In a time of customized cappuccinos and "have it your way" burgers, it's no surprise that women now have a full menu of birth-control pill choices. In addition to the conventional 21/7 combination pills (21 days of an estrogen-progestin combo plus seven days of placebos resulting in monthly bleeding),there are now birth-control pills offering lighter periods, shorter periods, four-times-a-year periods and no periods at all.
There's one variety that's designed to end monthly bloating, moodiness and cramps and even clear up your zits. "Once a woman gets beyond the idea that she has to have monthly withdrawal bleeding, it opens up endless possibilities for (oral contraceptive) dosing regimens," says Dr. Pamela Deak, an obstetrician-gynecologist at the University of California San Diego Medical Center.
"There are lots of options today. Which pill an individual woman chooses to use depends on which one works for her and fits best into her lifestyle." Today, birth-control pills are used by more than 11.7 million American women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and considered one of the most effective reversible methods of birth control.
Combination pills, when used exactly as directed, have a 99.7 percent efficacy rate. First introduced in the 1960s, birth control pills meant a new sexual freedom for many women who had relied on the less effective barrier methods such as diaphragms and condoms to prevent pregnancy. Although the first pills with 50 micrograms of estrogen were much stronger than those prescribed today, the way the pill works remains the same. Birth-control pills enable a woman to maintain a consistent hormone level, which prevents ovulation or the release of an egg.
No egg means no possibility for fertilization and pregnancy. The pill also thickens cervical mucus so the sperm cannot reach the egg and makes the lining of the uterus unreceptive to the implantation of a fertilized egg. The original pill was designed in a 21/7 regimen to mimic the natural menstrual cycle. By creating a period every month, women felt comfortable using it. However, the monthly bleeding wasn't medically necessary. "The reason the pill was designed without one week of active (hormones) was to create a bleeding episode so women would know they weren't pregnant. That's what they were used to," says Dr. Elizabeth Silverman, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Scripps Memorial Hospital in San Diego.
"But, it's not necessary to shed lining every month on the pill, because you really don't build up much of a lining." A natural menstrual period happens two weeks after ovulation. The lining of the uterus, which had thickened to prepare for pregnancy, sheds because you're not pregnant. The bleeding women experience on the pill is not a real menstrual period, she explains. It occurs because of the withdrawal phase of the hormones or active pills. Because a "pill period" is not real menstruation, it can be manipulated by different dosing regimens. "Doctors have been extending dosing regimens long before the FDA approved it," Deak says.
"We've used it for patients who had severe pain with their cycles or patients with endometriosis and bad pelvic pain. Or sometimes just for convenience. If you didn't want a period on your vacation or your honeymoon, you could skip it." Contrary to what some people believe, less frequent periods aren't any heavier or painful. In fact, limiting bleeding to every few months may make them lighter, Deak says. And you can put to rest the worry that extended dosing pills will interfere with getting pregnant, if and when you're ready. "Women who have been on the extended pill seem to return to ovulation and fertility very quickly once they go off the pill," Deak says. If oral contraceptives are your birth-control method of choice and your current pill isn't working out for you, you've got options. Trial and error, along with your doctor's guidance, is the only way to know for sure which pill is for you. "On the right pill you should feel exactly the same as you do in your normal life. Maybe even a bit better," Silverman says.
Read More and see many birth control options
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 30, 2007
S.B. 1555 and H.R. 2596, also called the Access to Birth Control Act
Well these folks must not be very good at their jobs if they do not dispense doctor prescribed medicine That Help People in Pain!
It's discriminatory to withhold services as a pharmacist to customers.
Is your excuse freedom of religion?
Get another job bucko as you have no idea the pain and sickness you cause by denying the medicines woman's doctors prescribe.
It seems rather discriminatory an action a person could perpetrate!
What if the woman is post hysterectomy but still needs certain medicine? Denied?
What if getting pregnant would cost a woman their life?
Denied?
Emergency contraception for victims of rape?
Would these pharmacists put their money where their mouth are and adopt an unwanted child? They care so much for life after all but I doubt this would be the case.
It seems totally hypocritical and anther way to suppress women and deny their needs under the guise of religious belief!
Catch 22 and women lose again....and why is it always seem to be male in these stories????.
Druggist's decision carries consequences for small town By The Associated Press 12.24.07
RAPID CITY, S.D. — Pharmacist John Lane believes he has a responsibility to serve humankind through his profession.
Lane, who converted to Catholicism 10 years ago, also believes the "humankind" he pledged to protect includes fertilized eggs that, because of oral contraceptives, are not able to implant in a woman's uterus and grow into a baby.
There's more to it than that. But faith is clearly a big reason that, come Jan. 1, Lane will no longer dispense birth-control pills to his customers in Powder River County, Mont.
That decision wouldn't have much effect if Lane worked in Rapid City or surrounding towns, where dozens of other pharmacists and pharmacies are available and willing to fill prescriptions for birth control. But in a town of 450 people, Lane's decision will force customers to either get oral contraceptives by mail order or drive 80 miles to the nearest pharmacy.
Women who meet low-income requirements will still be able to get birth-control pills through the public-health nurse.
Many people have been angered by Lane's decision, which he announced Oct. 25 in a full-page ad in the Powder River Examiner. Many others have commended him for it.
Some, including health-care providers, say they like Lane and respect his religious beliefs but are concerned about how those beliefs will affect patients.
"It's a service that is taken away from women in general," said Jaci Phillips, Powder River Public Health nurse. "That's what concerns me."
Contraceptives may be available by mail, but that isn't the point, she said.
"I feel it should be basic health care for anyone to get any kind of prescription that a doctor provides for them," she said. "I just don't know how fair it is to pick and choose."
She's quick to emphasize that she has nothing against Lane.
"John's a great person," she said. "But if we're in health care, we've got to serve people."
Physician assistant LeRoy Biesheuvel shares Phillips' concerns.
"I am sad that he's not going to dispense (birth-control pills) anymore," said Biesheuvel, who has cared for Broadus residents for more than 20 years. "I respect his beliefs, but I think it's going to cause a little hardship on a few people in the community. I would rather have them available."
Lane believes a little inconvenience shouldn't outweigh his ability to work and provide for his family — he and his wife, Amy, have six children ranging in age from 5 months to 9 years — while living out the convictions of his faith.
"There are options for people who live here," he said.
Biesheuvel, Phillips and others are working on ways to keep oral contraceptives readily available to local residents and others who live in the county of 1,800 people.
A moral dilemmaLane grew up in Eagle Butte and graduated from the University of Montana in 1996. He worked in Nevada before moving to Broadus in 1998.
Broadus residents were happy to see him. The local drug store closed in the mid-1990s. It was replaced by a new pharmacy in Larry's IGA, the town's only grocery store.
"We were without a pharmacist for a while, and it's really difficult to get a pharmacist to come into a small place like this," said Biesheuvel, who noted that Lane sometimes goes in late at night to fill emergency prescriptions.
But over time, Lane has grown more uncomfortable with dispensing birth-control pills. Like many Catholics and conservative Christians, he believes human life begins at conception. He said women using the pill can still ovulate occasionally, meaning sex can result in a fertilized egg.
Because the pill also prevents a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus, a fertilized egg — in Lane's eyes, a human being — may then pass out of the woman's body unnoticed.
"In the pledge I took when I became a pharmacist, I said, 'I vow to devote my professional life to the services of all humankind through the profession of pharmacy,'" Lane stated in his newspaper ad. "I am now unable to conclude that humankind begins at any other point besides conception."
The decision to stop dispensing birth control didn't come easily. Lane sought spiritual guidance, asking the diocesan administrator, the Very Rev. Jay H. Peterson, if he should view his responsibility to a geographically isolated community and to patients' easy access to medication as his moral obligation.
"The simple answer came back as 'no,' " Lane wrote in a letter to the Montana Pharmacy Association in which he called for a state law protecting the religious freedom of medical providers. "People's convenience does not trump moral obligation, and furthermore, he went on to say that it was in my spiritual best interest to conform my professional practice to the precepts of the church."
Pope Benedict XVI himself weighed in Oct. 29, telling the 25th International Congress of Catholic Pharmacists that they needed to raise public awareness "in order that all human beings are protected from conception to natural death."
Lane agrees that public awareness is important. The issue is bigger than one religion, he said. "I think that anybody who would naturally think of themselves as pro-life should really consider that issue more deeply."
Now what?
Meanwhile, women in Powder River County who take birth-control pills are left to consider the issue of how to get their medication.
Lane said he announced the policy change in October so women would have time to find alternate sources. He offered to help transfer prescriptions and gave information on pharmacies that would mail prescriptions. He gave the phone number of the county health office's family-planning program.
He also provided the Web sites and phone numbers for three organizations that promote natural family planning.
In his ad, Lane also apologized for inconveniencing his customers. He acknowledged that not every woman takes oral contraceptives to prevent pregnancy. Birth-control pills are also prescribed to treat endometriosis, acne, pre-menstrual syndrome and other conditions.
"For this reason, I must doubly apologize to those whom I will no longer be able to serve by this decision," he wrote.
Still, he stands by the fact that oral contraceptives are readily available by mail with a prescription.
And as others point out, mail-order pharmacies are becoming more and more common.
"There are numerous health plans that require a mail-order pharmacy (for maintenance drugs)," Ron Huether, executive secretary of the South Dakota Board of Pharmacy, said. "Other people don't seem to mind that at all."
A political stance There is another reason Lane decided to stop dispensing birth-control pills.
Three states — California, Illinois and New Jersey — require pharmacists to fill prescriptions for oral contraceptives. Other states, including South Dakota, have "conscience clauses" that protect pharmacists who choose not to fill certain prescriptions.
Montana law doesn't address the issue. Lane expects state legislators to consider it, possibly during the next legislative session, partly because a Great Falls, Mont., pharmacy announced earlier this year that its pharmacists would no longer dispense oral contraceptives.
"I thought it would be important to have more voices on this issue," Lane said. "Otherwise, the one example is going to be written off as sort of a fluke and not taken seriously when they're considering this issue."
Lane fears that requiring pharmacists to dispense drugs that conflict with their moral or religious beliefs could lead to similar laws that would require doctors to perform abortions, vasectomies and other procedures.
A bill currently before the U.S. Congress — S.B. 1555 and H.R. 2596, also called the Access to Birth Control Act — would impose fines of up to $5,000 per day of violation for pharmacists who refuse to fill legal prescriptions for birth-control pills.
"I would hate for these things to get decided without there being a conservative voice on the issue," Lane said.
But others fear that allowing pharmacists to pick and choose which drugs they will dispense sets a dangerous precedent.
"Who decides what is next?" Jaci Phillips asks. If a person believes AIDS or other illness is a punishment from God, she asks, would they be allowed to withhold other medications?
"If they want to be serious about life in general, protecting life, then they probably have to think about every medication that goes out," Phillips said, noting that many types of drugs can have disastrous effects on a fertilized egg.
"I've often wondered if this affected men as greatly as women and young women, would there be any question whether this would be dispensed?" she asked. "(Women) have a right to decide what to do with their lives and their bodies."
Mixed reactionsSnyder Drug in Great Falls, Mont., is owned and operated by Stuart and Kyla Anderson and Kurt and Kori Depner, all pharmacists and all Catholic. Their announcement last June that their store would no longer sell oral contraceptives brought criticism from abortion-rights groups, including Planned Parenthood, and became a topic on numerous blogs.
Staff at the Great Falls Tribune said letters to the editor were divided, some in support and some opposed.
In Broadus, letters have also run about 50-50 for and against the policy change, said Joe Stuver, who serves as editor, publisher and ad manager for the Powder River Examiner.
"(John) is really a good guy, and that's what makes it hard," he said. "It wasn't something that came easy to him."
Phillips received a number of calls, nearly all of them from people angry about the news.
Lane says he has received far more compliments than complaints.
"I was expecting more of a backlash," he said.
Larry's IGA, the grocery store that houses the pharmacy, did get angry calls from customers saying they would no longer shop at the store. But they, too, received compliments. So far, sales haven't been affected, said store manager Mark Wenzel.
Still, some worry that if people drive 80 miles to the closest pharmacy, they might decide to buy their groceries and other goods there, too.
"I would have never before this encouraged people to go to mail-order pharmacists because I think we need to support our hometown pharmacist," Phillips said. "We need to keep those services local, and I just hate to lose anything that's local."
"This is a tough issue," Wenzel agreed. "It's one of the toughest things I've ever gone through."
Planning for the futureWith little time left before the pharmacy's new policy change takes effect, Wenzel, Larry's IGA owner Larry Woolston, Biesheuvel, Phillips, Lane and others are exploring other ways to continue providing oral contraceptives locally.
One idea is to bring in a pharmacist once or twice a month who would fill birth-control prescriptions. Another is to get permission from the Montana State Board of Pharmacy for Biesheuvel to dispense oral contraceptives from Powder River Medical Clinic, where he works.
"It's illegal for me to dispense prescriptions from the clinic because there's an operating pharmacy within five miles," Biesheuvel explained. "But if this drug is not available through the local pharmacy, if we can get permission from the state, that might be a possibility."
In terms of the future, state legislators are almost certain to discuss the issue at some point. Those who believe pharmacists should be able to decide whether to dispense birth control and those who believe they should be required to do so say they want legislators to come up with a clear policy on the matter.
And while health-care providers in isolated areas would like to ensure that women have ready access to oral contraceptives, they also realize what could hang in the balance.
As Lane noted in his letter to the Montana Pharmacy Association, if the state adopts laws that override a medical provider's "moral conscience," ''then some places, like Broadus, may no longer have pharmacy service at all."
That's a scenario no one wants, those involved with the issue say.
It's discriminatory to withhold services as a pharmacist to customers.
Is your excuse freedom of religion?
Get another job bucko as you have no idea the pain and sickness you cause by denying the medicines woman's doctors prescribe.
It seems rather discriminatory an action a person could perpetrate!
What if the woman is post hysterectomy but still needs certain medicine? Denied?
What if getting pregnant would cost a woman their life?
Denied?
Emergency contraception for victims of rape?
Would these pharmacists put their money where their mouth are and adopt an unwanted child? They care so much for life after all but I doubt this would be the case.
It seems totally hypocritical and anther way to suppress women and deny their needs under the guise of religious belief!
Catch 22 and women lose again....and why is it always seem to be male in these stories????.
Druggist's decision carries consequences for small town By The Associated Press 12.24.07
RAPID CITY, S.D. — Pharmacist John Lane believes he has a responsibility to serve humankind through his profession.
Lane, who converted to Catholicism 10 years ago, also believes the "humankind" he pledged to protect includes fertilized eggs that, because of oral contraceptives, are not able to implant in a woman's uterus and grow into a baby.
There's more to it than that. But faith is clearly a big reason that, come Jan. 1, Lane will no longer dispense birth-control pills to his customers in Powder River County, Mont.
That decision wouldn't have much effect if Lane worked in Rapid City or surrounding towns, where dozens of other pharmacists and pharmacies are available and willing to fill prescriptions for birth control. But in a town of 450 people, Lane's decision will force customers to either get oral contraceptives by mail order or drive 80 miles to the nearest pharmacy.
Women who meet low-income requirements will still be able to get birth-control pills through the public-health nurse.
Many people have been angered by Lane's decision, which he announced Oct. 25 in a full-page ad in the Powder River Examiner. Many others have commended him for it.
Some, including health-care providers, say they like Lane and respect his religious beliefs but are concerned about how those beliefs will affect patients.
"It's a service that is taken away from women in general," said Jaci Phillips, Powder River Public Health nurse. "That's what concerns me."
Contraceptives may be available by mail, but that isn't the point, she said.
"I feel it should be basic health care for anyone to get any kind of prescription that a doctor provides for them," she said. "I just don't know how fair it is to pick and choose."
She's quick to emphasize that she has nothing against Lane.
"John's a great person," she said. "But if we're in health care, we've got to serve people."
Physician assistant LeRoy Biesheuvel shares Phillips' concerns.
