The first cousin of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Both are horrible conditions to have. They hold hands and take turns torturing you, laughing at you, scoffing at your failures, teasing you with fear, chasing you and making all your enemy.
With PTSD you get to relive the moment of your TBI again and again. Anything which you recognize surrounding the moment of your TBI will cause extreme anxiety and fear in you. PTSD will awaken you at night sweating, screaming, striking out at some incident which occurred when you brain was injured. Over and over you relive it. There are no specific medications to stop PTSD, you must treat it through psychotherapy, and getting back in the saddle.
My TBI was caused when I ran out of gasoline on a freeway in Phoenix one dark night and was attacked by four young males. My PTSD exhibited itself with me waking up at night fighting for my life swinging at people who were there, yelling at people who weren't there, sweating and shaking. I also became deathly afraid of riding in a car. I quit driving and my wife drove. That made it worse as I no longer had control of the steering wheel and I felt she stopped too slowly and drove too fast. I was afraid of the car in the next lane coming over into our lane a hitting us.
I used to go to Los Algodones, Mexico for my dentist. After my head injury I had my two front teeth knocked out, so the next weekend we drove over to Mexico to see my dentist and have teeth placed back in. It is just outside Yuma, Arizona. After we finished getting the teeth placed in, my wife and I decided to stop in Yuma for lunch. We exited the freeway and was on the exit ramp waiting for the light to change so we could go. Traffic was back up in the two lanes with the last car in the lane next to us even with our car. Suddenly a women came barreling down the exit and slammed her brakes on at the last second. With tires screaming she slammed into the rear of the car next to us. With my TBI and PTSD just starting a week earlier this set me back quite a bit. I honestly though I would either lose control of my emotions or have a heart attack. It enhanced my fear of driving. This is what PTSD will do for you.
In my previous post I wrote about the results of TBI, but PTSD is tougher to list. Some people will relieve their traumatic experience and try at all cost to avoid similar situations. Other see enemies everywhere and may try to take them out. Other will do as in TBI and self-medicate to get the experience out of their minds. Some escape into the jungles of urban city life, living on the street.
Some people with PTSD get in trouble with the police because of their fear of authority.The police do not understand this and will arrest these unfortunate people for so many charges, they patients may never see the light of day, except for the one hour in the exercise yard. They will be charged with resisting arrest, assault and battery on a police office, failure to follow an officer's command, under the influence of something, running from the police, spitting on the ground, not standing up straight to the officer, not having an I.d. and the charges keep piling up. It doesn't matter to the police, their job is to arrest people and pile the charges on. The damaged person then get to spend their time in jail or prison without any health care, all because they were injured and received no medical care.
It's a shame. We've lost too many of our citizens for this (TBI and PTSD). It's time for medical doctors, social workers, insurance company's to provide the help needed to help these injured people turn their lives around and become productive citizens in our society, again.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Traumatic Brain Injuries
Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) are injuries which are much more common than usually understood. Today we have our troops, serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan being injured by Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's) which often cause brain injuries through concussions and penetrating head wounds caused by shrapnel. For years the US. Army and the U.S. Marines failed to acknowledge these injuries or treat them, or provide medical disability payment to them. Many of our veterans with head injuries became homeless through the years. As more information has become public and public demand has demanded diagnosis and treatment, more of our soldiers are now being treated.
Warfare is not the only cause of TBI's. Any blow to the head can cause damage to the brain and result in TBI's. Causes in everyday life include: car accidents, assaults, falls, items falling on unprotected head, strokes, in other words anything that hits the head can cause brain injury. It is estimated that there are 2,000,000 TBI's occurring in the U.S. every year.
Results of head injuries depend on blunt force, location of the injury, how quickly the patient is seen in a hospital and treatment. The results of TBI's are varied and usually life changing. One thing that happens in a concussion to the head is what is called "contra-coup". Our brains float in a liquid to help protect it. When a blow happens to the front of the head (frontal lobe) the brain will slam to the back of the head (occipital lobe) and can cause damage in both places. Thus the damage may be much more extensive than first thought.
Some of the results will include:
One of the major problems with having a TBI is being diagnosed properly and treated properly. There is no one test to diagnose you. Often CT scans are "normal", EEG's are "normal"most of the medical tools used for helping doctors diagnose problems are not effective with head injuries. There are often no outward signs of an injury. The doctor, usually a Neurologist, will run the patient through many different physical exams to see what type of damage there is. Things like holding your hands out to watch for tremors, walking to see if you waver or hold onto the wall, memory tests, psychological tests to find out where the brain deficits may be and then perhaps the diagnoses of TBI can be made.
Then the problem occurs, which type of treatment? I suffered a TBI in 2003, through an assault. It took three years and several Neurologists, psychiatrists and psychologist to get my brain somewhat under control. After three years and many different medication trials one of my Psychiatrists found a combination of medications which slowed my brain down. Three years of insanity. What combination which works for me may very well not work for someone else. The Psychiatrist and Neurologist will have to find the correct combination for you. This takes a lot of time. So be patient.
In the meantime, people with uncontrolled TBI symptoms will self-medicate. This means the patient with the runaway mind will try anything to stop the madness and the fire in the brain. Patients will use alcohol, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, Oxycontin, vicodin, Valium, marijuana, almost anything to quieten the brain. Some will become drug addicts while waiting for their doctors to find the right combination to help their injury. I used wine to quieten my brain and over did it. Since my doctors found the right combination for me, I have not had any alcohol in three years. Caretakers of patients with TBI's need to be aware of this and not become facilitators of this abuse. The self-medication only compounds the problem and causes a longer time period for the medicines to be found to help the patient. But the carry away message is the TBI patient WILL self medicate!
For those who wonder, why, as a Naturopath physician I did not use Naturopathic medicine for treatment, the answer is I did. A doctor friend of mine had a hyperbaric oxygen chamber which I used several times a week for several weeks (no change), I went through physical therapy to try and get my balance back, I tried homeopathic medicine, I tried different brain supplements and vitamins, I tried nutrition. I tried IV Vitamin/mineral therapy, nothing worked for me. I then found wine which worked short term to shut my brain off but caused many other problems. This is why I ended up with the medical doctors as I am not convinced Naturopathic doctors are quite able to deal with this type of injury.
