Wall Street Journal

GO Doc! Give 'em hills!!
 
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Opps, I guess I had a different species of roundworm--possibly the species Mansonella streptocerca?--not hookworm. He lived in my foot for two months before an Italian doctor gave me some anti-parasite medicine that killed the little bugger dead in his tracks within a couple of hours. Before that, I suffered through numerous local remedies, including snail piss, with no success. Very itchy. The locals thought it was funny that the stupid white man who didn't wear shoes would get something like that.

It could have been canine hookworm. Since dogs and we have different enzymes (or something), canine hookworm gets lost in our system and cannot find the bloodstream to get to our lungs to complete the cycle. So it wanders about subcutaneously, itching, but never being bloodsuckers like the ones that make it to the gut.
 
It could have been canine hookworm. Since dogs and we have different enzymes (or something), canine hookworm gets lost in our system and cannot find the bloodstream to get to our lungs to complete the cycle. So it wanders about subcutaneously, itching, but never being bloodsuckers like the ones that make it to the gut.
That might be it. He did seem rather lost, wandering around aimlessly in my foot for the better part of two months. He would progress very slowly so I'm assuming he wouldn't be visible to the naked eye. I certainly wasn't successful trying to scratch him out.

Here's the photo again. The locals called it Filaria in Portuguese. Which, looking at Wikipedia, made me think it might be Mansonella streptocerca. Also, most locals seem to get it in the foot too, including a neighbor. So I'm pretty sure it comes from bug living in the ground when it's moist, which also fits the description of Mansonella streptocerca in Wikipedia, but I know nothing about this otherwise. On the other hand, we had a dog, and there were a lot of sand fleas that year, towards the end of the rainy season (you can see a scar from an infected bite towards the bottom of the photo), so maybe I got it from her, as you suggest.
 

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Busted after cool down walk following tmill by a trainer w/ no knowledge of the article. She said last Thursday they decided to ban bare feet on machines until after corporate meeting later this week. Allowed to use floor though ill bet after meeting no more floor. Time for a beer .
 
Here's the photo again. The locals called it Filaria in Portuguese. Which, looking at Wikipedia, made me think it might be Mansonella streptocerca.

Roundworms, hookworms, they're all pretty similar. The thing is, they all come from poor sanitation. Yeah, you can prevent them with shoes, but if you have sanitation problems it's causing a lot of other problems (like diarrhea, cholera, etc.). The solution is decent potty protocol!
 
How did a conversation go from Wall Street Journal digress to hook worm?

On second thought, it's quite a natural progression...
 
In the one relatively short article the author included :
Athlete's foot, plantar warts, pounding, abrasions, infections, spread, thick skin, blisters, friction, stares, angry looks, socially frowned upon, policy, barefoot camp, civil rights, tiptoe, disgusting, germy, safety, liability, toe explosions, toe shoes, glovelike minimalist shoes that hug each toe, tootsies, health concerns, Bare Naked Tootsies, toes, unshod, shod, feet, cringe, au naturel, public equipment, distaste, hairy feet, clomping, excessive human skin transfer, Born to Run, Tarahumara, injury, barefoot running, midfoot, forefoot, heel, hurt, footloose, sneaker-free, Barefoot Runners Society, controversial, medical experts, strike, stress fractures, sneakers, debate, and cold weather..........
Without any sentence listing!
As much as we wish she would have weighted the story more heavily in our favor, I guess she really is quite the good journalist!
 
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How did a conversation go from Wall Street Journal digress to hook worm?

On second thought, it's quite a natural progression...

One of the first comments to the article talks about hookworm
 
My minor complaints with the article are things like her quoting the epidemiologist saying "easier for infections to spread" when I'm sure even he would say it was taken out of context. He's no doubt much smarter than that, and probably believes that barefoot running on the treadmill adds no infection risks over shod running.
My one MAJOR complaint is the following author's opinion:
"Meanwhile shoe-wearing gym members USUALLY cringe when they see runners go au naterel on public equipment"
As I told her more than a few times........my rough estimate is that 20% of Americans cringe at the site or thought of bare feet, not most. Her opinion is that "gym members usually cringe". I disagree.
And while I'm disagreeing with her in an area that I consider myself to be somewhat of an expert on, I'll go WAY out on a limb withouth even doing a drop of research.......are'nt you supposed to italicize a french phrase like au naturel when you are writing in English?
No criticism of my poor spelling and grammer etc. allowed, I'm 'jus a dentist and world famous barefoot runner while SHE's a writer for the newspaper considered to be the height of accuracy in reporting!
I believe the double IPA has finally kicked in.
 
Or gymnastics, swimming, diving, Pilates, modern dance, surfing, stand up paddle.......
 
My one MAJOR complaint is the following author's opinion:
"Meanwhile shoe-wearing gym members USUALLY cringe when they see runners go au naterel on public equipment"
As I told her more than a few times........my rough estimate is that 20% of Americans cringe at the site or thought of bare feet, not most. Her opinion is that "gym members usually cringe". I disagree..

Agreed. I haven't gone bf at gym, but just out in public, most people's looks show curiosity or amusement; few seem to cringe. And really, are you at the gym to work out or to wonder about how gross you think other people look?
 
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I overheard a middle aged woman at a FL swimming pool in the early '90's showing off her newfangled water shoes to her friends: "These are the new thing, they're great, this way you can't get AIDS from the swimming pool".
Little did I realize at the time that this fool was a harbinger of things to come.
 
I overheard a middle aged woman at a FL swimming pool in the early '90's showing off her newfangled water shoes to her friends: "These are the new thing, they're great, this way you can't get AIDS from the swimming pool".
Little did I realize at the time that this fool was a harbinger of things to come.

Apparently she didn't read the instructions that came with her fancy new shoes. To be effective in the prevention of AIDS, they had to be worn on a different part of the anatomy.
 
so many of the older women who do water aerobics at the pool where water shoes, then take them off for shower flip flops, then carefully transfer their feet to socks and shoes.
i have also seen many people carefully wear flip flops right up to the lap lane.
Surely their weak-a$$ genes are heading for extinction.
Roundworms, hookworms, they're all pretty similar. The thing is, they all come from poor sanitation. Yeah, you can prevent them with shoes, but if you have sanitation problems it's causing a lot of other problems (like diarrhea, cholera, etc.). The solution is decent potty protocol!
Yah, I don't know if that's always true. The sandy streets in the peri-urban, village-like neighborhood I lived in were pretty clean, and the people there fairly hygienic.
Agreed. I haven't gone bf at gym, but just out in public, most people's looks show curiosity or amusement; few seem to cringe. And really, are you at the gym to work out or to wonder about how gross you think other people look?
Probably depends a lot on how the rest of you is dressed too, no? If you look like a hippy, people might assume (once again, incorrectly) a general lack of hygiene. If you look like a middle-of-the-road, middle-aged, middle-class, somewhat jocky cat like I do, dressed mostly in Target-esque apparel, then they probably just assume eccentricity. That's usually the response I get from my "Minnesota-nice" bourgie neighbors. If you look like Dr. L Board, they probably assume you're a MMA fighter who has escaped from his cage.
 
Or gymnastics, swimming, diving, Pilates, modern dance, surfing, stand up paddle.......


Martial arts, don't forget martial arts athletes, they're barefooted too.