Millions of people wake up each day to pain and other symptoms from diseases and conditions that have not yet been diagnosed. Marianne Genetti is trying to do something about that. She founded "In Need Of Diagnosis," a non-profit organization committed to helping undiagnosed patients find appropriate doctors and resources.

Genetti plans to work with other nonprofit groups to create a database of symptoms. It's hard to believe that in this age of supercomputers, someone hasn't already done something like this. But in fact, there's nothing like it anywhere.

With all the billions of dollars spent on medical care and research each year, very little of it goes into diagnosing. And that's despite the fact the about forty percent of all illnesses are misdiagnosed. According to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, fatal illnesses are misdiagnosed in 20 out of every 100 cases.

In May of 2008, the National Institutes of Health launched an Undiagnosed Diseases Program to study some of the most difficult undiagnosed cases. As it only accepts 50 to 100 patients per year, it does little to address the crying need for proper diagnosis for millions of people in the United States alone. Marianne Genetti hopes her organization will help fill the gap by collecting information that may advance the medical communities knowledge.

Genetti was motivated to start In Need Of Diagnosis after her own struggle with a serious and undiagnosed lung problem. She recognized the need for a national database of symptoms, as well as the need to encourage undiagnosed patients to be more aggressive in asking their doctors for more tests, information and input. In Need Of Diagnosis is a young organization. It is in need of volunteers and donations. If you are in need of help and support in finding a proper diagnosis for chronic pain or any other health-related issue, I encourage you to visit In Need Of Diagnosis at their web site, http://www.inod.org

### Bonnie Boots publishes Pain Health News to provide information and motivation to people living with chronic pain.  You can stay in touch with her by typing your email address into the subscribe box in the upper right corner of this page.

You're not alone. Millions of people need help. And millions are being denied help because they have the misfortune to be without adequate insurance or private funds. And for that sin, they are made to suffer.

I know what it's like to be disabled and denied adequate care. In 1989, I was the innocent victim in an auto accident caused by a driver that sped away. As we waited for the ambulance, my husband stroked my hand and assured me, "Don't worry about anything. We've got good insurance."

Months later, having overcome two incompetent doctors who misdiagnosed and mis-treated me, I finally found a doctor that sent me for the right tests, made the right diagnosis and prescribed the right therapy. Each day, for four weeks, as I entered the therapy clinic, that doctor would ask me how I was doing and encourage me. I felt he cared. And after being abused by two careless doctors, that made a world of difference to me.

But on the fifth week, when I entered the clinic, the doctor, seeing me, turned abruptly away. I called after him, but he went into his office and shut the door.

When I approached the desk to sign in, a clerk came out and told me she needed to speak to me privately. In her office, I was told that my health insurance provider had declared bankruptcy. If I wanted further care, I had to make a cash deposit of fifty thousand dollars. I was stunned. She was emotionless. It was made perfectly clear to me that my relationship at that clinic was over.

Back home, I called the number I had for my insurance company. The woman that answered that number told me XYZ Insurance Company was no longer in business. A brand new company, XYZ-Z. was now enthroned. At the same address. Using the same employees. And the same phone number. In fact, everything was the same except one thing–I no longer had health insurance. And because I didn't have the cash, I no longer had medical care.

Keep in mind, please, that I had done everything society told me to do. I worked hard. I took care of my health. I paid through the nose for good health care, not a bare bones policy, but the high-priced spread that covered everything. But when I finally needed that policy, they pulled the rug out form under me, even while they went on selling insurance from the same building using the same employees.

That is why the United States needs to provide national health care–the same level of national health care that every citizen of every other industrialized nation in the world receives. And I'm not the only one that thinks so. I've spoken with many health care professionals who agonize over their inability to help good people heal and return to a quality of life.

Over at Salon, you can read an article by Ford Vox, an M.D. who works as part of a team that, as he describes it, tries "to put lives back together after disabling injury and disease." In his article, Dr. Vox describes the horror of having the resources of healing at hand, but not being able to apply them to people whose insurance has lapsed or been used up, or to people unfortunate enough to live in states with no commitment to adequate health care.

Millions of people on both sides of the table, pain patients and health care professionals alike, are clamoring for health care reform, for a system that, as Dr. Vox says, "does not trample on basic human rights." Add your voice to the clamor. Let your elected officials know that health care is a top priority issue for you, and that you will not sit back quietly as they once again let insurance companies thrive while we suffer.

Here is where you can contact your representatives: HOUSE http://www.house.gov/writerep/ SENATE http://www.senate.gov/ WHITE HOUSE  http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ And while you're at it, use the comment box to add your voice to this blog. The more you speak up, the more likely you'll be heard!

### Bonnie Boots publishes Pain Health News to provide information and motivation to people living with chronic pain.  You can stay in touch with her by typing your email address into the subscribe box in the upper right corner of this page.

