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Finally Over the Vertigo (Both of Them)

8/3/2013

After 8 weeks of suffering with spinning in my head, I finally had a battery of tests and learned that I was lucky enough to have had not one but two types of vertigo.

The first kind is related to Meniere's Disease, in which fluid builds up in your inner ear, and either the fluid itself or the neurotoxins that trigger the fluid buildup cause your balance center to go wonky and your eyes start twitching, creating the sensation that you are spinning.

The second kind is positional. It is called benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV). And in that lovely condition, you somehow manage to get teeny calcium crystals out of your inner ear and into your semicircular canal. The problem there is that these crystals are part of the system that tells you where you are in space. These crystals tell your brain where up and down are, or where gravity is pulling on you. The semicircular canals are at right angles to one another and they help you sense back/front and side/side movements. But when you get the up/down crystals into the canals that are supposed to sense front/back and side/side, they mess up your whole balance system.

But it wasn't just bad luck that caused me to have two vertigo types at once: apparently the Meniere's can make you more susceptible to BPPV.

Interestingly, I not only had two kinds of vertigo, but had two kinds of nystagmus, the eye twitching that creates the sensation of spinning (even when your eyes are closed). In the first kind, the twitching pulls the eye to the left or right, which makes you feel as if you are spinning like an ice skater. The other kind is torsional. In this kind it is as if there is a skewer through the pupil of your eye and it is being twisted, like the turning of a key. Subjectively, that creates the sensation that you are pivoting around your bellybutton, turning clockwise or counterclockwise.

The good news is that the BPPV has a very simple and pretty reliable cure. It is a kind of exercise called the Epley maneuver, which is designed to shake the crystals back into your head where they belong. In it, you deliberately lie down with your head in the position that makes you spin. Then you wait for the spinning to stop, then slowly turn your head to the other side, wait for the spinning to stop again, then roll all the way over onto the good side, wait for any spinning to stop, then sit up.

Friends have described it as being like their child's toy with a marble inside a transparent, three-dimensional maze. You turn the toy in different dimensions to move the marble to the goal.

Well, the doctor said it would probably take five days (five repetitions of the Epley) to get rid of the vertigo, but the nurse said two weeks. By that time I had been dizzy for two months, so I would have been happy if it had taken the full two weeks. As it turned out, I finally got up the nerve to deliberately make myself spin, did the Epley once, and the next time I did it I had no spinning at all. So one treatment did the trick.

If any of you experience the BPPV or suspect you have it, notice which side makes you spin. In mine, rolling over and lying on my right side made me spin. Tilting my head way up/back or tilting over to the right made me spin. So it was my right side that I needed to focus on in the Epley. That is what the doctors call your "affected side." It is something you can do at home and there are lots of good videos online that show you how to do it. The most important thing is to know which side is your affected side.

Having said that, I hope none of you ever need this advice. Happy August all!
Pat

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Vertigo and Meniere's Disease/Syndrome

6/8/2013

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For the past 3+ weeks I have been dealing with a vertigo episode, or vertigo "attack" as I sometimes call it because it attacks my life and destroys it.

I should be grateful that it typically passes after about 3 weeks, but here I am into the fourth week and I still have to be careful about turning circles or getting out of bed too fast or I'll bring on the dizziness again.

What is vertigo? True vertigo involves the sensation that you are, or the world around you is, spinning. You experience that spinning whether you eyes are open or not, in a bright room or in pitch darkness. In fact, your eyes are darting back and forth as if you really were spinning and viewing the scenery going around you. But apparently the stimulus/response is reversed: the eye movement creates the illusion of spinning.

I was lucky this time. I never went into the spinning. My eyeballs and head felt as if they were dangling at the end of a Slinky. As the days wore on, the Slinky got shorter and less springy. But I never had the bad spinning that causes severe nausea and vomiting. I attribute this small blessing to the fact that I have been on allergy shots again for several years.

My vertigo episodes are triggered by allergies. I get the episodes when I stupidly go out and mow or weed or, in this case, all the above plus chainsaw down a dead juniper in my front yard...without a mask.

The warning signs of an oncoming attack include: a feeling of heat, pressure and fullness in my ears (I feel as if I can hear my pulse throbbing sometimes), ringing in the ears, and sometimes brief moments of lightheadedness.

The inner ear specialist I saw during the previous episode 3 years ago had prescribed B vitamins, especially niacin (to improve blood flow to the brain), and low-dose Valium (to take when I feel the warning signs to abort the attack). I didn't like the hot flashes of the niacin and quit taking the B vitamins. The Valium may have helped abort attacks a couple of times over the past 3 years, but once this episode started the Valium only made me nauseated.

My usual pattern is that for one week I am completely useless. If I'm lucky, as I was this time, I can lie on the couch and watch TV if I keep my head still. But I sleep a lot. (If I'm not lucky, I spend that week taking phenergan suppositories to stop the vomiting and sleeping till it's time for another one.) Then for another 2 weeks I slowly become more functional. Still dizzy but half as dizzy each day. (Unless I do something stupid like trying to go back to my Zumba dance/workout class too soon.) The second and third weeks are characterized by increasing functionality, but anything that requires visual focus or tracking is difficult and very tiring. And that eye strain can bring on or exacerbate the headache I already have from the pressure.

(BTW, Botox injections in my brow and back of the head help prevent or minimize my headaches for about a year.)

