I have lurked on and off on a forum for psychiatrists and learned that some will not take patients who want to taper off of benzos. So, before moving on to a new psychiatrist or physician, make sure any new MDs understand what she’d like to do and are on board. Then, of course, keep doors open to the former doctors because she might want to go back to them in the future. I have to say that if she managed to taper down even for awhile, that is a good sign. I hope her life has settled down so she try again when ready.

For crayon or scuff marks, you could try a plain Magic Sponge but just on the markings. Don't go too crazy because you could mar the paint finish.

I wrap all gifts. If dh were responsible, he’d just throw the gift in a Trader Joe’s bag and call it done. Or hide it under a sofa pillow on the day he’s giving it. Our kids are adults and they all usually wrap gifts. One of them is a little less inclined to wrap but does so most of the time.

The tics might actually be tardive dyskinesia especially if she had been taking Xanax for a long time, quit for awhile and then started taking them again. Encourage her to keep working with a psychiatrist who can help her taper off. The most important thing she can do is be brutally honest, as she’s doing. It will be rough at times but with help from the psychiatrist, she can get herself into a much healthier state. Best of luck to her.

Yes, that would irritate me. It’s not so much the money but the bother and waste of having to purchase something that will only be worn once. I suppose your kids could dress up as Johnny Cash for Halloween...

The way a pharmaceutical company brings a drug/device to market or controls the market or pricing is often through lobbying. Many of the pharma lobbyists are former members of Congress or former staff at the White House, etc. It is often about profit or control but doesn't mean that the scientists or MDs are corrupt. It's a part of a process that occurs either without much transparency or is so convoluted, that it's difficult to figure out the facts. My husband, now retired, worked with politicians and lobbyists and testified before committees from both Houses throughout his career, where he scrutinized statistics and had to troubleshoot foreseeable future problems. Up close and personal this is a very messy and ugly process that is often driven by the desire to make a profit. Cheap drugs or treatments that work well are not studied like they should be because the studies are expensive. Also, drug makers do compete with one another and will view a cheaper drug as their competition and potential threat. They then might choose to hire or use their lobbyist to keep their drug on the market and find ways to prevent their competitor from moving in on their turf. This happens more often than you might realize. Much of what transpires occurs out of the public eye. Even with Covid this has been happening in the US. If you do searches, you can read articles about it. Here's one from Google. I don't know about Ivermectin or HCQ but high dose IV vitamin C is being used in other countries, such as China, to treat cytokine storm from Covid. It's cheap and fairly easy to administer. We should be using it in IV form as well but as far as I know, it's not widely used in US hospitals.

Here is Mark Hyman, MD, interviewing Italian MD/PhD Paolo Tordiglione about using ozone-oxygen to treat Covid patients in Italy. It gives a good, general overview of the benefits and results they're seeing there. Tordiglione, an anesthesiologist, has studied ozone extensively and uses it in his practice for a number of issues, including preventing and treating infections in neurosurgery. In Italy, he's involved in the case studies and RCTs using ozone to treat Covid. Some of these are ongoing but they are seeing very good results which occur quickly without side effects. Technically, the gas mixture is not 100% ozone but about 95-99% oxygen and then the remainder is ozone, a small percentage. Ozone is a very unstable molecule that breaks down quickly into oxygen. The oxygen-ozone gas is not breathed in. A small amount of a patient's blood is removed, the oxygen-ozone mixture is bubbled into the blood and then it is put back in the patient. They are doing this twice a day for seven days to treat Covid patients who opt to be treated this way. For some, they have given the treatment as a last resort and those patients have recovered. It is a safe, simple, relatively painless procedure. https://drhyman.com/blog/2020/12/09/podcast-ep148/ You can get this done in the US by MDs who offer it. You have to know who they are, though. You would get this done in the MD's office and then go home and recover. If you are admitted into a hospital, you will not be able to get it done there.

I use the PromoLife equipment and learned how to do the different procedures through MDs who use it. The WHO has listed some of the studies on their site if you're interested. MDs here in the US are using it to treat their patients who are testing positive for Covid and who have symptoms. They're often giving them a 10-pass treatment which is 10 removals of small amounts of blood, then adding a small amount of O2-O3 and heparin to that blood, and then reinjecting it back in. The international hospitals using O2-O3 are using something similar -- one passes -- which would be one of those treatments, but they are doing them one to a few times per day until certain biomarkers drop, such as ferritin, which skyrockets during a cytokine storm.

