There are a few occasions in our lives that bring about some mild doses of anxiety along with them. Weddings, examination, public facing are some of the best examples to support this statement. These mild doses of anxiousness are not that bothersome and goes away quickly. However, if these tend to increase and start to interfere in the everyday life, then there is something wrong.

By and large, such anxiety disorders are seen more in females than in males. Most anxiety attacks disrupt your normal life and you have to make many modifications to your personal and social life. Commonly, people use the terms fear and anxiety interchangeably, which is incorrect as both the terms have a subtle difference. If not treated on time, the anxiety attacks can really cause great harm and make a fool out of you in difficult situations.

When a person realizes that something is wrong with him or her, they rush to the doctor. However, when it comes to anxiety attacks, some of the doctors find it very difficult to tell you what is wrong with you. They may conduct several tests and still they may not come to any conclusion. They may also say that you are perfectly normal, but you know it from within that you are not normal. There are times that the patients may go crazy if they do not get the proper treatment.

If you suffer form frequently occurring anxiety attacks, then visiting your regular physician is not recommended. You will have to visit a specialist or a medical professional that deals with only such cases. You can get enough help for anxiety from a psychiatrist. However you need to be patient with the doctor as well as the treatment.

Although, most of the medications that are prescribed are good and effective, however, some of them have side affects too. If you want to avoid the side affects and look forward for something drug-free, then you can go for hypnosis therapy. This therapy, is generally, combined with other therapies such as cognitive-behavioral therapy. The medical specialist who conducts this therapy is called as a hypnotherapist.

When you visit a hypnotherapist the first time, he or she will ask you about your medical history and other health related questions. Then, the hypnotherapist will give you a briefing about hypnosis along with all the pros and cons of the treatment. After the briefing of the technique, the hypnotherapist will tell you how the treatment will help for anxiety attacks. The treatment starts with a series of relaxation exercises. Each session of the hypnotherapist may last for 30 minutes and you will surely feel the difference in four to ten sessions.

The hypnotist would make observations after each session so as to understand and interpret the progress of the patient. You will get to know about the same when the information would be shared by you. children in the age group of 9-12 are easy to hypnotize and get a quick relief. They can be cured after 2-3 sessions of hypnotherapy. Another type of hypnotism that can be done along with hypnotherapy is self hypnotism. You need some audio tapes and special instructions for the same.

Charles Linden devised another method of fighting anxiety attacks. this is referred to as Linden method. It is really helpful and has made the lives of many people easier. Hypnotherapy and Linden method both are drug free and without any side affects. It would be completely wrong to think that anxiety attacks are untreatable when there are so many methods to treat it.

Doctors talk amongst themselves about patients’ unrealistic expectations about the effectiveness of drugs. Quite often this conversation is done with shaking of heads and often sarcasm in their voices. However it is time that we ask the question: Just who is being unrealistic Why should the patient (or the country where socialized medicine pays or subsidizes the cost) pay for a drug that has a very low level of effectiveness

When you go to the doctor and the doctor prescribes a drug, what level of effectiveness do you expect this drug to have Do you expect it to be 100% effective Or 98% or 90%, or 80% Or would you take the drug if the doctor told you that it might reduce your chances of a bad outcome by 4% Or what about 1% or even less

This is a question I have been asking for the last couple of months. I ask anyone I come across - people in the bus queue, shop assistants, colleagues in the staff room at work, and even medical students. The consistent response has been that most people expect drugs to be 90% effective, with a few dropping as low as 80%. Even one of the medical students said, very honestly, “Well I’m a trained pharmacist, so I know how effective they are but when my doctor gives it to me I expect it to be 90% effective.”

I am a health researcher and one of the things I do is to go and search the medical literature to find out what works to improve health. I bury myself deep in the literature. When I went searching deep into the literature about the use of cholesterol lowering drugs, statins, I was staggered to find out just how low the effect was.

When I looked at the actual results of the drug trials I found that the results often didn’t match what was conveyed by the title of the journal article and certainly not in the drug company advertising. For example, women had no improvement in overall survival when taking statins. For men who had no history of heart problems only one life was saved out of 250 men when taking the drugs for five years. That is a 0.4% effectiveness. For those who had had a previous heart attack the figures were 1 in 25. That is 25 men had to take the drug for 5 years to save one life - that is a 4% effectiveness - a long, long way away from the 90′100% effectiveness that most people look for.