"I am sad that he's not going to dispense (birth-control pills) anymore," said Biesheuvel, who has cared for Broadus residents for more than 20 years. "I respect his beliefs, but I think it's going to cause a little hardship on a few people in the community. I would rather have them available."
Lane believes a little inconvenience shouldn't outweigh his ability to work and provide for his family — he and his wife, Amy, have six children ranging in age from 5 months to 9 years — while living out the convictions of his faith.
"There are options for people who live here," he said.
Biesheuvel, Phillips and others are working on ways to keep oral contraceptives readily available to local residents and others who live in the county of 1,800 people.
A moral dilemmaLane grew up in Eagle Butte and graduated from the University of Montana in 1996. He worked in Nevada before moving to Broadus in 1998.
Broadus residents were happy to see him. The local drug store closed in the mid-1990s. It was replaced by a new pharmacy in Larry's IGA, the town's only grocery store.
"We were without a pharmacist for a while, and it's really difficult to get a pharmacist to come into a small place like this," said Biesheuvel, who noted that Lane sometimes goes in late at night to fill emergency prescriptions.
But over time, Lane has grown more uncomfortable with dispensing birth-control pills. Like many Catholics and conservative Christians, he believes human life begins at conception. He said women using the pill can still ovulate occasionally, meaning sex can result in a fertilized egg.
Because the pill also prevents a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus, a fertilized egg — in Lane's eyes, a human being — may then pass out of the woman's body unnoticed.
"In the pledge I took when I became a pharmacist, I said, 'I vow to devote my professional life to the services of all humankind through the profession of pharmacy,'" Lane stated in his newspaper ad. "I am now unable to conclude that humankind begins at any other point besides conception."
The decision to stop dispensing birth control didn't come easily. Lane sought spiritual guidance, asking the diocesan administrator, the Very Rev. Jay H. Peterson, if he should view his responsibility to a geographically isolated community and to patients' easy access to medication as his moral obligation.
"The simple answer came back as 'no,' " Lane wrote in a letter to the Montana Pharmacy Association in which he called for a state law protecting the religious freedom of medical providers. "People's convenience does not trump moral obligation, and furthermore, he went on to say that it was in my spiritual best interest to conform my professional practice to the precepts of the church."
Pope Benedict XVI himself weighed in Oct. 29, telling the 25th International Congress of Catholic Pharmacists that they needed to raise public awareness "in order that all human beings are protected from conception to natural death."
Lane agrees that public awareness is important. The issue is bigger than one religion, he said. "I think that anybody who would naturally think of themselves as pro-life should really consider that issue more deeply."
Now what?
Meanwhile, women in Powder River County who take birth-control pills are left to consider the issue of how to get their medication.
Lane said he announced the policy change in October so women would have time to find alternate sources. He offered to help transfer prescriptions and gave information on pharmacies that would mail prescriptions. He gave the phone number of the county health office's family-planning program.
He also provided the Web sites and phone numbers for three organizations that promote natural family planning.
In his ad, Lane also apologized for inconveniencing his customers. He acknowledged that not every woman takes oral contraceptives to prevent pregnancy. Birth-control pills are also prescribed to treat endometriosis, acne, pre-menstrual syndrome and other conditions.
"For this reason, I must doubly apologize to those whom I will no longer be able to serve by this decision," he wrote.
Still, he stands by the fact that oral contraceptives are readily available by mail with a prescription.
And as others point out, mail-order pharmacies are becoming more and more common.
"There are numerous health plans that require a mail-order pharmacy (for maintenance drugs)," Ron Huether, executive secretary of the South Dakota Board of Pharmacy, said. "Other people don't seem to mind that at all."
A political stance There is another reason Lane decided to stop dispensing birth-control pills.
Three states — California, Illinois and New Jersey — require pharmacists to fill prescriptions for oral contraceptives. Other states, including South Dakota, have "conscience clauses" that protect pharmacists who choose not to fill certain prescriptions.
Montana law doesn't address the issue. Lane expects state legislators to consider it, possibly during the next legislative session, partly because a Great Falls, Mont., pharmacy announced earlier this year that its pharmacists would no longer dispense oral contraceptives.
"I thought it would be important to have more voices on this issue," Lane said. "Otherwise, the one example is going to be written off as sort of a fluke and not taken seriously when they're considering this issue."
Lane fears that requiring pharmacists to dispense drugs that conflict with their moral or religious beliefs could lead to similar laws that would require doctors to perform abortions, vasectomies and other procedures.
A bill currently before the U.S. Congress — S.B. 1555 and H.R. 2596, also called the Access to Birth Control Act — would impose fines of up to $5,000 per day of violation for pharmacists who refuse to fill legal prescriptions for birth-control pills.
"I would hate for these things to get decided without there being a conservative voice on the issue," Lane said.
But others fear that allowing pharmacists to pick and choose which drugs they will dispense sets a dangerous precedent.
"Who decides what is next?" Jaci Phillips asks. If a person believes AIDS or other illness is a punishment from God, she asks, would they be allowed to withhold other medications?
"If they want to be serious about life in general, protecting life, then they probably have to think about every medication that goes out," Phillips said, noting that many types of drugs can have disastrous effects on a fertilized egg.
"I've often wondered if this affected men as greatly as women and young women, would there be any question whether this would be dispensed?" she asked. "(Women) have a right to decide what to do with their lives and their bodies."
Mixed reactionsSnyder Drug in Great Falls, Mont., is owned and operated by Stuart and Kyla Anderson and Kurt and Kori Depner, all pharmacists and all Catholic. Their announcement last June that their store would no longer sell oral contraceptives brought criticism from abortion-rights groups, including Planned Parenthood, and became a topic on numerous blogs.
Staff at the Great Falls Tribune said letters to the editor were divided, some in support and some opposed.
In Broadus, letters have also run about 50-50 for and against the policy change, said Joe Stuver, who serves as editor, publisher and ad manager for the Powder River Examiner.
"(John) is really a good guy, and that's what makes it hard," he said. "It wasn't something that came easy to him."
Phillips received a number of calls, nearly all of them from people angry about the news.
Lane says he has received far more compliments than complaints.
"I was expecting more of a backlash," he said.
Larry's IGA, the grocery store that houses the pharmacy, did get angry calls from customers saying they would no longer shop at the store. But they, too, received compliments. So far, sales haven't been affected, said store manager Mark Wenzel.
Still, some worry that if people drive 80 miles to the closest pharmacy, they might decide to buy their groceries and other goods there, too.
"I would have never before this encouraged people to go to mail-order pharmacists because I think we need to support our hometown pharmacist," Phillips said. "We need to keep those services local, and I just hate to lose anything that's local."
"This is a tough issue," Wenzel agreed. "It's one of the toughest things I've ever gone through."
Planning for the futureWith little time left before the pharmacy's new policy change takes effect, Wenzel, Larry's IGA owner Larry Woolston, Biesheuvel, Phillips, Lane and others are exploring other ways to continue providing oral contraceptives locally.
One idea is to bring in a pharmacist once or twice a month who would fill birth-control prescriptions. Another is to get permission from the Montana State Board of Pharmacy for Biesheuvel to dispense oral contraceptives from Powder River Medical Clinic, where he works.
"It's illegal for me to dispense prescriptions from the clinic because there's an operating pharmacy within five miles," Biesheuvel explained. "But if this drug is not available through the local pharmacy, if we can get permission from the state, that might be a possibility."
In terms of the future, state legislators are almost certain to discuss the issue at some point. Those who believe pharmacists should be able to decide whether to dispense birth control and those who believe they should be required to do so say they want legislators to come up with a clear policy on the matter.
And while health-care providers in isolated areas would like to ensure that women have ready access to oral contraceptives, they also realize what could hang in the balance.
As Lane noted in his letter to the Montana Pharmacy Association, if the state adopts laws that override a medical provider's "moral conscience," ''then some places, like Broadus, may no longer have pharmacy service at all."
That's a scenario no one wants, those involved with the issue say.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Which, budget or body, is more important?
Letter to the Editor
Issue date: 11/30/07 Section: Opinion
As I'm sure many of you are aware by now, hormonal birth control is now being priced out of the reach of college students and low-income women thanks to the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which cut incentives for pharmaceutical companies to price hormonal birth control lower for college and community clinics. Even those of us lucky enough to have insurance may not be able to afford hormonal birth control anymore.
My insurance won't cover it, and many women are in the same situation.
At our university, birth control was offered at the former discounted rates - under $10 for many options, and $22 for the NuvaRing - for a few months after the act went into effect in January, until the stock purchased at a discount ran out. Now we pay full retail - as much as $50 a month - for hormonal birth control, and so do many low-income women. Here in Tuscaloosa, we're lucky enough to have health department offices that can provide hormonal birth control to some women, but for those living in more rural areas, this option may not exist.
We shouldn't have to choose between our budgets and our bodies. Women take hormonal birth control not just to prevent pregnancy, but also to control acne, lighten heavy and debilitating periods and fight endometriosis or PCOS.
The Prevention Through Affordable Access Act, legislation introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) and in the Senate by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), would restore this funding and protect women across the nation. Call your congressmen.
Visit http://www.choiceusa.org/ for more information and a form letter to simplify putting in your two cents.
If you're interested in doing more, Choice Alabama meets Tuesdays at 7p.m. in 101 Carmichael Hall. Tuesday is our last meeting of the semester, so be sure to come if you can.Holly KennedyPresident, Choice Alabama Sophomore, philosophy
http://media.www.cw.ua.edu/media/storage/paper959/news/2007/11/30/Opinion/Which.Budget.Or.Body.Is.More.Important-3124542.shtml
Issue date: 11/30/07 Section: Opinion
As I'm sure many of you are aware by now, hormonal birth control is now being priced out of the reach of college students and low-income women thanks to the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which cut incentives for pharmaceutical companies to price hormonal birth control lower for college and community clinics. Even those of us lucky enough to have insurance may not be able to afford hormonal birth control anymore.
My insurance won't cover it, and many women are in the same situation.
At our university, birth control was offered at the former discounted rates - under $10 for many options, and $22 for the NuvaRing - for a few months after the act went into effect in January, until the stock purchased at a discount ran out. Now we pay full retail - as much as $50 a month - for hormonal birth control, and so do many low-income women. Here in Tuscaloosa, we're lucky enough to have health department offices that can provide hormonal birth control to some women, but for those living in more rural areas, this option may not exist.
We shouldn't have to choose between our budgets and our bodies. Women take hormonal birth control not just to prevent pregnancy, but also to control acne, lighten heavy and debilitating periods and fight endometriosis or PCOS.
The Prevention Through Affordable Access Act, legislation introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) and in the Senate by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), would restore this funding and protect women across the nation. Call your congressmen.
Visit http://www.choiceusa.org/ for more information and a form letter to simplify putting in your two cents.
If you're interested in doing more, Choice Alabama meets Tuesdays at 7p.m. in 101 Carmichael Hall. Tuesday is our last meeting of the semester, so be sure to come if you can.Holly KennedyPresident, Choice Alabama Sophomore, philosophy
http://media.www.cw.ua.edu/media/storage/paper959/news/2007/11/30/Opinion/Which.Budget.Or.Body.Is.More.Important-3124542.shtml
Friday, December 28, 2007
Painful sex
Monday, December 17, 2007
DOCTORS say that the average healthy woman should not feel pain during sexual intercourse. But fact is, many women suffer with this problem, and it subtracts from the enjoyment of the sexual act, and many times prevent the sufferer from reaching orgasm.
Medical doctor and chief executive officer at the Andrews Memorial Hospital, Dr Grace-Ann Cooper, says there are two types of dyspareunia (painful sexual intercourse) - superficial and deep.
While superficial affects the opening of the vagina, deep affects the internal area, for example the womb."Once you start experiencing deep pains it means that something is wrong and it is time to visit your doctor," Dr Cooper said.
She explains that superficial pain is a lot more common in women with one of the main cause being inadequate lubrication. She notes too that sexual technique can also play a major part in both superficial and deep dyspareunia.
Causes of deep pain
* Problems with the cervix - the man's penis hits the cervix at the farthest extent of his thrust.
*Womb trouble - various womb disorders, including fibroids.
* Endometriosis (a condition in which the tissue normally lining the womb (or uterus) grows on different organs outside the uterus) - this very common disorder often affects the womb and surrounding tissues. It makes them very tender, particularly near the monthly period. The pressure of the penis on an area of endometriosis may cause intense, deep pain.
* Ovary problems - cysts on the ovary can cause deep pain, as well as if the tip of the penis hits an unusually positioned ovary.
* Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) - this is caused by infection, largely due to chlamydia that has gone untreated.
* Ectopic pregnancy - this means a pregnancy outside the womb, usually in the Fallopian tube. Pressure on it can be very painful.
Causes of superficial pain* Vaginal and vulva infections - These are very common. While there are a number of them, the one that huge numbers of women get is thrush. The blisters of herpes can also be really painful.
* Foreign body in the vagina - The usual culprit is a forgotten tampon. It may cause pain, especially if the tampon leads to an infection.
* Psychological - a restrictive upbringing, in which the woman was brought up to view sex as nasty or dirty.
* Childhood trauma - a background where rape or childhood sexual abuse has taken place. Experiences like these understandably make women fearful of sex and of being hurt.
* Tension - unease with their partner - perhaps at an unconscious level.
* Well-endowed partner.
* Menopausal or post-menopausal dryness - This is usually due to a fall in female sex hormones.
* Cancer - This is a rare cause of intercourse pain, but a possibility in women who have never experienced pain before age 40.
You can safely disregard one isolated episode of pain during sex. But if the pain keeps on happening, you shouldn't feel you have to put up with it and pretend to be enjoying sex just to please your partner. Visit your gynaecologist instead. -
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/AllWoman/html/20071217T010000-0500_130472_OBS_PAINFUL_SEX.asp
DOCTORS say that the average healthy woman should not feel pain during sexual intercourse. But fact is, many women suffer with this problem, and it subtracts from the enjoyment of the sexual act, and many times prevent the sufferer from reaching orgasm.
Medical doctor and chief executive officer at the Andrews Memorial Hospital, Dr Grace-Ann Cooper, says there are two types of dyspareunia (painful sexual intercourse) - superficial and deep.
While superficial affects the opening of the vagina, deep affects the internal area, for example the womb."Once you start experiencing deep pains it means that something is wrong and it is time to visit your doctor," Dr Cooper said.
She explains that superficial pain is a lot more common in women with one of the main cause being inadequate lubrication. She notes too that sexual technique can also play a major part in both superficial and deep dyspareunia.
Causes of deep pain
* Problems with the cervix - the man's penis hits the cervix at the farthest extent of his thrust.
*Womb trouble - various womb disorders, including fibroids.
* Endometriosis (a condition in which the tissue normally lining the womb (or uterus) grows on different organs outside the uterus) - this very common disorder often affects the womb and surrounding tissues. It makes them very tender, particularly near the monthly period. The pressure of the penis on an area of endometriosis may cause intense, deep pain.
* Ovary problems - cysts on the ovary can cause deep pain, as well as if the tip of the penis hits an unusually positioned ovary.
* Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) - this is caused by infection, largely due to chlamydia that has gone untreated.
* Ectopic pregnancy - this means a pregnancy outside the womb, usually in the Fallopian tube. Pressure on it can be very painful.
Causes of superficial pain* Vaginal and vulva infections - These are very common. While there are a number of them, the one that huge numbers of women get is thrush. The blisters of herpes can also be really painful.
* Foreign body in the vagina - The usual culprit is a forgotten tampon. It may cause pain, especially if the tampon leads to an infection.
* Psychological - a restrictive upbringing, in which the woman was brought up to view sex as nasty or dirty.
* Childhood trauma - a background where rape or childhood sexual abuse has taken place. Experiences like these understandably make women fearful of sex and of being hurt.
* Tension - unease with their partner - perhaps at an unconscious level.
* Well-endowed partner.
* Menopausal or post-menopausal dryness - This is usually due to a fall in female sex hormones.
* Cancer - This is a rare cause of intercourse pain, but a possibility in women who have never experienced pain before age 40.