Meniere's involves some of these symptoms, but in Meniere's, you lose hearing. Mine is fine. The conventional wisdom says that Meniere's is cause by fluid buildup somewhere inside the hearing apparatus. And the conventional treatments are things like B vitamins, low salt diet and diuretics to prevent or eliminate the buildup of excess fluid. If Meniere's persists, more barbaric treatments are used that destroy your hearing in order to stop the spinning and restore your balance. However, new research suggests there may be an earlier culprit in the sequence: neurotoxins. The theory is that these neurotoxins (which could be food additives like MSG that excite your brain cells to death, or in my case are probably the inhaled allergens) irritate the neurons in the brain and they become inflamed...and that inflammatory reaction is what causes the fluid buildup that causes the vertigo/dizziness.

In any case, my allergist has suggested something I haven't tried before: taking a course of prednisone when the warning signs first appear. I've taken it after the attack has started and it made no difference. But perhaps if I can reduce the inflammation, and potentially eliminate the fluid buildup, I can abort the attack.

The takeaway here is that if any of you suffer from these attacks, try the following:
1. Figure out what triggers the attacks and stop doing it.
2. Keep a bottle of ginger pills, a course of prednisone, some low-dose Valium (2mg), and some Antivert/meclizine in your medicine cabinet at all times, and some phenergan suppositories in the fridge.
3. If you experience the warning signs, take either the Valium 3 times a day for up to 2 days or the prednisone course to abort the attack.
4. If the attack starts, use the suppositories until you can keep something in your stomach, then start on the ginger and/or the Antivert until the nausea goes away.
5. Be prepared to just let it run its course. Don't try to do too much too soon, as much as you hate being out of action.

You may also try daily use of other botanicals that are said to help prevent vertigo, including ginkgo biloba and butchers broom (to increase blood flow to the brain).

But here's hoping you never need any of this advice.

- Pat

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Managing Your Man - Part 2: Hormones

3/1/2013

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Hormones drive men just as much as they drive women. You may not see their fluctuations repeat in patterns over the period of time that roughly coincides with the lunar month, but you can be sure those hormones are behind a lot of behavior and patterns you do see.

The "Male" Hormone: Testosterone

You may be surprised to learn that the same sex hormones drive men and women. Testosterone is the big boy, the one everyone thinks of as "the male hormone." But women have it too; men just have about 10 times more of it.
Among its many functions, testosterone supports heart and brain health, promotes the growth of lean muscle mass and strong bones, promotes sexual fantasies and erections, and fuels healthy assertiveness.

Men can run low on testosterone and when they do, they need supplementation. Low testosterone in aging men has been shown to be a strong predictor of Alzheimers. Without enough testosterone, men can lose their interest in everything, they may seem lazy, dull, bored, easily confused or forgetful. Businesses or hobbies they were once passionate about become burdens or simply fall off the radar. If they were hot headed before, they may become passive; if they were passive before, they may become short tempered. They may have difficulty having erections, may not care about sex, or may need more stimulation (from porn, etc.) to get aroused. They may get flabby, break bones more easily, and have cardiovascular problems.

I'll talk more about supplementing testosterone in another post.

The "Female" Hormone: Estrogen

Yes, men have estrogen too, though less than women have. And this estrogen helps mellow a man's temper. It also works with his other hormones to support heart and brain health, and ensure strong bones and muscles. But they shouldn't have too much, or rather, "too much estrogen relative to their testosterone."

Estrogen-to-Testosterone Balance

What's important is that men have the right proportion of estrogen to testosterone. Sources argue over the ideal testosterone-estrogen ranges, but the Life Extension Foundation (www.LEF.org) suggests that 20-25 pg/mL of free testosterone (measured directly, not calculated from total T) is the optimal T range for most men.

They also quote a study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that showed that men with estrogen (specifically estradiol, or E2) levels between about 22 and 30 pg/mL had the fewest deaths--compared to men with either musch lover or much higher E2 levels.

These numbers suggest that men live longest when they have roughly equal amounts of estrogen and free testosterone in their systems.

The Other Sex Hormone

You wouldn't think men would need progesterone, the hormone thought of as the pregnancy hormone, but they do. It is the third leg of the sex hormone tripod that we all need to keep everything in balance. Men need progesterone because it breaks down into the other sex hormones as well as the adrenal hormones, cortisol and adrenalin.

More important, progesterone is the hormone that modulates a woman's immune system during pregnancy so her body doesn't reject the "foreign object" (the baby) she's carrying in her womb. That same progesterone (in lower amounts) modulates the immune systems in men and women every day. If progesterone is low, or isn't present in the right proportions relative to E and P, a person may have problems with allergies and autoimmune diseases such as arthritis or fibromyalgia.

Anabolic Steriods

You may have felt your stomach clench a little when you read the title of this section. Relax. Although you are accustomed to the word used in the context of athletes doping themselves to bulk up or extend their stamina, the fact is that all your natural sex hormones are anabolic steroids.

Anabolic refers to a hormone's ability to build things. All three sex hormones are anabolic. They build important things like muscles and bones. In women they also build things like a uterine lining every month and both milk secreting (secretory) and milk draining (ductal) cells in the breasts.

The opposite of anabolic is catabolic. Catabolic hormones break down or consume cells and tissues. You need a certain amount of these too. You can't build healthy new bone, for example, without tearing down some old bone. Catabolic hormones, in proper proportions, promone healthy cell turnover and remodeling in your body. However, too much of the catabolic hormones (like the stress hormone cortisol) can damage your body. I'll go into the role of the adrenal hormones in another post.

