1. Start tracking your family’s health history before there is a problem. By keeping a running log of all health-related incidents (i.e. tetanus shots, flu shots, ear infections, prescriptions taken, etc.) for each member of the family, you’ll be able to provide doctors with a complete and accurate family medical history if needed.

2. Check out the family tree. Compile a list of diseases and medical conditions that are common among relatives in your family. Identifying illnesses you are at a higher-risk of contracting may spur the doctor to recommend preventative treatment or tests for early detection.

3. Record symptoms and health-related activities in a calendar. Having a time line of symptoms can help doctors identify trends that may impact diagnosis. For example, flu-like symptoms that occur at the same time every year may be an allergy rather than a cold. Migraines clustered around a menstrual cycle may be related to hormonal fluctuations. And more than four ear infections in a year could lead to more aggressive treatment than another round of antibiotics.

4. Journal symptoms as they occur. Don’t wait until the doctor’s appointment to try and remember every pain or abnormal feeling you’ve experienced since the last visit. Seemingly unrelated symptoms may prompt the doctor to try different tests or treatments than originally planned. Frequent urination, for example, may indicate a bladder infection. But excessive urination coupled with fatigue and persistent thirst, may be a sign of diabetes or another more serious condition.

5. Write out questions and answers. Again, don’t rely on memory to make the most of doctor visits. Write questions down ahead of time and then write the doctor’s response next to each question. The personal Q&A will be a handy reference later and can assist in communicating with family members or caregivers who might have similar concerns.

6. Keep health information in one place. Keep all health-related documents including family medical history, symptom journals, test results, immunization charts, list of prescriptions taken, insurance coverage, blood work, question/answer sheets, etc. in one organized binder. Having the information at your fingertips can be a real timesaver and it can also help ensure everybody involved in taking care of an ailing family member has the information to do so properly.

Be Prepared Organize your Health

Have you wondered about what if? I use to wonder what if all the time. What if something happened to my son and no one knew what his allergies were? Now that he is older and has grown out of “his situation” I have become lax. But now we have to go into that what if stage again. My son is getting older and this summer will be in another state without me (Mom). So how am I going to prepare him for that just in case possibility? I am going to prepare my son by organizing and filling in a Medic Tag so he can put it on his key ring and have his health records with him all the time. I will feel a little more at ease. Of course I will text, email and talk with him more then he probably needs but for that just in case, I will and he will be prepared by being organized.

Medic Tag

MedicTag is the original USB medic alert tag designed for emergency medic information and alert.

Medical alert bracelets, medic ID tags and medi alert jewelry have limited information available. A MedicTag USB medical alert and medic ID tag stores and has instant access to all your medical and emergency information.

In an emergency your medical information is critical to an accurate, timely and possibly life saving diagnosis.

MedicTag is a digital USB personal medical alert and information device that combines your emergency information with today’s technology. A digital memory chip is used to store all your information on the easy to use MedicTag medical history and alert form and the distinctive styling and bright logo will alert medic personnel to your special needs and existing medical conditions.

MedicTag is useful for many conditions including

• ADD/ADHD
• Anemia
• Ankylosing Spondylitis
• Asthma
• Autism
• Blood thinners – Coumadin, warfarin
• Cancer patients
• Cardiac patients
• Cerebral Palsy
• Clinical trial patients
• Diabetes
• Emphysema

• Epilepsy, seizures
• Food, insect and medicine allergies
• Hearing, sight and mentally impaired
• Hypertension
• Mental health patients
• Multiple medications
• Multiple Sclerosis
• Parkinson’s Disease
• Rare diseases
• Special needs children
• Stroke risk
• Surgery, transplant patients

And caregivers for people who live with many of these conditions

Healthcare providers must often either start from scratch or act blindly because they don’t have the patient’s relevant past history, allergies, or medications.

With MedicTag, safety of care will be improved as patients and doctors benefit from immediate access to the patients’ list of conditions, medications and dosages, allowing all parties to avoid the sometimes dangerous duplication of medications and other kinds of errors associated with incomplete information.

MedicTag is simple to use. Plug it into the USB port on your computer to start the program, there is nothing to install, it’s all on the MedicTag. Fill in the blanks with as much, or as little information as you need, click on “save” and you are done.

It requires very little computer skill to use, on most systems it is “plug and play” and is a simple fill in the blanks format. It is compatible with 99.9% of the home and office computer systems in use today and requires only Windows and MS Word to fill out the information form. And no special software is needed to read it, all Windows operating systems include WordPad which can read the information form.

You can also change your information, medications, doctors and any other health information whenever you need to so your information is always easy to keep up to date.

Convenient  and easy to carry on a key ring you can keep it with you all the time. FEMA and the Red Cross both recommend that your emergency information, including medications and emergency contacts, be part of your disaster preparation kit. In case of an emergency evacuation due to hurricane or flood that information is much more likely to be available if you have it on your key ring.

Are you the caregiver for an aging loved one or other family member? Medic Tag can consolidate all their medical information into one form that’s easy to access.

Whats on your holiday wish list this year?

When giving a gift to someone with health issues a practical gift can truly be a life saving present.

Organizing your health as been made simple with Jakoter Health Organizer and the Medic Tag .

Fill in the blanks provided and keep your medical information updated.

Other great holiday gifts:

Achoo Allergy is a great place to shop for allergy people. Peanut, airborne you name it. They have a gift for you!

Mario Badescu Skin Care is the place for anyone with sensitive skin. Try the rose spray or the egg shampoo.

To Health and Happiness!

