Main » October 2005
October 26, 2005
Over medicated
/\/ewsTarget Insider Alert (www.NewsTarget.com)
Bringing you the inside story on topics that matter
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(Please forward to others who may benefit)
I thought you might enjoy this hilarious look at new words to
describe our over-medicated society:
Medheads - People who take multiple prescription drugs on a daily
basis and, as a result, suffer from brain fog. They can be young (ADHD,
depression drugs), middle-aged (cholesterol drugs, diabetes drugs) or
elderly (Alzheimer's drugs, osteoporosis drugs, etc.). These are the
people you see on the road who drive for ten miles with their turn
signal on, who swing wide into the left lane before making a right
turn, and who take four full seconds to accelerate after the traffic
light turns green. Medheads. Not to be confused with Deadheads (who
are actually a lot more fun to talk to).
Black boxer - A consumer who takes drugs that are so dangerous, the
FDA requires the drug packaging to carry a large black box warning
about severe harm or death. Black boxers usually don't care about the
long-term harm to their health, they just want the pain (or other
symptom) to go away so they can get back to watching prime-time
television in relative comfort.
Drug madvertising - The practice of allowing drug companies to
advertise patented chemicals directly to consumers in order to create
demand for drugs that everyday people frankly do not understand. Every
country in the world bans the practice of Direct-To-Consumer (DTC)
drug advertising... except the United States, of course, where
consumers are subjected to a never-ending barrage of ridiculous drug
ads showing happy, healthy people popping purple pills they would
never consume in real life. Of all industrialized nations in the world,
only the U.S. (with the ever-caring support of the Food and Drug
Administration) endorses drug madvertising.
News repeater - Not be confused with a news reporter, a news repeater
is a person who gets paid to pretend to be a member of the press, but
who actually just regurgitates whatever health / medical news the drug
companies and the FDA are peddling this week. New miracle breast
cancer drug discovered! Vitamin E may kill you! Sunlight is deadly!
Don't trust Canadians (or their pharmacists)! Deadly, dangerous
Chinese herbs may have possibly killed someone somewhere! Drug
companies need billions of dollars in drug profits to find the cure
for cancer! Evidence-based medicine is credible! These are the type of
headlines constructed by news repeaters.
Fictitious disease - A fabricated disease invented for the sole
purpose of creating a new market for patented drugs. ADHD is the prime
example of a fictitious disease, and the psychiatric community is now
well-practiced at labeling human behaviors "brain chemistry imbalances
that need to be treated with chemicals." Other fictitious diseases
include high cholesterol (it's not a disease, it's just a symptom),
hypertension (also not a disease, but rather a symptom), and even
osteoporosis (not a disease, just fragile bones caused by dietary and
lifestyle habits that can be easily reversed).
Diseasification - The process of spreading the fictitious diseases
through the population. This is how drug companies get rich: by
manufacturing disease and convincing people they now suddenly suffer
from it. See "Spontaneous Mass Diagnosis," below. Diseasification is
greatly aided by drug madvertising (mass propaganda) designed to
change the way people think about health and disease. Fear of public
speaking used to merely be a fear. Now it's a disease, and there's a
drug to treat it. Menopause used to be menopause. Now it's a disease,
too. The former head of Merck, a man named Gadsden, once said he
wished to expand the drug market to healthy people, so he wouldn't be
limited to selling drugs only to sick people. He wanted people to take
drugs like they chew gum. What a visionary! (See Selling Sickness to
learn more.)
Spontaneous mass diagnosis - The process of redefining health in
order to instantly label as many consumers as possible with a
fictitious disease. Spontaneous mass diagnosis works by moving the
goalposts that define a disease state. A "normal" level of LDL
cholesterol used to be 130. Last year, a panel of corrupt medical
decision makers with under-the-table financial ties to drug companies
spontaneously decided that "normal" LDL cholesterol should be 100.
Overnight, ten million more Americans were suddenly afflicted with the
fictitious disease of high cholesterol. And the treatment for this
spontaneous disease? Statin drugs, of course. The aim of Big Pharma is
to make sure everyone fits the definition of at least one disease,
because the prescription drug lords know that once a person gets on
one prescription drug, the inevitable side effects will create other
health problems that need to be treated with even more drugs. Instant
recurring revenue! Now that's a clever marketing plan!
The Wall - Short for Walgreens, one of the top street corner
pharmacies in America. The Wall is where medheads and black boxers go
to buy dangerous drugs to treat their fictitious diseases because
they've been subjected to spontaneous mass diagnosis.
