Crohn's Disease Relief

Prevacid on Sale

If anyone is taking Prilosec Prevacid  - I saw on slickdeals.net that Amazon has a good price on it right now.

Prevacid 42 cheapest price seen here or in stores even with coupons.

Normal price $18.99

amazon subscribe and save, save 15%

$16.14.

14 and 28 count available with subscribe and save but this seems to be the best deal.

Free shipping.

Good Gifts for Someone in the Hospital

An online forum I frequent was having a brainstorm for ideas to give someone in the hospital so I thought I would put together a list.

I think its a good idea to remember when bringing stuff to the hospital that the person (and their family) is going to have to cart all the stuff home when they leave so try not to bring a bunch of big extraneous stuff.

• Nice smelling lotion
• Dry Shampoo
• Manicure Kit
• Tea bags and light cookies
• Jelly beans or hard candies
• Gift card for iTunes or Amazon MP3s
• People, US Weekly or some magazines with fluff content. Good for when you can’t concentrate on anything.
• Nice socks. The hospital floors are gross.
• Crosswords, Sudoku, easy puzzle book from the drug store magazine rack.
• Scratch off lottery tickets is an idea I saw. Could be fun.

Go Clean Your Shower

An analysis of 50 showerheads from nine U.S. cities found that about 30 percent harbored high levels of Mycobacterium avium -- a group of bacteria that can cause lung infections when inhaled or swallowed.

via www.reuters.com

I am sure I am not the only one who reads this study and then wants to go directly and clean their shower head. By the way - what you should do is periodically remove the shower head and soak it in a cleaning solution for getting hard water stains off.

How to clean a shower head? I use something CLR diluted with water. If you have to remove the shower head wrap it in a towel before using pliers or wrench to protect the chrome finish. Some people just use vinegar. I am sure that bleach would kill the mycobacterium, but one of the other benefits of cleaning your shower head is getting the mineral deposit buildup out of the holes so none of them are blocked up.

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Tell Members of Congress to Support the Health Care Plan

I just told my members of Congress that I want them to support the President's plan for healthcare. 

Tell Members of Congress to Support the Health Care Plan

Here is the personal message I added:

I suffer from Crohn's disease and was recently laid off.  My insurance company dropped my coverage even though I paid my COBRA payment as soon as I received the paperwork.  So scary!  I know I can be denied coverage for a pre-existing condition if I ever let my insurance lapse.  Let alone that I need to take care of my two young children.

My mother in law cannot afford any health coverage at all and is chancing it until she is the age where Medicare will become available to her.  The last time she had a health scare and was in the hospital it took her over a year to pay off the bill, a little bit at a time.  This is a crying shame.  This is a woman who worked all her life as a housekeeper and her last job was cleaning medical office buildings! 

Please get it together to come up with a way for American Citizens to have health insurance.  I don't care how you negotiate the deal - just think about your constituents who need affordable health insurance.

Thank you,

Marianne C
http://www.crohnsdiseaserelief.com

By the way, I was reinstated back into the insurance plan.  All it took was 8 phone calls and about 3 weeks with no coverage.  And that was AFTER I paid the bill.

What to Do If You Can't Afford Crohn's Medication

The NeedyMeds.org web site helps people who cannot afford the medication they need.  They have recently created a specific page on their site dedicated to those with Crohn's Disease.   So if you need assistance paying for medications for Crohn's or Ulcerative Colitis, visit the NeedyMeds.org new web page.

The folks at NeedyMeds have collaborated with the CCFA to provide this information.  I salute this work.  With so many people suffering from layoffs and business slowdowns right now, this information is so important.  I know that the Balsalazide (Colazal) I take runs in the hundreds of dollars each month - and that is the generic version.

Press Release Link

Setting the Record Straight on Health Care Reform

The president has a page refuting some of the claims against the US plans for health care reform. 

If you are looking for something more objective in nature here is the FactCheck.org page on the health care debate falsehoods.

Demystifying Healthcare Debate Jargon

Here is a good CNN.com list of some of the terms being used in the U.S. Healthcare reform ruckus debate.  I am a college educated person, well familiar with the healthcare system due to having a chronic illness (Crohn's Disease) and moderately politically informed.  If I have a hard time defining "public option" vs. "single payer" then I bet a lot of other people do too.  Quotes from the CNN definitions:

Public option: A public option is a government-funded, government-run health care option, similar to Medicare. Under the plan, people would pay premiums 10 to 20 percent less than private insurance. Some Democrats have said it will be impossible to pass a bill without a public option, but some Republicans have called the idea a deal-breaker.

