6 Tips to Take Care of Your Leather Holster

6 Tips to Take Care of Your Leather Holster

Most shooters opt for leather holsters as they have a lot of advantages. For instance, they are better than synthetic holsters. Moreover, they are durable. However, they are more prone to wear and tear and other types of damage. So, you need to take a few steps in order to make sure your product will stand the test of time. Given below are 6 tips that may help you take good care of your leather holster.

Keep it safe from animals

While it may sound weird, animals love to chew on leather stuff. So, it's better to keep your dog away from your holster. If you don't have a pet dog, be aware of rodents, squirrels, rats or mice. Therefore, you may want to keep your leather stuff far away from the reach of these animals.

Keep it Clean

Long-term exposure to dirt, blood, dust or seat may also shorten the life of your holster. So, it's better that you keep your gun carrier clean and dry at all times. Typically, it's enough to wipe it down with a rag, but it's even better to make use of a special cleaning product.

Stretch it

Often, leather holsters will fit the type of gun you may have, but the initial fit will be tight. You will have to wait for a while to let the carrier stretch for a smooth draw. For this, you can put your gun in a bag and then stuff it into the carrier. Doing this a couple of times will make the leather stretch for a perfect fit.

Don't Soften it

Typically, leather gun carriers are designed to fit a certain type of gun. This process keeps the leather firm for a proper fit. It's not a good idea to add too much leather conditioners. The reason is that it will make the carrier too soft.

So, what you need to do is opt for cleaning agents that are recommended by the manufacturer.

Avoid Perspiration

All of us sweat throughout the day, especially those of us who live in the warmer countries of the world. Sweat is a mixture of water, oils, and salts. Constant exposure to these elements will cause damage to the structure of the gun holster. So, make sure you protect your carrier form too much sweat.

Dry properly

Just like sweat, moisture may also cause a lot of damage to the leather holster. It may result in a lot of issues, such as mold. Therefore, you should try your best to keep the product dry. At the same time, you should never use heat in order to dry the leather when wet.

If the gun holder is wet, all you need to do is put it in a dry place. It will dry in a few minutes or hours based on the weather conditions. Putting it in the direct sunlight is not a good idea.

In short, these are a few tips that you should follow if you want to keep your leather gun holster in good condition

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6 Mistakes to Avoid When Buying Running Shoes

Since there is a huge variety of shoes out there, opting for the right pair of sports shoes is not an easy job. Therefore, you may end up making some mistakes. In this article, we are going to discuss a few common mistakes that people make in this process. This will help you put together a better shoe-buying strategy.

Caring too much about the Design

Although there is no harm in looking fashionable on the ground, it shouldn't be an obsession. In other words, you can buy a stylish pair of running shoes but they shouldn't be your number one priority. Actually, what you need to do is consider these shoes as something that can help you give better performance.

Buying New Models Online

If you have found a type of shoe that fits you well, you can place an order online instead of heading to a physical shop to make the purchase. This is a much convenience choice.

On the other hand, if you are thinking of buying a new model or brand, you might want to go to a specialty store so you can try on different models to buy the right one. So, buying new brands or models online is not a good idea in this case.

Not Caring about the Shoe Size

Shoe sizes are important regardless of the brand you like. With time, your shoe size will keep on changing. Therefore, if you are going to purchase a new pair, make sure you measure your feet again.

Ignoring the Fit

If a shoe doesn't fit you, it will be useless for you. So, the fit of a sports shoe is the most important factor that you might want to consider when you are going to buy a new shoe. If the fit is not perfect, other things like the heel snugness, toe box room or shoe volume are of no use.

What you need to do is make certain that the shoe upper matches the shape of your foot and won't irritate your feet. Also, the lacing design is an important factor to consider to ensure your shoe is secure and comfortable.

Buying in the Morning

Here it's important to note that your feet expand slightly by the end of the day. After you get up, they keep on swelling and will be the largest by 4 pm. Therefore, it's better to wait until the afternoon to buy a pair of running shoes. This way you can avoid buying a pair that is too big or too small.

