Semester 3, Week 3, Day 2

My daughter took a late nap again last night.  I tried to get her to eat before going to bed so we we went to bed late but she didn't eat much. i got her to eat some chocolate covered raisins and gave er some peanut butter on a spoon.  She ate some then I looked over and the peanut butte was running down the spoon.  I asked her if she wanted to sleep and she practically cried it so I cleaned her up and off to bed we went. She is going to be HUNGRY when she wakes up! I already have 2 discussion boards and 2 quizzes done for this week.  Remaining are a discussion post and a test for Herbs.  Herbs has a test literally every week.  There is no pausing it. There is no retaking it. Which means, if the kids need me in the middle of the test, and I have to pause in taking it, I'm screwed. It's like having a final exam every week. I wish the kids would nap at the same time so I could do them without issue.  It's the 3rd week and my grade is already down to a 92 because of these things and I've only done one so far.  I do think they will let me get the reading done for this class. There isn't much.  They seem to want to read my thicker books. Today I get to check skullcap and ginger. I was going over my list yesterday and I know I had decided NOT to redo the herbs I had talked about previously which is those from first semester but I realized my herbarium entries for first semester are not as good as for last semester.  One herb from first semester didn't make it into an herbarium. Therefore, I'm going to start over on my herbs, starting tomorrow. I will also update my herbariums with the information. Just to be clear, the REQUIREMENTS for the therapeutic actions, constituents and indications is to just pick between one and 3. I'll add the rest. My entries for this semester have all of them since I put that stuff in before the semester started. The first 2 semesters don't. I also plan to eventually write up an herbarium entry for all of the herbs in my lab kits. For first semester, it is simply adding red clover which is useful for menopause though the science goes both ways. I think it deserves a bit of attention. I leave you with the last discussion post before we get back into herbs. This one is on reflexes. Have a great day!

This week you will learn about reflex pathways.  One classic example is the patellar tendon reflex.  Please, describe the pathway of this reflex.  Also, since the brain (CNS) is not directly involved in the reflex pathway, how is the intensity of the response will be affected? Feel free to share the reflex pathway of any other reflex of your choice. Have fun with it 😊
 
I found this reading QUITE interesting.  When I was going through my physicals to retire from the Air Force, the Army doc tried hitting my knee to get the appropriate response. He didn’t get it. He got out his hammer and got a little bit of a response.  According to out text book, page 523, I have “inhibitory signals bombard(ing) the lower motor neurons” (marieb and Hoehn, 2019). Now I’m wondering how to fix that…  LOL If the signals are working correctly, the doctor will need to stand to the side or risk getting kicked…  The doctor should also be able to just hit the knee with his fingers instead of having to get out the rubber hammer.

I decided to explore this a bit more because reflexes are important, especially with little ones around! Ginnaneschi et al. stated “although the knee jerk reflex is mediated by the L3 and L4 nerve roots, evidence exists that altered knee jerk expression may occur with exclusively L5 radiculopathy”. I find that quite interesting…  I decided to let my fingers do some walking on over to page 218 in our text book to make sure I remembered correctly.  These are the last 3 vertebrae in the lumbar section of the spine. This is the section where I suffered years of back pain (then it was even worse when a certain female carried 2 babies in the womb). Ginnaneschi et al. inferred “an impairment of the proprioceptive drive from the pretibial muscles to spinal premotor excitatory interneurons contacting quadriceps motor neurons is the main causative factor responsible for reducing knee jerk expression”. Interesting, right?

I’m actually still looking for anything that can be done to fix this naturally but I’m willing to bet a good chiropractor can fix it right up!  If I find anything interesting, I’ll add to the post.
 
Ginanneschi, F., Mondelli, M., Piu, P., & Rossi, A. (2015). Pathology of knee jerk reflex abnormalities in L5 root injury. Functional Neurology. 30(3):187-191.
Marieb, E. N. & Hoehn, K. (2019). Human Anatomy & Physiology 11th Edition. Hoboken, New Jersey. Pearson Education, Inc.