|
My great great grandmother |
My great grandmother |
My grandmother |
My mother and me |
My daughter Jenny |
Five Generations
The differences between Native or Indigenous
People
and Non-Natives become clearly
evident in our Health Issues.
1-14-2014
This was just heard
today on GMA, I believe.
Too much Green Tea
may interfere with your Beta Blocker Meds.
Ask your Doctor
about this and see what he/she thinks.
In my own family there are
several dominant illnesses
which
are also quite common among most Native People,
Diabetes, High Blood Pressure and Heart disease,
most commonly
Congestive Heart Failure.
Native People suffer from a
myriad of other illnesses:
Bipolar Disorder, Chronic
Obesity, Crippling Arthritis,
Depression, Lactose
Intolerance and the
extraordinarily painful, debilitating,
Fibromyalgia.
Other Health conditions that we share
are: Chemical,
Drug and Alcohol intolerance,
Jaw Displacement,
Migraine headaches, severe insect
reactions and Dyslexia.
A critical difference
between Native and Non-Natives
is our reaction to
anesthetics during surgery.
Some of us have a very
difficult time waking up, or may
exhibit what can be
considered unusual behavior in recovery.
Frequently when
we finally do begin to come around,
we are often quite
nauseous much longer than others.
These reactions to the
drugs used during surgery are
just another example of
our lack of tolerance to chemicals.
If you are going into
surgery, please make your doctor aware
of your race and that
complications could occur because of it.
Diabetes, which has been
linked to obesity,
can bring serious
complications with vision,
as well as life
threatening circulation problems.
If you have it, please do not
do as my grandmother did,
she ignored her Doctor and cheated
on her diet
frequently with the expected
consequences.
In many cases, our chronic
obesity is related to poor
food choices, lack of exercise
and a little DNA.
Over 30 percent of Native
people are obese.
The
highest incidence of
chronic obesity in Natives still remains
with those living on
Reservations whose limited access
to healthy food sources and
proper Health care,
makes
staying fit nearly impossible.
High unemployment, drug or
alcohol dependency and the
resultant Depression only exacerbates the
situation.
My negative reaction to
food additives and chemicals
like MSG and
any artificial sweeteners,
may not be a Native
problem, but it is one
that has plagued me for
many years.
These chemicals
that are commonly added to our food,
will guarantee me a
Migraine within hours every single time.
I never really thought
about them much until after suffering
from Migraines for
years, someone told me to stop
drinking anything with
artificial sweeteners in it.
I did and the headaches
went away nearly instantly.
Since then I have had
very few headaches until recently,
when I learned that MSG
can also cause them.
I started reading food
labels after that and eliminated MSG from my life.
Now there are new ones,
like Carrageenan
and Maltodextrin, which are
added to so many things today, that
it is difficult to find food without them.
These artificial
sweeteners/additives/chemicals, may not bother
other people, but they
give me terrible headaches, upset stomachs
and other
digestive problems nearly instantly.
If I learn from other
Native people that they are bothered by
these food
additives as well, I will post it here.
A few years ago, I
learned that the one food you should always buy Organic is Coffee.
The pesticides used in
growing coffee are so strong, they are yet another source of
headaches.
There are several
really good on out there, I refer buying whole bean,
it always tastes
f4esher when you grind your own beans.
Keep trying them until
you find one that you like the taste of best.
Trader Joe's and Whole
Foods Market have some good ones.
Until I used a computer I had
no idea that I was dyslexic.
When you write with a pen, your
brain has time to make corrections,
but when you are typing on a
keyboard and not looking
at your writing, it cannot make
these corrections.
What you end up with, like I
do, is a page full
of words with the
middle letters reversed.
Many Native children are born
with extra teeth,
as mine were, which most likely
will need to be
removed and braces used
to fix the remaining ones.
Lazy eye, another common Native
affliction,
which can cause some
nasty headaches,
can be helped with a series of
exercises.
My daughter and I both have
this.
A good Optometrist
pointed out that this was
the cause of our failure to
stay awake when reading.
It seems that our eyes/brain
get so tired of trying to
focus on the writing, that it
just puts us to sleep.
