From a recent message to my friend:
Agreed. It's not for everybody.
ER Visit this last time was nearly $5,000, insurance picking up all but two hundred dollars.
But it didn't work FOR ME because as soon as they heard "asthma" they stopped looking for anything else, ignored the symptoms I described that did not fit with an asthma exacerbation diagnosis. I did not recover until I spent a mere $75 with Doc Williams, an indie MD working out of his travel trailer.* And I'm still seeing him without further charge.
When I first blew out my shoulder all those years ago, I was under full asthma regimen, following all prescribed treatments, and when my insurance stopped (business closed, jobs gone), I was paying several hundred dollars monthly out of my own pocket.
Any recovery from that episode was out of pocket too, so I chose to research other sources. A kindly Korean Doctor at the local clinic put me on the usual regimen of pain pills, muscle relaxers and something else I don't recall at the moment, which left me awake for 90 minutes at a time, then asleep for ninety minutes, etc, for months while whatever happened in my shoulder healed itself. As I couldn't hold my spouse and business to that schedule, I ventured online in search of answers in the solitary hours of darkness while others slept.
Current treatment protocols have never, will never, and can never cure asthma caused by a bacteria. Mine came on around 40 years old, not as a child, so it seemed clear to me that something changed. In all my personal search I've found fewer than 5 people who were diagnosed with asthma for the first time after age 40.
Apples and oranges. I never had it as a child.
So my experience with the ER: $5,000 with $200 out of pocket for something that didn't work (not to mention being scolded like a child and kicked back out into the waiting room)
Versus:
A $75 trip to Doc Williams who did ER work for 30+ years, who has his own experience with asthma, treated like a chronological adult, and producing result that are visible and noticeable to everyone who has ever known me.
That's less, including the generic drugs, than my current insurance payment which I am bound by decree to pay. I just consider it a tax I must pay. I suppose that monthly bill covers the exorbitant cost charged by the ER (for largely useless rescue remedies).
You're right, that route (AsthmaStory.com) is NOT for everyone. It's only for those whose asthma is based on this bacteria. Like mine.
My little story is only for those looking for answers to their chronic conditions. Like my friend Deb whose 20+ year affliction with fibromyalgia, unresponsive to various treatments prescribed and covered by conventional medicine, was miraculously reversed by 2 visits to a local chiropractor. Everyone who knows her should be amazed, and many are, including her own family. Will they try what worked for her? Pay $140 versus 20 years of pain and unemployability?
No. When I wondered aloud to her why people don't beat a path to her door - to the good Doctor's door - she responded quite simply, "They've given up Hope."
I find that to be sad but true.
And it was her voice that brought me back from the edge that awful night in April, that little Deb voice that told me "don't give up Hope." But for her inspiration, you might be reading this on one of my blogs. Or not.
Meanwhile, I'm paying $200 (and my insurance $4,800) for conventional treatment that didn't work, and was treated much worse than any free clinic I ever visited in my travels across the country.
* Dr Ronald Williams, Shoestring Valley Medical Care, link here.
Agreed. It's not for everybody.
ER Visit this last time was nearly $5,000, insurance picking up all but two hundred dollars.
But it didn't work FOR ME because as soon as they heard "asthma" they stopped looking for anything else, ignored the symptoms I described that did not fit with an asthma exacerbation diagnosis. I did not recover until I spent a mere $75 with Doc Williams, an indie MD working out of his travel trailer.* And I'm still seeing him without further charge.
When I first blew out my shoulder all those years ago, I was under full asthma regimen, following all prescribed treatments, and when my insurance stopped (business closed, jobs gone), I was paying several hundred dollars monthly out of my own pocket.
Any recovery from that episode was out of pocket too, so I chose to research other sources. A kindly Korean Doctor at the local clinic put me on the usual regimen of pain pills, muscle relaxers and something else I don't recall at the moment, which left me awake for 90 minutes at a time, then asleep for ninety minutes, etc, for months while whatever happened in my shoulder healed itself. As I couldn't hold my spouse and business to that schedule, I ventured online in search of answers in the solitary hours of darkness while others slept.
Current treatment protocols have never, will never, and can never cure asthma caused by a bacteria. Mine came on around 40 years old, not as a child, so it seemed clear to me that something changed. In all my personal search I've found fewer than 5 people who were diagnosed with asthma for the first time after age 40.
Apples and oranges. I never had it as a child.
So my experience with the ER: $5,000 with $200 out of pocket for something that didn't work (not to mention being scolded like a child and kicked back out into the waiting room)
Versus:
A $75 trip to Doc Williams who did ER work for 30+ years, who has his own experience with asthma, treated like a chronological adult, and producing result that are visible and noticeable to everyone who has ever known me.
That's less, including the generic drugs, than my current insurance payment which I am bound by decree to pay. I just consider it a tax I must pay. I suppose that monthly bill covers the exorbitant cost charged by the ER (for largely useless rescue remedies).
You're right, that route (AsthmaStory.com) is NOT for everyone. It's only for those whose asthma is based on this bacteria. Like mine.
My little story is only for those looking for answers to their chronic conditions. Like my friend Deb whose 20+ year affliction with fibromyalgia, unresponsive to various treatments prescribed and covered by conventional medicine, was miraculously reversed by 2 visits to a local chiropractor. Everyone who knows her should be amazed, and many are, including her own family. Will they try what worked for her? Pay $140 versus 20 years of pain and unemployability?
No. When I wondered aloud to her why people don't beat a path to her door - to the good Doctor's door - she responded quite simply, "They've given up Hope."
I find that to be sad but true.
And it was her voice that brought me back from the edge that awful night in April, that little Deb voice that told me "don't give up Hope." But for her inspiration, you might be reading this on one of my blogs. Or not.
Meanwhile, I'm paying $200 (and my insurance $4,800) for conventional treatment that didn't work, and was treated much worse than any free clinic I ever visited in my travels across the country.
* Dr Ronald Williams, Shoestring Valley Medical Care, link here.