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#155210 08/03/04 11:33 AM
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 1,223
Chipmunk
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Chipmunk
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 1,223
Eeeewww!!!!!!!!!!!! <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

(from today's newspaper):


Maggots make medical comeback

FDA okays them in wound cleaning, Patients accepting despite yuck factor

LAURAN NEERGAARD
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON�Think of these wriggly little creatures not as, well, gross, but as miniature surgeons: Maggots are making a medical comeback, cleaning out wounds that just won't heal.

Wound-care clinics around the country are giving maggots a try on some of their sickest patients after high-tech treatments fail.

It's a therapy quietly championed since the early 1990s by a California physician who's earned the nickname Dr. Maggot. But Dr. Ronald Sherman's maggots are getting more attention since, in January, they became the first live animals to win Food and Drug Administration approval � as a medical device to clean out wounds.

A medical device? They "mechanically" remove the dead tissue that impedes healing, the FDA determined. The process is called chewing.

But maggots do more than that, says Sherman, who raises the tiny, wormlike fly larvae in a laboratory at the University of California, Irvine. His research shows that in the mere two to three days they live in a wound, maggots also produce substances that kill bacteria and stimulate growth of healthy tissue.

Still, "it takes work to convince people" that "maggots do work very well," said Dr. Robert Kirsner, who directs the University of Miami Cedars Wound Center.

Actually, maggots' medicinal qualities have long been known. Civil War surgeons noted that soldiers whose wounds harboured maggots seemed to fare better. In the 1930s, a Johns Hopkins University surgeon's research sparked routine maggot therapy, until antibiotics came along a decade later.

Patients say maggot therapy is not that hard to accept. Pamela Mitchell of Akron, Ohio, begged to try maggots when surgeons wanted to amputate her left foot after an infection in a diabetic ulcer penetrated the bone. It took 10 cycles of larvae, but she healed completely.

Despite the yuck factor, "if you're faced with amputation or the maggots, I think most people would try the maggots,'' Mitchell said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Well, ok, since it's put THAT way......but still... eek

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#155211 08/03/04 11:59 AM
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 636
Gecko
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Gecko
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Posts: 636
LOL The Yuck Factor is there, but I don't think I would have too hard of a time with the treatment if "conventional" methods wouldn't work. Maggots have been used for therapy in the "olden days". Of course so was "blood letting". Hmmmmm wonder if they will soon approve leaches for medical treatments....

Rose

#155212 08/03/04 05:55 PM
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 745
Gecko
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Gecko
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Posts: 745
I read that news article last night online and thought it would be a good one to post here. (Looks like I was a day late, dollar short though.) I agree about the 'yuck' factor, but as Rose mentioned, one has to consider maggot therapy seriously when other measures have failed. I would think that I could put up with the sound, sight, and feel of maggots if amputation was the alternative.

Now as for the leeches, Rose, I wonder if FDA approval for them might not be too far away, as I've read several articles recently about the successful use of them as well.

Leequi

#155213 08/05/04 12:24 PM
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 8
Newbie
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Newbie
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The "medical" maggots are raised in carefully controlled conditions, they don't just invite flies in to crawl on You.
Maybe this is just another of the natural wonders that We have allowed civilization to hide from Us. It is for sure that a lot of the more accepted medical practices are even "Yuckier" when they are being done to You.
http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v244/tsiya/


tsiya
#155214 08/05/04 02:08 PM
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 745
Gecko
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Gecko
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Posts: 745
Hi tsiya!

Glad you accepted my invite and stopped on by to visit with us. Your photographs are terrific and I'm glad you included the link to them.

Hope you stop by and visit with us regularly. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Leequi


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