The Right is making a determined effort to repeal health care reform passed in 2009. The Right has also had as an ideal (if not quite a goal) the elimination of a wide range of entitlements currently provided by the government. Being aware of the latter, my own financial plan, developed during my early twenties called for planning for no Social Security and no pension when I reach retirement age, but still being able to retire anyways. I did not plan for the possibility that it would not be possible to remain employed at the sort of job for which I had trained, and that has thrown a kink into the plan. But as of this writing I am 52 and still have my job. My best forecasts indicate that I will continue to have this job (although I may have to take as much as a 20% pay cut to keep it). Right now there is no evidence that anything will happen to my job and nothing has happened so far through two mergers and two additional rounds of job cuts.

Assuming the worst-case 20% pay cut as soon as one year from now, my very conservative forecast still holds that I will be able to maintain my lifestyle indefinitely without any reliance on SS or pension (although both of these are, at present, still extant) as long as I can work until at least five more years. It now seems that the basic plan from three decades ago has worked and I have no concern about meeting normal living expenses even if the Right were to get everything they want.

I did not even consider health care back in my 20's and so I have no master plan. My "plan" so to speak was to rely on my our families death patterns in which people simply drop dead in her family and so do not consume much in the way of health care resources. In my family we flicker out in a nursing home and so I need resources to pay for that, and this was part of the financial plan.

Well things have changed. My dad died abruptly of a stroke at the relatively young age of 75. I felt he was robbed of 6 good years, and I want to have those years. My wife experienced her drop dead moment last year, but rather than drop dead, survived unscathed. Both of he parents suffered heart attacks at early age (dad 55, mom 65). Neither lived to see his/her next birthday. My wife has her killer heart attack at age 55, but rather than stay home and die, as most women would do with the lack of symptoms she experienced, she was of heightened concern about heart attack because this was age at which her Dad died abruptly of heart disease. So she took an aspirin and we went to the emergence room, they did a quick EKG, saw that it was a heart attach and up to the cath lab she went. 45 minutes later I was reviewing the video with the cardiologist as it showed the stents snaking their way into her right coronary artery. The attack was halted right then and there and her ejection fraction remained at a very good 65% afterward, and there has been no evidence of any rythym issue. In other words the damage was very minimal, she got lucky.

She later had more stents put in. Total price for this intervention would be about 100K without insurance, which I could afford, but did not have to pay because we have good insurance that covered all but ~4k, which is chump change. Worst case, of course would be paying all of it out of pocket.

Although this intervention is still affordable, at present medical inflation rates, the same procedures will cost millions during my expected lifetime, which is not something I will be able to afford. So the conservative, worst case assumption about health care would be to assume that medical procedures will simply either be unaffordable to those not very wealthy, or simply not cost effective. In either case it would be wise not to count in these things. But that is exactly what we did last year.

So we need a new plan. And having the wake up call last year gave us the emotional resouces to implement the plan. The plan is to seriously reduce our risk of heart attack/stroke, and so simply avoid the need for expensive medical intervention (then if the worst case materializes it won't be a problem). If my wife doesn't have another heart attack, then she is likely to follow the death pattern of her relatives that don't get heart attacks. They either get cancer and die or they suffer a short period of decline and then die peacefully in their late 80's or early 90's. Seems good to me.

For me, if I avoid heart disease/stroke I am likely to either get senile and end up in a nursing home, or live to my late 80's or early 90's and have the same sort of outcome as my wife.

To avoid heart attack here is what I have done. A year ago I weighed 237 lbs (BMI 33), had 170 cholesterol, 40 HDL, and BP 138/82 with three BP meds + low dose statin. Earlier this month I went to the doc: 173 lbs (BMI 24), 130 cholesterol, 85 HDL and BP 120/64. I plugged these values into a online heart disease risk caluculator and found my risk a year ago was 7% and today it is 2%. So that is done.

