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A Truly Crappy Treatment

A Truly Crappy Treatment

By: Sasha Klemawesch, MD

 

Many people have heard of C-diff.  If infected, you could be stuck at home in your bathroom with annoying (but benign) diarrhea, or you may wind up in surgery or the ICU with life threatening complications.  And while many people have heard of the disease, few are aware of how difficult it can be to eradicate.

Now get ready for a scary fact.  You might have C-diff.  Yes, you.  In fact, up to 3% of healthy individuals are walking around with it right now, a rate that jumps to 1 in 5 people who’ve been hospitalized ending up colonized with it.  Our GI tracts are home to millions of bacteria, up to 1000 different species at any given time.  But when a good & balanced mix of microbes exists, they all stay in check and actually promote health by doing jobs like making vitamin K, detoxifying chemicals, and augmenting the immune system.  They also make sure that “bad” bacteria don’t get out of control and run amok through your bowels.

This is the problem in C-diff; when you are given an antibiotic for something else, say a skin infection, or pneumonia, it doesn’t just target the one culprit bacteria causing that one infection in that one place; it also kills off a multitude of others, including most of the good guys in your gut.  When this happens, C-diff becomes the dominant force and starts causing distressing pathology.

You may say, “if an antibiotic caused it, why give me another to fix it?”  A good point.  Especially because the antibiotics we have to treat C-diff are often ineffective, and up to a third of people will end up relapsing even if the initial treatment helped.  C-diff is a “spore former” meaning it leaves little hard-shelled spores all over which antibiotics cannot penetrate, so even if the medicine got rid of the active bacteria, the spores are left behind which germinate new bacteria to then resume infecting your gut and releasing their toxins.  It is often a vicious cycle, with subsequent relapse increasing your likelihood of another future episode.

So, what to do? Have some poop…

So, what to do? Have some poop…

By: Sasha Klemawesch, MD

 

It may sound crazy, but cure rates for FMT (fecal microbiota transplant) are typically over 90% for recurrent cases.  What is FMT you ask?  Basically, a poop slushy.  Sounds gross, but that’s what it is; poop is taken from a healthy donor who has been thoroughly screened for pathogenic bacteria.  It is then filtered, mixed with liquid and administered to the recipient patient in one of several ways; either capsule pills, NGT or endoscopy (tube from the top into the stomach/small intestine), colonoscopy (tube up the behind), or an enema.  While we only recently adopted it into standard human medical care, vets have been using it for a century.  The idea is similar to that behind probiotics; that if you are restoring the natural flora in your GI tract, this in turn regains the upper hand and tamps down the C-diff. It is becoming more and more commonly adopted into practice, especially at large tertiary centers, but perhaps even more exciting is that now that FMT’s benefits in the treatment of C-diff has been proven, there have been a multitude of off-shoot studies and trials investigating its potential role in the future treatments  of inflammatory and irritable bowel syndromes, obesity, diabetes, MD, Parkinson’s, atopic conditions, rheumatoid arthritis, autism and depression.   And that’s no BS!

Have a piercing migraine? Get an ear piercing! (? or maybe not…)

Have a piercing migraine? Get an ear piercing! (? or maybe not…)

If you haven’t heard of a Daith piercing, you are not alone.  That is the proper name for an earring that is placed through that little triangle of cartilage that sits in the front middle of the entrance to our ear canal.

Whether this is fashionable or not is almost as debatable as whether or not it can help headaches.  There is a large community of migraine sufferers out there who swear that having a Daith piercing has cured or significantly ameliorated their chronic headaches, but just as many people exist who report no abatement in their symptoms.

The idea behind why it may work is rooted in acupuncture/acupressure, since the tragus (that little cartilaginous area) is a known pressure point target in those techniques.  One of the early advocates of this piercing (Dr. Will Foster) believed that having a piercing there provided constant pressure and therefore constant relief/effect on the correlating body systems.

Many people’s migraines correlate with GI symptoms (i.e. food triggers or association with stomachaches) and since that spot relates to digestive organs, it would seem to follow that it could help those select patients, but certainly not all migraines have a GI corollary and that may be one reason for the disparity in the effectiveness of this piercing.  The thing most neurologists would tell you though, is that there is NO evidence or research to back up the claim that a piercing can cure a headache, and most docs would warn against getting one, especially since that specific spot on the ear can take quite a while to heal, and is one of the most common sites to get infected.  That being said, if you are already planning on getting one and happen to be a migraine sufferer, there is a chance that you may get an unexpected side benefit other than the aesthetic.

