I third this issue. Although in my case the side-effects aren't worse than the condition but they make life somewhat half-baked. I've been on these drugs or similar for 40 odd years and so only discovered this when I naughtily came off them v. slowly and without medical advice. I'm back on them again in full swing and back to my poor apology of life. Oh the choice.
Sympathies to Huia and SusanDoris and all those who are caught in this predicament.
Ibuprofen does that to me. I have never been in a situation where the side effects (nausea, headaches, vertigo...) weren't worse than the thing it was supposed to treat.
This is a bit of a bugger because on the occasions where I've needed anti-inflammatories, it leaves me quite short of options.
My son who is an emergency medical technician says he has seen more problems from people taking blood pressure and other meds than he can number. My husband kept falling and it took 3 doctors and over a year before they figured out it was his blood pressure meds. They were checking his brain with scans, checking his eyes, and ears for balance. We got a new doctor who took him off of his BP meds and no more problems.
My pharmacist said this med is the "new wonder drug" - it made me wonder how many people this actually for works for or am I a special little flower?🌼
There's a thing called something vaguely like "number to treat" (corrections from more knowledgeable folks welcome) which means basically that a lot of meds don't benefit everyone, or even the majority--even well-known meds that most people wouldn't have a second thought about. This fact isn't exactly advertised, but the pharmacology people actually have an official number to describe this fact (the total number of people you need to treat to actually end up benefiting one person in the expected way--say, preventing a heart attack or what have you).
So if the side effects are bothersome, by all means make a fuss. It may actually NOT be benefiting you at all, so why suffer? See if there's something better.
The price of salt-free items. Because of a medical condition I have, I am on a very low sodium diet. I am buying things such as canned tomatoes sauce that are salt-free. They all seem to cost quite a bit more than companies salted regular cans. Why should it cost more to leave something out? I can see the price going up if you add an ingredient because it would cost more to produce, but it makes no sense to me to leave something out of your product and then charge me more. On an added note shipmates check the sodium of what you have been eating, you may be very surprised what they put salt in these days.
The price of salt-free items. Because of a medical condition I have, I am on a very low sodium diet. I am buying things such as canned tomatoes sauce that are salt-free. They all seem to cost quite a bit more than companies salted regular cans. Why should it cost more to leave something out? I can see the price going up if you add an ingredient because it would cost more to produce, but it makes no sense to me to leave something out of your product and then charge me more. On an added note shipmates check the sodium of what you have been eating, you may be very surprised what they put salt in these days.
The price of salt-free items. Because of a medical condition I have, I am on a very low sodium diet. I am buying things such as canned tomatoes sauce that are salt-free. They all seem to cost quite a bit more than companies salted regular cans. Why should it cost more to leave something out? I can see the price going up if you add an ingredient because it would cost more to produce, but it makes no sense to me to leave something out of your product and then charge me more. On an added note shipmates check the sodium of what you have been eating, you may be very surprised what they put salt in these days.
All I can think of, apart from the economies of scale, is that there is a more expensive process or ingredient to make up for the preservative effect of the salt.
The £30/year (or £70/3 year) Railcard is well worth the money. It's not available for morning peak journeys in London and the South East, but (I'm pretty sure) is in Scotland.
I don't think it is: when I took my completed application form to the nice lady at the ticket desk, she said it would only work at peak times if I applied it on every individual journey.
I took this to mean that I'd have to buy a ticket every morning, and I'm not sure such matitudinal faffage would be worth a saving of only a few quid a month, but I may have misunderstood her - I don't think she explained it awfully clearly.
It appears they the Railcatd can’t be used to purchase Season Tickets (see under General Conditions of Use).
A Season Ticket is
a Ticket sold as such which allows you to travel for a period of 7 consecutive days or longer, or any 8 in 28 days;
(from National Rail Conditions of Travel). I guess if the price worked out right you could buy all your tickets for a week’s travel on one day, using your Railcard, and then use the tickets one at a time. I can’t see why you’d have to buy tickets on each day, rather than buying a whole lot in advance.
Ah, I wasn't thinking that you had a Season Ticket - silly me. If you did buy tickets in advance, I suspect you'd need to get them individually dated (which runs the risk of them not getting used if, say, you were unwell).
I don't think a Flexi-pass would be any use - it only covers five journeys in two months. I have five journeys every week.
Just buy a new flexipass each week? I think the two months is just the validity.