You can safely disregard one isolated episode of pain during sex. But if the pain keeps on happening, you shouldn't feel you have to put up with it and pretend to be enjoying sex just to please your partner. Visit your gynaecologist instead. -
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/AllWoman/html/20071217T010000-0500_130472_OBS_PAINFUL_SEX.asp
PCBs and Endometriosis
PCBs, Polychlorinated biphenyls, have been in the news recently because of their discovery in recreational areas treated by contaminated fertilizer manufactured from sewage sludge. Since 1992, the Endometriosis Association, an international nonprofit organization headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has pioneered research linking PCBs (part of a chemical family called dioxins) to the development of endometriosis, a painful and debilitating disease afflicting 5.5 million women in the U.S. and Canada from ages eight to eighty years old. This chronic disease often causes ongoing pain, infertility, and immune problems. Read more...
From the Endometriosis Association
From the Endometriosis Association
Thursday, December 27, 2007
See SICKO for free
TODAY at 7:00 PM in Asheville, North Carolina
December 28th at 6:30 PM in Hayward, Wisconsin
December 29th at 2:00 PM in Bonham, Texas
December 30th at 7:00 PM in Asheville, NC
January 5th, Vaughan, Ontario, Canada
January 7th at 5:45 PM in Spring Hill, Florida
January 7th at 6 PM, Hilton Head Island, SC
January 10th at 6:30 PM in Stamford, Connecticut
January 11th at 7 PM in Stillwater, Oklahoma
January 29th All Day Long in Salt Lake City, Utah
December 28th at 6:30 PM in Hayward, Wisconsin
December 29th at 2:00 PM in Bonham, Texas
December 30th at 7:00 PM in Asheville, NC
January 5th, Vaughan, Ontario, Canada
January 7th at 5:45 PM in Spring Hill, Florida
January 7th at 6 PM, Hilton Head Island, SC
January 10th at 6:30 PM in Stamford, Connecticut
January 11th at 7 PM in Stillwater, Oklahoma
January 29th All Day Long in Salt Lake City, Utah
Endometriosis Coping skills
Coping skills
Left undiagnosed or untreated, endometriosis can be a frustrating condition. Painful periods can cause you to miss work or school and can strain relationships. Recurring pain can lead to depression, irritability, anxiety, anger and feelings of helplessness. Infertility linked to endometriosis also can cause emotional distress.
That's why it's important to seek treatment if you suspect you may have endometriosis. Keeping a record of your symptoms can aid your doctor in your diagnosis.
If you're dealing with endometriosis or its complications, you may want to consider joining a support group for women with endometriosis or fertility problems. Sometimes it helps simply to talk to other women who can relate to your feelings and experiences.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/endometriosis/DS00289/DSECTION=10
Left undiagnosed or untreated, endometriosis can be a frustrating condition. Painful periods can cause you to miss work or school and can strain relationships. Recurring pain can lead to depression, irritability, anxiety, anger and feelings of helplessness. Infertility linked to endometriosis also can cause emotional distress.
That's why it's important to seek treatment if you suspect you may have endometriosis. Keeping a record of your symptoms can aid your doctor in your diagnosis.
If you're dealing with endometriosis or its complications, you may want to consider joining a support group for women with endometriosis or fertility problems. Sometimes it helps simply to talk to other women who can relate to your feelings and experiences.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/endometriosis/DS00289/DSECTION=10
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Autopsy report ~ Edith Isabel Rodriguez suffered " Adhesion Related Disorder!"
Edith Isabel Rodriguez suffered " Adhesion Related Disorder!" A contributory if not THE end means disease of which she died!
Edith presented to the ER a number of times over a short period of time, "was called a "frequent flyer" prescribed analgesics for pain, miss-diagnosed due to the lack of knowledge of ARD, and worse, lack of medical intervention, inhumane treatment and ultimately met her death lying on the floor in the waiting area of Martin Luther King Hospital in LA, with a janitor cleaning around her pain riddled body as loved ones and other patients watched in disbelief!
The sad truth is that hundreds, maybe thousands of persons afflicted with ARD are receiving this very same "lack of treatment" in ER's all over the USA....and if this med student web site is any indication of the caliber of "Dr.'s" who are going to fill these ER's, person afflicted with ARD face this same type of death without dignity or proper medical intervention, just as Edith did!
Read the Adhesion Quilt for stories very similar to Edith's as each person pleads for help from one of the most painful conditions imaginable. ARD patients can be "frequent flyers" to E.R.. It's actually a common phrase in an adhesion sufferer's story.
Not only was Edith's death a tragedy, it appears that her autopsy was just as "sloppy" and "crude" as her death at the hands of "medical professionals!" Her autopsy report is filled with errors and inconsistencies as the hands of those in the corner's office of LA who did the "investigation" & "autopsy!" Would this have happened if "Edith I. Rodriguez" was "Anna Nicole Smith?"
BOTH these ladies seemed to have a history of drug taking, with "Anna Nicole Smith" appearing to be the worst of the two, both died young, and both were taking prescription medication at the time of their deaths..and that is where the similarities seem to end!
IHRT called it correctly, and NOT one medical person was able to do that, and we did it without the autopsy results! We will say that, "WE told you so!"
Edith Isabel Rodriguez "Adhesion Related Disorder"
Pg. 1 Synopsis: History of "illicit narcotic" abuse" no mention of an "Iatrogenic" disorder!
Pg. 2 In dormant/witness statement: Diagnostic tests results - Negative for abnormal pathology
Pg. 2 NO tracking from illicit drugs..(IHRT asks:"so just how bad was the "Illicit drug taking?")
Pg. 3 Evidence of "old surgery" scar at middle lower portion of the abdomen midline just under the umbilicus is vertically oriented and measures 7.5 inches. (Laporotomy)
Pg. 4 Prior Appendectomy - Extensive adhesions in the lower abdominal quadrant! (IHRT adds that THIS is a VERY painful condition!)
Edith's autopsy report states that she died after "collapsing in the ER" and "not being able to be resuscitated," no mention that Edith lay bleeding and withering in pain on the floor of the ER in full view of the ER staff!
Edith's autopsy reports gives her age as both 43 years of age, AND 53 years of age! Edith's autopsy report states that she did not have any bowel strangulation, but adhesions most certainly narrow the intestinal passages and constricts constipated stool!
One x-ray could have seen the mega colon and thus her life could have been saved.
Was she ignored because this E.R suspected she had adhesions and also needed emergency surgery.
Adhesions are usually a surgeons worst nightmare!
Adhesions are can be dangerous to lyse. Adhesiolysis can be very time consuming thus offers a medical facility no profits.
Most surgeons are pretty nervous about their medical malpractice rates.
Edith's autopsy report states her death was an "accidental!"
Edith's death was NOT due to diabetes, hypertension, overweight, nor gender, race, being rich or poor, having a criminal record or not, drug addiction, being transient in nature, being a mother, a grandmother, a friend, a sister, an aunt, a person....Edith died because she had, "Adhesion Related Disorder" and this IS how persons afflicted with ARD are treated by medical "professionals" in Emergency Rooms all across the USA!
IHRT predicts that this treatment is not likely to get better after reading the comments by "medical students" in the following link! Non of the med students had a clue as to what might have caused Edith's symptoms, and why she presented so often to the ER, nor why all the diagnostic tests were "normal!" IHRT knew the answer to ALL of those answers, and they was right!
Many adhesion sufferers immediately thought, " Edith IS one of us I bet" and now we have obtained the horrible truth of the matter. The autopsy confirmed our worse fears,
Read "Edith's Autopsy " report for yourself!
Edith Isabel Rodriguez had severe abdominal adhesions.
Edith Isabel Rodriguez will save many lives we pray with her tragic posthumous story.
Adhesion sufferers should be forever armed at all times with our operative reports and Edith Rodriguez' autopsy report.
Firmly stand your ground.
You will be presenting to the likes of these medical professions in the future. Here is the link, "Student Doctor Network Forums"
LADoc00 writes:
"The lady was a drug addict and had warrants for her arrest. Why does anyone think this was unintentional?? Was she even a US citizen FFS? On the face of it, saving her would have been FAR more of a tragedy for America.LET THESE PEOPLE DIE. I cant stress this enough.I want to give MLK adminstrators a medal for this not my scorn.
__________________Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow; The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow."~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Edith Isabel Rodriguez was a victim of "Adhesion Related Disorder," just as IHRT suspected and predicted.
This prediction was something that no medical "professional" was able to predict, suspect and most disturbing to IHRT, was not able to diagnose properly!
This prediction was something that no medical "professional" was able to predict, suspect and most disturbing to IHRT, was not able to diagnose properly!
Edith presented to the ER a number of times over a short period of time, "was called a "frequent flyer" prescribed analgesics for pain, miss-diagnosed due to the lack of knowledge of ARD, and worse, lack of medical intervention, inhumane treatment and ultimately met her death lying on the floor in the waiting area of Martin Luther King Hospital in LA, with a janitor cleaning around her pain riddled body as loved ones and other patients watched in disbelief!
The sad truth is that hundreds, maybe thousands of persons afflicted with ARD are receiving this very same "lack of treatment" in ER's all over the USA....and if this med student web site is any indication of the caliber of "Dr.'s" who are going to fill these ER's, person afflicted with ARD face this same type of death without dignity or proper medical intervention, just as Edith did!
Read the Adhesion Quilt for stories very similar to Edith's as each person pleads for help from one of the most painful conditions imaginable. ARD patients can be "frequent flyers" to E.R.. It's actually a common phrase in an adhesion sufferer's story.
Not only was Edith's death a tragedy, it appears that her autopsy was just as "sloppy" and "crude" as her death at the hands of "medical professionals!" Her autopsy report is filled with errors and inconsistencies as the hands of those in the corner's office of LA who did the "investigation" & "autopsy!" Would this have happened if "Edith I. Rodriguez" was "Anna Nicole Smith?"
Edith Isabel Rodriguez seems to have been treated as a "Jane Doe" at the coroner's office.
.........Until you know what hit the fan.
BOTH these ladies seemed to have a history of drug taking, with "Anna Nicole Smith" appearing to be the worst of the two, both died young, and both were taking prescription medication at the time of their deaths..and that is where the similarities seem to end!
IHRT called it correctly, and NOT one medical person was able to do that, and we did it without the autopsy results! We will say that, "WE told you so!"
Edith Isabel Rodriguez "Adhesion Related Disorder"
Post-surgical intra-abdominal adhesions
Date of birth: 2/1/1964
Date of death: 5/9/2007
Place of death: Martin Lutheran King - LA
Pg. 1 Synopsis: History of "illicit narcotic" abuse" no mention of an "Iatrogenic" disorder!
Pg. 2 In dormant/witness statement: Diagnostic tests results - Negative for abnormal pathology
Autopsy exam:
Pg. 1 Anatomical summary: D - Lower abdominal and pelvic regions with adhesions.
Pg. 2 NO tracking from illicit drugs..(IHRT asks:"so just how bad was the "Illicit drug taking?")
Pg. 3 Evidence of "old surgery" scar at middle lower portion of the abdomen midline just under the umbilicus is vertically oriented and measures 7.5 inches. (Laporotomy)
Pg. 4 Prior Appendectomy - Extensive adhesions in the lower abdominal quadrant! (IHRT adds that THIS is a VERY painful condition!)
Edith's autopsy report states that she died after "collapsing in the ER" and "not being able to be resuscitated," no mention that Edith lay bleeding and withering in pain on the floor of the ER in full view of the ER staff!
Edith's autopsy reports gives her age as both 43 years of age, AND 53 years of age! Edith's autopsy report states that she did not have any bowel strangulation, but adhesions most certainly narrow the intestinal passages and constricts constipated stool!
One x-ray could have seen the mega colon and thus her life could have been saved.
Was she ignored because this E.R suspected she had adhesions and also needed emergency surgery.
Adhesions are usually a surgeons worst nightmare!
Adhesions are can be dangerous to lyse. Adhesiolysis can be very time consuming thus offers a medical facility no profits.
Most surgeons are pretty nervous about their medical malpractice rates.
IHRT suspects that many are turned away and discriminated against just for having prior surgeries or if the word adhesions is on any post op report.
IHRT says very possible!
IHRT says very possible!
Edith's autopsy report states her death was an "accidental!"
Edith Isabel Rodriguez is, sadly, a prime example of what persons afflicted with ARD face when seeking medical intervention for their pain and various symptoms!
Edith's death was NOT due to diabetes, hypertension, overweight, nor gender, race, being rich or poor, having a criminal record or not, drug addiction, being transient in nature, being a mother, a grandmother, a friend, a sister, an aunt, a person....Edith died because she had, "Adhesion Related Disorder" and this IS how persons afflicted with ARD are treated by medical "professionals" in Emergency Rooms all across the USA!
IHRT predicts that this treatment is not likely to get better after reading the comments by "medical students" in the following link! Non of the med students had a clue as to what might have caused Edith's symptoms, and why she presented so often to the ER, nor why all the diagnostic tests were "normal!" IHRT knew the answer to ALL of those answers, and they was right!
Many adhesion sufferers immediately thought, " Edith IS one of us I bet" and now we have obtained the horrible truth of the matter. The autopsy confirmed our worse fears,
Read "Edith's Autopsy " report for yourself!
Edith Isabel Rodriguez will save many lives we pray with her tragic posthumous story.
Adhesion sufferers should be forever armed at all times with our operative reports and Edith Rodriguez' autopsy report.
Firmly stand your ground.
You will be presenting to the likes of these medical professions in the future. Here is the link, "Student Doctor Network Forums"
LADoc00 writes:
"The lady was a drug addict and had warrants for her arrest. Why does anyone think this was unintentional?? Was she even a US citizen FFS? On the face of it, saving her would have been FAR more of a tragedy for America.LET THESE PEOPLE DIE. I cant stress this enough.I want to give MLK adminstrators a medal for this not my scorn.
__________________Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow; The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow."
Is he just kidding?? IHRT can't tell!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These are the facts, plain and simple..and this was "Manslaughter," plain and simple!
Friday, June 29, 2007
Sicko Opens Today
Today is the Day for "Sicko"...a letter from Michael Moore
Movie Trailer
"Where can I see the film?"
TONIGHT at 9:00 PM ET:Check Out Mike on 'Larry King Live'
"Would you patent the sun?" -- Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine
Outnumbered; Pharmaceutical giants might as well take a chill pill
What Do They Have to Lose?
The Rug Out from Under Their Feet
SICKO OPENS TODAY! EVERYWHERE!!
Movie Trailer
"Where can I see the film?"
TONIGHT at 9:00 PM ET:Check Out Mike on 'Larry King Live'
"Would you patent the sun?" -- Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine
Outnumbered; Pharmaceutical giants might as well take a chill pill
What Do They Have to Lose?
The Rug Out from Under Their Feet
SICKO OPENS TODAY! EVERYWHERE!!
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Doctor's advice
Q Good day. My girlfriend has been having real bad period pain for the last 12 years.
During these attacks of pain, she is quite ill, has loose bowels, and also vomits a lot.
She has been to several doctors, but what they have recommended does not work very well. Also, she has taken all the painkillers you can think of, but they only help for a short while, and then the pain comes back.
This is a serious concern that requires your immediate attention.
A I am sorry to hear that she has had so much pain. As it has been going on for around 12 years, I am guessing that by now she must be at least 25 or 30.
What occurs to me is that in this age group, it is common for women to be badly afflicted with a disease called 'endometriosis.'
This is a disorder in which little pieces of womb tissue turn up in the wrong places. Each month, these pieces try and bleed - but they cannot, because there is no room for them to do so. Result: terrible pain.
It may well be that your lady friend has endometriosis. But even if she hasn't, there is clearly some BIG problem in the region of her ovaries and tubes.
My conclusion is that she must now go to a good gynaecologist, and ask him if he will look inside her belly with a surgical telescope. This procedure is called 'laparoscopy.'
Depending on what he sees, there is an excellent chance that he will be able to use cutting techniques or lasers to make her a lot better. My thoughts are with her.
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20070624/out/out3.html
During these attacks of pain, she is quite ill, has loose bowels, and also vomits a lot.
