Lyme disease, in Australia?

The Australian Government strictly states that Lyme disease does not exist here.

This is despite over a hundred doctors recently gathering from around the country to discuss this insidious disease and the fact it does exist here and the Government needs to change its stance.

For now, if a GP notes on a patient record ‘Lyme Disease’ they are taken to task and given hell. Treatment is non considered as it doesn’t exist.

Yet I check the symptoms and damn, they’re pretty darn close!

I recently went on a drug, when all others had failed over the last two-and-a-half years, that treats diseases like Lyme and have noticed a small improvement. No more than 4-5% but at least something.

Note for the Australian Government – denying something exists does not make it so. But then they believe this on so many levels, why any different for a disease making thousands of people’s lives miserable? Better for them to be miserable and lose their jobs and futures than admit an error, surely.

An expert in this field was told my symptoms and his response was immediately, “So what bit him?” But no it doesn’t exist!

So now I’m being treated for something that bit me, although we don’t know what, or even if, because tests for Lyme Disease are so inconclusive here as to be useless.

Just like the Australian Government.

What is so damn difficult??

“Pain specialist Dr Marc Russo said his clinic in Newcastle treats about 2,000 new patients with chronic pain every year.

“And I’m very worried, and as many of us in the faculty of pain medicine are very worried, that ultimately it will lead to the prescription of more opioids as a sort of back-stop measure and we know that this carries significant risk and often very little benefit,” he said.”

So opioids continue to get a bad name, and cause more deaths by overdose than car accidents per year in the US because people take so many to try to stop their pain.

And yet CBD oil, which would earn the Government tax dollars instead of costing them by subsidising prescriptions and paying for opioid patients using hospital beds.

It is such a simple, straight forward decision with SO many benefits, why are we not following 40 other countries and giving chronically ill people the ability to buy it??

As usual in our society in the last ten years, in many areas, it makes no damn sense.

Reference here.

Internal dizziness driving me crazy!

For about seven weeks now my brain has felt as though it is a spinning top.

Some days it is bearable, others are filled with headaches, migraines, nausea and very little sleep as it worsens when I lie down. To be honest it is incredibly difficult to live with and I wish someone would put me in a coma until it was over. It is that bad.

It began when I was taking yet another approved drug for my condition and lasted several weeks, so I stopped taking that drug. My doctor, a wonderful woman, during my last visit said it could take a while to wear off. That was a month ago.

Since then I started another drug to help my chronic illness symptoms of complete body pain, incredibly sensitive and painful skin (every square millimetre), horrendous headaches, zero energy, the dizziness (I have had it off and on for nearly three years now) and general complete lack of quality of life.

It is, by my count, the eighth or ninth drug I have tried, perhaps more. Each time you have to build the dose slowly over time, then if it doesn’t work or you suffer a side effect (I’m good at those, there are dozens to choose from) you have to slowly reduce the dose to get off it. So months are spent doing this just to feel worse.

Why? Because they are all so incredibly dangerous. Eaxh one is highly addictive, has extensive withdrawal symptoms and can cause other significant damage if used too quickly, or just too much. All very dangerous to those who get fed up with feeling ill and so just keep increasing the dose, until they die. Opioid based drug (which the vast majority are) overdoses kill more people in the US now than car crashes.

Cannabis oil doesn’t kill anyone.

Placed on the skin and without any THC there is no high, are no side effects and no awful reactions if you increase or decrease the dose.

But it is illegal here in Australia without paperwork a mile high and a ‘luck of the draw’ response to your application. Less than a few hundred have been successful in over a year. You then need to resubmit more paperwork after six months.

You also need a letter of recommendation from a specialist, most of whom somehow choose not to believe over thirty years of pure and incredibly extensive scientific research into the positive effects of CBD (cannabis) oil.

Why? Perhaps because it is not backed by a big pharmaceutical company so it doesn’t come with trips to Hawaii for ‘education purposes’ or first class tickets to highly desired travel spots (‘conferences’) if you prescribe a set amount.

The only people who can make money out of it are governments, in 40 countries, who have legalised it and tax it. Some States in the US have completely paid off their debt and still have money left over for housing homeless people because the allow and tax this huge industry.

