Question for Mr. Doug Laidlaw
news.chi.sbcglobal.net
If I am not being too forward, am curious to know if you know Rachel Naomi
Remen MD personally or just from the internet.
On her website, it was stated that she has had Crohns disease for 48 years.
That is a long time, and I hope she can improve her condition. There are
so many treatments available, and I am certain she must have sought out the
best. Is she doing any better as time goes on. I wish her only the
best and would be ever so happy to hear of anything positive. I realize,
as you said, she manages her life best as she can with all her
responsibilities and work schedules.
Sincerely,
Thank You
Gail Michael
Doug Laidlaw
No, I don't know her personally. I have her book, "Kitchen Table Wisdom."
In that she states that she was incapacitated from her teens or earlier,
and was denied all the activities of a teenage girl. Eventually, she had
an operation to have most of her bowel taken out. Infection got in, so
they could not stitch her up. They simply covered up the surgical hole and
let it heal itself. That was apparently standard procedure in cases of
infection. The book is not indexed, so I can't find the chapter. Consider
yourself lucky!
She is now head psychiatrist at a cancer hospital in the U.S. I am in
Australia and have never been to the U.S. The book was written in 1996,
and reprinted in 2003.
The cover notes say that to an Australian reader, the book is like Albert
Facey's "A Fortunate Life" That is the unlettered autobiography of a man
born in 1894 in Victoria, one of six children. His father died on the
Western Australian goldfields when he was under eight (he started work as a
farm hand at that age,) and his mother left the children in the care of a
grandmother shortly afterwards. He lived through the Great Depression and
World War One, fought in the hell of Gallipoli, where he was severely
injured, and died in February 1982.
He writes: 'I called it “A Fortunate Life” because I truly believe that is
what I had'. Would that there were more with his outlook!
Doug Laidlaw.
news.chi.sbcglobal.net
with a bag inside could be made an exhilirating life with no bag and no
crohns. To me, it is heartbreaking to live with crohns without the
advantage of at least knowing the cause.
It does not negate the illness always, but understanding has its advantages.
Of course circumstances change, i.e. divorce, death of person causing the
illness, etc. etc. can negate the illness naturally. Once the mind is free
of the person on stimulants, there is what is called "remission" Actually
it is removal of the cause. But in today's thinking, anti-depressants are
for all reasons, which make many people vulnerable to many others also on a
stimulant. Do you have any idea how many use stimulants, it is so
accepted. Thanks for the update, I was hoping for a no surgery answer,
but that is part and parcel of this very weird, stupid illness that has no
answer to its simpleness and yet complexity. I cannot blame people that
say marijuana helps their pain. It probably does. Now the politicians
want to make having 1/4 lb. marijuana legal so that the courts are not tied
up with this heavily used offense. Next thing is everyone will be on the
bandwagon and go for a 1/4 pound legal amount of marijuana. It will be
every man on marijuana, next thing we know.
Gail Michael
"Doug Laidlaw" <do...@dougshost.invalid> wrote in message
news:redtm5-...@dougshost.douglaidlaw.net...
Nom dePlume
news:sq6nk.16189$cW3....@nlpi064.nbdc.sbc.com...
> Thank you so much, Mr. Laidlaw. But a fortunate life with having to
> live with a bag inside could be made an exhilirating life with no bag and
> no crohns. To me, it is heartbreaking to live with crohns without the
> advantage of at least knowing the cause.
> It does not negate the illness always, but understanding has its
> advantages. Of course circumstances change, i.e. divorce, death of person
> causing the illness, etc. etc. can negate the illness naturally. Once
> the mind is free of the person on stimulants, there is what is called
> "remission" Actually it is removal of the cause. But in today's
> thinking, anti-depressants are for all reasons, which make many people
> vulnerable to many others also on a stimulant. Do you have any idea how
> many use stimulants, it is so accepted. Thanks for the update, I was
> hoping for a no surgery answer, but that is part and parcel of this very
> weird, stupid illness that has no answer to its simpleness and yet
> complexity. I cannot blame people that say marijuana helps their pain.
> It probably does. Now the politicians want to make having 1/4 lb.
> marijuana legal so that the courts are not tied up with this heavily used
> offense. Next thing is everyone will be on the bandwagon and go for a
> 1/4 pound legal amount of marijuana. It will be every man on marijuana,
> next thing we know.
> Gail Michael
Leaving aside for the moment the fact that we disagree on the subject of
medication, may I ask you one question? Why do you use "stimulant" and
"antidepressant" interchangeably? These are two different categories of
medication, with very different effects on the brain. They are definitely
not equivalent, in mechanism, or effect.
--
Nom dePlume, Ph.D.
Why, yes, in fact, I am a rocket scientist.
Find my book, Medicines for Mental health, and free drug information, at
www.MentalMeds.org
=====
Doug Laidlaw
crohn's; you need only to go on from there. Some diseases have no known
causes
I was born with two disabilities. I was a breech birth. As a result, I
suffered some oxygen deprivation at birth, I had the beginnings
of "wryneck" (torticollis) and I have a slightly deformed right leg. I
have limited co-ordination. I almost didn't get promotion in my school
Cadet unit because my movements weren't snappy enough.