My wife has lost over 100 lbs and is still going strong. Her HDL has fallen, despite the weight loss and massive increase in excercise (4 days a week at the gym, ~11000 steps a day average). Her beta blocker med may be responsible. She doesn't need it, her BP got down to 90's/40's and she was often feeling faint. Her doctor just took her off and she will be getting another assay soon. So we will see. Hopefully she can achieve a substantial risk reduction as I have. There are still meds to try and so forth.

So that is what I am doing about the health care issue. Anyone else taking action?

Wow, Mike. I'm very glad your wife is okay. And bravo to both of you for the proactive steps you've taken.

You mentioned that your wife is exercising regularly. I assume you have been doing the same in order to see the weight loss that you did. Also, which kind of diet have you been following?

Mike, congrats on the weight loss for both you and especially your wife.

Congratulations! I am taking advantage of the spring weather and construction in my neighborhood to do my neighborhood errands on foot except where hauling heavy loads is involved, and have been in Weight Watchers forever. (And need to do a whole lot more!)

Getting in shape is the best 4T prep around, isn't it? Keep up the good work.

I wonder if a lot of the interest in Alternative "Medicine" is simply because the cost of healthcare is simply too expensive. Are we reaching a point that healthcare has gotten so expensive for most people that desperate people are coming to rely on magic potions and Reiki instead?

Sorry to hear of all of the health related problems. It has been a while since I've read postings from you and I was beginning to wonder if anything was up. It's good to hear that things aren't quite as stark as they had been.

As for what I am doing about personal health issues and the reality that as a 1961 cohort I'm only two years behind you, I'm continuing to do a lot of the things that I've posted about occasionally before. Namely, I walk two or more miles everyday, work in my garden and stick to a diet that I've found to be healthful since, well since my teen years during the awakening 70's.
In terms of meat, I eat fish several times a week and I don't eat pork and haven't since the seventies. A lot of the other stuff is pretty basic. I try to make sure that I eat green vegitables and red fruits everyday. And I now allow myself some dark chocolate as it does seem to be healthful when consumed in moderation. And considering my netname, I do drink herbal tea everyday. :
The results? I still weigh in the 225 to 230 pound range as I have since college. Considering that I am 6 foot 4 inches tall, that's about right. My cholesterol has always read just a bit on the high side, so as of a couple of years ago my doctor recommended that I start taking three fish oil capsules a day.

In terms of how this relates to my family history, well so far so good. I say that because no male in my family has ever reached the age of 75. A lot of that may have been caused by the lifestyle that was common to my father and my uncles. Specifically, they smoked like fright trains, drank like fishes and literally ate the fat off of the land. Most of my male cousins have made better choices in lifestyle as I have but I am watching my older male cousins closely. My oldest male cousin just turned 60 this year and so far he is still healthy. His weight is in a good range for his size and he is physically active. One thing that does need to change in his case is the fact that he is a smoker, though not a heavy one. Nevertheless, as long as he stays healthy and none of us younger cousins start falling apart I will remain hopeful that my family's dreadful statistical history for male lifespan will prove to be mostly a matter of less healthy lifestyle by the older generations rather than being something that is genetically preordained. Thus, I am trying to be a good steward of my money for the reality is that as I age the health care safety net may well remain in decline as you've noted.

Stay healthy Mike.

Originally Posted by Odin

I wonder if a lot of the interest in Alternative "Medicine" is simply because the cost of healthcare is simply too expensive. Are we reaching a point that healthcare has gotten so expensive for most people that desperate people are coming to rely on magic potions and Reiki instead?

Maybe not magic potions. But folk remedies? You betcha!

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Maybe not magic potions. But folk remedies? You betcha!

I actually have no problem with herbal folk remedies as long as somebody knows what he/she is doing. It's the Homeopathic snake oil I'm making fun of by calling "magic potions".

Originally Posted by Odin

I actually have no problem with herbal folk remedies as long as somebody knows what he/she is doing. It's the Homeopathic snake oil I'm making fun of by calling "magic potions".

