Free Republic

Actually, acupuncture has a whole host of side effects that can be as bad as, if not worse then, medication. The positive effect you felt was most likely the so-called placebo effect.

I had acupuncture, which did permanent nerve damage—and that was just electro-acupuncture, not even the type that uses needles! I went to several pain clinics to deal with the damage (because I moved often back then), and every single one of them said they were swamped with patients who had been victims of acupuncture gone wrong. These physicians said that, if it were up to them, acupuncture would be outlawed. That’s how much pain and suffering they saw, from people whose acupuncture went horribly wrong. Not just from nerve damage, as I had, but also life-threatening infections.

Even when it’s done right, it has side effects. It causes you to relax initially, but hours later, it has a strong stimulant effect that’s unsafe for heart patients, people who are bipolar, etc.

AcuPRESSURE is one thing; acupuncture is something that should be outlawed. Too many people are getting permanently injured by it, but the media ignores it because it’s an “alternative medicine”, so it doesn’t make for flashy headlines. The human body is not a pincushion. Understand that acupuncture comes from the same country where people believe that being cruel to an animal before killing it improves the flavor, and also believe that killing tigers and consuming various parts of them somehow enhances virility.

I certainly understand the desire for non-drug pain relief; I have bad reactions to many meds. But the best non-medical treatment for pain is biofeedback. It’s totally noninvasive, absolutely no side effects, and gently encourages the release of hormones that are the brain’s natural painkillers.

And, unlike acupuncture, nobody has ever died from biofeedback....

My mom had Charles Bonnet syndrome for 4 months, after her cataracts temporarily blinded her. The cataract surgery cured it, as soon as the bandages were removed.

What happens is that, without visual stimuli, the brain begins creating its own visual images. These visual illusions are different from those of typical dementia—though she did experience actual hallucinations, caused by meds that were supposed to help calm her down. (They didn’t.)

With Charles Bonnet syndrome, a person will see patterns; for instance, Mom’s vision was so bad, she thought she was seeing trees in a forest, or ripples on a lake, here in our house. The other type of visual disturbance is seeing people, usually what they call “lilliputian” (small) people. Mom would, for instance, ask me why there was a little girl in the room with us, when nobody else was there.

The big difference between Charles Bonnet syndrome and a regular hallucination is that, with Charles Bonnet syndrome, there is no interaction with what is being seen. In other words, when Mom saw a little girl, the “girl” wouldn’t speak to her or anything, because it was purely a visual image. However, when Mom was having a bad reaction to the meds, THOSE were real hallucinations; one time she thought she was piloting a boat, and kept asking me where she should dock it. When the meds wore off, those hallucinations went away, yet she would still see the “trees”, “water”, and the occasional “child”.

If your stepfather is talking to the people he sees, and they talk back, that’s NOT Charles Bonnet syndrome; that would be the dementia, or something else. If the people he sees just kind of stand there and don’t say anything, that’s Charles Bonnet syndrome. CBS is a purely visual disturbance.

It is very frightening to the patient, because they will believe what they see, over what you tell them is really happening. Dementia is going to complicate things a lot, as I’m sure you’ve observed by now. It’s going to be hard, if not impossible, to make your stepfather understand what is happening.

Charles Bonnet syndrome is not well understood, and it can last for a few weeks, to many years. My mother was very lucky, in that surgery corrected her vision, so she got over it just as soon as she could see again.

None of that has anything to do with the passenger, which is what this ruling is about.

It’s a GOOD thing, if a person with an expired license or no insurance is a passenger; that means he/she isn’t driving, posing a danger to others.

Translated: President Macaroon will let the muzzies run rampant, raping and bombing to their hearts’ content.

Actually, affluent white people tend to drink smoothies.

This is just going to be an additional tax on People Of Color ™.

And frankly, the only disparities between white students and students of other races is that (most) white people make their kids sit down and do their homework, instead of letting them twerk in the streets.

A recording studio? So now Obama thinks he’s an aspiring rapper, too?

If the songs recorded there have similar “social commentary” and “meaning” to those of the so-called artists they’ve invited to the White House in the past, we can look forward to a lot of lyrics referring to “b*tches” and “ho’s”.

Where did you find “condemn the sick to death” in your copy of the Bible? I sure can’t find it in mine.

