You Gotta Be Kidding

I admit to a certain amount of skepticism when it comes to many things. I belong to an online "group" called K12 Academics-Bipolar. A post was made to this group, the complete text is below:

News Release
November 3, 2005
Bipolar Disorder is not Forever
Edgewood, WA/

New scientific evidence proves that hypnosis, mediation, and affirmations raise energy in a person changing their DNA. Russian biophysicist and molecular biologist Pjotr Garjajev now has scientifically proven that affirmations along with meditation/ hypnosis (another term for meditation) will raise consciousness, increase well-being, and balance chemistry in individuals.

In the past, most people were under the impression that Bipolar Disorder would be a life long ailment. Often Bipolar Disorder is destructive to relationships, careers, can wreak havoc on family life, and is a potentially fatal disease. According to Edgar Cayce, the Father of Holistic Health, "There are in truth no incurable conditions."

Over time working with a holistic therapist that uses therapeutic hypnosis and other energy raising tools suggested by Pjotr Garjajev, people are finding a new life free of their past debilitating illness. With the help of an appropriate counselor, changes in emotions, attitudes, and a new life style release the root causes and conditions of this disease. Marilyn Redmond says, " With new life skills and a spiritual daily program, the old mood swings minimized into reality, after discontinuing medication. My psychiatrist declared that I was sane, four years ago ".

In addition, it may be necessary to release past trauma and fear, called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This supports a healthy recovering body and experience. The individual needs to stay vigilant in his or her new structure, balance, and focus. Centeredness and groundedness in present thoughts, existing communication, and current activities alter mood swings producing a sane and rational existence. Bipolar Disorder is no longer a lifetime sentence.

Marilyn Redmond, BA, CHT, IBRT. Registered Counselor, ordained minister, and Included in Who's Who.
Contact her at 253-845-4907, visit angelicasgifts.com, or e-mail her at marilyn@angelicasgifts.com

She is a member of the American Board of Hypnotherapy, International Board of Regression Therapy, American Counseling Association, and National Speakers Association. She has taught in colleges, wellness centers, speaks, writes, and counsels people to find their inner strength and consciousness for health, healing, and empowerment. Her radio show, "Marilyn's Solutions", and her radio and TV appearances are big successes.###

If you go to her website, you'll find that she lists herself also as an "intuitive" and "medium".

Is this not the most hilarious load of crap you've ever seen? Consider again this sentence:

Russian biophysicist and molecular biologist Pjotr Garjajev now has scientifically proven that affirmations along with meditation/ hypnosis (another term for meditation) will raise consciousness, increase well-being, and balance chemistry in individuals.

A biophysicist and molecular biologist is scientifically proving ANYTHING about affirmation, meditation, and hypnosis? But sadly, stuff like this will influence the "normies", or those with the disorder that don't know enough yet to see this for what it is.

Blogger Needs Support

Hey all, a fellow bipolar disorder blogger, and a pretty special person, is in a bad place right now. Keep Queen at My Bipolar Life in your thoughts and prayers.

Friday Shorts

Friday Shorts:

I’ve been asked several times if I have a business relationship with the new Revolution Health site that just launched. I know I plugged them pretty good, but that is because of the social aspect. I DO NOT have any kind of business relationship with Revolution Health. I DO have a business relationship with BipolarConnect, part of the Health Central Network, and my “blog” can be found here. They’re good folks over at HealthCentral, and they have a very informative site. If you get over there, make sure and leave a comment!

From The Best of Craig’s List - half a box of condoms - w4m

It is a beautiful sunny Sunday, and my relationship status is such that I am cleaning out my sock drawer. I get to the bottom, and discover 5 blue, foil squares. Ah...old friends, I remember you well. The optimism of buying a box of 12. The butterflies in the stomach on the night of your unveiling. And now you sit abandoned. And, it turns out, soon to expire. I'm a frugal sort. I hate wasting anything. So now I've got a timeline for final deployment: Nov 2006. I'm very task oriented--I love working against a deadline.

