Tag Archives: National Football League

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Get Set for a Healthy Winter Season

12/02/2025 Nativegrl77

While contagious viruses are active year-round, fall and winter are when we’re most vulnerable to them. This is due in large part to people spending more time indoors with others when the weather gets cold.

Most respiratory bugs come and go within a few days, with no lasting effects. However, some cause serious health problems. People who use tobacco or who are exposed to secondhand smoke are more prone to respiratory illnesses and more severe complications than nonsmokers.

Colds usually cause stuffy or runny nose and sneezing. Other symptoms include coughing, a scratchy throat, and watery eyes. There is no vaccine against colds, which come on gradually and often spread through contact with infected mucus.

Flu comes on suddenly and lasts longer than colds. Flu symptoms include fever, headache, chills, dry cough, body aches, fatigue, and general misery. Like colds, flu can cause a stuffy or runny nose, sneezing, and watery eyes. Young children may also experience nausea and vomiting with the flu. Flu viruses spread mainly by droplets made when people with flu cough, sneeze or talk. A person might also get flu by touching a surface or object that has flu virus on it.

Flu season in the United States may begin as early as October and can last as late as May, and generally peaks between December and February. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

More than 200,000 people in the United States are hospitalized from flu-related complications each year, including 20,000 children younger than age 5.
Between 1976 and 2006, the estimated number of flu-related deaths every year ranged from about 3,000 to about 49,000.
In the 2013 – 2014 season, there were in the U.S. 35.4 million influenza-associated illnesses, 14.6 medically attended flu illnesses, and 314,000 flu hospitalizations.

Prevention Tips

Get vaccinated against flu.

With rare exceptions, everyone 6 months of age and older should be vaccinated against flu. Flu vaccination, available as a shot or a nasal spray, can reduce flu illnesses, doctors’ visits, missed work and school, and prevent flu-related hospitalizations and deaths.

It’s ideal to be vaccinated by October, although vaccination into January and beyond can still offer protection. Annual vaccination is needed because flu viruses are constantly changing, flu vaccines may need to be updated, and because a person’s immune protection from the vaccine declines over time. Annual vaccination is especially important for people at high risk for developing serious complications from flu. These people include:

young children under 5 years, but especially those younger than 2.
pregnant women
people with certain chronic health conditions (like asthma, diabetes, or heart and lung disease)
people age 65 years and older

Vaccination also is especially important for health care workers, and others who live with or care for people at high risk for serious flu-related complications. Since babies under 6 months of age are too young to get a flu vaccine, their mother should get a flu shot during her pregnancy to protect them throughout pregnancy and up to 6 months after birth. Additionally, all of the baby’s caregivers and close contacts should be vaccinated as well.

Wash your hands often. Teach children to do the same. Both colds and flu can be passed through contaminated surfaces, including the hands. FDA says that while soap and water are best for hand hygiene, alcohol-based hand rubs may also be used. However, dirt or blood on hands can render the hand rubs unable to kill bacteria.

Try to limit exposure to infected people. Keep infants away from crowds for the first few months of life.

Practice healthy habits.

Eat a balanced diet.
Get enough sleep.
Exercise.
Do your best to keep stress in check.

Already Sick?

Usually, colds have to run their course. Gargling with salt water may relieve a sore throat. And a cool-mist humidifier may help relieve stuffy noses.

Here are other steps to consider:

Call your health care professional. Start the treatment early.
Limit your exposure to other people. Cover your mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze.
Stay hydrated and rested. Avoid alcohol and caffeinated products which may dehydrate you.
Talk to your health care professional to find out what will work best for you.

In addition to over-the-counter (OTC) medicines, there are FDA-approved prescription medications for treating flu. Cold and flu complications may include bacterial infections (e.g., bronchitis, sinusitis, ear infections, and pneumonia) that could require antibiotics.

Taking OTC Products

Read medicine labels carefully and follow the directions. People with certain health conditions, such as high blood pressure, should check with a health care professional or pharmacist before taking a new cough and cold medicine.

Choose OTC medicines appropriate for your symptoms. To unclog a stuffy nose, use nasal decongestants. Cough suppressants quiet coughs; expectorants loosen mucus; antihistamines help stop a runny nose and sneezing; and pain relievers can ease fever, headaches, and minor aches.

Check the medicine’s side effects. Medications can cause drowsiness and interact with food, alcohol, dietary supplements, and each other. It’s best to tell your health care professional and pharmacist about every medical product and supplement you are taking.

Check with a health care professional before giving medicine to children.

