I've been thinking a lot about modern medicine lately. I guess partly because of undergoing cancer treatment, and the fact that my husband just recently broke his leg. There's a controversy over aspirin vs Tylenol. I found this about aspirin:
Hippocrates, a Greek physician, wrote in the fifth century B.C.E. about a bitter powder extracted from willow bark that could ease aches and pains and reduce fevers. This remedy is also mentioned in texts from ancient Sumeria, Egypt, and Assyria. Native Americans claim to have used it for headaches, fever, sore muscles, rheumatism, and chills. The Reverend Edward Stone, a vicar from Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England, noted in 1763 that the bark of the willow was effective in reducing a fever.
These are the common side effects:
Gastrointestinal complaints (stomach upset, dyspepsia, heartburn, small blood loss). To help avoid these problems, it is recommended that aspirin be taken at or after meals. Undetected blood loss may lead to hypochromic anemia.
Severe gastrointestinal complaints (gross bleeding and/or ulceration), requiring discontinuation and immediate treatment. Patients receiving high doses and/or long-term treatment should receive gastric protection with high-dosed antacids, ranitidine, or omeprazole.
Frequently, central nervous system effects (dizziness, tinnitus, hearing loss, vertigo, centrally mediated vision disturbances, and headaches). The higher the daily dose is, the more likely it is that central nervous system side effects will occur.
Sweating, seen with high doses, independent from antipyretic action With long-term treatment with high doses (for arthritis and rheumatic fever), often increased liver enzymes without symptoms, rarely reversible liver damage. The potentially fatal Reye's syndrome may occur, if given to pediatric patients with fever and other signs of infections. The syndrome is due to fatty degeneration of liver cells. Up to 30 percent of those afflicted will eventually die. Prompt hospital treatment may be life-saving.
Chronic nephritis with long-term use, usually if used in combination with certain other painkillers. This condition may lead to chronic renal failure.
Prolonged and more severe bleeding after operations and post-traumatic for up to 10 days after the last aspirin dose. If one wishes to counteract the bleeding tendency, fresh thrombocyte concentrate will usually work.
Skin reactions, angioedema,, and bronchospasm have all been seen infrequently.
But, on the other hand, we have Tylenol.
However, when taken in excessive quantities or when combined with alcohol, acetaminophen may cause death due to liver failure. In fact, an overdose of acetaminophen is the most common cause of fulminant hepatic failure as well as the most common cause of drug-induced liver disease in the United States. After acetaminophen became readily available in 1960 as an over-the-counter medication, it became one of the most popular means of attempting suicide. For liver injury to occur, acetaminophen must generally be consumed in quantities exceeding 15 grams within a short period of time, such as in a single dose. Although uncommon, ingestion of 7 to 10 grams at one time may cause liver damage.
Acetaminophen has a narrow therapeutic index. This means that the common dose is close to the overdose, making it a relatively dangerous substance.
Acetaminophen single doses above 10 grams or chronic doses over 5 grams per day in a well-nourished non-consumer of alcohol, or above 4 grams per day in a poorly nourished consumer of alcohol, can cause significant injury to the liver. Without timely treatment, acetaminophen overdoses can lead to liver failure and death within days. Because of the wide over-the-counter availability of the drug, it is sometimes used in suicide attempts.
Acetaminophen should not be taken after alcohol consumption, because the liver, when engaged in alcohol breakdown, cannot properly dispose of acetaminophen, thus increasing the risk of hepatotoxicity. _________________
So, let's see if I have this straight… God gave us a tree whose bark can reduce pain and fever, among other things. Instead of harvesting it with intelligence, and replanting, when they started running low on trees, they just made a man-made alternative. The natural remedy had a few drawbacks, mostly gastrointestinal, and the man-made one causes liver damage, and the overdose is close to the level of treatment.
This got me to thinking. Why, when the big pharmaceutical companies see how many people are going back to home-remedies, or herbal remedies, don't they just start making those? Why do they cling to their old standbys and not get into the herbal remedy business?
