Do you think that you should be on the TV show "House" and think, "hey, I need that doctor!" Well, this is the blog for you. Topics and links such as Fibromyalgia, PCOS, CFS, Autism, and various cancer's.
Meet The Contributors
Mandy ~ I am a stay at home mom who has been on a medical roller coaster ride going from doctor to doctor trying to figure out what is wrong with me. All of the doctors agreed that there is something medically wrong with me, they just don't know what... Basically, just about every time that I go to the doctor, I wind up with a new diagnosis. It is very frustrating. I hope that some of these links will maybe help you or lead you in the right direction.
Ferd ~ I have had the honor and pleasure of practicing Internal Medicine for over 25 years. I am now enjoying sharing my thoughts and experience in the blogosphere in a number of ways. I am grateful to Mandy for including me on her excellent blog, Texas Medical Freak!
I just found a great blog, just in time for my New Year’s resolution. This morning I was checking for new Entrecard blogs and found Quit Smoking Together.
I have tried over the years of smoking to quit many times without much luck. Even though I hate the smell, I really hate the fact that they are $5.00 a pack now (I said that I would quit when they hit $2.00 per pack LOL so much for that), not to mention my children want me to quit and my mother always nagged me to quit. Despite all of this and health problems…I still smoke?
I have signed up to stop smoking with Kelly come and join us a form a sort of online AA for smokers who want to quit. It could be OLSA (Online Smokers Anonymous).
I recently received an email with the article below. One thing that I found interesting in the article was the following quote "Suppressing it can counteract the effects of Fragile X Syndrome (FXS), the leading cause of retardation and a genetic autism, MIT said Sunday." The "genetic autism" was what caught my eye. Is the rash of autism not only in the US but all over the world "genetic" or are all of these children just predisposed to autism anyway and develop it because of pollution and the mercury that is in immunizations? Maybe it is just all of the above? There are several states that are major polluters and have a huge clusters of autism cases are New Jersey, Texas and North Carolina. A cure to autism and other diseases like this need to be found, I hope that this article will help with this.
Recently, on Larry King Live, Larry did an interview with a death row inmate named Damien Echols. Fifteen years ago, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley were convicted of the murder of three Arkansas boys. At the time of their arrest Damien was 18, Jason was 16 and Jessie was 18. They were not convicted on any physical evidence basically; they were all convicted on the confession of 18 year old Jessie Misskelley and satanic panic (the three were fans of the rock band Metallica).
You may be wondering what this has to do with a personal medical blog? Well, there are a few reasons why I am posting this. Jessie Misskelley, the boy who confessed to the crime, is mentally challenged has an IQ of around 72. Anything below 70 is considered mentally retarded. As readers of my blog may know, I have a child with Autism. Anyone familiar with Autism knows that you don’t get an accurate IQ with people with autism no matter how functioning the autistic. My child has an IQ test around 74 and is quite verbal and high functioning. Yet, several years ago we were watching a movie and eating popcorn and Twizzlers. When we ran out of the Twizzlers, my oldest child (jokingly) asked my autistic child “why did you eat all of the Twizzlers?” His reply was “I didn’t mean to.” This was a child just trying to give his sister an answer to a question. Many mentally challenged people have been wrongfully convicted on their own confessions.
If you are not familiar with this case “The West Memphis Three” it is very interesting. I first learned of the case several years ago from watching the HBO documentary Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. The first time that my husband and I watched the movie, we caught it in the middle and thought that it was a “docudrama.” The story was so off the wall, we thought that for sure that it had to have been made up. At the end of the movie, we hit the info button on the remote to find out the name of the movie and when it was on again to watch the entire movie. To our surprise, it was a documentary and not a docudrama. After only watching the second half of the movie, we were convinced that Damien, Jason and Jessie did not commit the murders and could not have committed them. When we watched the entire movie, we were just incensed in the injustice and left thinking that it was one of the parents who committed the murders. The entire case is a bit strange. Later they came out with a second movie called “Paradise Lost 2: Revelations” I highly recommend that you watch both movies. They will make you think twice about the death penalty.
Back to the Larry King interview, finally they have come up with new evidence. DNA that is not linked to any of the three young men convicted of the murders. Hopefully, they will find the true killer or killer’s of the three little boys who did not disserve to die is such a horrific way and Damien, Jason and Jessie can regain their freedom.
Here are some ways that you can help and information on the case:
This morning while looking for news articles on CFS and FM, I ran across an article on the use of magnesium for muscle spasms. I have been taking magnesium since I had my thyroid removed due to cancer. The magnesium has nothing to do with the thyroid or lack of but, when my thyroid was removed my parathyroid completely quit working. This only happens in 1 – 3% of thyroidectomy patients. I am not very good with percentages, when I went in for my thyroid biopsy; the doctor doing the biopsy told me “don’t worry, less than 5% of these ever come back anything.” Turns out I had follicular thyroid cancer.
Back to the article...it talks about magnesium being a natural muscle relaxer, that it can increase energy. I have been out of my magnesium for about a week and my muscle spasms have been raging! Not to mention my fibro pain and most of the time it is not that bad. Not that I don’t hurt, mine is more being sensitive to the touch rather than overall widespread pain. I am more CFS than FM, so I can not attest to magnesium and energy…I have none.
magnesium
Another good thing about magnesium is, depending on the form, is a great laxative (and is not cramping like some over the counter laxatives)! If you have chronic constipation the “magnesium citrate” is the laxative form. My favorite citrate brand, which I learned about from my doctor, is the “Rexall” brand. I have not been able to find this one in months; I used to be able to find it at Walmart in the vitamin section. I am now taking the “NOW” brand, it has the; oxide, citrate and asparate forms in it. The article says that magnesium glycinate and magnesium aspartate is the best forms for fibromyalgia. Magnesium, calcium and D work together, without one the other does not work as well.
Now about the parathyroid, your parathyroid regulates calcium in the body. Since mine no longer works, I have to take calcium, magnesium, prescription vitamin D (which is normally formed in the liver) and Calcitriol (which is normally formed in the kidneys). For me not having a working parathyroid working is much worse than not having a thyroid. The lack of my parathyroid was noticeable immediately after my thyroidectomy surgery. The day after surgery, I woke up to my hands seizing up, numb hands and feet, my lip and face twitching along with other muscles twitching. Then once I was able to eat, I started noticing that my throat would close up (just not want to work) while eating along with terrible hiccups! Until I started on all of the above listed medications, things were really terrible. Some of this still happens every once and a while but, nothing like it was.
If you want to learn more about vitamins, two of my favorite books are; Vitamin Bible and Herb Bible, by Dr. Earl Mindell. I have a few others that I will post later.
If you are not sure what a word is anywhere on my blog, "double click" on a word and The Free Dictionary page will pop up and give you the meaning of the word.
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