[Perna]

I was just reading the Newsbot thingy down below and it's talking about how compounds in the processing of meat may lead to an increased chance of bladder cancer and the AARP is in on it, etc.

We're all going to die of something, some time! It's not like we can all die in our sleep of "old age". If AARP is in there, of course there's an increased chance of x, y, z, one's body is getting older/breaking down!

My doctor's office were incorrectly trying to get me to start on blood pressure meds and giving me all these odds and doing the 37% greater chance of stroke, etc. messages, trying to "scare" me into taking the meds and I went home and researched it and the odds for ME became something like 1 in 10 of having a stroke in the next 10 years, IF my blood pressure were as bad as they incorrectly thought it was. I'll happily take a 1 in 10 chance! There's no way at all to tell if "you" or someone else is going to be that 1, whether or not you do what they say; there's still a chance and no way of knowing where your particular body will fall, given your lifestyle, your health, your genes, etc.

So, just stop with the statistics trying to scare me! Stop with the overwhelming stuff, the ads on TV for meds where one of the side effects is, literally, death! The meds don't cure, they may help but if the side effects are greater than the pains of the disease, how's that a help?

I'm going back to basics:

The best six doctors anywhere
And no one can deny it
Are sunshine, water, rest, and air
Exercise and diet.
These six will gladly you attend
If only you are willing
Your mind they'll ease
Your will they'll mend
And charge you not a shilling.

[El-ahrairah]

money money money money, that is all it's about,
" if the meds give you side effects, there is a pill for that too! Oh what's that? You got Cancer? Does your insurance cover the costs? "

[Irine]

I agree with perna - but who, where did you do the research? how can one be sure of the fact that their research is more true than the doctor`s advice? i know we cannot be sure that their doctor`s opinion is closer to the truth than the research either...

Both doctors, and those who write those research we read - are humans! humans can`t know everything...

Well follow your instincts. If you are feeling completely well then i guess there is no urgent reason to take meds.

[Perna]

My blood pressure wasn't being taken correctly and was all over the place because of the excruciating pain I have from the blood pressure cuff. Finally one of the nurse practitioners in the office suggested I take it by wrist monitor and bring the monitor in to see if it was accurate/correlated with their arm cuff (it does) and now each quarter I come in I just bring in a week's worth of 3x a day, 3-at-a-time, measurements.

My particular doctor is more a test/give meds than take time to figure out. My husband and I use to see the doctor together, save the doctor some time so he can bill the same amount but get paid twice for the time it takes to see 1-1/2 people :-) But my husband once inexplicably asked for his own appointment and when we were driving home, I found out he'd thought he would have to have a prostate exam but no, he told the doctor his symptoms and the doctor wrote him a prescription, said, "Here, see if these work".

I don't do "automatic" meds and am forever arguing with the television (for some reason don't win many arguments :-) because the medical and health ads will contradict each other or the small print they now have to read will be worse than whatever it's trying to cure, etc. I don't so much as contradict what my doctor says as research it more than he does, for my own personal case.

Doctor's know "general" stuff, their medicine but not how it may specifically fit an individual. That's why I don't get particularly mad at my doctor for telling my husband to "try this" it's not like the doctor can ever know how it might work with my husband; all he has is the information/symptoms my husband is telling him, to go by. But I do fault my husband for just accepting, blindly, that the doctor has a clue how things will develop for my husband in particular and for not paying attention to his own body. We're the experts on ourselves and how we feel; like you say, LadyMac, one's instincts are important. My husband doesn't get that.

[splitimage]

I really think it's worth spending the time and the effort to be an informed health care consumer. I do take a lot of psych meds, but I've researched them all thoroughly and when I last needed a meds adjustment my Dr. and I both agreed on what med to raise.

I have an interesting cardio problem, I have an extremely high resting heart rate, it averages between 99 and 103 bpm, but I have low blood pressure. My Dr. doesn't know what to do about it, she's worried about the stress on my heart from it racing all the time, but says she can't put me on beta blockers because I'd be passing out all the time. My last BP was 90 over 60.

Fortunately my family Dr. isn't generally known as a pill pusher she encourages lifestyle changes first, and I'm lucky my pdoc insists on an annual blood work up, ECG etc to make sure my meds aren't messing me up.

But even though I have good dr.'s I believe it's my responsibility to research everything and make sure I'm totally comfortable taking it, before just accepting a prescription, particularly as some of the meds I'm on have some pretty serious drug interaction potential.

--splitimage

[lynn P.]

