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09-11-2004, 07:09 PM

The message
from (Neil) contains these words:
On Tue, 9 Nov 2004 14:34:07 GMT, Jaques d'Alltrades
wrote:

Your quotes omitted one of the most effective adjuncts to the drug
therapy - sugar.

Larger than normal intake of sugars can tip the balance between survival
or thud!: if they can be kept down. Treatment should include
intravenous injection of 20 ml glucose in normal saline solution, four
or five times a day.

Mushrooms and Toadstools - Dr. John Ramsbottom, Collins NewNaturalist
Series, Ch 5, Poisonous and Edible Fungi: 1

Omitted for one reason there is no evidence to support claims for its
efficacy.

On the contrary, the only ancient remedies which had any sort of success
are those which featured sugar of some sort. (Like seven rabbits' brains
and three stomachs chopped small, and made into balls with honey or jam
- the theory being that as rabbits could eat a human's lethal dose there
must be something in the rabbits' stomachs and brains which neutralises
the poison(s). The honey or jam was to help it go down, but in restoring
some of the sugar which the liver under attack wasn't providing, it gave
some credence to the antidote hypothesis)

Latterly, intravenous sugars are (unless I'm *VERY* out of date) always
administered to restore the blood-sugar levels to normal...

Any one on ITU would almost certainly receive glucose as a routine
infusion

....rather than just routinely.

By the way you don't need ( indeed there are reasons not to) mix
glucose with saline.

Maybe other sugars are used now, or other preservative. I *WAS* quoting
from the (presumably first edition) 1959 impression.

Normal Saline solution is 0.9%. ie 9 grammes of sodium choride in 1
litre of water. This is a standard drip mix. Glucose is also used
routinely in drips at 5% concentration. You can give 2 litres of
glucose 5% per day with 1 litre of saline 0.9% as a routine in many
situations.
_______

To mean anything the 20ml of glucose would need to be at a
defined concentration, Hospitals routinely use 5% 10% 20% and 50%
strenghts of glucose.

Sorry - while copying that I missed out the 4% (glucose)

500mL of 50% per day gives 250g of carohydrate which is not too far
from what many take each day.

I think we got to this point because someone suggested that there was
still no treatment - no sure-fire cure, I'd agree, but treatments which
improve the chances of survival there are.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
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