Ask your doctor about...

[Veloce Grey]

Saw it two days ago as well... the convenience store sold 128 oz plastic jugs and some poor guy was filling it with Pepsi.

His jacket looked like it had an HVAC patch but in reality, he should have had these logos stitched to it ... Merck, Eli Lilly, Gilead, Glasko...

The whole "giant convenience store drink you can sip all day" thing hasn't quite made it to where I live yet. That's a good thing.

Being a quite remote region it took until the 90s until we had KFC and a decade later Mcdonalds arrived. Perhaps it's just a general trend that people are getting fatter, but I especially notice that locally there seem to be an increasing number of extremely large people vs in the 80s when we didn't have these bastions of American Obesity around. Not that the local diet was amazingly healthy, just that anything American seems to come with larger portions encouraged.

Going to the city for drive by of Burger King/Carls Jnr/Wendy's confirms we're going down the same road as the USA, just a few miles behind.

Between that diet and the number of younger people spending hours video gaming or on smartphones, investing in "fatness related industries" seems a safe bet long term.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

are the bad guys..?

I'm simply saying that there is some symbiosis here.

One poisons, the other medicates.

And both are protected by the lobbyists.

Also, Merck and Gilead?

I just threw out the most popular names that symbolized a drug maker; I'm not privy to who is making what.

 

[lewj24]

But does that mean we shouldn’t develop drugs to treat them?

The problem is most drugs don't treat the problem. They cover up symptoms so you can keep going on with your unhealthy life.

For example:

Type 1 diabetics were born with a pancreas problem and would die without modern insulin replacement no matter what they eat. In this case insulin saves their life.

Type 2 diabetics (most of them) were not born with a pancreas problem but later in life become diabetic because they become so overweight and ate so poorly that their pancreas cannot produce the amount of insulin needed to keep their body functioning.

But the actual problem is the fact that their diet is so bad the pancreas simply cannot produce enough insulin. Their bodies also become insulin resistant and the more insulin they use the worse this gets. Insulin isn't treating them at all. Just masking their symptoms until they end up needing more insulin to mask more symptoms. The real cure would be to fix your diet. Using insulin as a temporary fix while you work on your diet actually makes it harder to get off insulin.

For Type 1's insulin is a life saving treatment.

For Type 2's insulin is a symptom masking treatment that actually makes the problem worse the longer they use it.

I agree, if you get Type 1 or AIDS or something and need medicine for treatment then I'm all for it. But most people are unhealthy and medicine isn't the cure. A healthier lifestyle is the cure.

 

[Scot]

The problem is most drugs don't treat the problem. They cover up symptoms so you can keep going on with your unhealthy life.

For example:

Type 1 diabetics were born with a pancreas problem and would die without modern insulin replacement no matter what they eat. In this case insulin saves their life.

Type 2 diabetics (most of them) were not born with a pancreas problem but later in life become diabetic because they become so overweight and ate so poorly that their pancreas cannot produce the amount of insulin needed to keep their body functioning.

But the actual problem is the fact that their diet is so bad the pancreas simply cannot produce enough insulin. Their bodies also become insulin resistant and the more insulin they use the worse this gets. Insulin isn't treating them at all. Just masking their symptoms until they end up needing more insulin to mask more symptoms. The real cure would be to fix your diet. Using insulin as a temporary fix while you work on your diet actually makes it harder to get off insulin.

For Type 1's insulin is a life saving treatment.

For Type 2's insulin is a symptom masking treatment that actually makes the problem worse the longer they use it.

I agree, if you get Type 1 or AIDS or something and need medicine for treatment then I'm all for it. But most people are unhealthy and medicine isn't the cure. A healthier lifestyle is the cure.

I understand that. But we don’t live in a perfect society where people actually give a damn about their health. I watched my grandfather slowly kill himself by not acknowledging that Type 2 diabetes requires life changes.

The vast majority of patients are non compliant. Compliance rates are miserable just for patients taking their prescriptions. But getting a patient to go through a lifestyle change..ask any doctor how successful they’ve been with that.

We don’t live in a perfect world. People suck. But just because they’re idiots and keep trying to kill themselves doesn’t mean they don’t deserve medicine to keep them alive.

 

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[Chromozone]

The problem is most drugs don't treat the problem. They cover up symptoms so you can keep going on with your unhealthy life.

