Naked Science Forum

General Science => General Science => Topic started by: Andrew K Fletcher on 18/12/2008 11:41:16

Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 18/12/2008 11:41:16
Made a prediction based on a theory about gravity driving the circulation. That prediction was that varicose veins would greatly improve when a flat bed is avoided in favour of an inclined bed set at a five degree to the horizontal slope affording the head to be higher than the feet. This is called Inclined Bed Therapy, or IBT for short.

The idea was that if we could show photographically these improvements and document them as they occur it would stimulate some interest from the doctors and scientists on this forum and at least gain some comments and questions.

Well, thanks to Alun and a few others who are trying IBT, we now have that compelling photographic evidence and would like to move this forward by inviting doctors and nurses to try to disprove the effects of head up tilt instead of sleeping flat for people with varicose veins and oedema.

The main question that arises from the research and results is why has this been ignored by the many thousands of people who have viewed the thread, many of whom are doctors and nurses?

Why do we needlessly operate on varicose veins when simply changing the angle of our bed will address the pressure differences in the veins and cause them to become pulled in rather than bulging out.

1994 when this was first noticed. Many more people have benefited from this since then. Why has it not become mainstream? Why are you and your colleagues still relying on literature that is obviously in need of some serious revision?

We need your help to progress this further. Please do not walk away and pretend it never happened. It has happened and we now have the photographs online to prove it happened!

Looking forward to your replies with interest.

Andrew K Fletcher


http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=9843.150
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi321.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fnn365%2Falun006%2Fvains-12th-june-2008-4-calf.jpg&hash=fbf0a27826642c43b0231fff5037e122)

(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi321.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fnn365%2Falun006%2Ftop-calf-dec-3.jpg&hash=a306a98c70d546c33487a2c072e30134)

Photographs from Alun provide compelling evidence that varicose veins are caused by pressure not be defective valves. Alun has not had any surgery! Valve damage in this case has been proven to be erroneous!
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 22/12/2008 20:28:42
51 views and not a single comment?
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Bored chemist on 22/12/2008 20:48:44
Did I  ask if there was a double blind trial?
Single blind would do for a start.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 22/12/2008 21:01:22
I'm gain. Do you know anyone who might be up for testing IBT in a university, sleep study centre or hospital? Say the word and we can get started. Professor Ernst at Exeter University and his colleagues are keen. Have the letter expressing their interest at hand. My MP Adrian Sanders is very keen to get this study set up. Peter Lewis and Celeste, two vascular surgeons also stated they would like to see a study. How do we get from A to B?
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 22/12/2008 21:15:46
Prediction   4 weeks and we will prove the efficacy of IBT on oedema and varicose veins!
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 22/12/2008 22:27:25
I think it has already been established that elevating legs with varicose veins gives temporary relief ...

Quote
Although individual varicose veins can be removed or eliminated by surgery or injection therapy, the disorder cannot be cured. Thus, treatment mainly relieves symptoms, improves appearance, and prevents complications. Elevating the legs—by lying down or using a footstool when sitting—relieves the symptoms of varicose veins but does not prevent new varicose veins from forming.
http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec03/ch036/ch036d.html

To scientifically prove that IBT has beneficial effects you will need some way of objectively measuring any improvement.
Simply asking participants if they feel IBT has improved their condition. (i.e. self-assessment) is not a reliable method of measuring the outcome.

PS
If I had oedema I'd rather the fluid was in my legs than accumulating in my chest and obstructing the function of my heart and lungs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_overload
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 22/12/2008 23:37:17
RD Thank You

IBT is tilting the bed in the opposite direction to which the current literature advises- for giving temporary relief, as you mention in your quote. The Varicose vein thread has highly significant photographs of before and after IBT, which is to raise the bed at the head end by five degrees to the horizontal sloping but a level surface as in the picture in the VV thread.

The literature states raising the legs higher or level with the heart provides some temporary relief from oedema. However many people who have responded to IBT had indeed tried the medical advice and at first found it difficult to understand why something so simple could work when surgery and head down tilt often fail with increased risk of further complications, including gangrene, infection, thrombosis, amputation, and frequent repeated operations for failures are costing the UK NHS in excess of £500 million a year for surgery alone. A further 600 million for ulcer and after care.

The problem is that the medical profession is hanging on to a belief rather than sound science in support of their surgery approach to resolve varicose veins and oedema. But they have failed to grasp what changes the pressure inside the veins and in doing so will never be able to resolve these terrible conditions. IBT on the other hand addresses the cause by avoiding flat bedrest. A series of photographs have been placed on the varicose veins study thread to show clearly how swollen veins are pulled in using a sound understanding of how circulation relies on gravity to assist flow. Again current literature erroneously believes that we constantly struggle against gravity and that the heart is pumping against the pull of gravity when the pictures speak volumes against this nonsense.

1 set of photographs in particular deal with Alun while laying on the inclined bed in the morning showing his veins to be deflated to the point where they look normal.

Another erroneous idea from the literature is that blood will pool around the ankles. It does nothing of the kind! The circulation by name is circular by nature in that we have a flow and a return flow.

And once we have altered the pressure inside the vein that was causing the bulging, the oedema problem is also resolved as the fluid flow from the veins to the skin is completely reversed, again posts on the VV thread show this to be correct.

Now we could argue that a study is required to determine minute changes as and when they occur, or indeed if they do not occur using IBT. Again I ask you to view the pictures. Because they do provide us with a visual measurement.

So this question arises: Patient care or surgeons profit?

I think it has already been established that elevating legs with varicose veins gives temporary relief ...

Quote
Although individual varicose veins can be removed or eliminated by surgery or injection therapy, the disorder cannot be cured. Thus, treatment mainly relieves symptoms, improves appearance, and prevents complications. Elevating the legs—by lying down or using a footstool when sitting—relieves the symptoms of varicose veins but does not prevent new varicose veins from forming.
http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec03/ch036/ch036d.html

To scientifically prove that IBT has beneficial effects you will need some way of objectively measuring any improvement.
Simply asking participants if they feel IBT has improved their condition. (i.e. self-assessment) is not a reliable method of measuring the outcome.

PS
If I had oedema I'd rather the fluid was in my legs than accumulating in my chest and obstructing the function of my heart and lungs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_overload

Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 23/12/2008 00:25:37
Another erroneous idea from the literature is that blood will pool around the ankles. It does nothing of the kind! The circulation by name is circular by nature in that we have a flow and a return flow.


If you wish to measure blood flow rates there are ultrasonic doppler gadgets which can do that ...

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

Quote
Pole test for measurement of ankle pressures in patients with calcified vessels: the Doppler probe is placed over a patent pedal artery and the foot raised against a pole that is calibrated in mm Hg. The point at which the pedal signal disappears is taken as the ankle pressure
http://student.bmj.com/back_issues/0800/education/270.html
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: NobodySavedMe on 23/12/2008 18:57:53
The medical profession is one of the most corrupt and filled with people who prefer the status quo.

The established voodoo boys don't want any outsider coming in and telling them what to do or challenging them.

The whole history of the medical profession,if you bother reading your medical history,is filled with stick in the mud boys who fought tooth and nail against any progress.Harvey was nearly hanged by the medical mafia when he claimed blood circulates in the body.

Most doctors are in the pay of Pharmaceutical companies who give out free gifts/holidays disguised as conferences and get them to give their patients filled with dangerous patented,money making,expensive but toxic and useless, prescription drugs.

I just hear that many drug companies are using fake peer reviewers on their own payroll to write research articles about their own drugs!

This is called fraud.

I find most doctors incredibly arrogant,patronising and just want you to shut up and accept what they say.

Fact is most doctors are just overpaid pill pushers who get paid 1/4 a million a year.

For any advance or new thinking in the medial profession you have to wait for the old gays to die out.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: BenV on 23/12/2008 21:43:33
I'm sorry you feel that way.  Every doctor I have ever met got into medicine in order to help people.  You may have had bad experiences, but I'm afraid that the world simply isn't like that, and the medical profession is not as you imagine.

Of course they favour the status quo - it's unethical to do anything until there is ample evidence that it's effective.

Also, pharma companies are not as bad as you think.  I'm sure there are bad apples, as there are in any industry (alternative medicine is just as bad - if not worse, given that they can get away with more due to the lower regulation).  It's simply unreasonable to claim that all pharma companies and their employees act out of greed and malice.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 24/12/2008 08:52:03
I know there are many damned good doctors and nurses out there doing what they can for their patients with compassion and concern. My own doctors are wonderful people. But this does not change the fact that the medical profession is reluctant to move forward or indeed to investigate anything novel that is presenting highly significant results even if it is labelled anecdotal as in the case of Inclined Bed Therapy for helping people with varicose veins.

This thread is proving this to be the case. Many people will read it is unlikely that anyone will investigate it further than skimping through the photographs, shrugging their shoulders and thinking it is a fluke a fix or a fraud rather than asking those placing the photographic evidence before them.

The point that jumps out at you here is: If we really are concerned about People and follow the Hippocratic Oath to the letter as sworn by all doctors to do no harm. Why are we ignoring the fact that tilting a bed the opposite way around to what we have been taught in med school is having such a profound beneficial effect on varicose veins and oedema and continue to perform costly, risky, complicated surgery that is destined to failure because it is like placing a sticky plaster over a hole in a dam, when the real remedy is to address the cause of pressure behind the sticky plaster!

The prediction behind the varicose vein study was that varicose veins would greatly improve over time using IBT as opposed to sleeping flat or having your legs above or level with the heart.

This online study has now confirmed this for all to see. Yet people reading the thread and viewing the photographs and observe a scientific truth would rather walk away as if nothing has happened.

B.C. bless him, at least tries to challenge the results by stating “where is the controlled study?” In answer to this. It is being controlled so it never takes place while the dinosaurs that run the medical cartels are still alive! All sorts of excuses can be put in place. But we really can’t ignore the fact that IBT works for people with varicose veins and oedema and indeed many more serious medical conditions. But in order to move forward the medical profession needs to get their heads out of the sand and test this simple zero cost therapy and look in the precious literature to find a reason why it is so effective.

Remember: 1 case of vaccination success for small pox was all it took to convince the whole profession that vaccine was the way forward. However a lateral thinker was required in order to observe that contact with cow pox was providing protection.

The history of scurvy is another prime example of how the medical profession closes ranks to prevent the obvious benefits of a balanced diet on board ships often at see for months.. Yet the crew of the Kronprinz Wilhelm during the First World War nearly lost it’s entire crew due to failure to take on board the importance of a healthy diet, gorging themselves upon the spoils of war from ships they attacked. My point here is lifetimes pass before our eyes and great opportunities to further our understanding of nature and medicine are wasted.

I ask again how do we get from point A to point B. B being a controlled study to test IBT for efficacy in helping people to avoid surgery for varicose veins and other complications of the circulation system.

How long have I been trying to get a study up and running?-----


Multiple Sclerosis,Wednesday 24-Mar-1999 16:31:27,212.228.66.3
writes,In February 1996 I began taking part in Andrew Fletcher's
Experiment to assess what would be gained by sleeping at an angle.  As
instructed I raised my bed by six inches at the head and expected to
slide to the other end. Fortunately that did not happen. But after a
few weeks I started to notice a change in my multiple sclerosis
symptoms.   I first of all noticed a significant change in my
circulation. The right foot was no longer uncomfortably hot during the
evenings  and the signs of impending varicose veins in my legs
disappeared.
Walking became much easier  especially after I tried using a
dehumidifier in the bedroom to control the moisture levels in the
atmosphere.
Another very pleasing improvement was in the use of my right hand  I
began to write more legibly and to handle cups and cutlery with greater
ease.
In September 1996 I mystified my optician when a routine eye test
showed a marked improvement in the MS damaged right eye. Six months
later more visual improvement was found.
This was an unusual occurrence and could only be explained by the
action of a healing process in the optic nerve. The optician was very
interested in Andrew's experiment and contacted him to find out more!
Other members of my family have also been involved in the experiment.
We raised my teenage daughter's bed by the same angle in an attempt
to alleviate a life long insomnia problem.   To our astonishment she
slept soundly the very first night!
It goes without saying that we shall not be reverting to sleeping
horizontally  but intend to continue using Andrew's healthier
alternative.
  Endnote from Andrew
Pauline's eyesight improved so much that she is now legally entitled
to drive a car without wearing spectacles.

  ,Pauline (Pilot Study Participant) ,
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 25/12/2008 03:39:25
MS can have relapsing-remitting course (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=C4mbHDgz-z8C&pg=PA187&lpg=PA187), marked recoveries after spontaneous remissions are not unusual.
The "healing process" in MS is called remyelination which occurs naturally without any treatment.
So Pauline's improvement does not prove that IBT has improved her condition.
Pauline's belief (wish?) that she has an effective treatment for her condition is not proof either.

PS
Pauline's testimonial is over 12 years old. Has her inclined bed stopped her from having any relapses in that period ?
The interval between MS relapses is hugely variable, (some only ever have one relapse), but on average is 10 - 30 months (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=l9wtYZ_iCCIC&pg=PA1644)

PPS
photos are not able to accurately measure any changes to varicose veins, however this type of imaging could ...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VGxEUKPNqcA&feature=related

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DiY45jALWjE&NR=1
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 25/12/2008 09:05:13
RD

Pauline was not relapsing remitting MS but long term progressive MS. She lost her sight and was told it would never return. Pauline was one of many people with MS that showed remarkable recovery. There were also some relapsing remitting cases that joined the pilot study and these appeared to benefit from IBT quicker than those who were long term progressive. Many of the people had been refused the ABC drug on grounds that it would have no effect due to the severity and term they had been living with MS.

The argument that it could have happened anyway is not uncommon from doctors and surgeons, or even nurses. This was why we moved on to spinal cord injury. Here we do not have a “it could have happened anyway” get out clause. Well it did happen and to several people with a spinal cord injury minimum 2 years post injury. The video on you tube shows this clearly! Bowl and bladder control was restored in both MS and SCI.

THE MSRC report on 10 people with multiple sclerosis provides some insight into what happens to the nervous system when we tilt a bed this way. However the problem is always the same. The people that refute the improvements on the grounds they could be placebo, will avoid a proper controlled study at all cost! Why do you think this might be the case? Neurological conditions provide the slippery bastards with too many ways to ignore this important research. http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/SCIStudypart1.pdf]Look at the bottom of this file for the MSRC Report.

Varicose veins on the other hand nails them to the post. You say that photographs cannot be used to measure varicose veins. I say they can when they are analysed by the most powerful computer known. The human brain!

We need this varicose veins study now! Not in 10 or 20 years time.

How do we move from Point A to Point B?

Andrew

 


MS can have relapsing-remitting course (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=C4mbHDgz-z8C&pg=PA187&lpg=PA187), marked recoveries after spontaneous remissions are not unusual.
The "healing process" in MS is called remyelination which occurs naturally without any treatment.
So Pauline's improvement does not prove that IBT has improved her condition.
Pauline's belief (wish?) that she has an effective treatment for her condition is not proof either.

PS
Pauline's testimonial is over 12 years old. Has her inclined bed stopped her from having any relapses in that period ?
The interval between MS relapses is hugely variable, (some only ever have one relapse), but on average is 10 - 30 months (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=l9wtYZ_iCCIC&pg=PA1644)

PPS
photos are not able to accurately measure any changes to varicose veins, however this type of imaging could ...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VGxEUKPNqcA&feature=related

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DiY45jALWjE&NR=1
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 25/12/2008 18:16:55
Pauline was not relapsing remitting MS but long term progressive MS.
She lost her sight and was told it would never return.

