Maggots resolve foot infections

[Typhoon]

Excellent observation, P.

If you are given any anti-viral or antibiotic by your doctor - take the full course, do not "save some for later 'cuz I feel better now"

Failure to to this is one of the reasons why we have antibiotic resistant Tuberculosis among other diseases now...

 

[pardus]

Yeah I always take my full course ;)

I'm bad at it due to my dislike of them, I want my immune system to get off its lazy ass and work.

Bad I know, but my body responds very well to ABX because I have to be nearly dead before I'll take them, I try natural stuff first, that usually works.

Military is different I'll take whatever to get batter then.

 

[Typhoon]

I'm bad at it due to my dislike of them, I want my immune system to get off its lazy ass and work.

I remember the first time I took a course of one of those "We had to destroy the village in order to save it" new generation antibiotics, and man it was ugly! It killed every helpful bacteria in my GI tract and needless to say left me in a bad way. :eek:

Then one of my friends clued me in and told me to eat some yogurt to restore my GI tract, which seemed to help...

 

[pardus]

Yeah, my prob is if I get bitten at work I need to take huge doses 2x the adult dose and it screws me up, so I take acidophilis etc... take ABX until I see improvment then let my system take over

 

[cb88]

Thanks for helping my diet, I no longer need to eat breakfast. :doh::bleh:

After my daughter spent 10 days in the hospital with Staph in her chest cavity from a surgery two weeks prior, I really just got sick imagining using maggots to deal with her staph. I'll take the tube in her chest, IV antibiotics and 10 days in the hospital, thanks!

 

[x SF med]

Thanks for helping my diet, I no longer need to eat breakfast. :doh::bleh:

After my daughter spent 10 days in the hospital with Staph in her chest cavity from a surgery two weeks prior, I really just got sick imagining using maggots to deal with her staph. I'll take the tube in her chest, IV antibiotics and 10 days in the hospital, thanks!

A Pleural infection would not get maggots - it's too close to too many vital organs that look like lunch to the little guys, and ther is no way to check the debridement process - too dark and too closed up. External infections and/or extremities would get maggot therapy.

 

[Typhoon]

My aunt just discovered some of my grandfather's medical school notes. If I see that there is anything of interest related to this topic I'll post it here.

 

[DoctorDoom]

It is so fascinating to me that the best way to provide for circulation between reattached body parts is to use anticoagulants from attached leeches...

That's not actually true... the leeches decompress venous congestion after implantation, but does not actually exert any systemic anticoagulation effect. Basically they suck out backed up venous blood so there is no compressive ischemia.

While the direct antithrombin inhibitors have advantages, they break up clot without preventing clot formation, and cannot be as easily monitored for effect except clinically. It is also a polypeptide, not a small molecule, so direct IV use is limited.

 

[DoctorDoom]

Thanks for helping my diet, I no longer need to eat breakfast. :doh::bleh:

After my daughter spent 10 days in the hospital with Staph in her chest cavity from a surgery two weeks prior, I really just got sick imagining using maggots to deal with her staph. I'll take the tube in her chest, IV antibiotics and 10 days in the hospital, thanks!

Maggot therapy would be useless with staph; there is not dead tissue as with ischemia, and maggots don't eat pus or bacteria.

In reply to previous wuestions, maggots used medically are sterile and specifically raised. Don't just grab some worms off a dead dog and rub it into your infected toenail.

 

[DoctorDoom]

Unfortunately my surgeon grandfather is long gone, so I cannot ask him the particulars about the procedures used in the First World War. I do recall that he said that maggots were used in the field. This weekend I am going to see my mom, and I will ask her if she remembers what he or his father in law, with whom he practiced until the early 1950's had to say about the subject...

Maggots were used but again only with devitalized tissue and when there was no way to easily debride. Or if the would was more chronic. Otherwise treatment was always sharp surgical debridement, something we still do, and I do about once a week.

In a time before antibiosis, a simple scratch and an infection with a boil would kill you. So I have no illusions about the halcyon days before antibiotics. There may be some drug resistance, but for 60 years now people didn't die from wound infections, and even now most infections are treated relatively easily with no surgical intervention at all...

 

[cb88]

Maggot therapy would be useless with staph; there is not dead tissue as with ischemia, and maggots don't eat pus or bacteria.

In reply to previous wuestions, maggots used medically are sterile and specifically raised. Don't just grab some worms off a dead dog and rub it into your infected toenail.

Thanks, Doc....for the info and once again ruining my appetite for breakfast!!!