FUCK NORMAL.
Over the past few weeks, thanks to reconnects on Facebook and meeting a few dbloggers face to face, I’ve been asked about my late sister Debbie -in detail. People wanted to know why diabetes did such a number on her. Why it took her life.
I think there are many reasons, not all having to do with The Big D. Debbie’s health was fragile to begin with, diabetes or not.
When she was diagnosed, (in the late 60’s) the diabetes diet was strict and archaic in terms of diabetes today. There was no such thing as Blood Sugar testing at home; urine testing tablets and tape were the only choices.
HA1C’s didn’t exist; neither did support systems, in real time or on the web.
Insulin pumps were a pipe dream and insulin was obtained through cows and piggies.
Needles had to be boiled and sharpened, and were never pleasant.
Diabetes treatment in the last 10 to 20 years is historic to say the least.
The freedom we have to day is so crazy compared to how it used to be.
I mean my sister couldn’t eat anything with sugar, and boy did she overcompensate when she did. She snuck food at all hours. Food and alcohol became her addictions and that addictive behavior followed her into adulthood.
Her alcoholism is another posting in itself. Let’s just say alcoholism can do a number on one’s kidneys, and when she finally quit, it was to late.
But what really worked against her (at least in my eyes,) is the fact that Debbie wanted so desperately to fit everyone else’s ideal of normal.
If I could change one thing for my sister Debbie, (besides never having been diagnosed with Diabetes) it would be to change what her ideal of normal was, especially when she was a teenager and in college, when most of her damage was done.
I guess what I’m trying to say to those in dblogville is screw everyone’s version of normal, diabetic or not. What’s normal for a diabetic is not considered normal for the rest of the population. It is what it is…. And what it is, is DIFFERENT.
Different is ok.
Different works for me.
My blood sugar and A1C goals are different than yours, and I’m fine with that.
I’m fine with testing, no matter where I am, or who’s with me.
Debbie wasn’t.
She tried to be so damn “normal." Normal was eating and drinking everything she wanted, going into DKA, and doing drugs, so that she could fit in with experimental teenage years that occurred in the early 70’s. She over compensated when it came to “being normal” and the damage was major.
WHY BE NORMAL? Some people will sit in freezing stadium (shirtless and with faces painted) on a Sunday afternoon to be part of THE PACK. I THINK THAT’S INSANE. To them, it’s TOTALLY normal.
Some people stay with someone because they are afraid to be alone. That’s not only not normal, it’s really quite sad.
Some people go the Vegan route, no animal products ingested at all. I think that’s difficult and limiting to say the least. They think it’s normal.
Some folks love the Hannah Montana. I just don’t get it.
To them – NORMAL.
Everyone has a different ideal of normal. Instead of relying on some else’s ideal of the word, how about embracing what the world represents to each of us individually.
While there is a format to diabetes, it needs to be fined tuned for the individual.
Diabetes is a different creature every day.
We’ve all said that, and we all need to practice that.
Now, we all need to give ourselves a break and say," I'm really doing the best I can and some days are better than others. Shit happens, with our life and our diabetes."
We need to be proud of ourselves for all our hard work regarding diabetes, even when our numbers aren't where we'd like them to be.
We never get a vacation from D, and we deal with it everyday. Some days, are just better than others.
I wish Debbie had focused on what was normal for her, instead of trying to live everyone else’s view of the word. I wish she could have met all my nephews and nieces, watched with pride as our niece perform on Broadway, be blown away at our nephews “great brain” as he works towards completing his Doctorate at Berkley, and I wish she could have met out oldest nephews son.
I wish she had the confidence to be and love herself, and I wish she didn’t have to suffer.
I wonder what my life would have been like, had her view of what was normal had been different.
I don’t know why I’m really writing all this. Maybe it’s because a few friends from grade school recently told me they had no ideal that Debbie had been so sick, because I had kept it to myself.
