INSOMNIACS place to talk in the wee hours

Quennie, let me study it tomorrow.

Quennie interesting phenomenon. Started in the middle ages. Never heard of it before. The pic on the net looked painful. Are you praying to St. Anthony?

Several concerns. They are doing paintball therapy. I coined that phrase along time ago in a similar situation. This bug was going around that was really laying people low for weeks and weeks. For me nothing would culture up. 12 weeks of a chest thing with 5 different antibiotics. Finally, I asked for a Gram stain. Why I had to think of a gram stain is beyond me. They found a bacteria that shouldn't be there. Gave me the right antibiotic at a higher than usual dose. It worked. Since you have culprit on the ear(s). That would be very reasonable to do a scraping and a gram stain.

I did have another problem after my only killer chemo. Tubbing twice a day for months Tried the usual from oatmeal to drombero. Then I got an infection on the head. The bug was worse than MRSA. When I read about it, it scared the hell out of me. 5 weeks of antibiotics and no progress. But my reading said it could take months of high powered antibiotics. Even then it was not hopeful to fix it.

I went to the internet, It was Sept. of 09. In spring of 09 there was a study published in the Journal of Pediatrics. I'll find the wound thread I have the links stored on and bring them back. It was a benchmark study. In 09 the following articles were not kind. The study initially created so much controversy. I revisited the study when I had a hand thing in 2013. There was an explosion of articles in Dermatology and Infectious Disease articles. What was controversial became the accepted.

The pediatric study took kids that had severe total body psoriasis with many secondary bacterial infections. They tubbed them in dilute chlorine. They stopped the study early b/c the response was remarkable in the test group. The problem that they solved was the kiddo's improve everywhere they soaked, but the heads weren't soaked. They had the kids hold there nose and duck their heads under water. It worked.

What was controversial is the chlorine amount wasn't clearly defined for people to understand. Chlorine can burn. In the subsequent articles regarding the amount, it was clearly defined the amount used was the equivalent of what it would take to get the level to a commercial swimming pool.

In 09, I did it and it cleared the body problem very quickly. I did do something different for the head, but won't write about it here b/c it hasn't been studied. Wish they would have, it cleared the head problem in 3 days.

In 2013(12?) the hand thing, Chevy and I went through eczema at the same time. I went through early in the year till Sept. under Dermatology direction for care. One of the things Chevy told me was that she stuck her finger in vinegar. It was like a lightbulb going off. I started hand soaks twice a day in vinegar. A bit dilute, but basically right out of the jug. Within 24 hours the stinging itch of the eczema was gone. But it took soaks from Sept. till Jan of 2014(13?). It was an interesting process of healing. Technically with eczema there is no bacteria or fungus. But what I observed was the vinegar drew out whatever from the skin. The skin would pop open, then heal. Chevy's scenario was caused by an allergic reaction to a chemical she used on Lacey's skin. She will pop in and tell you about it.

We both had to fix ourselves after months of doctoring.

2014, I had a skin problem after Radioactive Iodine 131 forThyroid cancer. I did the chlorine soaks. It helped, but wasn't great. I didn't think vinegar for several months. After the first soak, I knew it was the go to treatment.

So, I had four scenario's, two in 2009, one in 2013, one in 2014. The 2009 episodes were corrected by dilute chlorine based on new resaerch. The 2013 and 2014 were corrected by vinegar soaks. Vinegar as a treatment has been used by many cultures dating back to Hippocrates. Wiki has a good description of it's uses and history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinegar.

In conclusion(finally?). Ask for a gram stain. A choice of antibiotic based on gram stain when something won't culture up, is better than throwing paintball antibiotics. Discuss with your doc the dilute chlorine baths and vinegar baths. Lastly, consider an Infectious Disease doctor consultation. ID docs are specialist in diseases caused by bacteria, fungus, mycobacterium------all bugs

I need to bring back some links and my definition of paintball therapy.

Quennie, Were you able to work through all the jibberish of my last post to you?

here's my definition of paintball therapy.

Drug affects can occur outside the CYP450 system, but unless we test, we can't be sure if it's something that could have been avoided. Otherwise, it's PAINTBALL Therapy. I coined this phrase so long ago, I can't remember. Perhaps 30-40 years ago. Definition: when a paintball is thrown at a wall it will splatter all over. Drug development even now produces drugs that have not just direct affects, but many side affects that are problematic. The side affects are the splatter. The goal of drug development has been to get the targeted affect to a specific spot with out affecting other body areas. Reduce the splatter.

Ah-hah----okay Quennie.......I had the hand eczema since 2001. First episode. Mild. Always responded to topical steroids. Then whatever it went bonkers in 2013. Daily care and topical steroids for months. No progress. Then bless Chevy for saying what she did about vinegar. I haven't had a hand problem since. But it took months to fix it. It was so strange in the healing process. What I saw was in some ways scary. I worried that I was doing the right thing. But each soak made it feel better. I just went with it.

Quennie (jacfin too)this isn't the link I was looking for, but it's to a thread I did allot of work on for wound care and evaluation. Then it got to be a place I stored stuff.

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/44/topic/754935?page=1