Registered: Aug 2000
Location: South Carolina
Posts: 1062

quote:

---

Originally posted by dick-richardson
My wife's reading chapter 8. Said it's rather insightful. I skipped that one because I'm not the spouse of someone with ADHD.

---

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aberdeen, SD
Posts: 2531

quote:

---

Originally posted by K. Cannon


Knowing you, I am guessing that you are joking. But just in case you aren't, you might want to read it to better understand what sheis going through, too. Yep, K. Cannon: Always Promoting the High Way (j/k)

---

__________________
-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

Well, since I've probably alienated the psychologists already, I guess that the stuff I didn't address in one of my posts couldn't be counterproductive at this point, and might make for an interesting tangent...

The main gist of what I didn't address is the tendency in the medical world to prescribe things of which we have very rudimentary understanding of how or why they work. An example is the concept of Ritalin almost being a test for ADHD. If it works, then they have it. This disturbs me to an extent. Why? Read on...

My current field of work is network administration. In the course of my job, I deal with all sorts of computer related issues. Computers and human physiology are fairly analogous where the average person is concerned, I've come to believe. They're both fairly complex systems about which it's practically impossible to know everything, and even professionals can barely be considered experts on anything more than a very narrowly defined specialty. Now, how does this relate back to the original thread? Bear with me a bit longer...

Ever have a problem with your computer that the 'expert' couldn't fix? What's their usual solution? I'll bet it's 'reboot'. Does this frustrate you if you get told to do it? It should. Basically 'reboot' means 'I really don't have a clue as to what is causing your problem, but this has temporarily 'solved' the problem in the past.' Now, there is the possibility that this workaround will make things better for a while, but has the problem really been fixed? Do we really have a clue as to what's causing it? Do we have much of any idea of the long-term effects of the problem and/or the 'cure'? The answer to these, from what I can tell, is no. Almost there...

What's my point with all this? Basically, it's that we should demand more from 'experts' before allowing them to be considered as such. Most people won't tolerate shoddy solutions to computer problems without some sort of repercussions, so why accept them from the medical community?

P.S. Did you know that Ritalin is considered in the same class as cocaine and speed as far as the DEA/DOJ is concerned?

P.P.S. Hope that sounds coherent. Baby didn't let parents get much sleep last night.

Registered: Jan 2000
Location: Twin Cities, MN
Posts: 1683

quote:

---

Basically, it's that we should demand more from 'experts' before allowing them to be considered as such.

---

__________________
We're all naked if you turn us inside out.
-David Byrne

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: "Children are a gift from God, they are a reward"
Posts: 1049

Well, experts were prescribing aspirin for YEARS without knowing how it stopped headaches, not knowing until recently that it thinned the blood enough to be a hazard to some people.

Experts are only as good as the institutions that produce them and as a whole the medical system produces great surgeons, but few doctors who can tell you how the overall human system works.

As an example, doctors are given only rudimentary teaching on nutrition. How can you claim to be an expert on the human body when you can't adequately explain nutrition?

(as a humorous aside, my maternal grandfather was a semi-famous heart surgeon and researcher. He and a team of doctors spent years trying to see a working heart in action to study it. They finally choose cows and rabbits and spent months devising ways to put Plexiglas 'portholes' into the sides of living animals (this was the sixties-seventies) so they could observe a beating heart in all it's glory. The whole experiment was a dud. The portholes always fogged up like a car windshield. With all their learning they forgot basic physics. He thought it was hilarious that they spent all that time working out details to have been thwarted by something so elemental!)

Our culture couldn't be 'overmedicated' if doctors weren't involved. Don't get me wrong, there are great doctors out there- I have a friend who is a neurologist and I respect him immensely. I just think that most 'experts' are self-chosen and are listened to because they shout the loudest.

The AMA (the American Medical Association) has a charter. It's charter has nothing to do with furthering knowledge, or helping people. It's self-acknowledged charter is to further the reputation of the AMA. The AMA wasn't picked by me, you, or our government, but by a group of doctors who wanted to band together to further their own aims. Their authority comes from themselves.

Don't trust experts. Blind trust in experts leads to disaster. (think thalidomide (sic))

Find a local doctor who can care about you and whom you can feel you can trust. If he says something to you that doesn't sound right, do some research!

Michael

__________________
"I am a debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish."

Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

Originally posted by homer:
Well...a professional psychologist and/or psychiatrist is just that...they have medical and/or psychological training. We should respect their training and trust them.[/i]

Simply put, no. Respect their training? Perhaps. Trust them unconditionally? Hell no. Caveat emptor.