Men and Hormones

The fact is that men are hormonal creatures, just as women are. They may exhibit different behaviors but they are just as vulnerable to the physical and emotional effects of changing hormone levels and proportions as are women. And they need to maintain ideal levels and proportions to keep their bodies and minds functioning optimally.

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Computer Assisted Healthcare - Mixed Feelings

2/17/2013

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I just watched a video about a software system called Watson (as in Sherlock Holmes's faithful and bright, but not nearly as brilliant, assistant). Developed by IBM in partnership with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Watson is designed to assist doctors in their evaluation of patients, diagnosis of their conditions, and assessment of possible treatment plans. (To learn more, see the 8-minute video about Watson here.)

Even before the video started, I wondered if this was a good idea or a bad one. Either way, I knew Watson, or something like it, would be soon calling the shots in my healthcare (because of the relentless march of technological progress, not because of any governmental healthcare plan), so I'd better be prepared to take advantage of its benefits and shore up its weaknesses.

THE BRIGHT SIDE

Vast knowledge available quickly. At the top of my benefits list is the system's ability to search a vast array of medical books, journals and papers. Watson (or its imitators) could almost instantly seek out even the most obscure references to the symptoms presented and bring them the the physician's attention. Just being aware that all such references even exist would be impossible for a human being, let alone reading them all and recalling all their details months or years later.
     This is a good thing. It means I don't have to worry so much about Dr. Smith's insomnia or hormone deficits or marriage problems that might degrade his/her ability to think clearly about my particular health issues.
     And since I am one of those control-freak patients doctors hate, I too can use Watson's snapshots and drilldowns of data to see for myself what relevant evidence is out there. I may not understand it all, but my little bit of college pre-med and many years of medical research and writing will help me know what questions to ask.

Not (as) blinded by drug company propaganda. For decades, busy physicians have focused on seeing as many patients as possible in a given day, and had little time to read about advancements and revelations in their field. Many relied on the updates they got from their drug company reps, which naturally skewed the news in favor of the company's new and obscenely expensive drugs. With a tool like Watson, doctors can just as quickly, and more effectively, summon up not just the latest news and revelations, but older information that may have been obscured by the drumbeat of Big Pharma's sales pitch.
   The caveat to this benefit is that even Watson's perspective will be skewed to some extent because Big Pharma sponsors the writing of (i.e., influences the content in) medical textbooks. However, I'd say that having easy access to ALL information (assuming the programmers feed everything available into Watson) still gives doctors and patients an advantage they don't have now.

THE DARK SIDE

Is there a Dr. House in the house? The death of the medical detective. With more patients pushed through the meat grinder healthcare system (because of the aging baby boomer hoards, Medicare payment cuts, fewer doctors going into family practice), tools like Watson will almost certainly replace the human medical Sherlocks whom Watson was designed to assist.
   In this future, doctors like Gregory House will not be the ones who take on stubborn or mysterious cases, they will not awaken in the middle of the night with an a-ha! insight, or hear an unrelated comment about someone's lunch or pest-control problem and suddenly put together disparate puzzle pieces into a brilliant revelation that saves the day. In all likelihood this job will fall to Watson - emotionless, data warehousing, synthesizing and summarizing Watson. (Which may be preferable to being treated by a surly, rude, emotionally stunted Dr. House.)
   I suspect that those stubborn or mysterious cases will be handled by everyday doctors who rely more and more on their Watsons for not just the legwork but for the skullwork as well.
   And who knows, maybe we'll get better treatment and our everyday physicians may get better at being detectives when all the information is at their fingertips.

Doctors can "phone it in." This is not to say that with a tool like Watson all doctors will simply follow the computer's recommendations, but many no doubt will, especially on busy days.
   I have already seen how cyber media (especially sites like Facebook and Twitter) tools have dramatically increased the shallowness of our conversations and our thoughts. And now it seems that some folks in politics want critical-thinking skills banned from our schools and our brains. We are rapidly become a society that doesn't think, doesn't probe, doesn't challenge or research or analyze. The only ones doing those things are the ones who want to manipulate us.
   So it seems not only possible but likely that given a tool like Watson, doctors will quit carrying around the body of knowledge that today they are trained to store in their brains. Why force yourself to remember enormous volumes of data - cases and statistics, treatments and outcomes, odd little outliers that once resolved obscure sets of symptoms - when you can just summon up the relevant bits of information with a few keystrokes?
   I predict that our doctors of the future will be far less able to think on their feet and less able to diagnose and treat without the aid of their computers. However, for those who don't need to fly blind, they may, in fact, have more successful treatment outcomes overall.

Dependency on the technology.  Pilots who rely on instruments to land in poor visibility conditions may crash in those same conditions if their instruments are out. However, if they know their instruments are out, they will typically opt not to fly in the first place. And the reliability of modern instrumentation allows people to fly safely in a much wider range of conditions that ever before. Occasionally a pilot may be stuck with an unexpected instrumentation failure and have to get creative to land the plane. As long as he/she has the skills to handle emergencies, that's what matters.
   The question is: Will our Watson-assisted doctors of the future be trained to handle situations when their computers fail? Will they recognize spurious data and recommendations that are evidence of viruses or hacking? Will they be able to treat people in emergencies when computer assistance is unavailable or power supplies are waning?

