Apr 16, 2020
The end of a multi-faith week of combined personal and virtual observances and celebration is at sunset. As most Americans, my wife and I are glued to the Television each evening from 7pm until 10pm. At 8pm, our choice is to experience and celebrate Chris Cuomo’s journey with Covid-19 and his love of neighbor as himself. I decided to explore this non-denominational commandment which prompted me to write this Blog.
Our Covid-19 survival to date is based on the data clearly confirming the fact that Isolation and quarantine are the only evidence-based public health initiatives that work. In the next 18 months, hopefully sooner, I believe medical science will have immunization and medical therapies that will alter the present public health directives but until then we have to physically and mentally survive.
Isolation During Coronavirus
In our home, we have fallen into a routine when I am not seeing patients; and that routine allows my wife and me to stay healthy and happy. Each late afternoon, we visit the basement for a one-hour exercise session alternating the rowing ergometer with the treadmill while watching the news. For me, owing to my arthritic hips and knees, it would not have been possible if I had not undergone the Orthobiologic injections at the beginning of the year, the ones you may learn about by visiting my website www.sheinkopmd.com or by reviewing my Blog archives found on the website. In the beginning, I could run at a slow pace for a minute and then walk a minute. Now, I run at a faster pace for five-minute intervals and then recover for two. The same holds for the rowing ergometer, what was 16 minutes max is now 30 minutes at a clip last experienced 10 years ago.
In continuing our spiritual journey, Love in the Time of Isolation, we cannot live by exercise alone. Either before or after the physical part of our daily routine, we visit and subscribe to a new way of life made possible via www.desirelist.com/tv. This just launched DesireList TV- “All Pros. All Free. All Day” reminds us “WE may be apart, but we’re in this together.” During this time of isolation, there is now a virtual way to help us Move, Learn, Dine and Thrive as we stay home with new classes from real Pros every day. Visit their web site, you may find something that will enhance your Love of Life.
My office number to schedule your office visit and consultation that will be compliant with your Personal Protection is (312) 475-1893; and yes, our offices are open. The Personalized Stem cell trial will reopen once the Governors allow in Illinois and California.
Tags: coronavirus, covid-19 orthobiologics, love in the time of isolation, quarantine, social distancing
Apr 3, 2020
National Library of Medicine Quarantine signs, for scarlet fever and other diseases, were a familiar sight during the first half of the last century.
Last week, my Blog focused on Social Distancing; not for the Coronavirus but that was how we survived the annual Polio Epidemics prior to Salk and Sabin. On Tuesday night, by chance, Public Television devoted an hour to the subject I had featured in my Blog. I have been trying to explain to my children and grandchildren what we are living through is nothing new, we will get through it. Since our offices are basically shut down for an unknown period, I started leafing through an old photo album and, was reminded.
Quarantine and Isolation for Infectious Diseases
When I was in elementary school I had scarlet fever and was confined to my bed for an entire month. A brightly colored quarantine sign was nailed to our apartment on Division and Kedzie in Humboldt Park, Chicago. This would let everyone in the neighborhood know not to go inside until the sign was removed. My brother and father moved in with my mother’s parents on Western and Potomac, while my mother looked after and nursed me. Incidentally, no television in our home so it was mostly keep looking out the window, listening to radio or coloring and connecting dots. Since there was no Penicillin for childhood diseases, it seemed as if there was always a sign on someone’s house when I was growing up in the 1940s.
While the Coronavirus may grab more headlines today, in addition to Polio, the best known and most dreaded illness was streptococcal infection leading to scarlet fever and Rheumatic Heart Disease. Simply hearing the name of these diseases, and knowing that they were present in the community, was enough to strike fear into the hearts of those living in the post war United States and Europe. These diseases, even when not deadly, caused large amounts of suffering to those infected. In the worst cases, all of a family’s children were killed in a matter of a week or two. Indeed, up until early in the 20th century, scarlet fever was a common condition among children. The disease was so common that it was a central part of the popular children’s tale, The Velveteen Rabbit, written by Margery Williams in 1922.
Below are several abstracts from the Journal of The American Medical Association:
Article
June 11, 1938
SCARLET FEVER QUARANTINE
JAMA. 1938;110(24):2012. doi:10.1001/jama.1938.02790240036015
Article
March 8, 1947
PENICILLIN FOR SCARLET FEVER
ARCHIBALD L. HOYNE, M.D.; ROWINE HAYES BROWN, M.D.
Author Affiliations
JAMA. 1947;133(10):661-663. doi:10.1001/jama.1947.02880100005002
The Quarantine, Isolation and Social Distancing worked for me then when penicillin was not yet readily available and Polio vaccine was still in the future. Now we not only have vaccines and antibiotics, we have stem cells.
In my case in the 1940s, I survived but my next complication of preantibiotic Scarlet Fever after the Quarantine were four weeks in the hospital with acute Glomerular Nephritis, a rare complication called Bright’s Disease. I survived that Isolation too and here we are ???? years later, in spite of all.
I will look forward to consulting with you for your arthritic problems in the not too distant future. Call (312) 475-1893 to schedule an appointment
Tags: coronavirus, coronavirus infections, COVID-19, infectious disease, isolation, quarantine, quarantine and isolation