How does HiB get in the bloodstream? - Page 4

[an_domhan]

Originally Posted by tmaue

This does say if the bacteria accumulates and is not removed from the immune system (probably based on the underlying cause, imo) then it can cause infections of the tissues that cover the brain (meningitis).

Just my two cents, I'd been watching the discourse with fairly nothing to add, but I think you've surmised the issue. Bacteria do randomly enter the blood via the gut, but a properly functioning immune system remove them fairly quickly. I'd have to concur with mamakay that the presence of bacteria in the blood does signify a serious threat. I'd also have to suggest that there is a rather huge immune system compromise as well.

[Deborah]

Just had a historical thought about this--

back in the dark ages people quite often survived horrendous injuries and lousy medical care

stuff that modern people probably couldn't survive without interventions

so I'm wondering if the generally difficult living conditions meant that people who survived to adulthood were so tough that it was darn hard to kill them off, barring famine or plague

to give a bit of contrast

a friend of mine whacked his knee with a machete

the doctor wanted to put him in the hospital for six days on intravenous antibiotics BECAUSE the last few cases he had seen of puncture wounds had turned into disastrous infections

my friend was pretty healthy, so he stayed home, took oral antibiotics and used medicinal quality clay poultices to drain the injury

he was fine

I just got the impression that modern day immune systems are pretty funky...

[shuttlt]

Originally Posted by Deborah

Just had a historical thought about this--

back in the dark ages people quite often survived horrendous injuries and lousy medical care

stuff that modern people probably couldn't survive without interventions

so I'm wondering if the generally difficult living conditions meant that people who survived to adulthood were so tough that it was darn hard to kill them off, barring famine or plague

to give a bit of contrast

a friend of mine whacked his knee with a machete

the doctor wanted to put him in the hospital for six days on intravenous antibiotics BECAUSE the last few cases he had seen of puncture wounds had turned into disastrous infections

my friend was pretty healthy, so he stayed home, took oral antibiotics and used medicinal quality clay poultices to drain the injury

he was fine

I just got the impression that modern day immune systems are pretty funky...

But surely lots of people in the past also got really nasty infections too? I have no idea whether the situation is better, or worse today. Tough to tell.

[Deborah]

yeah, it is tough to tell.

But there were people who survived through war, famine, flood and plague. The medical care that was available was pretty well sure to kill ya, so we can't credit that for any survivors. The more I think about it, the more amazed I am that there continued to be human beings.

[shuttlt]

Originally Posted by Deborah

yeah, it is tough to tell.

But there were people who survived through war, famine, flood and plague. The medical care that was available was pretty well sure to kill ya, so we can't credit that for any survivors. The more I think about it, the more amazed I am that there continued to be human beings.

Humans are fairly tough to kill. There wouldn't be nearly so many of us if that wasn't the case. Today loads of people survive relatively well eating Big Macs and taking no exercise. Some people are unlucky, but for most of us we can abuse our bodies terribly and it takes decades for it to catch up with us.

I agree with you on old style medicine. There is quite a bit of agreement on the medical blogs I've seen that when it first came in you were much more likely to have a good outcome when you went to a homeopath as opposed to an allopath.. and that's coming from people who believe homeopathy is nothing but water/sugar pills. Even moving forward a little, you think there's a bit of mercury in vaccines...? The old cure for Syphilis contained so much it could turn your teeth green.

At least these days we don't have untreated sewage running down the middle of the street so often.

[anewmama]

Originally Posted by Deborah

yeah, it is tough to tell.

But there were people who survived through war, famine, flood and plague. The medical care that was available was pretty well sure to kill ya, so we can't credit that for any survivors. The more I think about it, the more amazed I am that there continued to be human beings.

There are people today surviving the same things though, right now.

[an_domhan]

Originally Posted by Deborah

The medical care that was available was pretty well sure to kill ya, so we can't credit that for any survivors. The more I think about it, the more amazed I am that there continued to be human beings.

Indeed. Less than 300 years ago Western doctors were poking around inside bodies with unsterilised instruments purging bad influences by bleeding patients to death and administering drugs that carried such violent effects the result was often fatal.

[tmaue]

Originally Posted by an_domhan

Just my two cents, I'd been watching the discourse with fairly nothing to add, but I think you've surmised the issue. Bacteria do randomly enter the blood via the gut, but a properly functioning immune system remove them fairly quickly. I'd have to concur with mamakay that the presence of bacteria in the blood does signify a serious threat. I'd also have to suggest that there is a rather huge immune system compromise as well.

The info you quoted from me is just what I got from the article, with a little side note that I think the reason that the bacteria accumulates and is not removed from the immune system is because of an underlying cause. I should have continued to say that I believe the underlying cause is a compromised immune system. The article says that the body should be able to take care of the bacteria otherwise. So, I am not sure anyone is disagreeing, or am I wrong.

[Deborah]

Originally Posted by anewmama

There are people today surviving the same things though, right now.

The question is whether people are only tough enough to survive if they grow up exposed to lots of filth and rough living conditions. The doctor who saw people getting blood poisoning from what were fairly minor injuries had no confidence in the human immune system coping with dirt. And even my friend had to use the clay poultices and the antibiotics to cope with his infected cut.

A doctor I used to know remarked to me perhaps 10 or 12 years ago that the human immune system had declined significantly in just his lifetime of studying and practicing medicine. We are probably talking about a 20 year stretch. He said the way it was handled was by lowering the standard of what makes a "normal" immune system. They just go by what is typical.

Another opportunity to find and look at some old medical textbooks!

[shuttlt]

Originally Posted by Deborah

The question is whether people are only tough enough to survive if they grow up exposed to lots of filth and rough living conditions. The doctor who saw people getting blood poisoning from what were fairly minor injuries had no confidence in the human immune system coping with dirt. And even my friend had to use the clay poultices and the antibiotics to cope with his infected cut.