Which it always does.
Natives also have an extra bone
in their feet.
My feet were x-rayed when I was
a child and the Doctor
told my mother something was wrong with
me,
that I had a bone that didn't belong where it was.
He had no idea and neither did
we, that most Native
people have this extra bone in their
feet.
Shoes can be challenging if you have very high arches,
as I do.
Bone spurs are common and may
require surgery.
Foot problems can be ongoing, our feet
it would
seem, were never meant to be in
shoes.
The most serious Foot problems
are related to Diabetes.
Although these conditions and diseases do not
solely
affect American Native People,
we do seem to
carry the heavy
end of the burden.
Many of our friends and family
have one or more of these
Health Issues, which can
often be stressful
and/or depressing.
Having multiple health afflictions is
very tiresome,
especially for children and the
Elders.
Quite often when Natives who
live off Reservations,
go to see a Doctor, they fail
to mention their Native Heritage.
This omission can hinder Health
Histories, which are critical
to the Doctor being
able to make an accurate diagnosis.
Some Doctors are now beginning
to be aware of these
Native Disease links and can
help with more targeted,
specific diagnosis and
treatment plans.
But when neither the patient,
nor the Doctor are aware,
it can lead to years of painful
suffering, often needlessly.
My daughter suffered for months
during the
first year of her life
because we did not know that she was
lactose intolerant.
Neither we, nor her
Pediatrician, knew about the Native link to
this condition which caused
her reactions to Dairy products.
Now we know that she,
like many Native children was lactose intolerant.
Something new to add to
this page of Health Issues just recently discovered.
I am allergic to
strawberries.
For the past few months
I have been adding strawberries to a blender drink
that I have every
morning, they came in the bag of frozen assorted fruits,
so I thought they
would be a good healthy addition.
Not so fast.
I noticed that a small
cluster of red blotches had developed on my left cheek,
but did not put it
together,
Until about a week ago,
I read that some people react to strawberries with skin rashes.
Duh!
Stopped putting them in
the drink about a week ago and surprise, the rash is all gone.
What I learned is this.
My body seems to reject
nearly every food that is not native to this country.
It is said that there
were native wild strawberries growing in Virginia, but the ones we
can
buy at the store are
not those same strawberries and this may be part of my problem?
Hmmmmmm.......
So, what can we do to help
ourselves, our loved ones and our friends?
It is really so simple.
Make those close to you or who
care for you
aware of your Native Heritage.
It might be advisable to wear a
health alert bracelet in
some severe cases where time in
treatment is critical.
Read books, learn to Google,
talk to people, ask questions of
your Doctors, friends and
relatives, educate yourself about
these Diseases that affect us as a Race.
The more we know, the more we
can do to prevent complications
from our own particular group
of Native Health Issues
and help us to take better care
of ourselves.
|
March 27, 2012
We Have
Always Done It The Natural Way
This news is
not news to Native people, but it is nice to have another
reason to say
"I told you so" to non Natives once again.
This story
shows what we have always known, that Native people
have been
using so called "natural medicines" since the beginning of
time.
A great story
and one to show to your children when or if, they doubt that
their ancestors
are a race of which they can be truly proud.
Rediscovered Native American Remedy Kills Pox Virus
|
The links below are to Native
Health Organizations and
care
givers who offer services specifically for Native People.
A Clinical Report on the
Prevention
and Treatment of Diabetes in Children
American Academy of Pediatrics
Association of American Indian
Physicians
AAIP
Native Americans and Diabetes
American Diabetes Association
Special Populations: American Indians and
Alaskan Natives
Health Finder
Native American Health
A great list of web resources
for Native Health.
Healthy NJ
Native American Specific Links
HIV Center of Excellence
This is the main page for this
Government Agency
at the US Department of Health
and Human Services.
Indian Health Service
Cancer Center at Mayo Clinic
Native Circle
Heart Fact Sheet
NHLBBI
National Indian Child Welfare
Association
NICWA
National Indian Health Board
NIHB
National Indian Women's Health
Resource Center
NIWHRC
American Indian Resource Center for
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
One Sky Center
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Last edited
January 14, 2014
Kola visits
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