Category: healthcare

Improving Prognosis?

The image of ivy is from my back garden and illustrates one of the few things that truly thrive there.

NIHCE have issued guidelines to address which treatments might be worth the NHS providing for MS patients. Aside from the disease activity going on in our brains we have similar symptoms to many other chronic conditions. Some of those symptoms are brought on by our bodies becoming increasingly inactive due to deterioration in our brains. It’s even been cheerily suggested by a London research establishment MS could be rebranded as a form of dementia. With this in mind I thought I’d share a link I was sent that was made with seniors in mind but could be useful for anyone that doesn’t move as much as they used to.

  • NIHCE have suggested no longer financing injections of B12 to try and reduce fatigue (unfortunately, I’ve never been able to get hold of any through any number of GPs) but perhaps with more people asking for some basic maintenance strategies from their GP things might change?
  • Vitamin D supplementation is involved in many processes carried out in the body every day and helps regulate the body’s own immune activity. it might be wise to address both of these deficiencies in the general public aswell. A GP can carry out this test.
  • On the pharmaceutical side NIHCE would also prefer not to pay for Fampridine and Sativex. There wasn’t enough evidence to show statistically significant efficacy for all four supplementation approaches.

ivy up close

News of the Commonweath Fund’s conclusions about the brilliance of the NHS in a global league table of developed nation’s healthcare systems (as long as you don’t have a long term condition) I’ve mentioned in another post. The NIHCE use all sorts of equations and algorithms including weighing up loss of tax earnings for the country if these citizens can no longer earn and contribute. Perhaps  the measure for the wellbeing of patients with long term health conditions needs to be adjusted?

I’m conflicted about withdrawing a therapy that has worth for some people but then I remember that the NHS doesn’t have bottomless pockets and whilst some people are missing out on marginally increased walking speeds, baby units and end of life care could perhaps benefit from the spare cash? I’ll still be buying my own supplements even if it doesn’t clearly contribute to improving prognosis  on the NIHCE scale of improvement as I’m choosing to believe when their effects are all added up, these therapies are worth applying to help keep my body working as best it can. I think this outlook involving positive thinking may bring its own benefits.

A UK MS researcher agreed that good things appear to happen during O2 therapy after being asked for his opinion on a study on this website where Israeli long term stroke patients found new brain cell growth/synaptogenesis after receiving intensive O2 therapy in a decompression chamber. There are things we can do for ourselves that might help a little. I appreciate this isn’t a very rock and roll closing statement but it seems we, as owners of chronic conditions are in charge of improving our prognosis.

alternative healthcare

engulfing“Right now, they [mspatients] are not getting the kind of information we as [health care] providers would like them to get,” Wray said.”

This is quoted from a Boston Globe article of the 11th September. ACTRIMS – ECTRIMS researchers were apparently concerned about the ‘perceptions’ of ms patients.

I’d like to know where would doctors and MS researchers present at the conference rather patients get information from?

Surely not them?

Are these the same groups of people who didn’t believe in the possibility of an overgrowth of candida albicans? (thinking of more than one old GP when i make this statement)?

The same people who throw antibiotics at a problem as a first line of defence? (thinking of an old GP when I make this statement) rather than further investigation of the problem. I appreciate GPs have little time per patient but perhaps we could consult a ‘project manager’ for our bodies or even be entrusted to be our own project managers?

We are perhaps the best people to be put in charge of enhancing our own health?

The same group of people who, along with most of the rest of us didn’t know the significance of a microbiota until we found out from various TED talks over the last few years and recently a BBC2 Horizon programme on allergies (I referred to one of the over 1,000,000 pages google finds on the subject in an earlier post?

The same people who thought stomach ulcers were caused by stress not an infection?

The same people who believe that what we eat can’t have as much effect on how we feel and function than their questionably effective pharmaceutical offerings? (thinking of an old neurologist when i make this statement).

