Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website
Wilde About Steroids

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Read my Mensa article on Cruelty, Negligence and the Abuse of Power in the NHS: Fighting the System

Read about the cruel treatment I suffered at the Sheffield Dental Hospital: Long In The Toothache

You can contact me by email from my website. The site does not sell anything and has no banners, sponsors or adverts - just helpful information about how salt can cause obesity.


This blog has been exported to a new URL so that readers can leave Comments again. If you want to leave a Comment, please visit my 'new' blog, which has Comments enabled. The 'new' blog is Wilde About Obesity.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Please visit my 'New' Blog, which has Comments enabled.

This blog has been exported to a new URL with a new theme/template in order that readers can leave Comments again. The 'new' blog is Wilde About Obesity. (i.e. http://wildeaboutobesity.blogspot.com/)

In the process, this 'old' blog has somehow lost its email button for emailing a post on, but if you wish to email a post, that can be done by means of the Share This button.

I hope that the new blog will eventually take the place of this blog. I cordially invite you to visit my new blog, where you can make Comments.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Deaths of Alan Sillitoe and Peter Porter

So Alan Sillitoe and Peter Porter have left us. Their deaths have evoked memories in me.

I remember years ago going to stay in Cambridge for a few days at the invitation of a friend who was reading chemistry at Newnham College. She was there for some weeks in the summer; I think it was known as the Long Vac term. Specific memories of that time: sitting on a river bank on a warm, heavenly evening as the strains of "Dido and Aeneas" reached us from a concert performance somewhere, and discovering a copy of Sillitoe's newly published "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" in the College library and borrowing it and devouring it at speed. When the film of the book came out later it was as riveting and eye-opening as the book and I became a lifelong admirer of Albert Finney's acting.

In the 70's I went to hear Peter Porter read from his poetry and answer questions and it was great...(o: Such a friendly, enjoyable evening. Afterwards I had a long chat with him about Philip Larkin, who was my favourite poet at the time, and for whom I had coveted the Poet Laureateship. Strangely, Porter had recently spent an evening with Larkin ("last Saturday evening", was what he said, if I remember correctly). He was so easy to talk to and unhurriedly generous with his time.

In those days it was easy for me to get about, as it is for most people, and easy for me to read books and to go to lectures and the like, because those were the days before the long, cruel negligence of the National Health Service transformed my life into a dystopian microworld of exhaustion and difficulty. Largely housebound, scarcely able to hold a book because my hands are so delicate - courtesy of the 'caring' professions - and struggling to concentrate on the text, reading is now a rare and painful pleasure.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Steroid Victim Campaigners: Babs Diplock and Janice Fairbridge - How Eagerly MPs Strove to Help Them!

You've got to be joking! Read this archived article from The Northern Echo of 1 December 2003 and see how these two very ill, very courageous women got precious little help from MPs in trying to prevent other people from suffering as they had done, from the many appalling side-effects of prescribed steroids.

I've experienced the same kind of 'help' from the dozens of MPs to whom I've written on the subject, e.g. a pre-printed House of Commons postcard dated 18 July 01, which says:

The Rt. Hon. Menzies Campbell Q.C. MP
acknowledges with thanks the receipt of your communication of the
July 2001
the contents of which have been noted.

Well that was a ton of help! - MPs of all three main parties were similarly useless, though I remember there were some kind hand-written words from Charles Kennedy and from Boris Johnson, both of whom had realised that I was a human being.

Innocent British citizens are still being transformed into steroid victims in their thousands every year, even though I have informed MPs, journalists, broadcasters, doctors, etc precisely how to prevent this, but nobody does a damn thing about it, and most sufferers from drug-induced morbid obesity and its attendant host of chronic illnesses and disabilities are treated very poorly indeed by health professionals who are scandalously ill-informed about these matters and routinely add to the problems and suffering of the victims.

I urge you to read http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page. And if you are intending to vote in the forthcoming election you may like to think about how/whether your favoured candidate/party would act to put an end to this wholly unnecessary suffering. My MP, Nick Clegg, has done nothing effective about the matter as yet, though I have written to him many times about it.

See also
prescribed steroids and HRT

Friday, April 23, 2010

IOM presses FDA to set new federal standards for the amount of salt that food manufacturers and restaurants be allowed to add to their products

This WebMD article reports that the Institute of Medicine is calling for the FDA to set mandatory standards for safe levels of sodium, using their existing authority to regulate salt as a food additive.

Not before time! Most people have surely encountered the message that lowering sodium intake can reduce high blood pressure, as well as reducing the risk of stroke, heart failure, heart attack, kidney failure, type 2 diabetes and many other degenerative diseases. Unfortunately most people do not know that lowering sodium intake, i.e. cutting down on salt and salty food, is also the fastest, safest and simplest way to lose excess weight.