Not Wearing Running Socks

The thinness or thickness of your socks can make a difference between a shoe that fits and one that does not. So, what you need to do is try on a pair with the socks you usually wear. This will help you make sure that the pair fits you properly. Trying on a pair of sports shoes without your regular socks on is not a good idea.

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Get Rid of Face Acne & Tanning With Charcoal Face Wash

Men's skin is naturally oily and thus the men's facial skin is very susceptible to several kinds of spots. These spots usually occur due to sun tanning, excessive oily skin and acne.

The spots on the facial skin affect majority of the young men and more than 75% of the male teenagers across the globe. The acne and skin spots usually last till the time men reach their early twenties but for many it lasts for even longer.

These pimples and ugly skin spots are usually caused due to improper skin care during the teenage years and one of the mistakes that the teenager males usually commit is improper cleansing.

In order to prevent tanning and acne, there are several simple preventive steps that can be adopted and one of the major ones is to use the best face wash for men like Whiskers Charcoal Face Wash regularly.

The major reasons that cause face acne and tanning

Overexposure to sun rays

One of the major reasons for skin tanning of men is the overexposure to the sun for long hours. This may be due to the nature of their work or any other reason. The UV ray of the sun to which the skin is exposed harms the skin considerably and causes tanning.

Over-secretion of sebum

Sebum is the naturally produced oil by the sebaceous glands present underneath the skin. The sebaceous glands are sensitive to the male hormone testosterone within the normal levels. The boys in the teenage usually produce the higher levels of the testosterone at the times of puberty that lead to the excessive oil production. Thus, the boys in their teenage usually suffer the most from acne and skin spots.

Letting the bacteria in the skin

For the teenage boys who are vulnerable to pimples and spots, there is an accumulation of the dead skin cells and oil in the skin pores. This creates an optimum condition for Propionibacterium to grow and thrive. This, in turn triggers the inflammation in the facial skin resulting into puss-filled and red bumps on the skin. Apart from these particular hormonal causes, there are also several lifestyles and genetic factors which play a major role in the formation of acne in the males.

Accumulation of the dead cells in the skin pores

With the increasing age, the dead cells of the skin flake off your body and then ultimately come in contact with the sebum which eventually gets trapped in the skin pores. This leads to the formation of the spots on the facial skin.

Shaving

Many men do not take care of their razors and sometimes end up shaving with blunt razors. The usage of the blunt razors, low-quality shaving gel and poor shaving technique lead to irritation and breakouts on the facial skin.

Genetics

Facial skin spots and acne may occur due to the genes inherited from the parents. Those whose fathers had acne and spots on their skin are more susceptible to suffer from the same skin problem.

How to build an ideal skincare regimen to get rid of face acne & tanning?

You should opt to use the best face wash for oily skin like Whiskers Charcoal Face Wash available in the market in the present times which would prevent and calm the spots. The usage of these best face wash for men helps considerably in preventing the spots. Here are some of the most useful tips for men that would help them to keep tanning and acne at bay.

1. First of all, you should cleanse your oily skin very thoroughly twice a day with an effective facial cleansing wash. You should make this a regular skin care regimen which would eventually make your skin feel revitalized and healthy.

2. Once you have cleaned your face with a cleanser, you should then use a toner which helps you in tightening the pores of the skin. One important thing that is to be kept in mind is that the toner that you choose should be formulated for the sensitive skin so that there are no chances of your skin getting irritated under any circumstances.

3. Once you have used a toner, and then apply a moisturizer which would sooth as well as repair all your skin barriers.

4. As men's skin is around 30% tougher than the women's, it is very necessary to use an exfoliating scrub like Whiskers Walnut shell powder face scrub which helps in preventing the dead skin cells from accumulating and blocking the skin pores.

5. You should also avoid using hair styling products which are greasy as they usually slide down on the facial skin and are trapped in the skin pores.

6. In case you notice tanning and pimples on your chest and back, you should necessarily use a body wash or a shower gel which have the rich ingredients like salicylic acid.

