Doctorblue

Thank you for the kind words. Just to clarify, one meaning for the word 'blue' is melancholy or depressed. I'm doctorblue because I'm depressed about how doctors are selling out the greater good of humankind. Take this week's conundrum over the Georgia attorney/tuberculosis patient who flew to Italy to get married even though he was on a U.S. no fly list. Authorities are now looking for some of the passengers on his flight to see if they were infected. And now the attorney's father-in-law who works at the CDC as a researcher engaged in research on tuberculosis is singing "It's All Right." In reporting the story the media is giving equal weight to this one researcher's contentions as previous tests that show this to be an extremely virulent strain. I guess we believe what we want to and what is convenient. This is not the first time there have been reports of patients with tuberculosis in the U.S.

Being disabled the last three years, I'm home and listen to NPR and the news all day long. I love how some newscasters just broadcast one story after the next as if someone is standing there feeding them lines. "Read this. OK, now read this. This is a funny story, so smile. This one is sad, so be serious..." Do they have any idea what they are saying? Do they think about how the news story impacts not only their life but the potential for affecting a nation or the world?

My aunt in Poland had tuberculosis. The microbe is extremely slow growing -- much too slow for the CDC researcher to have taken a current culture and have gotten the results he is telling us. By the way, do you think he has anything at stake -- like his family being quarantined?

You mentioned you wanted to hear more of my story. I have interspersed parts of my story within the comments here and on a forum called Personal Advice. (The links are below my signature.) In the story, there are a couple of examples of how easy it is to obtain false negatives on lab tests. I have an entire soapbox on why typical lab tests are unreliable. Believe it or not, I've obtained my information from doctors.

I'm willing to bet my life that there are doctors out there who know the truth but are scared to come clean. They're scared because whistleblowers are unpopular and end up jobless and broke. Americans don't like to hear news that makes them sad or depressed. They like to laugh, which attests to the popularity of all the sit-coms on tv. Hopefully, some are watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report and are putting two and two together with the real messages Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert put forth. Unfortunately, we all have this "What can I do? I'm just one person attitude." So we all continue to bury our heads in the sand and go about our business, that is, until things catch up with you and you end up sick like me, trusting an institution whose marketing efforts have brainwashed you into thinking of doctors as all-knowing gods. If they're so all-knowing, why can't they answer my questions with better answers than "Nothing I haven't seen before" and things like "Yeast doesn't travel alone?" I can't decode this doctorspeak, can you?

But this is how our politically correct Seinfeld syndrome society talks. Mustn't mention poop or fungus. Doesn't exist. Nasty. Well if you can't talk to your doctor about such issues, who can you discuss them with? Kids don't get head lice and pass it to one another? South Park did a show in which the kids of an entire class ended up with head lice, but they all pretended only one scapegoat kid actually had the head lice, and they were going to stone him.

And think of this. If you lived in Iraq today and the battles were destroying everything around you, preventing you from earning a living, would you join an insurgency so you could at least feed your family? I would or kill myself. Wake up white people! And I say white because that is the color of those in power -- our leadership who expounds the American way of carrying on as usual, as if there is nothing to be concerned about.

If you read through some of my stories, you'll see that I can say these things intending no harm nor ill will toward anyone because I feel like I have been tortured -- x-rayed to death. I don't wish radiation poisoning on anyone. It's like being part of a science fiction movie. You can't clean it up. And that's where we're headed. We ended one world war that way, why not another? No one's coming up with anything better. Let's all just start over on another planet. The rich folk who accompanied astronauts recently are probably scoping out the new neighborhood already.

One last thing. I believe Ross Perot was on to something with his cautions about jumping into the global economy. Why does everything have to be an extreme? You either do this or that? Is there no middle ground? Is there no smart way to participate in the global economy without sacrificing a nation's people by radiating all imported food or the imported ingredients of food manufactured in the U.S.?

I could go on and on but I feel it's useless. You've probably already marked me as some liberal loon fighting the establishment -- a throwback from the 60s. Maybe you'd be right. I'd like to see the House and the Senate come together on a pseudo bill that re-establishes the draft. Don't get me wrong, I'm against the draft. Been there. Wore the t-shirt. This is the only way you might touch American hearts to get them riled up enough to end this madness in Iraq and elsewhere.

