How do You Get Through the Bad Days?

I need to be working whether it be cleaning my house or writing an article, but I’m in pain and it has reached the excruciating point.  Not a day goes by that I don’t wish I could live at least a fraction of a normal life.  I want to be able to get up and go to work, then come home and cook and clean.  I want to be able to socialize with my friends without worrying about how much pain I’m going to be in afterwards.  I want to be able to go out of town on a moment’s notice without worrying about how I feel and if I have all my medications.  I just want to be me again. 

I have days that I am at peace with my diagnosis and my new life that has come from it and then I have days where I take too many steps backwards and I’m angry and frustrated and I can’t handle being sick.  Today is one of those days.  I’m tired of having to tell my family and friends that I can go somewhere with them IF I feel okay.  I’m suppose to go see a movie with my niece in a few hours and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to go because the pain is so bad right now.

How do you cope with a chronic illness?  How do you get through the bad days and how do you find the strength to keep going?

Fixing Health Care by John Cantillo

Fixing Health Care

By: John Cantillo

The cost of health insurance continues to climb unabated. As the number of uninsured in America swells to 45 million people, many look to our political leaders for answers and relief.

Presidential campaign rhetoric about how to control skyrocketing health care costs provides only short-term solutions focused on the sticker price. But the administration should address long-term solutions to the spiraling crisis.

In 2002, the United States spent $1.6 trillion, or nearly 15 percent of GDP, on health expenditures. Medicare, the government's single payer model for seniors, spent $267 billion.

Analysts project national health care expenditures to reach $3.1 trillion by 2012 - nearly twice the amount spent in 2002. The dramatic numbers have a tendency to overstate the obvious - for many, the cost of insurance can be as much, if not more, than rent or a mortgage. Until the administration places its focus on the rising cost of health care, those costs will continue to escalate far exceeding the rates of earnings. Whether you subscribe to a higher monthly premium charged by an HMO or a payroll tax collected by Uncle Sam, someone has to pay the bill. Shifting the burden from our premium bill to our tax bill is not an acceptable solution.

There are basic initiatives that policymakers need to address in an effort to streamline the delivery system and minimize the soaring cost of health care.

First, encourage investments in technology improvements across all levels of the health care delivery system, including insurers, hospitals and physicians. For a $1.6 trillion industry in the 21st century, the technology employed is comparable to driving a Model T on a highway full of modern cars.

Consider the banking industry. A simple piece of plastic, from any bank, allows you to purchase anything from antiques on eBay to milk at the local grocery store. In health care, the piece of plastic serving as an ID card serves little purpose other than to inform the physician where to send the bill. Physicians and their staffs then spend an inordinate amount of time completing the proper paperwork to get paid.

Inefficiencies are expensive. Administrative expenses are the fastest-rising component of health expenditures. In 2002, public and private insurance spent $105 billion on administrative expenses, almost 13 percent more than in 2001. Support for developing common standards and technology improvements is necessary to eliminate the costly inefficiencies that contribute to rising health costs.

Next, support the release of cost and quality information. Most of us know where we can find the best deal on a car, mortgage or even shoes. But how many people can afford to buy something without ever knowing the price?

Do you know the average cost of a physician office visit? We have grown accustomed to the minimal office co-payment as the benchmark for the cost of delivering care. Yet who would seriously consider a $10 co-payment a sufficient amount for physician treatment?

As consumers, we are asked to bear a greater share of health care costs. In return, we should demand more information about price and quality. Disclosure of such information has the potential to have a profound effect on consumer behavior and the cost and quality of health care. Such transparency should reform inequities and deficiencies in the cost of health services.

There is no single magic bullet to solving the issues facing the American health care system. Our system is an immense and complex web of interdependencies. Expanded public financing and subsidies will provide only short-term relief unless the drivers of health care expenditures are resolved. Solely addressing the problem by throwing more money at it, public or private, while ignoring the elephant in the living room serves little to alleviate the large financial burden the health care system has become.

We must accept the fact that health care in the United States is expensive and get to work on long-term solutions that will effectively control costs. We have the ability to control health care costs in this country; what we lack are the commitment and stamina to get it done.