Yes, it's very interesting. I was surprised about APS, though. Crazy that gut bacteria could be playing a role in it.

Everyone in my family does an ozone treatment every so often. It's all medical-grade (meaning the material won't react with the ozone), not cheap equipment. And oxygen which is used to make the ozone. It's technically about 95% oxygen and 5% ozone. As long as the ozone is not breathed and the treatment is properly administered, it's extremely safe. We eat out(side) at restaurants about twice a week and shop at stores. Everyone wears a mask, too.

Thank you. Yes, I believe he’s worried about supplying information about himself for that reason. He has two young kids here who are US citizens but he is not.

Have you run across any of the studies that suggest gut bacteria might be causing APS? This one is from a few years ago but there have been others, i think. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161113154953.htm

Here’s a question: will non-citizens in the US be able to get vaccinated? A restaurant worker my husband and I have known for about 5 years asked us about this. I have no idea. I won’t be able to get back on until maybe tomorrow night so TIA for any info.

Yes, sauna — hyperthermia — is very beneficial. Rhonda Patrick has a number of interviews on her site discussing its benefits.

The other machine is the NeuroStar.

In the US, Bob Dennis would be a good choice to learn more about pemf and what they know about it. He worked with NASA to design their pulsed electromagnetic frequency, pemf devices. TMS is pemf. The magnetic field affects cells in a number of ways and he does a good job explaining it. He's been writing a book about it and has whittled it down to 800 pages! He also has a YouTube channel with a lot of information. Another good source would be Dr. Pawluk, an MD who uses pemf on his patients. He has a website with articles and has written a short book on it. Pawluk travels around the world to learn more from other researchers/MDs who use it. As you know, Peter Pan, I am a huge fan of pemf and have used it often at home for almost 10 years. I just love it.

Yes, it does engage heat shock proteins. Rhonda discusses heat shock proteins and also sulforaphane, the broccoli chemical, on her site. She recently interviewed Jed Fahey, a retired researcher in nutritional biochemistry at John Hopkins Medical School, who has studied the benefits of sulforaphane extensively. This was their second interview. Just so you know, there are not many reputable sulforaphane supplements. Avmocal is one if you want to go that way. Broccoli sprouts are another, probably better, option. Fahey has discussed this with Rhonda in both of his interviews with her.

Other newer methods that are being used to treat depression (and anxiety/depression) are photobiomodulation (PBM) and sauna. PBM in this case is a red light or near-infrared light of a certain wavelength or range that is applied around the temple area for a period of time. Dr. Paulo Cassona (MD/PhD) is one who is doing research in this area. It looks promising and eventually could be a treatment that is easy to use at home. The effect occurs fairly quickly, sometimes shortly after just the first session but might work best with CBT in some cases. https://oshercenter.org/oc-event/grand-rounds-invisible-light-can-the-treatment-of-depression-be-beyond-what-is-seen/ Transcranial photobiomodulation (t-PBM) with invisible near-infrared radiation (NIR) has emerged as a potential antidepressant treatment in both animal models and human studies. t-PBM consists of delivering NIR ─or red light─ to the scalp of the patient, which penetrates the skull and modulates function of the adjacent cortical areas of the brain. t-PBM with red light and/or NIR appears to increase brain metabolism (by activating the cytochrome C oxidase in the mitochondria), to increase neuroplasticity, and to modulate endogenous opioids, while decreasing inflammation and oxidative stress. t-PBM penetrates deeply into the cerebral cortex, modulates cortical excitability and improves cerebral perfusion and oxygenation. Studies have suggested that it can significantly improve cognition in healthy subjects, and in subjects with traumatic brain injury. Whole-body hyperthermia, even just one prolonged session, can also treat major depressive disorder. Psychiatrist Charles Raison studies this at UWisonsin-Madison. The following link explains how they believe this works (scroll down to read). The session was long -- hours -- because the individual had to have a core temperature for a period of time. https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/charles-raison In Dr. Raison’s randomized, double-blind study published in JAMA in 2016, it was shown that a single session of whole-body hyperthermia (core body temperature was elevated to 38.5 C) produced a significant antidepressant effect in people with major depressive disorder compared to those who received a sham control. The improvements were apparent within a week of treatment and persisted for six weeks after treatment. Raison is studying this at UWisconsin-Madison. https://centerhealthyminds.org/science/studies/exploring-hyperthermia-as-an-alternative-treatment-for-depression

