Are we well yet?

Here are a few more links of medical and health related news:

• I like to walk around barefoot.  I wear flip flops in the house when I'm going up and down the stairs a lot because the "lip" on the wood stairs bugs me.  Otherwise, I'm usually shoeless at home.  I've been told this is bad since we have scorpions and spiders in the desert--and I almost walked into a scorpion in the garage the other day, while I was wearing shoes.  I've never heard of "earthing" but I think I've done it anyway.  Apparently, walking barefoot allows the body to get electrons from the earth, kind of an anti-oxidant.  The author of a book about earthing says that it reduces inflammation, among other benefits.  That gets my attention.
• At the American Association of Neurology annual meeting, in Honolulu, I assume to get better attendance, there were some interesting topics of discussion related to MS, including CCSVI research.  The Wheelchair Kamikaze has a summary of the highlights, including a mention of Campath (Alemtuzamab, the drug trial I am participating in currently).  I was shocked by the information in the section "Root Cause Department," which discusses MS clusters which have been identified several times.  No answers have come from the questions generated by these clusters of higher prevalence of MS.  The author speculates that there is "Too much money to be made figuring out new and better ways of stomping on the human immune system…"
• On Easter, our plans were a little different than most years--we didn't go to my grandparents' house.  So I didn't make anything to take--no cookies.  And I didn't feel too bad about going empty handed since the kids at both houses we were going to were probably getting plenty of candy from EB.  (Easter Bunny)  At our second stop, I decided to have a chocolate cupcake with crazy bright pink frosting.  I knew that it was not healthy before I ate it.  It tasted good.  And my lips were bright pink for a while.  Yes, it had artificial ingredients, and most definitely artificial color.  If you think you are escaping artificial coloring in your food, reasearch says that you aren't having any fun eating.  If you want to have less fun eating, ahem, I mean eat better, just remember that several of the most common food dyes are made from coal tar or petroleum.  And the "limited use" dyes are just disgusting--enough to make me think twice about any meat in a casing or citrus from Florida.  Ewww.  I am going to check out that invisible Kool-aid when my stockpile is gone.
• I'm sure this is shocking news to the people who don't have MS, but not to those who have MS--MS drugs are a waste of money.  I'm not sure how I feel about this source yet, but there is some interesting reading on the site.  And I certainly don't disagree with the bottom line--benefits are questionable and side effects are generally unbearable or ridiculous.  The author (once you get past the initial report) recommends skipping the drugs; instead, eliminate gluten and sugar from the diet, optimize vitamin D levels, and address the traumatic event that precipitated the onset of MS.  He also suggests eliminating cow's milk products from the diet and then goes on to discuss some lesser known options.