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Okay, so we’re back to the Paragon topic. . . hahahaha. Of course, your blood levels would change to reflect what you were taking, but it doesn’t necessarily measure your brain chemistry, which cannot be measured while you are alive! But thankfully, there are doctors who are looking at the value of nutrition to treat all kinds of ailments, which isn’t really anything new — i.e., Vitamin C deficiencies lead to scurvy. Vitamin B-12 deficiencies cause schizophrenia. I’ll check out that website, as I am always interested in anything that doesn’t smack of the fraud of Western medicine. I guess if I got hit by a truck, I’d want to good mechanic/orthopedist, but for everything else I rely on prevention rather than a cure. And I keep my fingers crossed that I never develop a need to see those people! Here’s an interesting article someone just sent me. BTW, do you know of a good holistic doctor in Costa Rica? I’ve found an acupuncturist and a chiropractor, but I guess I need a good medical doctor in case I start hemorrhaging from every orifice, which is about the only reason I would go back to an allopathic doctor!
Doctor decides on a controversial route
HELEN PUTTICK, Health Correspondent January 08 2007
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/78223.html
Patients are being offered tests for nutritional deficiencies and
prescribed supplements as treatment in a controversial move by a
Scottish doctor.
Dr Tom Gilhooly is launching his own private clinic and blood
screening laboratory, where he is offering to check for gaps in
people’s diet.
The service, which will be staffed by GPs who can consider whether
symptoms are due to underlying medical problems as well as mineral
and vitamin shortages, is the latest in a line of private healthcare
enterprises to launch in Scotland.
Dr Gilhooly is planning to create a chain of nutritional clinics and
challenge conventional medicine to consider whether ailments could be
linked to a lack of nutrients, in particular fish oil omega-3 and
vitamin D.
However, his combination of traditional and alternative healthcare
has led to some doctors questioning the evidence for prescribing
supplements.
Professor Edzard Ernst, the UK’s only professor of complementary
medicine, said: “With a normal diet you get most of the nutrients
that your body needs. This supplementation provides very expensive
urine.”
Dr Gilhooly has already given supplements to patients in his NHS
surgery in the East End of Glasgow, recommending omega-3 instead of
Prozac to people with symptoms of depression.
He said: “When people come back a month later… they are often
completely well. They are not less depressed, they are well and they
feel great and they say ‘Can I carry on with this?'”
He argues everyone in Scotland should know their level of omega-3 and
vitamin D. Studies have linked low levels of vitamin D with multiple
sclerosis and the high rates of the disease north of the border
linked to the cloudy climate. Dr Gilhooly suggested patients with a
family history of the condition should investigate their nutrient
intake.
At the private surgery, the Essential Health Clinic in the Mitchell
Arcade, Rutherglen, patients will be asked about their medical
history and problems.
Dr Gilhooly is opening his own laboratory at Glasgow University. A
consultation with one of the clinic GPs is expected to cost around
£80 and a test for omega-3 around £99.
Dr Gilhooly claimed carefully conducted research backed his
work: “This is a very scientific approach,” he said. “We are not
interested in wacky new age treatments.”
However, Professor Graham Watt, professor of general practice at
Glasgow University, said supplements tended to comfort the worried
well.
He said: “It doesn’t seem to me to be addressing something that is
important in terms of the health needs of the general population. In
general people are not malnourished in the sense of lacking things.
But there is deep-rooted public anxiety about these things. What
supplements do is treat the anxiety.”
Dr Mairi Scott, chairwoman of the Royal College of GPs in Scotland,
said such clinics detracted from the real health needs of the west of
Scotland.
She added: “I am not aware of a strong evidence base to this kind of
work. I think it is a problem if people perceive it as meeting a real
need as opposed to a real want. There’s nothing wrong with meeting
people’s wants as long a we do not invest public money in that in
terms of health because I think that we have to make sure we spend
public money as effectively as possible.”My dog grew up in our restaurants, so he is used to eating tenderloin, chicken, and lots of organic vegetables. He only munches on kibble as a snack because I cook for him every night — brown rice, either chicken or grassfed beef, an egg 3x’s a week, flaxseed oil, wheat germ oil, carrots, and celery. When I took him to the vet for his check-up so he could come to CR, the vet commented on how healthy he looks. In 13 years, he has never been sick, not even once, so I guess what we feed him is working. So Nutro products are available in Costa Rica? I’ve heard from some dog fanatics that Science Diet is not what it’s cracked up to be so I’ve always fed him Timerwolf or Avodermo, but mostly he eats home cooking, and in fact DEMANDS it.
Lotus, those tests are very interesting, but to my knowledge (after ten years of researching pharma propaganda and medical practices), there is absolutely no reliable test for measuring levels of brain neurotransmitters unless they take brain tissue post mortem and spin it in a centrifuge. That’s why this theory that a chemical imbalance is responsible for any mood disorder is only a theory and nothing more. If you listen to the carefully worded ads for say, Zoloft, it goes something like this: “Depression is a serious illness whose cause is unknown (here they admit they don’t know what causes depression), but the ad goes on to say, “It may be caused (they don’t say it IS caused) by a chemical imbalance,” but then again it may NOT be caused by a chemical imblance since they already admitted they don’t know what causes it in the opening statement. Anything in your blood, urine, is only the metabolites not the real neurotransmitters in your brain and does not reflect actual levels and since there are zero guidelines or standards for how much of any of the 400 neurotransmitters in your brain you need, the tests are actually pretty inaccurate. Even taking a sample of spinal fluid does not measure levels in the brain as those too are metabolites. An integrative doctor is the best bet in medicine today — all allopathic doctors are inculcated with pharmaceutical propaganda designed to sell drugs; it’s not about curing anything, it’s only about managing the symptoms. Dietary and nutritional deficiencies are responsible for most illnesses, including disorders of a psychological nature.
