
Your Life-Your Choice                  ISSN 1488-0253
                                                           May, 
2001
                                                           Issue 73

Letter From the Editor

Affecting approximately 3.7 million people in the United
States over age 18 is a complex, chronic condition called
Fibromyalgia. The pain of Fibromyalgia is typically a
scattered aching or burning feeling from "head-to-toe". In
fact, my sister describes it as “feeling like wet cement”.
The amount of pain will vary from day to day and from one
individual to another. Although both genders and all ages
can acquire FMS, the highest number of instances  are among
older women.

Fibromyalgia is difficult to diagnose and treat because
there are a number of  symptoms associated with FMS
(Fibromyalgia Syndrome), and they are not necessarily
consistent among all patients.

Stiffness is very common, especially after long periods of
being in the same position, ie. sitting, standing, or
sleeping. Weak muscles are common and can also cause
dizziness or dysequilibrium.

Gastrointestinal problems are also commonplace and may
include abdominal pain, and bloating or additional
conditions like IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). Some
patients also have difficulty swallowing food.

Fibromyalgia patients sometimes experience frequent
migraines and may also suffer from TMJ (Temporomandibular
Joint), which also produces also jaw and facial pain.

The hands and feet are often suseptible to numbness or
tingling.

Another condition known as "Raynaud's Phenomenon" can also
be prevalent in those suffering from FMS. This is a
sensitivity to the environmental temperature; some may feel
unusually cold or unusually warm compared to others in the
same environment.

Dry, itchy, or blotchy skin are among the skin problems
that may be experienced. Dry eyes and mouth are other
inconveniences.

Some people experience chest pain and may be inflicted with
additional conditions involving the heart and/or muscles in
that area. All chest pains should be directed immediately
to your local health care provider.

Increased sensitivity to light, noise, odors, and weather
conditions can deeply affect Fibromyalgia victims. In fact
it is common to have allergic-like reactions to many
substances, including medications.

There are 18 tender points on the body that are assessed to
determine a fibromyalgia diagnosis.  There are so many
varying symptoms that are also reflective of several other
diseases that it is necessary to do a thorough analysis
before coming to a definite conclusion. An x-ray
accompanied by a complete medical history and physical
examination by a qualified physician are essential elements
in a correct diagnosis.

Just as the indications of Fibromyalgia differ from one
patient to another, the treatments will have to be unique
in each case. People respond differently to the similar
therapies and medications. From a "natural remedy"
perspective, there are numerous options available.

Acupuncture has proven to be quite successful in addressing
the pain from musculoskeletal conditions as well as other
Fibromyalgia symptoms.

Massage Therapy, Chiropractic, Osteopathy, and Craniosacral
Therapy are gentle, non-invasive, hands-on treatments that
seemingly enhance the bodies self-healing abilities. Gentle
stretching helps to relieve muscle tension and spasms. This
is so beneficial that there have been several videotapes
specifically designed for Fibromyalgia patients. Low-impact
aerobic exercise will prevent muscle deterioration.
Walking, using treadmills and exercise equipment are
instrumental in maintaining muscle tone. It may be
necessary to incorporate the guidance and/or assistance of
a professional like a physical therapist or a chiropractor
throughout this regime.

A physical therapist can also provide Posture Training.
This is often required to re-educate muscles and/or joints
that have become misaligned. A qualified therapist trained
in the Alexander Technique can provide Movement Training so
you can train your body to move effectively while reducing
pain.

The pain, fatigue, and frustration that accompanies
Fibromyalgia victims creates a significant amount of stress
both emotionally and physically. Stress management programs
should be an important aspect of your health program.
Biofeedback, Meditation, Breathing Exercises, Progressive
Relaxation, Guided Imagery, all are treatments that are
helpful in reducing stress. Following a carefully planned
nutritional program will be helpful in your quest for
wellness.  This regime will likely include antioxidants and
vitamin supplementation as well as wise food choices.
Careful elimination of certain foods may be necessary. For
this aspect to be successful, you will need to work very
closely with a nutritionist who is comfortable working with
FMS patients. The uniqueness of this health issue is
further demonstrated in that no one nutritional plan will
be successful for all Fibromyalgia patients.

Until next time... Stay well.

