Running: A Fever

Today I got my first COVID vaccine shot. It was the Moderna vaccine. Two shots are required one month apart. I got my first one today (March 23, 2021), and my next one will be on April 20. I'll let you know how that one goes as well. I went to Springdale Community Clinic, which is a ministry of St. Francis House in Northwest Arkansas. It's the first time I've been there, but I believe it is a clinic for anyone, whether you have insurance or not. I heard about it from someone at work, who gave me a phone number. I texted VACCINE to that number. Later they called me back. They asked what my qualifying characteristic was. In my state, we are in Phase Ic, including IT workers, of which I am one. It also includes people in the food production industry, which is the industry of the company I work for. When I got to the clinic, I had to answer a few questions and sign a consent form. Then I sat down to wait to get the shot. They gave me a five-page fact sheet published by Moderna. You can get it here: https://www.

The Running:A FEVER podcast is now heard in 62 different countries, some of which I have never heard of before. But I am grateful for all of our listeners everywhere around the world. It's been a long time since I dedicated a whole episode to a listener country, but I decided to do that for one of our newer listener locations because even though Norwegians didn't start downloading until 2 years into the show, they have risen to the 3rd most downloads ALL time. And in the last couple of months, they are second only to my home country of the US. And English is not even their primary language. Makes me wonder how I would do if I made episodes in other languages. So anyway, you see that I just had to dedicate this episode to these great people. Read the full post at http://RunningAFEVER.com/248 Photo by Bit Cloud on Unsplash

I love ibuprofen. Advil in particular. I have been taking this pain-reliever for decades. Pretty much any kind of headache, pop 4 of them, and I'm good to go. And I've always known if something came out about long-term adverse effects, I would be in trouble. So in this episode, we're going to learn a little about this wonder drug, its history, and most importantly, long-term effects on our health. Read the full post at http://RunningAFEVER.com/247  

I took a little vacation on an out-of-the-way AirBNB property and recorded this episode while walking on a couple of trails there. It was good to be away from all the pandemic tension for a while, and to be outdoors without having to wear a mask. It was a good chance to recharge and work on my mental health, and I got a little exercise in the bargain. This was also one of the few walking episodes I did toward the end of 2020. http://RunningAFEVER.com/246  

Welcome to the 17th and final episode in our 17-part series on dementia. About 50 million people suffer from dementia worldwide. It is a debilitating disease, but it may be preventable in some cases. So I've set out to learn as much as I can and bring you along with me. This is the longest series I've ever done on the show and I hope you've been pleased with the format. I have certainly learned a lot about dementia. How devastating it can be to victims and families, how difficult it is for doctors to diagnose and treat. There is a sense of hopelessness about this disease, but there is hope, as I think I've shown in this series. Well this is the final episode in the series, and the last in the episodes about prevention. Sleep seems like the easiest form of prevention there is. But lack of sleep can have a serious impact on mental health. And getting sleep can be harder for people at risk for dementia if they suffer from chronic illness and have poor lifestyle habits. Read the full post at http://RunningAFEVER.

Welcome to the 16th in our 17-part series on dementia. About 50 million people suffer from dementia worldwide. It is a debilitating disease, but it may be preventable in some cases. So I've set out to learn as much as I can and bring you along with me. As promised, this series has focused on prevention of dementia as much as anything else. We want to be informed about the disease, but more than that we want to prevent it. So I'm happy to be able to offer some information on how we can prevent dementia in the course of our journey of learning here. When you think about mental health, physical exercise might not be the first things that comes to mind. But the brain is a physical organ, and it's health depends on a foundation of good overall health. But there are some specific benefits of exercise that apply to dementia and its delay, mitigation, and even revention. Believe it or not, exercise can cause new synapses to form in the brain. According to an article on the Harvard University website, sustained aer

Welcome to the 15th in our 17-part series on dementia. About 50 million people suffer from dementia worldwide. It is a debilitating disease, but it may be preventable in some cases. So I've set out to learn as much as I can and bring you along with me. As promised, this series has focused on prevention of dementia as much as anything else. We want to be informed about the disease, but more than that we want to prevent it. Every time I hear that cry of "increasing awareness", as good-intentioned as it may be, it's not really an action-oriented sentiment. So I'm happy to be able to offer some information on how we can prevent dementia in the course of our journey of learning here. Read the full post at http://RunningAFEVER.com/239  

Welcome to the 14th in our 17-part series on dementia. About 50 million people suffer from dementia worldwide. It is a debilitating disease, but it may be preventable in some cases. So I've set out to learn as much as I can and bring you along with me. We've discussed diet quite a bit on the podcast, and usually, it has more to do with maintaining a healthy body fat percentage than anything else. But did you know that diet is also important for mental health? In the last episode, I brought up a fact that was new to me, that obesity is related to brain function, particularly memory. So in what other ways can what we eat impact how healthy our brains are? Read the full post at http://RunningAFEVER.com/237  

