swingerofbirches's Comments (38)

“I try to eat healthfully. What about an Amy's Indian meal? True, they are microwavable meals, but is that inherently not healthful? They are mostly organic and are all vegetarian and many are (thankfully for me) gluten free.

I want to eat even more healthfully, but I do not cook, and I run out of ideas of what to do with what I have. I also don't grocery shop (long story--but I could start grocery shopping in the future; it's difficult right now).

I would be curious to see what an average functional medicine person would propose eating for each meal every day; it would also be beneficial if they showed an example of doing this vegetarian, gluten free.”

“That's all well and good, but I still don't see how the average person working in a services industry job that provides no healthcare or who is a contractor (many companies are now "hiring" people that perform the duties of employees as contractors) is supposed to be able to now get it. For that person I hear they will now better be able to comparison shop. Uh huh...you can already comparison shop by comparing. If you make it easier that is good, but it's not like you're saying the plan will provide subsidies.

The idea of insurance for something everybody needs doesn't make sense. Home insurance makes sense because not everyone will have a house fire. Everyone does need medical care at some point or another. So making insurance better is not bad, but it's not great.”

“I reached the word limit. Basically, I wanted to add that the psychiatrists I have seen say there is no reason to want to go off the medications, the alternatives I look into, they are not at all familiar with and they have no intellectual curiosity about them, and they will even suggest increasing my levels of medication, even though I am stable right now. The main problems I have right now are from the medications themselves. Sorry to take up a double post.”

“Thanks. It sounds like you know me rather well. I've seen so many psychiatrists and have done so much research on my own for alternative treatments to help me withdraw from the drugs, alternatives like l theanine, inositol, taking lyrica or gabapentin or a cross taper over to valium (longer acting so easier to withdraw from).

But I live in an area of the country where every psychiatrist I have seen is a foreign medical school graduate, and I don't mean to sound xenophobic, but I can only guess that because it's a poorer part of the country, they are reimbursed by insurance less, and the less qualified psychiatrists are the ones who end up working here. I'm lucky if I can find one who spends a few minutes talking to me and I can understand them. I mean this sincerely: they do not have a grasp of the drugs I take as well as I do. They aren't aware of the basic dangers of these drugs, like me going off benzodiazepines suddenly would result in seizures. There's a disconnect between them and the reality of these drugs so large that it is like a twilight zone to me. I cannot understand how this is their specialty when it seems to be what they are so inept at in particular.

I'm afraid to try supplements on my own without a doctor who knows how to help me get off the drugs using supplements. But I have not found that doctor.”

“I gained 40 lbs over a few months on Zyprexa. I now take Seroquel instead at night which is a little better. I take it at night and it is a *huge* struggle for me not to binge eat a half hour after I take it. Since being on it I have irregular liver enzyme test results, and my blood sugar is constantly in the pre-diabetic range. I eat very healthfully in the daytime, but there is an instant trigger after taking the pills at night to eat ravenously. I try to fill up on water and am trying to lose weight right now, but it is definitely an extra challenge on psychiatric meds. My psychiatrist has never asked for me to have my liver enzymes, blood sugar, and eyes checked for cataracts (all of which you should do when on Seroquel). I have to request these myself from my PCP who writes the scripts for the tests. Sadly, Seroquel is not my largest concern. I was only 14 when a psychiatrist put me on Ativan daily, indefinitely. If you know anything about benzodiazepines, you know they are the most insidiously physically addicting drugs. I take only a prescribed supposed therapeutic amount, but have been unable to withdraw from it. Google benzodiazepine withdrawal. It can actually result in death.”

“If you find raising children unfulfilling why do you do it? People have choices to make before having children at all. I know what it's like to be in daycare from morning through dinner and I will never put any children I have through it, if I ever have kids, which i doubt I will. Why would I want children to pay someone else to take care of them all day long? The daycare centers could never care about your children as much as you should. Maybe it's that people who stay with their kids to raise them don't get enough validation from the outside world. If you're doing it and need validation, I validate you and tell you you're doing a very important job!”

“This will be cutting a long story very short, but still everything is true about this. When I was 14 I was experiencing what I now believe to be a conversion disorder. I had terrible panic attacks, vocal tics, and could not sit through classes I used to excel in. I became an obvious distraction and ended up living in the nurses office through much of school. I was in constant distress over thoughts I wouldn't let myself think: that I was gay. I was terrified of thinking about it and most terrified that I would accidentally raise my hand and say I was gay. If you knew where I grew up, you would have been terrified too. After Matthew Shepperd was killed, the talk I heard was that he got what was coming to him. Teachers often said horrible things about gay people. I finally went to a psychiatrist because I couldn't stay in classes. The psychiatrist prescribed me to take 2 mg of Ativan daily and Paxil after a 15 minute appt. He was the first person I told that I might be gay, he said not to tell anyone, that people get killed for saying things like that. I'm still addicted to Ativan ("therapeutic" dose) and still struggle with my sexuality 13 years later.”