The trouble is that there are many vested interests seeking to keep consumers salt intake high. It suits food manufacturers to add more salt than is healthy for a number of reasons. Among these reasons: salt is a very cheap ingredient, and it is an ingredient that allows more water to be added (thus adding salt and water to ham enables salt and water to be sold at the same price as ham). Salt is also addictive for many people and so this keeps up the sales of salty products. And in the case of fast food restaurants, high salt levels produce increased thirst and therefore increased sale of drinks and enhanced profits.

Until mandatory salt restriction in foodstuffs comes about, we need to police our own intake of added salt and avoid it as far as we can.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, boost your lung function and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it!

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Sodium in foods

Fat retention and fat excretion: the importance of getting enough calcium.

I can be contacted from my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Tips for avoiding GMO foods when you shop

See Non-GMO Shopping Guide.

Social and Economic Considerations, including NHS/Social Services Savings, that would result from telling the truth about how obesity is caused

See www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

CNN Special Investigations Unit Highlights Pfizer Health Care Fraud re: Bextra Painkiller

See this damning report by CNN and this excellent article by Dr Mercola, about drug company corruption and manipulation of the FDA. I do urge you to read them and to remember that drug companies are not in business for your health, but for their wealth!

Good nutrition is the best physician and the safest medicine. For your health's sake, avoid taking prescription drugs unless they are really necessary.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Louis Theroux's BBC2 programme: America's Medicated Kids

I watched Louis Theroux's BBC2 programme about "America's Medicated Kids" on the i-Player last night. You too could watch it here: iplayer: America's Medicated Kids.

I was shocked by it. Shocked at the insouciance with which the parents in the film sought prescription drug solutions to what appeared to be mildly problematic or really pretty normal behaviour in their children. I believe children should be protected from drugs, especially psychotropic drugs. As Professor Eric Wilkes said to me years ago, "The brain is not infinitely elastic." To interfere with the workings of a young child's brain before it has even reached maturity seems to me the height of folly and full of danger.

ADHD is one of a type of illness invented by drug companies in order to sell their drugs to treat the invented illnesses. Two of the drugs mentioned in the programme were Ritalin and Concerta. Neither of these drugs is of benefit to hyperactive children. See Drugs such as Ritalin and Concerta are of no benefit.

On the other hand we constantly hear of food additives causing behaviour problems and hyperactivity in children and, happily, hear also of great improvements in behaviour and attention span when such children change to additive-free and more nutritious food. Protecting children from the physical, mental and spiritual harms that psychiatric drugs cause, and protecting them from entering the dystopian world of psychobabble and self-analysis, and wasting their precious childhood with all this nonsense instead of living the normal, carefree life of a child, is what loving parents should be doing, in my opinion.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Health Charities criticise Labour's Record on Health

See report about a letter to the Sunday Telegraph. Among the signatories, "Katherine Murphy, from The Patients Association said: “When the public hears that money is being made available for a specific purpose, like carers, or Alzheimer’s, or children’s health, they think that is where it will go. I think people would be so shocked and saddened to realise just how often this has not been the case.”"

I would certainly agree with the points made in the letter, which currently appears online on page http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/7599337/Parties-must-be-more-specific-about-health-care-funding.html

But I would criticise all the parties with regard to their policy on Health. I believe they all make claims like 'The NHS is safe with us' or similar. - Frankly, it's not the safety of the NHS that I care about; it's the well-being and safety of the vast numbers of patients who have suffered, or continue to suffer, appalling treatment at the hands of a bureaucratic, callous, arrogant, ill-informed, self-serving, drug-pushing, shockingly expensive, almost completely unaccountable State machine that has the gall to call itself a National Health Service.

See
my Mensa article on Cruelty, Clinical Negligence and the Abuse of Power in the NHS

and my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Friday, April 16, 2010

UK Faculty of Public Health wants ban on trans-fats in UK food

UK Faculty of Public Health wants ban on trans-fats in UK food. So do I! Read BBC News article, where you will see that "an editorial in the British Medical Journal said 7,000 deaths a year could be prevented by a 1% reduction in consumption" of trans-fats.

Trans-fats - solid fats found in margarines, biscuits, pastries, cakes and fast food - have no nutritional value and are banned in some countries. You'd think that the Food Standards Agency would be in favour of banning trans-fats, wouldn't you? But you'd be wrong.

Trans-fats are used to extend shelf life of products and so are useful to the food industry, and the FSA pays far too much heed to the voice of the food industry, and so is unconcerned about those thousands of deaths that could be prevented and the even greater numbers of people suffering avoidable ill-health for want of a ban on trans-fats in food.

Do yourself and your family's health a big favour by avoiding fast food and using butter rather than margarine.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Misleading Weight Loss Advice from Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University

See esciencenews.com article, where you will read: ""In the midst of America's obesity epidemic, physicians frequently advise their patients to reduce the number of calories they are consuming on a daily basis. This research shows that simply dieting will not likely cause substantial weight loss. Instead, diet and exercise must be combined to achieve this goal," explained Judy Cameron Ph.D., a senior scientist at OHSU's Oregon National Primate Research Center, and a professor of behavioral neuroscience and obstetrics & gynecology in the OHSU School of Medicine, as well as a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh."

