Boom or Bust: Conquering Diseases of Aging

Baby Boomer health bookBoom or Bust: Conquering Diseases of Aging is a unique E-book designed specifically for aging baby boomers and older. Whether it’s bladder problems or memory loss, cancer or a sudden heart attack, osteoporosis or a greater risk of injuries, with increasing age comes a variety of medical problems that may be totally unexpected but need to be addressed to improve your quality and length of life.

Boom or Bust is not an anti-aging book! There are plenty of those available, but anti-aging books are designed to help you prevent disease, not conquer it. What none of them do is tell Boomers exactly what to do if a medical condition does occur. That’s the purpose of Boom or Bust.

This is especially important because our health care system is in chaos and is getting worse, impacting you and your health. The U.S. health care system is ranked 37th among the industrialized nations of the world, which includes factors such as longevity and quality of life for the elderly. So, instead of us controlling our health, our health may end up controlling us. It doesn’t have to be that way, however. You actually have many health care choices when faced with illness but probably don’t know which ones really work and which ones you should avoid at all costs. Boom or Bust has the answers.

Boom or Bust reviews and explains the major medical approaches --- preventive, conventional and alternative --- and helps you determine which ones should be used and when to use them, and which ones are a total waste of time, money and your health. This book spells out how to most effectively treat and potentially reverse all the diseases of aging, using a step-by-step guide that contains many alternative options of which you may be totally unaware. Even better, Boom or Bust gives you basic steps and programs that can help you feel better in a very short time and does not take a great deal of effort to get started.

That’s still not all, however. Boom or Bust also provides a riveting portrayal of the business of medicine, exposing the tremendous influence that drug companies, insurers, the media, malpractice lawyers and many others have on our health care system. It demonstrates how that influence significantly affects your health and what you can do to avoid the fallout. It even reviews the major solutions for reform proposed by politicians and medical associations, including the Affordable Care Act, revealing what impact it will have on your health and what is needed from the consumer for real reform to occur.

Boom or Bust is the first book that can help you choose the treatments that will provide the best value and effectiveness. Boom or Bust faces the actual medical consequences of aging and imparts practical information to conquer them. This book will be an indispensable guide for anyone facing the medical consequences of aging.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Why you need to take control of your own health

The introduction explains why all of us will eventually develop at least one disease of aging, no matter what anti-aging methods we use. It then explains why we can’t rely on our health care system to protect us and help us conquer these diseases. It concludes that it is up to each of us can to take control and make cost-effective choices, and that knowledge will be provided in this book.

  1. Facing The Facts of Aging
  2. Medicare and health Insurance: High Costs for Low Quality
  3. The Affordable Care Act: Failing to Reform
  4. You Making The Best Choices --- The Only Solution

Chapter 1: The Highway to Health: Which road should you take?

The first chapter gives the Boomer a quick overview of the three major systems of medical care…how they are similar, how they differ and the pros and cons of each. The chapter then discusses simple rules that will help the Boomer understand how to find the best treatments from these three systems and how to make sure the treatments are providing benefits.

  1. Understanding Your Choices:
    1. Preventive Medicine: The Most Neglected Choice
    2. Conventional Medicine: The Most Common Choice
    3. Alternative Medicine: The Most Overlooked Choice
  2. Five Simple Rules You Need to Know to Find the Best Treatment
  3. Five Simple Rules You Need to Know When Receiving Treatment
  4. Facing the Future: Your Choices, Your Health

Chapter 2: Prevention: Heading off bad health at the pass

This chapter explores Preventive medicine, but uses a different approach than anti-aging books. It first discusses the obstacles that we face in using preventive measures. It then discusses genetic, environmental, and personal influences and the fact that the Boomer can actually change these factors. It then focuses on the four areas for prevention: It summarizes the current research-based recommendations for screening tests, including many that doctors dismiss as unimportant; provides simple rules for getting the most out of diet and exercise without radically changing lifestyle; and tells you what supplements really will help and which are a waste of money. Lastly, it describes small actions the Boomer can take to make life healthier.

  1. The Cart is Before the Horse
  2. Do You Have a Choice? The Fight Against Genetics, The Environment, and Ourselves
  3. Lifestyle: It’s Not Necessarily WHAT You Do…It’s HOW You Do It
    1. Diet: You Are What You Eat
    2. Fluids: That’s What We’re Made Of
    3. Exercise: No Slowing Down
  4. Testing, Testing: What You Really Need To Do To Protect Your Health
  5. Supplements For Prevention: Help or Hoax?
  6. The Little Things That Make a Big Splash
  7. Prevention: The Choice is Yours

 

Chapter 3: Conventional Medicine: Delievering the Goods... and Not So Goods

This chapter tells you what you need to know when using conventional medicine. Because most consumers know more about the beneficial aspects and less about the negative aspects of conventional approaches, most of the chapter is designed to reveal the aspects of which most consumers are not aware and should avoid. It delves deeply into the main conventional treatments, including medications, testing and surgery, and reveals the often covert characteristics of doctors and other medical providers. The end of the chapter explains the inner workings of hospitals, both benefits and pitfalls.

