Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

A few weeks ago I went against my personal policy of no pharmaceutics and told my gastenterologist they could perform a barium MRI on me to examine my intestines, and do a sedation endoscopy to examine my guts.

My shaman warned me but respected my decision.

Today I went for my barium MRI. They started off by not calling me to giving me my fasting protocol, or to tell me they were going to jam a 4 inch needle into my tricep to slow the movement of my guts. I also drank 45 ounces of barium sulfate suspended in water.

I put my foot down on anything involving radiation.

About an hour ater they released me I became so dizzy and disorientated my knees buckled and I fell over on the street. Someone helped me up and I found a coffee shop where I got an apple, and then went to Whole Foods and broke my fast early.

Doing some research I found out barium is HIGHLY toxic when absorbed into the blood stream. Something that can happen easily if I have open sores on my innards. It cause cause your skin to slowly slough off over months then death, or paralyze you. Pretty much all anesthetics have a chance of shutting down your respiratory system, or paralyzing you.

Never again. NEVER will I allow the ingestion of anything pharmaceutical besides saline water. I am canceling my endoscopy and never allowing this shit again. I am drawing the line at superficial modern medicine like blood work, and physical examines, urine samples, etc.

My shaman warned me, and I should have listen, him and a powerful diet have done more for me than these motherfuckers ever could, and FAR less damage, actually almost none.

How many times have I dodged a bullet with modern medicine? I don't know. But I won't have to gamble ever again. Call me crazy, call me irrational, but what fixed my body, Veganism or some shithead in a lab coat pumping me with drugs?

Fuck vaccines too.

/End rant.

_________________
Live cautiously to make it safely to death

*claps loudly* BRAVO!!!!

_________________
I do because I can. I can because I want to. I want to because you said I couldn't.

I don't make excuses... I make results

If it doesn't challenge you, it doesn't change you

Agreed!

I feel ripped off every time I deal with doctors for my health. They have the friken nerve to make me feel like a freak because I do routine inspections of my cervix... (It sounds grosser than it is, heh.) As if they would know from yearly visits if everything was normal with me... So, check your bewbs for cancer regularly but nowhere else? Frakk that.

Anyways, enough about me. I'm sorry this happened to you. From my experience, professionals in the medical field rarely tell much, so it can be hard to plan around it, do your homework &/or get a second opinion. And I can't forget how they are so very pro-animal testing.

Reason for update: forgot to add some comments.. it was late :p

_________________
Vegan is NOT a diet // Support the Vegan Bodybuilding website

hmmm...

there is a time and a place for everything.....you may need western medicine again one day...maybe years from now, maybe not at all, but it has a place.

I brought all my kids up homeopathic, but combined with Western to appease their dad as well. We took and to this day take very little of anything, --I had surgery and took NOTHING...BUT...smallpox was irradiated through science, cancer has cures cause of science and aids has been slowed--not arrested because of science.

Be open in the future...my kids have had stitches, strep ( treated), seizures ( treated), and one even had whooping cough (treated)...I was kicked out of a pediatric practice for my beliefs, but I still have regard...and yeti...its called "practicing medicine"...not a huge fan, but it exists for a reason.

just saying'...

I do so hope you are feeling better now! Hillcrest Wholefoods...umm, yummy...they have Xan vegan chocolates there, and they almost always have fume salad in the deli. We should try to meet next time...I am headed to La Jollaone in next day or so...doing some career tool stuff. and don't take as a lecture...I am neither pro or anti, but modern day medicine, with all its faults still does more good than harm in its truest sense!

I never said I'd completely forgo Western medicine. I said I am going to reduce the amount of invasion I will allow. Stitches and such are logical things. But I always avoid hospitals if I can because of germs, most notably staph.

Anyway, my sister sutures, and I've glued more than a few wounds closed. My sister can also give IVs and has all the stuff at her house.

Practicing medicine, pharmaceutics, whatever you want to call it, is a bastardized form of help often causing more harm than good. As someone who has been through the system, I know.

They've burned me more times than I can count. Often causing more damage than harm.