Voice dictation errors.  The Watson video shows how physicians can dictate their notes directly into the computer. For anyone who has used the voice-to-text feature on your smartphone, you know the accuracy is laughable at best. Certainly a medical Watson will be trained to understand each specific user and will have in its databases thousands of words few normal humans could even pronounce.
   But with similar sounding words and drug names, and new drugs and terms springing up daily, it will be a nightmare keeping Watson's database current. And the software will need to recognize not just the spelling and definitions of all those new terms and drug names - and their pronunciations, it will need to recognize the specific doctor's pronunciation of those terms/names.
   Granted, Watson will allow doctors to read and make corrections - and will theoretically highlight terms/names that may be similar to others or that are not consistent with the context. Still, the ease of direct voice transcription (with all its flaws), coupled with the increasing pressure on doctors to go faster... may collide in an ongoing "perfect storm" where dictation errors never get corrected.

No outside-the-box, holistic information. It's possible that Watson's managers will see fit to upload holistic and complementary medicine's insights into its databases alongside its mainstream information. But in this respect, if the alternative data are left out, Watson will be no worse than the average (or even exceptional) physician who is locked in the mainstream mindset. And open-minded doctors may request alternative data modules for their applications, which I'm sure IBM or other developers will be happy to provide.

BOTTOM LINE
Watson and its kind are coming. I have no doubt of that. So what will I do about it? I will try to get access to the same information my doctors have when I feel I need it. (And any Watson worth its salt should make it easy for the doctor to print out key information for patients who request it.) I will continue to question every treatment recommended and explore alternative approaches. I will view drug hype with great caution. And I will monitor both my records and any prescription orders to ensure that no errors harm me.
   Overall, I suppose I can either be a Luddite and resist change, or I can embrace the new technology and make the best of it. I choose the latter, following the rule: "Know what you're doing and do it on purpose."

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Managing Your Man - Part 1

1/20/2013

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This subject has so many parts there is no way to cover them all in one post. But I'll use this first post as a kind of overview to talk about the things that may impact a woman's relationship with one or more men in her life. In later posts we'll get into the details of each issue.

Those of us who live with men, love men, partner with men (for business or pleasure), or generally interact with men on a regular basis may have found ourselves in situations that disappoint, frustrate, hurt, anger, frighten, or embarrass us. Often these situations also baffle us because we don't understand what provoked the problem, whether it was something we did, and what we can do about it. What's worse is that sometimes our efforts to "fix" the problems we see only makes them worse.

There are several factors at work here, but they probably can all be grouped under two categories:
:: Hormonal issues
:: Communication issues

And while I will try to talk about the two separately, there will be some unavoidable overlap.

HORMONAL ISSUES

Men gripe and joke about women's hormones and moods, but lordomighty don't mention their tempers or moods or sensitive egos unless you are a glutton for punishment. Men don't have the cyclical hormonal patterns women experience, but hormones have a very profound effect on how a man perceives and interacts with the world and those in it. Those hormone levels change from day to day and from time to time within days. A pleasant mood can turn dark in a heartbeat with the least provocation, just as a dark mood that propelled a butt reaming just moments ago can dissolve as if it never happened.

The primary male hormone is testosterone, but hormones such as estrogen, progesterone, cortisol, melatonin and many others also play important roles in how a man feels and behaves. The sex hormones (testosterone, estrogen and progesterone) can affect a man's sex drive (libido), his temper, his rational thinking and self control, creativity, patience, compassion, his muscle mass and strength, appetite, immune system function and allergies, and a lot more.

The other hormones can either work to offset some of these effects...or they can enhance them. Testosterone, for example, can increase aggression, while estrogen and progesterone can decrease aggression and make a person more mellow. However, cortisol can increase one's impatience, make a man restless, and if high cortisol levels are paired with high testosterone (T) levels, you get a man who is not only feeling aggressive but also antsy/restless and maybe touchy.

Also, changes in hormone levels can have seemingly paradoxical effects on a man. One whose T levels are dropping may experience erectile dysfunction (ED), which in turn makes him feel frustrated, perhaps embarrassed, and angry. He may be angry at himself, at his body's betrayal of him, but that anger can spill over onto those around him in the ways he interacts with them. Which brings us to the second big factor: communication issues.

COMMUNICATIONS ISSUES

We all know men and women communicate differently, but many of us may be totally unaware that men and women are using a single language to express what are often very different concepts and intentions.

Imagine going to an alien planet where you discover to your delight that the inhabitants speak fluent English. So you launch into what you think is a friendly conversation only to find the aliens highly offended by every word. Imagine what would happen if their definition of the words "I'm delighted to meet you" meant to them "I want to own you" or "You look delicious"?

Well, the fact is that men and women--and even people of the same gender with different styles--often find themselves in that very position: using one language to mean very different or even opposing things.

Linguistics professor, Deborah Tannen, has described this bizarre phenomenon in many books, which I will cover in later posts. For now, the key distinction you need to be aware of is the difference in objectives for male conversation versus female conversation. While this is not universally true, in general, women use conversation to establish community, equality and rapport, while men use it to affirm individuality and establish status (ideally superiority) in the hierarchy.

Men use real or ritualized combat (whether a verbal argument or a physical fight or competition) as a means of bonding with one another. But when they try to use this technique to bond with a female, their actions and words have the opposite effect of making the female feel attacked, criticized, and distanced.

IT IS WHAT IT IS: DEALING WITH REALITY

These insights are just the tip of the iceberg. I will go into each in much more depth in subsequent posts. For now, the important thing to remember is that when he says or does something that upsets you, the overwhelming odds are that it probably is not meant to upset you. And, in fact, he may be baffled at your taking offense to something either he thought was showing his closeness to you or that was simply not about you at all.

