Lupus Never Looked So Good

***My friends and readers with Fibromyalgia: PLEASE READ THIS.  You are currently one of the top groups of people being targeted for Homeopathic scams due to the difficulty involved with treating your symptoms.***

Day 12 of Nation Health Blog Post Month has prompted me to “Call BS on something.  What is something that is just ridiculous?”

And the answer to that is a dangerous epidemic in the health world: homeopathy.  Homeopathy is an absurd, baseless placebo treatment that is somehow RAPIDLY growing in popularity!  The aisles at CVS are stocked with “homeopathic remedies” or everything from weight loss to migraines, and some people are opting for homeopathic treatment for serious illnesses like Depression, Arthritis, or even Cancer.  

Our culture is starting to seek more natural treatments in a society of over-medication, and nothing could make me happier.  A quick glace through my Highlighted Posts and you’ll plainly see that I’m an advocate for natural medicine and healthy living.  But all of the natural medicines and remedies linked to in my blog are grounded in science, and shown to have the affects claimed backed by studies.  Of which, homeopathy has NONE.  

Homeopathy claims to be harnessing the healing power of water.  But not in the obvious way that you might think (of course, water is extremely healing and we should all be drinking more of it).  No, this hilarious quack science is claiming that water “has memory” and that memory can be harnessed to trick your body into curing itself of whatever ails it.  Supposedly, if you dilute the poison or toxin that is ailing you in enough water, it will cause the affects to magically reverse!  But here’s the thing: water doesn’t have “memory”.  And there’s absolutely zero evidence to suggest that this works at all.

Now, placebos can have positive affects for people with psychosomatic symptoms, and that’s lovely really.  But I don’t care about psychosomatic symptoms.  I care about the truly sick, who are lost and vulnerable and scared who are being roped in and exploited for their illness by these money-grubbing schemes.  

That said, there are plenty of alternative medicines that have evidence behind their worth, and the pharmaceutical world being what it is, not all of these treatments will ever be properly recognized.  And that would be alright, as long as people did their research before taking something they truly believe will cure them.

If you’re thinking about taking a Homeopathic remedy anytime soon, please remember that you’re essentially swallowing a pill full of prayer and wishes.  Nothing will change, and if you have a serious condition, you are wasting time that could be spent treating yourself properly.  And if you ever recommend a Homeopathic treatment (or any other similar sham) to someone, you are yourself a manipulative con artist in training and you should feel bad.

I truly hope that anyone considering Homeopathic treatments please watch these videos before subjecting yourself to this nonsense.  Drink a glass of water at home and save your money for real medicine!

Richard Dawkins debunks Homeopathy

Sarah Jarvis responding to the Bullshit that is Homeopathy

Legendary fraud debunker, professional conjurer, and skeptic James Randi discusses Homeopathy on TED

chronicillnesscat:

[Image: 6-piece blue colored background with a Siamese cat.Text reads: top:”You’re a healthy young woman.” bottom: ARE YOU F*NG KIDDING ME?!]

I’ve had lupus and fibro since I was a child, over twenty years and only got it diagnosed five years ago after my daughter was born.  Every doctor, every family member, every friend who I didn’t see very often had this to say to me.  Yeah. I wish I was a ‘healthy young woman.’  Lupus and fibro suck.

I have a LOT of bitterness towards this, because that exact sentence was used to dismiss my heart symptoms for YEARS by multiple doctors and ER’s.  It just goes to show how misunderstood Lupus is, even within the medical community.  Thankfully I found a doctor who was aware of the risks between Lupus and heart conditions and took the time to figure out what was going on.

cakesandhippyshakes:

atomss:

people that DO NOT have them like 95% of the time want to convince you, the sufferer, for whatever reason, that your symptoms are NOT related to your disease.

OH IT’S A COLD PROBABLY, EVERYONE IS SICK THIS TIME OF YEAR

OH I’M REALLY TIRED TOO YOU’RE JUST TIRED

shit like that.

OH THANKS DOCTOR FUCKING KNOWS EVERYTHING THANKS SO MUCH I’M CURED NOW LOOK NO MORE HEART FAILURE. 

or kidney failure. 

or fibromyalgia.

This is funny because I’ve even experienced some people WITH autoimmune diseases doing this same thing.  People underestimate on the whole how connected our body’s systems are.  And yes, you may just have a cold.  But regardless of what it is, your body is reacting to those same germs/virus’/bacteria in a completely different way than a person with a healthy and functioning immune system would.  And because of that, you are going to need to treat it differently.  