Not just herbals. Chicken soup with garlic for a cold. Vicks on the chest for congestion. Incantations for warts - those are said to really work, too. Chamomile tea to calm your nerves. Catnip --

OK - (looks around) - any DEA cats around here? -

Catnip to attract every feline stoner in the neighborhood.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Wow, Mike. I'm very glad your wife is okay. And bravo to both of you for the proactive steps you've taken.

You mentioned that your wife is exercising regularly. I assume you have been doing the same in order to see the weight loss that you did. Also, which kind of diet have you been following?

Yes both of us exercise. I go to the gym 4-5 times a week, lift weights 35-45 minutes per session and do about 14-17 miles a week on the treadmill. There is a health-encouraging program at work and we get free pedometers and have waling competitions. I wear my pedometer every day, including at the gym and get about 30-35K steps on the treadmill a week. In addition I walk about 90K steps a week outside of the gym. There is a converter that lets you substitute other exercises for more steps and I use this to add another 40K steps to my weekly total. I am pleased to announce that I am leading our team and we are in 3rd place at the Kalamazoo site (about 40 teams in total). I am on track to achieve 2 million steps by the end of the 12 week competition.

Our diet is our own creation. We like to eat and portion control simply was not going to work, so I dropped that right at the start. We re-engineered our dinner plates and our foods to obtain a lower calorie intake without having to eat any less that before. Back when I was fat a typical dinner plate was a large entree which ocuppied about half the plate, a starchy side like potato, pasta, rice etc and 1-2 vegetables. We replaced the starchy side with another vegetable, and cut the entree in half, substituted a large salad, in a serving bowl (not a salad bowl) on the side.

Back when I was fat I would often have seconds. Seconds of the entree were not allowed, I would dish out one serving for my wife and one for me and then into the fridge it went. The vegetables stayed out and if we wanted seconds we could have more of them.We have a lot of leftovers with this system, and this saves time. It also gives us a lot of choices in a typical evening so its like eating at a buffet most nights. Sometimes we have a choice of five vegetables and eat like trenchermen, yet lose weight.

The second big thing we did was re-engineer our entrees, to reduce their caloric density so we could "buy" bigger portions with out limited caloric budget that we could "spend" on our meals. My wife, who is a big-time bargain shopper now honed her skills finding caloric "bargains". Over time my salad dressing has evolved down 0 calories and 250 mg sodium. I add Baco's to my salad and have it every night. I love cranberry and fruit sauce and started making my own from fresh cranberries or frozen sour cherries to which I add Splenda, apples and cinnamon for a treat that "costs" only 80 calories for a whole cup.

We developed pasta substitutes for spaghetti sauce. First we tried these Japanese noodles that look like spaghetti and taste pretty much like it too, but they are quite expensive. Next we tried spaghetti squash, this looks like spaghetti and is very mild so it takes the flavor of the sauce. But it tends to mush, particularly on storage and so it doesn't have the same "mouth-feel". Now we are using broccoli slaw which you can buy for buck and simply nuke in the bag for 5 minutes, and dump in a bowl. We love it. You need strongly flavored sauce to do this and since we are trying to avoid salt, we use Walmart-brand salt-free tomato sauce as a base, which costs like 25 cents an 8 oz can. To get flavor into this sauce you have to use a lot of Italian seasonings (have top experiment here) and cooking it in a crock pot for at least 4 hours.

I've tried my hand at what my wife calls "not fried" fried chicken by dipping boneless chicken breast tenders in Egg Beaters and coating them with corn flakes spiced with Italian seasoning and pepper. It's not quite there.

It's a work in progress.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Sorry to hear of all of the health related problems. It has been a while since I've read postings from you and I was beginning to wonder if anything was up. It's good to hear that things aren't quite as stark as they had been.

Thank you

As for what I am doing about personal health issues and the reality that as a 1961 cohort I'm only two years behind you, I'm continuing to do a lot of the things that I've posted about occasionally before. Namely, I walk two or more miles everyday, work in my garden and stick to a diet that I've found to be healthful since, well since my teen years during the awakening 70's.

