[Gary Graziano]

My A1C was 5.7, just above high normal, for several years back when I lived in MA. My MD at the time said contemptuously: “You don’t have pre-diabetes!” FF to the present, and my KY MD said I was pre-diabetic. I started taking metformin, alternating with berberine, when it became likely that I had cancer. (I’m also doing a long list of diet, nutrition, and repurposed drugs for cancer). Voila! My A1C is now 4.3, and I’m hopefully starving cancer for glucose. Whether my MD drops the pre-diabetic label doesn’t matter much to me at this point. The PET scan that revealed the cancer also showed I had an old healed L1 compression fracture which could explain my lower back stiffness upon waking. I was always skeptical of the whole disc degeneration with age concept. My back problems of 20+ years ago (extruded L5 disk) got better when I got my weight under control and started working out regularly. Few problems since.

[IMA-HelenT]

Thanks for sharing @flatulus maximus your story is a great example of taking charge of your own health and not just accepting a medical opinion.

[Gary Graziano]

I should add that to “take charge”, as you put it, is very intimidating. This is particularly true regarding cancer care. I’m having to “ghost” both my regular MD and my pulmonologist about what I’m doing. I’m getting pressure from both to submit to more traditional methods, and I can say it is stressful. There are plenty out there who could benefit from doing this, but don’t have it in their nature to break away. Maybe I’m weird, but I don’t want whatever life I have left poisoned, irradiated, or surgically mutilated. After COVID particularly, my attitude toward anything I’m told by an MD is: Trust, but verify.

[robinluxor]

I recently had a frozen shoulder (I’m a 66 years young female, fit, healthy same weight as I was at 18!) and when I asked my orthopaedic specialist why, he said it was ‘normal’ for my age and that he would give me a prescription for pain. My youngest son is a strength and conditioning coach so I requested an exercise program that would help. Three weeks later my shoulder was in perfect shape! I do take alot of supplements as well as collagen and I am sure that helped.

Just as an aside, I was listening to an episode of “Diary of a CEO” on Youtube (October 16th 2025) about Women’s health and menopausal women being called “Whiny Women” and told to go home and have a glass of wine or have a date night! Obviously this was a male doctor who had said this, not one of the amazing group of female specialists being interviewed!

[IMA-HelenT]

Delighted you decided to try strength training – it not only builds muscle, I think it trains us to be more resilient and gives us a real sense of achievement. I have seen some amazing examples of people taking up resistance and weight training in their 80s and seeing life changing results.

So sad to see anyone that decides to practice medicine being so rude about any set of patients. Shows lots of doctors could do with empathy tests and perhaps scores so we know not to use them.