Medication, dependence and addiction

All medications are drugs. Many have potential for dependence and some have potential for addiction. Dependence and addiction are not the same thing. When a person develops a dependence on a medication they will need to taper off use of it. Dependence is a purely physiological condition. Addiction has both physiological ans psychological components. With addiction, a person needs increasing amounts of a substance for it to continue having the desired affect. While a person can experience some distress in discontinuing a medication that they are dependent on, the distress is markedly worse in withdrawing from a medication or substance that they are addicted to.

Statistically, less than 1 percent of people become addicted to any medication. The medications with the greatest potential for addiction are opiate painkillers, not psychoactive medications such as antidepressants.

Why I Hate MSG (from the Experience Project

F or many people, monosodium glutamate causes digestive distess. I am certainly one of those. If I ingest this vile substance, I will be sitting doubled over in agony on that certain throne for a couple of hours.

But worse, MSG also causes respiratory distress. For me it sometimes causes numbness of the lips and tongue. I used to be on asthma medication before I discovered that MSG could cause respiratory distress. When I started being careful to check for MSG on the food ingredient lists, I was able to stop taking asthma medication. However, MSG may be in the "spices" or "flavorings" in certain products. It is (astoundingly) considered a GRAS (generally regarded as safe) food additive.

Studies show that just two tablespoons of MSG can cause seizures in dogs . And since MSG was introduced as a common food additive in 1948, cases of autism and ADHD have risen sharply.

Certain foods contain naturally occurring trace amounts of MSG. Unless a person has a severe glutamine intolerance, these foods will never be a problem. Soy sauce is often vilified, but it would be difficult to use enough that it would become problematic except in the case of a severe intolerance. Foods like soy sauce are not the problem. Added MSG is the problem. MSG is a far from harmless food additive. In my humble opinion, it should be banished from use.

I love the night shift

#Night #shift is the right shift, most of the time. But it can be rough. This website has some tips for #night #owls. http://enw.org/…tShift.htm

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The Flu Shot and Anti-viral medications

This is a reply I posted in response to a post by the Lazy Iguana. I decided to duplicate it here, because unlike my previous post, this is news you can use!

Unless there is a really heinous potentially deadly even to normally healthy people strain of the flu going around, I do not get the flu shot. The flu shot is pretty well a crap shoot. If you are immunocompromised or over 65, you should get the flu shot, because even healthy older people are more prone to the flu becoming pneumonia due to less hardy immune systems, lower lung capacity, and a general slowing of healing functions. But for the rest of us, it isn't as essential.

All this annoying medical training has taught me one thing: the new anti-viral medications are very safe and very effective. The one caveat is that you have to take them as soon as you realize you're really sick. Not just the coughing-stuffy head-sore throat-minor upper chest congestion kind of sick. The kind where you have a cough that feels like you're going to hack up one of your lungs, which may feel like you inhaled sludge. Also there is usually fever and muscle ache with the flu. There isn't a stuffy nose. There might be a sore throat, but it's usually from coughing. At any rate, get ye to the doctor and ask for an antiviral. It won't destroy the viruses that are already in your system but will stop them from replicating so you will get well faster. Rather expensive stuff but very effective. One of the few medications to come along where I've said "this stuff really rules!"