Heightened risk

The body has some built-in cancer fighting capabilities. These have some fairly high probability of destroying mutant cells--though not 100 percent, so if your lifestyle exposes you to lots of mutagens something is more likely to get past the defenses. And presumably these defenses get weaker with aging and other bad habits. Once something gets past, ouch.

How likely is it that more than one type of cancer (not metastasis of the same!) develops?

Estimates: 1 in 20 within 6 months; 1 in 5 lifetime.

Time for a little back-of-the-enveloping.

For someone in the 70-74 range (averaging the sexes; men have higher rates), the population average for developing cancer is 2%: 1 in 50. That range includes 10 6-month periods, so estimate 0.2% chance per 6 month period, just from the normal incidences. The 1 in 20 cited above is 25 times bigger than normal.

Some of that may be due to the insults to the body from radiation or chemo, both as mutagens and as reducing the body's capacity to fight off mutants.

If I assume a 70-year-old, and if 13 years is the residual lifespan, and I use the same numbers as before, ignoring the rise in rate, then the expected lifetime risk is about .05, or 1 in 20. So having cancer increases the lifetime risk of a different cancer by about a factor of 4--better than the 25 above.

That seems consistent with a temporarily increased risk (e.g. chemo weakening the body) on top of a more generic increased risk.

Remember the rule: Where you see one problem, look for another.

Damaged taste buds

From an article on recovery of radiation-damaged taste: "All the five taste types are seen to decline around the fifth week after the start of RT. Bitter and salty tastes are affected the most while the sweet taste is the least affected."

Recovery of taste function may occur as early as 4 to 5 weeks after the completion of RT. Complete recovery of taste function following RT is still not quantified or reported. Whether the damage caused to the taste buds is temporary or permanent is still unclear. Partial taste loss is seen to be prevalent even 20 years after completion of RT.

This was an overview of studies, which varied a great deal in methods and selection and radiation targets, and only the most general information is obtained.

I've another data point, though. I could appreciate sourdough fairly soon after treatment, and bitter seems to have gone into overdrive. And nobody will be hiring me for wine-tasting in the foreseeable future. After nearly a year, recovery seems to have plateaued. "This is what things taste like now."

FWIW, I lost about 25 pounds, but was slightly above optimum weight so I had some slack available, and am only a little below my original weight now. There's more to taste than just the tongue's part. The nose plays a role, as does the "mouthfeel," and though I couldn't taste sweet for a while I could still feel the effect of sugar. I'm not sure how, exactly, but I could.

Not the optometrist's waiting room

Hold your breath

Applied statistics

"It turns out that simultaneous chemo with the radiation makes the cancer more susceptible and has better outcomes."

The devil is in the details, of course--I can read studies too, and they are chasing a few percent change based on a low statistics study with a slightly different situation. I'm all for that, of course, but I sense greater confidence than the studies actually justify. I was told one thing, but when I looked it up I found yes and no studies and a meta-study that said "not a big effect."

But everybody is confident. I suspect that that's a statistics thing too: patients do better when the doctors and nurses are confident.

Me? The odds are in my favor, but it's in God's hands. I'll keep plugging. It's easy to say that right now; they warn that the hard part is still ahead--3 weeks to go and months to recover.

Taste

Even distilled water tastes different--almost medicinal. Of course water is medicinal, in its way, if I drink 3 quarts a day.

Instead of competing with others' cookouts we served up a lunch-time "goopy board" such as Rosary College once served to students cramming for finals: DIY ice cream conconctions with selections of toppings. The sundae had a slight undertaste; a harbinger.

Spinach still tastes mostly like spinach, but Usinger's ham tastes flat. We'll see how this plays out.

Primitive or not?

Cisplatin uses a heavy metal (platinum) to differentially kill more cancer cells than normal ones. Even taking care with the dosage and ameliorations, the heavy metal poisoning inevitably does damage to the body (e.g. kidneys, nerves, etc).

That might sound familiar. Paracelsus proposed mercury to deal with syphilis, for humor theory (and magical) reasons. (Inducing diuresis and salivation would excrete whatever mis-humor was causing the disease.) Of course the treatment killed quite a few patients and crippled many more. They kept on using it, though. Why?

Some patients, would "spontaneously recover" from the primary and secondary lesions. This could be attributed to whatever treatment was used (yay mercury! yay guiac wood!). And mercury ointment could aid healing of lesions. And it turns out that mercury is "strongly spirilocidal," so it could cure--provided it didn't kill.

If bismuth hadn't been developed for use, and penicillin not found, I wonder if we'd still be using mercury for the disease--presumably much more carefully calibrated. Heavy metal chemotherapy for a deadly disease...