I agree with everything you said in your post. And most physicians I know would agree as well.

I understand that. But we don’t live in a perfect society where people actually give a damn about their health. I watched my grandfather slowly kill himself by not acknowledging that Type 2 diabetes requires life changes.

The vast majority of patients are non compliant. Compliance rates are miserable just for patients taking their prescriptions. But getting a patient to go through a lifestyle change..ask any doctor how successful they’ve been with that.

We don’t live in a perfect world. People suck. But just because they’re idiots and keep trying to kill themselves doesn’t mean they don’t deserve medicine to keep them alive.

You are right of course, and I think this is where the debate gets interesting.

How much personal responsibility should people take? And how much should people look to others / government / pharmaceuticals to look after them?

I think the balance is skewed very much towards people absolving themselves of any responsibility at present and people expecting medications and society to look after them. It's so bad right now that if you call a patient "overweight" or "obese" you'll get a complaint and risk litigation (happened to several doctors I know).

I don't know about America, but here in England the healthcare system is on its knees because of the demand brought on by chronic self inflicted diseases. As a result it's likely the healthcare system will collapse / get privatised in the coming years. If no one take responsibility for their own health then they will lose access to healthcare which is currently free at the point of use.

 

[Scot]

I agree with everything you said in your post. And most physicians I know would agree as well.



You are right of course, and I think this is where the debate gets interesting.

How much personal responsibility should people take? And how much should people look to others / government / pharmaceuticals to look after them?

I think the balance is skewed very much towards people absolving themselves of any responsibility at present and people expecting medications and society to look after them. It's so bad right now that if you call a patient "overweight" or "obese" you'll get a complaint and risk litigation (happened to several doctors I know).

I don't know about America, but here in England the healthcare system is on its knees because of the demand brought on by chronic self inflicted diseases. As a result it's likely the healthcare system will collapse / get privatised in the coming years. If no one take responsibility for their own health then they will lose access to healthcare which is currently free at the point of use.

Our healthcare system is over burdened by set inflicted disease too. I’m by no means saying everything is fine and we shouldn’t try and get people to take care of themselves.

Even though I didn’t take the hipocratic oath, I do my best to follow it in my line of work.

It all comes down to the ethics.

The 60 year old who is at the pulmonologist for COPD as a result from smoking a pack a day for 30 years.

They lit up a cigarette outside before walking into the clinic, making sure not to flick ash on the portable oxygen tank.

Do we say, “well, this is all your fault. We told you to stop smoking for 30 years and you didn’t. So, I won’t be writing you a script”

Or do we give them albuterol and a maintenance inhaler so they literally don’t suffer as they slowly suffocate...

All I’m saying is, yes, we need to fix the problems people are inflicting on themselves through bad choices. But no, we should not deny them quality of life if they chose not to change that lifestyle.

 

[Invictus]

I came across this some time ago, and this thread jogged my memory of it.

https://startingstrength.com/articles/barbell_medicine_sullivan.pdf

Excerpt:
For some time now, in the course of my duties as an emergency physician, I’ve had strange thoughts at the bedside of some of my patients. I’ll approach a patient who has come to be treated for chronic pain, fatigue, elevated blood pressure, shortness of breath, or a blood sugar that’s out of control. I find myself confronted by a very overweight, deconditioned 52 year-old, going on 70, with battered joints, atrophic muscles, no physiologic reserve, an inability to get off the gurney without groaning and wheezing, and a grim future. When I work them up, I find no medical emergency, just what I have come to call “diatensionolesity”—type II diabetes, hypertension, a screwed-up blood-lipid profile, and obesity.

And I think to myself: If I could get you under the bar, I could change your life.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

They lit up a cigarette

Offered by Big-Tobacco and advertised to him as "cool" when he was 14 years old.

They drank a 128 oz Coke

Offered by Big-Ag and advertised to him as "cool" when he was 14 years old.

Then he went thru the drive-thru at McDonalds

Offered by Corporate-Fast Food and advertised to him as "cool" when he was 14 years old.

His one vice is eating 2 lbs of cheese everyday...

Offered by the dairy council because "milk is what a body needs" and how else would one get its calcium.

It's one gigantic racket.

