Day: 05/17/2015
Physical vs. mental pain
https://www.facebook.com/PatientsUnitedForDeaReform
https://www.facebook.com/NemiaRucker
5/14/2015:
EDS is one of my disorders. That’s why my knees dislocate, my thumb… and also my shoulder… and jaw have, as well… among many other things. EDS is a body-wide affliction. It affects the ‘glue that holds the body together,’ I have read. anyway, just wanted to share this, as so many people suffer from invisible health conditions. just want you all to know that even those of us with obvious hardships can also be suffering from many, many things that you will never see. EDS is real. it can be very painful, and it can be life threatening.
5/17/2015:
Little known fact, that the ‘War on Drugs,’ does not want you to know:
“Those who seek narcotics, without a medical need, seek to make themselves feel high or ‘ABNORMAL.’ While those in intractable pain seek narcotics (pain medication) in order to feel more ‘NORMAL.’
It is very simple, really. Those not in pain, seek narcotics to flood their brains with an overabundance of an endorphin substitute (the narcotic). This overabundance is what causes the user to feel abnormal, or stoned.
Those in chronic pain suffer a deficit of enough natural endorphins to hold back their pain. When taken correctly, pain medication (narcotics) works as a substitute for the body’s inability to produce enough of its own endorphins to curb pain. The proper dosage is not enough to ever make the patient ‘high.’ This is why pain medication does not take all of the pain away… but it takes the edge off, enabling the person to still function.
Using narcotics to treat severe chronic pain is similar to a person with diabetes using insulin to treat their condition. Or, someone with Addison’s disease using a steroid to replace normal Cortisol, which those with Addison’s cannot make themselves.
The travesty is that so many people are fighting to end the only treatment that will work for some of those in horrible pain. And they do not even understand how pain medication is used… or how it works. But mostly, they do not know that it does NOT make the person in chronic pain get high. Those same people would damn all pain sufferers to a life that those doing the judging would NEVER want to live! “– Nemia Rucker
I think chronic pain patients don’t understand that people who use drugs to get “high” are also usually in some kind of pain — it’s just a different kind of pain. For instance, a rape victim who suffers from PTSD will use that “high” to forget about the rape. Someone who suffered from child abuse may use that “high” as an adult to forget about past traumas. A person who is suicidal may use that “high” to move past that feeling.
Those who suffer from mental illnesses also lack endorphins and the ability to feel “normal.” We know a lot more about physical pain than we do about mental pain, but that doesn’t make mental pain any less significant or important than physical pain.
Everyone who suffers from some kind of pain should stop judging others’ pain, just like chronic pain patients don’t want to be judged for using opioids.
Bud made the cover of Time Magazine
http://www.drugwarrant.com/2015/05/pot-science-imbalance/
The federal antipot policies resulted in a strange kind of scientific trade deficit. The U.S. leads the world in studies of marijuana’s harm, but we’re net importers of data dealing with its healing potential…
Scientific Study Confirms Second-Hand Smoke Highs Are Real
http://www.hightimes.com/read/scientific-study-confirms-second-hand-smoke-highs-are-real
A recent study done by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, concluded that secondhand pot smoke can intoxicate nonsmokers under “extreme conditions,” like being in an unventilated room or closed vehicle.
Researchers recruited pot smokers and non-smokers who sat together for an hour, side-by-side, in a 10-by-13-foot hot box – an acrylic-walled chamber, with the smokers toking on 10 strong joints, reported Science Daily. The exact same situation was carried out in a ventilated room with fans.
At the end of the exposures, the participants’ blood, urine, saliva and hair were tested for THC. All six nonsmokers who’d been in the hot box had detectable amounts of THC in their urine and blood, one of whom tested with the same cutoff (50 nanograms per milliliter) used in the Federal Workplace Drug Testing Program. They also reported feeling pleasant, tired, and less alert… in other words—stoned.
Non-smokers who sat in the ventilated chamber with the smokers showed no signs of THC in their systems. The only effect they reported was being hungry!
When the nonsmokers were asked to duplicate grid patterns they saw on a computer monitor or perform a basic numbers drill, the ones who sat in the unventilated room responded faster but made more mistakes.
“The behavioral and cognitive effects were minor and consistent with a mild cannabis effect,” said lead author Evan S. Herrmann, Ph.D.