7. You should also take a shower at the earliest after your exercise session as sweaty skin increases the chances of bacterial growth on the skin. You should also make it a point to remove all your gym clothes at the earliest and wash them thoroughly before you use it again.

8. In case you sweat more than normal, you should always carry a spare T-shirt so that you can change once your clothes are wet due to heavy perspiration.

9. You should change your razor blade at regular intervals in case you have the issue of shaving bumps. In such cases, you should also avoid shaving very often and too closely.

10. Whenever you have an acne/pimple, you should not under any circumstances scratch or squeeze the pimples. This leads to an even worse outcome as the inflammation increases and at the same time scarring occurs.

Following the above skin care tips and using the Whiskers Charcoal Face Wash regularly would help you in removing the blackheads, impurities, excess sebum and tanning from your skin and give you that much wanted glow on your skin. Use the best face wash for men and see how it brings back the flawless skin that you always wanted.

Charcoal Face Wash by Whiskers is an ultimate fighter equipped with awesome properties of activated charcoal that targets trapped impurities for deep cleansing. It removes excess oil and purifies the skin naturally. Very effective in acne and pollution control. Along with dirt, dust and grime, the Whiskers Charcoal Facewash also eliminates bacteria.

Whiskers Charcoal Facewash cleans out excess oil and impurities in a single wash, leaving your face looking fresh and charming. Face it, a woman prefers a man who can get his hands dirty, but has a clean face & of course a good heart. The power of charcoal, to not just clean the excess oil, but also keep the skin from getting oily soon after, is what makes Whiskers Charcoal Facewash the best facewash for oily skin.

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Overcoming HPV vaccine hesitancy

Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines, which prevent infection with HPV genotypes that cause cervical, anal, vaginal, and penile cancers, are hardly new. The quadrivalent and bivalent HPV vaccines were reviewed in American Family Physician in 2007 and 2010, respectively, and a 9-valent vaccine was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2014. Although long-term studies have yet to demonstrate that HPV vaccines reduce cancer rates, a recent systematic review found that introduction of the quadrivalent vaccine in 9 countries (including the U.S.) was associated with a 90% reduction in infections from the targeted genotypes and similar reductions in genital warts and high-grade cervical abnormalities. Women who receive HPV vaccine are at considerably lower risk for undergoing colposcopy and associated invasive diagnostic or therapeutic procedures.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommends that all boys and girls receive the 3-dose HPV vaccine series at age 11 to 12. However, CDC data from 2014 show that only 40% of girls and 21% of boys had completed the series by age 17. (These percentages increased slightly in 2015.) In contrast, 80% of 13 to 17 year-olds had received meningococcal vaccine, and 88% had received TdaP (tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis) vaccine, which provide protection against serious, but comparably rare, infections. Earlier this year, all 69 National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Centers released a consensus statement expressing concern about persistently low HPV vaccination rates in the U.S. compared to other countries, which they labeled a "serious public health threat."

A 2015 AFP editorial by Drs. Herbert Muncie, Jr. and Alan Lebato examined parental and physician impediments to HPV vaccination. Parents often express concerns about vaccine safety and worry that their children may be more likely to start having sex after receiving the vaccine. Family physicians can reassure parents on both of these questions:

Parental safety concerns about the HPV vaccine increased from 4.5% in 2008 to 16% in 2010, although the reported adverse effects have been minor (e.g., injection site reactions, syncope, dizziness, nausea, headache). Studies have shown that adolescents who receive the HPV vaccine do not initiate sexual activity earlier, nor is their risk of acquiring an STI increased.

In other cases, physicians have been the primary obstacles to vaccination: they are sometimes reluctant to bring up the topic of sex, they believe the vaccine is unnecessary because Pap smears will detect early cervical cancer, or they present the vaccine as "optional" or don't offer it at all. Drs. Muncie and Lebato suggested several effective strategies for improving HPV vaccination rates:

Instead of discussing the vaccine as a means of STI prevention, physicians can present it as a way to prevent cervical cancer in women and oropharyngeal cancer in men. They can mention that immunologic response is greater in younger adolescents, so earlier immunization is prudent. Physicians should encourage HPV vaccine administration at the same time that other adolescent vaccines are given. They should review immunization status at every visit, and administer the HPV vaccine at any time—including during sick visits.

