Trump injecting Clorox? disinfectants?

Shelves of clorox disinfectant in a treated image.

Just keeping an open mind during this whole Coronavirus pandemic / COVID-19 / Shelter in Place. I actually liked the questions about Ultraviolet Sun Rays (radiation) and disinfectants – possibly internally washing surfaces. As a teacher of medicine and surgery, I would definitely welcome these questions, and I hope to give reasonable answers. Basically, if UV light kills viruses, and disinfectant kills viruses easily, why don’t we use them more in the human body?Regarding UV light, the radiation mutates the virus to death, but it will also mutate our own cells, and thus leading to our own mutated cells like cancer. But yes, we have given radiation to certain areas of the body in hopes that the problem is more sensitive to destruction (like cancer cells) than our own normal cells and we also hope that any damaged normal cells can recover. Disinfectants kill germs, but they are so powerful they will kill our normal cells as well. Regular disinfectants are pretty nonspecific. On our skin (which is considered outside of the body) like our hands, we have layers of skin including a dead layer of skin (stratum corneum) that protect us from the disinfectant (like hand sanitizer) which an damage our “live” inside cells. The stratum corneum is like a tough shield. When bypassing the skin and we go Inside the body (by swallowing, injecting, or inserting), we’ve had to come up with more delicate and targeted approaches to “disinfecting” such as antibiotics which target specific things in these alien bacteria invaders, and antivirals – these drugs which are injected are targeting structures and processes which humans cells don’t normally possess. Our mucosa, which includes the inside of our mouth and noses, are considered to be inside the body and does not have the protection of skin and stratum corneum. These areas are much more delicate. Off the shelf disinfectants will be harmful in these areas to our own cells. Disinfectants will harm germs and harm our own cells in these areas. Who knows, it’s questions like this that can make us think, and even revisit old ideas. Dr. John Porteous, a prominent surgeon who brought me to Modesto, has shown me something that he does when closing very infected abdominal wounds from trauma or from ruptures, he would paint the wound with Betadeine (which is a disinfectant), in the hopes that the wound wouldn’t get infected in it’s troubled post operative course due to existing infection. We may still leave the top part of the wound open for debridement. Sounds interesting enough, and when desperate enough to help the patient, we would try it, or try diluting the betadeine to lessen the toxicity to normal cells. Dr. Porteous and other surgeons have jokingly called this Betadeine tea. I’ll admit that I’ve tried it a few times… so I have been guilty of applying disinfectant to large infected surgical incisions that otherwise seem doomed to fail. Disclaimer: For now, don’t swallow the sun, and don’t inject off the shelf disinfectants.

Coronovirus links to statistics – especially California COVID-19 data.

I inject Botox not Clorox, so I am not super qualified to discuss disinfectants.

Stanislaus COVID update for today

Today is 4/24/20, Friday
There is less than 1 more week in the month of April. I figured it was time to make a summary for today based on some of my numbers that I’ve collected daily regarding COVID 19 / Coronavirus

Looking at my numbers and forecasts. My yellow (current) line forecast for Stanislaus is taking over the blue (first 2 weeks) line. This is great news as we continue to smash down the virus’ infectivity. I had said before that my big wish is to see the yellow line go below the blue line. In summary blue line is the first trendline, pink one was the second (we got worse), and yellow is the current trendline. I’m just looking to see how the trends change with time.

Today the Stanislaus numbers show an additional 6 cases of COVID diagnosed over 305 total tests. This is a 2% positive rate for just today. But since the beginning of time, Stanislaus positive test rate is now 6% (yesterday was 7% – lower is better). 305 tests – that is the highest number of daily tests done. We now have a total of 264 COVID cases diagnosed by testing in Stanislaus.


California is doing a little bit worse today on my trendline graphics, but just by a tiny bit. Yesterday was also a tiny bit worse than the day before. But it’s so slight, might not even be significant. Today’s California Total COVID cases weighs in at 40,812.
The places where I get my data: https://www.injectionartistry.com/modesto-botox/covid-19-coronavirus-links/

Above is data for Stanislaus County only
Above is just for new cases of COVID 19 each day




Get to know us at Surgical Artistry – Hobbies and Self Care Activities

During these interesting times of Covid Closures due to Coronavirus, we have some opportunities to grow our hobbies and improve our self care, I’ve asked our team to give some insight into what they have been doing as we wait to open up for Botox, Acupuncture, plastic surgery, and more. Recently I had asked the team to provide a listing of what makes them happy.