Actually, neither dieting nor exercise is necessary to lose excess weight, nor is it necessary to eat low fat food, because obesity in human beings is caused by salt sensitivity, not by eating high fat food or too many calories or by taking insufficient exercise.

Experts must stop giving the wrong advice. Their misinformation is damaging the lives, health and happiness of millions of innocent people, most poignantly, children.

Obesity is NOT caused by eating too many calories/too much fat and/or taking too little exercise. – No matter how many doctors and other ‘experts’ claim that it is, and that it can be reduced by eating fewer calories and taking more exercise, they are wrong and it is still NOT true.

Obesity is caused by fluid retention in people who are sensitive to salt. – It is as simple, and as profoundly complex, as that.

Now – what really causes the fluid retention/salt sensitivity/obesity? – Here are the main causes:

1. Prescription drugs such as tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline.

Weight gain is also widely reported by people taking SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors). As with the tricyclic antidepressants, the weight gain is because of sodium retention and fluid/water retention, and can be avoided/reduced by avoiding eating salt and salty food.

2. Other prescription drugs such as steroids including prednisolone, prednisone, cortisone, hydrocortisone, HRT and other medications containing oestrogen – like some birth control medication (contraceptives) – some anti-psychotic drugs, including Zyprexa (aka olanzapine) and other psychotropic drugs, and some anti-epileptic/anticonvulsant drugs, notably valproate (trade name Epilim).

If you have been inappropriately prescribed or over-dosed with corticosteroids or HRT or the any of the many other drugs that cause weight gain, then you may well have developed drug-induced Cushing’s Syndrome, a very serious illness, frequently far more serious than the health problem for which the drugs were prescribed. It is, to the best of my knowledge, an entirely preventable illness if doctors conform to the protocols for prescribing these drugs and if they monitor patients’ progress on the drugs, and if they warn patients about salt. It is VITALLY important that it be realised that weight gain resulting from these drugs is from sodium and water retention, so patients taking these drugs should be warned not to eat salt, or foods containing salt, while taking the medication. They should also be informed that any weight gained in this way can easily and swiftly be reduced by eating less salt/sodium, and they should be warned not to try to lose weight by eating less food or restricting calories because this will not help them to lose weight and is harmful.

If you gain weight suddenly and unexpectedly when you start to take prescribed medication, it is highly likely that the weight gain is caused by the drug. You may like to consider whether you really need to take that drug, or whether the dose could be lowered. At any rate if you continue with the drug, try to reduce your salt intake in order to reduce the weight gain. Doctors seldom, if ever, warn about the drugs that cause salt sensitivity and the need very strictly to avoid salt and salty food while on the drugs, and many do not observe the drug protocols and very few properly monitor the patient’s progress on the drugs. Obviously if doctors did do all these things, there would be no steroid victims, no patients with drug-induced obesity, etc. whereas there are many millions of them worldwide, victims of medical negligence and ignorance.

3. If, as a baby or small child, you ate salt and salty food, you were highly likely to have developed sensitivity to salt and you therefore became fat or overweight.

4. Pregnancy can cause fluid retention/salt sensitivity because of hormonal changes during pregnancy. It is important to avoid salt and salty food during pregnancy.

These are the main causes of obesity. Dieting/calorie counting makes obesity worse and should be avoided.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, boost your lung function and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it!

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Sodium in foods

Fat retention and fat excretion: the importance of getting enough calcium.

I can be contacted from my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

If you are concerned about the use of pesticides and about their negative impact on health and the environment

If you are concerned about the use of pesticides and about their negative impact on health and the environment, then you may be interested in this Soil Association webpage.

Ex Drug Company Executive jailed for bribing doctors to use his company's products

See article at bloomberg.com.

Well that's very good news. Jailing an individual is a much more effective deterrent than fining the company (in this case, Johnson & Johnson’s U.K. unit, DePuy International).

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Panorama: Spoilt Rotten - horrifying child health problems of obesity, bad teeth, drunkenness...

I was truly shocked at what I saw in this programme. You can watch the main points here or watch the whole programme on the i-Player: Spoilt Rotten

Poor little children having to have a general anaesthetic to have a lot of rotted teeth out! Poor little souls. Surely their mothers should/must have known that giving them lots of sweets and sugary stuff repeatedly would rot their teeth? That giving a sugary drink in a bottle to go to bed with is especially damaging? That children need to brush their teeth and go to bed with a clean mouth? - Couldn't/Didn't the mothers notice that their children's teeth were rotting? - Some of the teeth were eroded almost to the level of the gums!

Don't Health Visitors stress this sort of information to mothers? Dental decay like this should not be happening. As the programme stressed, this is an avoidable health problem. It's a great shame.

