Medical Forum / Diseases and Disorders / Sinusitis / August 2007
Further foolishness
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truehawk - 01 Aug 2007 06:26 GMT Like a bulgery that did not happen because a big dog was there, it is hard to prove that antibiotics prevent or do not prevent chronic sinusitis unless those children are followed for a good number of years. But that does not keep them from focusing on the short term and saying that they are of little benefit without doing that followup.
God save me from fools that think that lichen can exist exist in the Arctic, and biofilms can grow in hot springs at 300 F and toxic mine waste, and in betadyne process equipment, and in jet fuel, and in the cooling water at Chernoble , but somehow can't grow in human sinuses. Or more likely they don't know about the other either.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSear ch=17398218&ordinalpos=3&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel. Pubmed_RVDocSum
rocketsman@talktalk.net - 01 Aug 2007 10:51 GMT > Like a bulgery that did not happen because a big dog was there, it is > hard to prove that antibiotics prevent or do not prevent chronic [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView... I was being treated by one of the authors of this piece of work. I became worse and believe they are seriously barking up the wrong tree.
judy.n - 01 Aug 2007 12:48 GMT In my experience, the residents are taught to avoid all antibiotics, and refuse them to the patients who clearly need them--granted, many patients show up the first day of a cold and want something--but lots of studies show that patients usually are quite happy to avoid antibiotics when not needed or to do delayed prescribing--you give them a script, and tell them to fill it if things go downhill--most never fill it, but feel better they don't have to fight the system for access to get back in. So, then the patients who are really ill call the triage nurses, who would come to me, and I would have to see them and write the script. Yes, antibiotics are over-prescribed, and yes in these days of increasing resistance we need to be careful, but there is such a bias against antibiotics right now for respiratory infections, that I really worry. In the past, the society of otolaryngology would publish clinical guidelines for sinusitis, and one of the symptoms that indicated a need for treatment was severe symptoms. As someone who has deranged anatomy after lots of surgeries, I've had the experience of getting very sick, very fast. If I was denied appropriate antibiotics: personalized to my history and symptoms, I could get quite ill. So, I worry about global statements, and the acceptance of them by residents in training, and staff HMO docs who follow guidelines. We shouldn't give out antibiotics when they're not needed, but we need to carefully assess each patient: no cookbook guideline can apply to all patients. I see this article as another block in building the case against all antibiotic use for respiratory infections. I'd rather see discussions about how to use them most wisely. Judy
On Aug 1, 5:51 am, rockets...@talktalk.net wrote:
> > Like a bulgery that did not happen because a big dog was there, it is > > hard to prove that antibiotics prevent or do not prevent chronic [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > became worse and believe they are seriously barking up the wrong > tree. Steven L. - 01 Aug 2007 14:38 GMT > Yes, antibiotics are over-prescribed, and yes in these days of > increasing resistance we need to be careful, but there is such a bias > against antibiotics right now for respiratory infections, that I > really worry. It's not a "bias," Judy--it's new guidelines based on new, previously unavailable, information. In the U.K., a Government committee set up to investigate antibiotic resistance has just recommended new *guidelines* which say antibiotics should not be prescribed for acute sinusitis except in truly severe situations (see below).
It's not just antibiotic resistance we now know about. Now we also know that a majority (maybe as many as 60%) of cases of acute sinusitis in otherwise healthy patients (no other chronic illnesses) tend to resolve spontaneously after 2 or 3 weeks anyway. Many of those are likely viral, in which case antibiotics would have been useless anyway.
> In the past, the society of otolaryngology would publish clinical > guidelines for sinusitis, and one of the symptoms that indicated a > need for treatment was severe symptoms. And it still is. The operative word is "severe"--and that word needs to be interpreted differently today, given the downside of antibiotics is much worse than we originally realized. If a patient is still suffering for 4 weeks without improvement despite aggressive symptomatic treatment and steroids, I doubt that any physician would resist prescribing an antibiotic at that stage. (If it were viral, it would likely have cleared after a whole month.) Ditto if a sinusitis patient already has chronic respiratory illnesses like asthma or chronic bronchitis--for them, fighting infections ASAP is critical.