The progress of MS is not predictable, here are a few examples (not exhaustive) ...

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=l9wtYZ_iCCIC&pg=PA1644

From the initial pattern of relapses (yellow area) it is not possible to extrapolate into the future: A, B, F & G all begin in a similar fashion.


She lost her sight and was told it would never return.
Pauline was one of many people with MS that showed remarkable recovery.

People with MS regaining sight or the ability to walk without treatment is not unusual, (remyelination).
The recovery is not ususally 100%: there is usually some residual permanent damage. Unfortunately MS revisits areas it has affected before, so sufferers can repeatedly lose and regain a faculty, usually recovering less after each relapse.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 26/12/2008 10:24:27
Thanks for the graph RD

Pauline and several others were in category C: not the relapsing remitting ms but the long slow gradual declining type of multiple sclerosis. This was precisely why John Simkins became interested in inclined bed therapy. People with Relapsing remitting MS responded quicker than those with progressive ms.

Like I said, the "it could have happened anyway brigade" can easily find a way to ignore what happened to these people. My wife and I met Pauline around 8 years later walking around the town in Paignton. Lovely Lady who was very grateful for all that IBT had done for her and her family. She asked why has it taken so long to have your research investigated by doctors? I saw another lady with MS who was using IBT all those years ago walking around town on her own, something she could never have done before. I did not stop to talk to her, remaining an observer in the background, quite content with how much she had obviously benefited from IBT. 

In this brief exchange of text there is an insight into the remarkable possibilities of  IBT. And great opportunities to understand how the body benefits from the direction of gravity.

Have you read the MSRC report yet? Both of the ladies mentioned provided answers to the questions that compiled it.

Do you have a professional interest in neurological conditions RD?
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 26/12/2008 17:03:45
Like I said, the "it could have happened anyway brigade" can easily find a way to ignore what happened


Recoveries without treatment are not unusual in people with diagnosed with MS:
they routinely "happen anyway" (without treatment).

The graphs I posted are not exhaustive: other patterns are possible.
I added the graphs to illustrate the variable nature of the progression of MS.

PS
 MS is usually a "diagnosis of exclusion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnosis_of_exclusion)": without brain biopsy or necropsy it is not possible to say someone definitely has it.
 There are MS-like conditions, which can be misdiagnosed as MS. These MS-like conditions can have a different course to MS.

Quote
In the absence of pathognomonic clinical features or a definitive laboratory test, multiple sclerosis (MS) remains ultimately a diagnosis of exclusion. Accurate diagnosis is increasingly important with available disease modifying therapy. Unfortunately the rate of misdiagnosis remains around 5%-10%, indicating that 1 in 20 patients thought to have MS has, instead, a condition resembling MS.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/cwwyekcqbr948kn5/

So there is a 5%-10% chance Pauline, and anyone else diagnosed with MS, does not actually have it.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 26/12/2008 21:13:16
Precisely why I moved to spinal cord injury. Very hard for anyone to state the people that improved on IBT did not have a spinal cord injury! Take varicose veins for example. No one can say a person does not have a varicose vein when all the evidence shows they do have a varicose vein! Psoriasis also responds to IBT, although there is the option for people to dismiss improvements stating psoriasis fluctuates. Back to varicose veins to prove this important point, hence trying to convince people on this forum to conduct a simple study to show how surgery is not required for treating varicose veins.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 27/12/2008 17:08:35
Therapies which have been claimed to be a panacea which can, "cure all ills", usually turn out to be completely ineffective.

To claim a therapy can treat unrelated conditions puts it in the same category as Snake Oil* and Holy Water.


[*Snake Oil has been shown to contain anti-inflammatory chemicals, so it could relieve inflammation, but cannot "cure all ills"].
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 27/12/2008 17:40:54
Not claiming to cure all ills here. My claim is that gravity is driving the circulation! Making use of this is what turns out to be helping these people.

1.   So in response to your snake oil comment. May I remind you that the real snake oil was beneficial. With some conditions and is still used! The real problem was when people capitalised on it for money selling concoctions claiming them to be the genuine snake oil.
2.   Unrelated conditions is laughable when they are contained in the human body, how can you say they are unrelated?

Allopathic medicine are the real snake oil peddlers! Often peddling dangerous drugs on bogus fraudulent statistics, capitalised upon by multi billion $$$$ industry. Follow the money and you find the snake oil sellers.

Pray tell me where I earn money from people selling snake oils?

If you got off your high horse and investigated the claims for yourself you may find that everything I have written on this subject is factual.

While you are at it come up with another explanation for Aluns varicose veins going flat. Hint: He is a real person from Newcastle.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 09/01/2009 10:50:54
Still waiting for a response RD

BC. A double blind controled study is not required when the evidence is overwhelming. And this is the case with Alun!
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: BenV on 09/01/2009 11:47:11
I think one of the chief ethical issues here is that in order to prove that IBT works, we must ask people to forgo all other treatment of their condition for as long as it takes for the IBT to work.  This is a nightmare, and certainly contributes to why you're finding it so difficult to get people to test it.  As I think we've said before, if the NHS could use something free like IBT, they would, but they can't stop treating people with medications that already have been proven to work in order to test one that hasn't.

I know it's frustrating, but you're going to have to take it slowly.  If more people are willing to forgo their conventional treatments and test IBT, and more of their doctors willing to write up the results, you will eventually build up the body of evidence required for a full study.

Edit - and I think you'll have some issues when making comments like
Quote
My claim is that gravity is driving the circulation!
  It's not, the heart is.  I expect gravity does have some part to play, but it's certainly not what drives the circulation.  Making bold claims like this will make it harder for people to take IBT seriously.  Try to be more modest about your hypothesis, let the results speak for you.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 09/01/2009 15:15:16
Ben. There are no treatments for varicose veins that work, other than surgery. This is precisely why varicose veins have been chosen to show how IBT works using gravity to change the pressure inside the veins causing them to be pulled in rather than bulging out, hence the statement that gravity drives circulation. In the case of the heart, let us remember that the heart is not formed first in a developing chick embryo. Circulation is in place before the heart forms. This is called primary circulation. A pulse is observed in simple tubular vessels long before the heart is developed. What then is driving this pulsatile circulation? Clearly it is not the heart!
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 09/01/2009 15:16:52
Another point is that a flat bed is used with most patients and people who are healthy. This is not taken into account with all of the other medications, and clearly does not assist varicose veins to return to normal veins.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: _Stefan_ on 10/01/2009 13:18:08
...hence the statement that gravity drives circulation. In the case of the heart, let us remember that the heart is not formed first in a developing chick embryo. Circulation is in place before the heart forms. This is called primary circulation. A pulse is observed in simple tubular vessels long before the heart is developed. What then is driving this pulsatile circulation? Clearly it is not the heart!

I'm tired of reading that argument. As far as I can determine from my online search, embryonic blood circulation begins with the contractions of the primitive heart. Where is the evidence that gravity, not the developing heart, is responsible for pulsatile blood circulation in early embryos? Gravity probably does affect circulation, but the key word is "circulate", for which a pump is required. You only need common sense and a basic understanding of physics to see that.

Quote
The early embryonic vascular system permits circulation through a series of incompletely fused and developing channels. Before the heart is fully formed, the flow of circulation is diffuse rather than strongly unidirectional as it is in the atrial and venous systems of later fetal development. Movement of blood through the early embryonic vascular system begins as soon as the primitive heart tubes form and fuse. Contractions of the primitive heart begin early in development, as early as the initial fusion of the endothelial channels that fuse to form the heart.
http://www.bookrags.com/research/vascular-system-embryonic-developme-wap/

Quote
The embryonic vertebrate heart begins pumping blood long before the development of discernable chambers and valves. At these early stages, the heart tube has been described as a peristaltic pump.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/312/5774/751

Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Bored chemist on 10/01/2009 17:43:03
Another point is that a flat bed is used with most patients and people who are healthy. This is not taken into account with all of the other medications, and clearly does not assist varicose veins to return to normal veins.
Most healthy people (in the West anyway) watch television. So it's clear that watching television doesn't stop you getting varicose veins. Does that mean that not watching television will prevent them?
Of course not.
Yet you seem to be saying that a flat bed doesn't help so an inclined bed will help.

You have also said that your "therapy" is based on inclining the bed in the oposite direction to that which has been shown to give relieif . Do you think that makes sense?
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 12/01/2009 10:34:09
You need to research some more Stefan. Primary circulation is in place long before the development of the primitive heart. No circulation = no heart developing! I have seen video footage of the primary circulation in a developing embryo. No rotation of a chick egg = no chick developing. Why do you think rotation is important to stimulate development in a chick embryo? It may also be worthwhile studying the effects of microgravity during orbit on chick development. Here is the clue! No pump is required for circulation. The oceans appear to get around this problem. So does a central heating system with a flow and return simple hot water sytem. No pump involved here. The water cycle itself appears to circulate without a pump too. How's that for a little common sense?

By using a soft walled closed loop of tube with say 5 mils of salt solution at one point. Elevating the tube so the salt solution flows down one side, we can see the wall of the tube bulging due to the pressure changes caused by the falling solute. = Pulse. In fact injecting pulses of salt solution in the closed latex tube we can see a pulsatile flow. On the other side of the tube in the return flow however we see the tube necking so one side is under positive pressure and the other side is under tension or reduced pressure.

Of course the primary circulation would appear to be defuse. Why wouldn't it? There are no circulatory pathways formed yet in the gelatinous egg. The food source being at the centre of the egg is in the ideal place for gravity influenced migration through the albumem.
Quote
Comparative Phisiology and Biochemistry
Changes in density and viscosity of chicken egg albumen and yolk during incubation
Dr. Hans-Jürgen Meuer, Christoph Egbers
Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Zentrum Physiologie, D-3000 Hannover 61, Federal Republic of Germany

Abstract
In early stages of avian development, respiratory gas exchange takes place mainly through the blood vessels of the yolk sac membrane. Therefore, a short distance between the yolk sac membrane and the eggshell is required to ensure a sufficient oxygen supply of the embryo. In freshly laid eggs the yolk sphere is located approximately in the center of the egg, but soon after the beginning of incubation it moves to the upper pole right beneath the eggshell. The cause for this displacement is not known. To quantify the forces acting on the yolk sphere of chicken eggs during incubation, we measured the densities of albumen, yolk and subembryonic fluid and the viscosity of the liquid albumen. We found that between day 0 and day 4 of incubation the calculated buoyancy due to density differences between the egg components increases only threefold. This is probably too small to overcome the yield stress of the gel-like thick albumen that forms a capsule around the yolk sphere. A different process responsible for the yolk displacement is proposed. Under reduced gravity, the movements of the yolk are influenced substantially by the fluid properties of the thin albumen, especially yield stress. Furthermore, acceleration peaks present in a space laboratory will probably displace the yolk sphere away from the eggshell. This is strong evidence that an early chick embryo will not be able to survive in a space laboratory in ovo.
Received: 21 October 1989; Accepted: 6 December 1989

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1002/jez.1402550104  About DOI

 

...hence the statement that gravity drives circulation. In the case of the heart, let us remember that the heart is not formed first in a developing chick embryo. Circulation is in place before the heart forms. This is called primary circulation. A pulse is observed in simple tubular vessels long before the heart is developed. What then is driving this pulsatile circulation? Clearly it is not the heart!

I'm tired of reading that argument. As far as I can determine from my online search, embryonic blood circulation begins with the contractions of the primitive heart. Where is the evidence that gravity, not the developing heart, is responsible for pulsatile blood circulation in early embryos? Gravity probably does affect circulation, but the key word is "circulate", for which a pump is required. You only need common sense and a basic understanding of physics to see that.

Quote
The early embryonic vascular system permits circulation through a series of incompletely fused and developing channels. Before the heart is fully formed, the flow of circulation is diffuse rather than strongly unidirectional as it is in the atrial and venous systems of later fetal development. Movement of blood through the early embryonic vascular system begins as soon as the primitive heart tubes form and fuse. Contractions of the primitive heart begin early in development, as early as the initial fusion of the endothelial channels that fuse to form the heart.
http://www.bookrags.com/research/vascular-system-embryonic-developme-wap/

Quote
The embryonic vertebrate heart begins pumping blood long before the development of discernable chambers and valves. At these early stages, the heart tube has been described as a peristaltic pump.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/312/5774/751


Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: lyner on 12/01/2009 10:54:01
You've been going on about 'gravity driving the circulation' for ages now. Gravity is not a source of energy. Once something has fallen down you need energy from somewhere else to make it go up again. If you use falling salt to cause circulation then you have to get the salt back up again in order to sustain the circulation. This needs energy from somewhere else. In all your experiments YOU lifted the salt up high to provide the energy.

As far as the heart is concerned - surely you know that the blood vessels (arteries) contribute to the circulation by contracting as well as the heart muscles. Primitive systems have little more than a length of muscular pipe to provide circulation.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 12/01/2009 11:00:28
BC,
Good that you mentioned sitting posture as a contributing factor. Bad sitting posture causes haemorrhoids. These are painful swollen veins. This affects most people who are confined to wheelchairs, particularly those with spinal cord injuries. The loner you sit, the greater restriction is placed on the veins and the more likely they are to inflate. That arterial pressure has to go somewhere. I suspect if you spent far too long watching tv without changing your posture as would be the case if you had paralysis, you would experience swollen veins.

If you were to modify your posture while watching tv so that your knees were at all times lower than your bottom, there would indeed be less chance of developing swollen veins. But more to the point, if you have swollen veins, then simple modifications to your posture are all that is required to rectify the problem, as shown clearly in the photographs provided by Alun.

The relief from oedema and varicose veins provided by tilting the bed head down or indeed elevating your legs is temporary, in that it shifts fluid from the affect part of the body back towards the upper part of the body, it does not draw the fluids from the surrounding tissue back into the venous return as IBT does, but offers a simple mechanical way to cause the fluid to migrate back into the body from the elevated limbs. The problem with this is that when we stand up again the fluid rapidly returns back to the lower extremities. The veins do not recover using a bed tilted this way, hence the 5-6  hundred million pounds a year spent on operations which are destined to fail miserably because operating on veins does not address the cause of the pressure that inflated them in the first place.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 12/01/2009 11:04:34
WRONG! The conduits are filled with fluids, so no need to lift the salt up because it is already circulating in the body and in the tree for that matter. To cause a gravity flow and return circulation all that is required is for evaporation from the fluids laden with salts and sugars to take place. The lungs, skin, hair, eyes, respiratory tract all evaporate water. So do the leaves of a tree. So we alter the density at the top, this causes it to fall due to the direction of gravity, this causes the more dilute fluids to circulate and tension is applied to the content of the gut or indeed the roots of a tree to pull more water and solutes back in to replace the fluids lost by evaporation and urination in the case of the body.

I lifted the experiments up high to provide a visual display of what is undoubtedly taking place inside the body and inside the tree. Evaporation is the key consideration. To ignore the fact that evaporation will always result in a change in density is insanity! A leaf cannot evaporate solute free water from a fluid that contains solutes without concentrating the solutes. This is totally and utterly impossible!


You've been going on about 'gravity driving the circulation' for ages now. Gravity is not a source of energy. Once something has fallen down you need energy from somewhere else to make it go up again. If you use falling salt to cause circulation then you have to get the salt back up again in order to sustain the circulation. This needs energy from somewhere else. In all your experiments YOU lifted the salt up high to provide the energy.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: BenV on 12/01/2009 11:37:08
Quote
A pulse is observed in simple tubular vessels long before the heart is developed. What then is driving this pulsatile circulation? Clearly it is not the heart!
But a gravity driven circulation system would have no pulse.

