Argument for naturopathic regulation

As a general anti-government conservative type I generally oppose government regulation. But the naturopathic movement is becoming so alarming of a threat to not just the health of those that fall for it, but also those close to them, that it gets to a breaking point of sorts. At the very least, if REAL medicine is regulated, perhaps discouraging some from seeking treatment for those in their care or for a public health threat, then the corner drug guy selling root extract really should be too.

At the very least, peddlers of 5.99 bottles of whatever should not be allowed to treat the same conditions that a real doctor treats just by finessing the words on the label, by saying things like "creates the feeling of wellness" instead of "makes you well." And currently, that is allowed. Amazingly. I think that the fact that rubbish is collected from a bunch of weeds in someone's garden and sold as medicine has come to the attention of health officials in Canada, but they are going the exact wrong direction with it.

Knowing that there is a segment that is for some reason desperate to avoid actual health screening by those who MIGHT be able to help them, they want to give the naturopathists that people go to instead the right to prescribe actual medicne rather than only having fictitious concoctions at their disposal, perhaps many of them that they profit from directly. THIS IS SO ABSURD. It is true that much of the naturopathy industry is fueled by sales of their own products, while medical doctors have the option of suggesting drugs that they don't profit from directly, but this will lead to other problems. These people do not have any medical training, and no systemic knowledge of chemistry, medicine, the body or public epidemiology.

They are noted and most revered for not their actual ability to cure ANYTHING but rather their paranoia-fueled rants against anything an actual doctor does, including the doctors that have ended up ending public health crises such as cholera or plague and the ones that if we leave them alone may solve problems like heart disease or cancer, and not by ingesting some strange substance in a bottle or rubbing some ineffectual rubbish over the skin when we fall ill of a tumor, by actually understanding the cause of the illnesses so that they no longer occur. (This will not be possible by tapping into the secrets of the Native Americans or some other folk medicine - the Native Americans' secret to not getting cancer was dying by their twenties of an ear infection or broken bone.)

The most the naturopathists do is dispense sensible dietary advice that is widely available, parasitically employ selectively those things they choose from the medical community, and peddle their own products (all the while deriding big pharm for making money!). At least my doctor doesn't peddle his own wares like these snake oil salesmen do.

So what will naturally (haha) happen if people can go to their buddy the naturopathist is that people will route through these guys and not end up being seen by a doctor at any point, and not only jeopardize their own health but also will encourage any spread of public disease that might be going around.

See I think that it should be someone's right to not get treated for a health problem such as cancer if they really don't want to. It is interesting that when a bone is broken or anything actually diagnosable happens it becomes obvious that the naturopathists can't help anyone. Even a very basic medical practice such as setting bones, which real doctors mastered three hundred years ago, the magnets and vitality crowd are absolutely helpless to treat. The reason that the naturopathists still have patients seeking to treat cancer is that NO ONE treats it effectively yet, shielding them from the fact that they haven't a clue what they are doing. Why anyone would think that the people who can't treat a broken bone or a strep throat can cure cancer, I don't know, but I think it has something to do with the wishfull thinking of those who want an easy cure for a bad problem - and more acutely one that doesn't exist yet at all. But just because the cutting edge doctors can't cure it doesn't mean the witch doctors CAN, they are just unpoliced to the point that they will SAY they can.

And again, if I have a personal pain or other health problem and I want to go see someone who simply waves their arms around me or burns incense for my own sense of comfort or well being, it should be my right to waste my own money. But if they are given primary care specialist rights or rights to dole out medicine, what will happen is that people with treatable conditions that are currently controlled by the basic health screening of someone who has attended a year or two of medical school will probably, in focusing on mercury or silver to treat some various issue, allow a basic and understood and nearly extinct disease to rage out of control, unduly taxing emergency or palliative care when it becomes more serious than splinting a bone or taking penicillin.

This is particularly alarming due to the tendency that people have to under treat even their own children when there are very serious symptoms if they have caught the anti-doctor bug. The anti-vaccine crowd has already resulted in somewhat of a resurgence in diseases that were almost licked twenty years ago before the autism insanity began (and was dispatched by controlled studies showing vaccines to definitely NOT be the culprit), and things like Rubella are rearing their head again when it need not. There are already reports of people staying home and surfing the internet rather than taking their kid to a doctor when the kid has a fever of 106.

Part of the problem is that official channels of health care are regulated and therefore rationed, making it much more difficult to seek the advice of a trained doctor than it is to type your list of symptoms on a search engine, so with the appearance of some kind of screening or vigilance, there will be a segment of the population that attempts to treat their own problems with Tylenol or worse some kind of distilled herbal product that who knows what it is doing to them or their kids. And they run the risk that they won't be seen by a doctor when they have something serious or worse, that will spread.

