Only a small fraction of those affected have been properly diagnosed, leaving many others to suffer in silence or pursue ill-advised conventional treatment methods that fail to address the cause of this painful condition. Tara Grant, a twenty-year sufferer of HS, has become an underground legend to her Internet community of HS victims by presenting a methodical, self-tested action plan to heal naturally. The centerpiece of her holistic approach rests on the understanding that HS is an autoimmune disorder caused by leaky gut syndrome. With a few simple dietary changes that eliminate certain “trigger” foods, you can heal your gut, restore your skin, reclaim your health, and rid yourself of HS symptoms forever. That’s it—no antibiotics, no experimental surgeries, and no more pain, suffering, or confusion.Q&A with Tara1. What was it about the subject you chose to write about in your book that made you feel so passionate about spreading the word and getting your book published? My motivation for writing this book was the overwhelming response I received from people on the Internet when I originally posted about it in March of 2012. It turns out it’s a pretty common condition, but many people (and doctors) don’t know what it is. It’s pretty standard to visit various doctors, and be told that you have “acne,” or to be subjected to butchering surgeries. There is no treatment for HS, according to the doctors. People with it suffer immensely—in fact, HS is acknowledged to be one of most painful conditions in the world. I’ve even received letters from doctors and nurses who suffer from HS, thanking me for telling them what it is that they have—and for offering them hope. The primary motivating factor for writing this book, however, was an email I received from a 12-year old girl, who said she was going to kill herself because of the pain she was in. I immediately wrote her back, but I never heard back from her. I am desperate to know that she’s okay. I don’t want anyone else to go through what I did as a teenager—I myself thought about suicide on more than one occasion. I’ve had many letters from people who say they want to kill themselves since.2. HS is hard to diagnose, and many doctors aren’t even aware of its existence. How did you get a diagnosis? I’ve had HS since I was thirteen years old, but wasn’t diagnosed until I was in my mid-30s. Up until then, I saw over forty doctors from four different countries - none of whom could tell me what was wrong with me. I eventually found the name “Hidradenitis suppurativa” in a book about PCOS (also known as polycystic ovarian syndrome, which I also had) and could finally put a name to the horrible condition I had suffered from for so long. I took that information to a dermatologist. That’s when I finally got a diagnosis—over twenty years later. At that time, I had already changed to a Primal diet and my HS was drastically better, so I declined the antibiotics and Accutane the doctor prescribed. I also refused to believe what she said: “You have to live with this for the rest of your life.” I knew, as a longtime sufferer of HS, that the doctors I had seen had no clue what they were talking about. My journey was extremely frustrating, and I went through it completely alone. Over the years, I was told I had “adult acne,” and also told that they didn’t know what was wrong with me. I was also told that I was overreacting, not keeping clean enough, and told to lose weight. Not a single doctor showed any compassion, or was willing to look into the matter further. I eventually stopped going to the doctors, and didn’t return until I had already made changes and knew I was on the right track. I knew that if I wanted answers, I had to do the research and experimentation myself. I wasn't interested in how I reacted to different drug, I was interested in healing myself naturally.  I knew that I was on the right track with diet, so I started investigating Robb Wolf’s Autoimmune Paleo Protocol, and made specific tweaks for skin conditions. Results I had seen from others (Dr. Terry Wahls, for example) who had healed themselves from crippling autoimmune conditions were the only motivation I needed. When I started treating HS like an autoimmune condition, it went into remission. There are literally thousands of cases of this happening with different autoimmune conditions all over the world. I was also able to induce flare-ups with specific experimentation. This completely checks with autoimmunity. There isn’t a cure—you will always have the predisposition for autoimmunity—but you CAN go into remission. 3. Do you have any relatives or close friends that became diagnosed after you?  There is no one else in my family with this condition. There is a mistaken belief that HS is hereditary. It is not. However, some families have more than one member affected by it. The reason for this is that HS is autoimmune. In order to get an autoimmune condition, you need to have the gene for autoimmunity. The fact that the autoimmune gene manifests as HS in more than one family member is complete coincidence. If you’re suffering from HS, you more than likely have other autoimmune conditions - and so does your family. Family trees littered with Crohn’s, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, restless legs syndrome, diabetes, Lupus, endometriosis, eczema, psoriasis, HS, and more—all of which are autoimmune—are very common. If you have HS, you have the autoimmune gene, which you did inherit. If your gut becomes leaky, then you will eventually develop an autoimmune condition.4. Do you have advice for anyone seeking medical help for this condition? Read my book first. The Western medical community is still under the mistaken belief that HS is caused by bacteria, hence the prescriptions for antibiotics. They will not be able to help you, and will suggest butchering surgeries and heavy hitting drugs, which often make matters worse. You can’t “cut HS out,” like you do with a cancerous tumor. When you remove an organ or tissue that is being ravaged by an autoimmune response, you open up all your other organs and tissues to attack. That’s why there’s over an 80% chance of reoccurrence of HS after surgery, and people will often start flaring-up in areas that had been clear before. Sometimes, they even develop brand new autoimmune conditions. Luckily, you actually hold the key to healing in your hands. You can heal yourself. If you can avoid infection, then you don’t need doctors—or drugs— to help you go into remission.5. What is the one thing you would stress most to anyone unable to get a copy of your book at this time? Many people with HS are on disability and don’t have a lot of disposable income, or they have been taken advantage of in the past. If this is you, go to your local library and ask them to carry the book. Then, you can borrow it for free. How much does a 1-oz jar of EmuAid cost? Turmeric capsules? Surgery? Doctor visits and prescriptions? We’ve all fallen for so much. I bet if you sat down and tallied up how much you’ve spent on Band-Aids alone for your HS over the years, $26 would be a drop in the bucket. The great thing about this book is that if you are not satisfied, you can request your money back. If you get this 300-page manual and find that there is nothing in it that is of any help, you can ask for a refund from the publisher. Try asking for a refund for EmuAid when it doesn’t work. That being said, I would challenge anyone with HS to read this book and find nothing in it that’s helpful.6. Your book is a very important first step in making the public aware of this illness. Besides the book, how do you plan to raise awareness of HS?My goal is to get on the Dr. Oz show. I figure that will give us the biggest bang for the buck. Many people have HS, but are unaware of what it’s called. They’re too embarrassed to go to the doctor about it. I would encourage all of you to write to the Dr. Oz show and ask them to feature me, and ask your local library to carry the book. The only way we’re going to raise awareness is to GO BIG.

