OTC - Over the Counter (Other Than Comforting)

I haven't taken an over the counter pain reliever or anti-acid in over 12 years.  I can't really imagine needing one anymore.  I remember over 20 years ago, it seemed I had a fully stocked medicine cabinet of all the over the counter products for whatever ails us.

That was also back in the day that I had regular prescriptions for some fairly serious issues, like ulcers and multiple sclerosis.  The ulcers have finally gone away, the MS is not so easily dismissed, but back then it was only symptom management anyway, and all these years later, there is still no cure, but there aren't all those manufactured chemicals in my bouncing around and off of each other any more. 

I have herbal remedies for various complaints now, all legal!, but I also realize it doesn't take as much to alleviate pain when I'm not on regular medication.  Just like anything else, our body will get used to what we put in it, before we just kill it.  So back in the day of prescriptions for this and that and over the counter products for the rest of this and that, that the prescriptions didn't address, my body had a lot to process.  My body is not the exception to that rule.  I hear people every day speak of actually taking prescriptions to address side effects of other prescriptions, and yet they continue to do it.

Keep in mind, every manufactured chemical is something foreign to our body.  I've included two links that shed far more light on this presumption of safety because it's readily available without prescription, but everything we put in our bodies affect them.

  Affect the Brain?                                  Killing us slowly

When They Become Mandatory, I Have to Wonder

Flu season has virtually come and gone this last year, but I hear more and more people concerned about looking for another job if flu shots become mandatory. I don't blame them. I've had doubts about flu shots long before I disavowed medical science in favor of faith in G-d. Flu shots have just never made sense to me. I mean, everyone has that one flu horror story from way back when, that is supposed to justify fear and panic now. I just don't buy it. There are a number of ordinary precautions we can take to reduce the risk of contracting the flu.

The influenza virus is not usually fatal to healthy people. As a matter of fact, healthy people tend to stay healthy by a healthy lifestyle and diet, rather than chemical injections. Let's consider for a moment, where one goes to get a flu shot. Whether it's a doctor's office, health department, or pharmacy, the odds of being close to someone who is carrying a virus are exponentially greater in those particular environments.

I think the fact that they are becoming mandatory and the strains predictable is what truly causes me to tighten down my tin foil hat when it comes to flu shots.  "They" say, and I think "they" and "the powers that be" may be one in the same and if not, one supports the other, yet I digress.  The formula for the flu shot vary each year and yet are quite similar.  "They" combine three potential strains in some sort of tempera medium and then amazingly, the flu shot is comprised, supposedly of the ones going around that winter.

Two things stand out to me in this and that is first, if they can predict which ones are going around, how do we know what's going around isn't "launched" from the lab?  I'm not saying the scientists in the laboratories are evil and trying to make us sick, but I am saying Big Pharma Corp doesn't make money off of healthy people.  The second thing that concerns me is the fact that most flu vaccines are grown in an egg based medium while "bird flu" continues to hold the potential to become life threatening if the human and bird strains ever mutate.  I'm no scientist, but the human flu virus in an egg medium would seem to be the perfect environment for mutation that direction.

The reasons given in this article are enough to keep me away from a flu shot, but if you'd like to read more, here are  10 Reasons.