Rheumatoid arthritis is a disease in which early, aggressive treatment can really make a difference. The battle cry of most rheumatologists is "Save the Hands!" - once they've been crippled by the disease, the patient is severely restricted, and extensive (and expensive) reconstructive surgery by a hand specialist is required. (I wonder what the waiting period is for that?) Early intervention can prevent this in most patients, but you've got to get on it right away.

My mother-in-law suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, and it destroyed her hands. Fortunately I have a friend who's a hand surgeon, and he did the repairs, which, with physical therapy, took over six months.

A few years ago, I was visiting a friend in southern Ontario. We got to talking about health care, and I said that I thought that one of the major problems with the US was that the uninsured had limited access and often depended on the emergency room for care. I assumed that Canada, with universal coverage, did not have this problem, but my friend said that wasn't so - he estimated that at least 30% of the people in his town had no primary care doctor and had to go to the emergency room for care. Of course, this made specialist referral very difficult.

Now I'm not going to bash the Canadian (or the American) health care systems. Neither is perfect, and both have a lot of problems, but generally they both do a pretty good job. Both Canada and the US are democracies, and the citizens can decide on whatever type of health care they want. But if I were Canadian and had newly diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis, I would cross the border to see an American specialist right away - I wouldn't sacrifice the use of my hands. After all, Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams came to the US for heart surgery earlier this year and paid the bill himself - I guess he didn't want to die
on the waiting list.

I was diagnosed with severe RA as a grad student at Stanford. My hands were like claws. My hips were so bad I could not walk down stairs. They wanted to put me on steroids. I researched, rejected steroids, designed my own protocol and reversed everything. They told me I would be back on my hands and knees begging for drugs within a year. No, that never happened because I cured myself.

I won't go into my protocol, but today if I was diagnosed with RA I would use low dose naltrexone. Forget international travel for RA. You don't need it. There are answers. Google: low dose naltrexone rheumatoid arthritis.

DMSO is an immediate answer to clawed hands and allows you to work pain free as you begin a protocol. Also research yucca, B6 and pantothenic acid and Devil's Claw. And always have celadrine and msm lotion on hand for pain of anything muscular or aching.

The last person I would see for clawed hands is a rheumatologist. But that's me. I am my own health care provider.

"....My advice to Americans: accumulate cash in a Health Savings Account with a high deductible policy starting while you are young. Put in the max contribution every year. Save money in other ways too......"

Unless the Feds do away with HSAs, which was at least discussed as part of the healthcare debate.

A Canadian friend (living in southern Ontario at the time) complained to me for years that he couldn't get a general practitioner. Without a general practitioner he couldn't get a referral to a specialist. He got his medical care by going to emergency wards. This all made me very unkeen on Canadian health care as a model for the US.

Just FYI, this situation has apparently been ameliorated somewhat of late, based on conversations with friends and relatives in Canada during a visit of mine just a few weeks ago (including two cousins, thankfully in remission from cancer.) The ameliorating factor is likely the smidgeons of private medicine that the Ontario government has been letting slip through... though the walk-in clinics are inferior to having a relationship with a GP who knows you, IMO.

The most ironic thing I heard on that trip came from my mother. Normally, everyone in Canada I know will reflexively defend the system when I question it (usually as part of explaining why I oppose Obamacare.) And yet, whenever the discussion isn't political, there was a ton of complaints about how bad the system is getting -- all of this from folks old enough to see the change over the decades since the 1970's, when the system was in its honeymoon phase.

The classic line I always heard from Canadians in the '90's when they heard I was southbound: have fun, just don't get sick. This trip I heard my mother complaining "You just can't get sick anymore!"

Reducing pyruvate kinase activity would probably help those with rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases. Imagine all the problems we will solve when we stop the aging process.

"My advice to Americans: accumulate cash in a Health Savings Account with a high deductible policy starting while you are young. Put in the max contribution every year. Save money in other ways too. The accumulated cash will help pay for your health care when you get older. If you are young then for sure that cash will help you pay for rejuvenation therapies. Someone in their 20s who doesn't die prematurely will live long enough to get excellent rejuvenation therapies."

HSA changes are already a done deal. They are coming.

For that matter, any sort of "account", be it an HSA, IRA, 401(k), etc. is no longer safe from government prying. Across the board the theme is suspensions or controls on withdrawing funds, extra taxes, etc. And that's just what they're actually *doing*, what they're talking about for the future features lovely terms like "annuitization". Stuffing cash into something like this is just a big fat target for government theft, either outright or through inflation.

Of course, for many the point is moot anyways. Most people in their 20's barely have enough cash to pay their bills (if they even have a job at all), let alone extra money to stuff into some non-sensical medical or retirement account. They'll have less still as taxes start to skyrocket.

I don't know where older generations think all these anti-aging therapies are going to come from, or who is going to pay for them, when the younger generations simply aren't going to be able to pay for their elders in the first place. Or themselves.

I live in Michigan,and get a certain number of these people. Here is a brief (and good) run down on RA treatments.
Nsaids Crap. maybe help a little with pain
Older anti cancer drugs I tend to use methotrxate a lot more than neoral. Don't know why. I guess some people like coke,some like Pepsi. They are very good. ANd cheap. Mtx is about 3 bucks/wek.
Steroids. Can be useful in decreasing inflammation/pain. Joint injections help some. Cost 3 bucks/week
Biologicals (Enbrel et al ) state of the art. To keep disease from progressing,must be used with MTX. Cost 300 bucks/week .Problem is Canadian gov't doesn't OK it.

I'm afraid that I have to agree with the skepticism about Health Savings Accounts. If you are unwise enough to put aside your daily cigarette and booze money to save for your own future medical needs in any form visible to the government, you, and those like you, will eventually accumulate enough assets to come to the attention of "progressives" who will declare your savings "undeserved" and promise, if elected, to confiscate your assets and redistribute them to others "more deserving" in payment for their votes.