Posts by OrphanCrow

75

Poll - Will you accept blood?

by OrphanCrow in

i have made a poll to try to determine the impact of the wt's no blood policy on ex members.. if you are an exjw, please participate.. vote here:.

*oops...hang on here...i have to make a new poll...this one lets you vote more than once.

i will post the new one .

OrphanCrow

dubstepped: ... I even read the wrong one, lol.

The "wrong" one wasn't really wrong - I wanted to post that one but I had posted it twice instead of the one about Shander and Seeber.

I'll check out the new one you posted.

Enjoy! :)

75

Poll - Will you accept blood?

by OrphanCrow in

i have made a poll to try to determine the impact of the wt's no blood policy on ex members.. if you are an exjw, please participate.. vote here:.

*oops...hang on here...i have to make a new poll...this one lets you vote more than once.

i will post the new one .

OrphanCrow

Doubting Bro: One of the more emotional symbolic things I did while waking up was rip up my executed Advance Medical Directive....It was quite therapeutic to destroy that symbol of control over my individual decisions.

That act is probably the most freeing thing a person can do when they leave the JWs faith.

It is more than a symbolic gesture - it is a real, effective way to take action on taking your life back and making it your own. That card is more than a symbol - it is an actuality of the WT's control, not only over your mind, but over your body and your life itself.

What's next? Well...how about blood donor time? Save somebody else's life in a real, tangible way. Not by offering them promises of a life forever in some imaginary, perceived paradise, but in this world here and now. Save a life, please. Save your own life, and save somebody else's too.

75

Poll - Will you accept blood?

by OrphanCrow in

i have made a poll to try to determine the impact of the wt's no blood policy on ex members.. if you are an exjw, please participate.. vote here:.

*oops...hang on here...i have to make a new poll...this one lets you vote more than once.

i will post the new one .

OrphanCrow

Listener: Overall it took a few months to feel 100% and I could have prevented the trauma I faced in those months if I had accepted the transfusion.

This is key, Listener.

The WT likes to boast about how blood isn't necessary, about how the odd patient here and there had such a low blood count and still survived...blah, blah, blah. And about how "patients who don't take blood do better than those who have blood".

What is often overlooked with these seemingly miraculous survivals without blood is the increased morbidity that happens when someone has low blood count. The recovery time on some of these patients is long, hard, and often results in permanent damage of some kind. I have heard accounts of patients who survived without blood but were left with permanent disabilities like limited hand use, etc.

This is something that is not accounted for in those apparently evidence based studies that float around to support the notion that "no blood is better". Those studies have all been conducted on in-hospital patients and people like you, Listener, never make it into the medical literature. Once a patient is discharged, they no longer show up in the data that is used for those studies. So, as a result, the studies will show that no blood is better....but that is just for as long as you are still a patient. There have been no long term effects considered and, as far as I know, there are no studies done on JW patients after they have been discharged as to the long term effects of being oxygen deprived for a period of time.

75

Poll - Will you accept blood?

by OrphanCrow in

i have made a poll to try to determine the impact of the wt's no blood policy on ex members.. if you are an exjw, please participate.. vote here:.

*oops...hang on here...i have to make a new poll...this one lets you vote more than once.

i will post the new one .

OrphanCrow

Oh dear...I just realized that I posted the wrong link on my last post:

OC, can you elaborate more on the sham that was created through the dub's supposed "bloodless" medicine?

I am not sure where to start!
This thread here might answer some of that question:
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5700923452030976/watchtowers-medical-bible-hlc-handbook?page=1&size=10

The link I meant to post was this one:

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/6214938441809920/basics-blood-management-dr-petra-seeber-dr-aryeh-shander-inaccuracies-myth

75

Poll - Will you accept blood?

by OrphanCrow in

i have made a poll to try to determine the impact of the wt's no blood policy on ex members.. if you are an exjw, please participate.. vote here:.

*oops...hang on here...i have to make a new poll...this one lets you vote more than once.

i will post the new one .

OrphanCrow

IslandMan: So I voted "some". The poll could have had more choices to get a more nuanced input of XJWs' feelings on the matter. I feel like the choice I chose does not fully express my view.

Sorry about that. I guess I could have made the answers reflect your position (and Cofty's and others) better.

