Your Health Budget: Medication Affordability and Rising Healthcare Prices

The 2021 United States median income was about $45,760.  This amounts to about $3,813 per month.  After taxes this could be about $2542 per month for basic living expenses including rent/ mortgage; utilities; food; clothing; schooling; transportation; healthcare; insurances healthcare, home(s), car(s); and for other family necessary needs.  Ten percent of this ($254) could be just one of several medicines you take. Add more medication and it can easily become 20%. For patients below the poverty level, those with lowest average yearly salary of $18,074, especially those who are disabled or over 60 on Social Security Supplemental Income, this may be difficult.  

Patients have concerns about necessary medication, prescription or non-prescription, that they are unable to afford.  These include price, real necessity (i.e., other treatment options), and good treatment for that which it was given.  Will it control, make better, and cure their malady without side effects?  If it fails, the patient may get sicker as well as financially unstable.  

The days of patients taking everything the doctor prescribes or says are fewer.  Patients have become empowered in all ways especially with responsible self-care and health literacy.  Once diagnosed, or even prior to seeing the doctor, patients are able to immediately look it up and learn more about their condition(s), medication used for treatment, newest treatment options, specialists, special therapists, and so much more.  This helps you get the best treatment at prices that fit your budget.

Remember to discuss medication money issues with your healthcare providers.  They will be sure to help find affordable resources for you.  Also discuss, other treatments like proper nutrition and physical therapy which can done in your home.  This makes it easier and allows it to be continued more effectively.  Find what works best for you.  Best health!   

Positive Ways for Less Stressful Days

If your thoughts or what you are listening to or watching is unkind and disrespectful delivering little to no joy or happiness, turn it off, avoid it, and delete it from your healthy life.  This is of utmost importance in staying well or healing because it decreases unhealthy stress towards zero.  As you move towards this goal you will feel the benefits as well keep your blood pressure, arthritis, and other medical conditions stable or away.

Good health includes more than physical wellness.  Mental, emotional, and spiritual health helps maintain the physical well being. When you have positive thoughts, you can look forward to a more positive, joyous, happy, healthy body and daily existence.  Healthy food and exercise keep your body functioning at optimal levels thereby enhancing nature's healing forces within you. 

Make time for quiet time to yourself at least twice a day for fifteen minutes.  Include meditation, prayer, and yoga on a regular basis several times a week keeping it simple and easy for you.  Start with ten minute routines.  Get in this habit and strive to do it routinely for at least a week.  Increase your time to five minutes per session for at least twenty minutes or longer three or more times per week.  Daily is optimal.  It is worth taking the time to make this a goal.

As you develop healthier habits and routines, you will feel better and your positive ways will lead to less stressful days.  Best health!  

Medical Treatments For Your Good Health

Are you willing to pay extra for treatments that your insurance does not cover? Whether it is conventional medical therapy or alternative treatment, it can be hard to know what to do. Two free, nonprescription treatments, prayer and meditation, are tops in alternative treatments patients use. Why? Because it works. So why aren't more doctors recommending it along with all the other treatments? Why does conventional treatment get first choice?

Massage, acupuncture and other alternative modalities can be just as effective with better results, less side effects. Treatments and medicines used over 2000 years ago on Eastern medicine are often dismissed and discouraged as fist line treatments. Evidence based studies is the buzzword for medical treatments that works best today. Drug trials done over a few months to years take precedence over tried and true alternative treatments from thousands of years ago.

One size does not fit all. Treatments must be customized to each patient. This takes careful history taking, physical exam, in conjunction with other tests - conventional and alternative. All aspects of medical treatment must be respected and offered to patients so they can make a fully informed medical decision.

Even more discouraging is that health insurance covers any alternative treatments. For a person with a chronic conditions like arthritis, insurance will cover addictive potent pain medications when routine massages and/or acupuncture and/or routine physical therapy offer better pain control, and ongoing daily function.


If drug dependence to the point of drug addiction occurs, treatment is covered by insurance over non addicting complimentary treatment even though rehabilitation for addiction will incur extra cost and suffering for the patient.  What began as arthritis pain can turn into drug dependence and adverse reactions with other side effects that may require rehabilitation or more drugs.  This can add at least two or more new diagnoses for the patient which may require some self pay in addition to insurance coverage.