Trauma care, yeah, for sure can save your ass. But letting them root around in your body for shits and giggles when there are holistic methods to care? No thanks.

Yeah we should meet. Lemme know when you're gonna be there and I'll take the bus up.

_________________
Live cautiously to make it safely to death

Oh for sure, you are very right, they have their place, and we are all better for it. Problem is, they think their place is everywhere. There are too many cases to mention here in which their intervention actually made things way worse. People die regularly enough because of it, and yet we're constantly being told the lie that its the safest way to go.

A couple herbs hurt one or two idiots who decided to overdose, and some how it becomes the most dangerous thing ever? Even more ludicrous is how we're told to go see our doctor to make sure a supplement is safe to take! Haha! They don't even study those, how would they know!

Ridiculous. I guess that's what happens when you have the pharmaceuticals & lawyers as body guards.

Ok, end rant. Thank you.

...oh no wait, let me up date this just to add that I am not 100% against doctors. I am fascinated by the progress that branch has made and I know its done us humans a lot of good, to say the least. & I do think they have their place.

_________________
Vegan is NOT a diet // Support the Vegan Bodybuilding website

Bravo bravo bravo

_________________
I do because I can. I can because I want to. I want to because you said I couldn't.

I don't make excuses... I make results

If it doesn't challenge you, it doesn't change you

*headdesk*

_________________
--
Bruce

Thats why people like me get kicked out of pediatric practices!! Twice. I refused MANY things the docs thought were best...and to cover their rears, I was asked to leave. I was GOOD with it. I look at it like anything else, be an informed consumer.

If you take the bus...which is easier--Hillcrest? They have Glee bubblegum, so I am down with that! ( I order in bulk online when I remember)--I really need to go to OB People's- they have Classic Kombucha there!!!! (there IS a difference)---have you been to Peoples? Now thats a fun, funky place! Not one of the best Coops in the country for size and product offering, but a strong committed one, with a good raw section and a great deli upstairs...they don't do a lot of Gluten free, tho. I should make a living charging for field trips to all the great stores in the country on where to buy veg/ vegan..its all I know cause of work.

well, glad you are feeling better and you have your health in order! Thats #1!

Completely agreed on avoiding unnecessary intrusive medications when possible. Vaccines, I've always figured that for things that can be eradicated/prevented in great number (measles, mumps, smallpox, etc.) they're good things, but I'll always hold firm to avoiding flu shots since there's no way to know if they'll even work due to continual mutations of the flu virus (not to mention, the less weird stuff I put in me, the better).

But, of course, I'll always side by some things, such as the surgeries that saved my vision. No amount of naturopathic treatment or food-based treatment could have done the same thing to keep my sight with the extremely fast onset of my symptoms (when you risk losing a few percentages of total vision per week without immediate medical care, there's no time to have faith in anything else), so I'll always be grateful for many things that modern medicine has done. Of course, I still suffer from some side effects of the treatment (sometimes you just can't win with pharmaceuticals), but the alternative of blindness was much, much worse!

_________________
"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous

It doesn't matter which I go to. I actually want to visit the Whole Foods in La Jolla. So just let me know, and nope, I have never been to Peoples.

Some of those flu vaccine complications are horrific. Like the girl who can only talk normally while walking backward? Given they are rare, but holy shit balls.

As for that head desk comment. My shaman has done some incredible things for me like telling me what foods are anti-inflammatory, giving me acupuncture when I had a bad flare up on the road, helping me cleanse during the same bout, and providing me a place to heal while I was sick. We also talk extensively and he provides me a lot of Spiritual guidance. I don't pay him a dime, and he has never steered me wrong, always respecting my own varying degrees of opinions on matters.

_________________
Live cautiously to make it safely to death

I'll get anything for which herd immunity is of value to the immunocompromised. Flu is marginal, for exactly the reason you said, but I don't believe it does me any harm. I stay vaccinated for everything else (MMR, TB, Hep, etc) for preventative reasons, and if there was a local outbreak of something for which they recommend vaccination, I'd be all over it.