Even diseases like chicken pox are very curable and preventable, such that the risk is that there is a percentage will likely escape the disease entirely into adulthood, as I did. I got chicken pox when I was 26, between pregnancies thank goodnes, just as the vaccine was coming out, and would definitely have gotten it and given it to my children a year or two later when it became more widely-used. But today mothers are more likely to fear the phantom menace of the vaccine than what the diseases themselves can do.

It used to be a very real situation what it was common to die of something like smallpox or even a bad case of influenza. But I think that in our post-epidemic society we take for granted that we won't die very often from communicable disease so people's fears are turned to the rather more benign threats of the administration of the very health care advances that see the majority of us living into our forties. I felt really bad that in my ward a mother of an autistic child had become so brainwashed by the anti-vaccine hype that her baby died in utero of a chicken pox infection that SHE GAVE IT. Very sad.

But it made me not only sad for her but frightened for others to think of her and her children spreading chicken pox to the unvaccinated and the one percent that are unresponsive to the vaccine. At some point it crosses the line from being an individual freedom to the point of being a public health concern. The reason that I don't fear that it is a big-brotherish threat (to the tune of violating my conservative, anti-government principles), however, is that if the public health officials act in accordance with scientific principles and observed data, there will a limit and check upon their options, so there will be less risk of them acting in a way that is not in accordance with the public interest. All actions on the books, and above board to be seen and evaluated by other health officials at a later date, so no funny business will likely be encouraged.

It is easy for me to say, because I know that I would never allow my child to die of a treatable disease because of an irrational fear of white coats, but whether or not others would is a very real problem, and not just for themselves or their children--I could catch whatever it is that they are spreading out of unjustified fear. And those that have no understanding of or respect for the scientific method and its fruits, preferring some hoodo voodo instead, should in my opinion not be allowed to negatively impact the health of the rest of us.

I think it is interesting that even Canada has an unusual caveat on their naturopathy proposal. The faux doctors will not be able to treat family members or friends. Hmmm. I wonder if even those who would allow the unknowing to go without treatment don't think it is right for people to dispense their 'wisdom' to their doctor-fearing friends or worse their own children, when a doctor's care to the unbiased would obviously be the sensible option.

Insomnius Majorus

I wrote about this on facebook but some of you don't do facebook so I will double up on some of my posts.

I am finding that lately I have to eat constantly to even stop loosing weight. I am under my pre-pregnancy weight still by about five pounds even though I am eighteen weeks along. It is either a direct consequence or a co-symptom of my insomnia disorder. Probably whatever keeps me from sleeping also super charges my metabolism. It is most likely some sort of hyperadrenal situation where I have a zillion extra stress hormones coursing through my body and making me have a super high idle.

Also by the time I skip two, three or more nights of sleep it gets even harder to eat the minimum amount that I need to stay level. Food gets really disgusting sounding because all of my senses become super sensitive. Just like light gets too bright and noises too loud (known as my vampire syndrome by Slade) smells and tastes become way too intense and if I smell or eat the wrong thing I will puke and voila, negative caloric intake.

In the last year or so it has gotten so bad that I have had doctors apologize to me. Of course insomnia results in mock symptoms of mental disorders like mood disorders or general mental deterioration, but it is very obvious looking at me, much less keeping track of my schedule, that I am sick. Very simple, no fancy names or need for talking to therapists. Something is seriously wrong with me, and they can't do a darned thing about it.

And also...

Also if anyone has guessed girl and has girls stuff that they may be retiring permanently, especially stuff that wouldn't be good enough to sell or whatever I have pretty much gotten rid of most of my girl things. I sent a big box to Rachel, to Sarah, have given some and will continue to since sadie is bigger than elle to Elle, plus a lot of other friends and people in the ward. I have also gotten rrid of things like car seats and baby swings. The money wouldn't be that big a part of t because I used to get it at garage sales mostly, but as I don't drive it will probably come to new or nothing, which is different than I have done any of the previous kids. So if anyone can help me out, for loan or if you are lightening up, much appreciated, you can't even know. In fact no one I am sure would haveto buy me anythng by the time people take inventory of their 4-6 kids' stuff. I will probably be ok if no one has anything but any old thing that I don't have to stress in preparationj would be great. I figure maybe I could get together with Rachel Bentley sometime ether in Utah maybe or online/on the phoneand give her a whole load of clothes from 4-10 in exchange for some baby and toddler girls stuff coming off the back end, what do you say? We tend to have pretty similar taste. Lots of gap. some Gymboree. etc, some really cute dresses, shoes and dressup things. I bought Sadie about four outfits in france with matching hats and kerchiefs and she grew out of them immediately. Sigh. Plus cute holiday dresses, etc. and ski stuff.

