AlphaMale

Health info for the disabled

The US Centers for Disease Control has a new web page on Disabilities and Health.

Lots of information on staying healthy, the CDC work on disabilities, and latest news on staying healthy with a disability and CDC programs for the disabled.

Read about it here, or follow the link.

Is your augmentation worth the money?

Once a week, I stick a needle into myself and let a bag full of fluid drip into me.

This is not as much fun as you might think.

It costs a lot of money to do this, and I'm grateful that my health insurance pays for it.

This is called augmentation therapy. It's intended to protect me from the harsh and rapid lung damage that many Alphas suffer from.

There are many doctors who aren't convinced augmentation therapy is worth the money. These doctors are not evil. There's evidence to support augmentation's value, but no "proof". It's hard to prove a drug's value by classic long-term double-blinded studies when you're dealing with a rare disease.

But I still take my IV augmentation every week. because I want to have the assurance that I'm doing everything I can to keep my lungs healthy.

This week, a Cochrane Library review concluded that augmentation has no proven benefits, might actually be harmful, and shouldn't be prescribed. The report scared a lot of Alphas, who are worried about losing their therapy.

Some Alpha-1 experts examined the review. Their opinions will reassure Alphas.

Pre-existing condition? Not to worry

Alphas often can't buy the medical insurance they need.

When you need health coverage for your lung or liver disease, the "pre-existing condition" clauses in health insurance contracts have been impassable barriers.

Those days should be just about over.

Now, as a part of the Health Care Reform bill, you can get health insurance, even if you have a pre-existing condition. The insurance will cost the same for you as for people with no pre-existing conditions, and there are no income requirements.

Alpha-1 protein might be diabetes treatment

The alpha-1 protein might help diabetics.

Alpha-1 protein has been used in mice to "cure" diabetes.

Now the FDA has approved a clinical trial of alpha-1 protein for Type 1 diabetes in people.

Who takes care of YOU?

Alphas often get tired quickly.

They often tire out the people who love them, too.

If there's an Alpha in your life, taking care of them can be draining.

So who takes care of you? Somebody should.

Prepare to be entertained

And a message, too.

Who knew you could do both in 4 minutes?

The Alpha stories

The most famous Alpha-1 carrier

Francis Collins, MD, the new Director of the National Institutes of Health, is an Alpha-1 carrier.

He said so himself at a conference on "personalized medicine" a couple weeks ago.

Dr. Collins found this out recently when he got some personal genetic testing done. He is most famous for being a central figure in mapping the human genome -- which makes modern genetic testing possible.

Is that video too scary?

There's a new video about Alpha-1 on the web.

I just posted it on this blog a few minutes ago.

It's powerful. Most people seem to love it.

But I've been told it's tasteless.

An advertising professional told me it's powerful, expertly done, but far too depressing. More likely to scare people than to get them tested, he said. There's no hope in this video, a desperately grim message.

Do you agree?

I'd like to know what you think.

Maybe Michael Jackson WAS an Alpha; he had chronic lung inflammation and reduced lung capacity -- just like us

Michael Jackson, at 50, had reduced lung capacity due to chronic inflammation, according to his autopsy report leaked to the Associated Press.

"His overall health was fine," said Zeev Kain, MD, chairman of the anesthesiology department at the University of California, Irvine. Kanin reviewed the autopsy report for the AP. "The results are within normal limits."

Except for that lung inflammation.

“It’s an unusual finding,” Kain said. “It looked like from the pathology report that he had this condition for years, but it’s very hard to know what the reason was.”

WHO HAS CHRONIC LUNG INFLAMMATION and reduced lung capacity?

ALPHAS, that's who.

Last winter, a writer known for gossip and scandal claimed Michael Jackson had Alpha-1. He didn't provide a shred of evidence. Didn't matter. The Web's full of postings that state it as a fact: Oh yeah, Michael had Alpha-1.

Well, there's still no evidence. (Other conditions can cause lung inflammation and lost lung function, too.) But the autopsy report certainly raised my eyebrows.

And made me wish someone had given Michael the simple test for Alpha-1.

To my knowledge, Jackson didn't smoke cigarettes, pot, or anything else. His addiction was prescription drugs. It was an anesthetic called Propofol mixed with three other sedatives that killed him. 

Obama's losing the health care reform campaign; there's only one way he can win it now

The Obama administration is losing the battle on health care reform where it counts most -- in what the American public is thinking and fearing.

Is it because this administration's health care reform plans are terrible, and deserve to lose on their merits?

Maybe so. I don 't think so.

I think it's because the administration took far too long to treat the health care reform campaign the same way, with the same tools, as Obama's election campaign. For months, this has been a propaganda war. Exactly like an election campaign.

When someone claims "death squads" are part of Obama's plans, there must be an immediate "truth squad" response. When someone makes a more reasonable criticism, that needs  to be answered, too -- reasonably, and rapidly.

Reality: Propaganda wars are conducted primarily on the Internet these days. Obama won the election by understanding this, and executing an all-out Internet election campaign better than it's ever been done.

The administration is trying to do that now.

Right here -- on the Web --  is where this battle is being decided.