With that said…I’m not only participating in the program, I am also helping to promote it as a blogger on their Choose You Blog.  Here’s my latest post with a giveaway…

An Update and a Giveaway…My very first giveaway.

I’m happy to report that even with additional temptations this weekend [It was my mother's birthday and we got her an ice-cream cake, chocolate volcano cake, and cheese cake.] I was still successful in my goal to not eat sugar. It actually wasn’t hard at all to resist, I think because it’s been over two weeks, I’m just not craving the sugar the way I normally do. So that’s a plus!

Off topic: Do you want to see the Birthday Dance of my mother that I made with the American Cancer Society’s new dance application? Here’s the link – Frances Ellen Disco Dancing (Feel free to tease her about it in comments, she loves all the attention).

OK, back to my post.

Since I was so successful with my first (two week) commitment, I decided to make a longer and more difficult commitment next. For the next six weeks I will be continuing to avoid sugar, but I will also eliminate high fat/calorie snacks and junk food, and lose 5 pounds.

That’s a lot…But you think I can do it, right?

So that’s my new commitment. Now for the giveaway.

Since I know my Choose You Commitment is going to get more and more difficult to stick with, I wanted to do something to increase my online support. It may sound silly, but I love getting comments of support and tips from my readers. And the more feedback I get, the more encouraged I get. So I asked the folks at the American Cancer Society if I could do a giveaway. Not only did they say yes, but they agreed to donate a Choose You Stainless Water Bottle and a Choose You Lapel Pin.

All you have to do is go to MY CHOOSE YOU BLOG POST and leave a comment on the post and you will be entered to win (I’ll announce the winner when I post next Tuesday). Any comment will do, but like I said in my first post… I could use all the support I can get.

Also See:

• Join The Choose You Movement with Ellen Pompeo of Grey’s Anatomy.

Catherine is the mother of two teenagers, she writes about health & wellness at BlogHer and catherine-morgan.com.

*cross posted at Choose You

Hi, my name is Catherine Morgan, I’m a single mother of two teenagers (Brian 19, Nicole 16), and they are my reason for wanting to “choose me” and make healthy changes in my life. I was so happy to hear about the Choose You campaign by the American Cancer Society. The timing was perfect. For health reasons, I really need to get serious about eating healthier and getting more exercise. Not only am I excited about making some Choose You commitments, but I’m honored to have also been asked to be part of the Choose You Blog.

You see…up until recently, I’ve been falling prey to emotional eating, mainly due to the stresses of selling my home and moving into another. And I haven’t just fallen off the healthy eating wagon, I’ve crashed and burned. It’s not a pretty sight. I’ve been eating all kinds of sweets and junk food, most of which I don’t even like. Go figure. The last few weeks have actually been way beyond emotional eating, I think a more accurate term would be eating insanity.

I believe the first step in healing is admitting you have a problem, so here goes.

Catherine, you have a problem, and it’s time to try and fix it.

Now, to start. There is no “quick fix” when it comes to eating healthy, so I’m starting off slow. My short-term plan is to cut out the unhealthy sugars (like cookies, candy, cakes, and ice-cream). I know that I need to tackle this issue before any other, because it’s the one that is most like an addiction for me. [I recently posted on a new study that shows junk food is as addicting as cocaine.] I can go months and months without eating sugar (not even craving it), but once I start eating it again, it’s all over. That’s why I’m making cutting out sugar my first Choose You commitment. I’ll be taking the next two weeks to get the sugar out of my system.

Once I’m successful at cutting out the sugar, my next steps will be to eat healthy, get more exercise, and hopefully lose some weight. It’s going to take time, but I’m ready for the challenge. I’ll be posting here once a week…and I could use all the support I can get from you in comments.

Wish me luck.

Also See:

• My BlogHer post – Join The Choose You Movement with Ellen Pompeo of Grey’s Anatomy.
• Are You Addicted To Sugar?
• Eat Healthy For Life, Not Weight Loss

Catherine is the mother of two teenagers, she writes about health & wellness at BlogHer and catherine-morgan.com.