  1. Conventional Medicine: What You Need To Know
  2. The Right Care: When To Use Conventional Medicine
  3. The Wrong Care: What To Avoid With Conventional Medicine
    1. Technological Answers Rather Than Common Sense
    2. Medications, Medications and More Medications
    3. Surgery: When In Doubt, Cut It Out
    4. Your Doctor: What You Don’t See May Be What You Get
    5. The Wannabes: Carving Out a Piece of the Pie
    6. Hospitals: For Better or For Worse
  4. Conventional Medicine: Best Friend or No Friend?

Chapter 4: Complementary and Alternative Medicine: The Old Becomes New

This chapter summarizes the growing potential of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), to which many people are turning due to the problems with conventional medicine. It specifies how to choose the best method and the best practitioner for your particular needs and also tells you what methods to avoid and how to know what works and what doesn’t. It details the major CAM methods and how to use each method most effectively. The chapter then discusses the CAM methods that have benefits yet less research backing, followed by non-researched CAM methods that may prove to be beneficial in the future.

  1. Alternative Medicine: What You Need to Know
  2. The Pitfalls: Beware of the Unknown
  3. The Best of The Bunch: Choosing the Best Alternative Approach For You
    1. Nutritional Supplements: Better Than Drugs?
    2. Mind-Body Medicine: It’s All In The Mind
    3. Traditional Chinese Medicine: An Oldie But Goodie
    4. Manual Therapy: “Handy” Techniques To Have
  4. Alternative Methods, Too
  5. The Rest: Help or Hoax?
  6. Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Helping the Unhelped

Chapter 5: Conquering Diseases of Aging

The best solution for attaining the best health care at the lowest cost and to conquer the inevitable diseases of aging is for the consumer to take control of his health and health care. This chapter shows Boomers who have specific health conditions how they can rein them in, improve their quality of life and potentially resolve the condition completely. It does so by providing a step-by-step action plan for the most common chronic diseases that occur as we age, using a unique combination of preventive, conventional, alternative and research methods. It further compares the advantages and disadvantages of each approach for that specific condition.

  1. The Balancing Act: Getting the Most Out of Your Treatment Choices
  2. The Conditions
    1. Allergic Rhinitis
    2. Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia
    3. Anemia
    4. Anxiety and Anxiety Disorders (Including PTSD, OCD, GAD, Panic Attacks and Phobias)
    5. Arteries: Aneurysm & Dissection
    6. Arteries: Peripheral Artery Disease/Stenosis (Carotid, Aortic, Renal)
    7. Arthritis (Osteoarthritis)
    8. Back and Neck pain, Acute
    9. Back and Neck Pain, Chronic
    10. Bell’s Palsy
    11. Bursitis & Tendonitis
    12. Cancer
    13. Carpal Tunnel and other Compressive Neuropathies (Radial, Cubital, Tarsal Tunnels)
    14. Cataracts
    15. Cholesterol
    16. Chronic Pain
    17. Colds and Flu
    18. Constipation
    19. Cosmetics (Corrective eyesight, Skin Rejuvenation & Body Rejuvenation)
    20. Depression
    21. Diabetes and Complications of Diabetes (Neuropathy, Retinopathy, Nephropathy, Foot problems)
    22. Emphysema/COPD
    23. End of Life Care
    24. Fatigue
    25. Fractures
    26. GERD (acid reflux and heartburn)
    27. Glaucoma
    28. Headaches (Tension, Migraine, Cluster)
    29. Hearing Loss
    30. Heart Disease:Angina/Heart Attacks
    31. Heart Disease: Arrythmias
    32. Heart Disease: Congestive Heart Failure
    33. Heart Disease: Coronary Artery Disease [CAD]
    34. High Blood Pressure (Hypertension)
    35. Incontinence and Overactive Bladder
    36. Infections, Dangerous (Pneumonia, MRSA, VRE, Clostridium difficile)
    37. Insomnia (and Sleep Apnea)
    38. Irritable Bowel Syndrome
    39. Kidney Disease (Chronic:CKD)
    40. Macular Degeneration
    41. Memory Loss
    42. Menopause
    43. Neuralgia (Trigeminal, Facial, Post-herpetic)
    44. Neuroma
    45. Neuropathy (Peripheral, Chemotherapy-induced)
    46. Osteoporosis
    47. Pain, Chronic (Including Fibromyalgia)
    48. Parkinson’s Disease and Essential Tremor
    49. Plantar Fasciitis/Heel spurs
    50. Prostate (Prostatitis, Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy: BPH)
    51. Restless Legs Syndrome
    52. Rheumatoid Arthritis
    53. Sciatica, Acute
    54. Sciatica, Chronic
    55. Sexual Dysfunction (Men & Women)
    56. Shingles
    57. Sinusitis (Acute & Chronic)
    58. Sprains and Strains
    59. Stroke (Cerebrovascular Accident [CVA], Cerebrovascular Insufficiency [CVI], Transient Ischemic Attacks [TIA’s])
    60. Thyroid (Hypothyroidism, Subclinical hypothyroidism)
    61. Tinnitus
    62. Urinary Tract Infections (Acute, Chronic, Recurrent)
    63. Varicose Veins & Venous Insufficency
    64. Venous Thrombosis (DVT) and Pulmonary Emboli (Blood Clots)
    65. Vertigo and Meniere's Disease
    66. Weight Loss
    67. Wounds