My dog is tired of the snow, cold, wind, and ice. He wants to live out his days in a warm climate, chasing Blue Morphos, and lounging on the terrace. All kidding aside, yes, the two-leggeds are my main problem here. I feel like a martian compared to the average American.
It’s a police state. I’ve been watching documentaries on the Third Reich and I can’t believe the similarities between the propaganda machines of the US and the Nazis. UGH! Get me outta here before they close the borders.
His diet is probably most of his problem. Some of those preservatives, etc. make kids so wired they are bouncing off the walls, and some of the drugs make you crave sugar which results in diabetes at some point. He needs a good, clean organic diet. The woman I mentioned(who’s been doing this for 20 years) works through the internet and runs a website for people getting off of and recovering from taking psychiatric drugs. There are a lot of parents with children like your son in the group. Most of the kids did really well once they were successfully withdrawn from the multiple medications and put on a clean diet. If you contact me off list, I can give you her information. She charges for private consults, but not for participation in the group. Seems like the more drugs you give these kids the more dx’s they wind up with, which are really nothing more than side effects from the original medication for ADD. Kids taking Ritalin/Concerta/Adderall/Stratera along with antidepressants (Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft, Effexor, et al) usually wind up with a dx of bi-polar, for which they are given, what else, but MORE drugs. We’ve hounded the FDA for years to get appropriate suicide and homicide warnings on these drugs, and we finally succeeded two years ago with the warning for teenagers, and now those same warnings apply to adults thanks to unceasing pressure from groups like ours.
Uhhhhh, those brands are not the best to feed your dog, but if that’s all that’s available, then I guess it beats them going hungry. The pet food industry is totally unregulated, meaning they include such things as blood, feathers, chicken manure, diseased euthanized animals, and god only knows what else. Anything called “by-products” runs the gamut of garbage not fit for human (or animal) consumption. For the most part my dog eats a stew I make for him but he likes to munch on kibble as a snack. I guess I put dog food on the list for people coming down to visit. No dog food, no free place to stay.
Take as much stuff with you on the plane as you can. Shipping via UPS is very expensive, otherwise check out an international mover for a rate on a smaller shipment than a container. We got a quote of a crate 6 x 6 x 6 feet for around $2500, plus duties, but since everything we will eventually ship is used and for personal use, the duties should be very low. Why would you ship soap?
Please refer to the thread that Mediatica mentioned. I’ve gone crazy trying to figure this nightmare out, so maybe we can save you some headaches. I just got my dog’s health certificate today and it was faxed to the USDA. Now I’m waiting for them to tell me it was done correctly so I can take them the original to sign. Thankfully, we don’t have to put our 20-pound human in a dog suit in cargo. He gets to ride in the cabin with us!
Edited on Jan 08, 2007 19:22
Get your son to a good nutritionist and keep him off all foods that contains aspartame, dyes, preservatives, sugar, corn syrup, natural flavorings and any kind of chemical. More and more doctors are starting to recognize that there is no such thing as ADD/ADHD — I work with a lot of parents who fell for this bogus dx and whose children were henceforth placed on a long list of psychiatric drugs, all of which caused more damage than the kid had before. The woman I work with is skilled and very knowledgeable about getting people off psychiatric drugs and getting them on a good nutrition protocal, which is almost always what a child who has been misdx’d really needs. I could put you in touch with her if you are interested. Some of the drugs commonly rx’d for this dx can cause permanent damage, and even death (Ritalin). Perhaps a less stressful environment such as Costa Rica with all that good healthy fruit and vegetables will be the best thing you can do for him. What irks me the most about these silly dx’s is that they are profit driven — schools receive money for each child they can get on meds.
What about organic pet food? That’s all my dog eats, besides the stew I fix him. I’m bringing a 5-lb bag of Timberwolf kibble, but I’d hate to resort to having to feed him somethinga s awful as Purina or it’s commercial equivalent. Anyone know of a high-end brand that’s organic and isn’t full of feathers, by-products, and all kinds of things I wouldn’t feed my enemy?
Mangoes will soon be in season! Eat all you can. And drink lots of coconut water called agua de pipa!!!
The rise in violent crime concerns me no matter where it is. I’m leaving a major metro area that has drive-bys, random killings, and all kinds of mayhem as a regular activity on any given day. I live far away from the city center in an area where there are no minorities of any kind, hence no gang activity related to illicit drugs, which, I suspect from all the news reports including this article, fuel the violence in the first place. I’m certainly not moving to Costa Rica to become a statistic, but after living in many crime-ridden cities, I know the rules and try to avoid putting myself in a situation that would put me at risk. We had an attempted break-in in my neighborhood in Costa Rica — the ladrones tried to go in through the roof of a neighbor’s bodega but were deterred by all the ribar in the roof. We now have a guard at the entrance to our little enclave. I guess that makes me feel safer. One thing the article doesn’t say is who got murdered? Were these gang members, drug dealers, the average person on the street, what? This is important because even where I live in the States the majority of the murders are committed by minorities against minorities over drug deals gone bad.
Is this just during home construction or it is part of any homeowner’s policy? Workmen’s Comp was required during the construction of my house, but I was not aware that it was something I must carry post-construction. I was not planning to carry homeowner’s insurance once I am permanenly ensconced in CR.
How would you avoid paying the import taxes on this car, which if it is nearly new, will be substantial??? Then there is the cost of shipping the car, which isn’t cheap either. Those fees could far outweigh any loss you would sustain by forfeiting the lease. I drove my financed car to Mexico one year, but what I had to go through with the bank was an ordeal. Had to get a letter of permission to take the car out of the country for only X amount of days. Then I had to get extra insurance to insure against any loss.
