_Eliminating the Outliers _ Programg Mining Your Health Data and Every Button You Press, Every Transaction You Make, Everything!
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Welcome back to DocTalks Season 4, Episode 12, and we have our special guests tonight,
00:05Kat and Bob, with us and we have a lot of our DocTalks family with us tonight.
00:10And Dr. Tennant, I know you have a very busy schedule this evening and a lot to announce.
00:15I'm looking forward to what you have to say and welcome also Dr. Ibsen. Thank you all so much.
00:22Thank you very much, Jamie. This is an exciting meeting.
00:27A lot of you, of course, are aware that the issue of the Epstein-Barr virus is now out of the bag.
00:35It's out of the closet and rightfully should be. I want to start this session by reading you a
00:42short letter that I received two or three days ago. It's from a woman who has adhesive arachnoid
00:49and she writes me this email and it says, I just got my EBV results and they are over the top.
00:58They're over 750. I'm terrified. I'm afraid my life is over. Okay, now we're going to dissect
01:06this letter for just a moment and talk about what this means. First off, let's talk about
01:15first off, she has adhesive arachnoiditis and now she's got a very high Epstein-Barr test.
01:24Okay. Now, we now are quite aware that over 90% of people who develop adhesive arachnoiditis
01:34have Epstein-Barr of at least, that's one factor. May not be the cause, but it's a factor,
01:41meaning it's one of some other causes. Okay, so we're going to start with that.
01:47And incidentally, before you have Epstein-Barr virus give you adhesive arachnoiditis,
01:54you're going to go through a whole series of steps. You're going to start off with fibromyalgia or
02:00migraine headaches or irritable bowel or burning mouth or pudendal neuropathy, burning feet.
02:08Then you're going to get some discs that are going to slip. You might get some CFS leaks.
02:13You might have a tarred off cyst. And the last thing that's going to happen is
02:19that your arachnoid membrane and your cauda equina nerves are going to become inflamed
02:24due to autoimmunity and they're going to glue together. Now, that may take years for that
02:31pathway to occur. Years. It can happen in a few weeks or months, but that's very rare.
02:38It normally takes some years to go from step one down to where you develop adhesive arachnoiditis.
02:46Okay, so this woman already has a lot of other conditions besides adhesive arachnoiditis.
02:54And she's gotten some of the publicity, so she's had her doctor take a test.
02:58Okay. Now, what does 750 mean? Okay. Now, there are two major laboratories in the country,
03:06Quest and LabCorp, but there are some other regional labs. They're all good. And to their
03:12credit, the laboratory science field has developed very accurate tests for the Epstein-Barr virus,
03:21both for the chronic user plus for infectious mononucleosis, which is caused by Epstein-Barr
03:27virus, and for cancer. But we're interested in only about three out of about eight tests
03:35that are available to the physician. Now, let me stop right here for just a minute.
03:40I'm not going to kid anybody. This is a little complex. Okay. I'm afraid this is not just 1.1
03:49action. This is going to take some study. As a matter of fact, physicians are going to have to
03:57study this. And I'm going about tonight's program in a special way because I'm already starting to
04:06talk to some of you out there. We're going to need some educators. We're going to need some people
04:12who can educate people on what I call the alphabet soup, EDS, EBV, AA. We need some lay
04:22educators. Those of you who are interested, I'd like to know about it. There's already some
04:27preliminary plans for later this year, early next year, to have a couple of seminars for people who
04:33want to become educators in all of this. It's just complex enough. I'm afraid you can get part of it
04:42out of these podcasts. You can get part of what you got to know out of our bulletins. You can get
04:46part of it out of the website, and you can get part of it out of the books. I don't know whether
04:52that's going to be enough or whether we're going to have to have some classroom instruction for
04:57people to learn how to do this. And given the slow adoption by universities towards anything these
05:03days, medical students won't learn about this for years. So right now, we've uncovered a great
05:10scientific breakthrough, okay? Now, the lady who's terrified about her 750 level,
05:18she really ought to thank the good Lord that she found out about it. Why? If she's over 750,
05:26she's going to end up bedbound, her life's going to be shortened, and she's going to deteriorate
05:31into almost a vegetable if she doesn't take action. So she's actually had a blessing.
05:37Now, let's talk about what the 750 does mean. The two laboratories, the major ones, I think one of
05:44them has their upper levels of these antibodies at 750, and one is at 600. So if you do go above
05:52the 750 or the 600, that's the upper level of the laboratory. The laboratory can't test higher than
05:59that. In other words, her level may not be 750. It may really be 1,750. We don't know. We just
06:08know that it's way above the ability of the laboratory to test. In other words, she's got a
06:12problem. There's no two ways about it. Now, let's go a little further with this. She didn't tell me
06:19what antibody it was. She just said she had 750. Now, here's where the complexity starts to come in,
06:27and I wish it wasn't this way. In order to determine whether the virus has reactivated,
06:35whether it's causing autoimmunity, whether it's causing you to have pain and deterioration,
06:40at this point, there's about three tests we need, okay? And there's about eight available to
06:47physicians, but they're for different purposes, but there are three that you need to have.
06:52And so, she just said she had one of them at 750. I'm not sure which one that was.
06:58It's one of two. So, we don't even know which one it was, whether it's the worst one or the
07:03best one. So, we don't know what 750 means. You've got to have all three tests, and I'm here daily.
