"We don't know how it works"

Takes four months between calling for an appointment and the actual appointment with the headache specialist who is really a Neurologist in disguise.  Once you appear at the registration desk fifteen minutes ahead of the scheduled appointment you are told to sit on the left side of the waiting room that serves offices and exam rooms for various clinics from internal medicine to this headache specialist.

Your wait time sitting there is twenty minutes.  They call your name and are told to enter the first exam room on the left.  After your blood pressure is taken and it is elevated about 40 points higher systemically than in the early hours of the day, your pulse is rechecked to ensure the machine is correct and the nurse/medical assistant then tells you that you are next, the doctor is just wrapping up with her last patient.

Now you begin timing the passing time and find that an hour has gone by while you slightly doze, get up and retrieve a magazine featuring expensive homes (priced between $1.2 million and $12 million) that are definitely beautiful dream homes.  The furnishings are equally fabulous as are the architectural details featured in the columns and the windows.

Finally the doctor comes into the room and greets you.  You let her know you were only there to ask some questions pertaining to the mechanics of how the medicine prescribed for heart health actually prevents migraines.  You see her expression change into one of astonishment and hear her tell you that it is unknown to scientists and the medical community how these tiny little pills are instrumental in helping control the migraines that have plagued you for about 53 years.  Her exact words were "We don't know how it works."

This medication is the closest I have experienced to true magic.  I came away with more confidence in my cardiologist's experience in what is known these days as "Integrative Medicine", or treating the whole person.

The strange part  is that  after my quadruple bypass surgery the doctors prescribed certain Beta Blockers that were shown to help hearts to function best once a person has been diagnosed with CFH or congestive heart failure.

I had been severely impacted by migraines with auras that caused me to have visual impairments so bad that at one time my vision had gone completely black for a short period of time.  Cheeky things, they began to show up at first as severe pains in the back of my head back when I was a teen.  By age 43 or 44 I began to have the visual disturbances.  One medical visit introduced me to an ophthalmologist who called the visual disturbances "Ocular Migraines".

The strangest part of this entire experience, aside from all the tubes coming out and things sewn to my skin that had probes inserted into my heart for pressure observation of both the upper and lower chambers, was the absence of the migraines.  When I went for a follow up visit with the cardiologist I asked him which of those medicines I was taking could account for this he said "I don't know."

These candid replies of "I don't know" and "We don't know how it works" make me really see these professional healers as shamans and magicians, but also fallible human beings.

Obesity Explosion in America

It is not food that has caused the obesity explosion in this country.  One of the biggest factors is the stress of living in cities, there is overcrowding that is increasing our stress levels.

Another factor is the media's constant barrage of commercials that create desire for the latest of everything being developed in the way of technology or latest fast food offering.  In fact this type of stress, "the gotta getta ________ (fill the blank) syndrome", has not only caused some to have such desire for things they are willing to kill to get it.  Some silently go about growing their fat cells enormously with the latest advertised low cost foods like candy, soda, chips, you name it which wreaks havoc on our bodies.  Jealousy and envy are constantly stirred up by the electronic visitors we allow in our homes.

Stress is the actual silent killer of hearts, waist lines, and lives.

When this country was still rural stress was less as we waited for our gardens, our crops, our growing up live stock (i.e., chickens to become old enough to produce eggs), and we waited with those who were nurturing us.  We actually ate less.  Maybe it was due to not wanting to hurt other living beings?  There was ALWAYS another load of kindling to split and carry in to stoke the cooker in the kitchen.  We worked off our stress by simply keeping ourselves alive.

Time is of the essence to learn to cut the cord and return to growing our own food even if it is only one tomato plant on an apartment house balcony, or a condo patio.  Even a potted herb in a kitchen window can satisfy this need.  Digging in dirt relieves stress.  Watching things grow from a tiny seed to a producing plant changes lives.

See you in the next post.

Recalls

The Naturopath wanted to run some tests and a Mammogram was one of them.

So...I got the mammogram.  Then the next day I get a recall.  Now I have heard for a long time about recalls due to manufacturing defects.  I began to wonder if I suffered from a belated manufacturing defect and was being recalled to fix something?

After the repeat mammogram, this time only on one side with a movable head on the X-ray machine that acted similarly to a CT scanner that did slices of the subject matter and then an ultrasound, I was given the go ahead and continue living a worry free life as it was only a swollen lymph gland.  No fixes were necessary.

But...you might be curious as to why I would have a swollen lymph gland in the first place.  Back about four months ago I took a bad fall and landed on my elbow and my knee on that same side.  The bruising on my elbow was horrific and wrapped entirely around the elbow.  Arnicare cream helped to reabsorb the bruising and brought some relief.  However...it was feared I had broken my humerus and some X-rays were taken which showed no breaks.  The pain I was in was really terrific and would not abate.

Almost two months later an MRI showed two tendon tears in my shoulder, the supraspinatus and the infraspinatus tendons were both torn.  No amount of movement by me would allow the shoulder to move freely.  After the MRI the Ortho Doc injected some steroids and two pain relievers and then I had more free movement, but still pain and some.

The swollen lymph gland is most likely a result of swelling still in the area of my shoulder and one day soon, I get to start PT very soon, will dissipate.