In Australia we do nothing. There is no financially backed lobby group that can take you to a conference at an exotic location to educate people of its benefits, just several hundred thousand sufferers (probably many more) who know it works yet are criminals if they use it.

Yet who are the criminals here? Those who choose to use a naturally occurring herb to take away their immense pain and suffering, or those who prevent the hundreds of thousands of others from doing the same because there is no patent and therefore no money to be made, no ‘promotions’ to offer.

The big pharmaceutical companies would make nothing from CBD oil and it is banned. Coincidence?

When will our governments, State and Federal, realise the amount of tax dollars they can make, the hundreds and hundreds of jobs that can be created, and most importantly the people whose suffering they can ease just by legalising a herb? It has more scientific research behind it than most of all the other drugs I have taken, combined, that cause emergency trips to hospitals and help overload our stretched system. Cannabis oil doesn’t.

It is such a clear decision, yet has not been made, that money must be the answer. Whose pockets would be lighter if people started to take something with no side effects or addictive properties instead of extensively promoted prescription drugs?

Pharmaceutical companies.

Wonderful to know what their main motivation for being is. In fact just read the Executive Summary of the recent interim report into our financial industry here in Australia and the same applies. Greed.

In the meantime I’ll just keep spinning. If you thought your last hangover was bad, try one that has lasted six weeks and counting.

I know what can help me, CBD oil, but greed and institutions with their aged heads in the sand prevent me from accessing it.

Aren’t we meant to be a humane society, where the sick are allowed to be treated with what makes them better, no matter who benefits?

It’s all going to hell in a handcart

Politicians found guilty of lying to Parliament by a Senate Committee but keep their jobs, rich Catholic schools receiving billions of dollars, family child carers and carers for ill family members paid below the poverty line, pensions not increased for over 35 years but top tax rates raised allowing the highest earnings with the lowest tax rates ever.

This is the new Australia, and I for one am devastated that in ‘growing up’ we have become, at the top and fast filtering down, just a bunch of selfish hyperactive kids out for what we can get for ourselves. Five Prime Ministers in five years is testament to this.

Local Councils charging exorbitant rates that grow above inflation every year, some of the highest electricity prices in the world, car registration costs tripling (or more) within the last five years so now old and worthless vehicles cost more to register than they are worth.

People in institutions like unions, Councils, government found to be spending as much as possible as if it is their right to do so, not caring the money was paid by us, the electorate.

Fines increased by multiples, not even a backwards glance at the CPI.

Banks and Insurance companies charging us for services we do not receive, for products we do not need, even if we are dead.

We complain about a seemingly corrupt-ridden USA, yet in our own society we trample on the rights of individuals, charge way more than necessary for vital services (unless keeping a growing beurocrocay well fed is some sort of benefit to us all) and keep a vast number of our fellow citizens below poverty, with pathetic allowances that are meant to help those who fall between the cracks, not actively widen those cracks.

And we wonder why many of our best and brightest move overseas? If I had the option I would seriously consider it myself.

We have far too many rules and regulations, our nanny state is now a baby state. The fines for minor transgressions are so high that those just surviving are pushed one step closer to poverty, even with both couples working.

The reaction to all this from the majority of our ‘leaders’ and politicians? They ignore their duties and have no KPIs or accountability to those who voted for them and pay their wages and perks. Instead of working for us, as they all promise to do prior to each election, they spend their time fighting for pre-selections, factional votes, ministerial positions that cover areas they have no experience in, and ultimately chase how many ‘numbers’ they can control which somehow defines their own importance, and therefore how much power they can wield.

Already the sixth Prime Minister in five years is jockeying for position, even before next year’s election.

Carers and volunteers contribute far more to this nation than our politicians yet live in poverty.

Either a massive shift is coming from someone with the guts to make serious changes, or a quiet revolution of a significant number of independents being elected, or worse, will cause our country to have the massive look in the mirror it desperately needs before it implodes.

Have we, as Australians, lost our unique identity?

Back when we were throwing ourselves onto an outdoor cooking appliance to try to be noticed, we knew (or at least knew we thought we knew) who we were.

We were fun beachgoers who didn’t take ourselves too seriously, had a permanent cheeky grin, didn’t care if the world liked us as we we were or not, and loved a bit of mischief with tongues firmly planted in cheeks.