Believe me, I know it is easier said than done to not take things personally. But once you start to understand the dynamics going on inside him, you will become better able to deflect what appear to be arrows and keep yourself from being wounded by them.

By the way, this is not meant to excuse those who are physically or emotionally abusive, although it can offer insights into even those behaviors.

For those dealing with men who have good hearts and honorable intentions, I suggest you give them the benefit of the doubt whenever possible. And try to "catch them being good" as often as you can. Notice when they do something "right" or desirable or whatever is the opposite of the offensive behavior. You may find more of it than you expect.

The more you make him feel like a hero, the more he will try to live up to your ideal of him.

Oh, and this works both ways. So guys, if you're reading this, try noticing and celebrating the things we do right if you want to encourage us do them more often.

Stay tuned for more.
Pat

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Cancer Cure in Our Lifetime

12/24/2011

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For several years now I have curbed my holiday gift buying and instead spent what money I could spare on a donation to the Kanzius Cancer Research Foundation. http://www.kanziuscancerresearch.org/

I'll let the video on their website explain how the technology works, but the bottom line is that this has the potential to actually eradicate cancer everywhere in the body...without harming the rest of the body!

Think about it: All current chemotherapy treatments work by damaging the patient's body in the hopes that the cancer will surrender before the patient's body does. But many chemotherapy drugs are known carcinogens!! So they may treat one kind of cancer, but are just as likely to cause another. The same is true with radiation: radiation is known to mutate DNA.

And drugs like Avastin--which has recently been withdrawn from the market because research shows it does not extend patients' lives--work by preventing the processes that healthy cells need to thrive and repair themselves. A friend's husband was miraculously cured of his leukemia by the wonder drug Gleevec. Unfortunately, the Gleevec put holes in his lungs and he now has only 30% lung capacity. I don't know about Gleevec, but Avastin works by preventing the formation of new blood vessels. Yes, tumors grow by forming new blood supplies, but normal tissues continually break down and regrow and they need blood supplies as well. If they can't grow new blood vessels, they can't repair damage, and you can end up with holes in important organs...like your lungs or heart or brain!

Trying to fight cancer this way is like saying tumors need oxygen to grow so we should suffocate patients to deprive the tumors. That sounds ludicrous, but only because it is a quicker and more obvious way to kill a patient. But drugs that harm healthy cells as well as tumors are indeed a poor choice at best.

That's why I wish everybody who contributes to any type of cancer organization would instead route their contributions to the Kanzius foundation.

HOW IT WORKS

The Kanzius technology begins when they flood your body with microscopic gold nanoparticles via intravenous injection. These particles are tagged with the genetic code for the type of tumor you have. The particles flow through your body and stick to any tumors that have genetic codes that match the tags. Then you go into a machine--which is like being between two giant cell phones--and the radio waves pass harmlessly through your body. That energy is just enough to make the gold particles vibrate. That vibration produces a little bit of heat. And because tumor cells can't stand any kind of heat, they die and are flushed out of your body. That's it. Healthy cells stay healthy.

This technology is currently in development at MD Anderson in Houston as well in Pittsburgh. The primary hold-up is funding. The researchers need equipment and perhaps most important, they need more researchers. They are most advanced in their work with the most deadly type of cancer: pancreatic cancer. But for each type of cancer, the team needs to identify the genetic markers so they can create tags for the gold particles to home in on.

BIG PHARMA WON'T BE HAPPY

The one fear I have is that as soon as the technology begins human clinical trials and proves its success, the big drug companies will come in with guns balzing, trying to crush the technology under a mountain of lawsuits and propaganda campaigns. After all, chemotherapy drugs...which kill people as surely as the diseases do...are Big Pharma's cash cows. If the Kanzius technology cures cancer, then what will these drug companies do to feed their greed?

PLEASE HELP

If you want to eradicate cancer from the face of the planet in your lifetime, I urge you to contribute whatever you can to the Kanzius foundation. http://www.kanziuscancerresearch.org/

It takes long enough to bring a therapy to market with all the hoops the FDA requires the patent-holder to jump through. But we can accelerate the process by ensuring these researchers have enough money to progress as fast as the process will allow.

One day you or a loved one will face a cancer diagnosis. Do you want to be looking at the same old barbaric treatments that offer little hope? Or would you rather know there is a gentle and vastly more effective therapy available that can simply flush away the tumors and let you get on with enjoying life?

Wishing you all health and happiness in the new year!

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Dealing with the Dreaded Bladder Infection (UTI)

11/12/2011

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If you are prone to getting urinary tract infections (UTIs), sometimes referred to as bladder infections, you know why the subject warranted a blog post here. A UTI can shift the entire focus of your life onto that screaming pressure in your belly that says you have to pee like a racehorse and the simultaneous fear of knowing that actually doing so will burn so bad you'll think your body is filled with flaming jet fuel. And as soon as you're emptied, you'll feel that pressure to pee again, except there's nothing you can do now to relieve it.

The good news is that there are things you can do about UTIs...to prevent them, and to treat them once they hit.

WHAT CAUSES UTIs?

Although UTIs can occur when any kind of bacteria get into your your urinary tract, they are most commonly caused by natural bacteria (like E. coli) from your digestive tract. E. coli is actually an important bug to have in your gut because it kills off harmful bacteria, and it should never harm your body as long as it is confined to the GI tract where it belongs. However, we get into trouble when the E. coli bacteria that exit your body in each bowel movement somehow make their way forward into your urinary tract.

