What's in your soil?
Posted on 09/23/2020 10:25:52 PM PDT by nickcarraway
What's in your soil?
I didn’t read through all the comments but it is my understanding these things enter your system, usually via your nose. Perhaps he had dirt under his nails and scratched his nose or even went digging in his nostril. Could have even simply rubbed his hand across his nose and sniffled if his nose was running. These amoebas usually make it into someone’s body by swimming in warm fresh water.
We don’t know he didn’t use potting soil.
“In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.”
Is that from “The Thing” ?
Shape shifting, brain eating garden amoebas. Welcome to 2020.
From what I understand from my Mom, she contracted M.A.C. (Mycobacterium Avium Complex) and Pseudomonas Areuginosa (a rod-shaped, gram-negative bacterial infection) from the usage of potting soil quite a few years ago. She is now clear of the M.A.C. but still suffers from the Pseudomonas, which stays in her sinuses and prevents her from being able to taste or smell.
After being teated with antibiotics for at least three bouts of pneumonia many years before any of this took place, she had extensive scarring damage in her lungs and bronchial passages. She was also premature at birth and both her parents smoked heavily.
For several years after being diagnosed with M.A.C. and then Pseudomonas Areuginosa, she was given a myriad of antibiotic treatments, including the insertion of a PICC (peripherally inserted central catheter) to administer some drugs that cannot be taken otherwise. A nurse came each day and flushed the line, checked the ports and sanitized them, and started her treatment. She eventually learned to do all of this herself, but she was so weak at times from both her illnesses and the medications, the nurse had to return.
None of the medications touched the Pseudomonas Areuginosa infection, and the last weapon in her lung / infectious diseases doctors’ arsenal was Tobimycin—the most potent and unfortunately unbelievably physically intolerable treatment. She had to stop it.
Over the many years of her illnesses, I did a lot of research on how exactly these diseases worked, where they came from, and any kind of new research, discovery, or technical lab reports. I found out about what is now called “Phage Technology”, a century - old treatment discovered before penicillin. Phagotherapy, or the use of lytic bacteriophages, is a treatment by which lytic bacteriophages attach to the diseased cell and then inject it with its own materials, killing the harmful bacteria. Once only in research phase at the Texas A&M Phage Technology Lab, it looks to now be readily available in quite a few U.S. locations.
Please pray for me as I look into finding a nearby location for my dear Mom to receive treatment, as it is also now approved as a “compassionate-use” therapy and prayerfully her insurers won’t balk at it. She’s so very ill and weak and can hardly draw a breath without a punishing coughing fit. Dear Lord Jesus, it doesn’t have to be me—you know the circumstances. Please send that right doctor and hospital or clinic into her life.
Thank in advance for your prayers, my beloved FReeper FRiends. God’s Eternal Grace is with you always.
“An elderly gardener died from a brain-eating amoeba found in soil after it turned part of his frontal lobe into a mushy liquid...”
When did Biden take up gardening? ;)
I alerted the troops! :)
Right--because amoebas can tell the difference.
This is not a virus or a bacteria. It's not about your immune system.
My cousin had a bad case - slipped on a hike & scraped his shin on some rocks. He had medical care/antibiotics within a couple of days of the scrape when it became very painful & started doing weird things. He was away from home (out of state) & went to his doc as soon as he got home (about a week later). He was referred same day to a specialist/surgeon who had him in the OR either that day or the next. The surgery cleaned out his leg down to the shin bone - he’d been told if it was in the bone, the leg would be removed. Due to a fairly extensive surgical site, he had weeks of care from a “wound specialist” (the kind that treats horrific war wounds), with vacuum treatment, etc. He was very fortunate that all he’s got left after this experience is a very deep scar along his shin bone.
Phage technology was recently successfully used to treat antibiotic resistant endocarditis affecting the heart valves. I don’t remember the exact refetence but there is a lot of work on this treatment option. Good luck.
P.S. did you mean tobramycin?
As a side note, I have to wonder if all the Useful Idiots tearing up the country have been infected by some sort of brain-eating amoeba.
On to the subject at hand - I gardened for several years, and, upon reflection, did things that would have made an actuary have nightmares. I followed the maxim that one should plant 50 cent tomatoes in 5 dollar holes. I found that the easiest way to do so was to start them with a trowel, then lay down and scoop the loosened dirt out of the holes with my bare hands.
By the time I was finished for the day I usually looked like Pigpen, and I never thought that I should not scratch an itching proboscis. With all the loose dirt flying around I occasionally got a nugget in my mouth. Oddly, I don’t recall the fresh earth having any flavor.
Looking back, I can think of at least a dozen times that, had events turned out slightly differently, would have resulted in a permanent dirt-nap, although, at least under those circumstances I wouldn’t have to worry about brain-eating amoeba.
My neighbor somehow got a flesh eating bacteria in his arm. By the time he finally went to the hospital he was beyond saving and died the next day. It was very tragic as he had a family and was only in his mid 40s. I don’t believe they ever identified where he got it from.
And he will continue to do so for many years. :-)
Wait, you think that the immune system does not attack amoebas? If animals could not fight off infections from amoebas then there would be no animals.
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