re chinese herbalism well its not the only way to understand health/dis-ease but its pretty freaking amazing! its an ancient system with boatloads of empirical evidence to back it up...their ideas and herbal formulations have been tested on huge populations for millenia. their system of diagnostics reveals disharmonies in the body long before western doctors and medical testing can detect them. and the concepts behind chinese herbal formulations are the most sophisticated on the planet, no question...ask any major herb teacher/herbalist in the u.s. today for confirmation of this if you need it. there is a good reason why more and more american medical doctors visit china to study... tcm (traditional chinese medicine) can heal many diseases that western medicine can't touch. so while one is not necessarily better than the other, they sure are different. why? one reason is because the world views coming out of the east and west are about as different as you can get....the chinese look at every through the lens of energetics, in the west we are reductionists, materialists. there is no need to put one down when we have both available to us. integrated they form the most amazing system of medicine ever to appear on the planet. in general, for prevention and treatment of most disease, chinese medicine is far superior. in general, for trauma and emergency medicine, modern western medicine is far superior. there are exceptions obviously. for example the chinese have an herb capable of stopping bleeding from a gunshot/sword/arrow wound...chinese soldiers all carried it into battle millenia ago. even modern western medicine (forget western herbalism) has nothing that approaches this. i don't want to do without either system. herbalists michael and lesley tierra teach 'planetary herbalism' a synthesis of many systems as their philosophy is 'we don't care much where it comes from...let's cherry pick and use the best healing information and techniques available to us'. which seems so very sensible if your goal is to get the best results you can for your clients. this way of thinking is why i chose their program as my first formal training in herbalism. so while this client may not need to evaluated per tcm for us to 'understand'.... to say it would increase understanding enormously to anyone open to a new way of understanding, is no exaggeration. just my two cents: ) cheers, k

Hi this sounds so familiar to me...im also at my wits end! I have paralyzing fear of doctors for years I have been convinced I have HIV. The fear will go away and im fine but then it comes back and this time it came back with a vengeance. So my mother and dragged me by my hair to the doctor for a physical blood work and all. The day of the results my brother had to physically drag me into the doctors office . They called both my parents in and my brother was in the waiting room ready in case I bolted. The doctor said all my blood work was normal but to lay off meat and eggs because I had a little to much protein. I was "ok" for about a day, but I wondered why he didn't order the HIV test. My mother swore that he said to everything was fine and it wasn't needs unless I really wanted it. I didn't hear any of that! I still wasn't convinced but now I was terrified to go get a test . I was put on Prozac by the doctor who said my mental state was no normal, I almost had to be sedated that day. It was bad, I still was flipping out.. So I was referred to a psychologist. I went she told me I was not dealing with my real issues and it was coming out in anxeixty , particularly health and that she was a cancer nurse for 16 years and that if I had HIV or cancer my my blood work would have shown something and the doctor would have orders additional test. But I don't buy any of that. I googled too much protein and it said a possible cause is HIV or cancer. How could the doctor miss that and it took me 5 secs to google it ? Now I'm even more convinced or he's incompetent im going crazy my parents and every one says I'm crazy but am I really that crazy? I told my ex he got tested and he's fine.. But that means nothing according to the research I've done. I'm so terrified to get a test. So I'm just in hell. This all started about a moth ago when I thought I had a sinus infection because of allergies.

Ladies may I join you in this discussion? I am a young healthy looking 62. And today is my first visit here after looking up adrenaline I sure understand better now That's what I have going on MY NATURE'S PACE MAKER.working. Adrenaline After a stay in icu heart recently everyone finally agreed i am mot crazy.it was.my heart. The docs installed is a device catch my heart acting badly is a heart tracker like halter monitor. Under my chest muscles on top of my heart. I can cause it record what just happened.. iam write with excitment because your stories are all so familiar. These stories for me begin after mitral valve repair. 7 years ago. Basic problem ..unless the doc sees the heart behaving badly they deny the problem. All this time we never could catch it Last doc said bluntly if we dont see it didnt happen. You must to er Well recent at 230 am it woke me up, just as you have described. I went directly to the er They caught the serious thing! Arrithemia and more then two days in icu. Now meds have slowed my heart from 70 to 52 while docs decide what to do. Last night I realized I was having an adreilin rush. The same rush I went to a neurologist for help. Over a year and half. Often it also affect my skin. Goose bumps crawling feeling all day long! Well have I got news for him.I was not crazy about that either. my gp I visited last month just to say. I know you don't know what is wrong but I still got it. Knows too I sat in neros office two months ago ,,,same thing. I said dr i just want you know ME when I end up in er..and i need you. well it was er straight to icu. Home now with electrical issues. Last last night meds have my average at 52 bpm.it woke me. 2 3 am. I use my tricks to get back to sleep.as soon as felt sleep coming on the stomach feeling spread. It woke me up heart pounding.sweat .out of breath!!! Happened several times . then checked average heart rate on my Garmin. 48. Average 48 so i was probably lower. Maybe 45! My natural pace maker kicked in every time sleep lowered bpm and I was short on air. Natural pace maker? Adrenaline can't wait to see what was recorded on my device Thank you body! Now I think i know what as going on for long time hidden from doc view. Electric shock adrenaline style

Hi Angie, Chronic pain is it's own brand of hell, isn't it? I have severe Crohn's disease (and, as an off shoot, a type of non-damaging arthritis and psoriasis). I understand the pain issue! You said you're disease was not progressive enough or not as of now to warrant biologics, but I wonder if it woudn't help. I take Remicade, started in Jan 2010, and though I still have some degree of pain, it wasn't enough to make me feel like just waking up was too much trouble. I had to stop Remicade back in Dec '12 due to lack of insurance--fast forwards to now, and I have pain constantly, no energy (fatigue seems like such a small word to describe how I feel), inflammation in my guts and elsewhere and sleep problems. Remember, inflammation causes fatigue, and as you probably know from experience, fatigue can muddy your cognition (I believe they call it brain fog), slow your body and generally produce a sinking malaise that threatens to take you down. Therefore, I wonder if a biologic might help with your overall pain levels? Maybe you could talk to your Rheumatologist about it? See if they have any recommendations. I feel like they would be better than a family physician in understanding how inflammation and chronic pain can affect your mental well-being. Also, when my pain is bad, my sleep is horrible. I think insomnia is the wrong word--let's just call it disordered sleeping (can't fall asleep till 5, 6 in the morning, get a migraine when I sleep past 11 am, and such nonsense). Maybe a biologic would at the very least reduce your inflammation to the point your cognition can rebound. ...(also, I understand low-low sex drive--makes one feel like a very pathetic person in a partnership. And, surprisingly, being on Remicade, for one reason or another, does help my sex drive--perhaps bc it's acting on the inflammation which is negating the inflammations usual cascade of horribleness?).