Quote
The lungs, skin, hair, eyes, respiratory tract all evaporate water. So do the leaves of a tree. So we alter the density at the top, this causes it to fall due to the direction of gravity, this causes the more dilute fluids to circulate and tension is applied to the content of the gut or indeed the roots of a tree to pull more water and solutes back in to replace the fluids lost by evaporation and urination in the case of the body.
But the vascular system in a tree is not a closed loop.  Also, the kidneys and small intestine alter blood density far more than the lungs, so wouldn't this imply that we would have circulation only as far as the kidneys?

And another point - the circulation in an adult with varicose veins is hardly comparable to that of a developing chick foetus - you cannot escape the fact that there is a bloodly great pump in the system.  Have you ever compared the rate of solute flow downwards with gravity against the rate of flow in any direction from the heart?  I haven't, so would be interested to hear how it works out - I suspect the heart vastly overpowers gravity.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: lyner on 12/01/2009 11:59:46
Quote
The lungs, skin, hair, eyes, respiratory tract all evaporate water.
So if you stood on your head, it would work the other way round?

Why do we bother to have a heart if we could just use your system? How much energy does your evaporation system generate? Have you done the sums? How much energy is needed to drive the blood around the  system? Does your proposed mechanism produce enough? Without some numerical evidence, your proposed idea is just not Science. (I think I've mentioned this to you before)
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: JnA on 12/01/2009 13:14:22
What surprises me most is the simple fact that VV are caused by a breakdown of the very structures inside our veins that fight gravity.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 12/01/2009 16:40:25
Not at all Ben,
Each breath we take releases a pulse of salts down the main artery.

Renal filtration is altered in relation to gravity. Head down tilt produces urine with near water density. You can test this, I have mentioned it before. IBT provides us with much denser urine output than flat bed rest and head down bedrest.

The heart rate decreases by 10-12 beats per minute on IBT. Yet circulation is improved. So if the heart beats less and circulation increases how do you account for that?

The late Professor Hammel wrote several papers on this subject. A paper on how solutes alter pressures inside vessels. A discussion with him by phone revealed he had already observed pulses of solutes arriving at the kidneys.

Am J Physiol. 1995 May;268
Roles of colloidal molecules in Starling's hypothesis and in returning interstitial fluid to the vasa recta.
Hammel HT.
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Indiana University, Bloomington 47405, USA.
To begin to understand the role of colloidal molecules, a simple question requires an answer: How do the solutes alter water in an aqueous solution? Hulett's answer deserves attention, namely, the water in the solution at temperature and external pressure applied to solution (T,pe1) is altered in the same way that pure water is altered by reducing the pressure applied to it by the osmotic pressure of the water at a free surface of the solution. It is nonsense to relate the lower chemical potential of water in a solution to a lower fugacity or to a lower activity of the water in the solution, since these terms have no physical meaning. It is also incorrect to attribute the lower chemical potential of the water to a lower concentration of water in the solution. Both claims are derived from the teachings of G. N. Lewis and are erroneous. Textbook accounts of the flux of fluid to and from capillaries in the kidney and other tissues are inadequate, if not in error, as they are based on these bogus claims. An understanding of the process by which colloidal proteins in plasma affect the flux of nearly protein-free fluid across the capillary endothelium must start with insights derived from the teachings of G. Hulett and H. Dixon. The main points are 1) colloidal molecules can exert a pressure against a membrane that reflects them and, thereby, displace a distensible membrane; 2) they can alter the internal tension of the fluid through which they diffuse when there is a concentration gradient of the molecules; and 3) only by these means can they influence the flux of plasma fluid across the capillary endothelium. However, the process is complex, since both the hydrostatic pressure and protein concentrations of fluids inside and outside the capillary vary with both position and time as plasma flows through the capillary.


Quote
A pulse is observed in simple tubular vessels long before the heart is developed. What then is driving this pulsatile circulation? Clearly it is not the heart!
But a gravity driven circulation system would have no pulse.

Quote
The lungs, skin, hair, eyes, respiratory tract all evaporate water. So do the leaves of a tree. So we alter the density at the top, this causes it to fall due to the direction of gravity, this causes the more dilute fluids to circulate and tension is applied to the content of the gut or indeed the roots of a tree to pull more water and solutes back in to replace the fluids lost by evaporation and urination in the case of the body.
But the vascular system in a tree is not a closed loop.  Also, the kidneys and small intestine alter blood density far more than the lungs, so wouldn't this imply that we would have circulation only as far as the kidneys?

And another point - the circulation in an adult with varicose veins is hardly comparable to that of a developing chick foetus - you cannot escape the fact that there is a bloodly great pump in the system.  Have you ever compared the rate of solute flow downwards with gravity against the rate of flow in any direction from the heart?  I haven't, so would be interested to hear how it works out - I suspect the heart vastly overpowers gravity.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 12/01/2009 16:46:13
My science produces results not equations!
I point again with a finger toards Aluns photographs. 6 months of IBT and nice flat former varicose veins speak louder than a billion sums. May I also remind you of the curent banking crisis. Here the maths all made perfect sense to those who lacked common sense.

Quote
The lungs, skin, hair, eyes, respiratory tract all evaporate water.
So if you stood on your head, it would work the other way round?

Why do we bother to have a heart if we could just use your system? How much energy does your evaporation system generate? Have you done the sums? How much energy is needed to drive the blood around the  system? Does your proposed mechanism produce enough? Without some numerical evidence, your proposed idea is just not Science. (I think I've mentioned this to you before)
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 12/01/2009 16:50:19
JnA good point about the valves and structures of the veins. The photographs Alun has provided us with show that damaged valves could not have been the cause of the pressure that produced varicose veins. He should have had surgery, but fortunately decided to give IBT a chance.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi209.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fbb31%2FAndrew_K_Fletcher%2FVaricose%2520veins%2Fall-in-one-2week-vein-photos2.jpg&hash=db7aa6f428b097f44744d8ab78bbaebe)

What surprises me most is the simple fact that VV are caused by a breakdown of the very structures inside our veins that fight gravity.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: lyner on 12/01/2009 17:12:50
Akf:
Your 'Science' doesn't produce results. Some of the things you do have been associated with good effects on a few sufferers. What you have achieved may have been contributary towards benefits. That can only be good and very well done.
However, your explations for some of these phenomena are not justified by the results you quote. There is no connection.
If you think that 'equations', somehow, just don't apply to Science where you are concerned then you are clearly wrong.
Stick to recounting your successes but try to avoid indulging yourself with fanciful explanations. If your explanations were accurate then most of proven technology would not work.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: lyner on 12/01/2009 17:38:54
AKF
Quote
The heart rate decreases by 10-12 beats per minute on IBT. Yet circulation is improved. So if the heart beats less and circulation increases how do you account for that?

You would expect the heart rate to decrease when you are not standing. There is less work for it to do. The blood pressure at the interfaces in the kidneys will also be affected by the attitude of the body. How do either of these facts justify your new model of the body?

Did your friendly Proff tell you that the 'pulses of solutes' he detected at the kidneys were, in any way, related to breathing rate? I hate to ask this but have you actually calculated (???) the change in density of the blood as it goes through the lungs due to evaporation? Surely the actual amount would be highly relevant to whether or not you were right in your theory. Perhaps that would be a bit too like hard fact for your liking.
Needless to say, the effect on circulation to the head would be in the opposite direction as the heart would need to be pumping more dense blood upwards. Did you not think it through?
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 12/01/2009 17:44:49
Sophie. First of all thank you for the praise. I have taken a screen shot just in case I have been dreaming it.

Give me the benefit of the doubt here.

1.Why on earth would I want to tilt a bed head up by 5 degrees unless I had a sound reason to do so?
2. Why would varicose veins shrink after only 4 weeks of titled bed rest if there is no connection with the inclined bed therapy logic?
3. Why on earth would anyone give up 15 years of their life to investigate the effects of tilting a bed on many medical conditions and then face hostility and ignorance from those who should be concerned about helping people with these conditions?

Contributing towards the effects is hardly going to explain why this is working with those that decide to try it is it?

I fail to see how maths can help to convince a person to tilt their bed by five degrees to the horizontal and watch their varicose veins deflate and eventually return to normal looking veins. Perhaps I may be missing a point here?

Believe it or not. This all began trying to understand how trees lift water and realising evaporation was providing a mechanism for altering the density of dissolved solutes in sap at the leaf.

Tilting the bed in the first place was just to see if anything would change if my wife and I avoided sleeping flat in favour of a gentle head up tilt. We too believed there might be some oedema problems but decided to give it a whirl and see.

After a mere 4 weeks of trying to analyse what if anything was happening to us. And we were convinced of improvements in energy, body temperature, sleep etc etc, A conversation with a nurse called Stephanie Ness about whether it would work for people with varicose veins made us realise that Jude’s VV had stopped aching and no longer bulged after a mere 4 weeks of IBT. This was also mirrored by the Nurse who reported her own VV had gone flat in the same period. Now this could have been a double coincidence, so Mum decided to tilt her bed and noticed her veins also greatly improved. And since then many more people have reported huge improvements in varicose veins. But no amount of me telling it how it is will convince anyone. The proof of the pudding is always in the eating. And some nice photographs go a long way and speak louder than any statistical analysis.

So here we are. A 4 week challenge to anyone who has varicose veins and / or oedema to see if IBT will produce predictable reliable results and cause the conditions to become normal and healthy.

Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 12/01/2009 18:04:07
This is where it becomes truly fascinating. The heart rates were measured in 3 sleeping English bull terriers, 2 lads and a very tolerant wife while sleeping on an inclined bed and on a flat bed. The difference of 10-12 beats per minute was the same in all cases and later my own heart rate was tested and also shared the same reduction.

Respiration also changed by 3-5 breaths per minute reduction in all cases.

But circulation improves on the inclined bed. I.E People with cold hands and cold feet in bed find they are warm and do not stay cold as before. Also body temperature appears to be warmer too. This was tested against literature stats using same mouth temperature and we found that unlike flat bed rest the body temperature does not dip by 2-3 degrees at around 4am as it does with flat bedrest.

Any change in density will suffice to trigger this flow and return circulation. The point is where it takes place rather than by how much it takes place. This is difficult to address as relative environmental humidity, body temperature, air temperature vary so much. High humidity according to this theory would place a huge burden on the circulation, causing lethargy and in extreme cases circulatory collapse in all systems, including the nervous system and lymphatic system.

But this is what drives me on. Surely anyone here who is involved with science and has access to a hospital or university would be compelled to put IBT to the test?

Even if it is tested in the comfort of your own home, perhaps you would come back and tell us what changes you find. Remember my wife and I had no medical problems when we tilted our bed other than a varicose vein on my wife’s leg that ached of course.  So there’s nothing stopping anyone from coming back and adding their own experiences is there?
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: lyner on 12/01/2009 18:11:24
Your post, whilst interesting, does not advance the argument at all.

Comparison between Heart Output Power and 'Falling Salts Output Power':
 
A typical value for the power developed by the heart is around 1W, based on flow rate and pressure difference (neither quantities in much doubt, I suspect). The With about 0.1kg of blood flowing through the lungs per second and, assuming (generously) that the change in density by evaporation is 0.1%, this would mean that every second you would effectively get 10E-4kg of 'falling mass' of blood, falling by say 1m (on average to your lower body) per second. This corresponds to a 'power source' of 10E-3W.
Which power source is most likely to be the significant one?

The fact is, Andrew, that I have not (for a long while) objected to your reported observations. What does not make sense, are you explanations, most of which don't 'add up'.
For millennia, people have been making things happen in Medicine, Chemistry , technology and other fields. They have made things work despite not knowing why they worked. You can be pretty sure that Sir Isaac would have come to terms with relativity, (after a bit of grumbling, no doubt) because the sums fit reality better than his. Why can't you be the same as he would be?

It seems to me that an excellent explanation for your inclined bed success is that it subjects the veins to a small enough pressure to keep them the right shape and give them a chance to heal up in that shape.
Allowing them to collapse whist laying flat would not achieve that and keeping them under high pressure, standing up would just do further damage. It constitutes a mild bit of 'physio' for the vein walls.
There's a nice 'mechanical' explanation which doesn't fly in the face of any fundamental Science. You have to admit, it's a contender.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: rosy on 12/01/2009 18:18:29
Quote
I fail to see how maths can help to convince a person to tilt their bed by five degrees to the horizontal and watch their varicose veins deflate and eventually return to normal looking veins. Perhaps I may be missing a point here?
Yup. Missing a point would be about right.
The calculations, based on the movements of more and less dense fluids up and down that you believe to be occuring, their changes in kinetic and gravitational potential energy, and how this compares to the required transport of sugars, oxygen, etc to all parts of the body (including the head...), would if you could show that they were consistent with reality, mean that you looked a bit less like a total crank. As I've said before on several occasions, it appears that something in what you're doing might be working in the cases you cite (although of course I don't know enough about any of the conditions you're attempting to treat to comment on the probabilities of random spontaneous remission). If you are indeed correct, you are doing people with these unpleasant and in some cases life threatening conditions a considerable disservice by persisting in espousing what all the trained scientists on this board (who are probably a reasonable test sample for scientists and medics in general) consider to be an utterly implausible theory in direct opposition to know medical data to date. The disbelief (and indeed derision) with which your theories are met may not bother you but it stands between a wider public and the application of your treatment.
An apposite quote might be one I heard recently in another context:
“It is not enough to wear the mantle of Galileo: that you be persecuted by an unkind establishment. You must also be right.” — Robert L. Park
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Bored chemist on 12/01/2009 18:51:13
AKF, you seem to have missed my point, if I had said "eating oranges" instead of " watching TV" the essence of my post would have been the same.
Just because one state of affairs doesn't stop varicose veins does not mean that a different state will.
Incidentally, if gravity drove the circulation you would die if you went swimming. In water the bouyancy essentially removes gravit's effect.
Your circulation would vary wildly as you stood up or lay down. In the real wortld postural hypotension is viewed as an unusual condition- worthy of treatment.
God help you if you were upside down (and I think that, even if we don't do it now, we all did this as children.


The single clearest evidence that the heart provides circulation rather than some strange effect of gravity is

 when your heart stops you die.
End of story.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 12/01/2009 21:11:36
As I mentioned previously, photographs are not a reliable method of evaluating any changes in texture...

 [ Invalid Attachment ]


Here I have digitally adjusted the contrast, but contrast can be varied by the way the subject is lit,
e.g. type and position of light source, time of day and weather if naturally lit, type of film /camera,
a nearby white wall acting as a reflector (will reduce contrast).
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: BenV on 12/01/2009 21:36:32
Andrew, I feel i need to point out again that I'm not saying that you haven't seen results, and I'm not saying anything against the idea of testing IBT.  I'm questioning your interpretation.

You've now confused me about chicks - Do chicks breathe inside an egg?  If not, your arguements don't add up.