Vanessa wrote:

1) My hobbies are reading, bike-riding, hiking, word puzzles, watching television shows and movies that interest me and trying different foods. Future hobbies might include volunteering for places I feel passionate about maybe even embroidery…wow…I sound a lot older than I am.

2) Self-Care includes being vigilant with my skincare routine including masking more often. It also includes bike-riding, jogging and my Ballet Beautiful DVD.If I had more time, I’d love to take ballet classes again or even a jazz class…aging myself yet again.

Elena wrote:

My hobbies include 

1.) sewing normally a lot of different things but right now all my time goes to masks. 

2.) creating custom items to gift or sell

3.) trying new learn new ways to cook and explore more ingredients and dishes

4.) making delicious coffee to enjoy 

Self care activities 

1.) making OBAGI routine a priority in the morning and evening

2.) drinking a lot of water

3.) taking Danika and Abby (our dog) on walks

4.) taking Danika on bike rides with her new seat that attaches to my bike 

5.) making delicious coffee to enjoy 

What makes you Happy?

Today, I had decided that I have had enough of this COVID craziness bringing us down, so I asked my Surgical Artistry team to come up with a list of things that make them happy.

We have been keeping in touch via ZOOM

Nikki’s LIST of what makes her happy:

Omg, came back to 40 texts, lol! Sorry- I had to go for a drive and get out. Things that I am doing during shut down to keep me sane and that make me happy-

1- Deep, intellectual conversations with my almost 14 year old daughter
2- Waking up at my normal time to keep my internal clock going
3- Decaf Irish Tea with Coconut Creamer in the morning
4- Making my plant based smoothies so I don’t turn into a buffalo during isolation
5- Staying busy and being productive with work so I feel like I’m earning my pay!
6- Gardening and cultivating my Japanese Maples– I have 6 seedlings that are thriving!
7- Baking cakes
8- Playing with my puppies and my kitty
9- meditation
10- singing
11- walks around my beautiful neighborhood
12- movies!!!
13- having time for self reflection and how I can be even better all around
14-  video chats with my best friends and with my co-workers
15- Loud music whenever the heck I want!
16-Taking long lunches and eating whatever I want!!!

There’s much more but it’ll be too long, lol.

I miss you all

Shauna’s List:

During this crazy time, these are a few things that I wake up thankful for each day:


1. Spending way more time with my kiddo. 

2. Archie, my pug. 

3. Running and/or walking everyday with my daughter and pup. 

4. Gardening. 

5. Reading. 

6. Spending more time in the kitchen. 

7. Zoom-for allowing me to keep in touch with and able to see the faces of my friends and family. I grew up with my dad in the Navy. We didn’t have this technology when he was away. It could be 6 months before we saw him. 

8. Music.

9. Knowing that I have some amazing friends that are out there doing incredible things. Nurses, grocery store employees, firefighters, and a VERY special seamstress who is donating her time and efforts to make masks for “the essentials”. 

10. Getting caught up on my  “to-do” list. 

11. Having “me” time. I usually work 6 days a week, 60+ hours. So this has been crucial and not taken for granted. 

12. The health of myself and my family.

13. Netflix and Disney

14. Good wine

Angelique’s List of of Happiness

Subject: Things that make me happy

1) Pad Tai makes me happy and I learned to make it!!! Lol
2) Lots of date nights with the Hubby
3) exercising
4) swimming
5) chocolate ??
6) being a mother to two great daughters.
7) being able to come into work although very little
8) my kitties that always make me smile
9) my family, Dr. Wu and Lee and all my friends  being safe through Covid -19.
10) Goal to eat healthy and God willing stay well and wishing everyone the same.

Just a few I have many things to add.