Okay it is time to give someone a gift, but what? If you are looking for a truly meaningful gift then look at a charitable gift. This Holiday my husband and I received an unexpected wonderful gift that opened my eyes to a whole new way of giving. This present was a gift card to be redeemed as a donation to the charity of our choice. How cool is this?  Picking from a list of over one hundred charities was really exciting. It was uplifting and inspiring to receive this present. Holding on to this card and thinking about it was half the fun, redeeming the present was the other half.

It put a smile on my husband face and cheer into my heart. I know the secret to gifting (give the gift that helps others).
With this idea in mind, of giving a charitable gift, I went looking for other such organizations and I found Global Giving. Here, Global giving connects donors with community-based projects that need support. This is a great giving gift as well.

How about doing something everyday? With GoodSearch all you have to do is decide on your charity and everytime you search money will be donated to that charity. You can even shop at GoodSearch were up to 37% of the proceeds will go to your selection. Who knew this could be so easy.

More Gift Card Options

Tis Best

Gifting with pleasure! Enjoy!

One way to be healthy is to know your prescription drugs. Drug3k not only lets you know a great deal about your medication it also lets you speak your opinion about a medication you have taken. So here’s a great tool to help us all get healthy and organized!

Have you thought, I do not really want to start a medication before knowing all there is to know? Or maybe you are on a medication and you wonder why you are feeling the way you do? Could it be the medication? Could it be a couple medications combined? With Drug3k you can find some answers.

Find your medication under the first letter of the prescription and you will get a detailed listing of what the prescription drug is used for, notes on the medication, how to store the medication, what to do in case of an overdose, how to use the medication, any side effects, precautions, what to do with a missed dose and drug interactions.

If that is not enough then there are also photos (some prescription drugs) and a place for you to place your opinion! Wow, a place to say what you feel about a prescription drug.

Please let us know what you think about this site-we love feed back!

This helpful resource is not as much about dieting as it is a tool for weight management. I found this website to be very helpful for guiding anyone who needs to track their weight or nutritional needs. Try this resource for your healthy eating needs and please let me know what you think.

Weight-By-Date can be used on your computer or hand held pda-hopefully in a iPhone application soon! Listed below are just some of the great features and you can try it for FREE!

• A unique calendar that helps you lose weight.
• Statistics, weight loss projections, and rewards.
• Progress charts for weight loss motivation.
• An easy-to-use food diary that simplifies your diet.
• A database of over 40,000 foods.
• A meal planner that works with any diet.
• A way to organize your recipes.
• A way to set limits for each nutrient in your diet.
• An easy-to-use exercise journal.
• A database of over 130 exercises and activities.
• The ability to plan your workouts.
• A body measurements journal.
• Diet, health and fitness tools and calculators.
• Links to your favorite diet and weight loss sites.

By Laura Heuer

In the state of Illinois you have to join the NEW First-Person Consent Organ/Tissue Donor Registry http://www.lifegoeson.com . It only took a few minutes to fill out. Before you get started, have your drivers license with you, they will ask for the number, your name as it appears on your license and your address.

For other states please click here http://www.organdonor.gov/donor/registry.shtm

Go to www.jakoter.com for organizing your health journeys and for expert medical advocacy and consulting.

Waiting Room Material

By Laura Heuer

Expert Health Organizer Consultant

So you sit in the waiting room…. Are you prepared? Prepared for what, you might ask? If you are in a waiting room or in the actual doctors office you should be prepared. Here are a few simple steps you can take to ensure a better visit.

• Write out your questions-if you have not done this prior to your office visit go ahead and do it while you are waiting.

•  Write out your symptoms and be specific – again if you have not done this prior to your office visit do this now while you are waiting.

• Write out your medications – you will always be ask what medications are you taking and what dose.

You may think you can wing it and of course you can but what happens when you wing anything? It just does not have as good as an outcome as it could have. Lets face it our health should be a higher priority then that.

The Medical Group Management Association says the average patient wait time is 15 minutes. The time spent with the doctor is on average 20 minutes.

Be fully prepared for your visit, your health is so important to you and to your loved ones.

If you are a long time patient and always waiting here is a way to past some of the time, click on the how to draw the impossible triangle and print if you wish. No drawing skills necessary.

How to Draw an Impossible Triangle

from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit

The “rule of three”, where arrangements of triplets have a pleasing effect on the eye, makes this triangle an intriguing shape to ponder and to create. It appears frequently in the art of MC Escher. It is also known as a Penrose triangle or tribar.

Steps

Method 1

1. Sketch an equilateral triangle. This will be the center of your triangle.
2. Lightly sketch two parallel lines outside one side of the triangle. The lines should be equally spaced. Take caution that your lines are drawn straight.
3. Do this for each of the other two sides. Your sketch should look like three triangles nested together.
4. Choose one side of the “center” triangle. Extend one end of that straight line until it reaches the “middle” triangle.
5. Find the same side of the “middle” triangle. Extend one end of that straight line, in the same direction as before, until it reaches the “outside” triangle.
6. Repeat steps for the other two sides of the triangle.
7. Erase short segments so that the triangle begins to look three-dimensional rather than flat. Each edge of this “3-D” shape should look like a reverse “L”.
8. Add short segments at an angle in the corners. These short segments will finish off the outside points.
9. Cleanup your drawing by erasing the points outside of the short segments drawn in the previous step.
10. Add shading if desired.

Method 2

1. Draw a triangle and extend the ends of the lines past where they join.
2. Draw lines from these tips, extending them beyond the corners of the inner triangle.
3. Draw in the ‘corners’.
4. Draw in the final long lines to connect the corners.

Tips

• After you learn this basic optical illusion, you can experiment with more complex arrangements.

Related wikiHows

• How to Draw an Impossible Cube
• How to Draw an Impossible Cube with a Highlighter
• How to Draw an Impossible Cube Using a Pencil
• How to Draw the Triforce

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world’s largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Draw an Impossible Triangle. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.