Some time later I came across a paper looking at the effectiveness of chemotherapy on cancer. Now I don’t know about you, but I have always had the assumption that with the horrendous side effects of the treatment one could at expect a 90% increase in survival times, or at least 50%. That is, I would expect that it would cut my risk of dying at least by half, and that I could then go and live a full length of life.

A paper published in 2004 in the cancer journal Clinical Oncology paints an altogether different picture. Morgan and colleagues found the contribution of chemotherapy to the five year survival in adults was only 2.3% in Australia and 2.1% in the USA. As the five year survival rate for cancer is now 60% you can see how little impact chemo has on the overall outcomes. For breast cancer the rates are 1.4% and for prostate cancer the rate is 0%, that is zero effect.

How can this be Surely that can’t be right I couldn’t believe it and so I started asking the doctors I work with. They all agreed the effectiveness was much lower than almost everyone expected but they didn’t realize that the rates were as low as mentioned in the article. One oncologist just wouldn’t answer me, but also didn’t say the paper was wrong. She just kept saying, “We must ask the patients’ what they want.”

But how can patients make an informed decision if the doctors aren’t honest about the effectiveness of the drugs Now there will be the occasional person who wants to use every drug available in the hope of gaining a few extra days or weeks to be with their family. But I believe there would be many, many more who would forgo the months of agony from side effects if they realized just how poor the results were. If instead of being told you were at grave risk of dying you were told that the average survival time was 20 years (as in women with breast cancer), and that the chemotherapy would add an average of 5 months to survival time, then would you take it

I would suggest that a great many people would be interested in the research which shows that in many cancers people who exercise at least three hours a week have much better cancer outcomes than those who don’t. It seems that those with breast cancer have an improved survival of 7-10% which is six times better than chemo but I have never heard of a doctor who prescribes exercise for cancer. Other possible improvements could be had through eating lots of bright green, yellow, orange, red and purple vegetables several times a day and cutting back on sugar consumption.

The big problem is that doctors have been brainwashed to only accept treatments proven by randomized controlled trials. We can never prove that exercise or vegetables can improve life expectancy to the same level of proof because we can never use the same research methods. We cannot stop people from exercising or eating fresh vegetables to do the research as that would be unethical when we already know how good they are. So as we can never prove exercise and vegetables are better than the chemo using exactly the same research methods; the drug companies win, and the patients suffer from side effects. It is time we became a bit more discriminating and started to learn to ask better questions about the research assumptions that underpin the methods they use. Or alternatively, just go natural - do what your body intended: eat as close to nature as possible, move regularly throughout the day and have an enjoyable family and social life.

Alright, let’s summarize - in report #1 we discussed the functions of the Gastrointestinal System and how it plays a part in heartburn. In report #2, we further investigated the relationship of digestion to heartburn symptoms and a few things you can do to avoid it. In this report we will talk about antacids and why you should not be taking them for chronic heartburn - so let’s get right to it.

Antacids are the 3rd most common over-the-counter medications purchased. OTC and prescription medicines would include - Rolaids, Tums, Gaviscon, Pepcid AC, Prilosec OTC, Zantac, Nexium, Aciphex, Zantac, Prevacid and Protonix - any of these sound familiar? Oh, and do NOT be fooled by the marketing ploy that these products contain beneficial calcium; the calcium in these products is very difficult for your body to break down and utilize. But, my research on the bio-availability of calcium products is for another report. Just know that the addition of calcium in any of these medications is not helping your body out at all.

In previous reports we have learned the very important role that HCI (Hydrochloric Acid) plays in the digestion process. By taking antacids you are usually stopping/hindering the production of HCI - antacids are typically, proton pump inhibitors, H2 blockers or histamine blockers - which in layman’s terms means you will ultimately have decreased amounts of HCI in your belly.

HCI allows for the production of pepsin, which is a digestive enzyme that breaks down proteins that you have eaten. You need protein to maintain homeostasis (balance), growth & healing. You can eat protein all day long, however if you lack pepsin to break it down, then your body will not be able to utilize any of it. HCI is also crucial in the absorption of minerals, from the food you eat. One very important mineral that your body needs is sodium. Your body needs sodium in order to produce bile - without sodium, your bile is too thick. Thickened bile causes constipation and gallstones.

Due to all these functions that HCI aids with, decreasing the amount of HCI available will lead to mineral deficiencies, constipation, prolonged healing times, and gallstones. Antacids additionally contain aluminum, which if you ingest for prolonged periods of time, has been shown to lead to Alzheimer’s. Biologically, the belly is intended to have pH levels of 3.0 or less (on acidic side), if your stomach consistently has pH levels of more than 3.0, you create an environment for disease.