    In this book you will see how commonly performed operations can be found to be useless or even harmful when properly evaluated. That these claims come from an experienced, practicing orthopedic surgeon who performs many of these operations himself, makes the unsettling argument particularly compelling. Of course no surgeon is recommending invasive surgery in bad faith, but Ian Harris argues that the evidence for the success for many common operations, including knee arthroscopies, back fusion or cardiac stenting, become current accepted practice without full examination of the evidence.

    Juniper French was born four months early, at 23 weeks' gestation. She weighed 1 pound, 4 ounces, and her twiggy body was the length of a Barbie doll. Her head was smaller than a tennis ball, her skin was nearly translucent, and through her chest you could see her flickering heart. Babies like Juniper, born at the edge of viability, trigger the question: Which is the greater act of love -- to save her, or to let her go? Kelley and Thomas French chose to fight for Juniper's life, and this is their incredible tale. In one exquisite memoir, the authors explore the border between what is possible and what is right. They marvel at the science that conceived and sustained their daughter and the love that made the difference. They probe the bond between a mother and a baby, between a husband and a wife. They trace the journey of their family from its fragile beginning to the miraculous survival of their now thriving daughter.

    That her mother died of the disease, that her own chance of inheriting it was fifty-fifty, that her sister and father directed much of the extraordinary biomedical research to find the gene and a cure, make Wexler's story both astonishingly intimate and scientifically compelling.Alice Wexler's graceful and eloquent account goes beyond the specifics of Huntington's disease to explore the dynamics of family secrets, of living at risk, and the drama and limits of biomedical research. Mapping Fate will be a touchstone for anyone with questions about genetic illness and the possibilities and perils of genetic testing.

