Showing posts with label migraines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label migraines. Show all posts
Monday, November 23, 2009
Migraine Headaches and Magnesium
A study appearing in Cephalalgia (1993;13:94-98) looked at magnesium levels in patients with migraine headaches and compared them to healthy controls. There were 30 patients who had migraine headaches with aura, 60 without aura and 30 healthy controls. The amount of magnesium in the red blood cells was measured. The migraine sufferers had significantly lower magnesium levels than did the subjects without headaches.
Monday, April 6, 2009
"Save Some Good People from Bankruptcy..."
One thing that really irks me are those guys that wear black socks and Bermuda shorts on the beach. But, that’s not really important.
What is important are the billions of dollars wasted every year for expensive medical care that doesn’t work. What bugs me even more is that the medics know (or should know) that the right choice for many patients is chiropractic. They are often bound, however, by the secret rules of the medical cartels in every town.
More people go through bankruptcy because of medical bills than any other reason. So, shouldn’t we be spreading the word about how to save money with chiropractic?
Yes, we should.
Within the realm of conditions we usually see people for, medical care is almost always more expensive, and often ineffective. People are often put through the medical mill, being referred from one doctor to another, leading to the specialist that says, “there’s nothing wrong with you”.
Consumers and insurance companies pay millions every day for expensive medical diagnostic testing designed to figure out what the hell is wrong with a patient with typical musculoskeletal complains. Usually, they come up empty, when a good chiropractor could easily figure it out (with his bare hands) that the patient has a vertebral subluxation.
How many people wind up in the ER every day for just migraines headaches? How much do consumers and government entitlement programs pay daily for the MRI and CAT scans just for migraines?
There are tons of studies showing the cost effectiveness of chiropractic care. One study tells us that ”a new retrospective analysis of 70,274 member-months in a 7-year period within an IPA, comparing medical management to chiropractic management, demonstrated decreases of 60.2% in-hospital admissions, 59.0% hospital days, 62.0% outpatient surgeries and procedures, and 83% pharmaceutical costs when compared with conventional medicine IPA performance. This clearly demonstrates that chiropractic non-surgical non-pharmaceutical approaches generates reductions in both clinical and cost utilization when compared with PCPs using conventional medicine alone.”
What is important are the billions of dollars wasted every year for expensive medical care that doesn’t work. What bugs me even more is that the medics know (or should know) that the right choice for many patients is chiropractic. They are often bound, however, by the secret rules of the medical cartels in every town.
More people go through bankruptcy because of medical bills than any other reason. So, shouldn’t we be spreading the word about how to save money with chiropractic?
Yes, we should.
Within the realm of conditions we usually see people for, medical care is almost always more expensive, and often ineffective. People are often put through the medical mill, being referred from one doctor to another, leading to the specialist that says, “there’s nothing wrong with you”.
Consumers and insurance companies pay millions every day for expensive medical diagnostic testing designed to figure out what the hell is wrong with a patient with typical musculoskeletal complains. Usually, they come up empty, when a good chiropractor could easily figure it out (with his bare hands) that the patient has a vertebral subluxation.
How many people wind up in the ER every day for just migraines headaches? How much do consumers and government entitlement programs pay daily for the MRI and CAT scans just for migraines?
There are tons of studies showing the cost effectiveness of chiropractic care. One study tells us that ”a new retrospective analysis of 70,274 member-months in a 7-year period within an IPA, comparing medical management to chiropractic management, demonstrated decreases of 60.2% in-hospital admissions, 59.0% hospital days, 62.0% outpatient surgeries and procedures, and 83% pharmaceutical costs when compared with conventional medicine IPA performance. This clearly demonstrates that chiropractic non-surgical non-pharmaceutical approaches generates reductions in both clinical and cost utilization when compared with PCPs using conventional medicine alone.”
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Medication vs. Natural Health Care for Pain
Here is some of the research about pain and the use of natural health care. A common misconception that many patients have about treating pain is that the drugs they are taking are actually doing some good. Pain medication does not heal or repair a problem—it only offers temporary relief. That relief comes at a price. Pain medication causes problems.
Arthritis patients take NSAIDs regularly without realizing that they actually interfere with cartilage repair. These drugs are linked to high blood pressure, kidney failure, heart failure, ulceration of the GI tract, and some drugs even interfere with bone repair.
