I just sat down to deal with the 45 or so comments that have stacked up over the past few days and somehow deleted them. The comment that was the top one on the list was a spam comment. I thought I checked the box next to it, but somehow I checked the box (that was right above it) for all comments and hit the Remove Spam button. Suddenly all the comments were gone. I’ve fiddled around for the past half hour or so trying to get them back, but to no avail. They are history. If you’ve had a comment pending, I apologize. Please resend.
One of the reasons this happens is that most of the comments aren’t comments – they’re questions. If I don’t have the time to answer them, they stay in the awaiting moderation queue. They stack up until I have some downtime to sit and answer them. As of late, I haven’t had much time, consequently the questions stack up.
I think I’m going to start doing like everyone else who blogs and simply post the comments as they come in without answering them individually. Many are asking the same general questions, so they can be answered with one comment from me instead of multiple individual responses. We’ll see how that works.
Once again, I’m sorry if your comment got zapped.
The official website of Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades, low carb pioneers and authors of Protein Power.
Alright, I’ll ask a question. I have just suffered some sort of neurological problem, weak grip, extreme tiredness, flu like symptoms. I have seen a doc, had head MRI and a neuro consult coming up (here in Western Washington its like being in Canada, weeks wait to see specialists. The group of symptoms is similar to some ALS-like reactions to statins – so I quit taking Statins (and niacin for the time being), doc is pissed at me. Other possibility is low grade viral spinal meningitis. Liver functions from bloodwork is OK.
So here are my questions, which attempt to avoid putting you in a treatment mode:
Can a person have severe statin reactions, and the liver function test still be OK?
My doctor (who said he would support low carb and insulin), is welching on me, and wants all of his patients to have 6.5 A1Cs. I have not been able to find an Internist or Endo who will take me. Have a friend up here who would?
Thanks RobLL
ps If I have to I can get by with Regular Insulin and no doctor. It would require getting up once in the middle of the night and taking a dose of Regular to control DP
One can have a reaction to any drug and have the liver enzymes be okay – that would include statins.
I have a clinic you can go to for low-carb help in Spokane, but no one that I know of in western Washington. Let me know if you’re interested.
Dr. Eades, I’m sorry for the off-topic comment, I know you don’t much like them, but I don’t know who else to ask.
My dad passed very recently and my mother doesn’t really take care of herself in any capacity. I would like to find a physician who espouses low-carb in my area, but I don’t know where to begin. She has inflamation in her joints due to a poor diet and fibromyalgia.
There are people who espouse basically low-carb diets around here, but the call themselves ‘Iridologists,’ and I don’t think I want my family exposed to the kind of pseudoscience that I know such an experience is going to produce.
Do you have any idea where I might find a good low carb physician/dietician?
Again, I’m sorry for contributing to the flood of comments you seem to get so often.
Where is your area? You can always contact the American Society of Bariatric Physicians and ask for a physician in your area who specializes in or has experience with low-carb diets.
Hey Dr. E.,
Have you checked your Akismet spam queue?
Marking comments as “spam” from the comment-moderation queue just moves those comments to the Akismet spam queue (assuming you’re using Akismet).
Of course, if you selected all and then marked “Delete”, then they are, unfortunately, deleted.
One other recourse: do you have comment notifications emailed to yourself? If so, you would at least still have access to the content of the comments you deleted (assuming you have comment email-notification enabled, and haven’t deleted the notification emails).
Also, given the way you manage your comments, you may be interested in Mark Jaquith’s “Comment Inbox” plug-in:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/comment-inbox/
Cheers!
Hey Chip–
Thanks for the suggestion. I checked only to find that my Akismet plug-in has been deactivated. I guess this happened when my webguy updated my WordPress. I think that the default is the WordPress comment system. I don’t know if it has a spam queue or not. I couldn’t find one.
The plug-in you suggested sounds good, but I fear that if the comments went up without my having to do anything to them, I would never get around to dealing with them. I may give it a try, though, just to see how it works.