I've said my piece for now. Again, I'm quite complimented by your allusion to being anywhere on the same plane with Michael Moore.

-Doctorblue
http://publicradioquest.com/audio/user/6076
http://publicradioquest.com/node/2114

Who could ask for more? You're too kind. God bless.

-Doctorblue
http://publicradioquest.com/audio/user/6076
http://publicradioquest.com/node/2114

It's my belief that many people suffer from back pain needlessly. Pain is caused by infections that aren't detected by modern medicine. These infections fester in the body allowing inflammation to snowball sometimes even reaching the bone. I'm speaking from experience.

The following synopsis is a bit technical and is intended to be directed toward physicians to demonstrate two points: 1) undetected infections can kill, and 2) it takes teamwork to come up with an accurate diagnosis. The discussion includes links that note the connection of the relative finding to cancer.

A physician's assistant told me that she occasionally went to an atlas orthogonist, which is a specialized chiropractor who uses a special technique for aligning the free floating atlas (the first bone through which the spinal cord passes). If it is out of alignment, it affects nerve impulses through the spinal cord and restricts the flow of blood to the head and brain. The trauma of passing through the birth canal or a fall can cause the atlas to misalign.

The theory behind atlas orthogonal chiropractic is that once the atlas is aligned, the rest of the vertebra self adjust as in a chain reaction (think dominoes). Radiographs showed my atlas had shifted to the right thereby closing off a portion of the spinal cord opening. After atlas adjustment, I experienced some sinus drainage, but the chain reaction that was to occur encountered roadblocks at a spot between the shoulder blades and another at the lower back. Movement became increasingly difficult. My theory is that because my condition had gone on for such a long time undiagnosed, inflammation was preventing these discs from adjusting on their own. Manual chiropractic adjustments provided instantaneous relief, but didn't hold beyond a day or two.

X-ray of my cervical spine taken in spring 2005 was positive for spinal cord compression syndrome. (The discs about my neck were fusing together.) PA and lateral chest X-rays showed anterior degenerative spurring present at multiple levels within the thoracic spine. Impressions also showed cervicobrachial syndrome, lumbago and subluxation of C1 and T4.

In 1977, I was hospitalized with an infection in my right kidney. Abdominal, pelvic and transvaginal pelvic sonograms taken in May 2005 showed the following:
• mild fullness of the right renal collecting system and the right renal pelvis prominent in size, which the report states, may be related to reflux but "obstruction cannot be fully excluded."
(In some diseases, epithelial cells desquamate into the renal tubule. As the cell degenerates, the fatty deposits in the cell join with protein to form fatty casts, which are associated with nephrotic syndrome/nephrosis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephrosis Epithelial cells can conglomerate into tubular granular casts suggestive of glomerulonephritis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomerulonephritis)
•multiple tiny clear cysts within the uterine myometrium compatible with adenomyosis.

I was seeing a chiropractor for years for arthritis which turned out to be pseudogout (low uric acid blood level, calcium pyrophosphate crystals). At one point, the pain in my mid-back was so severe from amassed crystals passing through the kidney, I called my primary care physician pleading for pain relief. He said no.

You should know radiographic dyes may cause precipitation of crystals. Calcium phosphate and oxalate crystals occur in urine of patients with malabsorption states or parathyroid abnormalities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoparathyroidism Tests showed I had both.

I was surprised to find that it is not uncommon for such abnormalities to be missed by the standard urinalysis conducted in a doctor's office. Lab refrigeration, culture and microscopic examination of the specimen only takes place if urinalysis indicates infection. I was unaware that it is common practice to strip test a room temperature urine sample only after any debris or casts settle. Crystals are part of the casts that break up as urine sits, and therefore, go undetected. In addition, urine ph becomes alkaline upon standing because urea splitting bacteria produces ammonia. Urine ph of an uncovered specimen becomes alkaline because carbon dioxide vaporizes into the air.

I obtained the most useful information about my condition from the results of more expensive and more detailed specialized tests with which most of the doctors I saw were unfamiliar and unwilling to consider. For instance, a Doctor's Data stool specimen study showed an elevated abnormal level of secretory IgA (central to the normal function of the GI tract) and elevated lactoferrin (a biomarker of inflammation indicative of conditions such as Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis.)

