There is no such thing as disease

[Justin]

The problem I have with this kind of thinking is that it lays blame for illness at the victim's feet. Being sick is hard enough without having to go through feeling it is your own fault because of your negative thinking patterns or whatever. I know, I have struggled with this many times myself, really struggled!

Cmarie, we are not really victims. We are victims because we've been trained and condition to believe so but we are only a product of our imaginings. If you struggle with this, you are struggling with guilt which is yet another negative signal.

The God everyone talks about is the very spirit of creation. We're not separate from creation we are creation.

The part about the cells is from my understanding of them and based on experiments that others have performed on cells. We can clone cells. I don't need to know how, but understanding what commands the cells to respond the way they do is very important.

I will put something up here or someone that can explain it better than I. LOL, I'm a webmaster with a desire to understand who I am and what my purpose is. I research quite a bit if there's something I'd like to understand but based on my own personal experiences, I can tell you that everything that has happened in my life, is something that I have created. Good or bad, it just is and I just am and you just are. So I study and experience and that's how I know, therefore it forms my philosophy (the sum of what we know).

Transforming and undoing is the hardest part... I know because I'm experiencing it.

You are OK Cmarie . Cheers!

[Fido]

Originally Posted by pmd

Okay, while psychology and mindset certainly do impact health, microbes and disease are in fact realities verified scientifically, and a person who would give this theory an acid test (say, an injection of brain-destroying amoebae or prions directly into the CNS) will soon discover that their positive thoughts are rather ineffective safeguards against organic causative agents.

You should try to be aware of the words you use, like that French man trying to learn English, wondering why Ague was two syllables and plague was one, when each was a party to the other. Disease really is dis ease. It shows the mind set of a people who accepted the power of Shamens. And it also recognizes the power of social relationships to effect physical and mental health. But in a larger sense, in the sense of the larger organisms of society, and humanity; it is disease that is the cause of war, the cause of murder, and the cause of suicide. It is behind every injustice, and results from every injustice. Even the thought of an acid test applied to humans is a sign of disease, for to attack a positive thought with a brain destroying agent is, even in the imagination, a terrible thing.

We know there are diseases. We should also know the importance of positive behavior, thoughts, and encouragement. This is not an easy life. It has not found the promise of technology to be truthful. Surely, medicine can cure diseases, but they spawn many more for which there is no defense. In the end, the disease of a society bent on exploitation, injustice, and denial of reality cannot but produce diseases in all its members. We suffer a society without basic good health, virtue, or sanity. What else should we expect but disease? I seek good health. At a minimum I try to not carry nor justify the diseases we suffer. I could use some encouragement.

[NeitherExtreme]

First, I %100 believe that medically impossible healings occur, and would defend that point till I was blue. But I'm wondering why we should assume that the only variable that controls our healing/non-healing is ourselves. If it was something that a person could single-handedly learn/will/control, I would think that someone should have figured it out by now and not died.

Also, I was wondering in response to Justin: If there is one energy behind the whole universe and it itself has no goodness or badness, how can there be positive and negative? Or how and why would someone judge results to be positive or negative? How would having negative thoughts produce negative results through an energy that has no positive or negative?

[Fido]

Originally Posted by NeitherExtreme

First, I %100 believe that medically impossible healings occur, and would defend that point till I was blue. But I'm wondering why we should assume that the only variable that controls our healing/non-healing is ourselves. If it was something that a person could single-handedly learn/will/control, I would think that someone should have figured it out by now and not died.

Also, I was wondering in response to Justin: If there is one energy behind the whole universe and it itself has no goodness or badness, how can there be positive and negative? Or how and why would someone judge results to be positive or negative? How would having negative thoughts produce negative results through an energy that has no positive or negative?

Even if no one is ever actually cured from an actual disease by will or mind, still, the greatest single killer in my country is cardio-vascular disease of which stress is a large componant and contributing factor. Undoubtably, people also suffer depression, and eat too much, and exercise too little under stress, and in addition suffer from lack of sleep. People in supportive communities which look in on the aged, and keep them going, actually prolongue their lives statistically and their general health. Good feelings and a positive attitude both contribute to health, and increase the immune response. They help, and sometimes help is all that is needed to get some one by a crises.