On the family front:
My wife is kicking my tail in cardio workouts. From not being able to keep up with me on summer walks and bike rides, she now climbs on a treadmill and runs for 30 minutes. I can’t come CLOSE to that. I can do 5 minutes of running and have to walk for a while. In a 30 minute cardio workout I can run for a total of about 15 minutes, and brisk walk the rest. But on the weight training, I’m making GREAT progress. I see improvement weekly.

My oldest is still job hunting for a writing position. He’s freelance writing, and publishing articles. That steady paycheck is still eluding him, though. He’ll find a permanent position soon, he’s very talented.

Kyle let his job go. He can hold a job for a few months, then a mania sets in and he has to walk away. I feel so sorry for him, his self esteem takes such a hit when that happens. We try to tell him it’s part of his bipolar disorder, but he still feels like a failure. I’d really like him to agree to seek help, we have a place in town that has a day program and can get him the treatment he needs. Once he gets on the right med regime, the stability will settle in and he’ll be able to work again.

The other kids are fine, 19 year old is doing well in school, 11 year old did well in a recent city-wide spelling bee, and the youngest is healing perfectly from her broken arm. Speaking of spelling bees, see the movie Akeelah And The Bee with your kids if you have kids at home, or by yourself if you just want a great feel-good movie.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Everyone have a GREAT weekend!

Comeback Lines

From Comeback Lines

People who take medication to treat a mental illness often face opinions and advice from friends (and strangers) whose ignorant ideas about medication come from stigma-reinforcing sources that lack an understanding of the science, evidence-based treatment, and/or real experience of mental illness.

Next time an uninformed person tells you to throw away your pills, consider a response like this one by Bradtastic, a person with bipolar disorder. It’s his original text, framed by the Dinosaur Comics visual format.

Friday Shorts

You can file this under BFD if you like…
Leave a comment and I’ll link to your blog. If it has some relevance and connection to bipolar or other mental disorder, and is moderately interesting, I’d be happy to add the link and visit regularly. Don’t think this is coercion to get return links, I don’t care much about that. If you are a blogspot blogger, I’ll follow your profile to find your blog. Otherwise, you may need to leave me your URL.

On a related note…
I started using Bloggrolling for my links. Blogrolling is a free online service that stores your links. You sign up for an account, you decide on your categories or groups, and you add your links to the appropriate category. They even give you the code to add to your blog. You add a button to your browser toolbar (they tell you how to do it), and then you can add a link by simply clicking the button on your browser toolbar. One click to add a link to your blog! Ya gotta love it.

Speaking of notes...
Some albums I've recently come across, that are highly recommended. They're not new releases, but new to me.

North Mississippi Allstars, Robert Randolph, John Medeski - "The Word".
An incredible mix of gospel, R&B, rock, and blues. No vocals to interfere with the jams, and some incredible string-bending guitar playing.

Michael Franti & Spearhead - "Yell Fire".
Hip Hop meets reggae. Unique and very hip.

The New Pornographers – “Twin Cinema”.
I worked out to this CD today, and it was great workout music. Energetic without being heavy. Not headbanger stuff.

Speaking of headbanger stuff...
Expert Ties Ex-Player’s Suicide to Brain Damage

Since the former National Football League player Andre Waters killed himself in November, an explanation for his suicide has remained a mystery. But after examining remains of Mr. Waters’s brain, a neuropathologist in Pittsburgh is claiming that Mr. Waters had sustained brain damage from playing football and he says that led to his depression and ultimate death.

An excellent, and disturbing, article.