If you aren’t into body jewelry but are still interested in non-pharmacologic treatments, other options include Botox, acupuncture, massage, biofeedback, cognitive behavioral therapy, chiropractic spinal manipulation, yoga, tai chi, and hypnotherapy.  If you have tried all of that already, and have gone through med after med, then you may be a candidate for surgery.  Yes surgery, for a headache.  MISON and MIGONE are only two of the recent surgeries being utilized for treatment of refractory migraines, but they certainly are not for everyone, and a typically a last resort.  Talk to your neurologist for more information.

Dear Dr. K: I’ve been taking fish oil for years, but just showed up “+” to cod on my allergy testing form. Do I need to stop taking it?

Dear Dr. K: I’ve been taking fish oil for years, but just showed up “+” to cod on my allergy testing form. Do I need to stop taking it?

The short answer is NO.  First off, a single plus sign on your testing form represents the mildest of reactions; more of a potential sensitivity than a truly clinically significant allergy (especially if all your other fish and shellfish were negative across the board).  Secondly, even if you did have major atopic complications due to fish or shellfish, those should not translate to fish OIL, since all allergens, by definition, are (molecular-structurally-speaking), proteinaceous.  Fish oil’s name says it all, it is an OIL, which is a fat, not a protein.  High quality fish oil products should and will be devoid of proteins.  However, when you start bargain shopping and settle for those made under less stringent manufacturing regulations, you can end up with less pure, more contaminated capsules, which may contain not only some tiny modicum of fish protein, but also other fillers which may be allergenic or irritating.

Now for the longer answer:  Even though you should be able to safely take high quality fish oil products, why would you?

The debate over omega 3’s and fish oil has been an exceedingly murky and highly contentious area in medicine for the past decade or so.  In 1999, a famous study showed that patients taking omega 3’s were 10% less likely to get heart attacks, strokes, or die from cardiovascular disease, so for years PCP’s and cardiologists were putting everyone on them.  However, since then, a myriad of studies has come out with varied and conflicting results.  One of the most well known was in 2012 where the highly respected JAMA showed no reduction in MI, stroke or death.  The problem with many articles is that they focused on patients with established CVS disease, who were often taking potential confounding prescriptions, and many used what critics stipulate were subtherapeutic doses of the study drug.  Finally, in 2018, the “VITAL” study came out which looked at healthy subjects.  They found that a gram of Lovaza was effective as a primary prevention for heart attacks – but not for stroke, cancer, or all causes of cardiovascular death.  So, what are you to do with all this gobblygook data?  Even the most recent critical review on the topic from March 2019 hedges a little in their recommendations, saying that better studies need to be done in order to confidently advise patients, but for now, given the fact that omega 3’s pose little risk and have few adverse effects, but great (or as some argue, proven) benefits, they won’t discourage their use in healthy subjects, and they (and the AHA) still advise certain high risk patients to continue supplementation.

The bottom line?  The jury’s still out on if and how much fish oil is needed for cardiovascular health (and even further away from settling the debate over its use for inflammatory, neurologic, and psychiatric conditions), but since it probably won’t hurt, there’s no harm in trying it (other than to your wallet).

The one area everyone is in firm agreement on is that ensuring sufficient daily omega 3 intake, whether through diet and/or supplementation is essential in pregnancy.

Got a Sweet Tooth?

Got a Sweet Tooth?

Maybe not. If you are someone who used to crave salty snacks but recently have found yourself salivating at the thought of a Hershey’s bar, it may not be just a sweet tooth, but in fact, a real medical problem.

Chocolate cravings specifically can often be a sign of Hypomagnesemia, since the Cacao plant is one of nature’s biggest magnesium sources.  You may also find yourself craving sweets if you are lacking phosphorus, sulphur, chromium, or tryptophan (although it is quite uncommon to see deficiencies of the latter in the Western world).

More common deficiencies include calcium, which can manifest as cravings for cheese or soda and fizzy drinks and iron, which can present as cravings for red meat, coffee or black tea, or ice (a condition known as Pica).

There are many reasons for people to become deficient in certain vitamins or minerals.  One of the biggest factors is the generally poor Western diet, which for a lot of people tends to include too much processed fast food, and not enough leafy greens, crisp veggies, or juicy fruits.  Other factors that can lead to an imbalance in nutrients are kidney disease, liver disease, malabsorption from the GI tract, or various side effects of medications.  These tend to increase in prevalence as we get older, but any of these reasons can affect people of all ages, so if you find yourself all of a sudden craving food you never used to care for, it may be a good idea to check in with your primary care doctor to get some of your levels checked.  (Or take a pregnancy test…pickles anyone?)