How does that happen? Well, there are several ways. The most common are not wiping properly after a bowel movement, wearing tight-fitting pants/underwear and sex. In each case, the circumstances cause gut bacteria to be picked up from your anal area and moved forward to your vaginal and urinary tract areas.

Doctors even have a special name for the UTIs women get from having lots of sex: honeymoon cystitis. Not only can sex transfer the bacteria from back to front, it can go the extra mile to make sure those bacteria are repeatedly shoved up into the urethra where they can colonize your urinary tract, potentially going all the way up not just into your bladder but into your kidneys where they can do permanent damage if not treated properly.

HOW TO TREAT/CURE AN EXISTING UTI

If you already have a UTI, you are ready for an answer immediately if not hours ago. So here goes...

1. Drink Lots of Water

I know you're thinking I've lost my mind, but until you can get chemicals into your body to manage the symptoms and start killing off the bacteria, the best thing you can do is drink a lot of water. The water does several helpful things: (a) It dilutes your urine, which means there are fewer bacteria per unit of urine to irritate the tissues of your urinary tract; (b) It flushes some of those bugs out of your system; and (c) It gives you something to actually pee out when you feel that maddening pressure to urinate.

2. Take Pyridium/Azo to Relieve the Symptoms

The second thing you should do is run to the nearest drugstore and get some Azo (standard). You may also want to take a bottle of water with you too, or buy one there, so you can take your first pill immediately. The Azo contains a substance called phenazopyridine hydrochloride (or pyridium) that essentially numbs your urinary tract. It will also turn your pee orange, so don't freak out.

If you get recurrent UTIs, you may want to keep some Azo in your medicine cabinet at home and take it with you when you travel.

3. Try D-Mannose for a Cure

NOTE: If you want to hedge your bets, go ahead and make an appointment with your doctor (Step 4) now, in case this doesn't work. But if it's a weekend or you are feeling just the slightest hint of symptoms, you may want to try this home remedy first.

Go to the nearest health food store and pick up a big bottle of D-mannose capsules (1000 mg). (And you may want to keep some of this in the house at all times, along with the Azo.) Then take 3 to 5 capsules (3000 to 5000 mg) every 3-4 hours with lots of water until bedtime.

D-mannose is a natural type of sugar that gut bacteria happen to love, but which cannot be easily metabolized by your system, so it passes through your body virtually unused. In fact 90% of what you take will end up in your bladder, ready for elimination, within an hour of your taking it. (D-mannose products may also include cranberry extract for additional urinary tract benefits.)

The bacteria feed on the sugars they find in the lining of your urinary tract. What happens when you take the D-mannose is that the greedy bacteria abandon the lining of your urinary tract and jump into this virtual river of sugar where they are carried on through and out of your body the next time you pee.

Try this for just a couple of days, taking 3 to 5 capsules every few hours while you're awake. If you still have symptoms while taking it or after stopping it, go see your doctor.

4. See a Doctor, Take Antibiotics

If you have a rip-snorting, full-blown UTI, the D-mannose remedy may simply not be up to the challenge. In that case, you will need antibiotics. Your doctor may want to culture your urine to find out what kind of bacteria are colonizing your urinary tract, and to find out if the bugs you have are resistant to any antibiotics.

He or she may start you on a broad-spectrum antibiotic even before getting the results, in hopes this is just a garden-variety E. coli from your own gut. As with any antibiotics, be sure to take the entire bottle as directed, even if you think you've already gotten rid of the infection.

I'm not sure why this is, but the last time I had a UTI, my doctor's office did not detect it, at least not from their in-office tests. It may be because I was taking D-mannose at the time and drinking a ton of water, which may have diluted my urine and fooled the tests. I don't know. But by the next day there was no doubt in my mind I had a major UTI. Fortunately, the doctor had already prescribed a typical course of antibiotics, with the intention that I could use the pills one at a time as a preventive measure. I ended up taking the whole 2 weeks' course to kick the active infection.

Please note: If you do get UTIs regularly (especially if you're not doing anything that might cause new UTIs), consider the possibility that you may not be getting separate UTIs but may simply have the same one you've never gotten rid of. In this case, you should definitely encourage your doctor to do a urine culture to identify the specific bacteria causing your problems and to find out which drugs can kill it. It is possible to get a drug-resistant bacterial infection for which you will need a specialized drug to knock it out once and for all.

PREVENTING UTIs

Clearly, no woman who has ever had a UTI wants to get another. So here are some tips to help you prevent them.

a. Improve bathroom habits.
Always wipe front to back when you use the bathroom, especially after a bowel movement. If you're prone to UTIs, consider using personal wipes or simply wash the area of your genitals and anus with antibacterial soap after each visit to the toilet. If you have a bidet, use it.

b. Avoid crotch-intensive clothing.
Don't wear tight jeans or thong underwear that fit into the crack of your butt where they can access gut bacteria and then rub them around your genital area.

c. Practice UTI-preventive sex.
Before having sex, drink lots of water, and urinate to get any existing bacteria out of your urinary tract. Also, it can be helpful for you and your partner to wash your genitals and anal areas thoroughly before sex. If you're creative, you can make it a part of foreplay. And then be sure to urinate again after sex to get any bacteria out that may have been introduced to your urinary tract during sex.

