Do you need a mental health referral? Good luck.

https://myfridayblog.wordpress.com/2015/06/01/healthcare/

“Dr. (name) isn’t accepting new patients.” …

No, they just decided to keep receiving and ignoring the referrals…

The other thing that really upsets me about this interaction was the “patient coordinator’s” attitude. This is someone who has a job of dealing with the mentally ill. As debilitating as my flash-backs, panic attacks, anxiety, and emotional outbursts out of nowhere can be…I am actually on the luckier side of those suffering. I don’t want to self-harm, and I don’t get realistically violent. The same can’t be said for everyone, and they aren’t in control of it. And this bitch, this snotty bitch is talking to sick people and treating them that way? …

But wait, there’s more!!!

I go onto my insurance plan’s website to look for area in-network psychiatrists and there is a good size list (I think it was 26). Each one with the little green check mark beside “Accepting New Patients”. Okay, easy, I thought. Then I start calling…

Why Lyme Disease Cases Are Spiking

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/28/why-lyme-disease-cases-are-spiking.html

Farrell followed up with her family physician, who asked, “Why weren’t you tested for Lyme disease?” But Farrell couldn’t find a bite mark and didn’t have the resulting circular “bull’s-eye” rash that’s often a telltale sign of the bacterial illness…

Stories abound of people who spend months or years in doctors’ offices trying to find out what’s wrong with them, while their Lyme disease spreads. The illness affects the brain, nerves, cardiovascular system, liver, and eyes. Symptoms can also include sleepiness, loss of muscle tone on one or both sides of the face, and shooting pain in your limbs or arthritis, especially in the knee…

College student Jordan Landerman, 21, spent more than a year visiting a dozen doctors with complaints of everything from dizziness, throat spasms, and nausea to weight loss before being diagnosed with Lyme disease last summer…

“Blood tests kept coming back abnormal, but no doctor could tell me why. I was [told I was] anorexic one day. I had GERD the next, then mono, then depression,” says Landerman…

Making the issue even more confusing, there’s controversy about whether patients who have chronic conditions, such as “brain fog,” anxiety, irritability, and hearing and vision problems, are truly infected by the Lyme bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi—or if they should be classified as having “post-Lyme disease syndrome.” …

Can Ecstasy Replace Xanax?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/30/can-ecstasy-replace-xanax.html

Now, science is catching up. A study published this week in the journal Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry is part of a spate of research arguing that MDMA could have psychotherapeutic benefits: this time, to treat symptoms of social anxiety, particularly in autistic adults…

Fascinatingly, therapists and psychiatrists explored the therapeutic use of the drug, but tried to keep its existence under wraps, fearing it would be banned. As indeed it was, in 1986.

That led to twenty years of scientific silence—apart from a handful of poor experiments whose results were widely exaggerated by Drug Warriors, as the new study also describes—while MDMA exploded in popularity, as Ecstasy.. Only it wasn’t really MDMA; in 2007, an analysis of drug shipments showed that only 3 percent of U.S. Ecstasy tablets were pure MDMA.

The doors began to creak open in the late 2000s. By now, MDMA has been administered to over 1,100 individuals in clinical trials, with no serious adverse effects. As legalization activists have long insisted, it seems as though most of the problems with Molly come from impurities, overuse (especially in combination with other drugs), and what aficionados would call bad “set and setting,” like overcrowded dance clubs, dumb frat boys, and plain old bad ideas…

In other words, unlike Zoloft or Celexa or Abilify, you don’t need to take MDMA every day in order to experience the benefits…

In fact, the most promising clinical research is investigating MDMA’s effect on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Based on two successful studies in Germany and Switzerland, four pilot studies are now underway, exploring whether MDMA can help veterans and police officers cope with PTSD.

If those studies return positive results, then, indeed, MDMA starts to look a lot more like medicinal marijuana: a matter of compassion, not kicks.