Another career idea that might take off in the future is designing and setting up specialized irrigation, such as drip and saline irrigation, done on a large scale. Desalination careers as well. Israel is a leader in these areas and has partnered with the US on some projects here, iirc. Might be a way to farm in the deserts. https://www.israel21c.org/?s=Saline+irrigation

My former neighbor was a forest ranger at Yellowstone before he became an MD. He just loved it. He’s in his 80s and is still as outdoorsy as ever. Hasn't slowed down much at all. My niece is a mining engineer and one aspect of her job is to inspect the exterior. She’s outside in nature all the time. She likes the people she works with, and the money’s pretty good, too. Two of my brothers worked for oil operations in Alaska and North Dakota. Work can be hard but can pay very well if you get the right job. Jobs can come and go, though.

Resistant starch might help. RS is what good bacteria eat and a byproduct of that is butyrate. Butyrate keeps your gut healthy. A healthy gut leads to all kinds of improvements in health. Some people find that increasing resistant starch improves their post prandial blood glucose reactions and fasting blood glucose and as a result, they have been able to increase their daily carbs. What foods would work best for you depends on how your body reacts so first you'd want to learn which ones truly contain resistant starch and then experiment. It's important to understand what resistant starch is exactly because many articles gloss over the finer points. You don't want to experiment with foods that are not actually good sources of resistant starch. Places to start learning more would be the Sonnenburgs' book The Good Gut or their lab at Stanford, the Sonnenburg Lab. Also, Rhonda Patrick's site Found My Fitness is really good. Rhonda is a biochemist who explains the pros and cons of studies done on diet and lifestyle and how to prevent problems. If you become a member, she offers monthly Q&A sessions where you can submit questions and she'll discuss the research herself or with other researchers who are tops in their fields. Dr. Gregor’s articles are also worth checking out.

Do you eat foods that are high in resistant starch (RS)? RS feeds good bacteria in your gut and, in turn, they create a short-chain fatty acid called butyrate which, among other benefits, can improve sleep quality. Some people eat, for example, a small-medium, raw potato at dinner but you could try other foods as well. If you have gut issues or are unsure, you could try different types of RS and start with smaller amounts initially and increase gradually. Another idea is glycine to keep you cool longer. Glycine lowers body temp during the night. Lower core body temperature leads to deeper sleep. It works for some. 3 grams in the evening is a typical dose. Now is a good brand. It’s just pure glycine.

Pulsed electromagnetic frequency therapy (PEMF) is being studied as a promising way to treat tinnitus. PEMF uses electricity to generate a magnetic field through a copper Tesla coil. The magnetic field affects the tissue. My family and I use these devices often for all kinds of health issues, including tinnitus. It took me about two months of daily 20” use using a Sota device before I noticed my tinnitis starting to go away. It’s usually completely gone now but occasionally will faintly reappear. When it does, I just do a few daily sessions with the Sota above my ear and a few inches toward the front of my head. My husband has been using a FlexPulse device for the past two months and is having days where his tinnitus is gone completely. The most reliable resources of information on PEMF in the US are Bob Dennis, who has researched and designed devices for NASA and occasionally teaches at MIT and Harvard, and MD William Pawluk, who often uses PEMF to treat his patients’ different health problems. Both do sell devices, and IMO, are the two most trustworthy sources in the US. I bought all of my devices through their online sites. Both have YouTube channels as well. Here are two articles. Other studies have been done in the world and if you search using pemf and tinnitus, you should be able to find them. https://www.hearingreview.com/inside-hearing/research/magnetic-pulses-brain-bring-relief-tinnitus-patients https://www.hearingreview.com/inside-hearing/research/brain-processes-older-adults-compound-hearing-problems-study-shows

Grassroots Health, a nonprofit that studies Vitamin D, recommends above 40-60 ng/ml. https://www.grassrootshealth.net/vitamin-d-supplements-reduce-risk-influenza-covid-19-infection-death/ More articles here: https://www.grassrootshealth.net/blog-category/coronavirus/ Anyone interested can order a diy blood spot test from them to test your level of vitamin D at home. Our family uses their test. You buy it online, they send you the kit, you poke your finger and place drops of blood on a spot card, then mail it back. They also ask that you fill out a longish questionnaire online about health, sun exposure and supplements. It takes awhile to get results, 2-3 weeks, but is a way to avoid going in to a lab.

I grew up in Montana and had not one school snow day. I do believe I was cheated. Hmmph.