But most cases of acute sinusitis aren't that "severe"--you haven't suffered more than a few days; you're not spiking a high fever; most cases don't cause "severe" complications like pneumonia, meningitis or uncontrollable vomiting. You just feel like crap, that's all.
But "feeling like crap" is NOT the medical definition of "severe." :-)
 Signature Steven L. Email: sdlitvin@earthlinkNOSPAM.net Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.
truehawk - 01 Aug 2007 17:00 GMT > > Yes, antibiotics are over-prescribed, and yes in these days of > > increasing resistance we need to be careful, but there is such a bias [quoted text clipped - 38 lines] > Email: sdlit...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net > Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me. 1. I don't see any call or attempt to devise a test for viral infection, or attempt to use antivirals to resolve the patients discomfort earlier, nor ANY recognition that the viral infection kills cilia and leaves the epithelium vulnerable to bacterial invasion.
2. The antibiotics most often prescribed, amoxicillian, is ineffective for biofilm infections. The ENTs who wrote this artical are totally ignorant that bacteria normally cope with an envrionment by forming communities cemented together with amyloid and alginate which are 100 to 1000 times more resistant to antibotics than free floating bacteria.
3, The whole "resistance" thing is a case of misplaced emphasis. Of the millions of tons of antibiotic produced, 95% of it is used keeping the animals in our food supply alive despite the HORRIBLE crowded conditions in which they are kept. Millions of tons of antibiotic for shrimp, cows, pigs, chickens and fish, but lets not give it to the sinus sufferer. When an antibiotic is used in humans, it is not new to the bugs. They've met. But macrolides work in spite of resistance, they just don't kill.
Should the so called professionals, the people who are BY LAW, the ones who are licensed to treat the ones who have the public trust, be allowed to practice from a stance of such profound and fundamental CLUELESSNESS?
Susan - 01 Aug 2007 17:13 GMT > 3, The whole "resistance" thing is a case of misplaced emphasis. > Of the millions of tons of antibiotic produced, 95% of it is used > keeping the animals > in our food supply alive despite the HORRIBLE crowded conditions in > which they are kept. Actually, that's not exactly right. The animals in our feedlots are sickened by the diet they're on and the conditions they live in and require abx to cope with the infections these cause. They're also given abx to fatten them up more.
The number I've come across is that 80% of all antibiotics in the U.S. are used in agriculture, but it might surprise you to learn how much of that is sprayed onto produce, not dumped into feedlot animals. :-/
> Millions of tons of antibiotic for shrimp, cows, pigs, chickens and > fish, but lets not give [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > be allowed to practice from a stance of such profound and fundamental > CLUELESSNESS? Take antibiotics out of our feedlots first, not away from sick people who need them. I'm not in favor of rx'ing them inappropriately and willy nilly, but start with the greatest impact and travesty, agricultural abuses.
Susan
Neil Brooks - 01 Aug 2007 17:41 GMT >x-no-archive: yes > [quoted text clipped - 31 lines] > >Susan Tonight, I'm going to pulverize and snort an unwashed dinner salad.
Results tomorrow.
Susan - 01 Aug 2007 19:07 GMT > Tonight, I'm going to pulverize and snort an unwashed dinner salad. > > Results tomorrow. If streptomycin is good for what ails ya...
Susan
truehawk - 01 Aug 2007 22:57 GMT > x-no-archive: yes > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Susan Speaking of snorting, since I was reminded of it, I have been snorting the xyitol, because if I put it in irrigation solution the biofilm just sloughs off it's top layer and remains pretty much unaffected. So gotta take advantage of the buggy home's stickness to catch it and allow diffusion to drive it down the concentration gradient. And it, along with the Pepcid is WORKING. Green goo the first morning, instead of drowning in clear mucus. Then 5 dime size rubbery patches have come out so far. 4 green, and a little larger white one with 3 red dots. And this is though I have a clear CT scan and have not been completly stopped up in a year, but I have still been weeping mucus and had the nausea.