And to repeat in the simplest of terms:

Profit on the poison, profit on medicating the poison's side-effects.

And at this point, "medication" varies from drugs, to media, to Hollywood, to more processed food devoid of any nutrition and filled with dopamine producing ingredients: Sugar, MSG, Maltodextrin, Yeast Extract...

But no, we should not deny them quality of life if they chose not to change that lifestyle.

Of course not. I'm all for people having options.

I take issue when I'm being sold the poison only later to be sold the antidote-- all under the guise of normalcy.

My point is that the unhealthy lifestyle is promoted and protected because it is a cash-cow: It is the first domino on the printing press of profit. And now it's entirely normal for 14 year old kids to be pre-diabetic because mom has been brainwashed to believe her child should have Sunny-D for breakfast, fruit-roll ups for lunch, and a "Coke and a smile" for dinner.

 

[lewj24]

I could be wrong but my main issue isn't that type 2 diabetics are taking insulin.

My main issue is when you go to a doctor that doesn't explain the real solution. He just says yep you need insulin and oh start eating healthier and lose some weight. But then when their on insulin it's even harder to lose weight and nobody really knows what eating healthier means so they think they are screwed and take insulin the rest of their life.

I guess my problem is bad doctors who don't care. "Here's some medicine."

 

[FlRock]

One question though: If you kids needed help in that department, what alternative medicines would you get for them? The people around me swear by accupuncture and exercise lol, but I'm not exactly a fan of Chinese needles sticking into my body.

Speaking from experience and having seen the results first hand. Proper diet is a major component that is vastly overlooked, and seldomly understood.

Get the kid on a good quality Fish oil and healthy fats, heavily reduce sugar, check for food intolerence, no more juice, have them eat quality whole foods and organic. They'll also need quality rest and less 'screen time' before bed.

Sugar before bed has been shown to cause night terrors in children, limiting the quality of sleep they recieve.

I've done yoga type morning stretches with my kid to prepare him for his day ahead. Incorporating all the above has led my child to success in his school work, sports performance, and peer group pressures. Fwiw, I started seeing a functional medicine doc instead of an MD. Life changing.

 

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[ZF Lee]

Get the kid on a good quality Fish oil and healthy fats, heavily reduce sugar, check for food intolerence, no more juice, have them eat quality whole foods and organic. They'll also need quality rest and less 'screen time' before bed.

Great effort with the kids! I myself did have the benefit of having health-conscious parents. Well, my dad was more of a meat-and-potatoes guy, but he did get some Chinese herbal concoctions and occasional bird's nest soup.

Ugh...I'm missing out on the fish oils department.

I still take chlorophyll pills though. I used to take a special vitamin drink, but it costs a bomb and it may clash with lean Fastlane routes haha.

On sugars, I've noticed that the younger kids after me are pretty hyper to the point that they can't concentrate in class and cause trouble at home. And then they get diagnosed wrongly for all sorts of things like autism and ADHD.

Turns out that parents these days use sweets as a reinforcement tool to have the kids do more good things or chores. Reinforcement is fine, but more sweets? Got to be kidding me. Formula milk powder might have had done its damage early on as well. Being commercial stuff, you may never know what they put in to get the young toddlers coming back to buy....

 

[ZF Lee]

Yes, a lot of the ailments people suffer from are self inflicted due to bad diet and obesity. But does that mean we shouldn’t develop drugs to treat them? Or should be just tell them it’s their fault and let them slowly die from necrosis due to their uncontrolled blood pressure...

I'm thinking of a placebo, but instruct them to 'do X healthy stuff' and 'eat Y healthy stuff'' to increase the potency of the 'medicine'.

At the end of the day, even the body has a certain limit to how much drugs can be pumped in.

The term 'deal with symptoms' should be emphasized, rather than 'effective cure'. Symptoms and cause are different things.

 

[Chromozone]

All I’m saying is, yes, we need to fix the problems people are inflicting on themselves through bad choices. But no, we should not deny them quality of life if they chose not to change that lifestyle.

Am I correct in thinking that we are largely in agreement? I definitely don't believe in with-holding treatments from patients either.

Even though I didn’t take the hipocratic oath, I do my best to follow it in my line of work.

It all comes down to the ethics.

Yes, exacetly - part of the Hippocratic oath is to "do no harm".