Unlikely to be worthwhile. While I don't remember @Piglet 's home station, taking Linlithgow as a proxy and Edinburgh as a destination, a weekly season is £49.30 and an anytime day return £11.80 (so £59 for five return journeys in the week). That means that a weekly season saves ~17% a week: the ScotRail Flexipass linked to above saves 15%.
The Senior Railcard costs £30 per year, and saves around a third on each fare (it varies slightly because of rounding, and I think is actually set to 34%) - but is only available for single and return tickets. So this would be the most economical way to go - but in practice if you don't use a ticket on its day of validity, you don't get your money back (you can reclaim, but there's a £10 admin fee: if I have understood Piglet's commute properly, the admin fee would leave nothing or very little to claim back). Taking Linlithgow as an example, five days travel with a Railcard would cost (£59 X 2/3 = £39.35 or so) - that's still about £10 less than a weekly season. So if Piglet buys five day tickets with a Railcard and then doesn't use one, she has still saved money over a weekly season.
It absolutely is. I didn’t go to the station in the end; I had quite a heavy trolley of groceries to cart home, and couldn't be bothered hauling it up the incline to the station. I'll either go down tomorrow or give myself an extra few minutes on Monday to try and work it out.
[...] I had quite a heavy trolley of groceries to cart home, and couldn't be bothered hauling it up the incline to the station. I'll either go down tomorrow [...]
This particular host is just popping in to say she's now the proud (and ancient) owner of a Senior Railcard.
I arrived at the station this morning to find that the delightful lady at the desk had done all the tedious arithmetic to work out what would save me the most money, and it turns out that buying an annual Senior Railcard for £30 and proffering same when you buy a week's worth of tickets (in my case, five returns) will pay for itself in a month. She even worked out that in a five-week month, it's cheaper to buy a full price monthly ticket.
And the tickets can be loaded on to my Smart Card, so I have very little more faff than I do at the moment.
COVID - I was meant to be getting a replacement hearing aid on Friday but now the supplier in Australia can't provide one on time because their supplier cant get the necessary bits to them. Tantrum time.
Stamp your feet a few times and see if that works! Seriously, it is a very real problem for you and others whose day-to-day lives depend on supports like this.
Hell is too benign and comfortable a place for the most inaptly named Virgin Money, which used to be a real bank, the Clydesdale, of revered and ancient memory. It is shrinking itself into a mobile phone app with many clever ways to prevent you from contacting real humans. The latest trick is to require all credit card transactions to be authorised by a pass code that is texted to you, provided you are in an area that has adequate mobile coverage. They can't email or voice message it, the way other banks do without any fuss. Failing that, you must call a number, which, from overseas, is a premium rate call that may be held waiting for half an hour to connect. And that's only if you have already completed the installation of the app. But the app doesn't recognise overseas addresses and mobile phone numbers, without which its installation cannot be completed. I could go on... But it would be more of the same; much more.
Online training. I have failed a test which required 100% to pass. The question which meant I failed the whole test was "What should you do with files and devices at home when they are not in use?"
I typed in "Keep them locked away" The correct answer was "Lock them away"
I just had to re-do the test, so the only implication of failing first time round was the time taken to re-sit. Plus bruised pride at failing a simple test.
Online training. I have failed a test which required 100% to pass. The question which meant I failed the whole test was "What should you do with files and devices at home when they are not in use?"
I typed in "Keep them locked away" The correct answer was "Lock them away"
I just had to re-do the test, so the only implication of failing first time round was the time taken to re-sit. Plus bruised pride at failing a simple test.
+1 to this. If a free-format answer is required, then a range of near-miss answers should be acceptable, otherwise you're not being tested on your understanding of the course, but on your ability to guess how the question-setter would word the answer. Let's hope that the question-setter can spell.
And although an IT bod will be along shortly (full disclosure: I was an IT bod until about 19 years ago: I get the impression that IT has got along very happily without me since then) to say that AI can parse and analyse free-format answers, in practice in the sort of online test that is used today, it doesn't.
Hopefully @North East Quine managed 100% on the next time round, but feedback to whoever owns the training would be in order.
Yes, 100% second attempt. I can screenshot any wrong answers so that I'm word-perfect second time round.
In fact, I could skip the learning component, go straight to the test, fail the first time, but screenshot the correct answers and pass second time without actually having learned anything.