A new book by Professor/Dr. Rothbart says that a recently discovered foot structure which can be effectively treated without drugs or surgery has been proven to be the source of a great deal of chronic muscle and joint pain.

On first reading the book, “Forever Free From Chronic Pain: the pain sufferers guide to getting your life back,” I felt this explanation was fantastical, almost unbelievable. Could a slightly twisted foot really be the reason so many millions of people live in unrelenting pain?

But on a second reading, I began to develop a better understanding of the source of much muscle and joint pain as well as the way to resolve it.

Professor/Dr. Rothbart is a podiatrist and surgeon who spent the better part of his career in clinical practice and research. But in 1991, an auto accident left him with neck and shoulder pain that did not respond to traditional medical therapy.

He sought out alternative therapies and tried countless practitioners, but when continuing pain threatened his career, Professor/Dr. Rothbart finally decided he would have to help himself.

That’s when Rothbart began his research into chronic musculoskeletal pain, or pain of the muscles and joints. His work lead him to the discovery of a very common source of musculoskeletal pain that begins in the foot, but is frequently the source of pain in the knees, hips, back and all the way up to the jaw.

What Prof/Dr Rothbart discovered was an embryological foot structure that forms in about the seventh week of development. That is to say, the foot of the growing fetus does not develop normally.  This embryological foot structure results in lifelong poor posture and that forced poor posture, the doctor’s research proved, is frequently the source of chronic musculoskeletal pain.

Furthermore, the doctor discovered the condition is inherited. Typically, if you have chronic pain and this foot structure is the source, it’s likely one of your parents will have a history of chronic pain. You may also pass it on to your children.

The embryological foot structure he discovered now bears the doctor’s name: Rothbarts Foot.

The therapy Professor/Dr. Rothbart developed involves neither drugs nor surgery. It is, he says, geared toward normalizing the foot, which then automates the correction of poor posture and allows the body to heal without drugs or surgery.

The therapy is done in a unique way. It begins with specialized shoe inserts. As the foot structure is corrected, the foot sends new signals to the brain, literally reprogramming the central nervous system to correct the posture. As the posture automatically corrects, pain ceases. “This is not about managing pain,” says Professor/Dr. Rothbart. “It's about eliminating chronic muscle and joint paint. My therapy reprograms the brain to adopt perfect posture, thus removing the source of pain.”

If, after the initial consultation, the doctor determines you are a candidate for this therapy, he will help you plan a course of action based on your individual case. Regarding the time the treatment takes, Professor/Dr. Rothbart says it varies, but he compares it to the time it takes to correct the teeth with braces.

“It takes time, “ he says. “Typically, the therapy takes from 6 to 18 months. It involves consulting with me or being seen by me 5 or 6 times. Most of my patients find their pain reduced 30, 40, 50% in a week or two.”

“I don’t work miracles,” Professor/Dr. Rothbart says. "But what I can do, when people have this embryological foot structure, is effectively treat it and these people dramatically improve, even if they have concurrent problems.”

Professor/Dr. Rothbart explains that many who have been diagnosed with diseases ranging from fibromyalgia to arthritis and even muscular sclerosis also have Rothbarts Foot Syndrome. “When I normalize the signals being sent to the brain by this embryological foot structure,, the pain gets much better,” the doctor says. “ I haven't resolved the arthritis or lupus or whatever, but the patient feels much better because I have resolved one major source of their pain.

The doctor says that for the most part, traditional medicine focuses on pain management, not resolution of pain.

“One of the reasons I left surgery, ´ Professor/Dr. Rothbart says, “ is because I was so unhappy with the results. I found that many of the patients I gave joint replacements to returned years later with the same pain. “But pain is not the problem,” he says. “Pain is a symptom of the problem. I was treating the symptom. What I wanted was resolution of the cause.”

And the cause, discovered over 40 years of research, is frequently poor posture caused by a twisted foot. If this explanation sounds too simplistic to you, if you don’t believe poor posture could be causing your back or jaw pain, consider this: prior to 1945, correct posture was considered critical to good health. A good deal of medical care involved correcting the posture so that the body could heal itself naturally.

But in 1945, penicillin was discovered, and the entire focus of medical care tuned toward pharmacological treatment. Doctors began to believe, and the public was told, that science could develop “magic bullets’ to cure most anything. There no longer seemed any need for people to be proactive in building good health. And all that information about good posture as the source of good health was lost.

Today, the millions of people suffering from chronic pain stand in testimony to the truth: there is no magic bullet from chronic pain. And Professor/Dr. Rothbart’s research has brought him back full circle to where traditional medicine once stood—pointing toward good posture as the wellspring of good health.

