From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: What's The Downside of Chelation Therapy?
Date: 24 Jul 2000 21:41:16 GMT

In <20000724161157.11302.00001783@ng-fu1.aol.com> bbarksdl@aol.com
(BBarksdl) writes:
>
>I'm considering chelation for a claudication problem, since mainstream
>medicine doesn't have an effective treatment for me. Your opinion of
>chelation?


  Save your money and take vitamin E and Trental.  First, though, be
damn sure you have claudication. There are probably 3 people out there
who think they have this for every one that really does.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: What's The Downside of Chelation Therapy?
Date: 28 Jul 2000 10:26:08 GMT

In <clw--2507001453180001@216.26.63.21> clw-@teleport.com writes:
>
>In article <20000725144946.24547.00000050@ng-fb1.aol.com>,
>bbarksdl@aol.com (BBarksdl) wrote:
>
>> I did see a vascular surgeon. He used a doppler ultrasound and an
>> arteriogram to find a blockage in the artery in my right leg. It is
>> located behind my knee. He also found minor blockage in my left leg,
>> although at this time I was not having problems with my left leg. I
>> reported that I had had symptoms like the current ones about twice a
>> year for the past ten years, and either or both legs would be involved
>> in those incidents. He seemed somewhat puzzled when I related that each
>> time the symptons had desisted, without treatment, in a few weeks. This
>> occured each time except the current one, in which they have lasted for
>> months.



    That doesn't at all sound typical.  No wonder he was puzzled.  Why
should both legs be involved at the same time, when they have different
stages of disease?  Why should pain last for months-- on indeed more
than a few minutes past rest (if you have bilateral resting leg
ischemic pain, you're in too much of a world of hurt to be posting
about months of it here).

   As I said before, honest to god cladication is stuff like calf
burning after a certain amount of walking (and not until), which
quickly subsides, when at rest.  Pain in other places, pain that does
burn, pain that lasts until rest, and so on, should make everybody very
suspicious that they're chasing a phantom diagnosis.  Word to the wise.