I often feel guilty about the treatments I give my patients. In just the last few months cholesterol tablets have been linked to colorectal cancer, anti-allergy tablets have been linked to infertility, the combined contraceptive pill has been linked to clinical depression. This kind of stuff comes out every week in research papers.

I'm not saying that these medications shouldn't be used, but I do think that we have very little understanding about what we're doing in modern medicine and what the full implications are.

In other words absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence (of harm with the use of medications).

And to repeat in the simplest of terms:

Profit on the poison, profit on medicating the poison's side-effects.

This right here is truth.

Just as an example, in December 2017 a study called "DiRECT" (or The Diabetes Remission Clinical Trial) was published in The Lancet, which is probably the most respected medical journal in the world.

It showed that a low calorie (very low at around 800 calories a day), low carb diet achieved total remission of diabetes within 12 months for 46% of participants with no side efffects. Many of the patients found the diet enjoyable and continued on the diet even after the study was over.

Here's a quote from Professor Mozaffarian (Prof of nutrition and medicine at Tufts University, Massachussets) who said:

"If a new drug showed similar results to DiRECT, it would immediately be tested in several large real world randomised controlled trials. But without a multibillion dollar drug industry behind them, these results are not receiving the attention, the researach funding for interventions, or the evaluation that their promise deserves."

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

It showed that a low calorie (very low at around 800 calories a day), low carb diet achieved total remission of diabetes within 12 months for 46% of participants with no side efffects.

Wow!

 

[Scot]

@Chromozone we are definitely in agreement. I just don’t like when people demonize medicine.

The thing is, my whole business is focused on a diet that has better efficacy treating an illness than the leading drug.

 

[Veloce Grey]

I'd love to see a side by side comparison of diets of people in the same area in 1868/1918/1968/2018.

My granddad was born in 1890 in a relatively poor rural area. He lived through the stresses of two World Wars (losing one brother), a global depression, a global flu pandemic, in an era where there were far fewer medications and much poorer medical understanding of everything from bacteria to smoking to sunburn. He passed away aged 90 in 1981. In the photos I've seen he looks fairly skinny but in a healthy, athletic sort of way. Yet I don't know much of what he actually ate, apart from Dad saying in the depression they ate rabbit not because they enjoyed the taste but they simply couldn't find or afford anything else.

I wonder what he'd make of being able to see the street he lived on now, with a Mcdonalds on the corner and fat people waddling in and out, often with their fat kids. Dad, who also checked out at 90, also lived through the hard times of the 1930s/40s and refused to ever enter the Mcdonalds. He'd sit at home at dinner time happily eating a basic egg sandwich as happy as a lottery winner, which I understand more now with age and hindsight.

 

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[Kak]

You catch flack because it's a bullshit belief, not a fact.

My son (7) is diagnosed with ADHD, which I hate to even say because out of all the possible mental illnesses out there, ADHD is the most made fun of for any number of reasons ("oh, you're just lazy, dumb, undisciplined, bla bla bla...".

Let me tell you - my wife and I spent 2 genuine years trying to behaviorally managing my son's mental health. He's not from a bad home. We're not lazy parents. He eats well, gets enough exercise, and is living a great life with "no excuses" to point to. We've read books on the subject, implemented behavioral suggestions from a psychologist who specializes in it, etc...

Up to and including that time, we received concerns from EVERY caregiver he was in contact with. His martial arts instructor, his many various teachers, his soccer coach, his daycare lady, his summer camp counselors - everyone. He was hurting people, kicking them, punching them, knocking things off desks, stealing things from other kids, throwing dangerous objects, being literally uncontrollable (even by us in our own home), ending up in the principals office regularly, lying, etc... and the common theme through all of that? The words "he doesn't do it out of hate or anger". He was literally doing all this impulsively and without thought or control.

Our son would literally sit in bed crying his eyes out because "my brain makes me do things that I don't want to do".

Again - this was not the product of a broken home. This was my son in a cared-for and loving environment with extremely patient parents actively working to help him. We were trying everything in our power to help him.