Then we completely forgot where we were and became rather demanding (“Where the bloody hell are you?”), refused to call prawns shrimps anymore, used outside for lonesome walks instead of social gatherings, knew we had your attention and thought we deserved more, and smugly believed we were better than most (mainly because we were).

Now we are overconfident, look down our noses at others (“No more boats!”), know we are the best at everything except for keeping our talent from leaving Australia, haven’t got time to go to the beach anymore because we constantly worry about working harder for less money, suffering hidden inflation (eventually we will be buying chip bags with only one chip in them and drinks with only a few drops to quench our once mighty thirst), hidden unemployment, an average income apparently of around $72,000 when HECS debts start being repaid at the ‘average income’ of $54,000, can’t buy a home and don’t know who our Prime Minister is (mainly because half the time we don’t have one).

The concept of a ‘fair go’, once the core of our essence, has been redefined and mostly abandoned (just ask a pensioner). We pay relatives $250 a fortnight to be full time carers when the market rate is $2,000, have not increased social security payments in over thirty years yet the cost of living (CPI) has increased light years beyond official figures (which the Australian Bureau of Statistics agrees, and now calls ‘Cannot Prove Inflation’), have the highest electricity prices in the world, an absurd ‘Australia Tax’ made worse by adding GST, and currently have as our nation’s leader a guy who we don’t know, don’t really care about, or for.

I think I prefer the old Australia, even if I have to call a prawn a shrimp.

At least back then I wouldn’t have to call our Prime Minister “temporary”, or pretend that everything was under control. In particular I wouldn’t have to listen to the words “humble, grass roots, servants of the people, we really care” every year when the next PM is sworn in.

I’ll take some unknown food cooked over a melted female doll anyday.

It’s enough to make you choke on your shrimp.

Since when is it a crime to want to get better?

I share a chronic illness with millions of people worldwide.

It gives me, on an almost daily basis, more pain than I have had in my life in total, until now.

All of the drugs that are recommended for us have significant, serious and irreversible side affects.

Alzheimer’s, migraines, nausea, liver issues, high cholesterol and on and on and on.

So why are they recommended? Because big pharmaceutical companies make them, doctors (who are too tired, overworked, disinterested or just don’t care) prescribe them, and they make billions of dollars. For Research and Development we are told. Or maybe bonuses and conferences.

Why, in 2018, can I not get access to the one medicinal supplement that has more than thirty years of extensive, proven, large sample size research? Because it is illegal to do so here in Australia.

In the US it is legal in many States and Canada will be making it legal nationally this month. The US has reaped massive taxation benefits and Canada will follow.

We could have been manufacturing this by now, and collecting taxes I would be more than happy to pay.

Even if South Australia went ahead and completely legalised it’s distribution but controlled it’s growth, the tax benefit would pay for the new South Road within ten years.

So why not here? Why is Australia yet again at the bottom of the pile of innovation and acceptance of irrefutable evidence from over a dozen countries?

Perhaps if our Federal politicians popped their collective heads out of the sand, followed by the presently archaic national president of the AMA (Australian Medical Association), instead of fighting over who has the biggest office, we might actually move forward.

So tens of millions of us worldwide, and approximately two million Australians, suffer excruciating pain every day of our lives because the very people who are meant to have our best interests at heart cannot see past their own reflection.

Wake up. Eminent scientific researchers worldwide agree that Cannabis Oil eases our pain, does not have any side affects and is not addictive. And we will pay taxes on it.

Not addictive? Well then no long term money in it for the pharmaceutical companies to produce it, and so overdoses of OxyContin (the leading recommend drug) kill more Americans than car crashes each year, and we are following closely behind.

A stroke of a pen would give us back our lives, yet it is more important to get a spot on a shock-jocks radio program or to discuss who gets what Ministry.

I think I might join the exodus and move to Canada.

Another new PM

So Australia has yet another Prime Minister, and just yesterday the same man pledged his full support for the guy he defeated today.

Unfortunately from the outside it looks like Malcolm Turnbull was never given a chance to be the Prime Minister he wanted to be. In fact in his own words he said keeping the party unified took a significant amount of his time.

That’s what we like to hear, that those working for us, the long forgotten electors who are paying their exhorbitant salary and benefits, are only getting around seventy percent of their attention. The rest is on keeping their jobs and undermining those above them so they can have their job.