We had a vaccine registration thingy just like this, back in the desperate days when you couldn't find a slot for love or money here, and I was madly typing in details for everybody we could think of in the Vietnamese community. We had two questions in a row asking for city and county (the city was Saint Louis, the county was Saint Louis City County). Some idiot had programmed it so that the only acceptable answer to #1 was "St Louis" and the only acceptable answer to #2 was "St. Louis City County". Note the periods (or lack thereof). And screw anybody who typed "Saint" in full.
It took me a couple hours to figure this out, as you had to start over ...
Please give oral instructions doctor so blood tests do not have to be repeated at my cost because insurance will not cover the same tests twice in the same month. I was sent for a blood test with the words fasting on the instructions, all the doctor said was I am sending you for blood work. . So I ate nothing and only had a sip of water to take my pills. Results were not as expected. The doctor said did you drink lots of water before your test? NO, Oh you should have been loading up on water. Gee, the lab who did the testing did not ask and I never thought to ask if I should be drinking lots of water because in the past 50 years fasting meant fasting from food and water.
Graven Image - you should have been told that you need plenty of fluid before blood tests. Now you'll have a repeat in the next week or so. At least you now know to drink lots of water - but check if a cup or 2 of plain black or green tea is allowed as a bit of variety.
Thanks @Gee D I have no problem drinking lots of water, I drink 6 to 8 glasses a day. Indeed a bit of tea once a day is a treat, but I can wait until after the retest.
It turns out that I am old, it seems they use to say no water for blood tests, now they say drink lots of water, but that can change depending on what they are testing for. So now I know to ask each time.
You shouldn't have to ask, GI - they should tell you as a matter of course, especially as you're having to pay for it!
Even though there's a certain amount of healthcare in Canada*, there are no words to describe my relief when I moved back to Scotland and a health service that doesn't depend on you having either deep pockets or an enlightened employer.
* Treatment in hospital is free, but I suspect that had David survived long enough to have chemotherapy, we'd have had to either sell the house or move back to the UK.
The small house next door was originally a farm cottage and my section was their garden. They probably enjoyed elderberry wine - I hate the smell and the red stains the berries leave on everything.
The one positive aspect is that I am getting plenty of upper body exercise using the pruning saw and carrying the debris to a pile where a friend will collect it and take it to the green waste disposal,
People who need to pick up my new dryer that does not work. They are telling me it will be 3 weeks before they can schedule me for a pickup. Thankfully I have a laundry mat nearby but lugging my wet clothes from the washer across the street is not on my wish list. ( I think I will do the whole wash over there.) Thankfully I am not a new mom, who needs to wash a lot. Oh yes, they also suggested perhaps I needed to re-set the machine's computer by unplugging it and replugging it. I explained that I was 83 and not in shape to pull a dryer away from the wall to reach the plug now or if it continued to shut off. I think I will go looking for a used old machine with just knobs, and no fancy computer. I will have to wait until they remove the new one to make space for another.
Barclaycard. I haven't used my card for years, think I cut it up, I certainly can't find it. However I keep on being sent texts and emails saying I've missed a payment. They look like they are genuinly from Barclaycard as I need all my log-in details (which I don't have) to go and check. They won't talk to me by email and I don't want to download their app so I wrote to them as I rarely use phones due to my hearing. When I got yet another email this morning I did phone them up. The person at the other end said not to worry as they haven't an account for me, but she wouldn't send a confirmation email to state that either as I haven't an account. She obviously thought it was a scam, I think it is more likely a glitch on their system. I hope the letter I sent gets a reply.
Sarasa - if you can visit a branch of Barclays, one of their financial advisers will deal with any Barclaycard issues there. I did that recently. Much easier than trying to work out all the phone options when you don’t have the details they need!
Comments
Sympathies to Huia and SusanDoris and all those who are caught in this predicament.
This is a bit of a bugger because on the occasions where I've needed anti-inflammatories, it leaves me quite short of options.
There's a thing called something vaguely like "number to treat" (corrections from more knowledgeable folks welcome) which means basically that a lot of meds don't benefit everyone, or even the majority--even well-known meds that most people wouldn't have a second thought about. This fact isn't exactly advertised, but the pharmacology people actually have an official number to describe this fact (the total number of people you need to treat to actually end up benefiting one person in the expected way--say, preventing a heart attack or what have you).
So if the side effects are bothersome, by all means make a fuss. It may actually NOT be benefiting you at all, so why suffer? See if there's something better.
