"Bob Scott, an attorney with the Advocate Law Group, is an insurance industry expert who has been fighting for consumer rights for over 30 years. He thinks Sicko is a very accurate and an all too sad depiction of the healthcare insurance crisis in America today and explained, “Sicko tells only a fraction of the stories out there – it barely scratches the surface of abuses that occur every day. The truth is that consumers rarely have a fighting chance against giant corporate insurers who will do anything to deny valid claims. I’ve seen this happen for decades and it continues to get worse each year. These abuses are rampant and we see them every day at Advocate Law Group.”

I dunno - I only know that we pay 400.00 a month for insurance...and WITH the insurance, my medication was 250.00 this month - and I didn't even have one 60.00 prescription filled. Then I had surgery that my doctor said I needed 3 years ago, but I had to go through "conservative treatment" that didn't work FIRST - during which time I developed fibromyalgia, which I probably wouldn't have GOT if I had been able to have the surgery when the pain first started.......and so they have refused to pay for my surgery now - which they DID approve, so on the phone I will go tomorrow.....and we really don't have much choice, unless my husband quits and finds a new job with new insurance. :( There. That is my reality. When I will get the needed surgery on my second foot - I dunno - but I bet they will make sure it isn't THIS year. (ThinK Deductible met.)

Insurance Industry Experts agree that Sicko Accurately Depicts A System Gone Wrong

This is incredible.

They all cherry pick - but what is this medical information database?

They might talk to my NEIGHBORS about my morals before they insure me or not?

WTF

People uninsurable because of athlete's foot? Acne? Allergies?

It is SO frustrating - my mother, sister and I all have CFS and Fibro. (The symptoms overlap a lot.) It took me a lot of pain and expense to finally get a diagnosis - and thus treatment - Let me tell you, a lot of doctors need to suddenly have a very bad problem that totally ruins their life that NO one believes in, lol.
Yet, when the studies are done, time and time again they are finding central nervous system changes and genetic links.

Besides a LOT of pain, and a lot of days I can barely stay awake for more than a few hours, the thing that has really been awful for me is the incredible brain fog.

Yet they give this really debilitating disease a totally silly name - Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - and suddenly everyone that you know claims to have it. That's one of the reasons that they are considering changing the name officially to myalgic encephalomyelitis.

Perhaps then, and with more studies, the disease could finally be recognized by all these old docs and half baked GPs running around.

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"UNDER the microscope, it could not have been clearer. Sophia Mirza's brain and spinal fluid showed indisputable evidence of inflammation and cell death.

The discovery, by the neurologist Abhijit Chaudhuri and a neuropathologist colleague, marked the first time a serious abnormality confined to the central nervous system had been identified at the post-mortem examination of a patient whose principal diagnosis was chronic fatigue syndrome."

Victims Give Clues to the Answers

Today, if you are allegic to food dyes, corn starch, or some other filler ingredient used in pills, your pharmacist can obtain the chemicals from the drug company, and provide you the chemicals you need without you having to ingest what you are perhaps violently allergic to.

Patients with painful nerve conditions - like me - have special formulas of lidocaine, capsicum, and a few other chemicals - mixed by the pharmacist into a numbing salve. The percentages can be tweaked by pain management physicians into a salve that keep people from having to take narcotics. My dad recently had to have a compounded medication to treat a spot of skin cancer.

Drug Companies are moving to make compounded medications illegal though. They are sponsoring congressman to pass legislation that would mean that the only medications available to the public, are in the forms they provide, and that form ONLY.

Combine this with their move to patent old drugs recently out of patent, with simple new methods of delivery, or just with an additional bit of tylenol, and you start to see how really greedy they are.

For instance - Ultracet ® is often 60.00 to fill, but all it is in effect is tramadol (3.00 for a full bottle of generic) with tylenol (1.00 in generic.)

Drug Companies Move to Make Compounded Medications Illegal

Of course it is real. Try telling those of us that have severe fibro it isn't real. Yet, doctors want to say it ISN'T real b/c they don't know what causes it. It is the ultimate insult and failure of the medical system. It runs strongly in my family, and it is very often disabling. Totally freaking disabling, and it goes right along with the easily measurable 'idiopathic ' neuropathies that some of us lucky ones also get.

I am SO glad that the CDC is finally studying it and Chronic Fatigue. These PET tests show people with fibro have very real and strong pain responses in their brains, even to light stimuli.

"It can be difficult for patients who suffer from chronic pain to get doctors, relatives and friends to believe in their symptoms when there's no test or exam that proves their aches and pain really exist.

But scientists say overwhelming evidence has emerged in recent years that the condition fibromyalgia is real.

A new study used MRI imaging to show fibromyalgia patients have abnormalities within their brain structure. The fMRI imaging was combined with single photon emission computed tomography.

Fibromyalgia is characterized by a low-threshold for pain and associated with some genetic factors that could make some people more likely to develop the condition.

The study was led by researchers at the University of Michigan Health System and is published in the Dec. 2006 issue of Current Pain and Headache Reports.

Study Finds New Information About Fibromyalgia

"Is it safe to give preschoolers Ritalin, the popular attention deficit disorder drug?

The first long-term government study of that age group warns of side effects with the stimulant drug, which isn't recommended for children under age 6.
...

The research was done because of concerns over reports that soaring numbers of preschoolers are being given psychiatric drugs, including Ritalin."

Pros, Cons From Ritalin in Preschoolers

"WASHINGTON - Good news for aging hippies: smoking pot may stave off Alzheimer’s disease.

New research shows that the active ingredient in marijuana may prevent the progression of the disease by preserving levels of an important neurotransmitter that allows the brain to function.

Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in California found that marijuana’s active ingredient, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, can prevent the neurotransmitter acetylcholine from breaking down more effectively than commercially marketed drugs."

DUDE!

Smoking pot helps protect against Alzheimers disease

This is interesting to me - one, because I have a diagnosed major sleep disorder. (Both severe RLS and PLMD) I know I just never sleep. I don't eat that much, but I just darn keep gaining weight like a sitting hen. lol I've read before that people with sleep apnea often lose weight after being treated with CPAP machines - this ties in very neatly with that observation.

Now, if I could just get more than an hour or two sleep at a time...

Sleep more important than diet in weight control

This article is just weird. Some people have their eyes come out due to an accident, but some folks eyeballs just pop out for no good reason. Here's what to do should YOUR eyeball come out of its socket.

JUST in case your eyeball ever pops out, here's how to put it back in

"So what’s happened here? What’s happened is that both patients and doctors have allowed themselves to be shunted aside. The individual doctor and individual patient, together, no longer comprise the basic nuclear unit of health care. Doctors and patients have been separated from one another; separated and marginalized, reduced to ciphers. They have become mere commodities in the vast health care marketplace. "

Excellent analysis of the way that HMO's do business. I can vouch for its accuracy in the way that people with chronic illnesses are treated. I had so many hoops to jump through in order to have my surgery approved, that after 2 years when it WAS approved, I was told too much time had lapsed and surgery probably wouldn't help my condition anymore.

The Grand Theory of the HMO