"Pathologizing is especially persuassive when it comes from an authority figure--a doctor, lawyer, or therapist. We tend to cloak professionals in a mantle of wisdom that some don't deserve. We've all met authorities who seem to believe that their license to practice puts their opinions...beyond reproach." - Susan Forward, Ph.D.

But, of course, there should always be second opinions. Both ours and other experts.

And if two/four/etc. different 'experts' disagree? Keep going till you find the answer you like? I could tell you how to save some time, in that case.

To be fair, we, as a society, have not fully supported the mental sciences as much as the physical. If the mental health industry had as much support as the physical medical industry has had these last 100 years, I believe that we could start accurately diagnosing mental disorders.

I disagree with that premise. Medical doctors aren't always able to accurately diagnose physical disorders. Note that I am not 'picking on' the 'mental sciences' exclusively here. I think the medical industry as a whole has some systemic issues to deal with. Honestly, I can tell you specific pediatric gastroenterologists and neonatologists that are lower on my competency scale than psychologists and psychiatrists in general.

Finally, it is important to realize that drugs are NOT inheritently bad.

I never said that they were. However, I do believe that certain methods of use are inherently bad. Unwitting human experiments would be one of those methods.

Are people over medicated? YES--but don't discredit drugs as a whole because of that.

I didn't. Don't know where you got the idea that I did. If I'm discrediting anything, it's shoddy science or pseudo science.

The DEA/DOJ is a MAJOR roadblock in drug research. The DEA/DOJ has arbitrarily chosen a handful of drugs and simplly outlawed them completely...with NO regard towards the actual health problems and/or benefits that they may produce.

It is purely political...there is very little, if any, 'for the goodwill of ameircans' thought in their decisions.

I guess we're between a rock and a hard place then, because the pharmaceutical companies are as purely mercenary as govco is purely political (which is not to say that I think either is, but rather that they are equally so). That being said, I'd rather the incompetent government that places a moratorium on a drug with unproven effects than the supposedly competent doctor who will gladly prescribe it without _knowing_ all of its effects ... and I loathe incompetent governments.

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aberdeen, SD
Posts: 2531

Why I'm responding with the time crunch I'm in, I'll never know.

Drugs are not an option for me. I was aware that Ritalin is in the same class chemically as cocaine (in fact, one of the things commented in the "Distraction" books is ADHD people to self-medicate with cocaine as the effects between the two are similar). If desired, I can give the chemical formula for both. Ritalin isn't the only option, however. Regardless of the drug in question, the science isn't there. Maybe a given cocktail of drugs would calm me down. I don't want to be calmed down. I'm one of a small segment of parents who can keep up with their child.

And to answer your previous question, homer: no, I don't take anything when I have a headache. Nor do I take anything when I have a cold. By the time cold symptoms appear, the virus has already replicated enough to infect family and friends. A fever is a biological response to "cook" the pathogen. The symptoms, while uncomfortable, are designed to quicken the recovery period. I don't take antibiotics because I want my immune system to take care of it. That's it's job, and it does it better for cheaper than other options. Drugs become an option in cases where my immune system can't handle the task at hand. I didn't even take anything when I came down with mono. At 22 years of age, I get sick less than anyone I know (That unfortunate experience with 8mo old boxed wine notwithstanding). I'm of the considered opinion that the reason is because I don't coddle my immune system.

__________________
-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Registered: Aug 2000
Location: South Carolina
Posts: 1062

quote:

---

Originally posted by dick-richardson
A fever is a biological response to "cook" the pathogen.

---

Registered: Aug 2000
Location: South Carolina
Posts: 1062

Unfortunate duplication by me.

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Them Twin Cities
Posts: 1758

quote:

---

Originally posted by dick-richardson
[...]At 22 years of age, I get sick less than anyone I know (That unfortunate experience with 8mo old boxed wine notwithstanding).

---

Boxed wine? and to think I used to repect you

I agree about letting the immune system train itself to deal with disease rather than hampering it w/ drugs. KC is right about brain damage, but I think it has to be very high for quite awhile for that...

__________________
Don't like somebody? Click "Profile" on a post and then click "Ignore "so and so's" posts". Voila!

Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

Originally posted by K. Cannon:
I thought that a fever could eventually cause brain damage, if high enough and untreated.

