Please help America's race horses!

*I was sent this via email. Please read it over and please sign the petition to help race horses!*

America's Race Horses Need Protection

Every year, hundreds of race horses suffer career ending and even fatal injuries on race tracks across the country. The recent, high-profile deaths of Eight Belles and Barbaro put a spotlight on the high risk faced by these majestic animals, who are literally "run to death" in some cases. Take action to protect America's race horses.

Currently, only a handful of states ban the use of steroids in horse racing, but most states do not. Decisions regarding track surfaces, young horses racing while their bones are still developing, and other horse welfare concerns are made on a state-by-state basis, resulting in widely varying degrees of protection across our country.

Fortunately, Congress is considering the formation of a national commission to address these concerns and provide uniform regulation of the horse racing industry.

TAKE ACTION
Please make a brief, polite phone call to your U.S. Representative, Pete Stark, at (202) 225-5065 to urge support for a national commission to protect our race horses.

When you call, you will likely speak to a staff member who will pass your message along to your legislator. Remember to be polite and professional, and leave your name and address so it is clear that you are a constituent. You can say:

"Hello, my name is [your name] and I am calling from [your city] to ask Representative Stark to support the formation of a national commission to oversee horse racing. Thank you."

After making your call, please send a follow-up email to Congress in support of national oversight of the horse racing industry. And don't forget to tell your friends and family how they can protect horses, too.

Go online and sign the petition: https://community.hsus.org/campaign/FED_2008_horseracing/5ubuu3r07wddn5w?

Thank you for all you do for animals.

Sincerely,

Mike Markarian
Executive Vice President
The Humane Society of the United States

Pain medications and 'addiction fears'

This is an issue that hits close to home for me, as family and friends have long since continued to express fear about my pain meds or the amounts that I sometimes have to take, as being an issue later on and possibly causing me to be addicted to them. Due to this 'fear of addiction' I have met many people, including family members & friends, who are in so much pain that they should be on regular pain meds but refuse to take them because they are scared of becoming 'addicted' to their prescribed medications. Not only does this do more harm in the body, but it puts those people in great amounts of stress and ultimately makes them worse in the long run. I'm a big advocate of trying to educated the public and also ignorant medical professionals about the fact that those in pain need the meds that helps the pain and their medication access should never be taken away because of some stereotype that has been placed on pain meds. Your doctor knows what is best for you and when he/she prescribes a powerful pain relief medication, it's for a reason. As long as you take your medication as directed, as I do, you're going to be fine. This also applies to those who may have the so-called 'addictive personality' running in their family; I don't believe that this causes a higher risk for addiction to pain medications or any other medications. People who are in real pain are not trying to get 'high' from their medications, they are getting relief for their pain. Research has shown that even people who have suffered long term chronic pain, sometimes most of their lives, are able to slowly go off of their medications under the direction of their doctors and then they don't need the medication anymore because they are not in the same amount of pain when they have gotten much better. Please read the following article, which has new research about this same issue. Please don't listen to every stereotype that you hear of and rather try to think for yourself, get the facts before you judge. This article includes great information about how to prevent addiction and how medical doctors should always watch their patients closely for any signs of oncoming addictive behaviors. When asked, I explain to people that yes I'm on some very powerful pain meds, some every day and other on an as-needed basis but I also have to see my doctor once every 3 months in order to obtain new prescriptions for those medications. So my doctor is constantly monitoring my progress and we discuss everything that is going on with me at each appointment. This is so important for the pain patient. So if you are in pain and are considering asking your doctor about pain medications, don't be afraid to ask. Tell your doctor your concerns around addiction and how to prevent it. Don't ever hide those types of fears from your doctor. He/she is there to help you and to provide the care and treatments you need to get better and to be in less pain. Thank you!

Whitney :)

Chronic Pain Meds Unlikely to Cause Addiction
By MedHeadlines • May 9th, 2008 • Category: Drugs, Headlines, Medical Research, Neurology, Pain

The general population and many in the medical community alike harbor the popular opinion that using strong pain medications, including opioids, for long-term, chronic pain puts the patient at high risk of developing an addiction to the pain medications. A report presented recently at the annual meeting of the American Pain Society (APS) reveals evidence to the contrary.

pain medsSrinivasa Raja, MD, a professor of anesthesiology at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, reports that less than 3% of all patients suffering from chronic pain and who have no history of abusing drugs of any kind may eventually show signs of dependence or abuse when taking these medications pain relief. He urged the medical community to keep this very small percentage of risk in mind when establishing policies for prescribing such medications to patients who are far more likely to benefit from them than be endangered by them.