One must be honest and give the best information and advice you can and that was my experience.
Person's with TBI's need not be feared. They need understanding. Some of the troops coming back from the war zone will cause crime. They've been in a war where anything goes. They may have an undiagnosed brain injury and they may act out their anger, aggression on others. We need to make sure each soldier coming back is screened for TBI and treated as necessary. We need to have our new health care program (if we get one) to include good treatment for civilian TBI patients.
It is a complete life changing event for the patient for their families, for their friends and we need to have understanding and help for those of us who have suffered so much.
Warfare is not the only cause of TBI's. Any blow to the head can cause damage to the brain and result in TBI's. Causes in everyday life include: car accidents, assaults, falls, items falling on unprotected head, strokes, in other words anything that hits the head can cause brain injury. It is estimated that there are 2,000,000 TBI's occurring in the U.S. every year.
Results of head injuries depend on blunt force, location of the injury, how quickly the patient is seen in a hospital and treatment. The results of TBI's are varied and usually life changing. One thing that happens in a concussion to the head is what is called "contra-coup". Our brains float in a liquid to help protect it. When a blow happens to the front of the head (frontal lobe) the brain will slam to the back of the head (occipital lobe) and can cause damage in both places. Thus the damage may be much more extensive than first thought.
Some of the results will include:
- Immediate/Short/long term memory loss. Usually immediate and short term memory loss.
- Agitation.
- Depression.
- Anxiety.
- Anger and aggression.
- Fatigue and exhaustion.
- Fall asleep at any time.
- Inability to understand simple words or conversation.
- Inability to learn new information.
- Inability to understand your surrounding, and may become lost easily.
- Insomnia.
- Misunderstand conversations.
- Inability to concentrate.
- Runaway mind. The mind will hop from one thought to another, ceaselessly.
- Change in personality.
- Withdrawal from every day life.
- You will most likely lose your friends as they can't understand your changes.
- Inability to work and support your family.
- Inability to take care of personal hygiene.
- Inability to do daily activities.
- Seizures
- Changes in vision and hearing.
- Hallucinations including vision, hearing, vision or smell.
One of the major problems with having a TBI is being diagnosed properly and treated properly. There is no one test to diagnose you. Often CT scans are "normal", EEG's are "normal"most of the medical tools used for helping doctors diagnose problems are not effective with head injuries. There are often no outward signs of an injury. The doctor, usually a Neurologist, will run the patient through many different physical exams to see what type of damage there is. Things like holding your hands out to watch for tremors, walking to see if you waver or hold onto the wall, memory tests, psychological tests to find out where the brain deficits may be and then perhaps the diagnoses of TBI can be made.
Then the problem occurs, which type of treatment? I suffered a TBI in 2003, through an assault. It took three years and several Neurologists, psychiatrists and psychologist to get my brain somewhat under control. After three years and many different medication trials one of my Psychiatrists found a combination of medications which slowed my brain down. Three years of insanity. What combination which works for me may very well not work for someone else. The Psychiatrist and Neurologist will have to find the correct combination for you. This takes a lot of time. So be patient.
In the meantime, people with uncontrolled TBI symptoms will self-medicate. This means the patient with the runaway mind will try anything to stop the madness and the fire in the brain. Patients will use alcohol, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, Oxycontin, vicodin, Valium, marijuana, almost anything to quieten the brain. Some will become drug addicts while waiting for their doctors to find the right combination to help their injury. I used wine to quieten my brain and over did it. Since my doctors found the right combination for me, I have not had any alcohol in three years. Caretakers of patients with TBI's need to be aware of this and not become facilitators of this abuse. The self-medication only compounds the problem and causes a longer time period for the medicines to be found to help the patient. But the carry away message is the TBI patient WILL self medicate!
For those who wonder, why, as a Naturopath physician I did not use Naturopathic medicine for treatment, the answer is I did. A doctor friend of mine had a hyperbaric oxygen chamber which I used several times a week for several weeks (no change), I went through physical therapy to try and get my balance back, I tried homeopathic medicine, I tried different brain supplements and vitamins, I tried nutrition. I tried IV Vitamin/mineral therapy, nothing worked for me. I then found wine which worked short term to shut my brain off but caused many other problems. This is why I ended up with the medical doctors as I am not convinced Naturopathic doctors are quite able to deal with this type of injury.
One must be honest and give the best information and advice you can and that was my experience.
Person's with TBI's need not be feared. They need understanding. Some of the troops coming back from the war zone will cause crime. They've been in a war where anything goes. They may have an undiagnosed brain injury and they may act out their anger, aggression on others. We need to make sure each soldier coming back is screened for TBI and treated as necessary. We need to have our new health care program (if we get one) to include good treatment for civilian TBI patients.
It is a complete life changing event for the patient for their families, for their friends and we need to have understanding and help for those of us who have suffered so much.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Watching
We had a Pacific storm blow through Arizona yesterday and when the sun came up this morning the sky was still cloudy. Slowly over the next hours the sky cleared and the heavy cloud levels broke up into a beautiful blue sky. I watched as the clouds separated and more and more blue appeared. At this moment, at 10:18am, there are no clouds. Just beautiful blue sky.
I sat in my office and looked about the early morning world. In the arroyo outside my office window, a rabbit hopped up the side then paused. All that I could see was a small white cotton tail sitting there as he decided what he wanted to do next. He blended in with his surroundings so well. On my side of the arroyo is a large Jojoba bush. It is probably twenty feet around and 10 feet high. There is a pair birds that over the past few weeks which have been scouting the bush out and seem to be ready now to build their nest for the winter, the Jojoba bush is full of seeds which are made into Jojoba oil for cosmetics. What a versatile bush.
There is a fence, about eight feet high outside one of my window looking out back of the room to the north. All types of birds come and land there and sing their songs. They can't see me as this particular window has two sets of screens on it it, thus I can look out, but they can't see me. I see doves, Cactus Wrens, Pigeons, Sparrows, Cardinals and some birds I cannot identify, but they all love sitting in the sun outside my window and sing me a song. Such a wonderful stage.
