Imagine being at war in the midst of battle without being aware of what was going on around you. Imagine having the desire to serve your country and help your fellow soldiers but you needed an aid to walk. This has been a problem for British soldier Craig  Lundberg for the past three years.  Craig Lundberg lost his vision after he was struck by a rocket propelled grenade in 2007.  

After his incident Corporal Craig Lundberg was the first to get his hands or should I say tongue on a new device called Brainport. You can say that he was a pioneer in using this device. Brainport allows him to see images from his goggles which are then translated with a simulation pattern to his tongue and converted into signals that can be understood by his brain. People who are visually impaired will learn to use this device by recognizing patterns, movement and also high contrast objects. What concerns me is what happens if this particular soldier gets the device damaged while on a mission? Does the device have some sort of backup software and is it durable enough to withstand the different environments and situations a soldier has to deal with in the time of war?

According to Lundberg he says that the device feels like “licking a nine volt battery” or “like popping candy”. This device has a great potential to change the lives of many people if released to the public. This device could help those who are visually impaired see their loved ones which could be an enormous advancement in life of people affected by this disability. Lundberg says “ One of the things it has allowed me to do is pick up objects straight away, I can reach out and pick them up when before I would be fumbling around to feel for them”. The value of this simple action is taken for granted by so many people. You can tell that life is a lot more easier for Lundberg and his family ….even more so than before. There has to be some feeling of relief within him that now he has the ability to do more things for himself as well as others.

Currently this revolutionary device being used is only a prototype according to Disability and Health News. hopefully the British army will find answers to these problems before it is used by other visually impaired soldiers.The neuropsychologist supervising this trial Maurice Pitito says that “ It’s a concept in which you replace a sense that was lost by another one.” Brainport can allow people who are visually impaired walk around without a cane. It gives them the opportunity to navigate obstacles and even the opportunity to read signs. It also allows them to get a feeling of the world from their tongue and that gives them a sense of seeing. Most people do not understand that you do not only see with your eyes but you see with your brain.

This political football has created a group of people that cannot pay for their drugs because of a crazy program that is based on Social Security that was never supposed to give people enough money to pay for their medical bills. So instead we have a drug industry that makes billions of dollars in profits on the backs of those that pay for research on the pills that we are charged $1000+ a month for. These companies due to keep generic drug makers from creating drugs that can be afforded by all. It is interesting that the costs of the same drug in the US is a fraction of that amount in Canada or even India. Each country pays a different amount but we are too stupid to make these same deals with the drug makers. To add insult to injury Medicare is not allowed by law to purchase drugs from other countries for less than what we are charged for them now. The US pays for all of the research but does not gain any of the benefits of that research. Instead the poor of the country are forced to pay outrageous amounts of money for drugs that they need to stay alive. We need to make some decisions as a country on how we deal with those that are disabled and elderly. Either we are going to pay for their medical care or not – not the bits and pieces we are now. By only allowing these people to take their drugs every 6 months, their health is deteriorating to the point that they are dying before they should because of the damage caused by not taking their medications. Lets close the doughnut hole and give people the medical care that they need to live useful lives.

The medical care bill changes are the least of our problems with an ever increasing disabled population. All these programs are running out of money or are rationing what little money is left. Vocational Rehab which has been helping the disabled get back to work are finding that they can only help those that are presently in the program. Any new people are being put into a queue that may or may not be funded this year or next. So we will have large groups of people that want to get back to work but cannot even talk to a counselor because there is  no money to convert cars or put ramps in a home. Decisions have to be made on what will be done to help the disabled and how will funding be increased over time as workers who have been paying taxes over the last 40 years move over to Social Security and disability payments. Somehow we need to get more workers paying into these programs or we will be in deficit. The government has been in deficit for many years and managed to start to pay things off in the 1990s but economic problems have put all these programs in serious trouble.

Many analysts have said that Social Security and Medicare will run out of money by 2030, forcing people into nursing homes or halfway houses to pay the bills. Many of those people will be disabled by that time and will need specialized care if they are remove from their homes. No one knows where the money for those doctors and nurses that can work with the disabled but they must come from somewhere. It is doubtful that the population of the United States will put up with pushing the elderly and disabled on the streets panhandling for money because the governmental programs that were put in place to help them are now of money for good. No one wants to increase taxes but something has to be done or there will be substantial changes that will make the middle class disappear with a divide of services between the super rich and the ever increasing poor population.

There have been several attempts to change the way medical care is doled out in the United States but is has been shot down every time. This is the closest that anyone has come to creating a omnibus bill for medical care. While it is not perfect everyone can see that we cannot continue to zoom down the way we are going because Medicare and Social Security are both in big trouble financially speaking. Something has to be done in the next 10 to 15 years or many programs that Americans use to live on after working their entire lives will crash and burn. That does not include all those (and we are talking millions) that depend on those programs because of a catastrophic injury that forced them to be disabled. The disabled usually cannot work anymore and without Social Security would be tossed out on the street (along with their family) and without Medicare would also lose their home because of skyrocketing medical bills. It is not unreasonable for many on Medicare to lose their prescription drug program after 5 or 6 months because of the way the law works and then stop taking their drugs until the next year. Many die of heart attacks or worse because they cannot afford to take the drugs they need to stay alive. It is a scary thing to think about but we all will eventually get to that point as we get old and our bodies give out. So if you think that this does not effect you, give it a few decades and we’ll see how you feel about no programs in place to help with paying the bills. Read up and stay tuned, it is going to be a bumpy ride.