“I certainly don't know much more about buddhism that a person would know through casually hearing about it. However, what I do know suggests to me that a person with buddha-like nature would probably be very noninterventonalist and say nothing to sarah palin except hello if their paths were to cross., That it is what you are which creates change, not what you change in other people. Could just be that's the pop western side of it that I've heard though. I don't purport to know much about it or follow it. But i like what I believe to be some of the ideas from it.”

“It's an interesting notion, the idea of acceptance so you can move forward. It extends what I often tell myself and other people which is that acceptance itself is paradoxically helpful. I personally have anxiety issues, and telling myself that it's OK to be anxious can paradoxically help rather than fighting the anxiety. It's OK for things to be bad, we don't have to be happy. Isn't that strange, that telling yourself you don't have to be happy can make you happier?

I've come to realize what you are saying over time by necessity. I guess I used to think a fairness fairy would transport me back in time and make things right. But no matter how wrongful someone was to me and causing a chronic problem I have, the actual harm they caused is that it is my issue to deal with in this moment. They gave it to me and that is their crime, but the fact is that it is still mine. They're certainly not rushing into my life to make it better, so I have to be an actor in my life. That's the tough part, but at least it's clear.”

“I live for $0 a day .................

(wait for it)

......................... at my parents' house!”

“Doctor, what would you say to someone like me who has been tested for celiac but the results are specious? I have anxiety, OCD, and tics, and am of Scandinavian origin. My sister has celiac, and even though I didn't have stomach pains or stunted growth, it was suggested to me that some of my psychic and neurological symptoms could be from celiac. So, I went to doctors who refused to test me, who said I would be three feet tall if I had celiac from a lack of nutrients. This was back in the mid 90s when I was in high school. I finally got tested and I remember one of the tests was positive and one was negative, and they said you probably have celiac but they weren't sure and they seemed to suggest it didn't matter without physical symptoms. So I ate gluten free for a year--I know this sounds hard to believe, but I don't remember that year well from the psychiatric meds I was on. I am not quite sure if my stools were much different or how my anxiety was relatively. I then went on a gluten challenge to be tested by a gastroenterologist for a better test. I never got to see the doctor and the nurse practitioner did a test which came back negative, so ever since then I have eaten gluten.”

“No more speeches. Obama is not allowed to talk anymore until he has done something. I don't understand the rules I guess. Why could Bush just DO things and not care what people thought? It seems Bush said what was going to happen and it happened. Obama floated out this healthcare thing before the summer and waited to see what every nut in the country had to say about it before saying again that he wants healthcare reform. What are they doing? Is there even a bill? Is there ever supposed to be a vote? Why don't they just vote? Can they not get the democrats even to agree on it? They don't need a single republican as far as I understand. The democrats were all too happy to sign onto bush's war funding and social initiatives like NCLB. Obama just needs to start doing and telling people what to do instead of asking. Make healthcare as scary and imminent as the mushroom cloud comment they made about Iraq. Say, "Do you get it? People are dying? And thousands more will unless we act now. And so we will act now."

Sorry OT. The gay thing, umm he ran anti-gay rights campaign, I expect nothing but more lip service.”

“What forgiveness was needed for MJ? The government spent millions trying to pin something on him and couldn't. He was legally innocent, and in my opinion/guess innocent of all those charges, as well.

RP admitted to this crime. And I didn't even know he was Jewish until you mentioned it. The LAPD also ticketed Mel GIbson with a crime. If they hate Jews so much they should have let Mel off easy.

What RP did was wrong and fleeing from his punishment was wrong.”

“I say we give it to china again....their opening ceremony was amazing and they'll probably end up being the ones who pay for it if we get the olympics anyway...oh hell i don't care who hosts it, bring on the speedos!”

“I agree. Have you seen these signs that say something to the effect we won't be violent this time? I think they say something like unarmed, this time. Or peaceful, this time. Unarmed against whom? The president? I don't know whether these people realize their anger is rooted in racism or not, but whether it's conscious or subconscious, I believe it is racism. I can think of no other explanation. We are talking about a fairly moderate president who is talking about making changes to systems that already exist, and suddenly he is a NAZI, a socialist, a communist, a fascist, a racist, all these crazy things. The institutions that promote general welfare are already in place. We are talking about making them better! If you call promoting the general welfare as socialist, then our country already has socialist traits. Nothing Obama is doing is revolutionary. It's evolutionary. So where is the anger coming from? And then Obama is talking about negotiating and having bipartisanship, and he has to defend the people who threaten him saying they're just scared of the role of government. He's in quite a corner. We need to defend him.”

“Healthy habit #6: if a doctor thinks you need long term drug therapy get a second opinion.”

“No-one's focusing onwhy he needed Diprivan.

HuffPost previously reported he used Xanax to sleep--30-40 pills a night. That is an astronomical amount far greater than any "therapeutic dose." 6mg aday would be an extremely largedose equivalent to over 100 mg of valium.

