Some Handy-Dandy Online Health Resources

• Vaccine Scheduler  ...a program designed to help parents, adults, and healthcare providers on top of their vaccines/immunizations. (I actually attended a lecture by one of the lead researchers behind this tool last week!) This scheduler helps people keep track of what immunizations they've had, helps people to determine when their next dosage of a certain vaccine should be, determines a schedule of all childhood vaccines and helps parents keep track of what pathogen strain and at what age their child should be vaccinated against, helps catch children up (calculates a new vaccine schedule) if they missed or were late for an injection, and much more.

• Just Beautiful ...their mission is to "give the Canadian beauty industry a long overdue makeover". Why does make-up make us sick? Why can't it just make us beautiful? Sign the pledge featured on this website (I have!) to force cosmetic companies in Canada to fully disclose their ingredients. Another cool feature on this website is the pocket shopping guide (download it here) which features the top ten ingredients you should avoid when purchasing make-up and personal hygiene products. 

• Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep (aka the Cosmetics Database) ...a really cool database of all cosmetics, make-up, and personal hygiene products. Search the products you are using and see how they rank (every product is given a score from 1-10 with 1 being horrible and toxic, and 10 being very clean and safe).

• Toxic Nation ...awesome guides (all PDFs that you can download) to help you detoxify your life! Handouts with solutions and tips for avoiding toxic art supplies, cleaning products, plastics, children's school supplies, insect repellents, and more. 

The Answer

Thanks for your guesses!

The image represents the average size of the female reproductive system. The almonds represent the ovaries, the Fallopian tubes are the size of pinky fingers, and the plum represents the uterus. When I learned the average sizes of the female reproductive system, I was shocked: everything is so tiny! 

What am I?

Can you guess what this image represents?

Some Lovers...

Remember wayyy back when (in 2010!) I talked about the wrist bones (aka the carpal bones)? I'm thinkin' probably not... so here's a refresher (this time with a picture, yay!):

We have eight bones in the wrist and one way to remember their names and positions in the hand/wrist region is to use the following medical mnemonic device: Some Lovers Try Positions That They Can't Handle ...or Scaphoid, Lunate, Triquetrum, Pisiform, Trapezium, Trapezoid, Capitate, and Hamate.

Using the Some Lovers... phrase, you are able to remember the names of the bones by referring to the first letter in each of the words in the phrase, and you are also able to remember the positioning of the bones based on their ordering in the phrase. For instance, Some Lovers Try Positions refers to the proximal (closer to the elbow) row of bones, moving lateral to medial (or in the thumb to pinky direction), while That They Can't Handle refers to the distal (closer to the fingers) row of bones, also moving lateral to medial (or in the thumb to pinky direction).

Confusing when written in words? Probably. Here's a picture instead:

The Carpal Bones. Drawn by Becca.

The Female Cycle.

As promised, today I'm going to explain the painting I showed yesterday on the blog.  Your guesses were correct: the painting was of the menstrual cycle, but in much more depth.

Painting inspiration here.

A tad overwhelming upon first glance?  Yeah, I got kind of carried away with the doodling... 

Here's another breakdown: 

Yellow: the ovarian cycle, featuring the maturation of the follicle, ovulation at day 14, and formation of the corpus luteum.

Orange: the basal body temperature changes in a menstruating female.  When the body ovulates, the temperature rises about 0.5 to 1 degree Celsius higher and remains elevated for the remainder of the cycle, eventually dropping back to the regular body temperature at the end of the 28 days. Note: the basal body temperature is best measured in the morning, immediately upon waking (don't even get out of bed!), using an oral thermometer.  Measure subsequent temperatures at the same time each morning. 

Green: the anterior pituitary hormones' cycle. FSH = follicle stimulating hormone, and LH = luteinizing hormone.

Blue: the ovarian hormones' cycle. Estrogen and progesterone. 

Red: the uterine cycle. The shedding, then the thickening of the uterus lining.

Black: menstrual bleeding days. Note: the full menstrual cycle begins (i.e. day 0) on the first day of bleeding. Bleeding is not the end, but the beginning of everything you see in the painting above!

Brown: non-bleeding days.  

Note: notice how everything changes on day 14? I call this the 'magic day' because ovulation changes everything cycle-wise.

Paintings are More Memorable.

I got crafty over the weekend. 

Can you guess how this painting will help me with my NPLEx studies? 

If only I could paint a pretty version of every complex image I need to memorize for the exam. I totally would if time and resources were plentiful :P.  Now whenever I need to think of ______, my painting of this concept will pop into my head!  I'm sure that I will be able to remember this piece during my exam much more easily than one from a textbook. As a result of me jazzing-it up and giving it personality, this concept is now more meaningful to me, which also makes it more memorable to me.

Note: a full explanation of the painting will be posted tomorrow on the blog.

You Guessed It.

Yep, I painted the Traditional Chinese Medicine diagnostic tongue! Congrats to the anonymous person who guessed right.  Each part of the tongue represents a different organ, which represents a different element, which represents a different color. Using my computer's Paint program, I added labels to my painting (see above).

Blue = Water Element = Kidney (and Urinary Bladder, but less important) Organ

Green = Wood Element = Liver and Gallbladder Organs

Yellow = Earth Element = Stomach and Spleen Organs

Red = Fire Element = Heart (and pericardium, but less important) Organ

White = Metal Element = Lung Organ

I'm liking this 'use art to learn' activity.  Now that I've painted the TCM tongue and have it hanging in my kitchen, I will never forget it (I also plan to hang it in my future practice office).

Hmm, now what else am do I need to remember that I could paint? Would the Krebs Cycle make nice art?