Raja also points to media attention surrounding an increase in the abuse of such medications but says these drugs are easily obtained from unregulated internet pharmacies and through theft and forgery of prescriptions, not just from within the legitimate medical establishment. While the established medical community is not the sole source of supply for these medications, Raja urges diligent communication between physician and patient, with patient screening procedures to identify addictive or potentially abusive behaviors becoming a routine part of the prescription and follow-up phases of treatment.

Raja further calls for uniformity in state and federal drug regulations and praises the teen drug awareness campaigns underway across the country as a means of preventing abuse of this type of drug. Raja says collaboration from the healthcare community, law enforcement agencies, and the pharmaceutical industry is needed to ensure people who need them will be allowed continued access to these medications, especially in the many cases where the benefits far exceed the risk of dependency.

Alternative treatments such as cognitive behavior and physical therapies should be used to supplement pain medications whenever possible, according to Raja. He says using this multi-faceted approach to pain management is much more effective than relying only on pain medications as the sole means of relief in most cases.

In his address to the APS, Raja cited past beliefs about pain that have been disproved by scientific evidence, such as that babies didn’t feel pain and therefore didn’t need anesthesia and that cancer patients should eschew the most potent and effective pain medications due to the supposed risk of addiction. These outdated beliefs have been proven wrong and he feels the fear of addiction should be abandoned as well in favor of effective treatment for pain management without the stigma of potential addiction influencing treatment options.

Source: American Pain Society

I know it's been a while - the impact of not being believed!

I know i haven't posted in a while. A lot of things have been happening in my life, mostly good but some bad too. As is life!

Currently I'm struggling to live at home, mostly because my mom has once again decided NOT to believe how much pain I suffer from every single day. H says to take her words with a grain of salt but it's still hard and it still hurts! Ever had a parent break your heart? Then you know what I'm talking about. She says my pain and other symptoms are just 'excuses'. Well they aren't and I'm not sure how much more of this crap I can take from her. I don't want to push my move to Portland but I don't know what else to do. I can't live like this. I've started avoiding my own house! How fucked up is that!?! I really thought we were getting along but because I don't live my life the way she thinks I should, with her rules and her schedule - gee, sorry mom, I have my own life! and I'm 30 years old or did you forget that!?! So I'm considering either a) finding a bunch of overnight housesitting jobs on the Peninsula, to be close to my new friend CR there and her horses that I get to ride and that is helping more than I ever thought it would. Or find housing in exchange for pet sitting, which may happen in a couple of months too. Or b) save as fast as I can, ignore my mom, which is hard to do, relish the times that she is gone and deal with it the best that I can or just not be home very often and then move to Portland as soon as I can, which right now won't be until end of this year or beginning of 2009. Need to save 1st, last and pet deposit anyway, so i figure $1500 at least and also talk to J to see if she will consider Portland instead of Seattle and be my roommate :)

On another bad note, I found out that my best friend J, who lives near Seattle has to have surgery, which she had last week, for a grapefruit sized cyst that she had on an ovary. She's okay, though she lost the right one and is just taking forever to heal. She also has Fibro plus MPS and some other issues. So she's better and I didn't need to go visit her but I was quite concerned for about two weeks.

And on top of all of that, I'm also now dealing with the upsetting reality of the memory of something that happened to me over two years ago now. I didn't tell anyone about it, which I know is dumb. We, as women, always say that if such and such ever happens to us, that we'd be able to report it or tell soemone about it right away, even if it means getting someone you thought you liked or cared about hauled off to jail. Well for some reason, I dealt with it by hiding, keeping my mouth shut out of fear and then blocking it from my memory. It ruined my relationship with the only person I've ever loved and will always love, becuase I couldn't tell him, because of a stupid fear that he wouldn't believe me (even though that fear was realistic at the time); my parents and closest friends don't even know. I see movies about it all the time and ask myself why?! It's weird when you literally block a memory. But now it's been coming back and last night I had a nightmare about it, woke up in a cold sweat, alone. Then spent all of today in tears and dealing with being super anxious. Of course, it doesn't help that I'm low on Effexxor and can't get more until Wed. I can't afford to see my therapist right now so that makes the situation almost impossible to deal with. I think I need to tell my closest friends who are girls - not that I have any guy friends anymore anyway - but I need to just get it out, have someone show me that they believe me. And then go from there! I wish this feeling on no one. But I felt that I needed to write this here, to get it out.

Here is an article I just found, regarding the impact of how it feels and how it makes pain patients or anyone feel, when someone doesn't believe you:

The Impact of Not Being Believed
Monday March 3, 2008

"I just wish someone would believe me!"