Excellent.

I try to make sure that I eat green vegetables and red fruits everyday. And I now allow myself some dark chocolate as it does seem to be healthful when consumed in moderation. And considering my netname, I do drink herbal tea everyday. :

When we got serious about our health we read a lot about it (and still do). One of the things we learned about was phytochemicals and "eating the rainbow". We started to go to the local Farmer's market (Kalamazoo has an excellent one and it's only a mile away from our house). I saw all sorts of colored vegetables. Bell peppers (which I had always thought of a "green peppers") came in all sorts of colors, bright yellow, orange, red, purple and brown. And purple cauliflower. So I started making salads with lots of colors, which, for me, really increases the appeal of the dish. So we have "rainbow salad" every night. I typically put a bag of commercial salad mix containing say romaine, red cabbage & carrots, with a an equal volume of raw spinach, with an orange and yellow bell pepper, a whole cuke, one large (or two medium) red onion, and a carton of grape tomatoes into a punch bowl and store the leftovers. This "base salad" lasts us 2-3 days. I add radishes, Bacos and 0 cal Italian dressing to mine and my wife puts fat-free feta and low-cal three cheese ranch on hers.

The results? I still weigh in the 225 to 230 pound range as I have since college. Considering that I am 6 foot 4 inches tall, that's about right. My cholesterol has always read just a bit on the high side, so as of a couple of years ago my doctor recommended that I start taking three fish oil capsules a day.

My understanding is that fish oil mostly lowers triglycerides with only a modest effect on LDL. Statins are the med of choice for lowering LDL.

In terms of how this relates to my family history, well so far so good. I say that because no male in my family has ever reached the age of 75. A lot of that may have been caused by the lifestyle that was common to my father and my uncles. Specifically, they smoked like fright trains, drank like fishes and literally ate the fat off of the land.

What did they die of? If it is heart disease, there is no need to watch and wait. You can get your risk assessed right now using the VAP cholesterol test. I just had one done and the doc said it was fine, but I got no numerical results. So I am going to have to call the doc and see if they can send the actual results.

I will remain hopeful that my family's dreadful statistical history for male lifespan will prove to be mostly a matter of less healthy lifestyle by the older generations rather than being something that is genetically preordained.

That is the problem. If you do have a genetic predisposition, healthy lifestyle isn't enough. That's why its a good idea to evaluate your risk so that if you do have the family curse, you can do something about it before you've already had a heart attack. At my wife's cardiac rehab class, she was the only fat woman there. Most of the patients were not fat and most had cholesterol that wasn't all that high when they had their heart attacks.

Later she learned that fat people or people with high cholesterol do have heart attacks, but they are less likely to survive or be in good enough shape to go to rehab.

One thing most of them did have was type 2 diabetes and family history. My wife has bad family history and she was borderline diabetic when she had the attack, but now has her sugar under control.

If you do have a genetic predisposition, healthy lifestyle isn't enough.

My BMI is 23, blood pressure 125/70. I have super low cholesterol which I inherited from my dad. When I was in my 20s, it was less than 100. Now it is around 120. That is not a misprint. Its just the way my liver functions and has nothing to do with what I eat. I exercise 4-5 times per week.

Yet, I have an internal cardioverter defibrillator or ICD. This is not a pace maker but is a device designed to shock someone who goes into cardiac arrest. I have no risk factors for heart disease - no family history and no life style factors. Six years ago, one Saturday after I had a fever for several days, I got up, had cereal and coffee and sat down to answer email. I had been sick and took a 12 hour alevert-D with Sudafed. About an hour later, my heart went into ventricular fibrillation. Not a heart attack. No infarcation, no blockage, but cardiac arrest. The survival rate for vfib outside the hospital is about 3%. I should not be here, but for some reason my heart spontaneously reset to a normal rhythm when my wife moved my unconscious body. It was related to the 12 hour Sudafed (don't ever take Sudafed!) as the whole experience lasted 12 hours. I was taken to the ER. They lost count of the number of times I was shocked, but it was well over 100. I had second degree burns where the paddles were. If you look up the side affect profile for Sudafed, you will see that the incidence of heart arrhythmias is over 10%. Not usually deadly, but apparently my immune system had gone after my heart nerve system and when the sudafed hit, it could no longer function. During the crisis, I was catheterized to look at my coronary arteries. As the doc said later - "you have the heart of a 20 year old. The only problem was that it was stopping every two minutes."

