Phone Call from Meltzer: Followup

Well, I heard back from Meltzer's office about my scheduling; my pre-op is back to Monday August 29 at 8 am. I still don't know quite what the whole story is but apparently it's no longer going to affect me. All I was able to find out was that they were trying to open up space in the schedule. My guess is that someone was trying to get herself inserted into the schedule but that there really wasn't an opening. So, they were probably looking for volunteers to move. Sort of the equivalent of the airlines asking for volunteers to be bumped. After fixating on this date, August 30, 2005, for 10 months, and scheduling everything around it there was no way I wanted a delay.

I also got a call from one of Melzter's nurses. We played phone tag for over a day and then finally connected. They had a few questions about the medical history I filled out. It turned out to be nothing significant but it's reassuring to know that they actually go through that stuff. I was also told to buy a bottle of Arnica Montana pills before I come out and to start taking them on the pre-op day. Some say that it reduces swelling and quickens healing. I'm not so sure. I'm a scientist and a skeptic and I have little belief in herbal remedies and none in homeopathy. There's no logical way that you can take a substance and then make 6 or more 1000 fold dilutions and still have anything left to cause an effect. Luckily, the stuff only costs around $5 a bottle so I'll take it if they want me to take it.

While I'm on the subject of Complementary and Alternative Medicine I'll also comment on the Echinacea study that was released today. According to a new controlled clinical study published in the New England Journal of Medicine there is no evidence that Echinacea has any effect in preventing the common cold or in reducing it's duration or symptoms. Normally, I'd practically applaud such a study. Unfortunately, in the present case I think the study was fatally flawed. First, they had the volunteers using a dosage that was one third the amount that the herbalists recommend. Second, instead of using commercially available Echinacea the researches made their own extracts. So, in the end all they proved was that this particular dose of their preparation had no effect. I don’t blame the popular media for lack of rigor, but NEJM should know better than to extrapolate these findings to such a sweeping damnation.