Single-payer: Under a single-payer system, the financing system relies on one "payer" -- which could be a government-run agency -- to fund all health care costs billed by doctors, hospitals and other health professionals.

I think I like the public option, personally.  I think there should be a baseline coverage available to everyone, but I think its important for employers to continue to offer the benefits they do now.  I would not like to see a government plan kill competition.  And I do not think it would, as described by Mr. Obama companies would be incentivised to provide private health plans for their employees.  I personally think that companies who hire largely part time workers and do not offer benefits to part timers are a big part of our current problem.  Walmart, for example.  I would like to see a tax break for companies that offer health insurance to all workers.  Let's reward American companies like Starbucks, Home Depot, and Best Buy. 

Whole Foods?  Well, I am of two minds.  I think their CEO is a real scary idiot.  I knew that when he got caught posting anonymously on Yahoo Finance a few years ago, talking trash about another competing health food chain that he was actually trying to buy.  That's snaky, and illegal behavior.  It's called insider trading and market manipulation.  Why did Martha Stewart go to jail and he is still running Whole Foods and bad mouthing the idea of the government providing health care to people who can't afford it?  Their store, by the way does offer health insurance to part time workers, but only after they work for 800 hours.  At 30 hours a week that will take 6 months.

Whole Foods is a publicly held company. I don't own any Whole Foods Market, Inc. (WFMI) stock, but if I did I think I would want them to fire that jerk.  I think he is bad for business.

Huge List of Resources about Crohn's

I've been searching this afternoon and found some of handy sites and lists.  Cheers!

Coping With Crohn’s Disease: 100 Helpful Resources and Communities - from Nursing Assistant Central

No More Crohns - Yummy Looking Food Blog for Specific Carb Diet.

List of Crohn's Webcasts from Abbot

List of Even More Crohn's Webcasts from EveryDayHealth.com

Relief for Canker Sores

One of the extra fun symptoms you may get with a Crohn's flare is mouth sores.  I get both cold sores and canker sores. 

Today I read about a home remedy for canker sores that sounds interesting.  It's a parents' favorite, sometimes called "magic mouthwash." 

Mix equal parts children's benadryl liquid and mylanta antacid.  Swab on cold sores with a q-tip or use it to gargle.  Some doctors will have a pharmacy compound a version of this along with RX viscous lidocaine.

Of course my own home remedy is to gargle with hot salt water.  Cures them up very well.  And for cold sores RX zovirax is the stuff.  For my 3 year old what I did was put salt on a wet q-tip and stick it on the mouth sore since he didn't know how to gargle yet.

I also have had good results with Colgate Peroxyl, a peroxide mouth rinse.  It seems to kill the canker sores and doesn't sting, but it does get foamy.

Questions about Medical Marijuana for Crohn's Disease

Medical marijuana has been legalized (from a State's point of view, the Federal government is another story) in a number of US states, and Crohn's disease is listed among the illnesses that are treatable with this prescription.

I have a few questions about this treatment option.  The main question is this: I understand that smoking exacerbates Crohn's disease.  Is this specifically smoking tobacco, or any type of smoking?  If smoking is bad for Crohn's why would smoking medical marijuana be good? 

I have heard of methods for vaporizing the herb so that the patient doesn't have to burn anything.  Is this safer for the lungs?  You wouldn't want to end up with lung cancer from smoking or inhaling, right?

According to this interesting  Science Daily article on Vaporizers for Marijuana

"Using CO as an indicator, there was virtually no exposure to harmful combustion products using the vaporizing device. Since it replicates smoking's efficiency at producing the desired THC effect using smaller amounts of the active ingredient as opposed to pill forms, this device has great potential for improving the therapeutic utility of THC," said study co-author Neal L. Benowitz, MD, UCSF professor of medicine, psychiatry and biopharmaceutical sciences. He added that pills tend to provide patients with more THC than they need for optimal therapeutic effect and increase side effects.

This is definitely food for thought.  I do not think medical marijuana will be a viable treatment option for most Crohn's patients until such time as the Federal government allows the use.  What good is it having your State grant you a right that the Feds can arrest you for?

Which states allow medical marijuana

Page listing some studies and findings regarding marijuana and Crohn's

More info re: medical marijuana vaporizers