The status quo can’t continue.

The image above comes from a collection of mine with the name Earth Abides, Ecclesiastes 1:4. It was the title of a 1949 American sci fi book my dad gave me by George R Stewart. The world’s population gets wiped out and civilisation goes about starting again amongst the remains of our current civilisation.

Looking back, to get an apocalyptic tale as I was on the cusp of becoming a teenager was very good. It taught me to question everything. The message I chose to take from the book was ‘nothing that lives on earth is forever but that’s ok because we can choose to adapt’ and the planet will continue.

Things seem to be changing and we now have architecture acknowledging the presence of and creating designs specifically to take advantage of omni present bacteria.

If we believe that the 20th century was all about stamping out pathogens and healthcare was involved in a mighty struggle between us and them (evil bacteria causing disease left right and centre). Then the 21st century shape of healthcare will be all about harnessing the power of these omnipresent beings to help us, the puny human.

Some question our faltering scientific progress in medicine (as an owner of a chronic condition one of those ‘some’ is me) and ask whether antibiotics represented the only noteworthy advance in medicine since William Harvey’s discovery of blood’s circulation in the body in the early 17thC. This discovery rather neatly yet arrogantly ignores the Ancient Chinese’ awareness of body systems (please see earlier post).

Perhaps I’m biased but I choose to firmly believe that asking questions and finding out answers can only be good for our brains.

I feel the image above still stands as a representation of all that we live amongst and stands as a fine illustration of the impermanence of man. This too shall pass could be an alternative title and probably, bacteria will continue, relentlessly, to play their part long after our petrol shops have gone!

Personalised help for MS and other long term conditions?

23andME

So, in the post “eat your greens” I mention the process I’ve just begun which involved sending some spit over the Atlantic to have my DNA sequenced by these folk. I had some reservations about finding out something in my genetic code that might be lurking in the future but, knowledge is power. I might be worried about how this data could be used if it fell into the wrong hands but having an ms diagnosis in the here and now has already made me dead to insurance companies. I’m perhaps being pretty naive not making myself aware of the details of unforeseen data splashing horrors but I prefer not to spend time thinking how awful life could be.

So, being an impetuous child I went ahead anyway!

This is lifted from wikipedia‘s explanation of SNPs “Variations in the DNA sequences of humans can affect how humans develop diseases and respond to pathogens, chemicals, drugs, vaccines, and other agents. SNPs are also critical for personalized medicine.[5]“

For folk interested in family ancestry this sort of data could be a boon for identifying where great, great auntie Val has most ancestors. So many possible starts of stories!

The flipside of this personalisation is that genes don’t represent ‘set in stone’ certainties. A percentage chance is expressed for which conditions your body could be becoming most primed for. Epigenetics is becoming a fascinating topic for speculation and research. It studies how we interact with our environments and how our grandparents did also. I think I’ve mentioned the 2ndWW dutch famine research elsewhere?

Instead with 23and me sequenced data, we have information to act on…stop smoking.. eat more veg… (which is pretty good advice for most people) but supplement specific vitamins and minerals because certain SNiPs are weak in your sequence and can’t do a certain type of processing which might help us get a bit of extra energy for example. I mentioned methylation in another post, it refers to how our bodies allow the process of making energy in all our cells. How we treat our bodies is far more defining than some paperwork as this particular article spells out.

I feel a need to do these things (or perhaps it’s straightforward desire – a coping mechanism if you will?) because no one cares about my health and wellbeing as much as me. Certain medical professionals care about the condition they’ve become ‘experts’ in but only in their specific research area. How a body functions doesn’t seem to concern say, a neurologist. I feel invested enough to look at all sorts of strategies and specialisms to try and get my body working a little better and I don’t have any affiliations that might stop me looking in a range of areas.