Secondly, I inherited moderate depression from my grandmother's family. But
like Facey, I can say that I have had a fortunate life.
- There have been several suicides among my ancestors. That has never been
a problem for me.
- I have not had a fantastic work history, but I kept working (with gaps)
until I was 55. There are many depressed people far worse than me.
- I have a loving wife, who has put up with a lot to stay with me, and three
loving daughters, who would be a credit to any father, with fine husbands.
Certainly, I would prefer to be healthier, but I don't see the mud; I see
the stars.
I know that depression does not respond to positive thinking alone, but your
Crohn's isn't the end of the world. If you cant have an exhilarating life
(and how many of us do?) you can still have a fortunate life. It depends
on what you call exhilarating. Dr Remen doesn't climb mountains, but she
mends hearts and lives. She is in a cancer clinic, dealing all the time
with people not far from death, when the pleasures of life go out of focus,
and the more permanent values are all-important.
Look at all the disabled athletes. They don't complain about their
disability or about how it happened. The don't look at what they can't do
now. They look at what they can still do, and they do it very well. And
you are saying that because you can't be better than them, you won't even
be one of them; you will do nothing. Which ones get in the news - you or
them?
Forget about the marijuana scene. Cast your vote against it, then say: "I
have done all I can; it is useless to waste energy worrying about it." Get
out there and start helping somebody, even in a small way. Helping
somebody else to be happy is the best way to forget your own unhappiness.
Doug L.
news.chi.sbcglobal.net
thing in common. They both can transmit harm by the mind to a person known
to them. Only difference is one is legal and others are illegal, but that
does not change their mode of operation in transmitting harm. I know you
will disagree, but if not for that feature, I would not care if the whole
country were saturated with marijuana, cocaine, etc. . The unfairness of
the situation is that innocent people are harmed, rarely the user of the
stimulant.
Gail Michael
"Nom dePlume" <me...@mentalmeds.org> wrote in message
news:g7kbf...@news3.newsguy.com...
Nom dePlume
> No time to write at the moment, but anti-depressants and stimulants have
> one thing in common. They both can transmit harm by the mind to a person
> known to them. Only difference is one is legal and others are illegal,
> but that does not change their mode of operation in transmitting harm.
> I know you will disagree, but if not for that feature, I would not care if
> the whole country were saturated with marijuana, cocaine, etc. . The
> unfairness of the situation is that innocent people are harmed, rarely the
> user of the stimulant.
> Gail Michael
Again, putting aside our basic disagreement regarding medications, I want to
point out that your incorrect use of terms, and simple factual errors, are
serious problems, not minor things. For example,
- Stimulants and antidepressants are very different medications, which have
very different effects on the brain, and are not even close to being
equivalent.
- Stimulants are not illegal. Some (caffeine) are available openly, in foods
(coffee, chocolate) and in tablet form. Others are available by prescription
(Ritalin, Dexedrine). Some stimulating drugs are illegal (cocaine), but your
blanket statement that "stimulants are illegal" is factually wrong.
If you make a habit of getting basic facts wrong, and dismissing important
distinctions as irrelevant just because you personally don't care about
them, it conveys the impression that you are a sloppy thinker who is not to
be taken seriously. This is true independent of whether or not your main
point is correct. I am puzzled that you do not seem to see this, or care.
Sphinx
> "news.chi.sbcglobal.net" <kureforcro...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
thinking only from the right side of the brain. no balance.
about meds. prozac worked 110% in the beginning. then 50%. makes
one very tired!
news.chi.sbcglobal.net
Allright, I admit to you being correct in that not all
stimulants are harmful. Of course, chocolate, caffeine, coke, etc. are not
in the category I was referring to and are not harmful in the manner I
speak of. I guess I am so caught up with drug stimulants that I took it
for granted that that was understood. Sorry. I do not mean to mislead
and perhaps in my fervor to bash medical med stimulants (which ARE harmful)
I do not realize I could be misunderstood. I wish everyone could see and
know what I know.
Stimulants by prescription are harmful, meaning anti-depressants, including
Prozac, Xanax, marijuana, cocaine, etc. And admittedly, am not sure about
Ritalin and Dexedrine. It is the only subject I write on, so it becomes
cumbersome to repeat the subject so often. I am also not computer
intelligent, do not know how some people write loads of posts each day and
lengthy at that. Don't know if those are written by hand or copied in some
manner from their source. Also do not know how to send post to more than
one group, as it always gets turned down. So I have a lot to learn with
no teacher (or time ) but the subject of anti-depressants and drug
stimulants is so embeddded in my psyche, I am trying to find the answer to
this dilemna. Not trying to voice an opinion even, just trying to
accomplish something that is probably an impossible task.
Thank you for your post and correcting me for the very obvious error.
Probably my frustration at seeing the harm of the drugs makes me exceed the
caution and it should not.
I am not familiar with the names of all the anti-depressants, there are so
many, so I will ask isn't Prozac an anti-depressant. I did not quite
understand the post saying the right side of the brain only is being used.
Kinda funny, though.
I do hope my basic message is clear, however.
Gail Michael
>
>
> =====
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