Quote
The heart rate decreases by 10-12 beats per minute on IBT. Yet circulation is improved.
What do you mean by improved?  There's nothing out of place unless you mean the rate of blood flow is increased.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: JnA on 12/01/2009 23:33:42
JnA good point about the valves and structures of the veins. The photographs Alun has provided us with show that damaged valves could not have been the cause of the pressure that produced varicose veins. He should have had surgery, but fortunately decided to give IBT a chance.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi209.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fbb31%2FAndrew_K_Fletcher%2FVaricose%2520veins%2Fall-in-one-2week-vein-photos2.jpg&hash=db7aa6f428b097f44744d8ab78bbaebe)

What surprises me most is the simple fact that VV are caused by a breakdown of the very structures inside our veins that fight gravity.

have to say that the pics don't convince me.
And if VV aren't caused by the valves not working/meeting properly then maybe I need to go back to basic medicine.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 13/01/2009 09:59:00
2 pictures, showing Male 33 yrs Varicose vein on calf muscle prior to tilting bed to a five degree to the horizontal head up tilt.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi209.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fbb31%2FAndrew_K_Fletcher%2FVaricose%2520veins%2Fvains-12th-june-2008-calf.jpg&hash=83a3bdc9129cba6ac52832f30d70de79)

(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi209.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fbb31%2FAndrew_K_Fletcher%2FVaricose%2520veins%2Fvains-12th-june-2008-4-calf.jpg&hash=2fc164e0b053601eefc8ab28b1b74d88)
3 pictures showing same male 34 yrs normal size vein on calf muscle with some evidence of stretch bruising from previous varicose vein after 6 months of Inclined Bed Therapy.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi209.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fbb31%2FAndrew_K_Fletcher%2FVaricose%2520veins%2F17th-dec-calf2.jpg&hash=d9bc029109c663cb9cea230be4ca23c4)

(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi209.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fbb31%2FAndrew_K_Fletcher%2FVaricose%2520veins%2Ftop-calf-dec-3.jpg&hash=f59e0b8504388517e4b7aa4b7a89cd79)

(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi209.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fbb31%2FAndrew_K_Fletcher%2FVaricose%2520veins%2Ftop-calf-dec.jpg&hash=9f51db0b0a157ebfc896285ade1b56b0)
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 13/01/2009 10:09:12
3 pictures taken in morning during Inclined Bed Therapy and before sitting or standing, showing male 34 yrs inner thigh and Calf varicose veins with reduced pressure inside the vein alowing them to become normal in appearance. The reduced internal pressure afforded by IBT will allow the vein to become normal and resistant to internal pressure during the day. A support / compression leg stocking was used routinely under the advice of his consultant as a temporary measure prior to varicose vein surgery. Fortunately this male is unlikely to need surgery in the future and enjoys wearing shorts instead of a support stocking on the beach with his family.

(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi209.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fbb31%2FAndrew_K_Fletcher%2FVaricose%2520veins%2Fon-ibt-oct-pic-11.jpg&hash=a5598966c1b14dfb534e140a32df21e2)

(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi209.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fbb31%2FAndrew_K_Fletcher%2FVaricose%2520veins%2Fon-ibt-oct-pic-2.jpg&hash=20d7cd668a5458d9a7b0a1782e3de311)

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Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 13/01/2009 10:37:05
BC swimming does not remove the effects of gravity. Buoyancy is not avoiding gravity any more than freefalling from an aircraft is. Solutes will move freely inside the body and they are in effect swimming in fluids. If this were the case then my experiments would not work either as the dissolved solutes within are in fact swimming in water, yet gravity does not appear to be comprimised.

Postural Orthostatic hypotension is more commonly felt when standing from laying horizontal. When horizontal, the renal function is not performing as well as it should be and salts are stored in the body rather than in the bladder (incidentally this has been proven using a simple hydrometer) IBT on the other hand allows kidney function to remove more salts and produce denser urine in the bladder. On standing after IBT there is little to no evidence of orthostatic hypotension. Research into spinal cord injury and IBT revealed this to be the case in people with complete and incomplete spinal cord injuries. Even in cases where a person would normally black out on trying to use a standing frame, the effects of hypotension were not felt following IBT. However, prolong sitting in a wheelchair did produce hypotension on standing in a frame.

AKF, you seem to have missed my point, if I had said "eating oranges" instead of " watching TV" the essence of my post would have been the same.
Just because one state of affairs doesn't stop varicose veins does not mean that a different state will.
Incidentally, if gravity drove the circulation you would die if you went swimming. In water the bouyancy essentially removes gravit's effect.
Your circulation would vary wildly as you stood up or lay down. In the real wortld postural hypotension is viewed as an unusual condition- worthy of treatment.
God help you if you were upside down (and I think that, even if we don't do it now, we all did this as children.


The single clearest evidence that the heart provides circulation rather than some strange effect of gravity is

 when your heart stops you die.
End of story.

Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 13/01/2009 11:26:42
Photos do not reliably show texture, but they do show discolouration well ...
 [ Invalid Attachment ]

Note the romboid and kite-shaped purple/red macular lesions (and petechiae) : hallmarks of small-vessel vasculitis.

Your IBT guinea-pig appears to have vasculitis: this vasculopathic condition could explain varicose veins in a 33yr old.

If his varicose veins have actually improved a spontaneous remission in the vasculitis could cause that improvement.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 13/01/2009 12:14:20
So RD. We ask Alun if he will tilt his bed to see if his veins go flat, at the same time Old Dragon and Old Biker provide us with their own positive experiences using IBT to reduce their varicose veins and oedema, and let's not forget Karen's own observations with blood pressure changes and oedema reduction, and when they provide us with photographs showing the varicose veins and oedema has responded as predicted it would do. Let us not forget that Alun the 34 year male has had varicose veins since he was first diagnosed at 19 yrs. And we get a spontaneous remission, by which I take it you mean if he had continued to sleep flat it would have happened any how? Sorry RD, I nearly broke a rib laughing at that one.

Don't you just love that old get out clause called spontaneous remission. It has been used diligently since 1994 to avoid accepting what is blatantly an obvious improvement in a varicose vein. And yes, it is indeed a spontaneous remission caused by Inclined Bed Therapy!


Photos do not reliably show texture, but they do show discolouration well ...


Note the rhomboid and kite-shaped purple/red macular lesions (and petechiae) : hallmarks of small-vessel vasculitis.

Your IBT guinea-pig appears to have vasculitis: this vasculopathic condition could explain varicose veins in a 33yr old.

If his varicose veins have actually improved a spontaneous remission in the vasculitis could cause that improvement.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 13/01/2009 12:31:05
Whether or not IBT improves varicose veins, Alun has varicose veins and apparently he also has vasculitis, (which could explain why he has has varicose veins from a young age). If Alun is not aware that apparently has vasculitis then perhaps you should mention this possibility to him as it is potentially a serious, but treatable, condition.

Just spotted another red romboid lesion on Alun's calf ...

 [ Invalid Attachment ]
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 13/01/2009 13:17:48
Your colour enhancement of the picture of Alun's calf should reflect the same un-enhanced picture you have placed by the side of it. Hardly a comparison. I suspect if you did the same to a photograph of your own leg, we may also see odd marks. It is no surprise that there may be an underlying cause. But I doubt that cause is vasculitis. I have mentioned your concerns to Alun as you suggested.

By the way, a quick google in images for vasculitis reveals vasculitis is a red inflamation of the veins, my father had this problem along with leg ulcers, varicose veins and oedema. Dad was a window cleaner for too many years and the constant pressure from the ladder on his feet did a lot of damage.

Whether or not IBT improves varicose veins, Alun has varicose veins and apparently he also has vasculitis, (which could explain why he has has varicose veins from a young age). If Alun is not aware that apparently has vasculitis then perhaps you should mention this possibility to him as it is potentially a serious, but treatable, condition.

Just spotted another red rhomboid lesion on Alun's calf ...


Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 13/01/2009 15:17:04
2 photographs of Alun's leg taken today using same camera and lighting as previous photographs, showing no obvious signs of vasculitis or indeed varicose veins. This is following 6 months of Inclined Bed Therapy.

(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi209.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fbb31%2FAndrew_K_Fletcher%2FVaricose%2520veins%2Fjan13-2008-2.jpg&hash=25de706580ca7af5e21f9cf270fb12d1)

(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi209.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fbb31%2FAndrew_K_Fletcher%2FVaricose%2520veins%2Fjan13-2008.jpg&hash=aa8ae5499ac657281928b8a64d934bd8)
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: BenV on 13/01/2009 15:30:14
There's no need to post all of this in two threads, please delete the above post, as it's available here:  http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=9843.150;topicseen
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 13/01/2009 19:46:16
The link above is following Alun's progress. These photographs were taken today and offer evidence for the study.

The same photographs show readers of this thread that Alun's leg does not resemble the enhanced colours of RD's edited version of Alun's picture. It also shows that Alun does not appear to have a problem with vasculitis. He did however recently have ringworm on the same calf area. Perhaps this is what the enhanced pictures are showing?

Sorry if you feel this to be an inappropriate post, if this explanation does not suffice let me know and I will ask Alun to provide us with some more photographs that show clearly his huge improvements in varicose veins.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: BenV on 13/01/2009 20:03:36
The problem is not the photographs, but that there are now two threads devoted to the same thing.  This isn't your fault, (the original topic was 'why not study...', but it's become a different conversation) but there's no point running the two threads.  I think we should either delete the pictures from this thread, or merge the two.  What would you prefer?
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 13/01/2009 20:15:12
It also shows that Alun does not appear to have a problem with vasculitis.

Says the chap who had to google vasculitis a few hours ago.

Alun still has romboid & kite markings (& petechiae) ...

 [ Invalid Attachment ]


He did however recently have ringworm on the same calf area.

  Vasculitis can also create ring, ellipse, disc, petal and helical lesions as well as romboid and kite.
    Ringworm would not produce romboid or kite markings: they are the hallmarks of small-vessel vasculopathy.

     Vasculitis can be relapsing-remitting.  The number of petechiae (red spots) indicate disease activity.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 13/01/2009 20:36:55
I did google vasculitis images. Anything wrong with using google? I did so because the picture you were showing of Alun's leg does not look like the typical red marks that my father exhibited along with eczema, leg ulcer etc.

The marks you have now circled are typical of varicose veins shrinking using IBT. My wife and may others have observed this bruising / darkening of the skin. Now I can see clearly what you are referring to and it is obvious Alun does not exhibit any markers for vasculitis. He did have ringworm in the same area but this is the result of stretched skin returning to it’s pre stretched state.

We can argue about your informed inspection and analysis of the picture so why not comment on why you are ignoring the obvious reduction in the varicose vein and my reason for starting the thread to show just how skilful at ignoring sound reproducible results the medical profession is.

Ben,

I can't help thinking about the real reasons for hiding this thread, perhaps I may be paranoid, who knows. If we openly debate this subject are we not more likely to progress to someone repeating the results even if a “proper controlled study” is skilfully avoided for another 15 years or more.

We have a great opportunity to help people who suffer with often horrific skin conditions including vasculitis, eczema, psoriasis, oedema, ulcer, gangrene, and loss of limb and life.

Surely it is worth a little embarrassment and a touch of repetition if it eventually leads on to saving life and limb?
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 13/01/2009 21:33:40
The marks you have now circled are typical of varicose veins shrinking using IBT.

If the markings you have observed are romboid or kite-shaped then the person has small-vessel vasculopathy, (vasculitis or pseudovasculitis).  Such markings are pathognomic for small-vessel vasculopathy.

Whether or not you have cured people of varicose veins, (I do not believe so), Alun and any other of your volunteers who have romboid or kite-shaped red/purple markings have vasculitis. If they have many little red spots (petechiae) the vasculitis is active, the greater the number of spots the more active the disease flare.

If you are now claiming IBT has cured vasculitis, an illness you are unfamiliar with (hence your recent google search), then why does Alun presently have a dozen red spots (petechiae) on half of his calf ?

Here is a link to the source of the vasculitis leg image I have used above
http://www.dermnetnz.org/vascular/img/vasculitis/index.html
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: BenV on 14/01/2009 08:49:57
Quote
I can't help thinking about the real reasons for hiding this thread, perhaps I may be paranoid, who knows. If we openly debate this subject are we not more likely to progress to someone repeating the results even if a “proper controlled study” is skilfully avoided for another 15 years or more.

Yes, you are paranoid.  Nothing I would have done would have 'hidden' this thread, it would have still been here, but not duplicated the content of the other thread in which you are collecting your photographic evidence.  We try not to allow any other discussion to be duplicated on two treads, so why would this one be special?

Why put proper controlled study in quotation marks?  And who do you think is "skillfully" avoiding testing this?  There's no-one out to get you, or intentionally to block you with malice.


Edit - I've just thought of another angle you could follow.  It looks like people have been using inclined beds for the last 20 years or so to help with acid reflux.  It could be interesting and might give you some indicative data if these people have a different incidence of certain health problems than the population as a whole.  There's the chief issue that they all have an illness in common (acid reflux) but it looks as if there may be 20 years worth of data if you can find the people.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 14/01/2009 10:21:01
I have not said anywhere that IBT has cured vasculitis. Show me where it was stated please?

RD, does this stand for research and development? Are you involved in trials and do you have a professional interest in varicose veins?

Alun like myself and possibly 2 thirds of the population get some spots. I’ve got a few on my back side does this mean I too have vasculitis?

http://www.london-vein-institute.com/treatments/microsclerotherapy.htm bruising and discolouring is more likely to be what you have seen.

The thing is it is irrelevant whether or not you or anyone one believes that IBT can cause varicose veins to go flat without surgery. It is a fact and fully repeatable. The problem is moving you guys forward to help put a study together and confirm it one way or another. This is good science!

Here we have a golden opportunity to improve the health and lives of millions of people. Surely setting up a simple study involving the medical profession is the right and decent way to go with this?

Yet sadly and despite countless empty words and broken promises, charities and organisations including the Multiple Sclerosis Society, The Multiple Sclerosis Resource Centre, The Foundation for Sudden Infant Deaths, The Parkinson’s Disease Society, The Royal National Institute for the Blind, The International Spinal Cord Injury Association, The Royal College Of Medicine, The Lancet, The New Scientist, Nature, Countless Universities, Countless Individuals, The Government, The NHS, NICE, US National Spinal Cord Injury Society, Royal College of Surgeons, The Royal Society, Bupa, Help the Aged, Age Concern, Exeter University, Deriford Hospital, Bristol University, Papworth, Salisbury Spinal Unit, Torbay Hospital, Stoke Mandeville Hospital's.

Hope this goes some way to helping you understand how skilful people are at avoiding such a beautiful simple free discovery that has great potential for helping mankind.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 14/01/2009 10:25:11
Ben

Sorry if I misunderstood your intentions. I have bad memories of a huge amount of information becoming frozen on the Carecure forum relating to spinal cord injuries, blocked not because the information was erroneous but because certain people on there began a flame war on the threads I tried to share the information about my research into gravity and it's effects on circulation.
I apologise for my paranoia and for doubting your intentions.


Quote
I can't help thinking about the real reasons for hiding this thread, perhaps I may be paranoid, who knows. If we openly debate this subject are we not more likely to progress to someone repeating the results even if a “proper controlled study” is skilfully avoided for another 15 years or more.

Yes, you are paranoid.  Nothing I would have done would have 'hidden' this thread, it would have still been here, but not duplicated the content of the other thread in which you are collecting your photographic evidence.  We try not to allow any other discussion to be duplicated on two treads, so why would this one be special?

Why put proper controlled study in quotation marks?  And who do you think is "skillfully" avoiding testing this?  There's no-one out to get you, or intentionally to block you with malice.


Edit - I've just thought of another angle you could follow.  It looks like people have been using inclined beds for the last 20 years or so to help with acid reflux.  It could be interesting and might give you some indicative data if these people have a different incidence of certain health problems than the population as a whole.  There's the chief issue that they all have an illness in common (acid reflux) but it looks as if there may be 20 years worth of data if you can find the people.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: BenV on 14/01/2009 10:57:29
Ben

Sorry if I misunderstood your intentions. I have bad memories of a huge amount of information becoming frozen on the Carecure forum relating to spinal cord injuries, blocked not because the information was erroneous but because certain people on there began a flame war on the threads I tried to share the information about my research into gravity and it's effects on circulation.
I apologise for my paranoia and for doubting your intentions.