Permission is granted to repost, reprint or reproduce this satire
article in its entirety as long as no changes are made and credit is
given to the Health Ranger + a link to http://www.NewsTarget.
com/012580.html
Posted by Sclero Crusader at 9:09 AM | Comments (768)
October 23, 2005
Bernie Siegel is God!
Do you know who Bernie Siegel is? He's a great cancer surgeon who got tired of watching people die and started questioning modern medicine. He has some great books out. I heard an interview on the radio with him on Friday and he said (I'm paraphrasing): "The way to avoid getting killed by our medical system is to be a pain in the ass. Buck the system. Make them know who you are, not just a number or a disease. That is survivor behavior." That is what I teach to my sclero friends. I really hope this helps you somehow.
Posted by Sclero Crusader at 7:51 AM | Comments (801)
October 19, 2005
My favorite supplement for scleroderma
From the "Life-Enhancement" website sited below. this is a great explanation of my favorite supplement for Scleroderma: L-Arginine:
"Arginine Boosts Insulin Sensitivity and Cardiovascular Function
Major age-related health problems can benefit from this amino acid
ARGININE ALSO PROTECTS AGAINST HEART DISEASE
Arginine's effects (through its release of NO) on decreasing blood pressure and increasing blood flow are also central to its role in helping to protect against heart disease. They explain the ability of arginine to improve exercise capacity, even in patients with congestive heart failure (a chronic weakening of the heart’s pumping capacity).2 And they explain arginine's ability to decrease pulmonary vascular resistance (a measure of the resistance of blood vessels to the flow of blood through them) in the lungs of patients with pulmonary hypertension.3 (Pulmonary refers to the lungs.)
OK, but what is pulmonary hypertension? It's high blood pressure in the lungs - not a good thing. It comes about gradually as a consequence of untreated respiratory failure. And what is that? Respiratory failure is a condition in which oxygen levels in the blood become dangerously low, or carbon dioxide levels become dangerously high. It results from an inadequate exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between the lungs and the blood, or from an inadequate movement of air in and out of the lungs. And those defects can be caused by many different diseases or conditions that affect one's ability to breathe properly. A few examples are chronic bronchitis, asthma, emphysema, muscular dystrophy, and obesity.
PULMONARY HYPERTENSION IS A MAJOR THREAT
Let's review that chain of events in the reverse order (the order in which the events actually occur). Someone with one of those breathing-impairment conditions may develop respiratory failure, which is manifested as poor oxygenation of the blood. This can lead to pulmonary hypertension as the cardiovascular system tries to compensate for the oxygen deficiency. The pulmonary hypertension comes about through a constriction of the blood vessels, and this increases the pulmonary vascular resistance, because the now narrower inner diameter of the blood vessels tends to impede blood flow.
All in all, this is bad news, because regardless of what caused the respiratory failure in the first place, pulmonary hypertension will damage the blood vessels, further impairing oxygenation. And poor oxygenation will eventually cause heart failure and other malfunctions of the heart and brain. Finally, death pays a visit.
ARGININE REDUCES PULMONARY HYPERTENSION
But didn't we say that arginine could help with pulmonary hypertension? Yes - and a recently published study from Japan gives new evidence of that fact.4 The study was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial on 19 patients (average age 49) with pulmonary hypertension. Oral arginine supplementation was followed by hemodynamic (blood-flow) testing and cardiopulmonary exercise testing, using a number of different measurement techniques that need not concern us. Let's just see the results.
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Arginine's effects (through its release of NO)
on decreasing blood pressure and increasing
blood flow are also central to its role in
helping to protect against heart disease.
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With a dose of 0.5 g of arginine per 10 kg of body weight (equivalent to 4 g for a 175-lb person), there was a 9% drop in pulmonary arterial pressure and a 16% drop in pulmonary vascular resistance 60 minutes after administration, indicating improved blood flow. For evaluation of exercise capacity, a dose of 1.5 g of arginine per 10 kg of body weight (equivalent to 12 g for a 175-lb person) was administered daily for one week. The patients were then tested while riding an exercise bicycle. With arginine (but not placebo) there was an 8% increase in peak oxygen consumption, associated with a 12% increase in peak work load, indicating improved cardiovascular function."
You can read more at:
http://www.life-enhancement.com/le/article_template.asp?ID=611
Posted by Sclero Crusader at 10:44 AM | Comments (1464)
October 13, 2005
With thanks to Dr. Joseph Mercola:
Ponderisms from Dr. Joseph Mercola
Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.