Mark’s List:

These are a few of my COVID-19 friendly activities:
1. Spending time with my wife
2. Playing videogames
3. Reading
4. Relaxing walks in the moonlight
5. Watching Netflix
6. Video chatting with friends
7. Suprising friends/coworkers by showing up on the video wearing a mask or costume
8. Taking a bath
9. Drinking a cup of warm tea or coffee
10. Playing music for my wife and cats

Franchesca’s List of things that make her happy:

  1. My family  and friends being in good health
  2. Being able to spend so much time with my son and fur babies
  3. Working out, that’s my sanity!
  4. Seeing how complete strangers are coming together to help each other out!
  5. Enjoying a nice cup of coffee in my jammies
  6. Having time to catch up on house chores
  7. My phone, that way I can facetime with family and friends
  8. Last but not least, knowing that we will all get through this !!

What makes Vanessa Happy:

What makes me happy:

1.  My friends and family are well!
2.  Practicing gratitude…my family has so much to be grateful for!
3.  Having time to exercise daily!
4.  Being able to help my son with homeschooling until his Summer break!
5.  Having more time to get my homework completed!
6.  Having time to complete much needed Spring cleaning!
7.  Amazon Prime!
8.  Streaming services!
9.  Technology such as Zoom that allowed me to continue to work with patients and see friends and family.
10. Smart phones and social media to keep us connected and informed and able to have food delivered, play games together     etc.
11. Last but certainly not least, seeing the HELPERS. Seeing on the news and/or social media the humanitarians that give their time and money to those in need. I think that one actually makes me the happiest.
12. Watching to see how people and companies get creative and adjust in order to do the best we can during this time. It’s all a great opportunity for learning!

What makes Suleika Happy? (our Obagi Rep)

-wake up early to see the sunrise
-sunny days
-riding my bike
-working out with my son
-cooking
-spending time with family
-reading a good book
-playing board and card games-listen to music
-gardening

Elena’s List:

Things that make me happy

  1. My handsome husband and beautiful Danika
  2. My family is healthy
  3. Coffee
  4. Danika’s innocence. It makes the tough times so much easier. She’s the light in all of this darkness
  5. Danika sleeping through the night 
  6. Danika hugs
  7. Having the time to ride my bike and exercise more
  8. Self care
  9. Coffee
  10. Technology that allows us to stay in touch with friends and loved ones while sheltering in place 
  11. Seeing all of the GOOD in the people and world coming out in the most trying times. 
  12. Helping others 
  13. My husband coming home from a long day’s work
  14. Being able to spend so much quality time with Danika right. Is
  15. Did I say coffee?
  16. Learning new ways to save money 
  17. FaceTime
  18. Connection
  19. Foooooooodddd

Dr. Tammy Wu wrote:

1. Meditation 

🙏

2. Running 

🏃

‍3. Being able to accomplish my to-do list as planned 

📝

 4. Having happy patients, 

👩

‍🦰happy and healthy staff 

😊

5. Discovering and baking new delicious vegan gluten free treats

🍪

 6. Living in a peaceful world 

🌎

 7. Being around courteous and respectful people

👨

👩

👧

👦

8. Waking up healthy every morning 

😊
😊
😊

I (Dr. Lee wrote)

1. Going on dates with Mr. Bear.
2. Going for a run.
3. Stretching.
4. Making goals
5. Accomplishing goals
6. Getting my blood pressure down.
7. Eating carbs.
8. Eating potato chips (well that’s a carb too).
9. Doing 20,000 steps a day
10. Watching Amazon prime (I don’t have Netflix anymore).
11. Cooking vegan.
12. Doing IG and FB

Covid-19 data for Stanislaus County

I’ve been doing these daily updates on my facebook: http://www.facebook.com/modesto

I thought I’d share what I wrote today. I think today is somewhat of a landmark day as we continue to flatten the curve for this Coronavirus infection. Maybe we’re at that mystical peak? But then again, how many peaks are we going to have? So this may be the peak of the initial phase where we are staying at home.

We are bending the curve as based on initial forecasts that I’ve done with my graphs. Today is our 27th day of social distancing in California. I started counting 3/19/20 as our first day when California’s Governor, Gavin Newsome issued a stay at home mandate. So it’s almost a month! Today California passed the 25,000th case of COVID-19 as captured by testing. Using original projections, I had predicted reaching 25,000 cases on 4/9/20, but we didn’t hit that number till 4/14/20 – 5 days later! So that’s a flatter curve! LA county surpassed th 10,000 mark. Santa Clara county didn’t seem to update their numbers for today. Stanislaus county which is my county where Modesto resides reports 163 cases with 4 deaths, and a total of 2703 tests done. Today registers 17 tests done in the past 24 hours. I would have personally liked to have seen more tests done, but there are just so many constraints – it’s easy to wish for more tests and hard to implement. USA has now broken in to the 600,000’s of cases diagnosed of COVID-19, and New York, my birth state reports over 200,000 cases for the first time today. I wonder when we’re going to get re-opened again, and I do like the public wearing of masks idea even when we re-open and get back to work for those that have been staying at home. Does anyone have any ideas on when we should re-open.

