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India’s first successful Liver Transplant recipient completes 15 years

UPA chairperson and Congress party president, Sonia Gandhi felicitates India’s first successful Liver Transplant recipient as he completes 15 years post transplantation.

UPA chairperson and Congress party president, Sonia Gandhi felicitates India’s first successful Liver Transplant recipient as he completes 15 years post transplantation.

Congress chief Sonia Gandhi Monday felicitated Sanjay Kandasamy, India’s first successful liver transplant recipient, as he completed 15 years post transplantation.

Kandasamy, 16, had undergone the path-breaking procedure as an 18-month-old in 1998 at Apollo Hospital here.

Gandhi interacted with the teenager and his family at her residence here.

“It is a testament not only on India’s medical acumen but also of the tenacity of this young man,” Gandhi was quoted by an official statement issued by the hospital.

Kandasamy, who hails from Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu, was born with a rare condition seen in one one in 12,000 babies.

“Sanjay now leads a completely normal life, goes to school like other kids, enjoys meals, plays football and wants to become a doctor to save lives. Sanjay’s success helped establish liver transplantation in India,” said Anupam Sibal, senior paediatric gastroenterologist in the hospital.

Source: Business Standard

 

 

 

Baby with swollen head to undergo more surgeries

????????????????????Baby Roona, who had undergone a series of surgeries at a hospital here in few months ago for an oversized head, will undergo follow-up surgeries, doctors at a city hospital said on Saturday.

The child of a daily wage labourer from Tripura, two-year-old Roona Begum is suffering from hydrocephalus, a rare disorder that has caused her head to swell to an unprecedented 94 cm.

She was admitted to Gurgaon’s Fortis Memorial Research Institute here in April this year at the age of 18 months, where she underwent multiple complex procedures to get her head circumference reduced to 58 cm.

“The five surgeries we performed earlier have not only helped the child survive a potentially fatal condition, but also enabled her to attain improved nutritional status and vitals. She has gained weight, is showing better neck control and is even making noises,” surgeon and director of neurosurgery in the hospital, Sandeep Vaishya, said.

Elaborating on the likely follow-up surgery next week, Vaishya said: “This will be the first step in the next round of treatment for the child. We are monitoring her condition and will proceed with the surgery once we get a go-ahead from her attending paediatrician.”

Fortis Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Fortis Healthcare Limited, continues to oversee the treatment of the child.

Source: Times of India

New procedure allows jewelry to be implanted in the eye

A new procedure is allowing one New York woman to have a piece of platinum jewelry implanted in her eye, according to My Fox New York.

“It’s going to be a conversation maker,” Lucy Luckayanko, who received her eye implantation at Park Avenue Laser Vision in New York City, told My Fox New York. “I will be able to tell people. It will be unique. It will be sort of my unique factor.”

Dr. Emil Chynn, the medical director of Park Avenue Laser Vision, claims that the procedure is relatively safe.

“It’s a very thin piece of platinum that’s designed for insertion on the top of the eye. It’s not in the eye, so there’s no risk of blindness or anything at all,” Chynn told My Fox New York. “She could have a little bit of local bleeding. That could go away in a couple days or couple weeks. She could have an infection, but we’ll prevent that with antibiotics.”

Eye jewelry is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) is warning consumers about the dangers of the procedure.

In a statement to My Fox New York, the AAO said there isn’t “sufficient evidence to support the safety or therapeutic value of this procedure.” They urged consumers to “avoid placing in the eye any foreign body or material that is not approved by the FDA.”

Luckayanko said the reactions to her new eye jewelry have been mixed – with some of her friends saying she is crazy and others claiming it looks “super cool.”

Source: Fox News

How one woman recovered from a 20 year struggle with Munchausen syndrome

When Lindsay* was 11 years old, she started having the same dream every night.  After she fell asleep, she would envision herself suffering from fainting spells, as various people stood around her and worried about her health.

Then, when she woke up, she would be embarrassed about how good the fantasies made her feel.

“I just thought over it a lot,” Lindsay told FoxNews.com.  “…I’d get these dreams so often, and they were very pleasant.”

