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I can’t believe I didn’t find this until now. I must have been googling the wrong words. I ended up in a mental health facility and went through the worst year of my life after my gyno said I was in menopause and i could just quit taking the 3 month pill. It’s my bad for not researching this more thoroughly, but a doctor told me it would be fine. So much more money is poured into men’s health research than women’s, and it is time for that to change. I’ve been using HRT for the past couple of years, but I still struggle sometimes.
I’ve been taking 600 mg of Topamax (topiramate) a day for 3 years now (along with Lamictal and oxcarbazapine), as a treatment for seizures. I noticed such a huge difference in my brain functioning and ability to just form a sentence and remember words and basic things once the topamax was added to the regimen, but my seizures are under control, so I’m in a bind as far as what to do about bringing my dosage down on the topiramate. It’s so frustrating having once been an English teacher, I can hardly form a sentence at times. I just want to bring the dosage down on my own and hope my neurologist agrees with the decision. I just want my life back.
I took that drug for almost a month for migraines. It made me feel like dementia was coming on. I truly couldn’t think or function effectively. I was practically questioning my own sanity. Nothing is worth that in my opinion. Felt completely better when I stopped this drug.
When I was on topamax for about 2 yrs my eyes started having sharp pains every now and then. When I told my doctor she took me off it. Plus I also could not think of certain words
Jan. 22 — EVEN more reasons to support Hormones Matter, even just reading it and passing along the website. I know in my work as social worker, I get clients to go over to Hormones Matter to check out their symptoms — so many chronic illness in case management circles working with recovery clients, the homeless, foster youth, adults with DD/ID/PD, and those coming out of prison.
The headlines on news sources not completely bought out by big business/bi corps daily show how messed up our human physiology and psychology are, but more importantly, how money kills us.
Another DuPont story out today:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/43247-millions-of-americans-are-ingesting-a-chemical-some-experts-believe-has-no-safe-exposure-level
PFAS contamination is not only a problem at Wurtsmith — a superfund site around which more than half of the private wells tested contain PFAS to some degree, and where the extent of the pollution has yet to be fully delineated — but nationally and internationally, where the environmental toll of PFAS contamination is only starting to be realized. This, despite the fact that some of the potential harmful health problems from human exposure to these chemicals have been known for decades, said attorney Robert Bilott, whose lawsuit against DuPont in the early 2000s was integral to lifting the lid on the issue.
“The first letter I recall sending out is a letter alerting the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] and state regulatory agencies to the problem on March 6, 2001,” Bilott said. “We’re sitting here almost 17 years later, and it’s still not properly regulated by the federal government, which is really rather remarkable.”
The human health impacts associated with over-exposure to PFAS include cancer, developmental effects on fetuses during pregnancy and on breastfed infants, as well as liver, immune and thyroid problems. What’s more, Bilott believes there is no safe exposure threshold.
“The concept that there is a safe level of any amount of these types of chemicals in the water is just not workable,” he said. “It just doesn’t fit into the current way people are trying to regulate and set limits for these chemicals.”
–end–
Thanks for your work, Chandler!
Ahh, this is the time to support all thinkers who have a sense of synergy, holism, outside-the-box chutzpah and are willing to look at systems of disrepair and repair.
2018 is coming on, Year of the Dog — see the implications of year of the dog vis-a-vis the Chinese Zodiac below which is, yes, not very scientific, but certainly a philosophical exploration worth considering.
Hormones Matter has its work cut out now that we are in a world of total disequilibrium — as this Purdue President demonstrates, calling anyone questioning the genetically modified/engineered organism as IMMORAL:
Quote: Today (Dec. 28) in a Washington Post op-ed, the former Indiana governor and current president of Purdue University cogently argues, “Avoiding GMOs isn’t just anti-science. It’s immoral.” Daniels observes:
Of the several claims of ‘anti-science’ that clutter our national debates these days, none can be more flagrantly clear than the campaign against modern agricultural technology, most specifically the use of molecular techniques to create genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Here, there are no credibly conflicting studies, no arguments about the validity of computer models, no disruption of an ecosystem nor any adverse human health or even digestive problems, after 5 billion acres have been cultivated cumulatively and trillions of meals consumed.
And yet a concerted, deep-pockets campaign, as relentless as it is baseless, has persuaded a high percentage of Americans and Europeans to avoid GMO products, and to pay premium prices for ‘non-GMO’ or ‘organic’ foods that may in some cases be less safe and less nutritious. –end quote—
These are rough times. Just last week, my stepdaughter was informed by the university powers that be, that for her to attend her third year of college (she’s transferring from a community college) at Oregon State University, she must get the meningitis vaccine. Here is a 19-year-old who has not been toxified by Gardasil or any flu vaccine by just refusing to undergo those vaccinations after intense pressure from nurses and MD’s.
