In January 2012, Lori Madsen, then 51, was walking through a parking lot, when she fell and skinned her arm. Initially, she didn’t think much about the rugburn-like abrasion on her arm – but later that night, Madsen’s arm began to swell.
Two days later, the pain was so bad she couldn’t get out of bed.
“My husband had to take me to the ER and my blood pressure wasn’t reading and everything was shutting down,” Madsen told FoxNews.com. “I was in septic shock.”
Madsen was admitted to the intensive-care unit, where the infection in her arm raged on – causing fevers, blistering and swelling. A week later, Madsen was taken into surgery for the first time.
“They opened my arm up for the first time and excised some of the dead tissue in there,” Madsen said. “I got better for a couple days. My fever went down, but then I took another turn for the worse.”
At this point, Madsen feared she would lose her arm – or even worse – her life. Finally, she was introduced to Dr. John Crew, a vascular surgeon and wound specialist at Seton Medical Center in Daily City, Calif., where she was receiving treatment. Crew told Madsen he might know what was causing her health problems: A deadly disease known as necrotizing fasciitis.
The flesh-eating disease
Necrotizing fasciitis, commonly known as the flesh-eating disease, results from a bacterial infection and rapidly destroys the body's soft tissue. The condition garnered national attention in 2012, when 24-year-old Aimee Copeland underwent a quadruple amputation after contracting necrotizing fasciitis in the aftermath of a zip lining accident.
Typically, necrotizing fasciitis is treated with antibiotics and surgical excision of the infected areas of the body. Though rare, the disease can carry a fatality rate of up to 70 percent – and those that survive are often left with devastating handicaps due to loss of limbs.
“They excise (the dead tissue), and (sometimes) you excise the hands and the legs and that’s a lousy way to end up,” Crew said.
Desperate to save Madsen’s limbs and life, Crew, director of the hospital’s Advanced Wound Care Center, devised a plan in which he would excise the dead tissue from Madsen’s arm and then regularly irrigate the area with an FDA-approved wound cleanser called NeutroPhase. Crew is a paid consultant for NovaBay Pharmaceuticals, the company that manufactures NeutroPhase, and he had been using the product to sterilize wounds for many years. NeutroPhase contains hypochlorous acid, a common chemical disinfectant.
“Hypochlorous acid is produced by the body’s white blood cells when it fights infection,” Dr. Harvey Himel, medical director of the wound program at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, told FoxNews.com. “(It) is one of the common chemicals found to purify water in swimming pools and is used as a disinfectant in food preparation.” Himel was familiar with the study, but not involved in Madsen’s treatment.
Luckily, Madsen’s initial surgical treatment –coupled with the NeutroPhase irrigation – appeared successful.
However, six days later, Crew noticed another infected spot in a different area on Madsen’s arm. This time, Crew decided to simply insert a catheter and irrigate the area with NeutroPhase – without performing surgery to excise any more of the tissue in her arm.
Remarkably, this area of Madsen’s arm healed just as quickly as the area that underwent the standard surgical excision. Additionally, using NeutroPhase bypassed the severe scarring that now covered much of the rest of her limb.
Madsen noticed a difference in her condition almost immediately after being treated by Crew.
“Before they started NeutroPhase, the pain was unbearable. You can’t describe the way the pain is, and the fever I had was just unbelievable,” Madsen said. “But then, after they started the NeutroPhase and started killing all of the toxins in my arm, the fever subsided and went away. The pain wasn’t as bad…It wasn’t the kind of pain that you feel when it’s infected, and your arm is dying.”
‘People don’t have to lose their limbs or their lives’
Madsen eventually made a full recovery, and while she sustained some nerve damage in her arm, she has regained full function in the limb and now lives a normal life.
After Madsen’s recovery, Crew set out to discover what it was about NeutroPhase that had halted the infection.
“We had to go back to the lab after Lori was healed,” Crew said. “They isolated five or six of the toxins involved in this kind of necrotizing fasciitis, and individually, they treated cells in the lab… and it killed them.”
Crew and his fellow researchers discovered that NeutroPhase seemed to effectively neutralize the toxins produced by the infection, halting the body’s inflammatory-reaction and allowing the patient to begin to heal normally.
Crew recently published his findings in the peer-reviewed journal, Wounds, and he hopes to convince other doctors to begin using NeutroPhase to treat necrotizing fasciitis. Since Madsen’s case, Crew said he has successfully treated several other patients with necrotizing fasciitis using NeutroPhase – even avoiding surgery, in some cases.
“I had one 95-year-old, (and) when I just put in a catheter and irrigated it with NeutroPhase, she healed from that standpoint,” Crew said. “We didn’t need a big massive operation to drain or excise necrotic tissue. We’re looking to tell people this is the way to treat this problem. We won’t make big massive incisions, but small incisions to get the irrigation going as quick as we can.”
Himel warned that while this case appeared to be successful, more research is still needed.
“Since this is a single case report, it is hard to say if this treatment was instrumental in the patient’s recovery,” Himel said. “In order to scientifically prove the value of this additional treatment, they would need to conduct more extensive research.”
For Madsen, her hope is that this treatment will eventually help prevent others in her situation from going through the same agony she did.
“I don’t want to see anyone go through what I went through. I want the word out there that this stuff works on this necrotizing fasciitis,” Madsen said. “People don’t have to lose their limbs or their lives.”
