PA,
I definitely wasn't thinking anyone should go without chocolate. I was just planning on making the control group people without that particular medical problem. If the sickies group ends up in the same shape as the control group at the end of any given study then I say we have a success!
Science was never my strong suit so it's possible this isn't exactly the right way to go about
a study, but since this lady felt so strongly that I would be back to work already if I just ate more chocolate then I figure we ought to get some kind of special treatment to make sure everyone gets some M&M's as part of their basic wellness care.
Personally, I break out in hives on chocolate so I had been avoiding it altogether (except on days when I was either really depressed or falling asleep at work) but I think I could learn to live with the ugly little hives if the chocolate would fix my bones. :)
Man, I can't believe my loser doctors didn't come up with this. Here's somebody who is completely untrained & she has figured out the cure for me in 3 minutes flat! And on top of that it doesn't leave any kind of icky taste in your mouth.
I guess we have to chalk it up to the "pharmaceutical conspiracy" -- you know where the drug companies make up diagnoses to go with all the drugs they invented for no good reason at all. Apparently, people have been drilling holes in people's heads for literally millennia to try to cure this disease & now we come to find out that all they had to go was go pick some cocoa beans and they could have been fixed in no time. ;)
Well, I held my tongue b/c it was a recorded conversation, but I really wanted to tell her that if they would just kindly send me ALL THE MONEY THEY OWE ME, then I would be happy to go out and buy a bag or two of M&M's to humor her (plus, now I'm so depressed I probably could use some -- I like the peanut butter filled ones. They are the best, followed by the dark chocolate ones, oh and the mint flavored ones ... mmmmmmmmm, M&M's).
Too bad we can't have pain simulators like the drunk driving simulators. I think there should be a requirement for some of these insurance fools to have to go through something like that so they understand that these are real people's lives they are messing with. I blacked out from low bp on Monday & had to go to the doctors. I need to eat more, but have been waiting forever on the insurance check. I'm going to try to get out to the food pantry tonight so I can get a few things to tide me over. My doc actually did recommend chocolate to get my bp up so I'm going to see if you can make brownies from pancake mix b/c I ran out of flour :). I think I can do it, we'll see how they turn out. I want to try to get a loaf of bread (or even a few pieces) at the food pantry so then I can make meatloaf tomorrow. I get to put lots of salt in it (I love salt! Love it, love it, love it! Can't have it all the time b/c apparently it affects cholesterol or something, but I get to have a lot of it now :) so I'm gonna live it up!). Oh man, what a diet to be on -- eat chocolate, eat lots of salty foods & the only bad part is I have to drink an insane amount of water.
Things will be better soon, though. If I don't get my check in a couple weeks the state Dept. of Insurance will catch up to these deceiving little devils & force them to give me my money. I have learned a lot of tricks on how to save money so I think I will really be able to get a lot of stuff. And I will be sure to eat a bag of M&M's in your honor. tasty.
Scarred -- the red ones are all yours. ;)
happy testing,
frances