[l0ck]

Hey guys
Im not advocating anything
But I couldnt help but notice,
Whenever I was sick.. I noticed that after taking LSD my 'sick' symptoms would all dissapear. completely.
And this has also occured with many people around me.
But anyways,
The environment is a great subject, isnt it?
As masters of the universe we are the creater species and we make our environments
Our environment is directly related to our thoughts
Slowly, over the course of time, as mass releases its qualities and we absorb them we discover the environment, which is literally ourselves
Landmarks in time like Technological advancements are probably the easiest way to see what our purpose truely is as masters of the universe
Technology, or the rearranging of the environment and taking advantage of its qualities, is something we are supposed to do as human beings
Mass helps us learn and is a great teacher for our lessons
Because mass is energy and it holds qualities and it releases them over time, perfect for our human expierence
Which is experiencing separation from the absolute which is a condition of low awareness, being trapped in mass.. finite separation.. it is a state of learning by absorbing unknown qualities from the environment
But as human beings we cant help but realize we are spiritual because our awareness is growing due to the exponentially expanding absorbtion rate of us the creater species
We are absorbing qualities faster and faster from mass
Awareness is growing exponentially
Technology is growing exponentially
Mass is losing qualities faster and faster
Until what point? Hmm..
Its true we can see our advancements occuring faster and faster, but answering the question Why? Is nothing but prediction, but the big picture is forming and getting clearer and clearer, faster and faster, and heres my prediction:
What happens when we get to the point where this effect caused by the absorbtion rate is occuring so fast that literal physical changes will occur in our environments instantly?
That point is where we realize we are all one
The environment, man, and this energy all become aware of eachother
And mankind will actually believe it, and make it so, as a whole species
And the environment will literally become whatever you think of instantly
Unfortuantely this means a huge decline in population
And large conflicts
Because conflict release quality from mass
The absorbtion rate will get to the point where it literally becomes harmful to all life
Technological advancements will occur faster and faster and faster
Until we reach this point in our belief

[Aedes]

A disease is both an experience and a pathologic process. Philosophical speculation as appears throughout this thread does not at all exclude the actual biological processes that cause tissue injury and symptomatology, or the effect of therapy. Miracle cures in medicine are not miracle cures -- they're simply diseases and patients that we didn't understand. Patients do all kinds of things you can't anticipate.

I spent about 90 minutes talking to a patient yesterday about various aspects of her disease. I wasn't able to intervene in some of her problems, but I helped her understand them and be a more informed participant in her care and medical decisions. She was exceptionally grateful. The big problem in medicine today is that we have great therapies (for many things) but very little time. Patients get extremely dissatisfied when we only give drug therapy but we don't take time to involve them in their own care.

But the issue of how to holistically care for someone who is ill is much different than abstract speculation about disease processes by philosophers, because there IS such a thing as disease. I see it every day.

Originally Posted by Fido

the greatest single killer in my country is cardio-vascular disease of which stress is a large componant and contributing factor.

Stress is not a large component of cardiovascular disease. All else being equal it is a minor contributor.

Cholesterol abnormalities, hypertension, diabetes, smoking, significant family histories, APO-lipoprotein abnormalities, age, and gender are all vastly more important risk factors statistically than stress.

[Fido]

Originally Posted by Aedes

A disease is both an experience and a pathologic process. Philosophical speculation as appears throughout this thread does not at all exclude the actual biological processes that cause tissue injury and symptomatology, or the effect of therapy. Miracle cures in medicine are not miracle cures -- they're simply diseases and patients that we didn't understand. Patients do all kinds of things you can't anticipate.

I spent about 90 minutes talking to a patient yesterday about various aspects of her disease. I wasn't able to intervene in some of her problems, but I helped her understand them and be a more informed participant in her care and medical decisions. She was exceptionally grateful. The big problem in medicine today is that we have great therapies (for many things) but very little time. Patients get extremely dissatisfied when we only give drug therapy but we don't take time to involve them in their own care.

But the issue of how to holistically care for someone who is ill is much different than abstract speculation about disease processes by philosophers, because there IS such a thing as disease. I see it every day.


Stress is not a large component of cardiovascular disease. All else being equal it is a minor contributor.

Cholesterol abnormalities, hypertension, diabetes, smoking, significant family histories, APO-lipoprotein abnormalities, age, and gender are all vastly more important risk factors statistically than stress.