She has been to several doctors, but what they have recommended does not work very well. Also, she has taken all the painkillers you can think of, but they only help for a short while, and then the pain comes back.
This is a serious concern that requires your immediate attention.
A I am sorry to hear that she has had so much pain. As it has been going on for around 12 years, I am guessing that by now she must be at least 25 or 30.
What occurs to me is that in this age group, it is common for women to be badly afflicted with a disease called 'endometriosis.'
This is a disorder in which little pieces of womb tissue turn up in the wrong places. Each month, these pieces try and bleed - but they cannot, because there is no room for them to do so. Result: terrible pain.
It may well be that your lady friend has endometriosis. But even if she hasn't, there is clearly some BIG problem in the region of her ovaries and tubes.
My conclusion is that she must now go to a good gynaecologist, and ask him if he will look inside her belly with a surgical telescope. This procedure is called 'laparoscopy.'
Depending on what he sees, there is an excellent chance that he will be able to use cutting techniques or lasers to make her a lot better. My thoughts are with her.
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20070624/out/out3.html
Pediatricians gear health, fitness program to families
Chris SwingleStaff writer
Pediatricians gear health, fitness program to families
(June 27, 2007) — When Gabby Ingraham first saw her school pictures last year, she almost didn't recognize the overweight teen they showed. "I guess that's what I look like," she realized, in tears.
Extra pounds had multiplied over the six years since her mom, Coral, became disabled by endometriosis. The once-active family of four had stopped taking walks and riding bicycles. The hospital trips and other chaos of serious illness put them into survival mode, which included a lot of fast food, TV and computer time.
Read More
Pediatricians gear health, fitness program to families
(June 27, 2007) — When Gabby Ingraham first saw her school pictures last year, she almost didn't recognize the overweight teen they showed. "I guess that's what I look like," she realized, in tears.
Extra pounds had multiplied over the six years since her mom, Coral, became disabled by endometriosis. The once-active family of four had stopped taking walks and riding bicycles. The hospital trips and other chaos of serious illness put them into survival mode, which included a lot of fast food, TV and computer time.
Read More
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Possible early signs of ovarian cancer identified
Story Highlights
• Certain symptoms alone or in combination might alert women to ovarian cancer
• Signs: sudden bloating, frequent urination, eating changes, abdominal pain•American Cancer Society, other groups agree on list of symptoms
• Previously experts believed there were no early signs of ovarian cancer
Read More
• Certain symptoms alone or in combination might alert women to ovarian cancer
• Signs: sudden bloating, frequent urination, eating changes, abdominal pain•American Cancer Society, other groups agree on list of symptoms
• Previously experts believed there were no early signs of ovarian cancer
Read More
Sicko Getting Away With Murder
Sicko Getting Away With Murder
"They are getting away with murder."
-- Michael Moore (AUDIO VIDEO: Low, High)
Batten the Hatches
Amerigroup Corp.'s chairman and chief executive, Jeff McWaters, says 'SiCKO' is a "headline risk" for the health insurance industry overall
$2,100,000,000,000 Per Year
Sicko now in NYC the film opens June 29th... EVERYWHERE
Contagious'
"...the writer-director's most effective provocation yet."
-- Newsday
"...Moore's most assured, least antagonistic and potentially most important film."
-- New York Daily News
"...sustained standing ovation from the packed audience..."
-- FOX News
Surgical outcome and long-term follow up after laparoscopic rectosigmoid resection in women with deep infiltrating endometriosis.
Seracchioli R, Poggioli G, Pierangeli F, Manuzzi L, Gualerzi B, Savelli L, Remorgida V, Mabrouk M, Venturoli S.
Center of Reconstructive Pelvic Endo-surgery, Reproductive Medicine Unit, S.Orsola Hospital, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy. seracchioli@orsola-malpighi.med.unibo.it
The aim of this study was to assess the long-term outcome of treating severely symptomatic women with deep infiltrating intestinal endometriosis by laparoscopic segmental rectosigmoid resection. Detailed intraoperative and postoperative records and questionnaires (preoperatively, 1 month postoperatively and every 6 months for 3 years) were collected from 22 women. The estimated blood loss during surgery was 290 +/- 162 ml (range 180-600), and average hospital stay was 8 days (range 6-19). One woman required blood transfusion after surgery. Two cases were converted to laparotomy. One woman had early dehiscence of the anastomosis. Six months after surgery, there was a significant reduction of symptom scores (greater than 50% for most types of pain) related to intestinal localisation of endometriosis (P < 0.05). Score improvements were maintained during the whole period of follow up. Noncyclic pelvic pain scores showed significant reductions (P < 0.05) after 6 and 12 months, but there was a high recurrence rate later. Dysmenorrhoea and dyspareunia improved in 18/21 and 14/18 women with preoperative symptoms, respectively. Constipation, diarrhoea and rectal bleeding improved in all affected women for the whole period of follow up. Laparoscopic segmental rectosigmoid resection seems safe and effective in women with deep infiltrating colorectal endometriosis resulting in significant reductions in painful and dysfunctional symptoms associated with deep bowel involvement.
PMID: 17501958 [PubMed - in process]
Center of Reconstructive Pelvic Endo-surgery, Reproductive Medicine Unit, S.Orsola Hospital, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy. seracchioli@orsola-malpighi.med.unibo.it
The aim of this study was to assess the long-term outcome of treating severely symptomatic women with deep infiltrating intestinal endometriosis by laparoscopic segmental rectosigmoid resection. Detailed intraoperative and postoperative records and questionnaires (preoperatively, 1 month postoperatively and every 6 months for 3 years) were collected from 22 women. The estimated blood loss during surgery was 290 +/- 162 ml (range 180-600), and average hospital stay was 8 days (range 6-19). One woman required blood transfusion after surgery. Two cases were converted to laparotomy. One woman had early dehiscence of the anastomosis. Six months after surgery, there was a significant reduction of symptom scores (greater than 50% for most types of pain) related to intestinal localisation of endometriosis (P < 0.05). Score improvements were maintained during the whole period of follow up. Noncyclic pelvic pain scores showed significant reductions (P < 0.05) after 6 and 12 months, but there was a high recurrence rate later. Dysmenorrhoea and dyspareunia improved in 18/21 and 14/18 women with preoperative symptoms, respectively. Constipation, diarrhoea and rectal bleeding improved in all affected women for the whole period of follow up. Laparoscopic segmental rectosigmoid resection seems safe and effective in women with deep infiltrating colorectal endometriosis resulting in significant reductions in painful and dysfunctional symptoms associated with deep bowel involvement.
PMID: 17501958 [PubMed - in process]
Sunday, June 24, 2007
CAPPS Complex Abdomino-Pelvic & Pain Syndrome
It's not just....
Adhesions
Endometriosis
Pelvic Pain
Interstitial cystitis
Irritable bowel syndrome
It's.......... CAPPS
Complex Abdomino-Pelvic & Pain Syndrome
Welcome to the International Society for Complex Abdomino-Pelvic & Pain Syndrome. (ISCAPPS). Why ISCAPPS? ISCAPPS was formed as a result of the work done by Dr. Wiseman and the thousands of patients who visited the International Adhesions Society (http://www.adhesions.org/).
Initially we looked at the problem of adhesions and saw that it was really a problem of a set of symptoms which we termed "Adhesions Related Disorder" or ARD. Our more recent work has led to the realisation that adhesions and ARD are part of a wider set of overlapping and coalescing conditions including ENDOMETRIOSIS, Pelvic Pain, Interstitial Cystitis (IC), Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and even fibromyalgia.
We now understand that a patient presenting with say chronic pelvic pain, may very well have, or develop bowel and bladder problems, as well as psycho-social issues that develop as a result of their condition. Attempting to treat these conditions as separate entities for the most part is an exercise in frustration. Although they may start out as separate conditions, they end up as essentially one condition - CAPPS.
What is needed is a multi-disciplinary and integrated or holistic approach. And to start we need to understand these individual conditions in the context of a family of conditions to which they belong. Once we understand the disease we can begin on its prevention and treatment.
Accordingly we have coined the term: CAPPS Complex Abdomino-Pelvic & Pain Syndrome and established an internet-based society: ISCAPPS International Society for Complex Abdomino-Pelvic & Pain Syndrome. For more information please contact Dr. David Wiseman david.wiseman@adhesions.org.
Our first task has been to develop the world's first clinic for the integrated diagnosis and treatment of CAPPS in conjunction with a major hospital group in Florida.
http://www.iscapps.org/
Much Thanks to Dr. Wiseman for all he does!
Adhesions
Endometriosis
Pelvic Pain
Interstitial cystitis
Irritable bowel syndrome
It's.......... CAPPS
Complex Abdomino-Pelvic & Pain Syndrome
Welcome to the International Society for Complex Abdomino-Pelvic & Pain Syndrome. (ISCAPPS). Why ISCAPPS? ISCAPPS was formed as a result of the work done by Dr. Wiseman and the thousands of patients who visited the International Adhesions Society (http://www.adhesions.org/).
Initially we looked at the problem of adhesions and saw that it was really a problem of a set of symptoms which we termed "Adhesions Related Disorder" or ARD. Our more recent work has led to the realisation that adhesions and ARD are part of a wider set of overlapping and coalescing conditions including ENDOMETRIOSIS, Pelvic Pain, Interstitial Cystitis (IC), Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and even fibromyalgia.
We now understand that a patient presenting with say chronic pelvic pain, may very well have, or develop bowel and bladder problems, as well as psycho-social issues that develop as a result of their condition. Attempting to treat these conditions as separate entities for the most part is an exercise in frustration. Although they may start out as separate conditions, they end up as essentially one condition - CAPPS.
What is needed is a multi-disciplinary and integrated or holistic approach. And to start we need to understand these individual conditions in the context of a family of conditions to which they belong. Once we understand the disease we can begin on its prevention and treatment.
Accordingly we have coined the term: CAPPS Complex Abdomino-Pelvic & Pain Syndrome and established an internet-based society: ISCAPPS International Society for Complex Abdomino-Pelvic & Pain Syndrome. For more information please contact Dr. David Wiseman david.wiseman@adhesions.org.
Our first task has been to develop the world's first clinic for the integrated diagnosis and treatment of CAPPS in conjunction with a major hospital group in Florida.
http://www.iscapps.org/
Much Thanks to Dr. Wiseman for all he does!
Saturday, June 23, 2007
‘Sacked because of women’s trouble’
by Lisa Jones, South Wales Echo
A WOMAN was told to enter the dates she expected to start her periods in her work’s shared diary, an employment tribunal heard.
Kerry MacDonald, 27, a collections adviser with AA Insurance, was sacked in August 2005 because of her sickness absence record.
She suffered from a chronic gynaecological condition which meant she was often in severe pain, fainting and vomiting, and her condition was worse at the start of her period, leaving her bed-ridden.
The hearing heard her line manager, Chris Monk, told her to put the dates in the departmental diary.
Ms MacDonald, of Pengam Green, Cardiff, said she was also told to use her annual leave entitlement to cover those absences.
For two months, she booked time off in the run-up to the expected start of her period, but turned up for work if she felt well.
She stopped after advice from her consultant.
“They told me I had to use my annual leave,” she said.
“I spoke to Chris and told him what the doctor said. It wasn’t brought up again.”
She also alleges another manager, Julie Brewerton, who she later discovered also suffered from endometriosis, told her she should either have a hysterectomy or have a baby to combat her condition.
Read More
A WOMAN was told to enter the dates she expected to start her periods in her work’s shared diary, an employment tribunal heard.
Kerry MacDonald, 27, a collections adviser with AA Insurance, was sacked in August 2005 because of her sickness absence record.
She suffered from a chronic gynaecological condition which meant she was often in severe pain, fainting and vomiting, and her condition was worse at the start of her period, leaving her bed-ridden.
The hearing heard her line manager, Chris Monk, told her to put the dates in the departmental diary.
Ms MacDonald, of Pengam Green, Cardiff, said she was also told to use her annual leave entitlement to cover those absences.
For two months, she booked time off in the run-up to the expected start of her period, but turned up for work if she felt well.
She stopped after advice from her consultant.
“They told me I had to use my annual leave,” she said.
“I spoke to Chris and told him what the doctor said. It wasn’t brought up again.”
She also alleges another manager, Julie Brewerton, who she later discovered also suffered from endometriosis, told her she should either have a hysterectomy or have a baby to combat her condition.
Read More
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Edith I. Rodriguez's Family to Sue...BRAVO!!!!
Family to Sue Hospital in Woman's DeathVictim Died on Floor of Emergency Room Lobby
AP
Posted: 2007-06-21 00:15:15
LOS ANGELES (June 21) -- The family of a woman who died last month on the floor of an emergency room lobby is planning to take legal action against Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital and Los Angeles county.A letter of intent warning of a wrongful death and medical malpractice lawsuit was sent Wednesday to the county-run hospital and a registered nurse on behalf of the children of Edith Isabel Rodriguez. Another letter was sent to the county warning- more.......http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/family-to-sue-hospital-in-womans-death/20070613143509990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001
Endotimes could not agree more with this action and we hope that this family will be able to build a memorial for their beloved mother, Edith that tells the whole story behind her death!
Let this tragedy be know forever and ingrained in granite!
Endotimes interest here is that most, if not all persons afflicted with ARD have been treated in a similar manner when presenting to emergency rooms all over this country!
We present with severe abdominal/pelvic pain, severely constipated due to pain medications, and in desperate need of quality medical intervention...the #1 complication of intestinal adhesions is
"BOWEL OBSTRUCTION!"
Can a bowel obstruction kill??? Well, it appears as though THAT question has been answered in the case of Edith I. Rodriguez!
DEMAND BETTER MEDICAL CARE IN ER'S!!!
For anyone who present to an ER with abdominal pain, and has a history of inter-peritoneal adhesions, or has had a prior abdominal/pelvic surgery, or trauma to the abdomen..DEMAND a simple lower GI , bowel, X-ray to rule out an obstruction! Recite the case of Edith Rodriguez if need be...even if your set upon by aggressive, obnoxious, lazy, overworked Dr's. or nurse's who bully you to go home, stand your ground!
Think about Edith and her family... as when your family is preparing your funeral, this ER staff will still be laughing about how they treated another, " frequent flyer" as they mow down pizza waiting for another "FF" to arrive in the ER!
Edith did not deserve this, all she was looking for was medical intervention, compassion and guidance from those who we are "brainwashed" to turn to when our very lives are in crisis!
Today, one cannot "pass gas" without being bombarded with TV ads, disclaimers, medication directions, and at every turn, to CONTACT YOUR PHYSICIAN before you "do this or that," or "take this or that!" For what!!???
Most medical persons have no clue about ARD, or that it has been recognized by the NIH as a real disorder..not a "syndrome" folks, but a medical condition with an end means, an etiology...REAL symptoms, yet today, it remains a "secret" and the word "adhesions" will not pass the lips of most within the medical arena for fear they will have to know something about it..which they don't!
Endotimes will never forget Edith I. Rodriguez, as she is one of us no matter what an autopsy shows...her death at the hands of medical care providers must be held as a beacon for all who suffer chronic pain and all the indignities that go with that...we cannot let her death be in vain!
AP
Posted: 2007-06-21 00:15:15
LOS ANGELES (June 21) -- The family of a woman who died last month on the floor of an emergency room lobby is planning to take legal action against Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital and Los Angeles county.A letter of intent warning of a wrongful death and medical malpractice lawsuit was sent Wednesday to the county-run hospital and a registered nurse on behalf of the children of Edith Isabel Rodriguez. Another letter was sent to the county warning- more.......http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/family-to-sue-hospital-in-womans-death/20070613143509990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001
Endotimes could not agree more with this action and we hope that this family will be able to build a memorial for their beloved mother, Edith that tells the whole story behind her death!
Let this tragedy be know forever and ingrained in granite!
Endotimes interest here is that most, if not all persons afflicted with ARD have been treated in a similar manner when presenting to emergency rooms all over this country!
We present with severe abdominal/pelvic pain, severely constipated due to pain medications, and in desperate need of quality medical intervention...the #1 complication of intestinal adhesions is
"BOWEL OBSTRUCTION!"