If that isn’t enough, with extended use of antacids your body produces a hormone called gastrin. The presence of gastrin encourages your body to make even MORE HCI. So doesn’t that make taking antacids for a long time counter-productive? Antacid manufacturers bank on you not having these facts. Furthermore, the longer you have used antacids, the more likely they will stop working at some point.

So these are all great reasons why antacids are the cure for heartburn you are looking for. In fact if you read any of the packaging on these products you will learn that it is not suggested to take antacids for longer than 8 weeks. The reason is all the issues we just went over. So if you are a chronic heartburn sufferer, you really need to start listening to your body and find out what it is asking you for. It’s trying to tell you something - we just need to pay attention.

I do hope you have learned something about antacids and how they really are counter-productive. In my next article we will expose the differences between heartburn, acid reflux and GERD - is there a difference? Join me next time and we’ll find out. If you have missed any of the articles in this series “Heartburn Exposed”, you can view the entire series on my blog.

If you just want to stop the heartburn RIGHT NOW - click the link below and go directly to my resource that will give you all the information you need right now to stop your heartburn.

Thanks for reading and remember to take one step at a time, don’t get too over anxious and try to make too many changes at once - you might miss something really important….

Yours in Health,

Coach Helen

Acid Reflux is a miserable condition that millions of people suffer from throughout the world. Fortunately, there are several medications that are available for treating it.

Category: Antacids

Antacids work on the principal that you can neutralize acids into salts by providing an alkali compound for the acid to react with. Most antacids are built around a magnesium base (milk of magnesia), aluminum, or calcium. The drawback of antacids is that when they’re gone from the stomach, the stomach will build up acid again. So, the best way to take antacids is either just before a meal, or immediately after. Drinking milk with a meal also works as a mild antacid. Most antacids will give relief for about an hour after ingestion, up to two hours with a meal.

Category: Histamine Antagonists

Histimine antagonists are a relatively recent category of drugs that block the receptor that triggers the stomach into making more acid. Brand names include Zantac and Protectic. This category of drug is now available as an over the counter drug, generally called renitidine. This category of drug generally takes 30-60 minutes to take effect, and can be moderately expensive.

Category: Proton Pump Inhibitors

Proton Pump Inhibitors block the hydrogen/potassium enzyme system, which is the last step in getting the stomach to produce acid. This drug can have irreversable effects (greatly reducing the amount of acid the stomach produces) and is generally prescription only because of this. This category of drug (sold under the brand names Prilosec and Nexium) is not available as an over the counter agent, but does have effects that persist for days (the cells that they inhibit eventually are replaced by the body’s healing agents.)

A huge problem in America today concerns the way the country is taking care of senior citizens. Senior citizens in America face large issues that will affect them both in the present and the future. These issues include falling interest rates on certificates of deposit, the depletion of social security and the cost of healthcare not covered under their insurance plan.

While trying to deal with issues as large as these, senior citizens shouldn’t also have to deal with tedious tasks on a daily basis. The problem is they often do. One of these tedious tasks is trying to decipher their medication labels. This often leads them to seek medication identification help. Finding prescription help for seniors can be very difficult and costly.

Well some great people have identified this need and found a way to solve the issue. They have developed medication stickers that can be applied to prescription medicines that help to identify their usage. These labels can be customized by the customer. The customer can choose the shape, color and medication usage that they want printed on their custom medication labels. These labels can then be placed on the medication bottles in order for them to be quickly identified for use.

Instead of reading over the labels on 20 different bottles, the custom medication labels will easily display what the different medications can be used for. So instead of wasting time on a daily basis sorting through different medications, those with custom medication labels can use their saved time enjoying a cup of coffee or the morning newspaper.

Medication labels can contain some of the most confusing information available today. Most people do not have a PhD, which makes reading these labels almost impossible. Once they are deciphered, usually with medication identification help, their uses can easily be forgotten. These problems compound as more and more medicines begin to fill the cabinet. Any one who is taking care of senior citizens can attest to the validity of this statement.

However, prescription help for seniors is just one of many age groups that a growing new product is intended to help. Newly developed medication stickers are designed to help people of any age take their medicine quickly and efficiently on a daily basis. It is a system which allows seniors to create their own custom medication labels.

These labels can then be applied to the medicine bottle or tube that it was created for. This allows the user to identify each product for its correct use each day without going through the hassle of reading the label. The labels can be customized by color, shape and medication use. Once they have been customized on the website they will be quickly created and mailed to the customer.