Trade-offs

On one of AVI's posts I commented: "How many IQ points are we willing to trade for a 30% better shot at getting rid of a cancer?"

I pulled the 30% number out of the air; for some cancers adding chemo to radiation gives a factor of 2 improvement.

Typically I've assumed my "value-added" to a conversation lay in "knowledge/analytical skill/sideways take/humor", but what if that's not always so?

I have it on good authority that other qualities are sometimes more valued.

Medical technology

They warn you that an MRI makes very strange and loud noises. That's ignorable.

Your body position is a bit cramped. For half an hour, that's OK.

They warn that it's a tight space, and not for claustrophobes. Close your eyes to keep the lasers out, and you won't notice a thing.

The personalized mask tries to clamp your head into position, pushing on the base of your nose. That gets old in seconds. I don't know about other people, but I felt like I had to be proactive about breathing through the thing; it didn't feel natural or easy.

No surprises, which was good.

Snakebites

I see that sucking venom out of a snakebite is discouraged (absolutely if you have an injury in your own mouth). This attempt at mitigation is ancient and very widespread, so at a wild guess it helps, despite some of the modern advice. (Sometimes hospitals can ID the snake from venom residue.)

Snake venom varies dramatically. In Africa some herbal treatments seem to be helpful, likewise in Bangladesh, among Amerindians, and so on.

Some of these work:

Ten studies reported statistically significant percentage protection (40-100%) of animals against venom-induced lethality compared with control groups that received no medicinal plant intervention. Sixteen studies reported significant effects (p ≤ 0.05) against venom-induced pathologies compared with the control group; these include hemolytic, histopathologic, necrotic, and anti-enzymatic effects. The plant family Fabaceae has the highest number of studies reporting its efficacy, followed by Annonaceae, Malvaceae, Combretaceae, Sterculiaceae, and Olacaceae. Some African medicinal plants are preclinically effective against venom-induced lethality, hematoxicity, and cytotoxicity. The evidence is extracted from three in vitro studies, nine in vivo studies, and five studies that combined both in vivo and in vitro models. The effective plants belong to the Fabaceae family, followed by Malvaceae, and Annonaceae.

Which is best for what snake might vary considerably. One wonders how this was decided on.

In Tribes of the Liberian Hinterland is a description of how the Snake Society was formed:

It is told that a hunter came upon two snakes fighting each other, and one was swallowing a leaf as an antidote for the bites of the other. The hunter then prepared medicine of the same kind of leaves, which he used with success in treating cases of snakebite. This incident led to the forming of the association.

On page 401:

A practice was found among the Loma similar to that described by practitioners of the snake cult in East Africa. A fine triturated black powder is prepared from the heads of poisonous snakes, charred, with certain herbs, in an iron pot. This contains the snake's venom, undoubtedly modified by the heating and certainly diluted by the charcoal with which it is mixed. Its action is further controlled by the herbs mixed into the compound. These are the same herbs which the leech uses in treating snake bite. This black powder is rubbed into tiny cuts in the skin of a person who wishes to be immunized against snake bite. The first immunizing dose is a small one, the next two are larger; a definite reaction is produced. The leech recognizes that this protection is temporary and that it must be repeated every two or three years. As the heads of several different varieties of snakes are used in the preparation of this powder, the immunizing effect is that of polyvalent vaccination.

This native practice even parallels our toxin-antitoxin immunizations, because he mixes with his toxin the remedy he would use in treating snake bite. The details of this treatment are guarded with great secrecy. Mr. Embree of the Methodist Mission in Monrovia once saw a boy bitten by a very poisonous snake. His comrades expected him to die. He asked them to wait while he went into the bush to get some medicine. They were surprised to see him return, as the medicine for that particular snake bite is known only bv certain big doctors. He admitted that he knew the medicine and begged the others not to tell anyone that he knew the secret, fearing the jealousy of those who were supposed to have a monopoly on the information.

Interesting. I don't know how fresh the plants have to be, and whether one could put together a "spectrum" treatment or whether it ought to be species-specific. As for immunity to snakebite: there are reports of it; species-specific. And reports of snake bite centers:

there are different dens in different cities wherein people who want to have snake bite are allowed to sit in chairs. The person in charge of snakes holds the snake near the head end of snake just distal to lip margin. Initially, he makes the snake to inject minimal bite in little toe or index finger for minimal envenomation, and then, he makes the snake to bite in lip or tongue of individuals according to their wish. The most commonly used snakes were krait, cobra, and green snake. Persons who were bitten, showed jerky movement and left the room within few minutes. From the reports provided orally, six persons lost their life due to such procedure. Many people who use such dens were from high socioeconomic status and well educated. Some of them were youth and college students.