This was the first comprehensive study on secondhand pot smoke since the 1980s. In that pot potency has tripled in recent years, research obviously needed to be updated.
Oh, in case you were wondering, the weed used in the experiment was provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
If the pot hadn’t been supplied by the NIDA, I would have loved to be a part of this study.
I Love Bread!
When I was young, we went to AstroWorld where they had a Rainbo Bread store (now called Wonder Bread). They made small, fresh loaves of bread and I used to roll mine up in a ball and eat it like dough. It was delicious! The bread I made today tastes just like that. The recipe called for honey, which I didn’t have, so I substituted maple syrup instead. Tomorrow, I think I’ll make some french toast. 😀
Regulatory board controlled by professionals is not immune from antitrust law
http://www.pharmaciststeve.com/?p=10433
“The new decision holds that a regulatory board controlled by professionals in the market regulated by that board is not immune from antitrust law unless an independent state entity reviews each of its decisions for anti-competitive effect,” the consumer groups said in a news release. “This puts the members of most state regulatory boards at risk of criminal charges and possible treble damages.” …
Food industry braces for Obama trans fat ban
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/fda-trans-fat-ban-118003.html?hp=t1_r
The food industry believes low-levels of trans fats are safe. Industry leaders have banded together behind-the-scenes to craft a food additive petition that will ask FDA to allow some uses of partially hydrogenated oils, such as in the sprinkles on cupcakes, cookies and ice cream. The industry hasn’t shared details, but officials maintain the uses will represent “very limited amounts.”
For more than 60 years, partially hydrogenated oils have been used in food products under the status generally recognized as safe, which does not require FDA’s approval. But since the 1990s, reams of studies have linked trans fat consumption to cardiovascular disease, causing somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000 premature deaths before the industry started phasing it out.
In late 2013 the Obama administration issued a tentative determination that partially hydrogenated oils are not generally recognized as safe. The move sent shock waves through the food industry, which has already brought down average consumption from more than 4 grams per day to about 1 gram per day — an exodus largely fueled by mandatory labeling imposed a decade ago. Scores of popular products, including Oreos and Cheetos, have quietly dropped partially hydrogenated oils over the years, but it remains an ingredient in many products, including Pop Secret microwave popcorn, Pillsbury Grands! Cinnamon Rolls and Sara Lee cheesecake, as well as some restaurant fryers and commercial bakery goods…
The federal government’s crackdown on trans fat is an ironic twist for a substance that first came into favor in the 1950’s as a response to the perceived negative health issues linked to the use of saturated fats from animal products, like lard and butter…
Atheist mom gets death threats over school Bible complaints
An Oklahoma woman said she plans to move after receiving threats from other parents because her complaints ended a public school Bible giveaway.
The woman contacted the American Humanist Association last month after her son told her his third-grade teacher surprised students at Woodrow Wilson Elementary School by handing out the Bible in class, reported the Friendly Atheist blog.
The boy said teacher Erica Mackey placed the Bibles on her desk, and he felt pressured to walk up and take one after most of his classmates did.
His mother, identified only as Lea, contacted the atheist organization’s legal representatives, who notified Duncan Public Schools that the passive distribution violated the separation of church and state.
A Satanic Temple chapter asked permission to distribute materials, and the school district said it would end Bible handouts for elementary students.
Lea told the Atheist Analysis blog that her children had faced bullying over their agnostic views since moving to Duncan six years ago. Her eldest daughter, who was a high school junior when she started school there, was called “a devil worshipping lesbian transvestite whore” because she did not believe in God, Lea said. Her middle son eventually transferred to an out-of-district school due to bullying over her nonreligious views.
But she said the bullying had increased in intensity after she complained about the Bible distribution, so she has decided to place her house on the market and move away.
“I began to fear for mine and my son’s safety when I read ‘run her out of town’ and ‘snitches end up in ditches,’” Lea said. “I have the comments in an email, but I’d have to go through hundreds of comments to find them. I feared for my son when the parents all had their kids carry their Bibles to school one day, to prove a point.” …
Can You See It Now?
Snow in May… I can tell you that the birds are not happy about it. When I was outside yesterday, they all sounded a little confused… if not manic.
All Things Chronic 