Posted on 09/11/2006 8:17:41 PM PDT by aculeus
We have always been told there is no recovery from persistent vegetative state - doctors can only make a sufferer's last days as painless as possible. But is that really the truth? Across three continents, severely brain-damaged patients are awake and talking after taking ... a sleeping pill. And no one is more baffled than the GP who made the breakthrough. Steve Boggan witnesses these 'strange and wonderful' rebirths
For three years, Riaan Bolton has lain motionless, his eyes open but unseeing. After a devastating car crash doctors said he would never again see or speak or hear. Now his mother, Johanna, dissolves a pill in a little water on a teaspoon and forces it gently into his mouth. Within half an hour, as if a switch has been flicked in his brain, Riaan looks around his home in the South African town of Kimberley and says, "Hello." Shortly after his accident, Johanna had turned down the option of letting him die.
Three hundred miles away, Louis Viljoen, a young man who had once been cruelly described by a doctor as "a cabbage", greets me with a mischievous smile and a streetwise four-move handshake. Until he took the pill, he too was supposed to be in what doctors call a persistent vegetative state.
Across the Atlantic in the United States, George Melendez, who is also brain-damaged, has lain twitching and moaning as if in agony for years, causing his parents unbearable grief. He, too, is given this little tablet and again, it's as if a light comes on. His father asks him if he is, indeed, in pain. "No," George smiles, and his family burst into tears.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
It means they're VERY wrong as we always knew they were.
You must love to be on the same side as the Dems for a reason. What is it?
I'll keep this thread up on my computer because I also want to look at it some more. Unfortunately it summons the cynic in me. One piece on it did mention that overdose might result in 'paradoxical insmonia.' It bears a further look.
Thanx sig. Goodnight.
I'm just asking a question....and it's a valid question...if you want every body and I mean BODY to be kept alive, no matter what, by whatever means possible, ARE YOU READY TO PAY 80% OF YOUR SALARY TOWARDS TAXES. I'll respect you if you say yes. But that makes you more of a Dem than me, doesn't it?
My wife is an RN with a degree in anesthesiology and was director of nurses for Pat Flores' company before her retirement. She administered to George on numerous occasions. His recovery is nothing less than miraculous.
Are you the same person who is always griping about abortion and life at conception and how killing at that stage is also just dandy.
No, I'm the person who keep asking WHO IS GOING TO PAY TO KEEP EVERYBODY ALIVE? You just don't know that because nobody wants to answer that question.
You're nasty because you're a bitter little person, small of soul and large of spittle. You show yourself to be a mean, vicious little woman, bitter at the world and always spitting on the hopes of others. Instead of seeing the potential to bring back those who are loved, in your bitterness you promote killing off hope and stomping on the hearts of those who desire with all their heart to return their loved ones to health. You are a loveless, bitter, little person. I pity you, but I will not suffer your insults and nastiness to those grasping for hope, I will write the truth about you every time you lash out to hurt others. So just keep it up you twisted dark soul. You are disgusting.
that's rich...coming from a postal worker.
You have a point - nothing better then having people doing un-responsible research for you.
It works you win, it dosen't you disavow all knowledge...
The research involved in getting this drug approved for the limited amount of patients is simply out of the question.
Not going to happen.
What an amazing report!
This still beats a cabbage hands down (or should I say roots down).
Here's a salient passage fromt he article:
Nel and Clauss have a hypothesis. After the brain has suffered severe trauma, a chemical known as Gaba (gamma amino butyric acid) closes down brain functions in order to conserve energy and help cells survive. However, in such a long-term dormant state, the receptors in the brain cells that respond to Gaba become hypersensitive, and as Gaba is a depressant, it causes a persistent vegetative state.
It is thought that during this process the receptors are in some way changed or deformed so that they respond to zolpidem differently from normal receptors, thus breaking the hold of Gaba. This could mean that instead of sending patients to sleep as usual, it makes dormant areas of the brain function again and some comatose patients wake up.
There's nothing stopping a doctor from simply trying it, as is the case for off label uses of most medicines.
You are so far off from reality that now you just make things up! Not surprising coming from someone with such a dark and bitter soul, Hildy.
"It was just my orders sir" is no excuse.
I believe the story says the patent has run out and generics are available. Trials are vey time consuming and expensive and if you no longer have the patent on the drug, you probably wouldn't bother either.
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