If you have Fibromyalgia, you probably also suffer from a multitude of skin sensitivities, including frequent rashes and a tendency to develop skin flare-ups when exposed to anything from perfumes to certain cleansers. Recent Research on Fibromyalgia Skin Sensitivities has uncovered at least a partial explanation for why so many of us suffer from itchy, inflamed skin throughout out lives. Too many histamines and an over-reactive immune system both contribute to the problem.

I’m currently coping with the continued fall-out from this problem. My over-reaction to having my hair colored almost two weeks ago led to a sustained allergic reaction that was amplified last night and landed me at the doctor’s office this morning, where they had to give me cortisone injections to quell an out of control allergic reaction that had become systemic. Hives had spread all over my body and my hands had begun to swell. Now I’m on a round of steroids and antihistamines to get things back under control.

Do others have this kind of problem with frequent skin rashes and allergic responses? How do you cope with them? What types of treatments have you used to treat or prevent them?

Her name is Edwina and her post is titled Fibromyalgia+ The Type “A” Personality = Chaos, Frustration and Near Insanity and I can totally relate.  Here’s an excerpt from her post about the trials and tribulations of living with the debilitating symptoms of Fibromyalgia…

The commercials you see on television about a certain drug to help control the symptoms of FMS is SO FAR OFF THE MARK! “Fibromyalgia is explained as wide spread pain that doesn’t go away.” Ummm, wow, what an oversimplification! You wanna know what FMS is really like? Step into my twisted world for a moment and allow me to explain.

Wide spread muscle pain: I like to call it, “Guess what hurts and win a cookie!”

You can read the full post Fibromyalgia+ The Type “A” Personality = Chaos, Frustration and Near Insanity at BlogHer.com

While finding a virus linked to CFS may sound promising – Just cure the virus and you cure the disease.  It’s much more complicated than that.  The virus being linked to CFS is a retrovirus, it’s not the sort of virus we can just throw some anti-viral medicine at to get rid of it.   It’s a complicated process, but it goes something like this – Ordinary viruses attack a cell and eventually kill it during it’s process of spreading to other cells.  Retroviruses don’t just spread they also mutate the cell (without killing it), so mutated cells go on to replicate and spread the virus as well as the cell mutations.  So the cell mutation part is what makes this type of virus more difficult, and why we are hearing it compared to the HIV virus (another retrovirus).  But this is only one study, there will need to be many, many more studies before we have any definitive answers.

While I appreciate the fact that CFS is finally getting the attention it deserves, there is still a lot of research to be done.  This retrovirus finding is a very important “key” to unlocking the truth about this debilitating disease.  However, I don’t necessarily see it as the smoking gun.   Granted, I’m not a scientist, but I do have my personal experience with this disease (and the medical background of a nurse), and this is my first impression about these latest findings…

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is a disease that (among other things) weakens a person’s immune system.  So this finding of a specific retrovirus being found in a large number of CFS patients is a classic “what came first the chicken or the egg” scenario.  Did the weakened immune system create the perfect petri-dish for this virus to exist?  Or did this virus contribute to the weakened immune system?   The bottom line is – There is much more research that needs to be done before we can get the answers we are looking for.  I do hope that these new findings can at least put to rest any idea that CFS is “all in the head” of the patient.

I actually had a neurologist tell me a few years ago (to my face) that he did not believe in my diagnosis.  If that’s not bad enough, when I called him on it, and asked if he thought my symptoms were all in my head…He told me that I probably had MS (multiple sclerosis) and it just hadn’t been able to be diagnosed yet.  What?  This “so called” medical specialist was so against acknowledging that chronic fatigue syndrome could exist, that he actually had the nerve to “pre” diagnose me with a condition that I had already been tested for and told I did not have.  Explaining that “if” my symptoms were real, then I would have to eventually be diagnosed with a “real” disease.   I’m not a violent person, but I REALLY wanted to punch this man freak in the face…I think he graduated from the Doctors for Dummies School of Medicine (and that’s all I’ll say about that).

