Leslie Glass's Blog, page 361
June 6, 2018
David Cassidy’s Death Bed Confession: He Was Still Drinking
From Steve Helling @ People: In the last years of David Cassidy’s life, the former teen idol struggled with alcohol abuse, resulting in three DUI arrests in five years. After a 2014 trip to rehab, he told family and friends that he had stopped drinking.
But in a new documentary airing on A&E next week, the Partridge Family star made a shocking admission just two months before he died of organ failure on Nov. 21 at the age of 67. After being rushed to the hospital when he fell ill in a recording studio, Cassidy called producers to explain what had happened.
“I have a liver disease,” Cassidy explained to A&E producer Saralena Weinfield in a recorded conversation. “There is no sign of me having dementia at this stage of my life. It was complete alcohol poisoning.”
Cassidy then followed up with a shocking confession. “The fact is that I lied about my drinking,” he said. “I did this to myself to cover up the sadness and the emptiness.”
As it turned out, Cassidy was still abusing alcohol until the last months of his life, an admission that shocked producers of the docuseries. The bombshell is more devastating to Cassidy’s family, including his kids Katie, 31, and Beau, 27, who assumed he was living a clean and sober life.
Not everyone is Cassidy’s circle is shocked that the actor and singer would lie about his behavior.
“Part of alcoholism is lying,” says Partridge costar Danny Bonaduce. “When you’re an addict, you know you can’t be honest with people. You say what you want them to hear. I can’t be mad at David for that, but it’s still a tragedy.”
Producers of the docuseries debated what they should do with the footage and ultimately decided to edit it into a documentary titled David Cassidy: the Last Session. In the documentary, a frail and weak Cassidy deals with health problems and memory loss as he records a new album in an attempt to stage a comeback.
“I think it will strike a chord with people,” producer John Marks tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue, on stands Friday. “He wanted to share this very private part of his life, and to be honest once and for all. And I think he succeeded in doing that.
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Kate Spade’s Death Renews Importance Of Mental Health
From Nardine Saad and Tara Paniogue @ LA Times: The death of Kate Spade has renewed discussions of mental health awareness, with celebrities mourning the fashion designer’s death with missives about depression and suicide prevention.
Spade, whose colorful handbags, bold prints and cheerful sayings once dominated American fashion, was found dead on Tuesday in her New York apartment in an apparent suicide, according to the Associated Press.
A former accessories editor at the now-defunct magazine Mademoiselle, Spade founded her fashion label in 1993 with her husband, Andy, who was involved with his own fashion label, Jack Spade, and now has the branding venture, Partners & Spade.
The late designer was no longer involved with the Kate Spade label, but the brand, which is now owned by Coach’s parent company Tapestry, confirmed her death on Twitter Tuesday afternoon, saying that the “visionary founder of our brand has passed” and honored “all the beauty she brought into this world.”
Though no official reports said that Spade suffered from mental illness, Twitter users quickly jumped in the fray to says that depression “does not discriminate” and is a “life-threatening illness, just like heart disease, cancer, or sepsis.”
“There should be no stigma about mental health—only treatment, awareness, and compassion,” tweeted surgeon and columnist Eugene Gu.
Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and on average just under 45,000 Americans die by suicide.
The AFSP offered condolences to the Spade family and the designer’s creative network, in a statement on Tuesday.
“There is never a single cause for suicide,” it noted. “Suicide is the result of many factors that come together such as an underlying mental health condition, life stressors, and access to lethal means. We must do more to prevent such tragic deaths through greater awareness of mental health, common risks and warning signs, and effective interventions and treatments.”
Actress Rosie Perez, who was featured in the brand’s #MissAdventure ad campaign last year, also called for an end to the stigma.
Singer Josh Groban and White House advisor Ivanka Trump, a fashion designer herself, tweeted about depression’s silent effects.
Other influencers discussed the designer’s impact on their wardrobes. The former fashion editor started Kate Spade Handbags in 1993, which launched into a clothing and jewelry empire before the fashion label was sold by Neiman Marcus Group in 2006 to a company then called Liz Claiborne Inc.
With her business partners, Spade began another brand called Frances Valentine, named after her 13-year-old daughter and other family members, in 2016. That year she also announced she had changed her name to Kate Valentine in an attempt to distinguish herself from her namesake label.
But many, including former First Daughter Chelsea Clinton and actress Beth Behrs, recalled receiving their first Kate Spade handbags and other high-end pieces.
Within the fashion sphere, Council of Fashion Designers of America Chief Executive Steven Kolb and designer and CFDA Board Chairman Diane von Furstenberg issued a joint statement on Tuesday on behalf of the CFDA.
“The CFDA is devastated to hear the news of our friend, colleague and CFDA member Kate Spade’s tragic passing,” they said. “She was a great talent who had an immeasurable impact on American fashion and the way the world viewed American accessories. We want to honor her life and her major contribution to the fashion business and express our most sincere condolences to the family.”
The designer and the label she founded were connected to Hollywood, though few immediately commented on her passing.
Spade’s brother-in-law is comedian David Spade and her niece is “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” star Rachel Brosnahan, who did not immediately respond to The Times’ requests for comment.
Actresses Anna Faris, Anna Kendrick, Zosia Mamet and Lily Tomlin have also starred in the fashion label’s #MissAdventure ad campaigns, while Laura Dern, Tavi Gevinson and Sasheer Zamata appeared in the brand’s “In Full Bloom” fragrance campaign earlier this year.
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June 5, 2018
Safety Is A Quiet Place To Think
Where is safety in this confusing world with challenging issues all around us? What single thing do we all need to keep our balance and move forward with confidence? A quiet place to reflect and figure things out. Other people to share thoughts come second.
When I was a child and I needed some space to be alone with my thoughts, my haven was a tiny space under the stairs. My mom called it my “mouse house” and respected my need to detach and work things out on my own before having the inevitable conversation that started with, “Mom, I was thinking…” and often ended with a deeper understanding of my concern and myself.
The space, though cramped, was quiet and safe and gave me the opportunity to probe all the angles of what I worried about before I felt brave enough to share. It was a way to tune out the noise of what other people were saying and a chance to tune in to how I was feeling. Sometimes, I would mull a problem over until I realized the negativity was coming from within … and in the safety of my little space I could practice speaking out loud and to myself. Words that sounded foreign at first would take on a more confident air in my mouse house and were easier to take on in the real world after first having spoken them in that space.
When we moved to a bigger house with no niche under the stairs, mom was quick to offer me the room with the walk-in attic. Mom always left a corner of it unladen with boxes so that I would have a safe space to work out my teenage angst. It would be in that same space that years later, I would hole up after my parents died to try to make sense of my feelings of aloneness and to first speak out loud my plan to move forward.
I’ve since graduated to a mouse house encircled by trees like a giant hug. It is in the safety of this place that I have chosen to heal, to find my voice and to begin again. When I reach my own conclusions, then I can share my thoughts and feelings with others whom I trust to ask for help.
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June 4, 2018
Teen Heroin Users Linked With Many Other Drugs
From Science Daily High school seniors who use heroin commonly use multiple other drugs — and not just opioids, according to a study by the Center for Drug Use and HIV/HCV Research (CDUHR) at NYU Meyers College of Nursing.
The findings, published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, suggest that addressing heroin use among teens should take into account the probable use of multiple drugs prevalent in this population.
Heroin use has risen in the United States in connection with the ongoing opioid epidemic. Research shows a strong link between nonmedical prescription opioid use and heroin use, and suggests that these nonmedical users in particular — especially frequent users — are at high risk for using heroin.
While the relationship between opioids and heroin has been investigated extensively, fewer recent studies have examined potential links between heroin and the use of other drugs. For example, benzodiazepines — a class of depressant drugs prescribed to treat anxiety and often abused — are now commonly used with heroin and are involved in nearly a quarter (23 percent) of heroin-related overdose deaths in the United States. Indeed, nearly three out of five (59 percent) heroin-related overdose deaths involve at least one other drug.
“It may be inadequate to focus on heroin and opioid use in isolation. Considering users’ overall drug use profiles appears to be important because the concurrent use of multiple drugs can exacerbate adverse health effects associated with heroin use such as overdose,” said CDUHR researcher Joseph Palamar, PhD, MPH, the study’s lead author and an associate professor of population health at NYU School of Medicine. “A deeper understanding of how heroin users also currently use other drugs can help us to discern better prevention measures.”
Palamar and his colleagues studied a nationally representative sample of high school seniors, focusing on the 327 (of more than 92,000 studied) who reported using heroin in the past month. They examined how recent use and frequency of use of various drugs related to their current use of heroin. Students were surveyed as part of the Monitoring the Future study between 2010 and 2016.
The researchers found that high school seniors who use heroin also commonly use multiple other drugs — on average, five others. Using heroin more often was linked to an increase in using several other drugs more frequently, particularly depressants including other opioids and benzodiazepines. The frequency of concurrent use of most drugs was markedly high among those who reported using heroin 10 to 39 times in the past month.
Interestingly, this trend was reversed among students who reported the highest frequency of current heroin use. Specifically, those who reported using heroin 40 or more times in the past month actually reported less concurrent use of other drugs, both in terms of number of drugs and frequency of use. The researchers hypothesize that this drop in use of other drugs may be attributable to the increased costs and needs associated with such high levels of heroin use.
While alcohol was one of the most common drugs consumed among high school seniors who use heroin, most levels of alcohol use were associated with lower odds of frequent heroin use. This aligns with previous studies showing an inverse relationship between heroin and alcohol use.
“Our study shows that increases in the frequency of heroin use are associated with shifts in the nature and frequency of using multiple drugs. More frequent heroin use was associated with a higher percentage and frequency of opioid and benzodiazepine use, which compounds the risk of overdose,” said CDUHR researcher Pedro Mateu-Gelabert, PhD, an investigator at National Development and Research Institutes, Inc. “Prevention measures should consider these use patterns among heroin-using adolescents.”
Story Source:
Materials provided by New York University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
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Congress Investigates Rehab Call Centers
Drug Rehab Call Centers Being Checked Out by Congress on Drug Rehab Lead Generation
Big brother is watching the drug and alcohol addiction treatment industry on many different levels. The strict patient brokering laws that were passed on July 1, 2017 for sober homes and addiction treatment centers in West Palm Beach, Florida have paved the road for the nation. The new “Florida Model” is one of the most positive things that has come out of Florida for the addiction treatment industry. California is now in the process with legislation to fight patient brokering, many more states will follow.
Unfortunately, the media in its’ frenzy to gain readers and viewers for advertising dollars have beat up Florida causing some ethical operators to close their doors. They were dubbed with the “Florida Shuffle” which should be the “national body shuffle.” The irresponsible news media coverage has caused many to seek treatment in other areas of the country. This hurt the ethical players and more importantly caused some to get treatment in other areas that are worse than Florida. Forbes magazine reported we are in a 35 billion dollar a year industry, and NBC news reported that Florida only accounts for 1 billion. Florida is certainly not the worst state concerning patient brokering. The media in its’ slanted coverage, unknowingly may have caused life threatening situations to many. It will be interesting to see if the media does a story covering drug rehab call centers across the nation.
Addiction Treatment Centers Competing in a Red Ocean
Many addiction treatment centers think they cannot compete with the big players in the sandbox due to their lack of education on proven drug rehab marketing strategies. They see the bigger players spending over six figures a month on addiction treatment marketing and resort to a quick fix. The quick fixes for their drug rehab lead generation include a buy rehab leads strategy from drug rehab call centers, soon to come again Google AdWords and the one trick pony cookie cutter solutions offered by the large drug rehab marketing agencies that rely on the churn of the 14,000 treatment centers across the US. Florida was hit with a double whammy with the new laws passed on July 1, 2017 and then again with Google restricting drug and alcohol addiction treatment pay per click ads. Unfortunately, with the new investigation of congress on call centers, some will go back to AdWords if they qualify through Google.
Drug Rehab Call Centers Leads Strategy for Drug Rehab Leads
If the small to medium treatment centers did not waste their time and money on the short term solutions, but instead invested in a long-term organic strategy they would be much better off. It’s an interesting situation if you consider that many of the leads generated from call centers are not a good fit for the treatment centers. In addition, some shady drug rehab call centers sell the same lead to many centers. Once the center starts to complain they are not receiving leads, the call centers concentrate on sending a few well qualified leads. And now in Florida, it is illegal to sell the well qualified calls which are verification of benefits (VOB Calls.) If you are an addiction treatment center in Florida and are buying VOB calls, or if you are buying calls from a call center based in Florida you are at great risk including legal problems, felony charges, high fines and jail time.
Learn ethical business and marketing strategies at BHNR’s 6/27/18 conference.
Google AdWords Drug Rehab Marketing Strategy
It’s unfortunate that the small to medium size treatment centers revert to using AdWords. Consider this, pay per click accounts for 1.91% of the calls from page one of Google. Many for the these calls are not a good fit for the addiction treatment centers. The first three organic listings on page one of Google account for almost 70% of the page one clicks. In addition, they need to be ranking in the Google 3-pack on page one. It takes time and knowledge to rank on page one of Google. Many of the large one trick pony marketing agencies who have a hard time retaining the best marketing talent gloss over these critical elements. That is why it is extremely important to have marketing consultants driving your addiction treatment marketing machine. This also applies to the addiction treatment ancillary services providers lead generation strategies. Many of the nation’s best marketing consultants have left the large drug rehab marketing agencies because they know their worth. They have left the one trick pony cookie cutter agencies because these marketing agencies simply cannot afford to pay them well enough because they rely on the glitz and glamour. They are spending big bucks on their Executive salaries, conferences, airfares, high end restaurants and extravagant entertaining.
What Congress is Seeking from Drug Rehab Call Centers
Congress is seeking detailed and document answers to 10 questions regarding how these call centers have been operating. Here are the areas that are looking to get information on;
operations, copies of policies and procedures,
how they obtain new treatment center, detox or sober living clients
how they refer out
process calls, questions asked, information given, disclosure, and if staff have any certifications
how payment is determined
all signed contracts from treatment centers, detox’s and sober livings
are they helping get health insurance
all companies they are affiliated with
disclosures on their websites
complete disclosure of pay per click, AdWords paid advertising
documented number of calls every month since 2013
list of any organizations, all their emails and any communications they have dealt with that had license revoked or been shut down and why this happened
A list of employees that have any criminal charges or any law suits to the call centers in relationship to patient brokering
They also need to make arrangements by June 12, 2018 to provide a briefing to the committee staff. Below are the 8 call centers that have been contacted by Congress. You can click on them and read the letters that were sent.
American Addiction Centers
Treatment Management Company
Redwood Recovery Solutions
Addiction Recovery Now
Addiction No More
Elite Rehab Placement
Solutions Recovery Center
Intervention Allies
The writing is on the wall for all the unethical operators in the drug and alcohol addiction treatment industry. Big brother is examining every business aspect of our industry call centers, drug labs, insurance, billing, treatment centers, detox’s and sober livings. They are gathering the needed information to take down patient brokering and help save lives.
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Study: In US, 1 In 5 Young Adult Deaths Are Opioid-Related
From Psych Central.com:
One out of every five deaths among young adults ages 24 to 35 in the United States is related to opioids, with men representing nearly 70 percent of these deaths, according to a new study led by Canadian researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. The study expands on research in Canadian populations.
The researchers calculated that the years of life lost prematurely to opioids in 2016 exceeded those lost each year to hypertension, HIV/AIDS and pneumonia in the U.S.
“Despite the amount of attention that has been placed on this public health issue, we are increasingly seeing the devastating impact that early loss of life from opioids is having across the United States,” said Dr. Tara Gomes, a scientist in the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s.
“In the absence of a multidisciplinary approach to this issue that combines access to treatment, harm reduction and education, this crisis will impact the U.S. for generations.”
The findings, recently published in the journal JAMA Network Open, show that the percentage of opioid deaths in the U.S. increased nearly 300 percent from 2001 to 2016, with one in every 65 deaths related to opioid use by 2016.
This figure varied significantly by age and gender, however. The study found that men represented nearly 70 percent of all opioid deaths by 2016, and the highest burden was among young adults aged 24 to 35 years.
The researchers looked at all deaths in the U.S. between 2001 and 2016 using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) WONDER Multiple Cause of Death Online Database. This database captures death and population estimates across the U.S. by age and gender.
The most dramatic increase in both illegal and prescribed opioid-related deaths was seen in those aged 24 to 35. By 2016, 20 percent of all deaths in this age group were related to opioid use, up from only 4 percent in 2001.
Gomes, who is also a scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Ontario, and her research team found that a total of 1,681,359 years of life were lost prematurely to opioid-related causes in 2016, which exceeds the years of life lost each year from hypertension, HIV/AIDS and pneumonia in the U.S.
“These numbers show us the dramatic impact of opioid-related harms across all demographics in the U.S.,” said Gomes. “We know this is not an isolated public health issue — it is one that spans across North America.”
This study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and supported by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.
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The Truth About Formaldehyde In E-cigarettes
From Medical News Today:
Do e-cigarettes produce dangerous formaldehyde levels? This question has split scientific opinion for years. A new study reopens the discussion.
Three years ago, researchers at Portland State University in Oregon conducted a study that found previously unknown forms of formaldehyde in the vapor of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes).
Following criticism of their work, the researchers revisited their investigation. Their findings are published in the journal Scientific Reports.
This time, they concluded that the risk posed by the formaldehyde content of e-cigarettes is, in fact, greater than they had originally believed.
Formaldehyde is a naturally occurring chemical that is used in the manufacture of building materials and many household products. Industrially, formaldehyde is used as a disinfectant, and as a preservative in medical laboratories and mortuaries.
As well as building materials and cleaning products, formaldehyde can also be found in the smoke from cigarettes, unvented gas stoves, wood-burning stoves, and kerosene heaters.
Since the early 1980s, doctors have suspected that formaldehyde is a carcinogen — a substance capable of causing cancer in living tissue.
And finally, in 2011, after many studies, the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Toxicology Program officially confirmed that formaldehyde is a human carcinogen.
What did the original study report?
The original 2015 study that investigated formaldehyde and e-cigarettes was led by David Peyton, Robert Strongin, and James Pankow. It identified new forms of formaldehyde in e-cigarette vapor that were at levels five to 15 times higher than those in normal cigarettes.
The study also found that these new formaldehyde compounds could be drawn much more deeply into the lungs than the “gaseous” formaldehyde in cigarette smoke, because the new compounds bound to particles in the e-cigarette aerosols.
The researchers discovered the formaldehyde compounds when the vaping device in their study was set at a high heat setting. This proved controversial, as some advocates for e-cigarettes argued that most e-cigarette users would not use such a high setting.
This claim was supported by other scientists in 2017 when they attempted to replicate the Portland team’s results with the device at a lower heat setting.
What did the new study find?
The Portland team argued that the 2017 reinvestigation of their work was flawed because it ignored the new formaldehyde compounds discovered in the 2015 paper.
Instead, the authors of the replication study simply stated that the more common “gaseous” form of formaldehyde would not affect e-cigarette users at intermediate heats.
In their latest study, Peyton, Strongin, and Pankow used an intermediate power setting that was chosen to represent “normal” vaping conditions. They also claim that they used an improved method to collect samples compared with the original 2015 investigation.
Their new study reports that not only are the new formaldehyde types identified in the 2015 study present when e-cigarettes are used at lower, more “normal” heat settings, but also that gaseous formaldehyde is also present in the vapor at dangerous levels.
As the researchers explain, one limitation of the study is that they did not use human subjects, so we do not know how humans would be affected by the formaldehyde in e-cigarettes.
However, Strongin remains concerned about the public health implications of their findings, saying, “In 2016, more than 9 million Americans were current e-cigarette users, including more than 2 million United States middle and high school students.”
“It is thus concerning if even a minority of users cannot properly control e-cigarette-derived intake of formaldehyde and related toxins.”
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What Is CBD Oil Really Used For?
From The Huffington Post:
For a product aimed to mellow people out, CBD sure is inspiring a lot of excitement. CBD, or cannabidol, is one of the non-psychoactive components found in the cannabis or hemp plant. That means it doesn’t get a user high, unlike marijuana. The ingredient has seen a surge in popularity, with people using it as a tool for a host of health issues.
CBD is available in oils, which is arguably its most widely known and often-studied form. (It can also be used in a vape pen, consumed through food like CBD gummies or added to items like creams and beauty products.) All sounds pretty magical, right?
Like with most health-related items, you should understand the benefits and limitations of CBD before you rush off and start using products like CBD oil. Below is a breakdown of just some of the things you should know, according to research and experts:
CBD oil may help with mental health issues.
Perhaps one of the most popular uses for the product is to gain relief from stress or other mental health issues ― and for a good reason. CBD’s effects may be similar to anti-anxiety medication or antidepressants, Virginia Thornley, a board-certified neurologist in Sarasota, Florida, who reviews scientific articles on cannabidiol, previously told HuffPost.
Research also shows some promise: A study published in 2017 by São Paulo University in Brazil found that CBD was able to decrease anxiety in patients with social phobia. A review published in the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin suggests CBD may also produce clinical benefits for patients with early psychosis.
CBD oil might help people living with addiction.
CBD could be a promising treatment method for people living with addiction, according to Yasmin Hurd, a neuroscientist and director of the Addiction Institute at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Hurd and her colleagues conducted clinical CBD studies in animals and in humans to see how it may help with drug addiction. The research yielded positive results in both clinical trials.
“When we looked at CBD … it decreased heroin-seeking behaviors,” Hurd said. They’re now conducting other studies with other people around the world to further test CBD’s efficacy when it comes to treating addiction.
“There’s no miracle drug,” Hurd said. “But this could be helpful for at least some aspects of craving.”
Some evidence suggests it could help with pain and other medical conditions.
A 2016 study looking at rats with arthritis found that CBD gel applied to rats’ joints reduced inflammation and overall pain in the rats’ affected joints. This suggests that using CBD could be beneficial for pain relief for people with the same condition. However, more research needs to be done to see if the same effect can be replicated in humans.
Many users of CBD say that the products alleviate pain and side effects from medical conditions, and experts are also finding preliminary evidence where that could be the case. This includes possible relief from epilepsy seizures, cancer treatment pain and chronic pain. But again, more research is needed.
CBD oil could help with sleep.
CBD can create a feeling of sleepiness, Hurd said. Tiredness also could be considered a side effect of the product (but more on that below).
According to Michael Breus, a clinical psychologist and board-certified sleep specialist, CBD’s ability to calm stress and anxiety may also be beneficial for getting those Zs. As he pointed out in a piece on HuffPost in 2017, studies are also finding CBD can help with disorders that prevent people from getting proper rest:
CBD has the ability to reduce anxiety, which can be helpful in reducing sleep difficulties and improving sleep quality. CBD may increase overall sleep amounts, and improve insomnia, according to research. CBD has been shown to reduce insomnia in people who suffer from chronic pain.
Of course, all of this is well and good, but people should still take caution, Hurd warned. Here are some limitations with CBD that consumers should stay aware of:
There are dosage issues.
CBD products aren’t approved items from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This means they aren’t regulated for purity and dosage like other medications.
“Any medicinal product, you have to be able to reproduce or know what the patient will get every time they take it,” Hurd said. “When someone is taking Asprin from a bottle, they’re not going to wonder, ‘Is this tablet going to give me twice the amount I need?’”
Using oils is the best way to get the right amount out of any CBD product because the user can better control what’s consumed, Hurd said.
There are some possible side effects of CBD oil.
Some people may experience sleepiness using CBD, but as Hurd explained, the product might also be used to help with sleep issues. Hurd said people also reported having diarrhea after using a high concentration, but that hasn’t been validated in every study. It may also cause irritability or nausea. The American Academy of Pediatrics also warns against its use in children because of concerns about brain development.
For the most part, CBD “has not been shown to have a lot of side effects,” Hurd said, which is why researchers are hoping to study it more as a potential treatment option for health conditions. “The potential benefits to the side effects are pretty low,” she said.
It might still be considered illegal in some states.
Although the law is often confusing for users and up for interpretation, CBD may still be considered as an illegal substance in some areas of the U.S. Cannabis, where both marijuana and CBD can be derived from, is also considered a Schedule 1 drug, which means there is “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse,” according to the Drug Enforcement Administration
Ultimately, more research needs to be done on CBD oil.
CBD sounds like a miraculous product in theory, but experts ― including Hurd ― stress that more data needs to be collected before any definitive conclusions can be made. And because of cannabis’ Schedule 1 classification, support for clinical research on the possible positive effects of using marijuana and CBD is difficult.
“Strong data is lacking with CBD. There have been only small research trials, some showing benefit, others showing no benefit with CBD,” Pritham Raj, an internist-psychiatrist in Portland, Oregon, previously told HuffPost. So essentially the jury is still out, Raj said.
Ultimately, “CBD has potential medicinal value,” Hurd said, but caution is key right now. Purchasing CBD from a dispensary or on the internet, even where it’s legal, still comes with some limitations in terms of treating a health issue.
“I still think there should be caution and people should be vigilant about the CBD they might be taking because not enough research has been done,” she continued. “And that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re working to conduct a lot of clinical trials to be able to give more insight into how people can utilize CBD more effectively for their particular disorder.”
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Foaming Or Frothing At The Mouth: What To Know
From Medical News Today:
Foaming or frothing at the mouth occurs when excess saliva pools in the mouth or lungs and is mixed with air, creating foam.
Unintentional foaming at the mouth is an extremely uncommon symptom and a sign of a serious underlying medical condition that requires emergency medical care.
Causes
Even a small amount of froth or foam from the mouth could be cause for medical attention.
People very rarely produce the large quantities of foam or froth from their mouths that movies or television shows can depict.
Research has shown that even diseased wild animals usually do not foam or froth at the mouth in the exaggerated way most people think.
With this in mind, if even a small amount of bubbly saliva spills out of the mouth unintentionally, a person may need emergency medical attention.
Foaming at the mouth is normally associated with central nervous system problems with life-threatening complications, including coma and death.
Some of the most common causes of foaming at the mouth include:
Drug overdose
When someone consumes more drugs or toxins than their body can process, they may experience an overdose.
A severe overdose may lead to seizures, which can cause drooling or salvia to pool in the mouth and be pushed through clenched teeth and lips.
People with severe overdoses may also experience heart attacks and pulmonary edema (PE), where fluid leaks into the lungs, both of which are associated with frothing from the mouth.
When the heart and lungs are not working properly, fluid builds up around both organs and cells are starved of oxygen.
Carbon dioxide and other gases also build up around cells and mix with the fluid, forming a frothy, light-pink or blood-tinted mucus. This frothy mucus may spill out of someone’s open mouth uncontrollably.
Seizures
Convulsive seizures may cause drooling or foaming from the mouth.
People with seizure disorders or epilepsy can experience a few different types of seizures, each with their own unique set of symptoms.
Usually, only one type of seizure, which is called a tonic-clonic seizure or convulsive seizure, is associated with drooling, slight foaming, or bubbling at the mouth.
People experiencing tonic-clonic seizures have abnormal electrical firing throughout their brain simultaneously.
Tonic-clonic seizures usually cause an immediate loss of consciousness followed by whole-body convulsions.
Tonic-clonic seizures cause a loss of muscle control, which can make it difficult to swallow or open the mouth. During a seizure, this excess salvia tends to pool in the mouth before being thrust through clenched teeth, mixing with oxygen and gases in the mouth, and developing a foamy appearance.
Rabies
The rabies virus is a zoonotic disease, meaning it can cross over from animals to humans.
Rabies is capable of infecting and damaging the brain and central nervous system of all types of warm-blooded mammals.
Rabies is transmitted from one host to the next through the saliva of an infected animal. Most people who contract rabies do so when they are bitten by an infected animal or get the infected salvia in an open wound.
One of the symptoms of rabies is paralysis of the throat muscles, which makes it difficult to swallow.
Rabies also causes saliva production to increase. Saliva may then pool in the mouth and mix with oxygen and other gases when a person is unable to swallow.
The number of people who get rabies each year in North America is very small. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), only between 1 and 3 cases of human rabies are reported in the United States each year.
Humans with rabies may not experience the same set of characteristic symptoms that animals do, such as foaming at the mouth, extreme aggressiveness, and hydrophobia or the fear of water.
Symptoms in humans include fever and weakness in the initial stages. As the disease progresses, symptoms develop into anxiety, confusion, frantic behavior, hallucinations, and insomnia.
Treatment
Anyone foaming or frothing from the mouth should receive emergency medical attention.
Anyone who is foaming at the mouth or sees someone who is should seek emergency medical attention.
Treatment will vary depending on the cause of foaming at the mouth, but emergency medical treatment is usually necessary to prevent serious, irreversible complications.
Below, we look at the treatment options for the most common causes of foaming at the mouth:
Drug overdose
Anyone experiencing a drug overdose should be admitted to a hospital, as soon as possible, and have continuous medical monitoring to prevent serious health risks, such as organ failure, coma, and death.
It often takes only 1 to 3 hours from the time a person injected or ingested a drug for an overdose to cause death.
Signs of an overdose include:
passing out
dilated pupils
increased or decreased body temperature
fast or slowed pulse
shallow and slow breathing
pale or flushed skin
seizures
paranoia and psychosis
clammy skin
If someone is or may be experiencing an overdose, a witness should call emergency services or drive them to the nearest hospital.
While waiting for help to arrive, a person should roll the individual over on to their side and make sure their airways are clear. Anyone experiencing an overdose should never be left alone.
People who overdose on ingestible toxins, such as alcohol or liquid chemicals, may have their stomach pumped or be given activated charcoal to remove the toxin.
If the overdose was caused by an opioid, a person might receive an injection of an antidote known as Narcan that immediately reverses the action of the drug.
There is currently no known antidote to treat overdoses caused by stimulant drugs.
After an overdose, most people will need to remain in the hospital for at least a day or more, depending on the severity or cause of the overdose.
Seizures
If someone is experiencing a seizure, a bystander should make sure they are a safe distance from anything that could harm them.
If the person is near a wall, others can use blankets or towels to form padding between the person and the wall.
Remove any furniture surrounding them, such as chairs, coffee tables, or electrical appliances. Never try to place anything in the mouth of someone having a seizure.
Stay with a person who is having a seizure until it is over. Once the convulsions stop and someone starts to regain consciousness, they can be rolled onto their side. It is essential to make sure their mouth and nose are clear.
Cover the person with a blanket or jacket and allow them to rest, checking every few minutes that they are still awake and breathing normally.
People who have epilepsy may not need to seek emergency care every time they have a seizure. After having a seizure, the most important thing many people need is rest and hydration. Having a seizure is stressful and exhausting for the entire body.
Anyone who experiences a seizure for no known cause, a severe seizure, or one that is different than normal for them, should seek emergency medical care.
People should also seek emergency care if someone has a seizure that lasts longer than 5 minutes, or if they are not fully conscious with a normal breathing rate 10 minutes after the seizure ended.
Doctors will monitor a person who has had a seizure to make sure essential bodily functions, such as heart rate and breathing, are normal. They may also give them medication.
If it is someone’s first seizure or the seizure is different from usual, doctors will do tests to determine the underlying cause.
Some people with seizure disorders and types of epilepsy require lifelong management medications called anti-seizure or anti-convulsive drugs.
Rabies
Anyone who thinks they may have been exposed to the rabies virus should see a doctor urgently.
Recommendations for people who may have encountered the rabies virus include:
Vigorously wash the exposed area or wound with soap under a running tap for at least 15 minutes, then continue flushing the area with water.
Go to a hospital, local health clinic, or a doctor for immunization shots, as soon as possible. These vaccines can prevent the virus from forming an infection.
Once rabies has formed an infection, there is no cure for the disease. People who think they may have been exposed to the rabies virus or infected animals must seek immediate and early immunization to avoid life-threatening complications.
Outlook
Foaming or frothing at the mouth is a very uncommon symptom, but it is associated with serious health complications. These include drug overdoses, seizures, and rabies infections.
If someone starts to foam at the mouth, a bystander should roll them on their side, make sure their airways are clear, and call emergency services or take them to the nearest hospital.
If left untreated, the conditions known to cause foaming at the mouth can all lead to serious health complications, most often organ failure, coma, and death.
The post Foaming Or Frothing At The Mouth: What To Know appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.
June 2, 2018
Love Safety In Relationships
This month at ROR we’re looking at all the ways to keep safe physically and emotionally, so, I wanted to write about how to keep yourself safe in your personal relationships.
It’s crucial to keep ourselves safe when it comes to matters of the heart, especially when you’re in recovery. Love has the capacity to bring unimaginable joy to our lives. For me, it can add an element to my life that colors everything else happy. Love is magical, it’s better than any drug. The idea of someone loving me, especially as a person in recovery who struggles with self-esteem and self-love, when I believe someone loves me and shows it, I feel a sense of self that has no comparison. It’s just that meaningful to me.
Love fills a very unique place for some of us in recovery because it involves the very thing that some of us didn’t get, or didn’t feel, or struggle to see in ourselves. I love love. I have a lot of love to give and In recovery, I try to show it as much as I can. Unfortunately, sometimes, it doesn’t work out the way you want. Sometimes people hurt you, intentionally or unintentionally. Sometimes you let someone into your life who seems right in every way and you make a mistake.
I’m a person who doesn’t always feel comfortable letting people get too close to me. I don’t want to be hurt. I don’t want to feel that kind of pain that makes it hard to see the light, to feel OK about the human race, and on and on. So, when I let someone in it’s a big deal. Yet, sometimes, despite my best efforts, even when I’ve taken it slow, when I’ve done my best to get to know someone, sometimes I still get it wrong.
I recently had a bad experience and I want to write about it because more than anything, what I wanted to do with reach out recovery was teach people in recovery how to keep themselves safe. Safe from drugs, alcohol, abuse, and sometimes heartbreak. Sadly, it’s going to happen sometimes. It’s part of life. So, having fallen off the beam, and because it’s safety month, let’s talk about what to do when someone you trusted, someone you opened your heart to – doesn’t treat it with the love and respect it deserves.
Here’s what I do and the best advice I’ve been given:
1. Write out everything you feel and send it to a friend, sponsor or other trusted person. Don’t hold it in, but don’t send it to the ex-romantic partner either!
2. Cry it out, stay in bed all day, do whatever you need to do to get it out and then move on. Eat one pint of ice cream, not three… It’s OK and GOOD to feel your feelings, just don’t let them hold you hostage.
3. When you feel up to it, go outside and do all the things you know how to do to get those endorphins up. Walk in nature, exercise, play with your pets, do yoga, whatever. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was if you want to get out of your head – get into your body. It works. By the end of that spin class all I can think about is breathing!!
4. These are the moments funny movies and TV shows are made for. Laughter is magical medicine that doesn’t cost anything.
5. Try and get some perspective and not let this close your heart. Sometimes rejection is God’s protection. The person who hurt me has more issues than I would even know what do to with. No offense to him but he had so much drama on his plate there was no room for much else. Perspective is crucial at these times.
6. Lean on friends and family if they are safe.
7. Take a little break if you need to, but I like to get right back to it and not let myself get jaded. Someone famously said, men are like tissues, there’s always another one.
Now, my ways may not work for everyone, but I know some of these tactics have served me well. We did not get sober, emotionally available and learn to be good partners for people who aren’t worthy of us. Hang in there, this too shall pass, and when the right one comes, you’ll be super grateful.
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