Health Blog

My son has had a high fever for 12 consecutive days. As I wake on the 13th day I think about my helplessness as a parent and realize that when it comes to your kids: Knowledge is the strongest medicine, not for the child but for me. If I knew what was causing the fever then well I could begin to work towards treatment. In the last two weeks we have gone from wait and see, to several doctor visits, to blood tests, to urine tests to more wait and see. I have come to realize not knowing what is causing it has created more tension in our family then when my older son had pnumonia or this one had Meningitis.

He has a fever that can be controlled with Advil. however when it spikes it goes quickly from 99 to 104+ (I mean in 20 minutes!) What is the cause? Is it bacterial or viral? Is it Lyme Disease? Yesterday the possiblitiy of malaria was raised (he was in Puerto Rico last month on vacation) but the test all say he is fine… Except for the fever which is scary high. (105.5 was the peak)

Today as I lay beside him worrying, he was a big sopping mess, (sweating profusely around 3 am) and I hoped that was a good sign. Maybe it is over. I have said that every day for the past three days. Even if it is and I feel better, I would like to have known what caused it. I would like to research the condition so I am prepared with the knowledge of what to expect. what to do. what to ask. what to look for. All the things that give us peace and ability to cope. Well hopefully it is done. ( No fever so far! YEAH!)

Another study links the use of vitamins in the treatment of cancer. The discovery of the JNK signaling pathway was one step in understanding how cancer can communicate with other carcinoma’s in the body.

The JNK signaling pathway allows cells to respond to changes in their extracellular environment and in doing so, controls many aspects of cell function including cell proliferation, differentiation and death. Studies have also shown that this pathway plays a role in cancer, although it has been unclear whether active JNK signaling can accelerate or protect cells from becoming cancerous. Several studies using cultured cells have suggested that JNK signaling may be important for promoting tumor cell development, while studies of tumors from human patients have indicated that JNK signaling may act to suppress tumor development.

Since I learned of this discovery I am always on the lookout for stories about combination therapy and using cancer cell network of communication as a way to fight it. It is the judo theory applied to cancer treatment. Turn your enemies strengths to your advantage. Well today another study linked the use of Vitamin D as a way of making cancer cells more suseptible to the toxin’s in chemotherapy drugs.

While I found the study interesting, I wonder, if the delivery of Vitamin D in such strong doses has the ability to “weaken” Cancer cells what role would Vitamin D have in the Prevention of Cancer? A quick look found numerous supporting statements.

Sunshine Prevents Prostrate Cancer

Every time there is a story about how a naturally occuring herb can combat and possibly defeat an illness, symptom, or behavior that Western medicine cant seem to quell, it interests me. A quote from a story making the wires this week….

Heavy drinkers who tried the herbal extract kudzu for one week downed fewer drinks than people who received an inactive placebo treatment, according to new study findings released Monday.

Study author Dr. Scott E. Lukas of McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical Center in Massachusetts explained that during the experiment, people drank their first beer right away, but were less likely to want more beer if they had taken kudzu the previous week.

“This means that the first beer must have satisfied their initial desire for alcohol,” Lukas suggested.

He said that kudzu may also help deliver blood to the brain, making people more satisfied with less alcohol. “We can see this in the data because people took more sips in order to finish each beer, but the sips were much smaller,” Lukas said.

“The net result was that a binge drinker - someone who drinks 4-5 drinks at one sitting - was reduced to just a few beers,” he told Reuters Health.

Kudzu is one of the ingredients of the Chinese herbal medicine XJL, otherwise known as NPI-028, used for hundreds of years in China to treat inebriation.

Kudzu contains isoflavones, antioxidants believed to confer a variety of health benefits. Previous research has shown that kudzu extracts help discourage drinking in rats and hamsters.

The last few days I have seen a bunch of stories about trampoline use at home. As a home trampoline owner, I have worried a bit about the safety of my kids and their friends. They all love the trampoline, and often talk me into playing “popcorn popping”, which involves an adult jumping around a bit while they all sit like popcorn kernals and get tossed around. Its great fun. Is it dangerous too?

Here is an excerpt from the recent press release about a study that was done:

Emergency room visits due to trampoline injuries have almost doubled since the early 1990s, new research shows.

An estimated 75,000 children are injured each year, and 91 percent of those injuries occur on backyard trampolines, said one of the study’s authors, Dr. James Linakis, a pediatric emergency physician at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, R.I.

“This problem has not gone away,” said Linakis, who added, “The home environment and even the school environment are not the place for trampolines. While not a popular idea, trampolines are really only appropriate in very select, heavily supervised environments,” such as a gymnastics school.

The findings were presented Sunday at the Pediatric Academic Societies’ annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

My one question which the articles left me asking was how many more home trampolines are there today? Sure, the injuries have gone up, but if the number of home trampolines has gone up by a factor of 10, and injuries only doubled, then it seems the home trampoline industry has been making much safer equipment.

I’m not really sure the answer to that. I do see them *everywhere*. And the safety nets they have enclosing the whole thing sure makes them seem safer.

I still haven’t decided whether to keep the trampoline or get rid of it. Part of the problem is I am not sure how to get rid of it. 700 pounds of steel pipe in 12 foot curved sections doesn’t fit into a garbage can too easily.