Look at Steve Jobs, too. He had a very treatable cancer, tried homeopathy and natural remedies, and by the time he came back to sanity it was too late.

There's being skeptical and cautious and avoiding unnecessary treatment, which is fine, but falling prey to woo and quackery is utterly different, and it's bad for society as a whole.

For a more fun look at it:
http://darryl-cunningham.blogspot.com/2 ... field.html
http://darryl-cunningham.blogspot.com/2 ... pathy.html

_________________
--
Bruce

That was Desiree Jennings, and it was 100% a hoax.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/ ... _cured.php

This is what I'm talking about. You're taking a complete and, frankly, obvious fabrication and using to make a medical decision that affects not only yourself, but society as a whole. Do not take things like that at face value. If it seems "holy shit balls," investigate. Find out what research has been done. See if there's any evidence at all.


There exist no studies showing acupuncture has any conclusive therapeutic effect. In fact, research shows it has the same efficacy as placebo. Any improvement is likely psychological or regression to the mean.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 104147.htm
http://sci-ence.org/series/the-ghosts-o ... upuncture/

What your shaman is giving you is psychological reinforcement, a safe place to heal, and calm guidance. All of those are wonderful, sure, but he's not a doctor, and you probably shouldn't take medical advice from him. I'd say the same thing to anyone taking the same advice from their priest, sufi, dungeon master, or magic 8-ball.

_________________
--
Bruce

Ok, I never researched that video, I had seen it years ago and used it as an example verses researching something. Still, I don't know how safe being injected with a living or dead strain of some virus is, especially when you have an immune deficiency. It's all internalized.

And with my shaman, I get suggestions on homeopathic remedies, diet, etc. I don't take medical advice from him, I take suggestions, and research and make educated decisions. I go to a Gastoenterologist once or twice a year for blood work, urinalysis, etc. I do the same with him, I take suggestions, research them, and make educated decisions.

I go to the hospital when necessary as well. If I cut my hand open, I am going to the ER. If my doctor wants to poke and prod me, that is cool, within reason, but when I feel he is doing shit for the sake of his own curiosity, or to get me on some medication, I am going to draw the line. He was and is pushing for IV steroids when my flare was completely quelled by fasting and a low GI diet.

That's like hammering a nail with explosives. A fine example of how overblown modern medicine can be. And not my first experience with shit like that.

_________________
Live cautiously to make it safely to death

It's perfectly safe as long as you're _not_ immunodeficient. Vaccines have one of the longest and most robust records of safety and effectiveness in all of medicine. Many have been refined over decades of use. The incidence of harmful side effects is very, very low, and the reporting system is pretty comprehensive. And again, we don't have to depend on studies for most of them. We have many years of real world use to rely on.

The importance with respect to immunodeficiency is through herd immunity. Immunocompromised people, especially children, are at high risk for these diseases. The best way to protect them is by making sure the infections aren't in the population. Loss of herd immunity due to poor vaccination is what caused the pertussis epidemic in 2010 in California, and 10 infants died. There was a huge push for vaccination towards the end of the year, people listened, and 2011 saw no deaths at all.


I'm sorry, but I cannot believe you're making educated decisions when you mention homeopathy. Just as with acupuncture, the claimed results behind homeopathic remedies cannot be duplicated in research. There is absolutely no science or evidence behind it. Nothing at all.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/ ... ncenews.g2

Quite the opposite, in fact. It can be mathematically shown that at common levels of homeopathic dilution, the solution is likely to contain not even a single molecule of the original "remedy." Serial dilution produces a geometric logarithmic concentration of the original substance. Or, from another point of view, an exponential increase in the solution volume for an constant amount of the original substance. Basically, a 200C dilution is the equivalent of diluting 1ml into a volume of water the size of the known universe.
http://www.fasebj.org/content/20/11/1755.full
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16165225

And it's not harmless. People are using homeopathic cures instead of actual medicine, and it's killing them. If all you need is a placebo, great. But if you need real medication, homeopathy is the same as using nothing at all. And buying into it, publicizing it, and recommending it is destructive.
http://whatstheharm.net/homeopathy.html

_________________
--
Bruce