Sunday, June 10, 2012

Weekend reruns

Okay, Grumpyites. My friendly neighborhood Lidoderm (a skin patch for pain after shingles) drug rep left me this.

Drug reps aren't allowed to take us to ball games anymore (I'm okay with that). In fact, this year they've actually been banned from bringing us even cheap pens and post-it notes.

BUT they are still allowed to bring us oddball stuff which falls under "patient education". Like this thing:




What is it? An art deco cactus garden? A model of Bikini Bottom (the home of Spongebob Squarepants)?


Nope. It's a model of the nerve endings of your skin, showing how painful post-shingles pain can be. When you turn it on, notice how the nerves glow red (it's pain, get it)?





And HERE! When you push down on the Lidoderm patch (get it? you're applying it to the skin?) they now glow soothingly blue (ah, that feels better). Thank you, Craig, for the hand cameo.



Isn't this useful! Isn't this revolutionary! Isn't this a great use of your medication money!

The kids and I have now taken out the batteries, and this weekend will study the feasibility of turning it into a new home for Ed, my office fish.

13 comments:

Julie said...

i would have thought it would work as a great night light for the kids

Your Doctor's Wife said...

I commend you and the kids for trying to reuse such junk!

What a waste...

I can't imagine the rep feels good about handing out such items.

Officer Cynical said...

I thought the back of my neck hurt because it had been burnt red from the sun while I did yard work all day yesterday. Now I know it's red from the glowing subdermal nerve endings. Maybe I'll paint it blue so it stops hurting.

Danika said...

That is amazing. However, I think that your fish may think you've laced his food with cocaine with all those trippy lights.

OMDG said...

Might make a good toy for my daughter...

Anonymous said...

I had/have shingles. Best pain reliever I used was pot. They gave me Vicodin, which was sort of ok, but when I got stoned to play the guitar the shingles pain went all the way away.

Anonymous said...

Was thinking the same thing. Big pharma is throwing away money on junk. Could use that money for research. Still, not as disgusting as the heart worm model at my vet's office. That is really gross.

Maybe Ed will enjoy it, but it could hurt him. Are there any sharp edges or is there any lead in the paint or coloring? Not sure I'd want to trust it. The night light is a very creative approach though.

Interesting that the pot helped shingles pain. Don't use it, but would give Sativex a try if they ever OKed it in the U.S. Spasticity sucks.

Grumpy, M.D. said...

It's a rerun. The thing shattered into a zillion pieces when we tried to convert it to a fish tank.

Packer said...

We had those in our dorm rooms in the early 70s.

Library-Gryffon said...

The fish tank use made me think of my dorm mate's goldfish tank my last semester at UConn. It had one of those small dome lights in the bottom, which got left on when she went away for the weekend. Unfortunately for Mr. Fish, university heat tended to be an all or nothing proposition, and that weekend it was all. When we got back on Monday he was quite dead, and I have avoided the "Cook your own fish" tanks ever since.

Ms. Donna said...

More than just batteries, Dr. G. Be sure to remove ALL wiring. Cu can be toxic for the finny ones.

DanG said...

That is absolutely Artisinal!

Hattie said...

Gosh. I have not seen anything this cool since the dioramas by school kids at the county fair!

 
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