Incidentally, when you go into vfib, you have about 3-4 minutes before permanent brain damage. What happened to me is also what I hear happened to Terry Schiavo except they got to her after about 6 minutes.

I did everything right, but ended up with a $140K bill for two weeks in the hospital. My out of pocket cost was zero as it was covered under an HMO plan. The ICD had to be replaced when the battery ran out after 5 years. That cost about $40K. I thought it was a complete waste of time and money until I had a fever for the first time in six years. On the fifth day of the fever just like six years before, I went into vfib and was shocked again, but this time only once. No sudafed. The ICD is now my new best friend.

Since then, I have gone gluten free as celiac and type 1 diabetes are common in my family. I am trying to keep my immune system, which apparently keeps on high alert, somewhat subdued.

Its hard to know how to talk about all of this. In the end, I think most people's health has a lot to do with their disposition. I know obesity is bad, smoking is bad, but once you get beyond those things, I am not sure how to quantify the risk.

I really hope we go to single payer someday in the future. I am sick of dealing with it at the company. We had a guy who got a liver transplant this year. His cost to date is $275K. We also had an employee’s husband fall on the ice we had in January just walking down the street in Atlanta. He broke his leg to the tune of $60K and counting. Our current health insurance policy renews in June. We have been told to expect a 50% (!!) increase in our premiums. I don’t know what we are going to do about that. There has to be a better way.


James50

Originally Posted by The Rani

Try flax seeds.
You can buy them whole, throw them in a blender, and sprinkle over cereal. Delicious and nutritious!

P.S. If anyone wants any yummy ideas for vegan (cholesterol-free) food, lemme know.

Flax is another source of omega-3's, but fatty fish like salmon have even more. The omega-3's actually come from algae, which the fish eat.

My point was omega-3's have a big effect on triglycerides, at least they did for me, I got a big reduction simply from taking 2 grams daily of a DHA + EPA ethyl ester mix:

Triglercides: 230 (stn dev 24) to 110.
LDL: ~76 to ~70 (both stn dev 7).

I saw the big effect on LDL when I started taking a low dose statin some years ago:

LDL: ~170 to ~76

Also got a big effect on everything by losing the weight and exercising:

LDL went from ~76 to ~45
Triglycerides went from 110 to ~40 (and I reduced O-3 to only 1 g/day)
HDL went from ~40 to 85

There's really nothing more to be done with the lipids, I am now working on BP.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Try flax seeds.
You can buy them whole, throw them in a blender, and sprinkle over cereal. Delicious and nutritious!

P.S. If anyone wants any yummy ideas for vegan (cholesterol-free) food, lemme know.

Do you recommend a brand of flaxseed? I live in Chicago, so can get a hold of what you recommend. Unfortunately, I am unable to take fish oil as I have a slight allergy to fish and fish oil wreaks havoc on my digestive tract.

Originally Posted by James50

My BMI is 23, blood pressure 125/70. I have super low cholesterol which I inherited from my dad. When I was in my 20s, it was less than 100. Now it is around 120. That is not a misprint. Its just the way my liver functions and has nothing to do with what I eat. I exercise 4-5 times per week.