From a philosophical standpoint, how draconian is this to be “forced to vaccinate as an adult of any age for meningitis”? While Hormone Matters drills down on the human bio-chemistry and total body physiological workings of our magnificent yet fragile species, the issues brought up here more and more intersect with politics-profit-culture-race-environment-humaneness.
Much of the work highlighted here is not only valuable for those people recognizing their own worlds and symptoms, but for discourse in general, as a repository of vital information outside the mainstream, for-profit-at-all-costs world of fake medicine.
Thanks for the work the editor puts forth,, and may her year be one of great strength, tied to the Year of the Dog!
Dog’s Personality
The Dog is the most likable sign in the Chinese zodiac. Like his animal namesake, he is loyal with a capital “L”. He is the one who people are most likely to turn to when they need help, and the dog person will come through every time. That is because the dog person is sensitive to others and empathizes with them, particularly if someone has suffered an injustice, reacting quickly with the same feeling, as though he/she had been personally offended. Friends value these qualities and know that they can rely on their dog friend to keep a promise or remain cool in a crisis. Dog types are honest, intelligent and straightforward. They will take on any responsibility that is given to them and you can be sure that they will do their job conscientiously and well.
Dog people are often born old and get younger as they age. They take everything very seriously. You may hear the Dog complains a lot about street lamps, about traffic, or about the weather, but as he gets older, the less he takes his own criticisms seriously.
Such types of people have a great sense of integrity and fair play. They are idealistic, and dreamers to the core. They never really accept the fact that injustice and oppression can exist in the world.
More: http://www.gotohoroscope.com/chinese-zodiac-dog.html
Our work is cut out for us, for sure, Hormones Matter. Amazing how quickly the unnatural purveyors of draconian measures tied to industrial medicine and pharmacy are marching globally! Yet, Hormones Matters’ editor works hard to push back, to give voice to writers who see a different paradigm, and help readers make sound decisions on their health, safety and well-being, as well as their loved ones and unborn ones.
This headline is not a joke, from Nature: International Journal of Science:
Deploy vaccines to fight superbugs — Immunizations combined with antibiotics could be our best shot at combating drug-resistant microbes
Quote:
Economics. If current methods were used to calculate the economic value of vaccines, many of those targeting resistant bacteria would not be deemed cost-effective because the effects on AMR (antimicrobial resistance) are not factored in. To persuade governments and drug companies to invest in vaccines, health economists must model the incremental cost of AMR and count the avoidance of that cost as a benefit of vaccine development and use.
Awareness. Recent discussions with the UK Wellcome Trust, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the US National Institutes of Health suggest that all these organizations recognize vaccines as important tools in the fight against AMR. Yet the reports and mission statements of manufacturers and of policymakers, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), indicate that most key players see AMR as a problem that needs to be addressed primarily through stewardship and the development of new antibiotics.
To change mindsets, epidemiologists need to mine the data and demonstrate the impact existing vaccines already have on AMR (see ‘Resistance curbed’). They also need work with economists to model the health and economic benefits of greater investment in vaccines. This evidence must be communicated to policymakers and the public. (The growth of the anti-vaccine community in recent years is a signal that those of us who recognize the health benefits of vaccines need to do better at communicating them.) Meetings between scientists and stakeholders from both the vaccine and the antimicrobial communities should be promoted and funded to enable discussion of an integrated strategy to target AMR.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-08323-0?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20171215&spMailingID=55569980&spUserID=MTc2MTc0ODYyMDAS1&spJobID=1302514992&spReportId=MTMwMjUxNDk5MgS2
*****
Amazing this little web site, Hormones Matter, serves as a small bulwark to the on-going triple-headed snake of science-profit-government malfeasance swallowing sanity.
Thanks, Chandler, et al!
