Relavant to today's craziness!

 What is relevant in a world gone crazy? Do I address the clot shot? VAERS? Thehighwire.com with Del Bigtree? Jessica Rose and her statistics at Jessicasuniverse? Dr Ardis and his thedrardisshow.com? Dr Mcculough? DD Kory? The American Frontline doctors? The American Frontline Nurses? The coming of Gold Care? a new system of health care? You and me both wondering just what that will be all about! True healthcare or just another version of the same old stinking thinking disease care system?

I did sign up to be notified of this Gold Care and the progress of these new Clinics. Having just signed up, I know nothing yet. Some are calling it a parallel system of care. Really? We already have that in and with our alternative care practitioners. 

Get a coach, get an advocate. Learn to be open minded but critical of everything you read about health. Watch for pure junk science statements like "we all know this or that", or "it's obvious.......".

Be open to criticizing everything you hear and read and take nothing from main stream media (or anywhere for that matter) as a truth without deeply researching their statements. In my opinion, they (meaning main stream media) have run completely off the rails of good, honest journalism. I believe nothing they say. After all, have you noticed that they are all saying the same thing. You can not get anyone to deviate from the party line. 

Not good! Information is being censured. Not good for a supposed free country. Sounds more communistic to me. OK, OK my opinion only. But when "they" try to discredit everyone that disagrees openly with them and attempt to ruin careers of many good honest providers of care, there has to be a skunk in the wood pile somewhere! Just saying!

I have to say, I am very confused by a group of the main stream media, Doctors and nurses who don't even listen to what is being said by the Powers That Be! Yeah, even they are saying, the "vaccines" do not keep you  from getting Covid and don't keep you from spreading it! Main stream media does continue to state that with the "vaccine" you don't get as sick as you would without it, but in reality, they have no real proof of that and I myself have actually seen plenty post vaccine people get plenty sick with Covid and even die. Say what? 

It is almost unbelievable that information is being censored like it is. No proof on the main stream media's side. I just read an article by the "intercept" which condemns the Frontline Doctors for spreading dis information. I'd like to scream at them. What this group of brave doctors are doing is trying to spread good common sense and viable treatments for Covid. What is wrong with that? Oh, I know, We don't want any affordable treatments for Covid because then we could not demand that people get this experimental jab. This jab that has led to thousands of deaths and debillitation. So much so that the folks in charge can not deny that they exist. Well actually they do deny it while at the same time say well but really those facts don't mean anything because the truth is too revealing. OMG! Can we say dystopian world?

I know this sounds like a rant, and it is. I make no apologies. We all need to wake up and start thinking for ourselves. Yes, dear reader, I am entitled to my opinion!

Homework for next time, research Boron as related to arthritis. Very interesting information!

Until then, be safe, healthy, and happy,

Healthbug

Don't just do as I say!

I have many people who ask me what I do for my chronic pain so I just share with them as to what I am doing. After I share, sometimes I get a,'so what supplement was that again?" or 'what brand of supplement do you take?' or 'where do you get that?' who do I go to for a physical therapy? Not the right questions to be asking.

I am probably speaking to the choir here as most people will not be reading this blog unless they are already taking charge of their own health. However, because the system does not encourage independent thinking, it bears repeating, if we don't take responsibility of those things only we control, we can not expect to be our healthiest. As more and more people are finding that Healthcare goes far beyond the reached of their favorite primary care physician, clinic or hospital, they are seeking other avenues of information. This is good. However, we always want to make sure that we double, triple check our sources for reliability.

Only we control what we put in our mouths. Only we control the bad habits we might have like smoking, staying up all night, saying yes or no to a bit of exercise and have a support system to help us make good decisions.

What I am getting at here is that just because this and that has helped someone(even me, as a nurse with 25 years of knowledge and experience), everyone needs to do their own research. Never, ever, ever do something, exercise, diet change, or take a supplement, just because someone else did it and it helped them. That should be part of the decision tree, yes, but not the whole ball of wax so to speak.

Being healthy can be as simple and as complicated as a person wants to make it. Eat only whole foods or don't eat processed foods. Take a walk to relax or have to go to the gym which you hate. I or anyone else who blogs, teaches, shares, informs, etc, can only share their experiences and of course research. However when it comes to lifestyle, so much of the research is flawed. It really takes dedication and determination to figure out when someone is just selling a product and when they are sharing their truth.