Yet, I have an internal cardioverter defibrillator or ICD. This is not a pace maker but is a device designed to shock someone who goes into cardiac arrest. I have no risk factors for heart disease - no family history and no life style factors. Six years ago, one Saturday after I had a fever for several days, I got up, had cereal and coffee and sat down to answer email. I had been sick and took a 12 hour alevert-D with Sudafed. About an hour later, my heart went into ventricular fibrillation. Not a heart attack. No infarcation, no blockage, but cardiac arrest. The survival rate for vfib outside the hospital is about 3%. I should not be here, but for some reason my heart spontaneously reset to a normal rhythm when my wife moved my unconscious body. It was related to the 12 hour Sudafed (don't ever take Sudafed!) as the whole experience lasted 12 hours. I was taken to the ER. They lost count of the number of times I was shocked, but it was well over 100. I had second degree burns where the paddles were. If you look up the side affect profile for Sudafed, you will see that the incidence of heart arrhythmias is over 10%. Not usually deadly, but apparently my immune system had gone after my heart nerve system and when the sudafed hit, it could no longer function. During the crisis, I was catheterized to look at my coronary arteries. As the doc said later - "you have the heart of a 20 year old. The only problem was that it was stopping every two minutes."

Incidentally, when you go into vfib, you have about 3-4 minutes before permanent brain damage. What happened to me is also what I hear happened to Terry Schiavo except they got to her after about 6 minutes.

I did everything right, but ended up with a $140K bill for two weeks in the hospital. My out of pocket cost was zero as it was covered under an HMO plan. The ICD had to be replaced when the battery ran out after 5 years. That cost about $40K. I thought it was a complete waste of time and money until I had a fever for the first time in six years. On the fifth day of the fever just like six years before, I went into vfib and was shocked again, but this time only once. No sudafed. The ICD is now my new best friend.

Since then, I have gone gluten free as celiac and type 1 diabetes are common in my family. I am trying to keep my immune system, which apparently keeps on high alert, somewhat subdued.

Its hard to know how to talk about all of this. In the end, I think most people's health has a lot to do with their disposition. I know obesity is bad, smoking is bad, but once you get beyond those things, I am not sure how to quantify the risk.

I really hope we go to single payer someday in the future. I am sick of dealing with it at the company. We had a guy who got a liver transplant this year. His cost to date is $275K. We also had an employee’s husband fall on the ice we had in January just walking down the street in Atlanta. He broke his leg to the tune of $60K and counting. Our current health insurance policy renews in June. We have been told to expect a 50% (!!) increase in our premiums. I don’t know what we are going to do about that. There has to be a better way.


James50

I have often wondered why, if the US wants to be competitive with other countries, we have so many people against some form of single payer. It just seems counter-intuitive. Not only would it help businesses such as yours, but it would also create more worker mobility. Many people stay at jobs they loathe for fear of losing health benefits.

I have very high "good" cholesterol and I don't work at it much--except I do eat a lot of olive oil and am not particularly fond of sweets and junk food. My blood pressure is low (100/70). I inherited my mother's cholesterol and my father's blood pressure. I put on some weight in middle age, which is not uncommon for the women in my family. That's hard, because I was quite thin until my early 40s.

Sadly I smoked for many years but quit at age 40 after watching my very athletic father die of emphysema. His death was strictly smoking-related. He would have lived many more years, given his otherwise very healthy lifestyle. Lung ailments run in the family. I was asthmatic as a child, nearly died from viral pneumonia combined with asthma and yet became a smoker. I suspect there's some psychological reason for that.

My brother-in-law had to have bypass surgery at age 53. His father had his first heart attack at the same age. My sister died of colon cancer at age 44 and yet there had been no history of colon cancer in the family.

However, my MD ex, who works in pulmonary and intensive care sees so many obese people who seem to be unable to change their behaviors, which leads to lung problems even if they never smoked. He helps them, but dang if he doesn't get tired of it. We're not talking 20 pounds here, but 50-100+ pounds.

James, you're 7 years older than I am. I don't recall seeing so much obesity when I was young. Do you?

Originally Posted by The Rani

I get the organic Whole Foods stuff, but from what I've read, which brand/type you get doesn't make much difference.
What does make a difference is grinding the whole seeds yourself, vs buying the oil or the meal pre-made, because the nutrients are better preserved that way.
Ground seeds should be refrigerated or frozen, and are supposed to last about a week.

