I want to give kudos and a shout out to my BFF, otherwise known as my husband.
He took the BIG STEP and quit smoking. He is on Day 11 and going strong. I am an ex-smoker, having quit almost twelve years ago and even though it's been a minute, I can well remember what it's like taking the BIG STEP. Like many people, it took me several failed attempts before I quit for good. The key to successfully quitting, in my opinion, is you have to be ready and in your mind know you are going to succeed. You can't do it because someone else is nagging you to do it, or giving you an ultimatum. You do it for you.
So my BFF after mentioning hundreds of times that "it's time to quit", but continued to purchase that last pack, casually asked me to pick up a box of "the patches" during my weekly grocery outing. And he quit. Just like that, because he was ready.
If you are a smoker, you too will know when your time has arrived. I truly hope that day comes for you. The health benefits and rewards are endless.
Read more........
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
MRSA - Not Just In Hospitals Anymore
A Deadly Bug Invades Our Towns
By Dr. Ranit Mishori
Publication Date: 12/07/2008
A few years ago, I began noticing an unusual number of patients coming in with what they described as spider bites. In clinics and emergency rooms across the U.S., colleagues were seeing it, too: Young people and old, male and female, complaining about a skin sore not unlike a pimple, often red and swollen, sometimes oozing and painful. The only thing was, very few of these patients recalled being bitten by a spider or any other kind of insect.
That’s because, in most of these cases, it wasn’t an insect. But it was a bug—a bacterium called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, better known to most of us now as MRSA. These patient complaints were clear signs of what is now a MRSA epidemic.
According to a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, MRSA caused more than 94,000 life-threatening infections and nearly 19,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2005. One study in The New England Journal of Medicine found MRSA 59% of the time when adults came to emergency rooms with skin infections.
MRSA is not new. It has been plaguing our hospitals for decades. It kills by infecting the blood and lungs of very sick patients or those recovering from surgery. But at least doctors knew—o r thought—that if you weren’t a hospital patient in weakened condition, MRSA wasn’t going to find you.
“That is no longer true,” says Dr. Robert Daum, a pediatrician and infectious-diseases specialist at the University of Chicago. “Hospital transmission is not what’s driving the epidemic disease we see everywhere.” New strains of MRSA have been born outside hospital walls and are finding anybody and everybody. That includes, says Dr. Rachel Gorwitz of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “otherwise healthy people in the community, including children.”
Consider Susan Wagoner, 49, a businesswoman from Scottsdale, Ariz. MRSA first appeared as a small abscess on her upper leg. Even though she was treated with antibiotics, the abscess grew larger, and then another one developed elsewhere. The pain became excruciating. As weeks turned into months, her illness forced Wagoner to quit her job, and she says, “I began looking into funeral arrangements.”
Grant Hill, the NBA all-star, contracted MRSA a few years ago as a skin infection near his ankle, and he had to spend a week in the intensive-care unit. “I was lucky to survive,” Hill says.
Not so lucky was an 18-month-old in Chicago named Simon Sparrow, in good health before MRSA got into his lungs. Once it took hold there, even the most aggressive treatment could not rescue the toddler.
These new strains of MRSA—not all as deadly as the one that afflicted Simon—are showing up all over the community: Read More
By Dr. Ranit Mishori
Publication Date: 12/07/2008
A few years ago, I began noticing an unusual number of patients coming in with what they described as spider bites. In clinics and emergency rooms across the U.S., colleagues were seeing it, too: Young people and old, male and female, complaining about a skin sore not unlike a pimple, often red and swollen, sometimes oozing and painful. The only thing was, very few of these patients recalled being bitten by a spider or any other kind of insect.
That’s because, in most of these cases, it wasn’t an insect. But it was a bug—a bacterium called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, better known to most of us now as MRSA. These patient complaints were clear signs of what is now a MRSA epidemic.
According to a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, MRSA caused more than 94,000 life-threatening infections and nearly 19,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2005. One study in The New England Journal of Medicine found MRSA 59% of the time when adults came to emergency rooms with skin infections.