Still, there are important differences…

Of course, those of a conspiratorial bent would note that Abilify (annual sales: $6.9 billion) is the patented property of a large pharmaceutical company, whereas MDMA is not. The FDA does seem to treat drugs differently depending on who stands to make a billion dollars one way or the other…

America’s 80-Year Addiction to A.A.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/30/america-s-80-year-addiction-to-a-a.html

But with a success rate in peer reviewed scientific studies hovering between 5 and 10 percent, it may be no more effective than the old West’s alcohol-laced, snake oil miracle cures…

Today, moderate drinkers, let alone teetotalers, face intense peer pressure reinforced by a $2 billion-a-year alcohol-advertising barrage insisting that the way to be cool, relaxed, and fun, is to drink, and drink profusely…

The Center for Disease Control estimates that drunkenness kills 88,000 Americans annually, generating $223.5 billion in damages—averaging about $1.90 per drink—and alcohol abuse is often a key factor in car accidents, child abuse, handgun murders, rape and sexual abuse, including the problem of date rape on campus. With 44 percent of students binge drinking regularly, experts estimate that alcohol is a factor in the more than 97,000 sexual assaults that occur every year…

By the 1990s, four in 10 Americans belonged to support groups to help control all kinds of bad habits which we now label “addictions,” choosing from over 300 Twelve Step groups including Overeaters Anonymous and Pills Anonymous, Workaholics Anonymous and Love Addicts Anonymous…

But, despite its apparent openness, AA is doctrinaire in its own way, often making those who fail not only feel badly about themselves but feel truly broken and deviant, given how successful the program claims to be…

Shame and fear is not how you successfully treat addiction.

Expats Enjoy Low-Cost, High-Quality Healthcare In Ecuador

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/internationallivingcom/healthcare-in-ecuador_b_7431726.html

The couple arrived in Ecuador in September 2013 and rented a comfortable three-bedroom, chalet-style house, giving them extra room for guests and a music studio for Bobby. Their landlord’s garden in the back yard overflows with veggies, fruits, and herbs, and the pair are often on the receiving end of the surplus. Their total housing cost, including utilities and Internet, comes in at just $575 a month…

All services — including X-rays, doctor’s care, pain medication, and an overnight stay — were free,” says Bobby. (Public health care in Ecuador is basic. It is, however, available free of charge to everyone in the country, whether you are a citizen, resident, or simply a tourist passing through.) …

Becca was also given orders for daily physical therapy in Cotacachi. As luck would have it, the therapy center is right around the corner from their house, and the charges for her therapy run a mere $2 per day…

Because Becca’s accident occurred before she obtained her Ecuadorian residence visa, she wasn’t yet eligible for Ecuadorian health insurance. So her U.S. insurance paid for the medical bills. (With her new Ecuadorian insurance, the hospital bill would have been paid in full, with no co-pay.) …

Even so, the Vines were surprised to learn that the total cost of both surgeries, plus many follow-up appointments, amounted to less than $7,000. “It was $90 per night for the hospital stay and the charge for the operating room was $1,500…

“A couple of months before we left the States, I went to the emergency room when I had a bike wreck,” recalls Becca. “I was there five hours and they did X-rays, gave me some pain medicine, and assured me nothing was broken. Just that little experience cost $4,500. It cost the same amount as my first leg surgery in Ecuador!” …

Challenging Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders Gains Momentum in Iowa

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/us/politics/challenging-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-gains-momentum-in-iowa.html

DES MOINES — A mere 240 people live in the rural northeast Iowa town of Kensett, so when more than 300 crowded into the community center on Saturday night to hear Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, many driving 50 miles, the cellphones of Democratic leaders statewide began to buzz…

The first evidence that Mrs. Clinton could face a credible challenge in the Iowa presidential caucuses appeared late last week in the form of overflow crowds at Mr. Sanders’s first swing through that state since declaring his candidacy for the Democratic nomination. He drew 700 people to an event on Thursday night in Davenport, for instance — the largest rally in the state for any single candidate this campaign season, and far more than the 50 people who attended a rally there on Saturday with former Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland…

Struggling to make ends meet? This may be why

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/struggling-to-make-ends-meet-this-may-be-why-060115.html

Wages have remained stagnant since the Great Recession and many Americans are finding it almost impossible to stay financially afloat. The cost of housing is a big reason…

Naturally, rent is higher in some markets and lower in others, so the study breaks it down by state. To rent the average 2-bedroom unit in Hawaii requires earning $31.61 an hour. The District of Columbia is the next highest rental market, requiring an hourly wage of $28.04. California is third, with the average 2-bedroom unit requiring a wage of $26.65 an hour.

At the other extreme, you could get by on $12.95 an hour in Arkansas, $13.14 an hour in Kentucky and $13.21 in West Virginia.

The study found no state where the average 1-bedroom unit was affordable for someone working full time earning the current minimum wage…

http://nlihc.org/oor