Surgery Sucks!!!!

As well as Surgery Sucking we would do well to stay out of other people's business in the world. Our business is here at home SOmetimes we can't even get our meds right. Over a hundred thousand people lose their lives every year to meds. So here's a web site to help all of you out. http://www.consumermedsafety.org For those of you who like to mix and match your meds please enjoy the extra excitement you bring to your spouses when you do. Then we wonder why we die so so much earlier.

rhr

Everybody wants tools. Guys want tools, hell, I want tools. But there are very few I really know how to use. Using a tool to get rid of pain is really relatively easy. Like a hammer, I know how to use it, but rarely have to. When I do, I am careful and focused. I want the job done and I don't want to use the side of a wrench or the side of a pair of pliers. The right tool for the right job.

So when I have a headache I want it gone in two minutes and if I have a person near me with a foot, preferably two, I can get out of my headache inside of two minutes. I can get out of shoulder pain in less than 90 seconds. Back pain, five minutes tops. I can get out of knee pain in less than 30 seconds. all I ever have to do is confront my own pain. Use the right tool and done. The tools are totally simple. So why not? I use another person's foot.

Richard

Labels: back pain, knee pain., pain, shoulde pain

Not because the costs go up but because you think you have to be a part of the system. Doing this, puts you at risk for even more creepy diseases. Diseases that exist only because people forget that there's disease and that their job is to clean stuff up and it doesn't get done because they really don't want to do it or are not qualified to do it.

Labels: dirt, Hospitals, infection, pain, risky surgery

"America is awash in antidepressants.

Literally so.

In March the Associated Press reported that the drinking water of at least 41 million Americans is contaminated with at times voluminous cocktails of prescription drugs. Many of these contaminants are psychiatric drugs. In Philadelphia, for example, a glass of tap water brings along with it trace elements of up to fifty-six pharmaceuticals and byproducts, including Prozac, Valium and Risperdal, a drug primarily used to treat schizophrenia."

I am always amazed at the number of nerdy, scary things out there. This is one of them. I like Brita.

Protect your family.

http://www.shopbrita.com/index.asp?.

Sincerely,

Richard

Labels: Water for you.

From the "it was bound to happen department," perhaps? A story in the New York Times recounts the experiences of hip replacement patients who are discovering -- up to 7% of them, in some cases -- that their several-year-old ceramic hips (artificial joints) are starting to SQUEAK

Reports Barnaby Feder of the Times: "Any artificial hip can occasionally make a variety of noises. But until Stryker, a medical products company, began marketing highly durable ceramic hips in the United States in 2003, squeaking was extremely rare.

Now, tens of thousands of ceramic hips later — from Stryker and other makers that entered the field — many patients say their squeaking hips are interfering with daily life. One study in the Journal of Arthroplasty found that 10 patients of 143 who received ceramic hips from 2003 to 2005, or 7 percent, developed squeaking. Meanwhile, no squeaks occurred among a control group of 48 patients who received hips made of metal and plastic. “It can interrupt sex when my wife starts laughing,” said one man, who discussed the matter on the condition that he not be named."

Patients say their hips squeak when doing normal activities...bending over, walking, getting up from a chair. One even posted a YouTube video demonstrating the squeakiness.



Makes you wonder...if those artificial hips are squeaking, what else are they doing internally? Deteriorating? Wasting away? Rubbing themselves into joint nothingness?

Another reason to avoid surgery as long as possible and try Rossiter System stretches instead.

My wife can't/won't drink diet sodas - or anything containing the artificial sweetener aspartame - because she says it leaves a strange metallic aftertaste in her mouth. Just as I tell people who are in pain to listen to their bodies and to think of pain as information, I'm convinced HER body is telling her to stay away from the chemical sweetener as well.

So I was even more intrigued when I found this newsletter article from Dr. Mercola's web site (he's an alternative medicine speiclaist). One woman, concerned about her family's intake of diet soda, fed 108 rats small bits of aspartame over two years. And more than one-third of them developed tumors. Some of them were honking BIG tumors. How much did she feed them: the equivalent of 2/3 of the aspartame found in a normal 8-ounce can of diet soda.

