This disease can manifest in many ways, with facial palsy, with nerve palsies, with many CNS manifestations you wouldn't think of at first. SEIZURES!!! Encephalopathy! Etc! Osteomyelitis, Myositis, Myelitis, Radiculitis, Transverse Myelitis, Arthritis, Chronic Demyelinating Polyneuropathy

TREATMENT is with QUINOLINES_ Levaquin, Cipro!!! QUINOLINES!!!

OkAy, if you are an IV drug user (I'm not, I was a vodka & valium person myself) you are at high risk for: BARTONELLA aka cat scratch disease.

Doctors almost always test ONLY FOR BARTONELLA HENSELAE, the kinds cats are most likely to transmit-

BUT BARTONELLA WAS DISCOVERED TO BE TICK BORNE IN 1999!!!

It is in ticks!!! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum

If you HAVE BEEN or are an IV DRUG USER
THE ODDS ARE YOU WOULD BARTONELLA ELIZABETHAE
NOT Henselae!!!

There are MANY human pathogenic strains- and if you test for ONE and get a negative it does not mean you don't have ANOTHER strain!! The most common test for Bartonella tests ONLY for Bartonella HENSELAE which is NOT THE MOST COMMON KIND. I know, stupid, eh? MDs have to catch up with the reseacrh, it takes time...

See these remarkable statistics!!!

New York: IV Drug Users 46% found with JUST B. elizabethae - 46%!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum


Sweden: IV Drug Users 39% seropositive for JUST B. elizabethae - 39%!!!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum


Los Angeles: Homeless People 12.5% to Bartonella elizabethae,
9.5% positive to Bartonella QUINTANA and 3.5% to bartonella Henselae-
a grand total in LOS ANGELES of % positive for SOME Bartonella strain:
thats 25%!!!! 25%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum

Bartonella quintana, the agent of "trench fever", was found in a 4000 year old human tooth. It is a microbe that has been around a very very very long time!!!!!!! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum

Good paper about Bartonella in humans by Bruno Chomel of UC Davis:
http://tech.research.usf.edu/cm/pdf/...nella_AVMA.pdf

BARTONELLA SYMPTOMS

GENERAL: Fatigue, Restlessness, Combative behavior, Myalgias, Malaise, Liver and/or Spleen involvement, Abdominal pain, Infectious Mononucleosis-like Syndrome, Granulomatous Hepatitis

BRAIN: Encephalopathy may occur 1-6 weeks after the initial infection and is fairly common in patients with Bartonella. Note: Approximately 50 percent of patients who develop Encephalopathy can be affected by seizures (from focal to generalized, and from brief and self-limited to status epilepticus). Headaches, Cognitive Dysfunction, and CNS Lesions may be evident.

RASH AND LYMPHADENITIS: Erythematous papules (red splotches or slightly raised red spots) may develop. Such papules occasionally occur on the lower limbs but are more common on the upper limbs, the head, and neck. The papules may appear on the skin or mucous membranes. Bartonella may also cause subcutaneous nodules, with some bone involvement possible. The nodules may show some hyperpigmentation, be tender, fester, and/or be enlarged or swollen, but not always.

EYES: Conjunctivitis, Bartonella Neuroretinitis, Loss of Vision, Flame Shaped Hemorrhages, Branch Retinal Artery Occlusion with Vision Loss, Cotton Wool Exudates, Parinaud’s Oculoglandular Syndrome,and Papilledema.


BONES AND MUSCLES: Osteomyelitis, Myositis, Osteolytic Lesions (softening of bone), Myelitis, Radiculitis, Transverse Myelitis, Arthritis, Chronic Demyelinating Polyneuropathy.

HEART: Endocarditis, Cardiomegaly.

Possible lab findings: The following may show up during standard testing:
Thrombocytopenia, pancytopenia, anemia, elevated serum alkaline phosphatase level, elevated bilirubin, abnormal liver enzymes. X-ray of the bone may show areas of lysis or poorly-defined areas of corticl destruction with periosteal reaction. Cardiomegaly may show up on a chest X-Ray.

Biopsies of lymph nodes reveal pathology often indistinguishable from sarcoidosis. Reports of biopsies strongly suggestive of lymphoma do occur.
Tests occasionally show an enlarged liver with multiple hypodense areas scattered throughout the parenchyma.

Another reason homeless people get Bartonella is because it is carried by LICE!

Trench fever is a kind of Bartonella- so is Carrions disease- so is cat scratch fever- each is a different strain- there are MANY human pathogenic strains-

know that the prevalence of these diseases is also high (although not as high as the homeless or IV drug users) worldwide among what seem to the healthy!!!

Occurrence of Bartonella henselae & B quintana in a healthy Greek population.

19.8% were seropositive to B. henselae

15% were seropositive to B. quintana

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...RVAbstractPlus

I'm going to ask a really dumb question. You'll have to excuse me but I'm over 60 and back in my day, we had Pot, Cocaine, and heroin.

I have no idea what an IV drug user is.

I know that IV is for intravenous. People put drugs in an IV drip and shoot up?

I had no idea.

What kind of drugs do people use an IV for??

And I'm being completely honest here.

I thought people either smoked week, smoked crack, and shot up with heroin.

