WHAT DO I TAKE TO RECOVER?

[cjbrooksjc]

All: I recently went through a series of posts that, while well intentioned, made me a bit uncomfortable. It seems to me we all have a great responsibility to provide the most reliable, least injurious, frightening, and discomfiting information about how anyone might approach recovery using supplements. We, most of us, know what primary supplements to take and can recommend them freely to new forum members without prejudice, but I think we need to offer cautions where we have, through personal experience, discovered down-side risk. I would be willing to compile a general recipe and append a list of 'additional' recommendations as well: dosage for beginners and suggestions for dosage escalation; sensible approaches to dosage 'ramp-up' and checkpoints triggered by warning signals such as GERD, rapid heart beat, lowered BP, headache, gastrointestinal problems, etc.; and a list of 'boutique' supplements such as Astaxanthan, Vinpocetine, DHEA, Pycnoginol, Milk Thistle, D-Ribose, Glyconutrients, etc. and what do they do. What is needed is DATA! I would be happy to act as a repository, compile the information, and work with the rest of the forum members to build such a deliverable. What I would need is:

1. What supplements are you taking and how have they helped
2. What discomfort have you experienced due to any supplement
3. how did you resolve the problem
4. what known risks have you discovered and how would one recognize them

I'm sure there are other issues to consider; I am open to suggestion, and I am hopeful that together we can offer something truly and immediately useful to anyone joining our unfortunate community. I also feel we should take this out of the Forum proper and use email. Any thoughts? Remember, just a 'core dump' of your experiences with supplements is all I need; you do not have to be 'tidy' about it. My Email addr. is included in my profile. I also know that most , if not all this information is included in the hundreds of posts on the forum site, but I find the data mining effort daunting and am not prepared to do that. Let me know what you think.

Best,

Brooks

[cjbrooksjc]

All: OK, I'm a bit startled that no one is interested in doing this. All I want is personal history re: your supplement regimen, time line, results, and uncomfortable side effects - anything you feel people finding themselves in this condition should know. I promise to dump everything once I put something useful together. I won't use your name or keep the email on file...PROMISE! And I won't press the issue; I'll do this on my own if necessary. I thought the forum members would like to contribute. Please don't misunderstand, friends - I'm not upset, only surprised. This seems to me such a logical enterprise Please think about it, will you?

Best,

Brooks

[xrn]

Hi Brooks.

I hate to be the messenger with bad news (please don't shoot!) This is a great idea. I like the idea of the accumulated knowledge and experiences of the group, providing the best solutions for all newcomers.

I wonder if there would be legal implications (sadly all too frequent these days) to providing (a fixed set of) information that could potentially be construed as offering medical advice, by any lawyer looking to make a name for him/herself... and some very quick bucks.

The real usefulness of providing ad-hoc information, to those who want to know more, is that one could never be seen to be setting oneself up in medical practice (as it were). That sort of conduct could well be viewed as an attempt to change a doctor's treatment... for a patient who would be officially under the medic's own jurisdiction (where there is a legal duty of care to treat the patient in a certain manner)

I too have seen posts that are giving information that could be unhelpful to the seekers and could even possibly damage them. All you can do when you see that situation is to put the other point of view (assuming there is one) and try to let the people who are seeking help come to their own decisions.

I am not sure about the state of play in the USA but in the UK, if any lay person assumes the role of a medic (albeit unintentionally) then for the purposes of any subsequent legal issue that arises, the non-medic will be judged by the standards that would have been applied to a fully qualified medical practitioner.

sometimes the information given on this spacedoc forum is very specific right down to the preparation to be taken and the dosage and the regime. It could well be argued that this encroaches on the work of a clinician and I have usually left things stand, even where I have known better, because I too, have no wish to be embroiled in a legal argument about my competence to discuss the issues of statinisation, cessation of treatment and recovery treatment. I assume that adults are capable of making decisions for themselves.

It may seem a harsh call but my feeling is that where there is confusion, if I can turn the debate towards issues that will illuminate the confusion and help the questioner move towards a more helpful type of lifestyle, then I will choose that method in preference to trying to cover all cases with a single universal recipe book full of hints. In this way I am free to say, I am not a medic and I can correct any potentially hazardous approaches that may be erroneously suggested by others.

I have re-read this post, Brooks, and there does not seem to be much meat on it. I think it would be adding a huge insult to an already foul and pre-existing injury, if a valuable resource such as yourself were to be prevented from posting because someone thought you were acting in the stead of a doctor. Good intentions are rarely enough in law. In my experience one never gets justice, one only gets the law.

I would think that the collective experiences of the group may well make an informative book that could be put out for a modest cost and the funds used to fund web-sites such as spacedoc. I would be delighted to help and type up any manuscripts.

kind regards,
xrn

[cjbrooksjc]

A book works for me, as long as it doesn't contend with Dr Graveline's work. I was hoping to provide something immediate for newcomers and described clearly as lay and totally anecdotal. I would still like to have the information. If you could see what's on the TV (tele) here promoted as medical breakthroughs, you would think the entire legal profession was on extended vacation or laughing too hard to create a brief; still, I take your point! The law protects the most those who can pay the most. But, there must be a way to distill this info and get it out there.

As always, I am grateful for your council... As to the 'supplement guide'... I'm still thinking about it.

Fond Regards,

John