So I wrote a fairly long comment on a recent My Left Wing diary (Question of the Day–Positively sick edition) regarding more natural ways to deal with the common cold/flu thing. A comment that I was just going to leave there even though it is fairly long. And fairly important, as far as I am concerned.
And then I wandered over to Google News and found THIS little gem.
The flu drug’s maker warns of such potential problems as suicide.
By Jia-Rui Chong, Times Staff Writer
November 14, 2006
The maker of the antiviral medication Tamiflu issued a new warning for the flu drug Monday, saying patients must be closely monitored for potential psychiatric problems, including delirium and suicide.
Hoffman-La Roche Inc. had been discussing the matter with the Food and Drug Administration, which has been reviewing 103 cases in which patients reported bizarre behavior, usually within a day of taking Tamiflu.
Most cases involved children under 17 and occurred in Japan. The cases include three people who fell to their deaths after taking the drug, including a 14-year-old boy who climbed atop the railing of his family’s condominium, an FDA memo says.
The memo also cites the case of an 8-year-old in Japan who took one dose of Tamiflu and, about an hour and a half later, tried to run out the front door of his home. The child would not answer to his name and was growling, according to the memo, which was prepared in advance of an FDA pediatric advisory committee meeting Thursday.
—snip—
And I figured…what the hell.
Maybe I might reach ONE person more if I posted it as a diary.
Soooo…here it is.
Read on.
And be well with it.
OK…
I have just about given up trying to communicate the almost absolute non-necessity of getting “sick”…the sick that is called a cold (or even the flu) here in the great Untied States of Duhmerica and most of the rest of the overdeveloped world as well, but…what the hell.
Here goes.
If you are not too socialized/hypnotized to hear and actually try this, all I can say to you is that it works. I went from 3-5 infections of that sort a year to damned near zero. For over ten years and counting.
And if you are in some sort of social trance that precludes you from even looking at and comprehending these words…gesundheit!!!
God bless you.
‘Cuz you’re gonna need it.
Everyone has a habitual “first symptom” that tells them they are getting sick. (Again…the regular, recurrent, relatively mild trillions-of-dollars-a-year sick upon which Dr. Big Brother bases his Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous. The more serious stuff…? Well, if you can beat the regular bringer-downers, you will remain strong enough to beat most of the bad stuff as well. That’s the theory…)
For most of us, that first symptom is a little tickle in the back of the throat.
YOU know the one…up high, near the eustachian tube areas.
Right. THAT one.
That is the first attack of the virii. Whether you inhaled them or put them in your mouth, that’s the first (and best) dark, wet, warm place where they can set up housekeeping and raise the beginnings of their little extended family.
At THAT MOMENT…not a few minutes or an hour or half a day later, but right then (Or at least as soon as you can possibly do it.)…here’s whatcha do.
Get the little pill bottle that you ALWAYS carry that has cayenne pepper, golden seal and echinacea capsules in it (Available and relatively cheap at any health food store. Get the good stuff, not the bullshit versions that you might see at your local chain pharmacy.), and do the following.
Empty one cayenne pepper capsule in about 1/2 a glass of hottish water. Drinkable hot, not scalding hot. Stir it in well and then THOROUGHLY gargle with it. DEEP gargle, right on down as far as you can get without swallowing. Several times.
Now right here I where usually begin to see the eyes glaze over in an advertising-induced coma when I try to tell most people about this. “Oh. Right. I’m gonna burn the shit out of my mouth because this nut tells me to. And then get sick anyway.” All’s I can say is…this flat out works. But not if you do not try it.
Plus…the “burn” is minor and lasts all of five minutes.
But…as you must. If you would prefer to be sick for a week or more…go to it. Everybody needs a hobby.
After the burn is gone…and NOT UNTIL it is gone…make a mild saline solution (about the salinity of sea water) and gargle with that as well.
Five minutes or so later, take two golden seal and two echinacea capsules.
And then proceed to give your system a break.
