Kicking The Smoking Habit

As I posted earlier in the week (New Year’s Resolution), I found a great new stop smoking blog. Quit Smoking Together with Kelly. I have tried to quit before with out much luck but, I decided to give this a try. Kelly and I exchanged several emails and she asked me to co-author this new blog with her. I posted my first post there last night Mandy’s (aka txmedicalfreak) Introduction so, most of my smoking related post you can find on Quit Smoking Together. There is another co-author there too Ghosty and his introduction on addiction was spot on, it is a must read for smokers and non-smokers alike here is a link to his post Quitting An Addiction.

I am hoping that this new smoking blog will help me finally quit. I have been using something similar to keep track of my weight and blood sugar. The site I use is Everyday Health. It has a lot of handy gadgets; Glucose Tracker, Weight Tracker, Healthy Weight Calculator and a Heart Attack Calculator and several more. Click here for the complete list.

I found with this site that it helped me see my sugar, sodium and protein intake. Before I found this I really had no idea what how much sodium I was really eating on a daily basis and it wasn’t from the salt that I was putting on my food it was in the foods that I was using. I am limited to 2000 mg per day due to kidney problems. I don’t have diabetes but my PCOS has made my blood sugar off, the Medformin has seemed to help with that along with the PCOS.

I think that Quit Smoking Together will help me (and many others) to finally quit smoking and get great support.

Answer To A Question About My “MIT Reverses Autism In Mice” Post

Here is the question, “Is it possible to be slightly autistic? I always thought autism is a severe problem, nothing mild about it.”

To answer your question, yes and no…you either have autism or you don’t but, it depends where on the “spectrum” you fall. There are several Autism Spectrum disorders, the definitions’ were taken from the Autism Society:

Classic Autism – The presence of markedly abnormal or impaired development in social interaction and communication and a markedly restricted repertoire of activity and interest. AKA: Early Infantile Autism, Childhood Autism, or Kanner's Autism.

Asperger Syndrome – Children with Asperger's Disorder frequently like to collect categories of things, such as rocks or bottle caps. They may be proficient in knowing categories of information, such as baseball statistics or Latin names of flowers. While they may have good rote memory skills, they have difficulty with abstract concepts.

PDD NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder) – Severe and pervasive impairment in the development of reciprocal social interaction or verbal and nonverbal communication skills; stereotyped behaviors, interests, and activities; and the criteria for Autistic Disorder are not met because of late age onset, atypical and/or sub threshold symptomotology are present.

Other Syndromes & Disorders that fall on the spectrum – Rett Syndrome, Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, Cornelia DeLange Syndrome, Turette’s Syndrome, Fragile X Syndrome, William’s Syndrome, Down Syndrome, Tuberous Sclerosis, Landau-Kleffner Syndrome, Sensory Impairments, Defining Symptomatology, Disorders of Metabolism/Infections.

Here are some good Autism information links:

Autism Speaks FAQ

Wrong Planet

Autism Society of America: What is Autism?

Rock Autism (This is my autistic son’s favorite; music is just one of his obsessions’…he was crushed when he found out that Elvis was dead. We still have not told him that Freddie Mercury of Queen is dead)

Special thank you shout-out to Saphrym!

Yesterday, I was featured on Saphrym’s blog under his The Daily Read for my post on the autism reading program (The Wilson Reading Program).

Saphrym’s blog is one of my favorites that I have found on Entrecard, he blogs about a variety of topics; dieting, blogging, teaching and parenthood, just to name a few. He is also very helpful and kind.

Thanks, Saphrym’s you made my blogging day! I am glad that my blog has helped someone find information that has taken me years to find. If you are looking for information on any topic and find it, then share it and spread the word. Knowledge is power.

New Year’s Resolution

I just found a great blog, just in time for my New Year’s resolution. This morning I was checking for new Entrecard blogs and found Quit Smoking Together.

Quit Smoking Together via kwout

I have tried over the years of smoking to quit many times without much luck. Even though I hate the smell, I really hate the fact that they are $5.00 a pack now (I said that I would quit when they hit $2.00 per pack LOL so much for that), not to mention my children want me to quit and my mother always nagged me to quit. Despite all of this and health problems…I still smoke?

I have signed up to stop smoking with Kelly come and join us a form a sort of online AA for smokers who want to quit. It could be OLSA (Online Smokers Anonymous).

MIT reverses autism in mice

I recently received an email with the article below. One thing that I found interesting in the article was the following quote "Suppressing it can counteract the effects of Fragile X Syndrome (FXS), the leading cause of retardation and a genetic autism, MIT said Sunday." The "genetic autism" was what caught my eye. Is the rash of autism not only in the US but all over the world "genetic" or are all of these children just predisposed to autism anyway and develop it because of pollution and the mercury that is in immunizations? Maybe it is just all of the above? There are several states that are major polluters and have a huge clusters of autism cases are New Jersey, Texas and North Carolina. A cure to autism and other diseases like this need to be found, I hope that this article will help with this.