That's okay Andrew, I understand your frustration.  I have nothing to gain from standing in your way, and merely wanted to keep the forum tidy.  I also have no influence on any of the institutions you listed, and so cannot help you.  I expect very few, if any, members of this forum are in a position to help, so please try not to vent your frustration on them.

Any thoughts on acid reflux - It may be worth you setting up an online survey (with no mention of the symptoms you're specifically looking at, and no mention of your hypotheses, and targeting it at people with acid reflux.  To give it the largest possible impact, you should read up on survey  design, in particular with reference to epidemiology, and reference at the bottom of the survey how it was designed.  This will show adherence to established methods.  You will also need to state in advance the statistical methods you will be using to analyse the data, and which, if any, existing databases you will be comparing to.  Again, I cannot stress how important it would be to not mention specifically what you are looking for, as this would bias the results.

Once you have a well designed survey, and a full definition of your analysis mechanism, put it online and contact as many forums, groups etc as possible, still not mentioning your intentions.  You may also find acid reflux researchers who could circulate the survey to their participants.

This will be a lot of work, and will require a great deal of research and many drafts of both your survey and analysis mechanisms, but if you can do this scientifically, you may find a greater level of acceptance from it.

You are convinced of the benefits of IBT, and the anecdotal evidence you have collected is great, but you need numbers to reinforce it.  You may find that the proportion of reflux sufferers sleeping on an incline that do have varicose veins to be the same as, or even higher than, the population as a whole, and you must be prepared to accept that evidence.  However, you may find significantly lower numbers of varicose vein sufferers, and this will greatly add to your cause.  This is the importance of setting out your statistical methods in advance, as it shows you will not be pushing the data to find the relationship that you already believe to be there.

You must be looking for the data to show that the null hypothesis (h0 - inclined sleepers are equally as likely to have varicose veins) is correct - if the null hypothesis is statistically unacceptable, then you have evidence for the alternative h1, that inclined sleepers have lower incidence of varicose veins.  If you set out to prove h1, rather than disprove h0, it will inevitably introduce a bias.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 14/01/2009 11:16:17
I have not said anywhere that IBT has cured vasculitis. Show me where it was stated please?

Your statment below seems to be a claim that your therapy works for vasculitis.

We have a great opportunity to help people who suffer with often horrific skin conditions including vasculitis, eczema, psoriasis, oedema, ulcer, gangrene, and loss of limb and life.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 14/01/2009 11:24:19
Does the statement say cure vasculitis?
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 14/01/2009 12:09:11
Ben

When people with acid reflux are advised to incline their beds, they do so by elevating the upper half of the bed, often to a more acute angle. This makes sense with regards to acid reflux but does not produce the same results as tilting the whole bed to a five degree angle. It is rare to find people who have tilted the bed correctly. Sleeping with just the upper half of the bed tilted is same as sitting, it compresses the spine and buttocks and compromises the circulation rather than assisting it. So finding the small group of people who have tilted their beds correctly is going to prove difficult.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: lyner on 14/01/2009 22:00:52
Does the statement say cure vasculitis?
Well, actually, in the same way as dodgy adverts say things, it does appear to be making a claim.
In any case, let's clear it up. Are you claiming it works or not? If you aren't claiming it works then why include it in your list of implied supporting evidence?
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 15/01/2009 02:17:12
. [ Invalid Attachment ]


                                     I now know Alun's calf like the back of my hand  [:)]
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 15/01/2009 09:33:01
Then you do not know Alun's calf at all. The calf is on Alun's leg not on the end of your arm.

When you look at the stars at night, ill bet you can make out familiar shapes by joining the dots?


                                     I now know Alun's calf like the back of my hand  [:)]
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 15/01/2009 09:35:22
My claim is and always will be that gravity is not a force we struggle to overcome but a driving force we benefit from, providing we are correctly aligned to it. Circulation problems have been observed to greatly improve using IBT. Varicose veins have been shown on this forum have been shown to improve. So why would vasculitis be any different? Leg ulcer has also been shown to heal using IBT. Scarletina rapidly resolved over one week in a young girl who was in considerable pain with legs swollen and skin very tight. She was told it would take several months to recover, yet did so in one week using Inclined Bed Therapy. Psoriasis also responds well.

But varicose veins and oedema provide us with a sound model for showing people just how effective IBT is.

You can go on arguing the toss, trying to nit pick little holes in my words. But you nor anyone else can deny what has been put before you thanks to Alun!

What about the impressive blood pressure changes Karen reported along with reports of rapidly vanishing long standing oedema problem, only to return when she placed her bed flat?

And then there’s Alison or Old Dragon as known on this forum. She also has reported huge improvements in her oedema using inclined bed therapy.

The sad thing really is here that all it would take is a simple controlled study to wipe the smug condescending smiles of your faces. And this is precisely the reason no medical controlled study has been forthcoming because anyone reading about this research would know the outcome of such a trial before it took place. Like I said skilfully avoided.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: lyner on 15/01/2009 11:20:00
It is largely you, Andrew, who avoid things.
Personally, I have no argument about the effectiveness or otherwise of your treatment. Your analysis of your results leaves something to be desired because of the small samples involved but you can obviously identify some benefits. I can see how you are disappointed with the reaction of 'the establishment' but I can't blame them for the following reasons.
The problem is that, having shown an effect, to your satisfaction, you insist on explaining the phenomenon in your own private terms.
You just do not have the qualifications to pick holes in established Science. You have demonstrated this by your inability to answer detailed objections with anything else than pique and gobledegook expressions.
What do you mean when you say that gravity is the 'driving force' behind what happens? Gravity is pulling everything down toward Earth. To get some 'work' out of it, you need something to fall - which uses up Potential Energy. Until you supply enough energy (a calculable amount), you can't carry on. Your nonsensical arm waving about evaporation supplying the energy doesn't explain anything - and nor does your reference to trees, for which you have no numerical argument either.
If you can't define your terms then you shouldn't use them. Do you still not appreciate the concepts of work and energy and what it implies in your arguments? Can you really dismiss it all and yet expect to be taken seriously?

Can you really insist that the  Maths and Physics, on which the rest of your life depends and which accurate predict the outcomes of so many Scientific Experiments, just don't work for your particular field?
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: BenV on 15/01/2009 11:27:16
My claim is and always will be that gravity is not a force we struggle to overcome but a driving force we benefit from, providing we are correctly aligned to it. Circulation problems have been observed to greatly improve using IBT. Varicose veins have been shown on this forum have been shown to improve. So why would vasculitis be any different? Leg ulcer has also been shown to heal using IBT. Scarletina rapidly resolved over one week in a young girl who was in considerable pain with legs swollen and skin very tight. She was told it would take several months to recover, yet did so in one week using Inclined Bed Therapy. Psoriasis also responds well.

But varicose veins and oedema provide us with a sound model for showing people just how effective IBT is.

You can go on arguing the toss, trying to nit pick little holes in my words. But you nor anyone else can deny what has been put before you thanks to Alun!

What about the impressive blood pressure changes Karen reported along with reports of rapidly vanishing long standing oedema problem, only to return when she placed her bed flat?

And then there’s Alison or Old Dragon as known on this forum. She also has reported huge improvements in her oedema using inclined bed therapy.

The sad thing really is here that all it would take is a simple controlled study to wipe the smug condescending smiles of your faces. And this is precisely the reason no medical controlled study has been forthcoming because anyone reading about this research would know the outcome of such a trial before it took place. Like I said skilfully avoided.


I think the issue is that you have said your therapy can "help people with... vasculitis" despite there being no evidence, not even the anecdotal evidence you have harvested for the other conditions.

As I said earlier, do not take your frustrations out on members of this forum.  Accusing people who are not convinced by your anecdotal evidence of being smug and condescending does nothing to help you.  It merely makes you sound arrogant.

You dismissed the Acid reflux idea too quickly.  These people: http://www.inclinebed.com/up-bed.htm sell bed inserts that incline the whole bed, to help acid reflux sufferers.  You should speak to them - they should have data that back up their claims, and so should be able to help you collect data that backs up yours.

Once more, no-one is "skilfully avoiding" researching this - you need better data before people will offer you the time and money it needs for a full study.  Getting annoyed about it on a forum helps no-one.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 15/01/2009 12:25:15
Ben, any circulation problem should respond well to IBT. Many have and Vasculitis should be no exception to this logic. My Father had horrendous skin conditions, including leg ulcers, varicose veins, oedema, psoriasis, and obvious inflammation of the capillary vessels. The inclined bed helped tremendously to heal his ulcers and greatly improve the varicose veins, oedema and skin conditions. Pancreatic cancer and liver cancer together with infections from the hospital caused his death.

The interesting thing here was we were told he had multiple organ failure, his kidneys had ceased to function, his legs were swollen to twice their normal size, ulcers had re opened and his skin was terrible. After a head on battle with doctors and nurses at Russell’s  Hall Hospital over him being kept on a flat bed, which incidentally put him in a coma, his bed was raised and his kidneys started to function, his urine became clear instead of the brown tar like urine produced just a few hours earlier. He regained consciousness, the oedema on his legs went away faster than it occurred. All witnessed by doctors and nurses, yet when I turned my back they put his bed down again inflicting the same rapid degeneration we say previously. Time and time again I fought at his bedside to keep these insane people from interfering with his bed.

Eventually I had to allow my father to pass because his conditions had deteriorated so badly through the stupidity of nurses and doctors, one of whom had shouted in a room full of patients with cancer “You do realise your father is dying of cancer don’t you” Dad heard every word so did everyone on the same ward.

When I say IBT can help, I really do mean it can help, and base this claim on many previous case histories with a range of illnesses and injuries.

Varicose veins is the least complicated condition that can be shown to respond. This is the reason we need a simple study. The company that manufactures the wedge is known to me. They have piggybacked their product on the existing research from the medical profession and do not require data to back up their claims.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 15/01/2009 12:41:43
When you look at the stars at night, ill bet you can make out familiar shapes by joining the dots?

This type of repeating pattern is not confabulation.
Cutaneous neurology is in part a mesh of linear nerves*, these define the romboid and kite shapes ...

 [ Invalid Attachment ]


These lines are visible in those with small-vessel vasculopathy because there is a high concentration of small blood vessels intimate to the nerves (the epineurial blood vessels). In short if you can see pale (ischemic) linear lines forming this type of retiform pattern the person has small-vessel vasculopathy, probably vasculitis. 

[* cutaneous neurology is otherwise looping and helical. Some of the linear nerves are actually a twisted pair: like a DNA double helix]
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: BenV on 15/01/2009 12:57:57
Ben, any circulation problem should respond well to IBT. Many have and Vasculitis should be no exception to this logic.

...

When I say IBT can help, I really do mean it can help, and base this claim on many previous case histories with a range of illnesses and injuries.

Varicose veins is the least complicated condition that can be shown to respond. This is the reason we need a simple study. The company that manufactures the wedge is known to me. They have piggybacked their product on the existing research from the medical profession and do not require data to back up their claims.

I'm sorry to hear about your father, but it adds nothing to this conversation. It's simply not acceptable to say that it will help with a disease when you have no evidence (not even anecdotal), you can speculate that it might, but no further.

There's no data given on their page, or links to existing research, which I think is highly suspicious of any company selling anything that claims medical advantages.  Furthermore, your argument against looking at reflux sufferers is that they only tilt the top half of their bed, yet this company sells a device that tilts the entire bed.  I have given you some very sound advice about how to collect some data that may further your work, and you, not I, have immediately put blocks in the path.  Have you tried what I suggested?  Or are you "skilfully avoiding" looking into it?
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 15/01/2009 14:51:04
Ben I saw that company and several others start selling inclined beds and methods to incline them some relating to use with Parkinson's Disease and other neurological conditions. I did think about contacting the bed companies but the best I can anticipate is to gain more anecdotal testimonials.

Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: lyner on 16/01/2009 22:07:36
Have we moved away from the theory?
I think we're on safer ground now.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 17/01/2009 10:22:13
If you has seen and heard what I have you too would have difficulty abandoning such a simple beautiful concept. The medical profession and science community are on very unsafe ground! How many times have you heard "not fully understood" "Unknown origin" " we are not sure" uncertain, insufficient evidence to support this and that idea? Yet you keep peddling the same old same old. And always will until you die out. As you said “Safer ground is all that matters in your safe jobs!

Have we moved away from the theory?
I think we're on safer ground now.

 The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty ~ Winston Churchill
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: lyner on 17/01/2009 11:38:57
Does quoting Winston Churchill suddenly make your understanding of Science better?
As several of us have said, you have seen something which appears to work. How on earth does that make your explanation right?
There have been many treatments for diseases, throughout the centuries, which have had some  (or even a lot of) success. Would you say that the 18th Century explanations  of  how they worked were correct?
Doctors who worked on the 'humours' theory used to have satisfied patients. Does that mean they were right?
What has the fact that you feel you've had a wonderful experience got to do with Science?
Be honest about it. There are two entirely separate issues here.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 17/01/2009 12:06:27
Why on earth would I have titled a bed in the first place if the theory and the results are seperate?
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: lyner on 17/01/2009 16:13:23
Andrew, you are a master of the non-sequiter.
You had an idea. It worked. That doesn't 'prove' that your reasoning was right.
People used to plant crops at the correct time of year even though they had no idea about the structure of the solar system. Were their ideas of Cosmology correct? No, they had a system which worked. That is all you can say about ancient agriculture. That's all you can say about your idea, too.
Why do you insist on more?
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 17/01/2009 17:51:08
Because a varicose vein went flat 4 weeks after we tilted our bed and the same happened to a nurse 4 weeks after she tilted her bed, the opposite way around to that which the nurse had been taught.

This fitted with the idea of a flow and return driven by solutes which would alter the pressure inside the veins to draw them in over time. Again the opposite to that which was happening on a flat bed. Or indeed on a head down tilted bed. This told me that the theory fitted with the circulation system like a glove fitted with water. Eager to find more people to test this, My mother and Late Father, both who had varicose veins also began sleeping on a five degree head up angle. Again producing similar results with varicose veins among other improvements in skin temperature, skin colour, circulation, body temperature, frequency of night time urination was decreased and most of all Mum regained the use of her nerves in the left leg after many years of being unable to move her ankle and toes and feel sensitivity below the knee she found that she could and it took a mere 4 weeks. Dad’s leg ulcers healed up over many months and his skin became more normal rather than the usual raw meat looking skin we had occasionally caught a glimpse of.

But this is where it all began to get interesting. First of all not having a great deal of knowledge of physiology at the time, I began to search for a logical answer as to why Mum’s nerves had responded to such a short period of IBT. Not blessed with the Internet all those years ago, the local hospital gave me permission to study in their R&D unit. But try as I may, I could not find any logical reason in the huge amount of papers that were available why this should have happened. I did however find a wholly inadequate explanation for the circulation in the nervous system. By now I had begun to take an interest in multiple sclerosis, as this looked like a pretty good condition to see if it would respond to IBT.

Many positive reports came flooding in after giving a brief talk about 1 case of progressive (non-relapsing remitting) case that had been showing considerable promise. Roger Kirk had many medical conditions including a donated kidney that was in rapid decline, but had shown remarkable improvements using IBT. Roger being an engineer could see the logic in tilting is bed after I explained how it works by giving the circulation a boost at night. Roger explained to a large audience at Kingsteignton Branch of the MS Society how much he had improved and a small group decided to give it a try.

