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Biotech / Medical : Share your aches,pains,experiences,joys and cures. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cogito who wrote (508)	4/15/2007 6:17:46 PM
From: Shoot1st	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1564

I don't mean to be rude. But if you gave me the time...I could have written that last post about what you have experience in life. You have experienced the "perfect storm" of medical catastrophe. ANd you have experienced a "perfect" use for traditional medicine. It comes through in your writings. I don't fault you for thinking and speaking the way you do as you have lived both sides of the worst/best example of medicine. I have had the same experience...as my wife and daughter were near death and no traditional MD could/would offer any help. I searched for years for solutions to our sicknesses.(brought on by chronic carbon monoxide poisoning)..... All traditional MDs not only were inept...but they advised strongly to avoid "nutritional/snake oil types" THey were wrong. At one time I needed 4 different meds just to regulate brain function due to the cell damage from the CO. I told my doc I was reacting badly to the side effects. I didn't bother to tell him I was homicidal.....as I figured his solution would be a padded room.....I weaned off of the drugs and replaced them with all naturals. I did what no MD in at the time said was possible. I reversed brain damage. I've reversed "reflux"...I've reversed congestive heart failure....I've stabilized diabetes without drugs....I"ve stopped hair loss.....I"m 53 and don't need glasses....but I had blurred vision 10 years ago while recovering..... the list is long. I've never had any help from traditional medicine. But I would never tell you not to go there 1st. YOu have to know what your diagnosis is. Once you have that you can decide what you want to try. YOur experiences suggest that you are the last person to be discussing pro/con of non-traditional meds. I almost lost my then 3 year old only child. I hate MD's.....and lawyers....and most CPA's....I also don't think I'd want my daughter to marry an engineer.....all based on bad life experiences....but I won't tell you to do the same.....I won't even suggest it unless you ask me in private. I take these medical threads seriously. I don't come here to simply exercise my fingers. YOur story is a terribly sad. Sharing it with perhaps thousands of people, perhaps those in deep need of what this thread can do....is not right. Shootie

To: Cogito who wrote (508)	4/15/2007 7:38:49 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1564

Allen that is such a sad story. Let me make clear that I absolutely value (and swear by) conventional Western medicine for many things. I get my yearly mammo, routine paps, and I definitely go for any serious infections/illnesses. Where I think alternative medicine can help (along with a proper diet and exercise) is with either low level things, or higher level chronic complaints to which Western medicine offers pharmaceuticals that often have poor success rates, and great risk. I have found that taking very specific compounds, which have been in testing in Japan and Europe, and have an extreme degree of safety (I won't take herbals that say "take for limited time" or have any other health warning) has been very rewarding for me- but I would never, but never, suggest alternative medicine as a first line of defense. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to see the backstop of herbal medicine too highly regulated by the FDA which, imo, has interests at odds with the public in this area. I DO think herbals need to be pure- just as any food needs to be what it says it is. I don't know what you do about danger though. Most of the herbals I have looked at have been studied in the EU or Japan. There have been tests on everything I take, and the herbal medicines have been found to be effective. I think any person going to an herbalist or using herbals themself needs to take some responsibility looking the stuff up. I won't take prescribed drugs without looking them up either. Doctors tend to dispense those like candy, and frequently the side effects just aren't worth the risk of taking the drug, especially for chronic conditions. It's a fine balance- but I do think in the US the power tends to tip toward big pharma, and that worries me a bit. That's all I was trying to communicate- and I do understand the risks you mention, and agree with you that herbals are not, and should not be, the first line of defense for a critical problem.

To: Cogito who wrote (508)	4/16/2007 1:05:15 AM
From: Patricia Trinchero	Respond to of 1564

That's a sad story about your friend. Cervical cancer, when caught early, has a fairly high survival rate. I am glad you got the treatment that has had it's efficacy proven again and again under highly controlled circumstances. No, modern medicine isn't perfect but it's the best dam chance we have at surviving for a while longer on this good earth!.

To: Cogito who wrote (508)	4/16/2007 9:05:15 AM
From: Suma	Respond to of 1564

Thanks for that post Allen. Sharing your own personal ordeals by describing what you went through it not easy and you as always do it in your very soft caring and intelligent way. You are so appreciated here.

To: Cogito who wrote (508)	4/16/2007 7:50:59 PM
From: E	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1564

Oh, my gosh. I noticed this thread, and thought I would post something that I've mentioned in passing on SI before. I'll do that later, but have to tell you that I had a strange, sick feeling when I read this: "I remember that one of the things she tried was a tar-like substance which she was told the Indians had used for centuries to treat all types of cancer. I believe it was taken orally, mixed with hot water." I had a friend who died a few years ago of metastasized lung cancer. (Never smoked in her life.) She was a believer in alternative medicine, and one of the things she did while I was visiting her was to take a black tarry substance dissolved in hot water. She was very secretive about what it was and where she got it, except that it was from an unidentified "shaman" she'd been put in touch with, probably in California. I was rather dismayed by her secrecy, not because I wanted to know what it was, as I didn't believe it would cure cancer, but by the strangeness of her both believing she had the cure for cancer and keeping it a secret from her friends. This was a highly educated woman, a published writer, a published poet, a PhD and Professor of English Literature. She spoke of the shaman in reverential tones, and said that the Indians had cured all types of cancer with it for centuries. She believed it was going to cure her. Nothing did, unfortunately. When she realized that the cancer reached her brain, she gathered some friends around, and took enough morphine so that she would die "before I lose my self," as she put it. I had switched my week to visit (she lived in Boston, I in NY) and wasn't there for her death. Another strange memory was that when she was shockingly emaciated, she said, "This is the first time in my adult life I've been my ideal weight, and I had to get cancer to accomplish it." I never saw her when she wasn't slender and beautiful, except when she was dying. She was a runner, and pumped iron. (That's what she called weightlifting.) But she had always seen herself as fat.