Well, I think I came up with an answer. Herbal remedies are natural, and therefore have fewer side effects. Pharmaceuticals, on the other hand, cause side effects that will lead to needing more pharmaceuticals. If they sold herbal remedies, they would make less money because people wouldn't need as many different kinds to treat the different side effects.
Mr. Obama slams big Pharma on one hand, and yet he wants to make herbal remedies regulated like pharmaceuticals. He wants to drive out the small store that sells natural remedies, so that big pharma doesn't have any competition.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Betty Ford, the former first lady whose triumph over drug and alcohol addiction became a beacon of hope for addicts and the inspiration for her Betty Ford Center in California, died at age 93, a family friend said late Friday.
Her death Friday was confirmed to The Associated Press by Marty Allen, chairman emeritus of the Ford Foundation. Family spokeswoman Barbara Lewandrowski said later that the former first lady died at the Eisenhower Medical Center in Palm Springs. Other details of her death were not immediately available.
“She was a wonderful wife and mother; a great friend; and a courageous First Lady,” former President George H.W. Bush said in a statement on Friday. “No one confronted life’s struggles with more fortitude or honesty, and as a result, we all learned from the challenges she faced.”
While her husband served as president, Ford‘s comments weren’t the kind of genteel, innocuous talk expected from a first lady, and a Republican one no less. Her unscripted comments sparked tempests in the press and dismayed President Gerald Ford’s advisers, who were trying to soothe the national psyche after Watergate. But to the scandal-scarred, Vietnam-wearied, hippie-rattled nation, Mrs. Ford’s openness was refreshing.
And 1970s America loved her for it.
According to Mrs. Ford, her young adult children probably had smoked marijuana — and if she were their age, she’d try it, too. She told “60 Minutes” she wouldn’t be surprised to learn that her youngest, 18-year-old Susan, was in a sexual relationship (an embarrassed Susan issued a denial).
She mused that living together before marriage might be wise, thought women should be drafted into the military if men were, and spoke up unapologetically for abortion rights, taking a position contrary to the president’s. “Having babies is a blessing, not a duty,” Mrs. Ford said.
“Mother’s love, candor, devotion, and laughter enriched our lives and the lives of the millions she touched throughout this great nation,” her family said in a statement released late Friday. “To be in her presence was to know the warmth of a truly great lady.”
Candor worked for Betty Ford, again and again. She would build an enduring legacy by opening up the toughest times of her life as public example.
In an era when cancer was discussed in hushed tones and mastectomy was still a taboo subject, the first lady shared the specifics of her breast cancer surgery. The publicity helped bring the disease into the open and inspired countless women to seek breast examinations.
Her most painful revelation came 15 months after leaving the White House, when Mrs. Ford announced that she was entering treatment for a longtime addiction to painkillers and alcohol. It turned out the famously forthcoming first lady had been keeping a secret, even from herself.
She used the unvarnished story of her own descent and recovery to crusade for better addiction treatment, especially for women. She co-founded the nonprofit Betty Ford Center near the Fords’ home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., in 1982. Mrs. Ford raised millions of dollars for the center, kept close watch over its operations, and regularly welcomed groups of new patients with a speech that started, “Hello, my name’s Betty Ford, and I’m an alcoholic and drug addict.”
Although most famous for a string of celebrity patients over the years — from Elizabeth Taylor and Johnny Cash to Lindsay Lohan — the center keeps its rates relatively affordable and has served more than 90,000 people.
In a statement Friday, President Barack Obama said the Betty Ford Center would honor Mrs. Ford’s legacy “by giving countless Americans a new lease on life.”
“As our nation’s First Lady, she was a powerful advocate for women‘s health and women’s rights,” the president said. “After leaving the White House, Mrs. Ford helped reduce the social stigma surrounding addiction and inspired thousands to seek much-needed treatment.”