Some people are like Slinkies. Not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs.
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
Have you noticed since everyone has a camcorder these days no one talks about seeing UFOs like they used to?
Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.
Posted by Sclero Crusader at 9:12 AM | Comments (110)
October 7, 2005
Scleroderma, healthcare and the me generation!
I just heard from one of my online Sclero friends who said she had dinner last night with 2 of her friends who are both negotiating the healthcare "nightmare" - for different reasons. This got me to thinking. Funny, most of the friends I have who go thru the healthcare "nightmare" are the smart ones. The ones who just do what they're told and, honestly, I don't think they worry about living or dieing, just go for their annual physicals and take the drugs they're handed. Have the hysterectomies. One of my best friends moved to Montana and so we've pretty much given up regular contact and she had melanoma about 5 years ago. They look a BIG piece out of her flesh along with the mole, gave her some tests and sent her on her way. So for the last 5 years, everytime a gland swells she thinks it's metastasized and she's ready to jump off a building. Being physically ill has wrecked her mentally, she's a "smart" girl, too. My other "best" friend has breast cancer and had everything possible removed to keep it from coming back and now it is in her spine and inoperable. She goes to Dana Farber Hospital in Boston and gets very good care and I swear she's not worried about it. She just does what they tell her. Hey, if this keeps up the average life expectancy for American women will be back down to 40! What the heck happened to our generation? Atomic testing? a bad vaccine? processed food? flouride? Saturday morning TV? microwaves? Heavy metal music? just living thru the '80's? AIDS started with our generation so you have to wonder. Have you heard the recent links between breast cancer and just having electricity? I don't know kiddies, where is it all leading?
________________
Todays lesson: We're all screwed.
Posted by Sclero Crusader at 6:01 AM | Comments (108)
October 6, 2005
Scleroderma? Not today, I've had enough!
I have a lot to say about this subject but I really find that I work better with an audience! Hello, hello is there anybody out there? All comments would be appreciated.
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So, let's say you're the typical autoimmune disease suffering person: a young woman, early to mid 20's blissfully skipping along thru life and then, one day, wow, your fingers turn blue when you are cold! Weird! But it doesn't hurt and there's no blood so it must be no big deal, right? Well, we'll see. Maybe you tell your mom and she says you'd better go to a Dr. So you do, expecting a quick answer and a quick solution, because, well, this CAN'T be anything big - it's not CANCER for God's sake! Your Dr. takes a look and, knowing you since childhood, is hoping for the best, so he says "Don't worry about it. Stay warm. Very common in women." OR He doesn't know you very well so he doesn't care how you react and says "OH MY GOD!!! YOU ARE A VERY SICK YOUNG WOMAN! GET THEE TO A MAJOR TEACHING HOSPITAL!!!" So you make your appointment, like a good little dubey, confused and frightened and amazed that this could be such a big deal. Maybe you do some research on the net or library, hmmm... blue fingers, fingers that turn color in response to cold ... Raynaud's disease or phenomenon. Disease=a primary condition, no big deal? Phenom=linked to several devastating autoimmune conditions. It takes you up to 6 months to get in to see the specialist. During that time you've gone thru all the stages of grief, you think. You get there, prepared to accept the worst and the expert says: "You don't have enough wrong with you, go live your life." What??? NOT ENOUGH WRONG? But, but ... I have this ... and this ... "Go away, now. NEXT!" The specialist proclaims. You've got a choice because something is obviously wrong with you. A) you believe him and go on in blissful ignorance; B) you don't buy it and start looking for your own answers. I recommend B.
Posted by Sclero Crusader at 10:37 AM | Comments (1)
October 2, 2005
Scleroderma and the power of the placebo
From the article "Big Pharma Bad Karma" on www.goanimal.com:
"...disease by definition
To understand Big Pharma’s power over our health, it’s important to understand how disease is managed in large populations. Most medical conditions are defined by a set of numbers. If we broaden the range of those numbers, even slightly, and apply it to a population of millions of people, the consequences can be profound.
For example, think about the numbers that are attached to your blood pressure. If it’s above X, you’re officially "diseased" and a candidate for medication. If it’s below X, you’re "healthy." But X is determined, not by some perfect medical formula, but by consensus within the medical community. Exact cut-off points are debatable and relative.
