Prelude:
Back in the 1700's it was Voltaire who said, "Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to
cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know
nothing."
Osteoarthritis, Arthrosis and
Rheumatism
The term arthritis ("arthro" meaning joint, "itis" meaning
inflammation) is used to refer to more than 100 related conditions. Arthritis can strike anyone at anytime,
regardless of age, physical conditon or ethnic background, often with devastiating and debilitating
effects.
Arthritis brings
with it a burden of pain and disability that those living with this disease have been facing every day yet, a new
understanding of the physiology or underlying causal factors reveals that it is not neccesary to endure this
chronic debilitating situation any
longer..
Note:
No currently available FDA-approved drugs can reverse osteoarthritic changes to bones and joints. Current
research is focused on developing new ways of improving the body's natural repair mechanisms and ways to prevent
and reverse cartilage breakdown. See "Electrical Medicine Association" at www.onnowtv.com/4.
Reversing the Disease
Process to Cure Arthritis
Not just managing a condition
Looking Ahead Between 1990 and 2010 the numbers of people disabled due to osteoarthritis increased by 16%. The
trend is expected to continue, as osteoarthritis is more common in older people and those who are obese, and the number of people in these groups is rising. Estimates for knee
osteoarthritis illustrate the scale of this future challenge. Given the expected increases in obesity, and the
growth and ageing of the population, by 2035 as many as 8.3 million people in the UK could have knee osteoarthritis
alone.
What Is
Being Done
Because the main goal of arthritis treatment is
to reduce the amount of pain you're experiencing and prevent any additional damage to the joints, pain management
becomes the over riding approach. Much work has to be done to change the "corporate statement" that the
foundations have adopted as it has become outdated and does not work. We can no longer afford to "manage"
pain and have an over riding objective that states "let people degenerate in peace". We have to and can do better
than this.
Medications that are presently the standard include:
Medications that
control pain, like hydrocodone (Vicodin) or acetaminophen (Tylenol), are effective for
pain, but don't help decrease inflammation.
A very common problem with joint disease is chronic pain. Many patients with arthritis become
dependent on narcotics for their pain management. Unfortunately, narcotics can also be immunosuppressive and may in
the long run be more harmful to the individual, besides the risk of addiction.
At a
Glance:
- Research shows the more frequent the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy, the
higher your child’s chances of being diagnosed with ADHD-related problems
- Acetaminophen use during pregnancy was linked to a 30 percent increased risk
for ADHD in the child, and a 37 percent increased risk of hyperkinetic disorder (HKD), a severe form
of ADHD
- Acetaminophen overdose is the leading cause for calls to Poison Control Centers
across the US, and is responsible for an estimated 458 deaths due to acute liver failure each
year
- Acetaminophen has also been linked to kidney dysfunction when taken with
alcohol, potentially lethal skin reactions, blood cancers, and reduced antibody response when
administered as prophylactic with vaccination
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hOic6BmRhfQ
Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)
help control both pain and inflammation temporarily as long as you are taking the medication. Degeneration usually
continues and these medications have been linked to a higher risk of stroke or heart attack. If you take an oral
form of NSAIDs, they can upset your stomach and could become a causal factor in serious bowel, liver disease that
kills thousands every year.
Note: In the United States today, prescription painkillers kill more
Americans
than heroin and cocaine combined.
According to the CDC,
approximately three quarters of a million people a year are rushed to emergency rooms
in the United States because of adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs
Most people will take this medication without thinking twice about it, which is probably why
acetaminophen overdose is the leading cause for calls to Poison Control Centers across the US every year.
Acetaminophen is also responsible for more than 56,000 emergency room visits, 2,600 hospitalizations, and an
estimated 458 deaths due to acute liver failure1 each year.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally added warnings about liver damage to the
drug’s label in 2009. This action came 32 years after a panel of experts advised the agency it was
"obligatory" to do so...
Then, on January 14 this year, the FDA issued a statement2, 3 urging health professionals to discontinue prescribing and dispensing prescription
combination drug products that contain more than 325 milligrams (mg) of acetaminophen per tablet, capsule, or
other dosage unit, to limit the risk of serious side effects.
Keep in mind that certain prescription painkillers, such as Vicodin and Percocet, also contain
acetaminophen and should therefore not be mixed with other acetaminophen-containing medications.
Other Harmful Effects Associated with Acetaminophen
Use
Besides liver damage, acetaminophen has also been linked to other serious side effects, including
kidney
dysfunction when taken with alcohol, and potentially lethal skin reactions: Stevens-Johnson Syndrome
(SJS), toxic epidermal necrolysis (TENS), and acute generalized exanthematous pustulosis (AGEP). (For more
information about these potentially lethal skin
reactions, please see my previous article on this topic.)
The FDA added a warning about potential skin reactions to prescription acetaminophen product labels last
year. There’s no way to predict who might be at increased risk for such side effects, so please heed the FDA’s
recommendation9 and do NOT take acetaminophen again if you’ve ever had a skin
reaction when taking it.