Not only brain damage, but death. Generally most fevers never break 106 deg. F, though, from what I understand. If it hits 107 or 108F, that's trouble, but that's supposedly rare unless the fever is a result of heat stroke or a severe bacterial thing.

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Them Twin Cities
Posts: 1758

quote:

---

Originally posted by K. Cannon
I thought that a fever could eventually cause brain damage, if high enough and untreated.

---

__________________
Don't like somebody? Click "Profile" on a post and then click "Ignore "so and so's" posts". Voila!

Registered: Aug 2000
Location: South Carolina
Posts: 1062

now, now deitrichbohn...that could also be used as justification for mind-altering drugs.

other: i understand Josh's position, in general, to avoid medication. I wonder if there has been any research regarding the strenghening of an immune system via refusal to "aid" it with modern medicine. I guess my flesh is too weak to say no to a BC powder when I get one of my headaches. it's always interested me how some people (e.g. my grandparents)HATE to use medication that will make them feel better. Of course, I also don't understand why old people dress up to go to the doctor or on airplanes, but that's another can of worms!

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Them Twin Cities
Posts: 1758

Originally posted by K. Cannon
I wonder if there has been any research regarding the strenghening of an immune system via refusal to "aid" it with modern medicine.

Yep, indirectly, at least. Failure to be exposed at a young age to bacteria increases your chances of developing allergies later on in life.

__________________
Don't like somebody? Click "Profile" on a post and then click "Ignore "so and so's" posts". Voila!

Registered: Jan 2000
Location: Twin Cities, MN
Posts: 1683

dick-richardson:

That's a completely valid stance you are taking and I completely support it.

I'm not FOR drugs or AGAINST drugs, but rather I am for more and more research on these drugs. I *personally* am willing to try drugs to see if it has an affect on my ADD. I am also of the mindset that drugs such as LSD and Marijuana aren't necessarily 'evil' as our government makes them out to be...NOT THAT I ADVOCATE their use, mind you, just that we should all keep open minds.

But, like I said, your stance on not personally using drugs is one that should be respected.

__________________
We're all naked if you turn us inside out.
-David Byrne

Registered: Jun 2000
Location: South Lake, FL
Posts: 103

quote:

---

Originally posted by K. Cannon
I guess my flesh is too weak to say no to a BC powder when I get one of my headaches

---

__________________
Eschew obfuscation!

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Them Twin Cities
Posts: 1758

Originally posted by linguas
[...]nor is [the immune system] strengthened by not taking something.


Well, right. But it is possible to learn biofeedback techniques (i.e. slowing the heart, relaxing the right muscles) that can ease headaches. If one doesn't resort to medicine, one may learn these techniques unconsciously. That said, I take Advil

__________________
Don't like somebody? Click "Profile" on a post and then click "Ignore "so and so's" posts". Voila!

Registered: Aug 2000
Location: South Carolina
Posts: 1062

quote:

---

Originally posted by homer
That's a completely valid stance you are taking and I completely support it....But, like I said, your stance on not personally using drugs is one that should be respected.

---

Hope you aren't implying that I was "disrespecting" young Joshua! I have yet to hear (read) him describe one of his theories that I don't respect, even if I don't agree with him. Okay, I take that back...boxed wine, Josh?

Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 239

quote:

---

Originally posted by K. Cannon
I wonder if there has been any research regarding the strenghening of an immune system via refusal to "aid" it with modern medicine

---

Isn't that the basic premise of vaccines? To give your body a small taste of a pathogen so that it can better defend itself later on? (That's a real question, by the way, I am not being hypothetical or snippy. I know as much about medicine as the average doctor knows about ODBC connections. )

__________________
Soul Raven - "Sm� hjerne, stor gl�de"
Wherever you go, there you are.

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: "Children are a gift from God, they are a reward"
Posts: 1049

Well, there has been some thought to the idea that vaccines might actually weaken the immune system! People these days are definitely more susceptible to minor ills. Diet and proper nutrition play a big part of that too.

There's long been a counter argument to the pro-vaccine party that proper hygiene and sanitation had more to do with the eradication of Polio, et al, then implementation of vaccines.

Anecdotal story:

My friend was talking to her family physician. Questioned him on need for Polio vaccine. He told her that it was necessary. She asked why, were there cases of Polio? He said yes. She asked if they had been people who hadn't gotten the vaccine. He dithered and then admitted that all the cases that he was aware of happened to people either exposed to someone recently vaccinated, or to kids recently vaccinated.

Makes you think.

Michael

__________________
"I am a debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish."