I went for an eye test today and was told I now have tiny cataracts

I went for my biennial eye test today and was informed that I don't need new glasses but that I now have a tiny cataract in each eye. Cataracts are one of the many adverse side-effects that can result from taking prescribed steroids. I am a steroid victim and I am confident that the steroid medication I took for many years is the main reason I now have these very small cataracts. 

I'm not at all worried about this development because I am confident that my long avoidance of added salt and salty food, and my present low carbohydrate/high fat way of eating (sometimes called a ketogenic diet) will greatly reduce the likelihood of the cataracts growing to become big problems.

Update: 5th July 2014. Sadly I was mistaken in what I stated in my second paragraph. My confidence was misplaced. The cataracts are now much bigger and are making it much more difficult for me to see clearly. The optometrist told me yesterday that they will inevitably continue to grow.

Are you overweight and apple-shaped? You could reduce this problem by reducing salt intake.

Are you overweight and apple-shaped? You could reduce the problem by cutting down on salt and salty food. Everyone who is overweight has a higher than normal blood volume because of excess water/fluid retention, and would benefit from eating less salt/sodium. 

(Steroid victims in particular are at risk of huge weight gain and the dangerous condition of being obese and apple-shaped, because they are so seldom informed that they need seriously to reduce their salt intake while taking the steroid meds.)

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, angina, 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!

You and Yours discussed organ donation and whether the system should be changed so that more organs would be available for donation

Radio 4's You and Yours discussed organ donation and whether the system should be changed so that more organs would be available for donation.They asked "Should everyone be forced to donate their organs?" Personally I'm not in favour of changing the opt-in system to an opt-out.

There were some moving contributions from listeners who had experiences both good and bad in the matter of organ donation. And there was mention of some donated organs being, in effect, wasted on recipients who, for example, continued drinking too much alcohol, like George Best, and damaged the donated organ.

There was no mention of the doctors who waste donated organs. Here is an example I blogged about in 2006: "Michael had had damaged kidneys and had patiently lived on a very low salt diet for years while waiting for a new kidney. Then he was overjoyed at last to receive a new kidney. The doctors in the hospital told him it would now be OK for him to eat an ordinary diet, not salt-restricted. And so while still in the hospital he was given an ordinary diet. At the same time they put him onto steroids. The consequences have been dire. He put on a lot of weight and his new kidney now has impaired function. He said to me that he would never go to a doctor again in his life - that he would rather die than have any further contact with doctors. I believe that there are many damaged people who would rather die than have further contact with doctors...)o:" For details of the harm done by eating salty food while taking steroids, see Steroids Cause Salt Sensitivity.

A Steroid (Hydrocortisone) Victim wrote to me a few weeks ago

A Steroid (Hydrocortisone) Victim wrote to me a few weeks ago. This is what she wrote (omitting her name and location):

" In August of 2010 I had a brain tumor removed. I am doing well from a neurological standpoint, however the tumor was sitting on my pituitary gland so I developed hypothyroidism and Central Diabetes Insipidis (also known as "water diabetes"). And of course I was put on a steroid- Hydrocortisone- which is what brought me to your website.

I started the hydrocortisone August 26, 2010 and took it until May 5, 2011, so a little over 8 months. And in that time period I gained a total of 153 lbs. I have always been overweight, and then it was like adding the equivalent of an adult to my weight...in a very short time. All of my Dr.s (I had a total of 3- endocrinologist, neurologist, primary physician) all told me the weight would come off once I was off the steroid, and none suggested reducing sodium/salt intake. But the weight did not come off at all. Finally in July, my endocrinologist did suggest reducing my salt intake and also seeing a medical weight loss clinic. From July 22nd to August 25th I lost 10 lbs. But then the Dr. at the clinic cut my calories back and put me on a low calorie diet (1400 to 1600 calories a day) because "I clearly had an increased appetite" (this is the opinion of most drs that I see, due to my size. They usually form this opinion without having asked me what I eat. I do not eat any more than my healthy, 160 lb mother.) I gained the 10 lbs I had lost back, and was becoming so very frustrated with myself, my weight, and with Doctors.

I was so happy when I found your website today. It all made so much sense and it was so nice to read your story and know that someone has gone through what I am going through. Taking an hour to read your website has given me so much more hope than talking to any doctor over the last few months. I am going to try the sodium reduction again, now that I know it can work and I have the confidence that my problem is indeed not my caloric or fat intake, but my salt intake. I am only 21 years old and feel like I am missing out on so much, I use to be so active and outgoing before my surgery, but now I have no ability to do things people my age do or I am embarrassed by my size, but you have given me new hope at a chance to get my old self back.

Thank you for sharing your story and putting so much work into researching and finding the answer."

Prescribed steroids are dangerous. Most doctors do not appreciate how dangerous they are.

Read here about the permanent and terrible harm, including death, some people have suffered from taking steroids prescribed by their doctor. And read here about how to lessen that harm if you are a steroid victim trying to cope with living the shattered life that prescribed steroids have left you with. If you are a parent, be aware that steroids are particularly harmful to children.

If steroids HAVE to be taken, make sure they are taken in the lowest effective dose and for the shortest necessary time. And insist on careful monitoring. And check out side-effects, etc on reference pages on the internet. Avoid eating salt or food containing added salt while taking steroid medication. - COMPLETELY.

Steroid victims say GPs gave no warning: archived article from 1995

Very occasionally, I come across sad evidence of the long, long years prescribed steroids have been harming patients, and the comprehensive lack of any effective measures being taken to STOP doctors catastrophically harming their patients. I came across one yesterday.

In this archived article from The Herald, Scotland, we read:

"HUNDREDS of Scots suffering from the side-effects of steroids have claimed they were never warned by their GPs about the drug's dangers.

They claim steroids have caused them to endure crippling illnesses like the bone-crumbling disease osteoporosis, as well as angina, diabetes, cataracts, weight gains, and skin disorders."

In 2011, this is still the situation. The medical profession's ignorance/negligence in the matter of prescribing powerful, potentially harmful/dangerous drugs, including steroids, but many other classes of prescribed drugs too - antidepressants, antipsychotics, anti-epileptics, and more - is staggering and scandalous.

If you are a steroid victim, or know someone who is a steroid victim, or victim of some other prescribed drug, there is helpful information on these pages:

• Steroids and HRT

• Amitriptyline and other antidepressants
  

Spray-on skin for burns victims: would it work for steroid victims too?

Spray-on skin for burns victims, is reported in the Telegraph: "The spray-gun which fires stem cells on to the damaged skin has already been used successfully on a dozen patients."
I wonder if it would it work for steroid victims too? The skin of steroid victims, and also the skin of victims of other prescription-drug-induced morbid obesity, becomes very thin, painful and delicate. Sometimes, for instance, the skin at their elbows completely disappears and the elbow actually pokes through! - Just try to imagine how painful that would be - and how vulnerable to infection! - Especially as most doctors are disgracefully ill-informed about drug-induced morbid obesity.

While at my computer desk the other evening...

The other evening I was sitting at my computer desk, holding a printed sheet to which I was referring, when the piece of paper slid from my hand, ending up on the floor under the desk, next to the wall. In the way that one does, I bent down, still sitting at the desk, stretching, stretching, stretching my arm - too far, unfortunately, and I slipped from my chair, landing painfully and awkwardly on my hands and knees on the floor. - That was fun! - As a steroid victim I have painfully thin skin and painfully delicate, swollen veins, and to get up I needed to put extra pressure on my poor painful knees and to supplement this with pressure exerted by my even more painful, delicate hands, one pushing down on the seat of the chair and one pushing down on the top of the desk, if I remember correctly. - But it was much too painful to do this...)o: - And it was also much too painful not to do it...)o: - I couldn't stay crouched like that all night, damaging the delicate skin and veins more and more.

There was a soft cushion on the floor on which I tend to place my swollen, painful feet and I struggled to pull it toward my knees so that I could put my knees on it and thereby reduce the pressure on them. Then with determination I forced myself to get up from the floor, disregarding the agony for my knees and hands. - I was exhausted. But what a relief to be up!

One good thing though was that there was no-one with me grabbing hold of my desperately painful arm, determined to 'help' me by pulling at it!!! - Ooh no, please! - Don't grab someone's arm! You stop them from being able to use that arm/hand to help themselves. - Check with them first - ask them - if they would like you to pull their arm, and don't be offended if they say no! - I think you will find that they would be delighted to accept your kind offer of help - but by you offering your arm for them to grasp and pull on to help themselves up. - Offer your strong arm; don't grab and squeeze their delicate one. - Well done! Thank you for your help!

Steroid Victim Campaigners: Babs Diplock and Janice Fairbridge - How Eagerly MPs Strove to Help Them!

You've got to be joking! Read this archived article from The Northern Echo of 1 December 2003 and see how these two very ill, very courageous women got precious little help from MPs in trying to prevent other people from suffering as they had done, from the many appalling side-effects of prescribed steroids.

I've experienced the same kind of 'help' from the dozens of MPs to whom I've written on the subject, e.g. a pre-printed House of Commons postcard dated 18 July 01, which says:

The Rt. Hon. Menzies Campbell Q.C. MP
acknowledges with thanks the receipt of your communication of the
July 2001
the contents of which have been noted.

Well that was a ton of help! - MPs of all three main parties were similarly useless, though I remember there were some kind hand-written words from Charles Kennedy and from Boris Johnson, both of whom had realised that I was a human being.

Innocent British citizens are still being transformed into steroid victims in their thousands every year, even though I have informed MPs, journalists, broadcasters, doctors, etc precisely how to prevent this, but nobody does a damn thing about it, and most sufferers from drug-induced morbid obesity and its attendant host of chronic illnesses and disabilities are treated very poorly indeed by health professionals who are scandalously ill-informed about these matters and routinely add to the problems and suffering of the victims.

I urge you to read http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page. And if you are intending to vote in the forthcoming election you may like to think about how/whether your favoured candidate/party would act to put an end to this wholly unnecessary suffering. My MP, Nick Clegg, has done nothing effective about the matter as yet, though I have written to him many times about it.

See also prescribed steroids and HRT

Elvis Presley, Jerry Lewis, Mo Mowlam, Dame Muriel Spark. - What is the connection?

Elvis Presley, Jerry Lewis, Mo Mowlam, Dame Muriel Spark. - What is the connection? - They all gained a great deal of weight and became bloated as a result of taking prescribed drugs, and none of them was warned that while taking those drugs they should have avoided salt/sodium and salty food as far as they could. The weight gain is called 'drug-induced obesity'.

See Jerry Lewis

Dr Mo Mowlam

Dame Muriel Spark

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

Sodium in foods

Lose weight

Prison food is better than food in NHS hospitals

Prison food is better than the food in NHS hospitals, as the BBC reports here. I don't think many hospital patients will be surprised at this research finding by Bournemouth University academics. Many patients get their families to take in food for them as they are not keen on the hospital meals.

I was particularly interested to read that prison food is lower in salt than hospital food. When I spent an appalling month in the Northern General Hospital in 2007 I was shocked at how high in salt the meals were, when you consider that the health service is continually exhorting the public to eat less salt. In addition to the meals being so high in salt (e.g. a ham sandwich: both ham and bread are high in salt and the butter was also salted), tiny individual packets of salt were given out routinely with every meal. You would never guess from those hospital meals that the government and their agencies have a policy aimed at lowering the average consumption of salt. - Policy and practice are not going hand in hand.

As a steroid victim I am extremely sensitive to salt and need to avoid it much more assiduously than most people. Incredibly, only one of the many doctors I encountered in the hospital knew that steroid victims needed to eat food with no added salt, and it proved impossible in practice for me to have meals with no added salt, very largely because of the unhelpfulness of the chief dietician, who persisted in claiming, falsely, that the meals provided were low in salt. Since it is harmful and dangerous for me to eat salty food, and as I had no family to visit and bring me suitable food, I was unable to eat much apart from breakfast, when I was able to choose porridge, a food that does not contain added salt.

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 damage 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

Vulnerable groups

Sodium in foods

Do you have Cushing Features/Cushing's Syndrome and wonder if there is anything you can do about it?

Do you have Cushing Features/Cushing's Syndrome and wonder if there is anything you can do about it? - There is!

You cannot cure the Cushing problems, but you can certainly reduce them. If you seriously cut down on salt and salty food - permanently - and if you also try to eat plenty of fruit and unsalted vegetables, and if you completely abandon dieting and going hungry and counting calories, you can reduce those Cushing features, lose some of your excess weight, look more like your old self and have lots more energy.

I'm editing this post to make clear that I am not talking about Cushing's Disease, that is why I did not use the term Cushing's Disease in the title of this blog entry. Cushing's Disease is not caused by prescription drugs.

I should have made clear that I am talking only about Drug-induced Cushing's Syndrome, best known of which is Steroid-induced Cushing's Syndrome. i.e. a syndrome caused by taking drugs such as inappropriately-prescribed corticosteroids or certain other classes of prescription drugs. I myself developed Steroid-induced Cushing's many years ago.

People who become morbidly obese in this way, with a host of associated health problems like high blood pressure, thin skin, moonface, enlarged heart, etc. are often described as 'steroid victims'. There are millions of them the world over, wherever these pharmaceutical drugs are prescribed.

Two of the many side-effects of the medication are sodium and water retention and these lead on directly to many of the other problems, for example, the high blood pressure.

I had been on the steroids for nearly ten years unfortunately before I found out by chance about the role of salt in Drug-induced Cushing's. I lost 51 pounds weight by strict sodium reduction, and the other side-effects of the drugs were similarly reduced. For example the high blood pressure returned to normal.

I created my website and my blog to save other people from needless suffering. See my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Drug-induced Cushing's sufferers lose weight easily by following my sodium reduction advice, e.g. Tara and 'Dee'. See Tara and her problems with prednisolone
and see 'Dee' and her massive weight gain and stretch marks from being prescribed prednisolone in too high dosage

My apologies to people who have actual Cushing's Disease, which is much more complicated than Drug-induced Cushing's Syndrome. I was not writing about Cushing's Disease.

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.

And see Sodium in foods

prescribed steroids and HRT

amitriptyline

I am not myself in favour of the usual sort of animal research that is done "to make medical progress".

I was interested in this letter, which appears on the Letters Page of the online Telegraph today. I hope it is OK to reproduce it here.

Animal research

Sir - You quoted me saying that Oxford University will be glad if and when animal research becomes unnecessary. This is true. However, as I went on to explain, that day has not yet arrived. There is scientific consensus worldwide that some animal research is needed to make medical progress.

Those who believe scientists are unwilling to move away from animal use because of inertia or lazy thinking are misguided. There is every incentive - legal, moral and financial - to find other ways to answer research questions.

Animals are used only where no other research technique is possible.

Professor Rodney Phillips, University of Oxford

I am not myself in favour of the usual sort of animal research that is done "to make medical progress", especially when the "medical progress" is for the supposed benefit of people, rather than animals themselves, and often entails a lot of suffering for the hapless animals that are the subjects of the research. I believe this suffering cannot be morally justified. And there have been plenty of instances of drug companies suppressing evidence they don't want us to know. - Have a look at some of the evidence:

The news that antidepressants in actual fact don't work better than sugar pills and increase the risk of suicide has filled major media during the past year. Psychiatrists, Big Pharma and medical agencies, responsible for distorting the facts for many years, are now working hard to save profits and careers, says Swedish independent investigator and reporter Janne Larsson.
Read article on Sepp Hasslberger's Health Supreme website

Tricyclic antidepressants, e.g. amitriptyline, also known as Elavil, Tryptanol, Endep, Elatrol, Tryptizol, Trepiline, Laroxyl, also cause weight gain/fluid retention and are therefore a common cause of obesity, a very serious illness. Likewise several steroids and HRT - See prescribed steroids and HRT and amitriptyline

Glaxo 'downplayed' warning on heart-attack risk from Aids drug

GlaxoSmithKline and one of its key executives are facing possible manslaughter charges re. side-effects of an anti-Hepatitis "B" vaccine

US VACCINE MAKER TARGET OF HOMOCIDE INVESTIGATION
In a criminal case guaranteed to send shockwaves throughout the international pharmaceutical industry, French authorities are targeting a US-based drug company and its executives in a homicide investigation. The multi-billion dollar corporation GlaxoSmithKline and one of its key executives are facing possible manslaughter charges stemming from allegations that the company failed to fully disclose side effects from an anti-Hepatitis "B" vaccine distributed between 1994 and 1998. Also being investigated is the French-based drug company Sanofi Pasteur, which also sold doses of the Hepatitis "B" vaccine, according to French news sources
Read article at newswithviews.com

Drugs 'of no benefit' to hyperactive children

Scale of pharma payments to med schools revealed

It seems to me that the research is not actually done to benefit the health of people who are ill, but to benefit the profits of the drug companies, because most animal research seems to be testing new drugs or drug variations, and there is a lot of evidence that the drug companies cannot be trusted about the truthfulness of the research findings they disclose, e.g. Read article at pharmalot.com

It was reported on 19 July 2006 in Britain's "Daily Telegraph" that the British Pharmacological Society has drawn attention to the widespread poor prescribing practices among doctors.

I was glad to see this, especially following on as it does, the Sunday Telegraph's report 'Sleaze in the Medical Profession' of July 9th 2006. As a steroid victim myself, damaged and made morbidly obese by being inappropriately prescribed HRT (without testing hormone levels first) and by inadequate monitoring and testing thereafter, I feel peculiarly well-placed to make critical comments.

We are not just badly served by our extremely highly paid doctors, we are ill-served by our politicians and by the Department of Health and by the Parliamentary Select Committees and many other individuals and agencies and professional bodies who should be monitoring these matters. - I wrote well over 30 letters to MPs and Select Committees, medics, scientists, media people and others in 2001 about the dire consequences of inappropriate prescribing - often in high dose - of certain steroids and of HRT and of amitriptyline, an antidepressant drug. Following those I received only one helpful reply - from Professor Sir Richard Doll, agreeing with what I had written about the obesity problems caused by poor prescribing and indicating that these could be lessened by diuretics and/or eating less salt/sodium, a fact I had already deduced. He wrote that all doctors should know this. - Mine didn't - and furthermore, mine CATEGORICALLY refused me diuretics when I asked to try them!

It is over 50 years since steroids were first prescribed and it is both incredible and deplorable that most doctors are still unaware in practice of their potential for causing sodium and water retention and morbid obesity, cancer and type 2 diabetes, heart disease, blindness and the many other serious health problems attendant on these... - That this is the case MUST be largely the responsibility of the researchers working for the drug companies, and the drug companies themselves, who MUST have known the facts because of their research on animals.

Animal research doesn't seem to have saved much suffering in the case of the many millions of victims of drug-induced morbid obesity, does it, since the findings of the animal research have been so well concealed from the people who most needed to know the truth? Nor, of course, was there justification for the deaths and suffering of the animals sacrificed in this research.

See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page.

Potassium Chloride: why is it no longer available to buy and use as a salt substitute by people in the UK?

Years ago, it was possible for ordinary members of the public to buy potassium chloride in Britain. It was sold as a salt substitute under the name of Ruthmol. It's not manufactured any more and I don't think you can buy potassium chloride in any UK shops. - I wonder why? - Potassium chloride can be bought without any problem in the USA. - It can't be considered dangerous, surely? - LoSalt, which is freely on sale in Britain, is composed of 2 parts potassium chloride to 1 part sodium chloride. (Sodium chloride is the chemical name for ordinary table salt.)

Since it tastes very similar to table salt and can be used for cooking or for sprinkling as table salt is, it could be very helpful to steroid victims and others who need to keep their sodium intake to a minimum.
NOTE 1: I am not suggesting eating a lot of it. That would be unwise. - But used judiciously in place of its sodium counterpart, it would certainly reduce the excess weight and the suffering of steroid victims and other obese or morbidly obese people by reducing their fluid retention.
NOTE 2: Potassium displaces sodium in the body, thus removing some excess sodium and water from the body via the urine.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, 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!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Further example of Steroid Victims in the UK - the carer who came to help me this morning.

I developed radial nerve damage and lymphoedema in my right arm and hand last year because after I had broken my arm and it needed an operation to fix it, but at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield I was left for almost a fortnight in a splint, despite my explaining countless times that I am a steroid victim and therefore should not have had the pressure of a splint on my arm because of my skin being so thin and delicate and my veins also being so delicate.

In consequence I have to have carers to come and help me to get washed and dressed. - The one who came this morning was new to me - a relief worker. - She is very, very fat and it must be very tiring and difficult for her to get about at all, let alone work! - I guessed she must be a steroid victim (almost all extremely obese adults have become obese because of taking drugs prescribed for them by doctors who are not properly aware of their salt and water retention side-effects) and so I eventually asked her if she had ever been prescribed steroids and taken them. - Yes, she said, and they had made her put on a lot of weight...

Like every other steroid victim she had been given no warning that the drugs would make her sensitive to salt and would cause sodium and water retention if she were to eat salt while taking the steroids. - Her overweight is caused by this, not by overeating. I explained to her that it is not necessary, or even safe, to diet to lose weight. - She just needs to avoid eating salt and salty food. And she needs to eat plenty of fruit and unsalted vegetables and to get plenty of dairy calcium from milk and yoghurt, because salt sensitivity depletes the body of calcium.

She was very interested in this. I am sure that if she ever comes to help me again, she will be able to tell me she has followed my advice and is feeling much better for having lost a lot of weight - easily...(o:

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.)

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html

vulnerable groups

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

See FAT RETENTION

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

Wider implications of the flawed theory that excess calorie intake causes obesity

Huge toll of avoidable suffering and deaths because of blunders in NHS hospitals. - A million are harmed each year. - I am one of those harmed.

From the Telegraph -

Hospital blunders 'kill 90,000 patients'

Extracts:

"More than 90,000 patients die and almost one million are harmed each year because of hospital blunders, research suggests.

Errors during surgery, misdiagnosis, falls, infections and complications are all to blame for the problems that contribute to the death and injury tolls in England each year.

Researchers found that between 8.7 per cent and 10 per cent of hospital stays involved such mistakes and up to a half were preventable.

Prof Trevor Sheldon, the author of the study published in the British Medical Journal, said a stay in hospital was as "risky as bungee jumping".

He examined medical notes from one hospital over six months and said the results were representative of what is happening across the country.

In 15 per cent of cases the adverse event led to impairment or disability that lasted for more than six months and increased the average stay in hospital by eight days.

The study did not include patients who were in hospital for less than a day, had mental health problems or gave birth.

There were 9.1 million hospital stays in England in 2005/6 if day case, maternity and mental health patients are not included and Prof Sheldon's figures mean 910,303 of these patients suffered harm as a result of a blunder. In 91,030 cases it contributed to their death."

"Errors included a patient at high risk of blood clots who was not given blood thinners, an avoidable delay in diagnosing cancer, a patient addicted to painkillers after being prescribed them repeatedly and a spleen that was torn during surgery, leaving the patient needing treatment for life.

Peter Walsh, of Action against Medical Accidents, a charity, said the real figures could be much higher as the research does not include incidents in General Practice, ambulance trusts or mental health and covers only England.

A Health Department spokesman said patient safety had long been a priority. "It is important to remember that serious failures are uncommon in relation to the volume of care provided by the NHS."

And remember - a great deal of medical negligence and poor care of patients is not recorded...

Amazing that the Health Department spokesman said patient safety had long been a priority and that it is important to remember that serious failures are uncommon in relation to the volume of care provided by the NHS! - This is so manifestly untrue that one can only assume that the spokesman has not yet read the report...(o:

I know personally all too well that patient safety is by no means a priority in the NHS. I have been in great pain and substantially disabled for 3 months now because my reporting excruciating pain and great swelling, including a huge blue 'hump' on the back of my right hand, was effectively disregarded by the many (dozens?) healthcare staff I informed. Having broken my right humerus at the end of August, I am still unable to use my right hand and lift my right wrist and am in very great pain with it. This is because I had to wait 12 and a half days before my arm was operated upon, and during that long, intensely painful time the hand and lower arm became extremely swollen because of the splint I had to wear, and the radial nerve was damaged. I also have lymphoedema in the arm. I now have to have carers come to help me get washed and dressed and undressed...)o: - As a steroid victim with fragile thin skin and delicate veins already, I did not need to be further harmed by the NHS...)o:

British doctors are concerned over rights of nurses to prescribe drugs

Concern over rights of nurses to prescribe drugs - Guardian

Extract:

"Medical practitioners today expressed 'serious concerns' over the rights of nurses to prescribe complex medicines after new figures showed a big increase in the practice.

The number of prescriptions issued by independent nurse prescribers has risen by 49% since new rules allowing nurses to prescribe complex medicines to patients were introduced last year, according a report in Pulse, the newspaper for GPs.