Yesterday, my wife and I drove into town to go to a hardware store to purchase some brackets. On the road leading out from our house stood a lonely coyote; standing proud and unafraid. He watched us as we approached, and when we got up to about twenty feet of him, he galloped off into the desert. At night we are serenaded by groups of coyotes. It sounds as if they are having a keg party and the longer it goes on the more robust the songs become.
This morning around sunlight, I opened the front door to let the dogs out, and there was a large beetle crawling over the threshold of the door and was slowly making his way outside, too. I suppose he had been in the house all night catching his food and was now heading back to his den to sleep his hunt off.
We have a large Ficus tree in the backyard and the best description of it is it is an apartment building for many types birds. Sparrows spend part of the year here in the ficus tree and raise their children. They are an argumentative type. They love to debate issues with each other and can get quite carried away. Then there are the doves in the tree, they are quiet and peaceful neighbors and bother no one.
We have several large Saguaro Cactus in our yard and they are home to cactus wrens. The wrens dig holes into the cactus and build their nests. The holes will remain cool in the summer heat as there is so much water stored in a saguaro. It is funny to watch them as they check each others homes out to see if it is empty, and if so, they will quickly take it over. The holes do not bother the cactus as in response the cactus wrens eat bugs which may harm the cactus. So it is a symbiotic relationship.
One morning while sitting on our front porch and having my cup of coffee, four young coyotes came prancing by, look at me on the porch , seemed to say "Howdy do" and continued on their way. Life gets along well here. Each do their own thing. Live and let live. It is a shame man cannot do the same. Let others live their lives, acknowledge it and let go. Humans have a long way to catch up with the wild animals. Makes you wonder which is really the wild one.
By observing, even the smallest of things you can learn much. It can help make your life more peaceful, less stressed, and more knowledgeable. Life lives all around us, we can enjoy it if we but take the time to observe. Even in what the frontier people of the old west called the "most useless land" they had observed, the Sonora Desert is full of life, funny and charming activities, if one will just observe.
I sat in my office and looked about the early morning world. In the arroyo outside my office window, a rabbit hopped up the side then paused. All that I could see was a small white cotton tail sitting there as he decided what he wanted to do next. He blended in with his surroundings so well. On my side of the arroyo is a large Jojoba bush. It is probably twenty feet around and 10 feet high. There is a pair birds that over the past few weeks which have been scouting the bush out and seem to be ready now to build their nest for the winter, the Jojoba bush is full of seeds which are made into Jojoba oil for cosmetics. What a versatile bush.
There is a fence, about eight feet high outside one of my window looking out back of the room to the north. All types of birds come and land there and sing their songs. They can't see me as this particular window has two sets of screens on it it, thus I can look out, but they can't see me. I see doves, Cactus Wrens, Pigeons, Sparrows, Cardinals and some birds I cannot identify, but they all love sitting in the sun outside my window and sing me a song. Such a wonderful stage.
Yesterday, my wife and I drove into town to go to a hardware store to purchase some brackets. On the road leading out from our house stood a lonely coyote; standing proud and unafraid. He watched us as we approached, and when we got up to about twenty feet of him, he galloped off into the desert. At night we are serenaded by groups of coyotes. It sounds as if they are having a keg party and the longer it goes on the more robust the songs become.
This morning around sunlight, I opened the front door to let the dogs out, and there was a large beetle crawling over the threshold of the door and was slowly making his way outside, too. I suppose he had been in the house all night catching his food and was now heading back to his den to sleep his hunt off.
We have a large Ficus tree in the backyard and the best description of it is it is an apartment building for many types birds. Sparrows spend part of the year here in the ficus tree and raise their children. They are an argumentative type. They love to debate issues with each other and can get quite carried away. Then there are the doves in the tree, they are quiet and peaceful neighbors and bother no one.
We have several large Saguaro Cactus in our yard and they are home to cactus wrens. The wrens dig holes into the cactus and build their nests. The holes will remain cool in the summer heat as there is so much water stored in a saguaro. It is funny to watch them as they check each others homes out to see if it is empty, and if so, they will quickly take it over. The holes do not bother the cactus as in response the cactus wrens eat bugs which may harm the cactus. So it is a symbiotic relationship.
One morning while sitting on our front porch and having my cup of coffee, four young coyotes came prancing by, look at me on the porch , seemed to say "Howdy do" and continued on their way. Life gets along well here. Each do their own thing. Live and let live. It is a shame man cannot do the same. Let others live their lives, acknowledge it and let go. Humans have a long way to catch up with the wild animals. Makes you wonder which is really the wild one.
By observing, even the smallest of things you can learn much. It can help make your life more peaceful, less stressed, and more knowledgeable. Life lives all around us, we can enjoy it if we but take the time to observe. Even in what the frontier people of the old west called the "most useless land" they had observed, the Sonora Desert is full of life, funny and charming activities, if one will just observe.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Coffee truths and Lies
Coffee is a much misunderstand drink. There are many scientific studies indicating the dangers of drinking coffee. There just as many scientific studies refuting the dangers. The issue concerns caffeine in the coffee and whether caffeine is harmful to people. Coffee, like all other foods are full of phytonutrients. Some which may be bad for you individually, but when added with other phytonutrients can synergistically become helpful for you. This is one reason for the confusion about coffee.
The other reason is Medical Doctors like to brag that theirs is "Scientific Medicine", backed up by scientific studies. What this list can help show you, as each of these statements came from "Scientific Studies" that science is a very easily manipulated task. Much depends on WHO is paying for the study, or WHO is actually doing the study. There are M.D.'s who get paid for having nothing to do with a faulty study, just to sign his name on the study that he conducted it. Modern medicine is NOT "Scientific" medicine. That term is a lie which many M.D.'s like to hide behind to try and make their medicine seem to be the best. It is actually far from it. They are guessing just like every other healer in the jungles.
When I taught Epidemiology and research in Medical School, I always taught my students that when you start to read a study find out first who has an interest in the findings and who financed the study. That will go a long way in its findings.
I just want to list of some of these arguments and let you decide what is best for you. The following would be true for any scientific study you wish to research.