How often have you said or thought that? Disbelief or skepticism about fibromyalgia (FMS) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS or ME/CFS) is something most of us are all too familiar with, and if you've experienced it yourself, you don't need a study to tell you how painful it can be.

Wouldn't it be great, though, if someone would tell your doctors how detrimental it is for them to dismiss your pain? I was delighted to see a chronic pain study out of Wales that does tell them. (While this study was only on chronic pain, I don't think it's a stretch to say the findings would apply to fatigue and other "invisible" symptoms.)

Of a group of 8 people in the study, only 2 said they had no problem getting health-care workers to accept their word on pain, and those two people also had visible disabilities. Stories from the other 6 included doctors denying pain medication, shouting at them for taking more pain killers than prescribed, and even blatantly saying, "I don't believe you," and walking out.

Those actions left them with feelings that (no surprise to us!) included anger frustration, isolation, depression and thoughts of suicide.

The study concludes that doctors and other health professionals just need to believe what their patients say when it comes to pain, bringing up a definition of pain coined 40 years ago by Margo McCaffery, a chronic-pain nursing consultant: "Pain is whatever the experiencing person says it is, existing whenever the experiencing person says it does." The logic is simple, but the implications to our treatment would be profound.

The final paragraph sums up what practitioners can do to avoid all these problems:

These simple means are: active listening; being non-judgemental; accepting the pain experience as credible as recounted by patients; and thus showing to patients that the relationship is based on caring and empathy. While these may be considered mundane and accepted practice, it is vitally important not to overlook the impact they have on patients with chronic pain.

Things that make me happy! - Part 1

SWEET!!!! I am so excited. I don't think anyone knows this but for years I've had my eye out for anyone 'preferably' giving away rather than selling, back issues of OMNI - which is one of my all time favorite magazines from my past. I think I was in high school when they stopped publishing and that was a very bad day for me, I remember it well. So I subscribe to Freecycle - Alameda and East Bay area. Sometimes people who don't live in the East Bay still post their items on that list and I don't always check it because of that - there have been times where I wanted to get an item but that meant going out to Pittsburg or some other boon-dock type place.

Fortunately I looked at the post from yesterday and, what do you know, there's a couple in Pacifica giving away 4 huge boxes of their entire collection of OMNI. It would have meant me driving all the way to Pacifica, which I was willing to do because it would have been worth the trip, but now it looks like I'll be able to meet the wife at her place of work in Oakland. I am so incredibly psyched!! I am a huge sci-fi and real science fan, not to mention that for those of us who truly believe in the paranormal, this was THE magazine for you. Unfortunately I still have yet to come across anything that can be compared to it today :(. So, in a few days, I will be the proud owner of a collection of OMNI magazines. I will not be scrap booking these, unless some are in un-collectable condition but hope to keep most as my own personal collection. I am really excited to re-start my own research on some particular subjects, and read the information that OMNI exclusively put out on those topics in their issues, many of which, I never got to read. This wasn't tabloid type material, this was pure truth for real believers + excellent reading material from some really fabulous sci-fi writers. For those interested in knowing more, here is the information I pulled up from Wiki:

Omni (magazine)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

OMNI was both a science magazine and science fiction magazine. It contained articles on science fact and short works of science fiction. The first issue was published in October 1978, the last in Winter 1995, with an Internet version lasting until 1998. Bob Guccione described the magazine in its first issue as "an original if not controversial mixture of science fact, fiction, fantasy and the paranormal"[1]

History

OMNI was launched by Kathy Keeton Guccione, wife of Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione, and edited by Ben Bova from 1978 until 1981. Before launch it was referred to as Nova, but the name was changed before the first issue to avoid a conflict with the PBS science show of the same name, NOVA.[2] After Bova left, Editors of OMNI included Richard Teresi, Gurney Williams III, Patrice Adcroft, Keith Ferrell, and Pamela Weintraub (editor of OMNI Internet). Kathleen Stein managed the magazine's prestigious Q&A interviews with the top scientists of the 20th century through 1998. Ellen Datlow was fiction editor of OMNI from the time Bova stepped down in 1981 until the magazine folded in 1998 and Sherry Baker was the Continuum editor, now working as a freelance editor and writer in Atlanta, Georgia. The very first edition had an exclusive interview with renowned physicist, Freeman Dyson, the second edition with American writer and futurist, Alvin Toffler.

