Disease

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Too many Americans can’t afford to and simply do not–take their medicines as prescribed. That estimate is based on information from the (American!) Centers for Disease Control). I have had patients come into my office who take their medications –in both cases, for life-threatening infectious diseases — only every other day, simply because that is all they can afford. I explained to each one individually the idea of the half-life of a drug. They only stay in your body for a certain length of time, then they leave your body in waste products.  That is why taking a drug every other day is not really effective. They both gave me almost exactly the same response — It was all they could afford, and it was probably better than nothing. Read more on Big Pharma Is Capitalism Out Of Control…

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I was about three years old when I enjoyed tending our backyard with her.  I had been a marvel to her, since she was a little girl, earning her keep as an agricultural worker in the Ukraine, it what was then known as Russia.

Read more on What You Eat Makes You Who You Are (Smart!)…

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I think I was in my teens when I heard the playwright Edward Albee interviewed.  It was one of those interviews that sears your soul and that you remember over 40 years later. He said something about people who get older, like when their children who are adults and start having families of their own.  They all ask themselves the same question, which is “Did I do it right?” — meaning “Life” definitely with a capital “L.”

Read more on Don’t Live A Life Of Regrets…

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Lots of trees in the great Golden State seem to have Dutch Elm Disease. I said “seem” because I only see them from my automobile window as we are whizzing by on some highway. The trunks are smooth and grayish and they are not palm trees.  Maybe they are elms.  I don’t know — trees are decidedly outside of my scope of practice. When you see a smooth gray tree, a fungus carried by a “bark beetle” has killed the outer bark, which is the living part of a tree that transports nutrients and water to the places that need it: leafy twigs and fruits and such.

Read more on Dutch Elm Disease For People…

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What you have been through makes you who you are.
A man abused by his father told me he all too often finds that he has abused his own son.  He did not want to.  He did not mean to.  He realized he was becoming his father and he trembled.

Read more on Breaking The Chain Of Abuse…

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She was, and is, a close and cherished friend. Someone decided she had Alzheimer’s.  At least somebody said she did.  She had wonderful plans for retirement.  Now the retirement community she had been dreaming of did not seem to want her and her husband around.  She has just made the decision (I don’t know with who’s help) that it is a better idea she does not drive. She would surely not remember the details of how the diagnosis was made.  I wonder if it had been made properly.  Probably not.

Read more on All That is Demented is not Alzheimer’s…

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Natural treatment of obsessionality. “Estelle, you’re such a little worrier.  Yes you are.” When I was little, I never understood why my Auntie Charlotte always addressed me this way.  I did know that my family had “adopted” her which seemed to give her the right to “adopt” me.  Her orthodox Jewish family had rejected her because she wanted to marry a guy who had been married before, even though he was very Jewish. I was not supposed to know or care about such things.  But I did know she was the first person in my life to tell me I worried too much about things that didn’t need worrying about.

Read more on Obsessions…

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Everyday health advice. If I read any more “health advice,” mental or physical, that is supposed to be practical advice but is totally wrong and built on mythology, I might explode. Given the “mainstream” unproven drivel that gets reproduced in popular magazines, I think it is pretty amazing any Americans are still alive at all. A little relaxation (deep breathing and focused meditation) — I am doing a lot better.  After all, we still have freedom of speech, although it sometimes gets fragile and needs loving protection.  And you have me, the Renegade Doctor, to tell you what is truthful and right. I didn’t start out to trash “Reader’s Digest” (RD).  My parents of blessed memory had some kind of lifetime subscription, and kept it with a very few cherished books by their bedside, on top of my mother’s premarital “Hope Chest,” which she told me contained clothes she could only “hope” she would fit into again one day. She never did. Read more on Everyday health advice drives me nuts!…

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Anaphylaxis is frightening — it can and does kill people. It is an acute allergic reaction that affects about 0.5  to 2% of the population, at some point in life, and the frequency seems to be rising as we speak. Symptoms include hives and itches and swelling, which about 20% of the time can affect the upper breathing system and close the windpipe.

In theory any substance that is not included as part of the body can cause it.  I have heard about it being caused by bee stings, snake bites, foods and drugs and such. I have actually treated people for post-traumatic stress disorder caused by an allergic attack.  It is a serious stress to find your windpipe closing up and not know why. The lifesaving immediate emergency treatment is injected epinephrine (adrenaline) and getting the victim to a medical center to follow up with antihistamine and steroids as needed. My own allergies have given me some weird things over the years — lots of positive skin tests.  I used to suffer through “desensitization” protocols — allergen injections that made me sick, and prize-winning hay fever attacks. Read more on The EpiPen Mess and How To Work Around It…

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I was chatting with an M.D. woman friend, and told her my medications and my natural supplements and herbs and my “numbers” — my blood sugar and my blood pressure — when I still was convinced that I had those things.

My blood sugar was 120 mg/dL. My blood pressure with medications was around 140/85.

She surprised me with her reaction. Read more on What The Heck Has Happened To Medicine?…