Enough odds and ends for today, I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Diet Supplements and Safety: Some Disquieting Data

From The New York Times:

Diet Supplements and Safety: Some Disquieting Data

Since 1983, the American Association of Poison Control Centers has kept statistics on reports of poisonings for every type of substance, including dietary supplements. That first year, there were 14,006 reports related to the use of vitamins, minerals, essential oils — which are not classified as a dietary supplement but are widely sold in supplement stores for a variety of uses — and homeopathic remedies. Herbs were not categorized that year, because they were rarely used then.

By 2005, the number had grown ninefold: 125,595 incidents were reported related to vitamins, minerals, essential oils, herbs and other supplements. In all, over the 23-year span, the association — a national organization of state and local poison centers — has received more than 1.6 million reports of adverse reactions to such products, including 251,799 that were serious enough to require hospitalization. From 1983 to 2004 there were 230 reported deaths from supplements, with the yearly numbers rising from 4 in 1994, the year the supplement bill passed, to a record 27 in 2005.

The number of deaths may be far higher. In April 2004, the Food and Drug Administration said it had received 260 reports of deaths associated with herbs and other nonvitamin, nonmineral supplements since 1989. But an unpublished study prepared in 2000 for the agency by Dr. Alexander M. Walker, then the chairman of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, concluded: “A best estimate is that less than 1 percent of serious adverse events caused by dietary supplements is reported to the F.D.A. The true proportion may well be smaller by an order of magnitude or more.”

But most other types of herbs and specialty supplements also appear in the annual report. In 2005, the poison centers received 203 reports of adverse reactions to St. John’s wort, including 79 hospitalizations and 1 death. Glucosamine, with or without chondroitin, was linked to 813 adverse reactions, including 108 hospitalizations and 1 death. Echinacea was linked to 483 adverse reactions, including 55 hospitalizations, 1 of them considered life-threatening. Saw palmetto was not listed on the report.

Note that St. John's Wort is on the list, it's a popular supplement for depression.

This isn't an indictment of herbal meds, it's just a heads-up.

Let's be careful out there.

New Post On BipolarConnect

I don't know if this is proper, or pretentious, or if anyone really cares. But I have a new post up at BipolarConnect: Starting Medication: What to Expect.

This is a "blog" they've asked me to do from the standpoint of a patient. From time to time I may post notices of new posts there.

Psych Central Headlines

Was reading headlines from PsychCentral, and for some reason they hit my warped sense of humor this morning.

Marital Bliss Calms Stress
Well duh! Is there anything or anybody that can cause you more stress than your spouse?

1st-time Moms at Risk for Mental Disorders
Just think – some research spent thousands of dollars of grant money on this. Is there a mom in the world who didn’t suffer anxiety, depression, irritability, mood swings, and much more upon the birth of their first child?

More Educated, More Memory Loss When Old
This makes me laugh. Doesn’t it stand to reason that the less educated have less to lose?

Procrastination Research Finally Finished
I think I’ll actually read this article tomorrow.

Women with Migraines at Risk for Depression
Have you ever had a migraine? It's enough to make you pray for decapitation.

Youngest Drinkers at Risk When Adults
This is kind of a no-brainer isn't it? If a kid starts drinking at 14, he's bound to have issues as an adult.

In Misery

I'm going to self-indulgently complain a little.

I wrote earlier that my wife and I have been working out daily for the last several weeks. It has been fantastic. My wife suffers occasionally from depression, and she says it has totally gone since we started working out. I have felt great also.

Saturday I was jogging on a treadmill, and had my iPod drop onto the treadmill. It shot out the back, of course. This flustered me, and I tried to jump off, but forgot to turn off the treadmill. I lost my balance and fell with all my weight onto the end of the handle pole, which caught me just under my ribs. I took a few minutes to catch my breath, and finished my workout. But I knew what was coming, as I had injured my ribs in the past.

If you've never done it, you have no idea. The pain is incredible. Luckily, it's only when you move, so I can work more-or-less pain free. But sleeping is hell, due to the way it distributes the weight. I have to take a sleeping pill and find a pain free position and not move until it kicks in. When I get up in the morning, it's the worst.