I was mostly concerned with trying to find out if there are exJWs who will still take a hard-line stance about blood and refuse it under all circumstances.

If you would accept blood when necessary, I would say that the first response is more correct - that you will accept medical treatment that requires blood...but only in special circumstances. Which is a reasonable position to take and one based on rationality instead of just on belief.

I was thinking that "some" would be more in line with the JW position of blood fractions and artificial blood only - no plasma and no whole blood. No hemoglobin.

75

Poll - Will you accept blood?

by OrphanCrow in

i have made a poll to try to determine the impact of the wt's no blood policy on ex members.. if you are an exjw, please participate.. vote here:.

*oops...hang on here...i have to make a new poll...this one lets you vote more than once.

i will post the new one .

OrphanCrow

dubstepped: can you elaborate on what happened around 2000?

It was in the June 15, 2000 Watchtower that doors seemed to open into the use of more fractionated blood products and artificial blood (made from cow's blood or from expired human blood). The WT had been quietly allowing various fractions of blood for years but it was the 2000 policy change that really opened up the use of blood products for JWs.

You can read more about that here:

http://ajwrb.org/do-jehovahs-witnesses-really-abstain-from-blood

It is important to note, too, that 2000 was also the year that the Society for the Advancement of Blood Management was founded - a coalition of medical doctors and Hospital Liaison Committee members.

The SABM sets standards for PBM and BM around the world - standards for blood usage for all of us have been set by WT's HLC and JW friendly doctors.

The SABM was involved in the Hemopure trials and in STORMACT that was established in response to 9/11.

More about SABM and STORMACT on this thread here:

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5700923452030976/watchtowers-medical-bible-hlc-handbook?page=2

OC, can you elaborate more on the sham that was created through the dub's supposed "bloodless" medicine?

I am not sure where to start!

This thread here might answer some of that question:

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5700923452030976/watchtowers-medical-bible-hlc-handbook?page=1&size=10

75

Poll - Will you accept blood?

by OrphanCrow in

i have made a poll to try to determine the impact of the wt's no blood policy on ex members.. if you are an exjw, please participate.. vote here:.

*oops...hang on here...i have to make a new poll...this one lets you vote more than once.

i will post the new one .

OrphanCrow

I have said this before but I want to say it again...for emphasis ;)

Bloodless surgery does not mean that no blood is used in the surgery.

"Bloodless" means that the patient is bloodless - the patient's body has less blood in it than it should have. The patient's body is bloodless. Up to 80% of their blood is removed -a bloodless patient.

I think this is one of the greatest deceptions that the Watchtower has pulled off concerning their quasi medical advice. They have taken advantage of a word twist to make it appear that "bloodless surgery" doesn't use blood. When JWs hear "bloodless" they think that it means no blood is necessary when it really means that it is their body that will be bloodless in order to create a bloodless surgical field.

And, when it comes to the WT's "softening" stance on the blood issue - something I have heard many times - back around 2000 - that again was a big deception. The allowance of fractions and artificial blood served the needs of patient blood management and had nothing at all to do with religious doctrine - it had to do with patient blood management requirements.

Religious belief? No. Belief in patient blood management. PBM relies on blood fractions and artificial blood.

75

Poll - Will you accept blood?

by OrphanCrow in

i have made a poll to try to determine the impact of the wt's no blood policy on ex members.. if you are an exjw, please participate.. vote here:.

*oops...hang on here...i have to make a new poll...this one lets you vote more than once.

i will post the new one .

OrphanCrow

Berengaria: Hello OC, here is my own experience from a few years ago...

What an experience to go through. I didn't read all of the thread but this is a critical point:

"So odd, my first reaction to the suggestion of a transfusion was automatically NO."

This is what is problematic for exJWs - the indoctrination runs so so deep that it is important to research and make decisions about the use of blood before it becomes necessary.

I am glad that you took the blood and yes...it sure makes you feel great when it starts running into your veins, doesn't it? When I required blood, I remember looking up at that bag of blood above me and thanking whoever the stranger was that took the time to donate their blood so I could live. It was a profound experience to know that somebody cared and that they cared about me, somebody they didn't even know. I cried as their blood dripped down the tube and into my veins.