Mrs. Ford was a free spirit from the start. Elizabeth Bloomer, born April 8, 1918, fell in love with dance as a girl in Grand Rapids, Mich., and decided it would be her life. At 20, despite her mother’s misgivings, she moved to New York to learn from her idol Martha Graham. She lived in Greenwich Village, worked as a model, and performed at Carnegie Hall in Graham’s modern dance ensemble. “I thought I had arrived,” she later recalled.
But her mother coaxed her back to Grand Rapids, where Betty worked as a dance teacher and store fashion coordinator and married William Warren, a friend from school days. He was a salesman who traveled frequently; she was unhappy. They lasted five years.
While waiting for her divorce to become final, she met and began dating, as she put it in her memoir, “probably the most eligible bachelor in Grand Rapids” — former college football star, Navy veteran and lawyer Jerry Ford. They would be married for 58 years, until his death in December 2006.
Two weeks after their October 1948 wedding, her husband was elected to his first term in the House. He would serve 25 years, rising to minority leader.
While her husband campaigned for weeks at a time or worked late on Capitol Hill, she raised their four children: Michael, Jack, Steven and Susan. She arranged luncheons for congressional wives, helped with her husband’s campaigns, became a Cub Scout den mother, taught Sunday school.
A pinched nerve in her neck in 1964, followed by the onset of severe osteoarthritis, led her to an assortment of prescription drugs that never fully relieved the pain. For years she had been what she later called “a controlled drinker, no binges.” Now she began mixing pills and alcohol. Feeling overwhelmed and underappreciated, she suffered an emotional breakdown that led to weekly visits with a psychiatrist.
The psychiatrist didn’t take note of her drinking but instead tried to build her self-esteem: “He said I had to start thinking I was valuable, not just as a wife and mother, but as myself.”
The White House would give her that gift.
In 1973, as Mrs. Ford was happily anticipating her husband’s retirement from politics, Vice President Spiro Agnew was forced out of office over bribery charges. President Richard Nixon turned to Gerald Ford to fill the office.
Less than a year later, his presidency consumed by the Watergate scandal, Nixon resigned. On Aug. 9, 1974, Gerald Ford was sworn in as the only chief executive in American history who hadn’t been elected either president or vice president.
Mrs. Ford wrote of her sudden ascent to first lady: “It was like going to a party you’re terrified of, and finding out to your amazement that you’re having a good time.”
She was 56 when she moved into the White House, and looked more matronly than mod. Ever gracious, her chestnut hair carefully coifed into a soft bouffant, she tended to speak softly and slowly, even when taking a feminist stand.
Her breast cancer diagnosis, coming less than two months after President Ford was whisked into office, may have helped disarm the clergymen, conservative activists and Southern politicians who were most inflamed by her loose comments. She was photographed recovering at Bethesda Naval Hospital, looking frail in her robe, and won praise for grace and courage.
“She seems to have just what it takes to make people feel at home in the world again,” media critic Marshall McLuhan observed at the time. “Something about her makes us feel rooted and secure — a feeling we haven’t had in a while. And her cancer has been a catharsis for everybody.”
The public outpouring of support helped her embrace the power of her position. “I was somebody, the first lady,” she wrote later. “When I spoke, people listened.”
She used her newfound influence to lobby aggressively for the Equal Rights Amendment, which failed nonetheless, and to speak against child abuse, raise money for handicapped children, and champion the performing arts.
It’s debatable whether Mrs. Ford‘s frank nature helped or hurt her husband’s 1976 campaign to win a full term as president. Polls showed she was widely admired. By taking positions more liberal than the president’s, she helped broaden his appeal beyond traditional Republican voters. But she also outraged some conservatives, leaving the president more vulnerable to a strong GOP primary challenge by Ronald Reagan. That battle weakened Ford going into the general election against Democrat Jimmy Carter.
Carter won by a slim margin. The president had lost his voice in the campaign’s final days, and it was Mrs. Ford who read his concession speech to the nation.