No alcohol or drugs, LOTS of clean fluids, easy on the eating, high fiber food if anything (Fruit, brown rice, whole grains, beans, nuts, seeds, vegetables…YOU know…), easy on the red meat, organic food if at all possible, and no more than it takes to keep your energies up and flowing. Plus…back off of unnecessary exertion and get some good sleep.
And, if you are still smoking tobacco…well, if you are still strung out on THAT poison you are almost unreachable anyway, but if perhaps you DO dimly hear this advice through the cloud of nicotine-induced unknowing in which you lead your life…FUCKING STOP IT!!! At least until you beat the infection that has commenced to fuck up your week.
If you still feel the discomfort in your throat a few hours later…repeat the whole process. As LONG as you feel it, which for me is never, ever more than a few hours.
Take the same dose of golden seal and echinacea…preferably after eating something so that it doesn’t just pass through your system unused…every few hours for a couple of days as well, and stay clean. A mild laxative…a bulk laxative like psyillium seeds or Metamucil is preferable, rather than a drug…will help also.
And…dassit.
Ten years now…
Not so much as a sniffle, as long as I DO this and don’t fuck off.
Good luck…you either do it or you don’t.
This is the first step to understanding that almost ALL non-structural illness is merely a cleansing crisis.
We are none of us any more than walking bags of shit. We are exposed to so many “germs” in our day-to-day, so-called civilized lives that it is a small miracle any of us can function at all.
But most of the time our immune system simply says to them “OK. You there. Up against the wall and hands in the air.”
And flushes them right out with the rest of the crap in our bodies.
However, when we let ourselves get internally filthy and physically run-down…and once again, this is almost unavoidable in the modern world with all of its stresses and poisons…the immune system breaks down a little from too much work fighting the ongoing biological crime wave and we get “sick.”
Give it a break!!!
You can always fuck up next week.
Have fun…
AG
P.S. A little common sense will help too…frequent and thorough washing of the hands when in public places, keeping your UNwashed hands the fuck out of your mouth and nose and off of your food, stepping away from hacking, sneezing fools when you encounter them on a bus or subway or in a room…
You don’t have to turn into some Howard Hughes asshole to stay healthy.
You just have to…stay healthy.
Good luck.
SOMETHING’S gonna getcha anyway.
NOBODY’S getting outta this thing alive.
You may as well at least try to be healthy while you’re waiting.
Duh.
P.P.S. There was a study done somewhere…Japan, I think…which came to the conclusion that if everyone damped their sneezes in their shoulder and upper arm, the airborne “common cold” would become extinct within a decade of so.
Fat chance THAT will ever get any publicity.
Dr. Big Brother not only wants to make you crazy…he wants to keep you sick, too.
I mean, after all…where’s the profit in WELL people?
Dr. Big Brother and the Insurance Company are appearing TONIGHT!!!
LIVE!!!
Right in your living room.
Turn the fucking TV off.
IT’S making you crazy.
Just as it is supposed to do.
Have fun…
AG
P.S. Tips and recs gratefully (if not gracefully) accepted,
Well, sure.
Thanks for the advice, AG. Frankly, there are many, many ways to take responsibility for one’s own health care. As far as I can tell, the willingness to invest proper diligence & self-awareness in this responsibility — while properly abandoning the belief in the medical ‘silver bullet’ — is always the first step. The general resistance to taking this step is enormous, imo — which is why interested parties have rendered us expendable. Industry has no morality & the health industry is no exception at all.
Meanwhile, the US lingers at #28 internationally for overall quality of care. Let’s drop the idea that we’ve got the ‘best system in the world’, please; it’s killing us.
Right ON, WW. This last horrendous experience with two cararact surgeries have only convinced me more than ever that for ME, personally, the further I stay AWAY from this charade of a health care system, the safer I am. I did need my eyes back pretty badly, which made this hopefully last trip through essential to take.
But the COST was VERY high, in terms of the extremely high stress levels it caused, because I do not do well with being treated as less that a whole human being, by those supposedly drawn to working with the sick. To say nothing about the very real surgical risk there was for me with the first eye.
