us, the living, take
better care of ourselves.
HOW NOT TO DIE IN A CAR ACCIDENT
Most
people have never seen what a fatal car crash can do to a body, but I
see it almost every day. The injuries from car accidents can be
absolutely brutal. Some injuries are so overwhelming that they look like
a bad horror movie.
• There are people who would be alive today
had they worn their seat belts. Seat belts work because they keep
drivers and passengers in their vehicles.
The interior of your
car is a far more forgiving environment than the outside of your car.
When you’re ejected from a vehicle in a crash, bad things happen. Just
as important, you’ve got to use restraints properly.
Danger zone: Roads are most hazardous on Friday and Saturday nights between midnight and 3am
If you wear a seat belt without the shoulder harness, for example,
you’re in danger of life-threatening internal injuries.
I’ve seen people
who were almost cut in half by the lap belt because they didn’t use the
shoulder harness. And if a seat back is reclined, the restraint becomes
much less effective, if not useless.
• Air bags save lives, too.
Safety experts recommend that seats should be moved back as far as
possible to allow air bags to offer the best protection and cushioning
when they deploy.
• Often, car accident victims are simply in the
wrong place at the wrong time. I never, ever stop my car on the side of
a motorway, for example. I’ve had cases in which drivers did this to
fix a flat tyre and were rear-ended and killed. If something goes wrong
with your car, don’t pull over until you can get to off-road parking, a
side-street or petrol station.
• Anything unrestrained in your car can become a dangerous missile, whether it’s shopping, sports equipment or anything else.
•
Keep your windows closed. I had one poor fellow - a truck driver - who
died when a bee flew into his cab. And if not closed, then roll the
windows all the way down. Windows rolled halfway down can cause the most
traumatic injuries if you get partially thrown from your car.
•
The most dangerous hours to be on the road are Friday night and Saturday
night between midnight and 3am. I make sure to stay off the road then.
HOW NOT TO DIE ON HOLIDAY
Bad
things can happen to anyone on holiday. I’d be the last person,
however, to advise you not to take one, but by packing some common
sense, you can make sure you’re doing everything you can to stay safe
and well.
• I've seen Deep Vein Thrombosis kill even the
healthiest people. Drinking plenty of fluids can help prevent it. On a
plane I get up every half-hour or so to move and stretch my legs. I do
exercises in my seat, like contracting and relaxing my legs. Even while
waiting in the airport terminal, it’s important to keep moving your legs
to help blood flow. Get up and walk around when you can.
• The
most common cause of death while travelling is heart attack, and it
usually strikes within the first couple of days of a holiday. I’ve
autopsied many travellers with weak hearts who succumbed to sudden
cardiac death, even though they were often walking, talking and feeling
fine when it struck.
Health drought: People who become ill on holiday often ignore unusual symptoms because they don't know where to turn
Often when people are on holiday, they tax their bodies by doing things they’re not accustomed to. Take it easy on your trip.
•
People who feel ill on holiday often don’t seek prompt medical
attention. It’s unfamiliar territory and they don’t know where to go or
whom to call, so they think they’ll ride it out. But please don’t ignore
unusual symptoms
Get checked out as soon as possible. You can get a
free list of English-speaking doctors in many countries around the world
from the International Association for Medical Assistance to
Travellers, www.iamat.org.
Otherwise, you can usually find
English-speaking doctors by contacting the staff at a large hotel or
your local consulate or embassy.
HOW NOT TO BE KILLED BY YOUR SUPPLEMENTS
People
often assume that over-the-counter dietary supplements are safe, but
many can have harmful side-effects, especially in high doses. And, with
some, you really don’t know what you’re putting in your body and they
might be harmful.
I once investigated the sudden death of a
healthy 49-year-old woman. She exercised every day. She watched her diet
religiously and kept her weight at around eight-and-a-half stone. She
didn’t drink, smoke or take drugs.
Her autopsy revealed nothing.
Then it emerged that she’d been taking 40 vitamin and dietary
supplements every day - one of them was DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone), a
naturally occurring hormone, that’s been promoted as a cure-all for
everything from obesity to heart disease to ageing.
She was
taking seven times the daily dose - it had affected her heartrate, with
fatal results. She died as a result of excessive supplement use.
I
think it’s fine to take a daily multivitamin/multimineral tablet, and
perhaps other supplements depending on your doctor’s recommendation, but
vitamins and minerals can cause problems if taken with some drugs.
Furthermore,
the science on supplements is complex and often inadequate. Take
calcium, for example. Calcium supplements are known to be helpful and
generally safe, yet taking calcium pills might increase the risk of
death due to cardiovascular disease in older women.
My simple advice: always check with your doctor about taking supplements
.
HOW NOT TO BE KILLED BY YOUR MEDICINE
Around
10 per cent of all medication errors are from drug name confusion, and
the World Health Organisation says this confusion is an urgent worldwide
problem. Fortunately, most errors are preventable with vigilance on
your part.
• When you pick up your medicine from the pharmacy or
are given medicine in the hospital, ask: Is this the medicine that my
doctor prescribed? Researchers at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy
and Health Sciences found that 88 per cent of medication errors involved
the wrong drug or the wrong dose.