They can then be put into action, thus saving a great amount of time on a daily basis. Instead of spending a half hour figuring out which medicines need to be taken at a certain time, the customer can spend five minutes. This allows the extra 25 minutes to be spent in a much more productive manner than searching through a cabinet of medicine bottles for the exact one needed at that time.

Coping with a chronic disease can be a difficult time for everyone involved. Depending on the situation, patients can feel restricted by the lack of viable treatment options. One alternative method of therapy often explored is the use of experimental drugs. These drugs are categorized as medicines that have not yet be approved by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) for consumer release.

The FDA approval process for prescription medication can span 10 to 15 years depending on the medication. This can be a substantial waiting period for patients who face limited windows of treatment for their disease. By participating in the clinical trials of an experimental medicine, the patient is afforded an opportunity to try new treatments that would normally not be offered. Though the nature of clinical trials comes with substantial risk, some patients are willing to assume this chance in hopes of finding a cure. An important aspect in measuring this risk is to understand the phases of testing. The four phases of clinical drug trials are examined below.

Phase 1 Trials

The goal of a Phase 1 trial is to measure the general safety and tolerability of the chemical compound. This is the first step in determining the suitability of a medication for use in humans. The research is focused on dosage thresholds and identifying side effects, and typically last 6 to 12 months. Phase 1 trials are considered very unstable and risky. Because of this, they are normally carried out on healthy adults.

Phase 2 Trials

The directive of a Phase 2 trial is to determine whether or not the medication has the desired effect on a particular condition. These trials are usually setup as blinded experiments where multiple drugs and a placebo are randomized between subjects. Neither the subjects nor the administrators are aware of which method of treatment a subject receives. This allows researchers to measure the effects of multiple treatments against each other. Phase 2 trials can last up to 2 years are conducted with subjects suffering from the target ailment.

Phase 3

Trials Phase 3 trials are similar to Phase 2 trials in that they are used to measure the effectiveness of the experimental drug on the targeted condition. The difference between the two phases is that Phase 3 is conducted with a much larger sample size and the trial period can last over 3 years. This longer trial period allows for the study of long-term side effects and provides a better analysis of suitable dosage ranges. Phase 3 trials also draw in-depth comparisons to existing drugs in order to measure the inherent value of the experimental medication. The results of Phase 3 trials are used to determine accurate prescription dosages and consumer label information. Successful completion of this phase leads to an FDA submission for approval.

Phase 4

Trials The final phase of a clinical drug trial is used for further testing of the medication. While an experimental medication may not yet be approved in the early stages of Phase 4 testing, it is generally deemed safe for targeted use. Even after the drug receives FDA approval, this phase continues as a requirement by the FDA. Long term testing continues to evaluate to safety and effectiveness of the drug, and alternative uses of the drug are also examined. Phase 4 trials are also used to test different methods for administering the medication. Thus, this final phase of trials can produce significant changes in the way a drug is used and how it is delivered.

One is allowed to use medical marijuana legally under CA State law if you have been medically examined by a medical doctor and written out a Physician Statement and Recommendation Letter. The evaluation is to verify if you will find freedom from the symptoms of the illness you are suffering.

The Medical Board of CA has written that medicinal marijuana is a rising treatment modality. CA Prop 215, known as The Compassionate Care Act of 1996, includes in part:

To ensure that desperately sick Californians have the right to obtain and use cannabis for medical purposes where the medical consumption is deemed useful and has been recommended by a medical doctor who has found out that the person’s health could gain a benefit from the use of pot in the treatment of migraine or any other disease for which marijuana offers Relief.

Proposition 215 was outlined to allow the use of medical cannabis by seriously and terminally ill persons. Proposition 215 protects them from criminal fines and arrest for smoking marijuana medically if they have been awarded a medical marijuana card. Only people who have been properly evaluated and have obtained their doctor’s recommendation to consume cannabis in medical therapy can take advantage of Proposition 215 as a lawful protection against criminal pot complaints.

A medical physician must examine and establish whether or not prescription marijuana would be an appropriate method for a specific ailment. A lot of the persons who partake in marijuana as a medicine suffer from glaucoma while many other people have reported that it aids treat symptoms of epilepsy and other diseases in which muscle spasms or seizures are regular occurrences. Be appreciative though, that only suffering one of these illnesses mentioned previously does not instantly qualify anyone for the pot exemption under Proposition 215. Just medical marijuana doctors approvals can facilitate that.

Buying medications online via an online pharmacy is convenient, efficient and economical, and in times of crises can be a safer way of obtaining medications.??