Maybe it’s because I’m SO HORMONAL and I’m craving salt and chocolate & can actually see my 5 lb water weight gain happening right before my eyes.
Maybe it’s because I want people in dBlogville to know that while their D reality is different than the “norm,” it’s so much better than what it had been in the past.
Maybe I need to remind myself of how far we've come, and how far we still have to go.
Maybe I just needed to remind myself of Debbie.
Diarrhoea. Best treated with Homeopathy?
Diarrhoea is passing loose or looser, or more frequent stools, than normal. It is not normally a serious condition, but can be an annoying and embarrassing one. Acute periods of diarrhoea usually last no more than a few days, and can be accompanied by fever, vomiting and stomach cramps. Longer-term, chronic diarrhoea can be more serious, and more difficult to treat.
Note that diarrhoea, like most ailments, can be brought on my a variety of conventional medical drugs.
CONVENTIONAL MEDICAL TREATMENT
NHS Choices states, quite rightly, that “diarrhoea will usually clear up without treatment after a few days because the immune system fights off the infection”. The advantage of Homeopathy over conventional medicine, however, is that waiting for the body to recover on its own is not necessary, and remedies can be used immediately, and have been proven to shorten the period of recovery.
NHS Choices then goes on to give sensible advice about drinking fluids, including oral rehydration solutions, to avoid dehydration. It also gives some advice about what to eat.
NHS Choices then goes on to describe Antidiarrhoeal medicines, like Loperamide and Racecadotril,
which “may help reduce your diarrhoea and shorten how long it lasts by around 24 hours”. It says that these should not be given to children, or if there is blood or mucous in the stool. This is presumably because of the side-effects of these drugs. These side-effects, some of them serious, can be found on this link.
Painkillers are the next suggestion. As NHS Choices says, these do not cure your diarrhoea, but can relieve any accompanying fever or headache. However, as is now well known, these ‘benefits’ come at a considerable potential cost, and the dangers of painkillers are now becoming so serious that doctors are increasingly reluctant to prescribe them. To read about the dangers of painkilling drugs, see this link.
NHS Choices then introduces Antibiotic drugs as a possible treatment. However, it says that “treatment with antibiotics is not recommended for diarrhoea if the cause is unknown”. The reasons given is that they will not work if the diarrhoea is caused by a virus, and antibiotics “can cause unpleasant side effects”. And, of course, there is the whole issue of antibiotic resistance too! Apparently, however, they will be prescribed if there is severe diarrhoea.
Finally, NHS Choices talks about hospital treatment “if you or your child is seriously dehydrated due to diarrhoea”. Treatment will involve administering fluids and nutrients directly into a vein (intravenously).
THE HOMEOPATHIC TREATMENT OF DIARRHOEA
Important Note
Homeopathy does not treat illness or diseases. It treats the individual who has been diagnosed with a particular illness or disease. The distinction is important, and if you wish to read more about this, click on the chapter “Illness Diagnosis” above.
These remedy descriptions come from the Hpathy website. They are likely to help if the patients’ symptoms match with these general remedy symptoms.
Aesculus hip
Chronic diarrhoea, stool first hard and black, later becomes yellow, thin, watery associated with severe lumber and sacral pains, weakness, weariness, and sleepiness.
Aconite
Diarrhoea from checked perspiration, during heat of summer, from fight or anger, in cold nights, corrosive slimy stools, frequent and involuntary.
Aethusa cynapium
Green, thin, bilious discharges, with violent tenesmus, stools of partly digested food, just after meal or at night. Stool loose with cutting in abdomen.
Agaricus
Excellent remedy for diarrhea in wet weather.
Aloes
Remarkable remedy for diarrhoea, profuse watery diarrhoea; wants of confidence in sphincter ani, early morning diarrhoea, driving out of bed in the morning; urging of stool continuously worse immediately after eating; feeling of fullness and weight in the pelvis, with passage of urine, only hot flatus passes, giving relief but burning in anus afterwards; stool difficult to retain; even a well formed stool passes unnoticed; aggravation hot damp weather, overheating, after cold in a damp room, after chagrin; urging with intense gripping, pinching pain across the lower part of abdomen.
