New Person Introduction - Again

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

My name is Corrie Bradley. I am new again to the RLS support group. I

joined about 6 months ago for just a few days, but I made some mistakes and

I thought, at the time, it was best I withdraw.

The first time, I came to the group over-enthusiastic about a nutritional

product and company that has really helped me with my RLS. I had recently

become an independent distributor with that company, and I apologize for

the impression I gave that I was trying to push my products on people. I

promise not to " advertise " over the support group again, but I hope to get

a chance to talk to a few individuals about these nutritional supplements

that have helped me so much with my RLS, because they may help some others

as well.

I really want to be part of this group and I like reading the various

emails. Just to catch people up on my life, I live in Waterloo, Ontario,

and have been married for two and a half years. I am 28 years old, and a

male (many people mistake CORRIE for a female name). I work as a

recreation therapist at a home for the aged in the city. I specifically

work at a day away program where people who suffer from alzheimer disease

come to our program for a day of activities and then go home again in the

evening. This program helps the person with alzheimer's, as well as giving

a break to the caregiver (usually as spouse or family member). We have

recently begun a weekend program as well, where people stay over the whole

weekend, giving the caregiver a longer break. I really love this job, so

you may here me mention it now and again.

Another exciting thing in my life right now is my little brother. My wife

and I have no children yet, so about 4 months ago I got involved with the

Big Brothers organization. I have a little brother named ial that I

spend time together with weekly going to hockey games, go-carting, playing

nintendo, tobogganing, etc. It is a real blast and a very rewarding

experience for both of us.

Anyway, I have got something heavy on my mind that I would like some

people's input on. This topic has probably been discussed before, but I

would like some new ideas. It started for me when my wife took medication

for a sinus infection. She is rarely sick and this is only the second time

in her life she has taken medication. She took it because she wanted to

get better fast so she could get back to her job as a teacher. The first

three days the meds made her stomach sick and then she broke out in a rash

and started having trouble breathing - yikes. We went to the doctor and he

treated it as no big deal and gave her another medication to counter-act

the side effects of the original medication. This medication is making

her tired and week. I understand that pharmaceutical medications are

helpful and often necessary for many people and many conditions, but what

upset me is that the doctor when I mentioned, as an aside, the

complimentary medicines we

are taking (vitamins/minerals/anti-oxidants/phytochemicals/herbs/etc.) the

doctor degraded me/us and basically said I guess these won't hurt anything,

but they won't really help.

This just opened up a whole can of worms for me. I have done a lot of

reading into complimentary medicines and therapies the last couple of years

and the science is proving the validity of these measures. Why haven't so

many doctors caught onto this? And why does the pharmaceutical industry

have so much power within the health care system? (I have done some

reading on this as well). And how can we empower people to take a more

preventative approach to their health?

Maybe I am just a naive, silly idealist, but I think some things can be

done differently to improve the health of our countries.

Sorry this is so long, but I needed to get that out. I hope some people

have some ides to help me work through these thoughts.

Corrie Bradley, 28, Waterloo, ON