Research points people in new and strange directions, and it is great to see that work has moved forward in helping people suffering from fibromyalgia. There are probably other areas of the body where receptors are found by not well understood. Pain and how the brain receives and processes that data is an area that needs more research. Certain classes of pain drugs are known to work on pain receptors or areas of the brain that receive that information, but exactly how the interaction works is a mystery. That needs to be cleared up if we are to get better pain medications that only work on the receptors we want and not on muscle receptors like we have now with drugs like Oxycontin. While this drug is a strong pain killer it also dramatically slows down the bowel forcing the patient to take addition drugs to keep their lower intestines working properly. There are other contraindications for these drugs that patients need to work with that would be nice if the pain drugs were better aimed at where the damage is.

There are devices that can be implanted near the spine with either electrodes or needles that are implanted in the damaged area of the spine. Electrical stimulation or drugs are sent to the location at regular intervals and can be adjusted by either the doctor or the patient. In this way the drugs are sent to only the place that they are needed and the patient can stay relatively clear minded from the drugs and since a smaller dose is used the bowel is now as effected. While these are very effective the patient must go through an operation and recovery, both of which can have issues of infection that require more drugs and therapy. Many people find these implants to be very effective and work better than the drugs they were taking and do a better job of handling pain spike because the patient can control extra doses if a problem crops up. Normally addition drugs are taken by mouth and can take anywhere from 10 minutes to over an hour to become effective which is a long time to wait for pain relief. 

Hopefully the state will ask the federal government for help on these programs before large groups of people are effected by the cuts. These may not seem a big deal but if these people don’t take care of simple problems with their feet and teeth, those problems will become worse and will cost more to get fixed. This means going to the emergency room and putting strain on other state budget areas that would not normally have to handle these issues. Perhaps the state can look at all of the areas of the budget and spread the cuts over a larger area so that people are not hit as hard. If Boston were to cut the hours that state agencies were open by a few hours a week that could make a lot of money available to prop up services like the ones needed by the disabled community until either the economy improves or federal money becomes available. While families should be there for the disabled, they cannot always have money available because they have their own bills and children that need to be helped. Medical bills tend to be expensive and many people now do not have the extra money that they used to that could be used to pay for bills that popped up with out notice. Hopefully the work that has been done in the senate will make it easier for everyone to get health insurance and to get medical help. Otherwise hospital emergency rooms are going to be filled to capacity with people that don’t have emergencies, but do not have anywhere else to go to get help.,

This is fantastic news that after all these years of research we are starting to see real medical procedures for repairs. Unlike the fly-by-nite groups in Asia that pump a patient with umbilical cord cells and hope for the best, this procedure actually repairs the damage of almost every animal that was in the study. Of course the real work will be with  human testing. While rats are very close to humans for testing, there are always differences that seem to frustrate procedures that look so promising. We hope that this is very successful because there are millions of people that could be given back their lives with a procedure that fixes 97% of the damage. There is no way to calculate the response of being able to give someone the chance to walk again, to drive or go back to work as the used to. Not to count that sexual function could be returned to all those with spinal cord injuries. All these people that are on Social Security Disability could go back to work or back to school and do the things they used to without all the pain and loss of control they had because of their accident.

In addition to your body becoming used to a particular medication, it may also become allergic to the medication or something in the pill causing you problems. In my case something in pain medication was taking for a while was creating pain that made my doctor write a breakthrough medication for it. By changing out the pain pill, he was able to drop the power of the medication by half and the extra pain disappeared. That meant that I also didn’t need to take that extra breakthrough drug. Any time you can remove a drug from your list it is time to celebrate. With the number of contraindications and interactions that are hard to pin down, the fewer things you are taking the better.

While you are working with your doctor to switch things out, find out if there are older drugs that can do the work of  that newer wiz-bang pill. Chances are the older drug is better understood and much cheaper because there are generics out. That can keep you out of the doughnut hole which is always a good idea. Plus, update your drug list along with any issues and problems that you are experiencing. Keep that document on you at all times in case you have to go to the hospital. You can get those doctors quickly up to speed on your problems and issues even if they can’t get hold of your regular pain doctor. That includes blood pressure, temperature issues, blood sugar, and an other items that you normally track. This can also let you see trends or changes that you didn’t notice before. That can stop problems before they become serious and keep you out of the hospital for an extended stay.

SCRN has written several articles on different drugs that are working on getting nerves to regrow, but all have run into problems with scar tissue. One plan had chemicals that drilled small holes in the scar tissue but there was typically not enough area cleared out to make a difference in nerve repair. If this enzyme works well in humans we may finally have a way to administer drugs and growth hormones to an area that all but stopped all opportunities to fix the area. The larger area that is opened up to repair the more neurons and muscles that can be repaired. This will give the patient the best chance to get their arms and legs moving again. The study did not say of stem cells could be added to the list of things that could be placed in the area for repairs but anything that increases the healing process across things that were damaged the better. It is hoped that this enzyme does not have unwanted side effects as it is moved from rats to monkeys and eventually human tissue tests. The research did not report any unwanted damage to other parts of the body or for the enzyme to move to other parts of the body. If it can stay placed in the spinal area without the worry of moving and damaging another area, it would make a very safe way of removing scar tissue.

It would be interesting to see how this enzyme works on other parts of the body after damage including knees and hip joints. Both of these typically end up with a lot of scar tissue over time that needs to be removed by a surgeon and then have the joint replaced. It would be great if the enzyme could remove or destroy the scar tissue making it easier to fix the damage. We are sure that there are other uses for removal of scar tissue that would help the body to repair the area other than surgery.