Slade is going to take his two months off and take two before the baby and we are going to make 6 months of meals and put them in the freezers. I am actually going to have a frozen food shower if anyone offers to throw me one. Frozen food, formula. baby food and diapers are the only things I want. Hand me downs if they must bring clothes or gear. And then he will be with me for the six weeks after the baby is born - the screaming weeks. It will be great not to be alone and feel trapped here with that young of a baby all day. The kiids will help a lot summers. weekends and evenings but I will be alone with the baby no car for a bit of time and it will be great to have slade ease me into it. If all this works out, it will be fine, if it doesn't I will be stressed but what else is new... If anyone wants to visit us while Slade s off work that would be fun and we could hang wth the new babe and cook things for the store.

TAXES - SERIOUSLY???

It is hard for me to believe sometimes that they keep doing this, but obviously there is some segment of the population that remains chronically undecided. You would think that with a track record that the state of Oregon has with whining to the voters that the sky will fall every year if they don't raise taxes that people would have figured it out by now, that basically that is ALWAYS what the government will say naturally, if by saying it they will get pad more by the well meaning or frightened taxpayers that actually make the mistake of believing them.

It is basically like a trained lab rat. They in Salem know that all they have to do is say to would-be taxpayers (or the ones that THINK OTHER people are going to have to pay more - yeah, right) if you don't give us more money, Jo and Jane taxpayer, the jails will be emptied into the streets, we won't have any money to teach your kids anything except climate change and whatever they each can learn on the multiple personal computers in all the classroom (or maybe the computers will be forced - ghasp - to not run on an updated OS and the library will only be open thirty minutes a day.

OOOOhhh I am scared now! If things get really REALLY bad it might be like it was when I was a kid and the teacher is forced to do what he or she might be able to do with just a piece of chalk and their own brain. Yeah, I suppose that would be kind of bad. But seriously, I wish that they actually MADE some of these hard decisions and had to actually decide that maybe there shouldn't even BE a public library (with the 100 bucks we would all have extra we could probably do better with a yearly Amazon.com giftcard, and that wouldn't even go toward the administrative waste that is generated by big brother trying to provide our media needs) and maybe there shouldn't BE a public pool and maybe yes, they should be forced to just actually teach reading and writing and math in school instead of having all kinds of fancy stuff that really just passes for distracting kids and makes parents THINK that their kids must be learning. ACTUAL learning is very boring and very cheap. Abe Lincoln managed a first class education for free, yet the schools struggle every year without raising the budget.

I mean seriously have you ever, even in a good year, heard the government say Oh, wow, this is GREAT we have SO MUCH extra money we are just spending it left and right, in fact here is some of it back because we don't need all of it! OF COURSE NOT. Though obviously it does happen. You think of all the things government pays for like long criminal prosecutions for one lone weirdo here and there or all kinds of subsidized garbage and it becomes very obvious that there are oodles of it gushing everywhere like a leaky bucket except the leaks go straight into the sewer instead of the banks of the people who made it and would actually be good stewards of it if they got to keep it.

As much as they are actually able to scare voters out of their wits and their dollars, most actual learning of any quality is accomplishable by actually READING the stuff that is already written and not having fieldtrips and computer programs to teach something different. But it remains that state, local and federal governments have been trained to constantly whine and complain and scare the money away from the taxpayers year after year after year.

It is true that most of the people who agree to be taxed are the ones that THINK someone ELSE is being taxed. Lke those BIG BAD corporations? Nobody seriously thinks there are companies like INTEL who are not being taxed more than ten dollars a year, do they? (Actually it wouldn't be that bad in my opinion if they weren't because likely the money wouldn't go to some greedy fat cat dressed like the Monopoly guy and wearing a monicle, it would probably go toward not having to lay off the guy next door or the guy in the ward who had to go on unemployment for a year).

The people they are talking about who only pay the corporate minimumn are the people who don't even MAKE any money at ALL. It is the basic minimum that people need to pay to keep themselves incorporated for the year. It is the people like our friend with the scrapbooking business that is basically scraping by, if making any money at all. So basically the government with the ads that scare people into sending more money to be wasted in Salem are basically just the same group that knows that if they don't cry, moan complain and threaten the taxpayers year after year after year with the same idle threats they might actually have to get by with less. They won't be able to provide subsidies for unemployed people to have free phone service every year (did you know that a lot of states pay for that?)

And all of us, not just the people that work really hard to pay their own way even if it might mean going WITHOUT phone service from time to time, might actually have to pay our own bills and not simply apply to Salem to be on an even longer list of people with even more extensive needs to whine even LOUDER next year. I think that it has come to the point that they are really crying wolf... LOUD. And people like me who are so jaded by the fact that I KNOW they don't really need the money and are asking for it anyway will never EVER listen. Not that I should ever make the mistake of trying.