The convenience of not having to leave one’s home is a definite benefit for individuals whose activities of daily living are significantly impaired or those disabled from various health conditions. Individuals with memory problems might forget to order medication and run out of medication if they don’t place the order as soon as they think about it, in which case the ability to order prescriptions 24 hours per day 365 days out of the year and have the medication delivered to their doorstep is a major benefit.

For those who depend upon someone else such as a relative to make sure they have their needed medications, the ability to order online at work, before living home for work or after arriving home from work and not having to make the drive to the pharmacy is of tremendous value to the person providing the helping hand and helps to ensure medication is available to those in need of it.

It is estimated that between 2007 and 2008 purchases of medications through online pharmacies rose from $4 billion to $12 billion and that the average number of daily visitors at pharmacy sites rose from 32,000 to 99,000.? This trend can be explained by the economic downturn and the rising costs of medications as well as the fact that online pharmacies generally have significantly lower overhead costs than local pharmacies, and can thus offer discounted prices well below those of a local pharmacy, not only with generic medications but brand-name medications as well. This cost saving is vitally important to many on fixed incomes, particularly those have no health coverage or limited health insurance benefits and those who require medications that are not on their insurance plan formularies.? Factor in the rising cost of gasoline and the overall expense of a trip to the local pharmacy, and the cost savings are even greater.

In buying medications online the prices of brand-name and generic medications can be compared and efficient decisions can be made with respect to opting for brand-name or generic drugs at the time of ordering, if the prescribing doctor indicated generic substitution is permitted on the prescription, because the costs of all the medications are displayed on the pharmacy website. Tallying the cost of all the medications you need to order and factoring in shipping charge is a great way to budget for a particular month.

Depending on the community and local or widespread state of affairs, buying medications online can be safer than the traditional trip to the pharmacy. If you live in a high crime area and are elderly, buying medication online is more likely to reduce your chances of being the victim of a violent crime. Also, during crises such as civil unrest, economic instability, natural disasters, etc. the use of an online pharmacy (if possible) would most likely be much safer than a drive to the pharmacy.? The safety factor should also be considered in the event of an epidemic or pandemic disease outbreak inasmuch as the exposure to disease producing germs is greater in environments where many people, particularly sick people frequent, including pharmacies.?

In deciding whether or not to purchase online prescription drugs you should consider your own personal circumstances and whether or not the advantages of buying online apply to you. You shall also make sure that you are dealing with a legitimate and reputable online pharmacy.

There are a number of trends taking place lately in the pharmaceutical industry, one of them being generic drugs, the other being globalization of generic medicine. As generic medicine is taken root in smaller, less developed countries, the big pharmaceutical companies are clamoring for a piece of the action.

With generic medicine on the rise in the U.S. and abroad, some big pharmaceutical companies have turned to underhanded practices to get these cheaper drugs out of the market. Big pharmaceutical companies are now paying off smaller generic drug makers to halt production altogether, to keep these cheaper drugs out of the market. But who pays the price for this in the end?

In recent years larger brand name pharmaceutical companies have started the practice of entering into agreements with smaller generic drug companies, to slow down production of their generic drugs, or halt production altogether. Up until recently, big pharmaceutical companies have tried to work hand in hand with smaller generic drug companies over licensing rights to drugs and even making generic brand named medicine. Even though this seems like an effective strategy, some of the more underhanded dealings by the big pharmaceutical companies may not be good for everyone.

The cost of the average generic drug can be anywhere from 60% to 80% of the brand name alternative. But it’s not just the individuals that are hurting from these underhanded practices. Lower drug prices also benefit businesses as well as many employers pay for their workers’ health care, including any prescription medicine they may need. When these big pharmaceutical companies take away this option to buy generic medicine, this puts the burden directly on the consumers and the employers who provide health care for their employees. Because brand name medicine can be so expensive this is resulting in thousands of businesses dropping health care plans for their employees altogether, putting a huge financial burden back onto consumers, often resulting in them not being able to afford any kind of medicine altogether.

Because of these recent practices by the large branded drug companies to keep any competition out, many other recipients who are not involved are being affected as well. Many pharmaceutical sales consulting firms, who work hard to keep an eye on these recent developments, have noticed something even more alarming. They are noticing that as many large branded companies take away the option of buying generic medicine, taxpayers are footing most of the bill. Because many individuals have no way of affording these expensive brand named medicines many people are turning to their governments for assistance. As the governments of the world are taking on more and more people to cover their health insurance plans, the cost is going back to the taxpayer. In the end nobody wins but the large pharmaceutical company.

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