Rejuvenation : Message: RE: Shingles and GH

Dear Ellis,

As usual for this group, I find the issue raised to be very interesting. It appears to me that the physician who recommended his patient immediately stop HGH when he diagnosed shingles was, IMHO, knee-jerking in an area where his knowledge was deficient. Though I was unable to find specific information about shingles and HGH in a literature search, HGH is used frequently in HIV infected persons and has been studied extensively. It appears that HGH is indicated for the wasting that accompanies HIV infection but in addition with HGH treatment there is a significant protective effect on the brain and there is an increase in the CD4 (killer T cell) count. This is good. There is no indication the HGH increases the likelihood of disseminating viral infections or increases the survival of HIV infected patients.

In defense of the physician involved, I believe his motivation was based upon the premise that though he really did not know whether the shingles virus could be made worse by HGH injections, stopping the HGH was not likely to make the virus infection worse, either. So, in the absence of specific information, the physician was taking the conservative approach, attempting to limit the patient's liability vis-a-vis dissemination of the virus and post herpetic pain, an often devastating condition. This thinking is rooted in two motivations. One the one hand, as physicians we are charged with "primum non nocere" which means we must first not cause harm to a patient either explicitly by giving a treatment that is harmful, or implicitly by remaining silent when a patient is engaged in harmful activity. On the other hand, physicians are motivated to reduce their own liability (moral and legal).

On the other hand, I must add that the magic words "I don't know." may be applicable here. When we don't know the answer to a question, we should be honest. It is not all right to say "No" when ever the answer is unknown.

(Bravo ! - Ellis)

So, there's my half a penny's worth of opinion.

Ellis, please keep up the good work.

Jerry Corners, MD

Kyoto, Japan

(Hello Dr. Corners... thanks for the great input... and thanks for the nice words... I am glad to know that you agree with me... Since I am not a doctor, when I give somebody advice that goes against what a doctor says, I am glad when a doctor agrees with what I said... I know that I often disagree with doctors in regards to the use of insulin (particularly for diabetics to who they prescribe glucophage, but also for non-diabetics, to who they think it is "not necessary...") and I always have to disagree when doctors take away growth hormone from their patients... for just about any reason other than that the patient has acromegaly or carpal tunnel syndrome...- Ellis)

-----Original Message-----
From: Sami4ESP@... [mailto:Sami4ESP@...]
Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 2:22 AM
To: Rejuvenation@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Rejuvenation] *(* * Shingles and GH

Ellis:

Does anyone have any experience with Shingles and GH? For the first time in ten years I came down
with bronchial flu in January and part of the treatment was to take a pack of steroids. I didn't want to do this as the side
effect on the insert stated lowered immunity and outbreak of herpes virus.
Anyway, I recovered from the flu only to come down with a terrible case of facial shingles sixty days later.
The shingles got on the optic nerve and caused an inflammation and was quite terrible. I am on the mend now and the
sight in the affected eye is improving daily and hopefully will recover completely.

I was wondering if anyone had any experience with either herpes outbreaks of any kind and GH?
My doctor told me to stop the GH immediately when I broke out with shingles for fear of making it worse.

Sammie

[Hello Sammie,
This is a tough one. I have no experience with shingles, and I have never had a question like this
before. What kind of steroid did you take that the insert stated lowered immunity and outbreak of herpes virus?

Not knowing what to recommend, I would say: take acyclovir, vitamin B-complex including espcially
B-12 injections, acetyl-l-carnitine, co-enzyme Q-10, DHEA, vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin E ... I know you can't lose with any
of these, and they might help...
You might also try some of the anti-viral medicines that are prescribed for AIDS patients... I don't know what
combination you would use, but the idea is to interfere with the replication of the virus. Some of these are:
"Epivir" "Zerit" "Kaletra" "Viramune"
As for your doctor telling you to stop GH immediately... do as he says if you want to, but I have as a principle
never to stop taking growth hormone as long as I live because I am convinced the word "GROWTH" in growth hormone
doesn't mean it is to "make bad things grow". Ask your doctor if he thinks you should also stop eating
chicken and tomatoes? Maybe you can starve the viruses to death.
Doctors, please help with suggestions. Three stars for this post, to call attention to a difficult problem. - Ellis]

See my personal anti-aging program which you are welcome to follow, here: http://www.rajeun.net/rejuvenation.html Please help make it easy to subscribe to Rejuvenation. Send this URL to people you would like to subscribe to this discussion: http://www.onelist.com/subscribe/Rejuvenation To unsubscribe, please send a blank e-mail to Rejuvenation-unsubscribe(at)yahoogroups.com I also highly recommend you should subscribe to Gordon's Longevity group, which has a broader scope than Rejuvenation. To subscribe to Longevity directly, send a blank email to longevity-subscribe(at)yahoogroups.com

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