About 6 months back I talked to a lady by chance at a park who had experience with children with ADHD (she was a teacher from a school across town). I told her my frustrations and said we were extremely against medication because we didn't want to medicate our child. She said that she would never tell us what to do but that she's seen amazing things with some of her students who ended up on medication and the biggest, most pronounced difference with the children was their self esteem and social belonging. They were no longer being yelled at and told to 'stop' all day, every day, their entire childhood lives. Classmates who refused to play with the 'problem' children started including them once they were able to control their behavior. As an avid lover of psychology and success myself, this hit me like a ton of bricks. I had never considered the negative impact of self esteem and friendship that my son was going through as a result of his condition.

We talked to our doctor and did a very, very small trial of ADHD medication (concerta extended release), just to see how he took to it.

Look at all these terrible side effects:

stomach pain,
loss of appetite,
headache,
dry mouth,
nausea,
vomiting,
sleep problems (insomnia),
anxiety,
dizziness,
weight loss,
irritability,
vision problems,
skin rash,
nervousness,
numbness/tingling/cold feeling in the hands or feet, and
sweating.

Wow, all doom and gloom. Why would anyone put a child through this?!?!

Well f*ck me - my son is thriving on this stuff.
Absolutely thriving.

The ONLY side effect he saw was a lack of appetite (which is a problem for growth reason), and that went away after a month. His teacher is now asking we send him to school with MORE food because he finishes it all and asks for more.

He is 100% the same child, with the same personality and the same likes and dislikes and same hilarious humor he always had, but he now can pay attention to things for a change. He can control himself in ways he never could before. He's not hitting anyone, he's getting asked to go to parties at friend's houses for a change, the teachers all love him, his extra curricular coaches love him, he plays nicely with his sister, he picked up a love of reading (which was impossible before), he's thriving in math (impossible before), and has done a complete 180 on all the negative behaviors that we tried for 2 years to manage through behavior alone.

He went from bottom of the class to top of the class - the teachers want him to do some extra summer-work on a few subjects because they feel he could be really ahead of the curve going into the next grade. He's being treated like the intelligent child we knew he was but was entirely unable to show before medication.

I was once the type of person to poo-poo on this sh*t but having a son with a real problem has really changed my perspective on the subject.

The medication, with all the nasty side effects, and all the nasty social stigma, has been without a doubt the BEST decision we've made for our son in his entire life. It was an impossibly hard decision for us to make but it was worth it in spades.

That's the thing with mental illness - you can't see it and it's very hard to notice unless you have someone in your life who is living through it.

And just because medication has nasty side effects, doesn't mean you WILL have those side effects. Different people react to different medication differently. That's why they do studies. That's why they warn you what to look out for. If you react poorly to a medication you may very well need to pivot to a new medication or decide if the side-effects are better than or worse than your condition.

I get that it's funny to laugh at the side effects of certain drugs, especially for diseases and conditions you can't see (like mental illness), but this sh*t genuinely helps a lot of people. If you don't like it - just don't take it. Don't go calling those who need it sheep, or saying their conditions aren't real. Maybe try living with someone you care about who feels at war with their own brain before you go throwing stones.

There is a STONG a correlation between ADHD and leadership/entrepreneurial success.

 

[garyfritz]

There is a STONG a correlation between ADHD and leadership/entrepreneurial success.

I would like to hear more about that. It sounds like you're suggesting a positive correlation, which is not my experience. My ADD (not ADHD) is the major thing that keeps me from staying focused on any kind of successful entrepreneurial effort.

 

[Kak]

I would like to hear more about that. It sounds like you're suggesting a positive correlation, which is not my experience. My ADD (not ADHD) is the major thing that keeps me from staying focused on any kind of successful entrepreneurial effort.

True. It might also be the very reason you aren’t an accountant. Do some research it might surprise you.

ADHD Can Be a CEO's Secret Superpower

ADHD: The Entrepreneur's Superpower

The medication absolutely got me through middle school and partly through high school, without wanting to come out of my skin. I started to go without it some times in high school. With medication, you can be ADHD when you need to be and focused when you need that. I effectively taught myself to cope totally without it in college, still got a 3.8 GPA. Once my entrepreneurial journey turned from a bootstrapping suitation to a leadership situation, everything got even easier to manage in my mind.

 

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[garyfritz]

True, some ADHD characteristics can be valuable for an entrepreneur. But others, more common with non-hyperactive ADD, are less useful: lack of focus (on what you NEED to focus on, usually because you're hyperfocused on something stupid), easily distractible, procrastination, etc. If you studied large numbers of ADHD people, I strongly suspect you would find a lot more underperformers than CEOs.