The figures have prompted a row among medical practitioners over whether nurses and pharmacists should have the right to prescribe a wide range of drugs in a bid to speed up patient treatment.

Professor Hugh McGavock, visiting professor of prescribing science at the University of Ulster and a former member of the Committee on Safety of Medicines, told Pulse he had "serious concerns" about the rule change.

He said: "Nurses' knowledge of diagnosis is pathetically poor. It takes medical students five years to be competent to make a differential diagnosis. Only a country with not enough doctors would go down this cheapy line.""

Hollow laughter here...)o: - Could there be any health professionals worse at diagnosis and at prescribing than NHS doctors? - Not in my experience! - Their reckless and inappropriate prescribing of powerful drugs when they have wholly inadequate knowledge of the adverse side-effects of the drugs beggars belief! If that were not the case, I would not be a steroid victim, and nor would the scores of other steroid victims in this country.

Remember, friends, whenever, in any country, doctors go on strike, the death rate goes down...(o: (Check it out on the internet.) - There's a lesson for us all.

Plus we have a pathetic system of regulating drugs. - http://www.mhra.gov.uk/ - This is the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency - surely a euphemistic title if ever there was one!

It is an executive agency of the Department of Health and the MHRA website makes the grandiose claim that: "We enhance and safeguard the health of the public by ensuring that medicines and medical devices work, and are acceptably safe." - Well they make a lamentable job of this!

There are no warnings for patients that they should eat no salt or food containing salt when taking certain drugs, most importantly many quite commonly prescribed steroids, HRT, other drugs containing oestrogen, amitriptyline and many other anti-depressants and anti-psychotics, and some other drugs, because these drugs can and often do cause sodium and water retention and therefore, potentially, morbid obesity and a host of other serious health problems.

If the MHRA were doing its job properly they would have long ago curbed the recklessly excessive over-prescribing of these drugs, many of which have been being prescribed for over 50 years, and implemented a mandatory monitoring of patients taking these drugs, in order to prevent morbid obesity, etc developing. - As it is, because of their failure to do their job properly, there are many thousands of obese and morbidly obese people in this country as a direct result of taking drugs prescribed by NHS doctors.

I'd trust a pharmacist ahead of a doctor for knowing about drugs, and I'd trust a prescribing nurse ahead of a doctor for taking the trouble to look up a drug to check the side-effects.

Doctors have got a good PR machine, but it's not matched by their performance...)o:

A bowl of tomato soup every day can help boost fertility among men, scientists claim

Bowl of tomato soup a day 'boosts fertility' - Telegraph

Extract:

"A bowl of tomato soup every day can help boost fertility among men, scientists claimed yesterday.

They have discovered that lycopene, which gives tomatoes their bright red colouring, can turn sperm into super-sperm.

Researchers at the University of Portsmouth studied the effect of lycopene in the diet on a random group of six healthy men, with an average age of 42. The men were asked to consume a 400g tin of Heinz cream of tomato soup every day for two weeks.

The researchers, from the university's biomedical science department, said that during the two weeks, levels of lycopene in the men's semen rose between seven and 12 per cent, which was "significant".

They added that further studies should be carried out to discover whether the same boost would be seen in infertile men.

The results, published in the British Journal of Urology, said that infertile men have lower levels of lycopene in their sperm. The study suggests that higher levels of lycopene are associated with increased fertility."

Women whose fertility is low because of being overweight, can easily and safely lose weight by cutting down on salt (sodium) and salty food and therefore boost their fertility and improve their health at the same time.

I must say Heinz cream of tomato soup is absolutely delicious. - I'd love to eat it myself, but as it contains salt I have to avoid it because I am a steroid victim and therefore extremely sensitive to salt.



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

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Are you a Steroid Victim? - Do you suffer from Steroid-Induced Cushing's Syndrome? - Then you are also "sensitive to salt". - Read on.