OK…Sorry for the rant, I’ll get back to my feelings on this latest research now.

Don’t get me wrong, I am ecstatic that there is finally some actual scientific research being done on chronic fatigue syndrome.  I was beginning to wonder just how long doctors would be allowed to get away with making personal judgments on whether or not to “believe” in a CFS diagnosis (a diagnosis that is already accepted by the AMA and CDC).

I hope these latest finding will (at the very least) help educate both the public and the medical community, that this is a real disease with real symptoms that need to be treated–not ignored.  This is from a statement I wrote for the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee that met in Washington D.C.  (in May of 2007), and I believe it is still relevant today…

Being a single mother is not easy under any circumstances, but being a single mother with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome has been particularly difficult. I have been suffering with this insidious cluster of debilitating symptoms (referred to as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), for over ten years. But it has only been more recently that I have come to accept that this condition isn’t going away. The funny thing is, even though I am caught in the middle of mourning for the person I might have been, and accepting the person I am, I’ve begun to feel hopeful. Hopeful because, by letting go of the burden of needing to be cured, I am also letting go of the idea that if I just got more sleep, or got more exercise, or took the right combination of medications, or found the right doctor, that somehow I would be better. This thought process is exactly what keeps someone with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome down. It puts a judgment on them, that they are somehow responsible and this is not true. So, letting go of this type of destructive thinking is half the battle with this disease. And I think that is why this type of awareness (that is being done here today) is so important.

I believe we can all agree on the importance of research so that a diagnostic tool can be found, and a treatment developed. However, what is equally important, but continues to be overlooked, is the acceptance by doctors that this is a “real” medical condition and not an “emotional” problem.

Are many people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome depressed? Of course they are. Anyone suffering from a chronic debilitating medical condition, is most likely going to have some degree of sadness, anxiety, or depression associated with it. A physician wouldn’t dream of telling a patient with Lupus that depression is the cause of their disease, but surely there are many patients with Lupus who are also depressed. And by all means, depression, whether associated with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or any other medical condition, needs to be addressed and treated. Depression is a symptom associated with this disease, not the cause of this disease. By “blaming” this disease on depression, or any other “emotional” disorder…Well, that is simply “blaming” the patient for their disease, and that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

The truth is, doctors become doctors for the same reason I became a nurse, so they can help people. And, I think doctors feel helpless when they have a patient that they can’t “fix.”  Herein lies the problem. Patients can not, and should not have to WAIT to receive compassion and treatment from their doctors, until scientific research has found a way to cure them. Just as I have come to accept my condition, doctors must come to accept this condition and treat the patients and their symptoms accordingly.

There is so much a doctor can do to help a patient with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The most important is to accept them and their diagnosis. Don’t tell them you don’t believe in the diagnosis. What purpose does that serve, other than to degrade them? Second, do not pass judgment on the patient for their condition. Treat patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome the same way you would treat anyone else with a chronic medical condition, with respect and dignity. We are not just patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, we are human beings. Third, work together with the patient to address the specific symptoms of their disease. It doesn’t matter what you call this disease, a physician CAN treat the patient and their symptoms regardless of what the name of the disease is. A physician CAN treat the patient and their symptoms regardless of whether research has found a cause or cure for the disease.

These are simple things, that could be implemented right now. Today is what matters to us. Today is all any of us have. Help us get through today, then tomorrow, and then help us take one day at a time towards being as well as we can be, given our disease. If you can do that, you will be making a huge difference in our lives… Anything less, is tantamount to “doing harm”. So please – Do No Harm – that is all I ask.

So…That’s what I think about it, and I’ll step off of my soap-box now.  I would love to know what you think in comments.