With regard to the obese children featured in the programme, the one most featured was Leon, a five year old lad who weighs over 10 stone! - Yet I heard not one mention of salt! - Not one! - The doctor advising Leon's mother stressed the need for the lad to exercise more, but it has been proved time and time again that exercise does not reduce or prevent child obesity. Exercise is a good thing but it does not reduce weight. How is it that doctors dealing with problems of child obesity are giving such unhelpful advice? When children become fat it is essentially because they are eating salty food. Parents should be told this.

Children are especially vulnerable to salt because of their small size and small blood volume, and because their blood vessels are weaker than those of adults. Salt, and the water it attracts to it, can more easily distend weak blood vessels than fully mature ones. The resulting increase in blood volume and other fluid retention results in weight gain, as well as higher blood pressure and many other undesirable consequences. The smaller the child, the less salt they should have - and a baby, of course, should have no salt at all. - Babies can die if they are fed salty food.

See Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods

The programme reported shocking instances of children taken to A and E because they were drunk! And we saw a 13 year old boy who regularly drinks excessive quantities of vodka! Maybe it is time, in the interests of child health, to set limits on the ease with which alcoholic drinks can be bought, and to raise the price of them.

Other children who had been treated for glue ear were suffering unnecessarily because of their parents smoking. Apparently the smoke interferes with the working of the grommets that had been inserted into their ears to assist their hearing. One father gave up smoking and that would have benefited both his own and his son's health. Another father claimed not to believe that his smoking was damaging his child and he continued to smoke. His cigarettes were more important to him than his child's health.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Lose weight

vulnerable groups

FAT RETENTION

This article is by Margaret Wilde

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Some of the many shortcomings of drug testing on animals

See Roger Highfield's article in the Telegraph.

I'm against drug testing on animals. Nor do I believe the results can ever be trusted. There are too many reports of falsification by or instigated by the drug companies.

Unintentional poisoning by prescription drugs is increasing

Poisoning is now the second leading cause of unintentional injury death in the U.S. The rates of unintentional poisoning deaths have been on the rise for more than 15 years, and unintentional poisoning has surpassed motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of unintentional injury death among people 35-54 years of age. In a study published in the May issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers found that hospitalizations for poisoning by prescription opioids, sedatives and tranquilizers in the U.S. have increased by 65% from 1999 to 2006.
Read article at physorg.com

Monday, April 12, 2010

Long In The Toothache - Short Story by Margaret Wilde

Long In The Toothache

"These Fat Depressives: they’re always complaining of pain; they’re never happy unless they’re moaning." The consultant was musing to himself. He was a very important man. He hadn’t much time to spare for this silly woman.

He glanced at the notes. She’d complained of an acute abscess to her dentist nearly a year ago and then come afterwards to the Dental Hospital with the same complaint. Well, clearly she couldn’t have had it all that time. She couldn’t have put up with the pain.

True, she’d kept going back to her dentist. But that was the way with Depressives: obsessive about health, always wanting attention. The dentist hadn’t pandered to her, sensible fellow. He hadn’t taken any X-rays. As he’d told the woman last summer when she’d had her breakdown, that proved the ‘pain’ was just her nerves.

Coincidence that she had, after all, developed an abscess on that tooth, and it must have been there a while or the bone wouldn’t have rotted so far. Still, it would have been chronic. Lots of people had so little discomfort from chronic abscesses that they were only discovered in the course of other dental treatment. The pain of acute abscesses was of a different order of magnitude altogether, though they all become chronic if left untreated.

He knew how to deal with Depressives: Shock Treatment. It never failed. Let them know you’ll stand none of their nonsense. They needn’t whine to you for sympathy. If only everyone would treat them in the same way. They’d soon snap out of their silly behaviour then. He prided himself on his decisiveness.

She entered his room nervously. Her eyes were puffy. She appeared tired and confused. Of course, she was on Librium and amitriptyline.

"You Fat Depressives!" he greeted her. "You grind your teeth, don’t you?"

"No," she replied, and started to cry.

"All Fat Depressives on amitriptyline grind their teeth."

"Well I don’t." The silly woman was weeping copiously and blowing her nose. What a mess she looked! No wonder no-one had ever wanted to marry her.

"The last three Fat Depressives I had all ground their teeth. Why should you be any different?"

"I’m not a Fat Depressive; I’m a person. And I’ve got a lot of toothache. My mouth is a sheet of pain."

"A bit of sensitivity: we all get that as we get older. Don’t be childish. The fact is you grind your teeth while you’re asleep and that makes them hurt a bit."

"But I don’t sleep! That’s the point! I’m in too much pain. That’s why I had the breakdown. I’m so desperately tired."

"Rubbish, Woman! Of course you sleep. You just think you don’t. Pull yourself together!"

“And I’m very concerned about my work. I have a good honours degree and a distinction on teaching – but how can I give of my best to my pupils when most of my concentration is focussed on this excruciating pain and I’m so tired I can’t think properly?"

