Hello Everyone,
Recently, a 39 year old sister of a friend of mine underwent a mastectomy for breast cancer. Knowing that breast cancer runs in her family, she and her mother were both tested for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations. She was told that if a defect was found..her chances of eventually developing breast cancer would be 85% and the risk of ovarian cancer would be about 30%.Wow..that’s tough.Both mother and daughter went to counseling first, because even though cancer is a horrible disease,the test results after genetic testing are not always conclusive and can be very peace shattering.
Both mother and daughter were positive for BRCA1 mutation.The daughter took it well enough and started a proactive plan of regular exams and a healthier lifestyle. The mother, on the other hand took it very badly. She blamed herself for passing on a bad gene to her daughters. The guilt that the poor woman felt was overwhelming.
Should you do genetic testing? Do you really need to know?
Do get tested if the following applies to you:
If you have a family history of a certain disease
If you are planning of having a baby and are at risk of passing a genetic disorder to your baby
Use your own judgment and common sense and think about the benefits and drawbacks before making your decision.
Here are the benefits:

You don’t need to worry about it anymore. Knowledge is power and you can relax.
A positive test result might catch your disease at an early treatable stage.
You will be able to get yourself better prepared for the inevitable… start that bucket list.

Here are the negatives:

You might be tested positive and cannot do anything about it.
High level of stress, even if you test positive for a genetic disease, it does not mean that you will get it.
High risk of discrimination, secrets, medical or personal, are hard to keep and insurers have a way of finding out things you and I cant even imagine.
Having said all that, just be wise, seek counsel and talk to a health care provider.Ignorance is not bliss,take control of your life and be happy.

Hi, Robin Here:

When going to the doctor’s there are a few things one does not want to hear.  For instance, “we will just have to slice that off” is one of them and “Uh oh! There is a lump,” is another. For me, I heard the latter about two years ago during what I thought was just a routine check-up with my new doctor. My life, as I knew it, changed with those simple words. After the finding of the lump, I was handed the “The Thryoid Book”, arranged to meet with an endocrinologist and subjected to an ultrasound exam on my thyroid.  Despite what the experts were saying, I couldn’t calm my fears that there was a foreign growth. I met with the endocrinologist who showed me the results of the ultrasound and express her concern with how big the lump was and gave me my options – either “waiting and seeing” or having surgery to remove the lump and spending the rest of my life on thyroid medication.  Before I made the decision of having surgery, I wanted a second opinion and was referred to another endocrinologist who told me the same thing as the first. At least now I had to doctors who verified what I was happening.  The lump was apparently growing at an alarming rate but my blood work was coming out normal (small blessing there). I was then referred to have a fine needle biopsy – which never sounds when a doctor refers that because that just screams “we think it is cancer!” despite the doctor’s cries of “well, we think it just a benign goiter, but we want to make sure EVERYTHING is okay!”

My biopsy was scheduled a month later and a very good friend went with me as they injected the biggest needle I have ever seen in my life into my lump. A few days later, I received the good news that the lump was benign and for anyone who has ever had a “cancer” scare, you understand the joy and relief this news brings. However, this relief was brief because six months later bam! there is was, the goiter had grown at a surprising rate and was getting dangerously close to my vocal chords and closing my throat and my doctors feared that there was a rare form of cancer in the goiter. I saw a surgical specialist and when I asked him how and why this was happening, I was asked where I live and apparently growing up in southeast Pennsylvania on well water and living about 60 miles between two nuclear power plants plays a role. Yikes!

After a lot of debate and consultation, I had the thyroidectomy on my right thyroid. It was an extremely tough decision to make because each time you have surgery and lose a bit of you; you have to deal with the consequences. For me, it is dealing with the occasional hormonal change and increase or decrease in energy and the dependency on the thyroid hormone medicine.  I have to constantly monitor and have blood tests done every six months to check my thyroid hormone levels.

The take away message from this incident is pay attention to our bodies, get regular check-ups, get a second opinion if the first one does not agree with you or if you need clarification, and most importantly, take care of ourselves.  We only have one body and it’s our responsibility to take care of it.

