Archived News of the Week

"STAY" plus More about Dementia

I was listening to a CD series by Pema Chodron (American Buddhist nun) titled Getting Unstuck. She was ruefully yet lovingly talking about her "monkey mind" and how difficult it was for her to meditate, how busy her thoughts were and how unfocused she could be even after 30 years of whacking away at it all. Then she said that all that was necessary in a meditation practice was to "STAY": STAY in your chair, STAY the entire 20 minutes, STAY with your unruly thoughts, STAY with your feelings of failure. Just STAY. When I first heard it, I thought that this was a simple yet profound concept.

Start STAYING again. No reason to have an utter and complete failure over one transgression. Life is full of disappointments, of not reaching goals, of wanting something very badly, setting all the expectations in place, then for one reason or another, what you wanted so badly doesn't materialize. Maybe it wasn't supposed to happen in the first place. There are many clichés about this sort of comfortable fatalism: Like "His rejection is God's protection." Or "Just get back up on the horse again." Or "I know something better is out there for me." Or, the short and satisfyingly snotty "Whatever!" (I actually think that "Whatever!" is really one of the higher spiritual states, but... another time.)

Here's another example: What if I tell you that in order to get well, you must give up wheat, milk, soy, citrus, sugar, caffeine and in addition to this, take about 50 pills a day? Well, you probably wouldn't have been in my office if you hadn't intuitively realized that you would have to change the basic way you have been doing things or the hole you have been digging for years will only become deeper, which brings to mind the definition of "Insanity": "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." So, you have come to see me to change the way you do things which in turn will provide you not only with different results but with the health you have come to want very badly. I wish I could be like Samantha on "Bewitched" and just wiggle my adorable little nose and you would be well, but that's not the way it works. I am the just the coach while you are the very important player.

Let's say that most of the time you do what we have agreed upon. You choke down all your horrible pills, you refuse (with clenched teeth) that cocktail, the scone, the pizza and the crème brulee. Then there is the cocktail party where you are so nervous, the trip where you are having such a good time, the awful day with lots of weird emotional stuff coming up, or maybe it's that full moon in Pisces. You fall off the wagon and you fail to meet your own expectations. Maybe you do this once, maybe twice. Believe me when I say that this is no big deal. This is just another time to STAY. We both agree that you didn't do 100%, but that's really O.K: Don't give up, don't hate yourself, don't call yourself a loser. I promise you this: You will eventually make it, no matter how circuitous your route is, if you just STAY the course.

(On to a totally different subject now) One of my eternal ponderments is this: Why has there been such an exponential increase in the senile dementias? I have come to the conclusion there are many reasons for this, like the general over-drugging of America starting with the statin hoax, the chemical toxicity of the world we live in and the food we are eating, the increased stress in today's world and the harmful stress hormones that are released, the routine over-vaccination of seniors - with the pneumonia vaccination, the flu and now the new shingles vaccination. But I just read of another reason.

And that reason is the family of acid-reducing drugs, or H2 blockers like Tagamet HB (cimetidine), Zantac 75 (ranitidine) Pepcid AC (famotidine) and Axid AR (nizatidine). The Journal of American Geriatrics Society in August, 2007 published a report on a study conducted on 1,558 Americans 65 and over. They found that the participants who took acid-blockers on a regular basis for two or more years substantially increased their risk of cognitive impairment by nearly 2 ½ times. Why is this? More research is needed, but the theory now is that the H2-receptors blockers block not only stomach acid, but the cholinergic system in the brain - that very system that is damaged in dementia.

Here's more bad: These drugs are nigh to impossible to get off of once you are on them. They are downright evil in this respect, because there is such a backlash of acid - a vicious rebound effect - when you go off, that all you want to do is dive right back in the bottle of Pepcid AC again just to make the burning stop. This makes the acid-blockers very addictive. My solution is to not ever go on them in the first place. But if you must, think of it as only a temporary solution and start finding out ASAP from me or someone like me, why you have heart burn and reflux and let us carefully and safely wean you off. Remember, you are treating only the symptom with the acid blockers, not the reason why you got the burning or reflux in the first place.

No statement or content in this web site shall be construed as offering diagnosis, cure, mitigation or prevention of any disease. Anyone having questions regarding the content of this site should contact their own health care provider for verification.