07:09I'm having somebody ask me to tell them what their tests mean, but they only have maybe one of the
07:15three, two of the three. If you don't have all three, you know, it's kind of like trying to play
07:20badminton with one arm behind you. You can't do it. You've got to have all three tests. So,
07:25that's one of the first things, unfortunately, that people are going to have to need. You need
07:30all three tests. Secondly, she's terrified. Well, I don't know that she needs to be terrified. She
07:35does need to be concerned, but not so terrified she can't take action. She's going to have to
07:41take some action because she's going to have to find out, is the virus active? Does she have
07:47autoimmunity? What's it doing to her? Now, all these things can be determined, and so she, in
07:55some ways, is lucky. She's found out about it before she gets a cancer, before she gets adhesive
08:01arachnoiditis, before she gets pedendoneuropathy or gets some terrible condition. So, she's actually
08:10diagnosed her case at a time you can intervene to where she's not going to deteriorate. Now,
08:17let me stop right here for a minute. Somebody may want to disagree with me, but all my studies and
08:24clinical experience tell me one thing. The Epstein-Barr virus autoimmunity and reactivation
08:32is responsible mainly, it's the main thing that causes you to deteriorate if you have intractable
08:40pain or you have adhesive arachnoiditis and maybe CRPS or some other terrible diseases. In other
08:48words, if you don't put some controls on this virus, on this activated virus, you will deteriorate.
08:58And in our studies, that looks like the major factor that people who are seriously deteriorating,
09:05they've got to do something. They've got to get that viral test and start trying to do
09:10some intervention. So, with that, I don't want to cover a lot of the treatments and stuff,
09:18except I want to say a couple things about treatments. There are three elements to the
09:23treating the Epstein-Barr. One element is quite easy on how you stop it from activating more.
09:30And you do that with things like plain old vitamin C and zinc and selenium and lysine
09:35and corseratin and turmeric. There's a lot of things that'll help on that.
09:39Now, if you have what's called early reactivation, you may have to take steroids and an antiviral
09:48agent. Now, there's another thing about this that I have to bring up. We wondered for years
09:56why we couldn't cure things like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis or type 2, type 1 diabetes,
10:04for example. And we now know that a lot of that is caused by the formation of autoantibodies.
10:12Now, an autoantibody, I've talked about this before, keep it simple. This is when the virus
10:19causes your body to make an antibody that starts attacking your own tissues, okay?
10:28And we don't know how to get rid of that. We can suppress it. We can keep your tissues protected.
10:33But once you develop the autoantibodies, at this time, we don't have specific treatments for them.
10:39We do have, for rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, some of the things that are called biologics,
10:45which try to reduce the autoantibodies. And we're having some luck with that.
10:50And we're even having some people with adhesive arachnoiditis take things like methotrexate
10:55and some of the drugs that we use for rheumatoid arthritis. And they're having some success.
11:00Now, I want to point out something to you on how this virus works. Now, incidentally,
11:07one other thing about this virus. Early on, when I started studying this many years ago,
11:13I was very confusing. I'd take somebody's blood that had elevated cytomegalis test,
11:20herpes 6, rubeola, and now we've got COVID, we've got Lyme, we've got mycoplasma.
11:25And I'd see where there were elevations of multiple viruses and some bacteria. And I didn't
11:32know what to make out of it. But as time went on, we figured out that the Epstein-Barr virus
11:36is the dominant virus. These others are sort of enhancers or tagalongs, but they make the
11:44Epstein-Barr more potent. COVID probably does the same thing. I can't tell you whether long
11:50COVID is related to the Epstein-Barr virus or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if we find out
11:55that's the case. Okay. Now, I'm going to show you a picture here. Now, this is a picture of
12:01the bloodstream. Can you see this? You see all that red on there? You got it? Now,
12:13and you see the veins, that's the blue ones. Now, I'm going to turn over a page
12:19and show you this next picture. This one here, I don't even see that enough. That is the
12:26lymph drain. Okay. What they call lymphatics. Now, the lymphatics, the bloodstream will carry
12:36the virus to all these places. Now, those blood vessels go to your tongue, bottom of your feet,
12:45you know, your brain, your arachnoid membrane, your groin, it goes everywhere. And you don't
12:52know where, when this virus decides to reactivate, the lymphocytes will carry it gosh knows where.
12:59That's why some people one day will have pain in their knee and the next day in their shoulder,
13:03and maybe in the next day in their head, or the next day in their stomach, it's migratory.
13:08And that's because the blood will carry the activated, reactivated virus to these different
13:15spots. Okay. And so that's why one person will start off with burning mouth, another person will
13:22start off with fibromyalgia, and then the chain reaction starts over time and you can end up with
13:28adhesive arachnoiditis. So I just want you to know that that virus gets carried in the blood
13:33to hither nither and yon. And there's a lot of blood supply going into the spinal column.
13:39And that's why spinal diseases and intractable pain is so common with the virus.
13:45Okay. At any rate, we're going to cover treatment more thoroughly in some other sessions,
13:52but I do want to, let me just summarize for just a moment. I regret the complexity of this.
13:59This is something that needs to be taught in medical schools and internships and residencies.
14:04Doctors are going to have to figure out how to interpret these tests.
14:09Some of you patients are going to need to kind of step into the practitioner's shoes
14:13and try to learn as much about it as you can so we can educate other people.