Ah, like coffee--which I don't drink. Makes sense. And what do you grind it in?

I got a $15 coffee grinder and it shreds cinnamon pretty well so I imagine it wouldn't have much problem with seeds. I used some flax seed meal in a gluten-free breaded chicken recipe, and I did notice that the first batch tasted a whole lot fresher than the last one. So next time I'm definitely going to hunt down the whole seeds for storage because it ain't cheap and a little goes a long way.

This thread has been pretty inspirational and since my diet & exercise routine is already pretty good, I decided to stop buying cigarettes. The actual quitting rate for cold turkey is horrific (like 3% of people will then go 12 months without another cigarette) so I'm testing out one of these nicotine vaporizors...

In 24 hours without inhaling smoke, I already feel my sinuses clearing up. But I've still got nicotine running in the blood, so the crazy part of the withdrawal hasn't really started yet - just the first wave of craving for all those horrible smoke-related chemicals & additives.. Anyway, the transition has been pretty easy so far but I'm not really off the stuff yet either.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

I got a $15 coffee grinder and it shreds cinnamon pretty well so I imagine it wouldn't have much problem with seeds. I used some flax seed meal in a gluten-free breaded chicken recipe, and I did notice that the first batch tasted a whole lot fresher than the last one. So next time I'm definitely going to hunt down the whole seeds for storage because it ain't cheap and a little goes a long way.

This thread has been pretty inspirational and since my diet & exercise routine is already pretty good, I decided to stop buying cigarettes. The actual quitting rate for cold turkey is horrific (like 3% of people will then go 12 months without another cigarette) so I'm testing out one of these nicotine vaporizors...

In 24 hours without inhaling smoke, I already feel my sinuses clearing up. But I've still got nicotine running in the blood, so the crazy part of the withdrawal hasn't really started yet - just the first wave of craving for all those horrible smoke-related chemicals & additives.. Anyway, the transition has been pretty easy so far but I'm not really off the stuff yet either.

It takes a lot of practice. The best thing I read about it is that the nicotine withdrawal only lasts a couple of day. And then the psychological part takes over. And that was hard for me. I loved the whole drama of smoking. The lighting, the hand gestures, the pausing. I discovered I used it for multiple reasons--to relax, to quell anger, to take a break, because I felt bad, because I felt good. You name it, I smoked for it. One man I know quit according to task. He'd been a 4-pack a day smoker. He's a writer. I asked if he started by not smoking when he wrote. He laughed and said, no, I started by not having a cigarette when I went across the street to the store to get cigarettes!

Best of luck to you. It's hard but so worth it. And maybe it doesn't have to be that hard.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

This thread has been pretty inspirational and since my diet & exercise routine is already pretty good, I decided to stop buying cigarettes. The actual quitting rate for cold turkey is horrific (like 3% of people will then go 12 months without another cigarette) so I'm testing out one of these nicotine vaporizors...

In 24 hours without inhaling smoke, I already feel my sinuses clearing up. But I've still got nicotine running in the blood, so the crazy part of the withdrawal hasn't really started yet - just the first wave of craving for all those horrible smoke-related chemicals & additives.. Anyway, the transition has been pretty easy so far but I'm not really off the stuff yet either.

Kudos to you!! Quitting smoking is not easy but it can be done. I used to smoke many years ago. I quit at least 5 times before I was successful. Every time you quit, you can discover what your smoking triggers are. Then when you quit for good you can be prepared to resist those triggers.

I quit with the help of The American Lung Association. That was 16 years ago. I was so impressed with the program that I was actually hired by them and taught the cessation programs for years. It is one of the gold standard programs for quitting.

If your not big on group support programs, there are on line cessation programs through the organization.

Much good luck!

Originally Posted by James50

I did everything right, but ended up with a $140K bill for two weeks in the hospital. My out of pocket cost was zero as it was covered under an HMO plan. The ICD had to be replaced when the battery ran out after 5 years. That cost about $40K. I thought it was a complete waste of time and money until I had a fever for the first time in six years. On the fifth day of the fever just like six years before, I went into vfib and was shocked again, but this time only once. No sudafed. The ICD is now my new best friend.

