The Wellness Bitch

About seven years ago, I completely lost faith in my government.

It’s likely that I was always wary of government and just never really noticed before. I’m not someone who typically submits to or mindlessly accepts authority. On the other hand, before seven years ago, I wouldn’t have called myself an activist either.

Seven years ago, the scaredy cat in me still hoped that my government was doing a good job protecting me from the bad guys.

Seven years ago, I didn’t know how many bad guys I needed protection from.

But then I woke up.

When I woke up, I slowly started to notice a chain that led from the government to my health and my children’s chronic illness.

A chain link of connections beginning with my oldest son’s first allergic reaction to peanuts and then his reflux and then his asthma. A chain link connecting my second son’s colic and his eczema. A chain link connecting my children’s health and the food they were eating and the cleaning products they were being exposed to and the vaccines they were receiving and the sprays that were blanketing the lawns they played in and the water they were drinking from the tap. A chain link connecting their health to their the environment.

And then I woke up to the weakest link.

The chain that was supposed to connect the government to our environment to our food to our water to our big business to our farms to our pharmaceutical companies was broken.

Is broken.

I don’t know when it broke. When profit and political office became more important than protecting our children.

And I don’t know if one man or woman elected to office today can heal my wounds enough to restore my faith in government, but I would really like someone to try.

If your name is on a ballot today, please:

Try being a stand for my children.

Try being a stand for the environment.

Try being a stand for what nourishes our bodies and our minds.

Try fixing the break in the chain.

Connect us again. Heal this country. Heal this planet. Heal our families. Heal yourself.

You only have to read a few posts of the WB before you find out that I am a former IBS sufferer. In fact, I would say IBS is  one of the top three reasons I turned to alternative and nutritional medicine.  No conventional physician was able to help me solve my IBS, which for me appeared as daily diarrhea, bloating, and gas.

Now, doctors are starting to push antibiotics for a condition that may often be solved by lifestyle and diet adjustments, as well as less invasive alternative treatments?? Give me a break! Here is a perspective on this new development from WB community member and licensed acupuncturist, Sara Calabro.

By Sara Calabro, LAc
Founding editor of AcuTake

Doctors are like kids in candy stores when it comes to antibiotics. They just can’t help themselves. Despite overwhelming evidence of antibiotics resistance and the fact that in the majority of cases the risk of taking antibiotics far outweighs the benefit, prescriptions are still flying off their pads. Now, with the release of new research on irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), doctors are faced with the temptation to put even more people on antibiotics. It’s as if the candy store just doubled in size.

The research, published in a January issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, shows that a two-week course of antibiotics helped IBS symptoms in 41 percent of patients. Although the findings are neither impressive (30 percent got better with placebo), comprehensive (patients with constipation were not included), nor unbiased (the studies were sponsored by Salix Pharmaceuticals, the drug’s maker), they provide doctors, finally, with something to offer their IBS patients.

IBS has proven especially tough for mainstream medicine to gets its arms around. Stress is known to play a significant role, leading many doctors to prescribe anxiety or depression drugs, but a clear physiological explanation remains elusive within biomedical parameters. Acupuncture, because it considers the interdependent relationships of anatomical structures and how they’re affected by emotional and environmental factors, is a more sensible approach than medication for IBS.

Given the complicated nature of IBS, it’s not surprising that medications, which work by targeting isolated structures within the body, have so far been a bust. Zelnorm, a popular IBS drug for people who tended toward constipation, was pulled from the market in 2007 because it was shown to increase risk of stroke and heart attack. Lotronex, given to people whose IBS mostly involves diarrhea, is known to cause serious side effects such as colitis and severe constipation.

The fact that these medications—as well as rifaximin, the antibiotic used in the NEJM studies—treat constipation or diarrhea is problematic. Many people with IBS suffer from both constipation and diarrhea, an alternating of the two. It’s an issue of regulation, or lack thereof. Even in people who tend toward one or the other, completely shutting down or revving up the bowel is not going to solve the larger imbalance that’s causing symptoms in the first place.

Acupuncture works differently than medications in that its effects are dictated by the person receiving the treatment. For example, ST25, a common acupuncture point for digestive disorders, is used for both constipation and diarrhea. In a person with constipation, ST25 activates the bowel, while in someone with diarrhea, it slows things down. Medications force the body toward a particular outcome, usually by either adding or taking something away—the NEJM study, for example, was based on the idea is that IBS symptoms are caused by an overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine; by killing that bacteria, you kill the symptoms. In contrast, acupuncture gets the body’s existing components working more smoothly.

