"Get the leeches!"
Posted on 11/19/2016 8:13:24 PM PST by nickcarraway
Sometimes ancient remedies are the best, even if they make you a little squeamish.
Maggots are being used again but in a new way: to save lives, limbs and money.
Some doctors think the larvae could revolutionize wound care, which costs $10 to 15 billion a year in the U.S. It’s a problem that will grow, with our growing diabetes population.
On the Ca-Hil farm out in the small town of Wild Peach in Brazoria County, it is another day. Owner Randy Harang is prepping the fields to bale hay, but for the 59-year-old, it is not just business as usual.
“I had an infection that popped up on my foot overnight.” said Harang.
In July, he learned two things: he was diabetic and doctors said, “We're gonna have to amputate your toe and part of your foot.”
The battle now was to save the rest of the rancher and farmer's foot.
At Houston Methodist Sugar Land, Dr. Nicholas Desai decided to try an ancient therapy, in a new package: fly larvae or maggots.
Dr. Desai explained, “It’s bio debridement or biosurgery. They use their mandibles to scour the wound and release these enzymes.”
Maggots eat dying or necrotic tissues exposing healthy tissue.
Biomonde grows the flies, harvests their eggs, sterilizes everything then packages the larvae in a nylon net where they can work through the material, but stay contained inside the netting.
The "bio bags" were applied like bandages onto Harang’s foot. He became the first patient in Fort Bend County to try the treatment.
Four days later, Harang was able to have a skin graft. With conventional therapy, Dr. Desai said it would have taken up to 72 days to be able to do a skin graft.
The financial savings are stunning.
(Excerpt) Read more at khou.com ...
By the way I’m on a tablet and I lost my first post.
But I wanted to tell you but that was one of the most beautiful posts I’ve ever read here.
It’s still no excuse to not clean your apartment.
"Get the leeches!"
Leeches and maggots are not so good for an economy.
Inadvertantly for the most part, from what I've read. It is said that wounded left on the battlefield for days often recovered because the maggots did their job and kept the infections down.
One Civil War doctor said he had a bottle of whiskey handy when those wounded were brought in - not for the men, but poured on the wound which "brought the maggots out 'at a canter' ".
Sorry, mom, I’ll do it now.
:)
Bring out the Caladrius bird as a diagnostic tool.
>>> I just don’t want to see it or know about it. <<<
Whiskey. Lots of whiskey. Or whatever.
My wife has actually worked with a patient they used leeches on. Real, medical-grade sterile leeches.
I understand they use leeches on extremities that are having vascular issues causing them to swell...reattached limbs and such.
Wow...how did you know that? I’ve never even heard of it.
It was from the SNL Theodoric of York Medieval Barber sketch. They brought out a dove but it flew off so Steve Martin improvised "I'm not sure how to read that". Interestingly, he had the diagnosis backwards from the legend of where the bird will look when the patient will die or survive.
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/theodoric-of-york/n8661
I read a thread a few minutes ago about dogs being trained to sniff cancer; apparently they can detect it sooner than machines. It was a pretty amazing article!
I’ve read leeches are making a comeback too.
Bloodletting for me. Seriously.
I’m in treatment for high levels of Iron.
My Dr is taking one pint a week but he says he may increase that amount.
May take several months to get me in normal range.
Maggots ONLY eat necrotic flesh. They get in there where a doctor can’t.
This sounds icky. But what ever works! The last sentence “he was standing in his barn ,grooming cattle”! Who does that?
I have heard of Wild Peach but not sure where it is. Our place is called Snipe, not a town just where the railroad crosses the creek
Not a good pecan year I heard.
Try Medieval and ancient times. Some for just blood letting. They were used on that Fat Jewish king Herod the great If memory serves http://aristean.org/post014.htm
https://www.quora.com/Were-maggots-actually-used-to-clean-wounds-in-medieval-and-ancient-times
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