Health tips for better life

The world is a complicated place to navigate safely. There are many ways the land and sea can play you false with quicksand to take you down and rip tides to carry you away from shore. But people are where the most serious problems begin. Some are naturally friendly and accepting of difference, while others will be hostile if you do not share their beliefs. Over the centuries, religion has always been a force to separate groups into different armed camps. It’s not much better today whether you look at the current strife between Christianity and Islam, or come down to the local level and look at the discrimination based on what people believe. In many ways, the idea of improved health care services should have united everyone but, unfortunately, aspects of the Affordable Care Act have been hijacked by interest groups and disapproval of the parts has been used to blacken the reputation of the whole.

Let’s take the issues of contraception, sterilization and abortion. All three are a sin according to the Catholic Church yet, if a Catholic employer is mandated to offer a health plan to its employees, any insurance including these services would be immoral. According to the Church, you cannot be a good Catholic and offer your employees contraception and sterilization, let alone abortion. In fact, the Catholic employers would be paying for these services. Given the number of schools, hospitals and charitable organization run directly by the Catholic Church, this would be money paid out by the Church itself. But here’s the problem. Not everyone employed by a Catholic organization is a Catholic. In any event, many would argue that it’s for the woman to choose whether she wants access to services affecting her reproductive health, including abortion. It should not be for one group to impose its morality on another. If everyone is free to hold whatever beliefs they wish, it would be wrong of any employer to penalize one group of employees whose conscience permits them to access treatment considered necessary by their doctors.

We then get into a very difficult area. Suppose the employer is a Moslem and believes that the use of all stimulants is immoral. Should that employer be allowed to argue an exemption for the treatment of alcohol or drug addiction. The same might occur if the employer considered homosexuality sinful and so wished to deny treatment if an HIV infection developed. In states which allow termination at will, the employer could theoretically end the employment of anyone disapproved (subject to the laws of discrimination). That the same employer might be obliged to pay for health insurance cover promoting an immoral lifestyle or paying for treatment for the results of an immoral lifestyle is considered offensive by many.

What we believe can make it difficult for us to walk through life without upsetting others. So here’s the question. Neither religious belief nor abstract ideas of morality have the force of law. If we can opt in and out of obeying the law just because we happen to be a member of a group with a particular set of beliefs, this is a recipe for chaos. What treatment is sought under a group health insurance plan should be a matter of conscience for each individual.

You’re home from work and have the house to yourself. You’ve been very disciplined during the day. Just plenty of water to drink and a few biscuits. The scales show those pounds yielding to the diet. And then you find yourself opening the kitchen door. There’s a tub of icecream in the freezer that’s got your name on it. When that’s gone, there’s that piece of cheesecake and a peanut butter sandwich or two to round things off. By the time you’ve finished, the good work of the day has been undone with an intake of calories sufficient to keep a small army going for a week. But, and here comes the sad truth, you have to support being overweight with your lifestyle. If you have a little self-discipline, there’s no reason to carry all that extra weight around. It’s the boom and bust approach to dieting that does the most harm, with binge eating one of the most common of the eating disorders. Why do we do it?

Binge eating is evidence of emotional problems. It says something fundamental about how we see ourselves, how much we really care about our bodies. In these modern times, everyone knows how dangerous it is to be overweight, let alone obese. Every article like this everywhere on the web tells the same story of the risks of diabetes, cancers and heart disease. So to take the decision not to lose weight is making a statement about our lives. Put the other way round – if we cared about the risks, we would find the motivation to diet. Defeatism means giving up. We believe we are beaten. Sometimes, it’s like there’s no point in even trying even if we are literally shortening our lives.

Of course, there are therapies and treatments for all the eating disorders but, without coverage under a health plan, this is an expensive exercise. For most people, it comes down to self-help. So you need to untangle the cause and effect. Answer this simple question: what triggers a binge? If there’s a consistent reason for suddenly wanting to empty your fridge, this gives you a starting point. You might find it useful to keep a diary. It’s easier to see a pattern when you read back through a month or so of entries. Then you have to confront those situations and devise a way of getting through them without the need to eat. Recognize this desire for food has nothing to do with physical hunger. If that was the case, using a drug like meridia would be the answer, suppressing your appetite.

You have to break the habit of eating as a response to your emotions. Be your own therapist. Apply common sense and approach the exercise with an open mind. With honesty, you should overcome the problem. Of course, a sensible diet will help. Eating a good breakfast sets you up for the day. Avoid snacking and keep to regular times for lunch and an evening meal. If hunger does become a problem, you can buy meridia and it will see you through difficult times until your stomach gets used to smaller quantities of food. The aim should be to improve the general quality of your life. You will not become happy overnight, but at least aim for a more positive outlook.

The US healthcare system is often torn between conflicting forces. On a professional level, doctors are supposed to place the interests of their patients first. So, it is reasonable for the profession to respond to a shortage of proper pain management facilities in the hospital sector by establishing “pain clinics”. In theory, these clinics will provide short-term care with mixed teams of doctors, physical and psychological therapists, and nursing professionals able to counsel and advise people on how to manage their pain. Unfortunately, the medical profession is strongly for profit. It would be good if there was a major stream of altruism running through the modern ranks of healthcare professionals. Unfortunately, an increasing number of doctors are abandoning general practice in favor of employed status in clinics and hospitals. This gives stability of earning with the least possible work commitment. It also enables the management to run their facilities to generate the most income from the lowest cost base. Thus, the reality of many pain clinics is they are “pill mills”, i.e. their main function is to supply people with every possible painkiller with the least possible time spent in expensive face-to-face contact between doctors and the people. Such clinics are characterized by long queues of people waiting to see a doctor to collect prescriptions. Doctors are on a quota target to see a minimum number of patients every day. This maximizes the claims to the health insurers by the volume of people seen. For those not on a health plan, it is a cheap consult system since no treatment is involved.

This is not to deny that some clinics are attempts to offer a professional service to those in genuine need. But such beacons of light are few and far between. How do we know this? Because there is an explosion in the number of pain clinics opening across America. In some areas, the local government is trying to control the problem. At least, there are political calls for the profession to rein in these fast prescription services. At best, there are local bans on the approval of new clinics. Sadly, the lobbying power of the medical profession means there are very few state-wide limits either on the establishment of clinics or on the practice of writing prescriptions for hundreds of pills at a time. Some local politicians are proposing ordinances to prohibit clinics from prescribing pain medication except in emergency situations and then only offering a 72-hour refill, expecting the individuals to return to their regular doctors for proper care. Their chances of being able to control the problem are slim without the support of state governments and the medical profession.

This is a tragic situation. There is a real need for professional pain management services at both a local and county level. Unfortunately, the medical profession is exploiting the public and feeding their growing addiction to pain medications. People, being practical, take pain relief in whatever form is available. If that means endless supplies of drugs, they take it. The best practice standards in other countries with public healthcare services does provide mixed teams of pain management specialists who focus on training people to cope using only low level painkillers. For example, they are allowed to buy tramadol. Because the higher labor costs are absorbed by the taxpayers, a significantly better service results. Because tramadol is not habit-forming to the same degree as more powerful drugs, this is a safer system for managing pain.