1. Coffee causes heart disease.
2. Coffee has no effect on heart disease.
3. Coffee causes ulcers.
4. Coffee does not cause ulcers.
5. Caffeine's effects are addictive.
6. Caffeine is not addictive.
7. Pregnant women should avoid caffeine.
8. Caffeine has not effect on pregnant women.
9. Caffeine is an early risk for osteoporosis.
10. Caffeine has no relation to osteoporosis.
11. Caffeine causes cancer.
12. Caffeine does not cause cancer.
13. Caffeine adversely affects the health of children.
14. Caffeine has the same effect on children as adults.
15. Caffeine has no health benefits.
16. Caffeine is well known for helping with asthma and may be helpful in allergies.
After reading the findings of these "Scientific Studies" do you have any better understanding of whether coffee is good or bad for you? This will apply to any of the "Scientific Studies" of Pharmaceuticals, medical procedures and the other weapons the M.D. like to wield about like a light saber. All have about the same "Scientific "basis as the coffee results I've shown above.
Welcome to "Scientific Medicine".
The other reason is Medical Doctors like to brag that theirs is "Scientific Medicine", backed up by scientific studies. What this list can help show you, as each of these statements came from "Scientific Studies" that science is a very easily manipulated task. Much depends on WHO is paying for the study, or WHO is actually doing the study. There are M.D.'s who get paid for having nothing to do with a faulty study, just to sign his name on the study that he conducted it. Modern medicine is NOT "Scientific" medicine. That term is a lie which many M.D.'s like to hide behind to try and make their medicine seem to be the best. It is actually far from it. They are guessing just like every other healer in the jungles.
When I taught Epidemiology and research in Medical School, I always taught my students that when you start to read a study find out first who has an interest in the findings and who financed the study. That will go a long way in its findings.
I just want to list of some of these arguments and let you decide what is best for you. The following would be true for any scientific study you wish to research.
1. Coffee causes heart disease.
2. Coffee has no effect on heart disease.
3. Coffee causes ulcers.
4. Coffee does not cause ulcers.
5. Caffeine's effects are addictive.
6. Caffeine is not addictive.
7. Pregnant women should avoid caffeine.
8. Caffeine has not effect on pregnant women.
9. Caffeine is an early risk for osteoporosis.
10. Caffeine has no relation to osteoporosis.
11. Caffeine causes cancer.
12. Caffeine does not cause cancer.
13. Caffeine adversely affects the health of children.
14. Caffeine has the same effect on children as adults.
15. Caffeine has no health benefits.
16. Caffeine is well known for helping with asthma and may be helpful in allergies.
After reading the findings of these "Scientific Studies" do you have any better understanding of whether coffee is good or bad for you? This will apply to any of the "Scientific Studies" of Pharmaceuticals, medical procedures and the other weapons the M.D. like to wield about like a light saber. All have about the same "Scientific "basis as the coffee results I've shown above.
Welcome to "Scientific Medicine".
Monday, December 7, 2009
Abuse/Addictions
Addictions to various substances is an epidemic in the United States. People become addicted to street drugs, pharmaceutical medications, alcohol, food, sex and many other various addictive behaviors. It is a very difficult behavior to break once you have become addicted.
One of the ways that is growing the fastest are people who have had Traumatic Brain Injuries or TBI's. A TBI can occur from a automobile accident, a fall, an assault, sports injury or for the many soldiers we now have coming home from unjustified wars with TBI and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). When you have a TBI your brain functions differently. It is like a computer that has been corrupted by a virus. It will not operate the way it is designed to do. Think of memories as being stored in computer files. When a TBI happens it is like a virus has attacked your computer and corrupted the files of your computer. The files may still be there, but you cannot access them. Sometimes you can open the files but most of the time you cannot, thus you lose your memory. Usually it is your short term memory that is the problem. Long term memory may stay intact, but you cannot access the file where what you had for dinner last night is stored. Thus you cannot remember. It is extremely frustrating.
You may not recognize people, or places, or memories of your marriage. It is very troubling to the person and the family with a TBI or PTSD. You may not remember the route back to your home, thus you can easily get lost.
If a TBI victim is picked up by the police and asked where he/she was on the night of June 24, 2009, you can forget it. The person will not remember, and chances are they will then be arrested and begin their journey through the hell of the "Justice" system. I wonder how many people who are in jail or prison who are innocent and are locked behind bars because of memory loss due to a TBI.
It takes Neurologist a long time to determine which part of the brain is damaged, how much damage has occurred and how best to treat it. If you are a patient with a TBI be prepared for a long journey through many classes and types of pharmaceuticals as the doctors try and find the right combination of medications for you. It is a slow process. What works for one patient will not work for another. In the mean time the patient's brain is often running in overdrive, hopping from random thought to random thought. The short term memory is a major problem and strange activities may become part of daily life. You see things. You hear things. You feel things, that may not be there, but they are real to you. Paranoia runs deep. Your life and your families life has now been altered.
While waiting for the doctors to come up with some sort of help for you almost 100% of TBI/PTSD patients will self medicate. It will happen. Self medication means the patient will try anything to try and slow the brain down, to bring some peace to his mind, to just feel normal again, if only for a few minutes.
This is where addictions will take place. Some people try alcohol and become abusers of alcohol; some will try cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, barbiturates (valium, ativan), some may become addicted to Oxycontin. Anything that the patient thinks may help, they will try until the doctors can find the combination's of medications needed to slow the brain down and make the patient feel sort of like their old selves. By doing so, you will then become addicted.
Now you have at least two problems: a brain injury and addiction to something. You've just compounded your problem. In this phase a person can lose their job (If they haven't already done so, their marriage, their home, their dignity, their sense of self. Many people who are homeless and sleep on the street have a brain injury which is untreated. They are not lazy, they are sick and untreated. Their lives ruined often by an occurrence they could not control and no one reached out to help them.
This is where you can end up if you become addicted to some substance with a TBI.
I had an abuse problem, after my head injury in 2003. I treated my runaway brain, my lost memory files which I could not open, by drinking wine. It slowed my brain down. I would tell my wife, I just want a "little peace", just for a while and the wine did that for me, while the doctors looked for medications for me. After a while the wine became all consuming. The broken brain will compensate and soon you will need more and more of the substance which you are using to keep the brain quiet.
I went through a 9 week Intensive Alcohol rehab class (3 hours a day three days a week for 9 weeks) which helped somewhat. The participants were nurses, engineers, students, IT workers. In other words your neighbors.