Ah that was it! She needed something to blame for poor performance in the work situation! – A classic example of neurosis!

He raised his voice to drown hers: "It is no good being hysterical with me, Young Woman. You’ve got to learn to be quiet and listen. You Neurotics are fond of the sound of your own voices."

"Tell me, Mr Lambert, don’t ‘Depressives’ ever get toothache? I have had an acute abscess left untreated for nearly a year; I have had a just-detected cracked cusp which has been painful for almost as long, one tooth just filled because it had decay and another still awaiting treatment. There are sympathetic pains all over my mouth. I am in torment."

"Stop exaggerating. - You Fat Depressives are all the same. You eat oranges and drink fizzy drinks all day, don’t you? I know these fad diets."

She looked bewildered at the change of direction of his questioning. "I don’t eat oranges. My teeth hurt too much. I never drink fizzy drinks. And I’m not normally fat. The amitriptyline holds water in my body and has caused me to gain two stones. – But what has any of this to do with the abscess, the decay and the cracked tooth?"

"Fat women always claim they never eat. - I’ll make you a bite-guard to wear at night to stop you from grinding your teeth."

She realised the advantage to the Dental ‘Mafia’ of covering up gross diagnostic errors over such a long period, but surely a consultant would have had a greater allegiance to truth and scientific exactitude than to negligent incompetents, professional colleagues or not. Surely he must realise that it was stretching credulity and coincidence too far to maintain that an abscess, a cracked tooth and two decayed teeth had all appeared by magic on the day that, fighting her appalling weariness, she had made a scene and insisted that her ex-dentist write a note for the Dental Hospital to have another look at the abscess!

The interview was at an end. He had not looked at her teeth, of course. You didn’t need to, with Depressives. The diagnoses were always the same: tooth-grinding, ‘target teeth’, acidic foods, sugary drinks, imaginary pain and exaggeration.

Well, he’d do the operation to remove the abscess and the rotting bone in June. At the same time he’d excise the scar from a previous mouth operation as it had healthy nerve tissue trapped in it. There was no urgency. She was a healthy woman in no pain and could wait four months.

He informed her doctor that she was just a Depressive. It wasn’t possible to have pain in so many teeth. "We have a Pain-Prone Neurotic here, Doctor. If I were you I’d treat any pain she complains about with a pinch of salt. These people waste a lot of our time."

The day of the operations came. He had not told her what to expect. She lived alone and would have made suitable preparations had she known how ill the operations would make her, how long they would take, how much blood she would lose. She was in ghastly pain in some other teeth. They had been treated at last, but the trouble had gone on so long before they were treated that they were taking months to ‘settle down’. Her tongue was exquisitely sore from contact with rough edges of temporary crowns and from encountering oil of cloves – balm for aching teeth but corrosive to tongue and gums. She was desperate, absolutely desperate – genuinely suicidal because of the continual pain, tension and lack of sleep. - She forced herself to remain calm. Some relief was at hand.

He had a student to assist him. He talked ‘at’ the patient. - It was only a local anaesthetic despite the operations lasting well over an hour. She had her mouth open and the scalpel and aspirator in it. Blood and saliva were removed as they appeared. She was unable to reply even if she had wanted to.

"Well Miss – Er -, you will have followed the Falklands Campaign. Brave men. They know what genuine suffering is."

As he cut through the gum during the apicectomy he accidentally cut deeply into the dentine of the perfectly healthy tooth next to the abscessed one. – God! - That’d be painful when the anaesthetic wore off! Rather her than me! Still, she’d be in shock today and it wouldn’t be absolute agony till tomorrow. It’d do her good to have some real pain for a change, anyway.
She was, after all, extremely fortunate to get the services of so eminent a dental surgeon on the National Health!

The following day, after a night of sitting upright to keep the swelling to a minimum, she was amazed to discover its actual extent. Her nostrils were splayed out to either side far wider than the outer corners of her eyes. The space left was too narrow for breathing. She had to breathe through her mouth. Blood and saliva ran down her chin. The upper lip was so swollen that it extended right over her lower lip, touched her chin and turned up at the bottom so that the inside was on the outside, so to speak. She strongly resembled the snouted Trolls she had once seen in a performance of ‘Peer Gynt’.

All was stiff – stiff as a board, she started to think, but realised that if a board were pressed, its rigidity would resist. If this stiffness were to be pressed, what would happen? The blood-gorged flesh would surely tear internally? She must try to keep very still and not touch it or stretch it.
But it was necessary to eat and drink to restore her strength after the loss of blood.

This was not only painful; it was extremely difficult. Her lips did not make a seal, since the upper was so much bigger than the lower. To drink in the normal way was impossible, as the upper lip was unusable. She had to introduce a small spoon into her mouth and ‘pour’ a little liquid from it into the bottom of her mouth and then bend her head backwards for it to reach her throat. It was a messy, immensely slow business.