The Fords retired to a Rancho Mirage golf community, but he spent much of his time away, giving speeches and playing in golf tournaments. Home alone, deprived of her exciting and purposeful life in the White House, Mrs. Ford drank.
By 1978 her secret was obvious to those closest to her.
“As I got sicker,” she recalled, “I gradually stopped going to lunch. I wouldn’t see friends. I was putting everyone out of my life.” Her children recalled her living in a stupor, shuffling around in her bathrobe, refusing meals in favor of a drink.
Her family finally confronted her and insisted she seek treatment.
“I was stunned at what they were trying to tell me about how I disappointed them and let them down,” she said in a 1994 Associated Press interview. “I was terribly hurt — after I had spent all those years trying to be the best mother, wife I could be. … Luckily, I was able to hear them saying that I needed help and they cared too much about me to let it go on.”
She credited their “intervention” with saving her life.
Mrs. Ford entered Long Beach Naval Hospital and, alongside alcoholic young sailors and officers, underwent a grim detoxification that became the model for therapy at the Betty Ford Center. In her book “A Glad Awakening,” she described her recovery as a second chance at life.
And in that second chance, she found a new purpose.
“There is joy in recovery,” she wrote, “and in helping others discover that joy.”
Family spokeswoman Lewanbrowski the family expects to organize a service in Palm Springs over the next couple days. Ford’s body will be sent to Michigan for burial alongside former President Gerald Ford, who is buried at his namesake library in Grand Rapids.
___
Associated Press writers Shaya Tayefe Mohajer in Los Angeles and Mike Householder in Detroit contributed to this report - Posted: The Blaze
PALM DESERT, Calif., July 10 (UPI) -- The family of former U.S. first lady Betty Ford said her California memorial service Tuesday would be private, although the public was welcome afterward.
The 93-year-old wife of former President Gerald Ford died Friday at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage of natural causes with family members at her side, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Family spokesman Greg Willard, the Fords' longtime attorney, said in a statement a private memorial at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert would begin at 11:20 a.m. Tuesday. Eulogies will be given by former first lady Rosalynn Carter, news commentator Cokie Roberts and the director of the Betty Ford Center for addictions, Geoffrey Mason.
Public visitation at the church was scheduled to begin at 3 p.m., Willard said.
Ford's remains will be flown to Grand Rapids, Mich., for burial beside her husband, who died in 2006.
The wife of the 38th president used her status to raise awareness of women's healthcare and substance abuse treatment. She underwent a mastectomy and overcame addictions to alcohol and painkillers, leading to the founding of the clinic named for her in Rancho Mirage, Calif.
Drugs that include traditional non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) as well as new generation anti-inflammatory drugs (COX-2 inhibitors) have been linked to cardiovascular risks.
Researchers performed a comprehensive analysis of all randomized controlled trials that compared any NSAID with other NSAIDs or placebo. The analysis included more than 30 trials that examined in total more than 116,000 patients.
Drugs such as rofecoxib (Vioxx) and lumiracoxib were associated with twice the risk of heart attack, while ibuprofen was associated with more than three times the risk of stroke. Etoricoxib (Arcoxia) and diclofenac were associated with the highest risk of cardiovascular death.
Eurekalert reports:
"... [T]hese cardiovascular risks are worrying because many patients have both cardiovascular disease and musculoskeletal disease, and suggests that it is time for an evaluation of a broader range of alternatives."
In other drug news, the U.S. FDA has asked manufacturers of prescription drugs containing acetaminophen to limit the dosage of the drug and add a liver toxicity warning to labels. The warning will be a "boxed warning" -- the strongest warning for a prescription drug.
Prescription acetaminophen (a pain and fever reducer better known as Tylenol) must limit the drugs to no more than 325 milligrams per tablet or capsule. Currently, some products contain more than twice that amount.