Can a bowel obstruction kill??? Well, it appears as though THAT question has been answered in the case of Edith I. Rodriguez!
DEMAND BETTER MEDICAL CARE IN ER'S!!!
For anyone who present to an ER with abdominal pain, and has a history of inter-peritoneal adhesions, or has had a prior abdominal/pelvic surgery, or trauma to the abdomen..DEMAND a simple lower GI , bowel, X-ray to rule out an obstruction! Recite the case of Edith Rodriguez if need be...even if your set upon by aggressive, obnoxious, lazy, overworked Dr's. or nurse's who bully you to go home, stand your ground!
Think about Edith and her family... as when your family is preparing your funeral, this ER staff will still be laughing about how they treated another, " frequent flyer" as they mow down pizza waiting for another "FF" to arrive in the ER!
Edith did not deserve this, all she was looking for was medical intervention, compassion and guidance from those who we are "brainwashed" to turn to when our very lives are in crisis!
Today, one cannot "pass gas" without being bombarded with TV ads, disclaimers, medication directions, and at every turn, to CONTACT YOUR PHYSICIAN before you "do this or that," or "take this or that!" For what!!???
Most medical persons have no clue about ARD, or that it has been recognized by the NIH as a real disorder..not a "syndrome" folks, but a medical condition with an end means, an etiology...REAL symptoms, yet today, it remains a "secret" and the word "adhesions" will not pass the lips of most within the medical arena for fear they will have to know something about it..which they don't!
Endotimes will never forget Edith I. Rodriguez, as she is one of us no matter what an autopsy shows...her death at the hands of medical care providers must be held as a beacon for all who suffer chronic pain and all the indignities that go with that...we cannot let her death be in vain!
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Edith Rodriguez = Medical Students Forum a disaster!
Hello all,
I have made contact with the family of Edith I. Rodriguez and they have agreed to assist me in securing the information from her autopsy report that would validate whether she was afflicted with ARD or not.
It is still my intention to speak to the physician who performed Edith's autopsy, if for no other reason, then to be able to ask him my questions.
The LA Corners office wants $83.00 for this report, when all I need to know at this time is if the words, “adhesions” or “scar tissue” was mentioned in it. I did leave TWO messages for the Dr. who performed Edith’s autopsy, a Dr. Pena, but no call back from him as of yet. We shall see.....
Edith’s family is hoping that her death will not be in vain and if they knew others would be helped by her most terrible demise, at the hands of those we are taught to trust our lives with, they might reap some benefit from the death.
The circumstances of Edith Rodriguez’s death will never ever be able to be erased from her families’ hearts and minds, nor from millions who have heard of her death on the floor of an ER, as it should be, but I want you to know that there are “thousands +” patients who present to ER’s all around the globe who are treated just like Edith was treated when she arrived in the ER! It IS a difficult disease to diagnose being that there is NO diagnostic test that can see adhesions! No CT Scan, no MRI, no Ultra-sound and no Contrast Barium Lower GI X-ray can diagnose adhesions! The sad thing is that the same “treatment” used for adhesions causes them, only a surgery can detect adhesions, or an autopsy! However, a simple, non invasive “lower bowel X-ray” WILL detect a bowel obstruction 100%!
Recently I came upon a forum belonging to “medical students” and was appalled at what I was reading from them regarding the case of Edith! I posted about the possibility of Edith’s symptoms paralleling those of persons afflicted with peritoneal adhesions, and the fact that ALL analgesics
(pain meds) have the side affect of constipation…and guess what…they removed my posts and kicked me off for good! No mentioning adhesions on any forum where Dr.’s might have to see that word! Take a look at how many of these students seemed to have no clue as to what could have triggered her obstruction, but even worse, they seemed to have no clue as to what diagnostics to use had they been in that ER!
Here is the link, Student Doctor Network Forums
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?p=5268669#post5268669
The more information that can be shared about the existence of “Adhesion Related Disorder (ARD) and “Bowel Obstructions” the better informed the patient can be and in that they have better control of their medical intervention!
SPREAD THIS WORD!
http://www.adhesionrelateddisorder.com/
wwwhttp://www.adhesions.org/
I have made contact with the family of Edith I. Rodriguez and they have agreed to assist me in securing the information from her autopsy report that would validate whether she was afflicted with ARD or not.
It is still my intention to speak to the physician who performed Edith's autopsy, if for no other reason, then to be able to ask him my questions.
The LA Corners office wants $83.00 for this report, when all I need to know at this time is if the words, “adhesions” or “scar tissue” was mentioned in it. I did leave TWO messages for the Dr. who performed Edith’s autopsy, a Dr. Pena, but no call back from him as of yet. We shall see.....
Edith’s family is hoping that her death will not be in vain and if they knew others would be helped by her most terrible demise, at the hands of those we are taught to trust our lives with, they might reap some benefit from the death.
The circumstances of Edith Rodriguez’s death will never ever be able to be erased from her families’ hearts and minds, nor from millions who have heard of her death on the floor of an ER, as it should be, but I want you to know that there are “thousands +” patients who present to ER’s all around the globe who are treated just like Edith was treated when she arrived in the ER! It IS a difficult disease to diagnose being that there is NO diagnostic test that can see adhesions! No CT Scan, no MRI, no Ultra-sound and no Contrast Barium Lower GI X-ray can diagnose adhesions! The sad thing is that the same “treatment” used for adhesions causes them, only a surgery can detect adhesions, or an autopsy! However, a simple, non invasive “lower bowel X-ray” WILL detect a bowel obstruction 100%!
Recently I came upon a forum belonging to “medical students” and was appalled at what I was reading from them regarding the case of Edith! I posted about the possibility of Edith’s symptoms paralleling those of persons afflicted with peritoneal adhesions, and the fact that ALL analgesics
(pain meds) have the side affect of constipation…and guess what…they removed my posts and kicked me off for good! No mentioning adhesions on any forum where Dr.’s might have to see that word! Take a look at how many of these students seemed to have no clue as to what could have triggered her obstruction, but even worse, they seemed to have no clue as to what diagnostics to use had they been in that ER!
Here is the link, Student Doctor Network Forums
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?p=5268669#post5268669
The more information that can be shared about the existence of “Adhesion Related Disorder (ARD) and “Bowel Obstructions” the better informed the patient can be and in that they have better control of their medical intervention!
SPREAD THIS WORD!
http://www.adhesionrelateddisorder.com/
wwwhttp://www.adhesions.org/
In seach of a diagnosis of Adhesions?
Adhesions and Chronic Pelvic Pain (CPP)
by Dr. David Wiseman
International Adhesions Society
ADHESIONS are believed to cause pelvic pain by tethering down organs and tissues, causing traction (pulling) of nerves. Nerve endings may become entrapped within a developing adhesion. If the bowel becomes obstructed, distention will cause pain.
Some patients in whom chronic pelvic pain has lasted more than six months may develop "Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome.” In addition to the chronic pain, emotional and behavioral changes appear due to the duration of the pain and its associated stress. According to the International Pelvic Pain Society:
"We have all been taught from infancy to avoid pain. However, when pain is persistent and there seems to be no remedy, it creates tremendous tension. Most of us think of pain as being a symptom of tissue injury. However, in chronic pelvic pain almost always the tissue injury has ceased but the pain continues. This leads to a very important distinction between chronic pelvic pain and episodes of other pain that we might experience during our life: usually pain is a symptom, but in chronic pelvic pain, pain becomes the disease."
Chronic pelvic pain is estimated to affect nearly 15% of women between 18 and 50 (Mathias et al., 1996). Other estimates arrive at between 200,000 and 2 million women in the United States (Paul, 1998). The economic effects are also quite staggering. In a survey of households, Mathias et al. (1996) estimated that direct medical costs for outpatient visits for chronic pelvic pain for the U.S. population of women aged 18-50 years are $881.5 million per year. Among 548 employed respondents, 15% reported time lost from paid work and 45% reported reduced work productivity.
Not all ADHESIONS cause pain, and not all pain is caused by ADHESIONS.
Not all surgeons, particularly general surgeons, agree that ADHESIONS cause pain. Part of the problem seems to be that it is not easy to observe ADHESIONS non-invasively, for example with MRI or CT scans. However, several studies do describe the relationship between pain and adhesions. According to an early study (Rosenthal et al., 1984) of patients reporting CPP, about 40% have adhesions only, and another 17% have endometriosis (with or without adhesions). Kresch et al., (1984) also studied 100 women and found ADHESIONS in 38% of the cases and endometriosis in another 32%. Overall estimates (Howard, 1993) of the percentage of patients with CPP and ADHESIONS is about 25%, with endometriosis accounting for another 28%. These figures must be understood in their context, and I recommend highly Howard's article.
It is important to recognize that emotional stress contributes greatly to the patient’s perception of pain and her/his ability to deal with the pain. Rosenthal et al. (1984) found that of the patients in whom a possible physical cause of pain (including ADHESIONS) could be identified, 75% had evidence of psychological influences on the pain.
The Magnitude of the Problem of Adhesions
The rate of adhesion formation after surgery is surprising given the relative lack of knowledge about ADHESIONS among doctors and patients alike. From autopsies on victims of traffic accidents, Weibel and Majno (1973) found that 67% of patients who had undergone surgery had adhesions. This number increased to 81% and 93% for patients with major and multiple procedures respectively. Similarly, Menzies and Ellis (1990) found that 93% of patients who had undergone at least one previous abdominal operation had adhesions, compared with only 10.4% of patients who had never had a previous abdominal operation. Furthermore, 1% of all laparotomies developed obstruction due to adhesions within one year of surgery with 3% leading to obstruction at some time after surgery. Of all cases of small bowel obstruction, 60-70% of cases involve adhesions (Ellis, 1997).
Lastly, following surgical treatment of adhesions causing intestinal obstruction, obstruction due to adhesion reformation occurred in 11 to 21% of cases (Menzies, 1993).
Between 55 and 100% of patients undergoing pelvic reconstructive surgery will form adhesions.
The impact of adhesions as a complication of surgery is huge. In the United States (1993) 347,000 operations for lysis of peritoneal adhesions were performed (Graves, 1995), of which about 100,000 involved intestinal adhesions. Estimated another way, 446,000 procedures were performed in the U.S. to lyse abdominopelvic adhesions in 1993 (HCIA, 1994).
In 1988, there were about 280,000 hospitalizations for adhesions, the economic cost of which was estimated conservatively as $1.2 billion per year (Fox Ray et al., 1993).
Thanks to Dr. Wiseman.
Please visit the International adhesions society to learn more about ARD and bowel obstuctions
by Dr. David Wiseman
International Adhesions Society
ADHESIONS are believed to cause pelvic pain by tethering down organs and tissues, causing traction (pulling) of nerves. Nerve endings may become entrapped within a developing adhesion. If the bowel becomes obstructed, distention will cause pain.
Some patients in whom chronic pelvic pain has lasted more than six months may develop "Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome.” In addition to the chronic pain, emotional and behavioral changes appear due to the duration of the pain and its associated stress. According to the International Pelvic Pain Society:
"We have all been taught from infancy to avoid pain. However, when pain is persistent and there seems to be no remedy, it creates tremendous tension. Most of us think of pain as being a symptom of tissue injury. However, in chronic pelvic pain almost always the tissue injury has ceased but the pain continues. This leads to a very important distinction between chronic pelvic pain and episodes of other pain that we might experience during our life: usually pain is a symptom, but in chronic pelvic pain, pain becomes the disease."
Chronic pelvic pain is estimated to affect nearly 15% of women between 18 and 50 (Mathias et al., 1996). Other estimates arrive at between 200,000 and 2 million women in the United States (Paul, 1998). The economic effects are also quite staggering. In a survey of households, Mathias et al. (1996) estimated that direct medical costs for outpatient visits for chronic pelvic pain for the U.S. population of women aged 18-50 years are $881.5 million per year. Among 548 employed respondents, 15% reported time lost from paid work and 45% reported reduced work productivity.
Not all ADHESIONS cause pain, and not all pain is caused by ADHESIONS.
Not all surgeons, particularly general surgeons, agree that ADHESIONS cause pain. Part of the problem seems to be that it is not easy to observe ADHESIONS non-invasively, for example with MRI or CT scans. However, several studies do describe the relationship between pain and adhesions. According to an early study (Rosenthal et al., 1984) of patients reporting CPP, about 40% have adhesions only, and another 17% have endometriosis (with or without adhesions). Kresch et al., (1984) also studied 100 women and found ADHESIONS in 38% of the cases and endometriosis in another 32%. Overall estimates (Howard, 1993) of the percentage of patients with CPP and ADHESIONS is about 25%, with endometriosis accounting for another 28%. These figures must be understood in their context, and I recommend highly Howard's article.
It is important to recognize that emotional stress contributes greatly to the patient’s perception of pain and her/his ability to deal with the pain. Rosenthal et al. (1984) found that of the patients in whom a possible physical cause of pain (including ADHESIONS) could be identified, 75% had evidence of psychological influences on the pain.
The Magnitude of the Problem of Adhesions
The rate of adhesion formation after surgery is surprising given the relative lack of knowledge about ADHESIONS among doctors and patients alike. From autopsies on victims of traffic accidents, Weibel and Majno (1973) found that 67% of patients who had undergone surgery had adhesions. This number increased to 81% and 93% for patients with major and multiple procedures respectively. Similarly, Menzies and Ellis (1990) found that 93% of patients who had undergone at least one previous abdominal operation had adhesions, compared with only 10.4% of patients who had never had a previous abdominal operation. Furthermore, 1% of all laparotomies developed obstruction due to adhesions within one year of surgery with 3% leading to obstruction at some time after surgery. Of all cases of small bowel obstruction, 60-70% of cases involve adhesions (Ellis, 1997).
Lastly, following surgical treatment of adhesions causing intestinal obstruction, obstruction due to adhesion reformation occurred in 11 to 21% of cases (Menzies, 1993).
Between 55 and 100% of patients undergoing pelvic reconstructive surgery will form adhesions.
The impact of adhesions as a complication of surgery is huge. In the United States (1993) 347,000 operations for lysis of peritoneal adhesions were performed (Graves, 1995), of which about 100,000 involved intestinal adhesions. Estimated another way, 446,000 procedures were performed in the U.S. to lyse abdominopelvic adhesions in 1993 (HCIA, 1994).
In 1988, there were about 280,000 hospitalizations for adhesions, the economic cost of which was estimated conservatively as $1.2 billion per year (Fox Ray et al., 1993).
Thanks to Dr. Wiseman.
Please visit the International adhesions society to learn more about ARD and bowel obstuctions
Monday, June 18, 2007
Sicko available for free
Michael Moore's latest has been leaked on the web. (via a reader tip)
Update:
Michael Moore is happy about the piracy of his movie and approves the downloads, leading some to believe he did it on purpose
Watch now on goggle video here is the link.
Click here
Approx. 2 hr 3 min.
As a chronically ill person I was shocked , I cried, was outraged, but in the end I was left with a sense of hope.
If you are uninsured, underinsured or fully insured, if you can't afford the meds or treatments suggested by your doctor, it is a must see film! You can't afford not to. Your insurance comapany would rather you did'nt!
Raves a Cannes!
Perhaps a movie that can change our world?
Watch it now, as I am surprised it is still online.
Wishing you good health.
If only ths film had been mainstreamed in time perhaps Edith Isabel Rodriguez would be alive today.
Update:
Michael Moore is happy about the piracy of his movie and approves the downloads, leading some to believe he did it on purpose
Watch now on goggle video here is the link.
Click here
Approx. 2 hr 3 min.
As a chronically ill person I was shocked , I cried, was outraged, but in the end I was left with a sense of hope.
If you are uninsured, underinsured or fully insured, if you can't afford the meds or treatments suggested by your doctor, it is a must see film! You can't afford not to. Your insurance comapany would rather you did'nt!
Raves a Cannes!
Perhaps a movie that can change our world?
Watch it now, as I am surprised it is still online.
Wishing you good health.
If only ths film had been mainstreamed in time perhaps Edith Isabel Rodriguez would be alive today.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Edith Isabel Rodriguez 43 R.I.P.