It's about economies of scale.
All I can think of, apart from the economies of scale, is that there is a more expensive process or ingredient to make up for the preservative effect of the salt.
Thank heavens for good neighbours who have taken the order in,
I took this to mean that I'd have to buy a ticket every morning, and I'm not sure such matitudinal faffage would be worth a saving of only a few quid a month, but I may have misunderstood her - I don't think she explained it awfully clearly.
A Season Ticket is (from National Rail Conditions of Travel). I guess if the price worked out right you could buy all your tickets for a week’s travel on one day, using your Railcard, and then use the tickets one at a time. I can’t see why you’d have to buy tickets on each day, rather than buying a whole lot in advance.
Have you looked into (or got) the Flexipass? https://www.scotrail.co.uk/tickets/flexipass
I've just checked the Senior Railcard info, and it looks as if it might be worth it if I could load the week's tickets on to my Smart Card.
Unlikely to be worthwhile. While I don't remember @Piglet 's home station, taking Linlithgow as a proxy and Edinburgh as a destination, a weekly season is £49.30 and an anytime day return £11.80 (so £59 for five return journeys in the week). That means that a weekly season saves ~17% a week: the ScotRail Flexipass linked to above saves 15%.
The Senior Railcard costs £30 per year, and saves around a third on each fare (it varies slightly because of rounding, and I think is actually set to 34%) - but is only available for single and return tickets. So this would be the most economical way to go - but in practice if you don't use a ticket on its day of validity, you don't get your money back (you can reclaim, but there's a £10 admin fee: if I have understood Piglet's commute properly, the admin fee would leave nothing or very little to claim back). Taking Linlithgow as an example, five days travel with a Railcard would cost (£59 X 2/3 = £39.35 or so) - that's still about £10 less than a weekly season. So if Piglet buys five day tickets with a Railcard and then doesn't use one, she has still saved money over a weekly season.
This looks to me like a truly Sisyphean task!
It's a bit rum isn't it?
Boris is about to go to war with Russia, and the Queen has Covid.
The End Times are upon us.
Arkland has yet another flood warning for the wee small hours (about 3am), as today's high tide didn't.
Do you want to have another go at that. What didn't the high tide?
Yes, exactly.
I apologise for my bad grammer and speeling.
Eye'll get me cote, bifor the Hoast tells me orf.
I arrived at the station this morning to find that the delightful lady at the desk had done all the tedious arithmetic to work out what would save me the most money, and it turns out that buying an annual Senior Railcard for £30 and proffering same when you buy a week's worth of tickets (in my case, five returns) will pay for itself in a month. She even worked out that in a five-week month, it's cheaper to buy a full price monthly ticket.
And the tickets can be loaded on to my Smart Card, so I have very little more faff than I do at the moment.
She's a total star.
I typed in "Keep them locked away" The correct answer was "Lock them away"
I just had to re-do the test, so the only implication of failing first time round was the time taken to re-sit. Plus bruised pride at failing a simple test.
+1 to this. If a free-format answer is required, then a range of near-miss answers should be acceptable, otherwise you're not being tested on your understanding of the course, but on your ability to guess how the question-setter would word the answer. Let's hope that the question-setter can spell.
And although an IT bod will be along shortly (full disclosure: I was an IT bod until about 19 years ago: I get the impression that IT has got along very happily without me since then) to say that AI can parse and analyse free-format answers, in practice in the sort of online test that is used today, it doesn't.
Hopefully @North East Quine managed 100% on the next time round, but feedback to whoever owns the training would be in order.
In fact, I could skip the learning component, go straight to the test, fail the first time, but screenshot the correct answers and pass second time without actually having learned anything.
It took me a couple hours to figure this out, as you had to start over ...
Even though there's a certain amount of healthcare in Canada*, there are no words to describe my relief when I moved back to Scotland and a health service that doesn't depend on you having either deep pockets or an enlightened employer.
* Treatment in hospital is free, but I suspect that had David survived long enough to have chemotherapy, we'd have had to either sell the house or move back to the UK.
The small house next door was originally a farm cottage and my section was their garden. They probably enjoyed elderberry wine - I hate the smell and the red stains the berries leave on everything.
The one positive aspect is that I am getting plenty of upper body exercise using the pruning saw and carrying the debris to a pile where a friend will collect it and take it to the green waste disposal,