Argh!!! New level of lip dryness

Earlier this year I decreased my daily Evoxac from 3 to 2. I did it to reduce the extreme head sweating I've had ever since we increased the dose from 2 to 3. Since the change I've learned not to move my lips at all whenever I wake from sleeping as they'll be stuck together until I loosen them from inside or put a bit of liquid on them. I don't know where this puts me on the scale of Ss severity but I surely don't want to experience something worse.

Happy New Year to you Lily!

I'm gonna have to steal that Department moniker & will make myself the American Director.

Here in the States, some proponent of unbridled capitalism a long time ago decided that it was peachy keen to let paper companies be in complete ownership or control of many forests ,,, and we let them continue. The less new paper that we use, the less reforestation they do. And we all know what follows deforestation. (Yes my fellow Americans, we have some national forests.but ,,, we're not gonna talk about those being dominated by cattlemen running cattle at pennies per acre)

I grew up in a very environmentally aware family & went to an environmentalist college in the early '70s. I even interned at the President's Advisory Council on Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency in DC while in college. So I recycle.and re-use and still recall the 1st time our country grocery had those F,,,,,,,g plastic bags for fruit & veg I was about 14 & did half the cooking & shopping for our large family. Mama & I just looked at each other & simultaneously said "why?" If we could shop sometimes for meals for 200 without those things, I fail to understand why families of 1 to 6 can't get by without them.

I'm from oil & gas country on the coast. All we know for sure is that the 2 kids who drank well water from conception into college are the 2 kids with massive lung & other massive health issues. We were less than a mile from a petroleum refinery. You couldn't taste it in the water but because the soil was 90% sand I'm told it was a bigger factor in our lifelong problems.

I just got back from a trip into fracking (& the even sadder fracked-out) country. Give me paper every day except when it comes to cups! I do carry tons of water, especially in that territory because of sulphurous water, but wherever I'm residing indoors, I want to drink out of a glass or cup and not our adult sippy cups. But that's just me and my gentle opinions ;-)

Did you know that before we're 5 (maybe it's much earlier) we lose the ability to suck liquids into our stomachs without gastrointestinal repercussions, specifically vast extra amounts of gas from all the air we suck in, and the ensuing heartburn & constipation?

Hmm ,,, from the American Director of the Departments of Pedantry & U. I.

Oh, I can't manage those sippy things aitarg. Congenitally poor coordination! I only tipple out of old-fashioned screw-top bottles. We're a bit backward in Europe - barely half of bottled water comes with those spout things here. Not surprised to hear about the air-swallowing problem though. 

On a similar topic - does aerophagy (constant air swallowing) exist in the US? This is the hysterical condition (hysterical in the true psychological sense) where the patient constantly swallows air all day long, resulting in terrible pain and belching every few minutes throughout the day. They don't do it when they're asleep, even though it's purely unconscious during the day. It's out of the same stable as hyperventilation. I was a nurse for 10 years in the UK and had never even heard of it. However, as soon as I moved to Belgium 40+ years ago I found myself surrounded by women (and the occasional man) burping constantly and groaning from the pain. It must be absolute agony on the diaphragm and abs. I've even known a few British women who developed the condition after they moved here!

Fascinates me how some conditions occur only in certain groups, and where there's no significant environmental or lifestyle reason for them. Another example is the famous crise de foie (literally "liver crisis" that famously occurs in French-speaking areas. It's a relatively trivial, short-lived illness that usually has people off work for one or two days. I used to think it must be what my old Nan called "bilious attacks" - headaches and vomiting which were in fact migraines. But no - sufferers complain of nausea with acute pain over the liver area in the right upper quadrant of the abdomen. Fine, except real liver disease only causes pain over the liver in the final stages, and not always even then! Bizarre. I'm struggling to think of some quintessentially Anglo-Saxon ailment that doesn't occur elsewhere. I don't doubt there are a couple.

Oh well, off to bed now. It's getting on for 2am here but I'm on the overnight shift tonight so don't expect to get too much sleep. Have already had the first call of the night but only a guy with a panic attack. (He was hyperventilating but not swallowing air as far as I could make out!)

Wish this darned system wouldn't keep inserting smilies every time I type in a quotation mark followed by close brackets!

Lily, you're cracking me up! Never heard of the aerophagy, but we have straw-aerophagy: in addition to the adult sippy cups (I just unscrew the whole lid on water, but we have all the true sippy cups for coffee and smoothies and diet drinks), all drinks in restaurants where you're paying less than $75/head come with straws. People in real restaurants drink their cocktails and their water and their iced tea and their soft drinks and their MILK through straws ,,, my ex is 70 and even at home he drinks cocktails through a straw! (This of course is in alignment with fast food places where every drink comes with a straw.) And then there's the belching & pain you mentioned, etc. I remember it being a big deal when I had the coordination to be allowed to drink out of the best glasses in the house! Maybe that's why as soon as I'm indoors I don't want to consume any liquid from anything but glass or pottery/porcelain: I'm a big girl now and I wanna use big girl glasses!

Americans can't claim this alone & I don't know the name for it: North Amercans breathe only into the upper to mid lungs. We don't fully inflate our lungs and no one knows why. Since North America encompasses Mexico & Canada with us, we've got a wildly diverse group all failing to inflate our lungs properly.

Perhaps this originated in the UK and y'all discriminated against the poor breathers so much that they formed all those wacky religions which left for the New World (well along with the Dutch & French Huguenots who avoided being burned at the stake)?

Hope you have an easy shift.