I currently work as an “International Patient Advocate" for person afflicted with "Adhesion Related Disorder (ARD)" and though this disorder has not been confirmed as a condition that Edith Isabel Rodriguez had, in my opinion it very well could be. It is my intentions to secure Mrs. Rodriguez's autopsy report which will offer to me a more comprehensive look into her prior medical/surgical history, which, if there is anything of a surgical nature existing in that history, will give credence to the probability that "post surgical peritoneal adhesions" were in fact a cause of her pain and multiple ER visits for pain. I can say with certainty that being on analgesics it is no wonder Edith had a bowel obstruction from constipation, which is a side affect of such a medication, and for a person who has a bowel compromised from adhesions, obstruction is a medical emergency which can trigger the results typical of what Edith Isabel Rodriguez experienced -death surrounded by ignorance and hostility within the medical arena. Tammy Wynette died under similar circumstances, and her death was directly related to ARD. Others have as well, unfortunately. I invite, and encourage you to please visit this web site: http://www.adhesionrelateddisorder.com/ for more information on ARD. I am hoping that anyone reading my post will take this unfortunate situation and loss of a young mother a step further by acclimating yourselves to a most hideous medical condition that rivals appendectomies, heart bypass surgery and hip replacements in our country, and throughout the world.
A search of the medical blogsphere shows so little compassion for this woman's death.
They use the phrase "frequent flyer" to their ER's . This phrase has been heard by so many desperately ill people afflicted by adhesions.
Their arguments are beyond callous and often turn to discussions of the evils of socialized medicine and...gasp...how much these docs get paid! Their dependency on CT scans ( if it ain't there it don't exist!)
Read the responses to our message on medblogs!
Start with KevinMD.
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2007/06/mlk-jr-harbor-hospital-preview-of.html#comments
If indeed Adhesions are the culprit in Edith's death, and we intend to find out, perhaps Edith's family can find some bit of peace knowing what happened to their loved one and how often ARD patients are treated in such manners.
Her tragic death will not be in vain.
Edith Isabel Rodriguez
Woman at King-Harbor died of perforated bowel
By Charles Ornstein, Times Staff WriterJune 2, 2007
A 43-year-old woman who writhed in pain for 45 minutes on the emergency room lobby floor of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital died of a perforated bowel, the Los Angeles County coroner's office said late Friday. Neither hospital staff nor other patients attempted to assist her as she lay dying.The coroner's office labeled the death of Edith Isabel Rodriguez on May 9 as an accident and said it had turned over its findings to the district attorney, the Sheriff's Department and the county Department of Health Services, which are investigating the death. Other factors contributing to Rodriguez's death were a bowel obstruction and the effects of prescription drugs and methamphetamine use.Her bowel broke open less than 24 hours before her death, and experts have said she could have been treated if it had been caught early enough.The coroner's office said its complete autopsy report would not be released until Monday. A news release announcing the findings was distributed after 6 p.m. Friday. Rodriguez's death, which has prompted federal and state probes, triggered immediate outrage after it was reported in The Times last month. A videotape of the events shows the indifference of other patients and hospital staff, according to several people who saw it. At one point, a janitor cleaned around Rodriguez as she lay on the floor. King-Harbor, formerly King/Drew, has been trying to rebound from a string of egregious incidents that have contributed to patient deaths beginning more than 3 1/2 years ago. The county has slashed services, spent millions of dollars on consultants and disciplined hundreds of staffers. Even so, the hospital's future is not assured. King-Harbor is preparing for a crucial inspection next month that will determine whether it receives federal funding. If it fails, the hospital could close.Dr. Bruce Chernof, director of the county Department of Health Services, said in a written statement that Rodriguez was not provided with compassionate service and that her death was "inexcusable.""It is important to understand that this was fundamentally a failure of caring," he said.A triage nurse in the emergency room, who turned away pleas from county police and Rodriguez's boyfriend to help her, has resigned. The emergency room supervisor was reassigned and other unspecified personnel actions have been taken, Chernof said.--
charles.ornstein@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kingdeath2jun02,1,2460605.story?coll=la-headlines-california&ctrack=1&cset=true
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://aids-write.org/?p=562
Tale of last 90 minutes of woman’s lifeCounty officials express dismay at the events surrounding the recent controversial death at King-Harbor hospital. One nurse has resigned.By Charles OrnsteinTimes Staff WriterMay 20, 2007
In the emergency room at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, Edith Isabel Rodriguez was seen as a complainer.
“Thanks a lot, officers,” an emergency room nurse told Los Angeles County police who brought in Rodriguez early May 9 after finding her in front of the Willowbrook hospital yelling for help. “This is her third time here.”
The 43-year-old mother of three had been released from the emergency room hours earlier, her third visit in three days for abdominal pain. She’d been given prescription medication and a doctor’s appointment.
Turning to Rodriguez, the nurse said, “You have already been seen, and there is nothing we can do,” according to a report by the county office of public safety, which provides security at the hospital.
Parked in the emergency room lobby in a wheelchair after police left, she fell to the floor. She lay on the linoleum, writhing in pain, for 45 minutes, as staffers worked at their desks and numerous patients looked on.
Aside from one patient who briefly checked on her condition, no one helped her. A janitor cleaned the floor around her as if she were a piece of furniture. A closed-circuit camera captured everyone’s apparent indifference. . . .
David Janssen, the county’s chief administrative officer, said the incident is being taken very seriously. In a rare move, his office took over control of the inquiry from the county health department and the office of public safety.
“There’s no excuse — and I don’t think anybody believes that there is,” Janssen said.
Over the last 3 1/2 years, King-Harbor has reeled from crisis to crisis.
Based on serious patient-care lapses, it has lost its national accreditation and federal funding. Hundreds of staff members have been disciplined and services cut.
Janssen said he was concerned that the incident would divert attention from preparing the hospital for a crucial review in six weeks that is to determine whether it can regain federal funding.
If the hospital fails, it could be forced to close.
“It certainly isn’t going to help,” Janssen said.[that’s not at the top of my list of things that don’t help — rk]
charles.ornstein@latimes.com
Times staff writers Stuart Pfeifer and Susannah Rosenblatt contributed to this report.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tapes show operators ignored pleas to send ambulance to L.A. hospital
Updated: 10:43 a.m. ET June 13, 2007
LOS ANGELES - A woman who lay bleeding on the emergency room floor of a troubled inner-city hospital died after 911 dispatchers refused to contact paramedics or an ambulance to take her to another facility, newly released tapes of the emergency calls reveal.
Edith Isabel Rodriguez, 43, died of a perforated bowel on May 9 at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital. Her death was ruled accidental by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.
Relatives said Rodriguez was bleeding from the mouth and writhing in pain for 45 minutes while she was at a hospital waiting area. Experts have said she could have survived had she been treated early enough.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Woman’s Death increases Pressure on LA Hospital to close down
A Los Angeles county hospital is under immense pressure trying to survive amid reports of negligence in patient care. The plea for help from a woman dying in the emergency room of the Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital seemed to have been ignored by the in house staff. Like wise two emergency calls to the 911 too was rejected by the dispatchers, ultimately leading to the death of the woman. Newly released tapes of 911 calls reveal that a woman who lay bleeding on the floor of the emergency room died last month after dispatchers refused to contact paramedics or an ambulance to take her to another facility.Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, once a symbol of hope in the inner city, struggled Wednesday to survive amid new reports of breakdowns in patient care, the replacement of its chief medical officer and an ultimatum to correct long-running problems or close. Edith Isabel Rodriguez, 43, had been taken to Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital for treatment of what the county coroner later determined was a perforated bowel on May 9th. She waited 45 minutes, without treatment, before she died. The County coroner believes that she would have survived if had received timely help.The whole incident was caught on camera, the video from an ER camera showed staff members and patients standing by as a janitor cleaned the floor around Rodriguez, who was buried Tuesday in Tehachapi, Calif.
The woman's treatment was 'callous, it was a horrible thing,' Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Burke said Wednesday .
Earlier this week, the county Board of Supervisors grilled health officials about conditions at the public hospital and ordered them to return in two weeks with a plan to deal with a hospital shutdown if it is unable to correct deficiencies laid out in a federal inspection that concluded emergency room patients were in 'immediate jeopardy.' After the inspection last week, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services gave the hospital 23 days to correct problems or face a loss of federal funding that provides much of its budget. That could force it to close. It was the fourth time in less than four years that the hospital had received the warning.The federal review was based, in part, on a report that a man with a brain tumor waited four days in the emergency room when he needed to be transferred to another facility for lifesaving brain surgery.Dr. Roger Peeks, the hospital's chief medical officer, was placed on 'ordered absence' Monday and replaced on an interim basis by Dr. Robert Splawn, senior medical officer for the county health department. Department spokesman Michael Wilson confirmed the change but declined to elaborate Wednesday, saying it was a personnel matter.L.A. County supervisor Zev Yarovslosky called the hospital's actions a moral and human breakdown.Burke said the county-run hospital, which handles 49,000 emergency patients a year, is a crucial facility and efforts should be made to keep it open because nearby hospitals could not handle the load. Health officials are 'doing everything in our power to help MLK-Harbor meet national standards,' Dr. Bruce Chernof, director and chief medical officer of health department, said in a statement.Sheriff's department spokesman Steve Whitmore said the department was reviewing the handling of the 911 calls by two of its dispatchers.Source-Medindia
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Why did you choose to work in the ED?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mourners including family and friends of Edith Rodriguez pay their respects at the Tehachapi Public Cemetery. Rodriguez died at King-Harbor May 9 after writhing on the floor for 45 minutes.
(Mark Boster / LAT)
A search of the medical blogsphere shows so little compassion for this woman's death.
They use the phrase "frequent flyer" to their ER's . This phrase has been heard by so many desperately ill people afflicted by adhesions.
Their arguments are beyond callous and often turn to discussions of the evils of socialized medicine and...gasp...how much these docs get paid! Their dependency on CT scans ( if it ain't there it don't exist!)
Read the responses to our message on medblogs!
Start with KevinMD.
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2007/06/mlk-jr-harbor-hospital-preview-of.html#comments
If indeed Adhesions are the culprit in Edith's death, and we intend to find out, perhaps Edith's family can find some bit of peace knowing what happened to their loved one and how often ARD patients are treated in such manners.
Her tragic death will not be in vain.
Edith Isabel RodriguezWoman at King-Harbor died of perforated bowel
By Charles Ornstein, Times Staff WriterJune 2, 2007
A 43-year-old woman who writhed in pain for 45 minutes on the emergency room lobby floor of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital died of a perforated bowel, the Los Angeles County coroner's office said late Friday. Neither hospital staff nor other patients attempted to assist her as she lay dying.The coroner's office labeled the death of Edith Isabel Rodriguez on May 9 as an accident and said it had turned over its findings to the district attorney, the Sheriff's Department and the county Department of Health Services, which are investigating the death. Other factors contributing to Rodriguez's death were a bowel obstruction and the effects of prescription drugs and methamphetamine use.Her bowel broke open less than 24 hours before her death, and experts have said she could have been treated if it had been caught early enough.The coroner's office said its complete autopsy report would not be released until Monday. A news release announcing the findings was distributed after 6 p.m. Friday. Rodriguez's death, which has prompted federal and state probes, triggered immediate outrage after it was reported in The Times last month. A videotape of the events shows the indifference of other patients and hospital staff, according to several people who saw it. At one point, a janitor cleaned around Rodriguez as she lay on the floor. King-Harbor, formerly King/Drew, has been trying to rebound from a string of egregious incidents that have contributed to patient deaths beginning more than 3 1/2 years ago. The county has slashed services, spent millions of dollars on consultants and disciplined hundreds of staffers. Even so, the hospital's future is not assured. King-Harbor is preparing for a crucial inspection next month that will determine whether it receives federal funding. If it fails, the hospital could close.Dr. Bruce Chernof, director of the county Department of Health Services, said in a written statement that Rodriguez was not provided with compassionate service and that her death was "inexcusable.""It is important to understand that this was fundamentally a failure of caring," he said.A triage nurse in the emergency room, who turned away pleas from county police and Rodriguez's boyfriend to help her, has resigned. The emergency room supervisor was reassigned and other unspecified personnel actions have been taken, Chernof said.--
charles.ornstein@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kingdeath2jun02,1,2460605.story?coll=la-headlines-california&ctrack=1&cset=true
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://aids-write.org/?p=562
Tale of last 90 minutes of woman’s lifeCounty officials express dismay at the events surrounding the recent controversial death at King-Harbor hospital. One nurse has resigned.By Charles OrnsteinTimes Staff WriterMay 20, 2007
In the emergency room at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, Edith Isabel Rodriguez was seen as a complainer.
“Thanks a lot, officers,” an emergency room nurse told Los Angeles County police who brought in Rodriguez early May 9 after finding her in front of the Willowbrook hospital yelling for help. “This is her third time here.”
The 43-year-old mother of three had been released from the emergency room hours earlier, her third visit in three days for abdominal pain. She’d been given prescription medication and a doctor’s appointment.
Turning to Rodriguez, the nurse said, “You have already been seen, and there is nothing we can do,” according to a report by the county office of public safety, which provides security at the hospital.
Parked in the emergency room lobby in a wheelchair after police left, she fell to the floor. She lay on the linoleum, writhing in pain, for 45 minutes, as staffers worked at their desks and numerous patients looked on.
Aside from one patient who briefly checked on her condition, no one helped her. A janitor cleaned the floor around her as if she were a piece of furniture. A closed-circuit camera captured everyone’s apparent indifference. . . .
David Janssen, the county’s chief administrative officer, said the incident is being taken very seriously. In a rare move, his office took over control of the inquiry from the county health department and the office of public safety.
“There’s no excuse — and I don’t think anybody believes that there is,” Janssen said.
Over the last 3 1/2 years, King-Harbor has reeled from crisis to crisis.
Based on serious patient-care lapses, it has lost its national accreditation and federal funding. Hundreds of staff members have been disciplined and services cut.
Janssen said he was concerned that the incident would divert attention from preparing the hospital for a crucial review in six weeks that is to determine whether it can regain federal funding.
If the hospital fails, it could be forced to close.
“It certainly isn’t going to help,” Janssen said.[that’s not at the top of my list of things that don’t help — rk]
charles.ornstein@latimes.com
Times staff writers Stuart Pfeifer and Susannah Rosenblatt contributed to this report.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tapes show operators ignored pleas to send ambulance to L.A. hospital
Updated: 10:43 a.m. ET June 13, 2007
LOS ANGELES - A woman who lay bleeding on the emergency room floor of a troubled inner-city hospital died after 911 dispatchers refused to contact paramedics or an ambulance to take her to another facility, newly released tapes of the emergency calls reveal.
Edith Isabel Rodriguez, 43, died of a perforated bowel on May 9 at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital. Her death was ruled accidental by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.
Relatives said Rodriguez was bleeding from the mouth and writhing in pain for 45 minutes while she was at a hospital waiting area. Experts have said she could have survived had she been treated early enough.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Woman’s Death increases Pressure on LA Hospital to close down
A Los Angeles county hospital is under immense pressure trying to survive amid reports of negligence in patient care. The plea for help from a woman dying in the emergency room of the Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital seemed to have been ignored by the in house staff. Like wise two emergency calls to the 911 too was rejected by the dispatchers, ultimately leading to the death of the woman. Newly released tapes of 911 calls reveal that a woman who lay bleeding on the floor of the emergency room died last month after dispatchers refused to contact paramedics or an ambulance to take her to another facility.Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, once a symbol of hope in the inner city, struggled Wednesday to survive amid new reports of breakdowns in patient care, the replacement of its chief medical officer and an ultimatum to correct long-running problems or close. Edith Isabel Rodriguez, 43, had been taken to Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital for treatment of what the county coroner later determined was a perforated bowel on May 9th. She waited 45 minutes, without treatment, before she died. The County coroner believes that she would have survived if had received timely help.The whole incident was caught on camera, the video from an ER camera showed staff members and patients standing by as a janitor cleaned the floor around Rodriguez, who was buried Tuesday in Tehachapi, Calif.