Hello everyone,

Today approximately 140 million people in the USA use prescription drugs. That is an awful lot considering that some of us DO NOT NEED THEM. Here are some suggestions for saving 20 to 80 percent on the cost of prescription drugs:

1 Get a drugstore discount card

2 Make sure you have the right plan from your insurance provider

3 Check and see if you can purchase the drug from an overseas supplier (Canada)

4 See if there is a generic form available

5 Check and see if you really need this drug at all

The reason for the last suggestion is this: At this time about 90% of the prescription drugs that we take, DO NOT CURE US. They are what are called maintenance drugs and they only treat the SYMPTOMS! Pharmaceuticals and doctors expect us to take them the rest of our life. WHAT A CROCK! Pharmaceutical companies know this very well, why would they spend millions of dollars every year on research if you were to take their drugs only once? They have come up with a brilliant plan to have us use their drugs for life, and the greatest CON is that those drugs: DO NOT CURE THE DISEASE, IT MERELY TREATS THE SYMPTOMS. Here is a partial list of those drugs:

-LIPITOR, ZOCOR, NEXIUM, PREVACID And ZOLOFT

These medications do not prevent disease, only treat the symptoms; They tell you that you have to use them the rest of your life. They should not be labeled as narcotics because they are not; They should be labeled as merely products or over the counter meds, that way my doctor does not have to be a snake-oil salesman. They are very dangerous in a sense that over the long run, they just mask what the real problem is. We should have the choice of modifying our diet, daily cardio activity, modify our behavior, and not give over control of our lives to pharmaceutical companies, DON’T YOU AGREE?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I do believe in modern medicine. I have the highest respect for my doctors. I just know from my own experience that we are too trusting. I wish that all that ails us can be fixed with a little pill…I know better. I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder after my son was born. As soon as I weaned him from breast milk, I began to feel dizzy and had trouble breathing. It felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest. Four visits later to the ER,It was not my heart but my brain that was causing the trouble. The doctor prescribed ZOLOFT, 75 mg and off I went thinking that this pill would cure me. NOT SO FAST. The cure (funny) was worse than the disease. I gained 30 pounds; if the house was burning, I could not care; I was completely disassociated with my emotions, like a faucet that would not spit out water. I stopped caring for myself and my appearance, and worst of all, I lost the trust of my older children that thought I was invincible until then. What can I tell you? This nightmare lasted 3 years and I tried everything that I could. Here is the list:

-WORKING OUT WITH A TRAINER 3X A WEEK…That started my way out of the fog
-CLINICAL THERAPIST…Highly recommended for all people that carry their baggage for a very long time. I Can’t say enough good things for the right therapist.
-ZOLOFT…Crock of pharma-shit. The worst thing that has entered my body (MY OPINION).
-HOUSEKEEPER/NANNY…If you can afford it, do it. A good way for the kids not to go hungry.

-ACCUPUNCTURE……I went to a very good one, it helped a little,but was not worth the time or expense.

-VITAMINS/SUPPLEMENTS…Now were talking, taking a close look at what i was eating and checking my blood-work to see what I was missing, my doctor came up with a list of vitamins, minerals, supplements that has literally transformed me from the inside out. More on those later.

-PRAYER…Whatever you believe in, this is the number one healer for me. Before my meltdown, I had never been ill in my adult years. I used to chuckle when my clients told me they were on Prozac. I never understood how a smart woman can be sad. Heck, that would never happen to me right? WRONG. It can happen to anyone of us. I prayed to God constantly when I got sick with panic attacks, and do you know what the prayer was? THANK YOU GOD. I thanked him for showing me how painful mental disease is, I thanked him for making me humble because I believe that all healthy people are arrogant. I thanked him for helping me realize that everyone has bad patches in life and its okay to ask for help, even if your ego is shattered.

So, back to these prescription drugs: please find a doctor to work with you to stop taking drugs that you really don;t need to take. Consider taking, small steps at first, on changing your diet, exercise and kick any bad habits that you might have. And last but not least…find out the economics and profiteering of the drug companies behind the prescription drugs that you are taking. Knowledge is power and the power to heal yourselves lies within your hand. I wish you wealth, health and happiness.

 Menopause can be a trying time for some women, with the vast majority experiencing some degree of hot flashes and temperature instability. For many women, hot flashes start during the pre-menopausal period, several years before the cessation of menstrual periods take place. After the menstrual periods stop, more than three quarters of women continue to experience some degree of temperature instability that lasts up to a full year after menopause. Even more disturbing is the fact that up to half of all women continue to experience hot flashes well past the menopausal stage which can be a source of great frustration and discomfort. Why do some women continue to have postmenopausal hot flashes while others appear to have resolution of their temperature instability? A recent study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine looked at why some women continue to have post-menopausal hot flashes. After administering questionnaires to over 3,000 women questioning them about the severity of their hot flashes, they found that women who reported persistent post-menopausal hot flashes were more likely to have used estrogen in the past; they have had elevated LDL cholesterol levels, have a history of hysterectomy in the past and were more likely to be overweight with symptoms of vaginal dryness and sleep problems. Although this study does shed some light as to which groups of women are most likely to develop post-menopausal hot flashes and points out how frequent these symptoms are, it doesn’t suggest an established cause or treatment.