Research published in the past few years have also linked chronic, high use of acetaminophen to an increased
risk for
blood cancers. The definition of "high" use was using acetaminophen at least four times a week for at least
four years -- an amount that many Americans could easily exceed without even realizing it.
Little-known research from 2009 suggests acetaminophen might also render vaccinations less effective when
administered together. According to this study,10 infants who received acetaminophen right after getting a vaccination
experienced lowered immune response, developing significantly fewer antibodies against the disease they were
vaccinated against. The vaccines used in the study were for pneumococcal disease, Haemophilus influenzae
type b (Hib), diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, polio, and rotavirus. (No flu vaccines were
included. However, it’s likely the effect might still be the same.) The authors concluded that:
“Although febrile reactions significantly decreased, prophylactic administration of antipyretic
drugs at the time of vaccination should not be routinely recommended since antibody responses to several
vaccine antigens were reduced.”
1
Hepatology 2004 Jul;40(1):6-9
Menthol or capsaicin creams may be used to
impede your joint's pain signal transmission but the disease will still be there and advancing much quicker as you
are now not heeding pain signals.
If you have rheumatoid arthritis your doctor
may put you on corticosteriods or disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) that suppress your immune system
making you much more open to contacting bugs and viruses.
Surgery to have your joint replaced with an
artificial one may be a common option as sugery seems to be an accepted intervention to replace hips and knees. If
your arthritis is most severe in your fingers or wrists, your doctor may perform a joint fusion. In this procedure,
the ends of your bones are locked together until they heal and become one. The pain may be reduced somewhat but
this involves a permanent disability as it would be impossible to unfuse a joint.
Physical therapy involving exercises that help
strengthen the muscles around the affected joint is a core component of arthritis treatment. Weight loss and
maintaining a healthy weight can reduce the symptoms in those that have osteoarthritis, and they are also effective
in reducing the risk of developing osteoarthritis. Certain supplements that we will examine have been shown to
reverse damage that has already been caused by osteoarthritis and even Rheumatoid Arthritis.
A Note on Tylenol (from
Wikepedia)
''It
is a shame to think that after 60 years and billions of dollars in public funded research, the treatment of choice
for pain then was paracetamol and today it is Tylenol or acetaminophen''.
"This American Life" reported that "acetaminophen", the active
ingredient in Tylenol ... kills the most people [of any over-the-counter drug], according to data from the federal
government. Over 150 Americans die each year". This assessment conflicts with assessments in the medical
literature, which suggest that the most commonly used alternative to acetaminophen, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory
drugs (including naproxen, ibuprofen, and aspirin) cause 3200 deaths and 32,000 hospitalizations each year due to
gastric bleeding alone. Other estimates place the number of NSAID-related deaths from gastric bleeding as
high as 16,000 per year. The apparent discrepancy may arise because the PBS assessment relied exclusively on
reports from poison control centers. Such centers are unlikely to report gastric bleeding episodes as
NSAID-related, as such episodes may be caused by factors other than NSAID use, and are associated more closely with
chronic use rather than acute overdose.
ProPublica reported that the "FDA has long been aware of studies showing the risks of
acetaminophen. So has the maker of Tylenol, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a division of Johnson & Johnson" and
"McNeil, the maker of Tylenol ... has repeatedly opposed safety warnings, dosage restrictions and other measures
meant to safeguard users of the drug." This included warnings of liver damage and warnings about using
acetaminophen in combination with alcohol. This is especially dangerous because of acetaminophen's
narrow safety
margin. ProPublica interviewed a man who had liver failure after using
Tylenol in the recommended dose and drinking two or three glasses of wine, at a time when the Tylenol label
didn't mention any dangers of drinking.
Acetaminophen, including Tylenol, causes three times as many cases
of liver failures than all
other drugs combined ]and is the most common cause of acute liver
failure in the United States ]accounting for 39% of cases.
^
Tarone RE, Blot WJ, McLaughlin JK (2004). "Nonselective nonaspirin nonsteroidal
anti-inflammatory drugs and gastrointestinal bleeding: relative and absolute risk estimates from recent
epidemiologic studies". Am J Ther 11 (1):
17–25.PMID 14704592
^
Tarone RE, Blot WJ, McLaughlin JK (2004). "Nonselective nonaspirin nonsteroidal
anti-inflammatory drugs and gastrointestinal bleeding: relative and absolute risk estimates from recent
epidemiologic studies". Am J Ther 11 (1):
17–25.PMID 14704592
^
Warnings Sought for Popular Painkiller by
Sheryl Gay Stolberg, New York Times, Published: September 20, 2002
-
^ Bushel PR, Heinloth AN, Li J, et al. (November 2007). "Blood gene expression signatures predict exposure levels". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 104 (46):
18211–6. doi:10.1073/pnas.0706987104.PMC 2084322. PMID 17984051.
-
Jump up^ Awareness: Too Much Acetaminophen? Few Seem to Know, By Nicholas Bakalar, New York Times,
February 27, 2007
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