I do feel bombarded by the information available now a days and some of it is contradicting. You'll hear one study says fish oil helps with depression and then another study says it doesn't do anything. The green tea is so healthy but then someone told me that it has fluoride in it. There's just so much info., it's mind boggling.

I think it's okay to trust your instincts and question the doctor. In your case it's important to take meds if your blood pressure is very high. I watched a PBS special with this doctor who developed this special diet for sufferers of high blood pressure and he has a book out - I wish I could remember the name. Anyway he believes it can be controlled by eating the right foods and eliminating the bad ones and exercise. It would also be a good idea to buy an at home blood pressure machine, so you can do it yourself. My mother used to get nervous at the doctor and her BP was higher at the office. I think it's important to have a good rapport with the doctor and be comfortable discussing alternative treatments.

[Rhiannonsmoon]

Luckily in Oz Drs are not allowed to advertise and nor are drug companies allowed to advertise specific drugs, just the company and their logo. So we aren't bombarded. I'm lucky too that my dr isn't a "script for everything" dr, and has reduced the amt of meds I was taking which I'm really grateful for.

The stuff I read in the news like the "red cold cut meats" possibly causing cancer is a story about nitrates and nitrites which are preservatives and flavour enhancers. They are forerunners to another compound which enhances the growth of tumours in a number of organs. But this study was done on animals with much smaller systems to be affected than humans.

It is like comparing the system of a flea to that of a small dog, the size difference is incomparable. Also humans have had many hundreds of years to acclimatise many different substances into the body, and preserved red cold meat is not in an animals regular diet anyway.

Out of a vast number of people only a certain number of them will get cancer but if it is in the family then there is a higher possibility of contacting it. My grandmother on my mums side died of cancer, I've had it and my sister has had it twice. BUT we've all had depression and anxiety too as well as phobias...with mum it is the phone I'm polyphobic and my sister has a phobia of police.

In this study however they found no cancer relative to hamburger, bacon and sausage meat whereas other studies have consistently said that red meat has cancer causing protperties...it makes me think that this study was commissioned by a hamburger retailer in order to encourage people to eat hamburgers rather than homemade sandwiches for lunch...

They ALL pay for studies which are favourable to their own desires...and that is how much research is funded so there are few of these studies which can be relied upon for unbiased truth

[Shangrala]

My sister also had a couple disturbingly misread BP testings done through her health provider, Kaiser, (which might explain the reason in itself).

When she went in for her first reading they were surprised the reading was so high, so they decided to have an EKG test done, which was done inaccurately as they were placed all in the wrong areas of her body, instead of where they should have been.
After the reading, the nurse tells her that her reading was very poor, charted it as such, and later the doctor prescribes her 2 diff meds (at the same time).

When she told me of the results (how many meds they told her to take), I found that to be rather questionable, so I took sister to my doctor, who did another EKG reading on her. The resulted reading was perfectly normal and she was advised not to take the meds until she returns to Kaiser for yet another reading.
Sister schedules another reading through Kaiser. I accompany her this time so that I can confront any possible questionable behavior &/or tests they might have.
As soon as we walk into the office and check in she is called in for a BP reading, (she didn't even have a chance to sit in the waiting room). I tell them that it might be a good idea to first wait a few minutes to at least allow her BP to return to normal before they take any readings as the results may not be accurate. They didn't listen and took reading, anyway. As I suspected, the results of the reading were not healthy, in fact were questionably high. And not only do they suggest that she continue the meds she was prescribed the first time, but they added another one due to the results of the reading she just received.
She tells them that she was advised not to take them, denies to take any of them, shows them the EKG reading from my doctor, and demands a second reading.
They tell her that, unfortunately, they were short-staffed and she would have to reschedule.
Odd thing about this is, sister originally went in to address her swelling (edema) issue attended, and the results were the above.

I realize this is somewhat off-topic, and I apologize for that. It's just that I so agree how the media tries to push meds as the answer with the health industry fueling it. It is upsetting how they can be the very cause of death of individuals who seem to have faith in those who's primary concern is of their own.

Shangrala

[lonegael]

There is in general an over-belief that pills ans a token of modern science can cure everything, and that one is almost morally obligated to be drugged even if the thing to be cured is not bad.
I have allergies which can be uncomfortable, but what the hey! Most of the time I feel fine and I can manage them, and I would rather have my cats and dog and not spend my life cleaning. Also, I am bipolar and I over react to the stimulants in the decongestants, so I stay away from these and handle the symtoms in other ways. My mom gets almost angry at me for not taking the decongestants, even though she knows what they do to me. "Why function at less than optimal?" she says. "There's no point to it!"
AH, if there is no point to it, why is it so provoking? Hmmmm.