Here is a video from the 2006 Awareness Campaign by the CDC designed to inform physicians on the treatment of patients with CFS (obviously my neurologist wasn’t in attendance)…

Contributing Editor Catherine Morgan
at Catherine-Morgan.com and Women4Hope

Collected here are the top 10 most frequently provided answers to question number 22, “What is the one thing you’d like your family/friends to really understand about CFS?” Responses were limited to 100 characters, and some were stated using different words, but I’ve tried to capture the “essence” of the most consistent responses with a few direct quotes as well.

1. CFS is real.
   “I’m not making this up.”
   “My symptoms are very real even though you can’t see them.”
   “I am sick with a real disease and I’m doing the best I can.”
2. It is very debilitating and disabling.
   “CFS is as disabling as HIV, cancer and MS.”
   “Staying at home is not a ‘fun vacation from reality.’”
   “CFS is absolutely life-altering.”
3. The fatigue is very intense.
   “It’s more than being tired.”
   “My energy is very limited.”
   “I understand you’re tired, but it’s not the same as CFS.”
4. Looks can be deceiving.
   “I don’t look as bad as I feel inside.”
   “Even when I look good, I feel awful.”
   “Just because I look okay now, know that I’ll pay for it later.”
5. CFS is unpredictable.
   “I don’t know from one day to the next how I’ll feel.”
   “I have no control over how I feel.”
   “I need to be flexible in planning things.”
6. It has nothing to do with being lazy.
   “I wish I could accomplish more each day than I can.”
   “Even simple things are often beyond my ability.”
   “I’m not trying to get out of doing something when I say I can’t.”
7. Words don’t do CFS justice.
   “There’s no way to accurately describe how bad I feel.”
   “I still hurt as badly 20 years later as I did the first day I got sick.”
   “Even when I don’t talk about it, I still feel sick.”
8. CFS is very isolating.
   “I am often lonely and alone.”
   “Life moves on without me.”
   “Nobody understands what I’m going through.”
9. Your understanding is important.
   “I am so grateful for my family’s support.”
   “I am very lucky to have their understanding. It makes life bearable.”
   “I still need quality life experiences and to be involved.”
10. CFS is not a choice.
    “I don’t want to be this sick.”
    “I miss the person I used to be.”
    “It’s so sad to miss out on so many things in life.”

Consider sharing this list with the people in your life whose support is important to your well-being. Maybe it will start a dialogue that helps deepen their understanding of what it’s like to have CFS.

You can read the full article here.

This is what I think…

We can’t just ban every medication that has serious problems associated with overuse. It seems to me that educating people who are taking these medications would be more helpful, than making them totally unavailable.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not denying the seriousness of Acetaminophen overdose…

A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee met late last month to review the actions the agency could take to reduce accidental acetaminophen poisoning. The drug, also found in over-the-counter cold formulas and pain-relieving prescription favorites Vicodin and Percocet, is the most common cause of acute liver failure in the U.S.

In acute liver failure, the organ fails quickly, sometimes in 48 hours, as opposed to the more usual forms of liver failure, caused by disease or alcoholism, which can take years to develop.

I just don’t think banning medications with acetaminophen in them is the answer. And I think this whole controversy is just exacerbating the stigma associated with chronic pain and the use of therapeutic doses of narcotics.

Read full post at catherine-morgan.com

Do you suffer from a chronic illness with no known cure? Like Multiple Sclerosis, Lupus, or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? If so, you probably wish every day that you could find a cure and finally be healthy and well.

Why is it that just about every illness without a medically proven cure, has loads of people “claiming” to know the cure? Not only is it disingenuous to promote cures to desperate people suffering with chronic illness, but it also minimizes the seriousness of these conditions.

For instance, I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), and many people believe the cure for this condition is as simple as getting more sleep (and oddly enough, more exercise). Guess what? CFS has nothing to do with how much sleep someone gets, and exercise often exacerbates Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. There is no cure for what I have, but the Internet is full of sites that claim to have “sell” the cure. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that there are many alternative modalities of healing that can benefit the symptoms of this disease, but they should not be mistaken for (or touted as) cures.

Read the rest of this post at catherine-morgan.com