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.

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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It offered me a set of ebooks containing information on serious health issues ranging from cancer to heart disease. Each ebook came with a sales page that could be published on the internet to sell the book. Each ebook also came with a related email course that could be given away free to get people to sign up for a mailing list.

Because so many people turn to the internet for health and medical information, sets like this are considered "hot." And because the price was barely $30, I guarantee they'll sell out quickly… but I won't be one of the buyers.

You see, I don't know much about cancer or heart disease. I know what I read in magazines and what my doctor tells me. You probably know more about these issues than I do. There's no way I could read though those ebooks and know whether they contain current, reliable information or not.

Chance are, the people that buy this set of ebooks and sales pages won't know any more about cancer and heart disease than I do. Chances are, they won't care if the books are reliable or not. They're just looking for things to sell on the internet.

Why should you care about this? Because YOU are the target audience the sellers of these ebooks are looking for.

There are thousands of internet marketers all around the world just trolling cyberspace looking for people with health problems so they can sell them crap.

I publish Pain Health News because pain has been a huge part of my life. Because I know what it's like to be crippled with pain, I'm very particular about what I share and recommend. Because I know how vulnerable pain patients are, I have a tremendous feeling of responsibility for you, my readers.

I know, from sad experience, what it's like to be seeking pain relief and be exploited by people who look at you with dollar signs in their eyes. That's why I got so angry when I received this offer for ebooks on cancer and heart disease.

If you buy a book on gardening that contains unreliable information on marigolds, it's not going to have a huge impact on your life. But if you buy a book that has unreliable information on cancer, heart disease…or pain…it could have all sorts of negative consequences.

So here's my warning to you. When you see sales pitches for health-related items, whether that item is a book or a drug or a nutrient or an appliance, do your homework before you buy. Check out the person or company selling the item or service or drug you're interested in. Look for references. Look for reviews. Look for verification of the claims that are being made.

I know how seductive advertising can be when it offers pain relief. I say, with some embarrassment, I've bought it all. But I learned. I am now a world-class expert in using Google to track down and verify every claim made for an item I'm interested in. I don't buy so much as a bottle of aspirin without Googleing to see where it's manufactured. Here are a few tricks I've learned for tracking down reliable information.

Before you buy any product, especially online or on TV, go to Google, type in the name of that product, the plus sign and the word "review." For example, you would type in the Google search bar "kinoki + review" (without using the punctuation marks.) Then search again, typing "kinoki + study" (again, without the quote marks.) Then type in "kinoki + complaints" (again, without quotes.) Of course, you can go far deeper with your searches–and you should — when an item involves your health, but just these 3 simple searches will bring you thousands of returns filled with information you can use to decide whether or not an item is worth buying.

How do you find products to help with pain? Do you rely on TV ads? Do you look though catalogs? And how do you decide what's worthwhile? Feel free to share in the comment box below. Your participation in the conversation is most welcome!

### Bonnie Boots publishes Pain Health News to provide information, motivation and conversation to people in pain. Subscribe using the box on the top right side to receive updates.

(The poster I defaced for my post illustration was orginally titled "Cry Of The Werewolf" starring Nina Foch, a 1944 Columbia Movies release)