- That remarkable documentary about Chris Sands the guy who has had chronic hiccups for 2.5 years was very good for reason, science and the skeptic movement. It could have been terrible as after trying everything the final thing was a tenacious Traditional Chinese medicine practitioner from Japan. Since there is always a distinct possibility of "time" or some unseen element curing a condition if it had happened at the same time all the credit would have gone to him and it would have been a massive boost to the "alternative medicine" industry and encouraged others to go down this dangerous path. As it was nothing he tried worked and Chris declined to take his final solution of having a 6 inch needle pushed into his diaphragm as there was a high risk of it passing through his heart (surely such dangerous practices by overseas doctors are illegal ?).
- Fortunately for him a Japanese TV programme threw up another lifeline they flew him to Japan to seek other solutions and the first thing was a visit a conventional medicine doctor who is an expert on chronic hiccups. He knows that chronic hiccups is associated with brain tumours so he ordered an MRI. Sure enough the next day he phoned to say he'd detected a 12mm tumour at the base of the cortex.
- Could have been treated 2 years ago ! The strange thing for Chris was that 2.5 years ago after only 4 days of hiccups Chris had looked it on the internet and also found that chronic hiccups is associated with brain tumours, but when he told his doctors they'd appeared not to take this too seriously they'd first given him heartburn medicine and then eventually gave a CT scan which didn't detect a tumour. The Japanese expert explained that MRI is a much better tool for this job.
- Chris elected to have surgery in Sheffield. the surgeon didn't want to damage the cortex so cut the tumour away to the last 3mm. The operation was a success after a week or so the hiccups came back due to the swelling as the scarring around tumour healed, but it seemed after 6 weeks he has made an almost 100% recovery.
-The moral is stick with modern medicine, but go back and get a second opinion if necessary. (BBC1 Tuesday 12th January)
news story : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/l...re/8449582.stm
iplayer prog : http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pzch7
Rubbish!!
Everyone knows that the only effective treatment is a prayer to St. Jude
Prayer: The most novel cure for one patient was to pray to the Catholic patron saint of lost causes, St. Jude. After 8 years and more than 60,000 suggested treatments, his prayer to St. Jude was answered.
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