There’s nothing “free stuff” about wanting a pre-existing condition covered in insurance that you’re PAYING FOR. When a consumer pays for a service, they’re entitled to get a service in return. If an insurance company wants to charge people for a policy and not cover a pre-existing condition, THEY’RE the ones asking for free stuff. I mean, I’d love to go into business, make people pay me hundreds of dollars per month, and give nothing in return. But you know what? Capitalism doesn’t work that way.

You are LUCKY not to have any pre-existing conditions. Fall to your knees and thank God for that, instead of hating on people who are sick.

I may be disabled, but I deserve health care as much as you. I’m tired of people like you telling me I deserve to die. Oh, and by the way—at least I know how to spell the word YOU’RE, so I’m at least my brain is sharper than yours. I guess that gives me one reason to live, am I right?

We elected Trump to make insurance BETTER, not to give “free stuff” to the insurance companies. If I’d wanted that kind of policy kept in place, I would’ve voted for Shillary to keep Obamacare alive.

This man’s writing is Exhibit A, as to what is wrong with universities. The punctuation is atrocious (for example, nobody uses three dashes in a row, outside of comic books from decades ago). Furthermore, no educated person would write a sentence such as, “It did not always use to be like this.” The phrase is “used to”—not “use to”—and it would not be used in this way. One would simply write, “It was not always like this.”

While I agree with the writer’s ideas about the need for university reform, it’s painfully obvious that he struggled to master the concepts of eighth-grade grammar. A man can’t educate others, when he is uneducated. The fact that he was ever hired as a professor is appalling.

Then quit your job, and let someone who knows how to handle the public take your place.

I’ve worked in retail, and always managed to calm down irate customers. It’s a simple matter of putting yourself in their shoes and treating them with respect.

If you can’t do that, go get a job digging ditches.

People need to start beating the living snot out of airline employees who dare to even TOUCH a passenger. It’s bad enough people have to endure the TSA groping. What they need are a few riots on airplanes, to teach these psychos to keep their hands off the passengers.

He didn’t attempt to assault Zimmerman. He DID assault Zimmerman. What Trayvon attempted to do was MURDER George Zimmerman.

And this punk is being honored. SMH.

That’s just what I was thinking. I don’t think I’m the only person who envisions this being taken advantage of by the Muslims.

Our taxpayer dollars are already paying for socialized medicine for the Iraqis. I’d rather see it go to Americans, rather than people who will come over here and try to kill us.

The Shillary worshippers just don’t get it, do they?

It wasn’t the fault of Sanders, Comey, or anyone else that HRC lost.

It was HILLARY’S fault that she lost.

When the best ads you can run consist of, “Donald Trump is a big meanie and I don’t want to live in Trump world,” you’re going to lose. She never addressed issues, she always looked like a psycho killer about to pick up an axe and start hacking people, and her voice is like a jackhammer to the ears.

If her people hadn’t rigged the primary, there’s no way that woman would’ve beaten Sanders.

And Carmen Rios is a moron not to see this.

In the metric system, try dividing anything by 3 or 6.

Good luck with that!

In that case, I’m SURE that Bill Nye would support a law prohibiting anchor babies from becoming automatic citizens and getting all sorts of government benefits for their illegal alien parents...since, you know, that would discourage illegals from coming over here and having multiple babies to increase their government benefits.

Bill Nye WOULD support this, right?

/sarcasm

Dear China,

Bite me!

Love, the USA

For people like me who have asthma, non-smoking laws allow us to live like normal human beings. Before these laws were passed, we couldn’t go to restaurants, bars, or anywhere that people were smoking. We couldn’t get jobs at places like that, either. Talk about infringing on people’s freedom!

These laws have given people with similar health conditions the chance to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That’s not a “nanny state”—that’s a guarantee of freedom for all people, not just the ones in good health.

Before you say that it infringes on a smoker’s “freedom”...cigarette smoke doesn’t stay on one place, it infringes on other people’s freedom to breathe clean air. Nobody has the “freedom” to make another person sick. There’s a big difference between a medical condition that can’t be helped, and the immature inability not to go for a few hours without sucking on a smoldering pacifier. If someone’s stupid enough to engage in a habit that will result in COPD or lung cancer, do it at home—quit trying to drag the rest of us to the oncology ward with you.

Yet we all know this will be abused by the “transgender” people who have no such medical disorder.

I see McCain slipped past his handlers, and escaped from the Alzheimer’s home again.