Susan - 01 Aug 2007 23:40 GMT > Speaking of snorting, since I was reminded of it, I have been snorting > the xyitol, because if I put it in irrigation solution the biofilm [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > stopped up in a year, but I have still been weeping mucus and > had the nausea. I, too, had very significant increase in stuff that came out after I sprayed with a very concentrated xylitol solution. I've increased what I add to my irrigation solution lately (it's a sweetener, no it's a sinus cure, no it's a sweetener...) and thicker stuff comes out.
I just wonder if the xylitol is causing some irritation that produces more mucous, though, not just loosening stuff?
Susan
truehawk - 02 Aug 2007 01:13 GMT > x-no-archive: yes > [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > > Susan When I snort xylitol there is a distinct difference between the drip from one nostril and the gooey ooze from the other. Put some in your mouth and what happens? You produce siliva to dilute the sugar until some kind of equilibrium is reached. The natural product of goblet cells is the the same consistency as tears and saliva. The xylitol causes the goblet cells that you do have to furnish more fluid to the area and the bugs mistaken attachment causes some of the surface of their biofilm to slough off from where that is located. The thick ooze is them being washed out, when you get to the bottom it will come off in a rubbery hunk like a piece of lichen.. The mother is white or green and trails a long vail of clear mucus.
Susan - 02 Aug 2007 02:13 GMT > The thick ooze is them being washed out, when you get to the bottom it > will come off in a rubbery hunk like a piece of lichen.. > The mother is white or green and trails a long vail of clear mucus. Elizabeth, I mean this in the nicest way, but sometimes your posts literally make me retch. :-)
Susan
truehawk - 02 Aug 2007 05:40 GMT > x-no-archive: yes > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Susan And in the nicest way we are taught to be prisoners of our own squeamishness.
BTW remember cutting an onion or going out in sub-zero weather and having your nose run clear fluid like tears? That is the the natural viscosity of nasal mucus.
truehawk - 02 Aug 2007 06:37 GMT > > x-no-archive: yes > [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > having your nose run clear fluid like tears? > That is the the natural viscosity of nasal mucus. When I proved that the bugs and fungi were there, then I was told that they are benign colonizers!. Now I do not think creating a ulcer and building a mat that obstructs breathing and bleeding me and releasing the fluid as heavy mucus is in any way benign, but the very idea that I would have to have an epistemological debate with someone who is supposed to be SWORN to help me sucks. Then they say something like but you have not proven that the bacteria in the bioflim in the sinuses are as resistant as to antibiotics as biofilms in the lab, somehow ignoreing all the treatment failures by non-biofilm penetrating antibotics and treatment successes by biofilm breaking combinations.
There was a study of antihistamine which showed that a preticular antihistamine that had a rep of making people groggy was not a sporific in healthy people, but because a large part of' the groggness exprienced by the CS sufferer was because of the disturbed sleep of the sinus sufferer caused by obstructive mucus. Now Look up the excess mortality attributed to sleep apnea and you see a pretty high risk associated, however those risk factors are NEVER reported associated vs sinusitis, even though that is the context where is occurs. They are cheerfully reporting risk associated for headache and apnea but ignore the association with sinusitis.
They have been stonewalling for YEARS. I am not saying that any of the microbiologists are my friends but I have been around the situation enough to know that they are either ignored and or cowed, or they are brash and confident and seem to suddenly change Universities. Pre Bush the CDC had a dedicated biofilm lab, now it seems to have vanished. If we want the Powers that Be to get a clue we may have to write letters to challange their articals and put it on a placard and picket at their convention.
I think that it is up to us to change the system if it is to be changed. I think that those who are within the system are assigned to special committees so that they violate protocal if they speak individually (a trick known in the trade as cobwebbing) and the whole thing is so wrapped in politics that the suffering is entirely beside the point.