Her recurring dream eventually manifested into reality when Lindsay was 13 years old, after a strong allergic reaction caused her to repeatedly pass out.  In order to determine the source of her fainting spells, Lindsay was admitted to the hospital, where she stayed for two weeks.

And the longer she stayed in the hospital, the more she didn’t want to leave.

“I loved it in the hospital,” she said. “I just loved it.”

Once she was released, Lindsay wanted so badly to find her way back to this new place she had enjoyed so much.  So in spite of her good health, she started pretending to be sick with stomach pains, hoping this would allow her to return to that pleasant hospital setting.

Lindsay credits this experience with sparking the beginning of her long struggle with factitious disorder – more commonly referred to as Munchausen syndrome.   Craving that good feeling she had experienced while staying in the hospital, Lindsay eventually began researching and faking illnesses that she knew would keep her hospitalized for as long as possible.

Over the course of her lifetime, Lindsay would go on to feign more than 12 physical and mental illnesses – including extreme disorders like schizophrenia, multiple sclerosis and even epilepsy.

A student of illness

Although Lindsay’s first bout with Munchausen began when she was 13, she didn’t start faking full-blown illnesses until she was a young adult.

Then, at 24 years old, Lindsay gave birth to her first child and was admitted to a psychiatric ward after doctors suspected she was developing severe postpartum depression.

While in the hospital, those good feelings from her childhood returned.  The admission to the hospital gave her relief from the obligations of being a new parent – and she didn’t want that relief to end.

“I wanted to stay; I enjoyed it,” Lindsay said. “So I started faking the symptoms of other peoples’ illnesses… I didn’t really know what I was faking.  I was just mimicking other patients, like their illusions and hallucinations.”

Lindsay became a student of all the patients around her, closely studying their movements and their behaviors.  She would often spend one-on-one time with individuals in order to gain an accurate understanding of how their psychiatric illnesses manifested.  Once, she spent an entire afternoon with a highly disturbed person with schizophrenia who talked using a word salad – a confusing mixture of random words and phrases. Lindsay would eventually mimic the behavior she learned from him to get diagnosed with schizophrenia herself.

Over the next three years, Lindsay was in and out of the psychiatric hospital nine different times, mostly for depression but also for the other mental illnesses she had adopted.  Having had a taste of what it felt like to feign psychiatric disorders, she decided it was time to ramp up her performances – and start faking physical symptoms.

At first, Lindsay presented to different hospital emergency rooms with abdominal pains. However, she would become too scared to follow through with her charade and leave before she was admitted.

Then over time, she did more research on the disorders she wanted to mimic and became much more sophisticated at faking the different signs and symptoms.  She eventually became so adept at acting out these diseases, she would go on to be diagnosed with epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, Guillain-Barre syndrome, stroke, insulinoma, appendicitis and status epilepticus.

Throughout this time, Lindsay knew what she was doing was wrong – but she felt like she couldn’t stop.

“A million different things were going through my head,” Lindsay said.  “I felt terribly, terribly guilty, yet I would get the relief that I wanted – the attention, the feeling of control over my life that I didn’t have that I wanted.”

Over the next seven years, Lindsay would be admitted to 100 different hospitals.

Getting help

Though Lindsay found comfort in her Munchausen syndrome, the disorder wreaked havoc on both the personal and professional spheres of her life.  She was never able to hold down a steady job, as she would miss too many days of work while staying in the hospital.  And her repeated absences from her family inevitably took their toll: After eight years of marriage, her husband filed for divorce and gained full custody of their three children.

Additionally, Lindsay’s body was starting to wear out.  Her veins had become grievously scarred due to numerous IV injections, and she developed radiation sickness from all of the X-rays she had undergone.  Faking her various physical illnesses was becoming an extremely painful process.

Feeling utterly exhausted and alone, Lindsay decided it was time to get help for her problem.  Eventually, she read a book by Dr. Marc Feldman – one of the nation’s leading experts in Munchausen syndrome. In his book Patient or Pretender, Feldman claimed that “curing” a patient with factitious disorder was incredibly difficult – and nearly impossible.