Don't trust what i tel you. Start searching the Internet for information about aspartame -- also sold as NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, Equal-Measure and Canderel. Here's a link to Dr. Mercola's web site about aspartame. Or check out information from the Center for Science in the Public Interest about the Ramazzini study, which found that aspartame in rats is a "multipotent carcinogenic agent." Meaning it's a potent cancer-causing food.

So think before you drink that next can of diet soda. Or choose plain old natural sugar instead!

Next time you take a big gulp of watery goodness from the tap, consider this: you might be drinking minute concentrations of prescription drugs that treat everything from heart disease to epilepsy, hormonal problems to depression.

The Associated Press says studies indicate that drinking water supplies are contaminated with tiny concentrations of common prescription medicines, and the studies have been done on treated drinking water and watersheds (water sources) from coast to coast.

Federal officials, of course, say the amounts are too small to be of any consequence. But how much is too much? How do they know? And what about water that hasn't been tested?

How do they get into the water? Well, humans take them, and whatever goes in has to go out, and some of the drugs are "released" into the water supply as urine that's flushed down toilets; water treatment systems can't remove everything that's in the water.

Scary....maybe those water filters are more important than we think.

Those of you who've taken my workshop have heard my lecture about the negative effects of "heat wraps" and hot baths. They're bad for pain. Heat changes, melts and remolds connective tissue (especially that huge hunk of it in the lower back, and especially when it's sat upon in a hot bathtub or Jacuzzi. Connective tissue that gets subjected to/reshaped by heat can send phantom pains (fibromyalgia?) shooting through the extremities. If you hurt, you should be putting ICE and COLD stuff on your pain, not heat!

And here's one more reason to avoid heat wraps: they BURN!

This from the FDA in early February 2008: "Chattem, Inc. announced that it is initiating a voluntary Nationwide recall of its Icy Hot Heat Therapy products, including consumer samples that were included on a limited promotional basis in cartons of its 3 oz. Aspercreme product. Chattem is recalling these products because it has received some consumer reports of first, second and third degree burns as well as skin irritation resulting from consumer use or possible misuse of these products."

(Third-degree burns, by the way, cause blisters and actually burn the tissue).

The press release accompanying the announcement says: "All lots and all sizes of the following Icy Hot Heat Therapy products are affected by this recall:

Icy Hot Heat Therapy Air Activated Heat- Back
Icy Hot Heat Therapy Air Activated Heat- Arm, Neck, and Leg
Icy Hot Heat Therapy Air Activated Heat- Arm, Neck, and Leg single consumer use "samples" included on a limited promotional basis in cartons of 3 oz. Aspercreme Pain Relieving Crème.
NOTE: if products have been removed from their holding cartons the recalled products are packaged in a red colored plastic pouch which states Icy Hot Heat Therapy and either Back or Arm/Neck and Leg.

Single consumer use "samples" of Icy Hot Heat Therapy- Arm, Neck and Leg were included on a limited promotional basis in yellow and red cartons of 3 oz. Aspercreme Pain Relieving Crème. The samples were distinct and stand-alone products, clearly labeled as "Icy Hot Heat Therapy Air Activated Heat," with their own internal labeling.

These products are sold over the counter through food, drug and mass merchandisers.

Consumers who have the Icy Hot Heat Therapy products under recall should immediately stop using the products, discard them, and/or return them to Chattem, Inc."

Cold and ice, people, NOT heat, for pain!

I'm extremely proud to introduce to all of you the first-ever class of Rossiter System Instructors - a group of professionals from around the country who will begin teaching Rossiter System Unit I workshops in 2008.

These 12 people are true Rossiter System fanatics...people who've been so excited about The Rossiter System that they've asked me over the past few years when I would offer a course that would certify them as Instructors. And for six challenging and energy-filled days in December, all 12 them came to Cincinnati and participated in a first-ever, intensives Instructor Training course. Soon, they'll be scheduling and teaching Introductory and Unit I Rossiter System workshops from New Jersey to Seattle, the Carolinas to California, New Mexico to Colorado, while I'll continue to handle Unit II classes to certify new Rossiter System Coaches.