Author Bio

JOHN R. CANTILLO is vice president of underwriting at Vista Health Plan Inc. in Hollywood, Florida. An industry expert with more than 10 years of experience in health insurance, he received his MBA from the University of Florida. Cantillo is a member of the Health Underwriting Study Group, a national think tank and information source for health insurance executives. Reach him at (954) 965-3420.

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Top 5 Ways to Stay Calm and Reduce Stress by John Halderman

Top 5 ways to stay calm and reduce stress

By: John Halderman

Are you looking for more calm satisfying experience with you daily life?

Do you get frustrated with yourself at the end of the day because you've gotten stressed, unfocused or agitated?

Are you tired of getting over emotional and worn out.

Whether you are experiencing one or all of these feelings here are my 5 best tips on reducing the unwanted feelings so that you will feel calm and satisfied with yourself each day.

1. Catch yourself when you exhibit a feeling of behavior that you don't like and change it.

At first you may not notice the feeling until after you have gone through it, that's fine.

Think about how you would rather have felt.

Think about how you would rather have handled yourself. Decide how you want to do it next time.

As you continue with this process each day you will find that you will notice more easily what you are doing throughout the day.

You will begin to catch yourself earlier and earlier as you do this.

Eventually, you will be seeing yourself while you are doing it, then stop yourself.

At some point you will be able to notice before you even begin to feel and react in the undesirable way.

Here is where you will actually begin to change the way you react to the situations in your life and change your behavior.

2. Stay centered all day by refocusing throughout the day.

Develop the habit of paying attention to your mindset as the day goes on.

Several times a day, step away from what you are doing to get re-centered.

Sit down close your eyes and take several long slow deep breaths while imagining the tension washing slowly out of your body.

Notice your breathing getting slower and calmer.

Just think about your breath.

Try to keep from thinking about anything in particular.

It's ok to not be actively thinking for a while!

3. Watch out for your expectations.

You are setting yourself up for failure, upset and frustration when you set too many standards as to how you think things should be.

Think about what leads you to getting upset?

Why does it upset you?

Notice that you decide how many things should be, based on your own outlook and desire.

The things others do that are not to your liking, even the things you do that don't match your expectations.

Ask yourself, really how important is it that they be exactly that way

Ask, who am I to insist that they are that way?

Does it matter that much?

Is it worth getting myself worked up about?

Choose which expectations are really important for you to hold on to and which ones are not.

Holding on to many expectations just complicates your life, with constant judgment.

Simplify your life and reduce the stress!

4. Delegate.

This applies to your personal life as well as at work.

Most of us think of delegating as a workplace skill, but it can apply personally as well.

We are all very busy these days with our activities and duties.

Trying to fit it all in and get it all accomplished can lead to tension.

For various reasons, many of us have developed the habit of thinking we must do it all ourselves.

Take a look at your situation.

Think about it, really, how important is it that everything must be done perfectly to your standards?

Are you sure there are not other people who can assist you. Are the other people in your life pulling their weight?

Many times we get into habitual ruts that don't need to be as they are.

Look at what has been, with the eye of reducing the pressure on yourself.

5. Accept other people as one.

As you think of yourself as different and separate from the rest of mankind, you unknowingly create thinking and behavior that separates you from others.

This kind of separate thinking leads us to think we are superior to others which leads to judgment then selfish thinking and behavior.

We are then having an internal battle with others, which brings on fear, competition and comparison, ending in frustration and anxiety.

Look to discovering how to see yourself as one with all of mankind, not as separate.

Focus on what we have in common rather that the relatively small uniqueness.

Author Bio

John Halderman is a writer, speaker and trainer, dedicated to helping people with getting real results with their personal development efforts. He supports strategies, methods, tools and information that actually bridge the gap between information and effective results. Go to www.activepersonaldevelopment.com for free information and newsletter.