She had not believed her ordeal could worsen so much. The healthy tooth which had been damaged by the surgeon’s carelessness astonished her by being the most harrowing of all the teeth. The scar excision had proved a much bigger operation than she had been led to expect. Painful throbbing extended from her mouth, up the side of her nose and as far as the outer edge of her left eye.

Her mouth was to her the very jaws of Hell.

The sweet focus was her TONGUE.

How deliciously sensitive the tongue to delight! – How agile a member when all had been well with her mouth! But for three months now it had been constantly chafed by the temporary crown and sticking-up point of the tooth which had been cracked. She had been embarrassed at school by having to use chewing gum to cover the sharp point. This was effective but it had to be continually chewed in order to function. If just left on the point without chewing, it went flaccid and soft in the heat of her mouth and slipped its mooring.

But how was she to chew? – With the great need for inactivity for healing to take place and the swelling to subside?

Unhappily, there proved to be no choice. The tongue’s demands were the most strident. She chewed all day – and all night, since the pain from the tongue would not allow her to sleep. In sleep the chewing gum would leave the tooth, the tongue would relax onto the point and the pain would wake her from that tiny sleep.

How could this torture have been allowed to happen? If an I.R.A. prisoner had been made to suffer as she had, Amnesty International would have intervened. But she was allowed no advocate. Her torturers were the prosecution, judge and jury.

She could feel the tight flesh tearing as she chewed. She could feel the stitches tugging through the delicate skin. She knew that she was doomed.

Lack of sleep. Horrendous pain.

She had the stitches out a week later and begged that the sharp point be ground down. It was, a little, but the remaining tooth tissue had to be conserved at all costs, apparently, even the possible cost of her sanity. She had no strength to argue and her tongue did not permit much speech.

Three days after this the migraines began. She took paracetamol and embarked on a futile expedition to find and purchase a glue to stick the chewing gum into position. She obtained some, but the glue remained in position and the gum slid off! Then the next shopkeeper told her that the glue was poisonous.

The fifth migraine in a day – she had not believed so many were possible in a day – attacked her on her way home. It was the end. No-one would help her. No-one understood her wretchedness and it increased when she sought to explain it. since this involved moving her tongue. So many teeth hurting; gums throbbing; face painful; head pounding; eyes aflame and unseeing.

As a stumbling, purblind, weary, yet supremely lucid and logical act, in order at last to end the pain and blessedly to go to sleep, she stepped in front of the approaching car.

………………………………….

Notes.

Every word I have put into the mouth of the surgeon in talking to me is what Mr Reg Dinsdale (I have used a pseudonym in the story) actually said to me, but there was more than this, of course.

I have telescoped two ghastly interviews into one.

Much of what ‘she’ says in the story was actually written for the surgeon, as I was far too ill to speak much.

He did look in my mouth actually, to see if an apicectomy on the Upper Left 2 would be feasible. But this was only after he had made his ‘diagnosis’ – of Depression and Tooth-grinding!

The car stopped (end of story). I felt contrite that I had frightened the driver – though it was not a pre-meditated act. I went to Dr Hazel Radley and told her I had just attempted suicide. – Please would she help me to get the dental treatment I needed? – Coldly she told me not to be silly. – I was not in pain, she assured me.

Margaret Wilde

First Aid: Bone up!

St John Ambulance charity is urging us to learn First Aid in order to save lives, reported here by BBC News. This seems a good idea. See St John Ambulance.

I did a St John Ambulance First Aid course years ago. The firm I worked for at the time arranged this training for any of the workforce who wanted to do it. We used to attend the training sessions after work on Wednesday evenings. I wonder whether any firms still encourage their employees to learn First Aid.

Vietnam Fines Schering-Plough for Kickbacks paid to doctors for promoting hepatitis drugs

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung ordered the Ministry of Health to impose penalties on the drugmaker and several Ho Chi Minh City docs who took kickbacks of up to $26,300 a month in exchange for promoting two drugs that treat viral hepatitis, The Saigon GP Daily reports.
Read article at pharmalot.com

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Latest NHS data-handling cock-up: organ donor records

See this BBC News report, in which we read that "the details of many donors' preferences were accidentally deleted in 1999." But the blunder did not come to light until 2009 when NHS Blood and Transplant wrote to donors, reiterating what they had agreed to donate, and many wrote back saying the information was incorrect.

Friday, April 09, 2010

Should you avoid using products containing the antibacterial chemical triclosan?

I think I'll do my best to give it a miss after reading this WebMD article. Mind you, I do routinely try very hard to avoid unnecessary pharmaceutical drugs and iffy chemicals and I deplore the way they are used ever more widely and inappropriately.

Timely article by Andrew Gilligan, criticising our ever-worsening NHS

Telegraph article by Andrew Gilligan drawing attention to increasing deterioration in NHS standards, mainly attributable to overpaid, self-serving bureaucrats who don't care about the well-being of patients.

