Healing After Loss – by Martha Hickman
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Mental health is also just health, and this book’s about an underexamined area of mental health. We say “underexamined”, because for something that affects almost everyone sooner or later, there’s not nearly so much science being done about it as other areas of mental health.
This is not a book of science per se, but it is a very useful one. The format is:
Each calendar day of the year, there’s a daily reflection, consisting of:
- A one-liner insight about grief, quoted from somebody
- A page of thoughts about this
- A one-liner summary, often formulated as a piece of advice
The book is not religious in content, though the author does occasionally make reference to God, only in the most abstract way that shouldn’t be offputting to any but the most stridently anti-religious readers.
Bottom line: if this is a subject near to your heart, then you will almost certainly benefit from this daily reader.
Click here to check out Healing After Loss, and indeed heal after loss
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How Are You, Really?
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How Are You, Really? The Free NHS Health Test
We took this surprisingly incisive 10-minute test from the UK’s famous National Health Service—the test is part of the “Better Health” programme, a free-to-all (yes, even those from/in other countries) initiative aimed at keeping people healthy enough to have less need of medical attention.
As one person who took the test wrote:
❝I didn’t expect that a government initiative would have me talking about how I need to keep myself going to be there for the people I love, let alone that a rapid-pace multiple-choice test would elicit these responses and give personalized replies in turn, but here we are❞
It goes beyond covering the usual bases, in that it also looks at what’s most important to you, and why, and what might keep you from doing the things you want/need to do for your health, AND how those obstacles can be overcome.
Pretty impressive for a 10-minute test!
Is Your Health Above Average Already? Take the Free 10-minute NHS test now!
How old are you, in your heart?
Poetic answers notwithstanding (this writer sometimes feels so old, and yet also much younger than she is), there’s a biological answer here, too.
Again free for the use of all*, here’s a heart age calculator.
*It is suitable for you if you are aged 30–95, and do not have a known complicating cardiovascular disease.
It will ask you your (UK) postcode; just leave that field blank if you’re not in the UK; it’ll be fine.
How Old Are You, In Your Heart? Take the Free 10-minute NHS test now!
(Neither test requires logging into anything, and they do not ask for your email address. The tests are right there on the page, and they give the answers right there on the page, immediately)
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Finish What You Start – by Peter Hollins
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For some people, getting started is the problem. For others of us, getting started is the easy part! We just need a little help not dropping things we started.
There are summaries at the starts and ends of sections, and many “quick tips” to get you back on track.
As a taster: one of these is “temptation bundling“, combining unpleasant things with pleasant. A kind of “spoonful of sugar” approach.
Hollins also discusses hyperbolic discounting (the way we tend to value rewards according to how near they are, and procrastinate accordingly). He offers a tool to overcome this, too, the “10–10–10 rule“.
Also dealt with is “the preparation trap“, and how to know when you have enough information to press on.
For a lot of us, the places we’re most likely to drop a project is 20% in (initial enthusiasm wore off) or 80% in (“it’s nearly done; no need to worry about it”). Those are the times when the advices in this book can be particularly handy!
All in all, a great book for seeing a lot of things to completion.
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Paris in spring, Bali in winter. How ‘bucket lists’ help cancer patients handle life and death
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In the 2007 film The Bucket List Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play two main characters who respond to their terminal cancer diagnoses by rejecting experimental treatment. Instead, they go on a range of energetic, overseas escapades.
Since then, the term “bucket list” – a list of experiences or achievements to complete before you “kick the bucket” or die – has become common.
You can read articles listing the seven cities you must visit before you die or the 100 Australian bucket-list travel experiences. https://www.youtube.com/embed/UvdTpywTmQg?wmode=transparent&start=0
But there is a more serious side to the idea behind bucket lists. One of the key forms of suffering at the end of life is regret for things left unsaid or undone. So bucket lists can serve as a form of insurance against this potential regret.
The bucket-list search for adventure, memories and meaning takes on a life of its own with a diagnosis of life-limiting illness.
In a study published this week, we spoke to 54 people living with cancer, and 28 of their friends and family. For many, a key bucket list item was travel.
Why is travel so important?
There are lots of reasons why travel plays such a central role in our ideas about a “life well-lived”. Travel is often linked to important life transitions: the youthful gap year, the journey to self-discovery in the 2010 film Eat Pray Love, or the popular figure of the “grey nomad”.
The significance of travel is not merely in the destination, nor even in the journey. For many people, planning the travel is just as important. A cancer diagnosis affects people’s sense of control over their future, throwing into question their ability to write their own life story or plan their travel dreams.
Mark, the recently retired husband of a woman with cancer, told us about their stalled travel plans:
We’re just in that part of our lives where we were going to jump in the caravan and do the big trip and all this sort of thing, and now [our plans are] on blocks in the shed.
For others, a cancer diagnosis brought an urgent need to “tick things off” their bucket list. Asha, a woman living with breast cancer, told us she’d always been driven to “get things done” but the cancer diagnosis made this worse:
So, I had to do all the travel, I had to empty my bucket list now, which has kind of driven my partner round the bend.
People’s travel dreams ranged from whale watching in Queensland to seeing polar bears in the Arctic, and from driving a caravan across the Nullarbor Plain to skiing in Switzerland.
Whale watching in Queensland was on one person’s bucket list. Uwe Bergwitz/Shutterstock Nadia, who was 38 years old when we spoke to her, said travelling with her family had made important memories and given her a sense of vitality, despite her health struggles. She told us how being diagnosed with cancer had given her the chance to live her life at a younger age, rather than waiting for retirement:
In the last three years, I think I’ve lived more than a lot of 80-year-olds.
But travel is expensive
Of course, travel is expensive. It’s not by chance Nicholson’s character in The Bucket List is a billionaire.
Some people we spoke to had emptied their savings, assuming they would no longer need to provide for aged care or retirement. Others had used insurance payouts or charity to make their bucket-list dreams come true.
But not everyone can do this. Jim, a 60-year-old whose wife had been diagnosed with cancer, told us:
We’ve actually bought a new car and [been] talking about getting a new caravan […] But I’ve got to work. It’d be nice if there was a little money tree out the back but never mind.
Not everyone’s bucket list items were expensive. Some chose to spend more time with loved ones, take up a new hobby or get a pet.
Our study showed making plans to tick items off a list can give people a sense of self-determination and hope for the future. It was a way of exerting control in the face of an illness that can leave people feeling powerless. Asha said:
This disease is not going to control me. I am not going to sit still and do nothing. I want to go travel.
Something we ‘ought’ to do?
Bucket lists are also a symptom of a broader culture that emphasises conspicuous consumption and productivity, even into the end of life.
Indeed, people told us travelling could be exhausting, expensive and stressful, especially when they’re also living with the symptoms and side effects of treatment. Nevertheless, they felt travel was something they “ought” to do.
Travel can be deeply meaningful, as our study found. But a life well-lived need not be extravagant or adventurous. Finding what is meaningful is a deeply personal journey.
Names of study participants mentioned in this article are pseudonyms.
Leah Williams Veazey, ARC DECRA Research Fellow, University of Sydney; Alex Broom, Professor of Sociology & Director, Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies, University of Sydney, and Katherine Kenny, ARC DECRA Senior Research Fellow, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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A Supplement To Rival St. John’s Wort Against Depression
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Do You Feel The SAMe?
S-Adeonsyl-L-Methionone (SAMe) is a chemical found naturally in the body, and/but enjoyed widely as a supplement. The main reasons people take it are:
- Improve mood (antidepressant effect)
- Improve joints (reduce osteoarthritis symptoms)
- Improve liver (detoxifying effect)
Let’s see what the science says for each of those claims…
Does it improve mood?
It seems to perform comparably to St. John’s Wort (which is good; it performs comparably to Prozac).
Best of all, it does this with fewer contraindications (St. John’s Wort has so many contraindications).
Here’s how they stack up:
This looks very promising, though it’d be nice to see a larger body of research, to be sure.
Does it reduce osteoarthritis symptoms?
The good news: it performs comparably to ibuprofen, with fewer side effects!
The bad news: it also performs comparably to placebo!
Read into that what you will about ibuprofen’s usefulness vs OA symptoms.
Read all about it:
S-Adenosylmethionine for osteoarthritis of the knee or hip
If you were hoping for something for OA or similar symptoms, you might like our previous main features:
- Avoiding/Managing Osteoarthritis
- Managing Chronic Pain (Realistically!)
- The 7 Approaches To Pain Management
- (Science-Based) Alternative Pain Relief
Does it help against liver disease?
According to adverts for SAMe: absolutely!
According to science: we don’t know
The science for this is so weak that it’d be unworthy of mention if it weren’t for the fact that SAMe is so widely sold as good against hepatotoxicity.
To be clear: maybe it really is great! Science hasn’t yet disproved its usefulness either.
It is popularly assumed to be beneficial due to there being an association between lower levels of SAMe in the body (remember, it is also produced inside our bodies) and development of liver disease, especially cholestasis.
Here’s an example of what pretty much every study we found was like (inconclusive research based mostly on mice):
S-adenosylmethionine in liver health, injury, and cancer
For other options for liver health, consider:
Is it safe?
Safety trials have been done ranging from 3 months to 2 years, with no serious side effects coming to light. So, it appears quite safe.
That said, as with anything, there are contraindications, such as:
- if you have bipolar disorder, skip this unless directed by your health care provider, because it may worsen the symptoms of mania
- if you are on SSRIs or other serotonergic drugs, it may interact with those
- if you are immunocompromised, you might want to skip it can increase the risk of P. carinii growth in such cases
As always, do speak with your doctor/pharmacist for personalized advice.
Summary
SAMe’s evidence-based qualities seem to stack up as follows:
- Against depression: good
- Against osteoarthritis: weak
- Against liver disease: unknown
As for safety, it has been found quite safe for most people.
Where can I get it?
We don’t sell it, but here is an example product on Amazon, for your convenience
Enjoy!
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Why Curcumin (Turmeric) Is Worth Its Weight In Gold
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Curcumin (Turmeric) is worth its weight in gold
Not financially! But, this inexpensive golden spice has an impressive list of well-studied health benefits, for something so freely available in any supermarket, and there’s a reason it gets a place in “Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen”, right up there with things like “leafy greens” and “berries” when it comes to superfoods.
Let’s do a quick run-down:
- It fights inflammation, and thus helps fight many diseases where inflammation is a factor (ranging from atherosclerosis to arthritis to Alzheimer’s and more)
- It has powerful antioxidant effects too
- It boosts brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF) and thus improves memory and attention
- It helps protect against heart disease…
- …and can give a 65% decreased risk of experiencing a heart attack
- It can help prevent cancer, and reduce cancerous lesions by 40%
- It’s also good against depression
- It even slows aging
In short, it’s—like we said—worth its weight in gold.
Quick advice though before we move on…
If you take curcumin with black pepper, it allows your body to use the curcumin around 2,000% better. This goes whether you’re cooking with both, or take them as a supplement (they’re commonly sold as a combo-capsule for this reason).
Want to get some?
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Woman Petitions Health Insurer After Company Approves — Then Rejects — Her Infusions
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When KFF Health News published an article in August about the “prior authorization hell” Sally Nix said she went through to secure approval from her insurance company for the expensive monthly infusions she needs, we thought her story had a happy ending.
That’s because, after KFF Health News sent questions to Nix’s insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, it retroactively approved $36,000 worth of treatments she thought she owed. Even better, she also learned she would qualify for the infusions moving forward.
Good news all around — except it didn’t last for long. After all, this is the U.S. health care system, where even patients with good insurance aren’t guaranteed affordable care.
To recap: For more than a decade, Nix, of Statesville, North Carolina, has suffered from autoimmune diseases, chronic pain, and fatigue, as well as a condition called trigeminal neuralgia, which is marked by bouts of electric shock-like pain that’s so intense it’s commonly known as the “suicide disease.”
“It is a pain that sends me to my knees,” Nix said in October. “My entire family’s life is controlled by the betrayal of my body. We haven’t lived normally in 10 years.”
Late in 2022, Nix started receiving intravenous immunoglobulin infusions to treat her diseases. She started walking two miles a day with her service dog. She could picture herself celebrating, free from pain, at her daughter’s summer 2024 wedding.
“I was so hopeful,” she said.
But a few months after starting those infusions, she found out that her insurance company wouldn’t cover their cost anymore. That’s when she started “raising Cain about it” on Instagram and Facebook.
You probably know someone like Sally Nix — someone with a chronic or life-threatening illness whose doctor says they need a drug, procedure, or scan, and whose insurance company has replied: No.
Prior authorization was conceived decades ago to rein in health care costs by eliminating duplicative and ineffective treatment. Not only does overtreatment waste billions of dollars every year, but doctors acknowledge it also potentially harms patients.
However, critics worry that prior authorization has now become a way for health insurance companies to save money, sometimes at the expense of patients’ lives. KFF Health News has heard from hundreds of people in the past year relating their prior authorization horror stories.
When we first met Nix, she was battling her insurance company to regain authorization for her infusions. She’d been forced to pause her treatments, unable to afford $13,000 out-of-pocket for each infusion.
Finally, it seemed like months of her hard work had paid off. In July, Nix was told by staff at both her doctor’s office and her hospital that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois would allow her to restart treatment. Her balance was marked “paid” and disappeared from the insurer’s online portal.
But the day after the KFF Health News story was published, Nix said, she learned the message had changed. After restarting treatment, she received a letter from the insurer saying her diagnoses didn’t actually qualify her for the infusions. It felt like health insurance whiplash.
“They’re robbing me of my life,” she said. “They’re robbing me of so much, all because of profit.”
Dave Van de Walle, a spokesperson for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, said the company would not discuss individual patients’ cases.
“Prior authorization is often a requirement for certain treatments,” Van de Walle said in a written statement, “and BCBSIL administers benefits according to medical policy and the employer’s benefit.”
But Nix is a Southern woman of the “Steel Magnolia” variety. In other words, she’s not going down without a fight.
In September, she called out her insurance company’s tactics in a http://change.org/ campaign that has garnered more than 21,000 signatures. She has also filed complaints against her insurance company with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Labor, Illinois Department of Insurance, and Illinois attorney general.
Even so, Nix said, she feels defeated.
Not only is she still waiting for prior authorization to restart her immunoglobulin infusions, but her insurance company recently required Nix to secure preapproval for another treatment — routine numbing injections she has received for nearly 10 years to treat the nerve pain caused by trigeminal neuralgia.
“It is reprehensible what they’re doing. But they’re not only doing it to me,” said Nix, who is now reluctantly taking prescription opioids to ease her pain. “They’re doing it to other patients. And it’s got to stop.”
Do you have an experience with prior authorization you’d like to share? Click here to tell your story.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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