Sometimes, serendipity is a scary thing...

I took nursing back in university. My favourite favourite class was microbiology, so much so that I often wondered if I should have hung out there instead of going on to be a nurse.

We had a great prof, who would spice up his 8:30 AM lectures (with many many slides) with unusual pictures,  beer tasting, jokes, and other things that actually kept us awake despite the early hour and the darkened classroom.

My favourite bacterium was Clostridium Perfringens, primarily because it is the cause of the nauseating-sounding gas gangrene. Plus it also hangs out in gut bacteria and leads to food poisoning. 

And it has a cool name.

From Wikipedia:
Clostridium perfringens (formerly known as C. welchii, or Bacillus welchii) is a Gram-positive, rod-shaped, anaerobic, spore-forming bacterium of the genus Clostridium.^[1] C. perfringens is ever present in nature and can be found as a normal component of decaying vegetation, marine sediment, theintestinal tract of humans and other vertebrates, insects, and soil.

C. perfringens is the third most common cause of food poisoning in the United Kingdom and the United States though it can sometimes be ingested and cause no harm.

Infections due to C. perfringens show evidence of tissue necrosis, bacteremia, emphysematouscholecystitis, and gas gangrene, which is also known as clostridial myonecrosis. The toxin involved ingas gangrene is known as α-toxin, which inserts into the plasma membrane of cells, producing gaps in the membrane that disrupt normal cellular function. C. perfringens can participate in polymicrobialanaerobic infections. Clostridium perfringens is commonly encountered in infections as a component of the normal flora.In this case, its role in disease is minor.

The action of C. perfringens on dead bodies is known to mortuary workers as tissue gas and can be halted only by embalming.

It's a nasty bacteria with a nasty name that rolls off the tongue in a most satisfying way. Imagine - GAS gangrene! It sounds like something out of Harry Potter. I adored it, I loved saying it, I think I even cultured it in the lab.

And now it turns out it may be one of the causative factors in MS:

http://www.msdiscovery.org/news/new_findings/8472-new-pathogen-linked-ms

Of course, early days yet, and I still think Epstein-Barr has the greater role, but I think it's rather amusing that my favourite bacteria might be the cause of my illness.

Of course, I do have holes in my brain, so perhaps I'm not thinking properly about what is funny and what is not. But c'mon, say it with me:

Clostridium Perfringens!

On the good side, every discovery is another step closer to treatment and cure. But maybe, just maybe, first year microbiology students shouldn't be culturing this creature.

Is it all about the poo?

My brother sent me on this podcast http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/freakonomicsradio/~5/VZ-2GFkkQrU/freakonomics_podcast030211.mp3  from freakonomics radio about how a man with MS was "cured" by getting a fecal transplant.  Apparently, if we have bad germs in our guts, we can get some good germs from someone else's poo and allow them to inhabit our guts.  This will remove the harmful bacteria that live there and therefore return us to health. Assuming they beat up our bacteria and take over.

It's an interesting point.  If we are, as described in the podcast, 10% us and 90% bacteria, there's something to be said about reorganizing our friendly colonists (pun intended) to be more friendly. And, after all, that discovery of H. Pylori and ulcer causation revolutionized the treatment of ulcers.

And, truth be told, there is much research to indicate that MS is probably infection-related, given that it involves an autoimmune response that must be triggered somehow.

I'm not sure about having a poo transplant, though. There's a lot of nasty stuff in poo, much of it I would not want to visit.  Montezuma's revenge, cholera, who knows what else. I'm reminded of the rabbits of Australia - brought on for hunting, reproduced like mad, then they had to treat the rabbit problem, and lost control of that, too.

And I can't help but wonder if some of the same magic thinking is going on here that hangs around those in support of cleanses. Our digestive tract is full of little creatures that change and reproduce and wriggle about depending on what environment we give them. I think they'd be hard to manage long term.

The fellow they interviewed said that he was all better after his treatment, but time will tell. Relapsing-remitting MS is a trickster that way - you can think you have it beaten and then it sneaks up on you from behind (har har). I hope he stays well. But it's another tale of anecdote not making scientific proof.

I'm not signing up for the randomized controlled trial, though.
Ewwww.

What Causes MS? Or where do vaccines figure in all of this?

Just reading a thread on the very helpful site, Patients Like Me, where I routinely go when I want to ask a question that my doc would look at me sideways for asking.
They've been there when I wondered about which treatment to take, when my legs started spasming and no one seemed to think it was a common thing with MS, when I lost sensation.  They've been helpful, and they have additional sites for other diseases where fellow sufferers get together and share information. It's great to look up medications and see if others have been prescribed the same things, etc. Awesome resource.
However, it is filled with people who are desperate about MS and also somewhat uninformed. The latest post is filled with suppositions that vaccines caused their MS.  Now, we don't know what causes MS, so I can't be SURE they are wrong, but research says it is probably a combination of things - from low vitamin D, to infection with Epstein-Barr disease (mono) after age 15, to stress, to a variety of other things from genetic tendencies to environmental pollution. Maybe vaccines do play a part, but I hate to read these posts.
Why?  Because I'm a nurse, and I know what those vaccines prevent - diphtheria, where a thick membrane forms across your throat, disabling your ability to breathe; rubella, where infection during pregnancy results in a deaf, severely congenitally damaged child; polio, which leads to paralysis with first infection and often recurrent paralysis later in life; pertussis, which I've seen kill babies with exhaustion; tetanus, which paralyzes the lungs and can kill. They aren't minor diseases.  We've become casual about them because they are now rare, thanks to immunization.
My son is travelling through Asia and caught amebic dysentery.  He is taking pills to forestall worse infections: malaria, sepsis from any wounds, etc. But what is primarily protecting him are his immunizations, for hepatitis, yellow fever, etc etc etc. He is wandering safely through a literal morass of germs and creatures all hoping to feast on his remains. As am I, here in safer North America.

We have so many little bugs who are becoming resistant to antibiotics that immunizations are becoming even more important year by year.  I take my flu shots.  I need to get my tetanus updated (tetanus is in the soil and can getcha anytime - you need a booster every 10 years).  I can't prevent my MS or my diabetes or whatever, but I can do what I can to keep myself from being felled from diseases for which we have the prevention available. Why wouldn't I?
I wish I could finger the blame for why I have MS.  There isn't any in my family; I don't know why I have been so lucky.  Inside myself I blame a bad case of mono in College and my second to last boss, who stressed me to breaking point. But I don't know.  It doesn't really matter in the end for me, though I'd like to see the cause identified so it could be prevented for others.
But fear of vaccines has its own dangers...