A personal note from me: - Almost all of the following side-effects are not side-effects of the drug itself; they are the effects of the doctor not observing the correct protocol for prescribing steroids: so they are the effects of being prescribed too high a dose and/or being prescribed it for too long a time and almost certainly because of not being adequately or appropriately monitored while taking the drug - and CRUCIALLY of not being warned to avoid eating salt or food containing added salt while taking the medication, because these drugs cause sodium retention and sensitivity to salt, which can lead to massive fluid retention and morbid obesity. - i.e. the side-effects are the effects of MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE. - There are hundreds of thousands of steroid victims the world over - victims of medical negligence on a VAST scale...)o:

The following list of side effects that steroid victims suffer from is taken from one of the webpages of the Steroid Warning Network

LIST OF SOME STEROID SIDE EFFECTS

WEIGHT GAIN
HYPERTENSION
SKIN ATROPHY (wasting away)
MYOPATHY (muscle disease/weakness)
IMPAIRED WOUND HEALING
POST TRAUMATIC (after-shock) STRESS (anxiety, fear)
SUPPRESSION (lowering) OF IMMUNE RESPONSE (defense of body against virus, bacteria)
SUBCUTANEOUS (under skin) TISSUE ATROPHY (decrease)
MOOD SWINGS (ranging from Euphoria to Suicidal thoughts)
STEROID PSYCHOSIS (including Hallucinations, Mania, Delusions)
SKIN INFECTIONS
DEPRESSION
HAIR LOSS
EXCESSIVE FACIAL HAIR GROWTH
INGROWN HAIRS
ARTHRITIS
CORONARY ARTERY DISEASE
OSTEOPOROSIS
CONTACT DERMATITIS
ACNE, ECZEMACYSTS, RASHES
LESIONS, BLISTERS
OPEN-ANGLED GLAUCOMA
FATIGUE
CATARACTS
MENSTRUAL IRREGULARITIES
PREMATURE MENOPAUSE
SECONDARY DIABETES MELLITUS
SLEEP DISORDERS
WATER RETENTION
GROWTH RETARDATION IN CHILDREN
CUSHING'S SYNDROME (affects almost every system in the body; moonface, humpback, central obesity, chronic fatigue and other symptoms)
STEROID INDUCED ASTHMA
HEADACHES
SHAKINESS AND TREMORS
EASY BRUISING
ADHESIVE ARACHNOIDITIS (from Epidural Steroid Injections)
NECROSIS (a localized death of tissue)
OSTEONECROSIS
INCREASED SUSCEPTIBILITY TO INFECTION
REDISTRIBUTION OF BODY FAT
INCREASE IN CIRCULATING BLOOD FATS (Triglycerides)
TOXIC SHOCK
MUSCLE CRAMPING, JOINT PAIN

A person with steroid-induced Cushing Syndrome suffers from the symptoms of BOTH CUSHINGS and the Systemic effects from the STEROIDS. Cushing's syndrome can take years to recover from. Many of the devastating effects from steroids are permanent and life-threatening.

I am a steroid victim. - I am trying to put an end to the medical negligence that results in more and more steroid victims, and gives damaging advice to the existing steroid victims. - I need my MP to visit me because I am too ill and too disabled to go to see him at his surgery. - He came to see me nearly two years ago but did not understand about the problems of steroid victims because he had not read the information I had sent to him. He does not seem to intend visiting me again despite my many requests to him to do so.

If you would like to help me in my mission to prevent/reduce great and needless suffering you might like to write to my MP, Nick Clegg, at nickclegg@sheffieldhallam.org.uk asking him to visit me, Margaret Wilde, as soon as possible and not be in a rush as he was when he came before.


Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk and in particular,
page http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

More young men are reported to be using anabolic steroids, some of which are bought on the black market.

More young men 'using steroids' - BBC report

Extract:

"More young men are using steroids as a quick cosmetic fix, a drugs worker has claimed.
Helen Pickens, manager of a needle exchange centre in Bridgend, south Wales, reported seeing as many steroid users as hard drug addicts.

But health experts say taking steroids, many of which are bought on the black market, could be a health risk."

In my considered opinion, prescribed steroids damage far more people, and far more severely, than the steroids bought on the black market. - I write as a steroid victim - the victim of steroids prescribed to me by NHS doctors - inappropriately - without necessary prior tests, in a dangerously high dose over a period of many years, and with wholly inadequate monitoring. - But pre-eminently the damage occurs because most doctors are unfamiliar with the most common side-effect - sodium retention - and do not bother to warn their patients that while on the medication they should not eat any salt or any food containing added salt. - There are scores of thousands of obese steroid victims in this country - the UK - because of this negligent prescribing.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - 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.)