Yes, you recognised that, "When sorrows come, they come not single spies But in battalions," is a quotation from a speech by Claudius, in Shakespeare's Hamlet. It is something most of us have experienced: something goes wrong, something else goes wrong, and so on. Or as the saying goes, It never rains but it pours.
I am particularly aware of the way that troubles seem almost to breed, when I think of the adverse side-effects of pharmaceutical drugs. Adverse effects of drugs are often spoken of as rare or infrequent. I do not believe this to be the case. They are unfortunately common. For example, consider the many drugs, including including prednisolone (also sold as Pediapred®), prednisone (also sold as Deltasone®, Meticorten, Orasone, SK-Prednisone and Sterapred®), methylprednisolone (Brand names Depo-Medrol, Solu-Medrol), cortisone, hydrocortisone, dexamethasone (Brand name Decadron), betamethasone, beclomethasone, fludrocortisone, triamsinolone, desonide, fluprednidene, clobetasone, alclomethasone, momethasone, desoxymethasone, fluosinonide, budesonide, fluosinolone, triamcinolone (trade names Kenalog, Aristocort, Nasacort, Tri-Nasal, Triderm, Azmacort, Trilone, Volon A, Tristoject, Fougera, Tricortone, Triesence) and other corticosteroids, Advair - a combination drug that contains Fluticasone, a corticosteroid, HRT and other medications containing oestrogen - like Premarin and Prempak, and like some birth control medication (contraceptives) - amitriptyline, doxepin and some other anti-depressants, some anti-psychotic drugs, including Zyprexa (aka olanzapine) and other psychotropic drugs, and some anti-epileptic/anticonvulsant drugs, notably sodium valproate (trade name Epilim), that cause sodium retention.
In effect, sodium retention means that the blood vessels have become distended/swollen with extra sodium and water, and therefore the blood volume is greater than normal. That greater blood volume obviously means that the person's weight is increased by the weight of that extra fluid in the bloodstream. And because the walls of the blood vessels have become stretched, they must also be thinner and weaker, and so the blood volume may more easily fluctuate as the person ingests more, or less, salt/sodium and salty food. This in turn makes blood pressure more variable, and also adds to the variability of blood sugar concentration and increased variability of concentration of other components in the blood. Greater variability of blood sugar concentration is a factor in increasing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The weakening of the blood vessel walls increases the risk of stroke and of heart problems.
The weight gain will continue if the offending drugs continue to be taken without reducing sodium intake (and this is usually the case because physicians rarely warn their patients about the dangers and consequences of eating added salt when taking these drugs). So obesity, or even morbid obesity, is a very real possibility. The patients are then likely to be told to eat less and take more exercise in order to lose their excess weight. Taking this advice would cause them further harm because their excess weight is the result of the prescribed medication and their intake of added salt (even if it is only a modest intake of salt), and not because of over-eating or taking in too many calories and expending too few calories. If the person then tries to diet/eat less food than their body requires this will exacerbate the nutritional deficits they are already experiencing as a consequence of sodium retention depleting the body of essential minerals (principally calcium, but also magnesium and potassium). A host of health problems tend to develop because of this malnutrition. They may include nerve damage, excruciating cramps, osteoporosis or even osteomalacia, and therefore very weakened bones and much greater risk of fractures, weaker muscles and reduced mobility.
The swollen blood vessels/veins will proliferate, causing the skin to look redder because of the blood vessels close to the skin surface; the skin itself will be thinning and be becoming weakened and overstretched by the greater volume/mass of the person's swollen, heavier body with its increasing fluid retention. The kidneys become over-worked and their function impaired by the greatly increased blood volume and similarly the heart becomes enlarged. The enlarged heart takes up too much room in the thoracic cavity so that breathing becomes more laboured and the person begins to suffer from breathlessness.
And I haven't even mentioned yet the insults of the ignorant, who add to the emotional problems of the victims of drug-induced sodium/water/fluid retention and obesity, the social isolation, the constant misunderstandings, the fatigue, the pain from the over-stretched blood vessels and over-stretched skin and weakened bones. - Have I sketched out for you enough of the battalions of troubles/sorrows/degenerative health problems/adverse side-effects that can and do come from taking certain pharmaceutical drugs when they are too readily prescribed, by prescribers ill-informed about their side-effects and insufficiently informed about the many possible contributory factors involved in causing obesity? I feel sure that, following my lead, you will be able yourself to think of many more adverse consequences from taking these powerful and highly dangerous drugs, with their insidious cumulative damage. Best avoid them if you can!
See obesity and the salt connection, amitriptyline and sodium in foods.
Showing posts with label Prednisolone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prednisolone. Show all posts
Saturday, 11 February 2012
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
Prescription Drugs Can Seriously Damage Your Health
Adverse side-effects from prescription drugs are not at all rare. In fact, many drugs routinely cause very serious adverse side-effects, often very much more serious than the health problems for which they are taken. Only take them if they are really necessary and take them in the lowest effective dose.
Get informed about the harm drugs do. – For a start you could read about tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline here:
and about steroids like prednisolone or HRT here:
Saturday, 12 September 2009
Do you wonder why it is that some people can eat whatever they like, and as much as they like, and not become fat?
Do you wonder why it is that some people can eat whatever they like, and as much as they like, and not become fat, while other people become fat despite not eating a lot and not being lazy? - The explanation is that the people who become fat are vulnerable to salt. For them, eating salt causes them to retain extra bodily fluid and this causes rhem to become fatter and to gain weight.
The groups of people vulnerable to salt are babies and children, people who take or who have taken certain prescribed steroids, including prednisone and prednisolone, or certain other prescribed drugs, women who take or have taken HRT or other oestrogen-containing drugs such as some contraceptive medications, people who take or have taken amitriptyline or other tricyclic antidepressants or some other psychotropic/psychoactive drugs, pregnant mothers, PMT sufferers and people who ate salt as children. These groups need to minimise their salt intake.
Salt Can Cause Obesity
If you fall into one of the vulnerable groups I have listed or if you ate a high salt diet as a child you will be sensitive to salt. People without this problem can eat salty foods without doing a lot of harm to themselves, because their kidneys will excrete the sodium which is excess to their requirements. But for people sensitive to salt, some of the excess sodium, along with the water it attracts, will enter their blood stream and not be excreted. So they carry extra weight - as water - around with them all the time. They also lose more heat from their bodies because the surface area of their body has increased with the added water, and the rate at which a body loses heat is proportional to its surface area. - They therefore need extra calories to do the extra work and to provide the extra heat. - So their appetite increases in order to obtain these extra calories. - So they may very well eat more to satisfy their genuine need for calories. - If what they eat is salty, then the cycle will repeat itself and they are likely to become obese.
To break the cycle and put the process into reverse, all that is necessary for them to do is to eat less salt. And eating extra potassium by way of fresh fruit and vegetables will accelerate the excretion of the sodium and water and speed up the weight loss.
In my opinion, people who remain slim are slim not because they have strong will-power to resist extra calories, but because they have strong-walled healthy veins which can resist the incursion of extra salt water.
See also my Fat Retention page.
If you want to lose weight, eat less salt!
Forget about calories! - Cut down on salt! - You'll lose weight fast - as if by magic!
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Are Brits really eating themselves to death or is it misinformation that is the problem?
Eating ourselves to death: Britain's fat epidemic
article in the Independent on Sunday
The comments beneath the article are interesting. There are the usual sort whose writers blame fat people themselves for their obesity and there are more thoughtful contributions by people who have given the matter much more thought and realise the problem is multi-faceted. - Here are my own thoughts:
article in the Independent on Sunday
The comments beneath the article are interesting. There are the usual sort whose writers blame fat people themselves for their obesity and there are more thoughtful contributions by people who have given the matter much more thought and realise the problem is multi-faceted. - Here are my own thoughts:
Dieting is a snare and a delusion, and the frequent exhortation thrown at fat people to 'just eat less and exercise more' has not a jot of evidence to support its efficacy. - It absolutely does not make obese people less obese. Dieting fosters malnutrition and dietary deficiencies.
Cutting down on salt and salty food reduces weight easily and safely by reducing the fluid retention which is part of all obesity. Increasing calcium intake reduces weight by increasing fat excretion in the faeces (details on the BBC's website in the BBC2 "Truth About Food" pages from a series a few years ago) and there is growing evidence that excess weight is associated with Vitamin D deficiency as well as with calcium deficiency.
Many prescription drugs cause massive fluid retention and therefore morbid obesity, including steroids like prednisone and prednisolone, HRT, tricyclic anti-depressants like amitriptyline, anti-psychotics, etc.
Obesity is a complex illness, ill-served by the simplistic 'solutions' of the uninformed.
I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.
Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
And see Sodium in foods and
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations
See advice for pregnant mothers
and FAT RETENTIONI can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.
Tuesday, 4 November 2008
Could the steroid, prednisolone, help women to avoid repeated miscarriages?
How £1-a-month drug could end the misery of miscarriages
article in the Daily Mail
Extract 1:
"Thousands of women could be spared the misery of repeated miscarriages with a pill that costs just £1 a month, it emerged yesterday.
Extract 2
"In a new trial which began last month, Dr Quenby plans to test these results by giving half of the women she recruits a dummy placebo and the rest a dose of the steroid.
article in the Daily Mail
Extract 1:
"Thousands of women could be spared the misery of repeated miscarriages with a pill that costs just £1 a month, it emerged yesterday.
Researchers have found fresh evidence that a third of unexplained miscarriages may be caused by an overactive immune system.
They believe treatment with a common steroid, used for asthma and allergies, can curb the immune response and protect an unborn baby in the crucial early weeks of pregnancy.
The findings offer hope to around 9,000 women who have unexplained miscarriages each year in Britain.
In preliminary trials, around three-quarters of women who had a history of miscarriages had successful pregnancies after taking the steroid.
Extract 2
"In a new trial which began last month, Dr Quenby plans to test these results by giving half of the women she recruits a dummy placebo and the rest a dose of the steroid.
Prednisolone’s side effects include mood swings and increased appetite.
However, most women would need to take it for just three months."
I suggest that it is important that any women who get prescribed for this problem be clearly informed that they need to cut out salt and salty food while taking this steroid drug, otherwise they are at great risk of fluid retention and consequent avoidable weight gain. - The fluid retention/weight gain is responsible for the mood swings and increased appetite and can be avoided by sticking to low salt intake. This would also lower the risk of developing many other health problems.
See Sodium in foods
Tuesday, 19 August 2008
Dr Matthew Rath compares/contrasts the pharmaceutical approach to cancer with the more natural micronutrient/vitamin therapies he advocates...
Read here the
Response by Dr. Rath to the Invitation
to Become a Reviewer of
the International Journal of Cancer
Dr Rath is an outspoken critic of the pharmaceutical approach to cancer and a scientific pioneer for new and natural approaches to cancer like vitamin supplementation. (My apologies for spelling Dr Rath's name incorrectly in the title of this post. His first name is Matthias, not Matthew.)
I largely go along with Dr Rath's philosophy on health, but my personal hobby horse is the damage that SALT intake causes in so many people - people who are sensitive/vulnerable to salt - especially children and especially people who have taken certain prescription drugs, including steroids like prednisone and prednisolone and HRT, and tricyclic anti-depressants like amitriptyline, which many doctors prescribe inappropriately, often in recklessly high doses and for ill-advisedly long periods. - It is best for most people's health to avoid prescription drugs unless they are strictly necessary, and if they take them at all, to take in the lowest effective dose and for the shortest time necessary. - Remember also that many prescription drugs deplete the body of essential nutrients, so you may like to consider taking nutritional supplements if you are taking prescribed medication/s, e.g. steroids deplete the body of calcium, potassium, magnesium and possibly zinc, and certain diuretics - like bendrofluazide - deplete the body of potassium and magnesium, and some antibiotics deplete the body of other nutrients.
Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
Children and Obesity
Response by Dr. Rath to the Invitation
to Become a Reviewer of
the International Journal of Cancer
Dr Rath is an outspoken critic of the pharmaceutical approach to cancer and a scientific pioneer for new and natural approaches to cancer like vitamin supplementation. (My apologies for spelling Dr Rath's name incorrectly in the title of this post. His first name is Matthias, not Matthew.)
I largely go along with Dr Rath's philosophy on health, but my personal hobby horse is the damage that SALT intake causes in so many people - people who are sensitive/vulnerable to salt - especially children and especially people who have taken certain prescription drugs, including steroids like prednisone and prednisolone and HRT, and tricyclic anti-depressants like amitriptyline, which many doctors prescribe inappropriately, often in recklessly high doses and for ill-advisedly long periods. - It is best for most people's health to avoid prescription drugs unless they are strictly necessary, and if they take them at all, to take in the lowest effective dose and for the shortest time necessary. - Remember also that many prescription drugs deplete the body of essential nutrients, so you may like to consider taking nutritional supplements if you are taking prescribed medication/s, e.g. steroids deplete the body of calcium, potassium, magnesium and possibly zinc, and certain diuretics - like bendrofluazide - deplete the body of potassium and magnesium, and some antibiotics deplete the body of other nutrients.
Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt ConnectionChildren and Obesity
vulnerable groups
See Sodium in foods and
Associated health conditions and
See FAT RETENTION
Thursday, 15 November 2007
Prescription drugs that can and do cause weight gain include Prednisone, Prednisolone, HRT, some oral contraceptives, amitripyline, Zoloft, Zyprexa,..
Higher doses cause greater weight gain. The drugs that cause the greatest weight gain tend to be some steroids like prednisone and prednisolone, oestrogen-containing drugs like HRT and oral contraceptives, some antidepressants including amitriptyline/Elavil, Paxil, Tofranil/Imipramine and Zoloft, and some antipsychotics including Zyprexa. The antiseizure medication, Depakote, diabetes drugs like Diabeta and Diabinese, and the high blood pressure drugs Atenolol, Cardura and Inderal and heartburn drugs like Nexium and Prevacid may also cause drug-induced weight gain. NSAIDS (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) like Brufen/Ibuprofen/Nurofen and some other painkillers can also cause weight gain.
The weight gain is because of sodium retention and water retention, and this fluid retention can easily be reduced by avoiding salt/sodium and food containing salt, such as bacon, ham, pork pies, Marmite, ready meals, tinned soups, shop-bought sandwiches, sauces, etc. - So eating less salt is the fastest, surest and safest way to lose excess weight...(o:
How to Lose weight!
Children and Obesity
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
See Sodium in foods and
Associated health conditions and
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page
I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.
The weight gain is because of sodium retention and water retention, and this fluid retention can easily be reduced by avoiding salt/sodium and food containing salt, such as bacon, ham, pork pies, Marmite, ready meals, tinned soups, shop-bought sandwiches, sauces, etc. - So eating less salt is the fastest, surest and safest way to lose excess weight...(o:
Lose weight and improve your health in many ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html
How to Lose weight!
Children and Obesity
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
See Sodium in foods and
Associated health conditions and
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page
I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.
Sunday, 14 October 2007
Britain's hospitals are buying special equipment to cope with increasingly obese patients. - They should be providing low salt/sodium meals for them.
Hospitals on 'supersize' alert - Sunday Telegraph
Extract:
"Hospitals have doubled their spending on "supersize" beds, trolleys and mortuary fridges to cope with increasingly obese patients.
An investigation of 150 hospital trusts shows the amount spent by the NHS on equipment that can take the weight of increasingly huge patients has risen from £5.8 million to £13 million in just three years.
Hospitals said they were treating increasing numbers of "super-heavy" patients weighing 40 stone and more. Several said they had been forced to ban the heaviest patients from floors which could not take their weight.
Data collected by the Liberal Democrats under the Freedom of Information Act shows the average hospital spent £60,000 on supersized equipment this year, compared with £30,000 spent three years ago."
Its health spokesman Norman Lamb said: "This is a stark and depressing demonstration of the failure of this Government to tackle the problem of obesity.""
The main cause of morbid obesity is pharmaceutical drugs, recklessly over-prescribed by doctors insufficiently knowledgeable about their adverse side-effects and failing to do appropriate monitoring. - The main drugs that cause obesity are steroids like prednisone and prednisolone, oestrogen-containing medications like HRT, and tricyclic anti-depressants like amitriptyline. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html
Lose weight and improve your health in many ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
See Sodium in foods and
Associated health conditions and
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations
I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.
Extract:
"Hospitals have doubled their spending on "supersize" beds, trolleys and mortuary fridges to cope with increasingly obese patients.
An investigation of 150 hospital trusts shows the amount spent by the NHS on equipment that can take the weight of increasingly huge patients has risen from £5.8 million to £13 million in just three years.
Hospitals said they were treating increasing numbers of "super-heavy" patients weighing 40 stone and more. Several said they had been forced to ban the heaviest patients from floors which could not take their weight.
Data collected by the Liberal Democrats under the Freedom of Information Act shows the average hospital spent £60,000 on supersized equipment this year, compared with £30,000 spent three years ago."
Its health spokesman Norman Lamb said: "This is a stark and depressing demonstration of the failure of this Government to tackle the problem of obesity.""
The main cause of morbid obesity is pharmaceutical drugs, recklessly over-prescribed by doctors insufficiently knowledgeable about their adverse side-effects and failing to do appropriate monitoring. - The main drugs that cause obesity are steroids like prednisone and prednisolone, oestrogen-containing medications like HRT, and tricyclic anti-depressants like amitriptyline. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html
Lose weight and improve your health in many ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
See Sodium in foods and
Associated health conditions and
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations
I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.
Friday, 17 August 2007
Warning over rising numbers of high blood pressure cases
Warning over rising numbers of high blood pressure cases - Guardian
Extract:
"The number of people suffering from high blood pressure worldwide is expected to rise to more than 1.5 billion over next 20 years, a new report shows.
Research in the Lancet medical journal warns that that people living in developed countries have a 90% chance of lifetime risk of developing high blood pressure.
The article says that in 2000 there was an estimated 972 million adults living with high blood pressure around the world. This is expected to rise to 1.56 billion by 2025.
"Lifestyle factors, such as physical inactivity, a salt-rich diet with highly processed and fatty foods, and alcohol and tobacco use, are at the heart of this increased disease burden, which is spreading at an alarming rate from developed countries to emerging economies such as India and China," the research states."
A major cause of high blood pressure is the reckless over-prescribing of pharmaceutical drugs, often in high dose. Many of these drugs (eg corticosteroids like prednisone and prednisolone, HRT, tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline, and many other drugs) cause high blood pressure because they weaken the walls of the blood vessels, which then become vulnerable to the incursion of excess salt/sodium and the water it attracts to itself. - So these prescribed drugs are the cause of salt sensitivity and drug-induced weight gain. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html
Lower your blood pressure and lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
See Sodium in foods and
Associated health conditions and
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations
I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.
Extract:
"The number of people suffering from high blood pressure worldwide is expected to rise to more than 1.5 billion over next 20 years, a new report shows.
Research in the Lancet medical journal warns that that people living in developed countries have a 90% chance of lifetime risk of developing high blood pressure.
The article says that in 2000 there was an estimated 972 million adults living with high blood pressure around the world. This is expected to rise to 1.56 billion by 2025.
"Lifestyle factors, such as physical inactivity, a salt-rich diet with highly processed and fatty foods, and alcohol and tobacco use, are at the heart of this increased disease burden, which is spreading at an alarming rate from developed countries to emerging economies such as India and China," the research states."
A major cause of high blood pressure is the reckless over-prescribing of pharmaceutical drugs, often in high dose. Many of these drugs (eg corticosteroids like prednisone and prednisolone, HRT, tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline, and many other drugs) cause high blood pressure because they weaken the walls of the blood vessels, which then become vulnerable to the incursion of excess salt/sodium and the water it attracts to itself. - So these prescribed drugs are the cause of salt sensitivity and drug-induced weight gain. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html
Lower your blood pressure and lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
See Sodium in foods and
Associated health conditions and
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations
I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.
Sunday, 22 July 2007
Are you sick to death of dieting and genuinely puzzled that you can't seem to lose weight? - Here is the solution to your problems!
WHEN is the truth going to be told about obesity? - Dieting does not reduce obesity.
Read my Mensa article Obesity and the Salt Connection
All that is necessary to curb the growing incidence of obesity is to tell the truth about what causes it! - Obesity is NOT caused by overeating. - It is caused by fluid retention, frequently because of taking prescribed medications, especially steroids such as prednisolone, prednisone and HRT, and anti-depressants such as amitriptyline. (When doctors prescribe drugs that cause sodium retention and water retention they should warn the patient not to eat salt, or food containing salt, while taking the medication. When they do not give this warning, the inevitable consequence is considerable weight gain.)
Read here about the groups of people who are vulnerable to salt: vulnerable groups
Obesity can be easily reduced by seriously reducing your salt/sodium intake and eating plenty of fruit and fresh vegetables. - It is important not to restrict calories. - 'Slimming' or 'dieting' is unnecessary, ineffective and often harmful.
Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)
See Sodium in foods and Associated health conditions
I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free...
Read my Mensa article Obesity and the Salt Connection
All that is necessary to curb the growing incidence of obesity is to tell the truth about what causes it! - Obesity is NOT caused by overeating. - It is caused by fluid retention, frequently because of taking prescribed medications, especially steroids such as prednisolone, prednisone and HRT, and anti-depressants such as amitriptyline. (When doctors prescribe drugs that cause sodium retention and water retention they should warn the patient not to eat salt, or food containing salt, while taking the medication. When they do not give this warning, the inevitable consequence is considerable weight gain.)
Read here about the groups of people who are vulnerable to salt: vulnerable groups
Obesity can be easily reduced by seriously reducing your salt/sodium intake and eating plenty of fruit and fresh vegetables. - It is important not to restrict calories. - 'Slimming' or 'dieting' is unnecessary, ineffective and often harmful.
Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)
See Sodium in foods and Associated health conditions
I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free...
Saturday, 10 March 2007
Tara and her problems with prednisolone, a prescribed steroid. - Acne, Moonface, Night Cramps, 'Buffalo Hump', Insults...
Some while back I received an email to my website address from a schoolgirl who was very distressed. - The reason for her distress was that she had been prescribed prednisolone again because of a flare-up of a serious illness she had first suffered from 2 years ago. - At that time the steroid had caused her to develop a moonface, severe night cramps in her legs which woke her, and what she describes as a 'buffalo hump' but which, I believe, is more usually referred to as Dowager's Hump. She found it very hard to sleep. She said her face was huge and she had acne and red marks on her cheeks, and because she was so swollen she didn't like to be touched. (It's extremely painful to be touched when you are very swollen. - Think of when you have a blister or a boil or an abscess!)
These are all normally considered side-effects of the steroid, but of course they are not. - They are actually side-effects of sudden massive extra fluid retention in the bloodstream and are the result of not being warned to avoid salt and salty food when taking this medication.
Her life had been made hell by the insults she had received at school because of the change in her looks, especially the moonface, and she was very unhappy at the thought of it all happening again. She had found my website and wrote to ask me for further information and help, which of course I gave her.
She is a clever, conscientious girl - and she followed my advice exactly. She read the information I sent, checked out the links, became clued up. - She made soup with fresh vegetables and lentils, her father made her low sodium bolognese, her mum bought her unsalted nuts and stuff for snacks, and so on. - When she was unsure whether a food was safe for her to eat she emailed me to check its sodium concentration.
Well she is now practically recovered from this flare-up and she hasn't gained any weight at all this time - in fact, she's been so rigorous about avoiding sodium that she has actually LOST weight! - I believe that this is so rare as to be actually unique and it proves how important it is to be warned against eating salt while on steroids. I also feel sure that the low sodium intake helped her to get over the flare-up faster.She is very grateful to me and I am so very pleased with her. - She wrote: "Thankyou for your congratulations, you have put a smile on my face."
See Prescribed Drugs that cause Obesity
Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)
These are all normally considered side-effects of the steroid, but of course they are not. - They are actually side-effects of sudden massive extra fluid retention in the bloodstream and are the result of not being warned to avoid salt and salty food when taking this medication.
Her life had been made hell by the insults she had received at school because of the change in her looks, especially the moonface, and she was very unhappy at the thought of it all happening again. She had found my website and wrote to ask me for further information and help, which of course I gave her.
She is a clever, conscientious girl - and she followed my advice exactly. She read the information I sent, checked out the links, became clued up. - She made soup with fresh vegetables and lentils, her father made her low sodium bolognese, her mum bought her unsalted nuts and stuff for snacks, and so on. - When she was unsure whether a food was safe for her to eat she emailed me to check its sodium concentration.
Well she is now practically recovered from this flare-up and she hasn't gained any weight at all this time - in fact, she's been so rigorous about avoiding sodium that she has actually LOST weight! - I believe that this is so rare as to be actually unique and it proves how important it is to be warned against eating salt while on steroids. I also feel sure that the low sodium intake helped her to get over the flare-up faster.She is very grateful to me and I am so very pleased with her. - She wrote: "Thankyou for your congratulations, you have put a smile on my face."
See Prescribed Drugs that cause Obesity
Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)
Thursday, 8 March 2007
Illegal drugs can be harmless, report says. - Britain's drug laws "not fit for purpose"
Illegal drugs can be harmless, report says - Guardian article
Extract:
"Illegal drugs can be "harmless" and should no longer be "demonised", a wide-ranging two-year study concluded today.
The report said Britain's drug laws were "not fit for purpose" and should be torn up in favour of a system which recognised that drinking and smoking could cause more harm.
The RSA Commission on Illegal Drugs ,set up in January 2005, also called for the main focus of drugs education to be shifted from secondary to primary schools and recommended the introduction of so-called "shooting galleries" - rooms where users can inject drugs.
The report, compiled by a panel of academics, politicians, drugs workers, journalists and a senior police officer, also called for the Home Office to be stripped of its lead role in drugs policy.
It recommended the Misuse of Drugs Act be scrapped in favour of a wider-ranging Misuse of Substances Act, and the current ABC classification system be abandoned in favour of an "index of harms"."
Well, it's certainly true about smoking and drinking. But what isn't generally realised is that many prescribed medications are very harmful indeed, often causing serious chronic illnesses, when prescribed inappropriately or in too high a dose or for too long a time or without proper warnings to the patient about possible adverse side-effects. These dangerous prescribed drugs include steroids, e.g. prednisolone, prednisone, HRT and many others. - Always check out the side-effects...
Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)
Extract:
"Illegal drugs can be "harmless" and should no longer be "demonised", a wide-ranging two-year study concluded today.
The report said Britain's drug laws were "not fit for purpose" and should be torn up in favour of a system which recognised that drinking and smoking could cause more harm.
The RSA Commission on Illegal Drugs ,set up in January 2005, also called for the main focus of drugs education to be shifted from secondary to primary schools and recommended the introduction of so-called "shooting galleries" - rooms where users can inject drugs.
The report, compiled by a panel of academics, politicians, drugs workers, journalists and a senior police officer, also called for the Home Office to be stripped of its lead role in drugs policy.
It recommended the Misuse of Drugs Act be scrapped in favour of a wider-ranging Misuse of Substances Act, and the current ABC classification system be abandoned in favour of an "index of harms"."
Well, it's certainly true about smoking and drinking. But what isn't generally realised is that many prescribed medications are very harmful indeed, often causing serious chronic illnesses, when prescribed inappropriately or in too high a dose or for too long a time or without proper warnings to the patient about possible adverse side-effects. These dangerous prescribed drugs include steroids, e.g. prednisolone, prednisone, HRT and many others. - Always check out the side-effects...
Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)
Monday, 5 March 2007
UK's failed drugs policy has to change - article in The Telegraph today.
Our failed drugs policy has to change
Extracts:
"Drugs policy has failed. Do not take my word for it. That was, essentially, the conclusion of the Prime Minister's strategy unit in a report published last year after initially being suppressed. The aim of drugs policy over the past four decades has been to reduce demand and curb supply. It has done neither. Crime associated with drug-taking is as rife as ever. A new way needs to be found."
"Many of the drugs that are illegal do not necessarily cause any greater damage than alcohol or tobacco, both of which when taken to excess are debilitating or lethal. So if drugs cannot be eradicated, then the principal object of public policy, instead of trying to criminalise as many people as possible, should be to discourage their use on health grounds and mitigate the harm they cause. Furthermore, most of us felt, without being excessively libertarian about it, that if people are harming neither themselves nor others, the state has no reason to intervene."
I don't know much about illegal drugs, having had nothing at all to do with them ever. - But I do know that a far greater drugs problem is that of the ever-burgeoning quantities of prescribed drugs, which sometimes are of benefit to the patient but which all too often cause great harm. - The reckless prescribing of steroids and other drugs which cause sodium retention and thereby fluid retention and weight gain, are a major cause of obesity and its attendant host of other illnesses - hypertension, stroke, diabetes, most cancers, etc. Quite apart from all this needless and costly suffering to patients, many of these over-prescribed drugs find their way into the hands of the illegal drug-pushers.
Cavalier prescribing needs to be curbed BY LAW - and doctors who know so little of the side-effects of steroids that they do not warn their patients to avoid eating salt while on the medication should not be allowed to prescribe these powerful, dangerous drugs.
Obesity is NOT caused by overeating. It is caused by fluid retention, frequently because of taking prescribed medications, especially steroids such as prednisolone and HRT, and anti-depressants such as amitriptyline. Obesity can be easily reduced by seriously reducing your salt/sodium intake and eating plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. - It is important not to restrict calories. - 'Slimming' is unnecessary, ineffective and often harmful.
Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)
Extracts:
"Drugs policy has failed. Do not take my word for it. That was, essentially, the conclusion of the Prime Minister's strategy unit in a report published last year after initially being suppressed. The aim of drugs policy over the past four decades has been to reduce demand and curb supply. It has done neither. Crime associated with drug-taking is as rife as ever. A new way needs to be found."
"Many of the drugs that are illegal do not necessarily cause any greater damage than alcohol or tobacco, both of which when taken to excess are debilitating or lethal. So if drugs cannot be eradicated, then the principal object of public policy, instead of trying to criminalise as many people as possible, should be to discourage their use on health grounds and mitigate the harm they cause. Furthermore, most of us felt, without being excessively libertarian about it, that if people are harming neither themselves nor others, the state has no reason to intervene."
I don't know much about illegal drugs, having had nothing at all to do with them ever. - But I do know that a far greater drugs problem is that of the ever-burgeoning quantities of prescribed drugs, which sometimes are of benefit to the patient but which all too often cause great harm. - The reckless prescribing of steroids and other drugs which cause sodium retention and thereby fluid retention and weight gain, are a major cause of obesity and its attendant host of other illnesses - hypertension, stroke, diabetes, most cancers, etc. Quite apart from all this needless and costly suffering to patients, many of these over-prescribed drugs find their way into the hands of the illegal drug-pushers.
Cavalier prescribing needs to be curbed BY LAW - and doctors who know so little of the side-effects of steroids that they do not warn their patients to avoid eating salt while on the medication should not be allowed to prescribe these powerful, dangerous drugs.
Obesity is NOT caused by overeating. It is caused by fluid retention, frequently because of taking prescribed medications, especially steroids such as prednisolone and HRT, and anti-depressants such as amitriptyline. Obesity can be easily reduced by seriously reducing your salt/sodium intake and eating plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. - It is important not to restrict calories. - 'Slimming' is unnecessary, ineffective and often harmful.
Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)
Saturday, 17 February 2007
Chemicals 'could be the cause of obesity' says Prof Frederick vom Saal, of Missouri-Columbia University, after experiments with mice and bisphenol-A
Chemicals 'could be the cause of obesity' says Prof Frederick vom Saal, of Missouri-Columbia University, after experiments with mice and bisphenol-A
Extract:
"He told the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco: "If you look at the increase in the incidence of obesity and the increase in man-made chemicals that have these kind of endocrine disrupting effects they absolutely parallel each other."
"At high doses, the chemical, used in CD cases, mobile phones, sunglasses and babies' bottles, can interfere with hormone balance. Campaigners have called for it to banned and linked it to several diseases, including breast cancer and diabetes."
The chemicals that are most likely to result in obesity are prednisolone and other medically prescribed steroids, HRT, amitriptyline and some other anti-depressants, and certain other drugs, often prescribed inappropriately and in high dose, often for too long a time, by physicians with inadequate knowledge of the potential adverse side-effects of the drugs. These doctors frequently fail to monitor the progress of these patients adequately or even at all! - And most crucially they fail to give the patient the VITALLY important information that these drugs tend to cause sodium and water retention leading to extreme salt sensitivity and morbid obesity, and so while taking the drugs no salt or salty food should be eaten.
Obesity is not caused by eating too much. - It is usually caused/initiated by salt sensitivity and fluid retention, and is best reduced by abandoning the calorie myth and concentrating on cutting down on salt/sodium intake and eating plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables.
Dieting is potentially harmful. Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)
Extract:
"He told the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco: "If you look at the increase in the incidence of obesity and the increase in man-made chemicals that have these kind of endocrine disrupting effects they absolutely parallel each other."
"At high doses, the chemical, used in CD cases, mobile phones, sunglasses and babies' bottles, can interfere with hormone balance. Campaigners have called for it to banned and linked it to several diseases, including breast cancer and diabetes."
The chemicals that are most likely to result in obesity are prednisolone and other medically prescribed steroids, HRT, amitriptyline and some other anti-depressants, and certain other drugs, often prescribed inappropriately and in high dose, often for too long a time, by physicians with inadequate knowledge of the potential adverse side-effects of the drugs. These doctors frequently fail to monitor the progress of these patients adequately or even at all! - And most crucially they fail to give the patient the VITALLY important information that these drugs tend to cause sodium and water retention leading to extreme salt sensitivity and morbid obesity, and so while taking the drugs no salt or salty food should be eaten.
Obesity is not caused by eating too much. - It is usually caused/initiated by salt sensitivity and fluid retention, and is best reduced by abandoning the calorie myth and concentrating on cutting down on salt/sodium intake and eating plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables.
Dieting is potentially harmful. Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)
Monday, 4 December 2006
"Pfizer suffers lethal blow to $800m 'wonder drug' trials"
Pfizer suffers lethal blow to $800m 'wonder drug' trials
Extract from the article:
"Pfizer has been forced to abruptly scrap trials of its most important new drug because too many patients taking it were dying.
Shares in the world's largest drug company plunged more than 10pc in early trading, following the news that patients in clinical trials taking Torcetrapib were more likely to die or develop serious heart problems than those taking other medicines."
Sadly, there are other drugs made by Pfizer, that do great damage to patients, but are not withdrawn and are far too often inappropriately prescribed. I am thinking in particular of prednisolone, a corticosteroid. Like other corticosteroids and like HRT, it can, and frequently does, cause sodium retention and water retention, and many, many thousands - possibly millions - of innocent patients have been harmed by taking such medications without appropriate monitoring and often in far too high a dose and for too long a period of time. The blame for this does not lie wholly the drug companies, of course. - Negligent doctors who do not check/understand the side-effects of drugs and do not monitor patients' progress while taking the medication share the responsibility for the harm done to their patients. - See Many doctors are failing their patients when they prescribe drugs.
For further information about this, read examples of steroid victims and some of my other blog entries. Also see my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Extract from the article:
"Pfizer has been forced to abruptly scrap trials of its most important new drug because too many patients taking it were dying.
Shares in the world's largest drug company plunged more than 10pc in early trading, following the news that patients in clinical trials taking Torcetrapib were more likely to die or develop serious heart problems than those taking other medicines."
Sadly, there are other drugs made by Pfizer, that do great damage to patients, but are not withdrawn and are far too often inappropriately prescribed. I am thinking in particular of prednisolone, a corticosteroid. Like other corticosteroids and like HRT, it can, and frequently does, cause sodium retention and water retention, and many, many thousands - possibly millions - of innocent patients have been harmed by taking such medications without appropriate monitoring and often in far too high a dose and for too long a period of time. The blame for this does not lie wholly the drug companies, of course. - Negligent doctors who do not check/understand the side-effects of drugs and do not monitor patients' progress while taking the medication share the responsibility for the harm done to their patients. - See Many doctors are failing their patients when they prescribe drugs.
For further information about this, read examples of steroid victims and some of my other blog entries. Also see my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Sunday, 26 November 2006
Examples of Steroid Victims - Example Number 4 - Jerry Lewis
Examples of Steroid Victims - Example Number 4 - Jerry Lewis
Comedian Has Stopped Taking Steroids That Added To His Weight
It's weird, isn't it? - and shocking - that even famous people like Jerry Lewis are not told that when taking prednisolone (prescribed to Jerry Lewis for pulmonary fibrosis) it is dangerous to eat salt or food containing salt. - This is because prednisolone, and many other drugs, cause sodium retention and water retention, and therefore weight gain and often morbid obesity, because of massive fluid retention.
The mechanism for this is that the muscles in the walls of the blood vessels are 'relaxed' by the drugs. - Sodium from ingested salt goes into the blood stream, along with the water it attracts to itself. - Normally any excess sodium and water then leave the bloodstream via the kidneys and the bladder and are excreted in the urine. - But when the blood vessels are relaxed they cannot withstand the incursions of any excess sodium. So the sodium and its accompanying water dilate the blood vessels, which become weakened and overstretched and the walls become thinner. - The blood becomes diluted by the added salt and water. - And the person becomes heavier - obviously. - Water is heavy...)o:
Now that I have explained this, you can see that the obesity caused cannot be addressed or lessened by eating fewer calories or taking vigorous exercise. - The problem is sodium and water, not fat. - How then to reduce the overweight?
Well, reducing the dose of the drugs can lessen the relaxation of the blood vessel walls and so they become less dilated and some of the excess fluid leaves the blood stream and is excreted. - This is obviously the main reason Jerry Lewis was able to lose 58 pounds of the weight gain. And the changes he has made to his diet may very well have included reducing his salt/sodium intake and this also would result in some of the excess water being shed from his bloodstream.
But the blood vessels almost certainly will have been permanently weakened by having been overstretched for so long. And his skin also will have been weakened and overstretched, probably permanently, by the excess water he has been carrying in his body since starting to take the steroids. ~It is unlikely that whatever he does now he will ever return to his former weight. He will always be overweight and carrying excess water in his bloodstream, and he also really needs to minimise his sodium intake for the rest of his life. He will always now be what is called 'sensitive to salt'.
All of this steroid-induced obesity and its attendant ill-health like hypertension and breathlessness could have been AVOIDED ENTIRELY if, when he was given the prescription, he had been told that the drugs cause sodium retention and consequent water retention and that therefore while taking the drugs he needed to avoid eating any salt or food containing any salt at all - because his kidneys would not excrete it as formerly they had.
I suspect that Elvis Presley probably had the same misfortune - drug prescriptions of powerful steroid-type drugs without the vital warning not to eat salt or food containing salt while taking the medication.
You can look up the side-effects in medical reference books and see for yourself that prednisolone causes sodium and water retention. - Why don't doctors bother to do this? - Why don't they get struck off for not doing it? - Why are they allowed to prescribe dangerous drugs without giving necessary information and warnings?
You can read more about obesity and the salt connection on my website. - Try my Mensa article!
Lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! -
How to Lose weight!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)
Comedian Has Stopped Taking Steroids That Added To His Weight
It's weird, isn't it? - and shocking - that even famous people like Jerry Lewis are not told that when taking prednisolone (prescribed to Jerry Lewis for pulmonary fibrosis) it is dangerous to eat salt or food containing salt. - This is because prednisolone, and many other drugs, cause sodium retention and water retention, and therefore weight gain and often morbid obesity, because of massive fluid retention.