I think my ADD has a lot to do with why I've been self-employed for almost 30 years. The risk-taking, the chafing at structure &etc, led me to leave my cushy Fortune-50 corporate job. The ADD also absolutely severely limited my success in my job and in my entrepreneurial efforts. It takes me 3-4 times longer to do things than it "should." I've had way too many days of spending 12-16 hours in my office, and only getting 4 hours of actual work done.

Most "normal" people (like my ex or my type-A brother) tend to write off these behaviors as laziness and lack of discipline. There may be some truth to that, but I seem to be wired that way. I can't change it on my own any more than @JAJT's son could -- I've been trying my whole life. I can force myself into a more organized/productive mode, but it's like holding my breath: it's unnatural and I can't do it for long.

I've tried several ADHD meds without any success. Maybe some of the new meds would work better.

Fortunately for me, I have some strengths that balance my weaknesses, and I've been fairly successful in spite of my challenges. I don't try to launch businesses like many of you, but my time-for-money consulting biz nets me 6 figures working part-time. (Unfortunately I don't have Control to increase my workload and my income. Still working on that.)

I've dragged this a bit off-track from the original topic, but I'm agreeing with @JAJT: everybody is different, some people have strengths, some people have challenges. And some of those challenges CAN be helped with the right meds.

 

[garyfritz]

she's seen amazing things with some of her students who ended up on medication and the biggest, most pronounced difference with the children was their self esteem and social belonging. They were no longer being yelled at and told to 'stop' all day, every day, their entire childhood lives. Classmates who refused to play with the 'problem' children started including them once they were able to control their behavior. As an avid lover of psychology and success myself, this hit me like a ton of bricks. I had never considered the negative impact of self esteem and friendship that my son was going through as a result of his condition.

That is absolutely a huge factor -- and not just for kids. Adults get all kinds of negative feedback for ADHD behaviors: poor job performance, yelled at by the boss, yelled at by the spouse, etc. That torpedoes your self-esteem and happiness just like it would for a kid. And I don't blame it 100%, but I'm certain my ADD was a major contributing factor that killed my 20-year marriage.

 

[markK]

The role of medicines as the 'last resort' was the same for my skin allergies.

At first I tried natural stuff. Special soaps and lotions.

Diet wise, I might source kampung chicken (village chickens that run around as opposed to being caged), have more raw vege and nuts (limited to walnuts, cashews and hazelnuts, though. Peanut allergies).

I was also put on rather weird health practices like coffee enemas from NewLife (not exactly a pleasant way of treatment) to clear my bowels and indirectly, the bloodstream. After all, what comes out on the skin is caused by what happens inside.

Still didn't work out well. Itchiness and sleepless nights reigned.

A year or so ago, I finally went to see a doctor, who prescribed steroids, mild creams and a medicated lotion.

My skin improved relatively well enough for me to drop the steroids and focus on lotions.

And yes, I got my beauty sleep back...until Fastlane demands come knocking at the door.

I still eat pretty healthily. I might have raw vege like lettuce, cucumbers or cherry tomatoes, with a sweet potato on the side for dinner tonight.

Simple, but sufficient.

In my case, the worst of the ailment has to be suppressed with medicines. At best, natural alternatives and a great diet are a long-term play. The latter won't heal you miraculously, but across months and years, their benefits compound.

In a practical situation, considering how ailments can pop in suddenly, healthcare is like an orchestra. You can play this 'orchestra' with meds alone, and to a certain degree, you can't play on non-med routes and natural diets alone.

About 7 years ago I had a similar itchy experience and resolved it with a combination of medicine and naturopathic remedies.

It started with a itching rash on my wrists and the top of my feet. At first, I thought it was like a poison ivy reaction. So, I treated it like poison ivy. It did not get any better and my nights were filled with itching torment. In the process of my self-treatment my feet got infected and started to swell and get very sore.

I personally try to avoid all medicines if possible, but knew that I needed to resolve the infection, so I went to an urgent care clinic and got an antibiotic. Realizing that I didn't know what I was dealing with, I made an appointment with my naturopathic doctor.

