Here's Why

Harsh Realms for real

Totally immersive virtual reality is being used to distract people from drug-resistant pain at the University of Washington Harborview Burn Center.

A Snow World is experienced by burns victims suffering the extcruciating pain of having their wound dressing changed and cleaned, by means of two tiny TV screens in a helmet.

In SnowWorld, patients fly through an icy canyon with a river and frigid waterfall. Patients shoot snowballs at snowmen and igloos. Since patients often report re-living their original burn experience during wound care, SnowWorld was designed to help put out the fire.

After patients in the original study and 12 other burn victims in a follow-up study, reported dramatic reductions in pain, Harborview began offering VR therapy in addition to painkillers to all its patients. The hospital said nearly all of the eligible burn patients agree to participate.

Because their brains can’t pay attention to both the action in the virtual Snow World, and to the pain in their wounds, they actually zone out of the pain feelings and barely notice their dressing being changed. Dr Hunter Huffman’s theory is that their brains simply don’t have enough processing power left over from the Snow World illusion, to interpret the pain signals. This raises intreresting implications for non-technological means of pain control by conscious effort.

Remember that science fiction TV show from 2000 where the US Military creates a simulated Earth populated with AI bots who think they’re people for soldiers to practice on?

BBC report that the first version of artificial Earth is due for release in September 2004:

“Mr Gehorsam said the world being created will not be a game but instead will be a “massively multi-user persistent environment” that will model real world physics as closely as possible.”

The emphasis in the artificial Earth will be on human interaction rather than conflicts involving lots of military hardware.

“There is planning to model the entire planet at the proper scale so it would be possible to walk across the United States if participants wanted to.”

The US military need an accurate simulation of the entire Earth and everyone on it? Thats some backup system!

Meanwhile the simulated people in the popular online computer game “The Sims”, have now been provided by fans with their own game of a simulated simulated city full of simulated simulated people , to take care of. Its called SimSlice Slice City. If the Sims are successful simulated simulated world managers, they earn money to improve their simulated lives.

The mirror of this is that real world players of Ultima, an simulated fantasy world on the internet, are now making real money in the real world, by selling simulated game items they have won in the game world to less patient players. As the Rusticators sang: “Reality aint what it used to be.”

Resources:
Artificial Earth 1.0
HarbourView Burn Center
SimSlice Slice City

Imaginary walls

The imaginary walls that we have all been relying on to seperate the air from smoking and non-smoking areas don’t work. I’ve been right for twenty years - imagine that!

ABC reports that Professor Bernard Stewart from Sydney’s South-East Area Health Service has made public the results of his research into “non-smoking zones” in restaurants, pubs and clubs today.

High levels of toxic chemicals were found throughout the clubs, regardless of air conditioners, ventilation systems or closed-in areas. In at least three of the seventeen clubs he studied, the levels of cigarette particles were actually higher in the “non-smoking” areas.

The NSW State government’s Smoke Free Environment Act 2000 currently makes it legal to smoke in any establishment that is licensed to sell liquor, as long as you are a few metres away from where food is sold. Then the imaginary wall is all that is left to protect you. Unless you travel by train.

CityRail refuses to enforce the anti-smoking legislation that was originally put in place in 1912, OR the 1983 NSW Occupational Health and Safety Act, OR the Rail Safety Act of 1999, OR the new-fangled law introduced in 2000. They made some announcements over the PA, deep underground at Town Hall station for a year, then they quietly took down all the non-smoking signs and all the staff returned to smoking on the job. No wonder so many train drivers turned out to be unfit to drive for health reasons! It was all the smoke in their workplace.

Of course they enforce the laws against litter at CityRail, but this is kind of unfair since they’ve taken away all the litter bins for reasons of “National Security”. I would have thought it was safer to make people throw their rubbish in a bin that staff can keep an eye on, than to have them be forced to leave boxes and bottles absolutely anywhere on a station platform or train. Its now harder to track potential terrorist parcels at a train station than it used to be before they removed the bins.

Resources:
The Non Smokers’ Movement of Australia
Action on Smoking and Health Australia
The Cancer Council NSW
Go Smoke Free in Pubs and Clubs
Militant Non-Smoking: A Modest Proposal by Ian Woolf from around 1988

The Assayer reviews free online books

The Assayer

Reviews and links to electronic versions of free books that people can download for their PDAs. Nice idea. Next to get my own PDA…

Asthma medication side effects help Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

I was given Ventolin (generic name “salbutamol” or “albuterol”) on the 4th January 2004 as first aid for a severe bronchitis attack on a trip to winter Canada, and had wonderful side-effects helping my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The better drug, I found, is Symbicort.

After one puff of Ventolin, I immediately heard a loud dizzying, ringing noise, and then my mind cleared.