Welcome to the 13th in our 17-part series on dementia. About 50 million people suffer from dementia worldwide. It is a debilitating disease, but it may be preventable. So I've set out to learn as much as I can and bring you along with me. This episode is about improving your memory. When it comes to brain function, there's nothing more important than memory. Memory loss is a symptom of dementia and an effect of the disease. And while improving it may not prevent dementia, it certainly gives you more to work with, so you can have a fighting chance at reducing the overall effects. So here are some tips that can help us sharpen this valuable tool. Read the full post at HTTP://RunningAFEVER.com/236  

Welcome to the 12th in our 17-part series on dementia. About 50 million people suffer from dementia worldwide. It is a debilitating disease, but it may be preventable. So I've set out to learn as much as I can and bring you along with me. Prevention is really what this series is all about. Nobody wants to know a bunch of stuff about a disease for which there is no hope. And there are a lot of people saying that, and I want to contradict them as much as I can here. So here is another episode in which I'll talk about concrete steps you can take to prevent dementia. Read the full post at http://RunningAFEVER.com/235  

Welcome to the 11th in our 17-part series on dementia. About 50 million people suffer from dementia worldwide. It is a debilitating disease, but it may be preventable. So I've set out to learn as much as I can and bring you along with me. For the first few chapters of the series, we talked about dementia itself, the different types, symptoms, and a little about prevention. We have switched to some more fundamental concepts about the brain. In the last episode, we talked about how memory works. Today we'll focus specifically on how aging affects the brain. Read the full post at http://RunningAFEVER.com/234

Welcome to the 10th in our 17-part series on dementia. About 50 million people suffer from dementia worldwide. It is a debilitating disease, but it may be preventable. So I've set out to learn as much as I can and bring you along with me. Thus far in the series we have talked about dementia itself, the different types, symptoms, and a little about prevention. Now I want to get into some more fundamental concepts about the brain itself. So for the next two episodes we'll talk about this amazing organ, and today we'll focus specifically on memory, which is affected deeply by dementia. Read the full post at http://RunningAFEVER.com/233  

Welcome to the 9th in our 17-part series on dementia. About 50 million people suffer from dementia worldwide. It is a debilitating disease, but it may be preventable. So I've set out to learn as much as I can and bring you along with me. By now, if you've been with me, you know what dementia is, and you know some of the different types. Today we're going to talk about preventing dementia, which is the whole point, right? As you might expect, this is where my main interest lies in this series. I mean, you need to know something about the enemy before you set about fighting him, but the fight is the thing, and like Sun Tsu said in the art of war, "The greatest victory is that which requires no battle." So that's what we're going to do. We're going to defeat dementia before we have to fight it. Read the full post at http://RunningAFEVER.com/232  

Welcome to the 8th in our 17-part series on dementia. About 50 million people suffer from dementia worldwide. It is a debilitating disease, but it may be preventable. So I've set out to learn as much as I can and bring you along with me. In part 3 I went through the many types of dementia, and we're going to have separate episodes on the most common of these. This is the 5th and final of that series-within-a-series, and it's about Mixed Dementia. Read the full post at http://RunningAFEVER.com/231 Get more Running:AFEVER articles on Medium: http://RunningAFEVER.com/Medium  

Welcome to the 7th in our 17-part series on dementia. About 50 million people suffer from dementia worldwide. It is a debilitating disease, but it may be preventable. So I've set out to learn as much as I can and bring you along with me. In part 3 I went through the many types of dementia, and we're going to have separate episodes on the most common of these. This is the fourth of that series-within-a-series, and it's about Lewy Body Dementia (LBD). Read the full article on Medium https://medium.com/@michaeldavismedia/lewy-body-dementia-affects-over-one-million-americans-over-50-82a334d13c86

I guess I have a musical mind, I always get music in my head when something comes up in conversation or otherwise. I was thinking of a couple famous 80's songs, but did you know there are over 1000 songs with the title "Rumors"? Seems like a popular topic, and almost always very problematic. It implies something less reliable than information, or news, or data, or even story. Read the full post at http://RunningAFEVER.com/238  

Welcome to the 6th in our 17-part series on dementia. About 50 million people suffer from dementia worldwide. It is a debilitating disease, but it may be preventable. So I've set out to learn as much as I can and bring you along with me. In part 3 I went through the many types of dementia, and we're going to have separate episodes on the most common of these. This is the third of that series-within-a-series. Read the full post at http://RunningAFEVER.com/229  

Welcome to the 5th in our 17-part series on dementia. About 50 million people suffer from dementia worldwide. It is a debilitating disease, but it may be preventable. So I've set out to learn as much as I can and bring you along with me. In part 3 I went through the many types of dementia, and we're going to have separate episodes on the most common of these. This is the second of that series-within-a-series. Read the full post: https://medium.com/running-a-fever/vascular-dementia-is-the-most-preventable-form-of-dementia-2bb4f64bd328

I'm doing a whole series on dementia, and this is part 4. In part 3 I went through the many types of dementia, and we're going to have separate episodes on the most common of these. This is the first of that series-within-a-series. Read the full post at http://RunningAFEVER.com/227  

Welcome to the 3rd in our 17-part series on dementia. About 50 million people suffer from dementia worldwide. It is a debilitating disease, but it may be preventable. So I've set out to learn as much as I can and bring you along with me. Read the full post at http://RunningAFEVER.com/226