I’ve hit the final wall of my ability to tolerate the changes I’ve seen over the years, since I entered this profession back in a time of truly “patient centered” care. To me,this ” cost effective, profit centered care”that I see being paraded these days as “health care” is nothing short of a pure abomination.
Arthur, if you keep this up this ol lesbian might just fall in love with you.
PLEASE listen to Arthur on this one, please! STOP buying the bullshit that you MUST go running to a drugstore to buy all sorts of pharmacological chemical “cures” for a cold or the flu or any other regular everyday illness we are all prone to!
I am a long term smoker, (Sorry, Arthur!) and until 12 years ago, I had serious colds that more often than not turned into bronchitis and then from that to pnemonia sometimes, at least three or four times a year, and all sort of other ingfections. I have not had a serious cold or been really ill for over ten years now, and no, I was not sucessful in giving up smoking.
I just took charge of my own immune system. I learned what effects ongoing excess stress played in weakening it ( and in raising the old BP.) I made some big lifestyle changes to reduce those stressors.
I experimented with many things to find what natural substances worked for me, to pump up my immune system, at the first early symptoms. Never did try the pepper thing. For me it’s euchanesia plus lots of vitamin C, at very first symptoms continued for several days, plus MUCHO water and fluids, high protein food, MUCHO extra rest, and two or three sessions per day of breathing hot steam to keep all secretions thinned out so they don’t make a good breeding ground for bugs. Two days tops, and I am fine.
The pharmaceutical companies want us ALL to believe we are totally powerless, in and of ourselves, against all disease. That is flat out BULLSH*T.
They want to propagandize all of us to believe that we should NEVER have a sleepless night, or a headache, or any pain anywhere for more than the time it takes to swallow another handful of their damned pills! We should NEVER have to feel anxious or depressed, NEVER exude even normal body odors, NEVER (shudder!)even get a WRINKLE anywhere, and on and on and on. It is the age of “Soma” , my friends, just as Orwell predicted. Do NOT be led by the nose down this path!!
We have already endangered our whole population through the overuse of anti biotics people continue to demand even for normal viral colds (against which they are useless anyway) and plenty doctors obligingly prescribe them on demand. Which means, for example we are down to ONE SINGLE ANTIBIOTTIC that still works to treat certain kids oflife threatening staph infections, as bacteria continue to mutate in reaction to this overuse of medication.
We have SO much more power and control over illness that most of us can imagine, and these bodies are truly miraculous healing machines all on thier own, with just a little help from us when needed.
When we keep filling ourselves full of these promised chemical “cures” for every single symptom , instead of LISTENING to what the symtoms are tellin us we need to DO for ourselves, all we do is disable out own bodys wonderful healing mechanisms. All for a promised “quick fix” that will let us keep racing around on our human gerbil wheels without pesky slow downs for repairs!
Hear, hear!! Beautifully stated, scribe. Thank you.
I’ll join you in outing myself as a smoker here. ‘Course, the intelligence of quitting is without question, though the time must be ripe for it (as for any serious lifestyle adjustment).
However: since I’ve chosen to take the type of basic interest in my health care we’re talking about here (definitely a matter of holistic lifestyle approach) I’m actually healthier, on the whole, than many folks of my acquaintance who don’t smoke. Haven’t been compelled to see a conventional physician or pay my tithes to BigPharma for health maintenance in about 12 years now.
Not that I take anything for granted. It’s a matter of continued vigilenc, basic self-interest.
Long ago in the early days of this site we had a smokers poll and quite a good percentage of us our smokers, myself among them.
I agree with what you have said and Scribe as well, I have not been had flu or cold in years, I did tho if I was around kids, we always had the back to school sickness each fall.
Anyway I am in agreement about natural methods, building immune system and so on. I have no insurance, even if I could get any, and I am not getting into medicare either, to me insurance is like betting you will get sick. I prefer to program myself to not get sick.