It's well worth reading the comments beneath the article. Almost all of them are scathing in their criticism of the NHS and desire for it to shed managers and quangos and such, and cut staff and costs in general. It would be difficult to find among these comments much support for the general political view of the NHS as a much-beloved/respected sacred cow that must be protected for the good of the nation.

My personal view, having had my health comprehensively and systematically destroyed by the NHS, is that it should not be reformed. It should be scrapped ASAP because it does far, far, FAR more harm than good. Our tax money would do more good as funding insurance for private provision with emphasis on nutritional testing and provision of suitable supplements where indicated.

But OVERWHELMINGLY we need legal and effective sanctions against culpable negligence by healthcare staff. Without accountability we have no protection from the damage they carelessly inflict on us. And I'm not talking about fines; I'm talking about criminal court cases.

See My Mensa article about NHS negligence and the uselessness of making a complaint.

A red face is not a sign of health; it is usually a sign of high blood pressure, thin skin and delicate, swollen veins.

A red face is not a sign of health; it is usually a sign of high blood pressure, thin skin and delicate, swollen veins. These problems are caused by salt sensitivity/sodium retention/fluid retention and can be quickly and safely reduced by cutting down on salt/sodium and salty food.
See Fat Man with a Red Face.

Thursday, April 08, 2010

Heather Brooke's new book, The Silent State, is out now.

It tells the full story of her investigation into MPs' expenses, but also goes on to say that it is just the tip of the iceberg. It was Heather who started all the work of exposing the dishonest expenses claims of our MPs.
See http://heatherbrooke.org.

If you are buying shoes/slippers/sandals for an obese or overweight person, here are some suggestions.

If you are buying shoes/slippers/sandals as/for an obese or very overweight person, then as well as getting a large enough size in length and width, I suggest that you try to get them deeper as well, with plenty of room for the toes. People who are overweight usually have swollen feet - often painfully swollen - and if the footwear is not sufficiently roomy then the pain will be made worse. Similarly with socks - extra roomy is best. And also, with socks, they are more comfortable if they are seamless and if they have a soft top which does not restrict the circulation. Other considerations are whether the footwear is too heavy and tiring to wear, and whether soft insoles would make walking easier.

How to lose weight.

Salty Food is Fattening

Salty food is fattening even if it is low in fat and low in calories.

Here is the information you need to lose weight safely, easily and fast by cutting down on salt and salty food:

How to lose weight

See Sodium in foods

and FAT RETENTION

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

That UK prisoners who are no longer drug-dependant are being deliberately put back onto methadone beggars belief!

See the report in the Telegraph. - No, it's not a late April Fool joke. There really are criminally stupid decisions being made to put prisoners back onto extremely addictive methadone before their release from prison "to minimise the risk of them taking an overdose." I submit that this practice would undoubtedly increase the risk of further criminal activity and ill-health and unhappiness.

Does this country have a drugs policy or not? - I suggest it does have a drugs policy and I suggest that that drugs policy appears to be to promote the taking of pharmaceutical drugs when these are prescribed drugs, however harmful they are, however much they damage lives, as long as their sale brings profit to the drugs companies. The government seems only to want to discourage drug-taking when the drugs are illegal drugs that have not caused any enrichment to the bloated drug companies. My submission fits in with the scandalous, catastrophic waste of many millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on unneeded swine flu jabs (BBC News report) and with the persistant failure to put legal curbs on the over-prescribing of anti-psychotics: see http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2010/04/anti-psychotics-double-risk-of.html

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Prescription Drug Poisoning is sending more people to hospital

See WebMD News Item.

Britain still permits controversial chemical Bisphenol-A to be used in the manufacture of a range of plastic products

Britain still permits controversial chemical Bisphenol-A to be used in the manufacture of a range of plastic products, including water bottles and the lining of food and beverage cans, like "the lining of 18 out of 20 best-selling canned food items including Heinz baked beans, Napolina tomatoes, and John West and Princes fish, as well as in tuna and sardines cans from major UK retailers Tesco, Sainsbury and Asda."

See report in the Independent and report in Food Safety News.

Anti-psychotics double the risk of pneumonia in the elderly

BBC News reports that Dutch researchers find that use of anti-psychotic drugs in the elderly doubles the risk of potentially fatal pneumonia. An expert report last year found that these drugs are responsible for up to 1,800 deaths in the UK every year and Ministers have said they want to see a significant cut in their use. What I want to see is Ministers putting a legal curb on the use of these drugs, which are overwhelmingly prescribed with no benefit whatsoever to the patient/victim.

Tell me, WHY are doctors (mainly paid by the State, i.e. paid by taxpayers) allowed to prescribe these harmful drugs for no good reason, and by means of the drugs allowed to damage the health of patients and cause them to die sooner than they otherwise would?

Why aren't the guilty doctors arrested and charged with Grievous Bodily Harm or Drug Abuse or some other appropriate charge and punished with the full rigour of the Law?

Is it because the State tacitly favours ending the lives of its citizens who are no longer part of the work force? Or is the explanation even more sinister?

