I am only referring to HP problems and those are only going to be in the stomach as it lives no where else (in theory at least). Your cat bite was a normal response of your immune system (to a very dangerous assault, BTW. Cat bites are legendary in veterinar circles.)
My own conclusions are that reducing the size of an HP infection is more sensible than nukeing it. Not only does the latter course risk poisoning yourself, it also destroys your immense number of microflora essential to your health. So, if we think of the problem as the result of longtime neglect throwing everything out of balance, the picture is more of a neglected garden where the roses need pruning and the violets are taking over.
HP is a fascinating little creature. It lives nowhere but the human stomach and is purportedly the only thing on the planet that is able to do so. It accomplishes this by corkscrewing itself into the stomach wall and allowing the protective mucous lining to protect it. At the same time, it lessens the acidity of the stomach juices by squirting out little clouds of a base substance called urease. This may have extra importance for two reasons - Proper stomach acidity is essential for proper nutrition and, two, urease reacts with the acid and results in ammonia. If ammonia finds its way into the CNS it screws up neurotransmission.
To show you just how marvelous the universe is, HP's toxin is stored in its cell wall. It is part of the structure, in fact. In that place the toxin is perfectly harmless. When it dies, however, the toxin is released. If a lot of them die at once then the toxin load can be dangerous. Different strains of HP have different levels of toxicity.
But the really neat part is that when HP senses an antibiotic it reacts by producing more toxin, in some cases by several hundred-fold! Think about that. In business, that is called a "poison pill defense". HP is pretty much harmless under normal conditions. Out of balance, however, you get ulcers and in the extreme, worse.
Most of us don't know if we have an active infection. If we end up taking antibiotics for something else we can accidentally poison ourself.
There is at least one other way to do it, too. And I speak from experience and have two damaged fingers to show for it. Raw turmeric is very effective at killing HP, but unlike rhubarb does not stimulate the GI tract. A couple of years ago I switched from tablets of turmeric which broke up in the intestine to ground spice turmeric which entered the stomach ready to rock and roll. It took me three weeks to figure out what was going on. I recovered everything but those two fingers which are still wonky today. A valuable reminder to me that in Nature the price of ignorance is high.
I think the answer is to reduce the size of the colony gradually and move the dead bodies out immediately. Buffering the toxin load with absorbent clays appeals to me. Also, the use of cranberry juice might be a good idea since it may interfere with HP's ability to get a toe hold (flagella hold?) on the stomach wall.
Somewhere I have an extensive file fron the first time we went over this subject. If I can find it I will post.
Maybe we could do an old 50s-style filmstrip, "HP - Friend or Foe."
Quote:
Originally Posted by indigogo
Rick - I didn't know that about antibiotics and leftover bacterial toxins.
18 months ago, because of an infected cat bite on my hand, I ended up in the hospital for three days on continuous IV drip antibiotics followed up by 3 more weeks on high-spectrum oral antibiotics, and did not experience any side effects. By the time I was able to start treatment, my hand was swollen to the size of a softball and I had red streaks radiating up the entire length of my arm.
Is the danger when the infection has gone untreated for a length of time, the placement of the infection (closer to the gut), or if you don't get all of the infection?
Just so that I don't sound like a complacent doofus letting the infection get so bad before treatment, the injury occurred a few hours before I left my house on the West coast to fly to Washington DC. By the time I landed, only 12 hours after the bite, my hand was totally swollen; I went directly from the airport to the emergency room; after 6 hours in the emergency room I was finally admitted and treatment was begun. By that time the infection was so bad that I was attracting medical students sent into see the "fabulous example of agressive infection," and photographs were taken for teaching purposes!
This occurred at George Washington University Medical Center in DC, where I was really impressed by their staff - when I told the night nurse I had PD, she said, "well then it's important you get your meds on the right schedule!" and she let me keep my own until the next morning when I was given theirs.
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