• Find a pharmacy or chemist
that you like and stick with it. A pharmacist who knows you might be
more likely to notice something unusual about a prescription.
•
Discuss your prescription with your pharmacist - to find out about
side-effects and confirm that you’ve got the right medicine.
•
Know the colour and shape of the pills you take regularly; examine the
actual pills. The name of most brand-name drugs is usually stamped on
the tablets. Also, study the label to make sure it matches the doctor’s
prescription.
• Check everything before you leave the pharmacy.
Lots of people simply pay and run. Make sure it’s your name on the bag.
Then take out the bottle or box and check the label as well.
•
Find out whether your medicine interacts with other drugs. Even useful,
familiar and effective drugs can produce severe side-effects; others
pose dangers of allergic reactions or toxic interactions if mixed with
other substances.
Medicine minefield: Know the colour and shape of the pills you take regularly and examine the actual pills
The greater the number of medications you take, the greater the risk
of drug interactions - the elderly (aged 65 and older) are particularly
vulnerable to this.
Ask your doctor (or doctors) to review your
treatment plan at least every three or four months. Websites such as
www.medscape.com or
www.drugs.com
have ‘interaction checkers’ where you plug in the medicine you’re
taking to get a list of all the other drugs it interacts with.
•
Check whether your medicine interacts adversely with any foods.
Grapefruit juice, for instance, can increase the blood levels of some
drugs, such as sedatives; calcium in dairy products impairs the
absorption of tetracycline and ciprofloxacin, widely used antibiotics.
Ask your doctor about food-drug interactions and read the information
that accompanies your prescriptions.
• Before leaving the
doctor’s surgery, make sure you can read your prescription. If you
can’t, your pharmacist might not be able to, either.
Also,
ask your doctor or nurse what the medicine is for, how often you should
take it and for how long, whether you should take it on an empty or full
stomach, whether you should avoid certain foods, drinks or activities
while taking it.
Very importantly, ask your doctor what are the potential side-effects — and what you should do if these side-effects do occur.
•
Unless it’s essential, don’t use any prescription drug within two years
of approval. Drugs are approved on the basis that a relatively-small
number of studies show that a drug works and is safe. But it might not
be until the drug has been on the market for a couple of years, and
millions of people have used it, that infrequent but serious problems
surface.
HOW NOT TO DIE IN HOSPITAL
Modern
medical care is wondrous, but it’s complex. The things that can go
wrong in a hospital are almost innumerable. But that doesn’t make them
right or acceptable. Health care, instead of helping, might cause
needless harm or, worse yet, kill you.
You must do what you can to ensure your hospital stay puts you on the path to recovery - and not to the morgue.
•
Insist that anyone who has direct contact with you washes their hands,
even before they put on protective gloves: if someone’s hands are
unclean when they put on gloves, the gloves might become contaminated.
•
Urinary tract infections are actually the most common type of infection
originating in a hospital. Bacteria can slip into patients via urinary
catheters, and these infections can be dismayingly tenacious.
Urinary
catheters also limit your mobility, which then increases your risk of
blood clots, pneumonia and muscle loss. While urinary catheters are
sometimes necessary, the longer the catheter remains in place, the more
likely you are to get an infection or other complication.
It’s often possible to avoid the catheter and a resultant urinary tract infection by using nappies or a bedpan instead.
•
Pneumonia is another common hospital-acquired infection. The risk is
shallow breathing which makes it easier for bugs that cause pneumonia to
get a foothold.
Double-edged sword: Modern medical care is wondrous yet complex - with innumerable things that can go wrong
Shallow breathing is common during recovery from surgery or any other
treatment - you might naturally take shallow breaths because you’re on
your back and breathing deeply might be painful.
Also, after surgery, your lung tissue might have partially collapsed (a condition called atelectasis).
Deep
breathing will help prevent pneumonia, and hospital staff can give you a
device called an incentive spirometer; blow into it several times every
day to strengthen lung capacity.
As soon as you are able,
with assistance, get out of bed and walk around the hospital floor. Do
this several times a day. Becoming mobile as soon as you can prevents
atelectasis.
• Have your doctor sign his or her initials
directly on the site to be operated on prior to the surgery. You’ll be
less likely to make ‘Doctor Removes Wrong Kidney’ headlines.
•
When a nurse comes to give you medicine, ask what it is and why you
need it. Make sure the nurse checks your ID bracelet against the name on
the prescription. Medication errors are common in hospitals.
•
The longer you’re in the hospital, the higher your risk of
complications. Do everything your healthcare team asks, so you’ll be
able to leave quickly. In many cases, it’s better to continue your
recovery at home,
anyway, away from the hum and beep of machines, the
clatter of the food trolley and the loud conversations between nurses.
Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1202575/Want-stay-alive-Survival-secrets-expert-REALLY-knows.html#ixzz1sMe30vvM
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Any one who loves their kitchen would want to have big windows to let in the golden rays. It is no surprise that with the increase in human density,buildings that sprung up tend to steal the light which would otherwise shower your kitchen. It is therefore very important that you choose your curtainsin your kitchen wisely.
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