For Nixall call Keefe Clinic 918-663-1111
Simple Form of Water May Be 'Miracle Solution'
Published February 26, 2009
FoxNews.com
It cleans. It disinfects. It cures athlete's foot. You can even drink it — well, a little.
What is it? According to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, it's ionized salt water.
"I didn't believe in it at first because it didn't have foam or any scent," a housekeeper at the Sheraton Delfina hotel in Santa Monica, Calif., told the Times. "But I can tell you it works. My rooms are clean."
The chemistry is simple. Electrolysis of water containing a little sodium chloride, or table salt, produces two compounds in different chambers — sodium hydroxide, or lye, which is a strong base or alkaline solution, and hypochlorous acid, which is a weak acid.
The former is an effective degreaser, great for washing windows and floors. The latter is a simple but powerful sanitizer, good on floors, fruit and even feet.
"It's green. It saves money. And it's the right thing to do," a hotel official told the Times. "It's almost like fantasy."
But experts warn that there's a nasty side market: A lot of quacksters are trying to market ionized water as a miracle cure, something that cures common ills by "restoring the body's natural acid balance."
The truth is that the body's acid-base balance, or pH, varies. And mixing sodium hydroxide and hypochlorous acid results in a very familiar mixture — diluted household bleach.
Effects of a low concentration hypochlorous Acid nasal irrigation solution on bacteria, fungi, and virus.
Kim HJ, Lee JG, Kang JW, Cho HJ, Kim HS, Byeon HK, Yoon JH.
Source: Department of Medicine Graduate School, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
Abstract OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS:
Saline irrigation would be more effective for chronic sinusitis patients if it had bactericidal effects. Low concentrations of hypochlorous acid may be used as a nasal irrigation solution. First, we developed a 0.85% NaCl solution by adding NaCl to tap water (pH 7.0 and 8.4) and measuring the concentration of free chlorine and hypochlorous acid after giving the solution a short electrical impulse of 20 seconds. Then we investigated whether the derived hypochlorous acid had a toxic effect on human primary nasal epithelial cells, if and what effect it had on the expression of mucin genes, and, finally, if it had bactericidal, fungicidal, or virucidal effects.
STUDY DESIGN:
In vitro biochemical experiment.
METHODS:
We treated human primary nasal epithelial cells with 3.5 ppm of hypochlorous acid and then examined the cells for cytotoxicity. We also investigated the bactericidal, fungicidal, and virucidal effects by challenging the cells with the following microorganisms Aspergillus fumigatus, Haemophilus influenzae, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Rhizopus oryzae, Candida albicans, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Streptococcus pyogenes. To study the virucidal effects of HOCl, we used the human influenza A virus to challenge the cells.
RESULTS:
In the cytotoxicity assay and in the morphological examination, the cells did not show anytoxicity at 30 minute or 2 hours after treatment with HOCl. More than 99% of bactericidal or fungicidal activity was noted for all species, except for Candida albicans, in tap water at either pH 7.0 or 8.4. In addition, a 3.2-log10 reduction was achieved in cells challenged with the human influenza A virus.
CONCLUSIONS:
A low concentration HOCl solution can be used as an effective nasal irrigation solution.
For Nixall call Keefe Clinic 918-663-1111
NIXALL
C. Norman Shealy, M.D., Ph.D.
Nixall is a natural product, the active ingredient being hypochlorous acid, the same compound used by your white blood cells to kill bacteria, viruses and fungi,
Nixall ™ is an electrolyzed anolyte water that
Is all natural, “truly a green product”
Oxygenates and hydrates the skin
Is Ph balanced
Is destructive to staphylococcus and MRSA, Salmonella, E coli, viruses, bacteria, fungi and mold—even anthrax!
Accelerates wound healing—can be sprayed directly on wounds
Deodorizes—transforms and freshens air
Neutralizes sarin gas, mustard gas and nerve gas
Hydrates and oxygenates the skin
Is 100 times more efficient than bleach—and safer
Controls fungi and viruses on plants
Oxygenates and stimulates plant growth
Is non-irritating, non-allergenic and non-stinging
How to use Nixall
For general sanitizing and protecting, dilute 10:1 with water.
Can be sprayed directly on fresh veggies and fruits, or dipped in the 10:1 solution for cleansing and to prolong freshness
For mold/mildew, use full strength
It is safe full strength—your skin feels refreshed and hydrated
Can be used on scrapes, bruises, minor burns and rashes full strength
For nail fungus, soak 10 minutes daily for several days and then spray daily
Spray counter tops, toilet seats,? tubs, showers, clothes hampers, cell phones, etc
Spray credit card devices, grocery cart handles, gas pump handles, restaurant tables, public toilets, etc
Spray nose and mouth at the very suspicion of a “cold” or flu
Nixall appears to be the safest and best all around sterilizing and health enhancing adjunct available today!? I have reviewed the literature and strongly recommend it in EVERY household and office. Indeed, I consider it an essential for BEING PREPARED!? Every household should keep 2 to 4 gallons on hand and replenish when you get down to one. Also get a few of the two ounce spray bottles! I am using it and I am beginning further research on it for acne and arthritic hands.
For Nixall call Keefe Clinic 918-663-1111