Antidepressants Blog

In previous sections, we have looked at the basic concept of clinical ecology and at the different stages and symptoms which environmentally caused disease can engender. In this section, I shall explain in more detail some of the techniques which advocates of this new approach have devised to cope with the ecologic disaster of the twentieth century.

The first problem is one of diagnosis. Conventional medicine recognizes the fact that millions of people are chronically ill and that it can offer little for their arthritis, or migraine, or fatigue, or depression but chemically derived pills. Patients with a welter of confusing symptoms are often treated contemptuously, because the underlying cause of their many illnesses goes unnoticed. By its very nature, the etiology of environmentally caused chronic disease is hidden: this is “nature’s medical coverup.” The first job of the clinical ecologist is to cut through the confusion and demonstrate the underlying causes with convincing tests.

Over a period of about fifty years, clinical ecologists have worked out procedures which differ from those used by conventional doctors. Even the history-taking interview is different. I practice “poker-faced medicine,” in that I do not pass judgment on a patient’s symptoms upon first hearing them, no matter how bizarre they may seem. Many such symptoms later turn out to have significance in the patient’s medical history. A chemical questionnaire, which is included in Chapter 19, evolved through many editions and helps reveal a patient’s susceptibility. The reader can take this test himself and get a preliminary idea of his own degree of sensitivity to chemicals.

Treatment by the methods of clinical ecology is safe, inexpensive, and effective. It is based, primarily, on avoidance of those environmental agents which cause trouble. The Rotary Diversified Diet (described in Chap. 18) works well for all types of food allergies and can help those who wish to diagnose their food allergies, as well as those who wish to avoid their development.

The treatment of chemical susceptibility is also largely based on avoidance. A number of simple and inexpensive procedures are described which can help protect the many people who suffer unknowingly from chemical-related problems.

Taken together, the chapters in this section can help any reader to become more aware of his own highly personalized reaction to common foods and chemicals and to begin to take simple steps to deal with a growing problem.

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When kidney failure progresses to the point where urinary waste products accumulate in the bloodstream, either dialysis or a kidney transplant is required. At different times, both may be needed by the same patient. During the first year, for instance, rather than accepting the first available kidney, which may not match well with the recipient’s tissues, it may be safer to continue dialysis until a kidney which matches well becomes available.

However, the record of the hospital where dialysis is being given should be taken into account. For instance, according to Medical World News (22#25:16), the success of dialysis (as measured by the percentage of patients surviving one year), varies from hospital to hospital by as much as from 55 to 85 percent.

After the first year, the success of dialysis falls so dramatically that a transplant then offers a much better chance of survival, even with a kidney that does not closely match the host’s tissues. Three-year transplant survival can vary between 65 and 85 percent, depending on how well the tissues match.

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Symptoms in boys: burning during urination; discharge from penis

Symptoms in girls: vaginal discharge, abdominal pain.

Gonorrhea in girls often shows no symptoms.

Home care: Gonorrhea must be diagnosed and treated by a doctor.

The best preventive measure is to provide your children with appropriate and adequate sex education.

Precautions:

-    Be aware that venereal (sexually transmitted) gonorrhea is being seen with increasing frequency among sexually active teenagers and younger children.

-    Sexually abused children may contract this disease.

-    A mother who has gonorrhea can transmit the disease to her baby as the child passes through the birth canal during delivery.

-    A girl with gonorrhea may show no symptoms and the infection may go undetected and untreated, with serious consequences including sterility (inability to bear children).

-    Some doctors recommend that sexually active girls be tested for gonorrhea at the time of routine school or annual medical checkups.

Gonorrhea is an infection caused by a specific gonococcus germ, which is usually sexually transmitted.

In the days before antibiotics, infants born to mothers who had gonorrhea commonly developed gonorrhea infections of the eyes, which caused blindness. Now antibiotics and the required Credes treatment (placing silver nitrate solution into the eyes of all newborns) have almost eliminated this previously common cause of blindness.

Today, venereal (sexually transmitted) gonorrhea in adolescent and younger boys and girls is being seen with increasing and alarming frequency. One of the dangers of genital gonorrhea is that often a girl who has gonorrhea will show no symptoms; therefore, the infection may not be detected and treat. Serious consequences, including sterility, may result from untreated gonorrhea in females.

Another disease, caused by gonococcus bacteria, is now being recognized in adolescents and even in younger children who have been sexually abused. It causes sore throat and anal infection, with or without fever. Ordinary throat cultures done for sore throats do not grow the gonococcus germ, which leads to the false conclusion that this infection is viral and that no antibiotic need be prescribed.

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