My doctor ordered some blood work to be done and asked me a bunch of questions. In the end she diagnosed my problem as an intestinal fungal infection accompanied with intestinal parasites.
She put me on a strict low carb, no sugar diet and gave me some anti-parasitic supplements and a mega-probiotic. She then looked me in the eye and said, it's going to get worse before it get's better.

She was right. For the next three days I hated life and got little to no sleep. Then it was like the monster died and I started to rapidly get better and three weeks later was healed.
I learned a lot about intestinal flora and suffering in that time frame, but don't care to experience that ever again. Also did the coffee enemas, which is really weird at first, but once you understand the purpose and benefits, it's like, just do it.

Keeping the bowels healthy goes a long way toward keeping the body healthy, which leads back to what kind of food is going through it.

 

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[YoungPadawan]

Here’s the thing though, for many people, the risk of side effects outweighs the negative effects of Bipolar.

The problem is, you’re assuming bipolar just means you’re happy one day and sad the next.

Bipolar disorder can cause destructive behaviors. Periods of mania can cause people to be sexually active and engage in risky behaviors, potentially getting deadly STD’s.

Or their mania can cause them to gamble away their money, ruin their careers and relationships. Mania can cause them to pursue drug use.

The depression side can destroy relationships or end in suicide.

So please don’t downplay the impact of this disease on people’s lives just because you think pharma is trying to make a quick buck.

I’ve seen first hand what mental disease and specifically bipolar disorder can do to ruin lives.

And fun fact, the FDA will not approve new drugs in class unless they are both more effective and safer/less dude effects.

Traditionally, antipsychotics and atypical antipsychotics can have really bad side effects.

Most of the side effects in the commercial are called “class warnings” or “black box warnings” Essentially those are side effects were caused by older drugs in the same class. They necessarily aren’t present in these new drugs, but because they are similar the FDA requires these.

Ps this drug also treats schizophrenia too.



The PI for this drug isn’t actually that bad. It’s probably the safest Atypical on the market.

As for price of drugs, yes, the pills cost pennies to make, but you’re ignoring the Billions capital B that it costs for research, development and FDA trials.




Thankfully, you’re not a doctor and science has proven you wrong.

People needing medical like this have measurable insufficiencies of Dopamine in their brains, which cause personality disorders and altered mental status.

Mental disease is no different than any other disease. Saying otherwise is not only ignorant, but harmful and causes stigma.

If we can treat endocrine problems by measuring a persons body is low or high in a certain hormone or enzyme, and then resolve the disorder with medication or supplementation... why is the brain or nervous system any different?

If a dificiency of dopamine is measured in a person, they hear voices and have irrational behavior, but then you add a domaminergic agent to increase dopamine levels and the voices dissapear and they behave normally, isn’t that evidence that disease was present?

I concur, it's easy to downplay mental health. I personally struggle with bipolar disorder, and listening to the side effects of all these different types of drugs, it's easy to laugh at the side effects like it's a no brainer.

But when you feel like blowing your brains out and see no hope in life, those side effects are easy to swallow, compared to the alternative. After trying the 'natural' methods of living life, once they don't work, you pretty much have no other choice than to medicate. I've tried excercising and eating an all natural diet. Sometime that stuff just doesn't work.

I think mental health is something that needs desperate health in the US. People need help with this desperately, but it seems that there aren't enough psychiatrists to fill the need. Something I've thought about in the past is developing an AI that can help people determine what specific mental health disorder they have and based on their bloodwork, develop a prescription plan based on that. Of course, it's probably much more complicated than that, but that's for someone much smarter than me...

 

[NanoDrake]

i will not comment on the big pharma part of the 3d or if drugs are good or not.
I will simply say that exactly one year ago i was 23 kg's more.

But I had severa depression problems and I was sleeping like shit, Psychologist told me if stuff persisted another month he would get me something...
I took the problem head on:
IF, Lean diet and exercise.

A year later I'm at my peak and I can hardly remember who i was a year ago, and I was that close to a bottle of meds.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I took the problem head on:
IF, Lean diet and exercise.

A year later I'm at my peak and I can hardly remember who i was a year ago, and I was that close to a bottle of meds.

Congrats.

If the medical industrial complex pushed this regime BEFORE medication, the pharmaceutical industry would be 2/3's its current size.

That's my gripe.

 

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