14:18We are going to need some lay people, lay educators who understand the test results
14:24and understand which treatment element is going to be used for what level of blood there is or
14:32what the clinical condition is. As far as I'm concerned, this is no more difficult or no more
14:38complex than high blood pressure or diabetes or asthma. But if you're not shown or taught, it's
14:46a myth. It's Greek. You don't know. But you can certainly learn it. And I encourage all of you
14:51here, since I know everybody who watches this podcast has an extra interest, those of you who
14:56want to be kind of lay educators who can take a phone call or counsel people, we certainly want
15:01to know about it. What I want to do next is totally shift gears for a minute. I've been
15:07running on this podcast for some time, and I have mentioned it in the past, but I want to mention
15:14the critical element of treatment for spinal canal inflammatory diseases, particularly
15:21adhesive arachnoid ice, relative to the legs and feet. Paralysis, foot drop, weakness,
15:30bed-bound state, primarily occurs because people become so weak in their legs and feet,
15:37they end up in bed, wheelchairs, can't walk. And that's usually the start of deterioration overall.
15:44So I really want to emphasize that if you have cauda equina syndrome, you have multiple discs
15:53that are herniated, you've got adhesive arachnoid ice, you've got tarlox cysts, you have to protect
16:00your legs and your feet. Now, what is the biologic or pathologic process here?
16:08Spinal canal is very small. It's only about the size of your thumb or finger, okay? But inside
16:13that, you've got these nerves or the size of threads almost, and they become entrapped by
16:21adhesions. That's why it's called adhesive arachnoid ice. You have these very fine nerves
16:28glued to the arachnoid. Now, that gluing process does what we doctors like to call nerve entrapment,
16:38meaning it's caught up in adhesions and scars and fiber. If the nerve gets caught up there too long
16:47and unused, it atrophies and dies. That's called paralysis. That's called incontinence. That's
16:55called a foot drop. That's called inability to walk or stand, okay? So how do we deal with that?
17:04Well, there's no one way. As you know, we advocate the potent anti-inflammatories, the corticosteroids,
17:11the peptides, all of these things, and now the Epstein-Barr virus treatment,
17:16but there's more to it than that. It is my personal opinion that physical measures
17:23are as important to keep from becoming paralyzed or develop foot drops with adhesive arachnoiditis
17:32as in all the medicine and nutrition you can take. Now, we're going to talk more about this.
17:38It turns out that if you can keep the electricity flowing through that entrapped nerve,
17:45the nerve does tend to grow. We even think some of the nerves that grow around the scar
17:50grow out of the entrapment, but you've got to work at it. You've got to work at it. Now,
17:56I'm going to show you something I've never shown on this podcast before, but there's a simple,
18:02cheap technique that I recommend for every single person who has adhesive arachnoiditis,
18:09and it's a very, very simple device, and it's called a foot rocker, a foot rocker.
18:19I'm going to show you mine. Here is a foot rocker, okay? Now, it goes like this.
18:32Yeah, you're standing up now. You're rocking your foot like that. You can buy a foot rocker on
18:43internet for about 25 bucks, okay? Now, what does a foot rocker do? That foot rocker has a motion
18:52that makes both the blood flow and lymph flow flow, and nerves, electricity, the electricity
19:00of the nerves move up and down all the way from your spinal column down to your big toe.
19:07If you have adhesive arachnoiditis, I know this may sound kind of funny. I think you ought to be
19:12rocking at least three or four times a day, okay? You only got to do it for 30 seconds,
19:18okay? If you're bedbound, I hope you can at least stand. If you can stand next to your bed,
19:25have your granddaughter or somebody buy you a foot rocker. Stand up and walk on your foot.
19:30If you ever got to get out of that bed, this is probably your way out, okay? But these foot
19:36rockers have a sort of a magical way of increasing your lymph flow, your blood flow, and your
19:43electrical flow. So, the more electricity you can keep flowing up and down that leg,
19:49the more preventive it is to keep that nerve from being destroyed within the entrapment, okay?
19:57And so, again, I also think the foot rocker, believe it or not, helps the nerves that go to
20:03the rectum and the sex organs and the bowel because they're all coming out of that same
20:07entrapment, okay? Out of that same scar. So, this foot rocker, to me, is an essential part
20:14of treatment. I would put this foot rocker right up there with treating your corticosteroidal and
20:20your Epstein-Barr treatment and your pain treatment. That's how important I feel these
20:25things are. Let's talk about some other things about legs and feet. A second thing I love,
20:33it's a little pricey, unfortunately. It's about $75, but you can get a small trampoline to walk
20:39on. Walking on a trampoline puts you off gravity, same principle. It's even a little more potent
20:45than a foot rocker. Keeps the lymph flow going, keeps the electricity flowing, keeps the blood
20:51flow going. Now, I don't want you out there bouncing around like the kids do. That's not
20:54the point. The point is just walking up and down, bouncing a little bit on the trampoline
21:00to keep the legs and the feet moving. Now, lastly, let's talk about walking.
21:06If you can still walk, whether it's with a walker or a cane, do it. And you want to think of walking
21:13like medicine. It's just like taking a pill. You've got to do it to keep the legs moving,
21:21okay? Wiggling your toes, same thing. Anything from the waist down that you can massage,
21:28put in water and soak, wiggle, walk, or whatever, you do it. And I want to close this section out
21:36because we've got a very interesting guest coming on. I know Dr. Ibsen's always got a great report
21:40for us. That is, everybody who's got adhesive arachnoiditis or one of the other spinal canal
21:48inflammatory diseases needs to have a daily, I'm talking every day now, routine to exercise
21:58your feet, your toes, and your legs, okay? That's it. All right. We're going to move on now.