I'm truly excited about the energy, dedication and commitment that these 12 individuals exude, especially as we take The Rossiter System to the next level of awareness and professionalism. Equally exciting is the appearance of a seven-page article about The Rossiter System that appears in the December Massage Magazine.

Meet the Instructors


...and here's who they are (from the left): Michael Peairs of Springfield, OH; Valerie Lescantz of Lake Forest, WA: Steve Timmerman of Aiken, SC; Viktor Bek of Princeton, NJ; Kristen Peairs of Columbus, OH; David Henre of Leadville, CO: Richard Rossiter; Diane Meyer of Cincinnati, OH; Kathy Howard of Greensboro, NC; Ron Arbel of San Diego, CA; Felecia Harvey of Dexter, NM; John Carnes of Columbus, OH; and John Prior of San Francisco, CA. They include massage therapists and personal trainers, CORE fitness trainers and Structural Integrators/Rolfers.

Look for GREAT things from this Daring Dozen as they take The Rossiter System to the streets! The more you support them, the quicker that word will spread about this approach to pain relief...and the more that all of you will benefit from the additional exposure, awareness and training. I'm proud to have such great colleagues across the country!

Remember Vioxx? The miracle pain reliever? Merck (the pharmaceutical company that makes it) agreed to pay nearly $5 billion (with a B) to settle lawsuits/claims against the company for the drug's "side effects," which included heart attack and strokes.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: drugs do not have "SIDE effects." They have "effects," and not all of the "effects" are good ones, especially when they maim, kill and backfire. Even the bad ones are "effects," not things that just happen on the side...especially when it's a heart attack or stroke that's the payoff for a little arthritis pain relief.

Be careful what you put in your mouth. Regard drug marketing suspiciously and skeptically. If it's too good to be true, it probably is. And stretching can solve so many problems that drugs simply mask over.

Noticed this piece in the New York Times this week: doctors are finding that a lot of headaches are really the result of the "rebound" effects of painkillers designed to kill headaches. That's right...take too many headache pills, and you're likely to give yourself a headache.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: lots of headaches, including migraines, stress headaches and just plain old hurt-like-hell headaches that creep up the back of your head/neck, are the result of connective tissue that's too tight, usually in the pectoral muscles across the front of the chest. A Rossiter System technique called the Hole in the Shoulder, especially if done as soon as headache symptoms start, can usually whack a headache (even a migraine) in a matter of minutes.

It sounds illogical, but think about it: most of the work that we do today is in front of us...at a computer, a desk, a piece of machinery, whatever. We don't use our arms and upper bodies that way that humans used to when they were outdoorsy, active people. So when all the tissue across the upper portion of the front of your body gets constrained and limited, it pulls and tightens inward....pullling on the tissues at the back of your head and upper back, causing headaches.

Stretch out the front part of your body, and you'll probably get rid of your headaches. Check out the book and find out how. Hole in the Shoulder. Try it.

It's almost time for the national convention of the American Massage Therapy Association, which will be held Sept. 26-29 at the Duke Energy/CIncinnati Convention Center.

The Rossiter System will BE THERE....trade-show booth No. 101 near the doors. Come check out the new ideas, the new logo, and the new ways to provide BETTER MASSAGE therapy to your clients by integrating the Rossiter System.

If you're a state AMTA officer, stop by the booth for your free book and a free stretching session to fix what ails you.

If you're a massage therapist interested in techniques that provide quick pain relief to your clients (without wearing the heck out of you), visit Step out of Pain for some new insights!

Visit the Ohio on-site massage room for a Rossiter workout as well, provided by therapists from around the state who've been certified at Rossiter System workshops.

...and keep your toes up!

Couldn't help but notice this article in USA Today, which says that a 17-year-old high school runner died from an overdose of a topical cream used for sports pain relief.

EXCUSE ME???? Obviously something's wrong if the stuff you can buy over-the-counter can build up on your body and do you in. And I have to ask: why do athletes keep insisting on drugs/surgery/splints for pain relief when other natural approaches -- like The Rossiter System -- are readily available, FREE and carry no risk of side effects? Why aren't more coaches and trainers interested in approaches that work without risks? If sports medicine doctors who own huge orthopaedic clinics practices are in charge of most athletic teams, what incentive do THEY have to look at alternative approaches?