The problem with these classes is they try and push you into Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.). Each of these programs think the twelve step program is the cure-all for the addiction. The problem is they only treat two parts of your problem: The mental and the spiritual. They ignore the physical and and the emotional parts which are usually where the addictions spring from. Either from TBI, mental abuse from parents, spouses, sometimes actual physical mental conditions (bi-polar, schizophrenia, depression, etc). Only 1/2 of the possible causes are treated and I feel they are the two least important.
I went to a few of the A.A. meetings and was appalled at them. It was a total waste of time and total crap. I am not afraid to say so. We do not know how to treat abuse/addictions in the US. To treat them effectively you must treat all four parts of the body: Mental, physical, emotional and spiritual. Healing and detoxing the body is just as important as sitting around a meeting, smoking cigarettes and bragging about your last episode of stupidity.
I, to this day, will not recommend A.A., C.A., N.A. or any of the other "A's" to anyone. They are a group of people who learned to be dependent (addicted) on each other and the group. You substitute one addiction for another. Why do they push "90 meetings in 90 days?" The meetings I attended, the people sat around and talked about how drunk they got two weeks ago before calling their sponsors to come help them out. The men and women of the groups were each trying to pick each other up for the night (another addiction). Before you could speak you had to stand up and say, "Hi, my name is William and I'm an alcoholic", or I'm Rochelle and I'm a drug addict".
And that my dears is what keeps people coming back to A.A. for support. That is their hook. Keep the people repeating, "I am an addict", "I am an alcoholic". I am not a human being with value, I am just a drunk who needs this group.
I found that to be so disgusting that I left and never went back. A person is much more than an "alcoholic' or and "drug addict" as they make you identify yourself. This is a way they control you and brain wash you into staying that person. They tell you once an addict, always an addict. There is no hope but for our meetings. As long as you get to wear that label you will be that person. It is a self perpetuating myth. The truth of the matter is A.A., N.A., C.A. and all the other "A's" need you much more than you need them. I told my intensive alcohol group therapy that I would not attend their A.A. meetings after trying a few out. They never pushed me to go again.
Once my doctor was able to find the right combination of medications to help my runaway brain, I no longer had a desire to drink wine. I have not had any in over three years and I'm quite content. Having a drink does not cross my mind.
My advice is don't rely on the superficial Alcoholic Anonymous groups who will keep you addicted to drugs and alcohol. The A.A.'s own reports indicate that only 2% of their members stay sober for any length of time. This is not a very promising therapy, if you ask me. Don't waste your time with these people who are actually dependent on you to keep coming back because they cannot handle their own problems.
Oh, by the way, it is reported when Bill Wilson (Bill W. the founder of this organization) was on his death bed, his last wish was for.....a beer.
Give your doctors a chance and then you can have a chance to some sort of life with a TBI and without the alcohol , drugs or parasitic support groups.
One of the ways that is growing the fastest are people who have had Traumatic Brain Injuries or TBI's. A TBI can occur from a automobile accident, a fall, an assault, sports injury or for the many soldiers we now have coming home from unjustified wars with TBI and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). When you have a TBI your brain functions differently. It is like a computer that has been corrupted by a virus. It will not operate the way it is designed to do. Think of memories as being stored in computer files. When a TBI happens it is like a virus has attacked your computer and corrupted the files of your computer. The files may still be there, but you cannot access them. Sometimes you can open the files but most of the time you cannot, thus you lose your memory. Usually it is your short term memory that is the problem. Long term memory may stay intact, but you cannot access the file where what you had for dinner last night is stored. Thus you cannot remember. It is extremely frustrating.
You may not recognize people, or places, or memories of your marriage. It is very troubling to the person and the family with a TBI or PTSD. You may not remember the route back to your home, thus you can easily get lost.
If a TBI victim is picked up by the police and asked where he/she was on the night of June 24, 2009, you can forget it. The person will not remember, and chances are they will then be arrested and begin their journey through the hell of the "Justice" system. I wonder how many people who are in jail or prison who are innocent and are locked behind bars because of memory loss due to a TBI.
It takes Neurologist a long time to determine which part of the brain is damaged, how much damage has occurred and how best to treat it. If you are a patient with a TBI be prepared for a long journey through many classes and types of pharmaceuticals as the doctors try and find the right combination of medications for you. It is a slow process. What works for one patient will not work for another. In the mean time the patient's brain is often running in overdrive, hopping from random thought to random thought. The short term memory is a major problem and strange activities may become part of daily life. You see things. You hear things. You feel things, that may not be there, but they are real to you. Paranoia runs deep. Your life and your families life has now been altered.
While waiting for the doctors to come up with some sort of help for you almost 100% of TBI/PTSD patients will self medicate. It will happen. Self medication means the patient will try anything to try and slow the brain down, to bring some peace to his mind, to just feel normal again, if only for a few minutes.
This is where addictions will take place. Some people try alcohol and become abusers of alcohol; some will try cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, barbiturates (valium, ativan), some may become addicted to Oxycontin. Anything that the patient thinks may help, they will try until the doctors can find the combination's of medications needed to slow the brain down and make the patient feel sort of like their old selves. By doing so, you will then become addicted.
Now you have at least two problems: a brain injury and addiction to something. You've just compounded your problem. In this phase a person can lose their job (If they haven't already done so, their marriage, their home, their dignity, their sense of self. Many people who are homeless and sleep on the street have a brain injury which is untreated. They are not lazy, they are sick and untreated. Their lives ruined often by an occurrence they could not control and no one reached out to help them.
This is where you can end up if you become addicted to some substance with a TBI.
I had an abuse problem, after my head injury in 2003. I treated my runaway brain, my lost memory files which I could not open, by drinking wine. It slowed my brain down. I would tell my wife, I just want a "little peace", just for a while and the wine did that for me, while the doctors looked for medications for me. After a while the wine became all consuming. The broken brain will compensate and soon you will need more and more of the substance which you are using to keep the brain quiet.
I went through a 9 week Intensive Alcohol rehab class (3 hours a day three days a week for 9 weeks) which helped somewhat. The participants were nurses, engineers, students, IT workers. In other words your neighbors.