OMNI developed a dual personality during its life. In its early run, its high circulation (permitting payment for stories many times higher than that of other science fiction magazines), coupled with some outstanding fiction editors, allowed it to attract prominent speculative fiction writers, and it published a number of stories that have become genre classics, such as Orson Scott Card's "Unaccompanied Sonata", William Gibson's "Burning Chrome" including Johnny Mnemonic" and George R. R. Martin's "The Way of Cross and Dragon". The magazine also serialized Stephen King's novel Firestarter, and featured a short story, "The End of the Whole Mess". OMNI also brought the works of numerous painters to the attention of a large audience, such as H.R. Giger and De Es Schwertberger.

The bulk of the magazine, meanwhile, profiled science and scientists with a visionary, gonzo-style science journalism rooted in story-telling, credibility, and authorial voice. OMNI's Q&A Interviews constituted a collective oral history of 20th-century science told by the world's greatest thinkers in areas from evolutionary biology to chaos theory to space. OMNI celebrated science with an edgy entertaining patter and irreverence. OMNI 's pro-technology orientation has been compared to the later magazine Wired.

OMNI entered the market at the start of a wave of new science magazines aimed at educated but otherwise "non-professional" readers. Science Digest and Science News already served the high-school market, and Scientific American and New Scientist the professional, while OMNI was arguably the first aimed at "armchair scientists" who were nevertheless well informed about technical issues. The next year, however, Time introduced Discover while the AAAS introduced Science '80. Advertising dollars were spread between the different magazines, and those without deep pockets soon folded in the early 1980s, notably Science Digest, while Science '80 merged with Discover. OMNI appeared to weather this storm better than most, likely due to its wider selection of contents.

In its later years, especially the last year or two of the print publication, OMNI was criticized for weighting its coverage more toward pseudo-scientific topics like UFOs and ESP. Some have speculated that this may have been an effort to increase circulation during leaner years, but the strategy backfired. Though OMNI 's treatment of these topics was essentially skeptical, the weighting nonetheless damaged its credibility and led, in part, to its demise. Guccione shut down the print version of the magazine following the Winter 1995 issue due to waning popularity and the many financial difficulties plaguing his company, General Media.


After the print magazine folded in 1996, the OMNI Internet webzine was launched. Free of pressure to focus on fringe science areas, OMNI returned to its roots as the home of gonzo science writing, becoming one of the first large-scale venues to deliver a journalism geared specifically to cyberspace, complete with real-time coverage of major science events, chats and blogs with scientific luminaries, and interactive experiments that users could join. The world's top science fiction writers also joined in, writing collaborative fiction pieces for OMNI's readers live online. *You can see the website and updated blog here: http://www.omnimagonline.com

Though the website generated large traffic, it did not turn a profit. In 1998, Kathy Keeton, whose vision inspired OMNI, died from complications of breast cancer, the staff of OMNI Internet was laid off, and no new content was added to the website. General Media shut the site down and removed the OMNI archives from the Internet in 2003.

TV

A short-lived syndicated television show based on the magazine's format (and called OMNI: The New Frontier) aired in the United States beginning in September 1981, hosted by Peter Ustinov. A French voice over of the show appeared on "Radio Québec" in Canada during 1994.

References in Popular Culture

* In The Fly, Stathis threatens to send Veronica's teleportation story to OMNI -- his own publication, PARTICLE magazine, created for the film, is a clear nod to OMNI.

* In the 1989 romantic film Say Anything, Diane Court has an issue in her bedroom next to her desk. There is also an issue visible in the garbage can in the background when James Court is sitting in the bathtub after having his credit cards declined.

* In Ghostbusters, the Proton Pack appears on a fictional front cover of the magazine.

* In 2010: The Year We Make Contact, a future OMNI issue appeared in front of Roy Scheider on the beach.

* In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, a fellow passenger can be seen reading OMNI magazine on the bus that Kirk and Spock take across the Golden Gate Bridge.

* On the 2005 album Robot Hive/Exodus by the band Clutch, the song "Mice and Gods" references OMNI Magazine in the very first line of the song.

* In the film Jurassic Park, Tim Murphy mentions having read an article by Alan Grant in Omni magazine.

Part 2 coming soon!!!!

Resource for free chronic pain & relaxation guidance podcasts

I just found this wonderful resource and I really think it could benefit anyone like myself who cannot really do meditation without being guided. I have checked out this link, the site and the podcasts and they are free and legit. I hope they help anyone in any type of chronic pain OR just for those who need to learn how to relax!

Hi

My name is Jason Newland and I provide free relaxation and chronic
pain relief services online.
On my website I have free video and audios that anyone can listen to
and download, anywhere in the world.
All my services are completely free and I am not gaining
financially, whatsoever.

