General Wellness

ENOUGH ALREADY!

Mike Lindell is a former crack addict who was charged with assault and passing forged checks. He eventually found God and went on to become the founder and CEO of MyPillow. Even I shamefully have one of his stupid pillows. He is an avid, multi-million dollar donation Trump supporter and is clearly knowledgeable in pharmaceuticals. I am obviously being facetious. He has been promoting, and Trump, another expert in medical management, had commented on a ridiculous “treatment” for covid, touted to cure it in 2 days. An extract from the Oleander plant, a shrub. This reminds me of the Jude Law character from the 2011 movie “Contagion” who was promoting through social media Forsythia extract as a cure for that movie’s pandemic. Things didn’t work out so well for him in this movie!

Oleander is an extremely toxic plant. In fact, counsuming it was the method of choice for Sri Lankans during a suicide epidemic in the early 2000’s.

In line with my “Infodemic” post, we need to stop looking to the people with the most money and the biggest mouths rather than the rational, educated experts. Even some of the “experts” with legitimate credentials can spew whacky crap.

Below I copied and pasted some more information about this plant and its toxic effects on humans if you are interested. In the meantime, we need to stop looking for miracle cures! Don’t get me wrong. We need to work on treatment of this disease but not at the expense of managing and preventing it in the first place, which is so easy to do if you follow the basics. We will be living with this for a long time. Accept it, be responsible and help stem the tide.

Stay safe and be well. 

AC 😎✌️🌱❤🐖🏃🏻🧘🏻‍♂️🌎😷

OLEANDER POISONING

Oleander poisoning occurs when someone eats the flowers or chews the leaves or stems of the oleander plant (Nerium oleander), or its relative, the yellow oleander (Cascabela thevetia).

Poisonous ingredients include:

Digitoxigenin (related to digoxin, a potent heart rhythm drug)

Neriin

Oleandrin

Oleondroside

The poisonous substances are found in all parts of the oleander plant and oleander poisoning can affect many parts of the body.

HEART AND BLOOD

Irregular or slow heartbeat

Low blood pressure

Weakness

EYES, EARS, NOSE, MOUTH, AND THROAT

Blurred vision

Vision disturbances, including halos around objects

STOMACH AND INTESTINES

Diarrhea

Loss of appetite

Nausea and vomiting

Stomach pain

NERVOUS SYSTEM

Confusion

Death

Depression

Disorientation

Dizziness

Drowsiness

Fainting

Headache

Lethargy

SKIN

Hives

Rash

Although SARS-Cov-2 has only been with us for 6 months, the information overload we experience on a daily basis has been present for many years.

Non-stop news cycles, constant streams, email lists, social media… all are sources of information which we are continuously bombarded with. It’s easy to say “ just turn it off”, and that does help to some degree, but we can’t reasonably function in modern society without interacting with devices. It’s a matter of:

1. Limit your sources of information and
2. Trust, but verify.

You can find support for whatever personal beliefs, desires or habits you have on the web. It is interesting how legitimate credentials are less important than the number of followers a person has not social media. This is dangerous.

There is a subconscious impact all this information is having on our kids and on us.

The average American child is exposed to more than 10,000 candy, soda, breakfast cereal and junk food commercials a year! Anyone who has children knows how kids react when you don’t buy the latest treat at the grocery store, which they learned about on TV. Adults are equally impacted. The US is only one of 2 countries in the world which allows pharmaceutical direct to consumer advertising and we have certainly seen an uptick in such ads since Coronavirus came into our lives. They know they have a captive audience. Food compaies, most of which are conglomerates of tobacco companies, are doing the same thing. It is nauseating to see how Mac N’ Cheese is advertising as a “breakfast food”.

The problem is that if there is no clear consensus, people will continue to do what they are doing. People love to hear good news about their bad habits. Industry knows this. Back when there were congressional hearings about the advertising practices of the tobacco industry, a memo was revealed which was sent around by the head of one of the biggest tobacco behemoths. It stated that “Our product is DOUBT”. They knew that all they have to do is shed even a lttle doubt on the health effects of tobacco and people will continue to smoke. And they did. It’s certainly better than it used to be and the US actually has one of the lowest smoking rates at 17%, but that’s still pretty sad and the vaping craze is rapidly taking over.

The issue of not wearing masks is a perfect example. Early on in this pandemic, even Dr. Fauci stated publicly that masks were probably not necessary. But we have learned a tremendous amount since then and now it is clear that wearing a mask is crucial to lower the risk of getting infected and more importantly, stem the tide of spreading it. Yet our governmental leadership continues to not fully endorse mask wearing and still even states how recommendations against masks were made in the past. That’s like still claiming that the earth is flat because at some point in time, some learned people stated that so therefore, there must be some truth in it still. It’s insanity.

The point is that information is sometimes a moving target and we need to get it from wherever we can, particularly if the source is reputable, but, as mentioned above, trust but verify. And follow common sense. Learn from others who are doing it well.

There have been some mask updates which I will post later this week but in the meantime:

WEAR A MASK! Wear it properly covering your nose.

DISTANCE if you must go out, especially around vulnerable people.

WASH YOUR HANDS and use hand sanitizer when appropriate.

WORK ON YOUR HEALTH so you can weather the Covid storm if you unfortunately and so that you can live a longer and fuller life.

Stay safe and be well. 

AC 😎✌️🌱❤🐖🏃🏻🧘🏻‍♂️🌎😷