Seek out other therapies for your diagnosis.  Many chronic conditions can be helped with proper diet, exercise, prayer, etc.  The healing activity must be continuous and maintained routinely to get good results.  Good lifestyle changes should be incorporated into daily life.  As one learns to take pills daily so can one learn healthy routines that improve their quality of life.  Best health!

Read and Learn for Your Health

Read what you need. Learn about what you need to maintain good health and well-being.  Health literacy is an important part of your self-care health care.  It helps promote better health and quality of life. 

Medical science progresses so rapidly!  It is impossible for health care providers to keep up with all these new developments. Be aware of treatments your doctors and healthcare team have yet to hear about or are unlikely to ever find out about.  The overwhelming amount of new health information that comes out is far too much for many to stay current on every disease and treatment.  This should not stop you the patient from finding out all you can.  The same goes for wellness.  Participating in your health care is mandatory to maintain good health, achieve wellness, and overcome illness.

There are so many different treatments and modalities that compliment traditional medicine.  As many lack training in these areas they are unable to tell the patient.  Asking your doctor is a good starting place as is telling your doctor about the things you have read about or tried that helped.  In turn this may evoke a response by your physician to find out more, and even share with other patients and colleagues who may in turn share their “new” information which your doctor can share with you.

Reading and learning are vital to good health.  Informed choices based on fact have proven to yield better health outcomes.  Best health!

Your Choice: Medication or Food?

As health care costs rise everyone is looking for ways to save and cut costs. Recent studies and polls reveal that many are foregoing their medicine for other necessities of life like food and shelter.  Patient compliance has dropped to a new low.  Patients are taking their medication as needed when their budget allows.  This means less to none on a daily basis. Many are finding this indeed saves money, and possibly affects their health outcome minimally.

As food is the sustenance of life, many are making healthier choices.  This helps their medical maladies as well.  For hypertension and diabetes proper food choices can often alleviate the need for “stronger” treatment with medication. As more patients learn about dietary management and adhere to it, they find that they can indeed save money.

Talk to your healthcare provider if you are noncompliant with your medication because of the cost, or side effects that may cause other conditions requiring more medication, more money.  Be sure to get formal diet and nutrition counseling.  This will help make the right choices when you shop for food.  Contrary to popular myth, healthy food is actually affordable.  Shop smart to save your money and your health!     

High Blood Pressure Home Remedies

Treating hypertension with lifestyle changes that promte good habits is key to staying 120/80, the normal blood pressure reading. Of course, maintainimg healthy weight for your height, eating the right foods, regular exercise, limited alcohol intake, avoidance of cigarettes and severe stress help. If these things fail to keep you 120/80 then you will need blood pressure medication prescribed by your primary care physician or cardiologist.

Many regimens start with a diuretic ("water pill") either alone or combined with any other medication groups like beta blockers, angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, calcium channel blockers, and more. Many of these have lots of side effects as well as create new medical problems (e.g. diuretics can cause loss of potasssium resulting in cramping, heart rhythm abnormalities; beta blockers can cause bradycardia, exacerbate asthma, COPD). When used in combination this can worsen. Home remedies may offer healthier and safer treatment.

Some high blood pressure home treatments include:
- honey and onion juice in equal amounts equal to 2 teaspoons daily
- garlic clove daily
- foods: fruits esp banannas, oranges, apples, watermelon. papaya; fish (less
red meat; vegetables especially carrots, spinach; whole grains; low fat
- apple cider vinegar 2 tablespoons daily
- aloe vera
- tea (black, green, hibiscus)
- coconut water ("noelani")

Many of these remedies also help other maladies, but more importantly they are natural, wholesome and inexpensive requiring no prescription. Remember to also halt the salt!

Best health!

Health Books: Must Read Healing, Part 1

Health literacy is the sure way to help you and your health care team make the best medical decisions for you. Making healthy lifestyles permanent is one of the keys to good health. The following books are recommended primarily because they teach you things you can do for yourself that you can incorporate in your lifestyle to make it healthier.

The Healing Power Of Prayer: The Surprising Connection Betweeen Prayer & Your Health
by Chester L. Tolson, Ph.D. and Harold G. Koenig, M.D.

Food as Medicine: How to Use Diet, Vitamins, Juices and Herbs for a Healthier, Happier and Longer Life
by Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D.

Prescription for Herbal Healing
by Phyllis A. Balch, CNC

Spontaneous Healing
by Andrew Weil, M.D.

The Doctor and the Word
by Reginald Cherry, M.D.

Healing Words: The Power of Prayer & the Practice of Medicine
by Larry Dossey, M.D.