Come now, young lady, are you saying people do not smoke, or eat out of stress, or that they do not suffer hypertension directly from stress? This is not to say that I disagree with you in general. I do. Rather, I look at primitive societies that were in one form or another suffering from stress beyond what we can imagine, usually; and their method in regard to all illness was the social solution, and this involved looking for a psychological cause and remedy. In the example of the Native Americans, all the old men became shamens, and all resorted to trickery, and all welcomed any European medicine, openly admitting that they had no cure for most of what ailed them. Too often, at that point, neither did the Europeans since it was their diseases that were destroying the natives. The thing is, that the social solution works for the social problem, and a physical solution is required by a physical problem. There is some overlap. Stress, and depression do effect the immune system.

And, no one is ever sick alone. I am terrible at being sick. I expect that when it is my time, that I will run off to the woods and curl up and die like the dog I am, if given a chance. But normally there is no denying that a whole family suffers the illness of one. And no doubt, people like yourself must hurt to see other people in pain. But, as you suggest, we are deprived in our society of the very thing each of us needs most, and that is meaningful relationships. So we triage. We let the dead buy the dead without the understanding that they have something precious they want to give us before they die. I trust that you hold many such gifts. Be blessed.

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by Fido

Come now, young lady

My wife would be shocked to learn that I'm a young lady, but hey, we're in the realm of the abstract

are you saying people do not smoke, or eat out of stress, or that they do not suffer hypertension directly from stress?

Some do, some don't. But they also smoke, eat, and suffer hypertension directly because at one point they were born, because as teenagers they picked up cigarettes and never quit, because their kidneys can't dump salt loads, because our society loves supersized meals and values but not quality food, etc. There are many of people with low levels of stress who have diabetes, or who smoke, or who have dyslipidemias. It's not so simple a relationship that one can universalize your statement.

You have to statistically control for all other independent risk factors before stress becomes a contributor at all. In other words, stress alone is a very weak predictor as compared with diabetes or smoking in the absence of stress. Stress has been largely discredited as a major independent risk factor since so many more important ones have been identified. Stress is coming a little bit back en vogue these days, because it correlates with elevated C-reactive protein, which is itself a moderate risk factor for heart disease (though we don't really know how to interpret it very well).

Rather, I look at primitive societies that were in one form or another suffering from stress beyond what we can imagine, usually; and their method in regard to all illness was the social solution, and this involved looking for a psychological cause and remedy.

And look how it's working out for them. I've spent a LOT of time doing medical work in Africa, as well as in the Amazon. And guess what -- the mortality rates from stroke, heart disease, and diabetes are statistically about the same in poor countries as they are in developed countries (though this is regionally variable). Their excess mortality is attributable mainly to infectious and nutritional diseases. In Ghana and in the Amazon I routinely saw patients with blood pressures of 220/120 or 240/160, some of them who walked in dragging a foot behind them because of a fully evolved stroke.

And, no one is ever sick alone. I am terrible at being sick. I expect that when it is my time, that I will run off to the woods and curl up and die like the dog I am, if given a chance. But normally there is no denying that a whole family suffers the illness of one. And no doubt, people like yourself must hurt to see other people in pain. But, as you suggest, we are deprived in our society of the very thing each of us needs most, and that is meaningful relationships. So we triage. We let the dead buy the dead without the understanding that they have something precious they want to give us before they die. I trust that you hold many such gifts. Be blessed.

Yes, illness penetrates every level of someone's life, which is why I just had to fax a work excuse off for a patient I'm taking care of in the ICU. That's more stressful to her than the life-threatening disease she has. Medicine is not a pure science -- it's a domain of life that uses a lot of science, but it's more about communication than anything else.

-Paul

[Fido]

Originally Posted by Aedes

My wife would be shocked to learn that I'm a young lady, but hey, we're in the realm of the abstract


Some do, some don't. But they also smoke, eat, and suffer hypertension directly because at one point they were born, because as teenagers they picked up cigarettes and never quit, because their kidneys can't dump salt loads, because our society loves supersized meals and values but not quality food, etc. There are many of people with low levels of stress who have diabetes, or who smoke, or who have dyslipidemias. It's not so simple a relationship that one can universalize your statement.

You have to statistically control for all other independent risk factors before stress becomes a contributor at all. In other words, stress alone is a very weak predictor as compared with diabetes or smoking in the absence of stress. Stress has been largely discredited as a major independent risk factor since so many more important ones have been identified. Stress is coming a little bit back en vogue these days, because it correlates with elevated C-reactive protein, which is itself a moderate risk factor for heart disease (though we don't really know how to interpret it very well).