d. Take D-mannose after sex.
On the chance that you may have gotten bacteria into your urinary tract during sex, you might want to go ahead and start on the D-mannose, taking 3000 mg every few hours afterwards and do so for a couple of days. If you are having sex frequently, should you be taking D-mannose every day? That's a good question, but there's no single answer. Some sex acts or positions have little risk of transferring bacteria unless you or your partner did not clean properly after having a BM. But other encounters may be very active or prolonged so that no matter how clean you and your partner were to begin with, you inevitably wind up with fecal bacteria in the mix. The good news is that the D-mannose should pass through you with little or no effect, except to lure the bacteria to leave your urinary tract. So other than the cost, there should be no downsides to taking it preventively.

e. Take an antibiotic after sex.
Those of you who have stubborn, recurrent UTIs resulting from sex may want to ask your doctor to prescribe a common antibiotic so you can take one antibiotic preventively after sex. You would only need to take one pill in a given day, even if you made love multiple times that day. These are typically sulfa drugs like Bactrim, but some people are allergic to sulfa drugs or may become allergic to them over time. There are other antibiotics your doctor can prescribe if you are allergic to sulfa. But keep in mind that the antibiotic treatment is a last resort, and you should not do this unless all other preventive methods have failed.

f. Take cranberry daily.
The research is mixed on the benefits of cranberry juice and cranberry extract. However, when benefits are shown, they are always more pronounced for prevention than for treatment of UTIs. So if you are prone ot UTIs, it can't hurt to take some form of cranberry product every day.

And BTW, not all women feel the classic urgency, pressure and burning when they have a UTI. My daughter gets abdominal pains and then nausea (because pain makes her nauseated) without the other symptoms. It's usually not until her doctor does a urine test that she realizes she has a UTI. So just be aware of your own body, how it reacts and how it communicates with you.

And as always, be sure to check with your doctor before implementing any health related regimens.

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The Great Depression...and Anxiety...Epidemic

10/17/2011

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Maybe it's because I talk to so many people now about their health and feelings of wellbeing, but it seems as if nearly everybody today is struggling with depression or anxiety. Yes, I know the economy sucks, we're all polarized by the media and politicians to believe we hate and/or fear each other, oh, and the world's supposed to end in December of next year, "...but other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?" Yes, we have real issues to be afraid of or feel bummed about, but I can't help feeling there's something else going on.

That "something else" I suspect may be the drug soup we're all swimming in every day, whether or not we deliberately take medications.

The first culprit has to be the birth control hormones. Granted, we have a lot fewer unwanted pregnancies, and these hormones in fact reduce the incidence of certain cancers later in life by taking these drugs. But are they also having an unwanted effect on women's moods, making them feel dull and lifeless, or triggering fears and anxieties?

And, of course, there are all the hormones and drugs in the food and environment: steroids given to meat animals to fatten them up, plastic containers that leach synthetic estrogens into food and water, misguided health-conscious folks who want to sneak plant estrogens like soy into everything we eat, and of course the myriad prescription drugs that are flushed down the toilet into our water supply or dumped into landfills where they eventually make their way back into our food or water.

Then there are the drugs for ADD given to children from the time they're in grade school. And the antidepressants and antianxiety drugs themselves... How many people do you know taking such drugs? How many people are on these drugs who really shouldn't be?

And what is the lifetime impact of these drugs on a person's ability to manage the day-to-day stresses in life? By relying on drugs for so many psychological issues do we ultimately lose our coping skills? More important, are we physically and chemically changing our brains to be less effective in dealing with life? Are we de-evolving?

I'm not saying these drugs and hormones aren't helpful in many ways. But what I am saying is that maybe if the drugs companies weren't making obscene profits on our desire to find easy solutions we might actually discover healthier ways to deal with the real challenges in our world.

Just something to think about...

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The Great Hormone Debate: What's "Normal"?

10/17/2011

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I have just completed a letter to a friend's physician discussing the issue of hormone levels and what constitutes "normal." Sigh... I keep fighting the same battle over and over again.

As I explained to my friend's doctor, nobody in their right minds would tell us it's normal for a car's oil to run dangerously low after 20,000 miles, so you shouldn't replace it, or if you do replace it, just add a tiny fraction of what the engine needs to run properly. Yet that's exactly what the medical establishment tells us about our sex hormones...which, by the way, are about a whole lot more than sex. They keep our brains, hearts, bones and muscles (among other sexy bits) healthy and vibrant.

If we're talking about dull, boring hormones like cortisol, thyroid, or insulin, the answer to deficiencies is almost always to supplement the hormone until it reaches an ideal or optimal level and your body once again is operating the way it's supposed to. But when it comes to the sex hormones, the medical community behaves as if we were talking about recreational drugs, rather than substances our bodies were designed to run on.

The first place we get into trouble is with the definition of "normal." We typically get some kind of test, perhaps a blood test or a saliva test. The results come back and the lab flags any values that were either above or below their "reference values" as being abnormal. So that implies that anything within the reference range is normal.

But how do they determine the reference range? They test a bunch of presumed healthy people and set the highest and lowest scores as the top and bottom of the reference range.

This seems like a reasonable thing to do, until you get into the touchy subject of sex hormones. And then the labs add a little twist: they set their reference ranges according to a bunch of "healthy" people in your age group. What that does is reset the numbers to show what's normal for people your age. But what if "at your age" most people are deficient in that hormone? Now the lab test is telling you that it's normal to be deficient.

