pubmed.org ratner ej
uspto.gov inventor search faustman
rhematoid arthritis is treatable with bcg
you might like to talk to so e of ej rayner's patients
ratner treated the cause if fibromyalgia
see aslo the lancet p.106 jan 14 1978
money is indeed useful but a poor substitue for good art like that of ratner and denise l faustman
do not let medical midget minds scam you as they pretend to be more knowing and omnipotent than the are
you can shoot me with bcg anytime for demonstration purposes and to stir anger and curiosity about why snake oil sells like gold at your expense and demise
There is no clear cure for all that ails Kristian Hidalgo.
Two years ago, he began experiencing a bombardment of health issues, including joint pain, aches and fatigue. He learned they stemmed from three conditions: rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.
The medication his doctors offered, which is usually prescribed to older patients, can cause sterility. For Mr. Hidalgo, this was an unacceptable side effect because he would like to be a father one day.
Instead, he relies on over-the-counter medicine, which offers minimal relief from the discomfort that riddles him daily.
“I’m 24 years old,” he said. “I have my whole life ahead of me. I’m not going to let a disease slow me down.”
Before his physical problems manifested, Mr. Hidalgo, who lives in the South Bronx, had been dealing with depression. He said it made his high school experience exceptionally dismal.
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“I definitely felt alienated,” Mr. Hidalgo said. “I’m not like most people. I stand out a lot.”
His fondness for piercings and body art is evident at first sight. He has 14 tattoos, including a few he designed himself. Many are colorful depictions of characters from comic books and video games, whose designs inspire him as much as their stories and cultivated his own love of drawing.
“How else do you immortalize what you’ve done?” Mr. Hidalgo said. “Paper gets ripped up, gets lost.”
He revealed his most elaborate tattoo by pulling down his shirt collar with two hands, showing what was underneath in a gesture evoking Clark Kent’s transformation to Superman. In place of an iconic “S” on his chest was a large outline of a bat. A split image of Batman and the Joker lies in the center. On one half are Batman’s allies, on the other are several Gotham City villains.
“A lot of my tattoos are literally straight down the middle between good and evil,” Mr. Hidalgo said.
The image — a drawing done with his brother — epitomizes several elements of his life, he said: a passion for drawing, his love of comic books, and the dualistic nature of his psyche, where dark thoughts clash with lighter ones. In his mind, determination spars with dread, and creatively battles stagnancy.
Mr. Hidalgo’s polite, folksy demeanor presents a self-possessed young man with an unabashed love of geek culture. Beneath the surface lie insecurities. In 2013, after taking more than a year off between high school and college, Mr. Hidalgo was enrolled in online classes at Full Sail University, a for-profit college based in Florida that specializes in media and technology; he was studying game art and design. But plaguing doubts about his merits led him to drop out after one semester.
“I kind of regretted the fact that I left just because I got sad a lot,” he said. “I really let that stop me. I could have done so much more by now.”
Soon after quitting college, he found work at a grocery store and then a movie theater, both in Manhattan. In 2015, early symptoms of his illness began to manifest. In 2016, he said, he tried marijuana for the first time, having heard that it might allay his chronic pain and quiet his anxious thoughts. It did.
“Smoking is an alternative that’s way better than taking a medication for pain, a medication for depression, a medication for anxiety, another medication for this, another medication for that,” Mr. Hidalgo said. “For all that, I can just smoke. A little bit, and I’m good.”
The onset of his chronic conditions have given way to brand-new worries. Mr. Hidalgo’s dreams of being a father are paired with fear that his children may suffer from the same setbacks and endure the same challenges.
“I would never want my kids to feel they are less than others,” he said. “I don’t know how I’m going to handle that when the time comes.”
Late last year, Mr. Hidalgo came across something that invigorated his life’s plodding pace: a flier touting Green City Force, which prepares young people from low-income communities for careers in the renewable energy field. It is a partner of the Community Service Society, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund.
His curiosity piqued, Mr. Hidalgo joined in November 2016. In June, Community Service Society used $121 in Neediest Cases funds for a monthly MetroCard so Mr. Hidalgo could complete an Occupational Safety and Health Administration program, which he hoped would lift his job prospects.
That same month, Mr. Hidalgo was hired by Ameresco, an energy management company. While on the job one day in September, his supervisors caught him smoking marijuana. They fired him soon after.
Mr. Hidalgo said he had been open with his employers about his habit, although he had not previously smoked at work. Although he was disappointed, he accepts responsibly for his dismissal and understands that he will need to find another career avenue.
Last month, Mr. Hidalgo began a retail job in Manhattan. The pay is not as good as it was at Ameresco, but he said that did not matter.
“Other guys my age probably care about how many girls they’ve been with, how much money they make,” Mr. Hidalgo said. “I don’t care about that at all. I care about my pets, I care about my nephew, my mother, my girlfriend, my friends. I really have no care in the world for money.”
Currently, he lives with his mother and siblings. Carrying more than $10,000 in student debt from Full Sail, he cannot afford a place of his own. Once his loans are paid off, Mr. Hidalgo said, he may return to college.
There is no straightforward remedy for either his mental or physical illnesses, so Mr. Hidalgo takes his prescription medicine on occasion and has modified his outlook toward the pain.
“If it was a race, you’re basically running with weights on yourself,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s just a weight. It’s just going to get heavy. So you can either get stronger, pick it up and run, or you can just lay down and whine. I don’t want to lay down and whine.”
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