The bottom line is this - regardless of all the technology and drugs/products that the WT promotes as the "golden standard of care", there are simply some situations where a blood transfusion is the only option to stay alive. Right, Azor?

Justfine: Drs don't automatically give transfusions, or push them if they aren't needed.

Exactly. That whole thing about doctors forcing blood on people that isn't needed and using blood indiscriminately is just a Watchtower myth.

A myth that is dangerous and should be debunked at every opportunity.

75

Poll - Will you accept blood?

by OrphanCrow in

i have made a poll to try to determine the impact of the wt's no blood policy on ex members.. if you are an exjw, please participate.. vote here:.

*oops...hang on here...i have to make a new poll...this one lets you vote more than once.

i will post the new one .

OrphanCrow

dubstepped: Does every thread have to devolve into Richard Oliver's diarrhea of the keyboard where he just types and types and takes it away from the topic into mind-numbing arguments over semantics and minor details?

It appears so, doesn't it? Swamp us with tech jargon that even he doesn't understand.

Let's see if I can simplify things...or maybe make it more complicated. I hope not.

There is patient blood management and there is blood management and then there is blood conservation.

When you hear those terms together - patient blood management - what is being managed is the patient's own blood. Methods are used such that the patient's blood is removed, filtered, and then re-infused back into the patient. Or, the patient's blood is salvaged, filtered, and then re-infused back into the patient. Another BSM (blood saving measure) that can be used is EPO treatment (very costly and in most countries, EPO is made from human blood).

Bloodless surgery is essential for patient blood management, but the procedure can, and is, used in conjunction with allogenic blood (as long as you aren't a JW - bloodless surgery patients do get a blood transfusion if they consent to blood and it is required).

Bloodless surgery is always used for open heart surgery - hemodilution was the method developed to make open heart surgery possible and it is used for all patients requiring open heart surgery. But that does not mean that the patient doesn't get blood - it means that the surgical field is bloodless because of the patient's blood being diluted. That is why it was developed - to make it possible to operate on the heart in a bloodless zone.

What happened with that bloodless method was that the WT (HLC) pushed medical doctors to use that same procedure on patients that did not require it. They made them use that method for procedures that did not require that bloodless field. Surgeries, like bowel obstructions in infants etc, which did not require the patient's blood to be drained and diluted, became standard practice for all JW surgeries.

Then there is blood management and blood conservation. This is somewhat different than patient blood management. These practices are common in hospitals - they are practices that reduce the need for allogenic blood but they are not necessarily bloodless surgery - they are just good practice which doctors and hospitals practice on everyone. Reducing the need for allogenic blood transfusions does not mean eliminating them. Patient blood management eliminates the use of allogenic blood. Blood management doesn't necessarily focus on only using the patient's own blood - it just is the adoption of good medical practice and procedures that reduce the need for allogenic blood.

Blood conservation and blood management do not necessarily rely on bloodless surgical methods but patient blood management does.

It is important to know that "bloodless" refers to the bloodless surgical field. It does NOT mean that blood isn't used.

talesin: Bless you, my sister! (If you don't mind me calling you sister, in a very real-world way.)

Haha! Bless you too talesin!

75

Poll - Will you accept blood?

by OrphanCrow in

i have made a poll to try to determine the impact of the wt's no blood policy on ex members.. if you are an exjw, please participate.. vote here:.

*oops...hang on here...i have to make a new poll...this one lets you vote more than once.

i will post the new one .

OrphanCrow

talesin: There is no blood given if it's not necessary. "Bloodless surgery" is a misnomer. All surgery is bloodless, unless a blood transfusion is necessary.

Exactly.

I have had "7" surgical procedures and in only one was blood required and I didn't have so-called "bloodless" surgery.

Something that people don't realize is that "bloodless" surgery does not reduce the need for blood transfusions. (I will find the medical study that shows that...I need some time to find it among all the other stuff I have archived)

Bloodless surgery is not simply surgery without blood - bloodless surgery is all about blood - your own blood. In a bloodless procedure, your blood is drained from your body (in some cases, up to 80%), a volume expander is pumped into you to replace the fluid loss, your blood is then filtered and transfused back into you after the procedure is finished. In a bloodless method, your blood is handled way more than in a conventional procedure.

Bloodless surgery methods add an element of risk that is not there in conventional methods of surgery.