No insurance here either, Diane (& a similiar disinterest in ‘insurance’ to yours) which does pair with an approach health care in terms of prevention — maintaining health rather than treating illness.
As far as I can tell, the general approach is similar under nationalized health care — or so say expat friends in the UK. It’s a wonderful thing.
myself. One illness in the past 2 years, and likely from food contamination rather than mucus-bourne virii.
Lemonade made from maple syrup, cayenne, organic lemon juice, water, and sometimes either fresh garlic or fresh ginger, grated.
YUM. Totally kills that back of throat tickle!
I love you dearly.
Now stop making excuses and quit smoking!!!
It really is that simple.
Don’t wait for the right time.
NOW’S the time.
There will not COME any “better” time.
Believe me.
Been there, done that.
If you have to literally walk out of your life as you know it…the habitual hangouts, the bars, the friends…for a few months or even forever, DO IT!!!
It’s not just about cancer or heart disease…it’s about mental acuity above all, and about taking responsibility for your own life.
Do it now.
You be bettah off.
Smarter, too.
Bet on it.
Nicotine closes off the oxygen flow to the brain. It makes you too DUMB to quit.
The perfect, self-perpetuating addiction.
Been there, dumbed that.
Our well deserved gift from the Native Americans.
Montezuma’s REAL revenge.
“Fuck with US, eh? Smoke this, you dumb motherfuckers!!!”
QUIT!!!
You be smahtah off, too.
Bet on it.
AG
Aha. Thank you for yet another excellent reason to give it up, AG — one that hits home for me especially, since my brain is my favorite body part.
About the timing, I s’pose I’m relating smoking to the other serious shit I’ve given up. There had to be a definitive end to my endurance, a time when I simply said, ‘Enough!’ — after 200 tries or so. Others’ mileage may vary.
In any case, I thank you & will keep your reminders in mind (unless I can’t).
I FEEL the love, AG, I truly do.
However, I am as mentally acute as I ever care to be. If I were any smarter, I’d have to kill myself cuz couldn’t stand living here any longer. 🙂
I’d much prefer NO one ever start smoking,and that everyone who does, would quit, just like you did and so genuinely want others to do too.
But this is a very personal decision we each need to make, based on our own experiences and our own choices. Just like anyone else gets to choose whether they eat fast food every day, or regularly drink to excess (and jeapordise others on the road), or become addicted to any substance, or to sex, or shopping or their work, or video games or whatever they choose to do.
As long as my choice to smoke does not affect the well being of others, (and it doesn’t, because I am an avid protector of non smokers rights no matter how uncomortable this may get for me) and as long as it is not illegal, then I figure it as something it is my right to decide to do, or not do, and not somethng that renders me necessarily much “dumber” than anyone else. 🙂
I will give that a try. All am all about natural as possible. Especially after what DRs and pharma hvae done to me in the last six months since I had two TIAs(mini strokes). Don’t even get me started. The only really good thing that happened in all that was that I did quit smoking, cold turkey(after many tries). I never craved it or even thought about putting another fag in my mouth. We are talking 30+ years of smoking too.
Garlic is a good preventative as well as echanasia.
Thank you for sharing this, leezy.
Yep, garlic is an incredibly anti-oxident, blood cleanser. The raw stuff is best, of course — I succeeded in avoiding any manner of infection whatsoever for an entire year with the help of raw garlic/tofu/watercress sandwiches! — but many garlic preparations are available for the squeamish.
Garlic and fish oil caps are among the daily supplements I take too, along with a good multi vit-mineral tab and that good ol blood thinner,an aspirin a day. And LOT of water.
Myself I dont eat meat, dont eat animal products (cheese, milk, whey, eggs, etc), and drink nothing but water and coffee, mostly water.
Never get sick. Quite frankly, a robust immune system isn’t just a preventative measure, it’s also the secret to defeating any disease/illness.
I dont think it’s SOLELY a matter of food/diet either. I think adequate rest and less stress are just as vital as what goes in your mouth.
Pax