The problem with these classes is they try and push you into Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.). Each of these programs think the twelve step program is the cure-all for the addiction. The problem is they only treat two parts of your problem: The mental and the spiritual. They ignore the physical and and the emotional parts which are usually where the addictions spring from. Either from TBI, mental abuse from parents, spouses, sometimes actual physical mental conditions (bi-polar, schizophrenia, depression, etc). Only 1/2 of the possible causes are treated and I feel they are the two least important.
I went to a few of the A.A. meetings and was appalled at them. It was a total waste of time and total crap. I am not afraid to say so. We do not know how to treat abuse/addictions in the US. To treat them effectively you must treat all four parts of the body: Mental, physical, emotional and spiritual. Healing and detoxing the body is just as important as sitting around a meeting, smoking cigarettes and bragging about your last episode of stupidity.
I, to this day, will not recommend A.A., C.A., N.A. or any of the other "A's" to anyone. They are a group of people who learned to be dependent (addicted) on each other and the group. You substitute one addiction for another. Why do they push "90 meetings in 90 days?" The meetings I attended, the people sat around and talked about how drunk they got two weeks ago before calling their sponsors to come help them out. The men and women of the groups were each trying to pick each other up for the night (another addiction). Before you could speak you had to stand up and say, "Hi, my name is William and I'm an alcoholic", or I'm Rochelle and I'm a drug addict".
And that my dears is what keeps people coming back to A.A. for support. That is their hook. Keep the people repeating, "I am an addict", "I am an alcoholic". I am not a human being with value, I am just a drunk who needs this group.
I found that to be so disgusting that I left and never went back. A person is much more than an "alcoholic' or and "drug addict" as they make you identify yourself. This is a way they control you and brain wash you into staying that person. They tell you once an addict, always an addict. There is no hope but for our meetings. As long as you get to wear that label you will be that person. It is a self perpetuating myth. The truth of the matter is A.A., N.A., C.A. and all the other "A's" need you much more than you need them. I told my intensive alcohol group therapy that I would not attend their A.A. meetings after trying a few out. They never pushed me to go again.
Once my doctor was able to find the right combination of medications to help my runaway brain, I no longer had a desire to drink wine. I have not had any in over three years and I'm quite content. Having a drink does not cross my mind.
My advice is don't rely on the superficial Alcoholic Anonymous groups who will keep you addicted to drugs and alcohol. The A.A.'s own reports indicate that only 2% of their members stay sober for any length of time. This is not a very promising therapy, if you ask me. Don't waste your time with these people who are actually dependent on you to keep coming back because they cannot handle their own problems.
Oh, by the way, it is reported when Bill Wilson (Bill W. the founder of this organization) was on his death bed, his last wish was for.....a beer.
Give your doctors a chance and then you can have a chance to some sort of life with a TBI and without the alcohol , drugs or parasitic support groups.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Clostridum Difficile
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Published: April 13, 2009
I suffered with C. diff several years ago and can attest to the virulence of the bug. It seemed to affect every bodily system, finally resulting in colitis. I was on a 50 day round of Flagyl in order to kill off the spores and that in result damaged my liver resulting in hospitalization for liver failure. It is not a nice bug to catch, but as this article states it is becoming more prevalent, it is becoming more virulent and doctors are not diagnosing it until too late. The fatality rate is rising and the treatment takes longer. Please be aware and get treatment (and ask your doctor if it could be clostridium difficile) as soon as symptoms arrive. Dr. Mike
Earlier this year, Harold and Freda Mitchell of Como, Miss., both came down with a serious stomach bug. At first, doctors did not know what was wrong, but the gastrointestinal symptoms became so severe that Mrs. Mitchell, 66, was hospitalized for two weeks. Her husband, a manufacturing supervisor, missed 20 days of work.
A local doctor who had worked in a Veterans Affairs hospital recognized the signs of Clostridium difficile, a contagious and potentially deadly bacterium. Although the illness is difficult to track, health officials estimate that in the United States the bacteria cause 350,000 infections each year in hospitals alone, with tens of thousands more occurring in nursing homes. While the majority of cases are found in health care settings, 20 percent or more may occur in the community. The illness kills an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people annually.
“It’s been the worst thing I’ve ever tried to get through in my life,” said Mrs. Mitchell, who remains weakened by the ordeal. “I really did think I was going to die.”
What is so frightening about C. difficile is that it is often spurred by antibiotics. The drugs wipe out the targeted illness, like a urinary tract or upper respiratory infection, but they also kill off large portions of the healthy bacteria that normally live in the digestive tract. If a person comes into contact with C. difficile, or already has it, the disruption to the beneficial bacteria creates an opportunity for the harmful bacteria to flourish.
The public health community has been sounding the alarm for years about the overuse of antibiotics and the emergence of “superbugs” — bacteria that have developed immunity to a wide number of antibiotics. But the C. difficile problem shows that the threat is not generalized or hypothetical, but immediate and personal.
“One of the things that we counsel consumers about is to make sure that an antibiotic is really necessary,” said Dr. Dale N. Gerding, an infectious disease specialist at the Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University in Chicago. “There are many good reasons for taking an antibiotic, but an illness like sinusitis or bronchitis winds up being treated with antibiotics even though it will go away by itself anyway.”
Even appropriate use of antibiotics can put a person at risk. Dr. Gerding said his own adult son came down with a C. difficile infection after taking antibiotics for tonsillitis.
The typical treatment for C. difficile is another course of antibiotics, typically the drug vancomycin. But the situation can quickly turn tragic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported on several cases of pregnant and postpartum women who developed life-threatening C. difficile infections after being treated for minor infections. In some instances, a C. difficile infection can be treated only by emergency surgery to remove the patient’s colon. Doctors say many patients report that they continue to suffer from regular bouts of diarrhea even after the infection is gone. About 20 percent of patients with the infection suffer a relapse, and C. difficile support groups have emerged on the Internet.
In the case of the Mitchell family, Mr. Mitchell had been taking antibiotics for another health problem, and the treatment apparently led to his C. difficile infection. Mrs. Mitchell probably contracted the illness from her husband. The spores from C. difficile are hardy, and contaminated surfaces must be scrubbed down with bleach to eradicate the germ. Doctors say Mrs. Mitchell’s illness is unusual because most people are protected by their own bacterial flora and wouldn’t be vulnerable to C. difficile if they had not been taking antibiotics, even after close exposure. The risk of contracting C. difficile outside the health care setting remains low, at about 7 cases per 100,000 people, studies show.