I've really never heard of IV drug use.

Oh, I'm thinking, maybe this is shooting up with Heroin, and that is known as IV DRUG USE??

Am I correct?

Don't even bother replying, because I immediately realized how stupid the question was after I asked Alan. He said "IV" means in the arm. I said "well, now they must think I'm a complete idiot".

Thanks anyway.

Melody

Melody here is a spot where you can get a quick lesson on the different basic types. Easy to understand and quick to the point. Really though you would be surprised and some of the bizarre things that people will do for a high.

http://www.drug-addiction.com/drug_types.htm

Everything from guzzling mouth wash to smoking ginseng. I am sure there are some odder tales out there.

WELL!!!! didn't I get an education today!!!!!!

I learned about Crack cocaine. About heroin (poppy seeds), when I read about where heroin comes from the first thing I thought of was "Why don't people just buy the plants and ground up the poppy seeds??"

I knew NONE of what I read. Food was my choice, not drugs or alcohol.

One thing that I'm curious about. Kids today know more about alcohol, tobacco and drug use than we ever did back in the day. They just know more stuff.

So when I read the following:

"Medical consequences of chronic heroin abuse include scarred and/or collapsed veins, bacterial infections of the blood vessels and heart valves, abscesses (boils) and other soft-tissue infections, and liver or kidney disease. Lung complications (including various types of pneumonia and tuberculosis) may result from the poor health condition of the abuser as well as from heroin's depressing effects on respiration. Many of the additives in street heroin may include substances that do not readily dissolve and result in clogging the blood vessels that lead to the lungs, liver, kidneys, or brain. This can cause infection or even death of small patches of cells in vital organs. Immune reactions to these or other contaminants can cause arthritis or other rheumatologic problems."


WHY THE HECK WOULD ANYONE PUT THIS STUFF IN THEIR BODIES??

I'm dead serious. Don't teens know that this stuff could kill their blood vessels, and give them a slow death?

Why would anyone say "Oh, I'm going to do heroin, I'm sure I'll like it"??

I ask this because THERE HAD TO BE A FIRST TIME TO DO THIS.

These people are not 7 years old. These people read and write and know stuff, don't they??

I am dead serious here. It's like when teen decides to smoke because all his friends are smoking. But today, it says right on the pack of cigarettes "Cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health". or something similar. What do these people think "I'll put a butt in my mouth, I'll get a buzz but I won't die....I can't die, I'm immortal".

Same thing with Crack, heroin, whatever. Kids know what this stuff is. It's worse than tobacco right?? I mean tobacco is LEGAL. Bad, but LEGAL!!!

This crack cocaine, heroin, etc. is not only illegal, but it's DEADLY.

So why do people START in the first place??

I'm really curious.

For me I can tell you honestly that I really had no idea. I mean yeah sure we knew don't drink and drive, doing drugs is illegal but it seems to me all we learned was from a legal standpoint. No one told me that doing LSD could cause brain bleeds into my spinal fluid. That alcohol is caustic and burns everything it comes across in your system at a cellular level. I didn't know that people are willing to lose their children so that they can do drugs instead. I didn't learn that until I had hit bottom in my life and had to start outpatient rehab.

Also there is the belief that I will try it. I won't become addicted. I will only do it at parties. Well he/she has been doing it for a while so it can't be too bad. They just say that to scare us. I will never get that bad. At that age we think we are, to a point, invincible.

Society thinks that the best way to teach our children to stay away from drugs is to tell them they will go to jail. They don't show them the emaciated corpses of the oded crack addict they picked up last night, the drunk they scraped off the tree this morning. The brain dead teenager who oded on ecstasy at the party last weekend. I say march them through. Start educating them young.

I started teaching my 16 yr old at a very young age. He is Bipolar and comes from a long line of addicts, his father is a crack addict and a current user. My son is automatically high risk. He sees and is aware of what it does to lives on a first sight basis. He is reminded regularly of how at risk he is. He has lost a lot of friendships to drugs but hangs in there. We talk regularly. I fear for him regularly.

My older sister did all the drugs back in early seventies, Lsd, speed, pot, you name it, all to fit in with the rich kids (we were poor), I learned by her mistakes! She is all cured now, she drinks beer and smokes pot daily, but it is safe and legal (or should be, she says)!

Oh yes, her DD while on vacation last month went on and on how the Lord cured her of her Xanax addiction....I had to ask why her did not cure here of the beer, wine and pot at the same time!! We don't get along for some reason (my mom's side of family) and Dad's are all dead or just never knew them!

A lot of my son's friends have taken to stealing their parents psych drugs or then again there is always the parent who sells their meds with their teen being the dealer.

Some may find that shocking to hear. I find it disgusting to write. And sad. One of my son's best friends, they had a little group that was dedicated to not doing drugs, just not long ago was taken to the hospital because he was found in a bathtub full of ice cold water passed out from an overdose of Xanax and they still don't know what else.

There are also the parents who are of the mind, I would rather let my teen drink or smoke pot here at home, at least I know where my kid is at. That was the way my mother thought. I graduated to crack as I got older. She regrets it to this day but cannot go back and change it of course. I like to think that maybe it was meant to be so that maybe I can help others.