So I braved the first winter blow and went to my first acupuncture appointment. It was a cool experience. I was a little nervous in anticipation. I really want this to work because I want to be able to do something like this and yoga and be able to stop taking Topamax.
I have panic attacks that somehow, for some reason, have progressed at really stressful moments to seizures, and still, my doctors want to tell me that I have epilepsy. I've seen enough evidence that other people with panic attacks are being mis-diagnosed with epilepsy, and I think this is endemic to many people in modern medicine. When I complained to my doctor that I don't think I have epilepsy, he said "Well, the medical definition of epilepsy is having two or more seizures in a year." That's a self-serving definition for a doctor. Right here on WebMD they say that not everyone who has seizures has epilepsy, but I think there's more going on here. The doctor's not the only interested party in perscribing the Topamax.
Doctors are given piles of medication and encouraged to give said medication by reps with quotas to fill. These reps don't have medical degrees or medical training. They almost always have sales training, and they make sales calls. I used to live upstairs from a bright and entertaining young woman who had just graduated from Penn State with a Sales Degree, and she was quickly climbing up the ladder of her company because of her ability to get the doctors in her region to perscribe the company's leading drugs. The fact that she was blond and single probably didn't hurt her sales either.
Pharmaceutical companies have so much money, and so much power (especially in Washington lately), and craft these intricate drugs, but still know so little about how they or we work, and it creeps me out. I don't want to ingest these chemical timebombs made in New Jersey factories by giant conglomerates, sold by a marketing rep without medical training to a physician's assistant.
For example, I took Serzone for a short time in college for depression after my father died, but was again distrustful and stopped. Search now on Google for Serzone and look at the sheer amount of liver damage lawsuits that are piling up because these companies play God with our genetics...Maybe it's the Serzone that I took that's causing my seizures.
Now I have friends who are having Topamax prescribed for depression. It's crazy.
Doctors need to turn away from medication and look to things like diet, acupuncture, exercise, things that restore balance to the individual as a whole. Insurance companies need to stop being supported by these drug behemoths to only support pharmaceutical solutions. People need to understand that health has to come from a holistic approach, and work towards it, and if they work do indeed have their health, the other parts of their life will fall into place as well. I can't fault the drug companies because they're only using the influence we gave them. We the people all went looking for an easy fix, and they tried to provide it. It's time to take take that influence and power away, and stand up for ourselves. No more drugs.
These are things that I'm only beginning to remember myself, but I'm glad that I 'm remembering them at all.
