Natural is Best

Found this on another blog and wanted to spread the message.

I am currently in Roseburg, Oregon, where I hosted my
> sister-in-law's baby shower yesterday. One guest was
> missing - Christina Heyniger Howington. While I have known
> Christina since we went to elementary school it had been
> quite awhile since I had seen her. However, my brother and
> his wife were especially close with her and her husband. She
> and her husband, Heath and daughter, Alyssa (13) spent
> Thanksgiving with my family in Sunriver last week. She had a
> wonderful time and was thrilled that Christmas was near. All
> seemed perfect in her world. She was full of life, happy,
> energetic, and loved her husband of 17 years and their
> daughter.
>
> She began using NuvaRing 2 1/2 months ago and started
> having headaches. They were not severe so she didn't pay
> too much attention. On Thursday morning, she woke up with a
> severe headache and began vomiting. She also became
> lethargic and wanted to go back to sleep. Her husband rushed
> her to the ER where she had a CT Scan. The first diagnosis
> was an aneurysm. She was helicoptered to OHSU in Portland
> and the diagnosis was changed to a blood clot. Once in
> surgery, surgeons were alarmed to find multiple blood clots
> throughout her brain. They tried to get to all of them and
> planned to do another CT Scan the following day to be sure
> all clots had been addressed. Christina's brain began
> swelling and her condition became grave. She was pl aced
> into a medically induced coma to address the brain swelling
> and was put on life support. By Friday, her condition
> worsened and her brain began shutting down. She was taken
> off life support in a last attempt to address her brain
> swelling, but efforts were halted as it was determined that
> her brain had no further activity. Christina lost her life
> but became a hero as she was an organ donor. Her lungs are
> already in transport to California where they will save
> someone's life. Blood clots, however, have been found in
> other organs such as her liver.
>
> Doctors are VERY suspicious that this tragedy was the
> result of NuvaRing birth control. They said they have had
> "hundreds" of cases where women are showing up
> with blood clots after using this contraceptive. It is my
> goal to honor her life by using her story to save even one
> other person from this terrible fate. Please pass this
> information along. It's the last effort we can do to
> honor a truly amazing woman.
>
> Thank you for reading this.
>
> Jill Chartier Guevara

Augustine Colebrook, CPM, LM

Personally I have been taking nuvaring and have not encountered any problems...yet. But I do feel a tad over-hormonal than I would usually be. The thing that concerns me the most is any "investment" in drug companies. They make these outrageously priced drugs that you need to live...I don't think they had prozac in Jesus' time. I know that these drugs do help improve some peoples' lives, but I also know that they can rob you of life as well.

In my personal experience if you can avoid a RX that is the best thing possible. Doctors are all too excited to prescribe meds on the fly. For instance, right before my wedding (I was planning a wedding, graduating from high school, and working two jobs) I was feeling a little stressed, which is a normal feeling from life that should not be supressed, but something rather to welcome and cope with/grow from. My doctor at the time from just hearing my admittance to a little anxiety prescribed me prozac. I also said that I had asthma attacks maybe once every 1-2 weeks, I got a rescue inhaler and a medical inhaler. I also mentioned I wasn't quite ready to squeeze one out and she put me on nuvaring without a second thought.

I think that birth prevention and family planning are both very valuable things and I wouldn't openly choose to get pregnant. But I would rather have a very special and beautiful "surprise" than cancer in 30 years (because we didn't know the effects of the medications we so readily prescribe to anyone).

Another aspect to remember is how much healthcare lobbyists want your money. Our Congress and the FDA cannot be trusted to make healthy decisions for us at this point (unless things change because people start caring about their government and we have strong leadership). Legislations/regulations are so so so easily passed because lobbyists are throwing our government officials "donations". Drug companies are all about money...not your health.

I know that these are very personal decisions that we all need to make, I guess what I am getting at is that you investigate this to your heart's content and think deeply about what you put into your body. This is a decision that nearly every woman faces in her lifetime and it is an extremely important one at that.

Thank you for staying with me till the end!