Upset tummy? Try this.

Hi,

I have been very busy lately. It is a good thing. Hubby had minor surgery and is doing fine. I hope to get back with a good post soon. I recieve daily tips from AromaThyme.com.

Thought you might enjoy this one.

Naturgal

7 drops Mandarin
4 drops Ginger
4 drops Peppermint
Add to 1 oz. carrier oil.
Massage on tummy as needed.
Try inhaling directly from the bottle.
Enjoy!

This Aromatherapy Tip is
brought to you by AromaThyme.com
and the Scent of the Month Club
http://www.aromathy me.com

Low level cold laser helps with carpal tunnel syndrome

I was raised to have the upmost respect for the medical profession, the M.D.’s that is. I was taught not to trust chiropractors. I think one of the reasons I got so suckered into the biochemical-imbalance-you need-medication-theory was because of my family’s professional background. My mom would tell me horror stories of what chiropractors had done to patients.

BUT, if you have enough pain, you will try anything. Five years ago I tried a chiropractor.

No time for the details on that. But here is what I want to say, Last week I went to the chiropractor because the arch of my foot hurt. My friend said he could not believe that a woman with my family history didn’t want to go to a M.D. for this problem. While I was at the chiropractor’s office I mentioned that I thought I had carpal tunnel syndrome in my hand…I had just deleted 8,000 emails. (I was so mad at myself, because I should have know that three days of repetitive clicking would cause problems.) The burning and numbness where not going away after a month.

The doc used low level cold laser therapy on my hand. That was a week ago. The burning has gone away. Today I went again. I will keep you posted on this. Doc cited several studies with auto-workers in which the cold laser therapy worked significantly . Here is just one study.

Marriage and mental illness

Hands with wedding rings

Do you think your status as “mentally ill” or “well” affects who you marry? Or how your feel about your marriage or your spouse?

I found something on the net that said that people who have problems with depression improve after marriage, even if it is a so-so marriage. Marriage is good for people, even if it is a not the best marriage. A bad, abusive marriage is not good. Read story here.

I wonder if people “settle” when they have a mental illness…thinking who would want them with their mental illness. Have you ever experienced losing a boyfriend or girlfriend because of mental illness?

Have you put up with things that you wouldn’t have put up with before you were diagnosed?

Trout, a good supper to maintain your brain

Fish is good for the brain

I don’t eat fish enough. Last night my hubby bought some fish and made us a supper. We both are cutting down on salt. I have heard it said that you know you have been successful on cutting out salt when you go out to eat or eat other people’s food and it tastes too salt. This has happened to me…I use unsalted everything. I have tried regular food from the grocery store…like salted butter…and boy, it is just too salty. Our salsa didn’t have much “zip,” but I liked it. Late last night Hubby wanted to know what happened to it. “I ate it,” I said. There are worse things than eating a whole bowl of green papers, tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchinis.

The American Heart Association recommends you eat fish. Read here.

The Huffington Post has a link to why fatty fish is good for your brain here.

The soccer player, David Beckman has a site singing the praises of Omega 3 Fatty acids.

I am a huge believer in the Omega 3 fatty acids for brain support. I believe that this has significantly helped me heal my brain.

You may read about studies showing the fish oil and Omega 3 fatty acids help bipolar, depression and schizophrenia here.

My life, Weight Watchers goal, med goal and doc’s retiring to reach his goal of public speaking and writing

 

Medication Madness by Peter Breggin,

Hi folks,

I feel kinda bad as I have not been able to post many of the things that are happening with me because I am busy. I have posts planned about reaching my Weight Watchers goal, Peter Breggin’s new book, Medication Madness, and, unfortunately, my doctor’s decision to “retire” or stop working with patients.

I saw him yesterday and he told me he is retiring from practice so that he can become more outspoken about his beliefs. As it is now, he feels his license is threatened when he speaks out. If he doesn’t have an active patient load he will feel more comfortable exposing the truth with the threat of a lawsuit. Breggin has been sued many times by people who are threaten by his work.

He told me he had even talked on the phone with Peter Breggin the morning that I visited him!!!

I am trying hard to be “gainfully” employed. So I need to skedaddle, but I hope to write more about the above issues soon.

I made goal with Weight Watchers

Hi,

I don’t have much time to post….but I made goal with Weight Watchers!

Yipee! Yahoo!

A way to manage prisons without psychotropic drugs

The power of music and dance……

Have you seen this Youtube of the dancing prisoners? It is amazing! The groomsmen dancing at the wedding are pretty cool too.  In the U.S. we dope our prisoners up with psychotropic medication.

Something to make you smile:

 

 

These are Philippino prisoners dancing. It from Byron F Garcia’s   Youtube site

He says:

There are sick people who think that dancing is a form of cruel punishment! Since when was dancing categorized as punishment? My fellow citizens of the world, CRUEL and VIOLENT forms of punishment are a thing of the past. If we make jails a living hell for the prisoners, then, we might just be sending out devils once they are released and re-integrated to society. To all “non-believers” of humane treatment of prisoners, and , to all “haters” of our NON-VIOLENT APPROACH TO REHABILITATION all i can say is …GET A LIFE!

Thinking yourself well: the power of cognitive restructuring, or recovering from a sucker punch

 

I felt sucker-punched when I learned about the research on psych-meds.

