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Speaking of organ transplants, did you see this story on the news?
A 9-year-old Maine girl is home from a Boston hospital healthy, active and with high hopes - and a new stomach, liver, spleen, small intestine, pancreas, and part of an esophagus to replace the ones that were being choked by a huge tumor.
Evidently, it's possible to replace the entire digestive tract. Even if the colon can't be replaced, it's not an essential organ.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Thanks, Nancy, for clarifying that. The stuff we have here recently expired, but it's probably still OK, I'll see if I can get my DH to take it. Give it a shot, Lesley, you never know.........
Resolved MC symptoms successfully w/L-Glutamine, Probiotics and Vitamins, GF since 8/'09. DX w/MC 10/'09.
About the expiration dates, with the exception of a few antibiotics, most medicinal stuff lasts 10-15 years beyond the expiration date so a couple of months is probably meaningless.
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
You're quite correct, of course. Actually, history shows that the ancient Egyptian physicians were surprisingly knowledgeable about medical treatments. Not only that, but when I was in school, I was taught that the pyramids were built by slave labor. Apparently that's not true:
Modern research has shown that these builders were not slaves but highly respected and well-treated freemen, and the care and treatment given for injuries and afflictions was centuries ahead of its time. Early paid retirement, in case of injury, and sick leave were some of the farsighted policies adopted by Ancient Egyptian medicine, luxuries that would rarely be enjoyed by most workers until well into the 20th Century.
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Tex wrote:Evidently, it's possible to replace the entire digestive tract.
I also heard that report on the news and was astonished that they replaced her small intestine.
My father had several feet of his small intestine removed (due to blood clots) before he died. I thought that once parts of the small intestine stopped working, they wouldn't work again. Maybe my father's case was different because of the blood clots. Even so, how would they be able to get a working intestine and transplant it? Pretty amazing.
Gloria
You never know what you can do until you have to do it.
About the expiration dates, with the exception of a few antibiotics, most medicinal stuff lasts 10-15 years beyond the expiration date so a couple of months is probably meaningless.
I have heard that also and I don't pay much attention to most expiration dates. I have a stock of Cipro which I've read is good for about 10 years past the expiration date. The military stockpiles medications and they did testing on them and found that they last for many years longer than the expiration dates. Cipro was one of the medications they tested.
However, I have some friends who work in the pharmaceutical industry. I live just 15 minutes from Abbott headquarters, Baxter, etc. They claim that we need to pay attention to the expiration dates and, of course caution against buying generics from overseas because they don't have the same quality control.
I have quite a few Singulair pills from 2005 which have an expiration date of 6 months. I'm tempted to try one of them to see if it helps with the mast cells, but I'm a little afraid to. Does anyone have experience with Singulair? I just checked and they have lactose, too. Sigh.
Gloria
You never know what you can do until you have to do it.
The reason - other than financial - that the pharmaceutical folks want people to toss things when "expired" is that the packaging may have new info on the medicines. In this day and age people can go on the Internet and look it up or just check with the pharmacist.
One thing that actually has an expiration date is an Epi Pen. The other is an antibiotic class you can't use -tetracyclines, I think.
While we're on the subject of drug expiration dates, have you ever noticed that virtually every drug has exactly the same storage requirements? Every one of them specifies 15 to 30 degrees centigrade, (59 to 86 degrees F), for the allowable excursion range. It seems more than a little odd that they would all have the exact same allowable storage temps. Obviously most of the information of that type, that we assume to be important, is actually pretty arbitrary, if one size fits all. The drug companies try to give the illusion of being sophisticated, and extremely attentive to detail, but in reality, the only aspect that they're really concerned about is to make sure that their exorbitant price markup is as high as possible, without risking losing any sales.
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
That article speaks mostly about the development of medicine rather than the slave labor. I think the overseers were the ones treated well. There is too much evidence of slave labor, and I am not referring to the old testament.
OTOH, the Egyptians were so far ahead in so many ways. When you think about the great plagues etc., that killed so many, and couldn't be stopped until fire cleaned them out you realize how far the ancients were ahead of the so called "enlightened" peoples.
The middle and far eastern peoples were much more evolved than the western countries.
We know that the Japanese were scrupulously clean throughout their history, and were disgusted by the smell of the westerners when they finally reached Japanese shores.
As far as cleanliness was concerned it took Florence Nightingale to teach it, and, for a host of reasons, it took a LONG time to catch on.
In addition to the many unresolved arguments about the construction techniques, there have been disagreements as to the kind of workforce used. The Greeks, many years after the event, believed it must have been built by slave labor. Archaeologists now believe that the Great Pyramid of Giza (at least) was built by tens of thousands of skilled workers who camped near the pyramids and worked for a salary or as a form of tax payment (levy) until the construction was completed, pointing to worker's cemeteries discovered in 1990 by archaeologists Zahi Hawass and Mark Lehner. For the Middle Kingdom Pyramid of Amenemhat II, there is evidence from the annal stone of the king that foreigners from Palestine were used.[1]
The newly discovered tombs date to Egypt's 4th Dynasty (2575 B.C. to 2467 B.C.) when the great pyramids were built, according to the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass.
Graves of the pyramid builders were first discovered in the area in 1990, he said, and discoveries such as these show that the workers were paid laborers, rather than the slaves of popular imagination.
"These tombs were built beside the king's pyramid, which indicates that these people were not by any means slaves," said Hawass in the statement. "If they were slaves, they would not have been able to build their tombs beside their king's."
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
The drug companies try to give the illusion of being sophisticated, and extremely attentive to detail, but in reality, the only aspect that they're really concerned about is to make sure that their exorbitant price markup is as high as possible, without risking losing any sales. 
That is mind boggling!!
