honey

I was seen by the wound nurse today who suggested I use a new dressing containing honey (yes, from bees).  A quick web search tells us that  "For centuries now honey has been used as an effective remedy for wounds, burns and ulcers. In recent years there has been renewed interest in the medicinal properties of honey. Much of this research is being carried out by a team of people working at the Waikato Honey Research Unit, New Zealand."  

According to the manufacturer--- MEDIHONEY® dressings, a unique line of dressings containing Active Leptospermum Honey from New Zealand, has been shown to possess unique qualities that make them ideal for the management of chronic and acute wounds and burns.

Some not so good news today-- my transaminases took a “bump” today.  I also had an ultrasound today that showed some lowering in “resistive indices” measuring blood flow through the liver which suggests the possibility of a blood flow problem.   Possible complications:  blood flow issue due to scar tissue (4 liver transplants!),  result of the process of resolution of portion of liver not being drained due to the clot, an infection in not completely drained hematoma “swamp”,  rejection, liver is responding to hep-C infection ( immunosuppression has been lowered for the past week). They will follow-up on wednesday with an MRI (with contrast).  Tricky part is that treatment for infection is exactly opposite to rejection.

When teaching freshman physics to pre-meds,  I always made a point of doing the section on fluid dynamics (a topic that is now "out of fashion" and often skipped by my colleagues).