Q – Tips: “tastes like chicken”

Q – Tips: “tastes like chicken”

The journal “Pediatrics” recently reported cases of severe (anaphylactic) food allergy to crocodile meat in children known to be allergic to chicken.  Chicken and crocodile share a common protein called a-parvalbumin that can lead to the cross-reactive allergy.  Maybe there is some truth to the old expression “tastes like chicken”.

Q – Tips: Nitric Oxide

Q – Tips: Nitric Oxide

Nitric oxide has recently been found to be an effective therapy for people with “atypical TB” known as Mycobacterium abscessus.  The inhaled nitric oxide gas is an alternative to having to take an oral therapy of three different antibiotics.

Q – Tips: Primatine Mist

Q – Tips: Primatine Mist

The FDA has approved the return of Primatine Mist to OTC (over the counter) availability after its removal in 2011.  Many medical organizations, including the American Thoracic Society, have concerns about its misuse which can lead to asthmatic deaths.  It contains aerosolized epinephrine which can serve as a rescue medication but does not act as a controlling medicine for the asthmatic condition.  Also, pure epinephrine has potential to be a cardiac irritant.

Dear Dr. K –

Dear Dr. K –

Last year my gynecologist started me on Flomax because I feel the need to urinate frequently.  She first gave me Detrol, but that caused severe dry mouth.  The Flomax has worked great and I don’t have to “locate the bathroom first” whenever I go out.  However, since starting it I’ve had sinus congestion that won’t go away.  Are they related?

The short answer is “yes”.  Flomax is one of a number of drugs called an alpha blocker.  Other drugs in the same category are Uroxatral, Doxazosin, Rapaflo and Terazosin.

Alpha refers to one side of the Yin/Yang dynamic of the autonomic(sympathetic) nervous system.  The complimentary component is Beta.  Most parts of our bodies are under control of the alpha/beta system including smooth muscles.

Many women with urinary frequency and many men with the same problem due to enlargement of the prostate benefit by relaxing the smooth muscles in the bladder/prostate area.  Alpha stimulation constricts smooth muscles, thus an “alpha blocker” allows them to relax.

Unfortunately for you, smooth muscles are also formed in blood vessels. When Flomax relaxes the smooth muscle in the blood vessels in your nose/sinus area, the blood vessels dilate.  This “tumescence” is what causes the sinus congestion.  In some people it can also cause a runny nose, post nasal drip, cough, headache and even a tendency to sinusitis.

Alpha blockers have also been used to treat high blood pressure.  They accomplish this by the vessel-dilating mechanism, thus lowering hydraulic pressure.

Since you didn’t tolerate the other family of bladder medicines (Detrol family), you might ask your gynecologist about either Botox or DDAVP (works via a pituitary hormone).

Bacterial Baptism – All the Rage – or Not so Sage?

Bacterial Baptism – All the Rage – or Not so Sage?

By: Sasha Klemawesch, MD

 

If you haven’t heard of Bacterial Baptisms, you are not alone.  However, in some communities, the trend of vaginal seeding or “baptism by bacteria” has started to really catch on.

The idea behind the movement started due to the theory that when babies are born via C-section, it is a very sterile procedure, and they end up lacking the immediate exposure to the normal bacterial flora that infants for centuries experienced as they made their way through the birth canal into the world for their first breath. Some researchers postulated that with the ever-increasing number of cesareans performed in western medicine and therefore, growing number of children who lacked that initial exposure to bacterial flora, could that in some way be related to or partly responsible for the also ever-increasing prevalence of various autoimmune disorders, atopy, obesity, and other illnesses that continue to rise in prevalence of the same populations?

It seems like a sound idea, especially since the Hygiene Hypotheses is so widely known and accepted, which is why there have been a growing number of mothers who choose to practice Vaginal Seeding; a process in which an infant born via C-section will immediately be swabbed with gauzes that have been instilled inside the mothers’ vagina for a period of time prior to delivery in order to transfer the normal vaginal microbiome onto the infant.  A small study in 2016 found that this practice was safe and possibly beneficial, however now there are more voices on the other side raising concerns; for instance, some argue that babies already are exposed to normal healthy bacteria via contact with mom’s skin and breast milk and that they don’t need the extra load.  Some say that there are too many other confounding factors, and it is unlikely that the lack of that initial exposure to vaginal bacteria is really the biggest issue.  Both sides agree that larger and more long-term research studies are needed before making the ultimate decision.  So, for now, if you are expecting in the near future, talk to your OB about what her thoughts are on the topic to make the best decision for you and for your little one.