If they were my employees they would be given an ultimatum. Either take a thirty percent reduction in salary or resign.

They say they are concerned about our significant cost of living increase over the last ten years, our wages not keeping up with real inflation, our ludicrously expensive electricity prices, our sick waiting months and sometimes years to be seen and our elderly and unemployed who have not had an increase in their social payments for thirty-five years.

Does anyone, anywhere, believe them anymore? No matter what side you voted for in the past ten years, they have changed leaders (and therefore PM’s) more than ever before and made us an international laughing stock.

Time and again we see their naked ambition, their ‘do anything’ attitude towards their own careers and their unbridled megalomania.

So why should we expect it to change?

I predict a non verdict in the next Federal election, whenever that may be. Parliament will be full of independents and small parties as we collectively give up on the self aggrandisement of the two major parties.

But then minorities have held governments to account before, one of whom was described by all who spoke to him as the most stupid person they had ever met.

Well I say their stupidity would probably be an improvement over what we have now.

For heaven’s sake, it could not be worse.

Big business rip-offs

Here in Australia we are at the tail end of a Royal Commission into our banking and superannuation sector.

Shock, horror, surprise, they were all ripping us off by charging excessive fees, charging fees for nothing, and cost us all thousands by not investing with our best interests at heart.

The penalties? Fines, with possible repayments to customers.

Here’s the thing. They gained billions of dollars and will have to pay back a couple of billion. Net result, billions in their pockets.

Why isn’t there a very simple law? Rip off your customers and you have to repay them double what you charged, and the onus is on the business to locate every affected customer or they pay back triple the amount.

Easy, simple and a deterrent large enough to make them think twice about expanding their bottom line at the expense of integrity.

It can apply to any business, large or small.

If these penalties are considered ‘excessive’ by anyone, please consider the hundreds, maybe thousands of people who lost their homes because of perverted financial advice born from greed.

Imagine having to pay back double the price of a lost home. How many times would this happen before behaviour changed?

Not many, I believe.

Quite simply, make the punishment fit the intention as well as the outcome of the crime.

My great prediction

In a few days time, if it passes into law or not, we will pay GST on any goods we order that come from overseas.

Apparently this will be a big boost to our local retail sector. Unfortunately my prediction is that it will not be anywhere near as big a boost as they are hoping for.

For decades we have all had to pay the Australia Tax. This is the massive differences in price to, say, a notebook for sale in the US and the price the exact same notebook sells for here. You can find even worse examples in everyday painkillers (we pay around $8 for 24 ibuprofen tablets and in the US you pay $10-15 for 500 tablets!

Other examples are DVDs, CDs, books, food…. basically anything.

And when the companies that sell these products at vastly different prices are asked why, the excuse they always offer is the distance to Australia and our smaller market.

So either the suppliers are making a fortune because no-one in Australia has the guts to ask the tough questions or our local retailers are terrible at negotiating.

Maybe a bit of both. Personally I am staggered by the number of people here who will pay nearly double for the latest smartphone or Apple product, as they sell for in the US. Go ahead, check it for yourself.

So, my prediction is that on the 1st of July the people of Australia will have finally had enough of governments introducing new taxes seemingly every week. (A sugar tax? What a laugh. Apparently we can’t be relied on to make our own decision on what we should drink, so of course we need a tax to help us out. To paraphrase The Beatles, they’ll be taxing air next).

We will have had enough, finally, and we will revolt. Personally those items I purchased from overseas – because of this thing that is meant to be free, called the internet – I simply will not buy again.

Why not? Because every time I go to do so online there will be a stark reminder in my shopping cart, GST of 10%. I will get angry and log out.

And I will not buy it locally because unfortunately local retailers, big and small, are lacking when it comes to understanding buying on the internet. Ask them what a Google rating is and they will ask what movie are you referring to. Seriously, key into Mr Google the item you want to buy and stipulate Australia. The first items listed will be Ads for overseas sites, followed by some articles or reviews (from overseas of course) followed by something completely unrelated. Unless you include a store name in your search you will not even get close.

So until the local retailers discover Google search, it will make me so angry trying to find the item I want that I’ll end up not wanting it anymore. Shopping online should be easy and fun, and only a dozen or so Aussie retailers get it.