Thanks again for your advice.
Best–
MRE
Poor Dr. Eades. I chuckled and felt bad for you at the same time. Were there curse words? 🙂
You’ve tried to go in this direction before – trying to minimize the amount of replies you give to comments and it doesn’t seem to work for you. I often wonder why you reply to nearly every comment and I’ve decided that you must be a really good, thoughtful doctor.
Readers really do need to read through comments before asking questions. I really don’t want this to sound “holier than thou” because that’s not how I feel, it’s just that this is such a terrific site and it does take a lot of work on your part. It’s not asking too much for readers to read through other comments to see if their issue has been dealt with already.
I’ve been reading your blog for six months and in that time I’ve lost 33 pounds (20 more to go) and it’s been so helpful to have access to your experience and knowledge. Thank you for everything!
Hi Gwen–
Thanks for commiserating. There were indeed curse words. Many. And loud.
I’m glad to hear you’re doing so well.
Cheers–
MRE
Dr. Mike: I just wanted to thank you for spending the time managing your comments the way you do. I often find the comments and questions from readers, along with your responses, to be as helpful as the posts.
Thanks,
Guy
Hey Dr. Eades,
My ‘question’ probably got zapped. I wrote: I read that you wrote about using a few protein shakes throughout the day and I was wondering what type of protein is best to drink throughout the day and if I should drink a different, faster absorbing, protein just after a workout.
Thanks
I like to drink whey protein shakes. They are what I drink both during the day when I want to have a shake and after a workout.
Gwen says:
“Readers really do need to read through comments before asking questions…It’s not asking too much for readers to read through other comments to see if their issue has been dealt with already.”
I second Gwen. I read your blog religiously, but comment infrequently because you’ve usually answered my question in response to another comment.
Thank you for all you do.
Hi Dr. Mike:
I think I’m one of those recent commenters who got erased. 🙂 Anyway, it wasn’t a question and I’ll try to reconstruct my original comment.
What I wanted to mention was an interesting piece I came across this past week (quel surprise!) in Barron’s Magazine (June 23). As you and most of your readers know, this is a very conservative, really mainstream pub for business types and investors. The particular article focused on what baby boomers might do to enhance health and talked about the problem of visceral fat. There were certainly several things to quarrel with in the piece, but overall not bad. It was penned by a writer from NJ who focuses on health/medical topics and has a blog (I think her name is Pinksher – don’t have the article with me at my office today so can’t be more specific at this time). The point of my comment here is that the author states explicitly that low carb and some nutritional supplementation is the way to go to achieve health. [Wow! In Barron’s?] The article suggests, implicitly, that low carb can address issues of diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, etc.
It’s a small thing I guess, but I was surprised and even floored to see this in any kind of MSM publication. So maybe this can give us hope that within a few more years we might start to get past the current nutritional dogma. If so, then I give full credit to you and MD, Taubes, Feinman, et al for this happening.
As always, I very much appreciate your blog and your books. Please keep it up.
Warm regards,
W
Hey Wil–
Thanks for resending. It is amazing that such a piece would show up in a mainstream publication. I’m sure the author has probably had a good experience with low-carb diets.
Best–
MRE
I’d be sorry to see you stop responding to comments, though I can see how much of your time and energy it must require. As others have said, I often learn nearly as much from your responses as from the original post.
I’ve been following this WOE for a while now, and while my weight loss is stuck, I’m feeling better and better, and I use your blog as a major motivator, especially since my entire family is taking statins and the “doctors” I can afford have informed me that insulin resistance is hooey and hokum.
I guess I’m saying that I know it’s a lot of work, but your really are changing lives WAY beyond the scope of your practice. And you are massively appreciated. Hugely. Enormously.
And you needn’t respond to – or even publish – this comment. I just wanted to thank you. So thank you.
Hi Willa Jean–
Thanks for the kind words. It’s nice to be appreciated.
Best–
MRE