I feel like I am just rambling. If I ever recommend a product with this blog, It will be because I truly believe in the product. If I make any money off of you buying it, I will let you know. So far, I have not gotten to where I make any money with this blog. I do hope to change that in the near future, as a writer has to make a living. But I hope never to have that be the main thing this blog is about.

Merry Christmas and wishing you all a healthy new year!

Until next time,

Healthbug

15 minutes with your HCP!

If you only have 15 minutes to pass on vital information to your Healthcare Provider what is the most vital information for you to pass on? What do they need to know? What information will help them know what tests are needed? What will give the information that they need to determine what the root cause of your symptoms?

Let me assure you that you as patient, can make a huge difference by passing on the most important information. If you answer the following questions before you go to the DR then pass that information on, you will be amazed at how effective your HCP will be at helping you.

What are your symptoms? Headache, can't sleep, depressed, leg pain, foot pain.
Be descriptive! describe the pain. sharp, dull, throbbing, use as many descriptive words as you can think of to pinpoint just what the pain, discomfort, problem feels like. Feeling sad, depressed, cry all the time, feeling a sense of doom?

How long have you had these symptoms?
When did it start? so many days/weeks/months/years ago?
How did it start? Suddenly or gradual? Are the symptoms getting worse? or staying the same but just not going away?
Is there anything that was happening in your life that correlates to the symptoms? new job, new food item, new medication, new supplement,new activity? This piece of information is very important!

What has been the pattern of the symptoms? Constant or does it come and go? Does the pain radiate anywhere? Which means does the pain start in one spot and move to another spot? Does the pain move around from spot to spot or is it constant? In the same spot/area?

Is the main symptom associated with another symptom? How?

Be as specific as you can about everything. Your HCP will love you for this specific information!

Share any information that you think might be even remotely connect even if you think the connection sounds silly. Let your HCP decide. If you feel sure the connection is there and your HCP doesn't see it. Trust yourself. After all you are the one who lives with you.
The more specific you are the better healthcare you will receive! You are more in control of your health care than you think! Take it and run with it.Be empowered to demand the best healthcare possible then do everything within your power to assist with what you can.

Till next time,

Healthbug

Laughter, a self experiment

Have you ever thought about the health benefits of simple laughter? Really it makes sense that laughter would improve your health. Think about it. Humor reduces tension, stress and anxiety. All of those negative emotions have been linked to chronic illness. OK you say, show me the research. I'd like to challenge you to take the laughter test yourself. You should believe what you experience in your own life even if it goes counter to some supposed research.

One of my pet peeves is Doctors ignoring a patient's correlation of the commencement of a negative health issue to just after they started taking some medication, a new job, or some other simple change in the patients life. The patient knows better but the Doctor just refuses to accept the correlation. Either the patient gets another Doctor or they begin to doubt themselves and they quite paying serious attention to their body's warning signals. I'll address this more fully in a future post. I'll give you some suggestions as to how to get your Doctor/primary care person to listen to you and how to be your own best patient advocate.

If you are having a bad day it may seem impossible to laugh. Norman Cousins claimed to use humorous movies and jokes to help him laugh when he didn't feel like it. There are a ton of websites and articles on the internet that gives reasons for why we should strive to laugh more.

So having said that, believe your own observations. Try adding a committed period of laughter to your day, say 5 to 15 minutes all at one time or just scattered throughout the day. Do whatever you resonate with. If you decide to commit to this, it would be great if you could make a comment about just what you observed about yourself. Did your days seem to flow better, worse, or was there no change? Did it change the way you handled stressful situations? Was there any affect on your pain/stiffness/blood sugar/blood pressure or any other health issues? There is research out there that does confirm that those that laugh and use humor to get through their day seem to have fewer health problem.

Would this be considered a scientific experiment? Probably not, but if you pay attention to details, how your feel both emotionally and physically, you might gain some very useful personal insightful information for yourself that you can use day in and day out but can also pass onto others.First hand experience is invaluable! Give it a try. Besides, it won't cost you even a penny. At most it will take a little commitment and time. Journal your experience and you will get more out of it. Sometimes things change in such subtle ways that we don't really see the change unless we have logged where we have been. This happens very often with EFT.(See my earlier post on this very effective form of self help)

Laugh a lot and love abundantly,

Till next time,
Healthbug

New Beginnings!