That's exactly what happens with hormones like estrogen, testosterone and progesterone.

But even if they include all age ranges, they are still going to show that it's "normal" for some otherwise healthy folks to be at the bottom of the tank sucking fumes.

So when my friend's doctor told him his testosterone levels were good, he was comparing them to the reference values for men over 65...which are virtually always deficient! Instead he should be comparing them to the optimal values for the healthiest men in their prime.

What's equally important is the question of what's normal for you...or rather what's optimal for you. In a perfect world, we should all have our hormones tested at various times in our lives, especially when we are at our healthiest, so we know what our body's chemistry looks like when we feel our best. Then as we get older, we can use those levels as benchmarks to know what we need to get back to.

But even that may be misleading, because, for example, research shows that the average testosterone levels in men of all ages have declined over the past few decades, presumably because of all the estrogen-like substances in our food supply and environment. So even at your youthful best your hormones may have been low or imbalanced.

Which brings us back to defining optimal ranges, and that may take a certain amount of art as well as skill to determine.

The bottom line is that if you want to restore your body's chemistry to optimal levels, seek out a doctor who understands what that means and is willing to deviate from standard practice...in a responsible way...to get you back to where you need to be, both objectively and subjectively. And if you already have a doctor you really like and trust, encourage him/her to think outside the box. Perhaps print out this article for your next office visit.

Life is too short to do things half way.

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Hormones and Mood-Part 2: Testosterone and Anger (PCOS, PMDD, acne, Yaz, etc.)

9/25/2011

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You may be curious as to why I included certain physical conditions and a birth control hormone product in a post about hormone-related moods. Actually I hadn't planned on it, but as I thought about the subject--and my own experiences with it--I realized these things can all be related.

Despite what you might hear or read, high testosterone levels can fuel anger and sometimes rage. Or perhaps, like everything else, it may be more appropriate to assume this is about testosterone that is out of balance with the other hormones. I don't think we can say for sure at the moment, because to my knowlege nobody's researching the effects of hormone imbalances on moods.

When I was younger (before menopause), I had a terrible temper and I hated it. When my hormones went south during perimenopause, all my passions went away...including my anger. What's most important here is that when I tried supplementing testosterone, I did indeed get my creativity and passions back, including anger. I can remember the exact moment the testosterone kicked in: I was driving home when suddenly I felt what I used to call "ambient anger" (which I'd felt virtually all the time) suddenly come over me. Anger that was there for no reason at all...which I constantly had to fight to keep under control.

When I was even younger, and when all my passions were in high gear, I also had bouts with ovarian cysts. The condition is now called PCOS, or polycystic ovary syndrome. This too can be a symptom of excess (or unbalanced) testosterone.

And here are the last few pieces of the puzzle: I had seen ads on TV for the birth control pill called Yaz (or Yasmin). It claims to help not only prevent pregnancy but also reduce PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or really bad PMS) and mild acne. Well guess what: high (or imbalanced?) testosterone is associated with acne and bad moods. If Yaz reduces PMDD and acne, maybe it does so by reducing testosterone (or increasing the offsetting levels of progesterone and/or estrogen).

And the last piece of the puzzle: The ads warn that those taking Yaz may end up with excessive potassium levels...which can cause leg cramps. Most online sources attribute this effect to the fake progesterone, drospirenone, in Yaz. And that may indeed be best place to attach the blame. However, I suspect it is less about the fake progesterone and more about how Yaz (and its fake progesterone) effects testosterone levels in your body. But since nobody's studying the connection, we don't know.

What I do know is that in using the exact same amounts of progesterone and estrogen every month as I've used for some 7 years, once I changed my hormone regimen to apply my estrogen in a spike once every 2 weeks, suddenly my testosterone levels went up on their own. I got some of my passions back...AND I started getting foot and leg cramps (the way I did when I was younger and passionate and angry and had bad acne). The T wasn't terribly high and I didn't get angry or break out in zits all over, but the cramps have now become a regular part of my "cycles."

As it happens, when my cramps occur I can take a potassium supplement and the cramps subside. So you may be wondering how I connect my increasing testosterone levels with muscle cramps that seem to be caused by LOW potassium, when I've just said that Yaz may cause HIGH potassium levels that cause muscle cramps. Well, as it turns out, potassium, like other electrolytes in your body, needs to be within a certain optimal range. Too high OR too low can cause many of the same symptoms, including muscle cramps.

Bottom line: If you are young and still ovulating and have a bad temper and acne (and possibly leg/foot cramps), you may have too much testosterone and could be at risk for PCOS. To resolve this problem, you can try a product like Yaz if you need birth control anyway. However, be aware that Yaz (and any other birth control hormones) can have their own side effects, including risk of blood clots and varying effects on your moods.

I hope that one day, doctors may be more knowledgeable about the impact of varying hormone balances and will be able to manage those balances to keep them in their optimal ranges. Until then, at least know you are not alone....

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Finally Over the Vertigo (Both of Them)

Vertigo and Meniere's Disease/Syndrome

Managing Your Man - Part 2: Hormones

Computer Assisted Healthcare - Mixed Feelings

Managing Your Man - Part 1

Cancer Cure in Our Lifetime

Dealing with the Dreaded Bladder Infection (UTI)

The Great Depression...and Anxiety...Epidemic

The Great Hormone Debate: What's "Normal"?

Hormones and Mood-Part 2: Testosterone and Anger (PCOS, PMDD, acne, Yaz, etc.)

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