According to research appearing in the American Journal of Medicine, “Conservative calculations estimate that approximately 107,000 patients are hospitalized annually for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID)-related gastrointestinal (GI) complications and at least 16,500 NSAID-related deaths occur each year among arthritis patients alone. The figures for all NSAID users would be overwhelming, yet the scope of this problem is generally under appreciated”
The drugs have side effects and some would even say that they are dangerous, but what are we to do? Many people have pain, and relief is a priority for them. Chronic pain is the most costly health problem in America, with an estimated annual cost of about $90 billion per year. This cost includes lost productivity, legal costs, doctors’ visits and medication; 80% of all visits to the doctor are pain related. An estimated 40 million Americans have arthritis or other rheumatic condition. That number is expected to climb to 59.4 million, or 18.2% of the population, by the year 2020, according to a new report published as a collaborative effort between the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Arthritis Foundation, and the American College of Rheumatology. Approximately 12% of all Americans suffer from migraine headaches. Nine out of 10 migraine sufferers report they can’t “function normally” during days in which a migraine strikes. Three out of 10 migraine sufferers require bed rest when suffering from a migraine.
In 2001, over 13 million people saw a physician for the treatment of back pain. According to the NIH, 65 to 80% of all people have back pain at some time in their life. Half of all working Americans admit to having back pain symptoms each year. Back pain costs an estimated $50 billion each year.
Our politics and the FDA seem to favor drug therapies. For example, there is a product made from a patented extract of skullcap that would have been worth mentioning in this article. The manufacturer is worried about any claims being made about the product—because it may cause problems with the FDA.
It has outperformed COX-2 inhibitors in clinical studies, but the manufacturer can’t compare the product head-to-head with drugs. It has improved WOMAC scores on arthritis patients, but the manufacturer can’t say that the product treats joint pain. They can say that the WOMAC score is improved, but can’t say what WOMAC is—because it contains the word “arthritis” (it is a pain-rating scale).
In the mean time, products that are linked to high blood pressure, kidney failure, heart failure, and death can make claims. Maybe the reason so many older Americans take so many drugs is because they start young—with pain medication (that help to destroy joints—making sure that they continue to need them) and safe alternative products are not allowed to make claims.
Arthritis patients take NSAIDs regularly without realizing that they actually interfere with cartilage repair. These drugs are linked to high blood pressure, kidney failure, heart failure, ulceration of the GI tract, and some drugs even interfere with bone repair.
According to research appearing in the American Journal of Medicine, “Conservative calculations estimate that approximately 107,000 patients are hospitalized annually for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID)-related gastrointestinal (GI) complications and at least 16,500 NSAID-related deaths occur each year among arthritis patients alone. The figures for all NSAID users would be overwhelming, yet the scope of this problem is generally under appreciated”
The drugs have side effects and some would even say that they are dangerous, but what are we to do? Many people have pain, and relief is a priority for them. Chronic pain is the most costly health problem in America, with an estimated annual cost of about $90 billion per year. This cost includes lost productivity, legal costs, doctors’ visits and medication; 80% of all visits to the doctor are pain related. An estimated 40 million Americans have arthritis or other rheumatic condition. That number is expected to climb to 59.4 million, or 18.2% of the population, by the year 2020, according to a new report published as a collaborative effort between the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Arthritis Foundation, and the American College of Rheumatology. Approximately 12% of all Americans suffer from migraine headaches. Nine out of 10 migraine sufferers report they can’t “function normally” during days in which a migraine strikes. Three out of 10 migraine sufferers require bed rest when suffering from a migraine.
In 2001, over 13 million people saw a physician for the treatment of back pain. According to the NIH, 65 to 80% of all people have back pain at some time in their life. Half of all working Americans admit to having back pain symptoms each year. Back pain costs an estimated $50 billion each year.
Our politics and the FDA seem to favor drug therapies. For example, there is a product made from a patented extract of skullcap that would have been worth mentioning in this article. The manufacturer is worried about any claims being made about the product—because it may cause problems with the FDA.
It has outperformed COX-2 inhibitors in clinical studies, but the manufacturer can’t compare the product head-to-head with drugs. It has improved WOMAC scores on arthritis patients, but the manufacturer can’t say that the product treats joint pain. They can say that the WOMAC score is improved, but can’t say what WOMAC is—because it contains the word “arthritis” (it is a pain-rating scale).
In the mean time, products that are linked to high blood pressure, kidney failure, heart failure, and death can make claims. Maybe the reason so many older Americans take so many drugs is because they start young—with pain medication (that help to destroy joints—making sure that they continue to need them) and safe alternative products are not allowed to make claims.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