C. difficile is not a new illness, but it appears to be spreading at an alarming rate. The rate of C. difficile infection among hospital patients doubled from 2001 to 2005, according to an April 2008 report from the C.D.C. The rise in C. difficile cases around the world is linked with the growing use of all antibiotics, particularly a class of drugs called fluoroquinolones, which came into widespread use around 2001. The use of acid-suppressing drugs, including proton pump inhibitors like Prilosec, also may be a risk factor, although studies have been contradictory.
In addition to becoming more common, C. difficile is also becoming more deadly. Several years ago, the mortality rate from a C. difficile infection was around 1 to 2 percent. But today, various studies estimate that the death rate is 6 percent. The reason is that a hypervirulent strain has emerged that emits higher levels of toxins than earlier strains.
Many patients are far more familiar with another superbug, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, which can cause a severe and potentially deadly skin infection. MRSA started off primarily as a hospital-based infection but has become increasingly common in the community.
Hospitals may become more motivated to control C. difficile if the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services decides to withhold reimbursement for cases of hospital-acquired C. difficile infections. The system already withholds reimbursement for certain other preventable hospital infections.
In addition to careful use of antibiotics, patients and hospital visitors should always be vigilant about hand washing, and visitors should not sit on a patient’s hospital bed or use a patient’s restroom if it can be avoided. Patients should always report severe diarrhea symptoms to a doctor, particularly if they have taken antibiotics recently.
“Up until about 2002, this was a very mild disorder and very few people ever died from it,” said Dr. Perry Hookman, a gastroenterologist and associate professor of medicine at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami. “But in the past few years the bugs have become hypervirulent, more severe and now it’s a global threat.”
Published: April 13, 2009
I suffered with C. diff several years ago and can attest to the virulence of the bug. It seemed to affect every bodily system, finally resulting in colitis. I was on a 50 day round of Flagyl in order to kill off the spores and that in result damaged my liver resulting in hospitalization for liver failure. It is not a nice bug to catch, but as this article states it is becoming more prevalent, it is becoming more virulent and doctors are not diagnosing it until too late. The fatality rate is rising and the treatment takes longer. Please be aware and get treatment (and ask your doctor if it could be clostridium difficile) as soon as symptoms arrive. Dr. Mike
Earlier this year, Harold and Freda Mitchell of Como, Miss., both came down with a serious stomach bug. At first, doctors did not know what was wrong, but the gastrointestinal symptoms became so severe that Mrs. Mitchell, 66, was hospitalized for two weeks. Her husband, a manufacturing supervisor, missed 20 days of work.
A local doctor who had worked in a Veterans Affairs hospital recognized the signs of Clostridium difficile, a contagious and potentially deadly bacterium. Although the illness is difficult to track, health officials estimate that in the United States the bacteria cause 350,000 infections each year in hospitals alone, with tens of thousands more occurring in nursing homes. While the majority of cases are found in health care settings, 20 percent or more may occur in the community. The illness kills an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people annually.
“It’s been the worst thing I’ve ever tried to get through in my life,” said Mrs. Mitchell, who remains weakened by the ordeal. “I really did think I was going to die.”
What is so frightening about C. difficile is that it is often spurred by antibiotics. The drugs wipe out the targeted illness, like a urinary tract or upper respiratory infection, but they also kill off large portions of the healthy bacteria that normally live in the digestive tract. If a person comes into contact with C. difficile, or already has it, the disruption to the beneficial bacteria creates an opportunity for the harmful bacteria to flourish.
The public health community has been sounding the alarm for years about the overuse of antibiotics and the emergence of “superbugs” — bacteria that have developed immunity to a wide number of antibiotics. But the C. difficile problem shows that the threat is not generalized or hypothetical, but immediate and personal.
“One of the things that we counsel consumers about is to make sure that an antibiotic is really necessary,” said Dr. Dale N. Gerding, an infectious disease specialist at the Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University in Chicago. “There are many good reasons for taking an antibiotic, but an illness like sinusitis or bronchitis winds up being treated with antibiotics even though it will go away by itself anyway.”
Even appropriate use of antibiotics can put a person at risk. Dr. Gerding said his own adult son came down with a C. difficile infection after taking antibiotics for tonsillitis.
The typical treatment for C. difficile is another course of antibiotics, typically the drug vancomycin. But the situation can quickly turn tragic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported on several cases of pregnant and postpartum women who developed life-threatening C. difficile infections after being treated for minor infections. In some instances, a C. difficile infection can be treated only by emergency surgery to remove the patient’s colon. Doctors say many patients report that they continue to suffer from regular bouts of diarrhea even after the infection is gone. About 20 percent of patients with the infection suffer a relapse, and C. difficile support groups have emerged on the Internet.
In the case of the Mitchell family, Mr. Mitchell had been taking antibiotics for another health problem, and the treatment apparently led to his C. difficile infection. Mrs. Mitchell probably contracted the illness from her husband. The spores from C. difficile are hardy, and contaminated surfaces must be scrubbed down with bleach to eradicate the germ. Doctors say Mrs. Mitchell’s illness is unusual because most people are protected by their own bacterial flora and wouldn’t be vulnerable to C. difficile if they had not been taking antibiotics, even after close exposure. The risk of contracting C. difficile outside the health care setting remains low, at about 7 cases per 100,000 people, studies show.
C. difficile is not a new illness, but it appears to be spreading at an alarming rate. The rate of C. difficile infection among hospital patients doubled from 2001 to 2005, according to an April 2008 report from the C.D.C. The rise in C. difficile cases around the world is linked with the growing use of all antibiotics, particularly a class of drugs called fluoroquinolones, which came into widespread use around 2001. The use of acid-suppressing drugs, including proton pump inhibitors like Prilosec, also may be a risk factor, although studies have been contradictory.
In addition to becoming more common, C. difficile is also becoming more deadly. Several years ago, the mortality rate from a C. difficile infection was around 1 to 2 percent. But today, various studies estimate that the death rate is 6 percent. The reason is that a hypervirulent strain has emerged that emits higher levels of toxins than earlier strains.