The mechanism for this is that the muscles in the walls of the blood vessels are 'relaxed' by the drugs. - Sodium from ingested salt goes into the blood stream, along with the water it attracts to itself. - Normally any excess sodium and water then leave the bloodstream via the kidneys and the bladder and are excreted in the urine. - But when the blood vessels are relaxed they cannot withstand the incursions of any excess sodium. So the sodium and its accompanying water dilate the blood vessels, which become weakened and overstretched and the walls become thinner. - The blood becomes diluted by the added salt and water. - And the person becomes heavier - obviously. - Water is heavy...)o:
Now that I have explained this, you can see that the obesity caused cannot be addressed or lessened by eating fewer calories or taking vigorous exercise. - The problem is sodium and water, not fat. - How then to reduce the overweight?
Well, reducing the dose of the drugs can lessen the relaxation of the blood vessel walls and so they become less dilated and some of the excess fluid leaves the blood stream and is excreted. - This is obviously the main reason Jerry Lewis was able to lose 58 pounds of the weight gain. And the changes he has made to his diet may very well have included reducing his salt/sodium intake and this also would result in some of the excess water being shed from his bloodstream.
But the blood vessels almost certainly will have been permanently weakened by having been overstretched for so long. And his skin also will have been weakened and overstretched, probably permanently, by the excess water he has been carrying in his body since starting to take the steroids. ~It is unlikely that whatever he does now he will ever return to his former weight. He will always be overweight and carrying excess water in his bloodstream, and he also really needs to minimise his sodium intake for the rest of his life. He will always now be what is called 'sensitive to salt'.
All of this steroid-induced obesity and its attendant ill-health like hypertension and breathlessness could have been AVOIDED ENTIRELY if, when he was given the prescription, he had been told that the drugs cause sodium retention and consequent water retention and that therefore while taking the drugs he needed to avoid eating any salt or food containing any salt at all - because his kidneys would not excrete it as formerly they had.
I suspect that Elvis Presley probably had the same misfortune - drug prescriptions of powerful steroid-type drugs without the vital warning not to eat salt or food containing salt while taking the medication.
You can look up the side-effects in medical reference books and see for yourself that prednisolone causes sodium and water retention. - Why don't doctors bother to do this? - Why don't they get struck off for not doing it? - Why are they allowed to prescribe dangerous drugs without giving necessary information and warnings?
You can read more about obesity and the salt connection on my website. - Try my Mensa article!
Lose weight and benefit your health in countless other ways by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! -
How to Lose weight!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)
Wednesday, 22 November 2006
Examples of Steroid Victims in the UK - Example Number 2.
Examples of Steroid Victims in the UK - Example Number 2.
A young woman, 'Dee', was brought to see me in 2000 by Marion, a friend of mine, who recognised Dee’s weight gain as similar to what mine had been.
'Dee' is less than 5 feet tall and she had always weighed 7 and a half stone (105 pounds). She told me that on Feb 1st 1999 a professor in the eye dept at one of our local teaching hospitals had put her on to 22x5mg prednisolone tablets a day for an eye problem. (Prednisolone is one of the steroids that cause sodium and water retention and it should not be prescribed without a warning about this, and the advice to minimise sodium intake while taking the medication. 'Dee' had not been given this information ot advice.) Such a high initial dose beggars belief! After 3 months on this daily dose her weight had increased by 3 stone – 40% of her body weight!!! – and like me she had stretch marks because of so rapid an increase in weight. She had been reduced to eating only one meal a day in an effort - unsuccessful - to lose weight.
When she told the professor of the weight gain and of the pain she was experiencing, his response was to look away and say something like, ‘It’s funny how women are always complaining of pain.’ - It’s not funny, actually...)o: - It’s disgraceful that women patients are treated in this way... - It is a typical example of medical sexism, to which I have referred in a previous entry in this blog. - Medical sexism is extremely damaging to women patients and it is extremely common in Britain...
After that first 3 months the tablets she had been prescribed were gradually reduced in number to one a day, which she was taking when I met her. But the reduction had not brought about any loss of weight. - The damage had been done. Fortunately Marion and I were able to tell her about salt sensitivity. - We spent 2 hours telling her. We had also to overcome the idea that fat/calories have to be reduced in order to lose weight.
Some months later 'Dee' rang me to tell me delightedly that she had lost a lot of weight by following my advice about reducing salt/sodium intake. In clothes, at any rate, she looked normal again. But of course the terrible stretch marks remain, and so does the pain, though it is less.
If you too are a steroid victim, have a look at my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ and then look at some of the other pages, especially the steroids page.
You will find that the best, the safest, the fastest, the most reliable way to lose weight is to eat less salt and forget about reducing calories or struggling to do exercise when you are too fat to be comfortable doing it. - You will feel SO MUCH BETTER! - Overeating and lack of exercise are NOT what caused your obesity.
Good luck!
A young woman, 'Dee', was brought to see me in 2000 by Marion, a friend of mine, who recognised Dee’s weight gain as similar to what mine had been.
'Dee' is less than 5 feet tall and she had always weighed 7 and a half stone (105 pounds). She told me that on Feb 1st 1999 a professor in the eye dept at one of our local teaching hospitals had put her on to 22x5mg prednisolone tablets a day for an eye problem. (Prednisolone is one of the steroids that cause sodium and water retention and it should not be prescribed without a warning about this, and the advice to minimise sodium intake while taking the medication. 'Dee' had not been given this information ot advice.) Such a high initial dose beggars belief! After 3 months on this daily dose her weight had increased by 3 stone – 40% of her body weight!!! – and like me she had stretch marks because of so rapid an increase in weight. She had been reduced to eating only one meal a day in an effort - unsuccessful - to lose weight.
When she told the professor of the weight gain and of the pain she was experiencing, his response was to look away and say something like, ‘It’s funny how women are always complaining of pain.’ - It’s not funny, actually...)o: - It’s disgraceful that women patients are treated in this way... - It is a typical example of medical sexism, to which I have referred in a previous entry in this blog. - Medical sexism is extremely damaging to women patients and it is extremely common in Britain...
After that first 3 months the tablets she had been prescribed were gradually reduced in number to one a day, which she was taking when I met her. But the reduction had not brought about any loss of weight. - The damage had been done. Fortunately Marion and I were able to tell her about salt sensitivity. - We spent 2 hours telling her. We had also to overcome the idea that fat/calories have to be reduced in order to lose weight.
Some months later 'Dee' rang me to tell me delightedly that she had lost a lot of weight by following my advice about reducing salt/sodium intake. In clothes, at any rate, she looked normal again. But of course the terrible stretch marks remain, and so does the pain, though it is less.
If you too are a steroid victim, have a look at my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ and then look at some of the other pages, especially the steroids page.
You will find that the best, the safest, the fastest, the most reliable way to lose weight is to eat less salt and forget about reducing calories or struggling to do exercise when you are too fat to be comfortable doing it. - You will feel SO MUCH BETTER! - Overeating and lack of exercise are NOT what caused your obesity.