“The classic thinking about patients with Munchausen is they have always been described as hopeless cases, and the best thing the doctor can do is run in the other direction,” Feldman, who is based in Birmingham, Ala., told FoxNews.com.  “Most don’t really entertain the idea of providing treatment.  Recovery is considered so rare, it’s publishable in the medical literature and considered a medical anomaly worthy of attention.”

However, this way of thinking frustrated Lindsay, who was determined to get her life back on track.  So she reached out to Feldman, and he invited her to come visit him in Alabama.

“She came to Birmingham and stayed for two and a half weeks, and we met every day,” Feldman said.  “It was kind of a crash course; we’d meet over coffee or lunch and talk for an hour and a half each day, and I learned a lot from her – and we’ve remained friends ever since.”

After hearing more about Lindsay and her story, Feldman asked her if she felt comfortable speaking about her illness to other medical professionals.  So the two met in Washington D.C., where Lindsay presented her tale to members of the American Psychiatric Association during their annual conference.

It marked one of the first times a Munchausen patient had spoken out about his or her disorder.

“I wanted to stand up there and say, ‘I do want help, and I have the capability to understand, so work with me,’” Lindsay said of her motivations.  “’Don’t be afraid and don’t run away.’”

The road to recovery

Though Lindsay was never Feldman’s patient, he helped put her in touch with a number of psychiatrists and other individuals who could potentially help her.  According to Feldman, Munchausen patients often have additional psychiatric disorders, such as depression or bipolar disorder, which go unnoticed – and by treating these underlying illnesses, individuals can then start to recover.

“Sometimes they get better with treatment,” Feldman said. “The fuel for the Munchausen tends to dissipate, and they find healthier ways to move on. Life changes occur, either through a spiritual element or social element, and they start to find that feigning illness gets in the way of the things the like to do.”

Eventually, Lindsay learned that she had an undiagnosed form of bipolar disorder, and she underwent three years of intensive psychotherapy to help alleviate her manic-depressive symptoms. And in turn, the treatment helped erase her Munchausen urges.

To help with her healing, Feldman also put Lindsay in touch with other Munchausen patients who were working towards recovery as well.  Lindsay noted that this was extremely beneficial to her own recovery process, just as Alcoholics Anonymous can be very helpful for those suffering from alcoholism.

“It’s a daily struggle,” Lindsay said. “…I look at it in terms of how a drug addict would talk about their cure.  It’s always there, and you have to work at it all the time.  It’s more like addiction.”

After a more than 20 year battle with Munchausen syndrome, Lindsay says she is now in recovery, having not feigned any illnesses for the past two years.  Thanks to her therapy, she was able to go back to school, procure a steady job, and reconnect with her children during their teenage years.  More than anything, she hopes that her story will serve as an example to patients and therapist alike that Munchausen syndrome can be cured – and that there is hope for those who feel alienated.

“Don’t let shame get in the way of talking it out with somebody,” Lindsay said.  “I was so ashamed of how ugly the thoughts were in the first place that I wouldn’t bring it up with anyone for years and years…I would tell people, not to feel ashamed of their own thoughts. Just talk about it with somebody.

Source: USA News

Vancouver bans doorknobs for future construction projects

Hold on to your knobs while you still can. Humanity is about to embark on an era of doorknob prohibition, and it’s all starting with our friendly neighbor to the north, right in Vancouver, Canada.

Look at any door in your immediate vicinity; there’s a good chance it’s bearing a classic doorknob beloved by utilitarian’s and highly specific enthusiasts alike. In Vancouver, they’re about to become a dying breed. This past September, the city’s council amended its building code—the only city-specific building code in all of Canada—to mandate lever handles and lever faucets only.

Don’t kiss your knobs goodbye just yet, though. While all new construction projects will be required to follow the no-knob mandate, all buildings currently standing will be have their knobs grandfathered in. But this pro-lever movement isn’t about mere aesthetics; there’s something more important at play—a developing concept known as universal design.

As Tim Stainton, a professor and director of the School of Social Work at the University of B.C., told the Vancouver Sun, the movement focuses on the idea of a society that’s as physically accessible as possible:

Basically, the idea is that you try to make environments that are as universally usable by any part of the population. The old model was adaptation, or adapted design. You took a space and you adapted for use of the person with a disability. What universal design says is let’s turn it around and let’s just build everything so it is as usable by the largest segments of the population as possible.