So, our local retailers will see a much smaller increase in online sales than they hoped for. My prediction is that less than 50% of what was spent overseas up until June 30 this year, will be spent locally in the next financial year.

If I see a news article stating how local retail has boomed I will know it is false, and was probably influenced by government press releases. How do I know this? Because every year, about two weeks before Christmas, every news outlet predicts the biggest spending Christmas ever of $X billion dollars. Then in February or March, on page 27, will be a small article saying the figures are in and it was actually a very disappointing Christmas for retailers. It happens every single year, like clockwork.

I am especially a fan of TV newsreaders proclaiming that in the last weekend before Christmas shoppers went crazy and spent $X billion dollars. Hello? How could you know that? Did you ring every shop in the State and ask them for their sales figures? No? Would the shops even know what their figures were for those two days, and get them to you within just 24 hours so you can run your news item? Somehow I doubt it.

Wet your finger and proudly hold it up high. There, now you have as much chance as getting your prediction right as 80% of our so-called economic ‘experts’.

As Steve Jobs said on many occasions, do not listen to anyone who says they are an ‘expert’ or worse, a ‘guru’, because no-one is, it’s impossible.

So buy big and buy now, the clock is ticking. At least this is one tax you can choose not to pay. And just think of all the money you will save!

Rebel Wilson’s defamation payout from magazine publisher Bauer Media reduced on appeal…???

If our learned judges can disagree so significantly, no wonder our whole world is upside down! Seriously, how can one judge award $4.5m and another, on the same facts, $600,000??

How the hell are we meant to know what is real and what is not when the System itself is full of lies, manipulation, inaccuracy, deceit and completely false reporting which is somehow our fault for shortening the news cycle? I for one certainly do not remember contacting the news media and asking them to broadcast any old crap because I want to read it quickly them get on with my life.

Did I miss a memo??

They also tell us there is no inflation, yet we get far less for the same money than we ever used to. Fewer crisps in packets pumped full of air, packs of four becoming packs of three for the same price, and our taxes such as car registration, ESL, Land Tax, speeding fines (which you cannot convince me is not a tax and a barely legal one at that) all tripling in price, or more.

Our cost of living has risen significantly and yet inflation is somehow measured as being between 1.5 and 2% here in Australia??

But we are wrong, of course, they couldn’t possibly be calculating the inflation rate incorrectly…heaven forbid!

We are being kept in the dark and lied to consistently, and far more often than we were ten years ago. It is all since the GFC and the consequences of which that still affect our economy today.

If we taxed everyone 100% of their salary it would still take many years to pay off our country’s debt. The poor USA has around $2 trillion in debt! I feel a default coming on, and not just in the US of good old A.

All our so-called Leaders and ‘Experts’ can do is disagree violently with each other, making fools of themselves when they don’t think we see right through them. How many of these expert’s predictions have actually come true? So please don’t call them experts in the media before you have asked how accurate they have been!

Any moron can be an Expert, just ask me.

We have been completely rooted by the powers that be, by major banks and other companies who can only see dollar signs and act on greed. And yes we know it is happening, you have not fooled us, as evidenced by the last few elections which have been massive messages of ‘we don’t trust you’ with a very large middle finger extended for emphasis.

And which dickhead made the rule that if you work just one day a fortnight then you are not counted as unemployed?? Give me a break and at least be somewhat realistic and make it 5 or 6 hours a week. One?? Really?? So our unemployment rate, the real rate we feel in real life and not those that live in fantasy land in their lofty offices who make these moronic decisions. Our unemployment is probably 2-3 times higher than reported, and we all know it and yet no one says it because it would be too awful to hear.

Sometimes the truth is the bitterest of all pills to swallow.

Sorry, when I saw this article I just had to vent. It blows me away that a judge can award $4.5 million then another judge hearing the same evidence awards just $600K….???

Unbelievable. That is how I describe our lives today.

No privacy because it’s for our own good, fighting wars because of WMD’s that were never there, the greed and corruption that brought on the GFC and still no one has gone to jail for it.

Dairy farmers going broke but supermarkets saying that it’s not their fault they started a price war of $1 per litre.

Large businesses making record profits and bonuses when our wages have hardly moved in ten years?

Just how stupid do these idiots think we are?

Don’t answer that, please, it will only make me angrier!