[Mike C]

Originally Posted by Zythryn

Just one more note in case anyone that isn't well versed in type one diabetes and is considering this line of treatment.
As Mike stated, this is his opinion.
It is my opinion that this is a line of snake oil and is extremely dangerous. I had a brother in law (not deceased, just no longer my brother in law), who had type 1 diabetes and followed this line of treatment.
His kidneys shut down breifly and he almost died. He went back to insulin and started recovering nicely.

For your information, your brother in law did not go to a ND.

Kidney failure and liver poisonings are caused by the drug treatments.

There were numerous drugs 'pulled' off the market because of deadly side effects.

Mike C

[Zythryn]

Originally Posted by Mike C

For your information, your brother in law did not go to a ND.

I don't see how you could possibly say that, do you know him?

Originally Posted by Mike C

Kidney failure and liver poisonings are caused by the drug treatments.

Mike, you are speaking in absolutes which could be extremely dangerous if anyone took your statements as well informed.
Yes, kidney failure and liver damage CAN be caused by drugs.
The above are not caused by all drug treatments.
Untreated or poorly treated type one diabetes will lead to kidney damage. Which is exactly what happened in the case of my BIL.
If the drugs conventional medicine perscribed caused the kidney damage, why did he get better after starting taking it once again?

[HydrogenBond]

If you look at all the data, there are also many cases where people had faith in medical treatment only to have that backfire. This is what malpractice insurance is designed for. Someone should do a study and compare the number of malpractice cases, to faith deprived negative medical outcomes, normalized to the malpractice ratio, to see who is winning.

If you look at studies that are conducted to test the effectiveness of new medications, they give out both the medicine and placebos. In some cases, the placebo works just as well for many people. This data shows the power of faith in healing, which in this case is non-religious. But it does show the body's natural ability to heal itself in some cases.

Ask yourself, why isn't the placebo affect given a more important role, even though every study may be able to point out at least one example? To point it out, could make the med look less affective, because the drug's effectiveness could be partially placebo based. The result is it may not work for everyone. Only those with enough placebo faith can put the med over the hump, so it can work fine.

The placebo affect creates another possibility. Just as faith in the placebo can sometimes cure a condition, maybe a reverse placebo affect can create conditions with the power of suggestion. It is possible that those who are able to benefit by the placebo may have had a placebo condition that ends up with all the apparent symptoms. If the mind can cure it, it may also be able to create it.

[Zythryn]

Absolutely. The mind has great power over health.
While the mind can work wonders in some cases, it isn't a full proof method that works in ALL cases.

I would also be interested in seeing such a study as you propose. The results would be very interesting.

[InfiniteNow]

Zythryn,

You are much more kind and patient than I am, and I respect how well you've responded to this entire concept of natural medicine to treat Type I.


Me, on the other hand, I think it's absolutely incredibly stupid, unecessarily dangerous, and in quite poor form to suggest that ANY person with Type I diabetes try to treat it without insulin.

The fact that the people suggesting this treatement don't even know what Type I diabetes is suggests that their knowledge of what is required to treat it is equally lacking.

It's simple. If you don't give the person insulin, their body produces ketones since the glucose cannot be broken down into usable form, which stresses the kidneys and the liver (which are over burdened trying to remove the ketones from the body), and the person after very short amount of time will go into diabetic ketoacidosis, coma, and die.

I went into DKA when I was 10. I don't care how much you put your faith into a snake healer. If my dad had taken me to one, I'd be dead.


People really need to stop offering advice when their own understanding is so absolutely and completely abysmal. Also, the suggestion that insulin is somehow like viagra or some other more recent pharmaceutical product is ridiculous.

I really am having a difficult time controlling my frustration right now, so I'll just stop here. I cannot believe how prevelant such ignorance still is in the year 2008. Un-freakin-believable...

[TheBigDog]

IN and Zyth are absolutely right. Insulin for Type 1 is like giving water to prevent dehydration. It is not a drug, it is the body's missing ingredient.

Type 2 can often be controlled with diet and exercise, but even then you can run into situations where you need insulin. I believe that Mike C is not familiar with the various forms of diabetes.

There is a correlation between processed sugar (several processed foods actually) and type 2 diabetes. American Indians had no history of diabetes until they adopted modern western dietary habits, now they suffer one of the highest rates of type 2 diabetes in the world. The same story can be found all over the globe. With the food industry so well established this trend will probably not reverse soon, but it can with the proper demands from the market.

Type 1 is a genetic driven condition. It is also becoming more prevalent. 50+ years ago it was not uncommon for a kid to die from undiagnosed diabetes. I am not even sure when insulin became commonly available. As a result those with type 1 had a poor chance of reproducing. Thanks to science those with type 1 now lead lives that are virtually indistinguishable from those without diabetes. But this also means that the disease is growing in the population (where is used to be a common genetic dead end). This is not a bad thing but it makes us more reliant upon science for survival, and is evidence of human evolution in progress.

Bill

National Diabetes Statistics

[Southtown]

I'm a homeopathic believer, but in my opinion nutrition is only a method of prevention. Once something is contracted, I don't think one should constrict their options for any reason other than results.

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by TheBigDog

I am not even sure when insulin became commonly available.

Frederick Banting in 1921 discovered, people through the 50s and 60s used to go to the doctor's office to get weekly injections, in the 70s is when home care became most common. Today, we even have insulin pumps.

Frederick Banting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Zythryn]

Originally Posted by InfiniteNow

Zythryn,
You are much more kind and patient than I am, and I respect how well you've responded to this entire concept of natural medicine to treat Type I.

While I appreciate the compliment, it is a bit misplaced
If just one type 1 diabetic happens upon this thread that is considering Mike's course of action, and takes a closer look because of what I or anyone else has posted any amount of time I spend is well worth it.

Too often it seems people will jump to conclusions without investigation, even if the consequences are deadly

[HydrogenBond]

I am not saying all illness can be treated with the mind. There are things that are innate to the body and are better treated with medicine. One will not be able to grow a new finger but they could have it re-attached. But on the other hand, not all medical conditions come under this category. The bias against the body's ability to heal attempt to make even this area off limits.

Medical malpractice cuts to the heart of one limitation of medicine. Medicine is not perfect. It is still called practice. They don't have you sign a release before treatment because they like the way you sign your name. They are protecting themselves from Murphy's law.

Avoiding medical care for religious reasons does prevent many people from getting good treatment. But it also protects then from malpractice. How many lives would have been spared, if all those deaths from malpractice had been avoided by people deciding to wait and see if the body could heal itself? It adds up to more than a few tragic religious bias examples.

Medical Malpractice

As a matter of fact, medical malpractice has become the 3rd leading cause of death in America. Those 225,000 deaths due to medical malpractice are caused by these types of errors:

7,000 people die each year due to medication errors in hospitals
20,000 people die each year due to other types of errors in hospitals
12,000 people die each year due to unnecessary surgery
80,000 people die each year from nosocomial infections in hospitals
106,000 people die each year from adverse reactions to medications