Saving your knees 1

We used to think that with the passage of time, a certain amount of wear and tear on your joints are inevitable. This is not true. Osteoarthritis is a condition once thought to be due simply to wear and tear on the cartilage of a joint. Osteoarthritis is now known to be a complex process that involves an active disease process.

Normal joint surfaces are covered with a smooth layer of cartilage. This cartilage is the surface that is worn thin in a condition called osteoarthritis. The problem that causes osteoarthritis is due to more wearing away (degradation) and less repair of the cartilage surface. There is both a mechanical (wearing away) part of osteoarthritis, and a biologic (abnormal joint biology) part of the disease.

Research over the past decade has focused on finding the underlying causes of osteoarthritis, and how understanding these causes may shape future treatments. The medical community is now aware that patients who have osteoarthritis likely have multiple risk factors that have led to their development of this condition.

It is known that osteoarthritis tends to affect older individuals, but it is not clear why some people develop arthritic changes in their 40s and 50s, while others live long lives with few joint problems.

People once thought that osteoarthritis was simply due to the demands an individual placed on their joints throughout life. Many people attribute their arthritis to the activities of their youth. But it really is not that simple. Many people who run and play competitive sports have no problems with arthritic joints.

It is now understood that osteoarthritis is not an inevitable part of ageing. It seems as though a combination of different factors leads to the development of osteoarthritis in individuals. In different people, different factors may be more important, but it is unusual to have just one underlying problem that causes osteoarthritis.

If you have osteoarthritis physicians must better understand the disease to best find an individual solution. While osteoarthritis was once thought to be confined to the cartilage surface, it is now known that osteoarthritis affects the entire joint causing loss of cartilage, damage to bone, the formation of bone spurs, and inflammation of the soft tissues.

Cartilage undergoes a normal cycle of breakdown and repair, but in the condition of osteoarthritis, the cartilage is not replaced effectively, and ultimately the joint lining wears thin. The fundamental problem of osteoarthritis is thought to be the imbalance between fresh cartilage production, and natural degradation.

As the joint surface wears away, the body attempts to correct the problem. Your body will initiate an inflammatory response to the joint, causing swelling. New bone in the form of bone spurs is created to increase the joint surface area. Unfortunately, your body cannot compensate for the cartilage that is lost, and the painful condition of osteoarthritis is the result.

Carry me away

Do you ever get carried away? If so - ask yourself this: 

"Who does the carrying?"

Do you get carried away by other people?  Do you get swept up in their ideas, their plans, their enthusiasm? Or do you get carried away by yourself?

It is far to easy to be carried away by other people. We love to be around people who are enthusiastic, who are fun, who have ideas and who act on these ideas. The issue is that when we get carried away by others, we may lose our perspective and our own goals, dreams and wishes.

We need both leaders and followers to make our sense of community work and to make our communities prosper and better places. However, there are times when you should be the follower and there are times when you should be the leader. If you get carried away by becoming super excited about the possibilities that might lie ahead and you start going for broke - convinced that everything you touch will turn to gold, you will attract others to your cause. This is great leadership and you will benefit many with your leadershi9p.

However, you get carried away by the unholy trinity of demons:

•Fear

•Uncertainty

•Doubt

An absolutely  HUGE part of owning your life and living like you matter revolves around taking control of the stories you tell yourself. You see each of us controls the narrative in our head.  Why not choose to be carried away by angels instead of demons? If the angels carry you away, then you will lead others to a good place, but if the demons take you away, you will lead others to a dark place. The choice is yours.

Time for some humour

My aunt's beloved cat Ginger had grown seriously overweight, so, she decided to take him to the vet to find out if there was anything wrong with him - and more to the point, whether anything could be done about it. So, she put him into the kitty-carry box and drove to the surgery. The doc prescribed a course of pills, and my aunt left, happy in the knowledge that Ginger would soon be his slim old self again.

But after a few weeks of taking the pills, there was no change: Ginger was as fat as ever. Soon months had gone by, and still, there was no difference. In fact, if anything, it was getting worse. The other problem was the invoices from the vet, these pills were costing a fortune. It soon became clear to us all that Ginger had become a doc-billed fatty puss.

Opportunity may knock once, but the temptation bangs on your front door

Forever

For every person with a spark of genius, there are a hundred with ignition trouble.

Car accidents are not always easy to explain, as evidenced by the following insurance form statements written and submitted by the unlucky drivers themselves:

Coming home, I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don't have.

I thought my window was down, but I found out that it was up when I put my head through it.

In my attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole.

The indirect cause of the accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth.

What do you call a fish with no eyes? ... A fsh

I thought about making a fitness movie, for folks my age and call it "Pumping Rust."

There is no difference between a wise man and a fool when they fall in love.

I try not to let my mind wander...It is too small and fragile to be out by itself.

Quotes about reading from TED talks

I am a viewer and a reader of TED talks they always give new perspectives or new ideas to think about. Reading is an important part of how I learn so when I saw the following quotes on reading, I thought I would share.

How do we diminish the distance between us? Reading is one way to close that distance. It gives us a quiet universe that we can share together, that we can share in equally.”

— Michelle Kuo, from the TED Talk: The healing power of reading

“NASA has this phrase that they like: ‘Failure is not an option.’ But failure has to be an option in art and in exploration because it’s a leap of faith. And no important endeavour that required innovation was done without risk. You have to be willing to take those risks. So, that’s the thought I would leave you with, is that in whatever you’re doing, a failure is an option, but fear is not.”

— James Cameron, from the TED Talk: Before Avatar, a curious boy

“The moment kids start to lie is the moment storytelling begins. They are talking about things they didn’t see. It’s amazing. It’s a wonderful moment. Parents should celebrate. ‘Hurray! My boy finally started to lie!’”

— Young-ha Kim, from the TED Talk: Be an artist, right now!

 “Publication and temporary creative successes are something you have to recover from. They kill as many people as not. They will hurt, damage and change you in ways you cannot imagine. The most degraded and evil people I’ve ever known are male writers who’ve had huge best sellers. And yet … it’s also a miracle to get your work published, to get your stories read and heard. Just try to bust yourself gently of the fantasy that publication will heal you, that it will fill the Swiss-cheese-y holes inside of you. It can’t. It won’t. But writing can.”

— Anne Lamott, from the TED Talk: 12 truths I learned from life and writing

“We’ve got truth and lies and then there’s this little space, the edge, in the middle. That liminal space, that’s art.”

— Mac Barnett, from the TED Talk: Why a good book is a secret door

“Stories cannot demolish frontiers, but they can punch holes in our mental walls. And through those holes, we can get a glimpse of the other, and sometimes even like what we see.”

— Elif Shafak, from the TED Talk: The politics of fiction

“The world is changed by our maps of the world. The way that we choose … also shapes the map of our lives, and that in turn shapes our lives. I believe that what we map changes the life we lead. And I don’t mean that in some … you-can-think-your-way-out-of-cancer sense. But I do believe that while maps don’t show you where you will go in your life, they show you where you might go. You very rarely go to a place that isn’t on your personal map.”

— John Green, from the TED Talk: The nerd’s guide to learning everything online

“I’m a storyteller. I want to convey something that is truer than the truth about our common humanity. All stories interest me, and some haunt me until I end up writing them.”

— Isabel Allende, from the TED Talk: Isabel Allende tells tales of passion