    From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War.Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" are the luckiest alive—until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.But the factories that once offered golden opportunities are now ignoring all claims of the gruesome side effects, and the women's cries of corruption. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America's early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers' rights that will echo for centuries to come.Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the "wonder" substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

    Once weighing 430 pounds, she's been through every magic fix imaginable. The thing she found that worked, really worked, was a key she had available to her all along. After years of praying about her difficult, she finally realized she had to make a bold decision to change her life. She knew she was addicted processed sugar and flour because she craved them day and night. With God’s help, she gave up what she craved and began walking choice by choice into freedom. Sweet Grace will challenge you. It may shock you at times. You may shed a tear. But one thing is certain, you will never again be able to say you don't know what to do to become healthy. It is possible to overcome food cravings and live free and healthy.

    It was inside, inside my head, where all had become so wretchedly different. I had the night before been incontrovertibly a man of stable mood, of calm, of good cheer and unforced bonhomie. Now I had become changed, with dreadful suddenness, into another being altogether.”Simon Winchester has never shied away from big, even enormous, topics—as evidenced by his bestselling biography of the Atlantic Ocean, his account of the Krakatoa volcanic eruption, and his wildly popular “The Professor and the Madman,” about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. In his Byliner Original “The Man with the Electrified Brain,” he takes on arguably his most daunting subject yet: his own flirtation with madness, and one of nature’s greatest and most enduring mysteries, the human brain. As a geology student in his second year at Oxford, Winchester was known as a young man of even temper and keen intellect, until one June morning when he woke to find himself “changed with dreadful suddenness into another being altogether,” his normal life “slumped into chasm” and “folded in the dirt.” For a period of nine days, he lived in immobilizing fear. Everyday items—familiar paintings, a pile of books, his own robe hanging from a hook—became objects of horror; the world lost color, purpose, all sense and safety. When the episode finally passed, he returned to normal, presuming that what had happened to him was a fluke. It wasn’t. The episode repeated itself at unpredictable and dangerous intervals for four years—always lasting for nine days—and very nearly caused the author’s death while he was on an expedition in the Arctic. What was wrong with him? Where could he find help? Would he spend the rest of his life anticipating the return of these mental blackouts? With the urgency of a whodunit, Winchester describes the coming and going of these terrifying dissociative states and the chance encounter that led to the controversial treatment of electroconvulsive therapy, which may or may not have cured him once and for all. Written by a consummate storyteller, “The Man with the Electrified Brain” locates that finest of lines between sanity and insanity and is Winchester’s most riveting and deeply personal work yet.

    But as he gained the trust of his eccentric coworkers and was promoted to acting COO, Larry was thrust into a nightmare world of scandalous controversy, gruesome practices, and deadly secrets.One secret Larry unearthed was the full, tragic, never-before-heard story of what truly happened to the body of baseball icon and American hero Ted Williams.Compelled by this and other horrific discoveries, Larry began copying documents, taking secret pictures, and ultimately wearing a wire every day at Alcor. He started living two lives—“Alcorian” by day, whistleblower by night.Beyond the senseless animal experiments, beyond the dumping of toxic chemicals and AIDS-contaminated blood into the public sewage system, these people saw themselves as the elite, the immortal saviors of mankind who would lead us into the future. Inside this cultlike mentality, anything seemed justified. Maybe even murder.Then Alcor found out. The death threats began.Fleeing from state to state, Larry was stalked and threatened again and again. They chased him through the streets. They left death threats under his windshield wipers. They terrorized his family. Larry Johnson never wanted to be a whistleblower. But he knows this story must be told.

    At his death last spring, Roueche left behind seven new narratives that have never been published in book form. This book collects these works along with one earlier classic--all relating true tales of strange illnesses, rare diseases, and the brilliant minds who race to understand and conquer them.

    That means most people alive today will spend more years in elderhood than in childhood, and many will be elders for 40 years or more. Yet at the very moment that humans are living longer than ever before, we've made old age into a disease, a condition to be dreaded, denigrated, neglected, and denied. Reminiscent of Oliver Sacks, noted Harvard-trained geriatrician Louise Aronson uses stories from her quarter century of caring for patients, and draws from history, science, literature, popular culture, and her own life to weave a vision of old age that's neither nightmare nor utopian fantasy--a vision full of joy, wonder, frustration, outrage, and hope about aging, medicine, and humanity itself. Elderhood is for anyone who is, in the author's own words, "an aging, i.e., still-breathing human being."