The results were astonishing to say the least. Two ladies regained sight after becoming registered blind due to supposedly irreversible optic nerve damage. Two ophthalmologists wrote to me within the same moth asking how tilting a bed could repair damaged nerves and restore their sight. In fact just a few weeks ago during a check-up Mr Williams, the same ophthalmologist asked how things were progressing with my research and reflected back to what had happened to a lady under his care who could not only see her computer but has completed an OU degree and can legally drive a vehicle on the road without wearing any glasses. Not bad for 2 blocks of wood. This same lady had also a dropped foot problem that occasionally would be normal in the mornings but not when the humidity was high. A dehumidifier was introduced in conjunction with IBT to see if it would rectify the dropped foot problem. It did just that! Now why do you think a dehumidifier and a sloping bed could have such a profound effect on a person with multiple sclerosis? Why does MS affect more people in river valley areas than the rest of the country? Could it be humidity? Why does humidity have such a devastating effect on human physiology? Why did the ancient Egyptians tilt their beds to the same 5 degree angle all those years ago? Why did sitting up in bed rather than laying down flat help people to survive the sweating sickness in the Tudor Period? Why is a developing chick egg dependent on polarity? Could man standing up have altered the circulation in the brain and afforded greater intelligence than primates? Does brain injury respond to IBT? These questions are just a few that require their own investigations. MS is considered to be unreliable by doctors because in the early stages it can become relapsing remitting. What about spinal cord injuries? Could IBT have any influence on a complete spinal cord injury? Yes it can!

But for now, let’s concentrate on varicose veins and oedema. After all varicose veins alone are costing the NHS 5-6 hundred million pounds a year.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: lyner on 17/01/2009 18:20:06
Do you really not see the distinction between what you have experienced and how you explain it?
I can't believe that you won't conceive an alternative explanation for what you have observed. You just blah blah  with anecdotes. What have they to do with the Science?
We would still be using Alchemy and witchcraft if 'real' Scientists had your attitude.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 17/01/2009 18:48:07
This is how it bloody happened. I have altered nothing.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: lyner on 17/01/2009 19:57:43
It's your EXPLANATION that's dodgy. Don't you realise?
I have not once told you it didn't happen.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Bored chemist on 17/01/2009 20:45:34
BC swimming does not remove the effects of gravity. Buoyancy is not avoiding gravity any more than freefalling from an aircraft is. Solutes will move freely inside the body and they are in effect swimming in fluids. If this were the case then my experiments would not work either as the dissolved solutes within are in fact swimming in water, yet gravity does not appear to be comprimised.

Postural Orthostatic hypotension is more commonly felt when standing from laying horizontal. When horizontal, the renal function is not performing as well as it should be and salts are stored in the body rather than in the bladder (incidentally this has been proven using a simple hydrometer) IBT on the other hand allows kidney function to remove more salts and produce denser urine in the bladder. On standing after IBT there is little to no evidence of orthostatic hypotension. Research into spinal cord injury and IBT revealed this to be the case in people with complete and incomplete spinal cord injuries. Even in cases where a person would normally black out on trying to use a standing frame, the effects of hypotension were not felt following IBT. However, prolong sitting in a wheelchair did produce hypotension on standing in a frame.

AKF, you seem to have missed my point, if I had said "eating oranges" instead of " watching TV" the essence of my post would have been the same.
Just because one state of affairs doesn't stop varicose veins does not mean that a different state will.
Incidentally, if gravity drove the circulation you would die if you went swimming. In water the bouyancy essentially removes gravit's effect.
Your circulation would vary wildly as you stood up or lay down. In the real wortld postural hypotension is viewed as an unusual condition- worthy of treatment.
God help you if you were upside down (and I think that, even if we don't do it now, we all did this as children.


The single clearest evidence that the heart provides circulation rather than some strange effect of gravity is

 when your heart stops you die.
End of story.


Still missing the point the Andrew?
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: lyner on 17/01/2009 23:21:42
Who was right, Ptolemy or Galileo? They both saw the same thing - one of them got the EXPLANATION wrong. Get it?
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 18/01/2009 10:17:49
He waits patiently for an alternative explanation for varicose veins and oedema improving on an inclined bed head up tilt of five degrees to the horizontal that does not involve placebo. Placebo cannot address the huge improvements reported relating to swollen veins and legs.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: lyner on 18/01/2009 10:54:22
Actually, placebo can explain practically anything; the body is very complicated, you know. And it obeys all the laws of Physics, too.
And this has nothing to do with inclined beds. It has to do with the nonsense about gravity 'driving' the blood around.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Bored chemist on 18/01/2009 13:44:53
He waits patiently for an alternative explanation for varicose veins and oedema improving on an inclined bed head up tilt of five degrees to the horizontal that does not involve placebo. Placebo cannot address the huge improvements reported relating to swollen veins and legs.

Well stop "waiting patiently" and answer some of the points raised aboout the absurd idea that gravity produces the circulation of the blood.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 18/01/2009 14:43:53
My son was monitored in Plymouth Derriford Hospital Recovery room following an operation for a broken wrist. His bed was tilted the opposite way. I was told he would not recover immediately and would probably be nauseous when he does. The nurse eventually agreed to tilt the bed the other way and a prediction was made that circulation would increase, blood oxygen level would increase, his heart rate would reduce by around 10-12 beats per minute and his respiration rate by around 3-5 breaths per minute. He would awaken with no effort and would not feel nauseous. Well, the nurse was up for a challenge and agreed because I was his dad after all.

It happened exactly as predicted!

Now why do you feel heart rate and respiration rate should be reduced in both humans and animals placed on an inclined bed and sleeping? Yet circulation increases and people have lovely warm hands and feet instead of their usual icy cold hands and feet that take around an hour or more to warm up? Why does my wife have to sleep with her feet out of the bed because they get too warm now rather than being freezing cold and numb? All of this can be tested by anyone with a second hand on a clock / watch a stethoscope or indeed by feeling a pulse when someone is asleep on an inclined bed.

Yet it does not appear to be in any literature anywhere!

A simple study would be a great way to prove all of these points. But I guess vested interests prevail where 600 million pounds in providing ineffective operations is at risk.

And no placebo cannot explain a varicose vein reducing in size as the weeks go by using IBT. But I guess you had a little difficulty coming up with an alternative explanation why these changes are taking place.

Quote
True placebo effect
http://www.patient.co.uk/showdoc/40002073/
This can only be studied if an untreated group is included along with active and placebo treated groups. However, these are relatively uncommon but it has been discovered that:

    * Placebo treatment is more effective in relieving pain compared with no treatment. To achieve this, patients need to be conscious (placebo was given to sleeping patients and no difference noted).
    * Objective clinical parameters can be changed by placebo treatment, e.g. oedema and an increase in C-reactive protein level following oral surgery.
    * Physical placebos, e.g. sham acupuncture are more powerful than simple oral placebos.3
    * Topical placebo is also more effective than oral placebo, e.g. in primary varicose veins.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: lyner on 18/01/2009 14:59:31
Always a story, never an explanation in terms of Science.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 18/01/2009 15:07:44
Note: Placebo don't work while your sleeping in the quote on my last post. It's pretty obvious really. It don't explain how tilting a sleeping dog can reduce heart and respiration rate by the same amount as a sleeping human either but you love to ignore the difficult bits don't you?
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: lyner on 18/01/2009 17:44:27
There are dozens of possible detailed explanations which are worth investigating. Why do you limit yourself to the first one which takes your fancy but which is not only false but clearly so.

The whole idea of work and energy is SO well established and proved that, if you understood it, you would see where your error is. I know you will react against that idea as being typical of the establishment and that you will interpret it as a personal attack - and all the rest of it blah blah blah - but there are some things which you just can't ignore.
In this case, it just isn't necessary to offer such a barmy explanation as you are proposing.
You seem to think it somehow makes you more 'worthy' because you have no formal knowledge of this field. I'm afraid it just comes across as arrogant to dismiss the work and knowledge of so many Scientists who have successful track records.
There are far more wrong answers in Science than right ones.
Do you seriously have the temerity to question such fundamental Physical ideas? What proof do you have - apart from your particular circular argument?

Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 19/01/2009 09:13:56
Clearly false? Operations are destined to fail because no one is addressing what is causing the excess pressure in the veins, but merely slapping a sticky plaster over the problem and hoping it will go away.
Just one trial involving 50 people with varicose veins and oedema to be regularly examined for changes and provide photographs of any changes is all that is required to test this paradigm.
Yet no such study is forthcoming. Why do you think a study is avoided? I and many others who have seen this phenomenon at first hand already know what the outcome of such a study would be!
Instead people hiding behind qualifications and often substantial financial gains from maintaining the status quo prevent this simple yet powerful healing tool from entering mainstream medicine. That said, several doctors, including my own have experimented with the paradigm and observed the positive results for themselves. Several hospitals now recommend IBT to heart patients. A chain of spinal cord injury rehab units in the USA now advise patients to tilt their beds to a five degree head up angle, and have also observed the results.
Many people with multiple sclerosis benefit from sleeping on an angle and as suggested all those years ago in a paper stating that MS is not a disease but a problem with circulation it would appear that this paper was fairly accurate after all.. http://jnnp.bmj.com/cgi/rapidpdf/jnnp.2008.157164v1.pdf Be sure to check out the xray plates in the pdf file.

I have written to Professor Paolo Zamboni, and hope he will be in a position to help test this or to advise of people who are. Perhaps moving away from the UK in order to find professional ears that are open is the only way forward.

Andrew K Fletcher
 
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 19/01/2009 09:47:41
Many people with multiple sclerosis benefit from sleeping on an angle and as suggested all those years ago in a
paper stating that MS is not a disease but a problem with circulation it would appear that this paper was fairly accurate after all.. http://jnnp.bmj.com/cgi/rapidpdf/jnnp.2008.157164v1.pdf Be sure to check out the xray plates in the pdf file.


Some patients diagnosed with MS experience a reduction in symptoms when they are given vasodilator medication which increases the diameter of blood vessels, this is called "relief by flush (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/13227676)".

However this improvement is explicable as the patients being wrongly diagnosed with MS when they actually have an MS-like vasculopathic (ischemic) disorder, e.g. cerebral vasculitis.
The vasodilation temporarily increases blood flow to areas of brain which do not have an adequate blood supply because of vascular disease, (analogous to nitrate vasodilator use by a person having an attack of angina).
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: BenV on 19/01/2009 10:10:54
I'm paraphrasing here, but...

Sophie said: Why don't you look at the maths of the energy required for your mechanism to be correct?

Andrew said:  I know I'm right!  Scientists are inhuman greedy people who will not look into my hypothesis! Inclined Beds make people better!

This is a recurring issue Andrew.  I know nothing of the medical issues (but RD seems to be keeping you on your toes with that one), but your proposed mechanism doesn't add up.  I don't want to hear anything about treatments or how well people have recovered, I don't want to hear anything about scientists "avoiding your work".  Why not just answer sophie's question?
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: lyner on 19/01/2009 12:20:05
I don't think you ever read what I write, AKF.
Do you think that Energy and Work are irrelevant concepts inside the body? Do all the basic laws of Science stop working once you, personally, become involved in something?
Stop feeling sorry for yourself and try to think why you are not taken seriously.
It is so, so easy to believe it's all a big conspiracy. It is much harder to approach the matter with discipline and to use existing Science in an intelligent way.
Consider that you could, just possibly, be getting something wrong. If they were 100% right then your ideas should work elsewhere. Science aaims at being CONSISTENT - your ideas are not.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Bored chemist on 19/01/2009 19:33:44
One of his ideas is consistent, it's the idea that you don't answer questions that bring doubt on your theory.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 20/01/2009 11:09:25
Read the thread title. It's about varicose veins shrinking when a flat bed is avoided by sleeping on a five degree to the horizontal slope head higher than feet. Accomplished by using bricks, blocks, a wedge. The precious books you refer to have never identified this method of reversing varicose veins! Why would they? Gravity according to literature is a force we strive to overcome. Well all life on Earth is doing a pretty good job of overcoming the force of gravity. Trees for example appear to be inspired by it rather than struggling to overcome it. An argument that gravity is an attracting force only is a rather stupid statement don’t you think? What ever happened to for every action there is an opposed and equal reaction? Water lost from the lungs with every breath we take is no exception to this rule! It is impossible not to change the density of the solutes at the lining of the lungs when water is expired unless the atmospheric humidity and temperature is equal to that in the lungs and respiratory tract. Yet Science appears to have overlooked this, just as it has overlooked the same principles of density changes at the leaf of plants and trees. However, they did attribute density changes to the oceans, which drive the Atlantic Conveyor System that powers the ocean currents and drives the World’s Weather. And we can see a simple flow and return system lifting heated water from a simple flow and return central heating boiler system. How is that for a constant? We don’t need to show an empty multiple pulling water up from the ground and filling it to show how a tree works. A tree after all grows readily filled with juxtaposed multiple conduits that each resist and oppose the pull of gravity. All we have to show is how evaporation causes the sap within to circulate and alter the pressure at the roots.
Oddly enough the same applies to the human body and indeed the giraffes long neck, something which has been mentioned before and indeed duly ignored.

When a giraffe bends its head down to drink at ground level the vessels inside the head should burst with the pressure supplied by a simple pump powerful enough to lift blood to the head. Of course this does nothing of the kind. Indeed the blood circulates meaning it does not have to lift blood to great heights, it just needs to provide sufficient pressure to effect circulation. So when the giraffe lowers it’s head it must also lower the pressures. Oddly enough the same thing happens in the Brixham Experiment. As the tubes are lowered the circulation within adjusts instantly and flow is reduced. So raising the tube increases the flow and lowering the tube decreases both the flow and pressures.

When applying work and energy to the simple tubular experiment, of course we have added sat solution to the centre of the tube and provided the lift with the pulley to raise the tube to 24 metres and of course we have added water inside the tube  initially and of course we have previously boiled the water to remove dissolved gas in order to help resist cavitation. How else could we have shown this experiment, which was designed to show how a flow and return system operates at such heights. This experiment as I have said before never was intended to represent a tree or indeed a body, but was designed to show how dissolved solutes drag water molecules around a vertically suspended single open ended tube. The giraffe does not grow as an empty multiple conduit! It grows as a multiple conduit system readily filled with blood and fluids with a pump that has been shown to be of insufficient size to raise blood to the head it’s head. Yet it does so every day without any effort. Have you ever seen a giraffe with varicose veins?

Inside a tree the motion is circulation and it is circulation that provides the leaves with sap, from which evaporation takes place, which we call transpiration. Transpired water does not contain solutes, although in some species some of the solutes are excreted onto the leaf surface. (Mangrove being one example). Atmospheric conditions regulate the amount of water evaporated and in the ocean, rivers and lakes plants also rely on external influences from the liquid that surrounds them. Any changes in density must apply.

1 grain of sugar or salt can provide circulation by upsetting the balance of suspended fluids. We do not have to show a large change in solute concentration for circulation to develop, because the tree or plant has equalised the pressures by offsetting one side against the other side as it grows. If we release 1 grain of salt down the phloem of a tree which we have concentrated at the leaf by evaporation, not only will that grain of dissolved salt pull on all of the water molecules within the phloem but the tension will follow through to the xylem and induce a pull in the opposite and equal direction. But something else will happen. The downward force will cause an equal increase in head of water in the xylem affording the tree with a mechanism to keep increasing it’s height as shown in the U tube spirit level experiment on youtube video.