A really simple version is the cut curbs on every corner. That helps elderly people, people with visual impairments, and moms with strollers. It makes a sidewalk that could otherwise be difficult for parts of the population universally accessible.

In fact, the Americans with Disabilities Act’s (ADA) guidelines for small businesses explicitly emphasize the problems with inaccessible door hardware and goes on to recommend the most universally accessible option: the lever.

Because Vancouver is the smallest sector of Canada that has its own building code, ideas that come to fruition there are often pushed out into the B.C. Building Code and, eventually, Canada’s National Building Code. And at that point, it’s not at all unlikely to expect the lever law to start making its way down towards the US.

As the ADA’s guidelines prove, universality of design is hugely important in creating a world of equal opportunity. So though we’ll still be able to keep our precious knobs for the time being, let’s hope for everyone’s sake that, one day, we’ll all be telling our grandchildren tale of the great doorknobs of yesteryear

Source: Gizmodo

‘Dead’ baby wakes at China funeral parlour before cremation

dead baby

A Chinese baby boy who had been declared dead was saved from being cremated alive when he started crying at a funeral parlour, media reported Thursday.

The parents of the critically-ill boy, who was less than one month old, had agreed to end his medical treatment at Anhui Provincial Children’s Hospital in eastern China, hospital sources told Xinhua state news agency.

A death certificate was issued before the baby was sent to a funeral parlour in Hefei, the provincial capital — only for staff there to be alerted by crying on Wednesday.
It was unclear how long he had been at the funeral parlour, or when his cremation had been due.

The baby was immediately sent back to the hospital, several news outlets including the Beijing News reported on Thursday.

“Because the baby still had life signs, we continued to give him transfusion to maintain his life for humanitarian reasons,” a hospital staff member told Xinhua.

The baby was born with a “congenital respiratory system malformation”, the report added.
The baby was receiving treatment at the hospital late Wednesday, reports said.

A doctor was suspended, a nursing worker laid off and an investigation launched into the incident, the hospital said, according to Xinhua.

Source: Times of India

 

New York City bans tobacco sales to people under age 21

Mayor Bloomberg signed the legislation, which makes the city’s tobacco laws among the nations most stringent

Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed landmark legislation Tuesday banning the sale of tobacco products to anyone under the age of 21, making New York the first large city or state in the country to prohibit sales to young adults.

During a brief ceremony at City Hall, Bloomberg said rising the legal purchase age from 18 to 21 will help prevent young people from experimenting with tobacco at the age when they are most likely to become addicted. City health officials say 80 percent of smokers start before age 21.

The mayor, a former smoker, also signed companion legislation setting a minimum price for all cigarettes sold in the city to $10.50 per pack. That law also bans retailers from offering coupons, 2-for-1 specials or discounts.

In signing the bills, Bloomberg deflected criticism from some retailers that the measures would prove economically harmful and lead to job losses.

“This is an issue of whether we are going to kill people,” Bloomberg said. People who raise the economic argument, he said, “really ought to look in the mirror and be ashamed.”

The ban has limitations in its ability to stop young people from picking up the deadly habit. Teenagers can still possess tobacco legally. Kids will still be able to steal cigarettes from their parents, bum them from friends or buy them from the black-market dealers who are common in many neighborhoods.

But City Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said the idea is to make it more inconvenient for young people to get started, especially young teens who had previously had easy access to cigarettes through slightly older peers.

“Right now, an 18-year-old can buy for a 16-year-old,” he said. Once the law takes effect, in 180 days, Farley said, that 16-year-old would “have to find someone in college or out in the workforce.”

Source: Aljazeera America

Teenage girl dies of toxic shock syndrome after using tampon

 

Teenage girl, 14, died from toxic shock syndrome caused by using her first tampon, say family as they launch campaign about rare infection

A teenager who dreamed of starring in the West End died from an ultra-rare infection after using a tampon for the first time, her heartbroken family have said.