THis ICD seems to be a specific intervention that probably will probably not balloon into millions of dollars during your lifetime and should remain more or less affordable out of pocket.

Its hard to know how to talk about all of this. In the end, I think most people's health has a lot to do with their disposition. I know obesity is bad, smoking is bad, but once you get beyond those things, I am not sure how to quantify the risk.

Some of it runs in families and so you can have some idea. Based on my family history, I would seem to have run of the mill health issues, so the common things are likley to get me and the weird immune-related stuff won't.

With the others its a roll of the dice. If I am lucky or have enough money or lived in Europe then I can live with this issues, otherwise I won't. I cope with my motto: life's a bitch and then you die.

I really hope we go to single payer someday in the future. I am sick of dealing with it at the company. We had a guy who got a liver transplant this year. His cost to date is $275K. We also had an employee’s husband fall on the ice we had in January just walking down the street in Atlanta. He broke his leg to the tune of $60K and counting. Our current health insurance policy renews in June. We have been told to expect a 50% (!!) increase in our premiums. I don’t know what we are going to do about that. There has to be a better way.

Of course there's better ways, other countries do it, even that capitalist bastion Switzerland. But we don't live in those countries, we live in the U.S. where our infrastructure is falling apart, our cell service is crappy, and our byzantine health care system is ridiculously expensive and still uses paper records (which get lost like my wife's did). On the other hand, we do have the best professional killers--so we are like the Swiss (in the 16th cent) after all


James50[/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by annla899

I have often wondered why, if the US wants to be competitive with other countries, we have so many people against some form of single payer. It just seems counter-intuitive. Not only would it help businesses such as yours, but it would also create more worker mobility. Many people stay at jobs they loathe for fear of losing health benefits.

It's not difficult to understand. Opposition to single payer is emotional, not rational. Single payer is equated with "socialist". Socialists are those who want to take your guns. who want to kill babies. who want overrun the coutnry wiht Mexicans. who want America to cut and run instead of stand and fight, and so on. Sooner or larger a linkage will hit an emotional chord with someone and create opposition to the socialist program, whether it be single payer, higher taxes on the rich, addressing oil dependence or whatever.

It works the other way too, at other times policies favored by the Right were linked to "economic royalists" who wanted more unemployment, didn't care if people went hungry, were ill-clothed or ill-housed, and so forth. Slogans like "Every man a king" or "Share the wealth" gained sufficient traction to scare the elite and reform resulted.

Originally Posted by annla899

Do you recommend a brand of flaxseed?

We buy bulk from Winco. That's usually the cheaper way of doing it.

(BTW, flax seeds work decent on a lot of things as a substitute for sprinkling on salt. That's how I tend to use them most often...)

Originally Posted by Mikebert

My wife has lost over 100 lbs and is still going strong. Her HDL has fallen, despite the weight loss and massive increase in excercise (4 days a week at the gym, ~11000 steps a day average). Her beta blocker med may be responsible. She doesn't need it, her BP got down to 90's/40's and she was often feeling faint. Her doctor just took her off and she will be getting another assay soon. So we will see. Hopefully she can achieve a substantial risk reduction as I have. There are still meds to try and so forth.

So that is what I am doing about the health care issue. Anyone else taking action?

Our weight loss story appears in the Huffington Post. My wife's doctor did take her off the beta blocker and the HDL came up. She's is great shape now and looks great!

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Our weight loss story appears in the Huffington Post. My wife's doctor did take her off the beta blocker and the HDL came up. She's is great shape now and looks great!

You do too! Congrats!

Before: After

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Our weight loss story appears in the Huffington Post. My wife's doctor did take her off the beta blocker and the HDL came up. She's is great shape now and looks great!

Holy crap, your wife's before picture looks like a slightly older and heavier version of my mom!!!

Congrats, you two!!!