Paging Dr. Gupta reports:
"Overdose from prescription combination products containing acetaminophen account for nearly half of all cases of acetaminophen related liver failure in the United States, many of which result in liver transplant or death."
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
Millions of Americans depend on anti-inflammatory drugs to relieve pain from arthritis, headaches, injuries and countless other conditions that cause chronic pain, but the drugs are among the most dangerous on the market.
Beware of Taking These Common Painkillers if You Value Your Heart Health
Vioxx was among this same class of drugs, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDS, and it was pulled from the market in 2004 after 60,000 people died from its increased heart risks.
I issued the first public alert that Vioxx was dangerous and would cause an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. That warning came in 1999 -- one year before the drug was approved in the US and five years before it was eventually pulled from the market.
Later in 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also warned that NSAIDS, such as Cox-2 inhibitors Bextra (which was pulled from the market in 2005) and Celebrex, as well as over-the-counter varieties like Aleve, Ibuprofen and aspirin, also lead to an increased risk of cardiovascular problems.
In what's appearing very much like déjà vu, now a new study by researchers at The University of Bern in Switzerland revealed that NSAIDs lead to a two to fourfold increase in the risk of heart attacks, stroke or cardiovascular death, noting that it would only take 25-50 patients being treated with NSAIDs for one year to lead to an additional heart attack or stroke.
Risky Choices for Pain Relief
Aside from significantly increasing your heart risks, NSAIDs are linked to serious gastrointestinal risks, like bleeding of the digestive tract, increased blood pressure and kidney problems. Remember, this applies not only to prescription medications like Celebrex but also over-the-counter drugs like aspirin, Advil and Motrin.
In fact, it's very difficult to find a drug-based method of pain relief that is not saddled with severe side effects. The FDA has even recently limited the amount of acetaminophen allowed in prescription products and added a boxed warning due to liver toxicity concerns.
Prescription products that contain acetaminophen (Tylenol) will now be required to limit the amount of the drug to no more than 325 milligrams per tablet, as taking too much is the most common cause of acute liver failure in the United States.
There are over-the-counter Tylenol products that currently contain well over 325 milligrams of acetaminophen however, and they will not be included in this new limit, even though they're easier to obtain, so you will have to watch out for this risk yourself.
But no matter what type of painkiller you choose, the bottom line to remember is that they do not come without risks! Unfortunately, if you visit your conventional physician with chronic pain, a long-term treatment plan will typically include a drug-combination approach, using anti-inflammatory drugs, anti-convulsants, muscle relaxants and possibly other types of pain medication as well.
In other words, the answer for pain relief is drugs, drugs and more drugs -- each one raising your risk of suffering potentially lethal side effects. Is there a better way?
A Safer Approach for Pain Relief
Many people reach for the pill bottle with little or no thought of what it might do to their health in the long run. But tens of thousands of people die prematurely each year as a result...
It's completely understandable to want to get rid of pain. However, please understand that there are many options other than prescription and over-the-counter painkillers that are much safer, even though they may require some patience
Seems far more rational to stick with natural approaches for inflammation as they don't kill you or cause permanent organ damage, and typically serve to actually prevent disease. My first and newest recommendation is now astaxanthin. It is the most powerful natural anti-inflammatory known and profoundly helpful for supporting heart and eye health.
Here are several other guidelines that can help reduce, or potentially even eliminate, your pain, depending on its severity:
Start taking a high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fat. My personal favorite is krill oil. Omega-3 fats are precursors to mediators of inflammation called prostaglandins. (In fact, that is how anti-inflammatory painkillers work, they manipulate prostaglandins.)
Eliminate or radically reduce most grains and sugars from your diet. Avoiding grains and sugars will lower your insulin and leptin levels. Elevated insulin and leptin levels are one of the most important reasons why inflammatory prostaglandins are produced. That is why stopping sugar and sweets is so important to controlling your pain and other types of chronic illnesses.
