Re: Digging Ourselves Out of a Hole

[Guest guest]

Lottie--last May I had C difficile as well,and you are right--it literally

scared the hell out of me, too. I nearly lost my colon--they had the operating

room ready and the surgeons were wringing their hands about it. I have never

been so sick in my life. In my case, I was given two courses of antibiotics for

a dog bite to my hand, and then about 3 months later the C difficile became

known in my colon--because the gut bacteria had been destroyed by the

antibiotics. It was absolutely awful. I was in the hospital for a week and the

doctors wanted to keep me another two weeks and put a central line in for TPN

(total parenteral nutrition) to give my gut a rest--feeding through the

nutrition tube inserted intravenously to the area of the heart. Finally, I just

said NO to all that was planned, told them I needed to start eating again (I had

not had a single bite of food for over a week), and I did so--and slowly but

surely got better. It took another two weeks at home for me to be well enough

to go back to work, but it was so much better than being in the hospital. Just

the smell of the drugs--Flagyl and Vancomycin, made me retch. It was literally

one of the worst illnesses of my life. Had to put my 2 cents worth in!

Vicki

>

> I was reading an article by NY Times reporter, Kristoff, of whom I

have read many of his other writings and I find him to be very interesting and

factual. Kristoff has received 2 Nobel prizes for his writing and goes to the

orient frequently to buy back girls who have been sold in bondage for sex. He

puts up his own money to buy them and to help them start a small business so

they can help support their families, which is why they were sold into slavery

in the first place - because of their extreme poverty. We have all read stories

of the sex slave trades, where it abounds in Thailand and this is where he

focuses on most of the time. Sometimes they give up the struggle to make it on

their own and they go back to their masters, but this does not deter him. He

goes back again and again to rescue these children.

>

> According to Kristoff, we are in danger of slipping back into a world in which

we are defenseless against bacterial infections. This is how it started. Farms

feed low dose antibiotics-laced feed to hogs that swap genes and can jump or

morph to microbes that can infect legions of hospitals, locker rooms and homes.

Congress has refused to curb agriculture's addiction to antibiotics. It gets

worse.

>

> Inflammation that can penetrate the colon can be fatal. Seventy percent of

all antibiotics are fed to cattle. Cheaper meat takes a huge toll on human

lives. Kristoff says we are brewing some perfect storms. This terribleis a

bacteria for which we have no defenses for and can be picked up from person to

person, or object to person. Dr. Brad Spellberg has just written a book about

ESBL.E.coli, and acinetobacter KPC Klebsiella. It may be well worth anyone's

read. There is one microbiologist in congress who has 104 delegates to join her

in her fight to stop farms from feeding antibiotics to their animals. If you

are so inclined, you may want to write to your congressman, since this pertains

to all of us and voice your opinion about the overuse of antibiotics.

>

> In addition, we have the advice of Dr. J. Blaser, chairman of the

department of medicine at New York University Langone Medical Center, and a

former president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America who agrees that

agricultural use of these antibiotics produces cheaper meat, but in the end, we

will pay a heavier price toll in human health and life. I remember when I was

in the hospital with c-difficile and I can tell you it literally scared the hell

out of me, I even thought I was coming home in a box. I might not be so lucky

next time, as the doctors told me it can re-occur, as the antibiotics are

quickly losing their grip on disease. We can't depend on the next new drug.

>

>

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/nicholas\

dkristof/index.html

>

> FYI,

> Lottie Duthu

>

>