Did you know that the spice Turmeric can seriously improve your health?

You may like to have a look at this interesting webpage about the health benefits of Turmeric. -- If you  browse the internet using your favourite search engine you will find a multitude of further articles about this ancient spice that retains a worthy place in our modern world and especially in meals like curries. You will find that it has a role to play in cancer prevention, in reducing inflammation and chronic pain, in treating bowel problems and many more. It doesn't have bad side-effects like painkillers and other pharmaceutical drugs do, and that's a huge advantage. But it does have one disadvantage, and that is that it can stain. Indeed, it first was used as a dye. - Now me, I'm really good at spilling stuff, especially now that my hands have been so damaged by the effects of steroid meds, etc. So although I used to add turmeric powder to my meals I got fed up of sometimes getting turmeric stains on my clothes and I stopped using it in cooking. I now buy it in capsule form and I simply swallow a couple of the capsules a day with a meal and a good drink of water. - But there can't be too many people as clumsy as I am, so I'm sure most of you would want to use it in the time-honoured way of simply adding it to your curry/soup/stew or whatever.

Beware Tylenol!

See today's article about Tylenol by Dr Mercola. Many people tend to think of painkillers as pretty harmless, perhaps because they are so easy to obtain, both as prescribed medications and as OTC (over-the-counter) drugs. But they are by no means harmless in themselves and also many kinds of painkiller too often tend to cause addiction, and addiction can easily lead to overdose. So I'd say it's best to try to avoid taking painkillers regularly, and better still, to avoid taking them at all. If you would like to experience a safe, drug-free way to reduce pain, I suggest you try seriously cutting down on salt and salty food. This reduces most chronic (long-standing) pain, e.g. arthritis and back pain. Salt reduction also benefits your health in a great many other ways, including lowering high blood pressure and reducing excess weight. - Why not try it? - It costs nothing and is completely safe. - You have nothing to lose by trying it - nothing but some pain and risk and ill-health and excess weight...

You think that painkillers are pretty harmless?

You think that painkillers are relatively harmless? Then I think you may be wrong. See these most recent reports about harm caused by painkillers:

J&J To Pay $48M To Man Hurt By Motrin
A Los Angeles jury has ordered Johnson & Johnson and its McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit to pay $48.2 million to a man who developed a severe skin disorder and blood blisters in his mouth after taking the Motrin over-the-counter pain reliever.
Read article at pharmalot.com

Diclofenac Deaths May Dwarf Vioxx Disaster: Health Agencies Helped It Happen
The world was shocked by the number of deaths caused Vioxx, but that number may be dwarfed by another NSAID, diclofenac. Vioxx was sold only by prescription. Diclofenac is sold both by prescription and over the counter.
Read article at gaia-health.com

Overprescribing of powerful painkillers soars in UK, leading to addiction and to death by overdose

The Independent has a report on massive overprescribing of powerful painkillers by UK GPs, leading to addiction and to death by overdose among their unfortunate patients. It is, or ought to be, well-known by doctors that chronic pain is often unresponsive to painkillers. When patients return for more and more pills in order to take a higher dose it should be obvious that the pills are not working and should be gradually discontinued. - A safe, non-drug way to reduce chronic pain is to lower sodium intake, i.e. eat less salt and salty food.

Dangers for elderly patients who regularly take opioid painkillers

It is often the arthritis sufferers among elderly patients who most regularly take painkillers, because their pain tends to be chronic. Adverse side-effects are not uncommon, especially with the opioid painkillers, which include codeine, morphine, methadone and brand names such as Demerol, Percocet, Percodan, Darvon, , Vicodin, and Lomotil. The side-effects can be very serious, even dangerous, e.g. more fractured bones. Read this report on MedicalNewsToday.

Yet there is a completely safe and very effective way to reduce the pain/severity of osteo-arthritis, and it does not involve taking pharmaceutical drugs. - You just need to avoid salt and salty food as much as you can. - The less salt you eat, the less pain you will experience from your arthritis...(o: And, since you will also lose some excess water weight from your body which salt has been holding there, there will be less wear and tear on your joints, not having to carry so much water around. - So give salt the elbow, and say goodbye both to so much pain and to dangerous drugs. - See salt/sodium in foods.

I welcome MSP Margo MacDonald's bill aiming to give terminally ill people the right to assisted suicide

BBC News carries a report on this, in which it says, "A bill aiming to give terminally ill people the right to die has been published at the Scottish Parliament. MSP Margo MacDonald, who has Parkinson's disease, brought the bill to make it legal for someone to seek help to end their life. It is not illegal to attempt suicide in Scotland - but helping someone take their own life is against the law."

Many people oppose the aim of this bill, partly because they fear that vulnerable people might be bullied/persuaded into ending their lives to please someone else, but a series of safeguards are proposed, to prevent abuse of the legislation, should it become law. I believe that when life has become intolerably painful and/or in other ways too burdensome to continue to bear, then provision such as is intended by this bill, would be a kindness to suffering individuals and not a threat to society.

Is your health in a downward spiral because of constant, severe pain?

Obviously I cannot cure you. But I am sure that if you follow my advice you will feel a bit better.

You have been in pain for such a long time that the pain is now only a part of the problem. There are many other problems that have developed as a result of the pain.