Natasha Scott-Falber, 14, died suddenly on Valentine’s Day in Caerwent, Wales, and five days after she fell ill with what was thought to be the norovirus.

Her family now believes the teenager died of toxic shock syndrome – a bacterial infection which affects just 40 people a year in Britain.

Posting on Facebook, her family – which includes her mother Mandy Scott, 52, Brother Daniel Falber, stepfather Mike Scott and stepmother Linda Falber – have launched a campaign to raise awareness of the condition so other sufferers spot the signs earlier.

They said: ‘Natasha died of toxic shock syndrome the first time that she used tampons.

‘Generally speaking, it is accepted knowledge that leaving a tampon in for too long can cause toxic shock syndrome. In Natasha’s case, she followed all of the instructions and used the tampon correctly; it was simply the introduction of the tampon into her body which caused toxic shock syndrome to take effect.

‘Tash became ill five days before she died but remained in good spirits, and only the evening before she died, she was telling Mandy off for fussing over her, and saying that she was feeling much better.
She died peacefully at approximately 6.45am on Valentine’s Day after falling asleep watching one of her favorite TV programs.

‘We cannot express how much we miss our beautiful, gifted, kind and funny Natasha. All of our family, and many others close to us, are still reeling from the shock of losing our wonderful girl.

‘We hope that you and your family never have to go through what we have gone through, and are still going through.’

Natasha, who was found dead by her father Mike Falber, was described as an ‘all-singing and all-dancing’ youngster who enjoyed acting and playing the guitar.

She had been selected last year to perform in a backing choir for English tenor Alfie Boe at one of Wales’ most prestigious concert halls, St David’s Hall, Cardiff.

After Natasha’s death it was initially believed she had fallen victim to septicaemia, better known as blood poisoning.

Toxic shock syndrome affects about 40 people each year in the UK.

The infection is caused when usually harmless Staphylococcus aureus or Streptococcus bacteria, which live on the skin, invade the bloodstream and produce dangerous toxins.

A statement from BUPA said: ‘It’s not exactly understood why using a tampon is linked with toxic shock syndrome, but tampon absorbency (the amount of menstrual blood a tampon absorbs) is thought to be a factor.

‘If you’re a woman using tampons, use a tampon with the lowest absorbency suitable for your menstrual blood flow, change your tampon frequently, use a sanitary towel or panty liner from time to time during your period, never insert more than one tampon at one time and use a sanitary towel at night instead of a tampon.’

The family said: ‘We thought that one thing we could do, to honour Natasha, and to help others, would be to start an awareness campaign about toxic shock syndrome.

‘We are in communication with Public Health Wales, the two main tampon companies, and we have already had some success with GPs and with the education system in Gwent. All the age-appropriate pupils attending schools in Gwent have been made aware of toxic shock syndrome.

‘We are determined to make at least everyone in the UK aware of what the symptoms are, and what the risks are.’

Toxic shock syndrome is a highly dangerous bacterial infection – but it can be misdiagnosed, because the symptoms are the same as other illnesses and because it is so rare.

It occurs when usually harmless Staphylococcus aureus or Streptococcus bacteria, which live on the skin, invade the bloodstream and produce dangerous toxins.

This causes a sudden high fever, a massive drop in blood pressure resulting in dizziness and confusion, and occasionally vomiting and diarrhoea.

Other symptoms – none of which are exclusive to toxic shock syndrome, which is extremely rare – include a sunburn-like skin rash, the whites of the eyes becoming red or pink and the shedding of the skin in large sheets, especially from the palms of the hands and soles of the feet, one or two weeks after becoming ill.

Women are most at risk of getting toxic shock syndrome during menstruation and particularly if they are using tampons, have recently given birth, or are using an internal barrier contraceptive such as a diaphragm.
Source: Mail Online

CDC importing meningitis vaccine to fight Princeton outbreak

Federal health officials have agreed to import a meningitis vaccine approved in Europe and Australia but not the U.S. as officials at Princeton University consider measures to stop the spread of the disease on the Ivy League campus.

