A Pimple On The Nose of God Talking To You
Hi there Everybody, Scrooge here!
Actually, one of my subscribers last weeks wrote to me angrily and described me as “worse than Scrooge”! Apparently his interpretation of Christmas goodwill is that everyone MUST see things his way, or they are wicked and contemptible.
It was the exact opposite of the message I tried to convey. I begged for an end to narrow religious clichés. But it seems he has special privileges from God; he can insult other people and have it still be counted as “Christian values”.
Strange rules! He probably sees himself as one of the last surviving guardians of truth and regards me as a pimple on the nose of God! Ha!
Happy New Year for today!
Hey, 2015 was a great year for me! It was my 70th birthday and Vivien and I celebrated with a spectacular Nile cruise. Everyone seemed to think we were mad to go and assumed we would cancel after the Tunisian tourist massacre in June. Heck, that would be to play right into the hands of terrorists. We were having none of that.
The world belongs to all Humankind, not just rabid Muslims, or rabid Christians, or anyone else with spiritual rabies!
Vivien is in love with all things Ancient Egyptian (this was her third visit) and it had long been her desire to take me there.
It was glorious to be in the presence of such intense spirituality; and make no mistake, the Ancient Egyptians were not Christians, Muslims or anything else in the world today. They were denizens of the Cosmos. So are Vivien and I.
Here we are having breakfast on the streets of Cairo. I LOVED it!!
OK, breakfast done, let’s get to work…
Is There An Opioid Epidemic?
CDC apparently thinks there is.
In 2014, opioid overdose deaths, including deaths from the use of painkillers, hit record levels, with an “alarming” 14% increase.
The death rate from the most commonly prescribed opioid pain relievers rose 9% and the death rate from heroin jumped 26%. “Nearly every aspect of the opioid overdose death epidemic worsened in 2014,” the CDC said. The rate of opioid overdoses has TRIPLED since the year 2000.
With hairy-scary statistics, I always look at the rest of the world, to see if the trend holds true; what about Britain, for example? (always easier to look at, since reported in English).
The British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology looked at trend in deaths associated with prescription opioid drugs for England, Wales and Scotland and found that, “Although the number of deaths related to drug poisoning reviewed from England and Wales is not as high as the USA, the overall trends are remarkably similar.”
Tramadol presents interesting data in the UK. In 1996, England and Wales reported one death attributed to Tramadol but by 2011 this had risen to 154 deaths; in Scotland, tramadol-related deaths rose from 8 in 2001 to 34 deaths in 2011.
The increase in tramadol-related deaths of course reflects a rise in tramadol prescriptions, thus making it more available.
[Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2013 Nov; 76(5): 823–824. Published online 2013 Apr 18. doi: 10.1111/bcp.12133]
Increased prescribing of opioids for pain relief is obviously what is driving the startling increase in opioid deaths. My point is WHY? There are many better approaches to pain relief, which I will tell you about shortly.
The British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology reports:
“The USA is considered to be the centre of prescription drug misuse and abuse. Given that drug abuse is a worldwide phenomenon, it would be valuable to determine whether the trend of increasing prescription opioid abuse seen in the USA is developing in the UK.
They looked at trend in deaths associated with prescription opioid drugs for England, Wales and Scotland and found that, “Although the number of deaths related to drug poisoning reviewed from England and Wales is not as high as the USA, the overall trends are remarkably similar.”
The prominent role of methadone in UK opioid deaths is striking. In Scotland, for instance, methadone-related deaths increased from 71 in 2001 to 275 in 2011 and these fatalities currently represent over half of all reported opioid-related deaths.
Tramadol presents interesting data in the UK. In 1996, England and Wales reported one death attributed to Tramadol but by 2011 this had risen to 154 deaths; in Scotland, tramadol-related deaths rose from 8 in 2001 to 34 deaths in 2011.
The increase in tramadol-related deaths of course reflects a rise in tramadol prescriptions, thus making it more available.
Increased prescribing of opioids for pain relief is obviously what is driving the startling increase in opioid deaths. My point is WHY? There are many better approaches to pain relief, which I will describe shortly.