The woman's treatment was 'callous, it was a horrible thing,' Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Burke said Wednesday .
Earlier this week, the county Board of Supervisors grilled health officials about conditions at the public hospital and ordered them to return in two weeks with a plan to deal with a hospital shutdown if it is unable to correct deficiencies laid out in a federal inspection that concluded emergency room patients were in 'immediate jeopardy.' After the inspection last week, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services gave the hospital 23 days to correct problems or face a loss of federal funding that provides much of its budget. That could force it to close. It was the fourth time in less than four years that the hospital had received the warning.The federal review was based, in part, on a report that a man with a brain tumor waited four days in the emergency room when he needed to be transferred to another facility for lifesaving brain surgery.Dr. Roger Peeks, the hospital's chief medical officer, was placed on 'ordered absence' Monday and replaced on an interim basis by Dr. Robert Splawn, senior medical officer for the county health department. Department spokesman Michael Wilson confirmed the change but declined to elaborate Wednesday, saying it was a personnel matter.L.A. County supervisor Zev Yarovslosky called the hospital's actions a moral and human breakdown.Burke said the county-run hospital, which handles 49,000 emergency patients a year, is a crucial facility and efforts should be made to keep it open because nearby hospitals could not handle the load. Health officials are 'doing everything in our power to help MLK-Harbor meet national standards,' Dr. Bruce Chernof, director and chief medical officer of health department, said in a statement.Sheriff's department spokesman Steve Whitmore said the department was reviewing the handling of the 911 calls by two of its dispatchers.Source-Medindia
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Why did you choose to work in the ED?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mourners including family and friends of Edith Rodriguez pay their respects at the Tehachapi Public Cemetery. Rodriguez died at King-Harbor May 9 after writhing on the floor for 45 minutes.
(Mark Boster / LAT)
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
SICKO Michael Moore's New Movie on U.S. Healthcare System
June 4th, 2007 12:46 am
Sicko? The truth about the US healthcare system
Michael Moore's new film is a damning indictment of the way the world's richest country looks after those who fall ill. Andrew Gumbel finds out whether his accusations are justified
The Independent
Cynthia Kline knew exactly what was happening to her when she suffered a heart attack at her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She took the time to call an ambulance, popped some nitroglycerin tablets she had been prescribed in anticipation of just such an emergency, and waited for help to arrive.
On paper, everything should have gone fine. Unlike tens of millions of Americans, she had health insurance coverage. The ambulance team arrived promptly. The hospital where she had been receiving treatment for her cardiac problems, a private teaching facility affiliated with the Harvard Medical School, was just a few minutes away.
The problem was, the casualty department at the hospital, Mount Auburn, was full to overflowing. And it turned her away. The ambulance took her to another nearby hospital but the treatment she needed, an emergency catheterisation, was not available there. A flurry of phone calls to other medical facilities in the Boston area came up empty. With a few hours, Cynthia Kline was dead.
She died in an American city with one of the highest concentration of top-flight medical specialists in the world. And it happened largely because of America's broken health care system - one where 50 million people are entirely without insurance coverage and tens of millions more struggle to have the treatment they need approved. As a result, medical problems go unattended until they reach crisis point. Patients then rush to hospital casualty departments, where by law they cannot be turned away, overwhelming the system entirely. Everyone - doctors and patients, politicians on both the left and the right - agrees this is an insane way to run a health system.
When Elizabeth Hilsabeck gave birth to premature twins in Austin, Texas, she encountered another kind of insanity. Again, she was insured -- through her husband, who had a good job in banking. But the twins were born when she was barely six months pregnant, and the boy, Parker, developed cerebral palsy. The doctors recommended physical therapy to build up muscle strength and give the boy a fighting chance of learning to walk, but her managed health provider refused to cover it.
The crazy bureaucratic logic was that the policy covered only "rehabilitative" therapy - in other words, teaching a patient a physical skill that has been lost. Since Parker had never walked, the therapy was in essence teaching him a new skill and therefore did not qualify. The Hilsabecks railed, protested, won some small reprieves, but ended up selling their home and moving into a trailer to cover their costs. Elizabeth's husband, Steven, considered taking a new, better-paying job, but chose not to after making careful inquiries about the health insurance coverage. "When is he getting over the cerebral palsy?" a prospective new insurance company representative breezily asked the Hilsabecks. When Elizabeth explained he would never get over it, she was told she was on her own.
Everyone in America has a health-care horror story or knows someone who does. Mostly they are stories of grinding bureaucratic frustration, of phone calls and officials letters and problems with their credit rating, or of people ignoring a slowly deteriorating medical condition because they are afraid that an expensive battery of tests will lead to a course of treatment that could quickly become unaffordable.
Even when things don't go horribly wrong, it is a matter of surviving by the skin of one's teeth.
In Montana, Melissa Anderson can't find affordable insurance because she is self-employed - an increasingly common affliction. When her son Kasey came down with epilepsy two years ago, she was saved only by a recently introduced child health insurance programme specifically tailored to people who aren't poor but can't afford to pay monster medical bills. She herself remains uninsured for anything short of major care needs.
Over the past 15 years, the stories have become less about poor people without the economic means to access the system - although that remains a vast, unsolved problem - and more about the kind of people who have every expectation they will be taken care of. Middle-class people, people with jobs that carry health benefits or - as the problem worsens - people with the sorts of jobs that used to carry robust health benefits which are now more rudimentary and risk their being cut off for a variety of reasons.
This is the morass that Michael Moore has chosen to explore in his latest documentary, Sicko, which goes on release later this month. Moore spends much of the film demonstrating that there is nothing inevitable or necessary about a system that enriches insurance companies and drug manufacturers but shortchanges absolutely everyone else. His searching documentary looks at health care in France, Britain, Canada, and even Cuba - still regarded as a model system for the Third World.
Moore has his share of ghoulishly awful stories. The film kicks off with an uninsured carpenter who has to decide whether to spend $12,000 (£6,000) reattaching his severed ring finger or $60,000 to reattach his severed middle finger. Later on, Moore focuses on a hospital worker whose husband needed a bone marrow transplant to save him from a rare disease. The couple's insurance company refused to cover the transplant because it regarded the treatment as "experimental". The husband died.
Many more stories are collected in a newly published book called Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis, by Jonathan Cohn. A woman in California called Nelene Fox died of breast cancer after she, too, was turned down for a bone marrow transplant by her insurance company. In Georgia, a family whose infant son went into cardiac arrest were forced to take him to a hospital 45 miles away on their insurance carrier's orders. He survived, but suffered permanent disabilities that more prompt treatment might have averted. In New York, an infant called Bryan Jones - whose case was trumpeted all over the local media at the time - died of a heart defect that went undetected because his insurance company kicked him and his mother out of hospital 24 hours after his birth, too soon to carry out the tests that might have spotted the problem.
America's health system offers a tremendous paradox. In medical technology and in the scientific understanding of disease, it is second-to-none. Since doctors are better paid than anywhere else in the world, the country attracts the best of the best. And yet many, if not most, Americans are unable to reap the advantages of this. In fact, as The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has argued, the very proliferation of research and high-tech equipment is part of the reason for the imbalance in coverage between the privileged few and the increasingly underserved masses. "[The system] compensates for higher spending on insiders, in party, by consigning more people to outsider status --robbing Peter of basic care in order to pay for Paul's state-of-the-art treatment," Krugman wrote recently. "Thus we have the cruel paradox that medical progress is bad for many Americans' health."
Having the system run by for-profit insurance companies turns out to be inefficient and expensive as well as dehumanising. America spends more than twice as much per capita on health care as France, and almost two and a half times as much as Britain. And yet it falls down in almost every key indicator of public health, starting, perhaps, most shockingly, with infant mortality, which is 36 per cent higher than in Britain.
A recent survey by the management consulting company McKinsey estimated the excess bureaucratic costs of managing private insurance policies - scouting for business, processing claims, and hiring "denial management specialists" to tell people why their ailment is not covered by their policy - at about $98bn a year. That, on its own, is significantly more than the $77bn McKinsey calculates it would cost to cover every uninsured American. If the government negotiated bulk purchasing rates for drugs, rather than allowing the pharmaceutical companies to set their own extortionate rates, that would save another $66bn.
Astonishingly, there hasn't been a serious debate about health care in the United States since Bill Clinton, with considerable input from his wife Hillary, tried and failed to overhaul the system in 1994. That, though, may be about to change as the 2008 presidential race heats up. Everyone acknowledges the system is broken. Everyone recognises that 50 million uninsured - including almost 10 million children - is unacceptable in a civilised society.
Even the old, classically American free-market argument - that "socialised" medicine is somehow the first step on a slippery slope towards godless communism - doesn't hold water, because in the absence of a functioning private insurance regime the government ends up picking up about 50 per cent of the overall costs for treatment anyway. The indigent rely on a government programme called Medicaid. The elderly have a government programme called Medicare. And perhaps the most efficient part of the whole system is the Veterans' Administration, a sort of NHS for former servicemen.
Rather like London and Paris in the 19th century, where the authorities belatedly paid attention to outbreaks of cholera once the disease started affecting the rich and middle classes, so the American health crisis may be coming to a head because of the kinds of people who are suffering from its injustices.
Corporate chief executives, for a start, are gagging under the ever-increasing costs of providing coverage to their employees. Starbucks now spends more on health care than it does on coffee beans. Company health costs, as a whole, are at about the same level as corporate profits. In a globalised world where US businesses are competing with low-wage countries such as India and China, that is rapidly becoming unacceptable.
That explains, perhaps, why the chief executive of Wal-Mart, Lee Scott, has made common cause with America's leading service sector union - more commonly a bitter critic of Wal-Mart's labour practices - in calling for a government-run universal health care system by 2012. It's going to be a tough battle. The insurance and pharmaceutical industries bankroll the campaigns of dozens of congressmen and have so far been brutally efficient in protecting their own interests. The Clintons were defeated in 1994 in part because of the power of the industry lobbies. Doing better this time will take singular political courage.
In the meantime, we will hear ever more crazy stories like the one told by Marijon Binder, a former nun in Chicago who ended up being sued by a Catholic hospital for $11,000 because her two-night stay for a heart scare was not considered a worthy charity case. Binder, who works as a live-in companion to a disabled old woman, wrote on all her admission forms that she had no insurance and, in her telling at least, was reassured the hospital would take care of her anyway.
After a year and a monstrous bureaucratic fight that went nowhere, a civil judge promptly absolved her of responsibility for her bill - a lucky outcome, for sure. Binder said: "The whole experience was very demeaning. It made me feel very guilty; it made me feel like a criminal." She is, though, alive and solvent. Not everyone in this system catches the same break.
Michael Moore on Oprah Tuesday
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=9855
Sicko? The truth about the US healthcare system
Michael Moore's new film is a damning indictment of the way the world's richest country looks after those who fall ill. Andrew Gumbel finds out whether his accusations are justified
The Independent
Cynthia Kline knew exactly what was happening to her when she suffered a heart attack at her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She took the time to call an ambulance, popped some nitroglycerin tablets she had been prescribed in anticipation of just such an emergency, and waited for help to arrive.
On paper, everything should have gone fine. Unlike tens of millions of Americans, she had health insurance coverage. The ambulance team arrived promptly. The hospital where she had been receiving treatment for her cardiac problems, a private teaching facility affiliated with the Harvard Medical School, was just a few minutes away.
The problem was, the casualty department at the hospital, Mount Auburn, was full to overflowing. And it turned her away. The ambulance took her to another nearby hospital but the treatment she needed, an emergency catheterisation, was not available there. A flurry of phone calls to other medical facilities in the Boston area came up empty. With a few hours, Cynthia Kline was dead.
She died in an American city with one of the highest concentration of top-flight medical specialists in the world. And it happened largely because of America's broken health care system - one where 50 million people are entirely without insurance coverage and tens of millions more struggle to have the treatment they need approved. As a result, medical problems go unattended until they reach crisis point. Patients then rush to hospital casualty departments, where by law they cannot be turned away, overwhelming the system entirely. Everyone - doctors and patients, politicians on both the left and the right - agrees this is an insane way to run a health system.
When Elizabeth Hilsabeck gave birth to premature twins in Austin, Texas, she encountered another kind of insanity. Again, she was insured -- through her husband, who had a good job in banking. But the twins were born when she was barely six months pregnant, and the boy, Parker, developed cerebral palsy. The doctors recommended physical therapy to build up muscle strength and give the boy a fighting chance of learning to walk, but her managed health provider refused to cover it.
The crazy bureaucratic logic was that the policy covered only "rehabilitative" therapy - in other words, teaching a patient a physical skill that has been lost. Since Parker had never walked, the therapy was in essence teaching him a new skill and therefore did not qualify. The Hilsabecks railed, protested, won some small reprieves, but ended up selling their home and moving into a trailer to cover their costs. Elizabeth's husband, Steven, considered taking a new, better-paying job, but chose not to after making careful inquiries about the health insurance coverage. "When is he getting over the cerebral palsy?" a prospective new insurance company representative breezily asked the Hilsabecks. When Elizabeth explained he would never get over it, she was told she was on her own.
Everyone in America has a health-care horror story or knows someone who does. Mostly they are stories of grinding bureaucratic frustration, of phone calls and officials letters and problems with their credit rating, or of people ignoring a slowly deteriorating medical condition because they are afraid that an expensive battery of tests will lead to a course of treatment that could quickly become unaffordable.
Even when things don't go horribly wrong, it is a matter of surviving by the skin of one's teeth.
In Montana, Melissa Anderson can't find affordable insurance because she is self-employed - an increasingly common affliction. When her son Kasey came down with epilepsy two years ago, she was saved only by a recently introduced child health insurance programme specifically tailored to people who aren't poor but can't afford to pay monster medical bills. She herself remains uninsured for anything short of major care needs.
Over the past 15 years, the stories have become less about poor people without the economic means to access the system - although that remains a vast, unsolved problem - and more about the kind of people who have every expectation they will be taken care of. Middle-class people, people with jobs that carry health benefits or - as the problem worsens - people with the sorts of jobs that used to carry robust health benefits which are now more rudimentary and risk their being cut off for a variety of reasons.
This is the morass that Michael Moore has chosen to explore in his latest documentary, Sicko, which goes on release later this month. Moore spends much of the film demonstrating that there is nothing inevitable or necessary about a system that enriches insurance companies and drug manufacturers but shortchanges absolutely everyone else. His searching documentary looks at health care in France, Britain, Canada, and even Cuba - still regarded as a model system for the Third World.
Moore has his share of ghoulishly awful stories. The film kicks off with an uninsured carpenter who has to decide whether to spend $12,000 (£6,000) reattaching his severed ring finger or $60,000 to reattach his severed middle finger. Later on, Moore focuses on a hospital worker whose husband needed a bone marrow transplant to save him from a rare disease. The couple's insurance company refused to cover the transplant because it regarded the treatment as "experimental". The husband died.
Many more stories are collected in a newly published book called Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis, by Jonathan Cohn. A woman in California called Nelene Fox died of breast cancer after she, too, was turned down for a bone marrow transplant by her insurance company. In Georgia, a family whose infant son went into cardiac arrest were forced to take him to a hospital 45 miles away on their insurance carrier's orders. He survived, but suffered permanent disabilities that more prompt treatment might have averted. In New York, an infant called Bryan Jones - whose case was trumpeted all over the local media at the time - died of a heart defect that went undetected because his insurance company kicked him and his mother out of hospital 24 hours after his birth, too soon to carry out the tests that might have spotted the problem.
America's health system offers a tremendous paradox. In medical technology and in the scientific understanding of disease, it is second-to-none. Since doctors are better paid than anywhere else in the world, the country attracts the best of the best. And yet many, if not most, Americans are unable to reap the advantages of this. In fact, as The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has argued, the very proliferation of research and high-tech equipment is part of the reason for the imbalance in coverage between the privileged few and the increasingly underserved masses. "[The system] compensates for higher spending on insiders, in party, by consigning more people to outsider status --robbing Peter of basic care in order to pay for Paul's state-of-the-art treatment," Krugman wrote recently. "Thus we have the cruel paradox that medical progress is bad for many Americans' health."