It is absolutely impossible for evaporation to take place without it causing a change in density! For every action there must be an opposite and equal reaction. Why has this not been applied to a tree? Or indeed to the fluid in the lungs? You cannot alter the density of fluid at an elevated point in a multi conduit system without causing a downward flow. It is impossible! You cannot cause a downward flow without generating an opposing and equally reacting flow be it in a single tube or in a multiple conduit system. (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi209.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fbb31%2FAndrew_K_Fletcher%2FImage13.gif&hash=5d320b82c77a2e862d6689868c726019)

Now back to varicose veins as a part of our own multiple conduit system. When a bed is tilted to a head up angle the solutes inside are free to migrate through the tubes in the correct direction and in doing so can alter the pressures inside the tubes. In the artery this would not make a great deal of difference due to their resistance to stretch as they were constructed to resist the pressure from the heart, but in the vein this is a completely different scenario, the vein is elasticised and does not resist internal pressure changes well. Hence the ballooning we observe when varicose veins develop. The same must also apply when the pressure inside is reduced and this is precisely what takes place during inclined bed therapy. Here the pressure changes are not only observed while on IBT but due to the length of time the veins remain deflated the veins become used to being deflated and recover some resistance to pressure changes and become less incompetent as shown with Alun’s photographs.   

Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: BenV on 20/01/2009 11:29:19
So can we take that to mean "No, I haven't looked into or calculated the energy required, and I refuse to do so, because to me it's all obvious, and others should just accept it"?
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 20/01/2009 12:04:15
Ben you can take it how you want. Varicose veins go flat using IBT no surgery required! http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=9843.150
Check out those two photographs.

Now. Sophie, you and BC could answer a simple question for me. Imagine you all have varicose veins like Alun's and you are facing having synthetic foam injected into your legs to block veins, or having surgery to strip the veins. You wear a support stocking instead of wearing shorts on the beach. You have been told about all the associated risks involved with surgery and infection. You have all been told about the cost in the region of 3 thousand ponds and you have also been told that the surgery will inevitably fail and you will probably have to go through it all again. And I nearly forgot to mention all of the pain and discomfort while you are forced to walk several miles a day after surgery.

Now you have just read about my research as indeed Alun did. Given all of your "expert knowledge" would you opt for the surgery or would you put a couple of bricks under your bed and see if the veins would return to normal in a few months?

So can we take that to mean "No, I haven't looked into or calculated the energy required, and I refuse to do so, because to me it's all obvious, and others should just accept it"?
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 20/01/2009 12:07:47
... deflated the veins become used to being deflated and recover some resistance to pressure changes and become less incompetent as shown with Alun’s photographs.

Here is an alternative hypothesis…

Alun has vasculitis due a peculiarity of his immune system, and his vasculitis follows a relapsing-remitting course.

Repeated episodes of this inflammation has damaged some of the valves in his veins, (e.g. stuck open), causing varicose veins.

If at times his varicose veins do actually improve this could be explained by the vein valves returning to their correct position and becoming competent during remission when inflammation (valvulitis) subsides.

Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: BenV on 20/01/2009 12:12:07
Ben you can take it how you want. Varicose veins go flat using IBT no surgery required!

Once again, I was not asking about IBT, I was not asking about varicose veins.  Separate the results you see from your hypothesis for a while.  The questions sophie  has asked, and I wish to see answered, are not about the results, they are about the hypothesis you use to explain them.  Do you not realise that, or are you intentionally avoiding it?
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 20/01/2009 12:17:55
Problem Wife and many others most definately do not have vasculitis any more than Alun does. Yet their veins also went flat and have not bulged since. This reminds me of a street full of birds found dead in the West midlands. The council said for the record they thought it was mass hysteria among the bird population that caused the deaths, not the huge chemical company right next to the street.

... deflated the veins become used to being deflated and recover some resistance to pressure changes and become less incompetent as shown with Alun’s photographs.

Here is an alternative hypothesis…

Alun has vasculitis due a peculiarity of his immune system, and his vasculitis follows a relapsing-remitting course.

Repeated episodes of this inflammation has damaged some of the valves in his veins, (e.g. stuck open), causing varicose veins.

If at times his varicose veins do actually improve this could be explained by the vein valves returning to their correct position and becoming competent during remission when inflammation (valvulitis) subsides.


Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 20/01/2009 12:28:59
A hypothesis becomes a theory. A theory then makes a prediction, in this case varicose veins go flat on IBT. That prediction is now proven!

Ben you can take it how you want. Varicose veins go flat using IBT no surgery required!

Once again, I was not asking about IBT, I was not asking about varicose veins.  Separate the results you see from your hypothesis for a while.  The questions sophie  has asked, and I wish to see answered, are not about the results, they are about the hypothesis you use to explain them.  Do you not realise that, or are you intentionally avoiding it?
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: BenV on 20/01/2009 12:36:04
You have not adequately defended your hypothesis, and seem unwilling to do so by not answering sophie's questions.  If it were strong enough, it would really stand up to a simple question like that.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 20/01/2009 12:43:08
Wife and many others most definately do not have vasculitis any more than Alun does.

 [ Invalid Attachment ]
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 20/01/2009 12:55:37
The photograph you have altered does not relate to Alun's true situation.
I mentioned vasculitis to Alun as you suggested. He added "what a load of old....!"
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 20/01/2009 13:20:56
The photograph you have altered does not relate to Alun's true situation.
I mentioned vasculitis to Alun as you suggested. He added "what a load of old....!"


If Alun, like yourself, is unfamiliar with the manifestations of vasculitis then he is not in a position to recognise it.

One possible manifestation of vasculitis is bleeding under the nails (finger & toe) called splinter hemorrhages ...

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

http://vasculitis.med.jhu.edu/typesof/polyangiitis.html

They are small enough to go unnoticed, Alun should keep an eye out for them when he trims his nails.
They are more likely to be present when he has increased numbers of the little red/purple spots on his skin.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 20/01/2009 14:01:09
Vasculitis Treatments
Because vasculitis is caused in part by an overly active immune system, the treatment usually involves the use of medications that suppress parts of the immune system. The most common treatments of vasculitis are discussed below.
The vasculitic diseases are serious disorders, and often require potentially dangerous treatments. For our readers’ benefit, we discuss most of the potential side–effects of medications used in the treatment of vasculitis. All of the medicines have a frighteningly long list of possible side–effects, but we emphasize that many of the side–effects can be avoided through careful management by experienced physicians. The risk of some side–effects can be reduced by taking supplementary medications along with those specifically intended to treat vasculitis. Click below for more detailed information on each medication.
http://vasculitis.med.jhu.edu/treatments/treatments.html
From the same site you list.

If alun is as you say suffering from vasculitis, "which both Alun and I doubt is the case" Then the photographs of Alun's recovery must be even more impressive to you. And given the toxicity of the medication used in these cases, surely 2 blocks of wood would be safer and far more cost effective?
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 20/01/2009 14:43:19
As I have mentioned before, vasculitis can be relapsing-remitting. Spontaneous remissions, without treatment, are not unusual. Alun's improvement is not proof that IBT works.

Vasculitis can be allergen induced (e.g. food, drug), or by infection (e.g. virus, bacteria). In those cases it is a matter of stopping the food or drug which is triggering it, or treating the infection. Heavy-duty chemotherapy is only used when there is organ involvement and vasculitis causing severe disability or is life-threatening, in those cases the risks associated with immunosupression are justified.

If the vasculitis is limited to skin medication may not be necessary ...

Quote
Cutaneous vasculitis

In most cases general measures are all that is required to keep the patient comfortable until the rash spontaneously resolves.

Rest and elevate affected limb, simple analgesics
Protect fragile skin from injury
If an underlying cause is found, removing the trigger usually clears the rash.

Treat infection
Discontinue responsible medication
http://dermnetnz.org/vascular/vasculitis.html

I hope you do not deter Alun from seeking qualified medical advice on this matter by only telling him about the worst-case-scenario. If it is limited to his skin he will probably not require any medication, having it confirmed that it is vasculitis will prevent him from taking unnecessary medications, e.g. anti-fungal treatment for vasculitis mistaken for "ringworm".
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 20/01/2009 16:43:05
From 19 years of age to 33—Now 34 years of age he has had not a single remission from his varicose veins. A prediction has been made that his veins will go flat and the you have the audacity to suggest it was going to happen anyway and come up with a ridiculous explanation for varicose veins going flat after sleeping on an inclined bed by suggesting the valves somehow manage to start functioning themselves on not one but a fair number of people who have reported the same response with varicose veins and oedema. 
Never the less at least you have tried to discredit the results which is a darn site more than most people reading this information have done.

Hmm perhaps spontaneous recovery from varicose veins is more common that I had thought. Can you refer me to the sites you have visited to discover this hitherto unknown phenomenon?

A quick google using Results for spontaneous recovery from varicose veins = No results found (without quotes), I found this:

Varicose veins of the lower limbs are a slowly progressive,
non-lethal, increasingly disabling venous disease well known
to ancient surgeons; Hippocrates discussed their treatment at
considerable length about 2500 years ago. 1
Varicosities of the lower-limb veins constitute the most
common of all vascular disorders in the legs, and an effective
means of prevention and the perfect cure for this common
malady is not yet forthcoming. Contrary to popular belief,
fatal hemorrhage from varicose veins, though uncommon, IS
by no means rare.2-. We describe a case of spontaneous
hemorrhage following ulceration of varicose veins.

And this: What causes "varicose veins"?
The causes of varicose veins are unclear. However, some factors have been identified that may contribute to the development of varicose and spider veins: family history of varicose veins, female hormones (internally produced or taken by prescription), pregnancy, trauma, age, obesity, and prolonged standing. Extensive exposure to the sun may also cause spider veins on the face. Please visit Prevention for more information on the causes of “varicose veins”.
What can be done to prevent varicose veins?
Since the causes are still undetermined, prevention of varicose veins is debatable. However, maintaining a normal weight, walking, limiting the use of external female hormones, and wearing supportive stockings may help limit the disease's progression.
Damned if I can find a single case of spontaneous recovery from varicose veins other than using a correctly inclined bed of course.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 20/01/2009 17:12:36
Valves do stick-open because of inflammation...

Quote
Blueprints Cardiology: A Problem-Oriented Approach - Google Books Resultby Molly Ware, Cathy Jeon - 2005 - Medical - 276 pages

More commonly, as the valvulitis heals, scarring, thickening, and adhesion of valve cusps and chordae occur and lead to valvular stenosis and/or regurgitation...
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=s3UBLYEWUxwC&pg=RA1-PA114&lpg=RA1-PA114

(This reference is to heart valves, but would also be true of the valves in veins)

If valves can stick-open it is not inconceivable that they could un-stick and return to normal position after the inflammation has spontaneously remitted.


BTW try Googling "varices (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varices)" + "spontaneous" + "regression" ... www.google.co.uk (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&as_qdr=all&q=varices+regression+spontaneous&btnG=Search&meta=)
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 21/01/2009 10:19:45
Anyone good at maths here who can work out the odds of predicting a recovery from quite severe varicose veins in a person who is now 34 and has had them since he was 19 years and a severe painful condition in his knee which has troubled him since he was 4 years that has resolved along with other problems since his bed was tilted? I predict the odds are something like having a go on the European lottery and winning the main prize as the only winner.

RD Thank you for such a brave attempt to discredit my research and for failing miserably to do so.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 21/01/2009 10:41:37
Tell Alun he owes me a big drink when his vasculitis diagnosis is confirmed: a bottle of single malt will do nicely.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 23/01/2009 08:53:13
Tel him yourself he visits this website frequently.

 He owes me a pint of Newcastle Brown Ale for discovering "THE CURE FOR VARICOSE VEINS" “AND A METHOD OF PREVENTING VARICOSE VEINS” in 1994 and for persisting in the face of adversity, contempt, greed, selfishness, ignorance, hostility, pettiness, and a shameful lack of compassion shown by the medical profession, charities and the science community. How many more years must pass before this beautifully simple free therapy becomes mainstream?

While the medical profession refuses to replicate my findings and confirm them, despite the evidence being blatantly obvious for all to see with regards to varicose veins and oedema, people are being subjected to expensive unnecessary operations. Many of who will develop complications, some will lose limbs, some will require further surgery and some will prematurely lose their lives. I have been in a ward and watched people dying around me when simply tilting the bed by raising it six inches or fifteen cm's higher at the head end would restore normal circulation to their hands and feet within hours. I have seen my own Dying Fathers renal function restored when we were told this could not happen. For God’s sake all we did was tilted his bed. How complicated is setting up a simple study to show this? How much cost is involved in testing this? Did that man opposite my father really need to lose his foot then his leg and eventually his life for the sake of the hospital staff tilting his bed correctly to restore his circulation?

REDISCOVERED
15 years of my life have passed since re-discovering this simple yet powerful tool. Yes re-discovering is correct, because it turns out that the Ancient Egyptians were using a head up tilt of five degrees over 3 thousand years ago! The people in the Tudor period were dying like flies in a harsh winter from a strange sweating sickness. No over the counter drugs available in this time. This illness killed the fittest and saved the young and old. It crossed all classes and respected no one. Yet amid the panic it was realised that if a person developed the illness and lay down asleep he or she would be dead by the morning. So they placed guards at the bedside to prevent a person infected with the virus from laying down and they had a greater chance of surviving it. It has been used for many years to assist respiratory problems, hiatus hernia and acid reflux (GERD)

Alun went to see his consultant yesterday and took along photographs to show how much he has improved. The consultant refused to look at them.  Alun told her about tilting the bed, she said we have been doing this for many years to treat ulcers. “She referred to tilting the bed in the head down position and Legs raised position, not the Inclined Bed Therapy Position. Apparently she was also confused why Alun had been sent to her as the bulge in his groin had gone level with his skin and presented no visual evidence. Anyway, it is not an aneurysm for sure. Oddly enough she did not mention vasculitis either. Not surprising really considering he does not have and never has had vasculitis.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 23/01/2009 10:17:28
In addition to kite/romboid red/purple markings, petechiae, and splinter hemorrhages, anyone with vasculitis is likely to have protein in their urine at times, (proteinuria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteinuria)), this would cause their urine to froth like detergent*,

So if Alun has vasculitis these are four signs he could monitor himself without having to pay "greedy" medics a penny, now that I have pointed them out.

Any single malt will do, but Glenlivet if possible.


[* there are other causes of frothy urine]
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 08/02/2009 00:30:05
If the markings you have observed are romboid or kite-shaped then the person has small-vessel vasculopathy,
(vasculitis or pseudovasculitis).  Such markings are pathognomic for small-vessel vasculopathy.


If it's pseudovasculitis (e.g. thrombophilia) i'll let you off with a half bottle.
 
Quote
[thrombophilia] may lead to long-term swelling and heaviness in a proportion of cases due to damage to valves in the veins.
http://www.answers.com/topic/thrombophilia

Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 18/02/2009 08:49:36
How about a shandy instead?
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: link7881 on 12/03/2009 07:22:41
I had varicose veins on both of my legs. But they seem too severe, but my doctor told me that they have to remove the swelling before it gets worst. I undergone sclerotherapy, this procedure often is used to treat smaller varicose veins and spider veins. It can be done in your doctor's office, while you stand. You may need several treatments to completely close off a vein. I am still under treatment. The injecting procedure is tolerable cuz I'm not scared of injections but once the liquid or the medicinal liquid is in the veins, my gosh!!! That is the pain I can't tolerate! [:0] Now both of my legs are ok but there are still spider veins that I needed my doctor to remove from being visible. I also tried laser therapy and this works better than a sclero.

mod edit - spammy link removed
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 15/03/2009 10:24:44
Clinical trials: deliberations on their essence and value
Franz A. Schelling MD 1
  1 General Practitioner,
Austria

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118806098/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

Rationale, aim & objectives In the context of the evidence-based medicine (EBM) movement, the clinical trial has come to be hailed as the ultimate source of medical knowledge, and especially of clinical pharmacology. By subjecting the premises of this procedure to a thorough analysis, the author hopes to achieve a sound rating of its epistemological significance in the context of medical research.