MRSA is not new. It has been plaguing our hospitals for decades. It kills by infecting the blood and lungs of very sick patients or those recovering from surgery. But at least doctors knew—o r thought—that if you weren’t a hospital patient in weakened condition, MRSA wasn’t going to find you.
“That is no longer true,” says Dr. Robert Daum, a pediatrician and infectious-diseases specialist at the University of Chicago. “Hospital transmission is not what’s driving the epidemic disease we see everywhere.” New strains of MRSA have been born outside hospital walls and are finding anybody and everybody. That includes, says Dr. Rachel Gorwitz of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “otherwise healthy people in the community, including children.”
Consider Susan Wagoner, 49, a businesswoman from Scottsdale, Ariz. MRSA first appeared as a small abscess on her upper leg. Even though she was treated with antibiotics, the abscess grew larger, and then another one developed elsewhere. The pain became excruciating. As weeks turned into months, her illness forced Wagoner to quit her job, and she says, “I began looking into funeral arrangements.”
Grant Hill, the NBA all-star, contracted MRSA a few years ago as a skin infection near his ankle, and he had to spend a week in the intensive-care unit. “I was lucky to survive,” Hill says.
Not so lucky was an 18-month-old in Chicago named Simon Sparrow, in good health before MRSA got into his lungs. Once it took hold there, even the most aggressive treatment could not rescue the toddler.
These new strains of MRSA—not all as deadly as the one that afflicted Simon—are showing up all over the community: Read More
Thursday, January 8, 2009
MRSA In The News
Click here to view a CNN Video about the Superbug, MRSA
Once again MRSA (staphylococcus aureusis) is in the news. CNN tells us that MRSA could soon kill more people annually than AIDS. Currently MRSA affects over 100,000 people annually in the US alone.
MRSA, a strain of staph infection, is resistant to antibiotics, therefore earning the title of Superbug. MRSA is typically contracted in hospitals and is highly contagious.
To prevent the spread of MRSA, health care professionals recommend washing hands often and to eliminate sharing anything that can transfer bacteria to others, for example soda cans, water bottles, wash cloths etc.
An alternative choice, colloidal silver, is available and has been clinically proven to kill staph infections including MRSA. Following is a portion of an article about a study that proved colloidal silver's ability to eliminate MRSA:
Silver Solution has been tested at 200 times the normal dosage rate and has not been found to be toxic even at this extreme dosage. This, combined with the bodies resistance to conventional antibiotics as well as the side effects experienced by some, makes colloidal silver a growing alternative choice to many people opting to live their lives more naturally.
Click here to read another article referencing studies on colloidal silver.
Once again MRSA (staphylococcus aureusis) is in the news. CNN tells us that MRSA could soon kill more people annually than AIDS. Currently MRSA affects over 100,000 people annually in the US alone.
MRSA, a strain of staph infection, is resistant to antibiotics, therefore earning the title of Superbug. MRSA is typically contracted in hospitals and is highly contagious.
To prevent the spread of MRSA, health care professionals recommend washing hands often and to eliminate sharing anything that can transfer bacteria to others, for example soda cans, water bottles, wash cloths etc.
An alternative choice, colloidal silver, is available and has been clinically proven to kill staph infections including MRSA. Following is a portion of an article about a study that proved colloidal silver's ability to eliminate MRSA:
To read the rest of this article, click here.March 31st, 2006 - Brigham Young University, Salt Lake City, UT Noted Molecular Biologist and Microbiologist Dr. Ron Leavitt, Ph.D. has recently conducted tests to determine the ability of American Biotech Labs' nanoparticulate Silver Solution to destroy pathogenic microorganisms. His testing results against many of the world's most virulent pathogens were outstanding, including the scourge of institutional infections, staphylococcus aureus.
Staphylococcus aureusis the bacteria that causes infections in millions of Americans annually, killing more than 100,000 every year. The nano-silver product killed this highly contagious bacteria in minutes. Dr. Leavitt's findings were so definitive that he stated, "There are no potentially pathogenic bacteria tested that this nano-particulate engineered Silver Solution has not killed."