I am sitting here contemplating how to get back into the swing of things. To be honest, I am actually contemplating how to establish a new habit. It is April 19, 2013 and I think it is time for a "New Years Resolution"!

I really don't believe in "New Year Resolutions" but I do believe in allowing myself the right to start each day anew. Which means I don't beat myself up for not doing what I have wanted or needed to do. Each action or non-action on my part is simply a learning experience. How do I motivate myself to do what I think I "want"/"need" to do? What is not working? What do I need to do to quite procrastinating? Is it really procrastination that is standing in my way or is it some other mental block?

The new habit I want to establish is writing consistently in my blog. As I contemplate this, I realize what is needed to accomplish my goal is similar to what I need to do to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Yes, even though I preach it and teach it, I sometimes have motivational issues with doing the things I need to do to heal and stay healthy. I realize it is not about the knowledge base so much as it is about the motivation to do what I already know I want/need to do.

Motivation is all about emotions and attitude. Dis-empowering emotions and attitudes arise from negative self talk. "Why should I _____________ I'll only fail and then I'll feel like a failure and I have failed so many times before. I will never be able to succeed." Fill in the blank with anything that seems to be whipping your butt at the moment.

Other negative self-talk that comes up is "I'm too busy.I don't have time." I'll quit in the middle and thus feel like a failure AGAIN!" "Oh well, so many other people have the same difficulty following through. Why should I bother being different?" These and many more negative statements fill my conscious and unconscious mind while I "think" I am "trying" to accomplish my goal. It is easy to see how I am working against myself. Just realizing this is very powerful?

By putting all that out there, it becomes much clearer what I can do to help empower myself to accomplish that which I want/need to do.It makes sense that a change of attitude starts with a change of self talk. A change of self talk will bring about a change of attitude which hopefully will empower me to accomplish my goals!

Viewing "not accomplishing my goal" as a failure, changes to "Failure is simply another step toward success. Each time I do not accomplish my goal is a stepping stone to the success I so desperately desire." As I say this to myself the "failure" becomes a learning experience instead of a "failure". The important part here is to not ignore the non success but to analyze it as you would a learning experience. Why didn't I reach my goal? "I didn't have the healthy foods in the house. I let myself get too hungry before eating. I went shopping hungry. I've been eating just a little sugar every day and now I crave it. I didn't plan ahead for healthy meals." Some of the harder excuses are "I guess I was too lazy to do what I new I wanted/needed to do." I got to get over it and grow up.

Keeping my eyes on the goal is also very helpful!

Visualize what it will feel like to reach my goal can also be very helpful. Visualization is a huge subject in and of itself and best left for another post.


Thanks for reading this.
Be kind and love yourself. You can do anything you set your mind to if you persist!
Until next time.

Healthbug

Health Insurance

One of my pet peeves is the idea that health insurance for everyone will lower/control the cost of healthcare! Let's take a look at what health insurance is. It is a pay system for healthcare. Opps, I am sorry, really it is a pay system for disease care. Think about it! Even if everyone could get free care at your Doctor/hospital/ER, would that help people be healthier? Whether it is healthcare or disease care, what we are talking about is paying for someone else to take care of you AFTER you get sick! How can that possibly lower the cost of providing that care?
I had a nurse make the following statement to me one day. "I don't know why I am still sick, I go to the Dr. all the time." This statement indicates that this person thinks the Dr is the one that makes her well. Yes, the medical professionals help foster that line of thinking. "Don't take x without consulting your Dr first! Don't do X without consulting your Dr first"
What about paying attention to yourself, your body and how you respond to food, exercise, vitamins, medication. If you have just starting taking or doing X and you start having adverse symptoms then maybe you need to stop taking/doing whatever it is. Pay attention! Know yourself.Of course some things take much more thought and figuring out than "I do this and that happens" Sometimes food you eat doesn't affect you until 24-36 hours later. This really complicates the issue,however, you are still more apt to figure it out if you apply yourself than someone else. Again, know yourself.
I've been tending a lot of garden plants lately. This has always been a tedious but very rewarding activity for me. The mundane activity seems to always lend itself to thinking on a deeper level. Yesterday I noticed a sunflower plant that had been half mowed over by the neighbor, the plant was still green and determined to live, even though it was bent over at the ground level and it's stem was lying parallel to the ground. It struck me how determined plants are to survive. Weeds are sprayed with chemicals, hacked on, pulled out yet they will struggle to survive irregardless of the onslaught.
We are the same. Stress, bad food, poisons, radiation all are negative influences on our health and well being. You get a cut, it is almost impossible to stop it from healing, stitches or not. I know there are times for the ER but expecting a Dr to heal you is asking for the impossible. They may facilitate, but they can not heal you,even in the ER. Your body is the healer! Thus, it is you who can make the biggest impact on your health with your lifestyle and food choices and knowing that you hold the keys to your health!
So wrapping this up, my healthcare is my responsibility. I choose who I go to for advice about my health and I choose what to do with that advice. In my opinion, Health Insurance will simply make Insurance Companies wealthier. Another, "think about it", if our present system of "healthcare" was working, we would not have the increase in every major chronic disease out there like we do. If what we have was working, we would be getting healthier as a nation. We are not. I believe the answer lies in helping people be informed, take responsibility for themselves, know themselves as only they can and trust their body and themselves to be in charge of that health and healing.
Until next time, Be healthy!
Healthbug