Method Current claims on the basic importance of the evidence provided by standardized clinical trials are confronted with conflicting observations concerning their current application in medical practice. The stereotyped trials of present research in multiple sclerosis serve as an example to illustrate this point.

Results Traditional assumptions concerning the validity of standardized clinical trials are based on an illusion of absolute objectivity and reliability. Apart from being subject to tough publish (conveniently)-or-perish and commercial influences, the results of clinical trials, especially drug trials, are of limited informative value in diverse respects, such as (i) clinical trials do not identify every possible drug reaction for every instance of a disease; (ii) their results never allow the prediction of the efficacy of a specific drug in any given individual; (iii) clinical trials have no inherent potential to provide concrete insights into the nature and cause(s) of a definite morbid condition; and (iv) extensions of clinical drug trials to ever-larger study groups indicate serious problems in basic theoretical respects.

Conclusion A clinical trial cannot indicate a certain prevention or cure for any particular instance of a disease, and the correctness of its individual predictions is always only contingent. This can be explained by the fact that the correspondence between the nature of each of all pathological conditions presented by the different members of a clinical trial population and by the individual patients being treated according to the results of the trial is never complete.

Accepted for publication: 11 September 2003
Did I  ask if there was a double blind trial?
Single blind would do for a start.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: lyner on 15/03/2009 10:44:46
I'm not sure what that post is getting at; you make no personal comment to explain why you posted it.
As far as I can see, it just points out the shortcomings of clinical trials.  But what is the alternative? Do without them? That would be madness.

Clinical trials have a chance of revealing possible harmful effects of a treatment and, where there is a strong causal relationship, they will show that a treatment works. I would go for the clinical trial rather than someone's personal experience any time. Both methods have flaws but the undisciplined method has nothing to recommend it at all. There is too much self interest and possible bias involved.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 16/03/2009 09:06:00
Yes you are sure what that post is getting at!

Time and time again I hear no controlled study has been conducted, and why would there be when a proposed study showing expensive Varicose Vein surgery are no longer required would impact the secure jobs of vascular surgeons who would have to be involved in such a “controlled study”. Control is the word that counts here, as in this case it is the prevention of any such trial relating to Inclined Bed Therapy that has been successfully controlled by preventing it from taking place.

Those photographs Alun and others have provided show a great deal more about how far off the mark about circulation surgeons and doctors really are.
Why on earth would any controlled study improve the outcome of Alun’s Legs?

Hiding behind the “there has not been a controlled study excuse” has been well and truly exposed for what it is, nothing more than a pathetic attempt to walk past compelling evidence that the people who wrote those precious physiology books have been shown to be completely wrong about varicose veins and oedema!

Franz Schelling did not write this critique about the controlled study method because he felt it was unbiased and accurate. He wrote it because he has seen for himself as we all have how results that promote drugs can be later revealed to be somewhat less than reliable, particularly when so many peoples lives are put at risk by greed and corruption within the massive drug companies who “control” the who does what and where of clinical trials!

The alternative to clinical trials in the case of testing drugs before they reach the market is laughable, because there is no alternative to a clinical trial, it is so tightly sewn up than this argument is a hypothetical one as you well know. And one that is used to great effect in controlling alternative medicines from plants metals and minerals that have been handed down for thousands of years without a controlled study in sight!

Which brings us back to IBT. The first inclined beds I have become aware of were used by the Ancient Egyptians over 4 thousand years ago.

Controlled studies have been conducted on flat beds over prolonged periods and have shown horizontal bedrest to induce degeneration of the bones and joints, muscles, heart muscle, cause thrombosis, pressure sores, paralysis, stroke, skin conditions, high blood pressure,  kidney stones, bladder infections, and so on. NASA et al have spent $billions on such studies designed to reflect the degeneration that astronauts face when living in microgravity during space flight, an argument I have raised many times. But all of these experiments provide the real life controls for IBT. NASA is currently conducted expensive trials and is paying thousands of dollars for people to sleep head down in bed for months. They even provide them with World Of Warcraft computer game and consoles to take their minds off the monotony and discomfort. Why do you think they are conducting this “controlled” study? Could it be that they are seeing how quickly these youngsters deteriorate? Have they informed them what is about to happen to them or in the “controlled study” would that bias the results and awaken these people to the fact that NASA is trying to cause them serious harm?
 


I'm not sure what that post is getting at; you make no personal comment to explain why you posted it.
As far as I can see, it just points out the shortcomings of clinical trials.  But what is the alternative? Do without them? That would be madness.

Clinical trials have a chance of revealing possible harmful effects of a treatment and, where there is a strong causal relationship, they will show that a treatment works. I would go for the clinical trial rather than someone's personal experience any time. Both methods have flaws but the undisciplined method has nothing to recommend it at all. There is too much self interest and possible bias involved.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: lyner on 16/03/2009 09:58:04
With the best will in the World, you do not have enough statistical data to show a correlation between your cause and effect. Even less, do you have reason to demonstrate a causal relationship. That is what extensive trials are for.

I understand your frustration when you think you have something that works but 'they' won't listen. It is a Catch 22 situation because they won't listen to you (or a thousand loonies with whacky remedies - note, I didn't say "other loonies -lol) unless the information is presented to them in a way they recognise. This is because of the safety device called conservatism. What else can they do but expect people to establish some cred before they listen to them?
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 05/04/2009 20:39:17
Alun after 9 months IBT (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=9843.msg243359#msg243359) ...

 [ Invalid Attachment ]
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 05/04/2009 23:56:34
Still playing with paintshop pro I see.

Alun had a large varicose vein on his calf muscle, now he don't! So Now you see it now you don't.

Why not turn his whole leg green and say he has Hulkivitis?
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 06/04/2009 14:46:45
Admittedly not as many petechiae as in this photo posted in January, but vasculitis can be relapsing remitting.

 [ Invalid Attachment ]


If you and/or Alun are interested in an accurate diagnosis you could post the images in this thread on a teledermatology website,
 (if you do I suggest you mask out the word “vasculitis” from the photo for an unbiased opinion).
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 06/04/2009 17:07:28
Please explain why the photograph showing this condition on the right is not "digitally enhanced" and why you have enhanced the photograph of Alun's leg for comparison?

So you expect me to send in your doctored ohotograph version of Alun's leg for an analysis? Do me a favour :)

Where the varicose veins have been pulled back to level with the skin surface, there is going to be discolouration for many months to follow, eventually this will fade and the skin tone will become more natural. Already commented upon by Alun's own family, who see the chnages taking place with the naked eye.

What you should be asking is why Alun no longer requires surgery on a varicose vein that has been there for many years and now clearly has vanished. But this would take courage to go against so many people earning huge amounts of money, conducting clearly redundent surgery. Instead of trying to cloud this important issue try to stay focused on what this thread is showing.


Admittedly not as many petechiae as in this photo posted in January, but vasculitis can be relapsing remitting.

If you and/or Alun are interested in an accurate diagnosis you could post the images in this thread on a teledermatology website,
 (if you do I suggest you mask out the word “vasculitis” from the photo for an unbiased opinion).

Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 09/04/2009 16:51:13
...trying to cloud this important issue try to stay focused on what this thread is showing.  

No obfuscation of my part.
If Alun's varices have improved this could be explained by remission of the vasculopathic process which caused them, (i.e. vasculitis or pseudovasculitis). So determining if he has a vasculopathic condition which spontaneously remits is relevant to your assertion that IBT has caused an improvement.


So you expect me to send in your doctored ohotograph version of Alun's leg for an analysis? Do me a favour :)

If you don't fancy including my contrast enhanced images in a submission to a teledermatology site, then just post your own …

 [ Invalid Attachment ]

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=18961.msg217103#msg217103

[ I can almost taste the Glenlivet [:)] ] 
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 09/04/2009 18:21:56
RD, This is not a single case we are observing, I have seen this revrsal of varicose veins and oedema using IBT far too many times for it to be a coincidence.

I have also observed the darkened skin where the veins have returned to normal size, and it looks like a bruising rather than a problem with peripheral veins and arteries.

I did explain that when the skin is stretched due to the veins expanding over many years the skin becomes tanned the same as the rest of the legs. When this skin contracts, the colour of it appears to darken. Bit like a balloon changes colour when it is inflated and deflated. Alun has visited his consultant and gp on numerous occasions. No one other than you appears to be indicating vasculitis.

Odd how it spontaniously reverses. I think Alun was in his early teens when these problems arose. He is now 34. Either way, be it the obvious varicosed veins or your vasculitis or Incredible Hulkivitis for that matter these photographs show a clear improvement that was predicted prior to tilting the bed and has been observed by others who have tilted their own beds.

Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 30/03/2010 09:39:53
AKF
Quote
The heart rate decreases by 10-12 beats per minute on IBT. Yet circulation is improved. So if the heart beats less and circulation increases how do you account for that?

You would expect the heart rate to decrease when you are not standing. There is less work for it to do. The blood pressure at the interfaces in the kidneys will also be affected by the attitude of the body. How do either of these facts justify your new model of the body?

Did your friendly Proff tell you that the 'pulses of solutes' he detected at the kidneys were, in any way, related to breathing rate? I hate to ask this but have you actually calculated (???) the change in density of the blood as it goes through the lungs due to evaporation? Surely the actual amount would be highly relevant to whether or not you were right in your theory. Perhaps that would be a bit too like hard fact for your liking.
Needless to say, the effect on circulation to the head would be in the opposite direction as the heart would need to be pumping more dense blood upwards. Did you not think it through?


Ventilatory changes of pulmonary capillary blood volume assessed by arterial density
Journal of Applied Physiology, Vol 61, Issue 5 1724-1731, Copyright © 1986 by American Physiological Society

ARTICLES
Ventilatory changes of pulmonary capillary blood volume assessed by arterial density
J. S. Lee and L. P. Lee

By use of an improved density measuring system, we found that the gravimetric density of arterial blood of dogs fluctuates at the same frequency as the spontaneous or mechanical ventilation. Similar density fluctuations were observed in the blood leaving isolated, perfused lobes of dogs that were ventilated cyclicly. Employing an analysis that balanced the erythrocyte and plasma flows through distensible capillaries containing blood with a tube hematocrit lower than the hematocrit in large blood vessels, we derived a relationship to estimate from the density fluctuation the change in pulmonary capillary blood volume (Vc). For mechanical ventilation, the maximum change in density over one ventilation cycle increased from 0.084 +/- 0.01 to 0.47 +/- 0.05 (SE) g/l as the frequency decreased from 29 to 6 cycles/min. These density changes were estimated to be the result of an 1-16% change in Vc. A larger tidal volume for the mechanical ventilation led to a larger density fluctuation. The maximum density change of spontaneous respiration of 6 cycles/min was one-sixth of the mechanical case, indicating a much smaller change in Vc during spontaneous respiration. When the airway flow resistance was increased for spontaneous respiration, larger density fluctuations were observed.
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 29/04/2010 08:53:23
AKF
Quote
The heart rate decreases by 10-12 beats per minute on IBT. Yet circulation is improved. So if the heart beats less and circulation increases how do you account for that?

You would expect the heart rate to decrease when you are not standing. There is less work for it to do. The blood pressure at the interfaces in the kidneys will also be affected by the attitude of the body. How do either of these facts justify your new model of the body?

Did your friendly Proff tell you that the 'pulses of solutes' he detected at the kidneys were, in any way, related to breathing rate? I hate to ask this but have you actually calculated (???) the change in density of the blood as it goes through the lungs due to evaporation? Surely the actual amount would be highly relevant to whether or not you were right in your theory. Perhaps that would be a bit too like hard fact for your liking.
Needless to say, the effect on circulation to the head would be in the opposite direction as the heart would need to be pumping more dense blood upwards. Did you not think it through?


As you say one would expect the heart rate to decrease when not standing. IBT is comparible to standing because the dircetion of gravity is aligned the same as standing, without the pressure on the feet and tension on the muscles.

So why does the heart rate differ sleeping inclined compared to sleeping horizontal?. Not just in humans but in sleeping dogs also placed on an angle?
Title: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 30/08/2011 10:48:33
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F&hash=3cd4f4119996b42d10f5ed9eb0e8d712) [ Invalid Attachment ]  


(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimage.thenakedscientists.com%2Fforum%2Findex.php%3Faction%3Ddlattach%3Btopic%3D18961.0%3Battach%3D6328%3Bimage&hash=ed1eb230356a0d15603e97568dd5d538)
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Andrew K Fletcher on 21/12/2012 10:53:03
The art of Distraction is a very useful skill R.D.  What has this got to do with Alun's Legs, who I might add has had zero symptoms or indeed a diagnosis of vasculitis prior to or since your last post. Why are you trying to discourage people from avoiding unnecessary, costly and more often than not, ineffective surgery?  Who is earning a fortune from this? Certainly not me !

For those of you reading this that need an understanding of vasculitis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasculitis
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 21/12/2012 13:53:00
 What has this got to do with Alun's Legs

IMO that medscape image of vasculitis has features similar to those of Alun's legs, (but more extreme) ...
 [ Invalid Attachment ]  

Combined with the other comparison (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=18961.0;attach=6328;image) that makes two different examples of vasculitis which have patterns in common with Alun's legs, (including the petechiae (http://www.primehealthchannel.com/petechiae-petechia.html#petechiae-pictures) makes three).

... who I might add has had zero symptoms or indeed a diagnosis of vasculitis prior to or since your last post.

Vasculitis can be intermittent, it can relapse and remit of it’s own accord*.
If an inert "therapy" was being applied at the time of spontaneous remission it could be mistaken for an effective treatment when it isn’t.

[ * although there can be exogenous triggers like cold weather (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryoglobulinemic_vasculitis) ]

Why are you trying to discourage people from avoiding unnecessary, costly and more often than not, ineffective surgery?

I’ve neither encouraged or discouraged varicose vein surgery.

The only thing I’ve encouraged in this thread is that Alun consults a doctor who is familiar with vasculitis / pseudovasculitis , perhaps via teledermatology.
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: Eileencook on 01/10/2016 21:57:51
I've been using this Venorid serum for about 2 months. I have noticed the varicose veins becoming somewhat smaller and the spider veins diminishing. Very low cost treatment in my point of view. thanks!
Title: Re: WHY Operate on Varicose Veins?
Post by: RD on 02/10/2016 03:25:45
I've been using this Venorid serum ... Very low cost treatment ...

$50 a jar for "Veno Rid©" [sic]. They don't say what's in the jar , or how big the jar is.

Either they haven't paid a few hundred dollars to register their brand-name as a trademark,
or don't know the difference between © (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_symbol) & ® (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark).

"VenoRid.com" is owned by a Joshua Grasmick. The other websites he owns include ...
"NuHairRX.com" , alleged baldness cure ,  [ could be same stuff in a different jar ].
"MommyReNu.com", alleged stretch-mark removal,  [ could be same stuff in a different jar ].
"myotaut.com" , allegedly shrinks orifices , [ could be same stuff in a different jar ].
& "PsychicPriest.com", & lots more ... http://domainbigdata.com/ni/qlp08Nj55eieK1Kmh902rw (http://domainbigdata.com/ni/qlp08Nj55eieK1Kmh902rw)


http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Patent_Medicine