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[...] Years later, "he is completely off all medication and shows no psychiatric symptoms," Dr. Miyaoka told me in an email. Somehow the transplant cured the man's schizophrenia.
A bone-marrow transplant essentially reboots the immune system. Chemotherapy kills off your old white blood cells, and new ones sprout from the donor's transplanted blood stem cells. It's unwise to extrapolate too much from a single case study, and it's possible it was the drugs the man took as part of the transplant procedure that helped him. But his recovery suggests that his immune system was somehow driving his psychiatric symptoms.
At first glance, the idea seems bizarre — what does the immune system have to do with the brain? — but it jibes with a growing body of literature suggesting that the immune system is involved in psychiatric disorders from depression to bipolar disorder.
He Got Schizophrenia. He Got Cancer. And Then He Got Cured.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @07:22AM (8 children)
I hear bone-marrow transplants are very painful. My thought is the pain is something he concentrates on, forcing him to stay in reality. No time for self reflection, which I think is the main thing behind most feely "diseases."
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Tuesday October 02 2018, @07:37AM (3 children)
I hear bone-marrow transplants are very painful.
I knew someone that donated bone marrow once for money and even though they were broke and really needed the cash they reported that they would not have done it if they had known how much it hurt. However, it probably saved at least one life. YMMV.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday October 02 2018, @12:56PM (2 children)
Something that never fails to amaze me about the medical community is in a country where pill addicts mean we produce like 1000 pills per year per person (made up number, but the actual number is big...) none the less people in medical care always end up in pain. Its like, could you divert like 1% of the pill-stream from addicts to actual patients, at least once in a while?
You hear a lot of bullshit about how placing the government in charge of medical care would mean rationing as opposed to the present where super generous for-profit corporations are in charge. With a side dish of "keep the government out of my medicare" type BS. However even cheap pills are now unavailable to marrow donors but addicts get enough to overdose, which seems wrong somehow.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday October 02 2018, @02:20PM (1 child)
One of the problems is that pain killers are often not really that great at killing pain - at least not while leaving you functional, nor without requiring a steadily escalating dosage over the long term. And doctors are often worried about creating more addicts, and err on the side of caution, unlike the drug companies and disreputable pharmacists, who directly benefit from addicts.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday October 02 2018, @08:54PM
Those are good points. I was just pissed off that when you donate blood they have "all you can drink" fruit juices and "all you can eat" cookie buffet and more. And then some dude donates bone marrow and its like "in pain? oh well, no pills for you"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday October 02 2018, @09:02AM (3 children)
That manic depression is genetic has been repeatedly demonstrated by studies of twins that were adopted to different homes
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @09:55AM (2 children)
What kind of monster separates twins? "Oh, they're such cute baby girls! But... I just want one of them, two seems like a hassle. Can't we just throw one away?"
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday October 02 2018, @01:49PM
the pain that results can be said to have meaning, because mono-zygotic twin studies contribute a great deal to our understanding of genetics.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @04:21PM
You fail in the imagination department. I can think of at least one way in which twins might be separated. Twins might be separated at birth and given up for adoption. Next time, try to think a little bit more before putting fingers to keyboard.