I am amazed. And saddened.

Have you ever noticed how many TV ads promote drugs directly to YOU...for conditions you didn't even know existed, or for problems that don't even bother you? But now you're wondering....

Critics of the massive pharmaceutical industry are paying attention, too, with several online campaigns to raise public awareness. The first, by the Media Education Foundation, promotes a documentary called "Big Bucks, Big Pharma," which examines the tremendous (and somewhat unchecked) growth of direct-to-consumer advertising, which is a fairly recent phenomenon. There was a time when drug reps and drug companies could market ONLY to doctors....there were no direct-to-the-public TV ads for Viagra and Nexium and Celebrex and Lunesta...and...and...you know the drill. Print ads for drugs appeared only in medical journals/trade publications, and TV was not graced with dancing flowers selling drugs, ladies in the park doing Tai Chi as if that made taking a drug any more sensible, auctioneers getting all teary-eyed over cancer drugs.

You can watch another video, "PHARMED OUT," at YouTube...it features a former Eli Lilly drug rep who talks about the secret side effect that the drug company don't want people on Zyprexa (an anti-psychotic drug) to know about: namely, obesity. The drug makes you fat, and people on Xyprexa are also therefore at higher risk of diabetes. But the drug rep says he and his fellow reps were "instructed to downplay that side effect" and talk up its other positives. The entire clip is about 5 minutes long.

Surgery Sucks...Drugs Suck just as much. Remember that next time you're in pain. Or have restless leg syndrome.

Every workshop I teach, I remind my student/colleagues the same things: fascia is that body's system of "Space." It's what holds bodies together, gives them shape and form, allows them to move easily and freely.

And when fascia becomes too tight -- like a wetsuit that's two sizes too small -- all sorts of aches and pains set in. The Rossiter System is one of several modalities that loosen and elongate connective tissue -- fascia -- back to its normal, loose pain-free state by adding weight (a partner's foot), warmth (a partner's foot) and movement (you stretch like he!!).

The Ottowa Sun newspaper recently did an interesting piece on the small-but-growing interest in fascia, mostly by people like you and me but not by the medical profession (not just yet anyway). Read it here...and start stretching today!

Disturbing news today about the long-term effects of playing football: one forensic specialist who is particularly interested in football players has found that sustained concussions can increase the risk of later-life depression, dementia and suicide as early as midlife, as reported in the New York Times.(registration may be required)

The information has come to light because of the interest of another former NFL player who wanted more answers about why, after a teen/young adult career as a football player, he began experiencing depression and memory loss in middle adulthood. And according to the doctor taking an interest in the issue, some middle-aged adults who played football as teens/young adults show brain patterns in their 40s that usually aren't seen until elderly people are in their 80s, including pre-Alzheimer's conditions.

For some, the bottom line: sending young kids back on the field after head inujuries and concussions and telling them to "tough it out" may, in fact, be setting them up for severe problems later in life.

A large medical study of back surgery for ruptured discs finds that those who undergo surgery get quicker pain relief, but in the long run, people who do NOT have surgery end up just fine, thank you, and do just as well as those who underwent surgery.

You can read the study, published in the journal of the American Medical Association, in today's New York Times. Other studies, interestingly, have noted that even healthy people can have ruptured/bulging discs with no symptoms or back pain, so this study supports my belief that a lot of back surgery is done unnecessarily.

I'll say it again: If your back hurts, it's because you're using ONE leg more than the OTHER leg, and back pain typically develops on the side of the back that's OPPOSITE your stronger leg. If you always stand/lean on your right leg, your left back will hurt, and vice versa.

First, STAND UP STRAIGHT (mom was right!) and share the load between both legs, all the time. Do it consciously.
If you develop back pain, do the Rossiter System techniques on the quadriceps for quick and usually effective back pain relief.

And remember....SURGERY SUCKS.