Sources:
National Fibromyalgia Partnership, Inc
http://www.fmpartnership.org/FMPartnership.htm
The International Alliance of  Educators (IAHE)
http://iahe.com

Brigitte Synesael
Editor of Your Life-Your Choice
Make it your business to be informed!
No one cares more about you than YOU.
http://www.Life-Choices.com

===========================================

ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE:
1. The Heart of Advocating for the Hospital Patient's Highest Good
2. Tea Tips - When Did We Start Drinking Tea?
3. Living Longer, and stronger

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Section 1
                  The Heart of Advocating for the Hospital
                                  Patient's Highest Good
                            by Laurel Duran, CMT
                      bluecord@amigo.net
                http://www2.amigo.net/bluecord

It is a widely known fact that patients who have the
shortest hospital  stays and recovery periods are those who
actively express what they want or  don't want while they
are in the hospital. These patients are often  considered
to be “troublemakers” by hospital caregivers because their
unique needs do not fit into the hospital’s currently
ordered system, and  extra effort would be required of the
staff to meet these special needs.  It is also a known fact
that the patients with the longest hospital stays  and
recovery periods are those who passively accept whatever
care they do  or do NOT receive while in the hospital.
These patients are often  considered to be “good patients”
by hospital caregivers because they do  not present a
challenge to the hospital’s currently ordered system, and
their needs require no extra staff effort.

Twenty years ago most hospital patients fit into the second
group of  passive recipients. Not so today. Dissatisfied
hospital patients are much  more likely to act on their
discontent via medical malpractice suits. By  default
rather than compassionate choice, hospitals are
increasingly  expected to pay attention to the wants and
soft-touch needs of the patients  as voiced by patients’
families and friends. Out of this radically  different
“patients come first” priority, the role of PATIENT
ADVOCATE has blossomed.

After my car crash and resultant broken neck and
quadriplegia, because I  was in a weakened state, my family
and closest friends acted as my  advocates while I was
hospitalized. Out of their love for me, they took  turns
being at my bedside where they consulted with AND STRONGLY
ADVISED doctors, nurses and other caregivers on my behalf,
using all the diplomatic tenacity they could muster. I was
very fortunate that my advocates put my needs first and
willingly risked their personal popularity with hospital
staff. This required them to speak up clearly at times when
my care began  to fall from the staff’s priority list. My
advocates procured the nourishing foods I wanted and needed
to rebuild my spinal cord, rather than accepting the
heavily processed meals standardly given to patients. They
gave me pain-reducing bodywork and supported me
unconditionally when hospital staff either ignored me or
insisted I ingest drugs to suppress my intense pain. And
the most important benefit my advocates brought to my
miraculous healing process was the fact they I KNEW I had
their support backing me up, and that I was not alone in
facing my very difficult but completely self-driven healing
process. As medical staff regularly told me that my
quadriplegia was incurable and permanent, my advocates
encouraged me to believe that I WOULD walk again because
that is what I believed! And so I did. I believe that I
wouldn’t have achieved such positive self-healing results
without the unconditional and unselfish support of my own
Patient Advocates.

Facing serious illness and injury is truly a family affair,
a community  affair. If any of us must embark on healing
from serious illness or  injury, we must rely on those
family members, friends or even professional  consultants
who are willing to unconditionally advocate for our best
interests. The essentials that any Patient Advocate must
focus on are  based on answering one simple question: “What
does the patient need to  receive in order to maximize her
healing potential?” Each patient  naturally has very
specific needs, some of which are: eating nourishing and
enjoyable food; receiving condition-specific nutritional
supplements;  receiving relaxation and pain reduction
therapy; receiving meditation and  visualization therapy;
receiving pleasure experiences such as bodywork,  music,
entertainment and spiritual enrichment, all of which lie
outside the  scope of surgery and drugs; and receiving
ongoing emotional, psychological  and spiritual support
that is hopeful, positive, and completely honoring of  the
patient’s constantly changing needs. The best Patient
Advocates will  offer their patients the freedom to utilize
these options or not. The best  Patient Advocates want what
the patient herself wants. When the patient  can act as her
own Advocate, all the better. But when that is not
possible, making full use of Patient Advocates is an
essential key to  healing success.

-----
Read about Laurel Duran on our Meet the Team page;
http://www.Life-Choices.com/team.html

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Section 2
Tea Tips- When Did We Start Drinking Tea?

In 2700 BC Emperor Shen Nung of China was the first person
to drink  tea, when tea leaves accidently fell into his cup
of boiled water.  India started growing tea in 2000 BC.

A Buddhist priest, Dengo Daishi, in 805 BC, began growing
and  drinking tea, in Japan. The "Tea Ceremony" was
introduced by  Rikkyu, a samurai warrior, in 1450.

The Chinese introduced the Dutch traders to tea in 1610.
 From then onwards the world loved tea and even had fights
over it,  including the "Boston Tea Party" when it was
dumped into the harbour  to protest English taxes on it.

Ice tea was first made in 1904, during a heat wave in St.
Louis.  The first tea bags were made by New Yorkist William
Sullivan, in  1908.

So drink the wonderful varieties that are to be had, for
your health, it makes you feel good, as they say in my
native England.......'ave a cuppa!!!