Constant pain is very tiring; it takes away your energy and it disturbs your sleep. It makes you less able to take proper care of yourself. It naturally dominates your thoughts and you give less attention to your eating. The tiredness makes it harder for you to think of suitable meals and harder for you to prepare them, and the tiredness and pain sometimes make eating a chore rather than a pleasure.

Here are some of your extra problems:-

Insufficient food causes you to have even less energy and this leads to you bothering even less about proper meals and so you are on a downward spiral of less and less energy and less and less suitable food. You then get health problems caused by malnutrition. These may include anaemia, which could be helped by eating some red meat.

The tiredness, the anaemia, the pain and insufficient food lead to insufficient exercise. This inactivity, and the shortage of calcium and vitamin D all lead to some demineralisation of your bones, especially, perhaps, of the wrist bones and the spine. This makes it more possible for a fall to result in a fracture. So if you drink a pint of full cream milk a day (my personal opinion is that full cream milk is better for you than skimmed milk because it tastes nicer and it is more soothing) and try to to be a little more active, this will help to protect you from further avoidable bone-weakening. A very simple exercise that is good for wrist bones is to squeeze a rubber ball several times a day. If you haven’t a rubber ball I’m sure you can find something similar and softish to squeeze in this way.

Concentrate at the moment on food. Look on eating proper meals as the most important activity of your day. Think of it as your job. Even if you do nothing else, you must do that. Your body and your brain cannot serve you well if they have insufficient nourishment.

I think you would also find it helpful to get some multivitamin/multimineral tablets from Boots or Holland and Barrett or somewhere like that and to take whatever dose is recommended on the pack (do not take more than the recommended dose). They just have a bit of all the vitamins and all the minerals in them and it helps to prevent you from being short of any particular nutrient. Always take tablets with a good draught of water. Your appetite should improve as your nutrition improves.

With improved nutrition you will feel a lot better, and hopefully the pain will also be reduced. Most chronic pain is also reduced by eating less salt and salty food, if you can manage that.

Warning: OTC painkillers can be addictive

The Telegraph reports that OTC painkillers can cause addiction within as little as three days. Many thousands of people have become addicted to them. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is requiring that from next year labels on packets will read: “Can cause addiction. For three days use only”.

The painkillers involved contain codeine, and include Nurofen Plus and Solpadeine Plus. They will no longer be able to claim that they are a remedy for coughs and colds, only that they relieve pain. Some addicts, incredibly, have been taking up to 70 pills a day, putting themselves at risk of seriously damaging their health with complications such as stomach bleeding, liver problems, gallstones and depression.

It is important with pharmaceutical drugs not to exceed the stated dose, and even then painkillers are not without risk of doing you harm, quite apart from the risk of addiction.

If you would prefer not to use drugs to help with your pain, or if, like me, you find painkillers do not help with pain anyway, a drug-free way of reducing many types of chronic pain is to cut down on salt and salty food. - Why not give this a try? - Unlike drugs, it is completely safe to cut down on salt, or even to avoid added salt altogether.

NICE is going to back acupuncture for back pain

BBC News reports that the NHS's NICE is going to back acupuncture for back pain. According to this article, "Low back pain is a very common problem affecting one in three adults in the UK each year, with an estimated 2.5 million people seeking help from their GP."

And "NICE says anyone whose pain persists for more than six weeks and up to a year should be given a choice of several treatments, because the evidence about which works best is uncertain.

In addition to painkillers and regular advice to stay active and carry on with normal activities as much as possible, patients, together with their doctor, can decide to opt one of three complementary treatments.

This includes up to eight exercise sessions or 10 sessions of acupuncture over 12 weeks, or a course of manual therapy, which includes up to nine sessions of spinal manipulation, mobilisation or massage."

Personally, I've found acupuncture useless, but I have, for some problems, found manipulation by an osteopath helpful for backache. And remember - pain is not caused by aspirin deficiency!

But a cost-free, safe measure to take is to try cutting down on salt and salty food. This helps with headaches and migraines particularly, but also helps with arthritis and with back pain/backache and many other sorts of chronic pain. - Why not try it for your pain? - It may help, and it will certainly improve your health in many other ways - by lowering your high blood pressure and your excess weight, by giving you more energy, etc.

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!

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

Sodium in foods

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

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Low levels of the sunshine vitamin, vitamin D, may contribute to chronic pain among women, scientists believe.

Pain 'linked with low vitamin D'
Article on the BBC News website (UK)

Reducing intake of salt/sodium also reduces chronic pain associated with being overweight.

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!

See Sodium in foods

Painkiller, Prexige (lumiracoxib), taken for osteo-arthritis, has been removed from sale in UK because it may be linked to liver damage.

Osteoarthritis painkiller is removed from sale

Extract from the Telegraph:

"A painkiller taken by thousands of people for osteo-arthritis has been removed from sale because it may be linked to liver damage.

The use of Prexige (lumiracoxib), which has been taken by 5,000 people in the last year, has been suspended by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency."

It is not at all unusual for prescription drugs to cause liver damage. - The drug-free, completely safe way to reduce chronic pain such as that of osteoarthritis is to avoid eating salt and salty food.

Lose weight and improve your health in many 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

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.