An editorial in AFP's July 15th issue by Drs. Jamie Loehr and Margot Savoy provided additional tips for physicians on addressing and overcoming vaccine hesitancy in general. More immunization resources, including the latest childhood and adult immunization schedules from the ACIP, are available in AFP's Immunizations Topic Collection.

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This post first appeared on the AFP Community Blog.

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Can point-of-care tests reduce inappropriate antibiotic use?

Why do physicians prescribe antibiotics for viral infections when they ought to know better? An editorial from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the August 1st issue of American Family Physician suggests several talking points that may persuade the patient who wants "Vitamin Z" (azithromycin) for his (or his child's) common cold and reviews evidence that delayed antibiotic prescriptions, effective communication strategies, and public commitments to use antibiotics appropriately reduce unnecessary antibiotic use. But what if these interventions aren't enough?

The rapid strep test helps to distinguish a viral sore throat from streptococcal pharyngitis. In patients with an intermediate pre-test probability, a negative rapid strep test lowers the post-test probability of strep enough for doctors (and most patients) to feel comfortable withholding antibiotics. Wouldn't it be nice if other point-of-care tests could effectively rule out bacterial infections and curb antibiotic prescribing in patients with acute respiratory symptoms?

Procalcitonin seems ready to go. A FPIN Clinical Inquiry in the July 1st issue of AFP evaluated the effects of a procalcitonin-guided antibiotic therapy algorithm on antibiotic use and clinical outcomes. A Cochrane review and meta-analysis of 14 randomized, controlled trials (RCTs) comparing procalcitonin-guided to standard care in European adults with acute respiratory infections found that patients in the procalcitonin group received 3.47 fewer days of antibiotic therapy with no differences in 30-day mortality or treatment failure. In a single RCT of 337 children presenting to pediatric emergency departments in Switzerland, patients in the procalcitonin group were as likely as the standard care group to receive antibiotic prescriptions, but received nearly 2 fewer days of therapy.

C-reactive protein (CRP): the jury is still out. A Cochrane for Clinicians examined the performance of point-of-care measurement of CRP on similar outcomes. Although treatment thresholds varied, most studies considered a CRP level of less than 20 mg per L to suggest a viral infection and no need for antibiotics. A Cochrane review of 6 RCTs conducted in primary care settings (mostly in adults) in Europe and Russia found that groups assigned to CRP-assisted evaluation were 22 percent less likely to receive antibiotic prescriptions for acute respiratory infections, with no differences in clinical improvement at day 7, complications, or mortality. However, Dr. Irbert Vega observed in the Practice Pointers that "the meta-analysis did not identify an optimal algorithm and therefore should be considered proof of concept until further research can be performed, including research in the U.S. population."

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This post first appeared in a different form on the AFP Community Blog.

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Reflections on my summer publications

When I haven't been blogging, editing, teaching, or seeing patients this summer, I have experienced the satisfaction of having reports of a couple of my longer-term projects appear in medical journals. In contrast to a blog post, which can be conceived, written, and published in a few hours (although the thought process often takes much longer), the timeline from submission to publication in a journal is usually several months at a minimum.

For example, in the spring of 2014, after having helped to develop a search tool for primary care-relevant Choosing Wisely recommendations, I wondered what proportion of these recommendations were based on evidence of patient-oriented outcomes, as opposed to expert consensus. I convinced a collaborator, a family physician at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, to help me apply the Strength of Recommendation Taxonomy (SORT) to 224 different recommendations that had been generated by various medical specialty societies. It took many hours of working on our own and several conference calls to complete this project, which we presented at the Preventing Overdiagnosis conference at the National Institutes of Health last September. We then wrote the paper and submitted it to what we thought was an appropriate journal, but the editors of the journal (which will remain nameless) disagreed, rejecting it without even sending it for peer review. So we resubmitted it to the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, which accepted it after peer review and revision and finally published it in their July/August issue. Here is the bottom line:

We found that a majority of primary care–relevant Choosing Wisely recommendations are based on expert consensus or disease-oriented evidence. In light of other factors that drive unnecessary medical interventions, such as patient satisfaction and fee-for-service reimbursement, this may make it more difficult to convince clinicians to change established practices. Further research is warranted to strengthen the evidence base supporting these recommendations in order to improve their acceptance and implementation into primary care.