University Challenge: Well Done to Alexander Guttenplan and his team!

I watched University Challenge last night, as I usually do, and admired the speed with which the contestants came up with the answers - and the accuracy too, of course. It's a great programme. Last night was the final. It would be interesting to see this year's human encyclopedia, Alex Guttenplan, competing against last year's, Gail Trimble.

I'll bet neither of them eats much salt...(o:

Lose weight and improve your mental alertness by eating less salt and salty food! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Monday, April 05, 2010

If you are overweight and kidding yourself that you never feel like breakfast

I've got to tell you that, honestly, doing without breakfast will not help you to lose weight. In fact, it's more likely to make you gain weight. They say you should 'Breakfast like a king, Lunch like a prince and Dine like a pauper'. That's what they say is the best way to stay healthy.

And what I say is, don't go without any meals at all, thinking that that is an easy way to lose excess weight. It isn't. It is an easy way to get run down and damage your health.

Here is the information you need to lose weight safely, easily and fast by cutting down on salt and salty food:

How to lose weight

And see Sodium in foods

and FAT RETENTION

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Easter Day: happiness and new life

A very Happy Easter to you! For Christians an end to the Lenten fast and celebration of their risen Lord. For non-believers like me, thoughts of the new life that returns to nature in the springtime. Easter eggs symbolise both the opening of the tomb in which the crucified Jesus was laid, and the new life that emerges from an egg.

If your life is unhappy and a burden to you, and you yearn for a new happier, healthier life - a life renewed - I have a serious, practical suggestion for you, which I urge you not to dismiss. - Cut down on salt and salty food. You will feel so much better - honestly!

Lose weight safely, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

I can be contacted via my website if you need my help. My help is free.

Saturday, April 03, 2010

A person not taking statins is like a fish not riding a bike.

A person not on statins is like a fish not riding a bike. By which I mean that statins are as much use to a person (with or without high cholesterol) as a bike is to a fish. What's the use of lowering or preventing high cholesterol - just one symptom of heart disease - and by no means the most serious symptom, if indeed it is serious or significant at all? Especially as statins are quite expensive and for far too many people also have painful, long-lasting side-effects.

If you want to improve your heart health overall, not just one symptom, and want to do it safely, without unpleasant, harmful side-effects, then you can do that simply, swiftly and very effectively without statins or other drugs. You just need to avoid salt and salty food. When I say that you 'just' need to do this, I must admit that this is not as easy as taking pills. You have to avoid most processed food, since most processed food has had a lot of salt added to it by the manufacturers. This means you'll need to buy more fresh food and you'll need to cook it yourself. But the health benefits that accrue from sodium reduction are very much worth the effort: lowered high cholesterol, lowered high blood pressure, reduced excess weight, more energy and vitality, greater mental alertness, improved sleep, reduced risk of heart attack, stroke, type 2 diabetes, most cancers, depression, dementia, etc.

See Associated health conditions

How to lose weight

And see Sodium in foods

and FAT RETENTION

This article is by Margaret Wilde

Friday, April 02, 2010

Poem for Good Friday

1982

I perch in the teeth of the adversary,
But "I" am not really here.
I have been taken over
By the body, mind and spirit snatcher,
Pain.

Rodents gnaw.
Other tormentors hover,
Ready to pounce at any
Lack of vigilance.

Warily, fearful of jarring
The enemy into fiercer attack,
I move and switch on the TV.

The coloured, flickering light
Has no meaning.
My concentration is inward. - I
See,
Hear,
Taste,
Think,
Feel,
AM
Pain.

Where is the life of the intellect?
What of happiness?
Spirituality?

Let me die!
I want no resurrection.
Let me sleep!

I'll change places with You anytime.
Your crucifixion lasted only hours.

O God Who does not exist!
Make the pain stop!


Margaret Wilde © 2010

Thursday, April 01, 2010

'Paleo' websites and blogs

'Paleo' is a shortened form of the word 'paleolithic', and in common usage refers to the Stone Age, what I tend to think of as the time of our ancestors, the Cavemen and Cavewomen. My website and my blog are not paleo sites, but they do have some points in common. This is because more and more paleo sites are specifically about the benefits of eating a 'paleo diet', i.e. food believed to be similar to what the cave people ate, since our species evolved eating this sort of food, and logically it would seem to be the sort of food best suited for our health.

As you may realise, I favour avoiding added salt and eating fresh food, rather than processed food, these being my main recommendations. I am sure that these measures are of great benefit to our health. Most paleo sites recommend other measures too, like avoiding grains, e.g. wheat, because grains came to be eaten when our ancestors stopped being purely hunter-gatherers and widened their food intake by cultivating plants and growing cereals - becoming farmers, in fact.

If you browse the internet you will find that paleo sites can differ quite a lot from one another, and by no means all embrace the no added salt emphasis which is my strongest recommendation. But I am sure that all efforts to eat as 'natural' a diet as we reasonably can, must improve our health.