This can be a loaded topic because you may remember when you were in so much mental anguish, so much pain that you just wanted to crawl in a hole or stop the world so you could jump off, but do you remember when someone told you that your problems were NOT all in your head? Do you remember what a relief that was? Do you remember that, possibly your family became more understanding. And if they did not…how frustrated you were that they couldn’t understand that you had a biochemical chronic disease?

Cognitive restructuring is a type of counseling developed by  Aaron Beck and expanded by Albert Ellis; and it made me well. I remember learning about this type of thinking or counseling in psychology courses in college, yet if you do an Internet search on “cognitive restructuring + psychiatry” the only thing that will pop up is a book for learning disabled ….I am not knocking that. I am just pointing out that it isn’t even a result for help with mental illness on a “Google search,”  even though many in my circle of blogging friends have found that cognitive restructuring is what made them well.

Susan, of Wellness Writer, wrote something a couple days ago that inspired this post. She talked about how she journeyed through the path to wellness and how she felt “sucker-punched” when she found out many of the medications she had been taking had never been clinically tested for their efficacy.  Read her Aug.7 post “Why I am well”.

When I read Susan’s words I could totally relate! I too felt duped, lied-to, sucker-punched.

For the past couple years, my best friend told me, “You are sooo angry!” She didn’t think I should be so angry….which caused more problems our relationship. You bet I am angry! These drugs ruined my life! I have spent thousands of dollars on prescription drugs, doctors and hospitalization…and where did it get me? Down a spiralling path of Hell.  It helped me lose everything I loved. Career, husband, nice home, family…and my belief in myself.  We pay these doctors and counselors to help us and what they have done to us is terrible. They might have well sold us snake oil, or attached leaches to us to bleed us like they used to do to sick people.

A few months ago best friend finally told me that she never bought my view that the drugs didn’t work because of all my crazy behavior. I am glad she finally told me that. I told her that I took my psych drugs religiously and that all those crazy behavior she experienced from me were done while I faithfully took my psych medication. I never had any of the manic behaviors before I took the psych drugs. I never had the inappropriate behaviors. I will admit I had the depression and and the anxiety…but never like I had it after I went for help. This revelation and new understanding repaired the damage in our relationship. She told me she could understand why I was so angry and thinks I should someday write a book.

The following is an edited comment I posted on Susan’s Wellness Writer’s blog in reaction to getting rid of books and materials on bipolar illness,  stopping the search to cure bipolar and focusing on something else. This is what I refer to as cognitive restructuring. Here is the post:

I love my mom, but she also was obsessed with treating the bipolar and talked about every time we met or talked. I found it to be impossible to get well with her reminding me all the time that I was sick. Some days would be going along fine. I would feel “normal” happy, calm and my mom would bring up something about bipolar…it just got me to thinking about mental illness again. It was like a broken record in my brain. I got better when I moved away and when I didn’t talke to her so often. (Now that I have been off meds for a while….she is now coming to see me as a healthy person.)

Also, I am just remembering that in 1997 I did something similar to you in that rather than join a support group my psych-doc wanted me to join, I took two university courses, joined the church choir and hand bell choir and began submitting writing and photography to publications. I took only a low dose of Impramine.

I had a backslide in 1999…what I and everyone else thought was a terrible backslide into mania followed by a hospitalization, more psych drugs and depression. After this experience, my mom tried to get me to sign a piece of paper that I would never give up my medication again.

The truth was that three extremely stressful events happened within weeks of one another (including an accidental withdrawal of a low dose of Imprimane). I phoned my psych-doc who put me on gabatinten or Nuertion and my mania escalated. But of course my family, doctor and I all thought I had a very bad case of mania. Neurontin can make mania worse. You can read about the fraud of Neurontin here: 

Wow the things we have learned by being “non-compliant” !

Hey, if you are sick and you have been following doctors orders…and for years you don’t get better and you continue to get worse you know something is wrong. Some people say insanity is when you do the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

I have seen some blogs of people with photos of themselves before their diagnosis, during while on the pharmaceuticals and after. And the during photos look horrendous. Maybe some day I will share mine too. You wouldn’t believe how terrible and out-of-it I look like with my “disabled” photo ID for a bus passed from the 1990s. You would not believe that I am even the same person.

How about you? What prescription medications are you taking for psychiatric problems? How long have you taken it? If you are off how long have you been off and what are you using for a safety net?

Remember going cold turkey off meds is dangerous….I learned the hard way and had a mania attack. Please read this warning.

Abuse of Seroquel in prisons reported

Antipsychotic medications are generally thought to have little potential for abuse. But a handful of psychiatrists have raised concerns about patients abusing and becoming addicted to Seroquel.

Read more here Abuse of Seroquel in prisons reported

If it isn’t addictive why is it so popular? There is a line about it is hard to sleep in a prison…so I can see wanting to get a good night’s sleep.

Potlucks and staying within my values

Last night I went to a potluck. I brought my own plates so I wouldn’t have to use Styrofoam and I brought my own silverware.  I tried to pick the most healthy of the food to eat. There was one lady their who would NOT give her baby a hot dog because of the nitrates…but she ate one herself. I don’t eat most meat because I don’t know how the animal was feed or slaughtered. If I know they animal was pasture-raised and slaughtered locally, then I will eat it.

Someone brought a huge box of bananas and someone else brought some watermelon.

Luckily for me they served water from a big cooler because I also don’t drink bottled water.

Water is a public resource, not a commodity. See http://www.sierraclub.org/committees/cac/water/bottled_water/bottled_water.pdf