Not long afterward, the journal Family Medicine published a book review that I wrote about Dr. Robert Taylor's enjoyable and useful What Every Medical Writer Needs to Know. I love reading good books about the process of writing, medical or otherwise, and recommended it highly:

Although students and novice writers may want to purchase a more traditional and/or less expensive book on the craft, I recommend What Every Medical Writer Needs to Know as a valuable resource not only for “serious” medical authors who write for a living but for family physicians and clinicians who write occasionally for publication and would enjoy learning more about the inspiring history of the profession.

After it was published, a residency mentor, whom I credit for giving me my start in medical writing, e-mailed me to say that he had decided to purchase a copy of the book based on my review!

Although blogging has advantages over traditional medical publications (perhaps my favorite being that I get to be the writer and the editor), I am glad that I invested the time to be published in these family medicine journals.

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Should we look for pulmonary emboli in patients with syncope?

The standard evaluation of patients with syncope has changed little over the years, with considerable continuity between American Family Physician reviews published in 2005, 2011, and this March. But the field received an unexpected jolt last October, when Dr. Paolo Prandoni and colleagues published a cross-sectional study in the New England Journal of Medicine that calculated a surprisingly high prevalence of pulmonary embolism (PE) of 17.3% in patients hospitalized for a first episode of syncope. In this study, 230 of 560 patients at 11 Italian hospitals who did not have a low pretest probability of PE by the Wells rule and negative D-dimer assay underwent computed tomographic pulmonary angiography (CTPA) or ventilation-perfusion lung scans. 97 of these patients had evidence of PE. Overall, the investigators identified PE in 25% of patients with no alternative explanation for syncope and 13% of patients with an alternative explanation.

Algorithms for syncope evaluation focus on identifying cardiac and neurally mediated causes and do not include routine testing for PE. The question raised by the Italian study is if all inpatients with syncope need evaluation, since nearly 1 in 6 patients may have PE. There are good reasons not to jump to this conclusion. First, we don't know if the prevalence of PE in this study was representative of the general population of adults hospitalized for syncope, as it only included patients admitted from emergency departments (and not patients initially evaluated in primary care settings). Second, the study did not determine if PE was the etiology of syncope, as opposed to an incidental finding. This is important because evidence suggests that the enhanced sensitivity of CTPA for detecting small, subsegmental PE is increasing overdiagnosis and overtreatment of clinically insignificant clots. Finally, the absence of a comparison group means that it is not known if the systematic workup for PE improved the patients' prognoses or just added additional cost and risk to the evaluation.

A retrospective cross-sectional study in JAMA Internal Medicine recently used clinical and administrative data from 4 hospitals in Toronto to estimate the prevalence of PE in 1305 patients with a first episode of syncope who were not receiving anticoagulation at the time of admission. 120 of these patients received CTPA, ventilation-perfusion scan, and/or compression ultrasonography, leading to the diagnosis of PE in 18 patients. As opposed to the Italian study, where all persons received at least a D-dimer test, the decision to evaluate for PE was driven by clinical judgment. Nonetheless, of 146 patients in the Toronto study who received any test for PE (presumably those who were most likely to have one), only 12% were positive, and the overall prevalence of PE was a mere 1.4%. The authors concluded that "there is little, if any, justification for routine testing for [venous thromboembolism] in all patients hospitalized for a first episode of syncope."

Based on both studies, I agree that evidence does not support routinely looking for PEs in patients with syncope. In patients with possible signs or symptoms, another clinical decision rule may be used to confidently rule out the diagnosis without resorting to the less sensitive Wells rule or less specific D-dimer test, where a positive result often leads to unnecessary CTPA.

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A slightly different version of this post first appeared on the AFP Community Blog.

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