20 Minute Yoga Workouts
by America Yoga Foundation & Alice Christensen (founder)

Home Health Massage
by Wendy Kavanagh

Take Charge of Your Hospital Stay: A Start Smart Guide for Patients & Caregivers
by Karen Keating McCann

Power Healing: The Four Keys To Energizing Your Body, Mind, & Spirit
by Dr. Zhi Gang Sha

Patient Handbook to Medical Care: Your Personal Health Guide
by J. L. Richardson, M.D.

Best health!

Marijuana for Pain: Up Close & Personal

Such a timely question, medical cannabis. I live in a state that has all but decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use. Police may write tickets and confiscate, but even that minimal enforcement is rarely performed.

While I empathize with my cohorts with a variety of pain issues, I can only speak from my own experiences, so here's my first person perspective.

I was in the music business in Nashville when it became known as the "Third Coast" in the early-mid 1980s. Drugs were everywhere. The same people who smoked dope were into exotic highs like mushrooms, and then cocaine swept over us like a wave. Not wanting to raise my daughters in that environment, I left - the business, and the state.

Having been in the environment, I am one who unfailingly believes that marijuana is indeed often a "gateway drug" to more hard core substances - but for a different reason. The people I saw moving on to harder substances were a personality type - those who pushed the envelope. Perhaps for some it is the thrill of living dangerously, i.e. breaking a law, rather than the effect of the drug. I honestly
don't think I ever met anyone who suffered withdrawal symptoms from either being without a supply of pot, or from discontinuing it cold turkey.

Alcohol and tobacco are legal, controlled and taxed. There is an expectation that the ingredients (including the toxic ones) are of a consistent strength and character. Not so with illegal cannabis, which may be laced with angel dust or rat poison for that matter. No two highs are the same, or so I'm told.

The fact that there is no guarantee of safety or consistency, nor a legal way for me to try cannabis medicinally (and that I obey the speed limit when no one is watching) prevents me from experimenting. But some nights the painful systemic neuropathy drives me to the very brink of sanity.

With liver function tests consistently out of normal range, I'm in a terrible place for pain control: I have none. Neuroleptic drugs like gabapentin are notoriously hepatotoxic. Hydrocodone/apap or stronger narcotic/acetaminophen combinations are not only not effective for neuropathic pain, the acetaminophen is contraindicated in the presence of suspected or confirmed liver disease. So is alcohol.

I'm not aware of any research indicating cannabis in liver disease.

Medical cannabis can be delivered through smokeless methods, important to folks with respiratory disease. I've read that atomized cannabis is particularly effective and I'd love to try it, prescribed and monitored by my physician. Surely it would be safer pain control than the corticosteroid that only helps a little.

I've been a good Doo-Bee. I passed up the pipe, the rolled dollar bill, the magic mushrooms, and the Jack Daniels bottle under significant peer pressure. I'm so careful with my prescribed pain medications that I'm considered "narcotic naive". I've had surgical pain interventions, but there is no rhizotomy for systemic neuropathy.

Would it be too much to ask my government to permit me compassionate use of a natural substance to alleviate the pain that prevents me from being the person I can be?

Rachel Rosenfeld
http://www.twitter.com/NanaRCR

Thanks to guest blogger Rachel Rosenfeld for this great post on medical marijauna as it relates to her personal health issues. Medical research by doctors has shown it to be effective for safe treatment of pain and many other medical conditions that have been failed by traditional medication (including Marinol pills). Legalizing marijuana will have a great positive impact on patient comfort and quality of life.

Medical Marijuana

Medicinal uses of marijuana prove beneficial to patients especially those with cancer, pain, AIDS, MS, glaucoma, and many more chronic non terminal illnesses. Like so many forms of alternative and complimentary medical treatments, it has been viewed with lots of controversy and skepticism because studies have also shown it to be harmful. Is this unlike any other medicine that is legal? Really, no.

As controversial as it may be, it is legal in some states for medicinal use. How can this be fair? Who gets to decide who gets a cannabis prescription to "take as directed whenever for whatever"? The state of Ohio is currently considering the Ohio Medical Compassion Act which would legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes. The title of the act itself is a testament.

Other things to consider in making marijuana legal: decrease drug related crimes; decrease money spent on drug crimes; give farmers a moneymaking crop (as pot and hemp).

If it were legal and taxed, it would be a high healing crime reduction money maker.