But tomorrow I'm going to try to work out again, at least I may be able to walk, and maybe I can find some weight machines that don't strain this area. Although I'm told it will be 6 seeks or so before I'm pain free.

Update / Redesign Complete

I updated my site to the New Blogger (formerly blogger beta) the other day, and tonight I converted to one of the new Blogger templates, completing the conversion. I really took my time, backing up everything, setting up a test blog, and testing every change as I went along. I'm a tinkerer, and love getting into the code and making changes. These new templates severely limit what you can do directly to the code. But this being said, I still like it a lot. And it even looks good in BOTH Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Also, I converted my links to Blogrolling. My main links, my "resources" links, even the Bipolar Planet Web Ring links. I haven't fully explored all the Blogrolling features, but it makes it much easier to maintain links.

Now, time to turn my attention to the Ohio State and Florida game. I don't care much for Ohio State, but I HATE all Florida teams, so GO BUCKEYES!

Wish Me Luck

Converting to the new blogger right after this post. I'll have to do it sometime, and I have time today.

Wish me luck.

Update:

I'd heard so many horror stories, I was concerned. But it's done, without issue (that I've seen yet). It still looks terrible in Internet Explorer, though. I'm about due for a full redesign.

Update 2:
It made many of my commenters "anonymous". I wonder if it only recognizes those who have upgraded to the new blogger? Also, I don't see profile images in the comments any more.

NPR Story

This Monday (January 8, 2007) on NPR's Morning Edition is a story on the politics of mental health.

Most people with private health insurance don't find out until it's too late that they don't have adequate coverage if someone becomes seriously mentally ill. For decades Congress has tried to pass legislation to force insurers to pay more. We'll look at the politics of the mental health parity bill.

If you miss it, after the show I'll post a link where you can hear it.

Update:
It wasn't an earthshattering story, but it was very worthwile listening just to hear the history, to know what is being done to pass it, and why.

Here is where you can listen to the story:
Advocates Renew Push for Mental Health 'Parity' Bill

Friday Shorts

Friday shorts:

I don’t know about you all, but it has NOT felt like a short week.

This site really looks like garbage in Internet Explorer. It looks MUCH better in Firefox. I may have to undertake a redesign. Might as well upgrade to the new blogger and do it then.

The wife and I work out every morning – getting up at 5:00 AM every day to put an hour or more in at the health club. It’s been 3 weeks, and I’m disappointed that I’ve actually put weight ON, rather than taken it off. And my weight training is going backwards – I’m actually able to lift less every day. Because of this, we cut our weight training back to 2 days a week instead of 3 to give more recovery time. Hopefully this will be a positive mood.

Our youngest boy turned 19 yesterday, we’re taking him to dinner tonight at one of our town’s old-school Italian restaurants. Many larger towns have one, a very nice restaurant in an older part of town with reasonable prices and incredible food. But this particular restaurant is closing soon. In our general area we have casino gambling, and as much as people enjoy it, the casinos have wreaked havoc with locally owned businesses. The proponents of gambling choose to ignore this, but it’s pretty much indisputable. Very sad that one of our town’s landmark restaurants can’t survive in today’s world.

I sometimes feel much like the Alzheimer’s patient who, when asked about living with the illness says, “it certainly makes every day a new adventure!”

Finally, a very bright spot this morning. I find out that our favorite band is stopping in our area soon. The Iguanas hail from New Orleans, and are one of that town’s favorite party bands. They play a mix of Latin, Cajun, and good old roots rock. Karen and I see them every time they’re in our area, and dance our tails off. You can’t imagine a gray haired 40 something dancing his tail off? You haven’t heard The Iguanas. Their upcoming schedule is taking them to St. Paul, Madison, Berwyn, IL, Council Bluffs, IA, Preston, CT, and Winnipeg. If they’re coming anywhere close to you, see them!

Have a great weekend, all!