What's this all about?

Hi,
This is the first post to my first blog! I imagine you may have reached this blog through a search about health or by accident. However you arrived here, you may still have the question "OK, so just what do you mean by 'You in charge of your health'?".
I have been passionate about health for as long as I remember. I began reading almost everything I could get my hands on about how to be healthy and have healthy kids way back in 1971 (Oops! there I go dating myself ;-) ). I continued reading, thinking, analyzing what I read and heard about health. Skip many years later, 20 years in the healthcare profession as an RN and I have arrived at some very strongly held opinions.
Please note! I said opinions! If you read this blog you are agreeing that you, ultimately are responsible for what healthcare decisions you make. I do not diagnose nor prescribe! Sorry, had to get that out of the way for legal purposes.
As I see it, I am in charge of my own health and you are in charge of your own health. After all, who knows more about me than me? I have lived with me for 60 years. You have lived with yourself for however many years old you are. No Healthcare Professional has that many years of experience with you.
"Hold it!" you say, "But I don't have the professional education that my HCP has. How can I even think that I am in charge?" Good question. One we all have to answer for ourselves.
Let me illustrate with the plumber. Your drain gets stopped up (you know that the tree out in the yard has roots that have grown into your sewer) When the plumber arrives you tell him your drain is stopped up and you think it needs to be roto rootered as you are almost positive the roots from that ole tree out back has grown into the sewer line. Note here: you don't say you know because you are afraid of offending the all knowing plumber, after all he has so much more education and experience with these things, but you really are sure the roots of the tree are the problem.
Well the plumber really doesn't like it that you of all people, a lay person, is even suggesting to him what the problem MIGHT be so he sets out to "discover" the problem without taking you seriously. 6 hours later he comes to you confidently, with professional voice and breezily states "Well, I finally found your problem. The roots to that old tree out back have grown into your sewer line. I'm going to need to roto rooter the line. No time today so I will be back tomorrow and I think I can get the line cleared in 4 hours." Or an even worse case seneario is that he comes to you and says, "the problem is your kitchen sink, the drain trap needs replaced......etc, etc, etc". See the problems one can get into by 'just listening' to the "Professional".
What? You got it, If this professional had listened to you, he would have gotten your line cleared right away. OK, so maybe that is a cheesy example but it's all I could think of at the moment.
What I am trying to say is, whether or not you are consulting with a MD, ND, DO, DC, NP, PA, Massage therapist, Reiki Master, CST therapist, or any other kind of healthcare provider. We each, in fact, are the Head of our own Healthcare Team because it is us who has the greatest knowledge about ourselves.
Any way we go from here, we are the ones who decide what to do with the information we are given by the HCP. We can decide to kick back, and do just exactly what "they" tell us to do or we can say "thank you very much for your advice, I want to think about this, a second opinion, to research more, see what cousin Elmo says etc. ".
This "taking charge of your own health" concept is what this blog is all about. If you have questions, please post them and I will attempt to answer them. Otherwise, I imagine I will be blithering on about just how a person can best be their own Healthcare Team Leader. :-}
Until next time.
The Healthbug