P.S. One of our other major issues with our transnational corporations controlling every breath, bite, swallow, nod, blink, REM is how pervasive these killers are. You know, how do we live without paying to the Devil Oil Companies? How do we get literature printed without going through one of the six major media companies controlling 100 percent of media? How do we go about our on-line lives without having Net Neutrality killing sites like Hormones Matter? Even paying for a subscription is difficult for some of us who do not want to give to the three-headed snake: PayPal, Peter Thiel, working for Donald Trump on spying:
HOW PETER THIEL’S PALANTIR HELPED THE NSA SPY ON THE WHOLE WORLD
Sam Biddle
February 22 2017
DONALD TRUMP HAS inherited the most powerful machine for spying ever devised. How this petty, vengeful man might wield and expand the sprawling American spy apparatus, already vulnerable to abuse, is disturbing enough on its own. But the outlook is even worse considering Trump’s vast preference for private sector expertise and new strategic friendship with Silicon Valley billionaire investor Peter Thiel (PayPal), whose controversial (and opaque) company Palantir has long sought to sell governments an unmatched power to sift and exploit information of any kind. Thiel represents a perfect nexus of government clout with the kind of corporate swagger Trump loves. The Intercept can now reveal that Palantir has worked for years to boost the global dragnet of the NSA and its international partners, and was in fact co-created with American spies.
https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-palantir-helped-the-nsa-spy-on-the-whole-world/
http://www.theenergycollective.com/schalk-cloete/264701/energy-subsidies-and-externalities
https://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/42893-trump-s-fcc-has-spent-the-year-waging-war-on-democracy-and-the-press
Unfortunately (predictably so), the web sites I write for, including my recent articles at Hormones Matter, are at risk of dissolution, forced into a pay as you go system three monopolies have set up for humankind. Fast lanes for the commercial behemoths and monopolies, and slow lanes for Hormones Matter and millions of other web sites and news sites!:
Just in — Dec. 14:
Ajit Pai just granted the wishes of his friends at AT&T, Comcast and Verizon: The FCC voted along party lines 3–2 to gut the Net Neutrality protections.
The cable and phone companies can now slow down their competitors’ content or block political opinions they disagree with. They can charge extra fees to the few content companies that can afford to pay for preferential treatment — relegating everyone else to a slower tier of service.
We cannot and will not let Pai have the last word on this: Free Press is suing the FCC and demanding that Congress overturn the vote.
There’s a lot more to say and do on this, but here are three things we’re encouraging people to do right now:
Urge Congress to overturn the FCC’s vote.
Tune in to our Facebook Live conversation at 4 p.m. EST today. RSVP here.
Pai’s decision will hurt everyone. But let’s be clear about who will suffer the most: The loss of Net Neutrality will have a disproportionately severe impact on people of color who rely on an open internet to challenge systemic racism, seek out educational and economic opportunities, combat dehumanizing narratives and fight for justice.
We won’t stand for it and we know you won’t either.
More soon,
Candace, Dutch, Lucia and the rest of the Free Press Action Fund team
http://www.freepress.net
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Ironically, the journal Nature (cited above concerning vaccines) also posted a piece on science losing out because of this obscene monopolistic move on the public commons, the Internet:
EDITORIAL 12 DECEMBER 2017
Loss of net neutrality could harm research — Moves to create a multi-speed Internet could push science into the slow lane
Quote:
This fear of large companies and their pursuit of profit features in many of the predicted weaknesses of a less-neutral network. ISPs, for example, could be paid by tech firms to steer users towards their products.
How this shift might affect science and scientists is not clear — and this is probably one reason why the response to the debate from research organizations has been muted. A notable exception is the Public Library of Science, publisher of the PLOS journals. It has pointed out several times this year that giving ISPs the power to sort traffic on the basis of content, sender and receiver poses a threat to scholarly journals and research.
The changes could affect traffic that routes through the United States, which includes plenty from South America, Central America and the Caribbean. So, in theory, terabytes of data sent from telescope arrays in Chile to physicists in Europe could be stuck in the digital slow lane as ISPs prioritize advertising-heavy social-media messages. Or universities and students, especially those in poorer countries, could face prohibitive access and download fees.
Many critics of the FCC’s move argue that it’s the principle of equal access to information that really counts — and that will be lost. Certainly, that’s one reason why other regions, including Europe and Canada, have fought hard to maintain and safeguard net neutrality. The European Commission, for example, enshrines in law a user’s right to be “free to access and distribute information and content, run applications and use services of their choice”. (This applies to Portugal — so, despite a widespread claim to the contrary, the nation does observe net neutrality.)
Science has made great strides in recent years to break open the walled gardens of many research fields and spread data and expertise around. The Internet — a scientific tool to begin with — has driven this revolution. As the implications of the US switch unfold, researchers and their representatives must prepare to protect this crucial progress.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-07842-0?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20171215&spMailingID=55569980&spUserID=MTc2MTc0ODYyMDAS1&spJobID=1302514992&spReportId=MTMwMjUxNDk5MgS2