Antidepressants Blog

Many patients, family doctors, and even paediatricians and neurologists, are remarkably pessimistic about the likelihood of seizures stopping—a pessimism which is unjustified by the facts. Pessimism stems from hospital experience. In the past, when neurologists were fewer on the ground, they tended to see only those with the worst epilepsy with the worst prognosis. As they taught the future family doctors, these too were infected with the same pessimism.

What are the facts? The first point to define is what we mean by remission or cessation of seizures. Epilepsy was defined as a ‘continuing tendency to epileptic seizures’. A liability to have a seizure, or a lower than average epileptic threshold, probably does continue throughout life as part of one’s genetic inheritance. A man aged 30, who had some seizures in his teens, cannot be said to be entirely free from the risk of a further seizure right until the end of his life—but his risk may have declined so that it has become, at the age of 30, only a little greater than that of the general population. Regardless of this philosophical discussion, what a person with epilepsy wants to know is whether, for all practical purposes, the seizures will stop. A remission, therefore, can be defined as a certain period free from seizures. The good evidence about the chances of achieving a good long time free from seizures, and, for all practical purposes, permanent freedom, comes from the work in Olmstead county, USA, is redrawn from this study. The upright line on the graph indicates the cumulative chance of achieving a remission of at least five years. It can be seen that, at one year after diagnosis, 42 per cent of the patients had entered a seizure-free period that was to extend for at least five years. The probability of being in remission currently (five years or more and continuing), was 61 per cent at 10 years after diagnosis and 70 per cent at 20 years after diagnosis. The difference between the top two curves represents the small numbers of patients who have one long remission of at least five years with subsequent relapse. The bottom curve refers to those patients in remission without drugs. Data from the National General Practice Study on Epilepsy is very similar. At six years after a seizure of any type (excluding acute symptomatic and single seizures) 92 per cent of people had achieved a remission lasting at least one year, 67 per cent lasting at least three years, and 42 per cent a remission lasting at least five years—this last figure being identical to that from Olmstead County. This latter study has followed up people for rather longer than the UK study, and 20 years after the diagnosis of epilepsy, about 30 per cent of patients continued to have seizures, 20 per cent continued to take anticonvulsant medication but had been free from seizures for at least five years, and about 50 per cent had been free from seizures without anti-epileptic medication for at least five years.

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We keep hearing repeatedly about carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) affecting three types of people more than any others: computer operators, typists, and mail sorters. The types of repetitive motions involved end up causing lesions or inflammations that press on the median nerves of the wrists. It can be painful and incapacitating. Wrist injuries are another cause.

Conventional CTS therapies involve elevating and/or immobilizing the wrist, steroid medications, pain medications, hot or cold compresses, manipulation, and physical therapy. Billions of dollars are paid out annually in workman’s compensation insurance payments. Billions more are spent by health insurance companies treating the ailment. CMO could resolve most of those cases for a tiny fraction of the cost. This is a chronic inflammatory or arthritic disorder that is most often easily remedied by CMO. Let’s look at a couple of examples.

Our first case involves a man who makes his living operating computers. After years at the keyboards he developed pains in his wrists, and the fingers of both hands began locking up. Osteoarthritis was part of the problem contributing to the CTS. Within a week on CMO the pains had almost completely disappeared and the mobility in his left hand was 90% better. But mobility in his right hand improved by only 25%. Continuing CMO for another week not only got him back to normal but back on the job.

Another typical case involves a mailman who developed CTS in both hands. It’s an occupational hazard that comes with the constant handling of mail. Conventional treatments didn’t work and he began wrapping his wrists with elastic bandages before going to work. He wouldn’t have been able to work without them.

His wrist pains disappeared shortly after starting his CMO and he was able to continue working without further discomfort.

Several months have now passed and both of these patients have continued their work free of any further symptoms.

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Signs and symptoms

Of those children who develop polio, 93 to 95 percent of them have no symptoms, but develop immunity. Four to 5 percent of those infected develop a minor illness, with fever, general bodily discomfort, sore throat, and nausea for three to four days. One to 2 percent develops clinically recognizable polio, with symptoms of a minor illness plus sore, stiff muscles and a stiff neck and spine. Within this 1 or 2 percent are the children who become paralyzed or die.

Minor cases may never be recognized as polio unless they occur as part of an epidemic. Diagnosis is based on examination of viral cultures and studies of antibodies (substances that the body produces to fight disease) in the blood. If the central nervous system (the spine and the brain) is involved, the child has a stiff neck and back and may not be able to sit up without supporting the trunk with both hands braced behind in a tripod fashion. The diagnosis is confirmed by the results of a spinal tap (in which spinal fluid is withdrawn from the spinal column), cultures, or antibody studies.

Home care

The most important home treatment is prevention through immunization. The live virus vaccine (Sabin), which is given by mouth, is effective against all three types of polio, and it confers long-lasting immunity. The risk of paralysis from present-day vaccines is less than one in ten million – a far cry from the one in a thousand risk of exposure to naturally-occurring viruses.

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