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What is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? Part 2

What is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? Part 2

Second part of the medical condition known as CFS or ME
-Complete Stool Analysis including parasites: Stools are teeming with bacteria, some beneficial, some neutral, and some that can be harmful. It is important to know what you have, especially if you have health problems. Health-enhancing intestinal bacteria serve to prevent the overgrowth of potentially harmful bacteria in the gut. Stool testing can also assess your body’s ability to digest food, the pH, and the amount of mucus present. A Triple Faeces Test is recommended for parasite testing, given that specificity drops when a single sample is taken. Three days in a row is recommended and scraped in the external annus is also necessary, given that is where parasites eggs are normally displayed.

Content Source: Bukisa - What is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? Part 2

Is Lyrica a Good Treatment for Fibromyalgia?

Is Lyrica a Good Treatment for Fibromyalgia?
Can Lyrica help to control the symptoms of fibromyalgia? Find out what one study shows.
If you suffer from fibromyalgia, you know how debilitating and persistent the symptoms can be! You may experience persistent muscle aches, fatigue, sleep disturbances, and frequent stiffness and joint discomfort.The
symptoms can be so severe and restricting that it's difficult to complete simple daily tasks or hold down a full time job. Previously, the only effective class of drugs recommended for initial treatment of fibromyalgia have been antidepressants which don't always provide adequate symptom relief. Plus, antidepressants can cause significant side effects in users including dry mouth, dizziness, excessive sleepiness, anxiety, and weight gain which can limit their usage.

A recent double-blind, controlled fibromyalgia study, presented at the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting, looked at the effects of a drug called pregabalin or Lyrica on the symptoms of 745 patients who had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. The drug, although not yet approved specifically for use in fibromyalgia, was approved for use in the treatment of diabetic peripheral neuropathy and postherpetic neuralgia in 2004. This drug has proven to be effective and well tolerated for treatment of these two conditions and have been well tolerated, in general.

In this current study, Lyrica was found to relieve the chronic pain associated with fibromyalgia and improve the general quality of life for persons diagnosed with this difficult to treat disorder.Patients began to experience improvement in their levels of pain and fatigue as early as the first week on the new drug treatment. By the end of the study, many patients reported up to a 50% reduction in pain after treatment with Lyrica when compared with the placebo group. Lyrica also seemed to have positive effects on the sleep patterns of fibromyalgia sufferers and helped to reduce daytime fatigue. The most frequent side effects associated with the use of Lyrica were dizziness and excessive sleepiness.

If further studies support use of this drug to treat fibromyalgia, the consequences. could be far reaching. This disorder affects around 6 millions Americans and can cause significant disability and loss of productivity of untreated. At the present time, the cause of this disease has been undetermined.

This particular study was sponsored by the pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, which has an application pending for approval of Lyrica for treatment of fibromyalgia symptoms. If this drug is approved and goes into widespread use, could it be the answer to successfully treating fibromyalgia? Millions of fibromyalgia sufferers who experience symptoms on a daily basis certainly hope so!

If further studies support use of this drug to treat fibromyalgia, the consequences. could be far reaching. This disorder affects around 6 millions Americans and can cause significant disability and loss of productivity of untreated. At the present time, the cause of this disease has been undetermined.

This particular study was sponsored by the pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, which has an application pending for approval of Lyrica for treatment of fibromyalgia symptoms. If this drug is approved and goes into widespread use, could it be the answer to successfully treating fibromyalgia? Millions of fibromyalgia sufferers who experience symptoms on a daily basis certainly hope so!

Content Source: Bukisa - Is Lyrica a Good Treatment for Fibromyalgia?

How Does Marijuana Treat Pain?

How Does Marijuana Treat Pain?
Lucy Brown, a 38-year-old breast cancer patient from New York, is finally sent back home after her second surgery. Now, she has to fight with pain that makes her feel like a living-dead. Nausea, headaches, dizziness, hallucinations, depression and insomnia are only some of the side-effects caused by heavy medication.
Lucy Brown, a 38-year-old breast cancer patient from New York, is finally sent back home after her second surgery. Now, she has to fight with pain that makes her feel like a living-dead. Nausea, headaches, dizziness, hallucinations, depression and insomnia are only some of the side-effects caused by heavy medication.

Content Source: Bukisa - How does marijuana treat pain