And look how it's working out for them. I've spent a LOT of time doing medical work in Africa, as well as in the Amazon. And guess what -- the mortality rates from stroke, heart disease, and diabetes are statistically about the same in poor countries as they are in developed countries (though this is regionally variable). Their excess mortality is attributable mainly to infectious and nutritional diseases. In Ghana and in the Amazon I routinely saw patients with blood pressures of 220/120 or 240/160, some of them who walked in dragging a foot behind them because of a fully evolved stroke.


Yes, illness penetrates every level of someone's life, which is why I just had to fax a work excuse off for a patient I'm taking care of in the ICU. That's more stressful to her than the life-threatening disease she has. Medicine is not a pure science -- it's a domain of life that uses a lot of science, but it's more about communication than anything else.

-Paul

Sorry. I never learned how to turn a pup belly up. You sound like you can care about people. Rare trait in a man, not so rare in women. Guess that's why I got one for a brain.

Look, I am not prepared to dispute any of the hard core science or medicine with you. I dreamed of being a surgeon once, but I kept falling out of my patients. I knew more about medicine at twenty than I do at fifty. To me it is all a moral issue. Even the stress part. I can't give that much meaning to it because usually people who have it do not make an issue of it. Some people love it. Some people look for it. That ain't my problem. And they like myself will pay for their lives with their lives. It does seem unfair that the poor die at a greater rate and wait longer for treatment. I think our medical institutions and infrastucture are a mess. I think a lot of illnesses are treated which should not be, like diabetes, which does have a genetic componant. Disease is like poverty in that it directly threatens a life, and very often the response is to have more children and not less. This was true as a statistic 35 years ago in regard to diabetes, but, if the society is not willing to address across the board all the unhappiness and unfulfilled wishes that drive people to eat too much and drink too much and risk too much for nothing then it must count on paying for mounting health care forever.

If ever a society had a screw loose it is this one. They took some guy out of the side of his house a couple of months back with a long boom fork truck on a big pallet, and then they drove him to the hospital on the fork truck. What is it about children? Are their parents afraid to kick them out the door? Are they miserable? Are they stressed? Depressed? My guess is that many of them are picking up on the absolute fear of the future all the adults are afraid to admit to feeling. I can't say what is happening in the third world, but around here things quit getting better a long time ago.

[hamletswords]

Rado, this theory has the advantage and disadvantage of not being disprovable or provable, respectively.

House would not approve. Then again, House self-administered LSD for a migrane in one episode (you'll have to forgive me, I spent the last week watching all 4.5 seasons- great show, by the way). He did it based on a medically based theory of how it would interact with his spinal chord, though, not just "because".

The brain is a tricky thing. I have no doubt in my mind that with the perfect amount of self-thought control, anyone with any condition can "feel" fine. Despite how one feels on drugs or under the influence of thought control (self-administered or otherwise), how you "feel" is not necessarily a reliable measure of how healthy your body actually is.

Anecdote: a few years ago, I broke my left leg right at my knee. At 26, I was diagnosed with extreme arthritis, and it hurt terribly to walk anywhere and movement was limited. I tried all the pain meds and physical therapies, to no avail.

Then I saw a pain management specialist at the hospital. This guy used to be a psychologist and now spent his time working with chronic pain victims, with a twist- he never used drugs. He worked with how they thought. He "prescribed" me the book "Feeling Good" and after reading the book and a couple sessions with him, the pain was manageable. Today, my leg is doing much better than it should be doing.

It takes some practice, but eventually I learned to focus on other things besides the pain.

I'll describe one of the sessions:

He was telling me how he tries to live in the moment, and one of the ways he tries to do this by trying to enjoy colors. He tries to see each color as if he were seeing it for the first time, and experience that sensation fully.

He then said, "Like, that chair next to you. That shade of blue. I really like that shade of blue." He then stared at the chair. I waited for him to stop, but he didn't. I looked at the chair. It was kind of a cool shade of blue. I looked back at the guy- he was still staring at it. I looked back at the chair. Yes, definately a cool shade of blue. I looked at it for a little and then back at him. He blinked, and then changed the subject.

It was very unorthodox, and he had told me earlier had OCD and was probably on amps, but what he did really helped. He showed me that I have the choice to just shut everything out and focus on what I want to for as long as I want to.

It's all about choice. It's harder to exercise choice if you're sick, but it is possible. That doesn't mean you won't be sick. It just won't really matter as much to you that you're sick.