Nux Vomica
Diarrhoea due to over eating and diet errors and indigestible foods; pain in abdomen before stools; stools contain undigested particles of food; diarrhoea after debauch.
Podophyllum
Diarrhoea green watery, fetid, profuse, and gushing; Worse during teething and in the morning, while bathing or washing and in hot weather; Camp diarrhoea; Diarrhoea alternating with constipation; Prolapse of rectum, before or with stool.
Pulsatilla
Diarrhoea after measles; stool contains undigested food particles; diarrhoea due to food poisoning.
Natrum Sulph
Stools involuntary while passing flatus; early morning diarrhoea; great size of fecal masses.
Veratrum album
Painful diarrhoea; watery, copious, and forcefully evacuated followed by great weakness.
Arsenic album
Useful in cases where there is marked restlessness; anguish and intolerance of pain; quantity of stool passed is small and prostration and weakness is out of all proportion to the quantity passed; great thirst for small quantities of water at short intervals.
Croton Tig
Stool yellow, watery, expelled suddenly, gunshot diarrhoea; aggravated by drink or food; diarrhoea associated with nausea and vomiting; every movement causes discharge.
Graphites
Stool of brown fluid mixed with undigested substances and an intolerable fetid odour.
Sulphur
Morning diarrhoea ordinarily at the time when the patient begins to think about rising; between midnight and morning
Antim crud
Alternate diarrhoea and constipation in old people; diarrhoea after overheating; after nursing, after cold bathing, at night and early morning; diarrhoea with nausea and vomiting, colic and loss of appetite; diarrhoea from acid, vinegar; stool profuse, watery, with little hard lumps. Diarrhoea on alternate days, rectum inactive, even a soft, thin stool requires great straining, patient cannot pass until there is large accumulation; diarrhea when she urinates.
Argentum Nitricum
Remarkable remedy for nervous diarrhoea, diarrhea from anticipation or apprehension; when ready to go to church, opera, theatre, etc. diarrhoea from taking sweets, from drinking; diarrhoea during dentition; stool green, flaky, like spinach, mucus, with much flatulence.
Bryonia Alba
Diarrhoea due to suddenly checked perspiration in hot weather, from getting overheated in summers; from drinking milk; desire from cold drinks and acids, for large quantities at long intervals; bilious diarrhoea with lancinating pain.
Calcaria phos
Diarrhoea with much flatulency, caused by juicy fruits; after vexations, in school going girls with headaches; diarrhoea during dentition.
Camphora
Diarrhoea with great prostration and collapse; Dark brown r black stool with cutting pain in abdomen; rice watery stools
Cuprum met
Violent diarrhoea, with cramps in the stomach and chest; frequent watery diarrhoea, with flakes; cold sweat; weak and small pulse; excellent remedy for cholera.
Dulcamara
Diarrhoea alternating with rheumatism; stool slimy, alternately yellow or greenish, whitish, watery; frequent; scanty; corrosive, with floculli, aggravation at night and in wet weather.
Iodum
Diarrhoea from pancreatic affections; chronic diarrhoea of an exhausting character
Ipecaucuanha
Autumnal diarrhoea; chronic diarrhoea, continuous nausea, stool as green as grass, putrid; frequent vomiting of jelly like green mucus.
Lycopodium
Diarrhoea after suppression of skin eruptions; stool thin brown or pale; excessive accumulation of flatulence.
Mag carb
Stool like scum of frog pound; green or frothy white masses, floating on the green, watery stool; aggravate in hot weather, during dentition, from artificial food.
Phosphorous
Watery diarrhoea; with lumps of white mucus; morning diarrhoea , exhausting stools; chronic diarrhoea with gradual loss of strength.
