For all you wise old hippies, a question about various chronic illnesses.

Hello all! This'll be my first posting here, hopefully the first of many!

For all you older hippies, I'm curious. I have type one diabetes, an illness that pretty much leaves me dependent on expensive medication, medical supplies, and insurance. How was this dealt with for those that dropped out of society in the 60s and 70s? Were chronic illnesses in general more unrecognized in your time? Did you know anyone with a chronic illness?

Thanks in advance for any answers you can provide!

(Jeez, I'm so new to this- hope I don't sound ignorant! D: )

 

There have been numerous "alternative cures" for diabetes over the years. You can google for them. Diabetes can be deadly. If you're interested in alternative medicines, I suggest you consult a naturopath (an MD who appreciates the efficacy of natural medicine).

 

Thanks for the reply, oowolf, but I'm not really asking this question for my sake, to find out abut cures. I'm more curious about others' experiences, just for the sake of knowledge and curiosity. :] Thank you though!

 

For those hippies who dropped out to Canada and stayed, they enjoy publicly-funded health care. Some of us have been here all along.

 

and from those of us that paid for keith...your welcome

i dont equate bein a hippie or dropping out with turning ones back on medical technology...the hippies i hang with choose life giving meds in order to maintain their lifestyle on this plain of existence[get it...cause they're hippies]....i trade mine for weed[pain]

 

Unfortunately in that era the establishment in the states were very capitalistic and people were turned away from medical facilities because of an inability to pay, Thus for those with chronic illnesses life was hard,fearful and often short.As I recall most alternative medicine came to this country as a result of people in that era seeking some sort of help for their brothers and sisters that were ill,so that was not yet an option.Everyone I knew would have gladly worked inorder to pay for healthcare for themselves as well as others. But it seems that no one would hire anyone unless they conformed to the views of the bourgeois and supported ideas like the Vietnam war (or conflict) where fiftyeight thousand sons of America died and many more came back to live in the streets,swamps and hollows without medical care. The preachers ranted about "love your brother as yourself" though it seems that first your brother must support your political views or fuck him, uh in the name of JESUS.

 

OK. I'm prone to depression, and have taken many antidepressants, and they all sucked. I now take Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis), Valerian root (Valeriana officinalis), Hops (Humulus lupulus) and a calcium/magnesium supplement. Works for me. For mild depression, St. John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum) works for many people.
[not intended as medical advice]

 

In most of the larger cities where hippies hung out, there would be free clinics where you could get medical attention. Doctors donated their time and they also dispensed free meds. I'm not specifically aware of anyone who went to them with a chronic issue, though. I don't really recall many people on the road or in the usual hang outs having serious chronic issues.

I did have a friend back home who had childhood diabetes and we used to hitchhike around locally for a day or two at a time, but he would never have been able to go out on the long road for any real length of time. Not hitchhiking, anyway. In those days, insulin had to be refrigerated; maybe it still does. You never knew if you were going to be two days on the road or two weeks. It could have killed him. I think he always resented that and railed against it as much as he could, but in the end the diabetes always won out.

 

Thanks, but I pay my own way. I've been a taxpaying Canadian citizen since I was 17.

 

Ugh.

Type 1 diabetic myself.

It does blow, there's NOTHING you can really do to change anything except keep paying big pharma until there's less of a financial incentive NOT to put some more work in with stem cells and get this shit solved. Well I mean, you can choose to die... but thats it. I don't really like being dependant on my family that that extent, and dragging them down while i'm in college, because of it.

 

I was first going to answer this post by saying that we were all young and just didn't need medical care - but for a chronic illness you would be restricted to a nearby supply of meds. Long road trips or living in the woods would be out.

Speaking of the free clinics, we had one in New Orleans on Decatur Street in the low rent area of the Quarter. I actually worked and lived in the support commune there for a while in the early '70s. It was the Health Emergency Aid Dispensary - or HEAD Clinic as more commonly known.

We treated mostly STD (VD back then) bad psychedelic trips, abscesses from dirty IV works and the usual maladies of the homeless with poor hygiene or passing upper respiratory diseases around with that joint.

While I was there someone brought a drug OD to our doorstep. We went down and tried to admin first aid CPR with an ambu bag but he was dead. A little reality of the dangers of shooting/snorting unregulated drugs. Body laid on the sidewalk in front of our clinic for over an hour waiting for the officials to get there. Sorta fit the ambience of the neighborhood.

Strange to look back after all these decades and say it was like that and I was there.

 

Wow, thanks guys for all of the info!

 

Small world.
I visited that clinic during Mardi Gras '71, for a urinary tract infection. It was only a few blocks from the place were we were staying. I don't recall too much about it, but I do remember thinking that it was very relaxed for a clinic.

 

I was living there from Sept to Dec of that year but was volunteering there earlier at their switchboard reception desk.

You look like someone I met there but can't be sure it was you.

Here's the building in 2007, when I did my 40-year anniversary tour of the all the places I lived.

 

Heh. I probably looked like a thousand different guys in the Quarter at that time. I don't specifically recall anyone that I may have met while I was there; my memory is, unfortunately, not that good. The picture looks familiar, although in all honesty, a lot of the Quarter looks about like that, as I recall.

There have always been only two places, out of all the places I've visited, where I thought I would be happy to live out my life. One is Minnesota (although, in mid-winter I can't for the life of me remember why) and the other is coastal Louisiana. I think I was a Cajun in a previous life... either that or a plains Indian.

 

ely, from the little i know about the matter, i don't think there is a treatment for type 1 other than meds/insulin that has 'living proof' behind it. i have type 2, and have been able to alter diet radically to get off the meds. the american diabetes manual is 'the systems'' bible, but it's close to the truth for type 1's i think.

 

Right, Roorshack, that's a tough one, including the dependence issues. Best thing to do is as well as possible in uni so that in a year or two you can achieve real independence.

There are imperfections with insulin, SSRIs, antibiotics, BP meds, etc, but often they're the best or only option. That's just the way it is.

AND BY THE TIME THE SUN RISES TOMORROW WE WILL SURELY HAVE HEALTH CARE REFORM IN THE US. It will take awhile to start it up, but here we go!

 

well some new research has turned up the fact that mj does lower your sugar levels. Maybe this can help out some peeps with only mild diabetes?

 

IDK, it would be a wash at best, what with the munchies.