See a health care professional if you aren’t getting any better. With children, be alert for high fevers and for abnormal behavior such as unusual drowsiness, refusal to eat, crying a lot, holding the ears or stomach, and wheezing.

Signs of trouble for all people can include

a cough that disrupts sleep
a fever that won’t respond to treatment
increased shortness of breath
face pain caused by a sinus infection
high fever, chest pain, or a difference in the mucus you’re producing, after feeling better for a short time.

This article appears on FDA’s Consumer Updates page, which features the latest on all FDA-regulated products.

~ my 2cents ...

What year is it?

08/18/2025 Nativegrl77 2 Comments

a repost … a rant

The conservative stance or comments about women, Planned Parenthood, contraceptives, and abortion have been beyond offensive yet enlightening for voters who believe it’s time to give women choices like men have had without interference. Hopefully, fact-checking the claims about what Planned Parenthood does for both men and women while considering vasectomies, Viagra, and other enhancements including equipment used by men while they’re at it.

The fact is, some women do not want children, very young women are not ready, and working women need time, sadly there are victims of violence who are capable of making their own (personal decisions) plan their families around their individual situations. We all deserve (free will) to choose whatever reproductive procedure is appropriate for our lives, no matter what conservatives believe.

It is the 21st Century, why can’t these conservatives understand that birth control, contraceptives, and or possible abortions are a part of a woman’s overall health care is beyond my understanding. Yet, pro-lifers don’t seem to let facts get in the way because they feel women who have sex and get pregnant should either have the baby or give it up for adoption. First, the conservative movement that pushes a family values platform on women is political, big government in full effect and should stay out unless requested and or they are a family member or doctor. Second, women should not be the only ones responsible for the prevention of unwanted pregnancies; men need to step up. Third, Conservatives use a broad brush on the topic of women and their health care, specifically when the topic includes reproductive services, STOP. Last, the new law or change implemented by former President Obama’s Admin offered an option for safe and affordable access to healthcare services. The idea that folks are against women who pay for all or part of their #ACA should not have reproductive coverage is absurd. It’s time to question, and demand answers from those in religious organizations who get federal funding, investigated. Isn’t it fair that they are required to fall in line or lose the funding likewise pharmacists who say their religion keeps them from POS =point of sales, of contraception products seem to contradict the business … excuse me…some are also getting federal funds to do and or stay in business.

I don’t know about you, but the reasoning and or rationalization Conservative Politicians, constituents, or members of Congress used to bash and attack organizations like Planned Parenthood by reciting so-called facts from the internet with a list of falsehoods is embarrassing. The list of questionable information includes silly things like PPH misuses money, funnels money or that PPH only does abortions is just the beginning. I can only say the #ConservativeConspiracy theorists are in full effect in this year of 2024. The facts are there; find out by calling Planned Parenthood! They do so much more than just abortions, but that pro-life aka MAGA stance on abortion seems to be the Conservative focus filled with misleading information assuming hoping their constituents won’t research their comments.

Thankfully, women who are uninsured, underinsured, or who just cannot afford a mainstream doctor can go to Planned Parenthood, which is the first step. If needed, they get referred to get mammograms at an affiliated clinic with a Planned Parenthood Doctor. Voters can always assume Republicans will never let the truth get in the way of nasty rhetoric about PPH and women who choose.

Unfortunately, that thing about the Democratic Party wanting to abort black babies is not even a thing, let alone ludicrous. The Democratic Party has stated that it protects a woman’s right to choose and will apply all the Federal laws that exist …period. We cannot be surprised at all the misinformation thrown at viewers by TV hosts and Pundits. I get it, you don’t like abortion, but I suggest that Republican Leaders would be better off calling out the source or thorn in the side of your Pro-life stance advocates. It must be tough not to want to use a footnote or source as an absolute from the internet but come up short. If you listen to conservative TV and talk radio, you realize most just throw out the facts when it comes to birth control, contraceptives, abortion, and what they all mean to a woman’s health care in general.

Women’s health care has always been a politically charged football. Women of childbearing years or, if indeed pregnant were and are still in some states, considered or labeled as being a pre-existing condition; an offensive rationalization used by so many in the insurance industry to deny or limit safe and affordable health care. Because of former President Obama, that practice by the insurance industry was no longer acceptable, however, we still need to regulate how insurance industries treat women, our ability to reproduce makes Conservatives rise up to engage in hypocrisy on so many levels. I get the disagreement about abortion, but most Planned Parenthood clinics offer men and women quality accessible, safe, and affordable health care no matter what form it comes in. Yet, an ideology, a family values platform pushed, debated, and voted into law by red-state Republicans has managed to be implemented in some states that are now trying to dismantle Women’s rights quietly, others have been blocked by the courts without allowing proper challenges IMO. HOW?