I've been watching those ads on TV for what drugmakers are now calling "restless leg syndrome," and I laugh and then I cry. I laugh because it's another "fake disease" invented by drug companies who want to create the impression in people's minds that very common structural problems in the body are really diseases. You might not know it, but drug companies frequently set up non-profit "foundations" that are in effect arms of the drug companies themselves. But as nonpprofits, they can provide "education" and "free samples" to patients.

I cry because "restless leg syndrome" is easily fixed by using a few of the stretching techniques in the Rossiter System, especially the Upper Calf Crunch and Lower Calf Crunch. "Restless legs" means a few things.

1. You're probably lazy and not using your legs a lot, so QUIT THAT. Get out and take a walk every day, for cripe's sake. And don't saunter. Walk as if you're headed to Disney World and the gates close in 10 minutes.

2. Keep your calf muscles stretched out. And here's a free technique that you can do easily with a stretching partner.

Upper Calf Crunch
1.Find a chair with a thick padding on the seat, or use a wooden chair but add several of blankets or foam pads to it so it's soft.
2. Stand in front of the chair and bend the knee of your "restless leg" and place it as far back on the seat of the chair as you can, making sure that your foot hangs over the edge with enough space around it that you can wiggle and move your foot around.
3. Stand up straight and hold onto the back of the chair for balance, but don't lean.
4. Ask your stretching partner to stand on the other side of the chair, facing your side, and to place the arch of his/her foot at the top of your calf muscle. Make your your partner keeps his/her toes up while adding weight. The partner should stand up straight and add weight straight down onto your upper calf with her/her arch.
5. Once you've taken as much weight as you can, start stretching by pushing out with your heel and pulling your toes under the chair, and then point your toes all the way across the room behind you. Now tuck your toes under again and push out with your heel, and make a big SLOW (and I mean SLOW!) circle, all the way around in one direction two times, and then two times in the other direction. Then go walk around and compare that leg with the un-stretched leg.

Repeat the technique.

And quit taking drugs that are probably nothing more than muscle relaxants anyway.

Besides, when you stretch, you can still operate heavy equipment that very day!

If you could get sick taking drugs, how you would treat the problem? Well, it IS a problem, according to the latest report from the Institute of Medicine, which finds that 1.5 million "medication errors" occur each year at a cost of $3.5 BILLION (with a "b").

According to Forbes magazine, that's one patient per day in every U.S. hospital who's somehow injured by a drug. (The medical community calls them "side effects" but at this rate, I call them what they are: "effects," and they're primary ones.

The bottom line for YOU? Know what you're taking. Read the labels. Read all the fine-print material that comes with your drugs. Politely DECLINE your doctor's recommendation if you think a drug might be too risky, or if you're already taking a lot of other drug and don't want to keep adding to the pile. Take CHARGE of your health, because if all you do is pop pills, you don't know how those pills are reacting and interacting inside your body. Ask lots of questions. Talk to your pharmacist.

This week's edition of Outpatient Surgery E-Weekly provides another insight into the wonderful world of surgery (and why you should RUN from any kind of non-essential surgery): In Florida, a West Palm Beach surgeon who specializes in vascular work (veins/arteries/circulation) has been fined a whopping total of $8500 and has to undergo five whole hours of training for...you'll never guess...doing a varicose vein treatment that ended up in his 53-year-old female patient LOSING HER LEG.

Turns out the doctor, who was supposed to be removing varicose veins from his patient's legs, mistook the femoral artery (the one that delivers healthy blood to the leg) as a vein (the one that returns blood to the heart) and removed it instead....and without a supply of blood, the patient's leg eventuallyhad to be amputated. Of course, she had to go to ANOTHER doctor to get that diagnosed and treated....after complaining of no blood flow to the leg, trauma to the artery and gangrene of the left foot. The second doctor removed part of her left leg, while the original varicose vein surgeon was chastised by the Florida Board of Medicine for not identifying the right blood vessel, removing part of the wrong one and not administering anticoagulants (drugs that help blood clot) when he tried to reconstruct/bypass the damaged artery.

RUN! Unless you're dying or bleeding or suffering a massive heart attack or in desperate need of surgery, try to think of anything "elective" as just that...something you can ELECT to turn down to avoid risks like these!