One way it does this is by calming the sympathetic nervous system. Stress, in biomedical and acupuncture circles alike, is an established component of IBS. According to Hans Selye’s General Adaptation theory, our bodies react to long-term stress by developing patterns, or diseases, of adaptation. These can be anything from IBS to insomnia to back pain. Acupuncture helps modulate our natural stress response, thereby decreasing the “need” to develop adaptation patterns/diseases.

But even once a pattern has developed, acupuncture is still a better bet than meds. Chronic stress—emotional as well as physical stress, such as too many sit-up exercises—can lead to trigger points in the abdominal muscles. While trigger points are traditionally thought of in relation to pain, they also can cause visceral symptoms such as constipation, diarrhea and others that are characteristic of IBS. When indicated, trigger-point acupuncture can resolve many of these problems.

According to NPR, rifaximin has limited side effects because it stays in the gut and doesn’t enter the bloodstream the way other antibiotics do. But PubMed lists the following as potential side effects: hives; skin rashes; itching; difficulty breathing or swallowing; swelling of the face, throat, tongue, lips, eyes, hands, feet, ankles, or lower legs; hoarseness; fever, chills, sore throat, and other signs of infection. And this list does not even touch upon the potential long-term repercussions of killing off all bacteria, good and bad, in a part of the body whose function is dependent on a healthy bacterial balance.

Even more troubling than the risk of side effects may be mainstream medicine’s tendency to overuse antibiotics. Since rifaximin is already approved for travelers’ diarrhea, it’s available now for doctors to prescribe off-label for IBS. But the two-week course of treatment is pricey, about $900. These recent studies allow Salix to apply for FDA approval for the IBS indication. If that comes through, insurance companies are more likely to cover it and doctors are more likely to prescribe it.

Mainstream medicine’s reliance on antibiotics is already a problem of epic proportions, thanks to years and years of inappropriately treated ear infections and sore throats. If your doctor suggests antibiotics for IBS, think twice—question the recommendation and do your homework. There are other options worth trying first. Acupuncture is a safe and comprehensive way to effectively address this multifaceted condition.

Sara Calabro, LAc, is a former healthcare business journalist and the founding editor of AcuTake, a website dedicated to improving acupuncture education and access.

Is there someone in your life who continues to roll their eyes or silently condemn you for choosing to buy products that are more expensive, but better for you?

Yeah. Me, too.

On the one hand, it pisses me off pure and simple. Someone thinks I don’t make enough money to be able to “afford” the non-toxic products I buy (in my case, organic produce, gluten-free flours and pasta, non-toxic beauty care, and green cleaning products) or the out-of-network services I occasionally employ (chiropractic, yoga, osteopathy). The truth is: They’re right. I don’t make enough money.

But, rather than condem me for making bad choices, I’d much prefer your compassion. And, even moreso, would welcome your volunteer efforts at finding me a corporate sponsor to fuel my family’s needs.

If you know anyone in the biz, feel free to tip them off to my family. You know: Tinkyada, Udi’s, Stonyfield Farms, Ecover. I’d gladly place their banners on not only my blog, but also on my vehicle, house, and at least two of my children’s foreheads if they decide to sponsor our family.

In the meantime, instead of talking about me behind my back, perhaps you should consider the back pain/chronic cough/sinus infection/asthma/ADHD/ear infections, you and your offspring seem to suffer from quite often. Perhaps you should consider spending less time counting my money (or lack therof) and more time reading the books and articles that continue to show the links between lifestyle choices and illness.

Perhaps you have my best interest in mind (and at heart).

Perhaps you only want me to have the best and to succeed.

Perhaps you worry about me.

Perhaps.

But, perhaps you should consider that there are many elements that make up a happy and healthy life.

Perhaps, the organic produce makes me sick less often, so I don’t miss work.

Perhaps, the gluten-free diet gives me more energy, which allows me to pursue greater, and more lucrative opportunities.

Perhaps, the less toxic household cleaners keeps us away from the pediatrician and the steroids and the high pharmacy bills.

Perhaps…

When I read this article, I knew I had to repost it on The WB. Thanks Dr. Lesniak for your permission to reprint.

By Dennis Lesniak
Lesniak Chiropractic Whole Health Specialists

I previously had a client who was in her early 20s that stated “my doctor told me I caught diabetes.”  For some of you, this statement may seem totally normal.  Others of you may be completely outraged.

Labeling certain conditions as diseases is not only misleading, but it is wrong.  These conditions should be deemed lifestyle pathologies.  Lifestyle pathologies are serious medical conditions brought about by environmental, nutritional, and physical stressors.  This is unlike a traditional disease where there is exposure to the pathogen and exposure directly correlates to contraction of the disease.  Now, I understand the definition is not perfect; it is a work in progress and will evolve over time.

