Reply to mairi21838
I tried writing before but I got booted out by the website as I was writing it, so I am writing this again, on my computer so that can copy and paste it in. If it doesn’t end with “The End”, please complain and send me a message, quoting my last words.
Defeating a skin ulcer is a long campaign. Your first step is to “know your enemy.” The medical experts must have carried out tests and advised the patient of the results, but these will have almost certainly be ‘summaries’. What you need are the details. What tests were carried out, and when, and what the results were. They must be in a written form of some kind. When you have this, research the tests on the web, to see what the tests include, how reliable they are and what the declared results mean. Some of the medical terms may be new to you – research them.
Write out your understanding in one document, quoting sources as you go. Include the sources’ web pages in the document.
Research the web again, because writing the document will have taken time and your understanding will have changed.
Update/revise the document. Now your understanding will be as complete as it can be and you are ready to begin the fight.
Doctors are ethically constrained to ‘do no harm’. That means that unless there is positive documented research on a treatment, they cannot recommend it, but you are not so constrained. A treatment may only have a declared 1% success rate and so not recommended, but patients differ in their response, and a 1% chance is better than the 0% of not trying.
Research costs time and money. Governments fund universities, etc. because somebody has applied for funding to carry that research out. The individual is motivated to discover the answer. Drug companies carry out research to discover new drugs that they can patent(lasting 20 years) and profit from. Sometimes the two get together for a project. What the companies rarely do is research new uses for old(out of patent) drugs, because it only costs them money, without any profit. The treatment may be out there – you have to look hard and sometimes use your imagination to find a way forward.
Photograph the ulcer, with a measuring tape beside it, at regular intervals, because you need to record its change over time.
If you identify a possible way forward, talk it over with the patient, explaining it in detail before you begin, checking with the medical consultants about what hazards lie ahead.
A negative result is still a result. Publish it, so others may know what didn’t work.
I understand that you were hoping for an answer, but if the medical experts are not succeeding then this is your only way forward – to become the expert.
I have no ulcers myself, or know of any of my family that does. My motivation for writing is that have used dietary xylitol for several years(reducing the rate of tooth decay and minimising the risk of diabetes) and recently noticed its topical effect on a skin cut. I researched the effect on the web, and found nothing. This evoked my interest, on its possible uses on skin ulcers. Please do not take this as any sort of recommendation – identify and understand your own enemy first, then choose your weapon.
The End