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 The brief article began with some historical references to honey being used as a curative, then gave a list of diseases and conditions that can be cured by a mixture of honey and cinnamon.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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My adventures with chronic pain began when I was injured in an auto accident. As time passed, my treatment from the traditional medical community settled into one dull, grinding message: learn to live with it.

That was a message I simple could not accept.

I believed then, as I believe now, that life is infinitely flexible and plastic. That any of us can change—mentally, physically, spiritually—in an instant. That miracles can and do happen. And I therefore believed that I could do something more than just “learn to live with it.”

I threw myself into reading and trying and doing almost anything I read that promised relief from chronic pain. I learned that there are resources available to us that go far beyond prescription medications and surgery. And I learned that the most important of those resources are inside of us.

Recently I had a conversation with a man who’s traveled the globe studying energy healing. I asked him what, in all his years of study, was the most important thing he had learned. He said, “I’ve learned that the most important thing, and also the hardest thing, is just to get out of our own way and allow our body to heal itself.”

“Allowing, “he said, “not willing, not commanding, not magnetically attracting, but simply allowing is the key to unlocking miracles.”

His words made me remember a story I’d heard from Tanna Boran about her recovery from rheumatoid arthritis. I asked her to write about it for you. Her personal miracle happened when she was 15. It’s my opinion that because she was so young, her mind was not set into fixed patterns of belief, and so she allowed a miracle to happen. Here it is in her own words:

Curious Repercussions of Spontaneous Healing

by Tanna Boran

At the tender age of 15, while watching the Grammy Awards on television one February night, my hands felt stiff. Looking down at them, I saw that my knuckles were swollen and smooth looking, like those of my grandmother who had rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Over the next three months, this stiffness rapidly progressed to full blown physical agony. I had fevers and always felt sick. I couldn’t curl my fingers around my books to carry them between high school classes. I was so stiff after a night’s sleep that I required my mother’s help getting out of bed and starting the hot shower that would provide too little relief.

I told my parents, family doctor, and others involved that I had was arthritis. I didn’t know at that time there were two kinds, but I’d heard my grandmother bemoan her arthritis pain over the years. It seemed pretty obvious to me.

It was not so obvious to my family doctor, however, and he admitted me to the hospital for tests. This turned into a surreal weeklong stay, ending with a doctor I’d never met bestowing the RA diagnosis on me as if I'd inherited a sizeable estate. (I suppose for him it was a successful completion to his work.) He essentially told me RA is forever and get used to it.

I was a bit pissed off, to put it mildly. It took only days after the diagnosis for some people to start treating me like an invalid. As if having a serious disease wasn’t bad enough, people acted like I was contagious as well. Another significant person in my life all but accused me of faking the whole thing. I caught on quickly that even if compassion was warranted, I wasn’t necessarily going to get it.

Rage at this treatment and the unfairness of it all welled up in me until one day it broke loose; an impassioned exchange with my Maker ensued. Well, more like a loud dressing down. I informed Him I was too f****** young for this s***. I had a few more choice words for Him, but you get the gist of it. Floors were beaten with fists. Household items were thrown.

After that, I suffered through a truly grueling week of nausea and vomiting. Any movement whatsoever stirred up vertigo-like nausea through my whole body. I spent hours at a time draped over an open toilet. I vomited constantly, even though nothing but bile came up.

And then the RA was gone.

I didn’t think too much about what had happened. Raised in the Catholic tradition, the concept of miracles was nothing new to me, but I didn’t think of my emancipation from RA as a miracle. After all, I’d spent most of my life without RA, so returning to that RA-free life was something I didn’t question. It seemed like a natural course of events. Over the following months and years, though, I was informed otherwise.

For some strange reason, some people were not thrilled that I might not be crippled with pain for the rest of my life. The most common reactions were an incredulous, “But there’s no cure for rheumatoid arthritis!” and a resolute, “Well, you must have been misdiagnosed.”

No offense, but I spent a week in the hospital and surrendered half of my blood supply to establish that diagnosis. Dozens of medical professionals took part in it. If it’s easier to think that a half-dozen doctors and dozens of support staff all conclusively erred rather than a spontaneous healing could occur, you’ve probably seen far too few miracles in your life.