Reading Dr. Rothbart’s new book, “Forever Free From Chronic Pain: the pain sufferers guide to getting your life back,” gave me new insight into why so many people are in chronic pain, and why the traditional medical community is so ill-prepared to treat it. It also gave me hope that for many people, help is finally at hand…or should I say foot?

If you want to explore Dr. Rothbart’s work and see if you might be a candidate for his therapy, you’ll find a vast amount of resources online. Begin with his book web site at Forever Free From Chronic Pain

There you’ll find a vast treasury of information ranging from patient stories to book reviews to interviews with the doctor. Here you can download a free chapter from his book and register for his free newsletter.

At his personal web site, http://rothbartsite.com/ you’ll find more resources, including a blog featuring some of the latest medical research Dr. Rothbart is involved in.

After exploring these resources, if you feel you might be a candidate for the therapy, you can explore the possibility of a long-distance consultation with Dr. Rothbart. In much that same way as many cardiologists now do long-distance consultation, Dr. Rothbart will speak to you by phone, determine if you are a candidate for this therapy and whether or not any tests need to be done. The cost of a long-distance consultation with the doctor, who currently resides in Italy, is 100 Euros, about $125 U.S. Dollars.

If, after the initial consultation, the doctor determines you are a candidate for this therapy, he will help you plan a course of action based on your individual case. Regarding the time the treatment takes, Professor/Dr. Rothbart says it varied for everyone, but he compares it to the time it takes to correct the teeth with braces.

“It takes time, “ he says. “But typically, the therapy takes between 6 and 12 months. It involves consulting with me or being seen by me 5 or 6 times. Most of my patients find their pain reduced 30, 40, 50% in a week or two.”

If you have been going from doctor to doctor, and yet find no relief from your chronic pain, I urge you to look into Professor/Dr. Rothbart's work for yourself.

### Bonnie Boots publishes Pain Health News to provide information and motivation to people living with chronic pain.  You can stay in touch with her by typing your email address into the subscribe box in the upper right corner of this page.

Inside, I found an article titled, "Honey And It's Many Benefits." The brief article began with some historical references to honey being used as a curative, then gave a list of diseases and conditions that can be cured by a mixture of honey and cinnamon. (Their words.)

The second item on the list read, "Arthritis: A study at Copenhagen University had remarkable results by mixing a cup of hot water with two spoons of honey and one small teaspoon of cinnamon powder before breakfast. The combination greatly reduced pain throughout the body."

How I wish that statement were true! Sadly, it is not.

Because it purportedly came from a seemingly trustworthy source, a health magazine referencing a University study, I initially believed the statement that honey and cinnamon reduce the pan of arthritis. The only thing I questioned was the amount of cinnamon being recommended.

I knew that cinnamon in sufficient quantity is a blood thinner. And it seemed to me that taking a teaspoon of cinnamon every day might have serious consequences. So I began a search for the original study from Copenhagen University to confirm the amount of cinnamon.

To my surprise, Google showed me a list of almost 2000 web sites that had published the exact list of "conditions cured by honey and cinnamon."  The magazine had simply lifted it, in total, from one of those sites. A much deeper search showed me that the original source of this oft-repeated article was the Weekly World News, a now-defunct newspaper known for it's reportage on Big Foot sightings, alien abductions and photos of water stained walls seemingly marked with the image of Jesus. The Weekly World News has never been known as a source for legitimate medical research.

A still-deeper search eventually turned up a statement from the information manager of Copenhagen University stating that the University had never conducted such a study and that their name had unfortunately been used to give a feeling of authenticity to spurious advice.

I was furious! I try to be very careful of anything I read on the internet. After all, people can and do say anything. But I'm a little more casual about information I read in printed books and magazines. That's because when I was writing for magazines and newspapers, they all used fact checkers to verify details like "a study at Copenhagen University." Clearly, it's not like that anymore.

I'm appalled that a magazine presenting itself as a trusted source for health information would print a list taken from the internet without doing even a cursory investigation into the veracity of the material. I'm sure someone at the publication decided, "Honey and cinnamon can't hurt anyone, and it might help." But cinnamon, as I've noted, has blood-thinning properties. Neither I nor the publisher of that magazine has any way of knowing what might happen if someone taking prescription blood thinners added a daily teaspoon of cinnamon to their diet.

I learned a good lesson from this incident. I learned that I have to double-check ALL information before I act on it, not just the information I find on the internet.

And I learned that this new magazine isn't serious about being my "most trusted resource for information on living a healthy life." If they were really serious, they'd be making every effort to be sure the information they publish is accurate. My advice  is to check and double-check everything you hear and ready before you act on it, no matter what the source. Your health is just too important!

### Bonnie Boots publishes Pain Health News to provide information and motivation to people living with chronic pain.  You can stay in touch with her by typing your email address into the subscribe box in the upper right corner of this page.

This article, "Phoney Chronic Pain Advice" as sited by the How To Cope With Pain blog in their July Pain-Blog Carnival.

