Mind Xdreamz

About Dialysis...

"Some dialysis patients are not well enough for the rigors of a transplant operation and the drugs that follow, according to Robinson of the American Association of Kidney Patients. In fact, 20 percent of dialysis patients are over 65. More than half suffer from other illnesses, such as diabetes and high blood pressure. Some patients receive transplants only to have them rejected by their immune system later. Some patients refuse transplants. For them, says Robinson, dialysis may be something of a social gathering and a way to be monitored and cared for by a group of health-care providers that become like friends.

Dialysis survival in the United States after one year is 77 percent, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. After five years it is 28 percent, and after 10 years it is about 10 percent. Transplant survival rates are higher: 77 percent of patients survive 10 years after a living-relative donor. Many experts point out there is room for improvement in the survival rate and quality of life for American dialysis patients.

One thing all dialysis patients must know a great deal about is diet. They need a good amount of protein and lower amounts of potassium and phosphate, which tend to accumulate in the blood and cannot be removed very well with treatment. French fries, for example, are off-limits, and ice cream and cheese must be eaten with caution. Dialysis patients also must limit fluids because the treatment removes only a certain amount of water. Excess fluids make body tissues swell.

The leading causes of end-stage renal (kidney) disease are diabetes and high blood pressure. These two conditions take a toll on blood vessels, and the kidneys are rich with blood vessels. Managing these diseases can go a long way toward preventing kidney failure and the need for dialysis. (See "Diabetes Demands a Triad of Treatments" in the May-June 1997 FDA Consumer.)"

From: http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/1998/198_dial.html

About Chemotherapy...

If your doctor has prescribed chemotherapy for you be sure to do your own research first! You do have options and statistics can be skewed! For some consideration check out the following:

When your doctor quotes statistics, or discusses response rates, as him or her if "evaluable" patients were taken out of the sum total. Evaluable patients died while undergoing treatment and many times are not included, thus skewing the response rates in favor of the chemotherapy. Ask how many patients improved, and how many are still living.

http://www.cancermonthly.com/blog/2007/12/chemotherapy-statistics.html

Do you know that chemotherapy is chemical based? Chemo affects normal cells, as well as the cancer cells its supposed to kill.

http://training.seer.cancer.gov/module_cancer_treatment/unit3_chemo1_intro.html

http://www.webmd.com/video/detecting-chemo-resistance

http://www.webmd.com/video/cancer-integrating-alternative-therapies

A story from a Brain Scientist who suffered a Stroke

Take a few minutes and consider this woman's story of her stroke, Jill Bolte Taylor.

You can see and hear more from Jill here: Click for more via Oprah's Soul Series

For more information about strokes click here to go to Snopes.

About Natural Cures vs. Big Pharma...

I've been asked several times where I stand on Big Pharma, or in other words, whether I believe in taking prescription medications or not. I'm sure for some people one or two medications may be helpful. I realize every body is different and each person should evaluate for themselves, along with at least two doctor opinions, as to whether they need prescription drugs. But know this, no prescription drug has ever CURED any disease. And some may cause life threatening side affects and complications especially if you are allergic to the medication.

When a drug is under review for example, it may be given to patients as part of a clinical trial - I would beware of partaking in this type of thing unless you absolutely have exhausted all other options. One of my relatives died in the mid 1980s from being given a drug in the hospital following a heart attack. Today the same drug is being used, and I am sure the proper dosage helps people. Either my relative was given too much or the drug has been reformulated since. I do not know. My family did not take legal action because they were asked to sign a release to use it, and the drug was still experimental at the time. It was literally a do, or die, situation.

Then just last year another relative of mine died after a long illness that some of my family believe was brought about my a reaction to a chemical in their drinking water, and continued to be made worse by a reaction to bipolar medication. Some of us believe this person might have lived if it had not been for the medication - again contraindications or dosage may have been to blame.

I believe countless millions suffer from side affects from all the drugs they take. I’d like to see an independent study on just how many people have been “saved” vs. how many have died from prescription drugs.

If my grandmother were still alive she’d have worked with our relative, providing herbs and natural therapies and our relative would still be alive. When my grandmother was a child she had a muscular disease and her mother used ointments and salves on her and exercised her shriveling arm and my grandmother was indeed “cured”. If all doctors want to do is pump pills down you for some unspecified or undetermined about of time, then I'd be wary. I have watched people I know, deal with their maladies from the sidelines, knowing all I know about nutraceutical and natural cures, but I am many times unable to convince them to try alternatives - and that is heartbreaking. Your body is the best doctor you have!

In my humble opinion, all big pharma does is take natural substances, foods, plants etc and try to play God by removing this or that, isolating part of the substance in order to make something "man made" that will help you. The scientists may have wonderful intentions but not fully understand how it works or how our bodies work, then it all just ends up being one big lab experiment. I just don’t get it. All that waste of time and money and talent on R&D when no one even knows what all is in an APPLE. No one knows how our brains work, how our eye works, how many systems in our bodies work. And all the while, whole foods, full of good nutrition are available to all of us. Remember, no pill that I know of has “cured” anyone. All the pills do is try to “manage” illnesses. Call the good folks at Hippocrates Health Institue and ask someone how many people they have CURED.

About chemo and your rights:

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2002/10/55683

So the FDA forces parents into an option that kills their son trying to protect them from charlatans that might “take advantage of them”? Who ARE the charlatans. I think it’s the people who want to pump the chemo into the kid.

Has chemo ever cured anyone?

http://homodiet.netfirms.com/otherssay/letters/chemotherapy.htm