The Food and Drug Administration this week approved importing Bexsero for possible use on Princeton’s campus, said Barbara Reynolds, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Princeton officials confirmed the school’s seventh case of meningitis in 2013 this week and a spokesman said trustees will discuss the issue this weekend.

No vaccine for use against the type B meningococcal bacteria which caused the cases at Princeton is available in the U.S., Reynolds said, adding that the decision to receive the vaccine would be optional if Princeton and CDC officials agree to offer it to students.

Bacterial meningitis can cause swelling of the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord. The disease is fairly rare in the United States. Those who get it develop symptoms quickly and can die in a couple of days. Survivors can suffer mental disabilities, hearing loss and paralysis.

The bacteria are spread by coughing, sneezing and kissing, and most cases occur in previously healthy children and young adults. The disease can easily spread in crowded conditions, like dorm rooms. All students living in dorms are required by state law to have a licensed meningitis vaccine, but it does not protect against type B.

The school is telling students to wash their hands, cover their coughs and not to share items such as drinking glasses and eating utensils.

Source: WGN tv

 

Identical twins share breast cancer, rare surgery

Identical twins Kelly McCarthy and Kristen Maurer have shared a lot in their lives so when one was diagnosed with breast cancer, she urged the other to get tested, too.

“You just do everything together, don’t you,” the doctor told Maurer before delivering the bad news that she, too, had the disease.

Now the 34-year-old twins from Crown Point, Ind., are sharing a medical rarity: Maurer donated skin and fat tissue for McCarthy’s breast reconstruction.

“It wasn’t a question, she didn’t have to ask me,” said Maurer, a college enrollment counselor. “Having a twin is very like having a child. You would do anything for them … in a heartbeat.”

The first successful organ transplant was between identical twins in Boston in 1954 and involved a kidney.

Since then, identical twins have been involved in many other transplant operations, involving kidneys and other organs, bone marrow, and stem cells. But breast reconstruction between identical twins has only been done a handful of times; Maurer and McCarthy, a nurse, are among the youngest patients.

Identical twins are ideal donors because their skin, tissue and organs are perfect genetic matches, explained Dr. David Song, chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery at the University of Chicago Medical Center. And that eliminates the need for anti-rejection medicine, he said.

Song performed the twins’ surgeries on Tuesday and both fared well.

Typically, breast reconstruction surgery involves implants and/or a woman’s own tissue, sometimes taken from the abdomen, thighs or buttocks. But McCarthy is among women who don’t have enough extra tissue; plus, radiation treatment damaged tissue near her breasts. So Maurer offered to be a donor.

McCarthy said her sister’s sacrifice, “just so I can feel better about myself … is really humbling.”

With their blonde bobs, sparkling brown eyes and easy, engaging smiles, the twins are clearly mirror images of each other. Discovering breast cancer in identical twins isn’t unusual because of their exact genetic makeup, Song said. With twins, there’s also often a “mirroring effect,” with breast cancer developing in the opposite breast, he said. That’s what happened with McCarthy and Maurer.

While their mother died from colon cancer last year, there was no family history of breast cancer.

McCarthy was diagnosed first, in December 2011, with triple-negative breast cancer, a hard-to-treat form of cancer whose growth is not fueled by hormones. She was nine months pregnant and her son was born a week later. Soon after she started treatment, chemotherapy, surgery to remove her right breast, and radiation.

Maurer was diagnosed with a very early-stage cancer in her left breast a few months after her sister.

“Kelly was more upset than I was during my diagnosis, and likewise, when she was diagnosed I was a mess,” Maurer said.

Maurer had a double mastectomy, recommended because her sister’s cancer was so aggressive, but she didn’t need chemotherapy or radiation. She had reconstruction with implants after the birth of her second child last March.

McCarthy’s operation this week involved a second mastectomy, and reconstruction of both breasts. Some of her own tissue was used to fashion one breast. At the same time, surgeons essentially performed a “tummy tuck” on Maurer, removing lower abdominal skin and fat tissue and transplanted it to her sister to create a second new breast.

The twins have always been extremely close, sometimes speaking in unison or completing each other’s sentences. But now, McCarthy said, “I feel closer. Her tissue is over my heart.”

Source: Yahoo news