I used to tell my new doctors about the now-gone RA when they took my medical history. I’ve since stopped because none of them were interested or even found it worthy of being noted in my chart.  It’s as if they conclude I must have been misdiagnosed, because if I had it then, I’d have it now. So I stopped mentioning it. No one’s worse for not knowing.

I believe that my natural indignation — which has served me well in my ensuing years — at having at age 15 what I thought of as an old lady’s disease led to a spontaneous healing.  But I also found out some interesting things down the line.

For weeks after the vomiting, all I ate were ice pops and pumpkin seeds.  Years later I read the book, “Eat Right 4 Your Type,” by Peter J. D’Adamo, a book that asserted that certain foods have a medicinal effect for people of particular blood types. And, you guessed it; pumpkin seeds have a medicinal/healing effect for those with my O blood type.

I’d like to think that my intuition led me to the food that would be my medicine. Supposedly O blood types are the ones who get RA and other autoimmune diseases as well.

I never discovered what the ice pops were about, but I still like them today. And I know that spontaneous healing is possible, because I experienced it. Even if others don’t believe.

_________

Tanna Boran is a life coach, writer and metaphysician, as well as an accidental advocate for caregivers. You can read her blog at http://www.AudaciousAbundance.com and learn about her practice at http://www.DivineRelationshipCoaching.com.  You can also follow her on Twitter at  http://www.twitter.com/CoachTanna

### 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.

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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But recently, some states have been taking steps to limit the sort of largesse that drug companies can pass to physicians. In Minnesota, for instance, the state ruled that pharmaceutical salespeople could not give more than $50 in free food to doctors per year. One pharmaceutical sales rep I know in here in Florida sat down and cried buckets when she saw laws changing. “There goes my career!” she cried. “Without freebies, I won’t be able to get my foot in the door at most medical offices.”

Her fears, it must be admitted, were justified. A study has shown that doctors in Minnesota are rejecting pharmaceutical sales visits more than anywhere in the country.

I didn't have to be psychic to  see that pharmaceutical companies would ferret out new ways of making sure their pill is the drug of choice when a doctor sits down to write a prescription. And today, I got my first glimpse of one of those new ways. I just saw a television ad for the Orencia Promise Program from Bristol-Myers Squibb. Orencia is a new drug for people suffering from moderate to severe Rheumatoid Arthritis.

In a nutshell, the Orencia Promise Program is a co-pay program for new Orencia patients with private insurance. The program will pay the full co-pay for Orencia for the first 6 months of therapy. In addition, if you're not satisfied after 6 months, the program will pay your first co-pay of another RA medicine, up to $500 (Some restrictions and exclusions may apply. If you're interested in the Orencia Promise Program click their name to visit their web site.)

On the one hand, I’m pleased to see pharmaceutical companies throwing their money at patients for a change. While they’re at it, how about inviting us to some of those fine restaurants and weekend trips to Disney World for “educational seminars”? I could use a new laptop, too!

On the other hand,  I’m worried that bribing —err, “rewarding” patients could turn out to be an even bigger threat than the old method of rewarding doctors. With the world economy swirling down the toilet,  how many RA patients will be tempted to change therapies just to get their prescriptions—any  prescriptions—free for 6 months?

Doctors are influenced by their patient’s requests.  “Naturally I want patients to be involved in their own health care,” one doctor told me. “If they express interest in a drug with potential benefit and I see no contra-indications, I’m inclined to let them have a trial of it.”

But this tactic of throwing money at people to get your drugs in play is the same old double-edged sword. It’s only that this time, the sword is being passed to the patient. As a pain patient, what’s your take on this issue? Use the comment box below to state your opinion. Meanwhile, I'll be on the phone to Bristol-Myers Squibb to see if that link I provided to their website  is worth a new laptop to them.

### Bonnie Boots recovered from totally disabling chronic pain, but still has occasional days when she feels like hell. That's why she publishes Pain Health News, providing information, motivation and conversation to people challenged by chronic pain.

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