Field Notes: Maggie Smith's new 🔥 book, 💪 4 principles of exercise (or any) goals, 💉 new Covid booster guidelines

"Here is how I picture it: We are all nesting dolls, carrying the earlier iterations of ourselves inside. We carry the past inside us. We take ourselves—all of our selves—wherever we go." Maggie Smith

Hello, friends! I hope you are having a lovely week. We are still in middle of the gorgeous season of blossoming trees, aka the-not-so-gorgeous allergy season, aka the 80-degree-30-degree wild swings in temperatures and wellness. Symptoms come and go. One day, someone is coughing. Then the cough is gone. One evening a week ago, my son had a fever. By morning, back to normal. Yesterday I had a sore throat. Today, I feel ok! I don’t know! I’m struggling with when to make a doctor’s appointment, especially because it’s usually a few days out. Who knows what next Tuesday will bring? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ How do you decide when to go to the doctor?

Here is this week’s Field Notes, six health-related things I’ve run across lately:

1. 💊 The Best Seasonal Allergy Meds For Kids (Dr. Natasha Burgert in her newsletter KC Kids Doc) — This post includes a free downloadable PDF chart of children’s allergy medication details, such as dosing notes and whether it comes in a generic form.

2. 📣 In last week’s Field Notes, reader Michelle Spencer (who also writes the terrific newsletter Armchair Rebel), left a super-helpful comment, which is too good not to share with you, in case you missed it: “Allergies tips: stop the irritants getting in (if you can) with a mask or nasal filters. Wash face and hands often, esp when you come inside. Moisturisers can create a temporary skin barrier. When I garden (or fly internationally) I use Jungle Brolly lotion, which is basically a liquid glove. FESS saline nasal spray to flush sinuses. Bion Tears lubricant eyedrops to flush eyes. My dr recommended them because they don’t contain the preservatives most other eyedrops have, which ironically some people are allergic to. Pineapple juice because the bromelian is anti-inflammatory and may thin nasal secretions.” (Thank you, Michelle! I am saving these recommendations.)
   

3. 💉 To Boost or Not to Boost? (Dr. Lucy McBride in her newsletter Are You Okay?) — Dr. McBride sorts through the U.S. CDC’s latest guidelines, which allow a second bivalent booster of the Covid vaccine for people over 65 or who have a weakened immune system, and how different people might think through whether they want to get another shot now. For example, she concludes: “Taken together, if you are an adult > 65 years with a normal immune system, you may want to wait until the fall when flu and COVID are predicted to surge again to get your booster.” She considers other questions, too, like “What about kids age 6 and up? Should they get the first bivalent booster if they never had it?”

   

4. 📚 You Could Make This Place Beautiful (Maggie Smith) — Now for something completely different, words to nurture us. I loved this new memoir by American poet Maggie Smith (not Dame Maggie Smith, the English actress). It’s about the unraveling of her marriage after her Good Bones poem went viral, but it’s much more than that — about love for children, identity, Ohio, writing, the frustrating mysteries of other people’s decisions, the clues we glue together, the ways we make ourselves whole, noticing the beauty. The chapters dance from only a few lines to a long scene, with a few poems tucked in for good measure. She unfolds her story in a philosophical way, stopping often to consider the shape of the story itself: “This isn’t a tell-all because ‘all’ is something we can’t access. … There’s not such thing as a tell-all, only a tell-some—a tell-most, maybe. This is a tell-mine, and the mine keeps changing, because I keep changing. The mine is slippery like that.”
   

5. 👓 The patients who regret laser eye surgery: ‘My life’s stood still since then’ (The Guardian) — I started wearing glasses in second grade, so I’ve had a while to wonder and waffle about Lasik surgery. This article examines the portion of people who suffer after eye surgery: “The American Refractive Surgery Council says the procedure’s complication rate is less than 1% (though 30% of people may see short-term side effects like dry eyes). … But patient advocates and some experts say that is not the full picture. Dr Morris Waxler, a retired FDA adviser who voted to approve Lasik in the 1990s, is now one of its biggest critics. He says he regrets his role in bringing the procedure to the public. According to his own analysis of industry data, the complication rate of Lasik falls between 10% and 30%. One investigation of an FDA database by the reporter Jace Larson found more than 700 complaints of severe pain, described as ‘worse than childbirth’ or as if ‘their eyeballs would stick to their eyelids almost every night’.”
   

6. 💪 4 Non-Negotiable Principles of Exercise (Longevity Minded newsletter by Jack Dixon) — Jack has built a treasure box of detailed guidance for people into fitness and optimizing health to live a longer life. Most of it goes over my head, but I really liked this foundation, which could apply to goals of any type and size. He writes: “Armed with these 4 principles, you can conquer any fitness, athletic, or aesthetic aim you set your sights on.”
   Basically:
   - Take into account your specific needs and preferences, what brings you joy
   - Be thoughtful about picking a good goal for you
   - Be consistent
   - Purposefully and steadily increase whatever you are doing

I hope you have a sweet and sneeze-free weekend ahead!

To our journeys,
Brianne