Today, in this 21st Century life, women still have to demand the right to make personal health care choices without political intervention.

Unfortunately, some states have succeeded in shoving the reproductive services issue in a political box with laws that are so archaic you have to wonder what year it is.

The cliché of, “do as we say, NOT as we do” keeps coming to my mind every time I hear Conservatives or any extremist on the right speak on issues of Women’s Reproductive Rights. Again, Men’s health care issues unlike women have been treated differently and provided with procedures and enhancement drugs among other things without questions. Yet, Women, mostly Women of colour are being singled out as Abortion Scarlet, Abortion Abusers, portrayed as something mysterious, possibly evil, and definitely disrespected by some extreme folks from the right who do not seem to understand that birth control, rape, unwanted pregnancy’s, incest, contraceptives, and abortion are all a part of a women’s and little girl’s health care no matter what race or economic background.

Freedom Fighters … believe #TheRightToChooseMatters

Get ready for the DNC to shake up Chicago as a Change Maker … #VoteForKamalaWalz2024

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

a Letter From Virginia ~In Memory~ (Free Before Emancipation) ~~ July/August edition

08/01/2025 Nativegrl77

Letter From Virginia
Excavations are providing a new look at some of the Civil War’s earliest fugitive slaves—considered war goods or contraband—and their first taste of liberty

click on the graphic below to get the complete story, it’s six pages of American History

(Library of Congress)

Following an 1861 decision by a Union general, escaped slaves were declared contraband, or illegal war goods, and freed. Thousands of fugitive slaves, including this group in Pamunkey Run, Virginia, provided the Union army with labor and established independent communities.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Quote of the Day …

06/23/2025 Nativegrl77

“Just because you think the path that’s right for you might be lonelier, longer, or less destined for traditional success than paths taken by others, don’t be afraid to take it. If you choose your means well, you will end up in the right place.”

— Beau Biden (February 3, 1969 – May 30, 2015)

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

The War on Poverty at … a repost

01/08/2024 Nativegrl77 3 Comments

by CAP Action War Room

What People Really Think About Poverty

On January 8, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced an “unconditional war on poverty in America.” “It will not be a short or easy struggle, no single weapon or strategy will suffice, but we shall not rest until that war is won. The richest nation on earth can afford to win it. We cannot afford to lose it,” said Johnson.

50 years later, many of the programs that were passed in that era still exist and have helped keep millions out of poverty. In fact, the poverty rate would be nearly double today without them. But without a doubt, poverty still exists in this country.

The perception continues to be that there is a wide ideological gap across the county of what government’s role is in extending the ladders needed to increase economic mobility and lift people out of poverty. On this anniversary, the Center for American Progress and Half in Ten commissioned a poll to ask Americans what they really think about poverty in the United States. The findings might surprise you:

1. Between one-quarter and one-third of Americans experience direct economic hardship. Sixty-one percent of Americans say their family’s income is falling behind the cost of living, compared to just 8 percent who feel they are getting ahead and 29 percent who feel they are staying even. Anywhere from 25 to 34 percent of Americans-and even higher percentages of Millennials and people of color-report serious problems in the past year falling behind on rent, mortgage or utilities payments; affording necessary medical care; keeping up with credit card payments; or having enough to money for food. Fifty-four percent of Americans say that someone in the immediate or extended families is poor — a 2-point increase since 2008 and an 18-point increase since 2001.

2. Americans blame economic conditions, not personal responsibility, as the reason people live in poverty in this country. Almost two-thirds (64 percent) believe that most people who live in poverty do so because of bad economic conditions like low-paying jobs, compared to only one-quarter who think it is because the poor make bad decisions. Even white conservatives believe by a 2:1 margin (63 percent to 29 percent) that poverty is driven by socioeconomic factors and conditions rather than poor personal decision-making.

3. There is almost unanimous agreement that government has a responsibility to fight poverty. An overwhelming 86 percent of Americans agree with the belief put forward by President Johnson 50 years ago.

4. There is widespread support for a national goal to cut poverty in half within 10 years. Seven in 10 Americans–including a majority of those identifying as white conservatives–support this goal.

5. Americans also express very strong support for a number of policies to help reduce poverty rates, particularly with jobs, wages, and education but also on more traditional safety net items. Among the proposals garnering strong support are emergency unemployment benefits, increasing the minimum wage, universal pre-kindergarten, and expanded nutrition assistance. Congress should take note.

You can check out the complete results of the poll HERE. Our colleagues have also put together a variety of other resources on the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty. Be sure and check those out HERE.