Quote:
Originally Posted by alice md
so the bottom line in my oppinion is that one's approach to life, is not the cause of an illness or lack of response to treatment, but can affect the way in which the illness influences your life. and how much you are ready to fight for your life, and its quality.
alice
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I popped a quick "thank you" button there before I left for the airport but now while I'm waiting for my plane I have some time to put down some thoughts here.
First, thank you Alice for putting these thoughts into word. While I do agree with you that a positive attitude is no where sufficient to treat illnesses; the quality of life that goes with having a positive attitude does help. My father went through non-hodgekins lymphoma, he went into work every day through his chemo. His employees used to joke that he was just too mean for cancer to beat. He's been in remission for several years now and is enjoying a great retirement with my mum. One of his former employees had lung cancer and gave up before giving treatment an honest chance, he didn't make it.
The big beef I have personally (and I was very happy to have my point of view reflected by Dr. Nicolle) is with the new age people who push positive attitude, diet and herbals will cure ya. I asked him about diet (foods to avoid, foods that I should be trying to eat more of)... There is no evidence that diet effects MG either way. Eat a healthy diet with lots of variety and all is good. I asked about vitamins... what you get from your food is all you need. No supplements are needed unless your diet is unbalanced. A single multivitamin per day will easily make up the difference. He was adamant that I avoid any herbals, especially those that "boost your immune system". I had always thought of it the same way and had to fight family from trying to force that stuff down my throat, but our problem (those with MG) is not a weak immune system but an over-active one. Why would we want to be boosting that when it is so active as to make us sick?
Anyway, I just wanted to say that I appreciate what you had to say regarding positive attitude being good for quality of life, but don't look to it to heal anything that is physically wrong with you. I also wanted to pass along some interesting perspective that I received from Dr. Nicolle regarding new-age thinking as a route to curing MG.
Cheers!
Brian