Benzodiazepines (which Xanax is) are insidious. They create a physical dependence and tolerance unlike any other drug. Withdrawal from them is more difficult than any other drug--far more difficult than heroin, and far more dangerous. Death from benzodiazepine withdrawal is entirely possible.

Assomeone afflicted-with thisproblem, Ican tell you that the rehabfacilities and doctors aren't equipped to deal with benzodiazepine addiction. They just don't know how the drugs work or what to do. Thepeople who getoff of thestuff successfully are theones who follow slowtaper schedules with a lot of hard work over a period of years.

Jackson taking allthose drugs would have come to apoint where they no longer worked but if he stopped taking them in any abrupt way would have had suffered cardiac arrest, seizures, and most likely death. He probably continued to take them (even though they were not helping at thatpoint) and needed something stronger--propofol.

The problem is that throughout the years, psychiatry has assured us that each new class of anti-anxiety drug is nonaddictive, be it chloral hydrate, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, or the new "Z" drugs. Each time they have been WRONG. Andpeople die and have their lives ruined. Iwas 14 when they got me hooked. BeAware.”

“I agree with you that the idea of piece-mealing together a solution is going to be an expensive albatross.

But, I don't think you're right about health care not being a right. I believe the core human right is dignity. And I believe that saying some people are unworthy of health care because of the circumstances of their life at the moment denies dignity. Just because it has not been spelled out as a right in the past or present does not mean that it shouldn't be spelled out in the future.

I believe that you are right that costs will go out of control. That's why I believe in a single payer system and that the government should fund medical school tuition. Private insurance as the default just doesn't make sense for health care. Why? Everyone needs healthcare! Every family will deal with cancer, degenerative disease, mental health issues. When you look at home insurance, not every family will deal with a house fire. With traditional insurance you share the risk. With health insurance you are just paying a middleman for healthcare. Of course, even with a single payer system, people should be allowed to buy whatever alternative or additional private insurance they want.”

“I was 8 when home alone came out. Best christmas movie ever. And the only movie I've been to a theatre to see more than once. And one of the only kids' movie that I have watched as an adult, probably because it's not really just a kids movie. I wanted to be macauly culkin. I can't stand the new kidss tv shows and movies out these days. What happened to good stuff like ducktales and saved the by the bell?”

“sorry i was in a goofy mood when i wrote my comment, it was tongue in cheek, but in hindsight not too funny”

“Have you never seen cops? They arrest people for way smaller stuff than back talk, just like for smoking pot and stuff. And pot doesn't hurt people like mean words do.”

“I can attest to the fact that we can no longer look at allopathy (AMA-style medicine) as god-like. We should look at it as one tool among many. I have a lot of stories I could tell. But I will tell just one. When I was 14 years old I started having acute panic attacks in school such that I was vomiting and couldn't stay in class. I was terrified of people finding out I was gay because I grew up in a school environment where kids were commonly terrorized for suspected of being gay by both other students and a few bad teachers. I wanted to be perfect, not gay. I got to the point that I couldn't stay in class because of such severe hyperventilation. My parents eventually took me to a psychiatrist who prescribed me a benzodiazepine to take daily. He told me my problem was from a chemical imbalance and not to think about being gay anymore. I thought psychiatrists did therapy. I was wrong. I didn't think a doctor would prescribe a drug more addictive than heroin to get off to a child, and I was wrong. I thought when they said there was a chemical imbalance, they actually knew that rather than guessing that. I was wrong. I'm 26 and still addicted to this insidious drug. For people who don't know about benzos, read benzo.org.uk”

“I think what bothers me about these celebrity posts--be it this, or Ron Howard complaining about how he was vilified, or whoever--is that the celebrity never addresses the uncomfortable reality that they are writing what amounts to a blog entry that is ending up on a news site that wouldn't run the insignificant blather of anyone else who happened to not be a celebrity. That is to say, if I were to make a remark about the auto industry or the Philippines, I don't think anyone would care. So to write an apology is to have a lot of perceived self importance--that anyone cares about what you said to begin with. I get that being on a bigger stage like letterman means you offend more people means you need a bigger stage like the huffington post to apologize. I guess it just annoys me that you can run here when you need to do that and skip over the part about it being bizarre and too easy to just have an instant public audience.”

“Jamie Lee, I am a huge fan of both your work in film and in promoting Activia yogurt. A friend told me that Activia yogurt is going to start coming out in a more concentrated suppository form, can you confirm if that leak is true? If so, I will be very excited to see you promoting it and to give it a try myself! Thanks to Activia, well, let's just say I'm feeling a lot more like me again.”

“The Da Vinci Code was too scary for me. And I don't scare easily from thrillers or horror films. Religion has always terrified me because it's about zombies and stuff that people literally believe in. And so the whole milieu of it creeps me out. Especially that self-flagellating guy in the last movie. I actually had trouble sleeping after it!”