However, the point is to get you to shift your paradigm of thinking.

Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, kidney stones, Chron’s disease, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, headaches, heart disease, some neurodegenerative diseases, and even many cancers can be avoided, prevented, and treated with simple, effective nutritional changes.  Nutrition is medicine from nature; it may not be as easy to swallow as a pill, but it does a better job and has very little side effects except feeling better. 

People do not seem to understand that the above lifestyle pathologies are caused by the choices that we make every day.  Decide to skip breakfast, or grab that bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich on a bagel; you contributed to over half of the above listed conditions. 

You do not simply “catch” these diseases and then be stricken with them for the rest of your life.  Most doctors tell their patients that they need to change their eating habits, exercise more, and then we will look at a medication.  However, most people are too lazy and stubborn to fix what is wrong.  Instead they opt for the pill thinking it cures the condition when, in fact, it just hides what is going on while this lifestyle pathology is left to wreak havoc on the body unnoticed for sometimes years.

Changing your eating habits is not going on a diet.  Going on a diet implies that it is going to end. This change does not end unless you want to go back to what got you to this spot in the first place.  Your habits are learned from family and are passed on to your children.  This not only creates the “genetic” component, but it increases the likelihood of your children suffering a similar fate.

Speaking of the genetic component, I am sure there are some doubters thinking “my condition is genetic and there is nothing I can do about it”.  Yes, there is some genetic predisposition to a lifestyle pathology, but you control the expression of your genes.  This can lead to a dramatic reduction in the likelihood of your development of the condition.  Your health is like a game of poker where you are the dealer who can see all the cards being dealt out.  You would always deal yourself the best hand, right?  Then why not do so in real life.

Are you interested in submitting a guest blog post to The Wellness Bitch? From time to time, we publish guest posts that are well-written, carefully edited, and related to the topics we blog about here on the WB (wellness, green living, holistic health, fitness, food politics, Big Pharma, etc.) Submissions should be no more than 500 words. Please consider our style when composing your post and please include any relevant hyperlinks when possible.

Email us your submissions to jen@mindfullivingnj.com

I know that Natural News is not an objective news source (though, frankly, I don’t really consider any news source these days objective.) That said, Natural News does a pretty good job in sourcing their information so, if you choose, you can follow up on the reporting yourself.

This recent headline caught my eye because I am vigilant about prescription drugs for my family. This is not to say I ban pharmaceuticals — In fact, I used to stockpile both over-the-counter and prescription medication in my cabinet just in case the End of Days was near. But I do insist that we do as much research as possible on a medicine prescribed by our doctor before we fill it or someone in our family takes it.

Too many times in the past, I’ve filled a prescription without doing adequate research, and I’ve been hit hard by a side effect. Ask yourself: When was the last time your doctor warned you about a potential side effect of a drug he prescribed? When was the last time he instructed you to read the warning label on the inside and to let him know if you experienced any of the nausea, vomiting, headaches, dizziness, or decrease in libido mentioned in the small print?

What counts as research for me?

1. Read the label inside the package.

2. Ask both my doctor and my pharmacist if there are any contraindications I should be concerned about.

3. Google the name of the drug.

4. Google the name of the drug + “bad side effects.”

5. Google the name of the drug + “made me go crazy.”

6. Google the name of the drug + “death.”

It sounds like a joke, but try Googling Lexapro + made me go crazy to see what I mean.

Joe Schmo on the Internet is not a medically trained professional, but he can tell you what it’s like to go on — or try to get off — a medication.

And, often times, that’s more than you will get from your doctor.

This doesn’t mean it’s the prescribed drug or suffer. It just means both you and your doctor will have to dig a little deeper to figure out how to make you feel better.

This may mean changing your diet, your behavior or some other feature of your lifestyle that is impacting your health.

I am not for vaccinations, nor am I against them.

I am thankful that my children may now be protected against terrible illnesses that once plagued, paralyzed, and even killed our youngsters.

I am not, however, under the illusion that the current system for vaccinating our children is safe for my children, or in their best interest.

Kudos to you, the patriotic citizen who vaccinates her child exactly on the CDC schedule and exactly as your pediatrican recommends in an effort to “protect the herd.”

I am most concerned about my own children, however. And if that makes me a selfish bitch, then I’m a selfish bitch. And I’m a bitch because I have to be. It requires a level of self-centeredness to know and to do what’s best for your children, these days. 

Unfortunately, most conventional doctors aren’t trained to know what’s best for your child. He or she is very well trained to know what’s best for the textbook child…and that’s when mistakes and accidents occur.