Basically, I consider doctors prescribing opioids for anything but immediate post-operative pain, under direct in-house supervision, are ignorant, negligent and, frankly, stupid!
All the CDC can suggest is:
- Less prescribing of opioids
- The use of the drug Naloxone to help those who are dependent
- Expand access to evidence-based treatment of substance use disorder, including medication-assisted treatment, for people with opioid use disorder.
- Get state and local public health agencies, medical examiners and coroners, and law enforcement agencies to work together to improve detection of and response to illicit opioid overdose outbreaks.
Apart from the first, I don’t see much useful optimism in this. 3 and 4 are particularly useless.
The thing is, how do we educate them to stop using prescription meds to control pain? It’s a fool’s game. Of course the pharmaceutical companies love the whole story because people take painkillers over and over and over. They don’t work, so the pain is back in a few hours (endless repeat dosing).
Lots of sales!
So let me spread some lifesaving knowledge in 2 ways here. First, how to stop people dying needlessly of an overdose?
Secondly, what really workable alternatives are there to pain-relief drugs that actually work and permanently erase the pain problem?
How To Stop People Dying Needlessly Of An Overdose
This is how it happens:
- A person is prescribed an opioid for pain. Quite soon it stops working, the body becomes conditioned to it.
- The prescribing doctor increases the dose (still nothing is cured, note).
- In response, the liver generates extra enzymes to inactivate the drug, a process called “enzyme induction”. The person can now tolerate the increased dose and eventually is able to tolerate drug levels that would be very risky for someone not so conditioned.
- Then—here’s the killer part—the person tries to reduce the dose or come off the drug altogether. He or she succeeds for a time. SO THE LIVER STEPS DOWN THE LEVEL OF THE DETOXIFYING ENZYME. The patient is now not properly protected and so when there is a particular resurgence of the pain, he or she resumes the familiar, higher dose—with maybe a bit extra because the pain is bad—and it kills them.
They just don’t have enough of the enzyme induced in the liver.
This is the same mechanism that kills drug addicts. He or she works up to huge doses, hoping for the ultimate “high”. But then they try to go straight. Then after an interval of avoidance, they cave in and resume at the dose they were used to and promptly die.
There’s one other way they get killed—and I do mean killed—which is that dealers “cut” the dope (that is, they it dilute with inactive substance, like vitamin C). So a person believes they are taking 300 mgms, but the swindling drug dealer is really only supplying 50 mgms, plus inactive padding.
The addict switches to another dealer, who is maybe more honest (at least for a time) and gives them the full 300 mgm they paid for. The addict dies because their body was not really tolerating 300 mgm at all.
See how dangerous it is to play around with crooked suppliers? I would nationalize the drug industry overnight—that way each addict would know they were getting the exact dose prescribed. It would save thousands of lives, every year.
This is such an important teaching, I want you all to share it, far and wide, via FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
Then the second part of the solution:
Teach everyone the safe, effective and permanent cures for pain. There are scores of them!
I put this vital knowledge in a book I wrote called The Ultimate Guide to Natural Pain Relief. It contains natural pain relief techniques that work, these are real cures and techniques that will last!
It’s a WAY better approach for pain relief without the unpleasant dangers of toxic chemicals, which only serve to poison the signaling part of the nervous system. I wrote this book to help you conquer pain completely, so that you don’t need any analgesics or very rarely.
My findings are based in science and centuries old healing methods that work. You’ll discover…
- What herbs work better than aspirin and sometimes better than morphine.
- How an astonishing change of eating patterns will calm nearly 100% of painful musculo-skeletal conditions.
- The scientific revelation of the cause of 93% of headaches and migraines and learn how to put a permanent stop to it.
- Several effective and safe pain treatments using light which include light energy, use of color and ancient Ayurvedic therapies that work better than any pill.
- Get the inside scoop on a device that uses laser light to calm painful lesions… and so much more!
Go here now to get yourself a copy and don’t wait or leave your health in an unskilled doctor’s hand. Discover my ultimate solutions for pain relief, right now.
No need to “suffer” ever again!
References:
[Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2013 Nov; 76(5): 823–824. Published online 2013 Apr 18. doi: 10.1111/bcp.12133]
MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. Published online December 18, 2015