For what it's worth in medical care

I've noticed that getting a doctor's apointment is taking longer, both in call-back and scheduling. The ER doc yesterday said they'd seen a massive uptick in visitors, which he attributed to fewer medical professionals. The closest Walgreens pharmacy has apparently had to close some afternoons because of staffing issues.

Not quite the desired result

A CPAP helps you breathe by providing "continuous positive airway pressure" to help keep the airway open. Without it, if you're lying on your back (and sometimes if you aren't), your tongue and soft palate may relax too much and block breathing, resulting in sleep apnea.

With it, you can feel the air forcing in when you breathe, and exhaling. Well, you can feel those anytime, but it's more pronounced with the machine. Being aware of your breathing is one technique for Buddhist mindfulness meditation: which isn't quite what the doctor ordered. Un-mindfulness so you can get to sleep is the point.

I guess one just has to get used to it, at a time of day when it doesn't matter if you sleep or not: no pressure. So to speak. (That seems to be helping.)

BTW, the valve at the mask may deteriorate over time. Even if it seems to move when you blow on it, at night it might just offer to stay mostly closed on you, making you feel like your machine is trying to blow you up like a balloon. Replacement isn't pricy, and helps a lot.

unexpected effect

I've had general anesthesia surgery twice before. All I remember of tonsilectomy is a sore throat so bad I did not even want any of the promised ice cream. The shoulder surgery was merely and clearly painful and awkward.

But the torso has many active parts. Is the discomfort from the sutures, from bruising from the inflation they used, from muscle complaining about the alien mesh it has to meld with, or something significant in one of the other organs?

I didn't expect the confusion.

Malaria

On the brighter side of the news some tests of an antibody look promising: 54% effective over 24 weeks, or another that can be done with an injection rather than an infusion for 88% over 21 days. There are some questions yet, such as how long the effect lasts, and whether injections can be made effective enough. Infusions are out of the question for the general population.

Lethal injection

I have long hated the practice of lethal injection--not because I have an intrinsic objection to the death sentence, but because it demands that healers stand ready to kill on command. A doctor who kills in self-defense or serves in the army is one thing, but to use healing skills to kill is another.

I would not trust a doctor or nurse who did the injections, any more that I would care to get sick in the Netherlands. (Or Oregon)

We don't like mess, and quick kills--thorough ones--are apt to be messy. The injection looks tidy (the link says it isn't as painless as it appears), and Sparky leaves a few burn marks. "The Barber" or a firing squad leaves a mess. Our convenience can be cruel.

hyperbaric therapy

I hadn't heard this before. hyperbaric treatment for autism. Seems odd--

One of the well-defined deficits in brain physiology related to ASD is hypoperfusion [15,22] and the consequence of cerebral hypoxia. Based on this physiological deficit, hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) has the potential to be a beneficial and appropriate treatment to alleviate hypoperfusion [23] and thus improve brain functionality and behavioral outcomes.

After an anecdotal treatment of a girl whose parents claimed improvement ("these aspects were not measured quantitatively and are not presented"), the team picked mice with a genetic defect like that related to autism in humans and

"1-month-old mice for 40 sessions for 2 months, 5 days a week, 1 h a day. A total of 30 mice were divided into 4 groups: ... The HBOT group received 100% oxygen gas in 2 ATA pressure levels, while the placebo group received air (containing 21% oxygen) with 1 ATA pressure levels. ... All mice survived the procedures with no indications of irregular behavior or discomfort."

They see some improvement in their tests for mouse "social and novelty" behavior. I'm a little less sanguine, but it looks like it might be promising. And, of course, there look (to my eye) to be various causes of ASD, so there might not be a single treatment. A larger study is probably in order, and some attempt to see how long effects last.

---

UPDATE: Before you try "do it yourself", recall that every treatment has risks.

more wendigo

Following up a bit on the wendigo aspect of the Walam Olum post: Nathan Carlson wrote an analysis of witiko=wendigo phenomena with several cases described. There were often physical symptoms, notably swelling, associated with the condition--sometimes at the onset, sometimes later. He asked rhetorically if mental illnesses could be contagious.

Can they be? I don't mean meme-contagious, I mean in the traditional microbe or virus sense. To be clear, I probably have a number of pathogenic organisms living in and on me now, but without some opportunity or stress they won't do much.

