This is really timely for me for personal reasons. Not to belabor my personal medical problems, but the last month or so I've had strange pains in my right hand. They started out as seemingly nerve-related (coldness, itchiness and pain upon pressure in the finger-tips) and then moved to joint pain, with severe pain in the knuckle joints and loss of motion. It seemed to move from one finger to the next. The doctors have not ruled out carpal tunnel yet, but seem perplexed by the symptoms. Fast forward two weeks. I wake up feeling absolutely lousy, sleep for way longer than is normal for me, and have two bloodshot eyes. Figure it's allergies. Start to feel better, but my eyes are still wacky, so I went to the eye doctor thinking I had an infection. He took one look at my eyes (not an examination, mind you, just a quick look), sees the splint on my wrist and asks what's wrong, and says, "I think you have Lyme disease". What a surprise to me! I'm hoping it's not, since I still haven't seen any evidence of a tick on me. So after seeing two doctors, (a GP and an orthopedic hand specialist) my eye doctor, of all people, wrote a prescription for a Lyme test. Hopefully I'll know by the end of the week. I have a friend who is suffering greatly from this disease. The doctors think she may have contracted it when we were teenagers, meaning she may have had it for 25 years - perhaps before it was even widely known. I believe she was diagnosed about 10 or 15 years ago. It saddens me to see what she goes through. Thanks, everyone, and especially Claire, for all the info and research here, and the link. It's all very helpful and informative. :) Dee

I have purchased my heartworm meds for my dog from this place in Australia for the past 5 years and am very pleased with their service. http://www.pets-megastore.com.au/ I buy Valuheart (which is a generic Heartgard but without the pyrantel that supposedly controls worms.) Their prices are about half that of US pet pharmacies, much less than from the vet, and no prescription is required for any HW preventative or de-worming med in Australia (or in most other countries.) Neither Heartgard or Interceptor are very good at controlling intestinal parasites. I buy Vetafarm Wormout All Wormer (praziquantel and oxfendazole) and administer this preparation to my dogs and cat 4 times a year. It kills ALL worms as the name implies (tapes, rounds, hook.) I treat fleas and ticks in my dogs with Frontline plus, and buy Revolution for my cat to control external parasites and prevent heartworm. I buy all the above from petsmegastore (link above) and the savings are considerable as well as the convenience of not needing a script. A sub-population of collies and related herding dogs have a mutant gene that makes them sensitive to ivermectin, as well as a long list of other drugs. There is an urban rumor that, for these dogs, the ivermectin in Heartgard poses a danger and that Interceptor is safer. However the active ingredient in Interceptor (milbemycin) is in the same class of drug as ivermectin and poses the same risk. Despite this, the active ingredients in all the monthly HW preventative meds are safe for dogs with the mutant gene. They would have to ingest 10 doses of a monthly HW drug to be at risk. From the researchers at Washington State University who discovered the mutant gene: Ivermectin (antiparasitic agent). While the dose of ivermectin used to prevent heartworm infection is SAFE in dogs with the mutation (6 micrograms per kilogram), higher doses, such as those used for treating mange (300-600 micrograms per kilogram) will cause neurological toxicity in dogs that are homozygous for the MDR1 mutation (mutant/mutant) and can cause toxicity in dogs that are heterozygous for the mutation (mutant/normal). Selamectin, milbemycin, and moxidectin (antaparasitic agents). Similar to ivermectin, these drugs are safe in dogs with the mutation if used for heartworm prevention at the manufacturer's recommended dose. Higher doses (generally 10-20 times higher than the heartworm prevention dose) have been documented to cause neurological toxicity in dogs with the MDR1 mutation.

Yeah, we're all going to die eventually anyway. We can be overweight and not worry about it. We can eat fried food every day at fast food places. We can also smoke, drink excessively, and have a good time doing it. Such attitudes are nothing more than a rationalization for ignoring the writing on the wall. Like smokers do with the health warnings for tobacco, or why overweight people brush off the need to diet. Sit down, alisande, because I mostly agree with you. Maybe not to the same extent, or in the same ways, as your life style would direct, but I agree with the basics of what you say. Sensible decisions can be later regretted, but they're based on thoughtful consideration and a risk assessment using what's known at the time.

Cookie, that's interesting. I know you're knowledgeable about nutrition and holistic health. Sometime I'd love to hear details about the natural protocol that has enabled you to get off pain meds. The recent x-ray of my hip and pelvis revealed "a little arthritis, nothing to worry about," according to my doctor's office. X-rays of my knees five years ago revealed the same thing. I've had fibromyalgia since the 1980s, and around the same time was also diagnosed with lupus--but some years later was "undiagnosed." I don't think I have lupus, but something has kept me in various kinds of discomfort for decades. Mostly l've just learned to live with it. Maxmom, I visited the chiropractor 6 or 7 times since this started. At first the treatments eliminated the pain for about 3 hours, and I hoped subsequent treatments would help for even longer. But somewhere around treatment #4 they stopped helping. And treatments #6 and 7 made the pain dramatically worse. So I'm not going back, at least for this condition. I've gone to this chiropractor for almost 30 years, and he's gotten me out of pain many times. But not this time. It's possible the mere act of lying on his table has aggravated the pain.