Having the system run by for-profit insurance companies turns out to be inefficient and expensive as well as dehumanising. America spends more than twice as much per capita on health care as France, and almost two and a half times as much as Britain. And yet it falls down in almost every key indicator of public health, starting, perhaps, most shockingly, with infant mortality, which is 36 per cent higher than in Britain.
A recent survey by the management consulting company McKinsey estimated the excess bureaucratic costs of managing private insurance policies - scouting for business, processing claims, and hiring "denial management specialists" to tell people why their ailment is not covered by their policy - at about $98bn a year. That, on its own, is significantly more than the $77bn McKinsey calculates it would cost to cover every uninsured American. If the government negotiated bulk purchasing rates for drugs, rather than allowing the pharmaceutical companies to set their own extortionate rates, that would save another $66bn.
Astonishingly, there hasn't been a serious debate about health care in the United States since Bill Clinton, with considerable input from his wife Hillary, tried and failed to overhaul the system in 1994. That, though, may be about to change as the 2008 presidential race heats up. Everyone acknowledges the system is broken. Everyone recognises that 50 million uninsured - including almost 10 million children - is unacceptable in a civilised society.
Even the old, classically American free-market argument - that "socialised" medicine is somehow the first step on a slippery slope towards godless communism - doesn't hold water, because in the absence of a functioning private insurance regime the government ends up picking up about 50 per cent of the overall costs for treatment anyway. The indigent rely on a government programme called Medicaid. The elderly have a government programme called Medicare. And perhaps the most efficient part of the whole system is the Veterans' Administration, a sort of NHS for former servicemen.
Rather like London and Paris in the 19th century, where the authorities belatedly paid attention to outbreaks of cholera once the disease started affecting the rich and middle classes, so the American health crisis may be coming to a head because of the kinds of people who are suffering from its injustices.
Corporate chief executives, for a start, are gagging under the ever-increasing costs of providing coverage to their employees. Starbucks now spends more on health care than it does on coffee beans. Company health costs, as a whole, are at about the same level as corporate profits. In a globalised world where US businesses are competing with low-wage countries such as India and China, that is rapidly becoming unacceptable.
That explains, perhaps, why the chief executive of Wal-Mart, Lee Scott, has made common cause with America's leading service sector union - more commonly a bitter critic of Wal-Mart's labour practices - in calling for a government-run universal health care system by 2012. It's going to be a tough battle. The insurance and pharmaceutical industries bankroll the campaigns of dozens of congressmen and have so far been brutally efficient in protecting their own interests. The Clintons were defeated in 1994 in part because of the power of the industry lobbies. Doing better this time will take singular political courage.
In the meantime, we will hear ever more crazy stories like the one told by Marijon Binder, a former nun in Chicago who ended up being sued by a Catholic hospital for $11,000 because her two-night stay for a heart scare was not considered a worthy charity case. Binder, who works as a live-in companion to a disabled old woman, wrote on all her admission forms that she had no insurance and, in her telling at least, was reassured the hospital would take care of her anyway.
After a year and a monstrous bureaucratic fight that went nowhere, a civil judge promptly absolved her of responsibility for her bill - a lucky outcome, for sure. Binder said: "The whole experience was very demeaning. It made me feel very guilty; it made me feel like a criminal." She is, though, alive and solvent. Not everyone in this system catches the same break.
Michael Moore on Oprah Tuesday
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikeinthenews/index.php?id=9855
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Menstrual cycle stoppage debated
Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - 12:07 AM
A birth-control pill that lets a woman skip monthly menstrual periods sounds like a good idea to Sarah Kimball.
"If my doctor recommends it for me, I would be more than happy to give it a whirl," said Kimball, 27, of Glen Allen. "The idea of never having a period is nice."
Federal officials last week approved Wyeth Pharmaceuticals' Lybrel, a birth-control regimen that eliminates monthly menstrual periods.
Lybrel's approval has gotten folks talking. Not all the discussions are favorable -- a question on many minds is whether this is a good thing or is it messing with Mother Nature with uncertain long-term consequences.
We contacted local experts to answer a few questions about Lybrel, which will be available in July. The experts are:
Dr. JoAnn V. Pinkerton, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, and director of The Women's Place Midlife Health Center at U.Va.
Dr. Vienne K. Murray, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Virginia Women's Center, in the Richmond area.
Dr. Sulola Denloye Adekoya, an obstetrician-gynecologist at the Richmond Department of Public Health.
1. Women are already doing this, right?
Pinkerton: "Many women have been utilizing continuous cycles just by not taking their placebo pills. This pill is now providing a mechanism for something women are already doing, having a period when it suits them. . . . There is no need to bleed unless women want the security of having a monthly period."
2. Why would woman want to eliminate their periods?
Murray: "For women with debilitating, painful periods, heavy periods, this is a good idea."
Pinkerton: "There are some women who would be excellent candidates, such as women with [some types of] migraine headaches, women who have problems premenstrually. Certain medical problems will be helped: people with premenstrual syndrome, endometriosis, women with heavy bleeding. . . . Some women prefer not to have a monthly period, [including] athletes like swimmers, ballerinas."
Adekoya: "For convenience - summertime, when you go on vacation; women who have high-powered jobs and they don't want a cycle."
3. Who should not take Lybrel?
Pinkerton: "Women in general who should not take pills or women at risk for blood clots, stroke, who have had breast cancer or other estrogen-sensitive tumors, or migraines worsened by estrogen. Women who are comforted by regular cycles. Women who won't or can't be compliant with taking the pill every day. Smokers. Women who desire pregnancy."
4. What are the disadvantages? Side effects?
Adekoya: "The downside, for a couple of months you may have unscheduled bleeding. Some women will experience irregular spotting every now and then. You eventually get to a point where you don't have a [menstrual] cycle."
5. Is Lybrel safe? Are similar continuous dosing regimens safe?
Adekoya: "It's safe theoretically. The only caution is that you have to speak to your health professional. If you have medical problems, the same contraindications would apply - high blood pressure, blood clots."
Murray: "My only concern is how long can we put women on it. If indefinitely, I think the main issue would be future fertility. It would be extremely important for women to consider their future fertility."
Pinkerton: "We are lacking long-term safety data."
6. The pill is effective if taken correctly, but many women often forget to take a pill? Will this be a problem?
Adekoya: "It's really no different than with the other pills - you have to take it every day."
7. How soon after stopping Lybrel will periods resume?
Pinkerton: Fairly quickly, within about three months.
Contact staff writer Tammie Smith at tsmith@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6572 .
Source
A birth-control pill that lets a woman skip monthly menstrual periods sounds like a good idea to Sarah Kimball.
"If my doctor recommends it for me, I would be more than happy to give it a whirl," said Kimball, 27, of Glen Allen. "The idea of never having a period is nice."
Federal officials last week approved Wyeth Pharmaceuticals' Lybrel, a birth-control regimen that eliminates monthly menstrual periods.
Lybrel's approval has gotten folks talking. Not all the discussions are favorable -- a question on many minds is whether this is a good thing or is it messing with Mother Nature with uncertain long-term consequences.
We contacted local experts to answer a few questions about Lybrel, which will be available in July. The experts are:
Dr. JoAnn V. Pinkerton, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, and director of The Women's Place Midlife Health Center at U.Va.
Dr. Vienne K. Murray, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Virginia Women's Center, in the Richmond area.
Dr. Sulola Denloye Adekoya, an obstetrician-gynecologist at the Richmond Department of Public Health.
1. Women are already doing this, right?
Pinkerton: "Many women have been utilizing continuous cycles just by not taking their placebo pills. This pill is now providing a mechanism for something women are already doing, having a period when it suits them. . . . There is no need to bleed unless women want the security of having a monthly period."
2. Why would woman want to eliminate their periods?
Murray: "For women with debilitating, painful periods, heavy periods, this is a good idea."
Pinkerton: "There are some women who would be excellent candidates, such as women with [some types of] migraine headaches, women who have problems premenstrually. Certain medical problems will be helped: people with premenstrual syndrome, endometriosis, women with heavy bleeding. . . . Some women prefer not to have a monthly period, [including] athletes like swimmers, ballerinas."
Adekoya: "For convenience - summertime, when you go on vacation; women who have high-powered jobs and they don't want a cycle."
3. Who should not take Lybrel?
Pinkerton: "Women in general who should not take pills or women at risk for blood clots, stroke, who have had breast cancer or other estrogen-sensitive tumors, or migraines worsened by estrogen. Women who are comforted by regular cycles. Women who won't or can't be compliant with taking the pill every day. Smokers. Women who desire pregnancy."
4. What are the disadvantages? Side effects?
Adekoya: "The downside, for a couple of months you may have unscheduled bleeding. Some women will experience irregular spotting every now and then. You eventually get to a point where you don't have a [menstrual] cycle."
5. Is Lybrel safe? Are similar continuous dosing regimens safe?
Adekoya: "It's safe theoretically. The only caution is that you have to speak to your health professional. If you have medical problems, the same contraindications would apply - high blood pressure, blood clots."
Murray: "My only concern is how long can we put women on it. If indefinitely, I think the main issue would be future fertility. It would be extremely important for women to consider their future fertility."
Pinkerton: "We are lacking long-term safety data."
6. The pill is effective if taken correctly, but many women often forget to take a pill? Will this be a problem?
Adekoya: "It's really no different than with the other pills - you have to take it every day."
7. How soon after stopping Lybrel will periods resume?
Pinkerton: Fairly quickly, within about three months.
Contact staff writer Tammie Smith at tsmith@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6572 .
Source
Don't fall for e-mail warning on ovarian cancer
By Marla KrauseSpecial to the TribunePublished May 27, 2007
The e-mail starts out innocuously enough; it's from a female friend concerned about health issues. But the type is big, so you quickly get the message that THIS IS IMPORTANT.Did you know, it asks, that there is a simple blood test for ovarian cancer that your doctor is not telling you about and that your insurance company doesn't want to pay for? And, it goes on, because the writer of this e-mail was denied the test, she is now battling peritoneal cancer, a disease similar to ovarian cancer that attacks the stomach lining.
But what appears to be the kind of information that gives women nightmares is really an urban legend, according to gynecologists, medical Web sites and Gilda's Club, a support community for people with cancer founded in memory of comedian Gilda Radner, who died of ovarian cancer in 1989."I have seen a version of this e-mail for many years," said Karyn Grimm Herndon, an ob-gyn with practices in Evanston and Glenview. "The CA-125 test is almost never an appropriate first-line test for ovarian cancer. If a person has risk factors, like a mother or a sister with ovarian cancer, or has previously been diagnosed, this test might be used, but it is not a recommended screening test for the average person.""We have gotten calls in the past about this e-mail story," said LauraJane Hyde, CEO of Gilda's Club Chicago. "We are all for a call to action that empowers women, but alarmist tactics like this don't help what we do."
Read More
The e-mail starts out innocuously enough; it's from a female friend concerned about health issues. But the type is big, so you quickly get the message that THIS IS IMPORTANT.Did you know, it asks, that there is a simple blood test for ovarian cancer that your doctor is not telling you about and that your insurance company doesn't want to pay for? And, it goes on, because the writer of this e-mail was denied the test, she is now battling peritoneal cancer, a disease similar to ovarian cancer that attacks the stomach lining.
But what appears to be the kind of information that gives women nightmares is really an urban legend, according to gynecologists, medical Web sites and Gilda's Club, a support community for people with cancer founded in memory of comedian Gilda Radner, who died of ovarian cancer in 1989."I have seen a version of this e-mail for many years," said Karyn Grimm Herndon, an ob-gyn with practices in Evanston and Glenview. "The CA-125 test is almost never an appropriate first-line test for ovarian cancer. If a person has risk factors, like a mother or a sister with ovarian cancer, or has previously been diagnosed, this test might be used, but it is not a recommended screening test for the average person.""We have gotten calls in the past about this e-mail story," said LauraJane Hyde, CEO of Gilda's Club Chicago. "We are all for a call to action that empowers women, but alarmist tactics like this don't help what we do."
Read More
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Not all women cheer birth control that halts periods
New pill raises health-risk issues
May 23, 2007
BY TINA LAM and RUBY L. BAILEY
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
Some metro Detroit women praised a new birth control pill that won U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval on Tuesday. But others said they were skeptical and wanted more long-term evidence that the pill, which eliminates monthly periods, is safe.
Christie Lockman, 20, of Royal Oak takes birth control pills to regulate her periods and said she would think about trying the new pill, Lybrel.
"Who wouldn't like to have fewer periods?" Lockman said. "That's what every woman would want, I would think."
But Julie Kupsov, 37, of Farmington Hills wasn't so sure. She is expecting her first child this month and was on the pill for several years. "I probably wouldn't go on something that hasn't been studied long term," she said. "It's appealing, but I probably wouldn't do it."
About 12 million American women now take contraceptive pills. For most, it is a way to prevent pregnancy, but for some it is a way to regulate periods or ease menstrual symptoms such as cramps and heavy bleeding.
Lybrel is the first pill approved that women would take every day that suspends periods indefinitely. The original birth control pill, introduced in the 1960s, had 21 days of hormone pills and seven days of sugar pills. The pills caused monthly bleeding that mimicked natural periods.
Newer versions of the pill introduced in the past few years, including Yaz and Seasonique, make menstrual periods shorter or cause them to occur only a few times each year.
Lybrel stops periods altogether, using the lowest dose yet of hormones. But doctors cautioned that Lybrel, like its predecessors, carries the same risks: blood clots, high blood pressure, stroke and heart attack, especially among women 35 or older and/or those who smoke. Some women may have spotting or breakthrough bleeding.
Wyeth, the pharmaceutical company that developed Lybrel, plans to start selling the pills in July. They contain two hormones, ethinyl estradiol and levonorgestrel.
The theory behind the lower dose is that it will reduce risks, said Dr. Susan Ernst, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at University Health Service in Ann Arbor.
Ernst said studies presented this month at national meetings showed that 99% of women reverted to natural periods or got pregnant when they stopped taking Lybrel, so there was no evidence it hurts fertility.
Read More
May 23, 2007
BY TINA LAM and RUBY L. BAILEY
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
Some metro Detroit women praised a new birth control pill that won U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval on Tuesday. But others said they were skeptical and wanted more long-term evidence that the pill, which eliminates monthly periods, is safe.
Christie Lockman, 20, of Royal Oak takes birth control pills to regulate her periods and said she would think about trying the new pill, Lybrel.
"Who wouldn't like to have fewer periods?" Lockman said. "That's what every woman would want, I would think."
But Julie Kupsov, 37, of Farmington Hills wasn't so sure. She is expecting her first child this month and was on the pill for several years. "I probably wouldn't go on something that hasn't been studied long term," she said. "It's appealing, but I probably wouldn't do it."
About 12 million American women now take contraceptive pills. For most, it is a way to prevent pregnancy, but for some it is a way to regulate periods or ease menstrual symptoms such as cramps and heavy bleeding.
Lybrel is the first pill approved that women would take every day that suspends periods indefinitely. The original birth control pill, introduced in the 1960s, had 21 days of hormone pills and seven days of sugar pills. The pills caused monthly bleeding that mimicked natural periods.
Newer versions of the pill introduced in the past few years, including Yaz and Seasonique, make menstrual periods shorter or cause them to occur only a few times each year.
Lybrel stops periods altogether, using the lowest dose yet of hormones. But doctors cautioned that Lybrel, like its predecessors, carries the same risks: blood clots, high blood pressure, stroke and heart attack, especially among women 35 or older and/or those who smoke. Some women may have spotting or breakthrough bleeding.
Wyeth, the pharmaceutical company that developed Lybrel, plans to start selling the pills in July. They contain two hormones, ethinyl estradiol and levonorgestrel.
The theory behind the lower dose is that it will reduce risks, said Dr. Susan Ernst, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at University Health Service in Ann Arbor.
Ernst said studies presented this month at national meetings showed that 99% of women reverted to natural periods or got pregnant when they stopped taking Lybrel, so there was no evidence it hurts fertility.
Read More
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