---
http://www.life-choices.com/cj/tea.html

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Section 3
                 Living Longer, and stronger
                 By Dr. James Kojian M.D.
                 kojian@earthlink.net

  As a longevity specialist, I invite you to improve your
way of thinking regarding your own health. Because of
certain advances in medicine, particularly in the fields of
prevention and anti-aging medicine, there is now enough
documented medical proof to start thinking about preventing
many illnesses, reversing many diseases, and pushing the
life span envelope more and more. This may require a total
paradigm shift for most people and their physicians. Just
as communication, computers, building safety, car safety,
and everything else has improved in the last thirty years,
so has our ability to prevent and treat many illnesses;
thus allowing us to all live longer and stronger. The key
to this coveted prize of living longer and stronger is the
knowledge to do so. As it is, the United States spends the
most per capita on health care and yet ! is ranked in the
bottom 25 percentile of other industrialized countries of
the world, according to a recent study done by Johns
Hopkins University. So we are spending the most, and the
vast majority of the countries are still living longer and
healthier than we are, and our ranking has been getting
worse every year. This is more than just a statistic. This
study represents millions of hard working men and women who
pay the highest health care premiums in the world, only to
succumb to illness and death faster and earlier than most
people in the industrialized world. This tragedy is played
out everyday in this country. A hardworking mother or
father, who is getting ready to finally retire, finds out
that he or she has some type of major disease, because
their doctor had never educated them on preventive
medicine. So instead of taking trips around the country,
most Americans over the age of 65 take trips to the
hospital and pharmacies to ameliorate their preventable
illnesses.

Moreover, many medical treatments can be dangerous: a
recent study found open heart surgery to be deleterious to
ones short and long term mental performance, many patients
who break their hip die of pneumonia in the hospital, many
medication errors are made in the hospital, etc. With this
in mind, an ounce of prevention is better than even one and
a half ounces of treatment.

Preventive medicine is extremely effective because it
combats the villain of entropy. Entropy is the root of all
evil, and you thought money was. Entropy is a force in
nature that pushes for disorganization, for randomness, for
the lowest possible energy state. Entropy is why we age, as
it wants your organized body to dissolve, break apart and
for your cells to become more random. Entropy is why you
have to clean your room, comb your hair, and brush your
teeth. Entropy is the cause of all the Hollywood and
nonHollywood marriage breakups. Since a family is the union
of many people, this goes against the basic concept of
entropy, as it loves disunion. This force of nature slowly
picks apart this union and if you don’t counter it on a
regular basis, entropy wins.

So if the bad news is entropy, is there any good news? Is
there a hero to this tragic story? Actually there is a
hero- the turtle. Not the ninja turtles, but just your
everyday turtle. Any turtle will do, but for the sake of
this article we will use the turtle in the famous Esops
fable “The Turtle and The Hare”. By now, you should be
asking what does a turtle have to do with combating
entropy? Well, as you remember the story, the hare, a wily
rabbit, challenged the turtle to a race. As they were
racing, the turtle just put his head down and SLOWLY,
CONSISTENTLY, METHODICALLY, ran his race, while the
rabbit thinking he would easily win, went off on did his silly
rabbit things, only to return to the race to find out that
the turtle had already crossed the finished line and won.

There are no short cuts in life. The prize of good health,
of a good marriage, of a good life goes to the SLOW,
CONSIST ANT, METHODICAL turtelesque individual. This type
of person ALWAYS WINS. This is how we combat aging and
entropy: slowly, daily, consistently and methodically. We
fight aging using the principles of longevity, anti-aging
and preventive medicine. Doesn’t sound too exciting or
glamorous? Well, when you are 70 and have enjoyed being in
great shape physically, mentally, emotionally, and
financially and are ready to party for the next twenty
years, traveling the world and living it up, while most of
your friends are not, then you will see the power of the
turtle. You say," wow, my doctor never told me stuff like
this. He just says, ' Here take this pill '". I suggest you
go buy your doc! tor a pet turtle.

If you are already 65 or over, there are ways to even
REVERSE many chronic illnesses? How? You guessed it,
slowly, consistently and methodically. We have the
scientific evidence now to be able to address these issues
methodically, and I will in these series of columns. We
will learn how to slowly and consistently battle aging,
disease, obesity, wrinkles, hair loss (so I am a little
vain, I admit it) and much more. If your not careful, you
may even have some fun. I know I am.

Your first step in this race is to try to drink at least
one to two cups of green tea a day. You may replace your
morning coffee with green tea. Green tea is one of the most
powerful anti-oxidants in the world. It is a little bitter,
so the only company I have found that makes a good tasting
green tea is The Tea of Republic. They have very good
tasting green teas flavored with all kind of spices. They
have a web site, and are sold only in health food stores.
Cheers.
-----
Dr. Kojian M.D. is a board certified primary care physician
with an extensive background in herbs, vitamins and natural
health supplements. He is also a member of the American
Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine.
http://www.thenaturalshopper.com

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