The operative report for colonoscopy shows diffuse inflammatory change with ulceration and friability consistent with left-sided colitis along with small internal hemorrhoids. The gastroenterologist prescribed Asacol to dissipate the mucoidal plaque buildup in my intestines. At the follow up consult, the gastroenterologist told me that the colonoscopy revealed ulcerative colitis with fistula formations but that he tailored the operative report to show only non-specific colitis to avoid the potential of patient medical insurance cancellation.

The operative report states the patient tolerated the procedure well. I could hardly move for the next day and a half as the air that was pumped into my intestines during the procedure slowly dissipated along with the gas pain. I felt like I was a big South Park Kenny floating air balloon gradually deflating and falling back to earth. I was extremely nauseous.

This was the year scientists won a nobel prize for discovering H pylori. http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/HPylori Since I had been hospitalized in 1983 for bleeding ulcers, I asked to be tested for H pylori. The test was positive.

I've suffered from chronic constipation ever since I can remember. However, many physicians don't consider this a serious complication. They insist a suppository, laxative or increased fiber and water will take care of the condition. They quickly switch the discussion to inquiries about occurrences of diarrhea.

Abdominal and pelvic CT scans taken before and after the colonoscopy note a possible severe level of constipation along with decompression of the descending colon and prominent small bowel loops. Further evaluation to exclude an underlying obstructing mass was recommended.

The SBFT or Small Bowel Follow Through X-ray series ordered to address my concerns of slow food transit (motility) showed a tangled mass near the cecum in the small intestine on the tv screen during the procedure. The physician completing the test displayed increasing angst over the barium's refusal to move beyond the mass. I had to keep walking the halls of the hospital in between X-ray sessions in order to get the barium to move through to the large intestine. To keep warm as I walked, I draped multiple blankets around the skimpy patient hospital gown I was wearing. I looked like I was wearing a ridiculous bulging toga.

During the last few X-ray sessions, the attending assistant exhibited increasing anxiety over the way the physician was using the paddle on my abdomen to get the barium to move beyond the mass. His instructions for me to roll from side to side and from stomach to back made me feel like a flopping fish out of water. At one point the attending assistant remarked "You took that last beating well." My inquiries about what was on screen and the potential for a partial obstruction were met at first with such quips as "I don't know" to a later exasperation of "Look, I can't leave until the barium moves through to the large intestine" followed by his pulling the monitor closer to him and draping the monitor's black covering over his head so that I could no longer see the projected live radiograph images. His report findings read "no obstruction" in response to the gastroenterologist's order to rule out Crohn's Disease. I later found out that he was a per diem hospital physician filling in.

The above referenced test results are only the tip of iceberg. I have tons more to tell you if you need the information for diagnostic purposes. Hopefully, you're beginning to see the correlation of undiagnosed infection and cancer.
-Doctorblue

Thank you very much for your comment. It reminded me of a quote from "The Assault on Reason" by Al Gore. "The persistent ...reliance on falsehoods...even in the face of massive evidence to the contrary, seems...to have reached levels that were previously unimaginable." Gore argues that America's citizens have become apathetic at a time when our environment is deteriorating. I have to admit, until I was forced to face the state of U.S. healthcare delivery by becoming disabled, I was too busy to notice what was going on around me. How can we be expected to participate in civic responsibilities when we have a career that requires more than 40 hour work weeks, commitments for time with our spouses and children, household responsibilities like shopping, preparing meals...I'm sure you know the drill. Plus we're bombarded with rigorously marketed fairy tales that I believed. Tales that transcend doctors to all-knowing god-like authority figures you wouldn't dare challenge. With everything from vaseline to all prescription medicines carrying a warning to consult your physician, my god, they must know everything! They must have some secret or magic way of keeping up with the latest science, FDA recalls and the ability to assess one's health in five minutes or less -- all while raising families, heading households and simply carrying on the American way. Some can even assess your health from five feet away. It's astounding!