I can prove that the biofilms are there in immune competent hosts, and that their communal life style protects them from antibotics, and that the present practice guidelines are based upon a set of non- facts and non-specific tests which make the visit to ENT an expensive and useless encounter. Their present mode of practice is the definition of FRAUD, WASTE, AND ABUSE of the PUBLIC TRUST by shear arrogant entitled complacency. A Qui Tam law suit under the Federal False Claims Act does not require that they KNOW that they are defrauding the Government, only that you can prove that they are, and without any doubt, 7 days a week, prove the biofilms are there. What I need is a good lawyer that can cut though the systematic crap of it-is-irreverent-because-we-say-so and impress on the judges that what we have here is a whole medical speciality that had decided it pays to be a walking PLACEBO and inappropriately ignore treatable infectious editology.
It SO does not have to be this way. There are simple antibody tests for the quorem sensing chemicals (lactones) generated by the biofilm. The mucus is full of it. It would be fast and easy to develop a 7$ dipstick test that would take 2 minutes to preform,and those who tested positive could then receive mucolytics, xylitol, sodium nitrite and other film breakers in addition to the appropriate antibiotics, and one day PHAGES!!!!!!!!!! The FDA has not even got the start of a plan for approving phages.
Neil Brooks - 02 Aug 2007 15:21 GMT >They have been stonewalling for YEARS. >I am not saying that any of the microbiologists are my friends but I [quoted text clipped - 40 lines] >PHAGES!!!!!!!!!! The FDA has not even got the start of a plan for >approving phages. Nothing substantial will change in this country until we invoke SERIOUS reform to lobbying and public financing of campaigns.
The AMA and BigPharma have some of the biggest lobbies in the nation....
truehawk - 02 Aug 2007 18:21 GMT > >They have been stonewalling for YEARS. > >I am not saying that any of the microbiologists are my friends but I [quoted text clipped - 46 lines] > The AMA and BigPharma have some of the biggest lobbies in the > nation.... English ENTs are a big part of the problem. What is their agenda? It is not the AMA that is the problem, it is the American Collage of Otolaryngolists that has it's head up it's a.s. The problem seems to be one of selective preception, and of honoring their English colleges as much as anything else. We have the forensic and communication tools. We have the knowledge. We have the law. We lack confidence, passion, organization and purpose, but we could organize to engage them and push them toward the truth. This stuff degrades the quality of life of everyone from children to the geriatric and was REALLY bad for my mother my brother had in a nursing home. She was in a lot of idiopathic pain in her chest, which I am pretty sure was from the crud in her sinuses.
We really do not have to be good sheep and go along with this.
If we do not do what we can while we can the chances are we will still be fighting this stuff when we are old and less able to make anyone listen. When you are in a nursing home you can't have any OTC items that the Drs do not write an order for.
rocketsman@talktalk.net - 01 Aug 2007 17:27 GMT > > > Yes, antibiotics are over-prescribed, and yes in these days of > > > increasing resistance we need to be careful, but there is such a bias [quoted text clipped - 71 lines] > > - Show quoted text - I could not agree with you more. Some of the authors of the article are amongst the most influential in CRS treatment in the UK and are CLUELESS. They haven't grasped the biofilm connection at all. They race towards the bacterial resistance to antibiotics story and jam on the brakes of prescribing them. A recent investigation into MRSA found it was completely killed off by ordinary penicillin once the biofilm was dealt with. This is not drug resistant bacteria but drugs inability to penetrate biofilm, yet.
ellen - 04 Aug 2007 00:35 GMT > > > Yes, antibiotics are over-prescribed, and yes in these days of > > > increasing resistance we need to be careful, but there is such a bias [quoted text clipped - 69 lines] > be allowed to practice from a stance of such profound and fundamental > CLUELESSNESS? just to tag on to this: www.factoryfarmmap.org
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