Heather,
sorry to hear about your situation. I don't know if
this will console you at all, but as insurance
providers go, I think you can do a lot better than
Kaiser. Or maybe I should say, I HOPE you can- I
haven't yet found an alternative myself... but the
treatment I received from them personally was just
terrible, even before I was dropped.

I was exposed to lead paint working as a remodeler on
old victorian houses. I had been stupid, thinking that
plumbism was just for parents of small children to
worry about. Then one day I realized that something
was definitely wrong with me When I first told my
doctor I suspected I had lead poisoning, he laughed
and said, "nobody really gets that anymore" and told
me not to worry because even if I had it, "it goes
through you pretty quickly". Well, I soon found out
that not only was this not true, but my limited
research on the subject made me an expert compared to
anyone they had at Kaiser.

I got the results of my blood test in the form of
a phone call from my doctor's secretary (nurse?), who
left me a message saying, "your blood/lead levels are
high. please return in a couple of months for re
testing." That was it -no discussion of treatment or
counseling, just an "oh well" kind of attitude. I was
scared and confused, and I never felt like anyone at
Kaiser had any interest in helping me through it.
was working on finding someone within their
organization who had some expertise on heavy metal
poisoning when I was dropped.

That was over a year ago. At the time, I was
experiencing some alarming symptoms including trouble
concentrating, sleep and appetite disruption and a
very noticeable loss of my sex drive - these were the
things that prompted me to get tested in the first
place. Since then I would have to say that I'm better,
but as you can probably imagine it's hard to say by
how much. While I've had improvements in all areas,
I'm not sure I even know what "normal" is anymore -
maybe I've just gotten used to my new quality of life.

As far as tratment goes, I haven't done much
except to take a lot of baths and saunas to try and
flush my system. I also started doing"Bikram" yoga,
which consists of yoga performed in a very hot room
(115 degrees!). I don't know if all this has helped ,
but I figure it can't hurt.

Good luck and be well, Q



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