Atrial Fibrillation. The dangers of blood-thinning drugs
Recently, the mainstream media, including the BBC, reported that NICE were instructing doctors to stop using Aspirin in the treatment of Atrial Fibrillation, and to use blood-thinning drugs (like Warfarin, Pradaxa and Multaq) instead. In my blog, "The NHS Overspends again" I said the following about this change of advice.
The NICE guidance on aspirin overturns conventional medical practice that has been in place for decades. What does this mean? It means that the NHS has now recognised that people have been taking a drug is not very effective.
Yet the main problem with aspirin is not just that it is ineffective. There is a growing recognition that aspirin is positively dangerous to our health, especially when taken on a long-term basis. This, of course, was not mentioned by NICE, or by the BBC, but it could well be the primary reason for the change in advice.
Indeed, there is evidence, reported in the BMJ some years ago that the use of aspirin can actually triple the risk of stroke - the very condition it has been given to prevent!.
This may be bad enough - doctors giving us ineffective but harmful medicines. Yet what has not been reported is new evidence about the dangers of blood-thinning drugs, notably Pradaxa (a new drug, used as an alternative to Warfarin, which for many years has been considered to be a dangerous treatment).
Pradaxa was approved in 2010, and is used to treat irregular heartbeat (atrial fibrillation, or AF). It is supposed to prevent strokes. As usual Big Pharma (supported by the mainstream media) heralded this as a 'breakthrough' drug, being safer, and causing less haemorrhaging than Warfarin). However, the dangers of Pradaxa soon became known to the medical establishment, even if they were not publicised, and even if patients have not been told.
When the FDA approved Pradaxa in the USA, they said that it's bleeding rates were not higher than Warfarin's. Yet, in a straight contraction to this, it also stated that the risk of bleeding was 6 times higher than with Warfarin!
What has happened since suggests that the latter statement was correct. The manufacturer of Pradaxa, Boehringer Ingelheim, has settled about 4,000 injury lawsuits, and have been reported to have paid over $650 million to those injured by the drug. (Investigation update: Manufacturer settles approximately 4,000 Pradaxa lawsuits for $650 million, published online 04.06.14, newsnet5.com).
Yet the drug is still being prescribed! Of course! Did it suggest to drug regulators throughout the world that Pradaxa was a dangerous drug? Of course not!
It has been estimated that Pradaxa caused 542 deaths, from bleeding, in 2011, that is, the year after its approval. (FDA-Approved Drug Linked to 542 Deaths and 2,367 Hemorrhages, but FDA Refuses to Pull It, published online, healthimpactnews.com).
Most of the complaints about Pradaxa were that the drug company failed to warn patients about the risk of internal bleeding. Yet did the FDA do anything about these complaints. Of course not! One piece of research indicates that Pradaxa can be blamed for a total of 1,158 deaths, and 12,494 serious injuries - just in the USA!
And yet nothing is done. The drug is still being marketed throughout the world, with sales rising year by year. People are still taking it, and most of them will be unaware of the potential consequences - because no-one in the mainstream media, no-one in the conventional health establishment, not even our own doctors, bother to tell us!
So, in the NICE guidance, and the BBC article referring to the treatment of AF, doctors are advised not to give Aspirin - but to give blood-thinning drugs instead.
AND NOTE, THERE IS NOT A WORD OF WARNING ABOUT THE DANGERS OF THESE BIG PHARMA DRUGS - AS USUAL!
So what NICE is suggesting for the treatment of AF is interesting. Aspirin is not effective. So move to taking a blood-thinning drug. However, they are not informing us that Aspirin is dangerous. Or that Warfarin, Pradaxa, and other blood-thinning drugs are more dangerous.
Homeopathy anyone?
PS
Can any blood thinning drug be taken safely? The answer is "No". If you are in any doubt about this, please see my blog on Multaq, another dangerous blood-thinning drug!