I’ve chalked this up to our society and misinformation.  Sickness is not really well explained to most people, so the average person doesn’t even really know *why* everyone gets a cold at a certain time of year, or *why* they are so much more tired today than they usually are.  If they understood more of the mechanics behind their own healthy bodies, I think they’d more easily understand why ours work differently.

A new study in Health Services Research shows that one of the leading reasons for Chronic Illness complications is due to the overwhelming amount of appointments with several different specialists each year.  

In younger patients, even those with more than one Chronic Illness to manage, the tendency to keep track of their appointments than an older patient with only one illness.

This seems to be something close to common sense, as we get older our symptoms increase in severity, our tolerance for pain goes down, we get tired, etc.  But that doesn’t mean this should be an issue.  

Because we see so many different specialists, it generally means that our doctors are not affiliated with one another, or connected in any way.  That leaves the responsibility up to us to make sure that each doctor knows all details, and that we keep up with each of them regularly in addition to when necessary.  This isn’t easy for many of us, especially with the addition of our symptoms.

We’re seeing workshops popping up in various places in America, usually inspired by or run by Eastern practitioners, designed to help sufferers of Chronic Illness become more organized and to stay on top of their medical needs.  Most of the time these workshops are free. 

For starters though, here are some tips:

Give your doctors, ALL your doctors, the express consent and instruction to share all your documents (tests, reports, etc) with each other.  They may act annoyed with you, but don’t have any of that.  Their offices will fax your information if you tell them.  This way, if you forget that your cardiologist noticed heart palpitations the next time you see your nutritionist (or whatever the case may be), you are covered.

Try to book appointments close together.  I know this is not always possible, but keeping your conversations in your recent memory is always helpful.  

Keep a pain/symptom diary.  There are iphone/android/windows phone apps, or you could just jot things down on paper.  But keep it, and bring it with you to each appointment to keep your symptoms straight.  Mark the symptoms with a severity level, probably from 1-10.  I know I have a tendency to play down my symptoms after they’ve gone away, so this will keep me from sabotaging myself in that way.  

Please feel free to add anything…Does anyone have any other suggestions for managing multiple doctors?

Guys, I’m going to be hosting support groups at a few hospitals and libraries in my area soon.  The concept I have down pretty well, it won’t be much different from the things I talk about here on my blog, just in person and with a little more of a sharing environment.  So here’s where I’d like your help.

I’ve felt in the past when going to chronic illness related events that the people hosting them didn’t take our illness into consideration which is QUITE silly.  (I joined an SLE group who took us to the zoo at noon on the hottest, sunniest day of the summer.  We could barely move on the bus ride home.)

So far I know that in addition to the coffee that will be provided, I’m going to have some herbal non-caffeinated tea available since these meetings will take place around 6, and many people won’t be able to have caffeine that late.  My question to you is what other things would you want someone to take into consideration when planning an event like this for you?

I recently posted this to a discussion going on VIA stuffsickpeoplehavetoputupwith, and I thought it would be good to let it stand alone.  Basically, it’s in response to the confusion in regards to Fibromyalgia controversy. 

I’d like to add to the discussion regarding Fibromyalgia. Anyone suggesting that it’s “not real” or “fake” is either misinformed or using their words incorrectly. Those terms suggest that Fibro is a pretend diagnosis of something that’s either in someone’s head or an exaggeration. And this is far from truth.
There is a more educated and valid argument going on, however, suggesting that while Fibromyalgia is a *real* diagnosis, it is an *incomplete* one. This comes from the fact that patients diagnosed with Fibromyalgia are only diagnosed after a doctor has failed to test them positive for anything else. The reason for doing this, as my mother (RN and former President of NYSNA) suggests is that prescribing proper pain regulators to patients with a diagnosed illness makes it easier to cover over insurance purposes (or, at least it used to.)
Also, Fibro patients are often later found to have an illness that was either not originally tested, newly discovered, or in a case where symptoms are vague and irregular (pretty much any chronic illness, like, ever.)
Fibromyalgia patients are not making it up, they are not exaggerating their pain, and they are not being given a fake diagnosis just to shut them up, or whatever people might like to argue. Their pain is real, and their diagnosis is real, just incomplete.
Look at how much we discover in Chronic Illness every day. I’m betting in a nearby future we’ll start to get clearer, crisper definitions of Fibromyalgia.

Also, I need to add that my bit about NYSNA is not to suggest that I’m an authority on the subject, but more so to make sure you know I have SOME knowledge of what I’m saying, I didn’t just pull it out of thin air lol