I now have 19 free audio sessions for relaxation & chronic pain
relief

Please visit my website:

www.jasonnewland.com

to watch or listen to my free videos and audios for relaxation and
Chronic pain relief

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Video Session 3 - 10 minute Relaxation Session - 150407

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Video Session 5 - Relaxation Session - 120607

Video Session 6 - 10 minute chronic pain relief technique 1

Video Session 7 - 10 minute chronic pain relief technique 2

Audio Session 1 - Relaxation Session - 150107

Audio Session 2 - Body Awareness Session - 200107

Audio Session 3 - Relaxation Session - 090207

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Audio Session 6 - Short Relaxation Session - 050207

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Audio Session 8 - Chronic Pain Relief Session - 190207

Audio Session 9 - Chronic Pain Relief Session - 120207

Audio Session 10 - Short Chronic Pain Relief Session -190207

Audio Session 11 - Short Chronic Pain Relief Session - 250207

Audio Session 12 - Relaxation Session - 120607

Audio Session 13 - Long Relaxation Session - 040608

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Thank you very much

love Jason Newland x

www.jasonnewland.com

jasonnewland@hotmail.co.uk

myspace.com/buddhistjay

First scary storm of 2008!

For those in the bay area, you're probably asleep right now. But I am wide awake! I can't sleep - I love listening to the wind and the rain, actually more like waiting to hear the rain. I got some driving home from Carmel earlier today but it wasn't too heavy as is predicted. What is heavy though is the wind. You see, I live right on the water, on the bay and that makes for much different weather experiences, especially when we get a 'storm of the century' as they are calling it in the paper. It is much more windy here - we've so far gotten up to 72 knots (which is close to 70mph) and it's currently gusting at 60+ with winds at 55 or so blowing strong. I was asleep for a while but then awakened by a loud crash. I thought, oh god, what now?! My cat ran under the bed and I went downstairs to investigate. I discovered our boat, now off of the dock and in the water. Thank goodness my dad had it locked with a long steel wire lock. It was the only thing securing it to the dock. I managed to grab the bowline and tie that to the dock as well. I also almost got blown off the dock! Yikes! I'm now back up in bed, listening to the neighbors' boats bang around, every crash sounds like it may be the last time they see their boats in one piece. And good ridence too - they are evil people and never use their boats, they've just been sitting in the water, rotting for years, taking up wasted dock space and partially blocking our view of our little marina. Thankfully everything on our end is secured and boy am I glad I did come home today. I wanted to stay another day but once again my parents started to drive me crazy, so I decided that 5 days without them at home sounded like a much better bargain. Once again, I save the day :) Hope everyone else out there is faring better.

An example of how intelligent my cat is!

I'm currently in Carmel for New Years and to try to have a few more vacation days until I head back home, although my grouchy parents aren't making it very easy. I wanted to stay an extra day, more than I had originally planned, because I just love it down here and this year the owners of the house aren't returning until end of January. So when I got back from my trip to Oregon, I stopped off at home for the evening, slept on the couch with my kitty, since being in my room would have been way too depressing anyway. I have been trying to teach my cat how to open doors for himself and it never occured to me that this would pose any issues down the road. Another bad thing about temporarily living with the folks, is that they are very insistent that my kitty stay in the laundry room/garage if I'm going to be gone overnight. Of course, when they are not home at all, I don't do this because it's not really fair. And I would have just given him the run of the house this time except I did not know until yesterday that my parents are going to be staying in Carmel a week longer than usual. So all of last night, I thought, damn, wish I could have known that earlier. My cat really needs room to run around and act all psycho and crazy when he is in that particular mood. So as painful as it was, I left him in the laundry room and garage, with blankets on the hood of my car in the garage and his bed up on the washer - to give him more options as to where to sleep, off the cold floor. I left plenty of food + his automatic waterer too and asked a neighbor to come by and check on him a couple of times.

So I just a few minutes ago called to check in. Turns out she went over yesterday, to find the door to the laundry room open - she said I must have left it open, but I didn't. Turns out Kitty opened it himself. My dad beginning of last year installed all new door handles all over the house, the kind that are like a lever, so a cat could potentially reach up and pull on the handle to open the door. I don't know how he did it, because the door swings into the laundry room, not the opposite but he must have known to do that. Smart kitty! Now I'm a bit more happy, not so much worried about him being stuck in the garage area. I asked her to make sure to leave that door open as all of his food, water and litter box are currently in the garage too and I don't want to come home to find any accidents. But I'm just kinda laughing inside at the moment. I am so proud of my kitty. What a smart cat!!!