A doctor I used to know remarked to me perhaps 10 or 12 years ago that the human immune system had declined significantly in just his lifetime of studying and practicing medicine. We are probably talking about a 20 year stretch. He said the way it was handled was by lowering the standard of what makes a "normal" immune system. They just go by what is typical.

Another opportunity to find and look at some old medical textbooks!

Policemen are getting younger as well.

I'm sure old text books would have been much more relaxed about stuff we would now clamp down on. Is this because we are weaker, or more risk averse? Perhaps a couple of hundred years ago 1% odds of somebody with an infected wound dying would have been acceptable and today it wouldn't be acceptable. It could also be that people today are weaker.... maybe the weak ones were amoung the large numbers who died in childhood in ages past? Perhaps we have been weakened by some aspect(s) of the modern world. I can't see an easy way to decide the issue.

Right now, I feel that the odds of my son dying in childhood, or the odds of my wife dying in childbirth in ages past make up for this unquantifiable risk. Others may weigh it up differently and I don't in any way rule out criticism of particular aspects of modern medical practice. It's just that, on balance, I think I come out ahead.

[Deborah]

Yeah, there are a lot of good things about our current way of life. We don't need to be as tough.

This isn't a good reason to do stupid things that undermine people's health and leave them chronically ill, though.

[shuttlt]

Originally Posted by Deborah

This isn't a good reason to do stupid things that undermine people's health and leave them chronically ill, though.

Agreed.

[anewmama]

Originally Posted by Deborah

The question is whether people are only tough enough to survive if they grow up exposed to lots of filth and rough living conditions. The doctor who saw people getting blood poisoning from what were fairly minor injuries had no confidence in the human immune system coping with dirt. And even my friend had to use the clay poultices and the antibiotics to cope with his infected cut.

A doctor I used to know remarked to me perhaps 10 or 12 years ago that the human immune system had declined significantly in just his lifetime of studying and practicing medicine. We are probably talking about a 20 year stretch. He said the way it was handled was by lowering the standard of what makes a "normal" immune system. They just go by what is typical.

Another opportunity to find and look at some old medical textbooks!

I am not entirely following you. When you say, "people" do you mean all people or just people in America or in developed nations? Cause I don't think that the conditions that children and adults are faced with in living in the Congo today or in other war torn parts of Africa are anything to be 'admired' if they lead one to 'survive' more. I am just not following you, I think.

I am not sure what factors your doctor was using to evaluate that decline and if he had specific evidence to point to reasons for it. You could say that certain diseases are up historically and that maybe they are due to modern medical practices, the unintended side effects or however you want to describe it. However, other diseases are down very much due to modern medicine and I am not specifically referring to vaccines. Antibiotics, despite their absolute misuse, have saved lives.

The problem I see with the gist of what I am getting from you is that somehow, we need to return to the good old days of traditional medicine (whatever that means as whose tradition?) and we would all be better off. Thanks, but no thanks. I appreciate both options and I think we are better off having both approaches and both perspectives. There is just as much bad medicine in old methods as in new methods. By bad I mean things that might have been downright dangerous or just plain useless or non-effective. I also think that some of what we see today is not always the result of the medicine we have today as much as of the lives we lead... other factors.. processed food, chemical dangers, etc, etc.

[Deborah]

Sorry, you are taking my wild historical speculations too seriously.

What I'm trying to sort out, is the consequences of some of our choices in terms of medicine and health care and living conditions. What makes a good balance?

Example one: For many people, city life was fatal in the past. Simply moving to a city upped your chances of dying by a lot and your chances of successful reproduction went way down. The only way cities kept going was by importing a steady flow of people from the countryside, and also by sending people (who could afford it) to live in the country part of the year. So the steps that have been taken to handle human wastes and so on are absolutely essential if we are going to have large numbers of people living in close proximity.

Example two: there seems to be some fairly solid evidence that living lives of extreme cleanliness is unhealthy and undermines the immune system. Kids growing up on farms have less allergies and asthma, for example. Kids with pets, ditto. So scrubbing everything in sight and trying to keep your children from ever getting dirty may harm more than help.

Third example: there is a bit of evidence that going through childhood illnesses, complete with fevers, helps the development of the immune system. So giving children fever suppressors and other drugs at the first sign of illness and vaccinating them to prevent illness in the first place may actually prevent the body from building a strong immune system.

My point about human beings in the past was just speculative. In order to survive the normal number of injuries and challenges that every human being encounters, without antiseptics or any form of effective medical care, the survivors had to be either insanely lucky or have very strong immune systems. But as a method of developing a strong immune system, this approach has many drawbacks, the most obvious one being, as several people pointed out, the huge number of dead people who didn't survive. And as I just pointed out, if the conditions got nasty enough, as in pre-modern cities, the number of people who survived was so low that cities only survived by importing more and more people.

I guess where I'm heading, if anywhere, is how we achieve a reasonable balance between protection and challenge. This is an ongoing aspect of life for every parent. Do we let our 10 year old read anything they want or do we try to guide them to age appropriate materials? How about movies? Online stuff? Peer interactions? Food choices? Same thing with exposures to dirt and viruses and bacteria. Is total protection the goal, or total exposure or some sort of graceful balance between the two?

[anewmama]

Yes, it is a balance. But given some interesting theories or perspectives posted on the forum lately, it's hard to tell when to take someone seriously or not! *lol* But I agree on your points. I would though, suggest that while there are VPDs that cause fevers and immune 'boosts', there are thousands of other diseases and bugs that cause fevers and possible immune strengthening for which there are no vaccines. It's not like with vaccination, one never gets fevers... of course, unless they are all treated, huh? I know you are not saying that though....