This is where Big Pharma steps in. If they can expand the statistical definition of a disease, even by a small margin, they can cash in. One or two percentage points, spread across America or better yet, the world, adds up to millions of newly created patients. Thus it comes as no surprise to hear that Big Pharma has become an active participant in the process of defining disease. By pouring money and influence into experts, conferences and journals, Big Pharma stretches the definitions and expands the patient pool.
the power of suggestion
It would be one thing if human disease was a matter of absolutes, but it's not. Social and cultural forces play an immensely powerful role in determining how we interpret our physical experience. Is obesity a disease? Workaholism? Weak sexual desire? Social anxiety? It’s easy to imagine situations in which any physical sensation or experience of the human body might be labeled as health or disease, depending on the context.
Our health is the product, not simply of genetics and biochemistry, but also of human influence. As intensely social animals, we pay close attention to the physical well-being of our families and friends. If people in the tribe speak of getting one disease or another, we naturally begin to wonder if such afflictions are part of our experience as well. If everyone around us is complaining about headaches or low back pain, we may very well decide to join the gang.
Have you ever noticed how trendy diseases can be? One month it’s eating disorders, the next month it’s carpal tunnel syndrome, fibromyalgia or irritable bowel syndrome. None of these conditions even existed 100 years ago, but now they’re "epidemic." Similarly, medical students frequently observe how closely their physical sensations parallel the conditions that they're studying. "Med student's disease" is legendary.
Big Pharma is well aware that disease is creatable; they know full well that their customers are vulnerable to suggestion. By manipulating images, ideas and narratives, they shape the way people think about their bodies and in turn, their health..."
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What does this have to do with anything you ask? Well just yesterday I saw another desperate post on one of the BB's I belong to from a woman who's relative is in bad shape from sclero. I suggested to her weeks ago: 1) See your assigned Drs.; 2) Find a way to see a sclero "expert"; 3) If you couldn't get satisfaction from these 2 sources call the RoadBack people. If I was on my last leg, that's who I would call. They believe you can cure this with antibiotics. Probably not the ideal situation for a "last resort" because it can take months to kick in. But standard medicine will admit they can't "cure" this. She reported that the relative had contacted the antibiotic folks and got herself on a program but gave it up because her normal Dr. told her it wouldn't work. These people were doing nothing else for her and then they had to say that the little bit she was doing wasn't going to work anyway. What is up with that? Aside from the fact that an infection triggering a sclero patient's body to go haywire to begin with is not completely out of the realm of possibility, there is always the placebo effect to consider.
The Placebo Effect has a negative connotation however, I recently read an article by a mainstream health practitioner lamenting the use of alternative meds because it robbed physicians of "the power of the placebo". He believed that a MD has an invaluable role in prescribing meds just because his status as an authoritarian will cause patients to believe in their cure. A bit backwards, if you ask me.
Sangeeta Iyer, in their online Bryn Mawr article in the http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro00/web2/Iyer.html Healing is Believing: The Placebo Effect says this about placebos:
"...The power of the placebo and its effects on the human body call to question the power of the mind and general medical practice today. The power of a thought, although delusional, has the ability to create physical changes in the body. To diminish painful symptoms that would otherwise need expensive medications. Why is this type of treatment not cared to be prescribed as often? Why is it being overlooked by medical practicioners throughout the nation even though it provides measurable results just as any experimental drug?..."
TODAY'S LESSON: Don't let an MD rob you of your hope!
Posted by Sclero Crusader at 9:36 AM | Comments (12)
October 1, 2005
Giving Scleroderma the Finger
Hi - sorry I've been MIA for a whole week! I'm fine, I've just been busy. That's part of what's so crazy about this condition. You can look fine and you can be busy with other things, but it's always there in the background. Right now I have a nasty finger ulcer on my right index finger. It requires peroxide, antibiotics and redressing twice a day. It's only been a month and a half and it's showing signs of healing but they hurt worse as they heal! It starts to feel more like a burn and you just want to rip the skin off. My good friend who also has this condition says "Don't rip it off!" She told me about a "nice" way to remove the dead skin by putting your hand in a bowl of water and running an egg beater in the other side of the bowl. I'm NOT that coordinated! I've also been trying to get off the NSAIDS. When I have a finger ulcer I usually have to take at least 1, sometimes 2, Aleve a day. After a few weeks of this I noticed that I am shorter of breath than normal so I think they are affecting my heart. I'm looking into Bromolain as a replacement (it's a natural substance from pineapples, anti-inflammatory). I'm also adding L-carnitine to my vitamin regimen. It's supposed to help with heart function and O2 disbursement. We'll see. By the way it is a BEAUTIFUL day!
Posted by Sclero Crusader at 8:51 AM | Comments (0)