In all fairness, we should give our dental professionals equal time. I'm a little confused about when my teeth got more rights than me, though. On three separate occasions, I had to have teeth extracted because, as one dental surgeon explained, the inflammation from my sarcoidosis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcoidosis spread to my bone and infected the pulp in these teeth. Dentists, it seems, are unaware of this phenomenon because in each instance, I had to see an endodontist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endodontist and have a $1,000 root canal before I could receive the necessary referral to an oral surgeon for tooth extraction. (Oral surgeons don't understand and dislike this procedure because in very little time root canals make teeth brittle and difficult to extract. Extractions take much longer because the tooth breaks up into tiny pieces during the extraction process.)

An endodontist told me many dentists don't know that X-rays don't show tooth pulp. Dental assistants tell me many dentists take only bitewing radiographs looking for decay coming from the top or side of the tooth, not from the root. Some dentists do take panoramic radiographs which show tooth roots but in widely varying degrees of quality.

In my case, I had a panoramic X-ray clearly showing the tooth root sitting in a pool of infection, according to one oral surgeon. He said he didn't understand why the dentist didn't detect this outright. When I repeated the oral surgeon's comment to my dentist, he said that was not a fair comment for the oral surgeon to make as "it (detecting infection) may be clear for someone who sees this type of X-ray regularly," but general dentists don't. (Huh?) My dentist is listed as one of Washingtonian Magazine's Top Area Dentists.

As you can imagine, having an impacted tooth for one to two or more weeks while you wade through seeing all the different dental professionals before you can have your tooth removed is not only costly but quite painful. Sigh, like the doctors I saw, the dentists "can't see anything" and won't prescribe pain medication. In turn, the specialists won't see you without a dentist referral. I found that the typical wait for an "emergency appointment" is from two days to two weeks depending upon the schedules of the various specialists at the time.

They say that some people who have undergone limb amputations can still feel pain in the area of the amputation. The lower left gum where I had two extractions and a bone spicule removed still aches as does the gum immediately above.
-Doctorblue
For more on my medical experiences, check out the Personal Advice forum at http://www.publicradioquest.com/node/2114

It seems strange there is solace in knowing you are not alone in encountering injustice.
-Doctorblue

I'm rethinking ways to present the topic with more humor. The topic will have greater acceptance with no less impact if approached as a parody. And I know there are people out there that adore their doctors. I did too until I became really ill and realized the system's inadequacies. The more time that passes, the more accepting you become. My fear is that I won't be around to complete my dream. For more on this topic, check out Personal Advice in forum topics: http://www.publicradioquest.com/node/2114.
-doctorblue

Fun and funny! How can you talk about things related to bodily functions without at least a smile? Appreciate the comment.

Thanks for the tip.

Thanks for the encouraging words. Checked out your audio. If I ever get things lined up, you'd be a welcome asset. Doctorblue

If my dream ever does come true for developing a forum to encourage change in the way healthcare is delivered, my wish is to incorporate humor in the dialogue at least as well as you did in your audio. Thanks for the input.

Thanks for listening to my audio, which (you guessed) was a technical conundrum put together way too late. The concept is based on my personal experience and that of other patients I met in my three year quest for competent medical care. What do you do when you can't find a doctor knowledgeable enough to diagnose your illness? After seeing 40 doctors, some multiple times, I ended up with reams of test results showing all kinds of maladies but no comprehensive diagnosis or treatment. Then I ran out of money and insurance. And its happening to more Americans than you can imagine. You wonder why we have high medical costs. Thanks again for your input.

Thanks for your support.

Thanks for listening and commenting on my audio. I checked out your website, however, those stories seemed to focus on health issues. My concept is quite different. The intent is to create a forum to improve communication between patients and doctors to encourage change in the way healthcare is delivered. John Hockenberry and a few others have done pieces focusing on how changing the way hospitals operate improved patient/doctor satisfaction/morale cost effectively. I want to expand this concept to non-hospital patient care. Like me, there are huge numbers of Americans whose non-diagnosed inflammatory, autoimmune and other systemic illnesses rendered them disabled needlessly. The reason: neither conventional nor alternative medical doctors working alone know everything they need to know to competently treat illnesses affecting the entire body.

Appreciate your input but I'm confused. Wikipedia defines medicine, in part, as "the sector of public life concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, treatment and possible prevention of disease and injury." Wikipedia defines healthcare as "the prevention, treatment and management of illness and the preservation of mental and physical well-being through services offered by the medical, nursing and allied health professions." Perhaps you would care to expound on your comment to prevent misuse of the terms. Thanks