This is wholly remarkable to someone who has suffered clouding of the brain by severe CFS or Fibromyalgia. To someone like me, who has suffered frequent attacks of mild aphasia and complete confusion for more than a year, this is like going from reading by the light of a randomly flickering LED clock, to switching on the room lights.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome researcher Dr Jay Goldstein in his book “Betrayal By The Brain” talks about there being brain systems going wrong that are helped by vaso-constricting drugs, and other brain system problems that are helped by vaso-dilators. A bronchio-dilator like ventolin dilates the bronchial tubes by vasodilator action.

I was prescribed the preventative Symbicort, which is a powder inhaler containing anti-inflammatory budesonide and brochiodilator formoterol. The brain effects were more gentle than the Ventolin, but more substantial and longer lasting. I have massively improved concentration, and my aphasic symptoms are so well controlled that I am able to sit and write for hours or sit and talk for hours. I feel more energetic, and I have a sense of well-being that I suspect comes from the reduction in inflammation.

After two weeks of Symbicort and antibiotics, my bronchitis mostly cleared up. I still had a dry cough, so I visited a doctor, and explained about how much I like the side effects of the Symbicort. He doubled my dose, and wrote a report for my doctor at home.

On the double dose, I had energy and stamina. For the first time in eighteen months, I had been able to go out on walks for pleasure, without debilitating exhaustion. My technical skills came back to me, and I was able to work on a project with my father-in-law to set up his computer to transfer his old video cassette collection to DVD to save space. I worked without tiring for several days before I finally had the familiar CFS “crash” exhaustion and had to simply rest for a few days.

We returned to Sydney via London, and my wife and I walked for six hours a day all over London to see the sights for two days. My legs hurt from simple muscle-tiredness after a good work-out, rather than from inflammation.

Since returning to Sydney, I developed the common side effect of oral thrush from the Symbicort, and my doctor switched me to Ventolin. The Ventolin gave me my voice back and let my body get rid of the thrush. I did have some stamina on the Ventolin alone, and I could still talk, but it simply wasn’t as good as the Symbicort.

I started to feel miserable, like you do with flu or CFS, and I wasn’t feeling as bright as on the Symbicort. When I started getting the Mild Aphasia symptoms like biting my mouth when I ate, I decided I had to return to the Symbicort. I compromised by halving my dose to one puff twice a day to reduce the risk of hurting my throat, and used an inhaler spacer.

I felt better within twenty minutes. I stopped having to lie down to recover from my one big day out gathering interviews for the Discovery radio show . I started writing my travel insurance claim, chasing up the money that Centrelink owe me, cleaning the flat, and registering with the
NSW Writer’s Centre .

I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) in 1992, and have suffered various insults that have worsened things since then. I have suffered severe symptoms since November 2002, suffering Mild Aphasia and losing seventeen kilograms.

I think the oral thrush that hurts my throat is only caused by the dry powder inhaler, and my google searching has shown that there exist aerosol inhalers that have the same active ingredients budesonide and formoterol, including sinus sprays.

I intend to contact AstraZeneca who make Symbicort and see if they have any information about the drug as a treatment for CFS.

My gastroenterologist early last year told me that my severe CFS symptoms and my mild Aphasia seemed to him to be caused by a micro-organism that exposed my brain to a foreign protein causing inflammation. It makes sense then, that an anti-inflammatory drug should help me.

I’m not cured; I’m still disabled by CFS, but I’m feeling much, much better. I hope that I’m not an isolated case and that these drugs can be used to help relieve some of the symptoms of CFS and Fibromyalgia sufferers around the world.

References:

http://www.pulsemed.org/cfspharm.htm
CFS/ME Society of NSW
A Companion Volume to Dr. Jay A. Goldstein’s Betrayal by the Brain: A Guide for Patients and Their Physicians

Little Naughties in the Dark

I attended the Darwin’s Day celebrations on the 12th February and recorded this interview with Dean of Science of UNSW Mike Archer. He made an offhand remark about bacteria in your body having little naughties in the dark, so I had to ask him to explain..
Mike Archer Interview about the promiscuous bacteria having sex with you at this moment
This is an Windows Audio streaming file of 1 meg, and about 6 minutes 47 seconds. It was aired Monday morning on 2SER 107.3FM in Sydney, and will be aired on Comradsat Community radio networks around Australia at 6pm Wednesday night.

I recorded a second one with Mike about Lucid dreaming, and another one that day with Charlie Lineweaver, which will air in the future. These were Marian Curruthers first experience of interviewing, I think she did pretty well.

Mike Archer, as always is excellent talent, and was friendly and passionate about his subjects.

I edited this the same day I recorded it, a very productive day for someone with severe CFS. I‘ll explain about the medication that helps make this possible really soon. I want to contact the drug company and see if they are aware that their drugs have extra uses beyond asthma.

Cypher

released in Australia on August 14th 2003, elsewhere, perhaps 2004 or later

Cypher is what a spy movie should be, with all the right questions

about how much control you are giving away when you sign up,

how you choose who to trust, what to believe,  and how it all

affects who you are, and want to be.  Identity is the key theme.

The special effects help the plot instead of substituting for the plot.