"seeking cures"

Oh brother....  If anything engages my gag reflex more than what i wrote about the other day, it's solicitations and races to help FIND CURES for what ails us.  It's not the concept of actually curing illness -- if only!!!  Alas, no.  What they want is to look like they're TRYING to do something constructive.

What they're actually trying to do is fund drug research in order to market something new -- it doesn't even have to be something effective!  Most pharmaceuticals have a piss-poor track record for alleviating suffering, especially in the psychiatric world from what i hear.  And "they" want to put statins in the water supply....

A dear friend was very recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and his prognosis is bad.  This has prompted me to revisit a few sites that discuss cancer from a professional and informed point of view, and ... what can i say?  The state of the union in the treatment of this sad illness is a bloody JOKE.  Same-ol'-same-ol' poisoning of the patient in hopes that they'll kill the renegade cells before they kill the host -- nothing more!  In other parts of the world they're "softening up" the cancer's defenses with enzymes before administering the poison, to give a little advantage to the victim but we don't want to do that here!  We want to pretend that American medicine is evidence-driven and state-of-the-art, and our propaganda machines have convinced the poor suckers that it is SO.

For chrisesake, if _I_ can find reasonable evidence that at very least a non-omega-6-based ketogenic diet, and the use of serrapeptase SUPPORT conventional treatment in a safe and cheap way, there's no f'ing excuse for the resistance that both get in the medical industry.  Doctors, alas, support each other in faith and confidence:  they give each other the secret handshake and assume the other guy knows what he's talking about.  They rarely suspect each other of ulterior motives or stubbornness or IGNORANCE of actual data -- more's the pity.

So "survivors" are turned into shills supporting the systems that let them down in the first place.  I pity them as enthusiastic suckers, while scorning them as deluded and indoctrinated, and so addicted to sugar that they aren't even willing to give up their fix to help their bodies heal.  They've been poisoned, and poisoned, and poisoned again; assaulted with knives and ray-beams, and they go on to praise their assailants and dig up money for them to continue doing it to others.

There are damn few "cures" in this world, mostly "treatments."  The treatments some doctors and researchers like best are the ones that keep the victims coming back for more till their resources run out, they're discarded by the system that didn't care about them from the beginning, and they die in misery.  People with respect for this appalling industry wonder why i despise it so much;  why, those annual cancer screenings they've been brainwashed into taking every year or so throughout their adulthood "saved their lives"!!!  Pardon my skepticism -- i don't necessarily believe that to be true.  I strongly suspect that these screenings are designed to scare the patient into undertaking procedures which are more harmful than helpful in an awful lot of cases.

The world of nutritional information about which i've become so passionate has taught me about far more than food and supplements.  It's taught me that the people who SHOULD be looking out for the health and well-being of their "flocks" are more interested in their incomes and reputations than THE REASON THEY THEORETICALLY WENT INTO THE FIELD (to help people) or THE OATH THEY TOOK UPON BEGINNING PRACTICE (to first do no harm).  Their outdated ideas and bad advice are killing people, and they don't give a shit.  Hell, if they were ONLY killing i'd be less censorious of them -- they're causing needless pain and suffering, and they just don't give a damn.  They could be ameliorating the lot of miserable people everywhere, and it's not that they can't, but a shocking proportion of them WON'T.

kick-the-habit day

Nope, not having trouble with a re-established bread habit -- compared to what some people report, i'm fortunate to not find breads and desserts "trigger foods."  Not having trouble with alcohol or other recreational drugs.  Not even having trouble with reverting from hedonism to my usual, simple diet.  It's the decongestant.

When i'm feeling like hell-warmed-over as the result of a virus, you can bet your ass i'll resort to chemical means to get a good night's sleep!  I'll swill Nyquil -- nasty stuff! -- even though it contains acetaminophen, and i'll use Afrin even though it's habit-forming.  But when the cold/flu is conquered, it's time to go back to the "natural" congestion-reducing methods that fail so spectacularly when we need them the most.

The good news, of course, is that the week-old addiction isn't really ESTABLISHED.  If i remember correctly, back to my ignorant youth, it would take a few days to get over it; but now i'm older and more experienced ... if not actually wiser.  ;-)  Now i own a neti-pot!  I can't tell you what a wonderful thing this is, if you've never used one before.  And if you've never used one, my description of it to you may gross you out a bit -- it did, when i was praising it to a nurse friend in Utah.

Before the n.p., i used a bowl of steaming water, with or without an aromatic assistant like tea-tree oil, menthol, or eucalyptus.  I must say the hot, moist air was soothing to the throat and other tissues as well as the sinuses!  Probably did my skin some good, too.  The neti, though, is a much faster and easier technique, and doesn't mess up my hair ... any worse than it was before, that is (i'm desperately in need of a haircut right now).  A quarter-teaspoon of kosher salt, some very-warm water, a sink and two kleenexes, and relief is in sight.  When i'm traveling, i have an old "pump mist" nasal-sprayer that i refill with plain old saline solution which performs adequately -- and i don't need the sink.

If you have sinus issues and have never tried irrigation, i recommend it strongly.  I used to get sinus infections a couple of times a year, but between the neti-pot and the herbs i used, they're a rarity any more -- i think i've had ONE in the last ten years.  But any time the allergies are bad or if i catch a bug, out comes the n.p. and i'm better soon.

My pot will get a workout today, but i anticipate NOT waking up tomorrow as i did today -- mouth-breathing.  :-P