(No subject)

[Guest guest]

" Jay " wrote:

" Problem is, Astro, that if everyone waited to get appropriate, informed

treatment from their docs, most of us would not get it.

Docs have brains and education. Patients have brains too, and can be educated if

they desire it.

If one can find a doc who will take them seriously and who will treat THEM

instead of lab test results, that is awesome.

IF it isn't happening, people can and will take matters into their own hands. We

can't allow docs to allow us to remain ill, when there are ways to be well. "

That's all well and good for those who have the intelligence to understand what

they need, how much to take, what to watch out for (self monitor), etc., but

even well informed people can still find themselves in big, big trouble.

Since I'm on LTD and I'm single w/no kids, I have all the time in the world to

do research online, and I do it quite often. I see my LLMM every 3 months, and

for each visit I prepare a list of my current supplements/doses, recent health

events and possible causes, and a plan to address what I want to do over the

next three months. We then discuss everything and come to a consensus decision

on how to proceed.

Over a year ago he told me that I should seriously consider " hanging out a

shingle " as a naturopath type health adviser, and that he believed that I knew

more about what was going on inside my body than HE did, that's when he handed

over the treatment planning process to me.

Well, #1, like I wrote in a recent post, I'm not as smart as I think sometimes,

witness the Serotonin Syndrome mess I got myself into. Secondly, making

decisions when in a " brain fog " is pretty dangerous, any kind of decision, not

just health related ones. I also fight a tendency for my body to go into the

" fight or flight " mode when under a lot of physical or mental stress, where the

sympathetic nervous system (SNS) takes control of the body and brain.

When this occurs, lots of things happen really fast, but the one I want to focus

on here is what occurs in the brain - blood is shunted to the " hindbrain " , the

brainstem, which " takes in, sends out, and coordinates all of the brain's

messages. It also controls many of the body's automatic functions, like

breathing, heart rate, blood pressure " . The forebrain (cerebrum) contains the

frontal lobe and other lobes responsible for " thinking " and processing

information, and when the SNS takes over the forebrain is starved of blood

because the hindbrain is demanding priority. Although you may feel all jazzed up

when in this state, adrenaline surging, heart pounding, this is another instance

in which your decision making process is very impaired.

Summarizing those two conditions, when you're suffering from " brain fog " , or in

the SNS mode, you should NOT be making decisions concerning what to do about

your health issues. The problem is that many times we don't even realize how

impaired we are! That's why I tried to warn everyone to be extremely careful

about taking control of their own health care w/respect to hormone supplements

without the oversight of a doctor. You can (and probably will) make some serious

errors in judgment along the way with some very unwanted results.