Clearly some of the symptoms are culturally shaped, but swelling and cold (testified to by others)? This wendigo-ness isn't something shared by other tribes, as far as I can find, so either the physical symptoms are culturally shaped too, or the tribe is more susceptible genetically than other tribes. So suppose one had an endemic infection that susceptible individuals succombed to in times of starvation or panic, that left the brain in a confused state that the culture gave a name and shape to--cannibal wendigo. I assume it's possible--I don't know if it is either remotely likely or possible to prove or disprove.

Alternatively, the disease isn't very contagious except when the victim is heavily afflicted, so the victim becomes doubly dangerous, as an attacker and as a vector.

On the "disprove" side, there are other sources of stress besides starvation and panic--the infection should come forward at other times as well, though possibly the madness would be given a different cultural shape. I haven't heard of anything. AmerIndians have high rates of mental illness, but given the general stresses involved you can't conclude anything about that except that feeling poor and useless is really bad for your health.

Radiation hormesis

is the theory that small amounts of radiation (well, maybe not alphas) "exercise" the body's/cell's repair mechanisms and leave it better off. There's evidence for and against this. There still seem to be radon spas; it isn't just an antique fad.

It turns out to be quite hard to do animal experiments or human epidemiological studies with appropriately small levels of radiation. I suppose one could do comparisons of longevity and cancer rates of tribes living at different altitudes, but there are probably confounding differences in diet, and maybe lower air pressure adds stress to the body? Cell cultures are all well and good, but sometimes it is the whole organism that responds to an irritant.

And so, there are proposals for an Ultra Low-Level Radiation Effects lab. Underground, of course.

One group has been working with human lung and bronchial cells. They cited earlier research.

"For example, Planel et al (1987) incubated paramecia underground in the Pyrenees mountains at the Centre National Recherche Scietifique (CNRS) and showed growth inhibition of cells within incubators shielded at 0.2mGy/year; they were able to recover growth rate to control levels by exposing the underground cells to 60Co (4 mGy/year)."

The human cell group went on to check for "heat shock proteins" as a marker for stress, using human lung and bronchial cells.

shielding cells from natural levels of radiation upregulated the expression of two of the three stress proteins, and follow-on exposure to x-rays further upregulated expression.

Their Figure 2 does show striking differences. I won't say I'm sure what that means, though. There might be other functions for those proteins.

Though the data variability was relatively high, the three indicators of cell growth demonstrated that cells grown underground were inhibited and grew increasingly so with increasing time underground

Don't take this as an excuse to drink Radithor. That's not a small dose. But you might feel better about buying your kids a Gilbert's Atomic Energy Lab. Just make sure they aren't buying thousands of lantern mantles for some project in the shed.

Variations

The first covid shot left me a bit tired and with a sore arm 12 hours later. That didn't last too long.

The second left me pneumonia-level fatigued 24 hours later. That lasted about 8 hours.

The booster left me fatigued and fevered 36 hours later (during the night).

Extrapolations are left as an exercise.

I spent the day testing gravity.

Given that the stuff has to be kept cold and deteriorates when warm, I wonder how much variation there is in the actual dosage. Early-birds get the big kick, those near the end of a batch get a lighter one? It might have some bearing on reactions.

Drugs against COVID

I've read that Chloroquine and Ivermectin are used in tropical areas, and that the rate of COVID is significantly lower in sub-Saharan Africa. This correlation could be indicative of something, if the disease rates were accurately reported. I'll stipulate for the moment that the per cohort rate is lower, but you may color me very dubious.

"Used" is a tricky word. How often are they used?

Anti-malarials aren't part of the normal weekly regimin in the malarial parts of Africa--and chloroquine isn't as useful as it once was. The link is to a study proposing monthly doses for children. When we lived there, we took one weekly.

Also, this meta-study of regular antihelmenthics on schoolchildren implies that these are not given what I'd call very regularly. Some of the studies used quarterly doses, some bi-annually. WHO advocated annual dosing.

It would seem likely that the anti-malarials or antihelmintics are only present in sub-Saharan Africans' blood periodically--probably on an as-needed basis. It isn't obvious that even if chloroquine or ivermectin provided prophylactic protection against COVID, that the residue from months before would make any difference. Desethylchloroquine has a half-life in the bloodstream of about 4 days. I'll take that as a proxy for the oral varieties. Ivermectin, per Merck, has a half-life of about 18 hours.

Maybe they help, but the correlation doesn't seem to help prove it.

On the other hand, I heard of one clinic that somebody who came in sick with anything remotely resembling malaria was automatically given an anti-malarial, on the grounds that they probably had that too. If that protocol is widely used, there could still be a relationship.

The devil is in the details--including the details of your assumptions.