Recently, the autism/vaccination debate cropped up in the mainstream media again. I’m certainly not for falsifying data, and I’m all for investigative journalism, but I agree with mom Becky Estepp that journalist Brian Deer seems to have made a “career out of discrediting Dr. Wakefield.” Why? What are his motives? And why aren’t as many people questioning the motives of the journalist, as are the people villifying the doctor who claims he wants to help make children well? 

Okay, I’m off my soapbox for a few minutes so I may present PART TWO of my intereview with pediatrician Dr. Lawrence Palevsky, who answered YOUR questions (not mine) about vaccinations below. (As always, remember, this is not medical advice for you and your family. You and your family may have unique situations I know nothing about. Don’t go and do something just because I said so. Put your thinking cap on and do some more research!)

Question 4: Do you think there is a link between chronic illness in our children and vaccinations? And what do you think is the #1 thing parents should be educated about when it comes to vaccinating their kids?

Palevsky: It’s pretty clear that the conventional, cultural paradigm is doing everything it can to convince parents that the process of vaccination is in no way related to the development of chronic illness in our children. And there is a consistent media campaign to make sure that this concept stays fresh in the minds of the public.

There is growing evidence, however, that this concept is no longer true. So what we are dealing with is a battle between the system that wants to hold onto the belief, and the growing evidence that shows how this belief cannot be substantiated any longer.

I definitely agree that there is a body of evidence that shows the process of vaccination has the potential to mildly, moderately, or severely impair the integrity of the immune and nervous systems of our children. That is not an easy concept for anyone who is enmeshed in the system to hear, let alone believe and accept.

Question 5: Not easy for whom? Doctors? Parents? And why not?

Palevsky: For everyone. The entire culture rests on the paradigm that vaccinations are safe; that they are properly tested and they don’t impair the immune and nervous systems of our bodies.

Question 6: Wait a second. Doesn’t my doctor have my best interest in mind? And isn’t he up to date on all the research?

Palevsky: I graduated medical school in 1987. And I was trained to believe that the information I was receiving was true, and that the information came from the highest integrity of scientific research and scientific methodology.

We, as a people, and as a culture, have come to a crossroads though, and that is:  Can we in any way deal with the possibility that what we have been taught was either never true, is no longer true or is only partially true? In other words, can we accept that there is more to know now than what we have been told there is to know, and can we accept that this new knowledge contradicts the old knowledge? Even better, can we accept that we might be wrong about what we’ve been told is right?

There is a difference between dogma and true critical thinking. And what has happened with the scientific literature in vaccines is that we have fallen into dogma. Such to the point that anyone who talks about vaccines, or raises a specter of doubt regarding their safety and efficacy, or the standards used in the manufacturing process or policy making, is in danger; anyone who dares to have an open scientific discussion about the subject is at risk for being threatened, ostracized, and personally and professionally attacked.

Questions 7: Flu shot or no flu shot?

Palevsky: I can easily answer that. I see absolutely no medical or rational basis to administer a flu shot to any human being.
A couple of myths need to be dispelled around the whole flu vaccine:

1. Viruses, and flu viruses, are present all year round. They don’t make their way into the United States just because there is a new winter season.
2. The majority of viruses present in the winter that can give people flu-like symptoms is not in the family of influenza viruses. Therefore,
3. The majority of flu-like illnesses that occur during the winter is not caused by influenza viruses.
4. If someone has an illness in the summer that looks like a flu-like illness, we call that a run of the mill viral syndrome, but if someone has a flu-like illness in winter, we call that influenza.
5. There have never been proper safety studies conducted to assess whether or not it is smart or safe to be giving a flu vaccine to a woman with an unborn fetus.
6. There are hundreds of thousands of viruses that exist in our bodies as DNA in our chromosomes. It is very possible that the three viruses we vaccinate against are already parts of our own DNA. Just because we don’t have an illness does not mean we don’t have the viral DNA, or that we haven’t been exposed to these influenza viruses. We can have any virus co-existing in our DNA without us either being sick from it, knowing about it, or having an antibody to it.
7. There have been no studies to show the flu vaccine works. The bottom line is that the most likely cause of a “flu-like” illness in the winter is not due to influenza viruses.

Question 8: What about parents like me who have children with asthma and are told that their child is high risk for influenza? Should those parents give their kids the flu shot?
Palevsky: Absolutely not. There’s actually a study that came out that showing that giving a flu shot to kids with asthma actually increases their asthma symptoms. There has never been a study evaluating the health, safety, and efficacy on children with asthma using the flu vaccine.