This is why I’m interested in the vascular dimension to a number of chronic conditions. Sometimes, it doesn’t feel like there’s enough curiosity in science. I believe sometimes healthcare professionals could do with getting a bit of distance from a disease shaped problem to get a chance at seeing the bigger picture in individuals.

TCM v. Western Medicine

Traditional Chinese Medicine is taking more and more space in a GP’s toolbox of treatment options where whippersnapper Western Medicine is unable to provide help.

What breathtaking arrogance!

This post will be about a man who has an opinion reported to you by a woman who also has an opinion.

I make this clear because as human beings we could both hopefully have our voices listened to. As a medical professional, his opinion on medical matters can be rightly considered more important than those of a graphic designer/retired photographer.

With his training we could expect this professional to be an expert of sorts and after graduation when all his knowledge was fresh that would have been the case but there doesn’t seem to be the same need for CPD (continuing professional development) for doctors or consultants as there is for the rest of the general working public and so ignorant doctors are perhaps becoming more common?

If there was a need to brush up on what’s new in his profession then he would have been aware of all the research available:

All it takes nowadays is one Google search for “acupuncture pain relief research”.

As owners of a bopdy with its attendant aches and pains we are perhaps more invested in investigating methods to feel better than any expert might be? After all, they get to close the office door on our conditions at the end of their working day.

Dr David Calhoun was speaking on the World At One on radio4 on the 2nd of April, 2014 giving his response to learning that the NHS will be paying for acupuncture for their patients.

3762zebraaa

Discussion between the enthusiastically ignorant Dr David Calhoun and Professor Martin Underwood is in the last 5 minutes of the 45 minute show. Dr Calhoun seemed thoroughly unimpressed that the NHS would be wasting their money paying for patients to receive acupuncture. A treatment that had no proof of worth in his professional opinion.

Professor Underwood on the other hand, had a far more pragmatic approach  He’s decided on the worth of many treatments that NICE will pay for and this treatment carries next to no side effects for the patient, is relatively cheap for the health service and may even help patients feel a little better.

Let’s save discussing the efficacy or otherwise of expensive, often side effect laden, pharmaceutical treatments on the market for another post.

By describing acupuncture as nothing more than ‘theatrical placebo’ Calhoun managed to rubbish a 6,000 year old medical system in the blink of an eye.

A system that’s been around three times longer than the time we’ve spent without Jesus can’t be without any merits, can it? How long has Western Medicine been around?

William Harvey ‘discovered’ the circulatory system of the human body in the 17th century and Whippersnapper Western Medicine has proceeded to ignore its presence and relevance in many disease states since then.

China have been aware of circulation for much of those 6000 years and some have argued that the poorly translated ‘qi’ ( the word whose use gets guffaws from the seemingly uninterested among the medical establishment) is in part related to the flow of blood which delivers energy by transporting oxygen and carbohydrates.

It could be argued that Harvey’s ‘discovery’ marked the start of Western Medicine but usually Hippocrates, who seems  revered as the father of modern medicine was also around before Jesus. By all accounts he was a big believer in talking to the patient and assessing how they look and how they say they feel.

This is something that western doctors appear to be losing the art of in favour of tests that will show a need for a pharmaceutical treatment. I appreciate this isn’t Dr Calhoun’s fault, perhaps he has a fantastic bedside manner which, in itself delivers a placebo effect to his lucky patients.

 

ps. The image is from a collection of mine that started as a response to the term zebra when used in a medical context. I photo’d the zebra while waiting for my vietnamese acupuncturist.

Medical students when receiving training have been told since a Dr Theodore Woodward (a 1940s Maryland US, MD), warned them, on hearing hoofbeats don’t look over your shoulder and expect to see a zebra. Exotic diseases are much less likely than the more commonplace.

Certain types of medical zebra appear to be becoming more common and that particular part of a doctor’s training, perhaps ought to change? (we’ll discuss elsewhere the way the disease MS has changed in its definition at least twice in my lifetime – is it auto-immune or inflammatory?)