22:09We have, Mark, I see you're there. You got anything to say about leg work?
22:13I know you do a lot of leg work. Yes, I do. I'm not talking about watching legs now. I'm
22:18talking about moving legs. You can watch my legs all you like. So, I'm taking a walk because you
22:26reminded me to walk. What's a good doctor for except to nag you? You got to be a good student
22:39You got to be a good student in this business. So, the only other thing about
22:48I have for you, Dr. Tennant, is actually a question. There are these vibrating devices
22:54that are coming out. They're showing up on my Facebook feed, and they have a little bit of
22:59wiggle to them, sort of like one of those bongo boards. But I'm wondering, what do you know about
23:04that? Oh, I like them. Yeah. You know, years ago, we used to get a handheld vibrator, and we gave
23:13them to every patient, and have them rub them, whatever. Then they disappeared from the market,
23:17and now I forget to talk about them. But they're excellent. These little vibrators, get one.
23:24Nothing wrong with them at all. Some of these wraps that are warm. We didn't talk about foot
23:30soaks. I mean, in some cultures, they put herbs in the water and get great results with foot soaks.
23:35So, these old, age-old remedies for foot and legs, great. Vibrators, I really like,
23:42because the vibrators step up the flow of electricity, lymph, blood, dynamite. Okay.
23:49Thank you. I have yet to find a leg exercise or device that I don't like.
23:54Okay. Me too. All right. Now, I know Kat and her husband are here somewhere. Jamie,
24:01do you want to bring them on? Yes, sir. Yay. There we go. There we go. Kat and Bob, welcome.
24:10We're delighted you're here. Good to be here. Interesting story. Kat and Bob, can you tell us,
24:18first off, I'm interested in knowing where you live, and how did you end up in the situation
24:23you're in? We live in San Antonio, Texas, and I was 15 when I got hurt, and then
24:35treatment ended up making it worse. You want me to do it? Yeah, I guess. Okay. She's had
24:46bilateral total joint replacements on her face, on the TMJ. She was one of the patients that used
24:55the Vitek implant, which is the Teflon and, what was it? Ceramic. Ceramic, and the ceramic broke
25:05down, and the ceramic was grinding away at the bone. So, she ended up dissolving. I made
25:12autoantibodies. Yeah, at the end of her condyle, all the way into her spinal cavity, her head
25:17cavity, and she now has titanium and high-density polyethylene joints. But I started with neck and
25:27upper back pain, and that's a lot of some of the stuff that you do. Degenerative disc disease,
25:36loss. I lost curvature in my cervical. I have an S curvature in my upper back. I have a chronic
25:45compression fracture. I don't know what that is. They were giving her so many steroids that her
25:51bones got brittle. How old were you when you got your first symptoms, face or neck?
26:0015. I was 15 years old. It was almost 41 years ago.
26:06And how did it happen? Can you tell us exactly how it happened? It's very unusual for a 15-year-old
26:12to have that kind of problem. Car accidents. Oh, it was a car accident. Two of them, eight days
26:18apart. Did you end up in the hospital at that time?
26:27Yeah, I ended up in the emergency room. They just put out, they didn't even do an x-ray,
26:33I don't think. And they sent you home? Yeah. Okay. Now, how did you get along? Were you
26:41eventually able to take off the neck brace or take medicine? Yeah, I was able to take it off
26:49and did all the different treatments that were available at the time,
26:55chiropractic, PT. The dislocation never reduced. Yeah. So, her jaw was completely out of joint all
27:03the time until she destroyed the condyle. Okay. So, did you get better in your 20s?
27:14Yes, I did. I was medicated. But now that it's less medication, it seems like there's more
27:23inflammation in my face and my back. When you talk about less medication, you mean less than what?
27:31Pain medication. Are you one of the people who's been cut off your medicines?
27:36Not all the way. I'm at 2.4% of what allowed me to function for 20 years.
27:44She was over 300 MME and now you're at what? 50? I think it's 50. Something like that.
27:56And how long has this gone on? Almost eight years, I think.
28:03You were at a proper dose 10 years ago, but you're not now. Is that it?
28:09And now I have Parkinson's. You've got Parkinson's. Okay.
28:15And you're still not getting enough pain relief? No.
28:20What are your official medical diagnoses? What do they put down in your electronic medical
28:26record? They put it down as chronic pain, but there are several diagnoses for the spine
28:35and post-surgery, I think is what they would call the TMJ.
28:45They called it foreign body giant cell reaction.
28:51My body made antibodies to me started to destroy the bone in my face,
28:57but then I developed more pain elsewhere. Yeah. They have breeded the joint and when
29:03they put the joints in, but they never got all the material out of her body.
29:08So, and since it's a chemically neutral Teflon and ceramic, it does damage in the body response.
29:15It doesn't know what it's responding to. Injections and stuff like that in my face
29:21just make it worse. How many injections have you had in your face and your neck?
29:31Well, my neck and my back, like 50 at least. 50 at least.
29:38And what did they tell you the injections were supposed to do?
29:43Uh, supposedly, uh, interrupt the pain cycle and then it was going to fix itself. But at 19,
29:53I broke two vertebrae from the stick because I had so many steroids for four years while I was
30:00a teenager. Those packs and shots and ganglion blocks and trigger point injections, joint
30:09injections. I mean. Were these injections given to you by a orthopedist or a neurosurgeon?
30:20Neurosurgeon. Neurosurgeon.
30:23And then later pain doctor. Do the injections give you any relief now?
30:31No, I don't do them anymore because I have osteopenia now.
30:35Uh-huh. So what are you doing now for treatment?
30:40The low-dose, uh, opiate. It's methadone. Low-dose methadone. Do you do anything else?
30:48That's a homeopathic dose, right?
30:52Basically, I, uh, I do. I've been doing PT exercises for about 41 years. I also use
31:01cognitive behavioral therapy and meditation stuff and distraction most of all.
31:08So she also has a pump, but that's, uh.
31:11It helps just the upper back.
31:13The upper back. Yeah.
31:15What kind of a pump do you have?
31:17It's a, um, it puts like bupivacaine in, in my upper back.
31:27And a catheter into the spinal fluid at the top.
31:29Into the spinal fluid.
31:30Yeah. About, uh, what? C6?
31:33No, I think it's T11 or something like that.
31:38Uh-huh. And what's in the pump?
31:41Uh, bupivacaine and, uh, a low-dose hydromorphone.
31:48Okay. Uh-huh. Do you, what else do you do medically? Besides you've got the methadone,
31:55you've got your, uh, your pump with your, uh, hydromorphone on the bupivacaine.
32:01We've been going through all the gabapentin type stuff. Uh, I'm taking Keppra right now.
32:07Doesn't do anything. Uh, uh.
32:12The original add-ons were for the tremor.
32:14Yeah. Uh, and now I'm taking amantadine for the Parkinson's.
32:23Right. Okay. Does that help your pain at all?
32:28No.
32:30Amantadine?
32:31No.
32:32No. Okay. Uh, what else are you taking besides your amantadine and your two?
32:40Uh, tizanidine.
32:42Tizanidine. Uh-huh. Are you taking a benzodiazepine now or they took you off all of that?
32:46They took me off of that.
32:49Yeah. No tapering. Just gone.
32:52Oh, Jesus.
32:55I was lost in my mind. Sorry.
33:00Can I jump in here?
33:02Sure.
33:03Dr. Tennant, multiple patients are now being weaned from their pain pump medications with
33:10the false belief that that, that, that medication causes some sort of opioid induced hyperalgesia.
33:17Yeah.
33:18This is criminal and malpractice to have a pain pump in and not have your pain managed.
33:25This is, this is inexcusable. It's like having tires with no air in them.
33:31Sorry. That's enough for me.
33:34Well, you've hit it right there though. Yeah.
33:41Let me come back more cause I do, you're getting ahead of me here on things I wanted to ask you.
33:48Uh, because this is, uh, I just, I'm mystified over some of this stuff.
33:54Uh, now Kat, are you, have you been declared disabled or are you able to work?
33:57I'm disabled.
33:59Uh-huh. You get social security?
34:01Yes.
34:02Uh-huh. Okay. And Bob, what do you do? Do you, I take it you work?
34:07I'm retired. I retired early so that we could spend some time together.
34:12I see. Okay. All right. And are you kids from San Antonio? Is that your home?
34:18I'm from Texas, different places in Texas. This, we moved down here for his job.
34:27Yeah. I was, uh, uh, doing real estate in, uh, in Dallas and, uh, moved here from,
34:34I'm actually a telecom engineer. Um, and I was in the Marines and, uh, anyhow, I, I came here.
34:41We met, uh, at, uh, uh, Fujitsu together. And, uh, yeah, that's where we started our relationship.
34:49We've been married, what, 27 years, something like that.
34:52Something like that.
34:53Well, good for you. Good for you. Uh, what are your plans going forward?
35:01I don't know. That's what I'm, I'm at a loss, you know, um, I've been in pain management for
35:10a very long time because I was the stuff that's wrong with my back. Yes. They can do some
35:15surgeries on some of them, but the back surgeries, I would just end up with worse pain, I think.
35:24Yeah. And brain stimulation after what they did to my jaw. I don't want them putting anything in my
35:32head. I can't imagine you having any more surgeries or injections, but, uh, I'm sure
35:40there are other opinions about that. My pain doctor doesn't want to do any more injections
35:47because the osteopenia and, uh, the Botox didn't work. And she's also a little bit of a flower
35:55child. If you could, if you could just design your own treatment program, medical treatment
36:06program, what would it be? Well, if I had even a little bit of the amount of medication I had
36:13before I could PT again and probably be better, you know, I'm doing PT for Parkinson's, but
36:22I'm afraid to do it on my back now. Yeah. Once they replaced the joint,
36:26you know, as soon as she got pain relief, she was highly functioning.
36:34Mark, what questions you have for.
36:39Okay. So you don't have osteopenia. You had hydromorphopenia.
36:45They're not giving you enough hydromorphone in your pump.
36:48Well, I'll accept that.
36:53This is, this is cruel and unusual. And, and, uh, this is beyond malpractice. This, this is,
37:00this is, um, this is punishment and torture, uh, to have, to have, to go through the effort of a
37:06spinal cord, um, uh, spinal pump and then not put anything in it is, uh, you know, I, I would,
37:14I would say, I would venture to say that there ought to be an injunction, um, like a legal thing
37:20saying, you know, you, you put this pump in me and you guys better start putting the medication
37:25in it tomorrow. Um, uh, it's, it's illegal, cruel, um, uh, on American, um, et cetera.
37:34And I'm sorry for, for my passion about this, but you're not the first person I've
37:38encountered with this. And it is put it in is no longer doing service.
37:43Right. Right. Well, that leaves the rest of us, doesn't it? Yeah. Do you see anybody walking
37:48around with pacemakers getting taken out? All right. Your cardiologist retires. They don't
37:53take your pacemaker out. Um, what the actual fudge is this about? Um, and, and, um, wow.
38:06I just, I just want to scream and I'm, I'm just too inarticulate when I'm this angry.
38:13But, um, it is, it is just, it is just, uh, awful. Well, try, try raising your voice to a,
38:21to a doctor when you're trying to get served. They don't like it. They don't want to call
38:25the cops. Don't they? Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. I haven't had that. You don't get it ever again.
38:32Yeah. Yeah. So, so one way to raise your voice with a doctor, since we're going there
38:37and we were here, um, first of all, you can raise it to me anytime you want. Call me up and scream.
38:42Um, the next, the next thing is, um, doctors do not pay attention to, um, uh, uh, threat from
38:50patients who are right in front of them because they have the power to throw you out. Yeah. Okay.
38:55So, so that's not the way to do it, but the way to raise your voice with a doctor is with their
38:58medical board and with law enforcement and essentially who granted the doctor who put
39:06that thing in, this is classic medical unaccountability. Oh, some other doctor put
39:11that in. I'm not responsible to take care of it. Well, you know, the medical system put it in
39:15and those of us who are still in it are responsible to take care of people who are still in it.
39:19Have you had anyone with a pump get more, uh, pain relief than just around where the,
39:27the catheter is? Yeah. Really? Yeah. I mean, yeah, the pump, the pump is designed to,
39:35you know, the ideal thing about a pain pump is that it gives you a lot of medicine,
39:39which you can't become addicted to and you can't share it with anyone else or divert it anywhere.
39:45So, so there's no reason to diminish the amount of medication you get in your pump and it should
39:51be titrated to an effective level so that you could walk and get physical therapy. That's why
39:55they were, that's why they were invented. And this is, this is criminal. I'm so sorry.
40:04Mark, you're, I agree with everything, uh, Mark has said incidentally. Uh, it's, it's,
40:10I am truly mystified that obviously, I want to ask you, Kat and Bob, anywhere along the line,
40:18did any of these doctors tell you what, what is their goal of treatment?
40:24It's pain management now because they're, I mean. It's not relief.
40:29It's pain mismanagement. Thank you. Well, yeah.
40:33Is management the same as relief? Uh, no, it's not. I mean, it's, yes, it is relief.
40:42Even when I was on a higher dose, I wasn't pain free. I'm not asking to be pain free.
40:49I want the level down low enough that I can do something.
40:55Yeah. It's hard to function when raising your blood pressure. Uh, even, you know,
41:00having a couple of ticks makes everything throb.
41:04Well, that's another good point. Um, uh, we have lots of pain patients who are being cut off and
41:10they're hypertensive as can be, and they don't respond to blood pressure medicines. They respond
41:14to pain medicines. Um, so, so we have, we are causing strokes in patients with high blood
41:20pressure who are in agony, withdrawal and pain, and we're not treating their pain. And it doesn't,
41:25the blood pressure isn't treated in any other way. Yeah. Another, another cruel aspect. I am
41:30so sorry. Can, um, uh, could eight years of, of pain from stress from pain cause Parkinson's?
41:41I believe it does. I'm going to say yes, because you've got it. Yeah.
41:48Yeah. Parkinson's disease is a depletion of dopamine. And we've talked about that before is
41:53that, uh, we think pain itself can deposit, deplete any number of these neurotransmitters
42:01like dopamine and then the Epstein-Barr virus certainly can. So, uh, your, your treatment or
42:07lack of treatment, uh, and development of Parkinson's frankly is a story I've heard many
42:13times. Okay. Yeah. Uh, well, thank you, Kat and Bob. Uh, our prayers are with you. I,
42:24we'll do, try to do whatever we can, but your story is a, is a, is a sad one. Uh, Mark, uh,
42:32I'd like to swift over. I have been waiting to surprise you with a question here. Uh,
42:38one of the things that strikes me here, uh, some cases have come up this week,
42:44you know, we have something called a federal government. Why is it that the federal government
42:52has these agencies like DEA and FDA and CDC, but part of the governmental system is the medical
43:01schools and the universities, you know, years ago, it was customary in this country
43:08that universities would take difficult cases. They would evaluate them, send back a treatment
43:15plan to the practicing doctor. And do you know that that was actually done in pain management
43:21back in the eighties and nineties of the last century? Now today, uh, how, how does it happen?
43:29We have total disconnect between these government agencies and, and just like we just talked to, uh,
43:36Kate and Bob, isn't too good. I thought the goal was to relieve pain.
43:41What is anybody setting that as a goal anymore? Well, it's a for-profit enterprise now because
43:48the, uh, the, the use of the Chevron exemption allowed these agencies to operate without
43:54congressional, uh, authority. They're doing it because they can make money selling those, uh,
44:01spinal support, stimulators, pumps and things like that. It's all about business.
44:09No, I agree with that. And I think there's other, there's other things involved as well.
44:15It's also, it's more about risk management than it is about patient care. So, so, uh, you know,
44:21I had my bypass done at the great and powerful, uh, Cleveland clinic and they did a great job.
44:25And I love those people. Um, it's like going to Oz for something. Um, but they, they have
44:32such a juggernaut economically as does the Mayo clinic and, and at some of these big institutions
44:38that if Medicare and Medicaid all of a sudden defunded them, you know, they would become a
44:44goat. Cleveland would be a ghost town. And so, so there's, there's this irrational fear of badness,
44:52like, like a boogeyman, like undifferentiated badness, not specific bad acts, but people are
45:00so concerned about losing momentum in their program or losing funding somehow, or losing a
45:07grant, um, that they, that they begin to behave with hesitancy and fear. And they can't even put
45:14their finger on what they're afraid of. They're just afraid of something bad happening.
45:19I want to ask a question. I wanted to ask a question here, which is,
45:27what, how are they being treated at their pharmacy? They go to get a, uh, get a prescription
45:34or bring in a prescription, uh, to their local pharmacist. How is that process working for them?
45:45It's not working very well in a lot of parts of this country.
45:48Are you asking cats, Bob? Yeah. Are you feeling uncomfortable?
45:53Are the doctor, you get the pharmacist to say, I'm uncomfortable filling your prescription or
45:58you're getting too, you know, I've not had them, uh, decline my prescription yet. Okay. That's good.
46:07That's rare, but it's good, but I'm not above the limit. So,
46:13uh, go ahead, go ahead. Yeah. I said, well, there's, there, there is a problem. What limit
46:21are we talking about? But we're working on a, uh, uh, uh, false premise here. When we,
46:27when I hear the word, every time I hear the word morphine milligram or MME, I know that we're,
46:35I know where, I know where, what we're headed for here. You know, it's, it's garbage.
46:39And I'll just leave it alone from there. I guess I'll let Mark take over from that point.
46:44But the, I'm sorry, the, the idea that they were trying to do risk management, all of the guys in,
46:52in the CDC, Dr. Kalani and the crew from the, uh, the prop, what they were doing was their
46:59original assignment was risk reduction. They didn't want the hospital to go down. They didn't
47:04want the hospitals and the doctors getting sued for making addicts. That was the story of addiction
47:16isn't just exposure. So anyhow, that's what started it all. They took over. No, that's okay.
47:25This is a public forum. You give your opinions. We want them. I'm going to shut up.
47:31Let me ask you this sense. I think we'd all agree about this economic drive,
47:39risk management. So what is, what are our patients who need pain medications?
47:46What are, what's your advice right now for them?
47:52You're asking me? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. What are we doing? I want people to file complaints
48:00with adult protective services for their adult family members that are being mistreated.
48:06It's just as abusive as somebody was beating them or starving them. Okay. So I think we have to
48:12broaden the number of agencies involved, which seems counterproductive, but you know, you asked
48:17about government agencies and why can't they cooperate? Well, they didn't cooperate before,
48:21before nine 11. Um, and you know, they're in silos and they, and they're at, they're at different
48:28competitive goals. Going back to Kaladni, he went to the FDA and they said, no, we're not putting a
48:35limit on prescriptions. And so he went to the CDC who's never taken care of pain before they left
48:41their own lane and went into it because he had a pal there. And so it was connections and it was
48:46just like about winning something. And I think what they want is a lot of money with their stock
48:52purchases of Suboxone, but, but, but ultimately these have to be litigated in other ways than
49:01with people who are terrified to harm someone. Uh, because what's really happening is, um,
49:07you know, doctors don't want to go to jail, so they won't treat you.
49:11I use a phrase. I mean, when you mentioned Kaladni, it seems that the whole foundation
49:18is based on quackery. We use a phrase and when we write called turtles all the way down,
49:23which is from Bertram Russell's, uh, uh, someone had made a comment about what, how the earth is
49:30supporting. But again, we see that this will, you might, again, this whole idea of treatment is
49:37based on a quackery from a prop and from, uh, and it, and it massively affects, uh, uh, uh,
49:46patient care. And, you know, then we refer to this, uh, CDC standard, like Dr. Ibsen said,
49:53it has no business in this whole thing, you know, and, and, and Dr. Tennant comes back to you and
49:58says, well, what is happening here in medicine? You're not allowed to do what you were trained
50:05to do back in the day or what you want to call the old days or whatever, but we're not practicing
50:11medicine. We're practicing something entirely different. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever you want to call
50:17it, it's not good. When you send something into adult protective services, uh, how do you stay
50:24anonymous? Cause then you don't, you don't. So immediately your doctor says, well, I'm not
50:29treating you anymore. Well, okay. Good, good point. So, so you're going to say to adult
50:35protective services, my spouse cat is being abused. I'm telling you that this patient is
50:44being abused. They've been papered from their medications and there's abuse going on. Would
50:48you investigate it? And then let them find out who the doctor is. Number one, if you file a
50:54complaint against the doctor with the medical board, and I have battled many of those and never
50:58one from a patient, by the way, if you file a complaint against the doctor and the medical
51:03board and the doctor retaliates you, that's the basis for another complaint. That's also
51:08unprofessional activity. So we have, we, as patients fear badness too, cause they have us
51:14wondering, could we do this or should we, should we stand up for ourselves or should we, um, you
51:19know, bribe somebody. And you know, we're this close to a bribery economy, but, but, but at some
51:25point, um, you just have to say, okay, I'm going to take some consequences. Uh, they have screwed
51:30me up so badly that I've got to take some action. And then if they take action against you,
51:36that's unprofessional also. So I try to reassure my patients when they're, when I recommend they
51:41mention it to the medical board and the medical board needs to be inundated with these complaints.
51:45They will ignore them and ignore them and ignore them and ignore them until there's so many they
51:49can't anymore. Yeah. I'm just thinking about six months with no pain meds. Yeah. That'll be great.
51:56The false premise here is the word addiction. I mean, addiction is a, is a disease, a disease
52:04state. It's also a, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're pushing through the rapid dependency.
52:09We're taking, we're, we're missing to creating medicine. Even if the person does become quote
52:16dependent or addicted, addicted, that's part of it. That's part of a clinical protocol that we
52:23have to put the patient through. But to take addiction and put that insect, inject that into
52:28medicine as criminology is what is dangerous here. These people aren't criminals. They're human.
52:37Human. I mean, I was, I see two people who are human that are suffering that need treatment.
52:43And I'm going to sit there and worry about it. Yeah.
52:50Well said. Very well said. Yeah. This fear of addiction is a straw dog. It's just an excuse.
52:56And we're ready to wrap it up here tonight. Continue on.
53:03Thank you. I'd ask everybody here, where, where do we go from here? And we want to keep asking
53:08that because people are still suffering in some parts of the country. It's just tragic.
53:14It just mystifies you how we're treating humans these days or not treating them, if you will.
53:20And we're calling it pain management rather than pain relief. We no longer have a fifth vital sign.
53:26We have our government can't, agencies don't talk to one another. They, it's just, it's just
53:34total chaos and, and people are suffering because of it. Jamie, again, we appreciate not only the
53:40ability to have, get some education out there to help people, but also let's keep up our discussions
53:46on what's wrong with this system because there's, we got plenty to talk about and let's keep
53:51educating. Again, thanks everybody. Norm, Mark, Kat and Bob, thank you for being here. You've been
53:58very educational and again, our host, Jamie, thank you for everything. We'll sign off for this hour
54:05until next week. Good night. Before you go, before you slide away, I would like to let you know what
54:12Dr. Ibsen just said about Brandy Stokes. She is some, she's kicking some butt and taking names.
54:18She filed an injunction herself with the Maine Human Rights Council and you know, she's not
54:24taking no for an answer and that's exactly what we need to do. And there were, if Kenji, if you
54:29could jump in, you had, I know you had your hand up. You've got about 60 seconds, brother.
54:36No, the same, same issue. I saw my primary care physician tonight. He told me no increase in
54:42pain meds. I was straight up with him. I told him I am no risk, but he's not going to prescribe. So
54:48I'm not really sure. It's the schooling. I mean, he's, you know, this is 10 years deep, you know,
54:53and so they're well indoctrinated and we're up against a well-oiled machine, but we have a plan.
54:59So stay tuned. Please stay with us because like you said, we have a plan. Don't give up. We're
55:04turning this thing around. Don't anybody give up. We will win. No giving up. I'm not giving up.
55:13That's right. That's right. I just wanted to share with you guys a few things that have helped me
55:20to be able to maintain my scripts. One is not giving up and not accepting no for an answer.
55:28Always having a man with me, which I've mentioned before to testify to my pain and to be willing to
55:35fight on my behalf, making sure that I and he are both dressed well, have my hair and makeup done.
55:42He wears a tie. I go only to private pharmacies, mom and pop kind of places. I go in and introduce
55:51myself with my husband. I have an entire briefcase full of my medical records, which I show to them,
55:59including my urine test screens so that they can see that I've not done anything wrong.
56:06And I explain all of my illnesses and I tell them, I know that right now everyone is scared
56:12and I am an advocate. Yes, so far. I'm not saying that it's always going to work,
56:19but right now I'm just trying to share with everybody a few stupid small things that may
56:26be able to help. They're not stupid at all, Emily. They're life saving, which you just said could
56:32very well save someone's life. So thank you. Anything you have to share, anyone has to share,
56:37we appreciate. Thank you. Having a witness with you does make a world of difference,
56:42as Dr. Tennant has said in the past. I completely agree with that. I appeal that I have to file by
56:48January to seek judicial review of the policies of these agencies. And I'm going to be asking for
56:57injunctive relief and also nullification of any law, statute, rule or regulation that was passed
57:06based on the three false premises that the CDC is perpetrating. So no attorney will touch this
57:14with a 10 foot pole and I'm left trying to do it by myself. So that's still in the works, people.
57:21Yeah, they're not going up to their lives yet.
57:26I commend you and salute you for what you are doing. Please don't give up that fight.
57:30Don't give it up, please. Yes, fight. Yes, fight. Jackie just said, you know, lots of us have no
57:39one to help us. And that is we know that that's what weighs on our mind every day, every night.
57:44That's why we are doing all we can do as the people that we are. And we're just people. But
57:49we are we the people. And the last time I checked, we got to go back to any time in US history that
57:55things have changed. When have things changed for the better? What did they do? Think Rosa Parks,
58:01think all the time. Just think about that. And we will continue. My love is sent out to you guys.
58:07Sorry. Good night. You're not alone. See you next week. Thank you so much. God save the pain
58:16Yes, please. Yes. Thank you.
58:22I love y'all. Love y'all too. Good night, everyone.