    They are promises. They are the only way to walk from one night to the other."Nina Riggs was just thirty-seven years old when initially diagnosed with breast cancer--one small spot. Within a year, the mother of two sons, ages seven and nine, and married sixteen years to her best friend, received the devastating news that her cancer was terminal.How does one live each day, "unattached to outcome"? How does one approach the moments, big and small, with both love and honesty?Exploring motherhood, marriage, friendship, and memory, even as she wrestles with the legacy of her great-great-great grandfather, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nina Riggs's breathtaking memoir continues the urgent conversation that Paul Kalanithi began in his gorgeous When Breath Becomes Air. She asks, what makes a meaningful life when one has limited time?Brilliantly written, disarmingly funny, and deeply moving, The Bright Hour is about how to love all the days, even the bad ones, and it's about the way literature, especially Emerson, and Nina's other muse, Montaigne, can be a balm and a form of prayer. It's a book about looking death squarely in the face and saying "this is what will be."Especially poignant in these uncertain times, The Bright Hour urges us to live well and not lose sight of what makes us human: love, art, music, words.

    This book will equally deepen the awareness of clinicians and enlighten the lay reader. It is a gift to both.' Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPPIn this highly articulate, down-to-earth, generous book, Dr David Galler tells stories of life and death from his position as Intensive Care specialist at Middlemore Hospital. Written lyrically and warmly, these stories are based on real life events describing the everyday dilemmas and challenges that doctors and patients commonly face.It aims to explain and demystify much of the work doctors do, cast light on the workings of the medical establishment and how medicine operates, in the hope that it will encourage patients to seek to be better informed and play a greater role in the decisions that will affect them and their loved ones.It speaks to the resilience of individuals and families and their extraordinary generosity and dignity under the most extreme pressure. This book is about realistic optimism and is a celebration of life.It is also a very personal story about David Galler's life, his family and about his own slow coming of age as a doctor, from the sadness and helplessness he felt about his father's death to at last feeling that he was of some use to his most important patient, his mother.

    A special gift. A life-changing journey. They thought he was just a cat. When Oscar arrived at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rhode Island he was a cute little guy with attitude. He loved to stretch out in a puddle of sunlight and chase his tail until he was dizzy. Occasionally he consented to a scratch behind the ears, but only when it suited him. In other words, he was a typical cat. Or so it seemed. It wasn't long before Oscar had created something of a stir. Apparently, this ordinary cat possesses an extraordinary gift: he knows instinctively when the end of life is near. Oscar is a welcome distraction for the residents of Steere House, many of whom are living with Alzheimer's. But he never spends much time with them -- until they are in their last hours. Then, as if this were his job, Oscar strides purposely into a patient's room, curls up on the bed, and begins his vigil. Oscar provides comfort and companionship when people need him most. And his presence lets caregivers and loved ones know that it's time to say good-bye. Oscar's gift is a tender mercy. He teaches by example: embracing moments of life that so many of us shy away from. Making Rounds with Oscar is the story of an unusual cat, the patients he serves, their caregivers, and of one doctor who learned how to listen. Heartfelt, inspiring, and full of humor and pathos, this book allows readers to take a walk into a world rarely seen from the outside, a world we often misunderstand.

    Rana Awdish never imagined that an emergency trip to the hospital would result in hemorrhaging nearly all of her blood volume and losing her unborn first child. But after her first visit, Dr. Awdish spent months fighting for her life, enduring consecutive major surgeries and experiencing multiple overlapping organ failures. At each step of the recovery process, Awdish was faced with something even more unexpected: repeated cavalier behavior from her fellow physicians—indifference following human loss, disregard for anguish and suffering, and an exacting emotional distance.Hauntingly perceptive and beautifully written, In Shock allows the reader to transform alongside Awidsh and watch what she discovers in our carefully-cultivated, yet often misguided, standard of care. Awdish comes to understand the fatal flaws in her profession and in her own past actions as a physician while achieving, through unflinching presence, a crystalline vision of a new and better possibility for us all.As Dr. Awdish finds herself up against the same self-protective partitions she was trained to construct as a medical student and physician, she artfully illuminates the dysfunction of disconnection. Shatteringly personal, and yet wholly universal, she offers a brave road map for anyone navigating illness while presenting physicians with a new paradigm and rationale for embracing the emotional bond between doctor and patient.