This data is and commentary is from 4/14/20
Visit links regarding COVID-19 and Coronavirus here.

This second picture (above) with the graph shows 4 trendlines for California. Each one is a polynomial distribution of the 2nd order based on data from the 1st week, then data of information added for each successive week. Each week shows a “flatter” curve for my forecasts which I did in a 2003 version of Excel. This was proof to myself that we are flattening the curve for California. You can sort of think of each line as 4 weeks separated from each other, recalculated as new data comes in.

How do we know if we hit a peak?

We would know if we looked at the changes each day – meaning we looked at the new cases discovered each day of COVID-19. Perhaps we hit the peak soon and the numbers start to come down. It would be nice to say that perhaps tomorrow we hit 1500 new cases of Coronavirus infection and then after that the numbers of new cases start to come down and down, until we reopen…

And finally below this text, I rarely post this, but it’s time to do it. This is the death chart. These are family members, friends – not just statistics, so it’s hard to post So below is the total cumulative number of deaths from COVID for USA, California, New York and various other places. They are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children, patients, and colleagues.

Obagi Hydrate is excellent for Dry Facial Skin

Obagi Hydrate is excellent for dry skin
by Franchesca

Obagi Hydrate delivers long lasting moisture. It contains innovative Hydromanil which has been clinically proven to improve the moisture content of the skin. Hydromanil, a moisturizer naturally  derived from tara seed.

Immediate moisturization reduces water loss and holds water on the surface of the you skin.

Keeping your skin nice and hydrated.

Other Obagi Hydrate links:
Vanessa’s Obagi Hydrate discussion – she pairs it with tretinoin
Mark’s Obagi Hydrate discussion – he goes deep on Hydromanil
Dr. Calvin Lee’s Botox home page

Hydrate doesn’t cause breakouts for Vanessa and works great with tretinoin

Dr. Lee,

What I’d like to say about Obagi Hydrate is that it is the one moisturizer that I can confidently say does not break me out. Personally, I use it when I’m feeling dry or dehydrated due to tretinoin and or any other similar products. I also use it when I want to pause or relieve the peeling that I go when I use tretinoin w/Blender on a regular basis. Although I don’t use it daily, it’s always in my skincare “toolbox” and it’s been so very reliable for at least a decade for me.

Thank You!

Vanessa

Other Links:

Modesto Botox

Mark’s Obagi Hydrate thoughts

Hydrate and Hydrate Luxe by Obagi – the secret of Hydromanil revealed by Mark

While looking up information about Hydrate and Hydrate Luxe I found some information about one of the active ingredients. From the Obagi website it states: “Hydromanil is an ingredient derived from the tara seed and it is known to be an innovative and potent moisturizer, which is why we made it a key ingredient in both our Obagi Hydrate and Obagi Hydrate Luxe moisturizers. This ultra-advanced moisturizing ingredient captures and retains water and assimilates it into the skin in an immediate and natural way to enhance your skin’s appearance and texture.”
This led me to look up information about the tara seed and the tara gum that is made from the seed. There was another site stating that “Tara Gum is naturally derived from the seed endosperm of the Tara tree (Caesalpinia Spinosa), which grows in the Peruvian Andes. It is extracted using only a mechanical process without the use of any solvents. Its viscosity in cold water is similar to that of Guar Gum. Tara Gum fully hydrates after heating, resulting in at least 30% increase in viscosity when compared to a cold solution.

Tara Gum is rich in Vitamin C, B, and complex sugars, and it is reputed for its ability to prevent dehydration while protecting skin’s moisture barrier. Tara Gum is often used as a  natural thickener in the manufacturing of cosmetics and skin care products. It can also be used in formulations for makeup removers for a gentle and refreshing cleanse that softens the skin.”

I hope this information is helpful and useful for your Obagi blog.

-Mark

Other Links: