THE THIEF OF MANY LIVES ~ Fibromyalgia..... by Kathleen Houghton

I'm constantly on the prowl in search of new victims. I do not discriminate---health care workers, teachers, students, airline personnel, teens, moms, dads, and innocent children are my prey. If you are dynamic and have a lust for life, I will find you.

Just when you are at the peak of your endeavors, climbing that career ladder or building your family and home, I will find you. There is nothing that you have in your life today that I am not capable of destroying tomorrow, your career, your education, your goals, your dreams, your family and your life. I will have it all. I will strip you of your ability to function at any level above minimal, and from this day on you will refer to that as “a good day.”

I have the ability to create an invalid out of you overnight, and I will. It will take a marathon effort for you just to get out of bed. At a cellular level your immune system will be in a constant war battling itself and unnamed viruses, which will painfully be replicating in your brain. I promise you, I will bring you
despair along with pain, isolation and losses far beyond what you can ever imagine.

Your mind will be in a constant "fogged" state, your expression will be unable to express, and your eyes will have a noticeable "glazed over/drugged out" look. You will find it most difficult to pay attention, concentrate, or even process the simplest of thoughts. Making change from a dollar may well be beyond your ability now. Your mouth may feel like it is full of marbles when you when try to speak, as your tongue twists and nothing you try to say comes out right. Who would believe your level of education when you can't even string enough words together to make a complete sentence or one that makes any sense for that matter? I promise, I will bring you at any unsuspecting time, severe abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea along with a host of gastrointestinal disorders. I will make you weak and lifeless as one could be without being confirmed dead. You will be housebound or in bed for several years if not the rest of your life. As part of incapacitating you, I will make your heart race and your head pound; your throat will constantly be sore and your lymph glands will swell. That will all seem trivial after I inflame and spasm muscles throughout your body. Crushing a grape between your fingers may take too much energy or be too painful now.

On those nights that I allow you to sleep, you will awaken drenched with sweat or throbbing with pain. Perhaps I might even throw in a little seizure activity. On those nights that I do not allow sleep to occur; I will torture you with thoughts of death...Not suicide, but death. Simply because you have not come to realize that this is your new life, and that you are not living. You will need to re-create your being every day, as every day I will bring you unpredicted symptoms and suffering.

I have also done a few things that you may not be aware of yet. I placed some lesions on your brain (have you noticed how you have difficulty with balance and memory yet?) and I permanently altered your immune system. I have shorted out your nervous system so that you have intermittent numbness and tingling, which might resemble an electrical current zapping you from time. This is called neuropathy. Nope, it's not curable either!!

Now I have you. I have taken over your body and mind. I have stolen your life but left you alive, not very functional, but by clinical definition you are still alive.Your family will not be able to give all the constant care that you need on a daily basis. As for your friends, well, they're still on that ladder climbing up. Rest assured, I am looking for them too. By now, chances are good that most of family and friends have abandoned you, so you must have learned the definition of isolation. This newfound isolation will save you from having to explain how sick you really are to others. They won't understand anyway. Isolation will save you all that energy.

Your health insurance has already been or will shortly be discontinued as you lost your job from not being able to "keep up". Perhaps you got caught dozing off or called in sick one too many times. Now that you are no longer employable or insurable, when you seek medial care, any medical professional that figures me out will diagnose you and say that what you have is presently not curable.

Now it is time for you to seek out medial care, nationally if not worldwide. However, most so called medial professionals will not even have the ability to recognize me when they see me, as they have not learned about me in medical school. So, chances are good that you will be misdiagnosed. You will give more blood samples and have more examinations then you ever imagined existed. Then you can take the results to dozens of doctors in search of a diagnosis. One that is valid as well as socially and medically acceptable. One that does not label you as depressed or say that "it's all in your head!!!"

Most doctors will suggest a vacation, weight loss diet, new or increased love life, help with the children, or change of scenery as the "cure", mainly because you may look like the picture of health. This is my mask of deception. You will pray for a positive word from current research. Research, which you will soon learn, is quite limited due to lack of funding and government support. You will learn new vocabulary which contains words like: T-Cells, Cytokines, Nuclear Antigens, Natural Killer Cells, Immunoglobulins, Cytomegalovirus, Serotonin, Cerebral lesions, and Immune Dysfunction are among a few. However the most important words that you will need to know and fight for are Social Security Disability and Medicare.

At one point I may give you a false sense of recovery or remission. Let me assure you, I will be back, as you are my prisoner and that makes me your keeper. I have placed the lives of millions of people nationwide in limbo, I continue to do the same world wide. I would consider this epidemic, wouldn't you?

Eventually I will bring the government, health care workers, and society to their knees in search of unraveling my complexities, which are crippling humanity. I leave it up to you, my victims, and your caretakers, to educate the public and let them know that I am very real and that you are very sick. Unfortunately, I have been given a totally ridiculous name, which will make your job even more difficult. Until that name is changed, I am:

FIBROMYALGIA (FMS)

He will be missed ,we all spent our childhood watching the Bandstand !!

Host and TV producer Dick Clark has died. He was 82.

Spokesman Paul Shefrin said the "American Bandstand" creator had a heart attack Wednesday morning at Saint John's hospital in Santa Monica, a day after he was admitted for an outpatient procedure.

Long dubbed "the world's oldest teenager" because of his boyish appearance, Clark bridged the rebellious new music scene and traditional show business, and was equally comfortable whether chatting about music with Sam Cooke or bantering with Ed McMahon about TV bloopers. He thrived as the founder of Dick Clark Productions, supplying movies, game and music shows, beauty contests and more to TV. Among his credits: "The $25,000 Pyramid," "TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes" and the American Music Awards.

For a time in the 1980s, he had shows on all three networks and was listed among the Forbes 400 of wealthiest Americans. Clark also was part of radio as partner in the United Stations Radio Networks, which provided programs - including Clark's - to thousands of stations.

"There's hardly any segment of the population that doesn't see what I do," Clark told The Associated Press in a 1985 interview.

"It can be embarrassing. People come up to me and say, 'I love your show,' and I have no idea which one they're talking about."

The original "American Bandstand" was one of network TV's longest-running series as part of ABC's daytime lineup from 1957 to 1987. It later aired for a year in syndication and briefly on the USA Network. Over the years, it introduced stars ranging from Buddy Holly to Madonna. The show's status as an American cultural institution was solidified when Clark donated Bandstand's original podium and backdrop to the Smithsonian Institution.

Clark joined "Bandstand" in 1956 after Bob Horn, who'd been the host since its 1952 debut, was fired. Under Clark's guidance, it went from a local Philadelphia show to a national phenomenon.

"I played records, the kids danced, and America watched," was how Clark once described the series' simplicity. In his 1958 hit "Sweet Little Sixteen," Chuck Berry sang that "they'll be rocking on Bandstand, Philadelphia, P-A."

As a host, he had the smooth delivery of a seasoned radio announcer. As a producer, he had an ear for a hit record. He also knew how to make wary adults welcome this odd new breed of music in their homes.

Clark endured accusations that he was in with the squares, with critic Lester Bangs defining Bandstand as "a leggily acceptable euphemism of the teenage experience." In a 1985 interview, Clark acknowledged the complaints. "But I knew at the time that if we didn't make the presentation to the older generation palatable, it could kill it."

"So along with Little Richard and Chuck Berry and the Platters and the Crows and the Jayhawks ... the boys wore coats and ties and the girls combed their hair and they all looked like sweet little kids into a high school dance," he said.

But Clark defended pop artists and artistic freedom, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame said in an online biography of the 1993 inductee. He helped give black artists their due by playing original R&B recordings instead of cover versions by white performers, and he condemned censorship.

His stroke in December 2004 forced him to miss his annual appearance on "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve." He returned the following year and, although his speech at times was difficult to understand, many, including other stroke victims, praised his bravery.

Still speaking with difficulty, he continued taking part in his New Year's shows, though in a diminished role. Ryan Seacrest became the main host.

"I'm just thankful I'm still able to enjoy this once-a-year treat," he told The Associated Press by e-mail in December 2008 as another New Year's Eve approached.

He was honored at the Emmy Awards in 2006, telling the crowd: "I have accomplished my childhood dream, to be in show business. Everybody should be so lucky to have their dreams come true. I've been truly blessed."

He was born Richard Wagstaff Clark in Mount Vernon, N.Y., in 1929. His father, Richard Augustus Clark, was a sales manager who worked in radio.

Clark idolized his athletic older brother, Bradley, who was killed in World War II. In his 1976 autobiography, "Rock, Roll & Remember," Clark recalled how radio helped ease his loneliness and turned him into a fan of Steve Allen, Arthur Godfrey and other popular hosts.

From Godfrey, he said, he learned that "a radio announcer does not talk to `those of you out there in radio land'; a radio announcer talks to me as an individual."

Clark began his career in the mailroom of a Utica, N.Y., radio station in 1945. By age 26, he was a broadcasting veteran, with nine years' experience on radio and TV stations in Syracuse and Utica, N.Y., and Philadelphia. He held a bachelor's degree from Syracuse University. While in Philadelphia, Clark befriended Ed McMahon, who later credited Clark for introducing him to his future "Tonight Show" boss, Johnny Carson.

In the 1960s, "American Bandstand" moved from black-and-white to color, from weekday broadcasts to once-a-week Saturday shows and from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. Although its influence started to ebb, it still featured some of the biggest stars of each decade, whether Janis Joplin, the Jackson 5, Talking Heads or Prince.

But Clark never did book two of rock's iconic groups, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Elvis Presley also never performed, although Clark managed an on-air telephone interview while Presley was in the Army.

When Michael Jackson died in June 2009, Clark recalled working with him since he was a child, adding, "of all the thousands of entertainers I have worked with, Michael was THE most outstanding. Many have tried and will try to copy him, but his talent will never be matched."

Clark kept more than records spinning with his Dick Clark Productions. Its credits included the Academy of Country Music and Golden Globe awards; TV movies including the Emmy-winning "The Woman Who Willed a Miracle" (1984), the "$25,000 Pyramid" game show and the 1985 film "Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins." Clark himself made a cameo on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and a dramatic appearance as a witness on the original "Perry Mason." He was an involuntary part of Michael Moore's Academy Award-winning "Bowling for Columbine," in which Clark is seen brushing off Moore as the filmmaker confronts him about working conditions at a restaurant owned by Clark.

In 1974, at ABC's request, Clark created the American Music Awards after the network lost the broadcast rights to the Grammy Awards.

He was also an author, with "Dick Clark's American Bandstand" and such self-help books as "Dick Clark's Program for Success in Your Business and Personal Life" and "Looking Great, Staying Young." His unchanging looks inspired a joke in "Peggy Sue Gets Married," the 1986 comedy starring Kathleen Turner as an unhappy wife and mother transported back to 1960. Watching Clark on a black-and-white TV set, she shakes her head in amazement, "Look at that man, he never ages."

Clark's clean-cut image survived a music industry scandal. In 1960, during a congressional investigation of "payola" or bribery in the record and radio industry, Clark was called on to testify.

He was cleared of any suspicions but was required by ABC to divest himself of record-company interests to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. The demand cost him $8 million, Clark once estimated. His holdings included partial ownership of Swan Records, which later released the first U.S. version of the Beatles' smash "She Loves You."

In 2004, Clark announced plans for a revamped version of "American Bandstand." The show, produced with "American Idol" creator Simon Fuller, was to feature a host other than Clark.

He was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 1994 and served as spokesman for the American Association of Diabetes Educators.

Clark, twice divorced, had a son, Richard Augustus II, with first wife Barbara Mallery and two children, Duane and Cindy, with second wife Loretta Martin. He married Kari Wigton in 1977.

Face it, you're screwed. Today is Friday the 13th — the unluckiest day on the calendar — so try not to crash your car, fall down a flight of stairs, set yourself on fire or do anything else that might compromise your well-being. And for God's sake, stay away from men in hockey masks. (Read "What Happens When We Die?")

The number 13 has been unlucky for centuries. Some historians peg the superstition to the 13 people who attended the Last Supper (neither Jesus nor Judas came out of that one O.K.), but ancient Babylon's Code of Hammurabi omits the number 13 in its list of laws, so the superstition dates back to at least 1700 BC. Thirteen is so unlucky, in fact, that in 1881 an organization called the Thirteen Club attempted to improve the number's reputation. At the first meeting, the members (all 13 of them) walked under ladders to enter a room covered with spilled salt. The club lasted for many years and grew to more than 400 members, including five U.S. Presidents: Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Despite the club's efforts, triskaidekaphobia (that's fear of the number 13) flourished; even today, most tall buildings don't have a 13th Floor.

The number's association with Friday, however, didn't take hold until the 20th century. In 1907, eccentric Boston stockbroker Thomas Lawson published a book called Friday the Thirteenth, which told of an evil businessman's attempt to crash the stock market on the unluckiest day of the month. Thanks to an extensive ad campaign, the book sold well: nearly 28,000 copies within the first week. In 1916 the book was turned into a feature-length silent film.

Wall Street's superstitions about Friday the 13th continued through 1925, when the New York Times noted that people "would no more buy or sell a share of stock today than they would walk under a ladder or kick a black cat out of their path." Some stock traders also blamed Black Monday — Oct. 19, 1987 — on the fact that three Fridays fell on the 13th that year. The Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute estimates that $700-$800 million dollars are lost every Friday the 13th because of people's refusal to travel, purchase major items or conduct business.

Then came Jason. In 1980, Paramount Pictures released Friday the 13th (tagline: "Fridays will never be the same again"), a slasher flick about a series of murders at a summer camp. Apparently Jason, born on Friday the 13th, chooses that date to take revenge on oversexed campers much like the ones who allowed him to drown in Crystal Lake. So much for trust falls and lanyard-making.
Friday the 13th grossed almost $40 million at the box office and inspired a long-running franchise: Friday the 13th Part II; Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (it was not); Friday the 13th: Jason Lives; Friday the 13th: The New Blood; Friday the 13th: Jason Takes Manhattan (he left the summer camp?); Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday; Jason X; and 2003's Freddy vs. Jason. Maybe the number 13 isn't so bad after all.

Dealing with fibro has really made life a lot harder as anyone with this illness can tell you . As we all battle this pain and discomfort,anyone with it knows ,it is a total life style change ,we can also say that with the meds and lack of moment we pack on the pounds.
So this year I have decided to take back my life, and no matter what pain I endure ,I will make a difference .

Twelve weeks ago my sister and I loaded into the DVD player the Walk Slim power walk system ,and the fun began .I can tell you it was real hard the first few weeks. I can say we lasted about fifteen minutes ,and thought we would just die !
You know that old saying feeling muscles we didn't know we had. After that first time ,we knew we had them that is for sure ! OH the pain !!
But we were determined to make this work ,and it does make it a lot easier if you have someone to feel the burn with .We keep each other going went the other has feelings of giving up ,and believe you me there are days .
I have to admit that after 13 weeks there is a difference. I feel I can move better and I'm feel firmer .There are some days when I can't even do 15 minutes,because my body just isn't up to it.Then there are the good days when I can punch out five miles and feel good about doing it . That is what makes this system seem to work best for me. With the fibro any activity can make the symptoms worse. I found with walk slim , even if you do 10 minutes or the full 5 miles you can't go wrong .You work at your own pace . As the doc says some is better then none .I'll keep posting as I go along ,so far up to five miles and down five pounds ,it's a start !

Brain Scans Detect Fibromyalgia
Written by linda on March 17, 2012 ·

Brain Scans Detect FibromyalgiaBrain scans detect fibromyalgia! Yes!! Finally a physical finding to say that fibromyalgia is a disease that’s not psychosomatic.

The Dr. Oz show that was aired on 3/12/12 (I have discovered this show originally aired on 12/3/11) showed a picture of a brain scan of someone with fibromyalgia. That scan showed an area down the center of the brain and across the top of the frontal cortex in a bright blue. It was explained that this area of the brain had a very low blood supply. It was also explained that this was the area of the brain that was directly connected to pain processing and emotional responses to pain. No wonder the brain doesn’t know when to shut off its pain sensors, it’s not nourished. The scan that detects these changes in brain function is called a photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) scan. It’s nice to know that brain scans detect fibromyalgia. Here is the link to this show http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/fibromyalgia-real-illness-pt-1#cmpid_FB_LINK. It’s in two parts and the second part is listed below this video.

On November 3rd a study was release from Marsielle, France. This study included thirty women, twenty had fibromyalgia and ten were normal. A 100 question fibromyalgia test was given to these women. This test also showed differences in brain function between the women with fibromyalgia and those without. This study was conducted by Dr. Guedj and his colleagues. The twenty women with fibromyalgia were diagnosed according to tests that the American College of Rheumatology uses.

An increased score on this test indicated that low blood flow occurs in the left anterior temporal cluster. This area of the brain sets at about the area of the ear on the left side. This hypoperfusion (low blood flow) showed up the most in the polar and mediobasal cortices.

According to Dr Guedj the results of this test indicated that fibromyalgia is a disorder of the central part of the brain where pain sensations are heightened.

The results of these findings might explain why doctors can’t find any physical reasons for fibromyalgia.

Other tests were given to these women besides the 100 questions. They were given tests that rates pain on a scale, a French version of the McGill Pain Questionnaire, the Questionnaire Doleur de Saint-Antoine scale, and the Tubingen Pain Behavior Scale.

The only results that were compared to the SPECT scans were the results from the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire.

“The relationship between somatosensory hyperperfusion and fibromyalgia clinical severity is reported for, to our knowledge, the first time and reinforces the central sensitization hypothesis,” they wrote.

Low blood flow to the left anterior temporal region, which is part of the limbic system, could lead to an explanation regarding another aspect of fibromyalgia – Brain fog.

There was another study from the University of Michigan Health Services. This study shows that persons with fibromyalgia suffer more pain from a gentle pinch that persons who don’t have it. In fact, the pressure from the pinch has to be twice as much for the persons who don’t have fibromyalgia to feel as much as those who do. The sense of pain shows up in different areas of the brain than the individuals with fibromyalgia.

This study also included fMRI’s that were performed on sixteen patients with fibromyalgia. fMRI is an extremely fast form of MRI. It is reported that the results of these tests give a road map of where the pain is felt in the brain.

Simply put, low blood flow to the central and left temporal portions of the brain could very well be a leading cause for the pain and confusion that we fibromyalgia patients suffer with. Thank goodness it’s not “in our heads” like some physicians still think it is. Then again, it looks like maybe it really IS in our heads. It’s nice to know brain scans detect fibromyalgia.

Ok ,me and my great ideas ,we had this old sink in our bathroom and it finally decided to go kaput,and finding the parts for it ,are next to impossible soooooo ,we decided to up grade the sink .

It's a shame to see the old girl go ,but as they say, for everything there's a season. We started the project and decided, well heck why not replace the toilet and throw in a new floor ,how hard can that be.

well after a little swaring and a whole lot of sweat ,and a couple of plumbing problems we have BATHROOM !!
Tada ! the finished product ,(note to self ,invest in knee pads ,it stinks getting old ) :0)

A sad day for the children of the sixties ,Davey Jones of the Monkeys has passed away this morning ! How sad he will be missed