Good luck!
Thursday, 28 September 2006
Many doctors are failing their patients when they prescribe drugs.
Many doctors are failing their patients when they prescribe drugs. - Here is a report I read the other day: Doctors 'failing patients' over prescriptions from Netdoctor.co.uk
and here are extracts from it:
"The study's authors, from the University of California, Los Angeles (Ucla), say that taking prescriptions as they are intended is "essential in ensuring their effectiveness".
If individual drug specifications are not followed then the patient in question could suffer from a worsening of the disease, a failure of treatment, a range of adverse side-effects and a potential overdose, the research team write.
...only one-third discussed potential side effects and about half explained how many doses should be taken and how often."
This, of course, is an American report. I live in England. I doubt that research such as this would be conducted in England, where the cover-up culture with regard to poor medical practice has a long and ignoble tradition. But I am confident that the medical negligence that fails to give, along with the prescription for a drug, necessary information about the drug and how it should be taken and what its possible side-effects are, is at least as prevalent in Britain as in the States. - And to the best of my knowledge - and that is informed knowledge, because I write as a steroid victim - doctors in Britain never warn their patients that when taking prescribed steroids like prednisone or HRT, or prescribed antidepressants like amitriptyline, or quite a lot of other drugs, they should not eat salt or food containing salt, because these drugs potentially cause severe sodium retention and consequent water retention, followed by massive obesity.
An example of a patient damaged in this way is Jerry Lewis, who became severely obese because of taking prednisone. - He clearly was not warned of the harm that eating salty food while taking the prednisone would cause him. I read today that he has lost a lot of the weight he gained because he has come off the prednisone. - He would not have gained the weight if he had avoided sodium while taking he drug. - If even famous, wealthy people like Jerry Lewis are not told of the dangers of combining prescribed steroids and salty food intake, then it is highly unlikely that 'ordinary' people ever get the necessary warning. - I regard this as criminal negligence on the part of medical practitioners. - If this failure to inform were to be punished with severe sanctions doctors would give the information. - Though goodness knows they should give it anyway! - What good does it do to turn patients into steroid victims, with a host of attendant morbidity and unhappiness and a shortened lifespan?
See helpful advice and information for steroid victims.
and here are extracts from it:
"The study's authors, from the University of California, Los Angeles (Ucla), say that taking prescriptions as they are intended is "essential in ensuring their effectiveness".
If individual drug specifications are not followed then the patient in question could suffer from a worsening of the disease, a failure of treatment, a range of adverse side-effects and a potential overdose, the research team write.
...only one-third discussed potential side effects and about half explained how many doses should be taken and how often."
This, of course, is an American report. I live in England. I doubt that research such as this would be conducted in England, where the cover-up culture with regard to poor medical practice has a long and ignoble tradition. But I am confident that the medical negligence that fails to give, along with the prescription for a drug, necessary information about the drug and how it should be taken and what its possible side-effects are, is at least as prevalent in Britain as in the States. - And to the best of my knowledge - and that is informed knowledge, because I write as a steroid victim - doctors in Britain never warn their patients that when taking prescribed steroids like prednisone or HRT, or prescribed antidepressants like amitriptyline, or quite a lot of other drugs, they should not eat salt or food containing salt, because these drugs potentially cause severe sodium retention and consequent water retention, followed by massive obesity.
An example of a patient damaged in this way is Jerry Lewis, who became severely obese because of taking prednisone. - He clearly was not warned of the harm that eating salty food while taking the prednisone would cause him. I read today that he has lost a lot of the weight he gained because he has come off the prednisone. - He would not have gained the weight if he had avoided sodium while taking he drug. - If even famous, wealthy people like Jerry Lewis are not told of the dangers of combining prescribed steroids and salty food intake, then it is highly unlikely that 'ordinary' people ever get the necessary warning. - I regard this as criminal negligence on the part of medical practitioners. - If this failure to inform were to be punished with severe sanctions doctors would give the information. - Though goodness knows they should give it anyway! - What good does it do to turn patients into steroid victims, with a host of attendant morbidity and unhappiness and a shortened lifespan?
See helpful advice and information for steroid victims.
Friday, 1 September 2006
Morbid Obesity - You could find it helpful to eat less salt.
Are you morbidly obese? - You have my great sympathy; I am so sorry that you have this affliction. I hope this blog entry will help you.
No doubt many people have added to the many difficulties of your life by blaming you for your condition. - How wrong they are!
Unless you ate a great deal of salt or salty food when you were a small child or you have the great misfortune to be a sufferer from Cushing's Disease, or some other rare disease which causes great obesity, then the most likely responsibility for your obesity lies with prescribed steroids, like prednisolone, or prescribed HRT or certain other prescribed drugs, possibly prescribed in too high a dose and possibly prescribed for too long a time and almost certainly inadequately monitored by the prescriber. - And I'll bet you were not warned that these drugs commonly cause sodium and water retention (the cause of your overweight) and that while taking them you should not eat salt or food containing salt, were you?
Your excess weight is largely water (extra water in your bloodstream) and is definitely NOT caused by eating too much. But you obviously need more food than slim people, because you have more weight to carry round all the time. - Don't let anyone stop you eating when you are hungry! - You need that food and those calories.
Have a look at my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ and then look at some of the other pages, especially the steroids page.
You will find that the best, the safest, the fastest, the most reliable way to lose weight is to eat less salt and forget about reducing calories or struggling to do exercise when you are too fat to be comfortable doing it. - You will feel SO MUCH BETTER! - Overeating and lack of exercise are NOT what caused your obesity.
Good luck!
No doubt many people have added to the many difficulties of your life by blaming you for your condition. - How wrong they are!
Unless you ate a great deal of salt or salty food when you were a small child or you have the great misfortune to be a sufferer from Cushing's Disease, or some other rare disease which causes great obesity, then the most likely responsibility for your obesity lies with prescribed steroids, like prednisolone, or prescribed HRT or certain other prescribed drugs, possibly prescribed in too high a dose and possibly prescribed for too long a time and almost certainly inadequately monitored by the prescriber. - And I'll bet you were not warned that these drugs commonly cause sodium and water retention (the cause of your overweight) and that while taking them you should not eat salt or food containing salt, were you?
Your excess weight is largely water (extra water in your bloodstream) and is definitely NOT caused by eating too much. But you obviously need more food than slim people, because you have more weight to carry round all the time. - Don't let anyone stop you eating when you are hungry! - You need that food and those calories.
Have a look at my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ and then look at some of the other pages, especially the steroids page.
You will find that the best, the safest, the fastest, the most reliable way to lose weight is to eat less salt and forget about reducing calories or struggling to do exercise when you are too fat to be comfortable doing it. - You will feel SO MUCH BETTER! - Overeating and lack of exercise are NOT what caused your obesity.
Good luck!
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