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Fast-forward more than 20 years. It's 2007. Blancarte, now 48, is bitten by a brown recluse spider.  Knowing the spider's bite is deadly poisonous, Blancarte's family rushes him to the hospital where he spends 8 months in physical therapy.

During one of the therapy sessions, a nurse notices a muscle spasm in Blancarte's leg. She notifies Blancarte's doctor, who orders tests that show that the once-dead nerves in Blancarte's legs are now reacting to stimulus.

Five days after the tests, Blancarte is walking. Doctors reportedly say they are mystified.

I've worked with paralyzed men in pain support groups. For the first few years of being paralyzed, all of them expect something– some doctor, some operation, some miracle, something– will happen to let them walk again. After 20 years of being paralyzed, no one expects that. Not the person that is paralyzed. Not their families, or doctors or therapists or ministers. No one.

And yet, for unknown reasons, the dead nerves in David Blancartes legs suddenly regenerated.  And he walked.

Every week I hear from people who are struggling with depression because they have been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis or lupus or some other painful disease. And they have been told there is no hope for a cure. Every week I hear from people that are still suffering terrible pain even years after a back injury. They no longer hold out hope for a cure. These people often say the same thing. " All I can see is myself getting older and being in even more pain. And I get so depressed."

I want those people, and you, to know about David Blancarte. He is living proof that what we can only call miracles can and do happen. He is proof that no one, no matter how many degrees they have, no matter what they've experienced, no matter what they think they know, can predict the future.

David Blancarte is proof that no one has the right to assume that the end of his or her story has already been written. He is proof that there is always reason to hope, and even to expect that life will bring us the most amazing, unpredictable and unexplainable circumstances, often when we least expect it. David Blancarte is the reason you should push through even the bad days with a smile on your face and bright plans for the future.

### Bonnie Boots publishes Pain Health News to provide information, motivation and understanding to people living with chronic pain. To stay in touch with her, please use the subscribe form in the upper right corner.

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Richardson, wife of Liam Neeson and daughter of Vanessa Redgrave, fell during a lesson on a beginner's ski slope in Quebec. She hit her head. After falling, she got up, walked around, talked to people and declined treatment.

I'm sure everyone, including Richardson, thought she was O.K. They all probably said, "She just fell." But two days later, she was dead from a blood clot that developed between the brain and the skull.

I took a fall myself last year and hit my head. I was carrying groceries into the house when a paper bag began to rip. Grabbing to support it, I lost my balance and fell flat on my face on the concrete sidewalk. I was stunned and dazed. But by the time my husband came out of the garage and around to the front door, I was standing.

I told him I'd fallen. He asked if I was O.K. "Yeah," I said. "I just hit my head." And we went inside.

Two weeks later, I realized I might have had a concussion from that fall. Immediately after I'd fallen, I'd had a headache. My vision had been slightly blurred. And only in retrospect was I able to assess how fuzzy my thinking had been all that week. So fuzzy that I hadn't even thought to go to the doctor.

I was very lucky and I knew it. Many years ago, while a student, I worked part time in a hospital where I'd seen a young man die from a situation similar to Natasha Richardson's. That day, a doctor told me sadly that too many people think a person that gets up and walks around after a fall is O.K.

Every blow to the head, no matter how seemingly insignificant, and especially in children, he told me, must be checked out by a doctor to be absolutely certain there is no internal bleeding. "Never assume "just" a bump on the head," that doctor told me. "That word, "just." kills people."

I think the word "just" killed Natasha Richardson. That word "just" kills a lot of people. When I was injured in a car accident and wound up as a chronic pain patient, I heard that word, "just", over and over.

In the emergency room, a doctor told me, "You're lucky. It's just a bump on the head. You could have been killed."

Later, in my family doctor's office, I heard, "You're lucky it's just soft tissue damage. You could have broken a lot of bones."

At a specialists, I heard, "You can't possibly be in that much pain. It's just pulled muscles."

Time and time again, my complaints and symptoms were declared insignificant with one wave of the word "just."

In my case, it wasn't "just" a bump on the head. I had a blood clot on my brain that could have killed me. It wasn't "just" soft tissue damage and pulled muscles. I had sprained hands, ruptured disks, torn ligaments and a host of other injuries. Because they went untreated, I spent years in disabling pain.

There are so many dangers for pain patients, like risks of drug addiction and overdose, risks associated with hospitals and surgery, risk of misdiagnosis, but perhaps the highest potential for risk comes from one simple little word. That word is "just," Don't say that word. Don't let others say it to you. Check things out. Get second opinions. And remember that just being able to walk and talk isn't necessarily the measure of perfect health.

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Bonnie Boots publishes Pain Health News to provide information, motivation and understanding to people living with chronic pain. To keep in touch with her, use the subscribe form in the upper right corner.

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