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Post by Antigone68104 on Jan 20, 2014 16:15:40 GMT
My mother and one of my aunts both contracted polio as children during the US epidemics. (If you don't know much about polio, have a link.) I don't remember how we got onto the topic, but my aunt was talking the other day about something she was told right after she was diagnosed. She had pneumonia at the time she contracted polio. One of the nurses told her that she was lucky, because the pneumonia bacteria would attack the polio virus and help her recover sooner. The nurse also said it had to be a naturally-occurring case of pneumonia, because someone deliberately infected with pneumonia after getting polio would die. Which makes sense, with two different diseases both interfering with your breathing ... but that should apply regardless of which order you catch them in. She's checked several times since then, and she's never been able to find anything to back up what that nurse told her. I know there's no family stories about my aunt needing physical therapy after recovering, which argues that she made a better recovery than Mom (who needed physical therapy afterwards). Of course, my aunt's the one with post-polio syndrome, Mom has no signs of it. Has anyone else run across this story? Or was it just something a nurse told a sick kid to keep her spirits up? |
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Post by the light works on Jan 20, 2014 17:19:41 GMT
My mother and one of my aunts both contracted polio as children during the US epidemics. (If you don't know much about polio, have a link.) I don't remember how we got onto the topic, but my aunt was talking the other day about something she was told right after she was diagnosed. She had pneumonia at the time she contracted polio. One of the nurses told her that she was lucky, because the pneumonia bacteria would attack the polio virus and help her recover sooner. The nurse also said it had to be a naturally-occurring case of pneumonia, because someone deliberately infected with pneumonia after getting polio would die. Which makes sense, with two different diseases both interfering with your breathing ... but that should apply regardless of which order you catch them in. She's checked several times since then, and she's never been able to find anything to back up what that nurse told her. I know there's no family stories about my aunt needing physical therapy after recovering, which argues that she made a better recovery than Mom (who needed physical therapy afterwards). Of course, my aunt's the one with post-polio syndrome, Mom has no signs of it. Has anyone else run across this story? Or was it just something a nurse told a sick kid to keep her spirits up? I see why it is untestable. I can't see even Tory volunteering to catch pneumonia and then polio. I can see a possibility for someone under treatment for pneumonia having a heightened immune response; and I can even see the possibility of separate infections interfering with each other to a patient's benefit; so it is not an entirely impossible scenario - to my mind. |
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Post by OziRiS on Jan 21, 2014 0:31:49 GMT
I actually read about a research project where doctors were trying to kill cancer cells by introducing a virus into the tumor, so at least someone with medical training thinks the idea of killing one disease with another is a sound option.
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Post by the light works on Jan 21, 2014 4:24:02 GMT
I actually read about a research project where doctors were trying to kill cancer cells by introducing a virus into the tumor, so at least someone with medical training thinks the idea of killing one disease with another is a sound option. considering there is also a bit more evidence that some forms of cancer are connected to virii, that gives more weight to the idea. |
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Post by silverdragon on Feb 7, 2014 8:03:52 GMT
The heightened immune system, I can see benefit from that.
But Pneumonia is pretty bad on its own as well?....
Perhaps thats why it has to occur first, you have to be mostly over it to get the benefit?...
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Post by the light works on Feb 7, 2014 14:48:02 GMT
The heightened immune system, I can see benefit from that. But Pneumonia is pretty bad on its own as well?.... Perhaps thats why it has to occur first, you have to be mostly over it to get the benefit?... right. people die from pneumonia. |
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Post by mrfatso on Feb 7, 2014 16:10:52 GMT
Listening to the Naked Scientist Podcast on the BBC,the subject of Bacteriophages came up. The Soviet Union in particular, where looking at using therapies against diseases,where in the West we went down the route of Antibiotics. Apparently they had some success is treating some Bacteria by infecting them with Viruses that killed them, but they had to be very targeted strains, without the wide spectrum that Antibiotics gave. This is the Wiki page about Phage Therapy. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy. Its also worth noting that Pneumonia can be Bacterial or Viral in nature, as a Diabetic here we get a vaccine jab for free on the NHS.(edit on fact it can also be caused by parasites, fungi as well) |
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Post by Antigone68104 on Feb 7, 2014 16:53:58 GMT
I have no idea what type of pneumonia my aunt had, and I don't think she knows either. But Phage Therapy sure sounds like what that nurse was thinking of. It wasn't being used in the US, but I understand there was a lot of "see if this works" to polio treatment during the epidemics, and a nurse who'd worked in the polio wards might have noticed a pattern.
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Post by silverdragon on Feb 9, 2014 14:05:24 GMT
What eventually worked was so effective they stopped looking....
Mostly because it wiped out Polio so much from UK, we got rid of almost all of the technology as redundant?...
I suppose they may have worked out other things, but there was a distinct lack of actual patients to test it on....
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Post by mrfatso on Feb 9, 2014 19:36:56 GMT
These days rather than treating polio when someone gets the disease, there has been a World wide vaccination scheme.
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Post by tom1b on Mar 9, 2014 23:33:03 GMT
How many cures to viral diseases exist today? Zero. Viral diseases are prevented by vaccines. If you catch a virus, the only way you beat it is via your immune system. A virus can infect a bacterium too.
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Post by the light works on Mar 10, 2014 4:28:57 GMT
How many cures to viral diseases exist today? Zero. Viral diseases are prevented by vaccines. If you catch a virus, the only way you beat it is via your immune system. A virus can infect a bacterium too. It depends on your definition of "cure" there certainly isn't a magic pill, yet - but there is significant progress in antiviral drugs. |
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