Chapter 6: The Business of Medicine: Controlling Health Care

The final three chapters discuss non-medical factors that can directly affect the health care we receive. This chapter reveals how our health care system has become a complex business that involves many influences outside you and your doctor. It details these influences and tells you how to take control over them. First, it is revealed how most medical research is not applicable to your health and why. The chapter then discusses the significant and sometimes harmful influence of other medical industries, including the drug companies, medical manufacturers, medical investors, and middlemen. Lastly, it takes a look at health insurers and Medicare, telling you what you need to know to use the system to your advantage.

  1. Research: Looks Can Be Deceiving
  2. Industry and Medicine: Who Controls Health Care?
    1. The Drug Companies
    2. Medical Manufacturers: Wanting a Piece of the Pie
    3. Medical Entrepreneurs: Panning For Gold
    4. Middlemen: Padding Their Pocketbooks
  3. The Health Care Payers: Who’s Looking Out for Whom?
    1. Medicare: Big Brother and You
    2. Health Insurance: Protecting Their Bottom Line, Not Your Health
  4. The Business of Medicine: Control Versus Being Controlled

Chapter 7: The Business of Medicine, Too

Whereas the last chapter explored businesses involved directly with medical care, this chapter discusses businesses that can significantly impact medical care yet are not directly involved with medical practice. The first is the media, including television and magazine advertising, and its influence on both the consumer and the doctor. The second is the legal profession, including the influence of physician malpractice, product and drug liability, as well as lawmakers on the practice of medicine. The chapter also details how medical harm occurs and what you can do to avoid it. Finally, it reviews the medical associations (considered political organizations) and why your health is not their primary agenda.

  1. The Media: Is Seeing Believing?
    1. Media and the Consumer
    2. Media and the Doctor
    3. Direct-To-Consumer Drug Advertising: The Sleight-Of-Hand
    4. Advertising Products and Treatments: It Gets Even Worse
  2. The Law and Medicine: Who Pays The Piper?
    1. Medical Malpractice: A Runaway System
    2. Law Versus Industry: Who Gets the Gold?
    3. Making the Laws: The Mandates
  3. Medical Associations: Looking Out For Whom?
  4. The Business of Medicine: Helping and Hurting Your Health

Chapter 8: The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same

There have been numerous solutions proposed to reform our dysfunctional health care system, but which ones will really work and which ones won’t? The final chapter answers these questions. It first relates why it will be extremely difficult to make major reforms in the coming years due to the misguided and dysfunctional structure of the medical system. The chapter reviews the most common and recognized solutions that have been proposed and/or are being tried, revealing the pros and cons of each. It then describes the major changes that must be made to attain the best health care at lower costs.

  1. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: Good Intent but Appalling Follow-Through
    1. Government Takeover: Big Brother is Here
    2. Insurmountable Expenses: Not Seeing is Believing
    3. Lowering Costs: Heading Down a Wrong-Way Street
    4. Rationing: Deja Vu
    5. Quality Care: Wishful Thinking
    6. The Future With the Affodable Care Act: Missing the Boat
  2. Solutions That Won’t Work
    1. Shared Responsibility: A Myth
    2. The Single Payer or Public Option: Big brother is Watching
    3. Universal Health Insurance: Bankrupting the Bankrupt
    4. Legislative Mandates: The Wolf is Guarding the Hen House
    5. Buying Insurance Across State Lines: Getting What You Pay For
    6. Insurance Exchanges: More Cost, Less Care
    7. Reforming the Tax Code: Sleight of Hand
    8. Increasing the Number of Doctors: Adding Fuel to the Fire
    9. Pay For Performance (P4P/VBP): What Are We Really Paying For?
    10. Physician Ratings: Truth or Dare?
    11. Vouchers for Medicare: Government Saves, Seniors Suffer
  3. Solutions That May Work
    1. Health Information Technology: Will Computers Rule?
    2. Chronic Pain Management: Good Idea, Disappointing Results
    3. Transparency: Seeing May Not Be Believing
    4. Accountable Care Organizations: HMO “Lite”
  4. Solutions That Will Work
    1. Research: Helping Patients, Not Researchers
    2. Outcomes: Finding the Real Truth
    3. Guidelines for Treatment: Casting Off the Status Quo
    4. Unnecessary Medical Services: Waste Not, Want Not
    5. Conflicts of Interest: Preemptive Strike
    6. Prevention: The Early Bird Does Catch the Worm
    7. Physician Reimbursement: Get What You Pay For
    8. The Patient Centered Medical Home: Healthy Homecoming
    9. Administrative Costs: Trimming the Fat
    10. Drugs and the FDA: A Large Pill to Swallow
    11. Affordable Insurance For Everyone: Reversing the Oxymoron
    12. Employer Power: A Means to the End
    13. Law and Medicine: Removing the Oil From The Water
    14. Patient Compliance: Trick or Treat?
  5. Improving Your Own Health