Many patients are far more familiar with another superbug, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, which can cause a severe and potentially deadly skin infection. MRSA started off primarily as a hospital-based infection but has become increasingly common in the community.
Hospitals may become more motivated to control C. difficile if the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services decides to withhold reimbursement for cases of hospital-acquired C. difficile infections. The system already withholds reimbursement for certain other preventable hospital infections.
In addition to careful use of antibiotics, patients and hospital visitors should always be vigilant about hand washing, and visitors should not sit on a patient’s hospital bed or use a patient’s restroom if it can be avoided. Patients should always report severe diarrhea symptoms to a doctor, particularly if they have taken antibiotics recently.
“Up until about 2002, this was a very mild disorder and very few people ever died from it,” said Dr. Perry Hookman, a gastroenterologist and associate professor of medicine at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami. “But in the past few years the bugs have become hypervirulent, more severe and now it’s a global threat.”
Friday, April 10, 2009
Grape-seed extract kills laboratory leukemia cells
PHILADELPHIA – An extract from grape seeds forces laboratory leukemia cells to commit cell suicide, according to researchers from the University of Kentucky. They found that within 24 hours, 76 percent of leukemia cells had died after being exposed to the extract.
The investigators, who report their findings in the January 1, 2009, issue of Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, also teased apart the cell signaling pathway associated with use of grape seed extract that led to cell death, or apoptosis. They found that the extract activates JNK, a protein that regulates the apoptotic pathway.
While grape seed extract has shown activity in a number of laboratory cancer cell lines, including skin, breast, colon, lung, stomach and prostate cancers, no one had tested the extract in hematological cancers nor had the precise mechanism for activity been revealed.
"These results could have implications for the incorporation of agents such as grape seed extract into prevention or treatment of hematological malignancies and possibly other cancers," said the study's lead author, Xianglin Shi, Ph.D., professor in the Graduate Center for Toxicology at the University of Kentucky.
"What everyone seeks is an agent that has an effect on cancer cells but leaves normal cells alone, and this shows that grape seed extract fits into this category," he said.
Shi adds, however, that the research is not far enough along to suggest that people should eat grapes, grape seeds, or grape skin in excess to stave off cancer. "This is very promising research, but it is too early to say this is chemo-protective."
Hematological cancers – leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma – accounted for an estimated 118,310 new cancer cases and almost 54,000 deaths in 2006, ranking these cancers as the fourth leading cause of cancer incidence and death in the U.S.
Given that epidemiological evidence shows that eating vegetables and fruits helps prevent cancer development, Shi and his colleagues have been studying chemicals known as proanthocyanidins in fruits that contribute to this effect. Shi has found that apple peel extract contains these flavonoids, which have antioxidant activity, and which cause apoptosis in several cancer cell lines but not in normal cells. Based on those studies, and findings from other researchers that grape seed extract reduces breast tumors in rats and skin tumors in mice, they looked at the effect of the compound in leukemia cells.
Using a commercially available grape seed extract, Shi exposed leukemia cells to the extract in different doses and found the marked effect in causing apoptosis in these cells at one of the higher doses.
Thet also found that grapeseed extract did not affect normal cell, though they do not know the reason.
The researchers then used pharmacologic and genetic approaches to determine how the extract induced apoptosis. They found that the extract strongly activated the JNK pathway, which then led to up-regulation of Cip/p21, which controls the cell cycle.
They checked this finding by using an agent that inhibited JNK, and found that the extract was ineffective. Using a genetic approach – silencing the JNK gene – also disarmed grape seed extract's lethal attack in leukemia cells.
"This is a natural compound that appears to have relatively important properties," Shi said.
Source: American Association for Cancer Research
The investigators, who report their findings in the January 1, 2009, issue of Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, also teased apart the cell signaling pathway associated with use of grape seed extract that led to cell death, or apoptosis. They found that the extract activates JNK, a protein that regulates the apoptotic pathway.
While grape seed extract has shown activity in a number of laboratory cancer cell lines, including skin, breast, colon, lung, stomach and prostate cancers, no one had tested the extract in hematological cancers nor had the precise mechanism for activity been revealed.
"These results could have implications for the incorporation of agents such as grape seed extract into prevention or treatment of hematological malignancies and possibly other cancers," said the study's lead author, Xianglin Shi, Ph.D., professor in the Graduate Center for Toxicology at the University of Kentucky.
"What everyone seeks is an agent that has an effect on cancer cells but leaves normal cells alone, and this shows that grape seed extract fits into this category," he said.
Shi adds, however, that the research is not far enough along to suggest that people should eat grapes, grape seeds, or grape skin in excess to stave off cancer. "This is very promising research, but it is too early to say this is chemo-protective."
Hematological cancers – leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma – accounted for an estimated 118,310 new cancer cases and almost 54,000 deaths in 2006, ranking these cancers as the fourth leading cause of cancer incidence and death in the U.S.
Given that epidemiological evidence shows that eating vegetables and fruits helps prevent cancer development, Shi and his colleagues have been studying chemicals known as proanthocyanidins in fruits that contribute to this effect. Shi has found that apple peel extract contains these flavonoids, which have antioxidant activity, and which cause apoptosis in several cancer cell lines but not in normal cells. Based on those studies, and findings from other researchers that grape seed extract reduces breast tumors in rats and skin tumors in mice, they looked at the effect of the compound in leukemia cells.
Using a commercially available grape seed extract, Shi exposed leukemia cells to the extract in different doses and found the marked effect in causing apoptosis in these cells at one of the higher doses.
Thet also found that grapeseed extract did not affect normal cell, though they do not know the reason.
The researchers then used pharmacologic and genetic approaches to determine how the extract induced apoptosis. They found that the extract strongly activated the JNK pathway, which then led to up-regulation of Cip/p21, which controls the cell cycle.
They checked this finding by using an agent that inhibited JNK, and found that the extract was ineffective. Using a genetic approach – silencing the JNK gene – also disarmed grape seed extract's lethal attack in leukemia cells.
"This is a natural compound that appears to have relatively important properties," Shi said.
Source: American Association for Cancer Research
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