Optimize your production of vitamin D by getting regular, appropriate sun exposure, which will work through a variety of different mechanisms to reduce your pain.
Retool your diet based on your body's unique nutritional type. Understanding your nutritional type is a tool I have seen work in thousands of patients to reduce their pain. If you are not yet aware of your nutritional type, you can take our free online test now.
Use effective stress relief tools, such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). EFT can address your previous emotional traumas that cause bioelectrical short circuiting, predisposing you to immune dysfunction.
Use safer alternatives for temporary relief, while you are in the process of implementing the above strategies. For several safe and effective suggestions, please see this link for anti-inflammatory alternatives.
As you can see from the list above, there is no "quick fix" to treating pain, but rather it requires a lifestyle change that will be well worth the effort – and far safer than resorting to potentially deadly pain-relieving drugs.
The death of pop icon Michael Jackson is raising questions over what might have caused it.
Photograph by: handout, morguefile.com
CHICAGO — The death of pop music icon Michael Jackson from cardiac arrest on Thursday has raised a host of questions about what might have caused it.
It may take weeks before an autopsy can reveal the true circumstances that led the singer’s heart to stop.
One possible cause reported by celebrity website TMZ.com is that he was injected with the potent painkiller Demerol before he went into cardiac arrest.
Others speculate it was a combination of Demerol and Oxycontin, another powerful painkiller that is among the most commonly abused prescription drugs.
Here are some facts about cardiac arrest and both these drugs.
HOW COULD DEMEROL CAUSE CARDIAC ARREST?
Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart stops circulating blood. In 80 percent of cases, the cause is heart disease, but narcotic painkillers like Demerol can cause cardiac arrest.
Dr. Daniel Simon, chief of cardiology at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, said if Jackson had been injected with too much Demerol, it might have caused him to stop breathing, a condition called respiratory arrest.
"The most likely scenario with Demerol would be that it caused a respiratory arrest because it takes away the drive to ventilate (breathe)," Simon said in a telephone interview.
He said low blood oxygen can trigger a deadly heart rhythm known as ventricular fibrillation in which the heart quivers but does not circulate blood. "Without CPR and a defibrillator, you have no chance," Simon said.
DEMEROL AND OXYCONTIN?
ABC News has reported that Jackson was addicted to prescription painkillers, and may have used Demerol in combination with Oxycontin.
Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Dr. Bruce Lindsay, past president of the Heart Rhythm Society, said the two drugs in combination could cause respiratory arrest.
"As with any of these painkillers, if you get too much on board, it really depresses the central nervous system so the patient could lapse into a deep sleep or even a coma. And if their respiratory capacity was too depressed, they would just stop breathing," Lindsay said.
"If they stop breathing, eventually of course the heart will go into cardiac arrest, but not because of some primary heart problem. It is simply because the final mode of death is that the heart stops beating."
COULD IT HAVE BEEN HEART DISEASE?
Simon said many media outlets are looking for exotic reasons to explain the singer’s death because it occurred in a relatively young man, but age 50 is not too young for sudden cardiac arrest.
"A lot of people are saying it’s a surprise a 50-year-old has cardiac arrest. Thirty percent of cardiac arrests are in people for whom it is their first symptom of heart disease," Simon said.
"When they do an autopsy, the first thing the medical examiner will look for is a scar in the heart muscle suggesting an old heart attack," Simon said.
He said 25 percent of patients who have cardiac arrest have had a prior heart attack without knowing it. "That is what the scar will tell them."
Big Pharma and doctors under the AMA push drugs, drugs, drugs and surgery rather than prevention, natural remedies and alternative treatments. Once nationalized healthcare takes over that trend away from natural and alternative cures will continue while their pattern of treatment will go unchanged except that it will be rationed.
BY JULIE STEENHUYSEN, REUTERSJUNE 26, 2009
(Editing by Mary Milliken; Editing by Will Dunham)
terrified of, and finding out to your amazement that you’re having a good time.” 