Silver Solution has been tested at 200 times the normal dosage rate and has not been found to be toxic even at this extreme dosage. This, combined with the bodies resistance to conventional antibiotics as well as the side effects experienced by some, makes colloidal silver a growing alternative choice to many people opting to live their lives more naturally.
Click here to read another article referencing studies on colloidal silver.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Antibiotic Alternatives
Antibiotic's and more specifically antibiotic alternatives are of particular interest to many of us. We keep hearing about MRSA and it's resistance to conventional antibiotics as well as all the stories about salmonella and E-coli food poisoning in the news lately. It is becoming clear that we need to establish new treatments, not just for the likes of MRSA and food contamination, but the more common everyday bacteria like ear infections, strep throat, UTI's and candida to name just a few. I found the article below on the FDA's website:
It's very nice the FDA recognizes we have a serious problem resulting from the overuse and misuse of antibiotics. What's unfortunate is that there are effective ways to treat infectious bacteria and even viruses (which antibiotics are powerless to treat) and the FDA won't approve these alternatives or allow those that offer them the ability to sell them unless they attach a disclaimer indicating the product is not approved by the FDA. This doesn't mean a product isn't effective, it just means the FDA doesn't have their stamp of approval on it, which could translate to the fact there isn't enough money to be made from these products and more specifically the products can't be called drugs and marketed as such. And if there isn't mega money to be made, well it just doesn't fit into the grand scheme of things.
It's unfortunate that in order to find an effective natural treatment for bacterial infections as well as plenty of other ailments, we are on our own to find good reputable resources. Alternative natural treatments don't have the over saturation of TV commercials, print ads and even Internet advertising that we constantly see for conventional drugs. That leaves those of us who are searching for alternative choices wading through all the thousands of products and information out there in order to make an educated decision.
Facts About Antibiotic Resistance
Disease-causing microbes that have become resistant to drug therapy are an increasing public health problem. Tuberculosis, gonorrhea, malaria, and childhood ear infections are just a few of the diseases that have become hard to treat with antibiotic drugs.
Other facts:
Though food-producing animals are given antibiotic drugs for important therapeutic, disease prevention or production reasons, these drugs can cause microbes to become resistant to drugs used to treat human illness, ultimately making some human sicknesses harder to treat.
About 70 percent of bacteria that cause infections in hospitals are resistant to at least one of the drugs most commonly used to treat infections.
Some organisms are resistant to all approved antibiotics and must be treated with experimental and potentially toxic drugs. Some research has shown that antibiotics are given to patients more often than guidelines set by federal and other health care organizations recommend. For example, patients sometimes ask their doctors for antibiotics for a cold, cough, or the flu, all of which are viral and don't respond to antibiotics. Also, patients who are prescribed antibiotics but don't take the full dosing regimen can contribute to resistance.
Unless antibiotic resistance problems are detected as they emerge, and actions are taken to contain them, the world could be faced with previously treatable diseases that have again become untreatable, as in the days before antibiotics were developed.
http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/antiresist_facts.html
It's very nice the FDA recognizes we have a serious problem resulting from the overuse and misuse of antibiotics. What's unfortunate is that there are effective ways to treat infectious bacteria and even viruses (which antibiotics are powerless to treat) and the FDA won't approve these alternatives or allow those that offer them the ability to sell them unless they attach a disclaimer indicating the product is not approved by the FDA. This doesn't mean a product isn't effective, it just means the FDA doesn't have their stamp of approval on it, which could translate to the fact there isn't enough money to be made from these products and more specifically the products can't be called drugs and marketed as such. And if there isn't mega money to be made, well it just doesn't fit into the grand scheme of things.
It's unfortunate that in order to find an effective natural treatment for bacterial infections as well as plenty of other ailments, we are on our own to find good reputable resources. Alternative natural treatments don't have the over saturation of TV commercials, print ads and even Internet advertising that we constantly see for conventional drugs. That leaves those of us who are searching for alternative choices wading through all the thousands of products and information out there in order to make an educated decision.
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