ANY GUESSES?

I think I already posted about this but I had intended for any of those who think they are able to guess the sex of babies (through whatever method) to take a crack at it first.

And it was early to get excited about my daytime napping. I am pretty much back to never sleeping EVER. Sheesh. Sometimes I wonder about why I feel terrible all the time and then wonder how ANYONE would do with one night of sleep per week. I actually think I may function above average, if that's possible to believe.

I asked Slade how he thnks he would do after three nights of missed sleep in a row and he says he wouldn't know because he's NEVER had more than one night in a row. EVER. Hard to believe. I hardly ever have two nights of sleep in a row.

Again, this is a really hard problem. Particularly because I think that even the doctors who are paid 350/hr don't know the animal. I have researched it online and have yet to even run into someone as severe as I am in cyberspace.

I just have to remember this when I keep judging myself for not doing well at things. I am a freak of nature on the scale of which is hard to encounter elsewhere, so I should really stop being surprised about the extent of my health problems. Not that I have bad health on the SCALE of bad health, meaning I haven't had cancer or a heart attack yet, but the sad thing is that probably one day I will and then will have my problems in addition to those...

Glorious guilty pleasure

In the past few weeks, since Christmas break when Slade was home to set a bad example by doing the same, I have been indulging in an extremely no no guilty pleasure that I haven't done for a long time. Napping during the day.

The reason I haven't napped for years now is that I have been seeing a neurologist who ironically seems to never have encountered insomnia. So one strategy he has suggested is using principles of 'sleep hygiene' which in theory are an attempt to replicate the sleep patterns of a normal person. I have always been suspicious that this doesn't work, but there are few good options, and now that I am not taking any medications that work, none.

So since Christmas break I decided that I couldn't stand it anymore, esp with the pregnancy and total pharmeceutical sobriety it just didn't make sense to get no sleep. So this week being the most extreme example, I have been endulging in glorious 3-5 hour naps in the day. I figure I have no kids at home so it is not like I am one of those white trash mothers that lets their kids watch tv all day while I sleep. Victimless crime. At least while I have the chance. And while I am alone with a newborn it may be my only chance to sleep at all to catch catnaps while I can, since I won't be able to do the 8 hour Ambien thing then either.

So for the moment I am chucking the goal of sleep hygiene. In fact I am practically sleep filthy. I really don't buy it in theory anyway. Because Slade sleeps like a baby any time he wants even when he has had a long nap. I am just different, and I won't be able to sleep at night whatever I do. It is kind of like when people assume that because people produce less of a certain amount of hormone X when they get older it means that they should boost the heck out of it supplementally. It just likely doesn't work that way.

People's bodies probably produce less of estrogen or DHEA or whatever because their body doesn't NEED it anymore because obviously we don't stay young forever. In fact producing less of a certain hormone that is usually associated with reproduction when we get older is probably safer for our bodies because we don't need it and our bodies probably can't handle the potent hormones as well for those extra decades. We are one of the only species to live significantly longer than we are reproductively active and it doesn't make sense to try to keep an unnecessarily high level of youth related hormones when we age because it will probably kill us.

It is like why dogs get cancer when they are ten. They didn't get it from chemicals in their environment and can't cure it by getting rid of them. Their body is just programmed to age faster. So my body just doesn't go to sleep at night and sleep for eight hours, and replicating that behavior by trying to force that on myself is ridiculous. I am not going to start magically sleeping because I don''t nap in the day. In fact I find that I sleep MORE at night when I nap. So whaever, mr 350/hr neuro. I think I will just get some zzs but thanks.

The last year of our poverty?

It has been rough since Intel stock has been down so much, since that is where most of our money is. But the last of our underwater grants may be this year. We have one for 68 (in our dreams) and one for 38 (very doable historically) but after that it is smooth sailing with all of our grants in the teens and twenties. And of course our stock is our stock but they aren't like our options where they aren't worth squat unless they are above a certain amount. And since Intel is very well poised (having taken advantage of the so-called recession in many ways, from selling more of its products abroad and buying up other struggling companies to the current marketing of three computers in one purchase, anyone see that over the holidays?) It may be only up from here. Let's hope so, very sick of being poor.

And the best thing is that it will all be Slade's hard work. He has had very few breaks in life, only hard hard work since he well, ever. No cars, no down payments on our first house from anyone, no nepotistic jobs, just him. Well done, hon. Oh, and also we will be paying off our house this year! Another sign things are turning for the better.

As for baby, still growing well, etc. Will find out the sex in two weeks. So tune in.