Leukodermic Vision

My personal experience with KIRTADS healer

2012-01-31T09:09:00.000+04:00

So on to my personal experience with a KIRTADS healer. I went inside one of the shacks (there were many, specialised in various segments perhaps) and met a dark, well built healer with a smooth-shaven face. (Not the features you expect for a traditional healer.) I told him that one of my friends has a thick skin condition like psoriasis. He immediately recognised psoriasis (may be it is a common complaint) and advised me that psoriasis requires exfoliation of thick skin from outside and purification of blood from inside and recommended concoctions for both. I realised that at a conceptual level, their approach is not very different from ours. Purification of blood is a very popular concept among traditional healers. It is a very appealing concept and has very high placebo value. Even if you go to a modern pharmacy in India and ask for "blood purification mix", I am sure you will get something or the other OTC!!

Next I asked him whether he has any medicine for being fair. I sensed a qualm before he offered me "slim oil" for the same. May be he equated fair to beauty and by a complicated reasoning process - beauty to being slim. He did not offer me any further explanation. I feel "fairness creams" is a modern fad and never existed before. That brings me to certain ludicrous claims of Indian "fairness creams". More on this in the next post.

KIRTADS

2012-01-29T10:15:00.000+04:00

KIRTADS - The Kerala Institute for Research, Training and Development of ScheduledCastes and Scheduled Tribes, is conducting a പൈത്രികൊല്സവം (culture festival, the translation may not be accurate) in Mala, Keralafrom Jan 22nd 2012 to Jan 30th 2012. Since I am in Kerala now on vacation, Ivisited this festival a couple of days back. They had several stalls fortraditional medicine. I will blog about my experience later. Today I willtranslate relevant parts of their brochure. Disclaimer: Thetranslation may not be accurate. Read at your risk!!

Ethnomedicine (വംശീയവൈദ്യം): Every tribe has their ownknowledge and treatment methods to deal with various diseases. Diseases thatexist for several generations are treated with herbs and materials of animalorigin. These practical knowledge evolved over several centuries and became aform of medicine called ethnomedicine. However this form of medicine is on thedecline because of inefficient transfer of information through generations.Kirtands is trying to preserve this knowledge by encouraging ethnomedicinepractitioners. Their core expertise is in psoriasis, piles, infertility,cancer, diseases of the nervous system, vitiligo, asthma, hair fall, abdominaldiseases, cough, various arthritis and joint pains, eye diseases andtonsillitis.

Medical Sauna:

This is effective for skin diseases,respiratory diseases and arthritis and includes more than 60 herbal medicines.This treatment method is available in several centers in Kerala.

Research Initiatives in Ethanomedicine:

The main emphasis of our researchdivision is on perpetuating the knowledge we have accumulated. We haveinitiated a 3 year course in ethanomedicine. Many of our practitioners whocompleted this course has become very popular in various districts of Kerala.We also conduct treatment camps in various places. We have even collaboratedwith Regional research center, Trivandrum on trials for diabetic medications.Our initiatives have helped in preserving our traditional treatment methods andto make it popular among the masses.

In my next post I will describe my personal experience!

Is there more to yoga than exercise?

2012-01-22T10:56:00.000+04:00

Image by aquababe via Flickr

Today I read an article titled "jeevithayogam" about yoga in Malayala Manorama - Health. Though the title of this blog post may seem negative, I personally have no doubts about the many positive effects of yoga. In fact I have copied the title from an article published recently. We even provide yoga classes in our AestheticHoliday. I believe that Yoga is one of the most intelligently contrived placebo treatment in the world. I must again stress that I am a strong supporter of the placebo effect and I don't consider it an aberration that needs to be accounted for.

However the focus of this article mentioned above is not about yoga itself. The author claims that the west has started to accept yoga by quoting few attractive names and studies. In fact it is little difficult to read these names in malayalam script. If cute names and studies can garner credibility, we may still be far behind acupuncture, and traditional chinese medicine. Here is what I found on pubmed.

1. Search for yoga (779 results)

2. Search for acupuncture. (8921 results)

3. Chinese Medicine (3069 results)

Crazy Idea - II (Mobile Communication Network)

2012-01-16T16:07:00.000+04:00

Image via Wikipedia

Here is another crazy idea!

In countries like India, even a relatively small event can have a large number of participants. During these events a large number of people will be clustered in a limited space for a certain amount of time. Any mobile communication between participants of these events will be carried by the service provider’s tower in the vicinity and will be charged according to the applicable rates. If small portable private mobile towers are available for organisers to buy or rent for such events, participants of such events can communicate with each other using the device, free of cost. In other words, a device that can aid communication of normal mobile phones in an intercom mode (without using service providers infrastructure) within a limited geographic area may be useful to cut cost for large event organisers and even big offices.

Mobile Communication by Bell Raj Eapen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Diluting the Diagnosis

2012-01-06T22:11:00.000+04:00

Image via Wikipedia

Today I want to add another episode to the SCAM (Specialist in Complimentary and Alternative Medicine) series. This is a true story that happened about 2 years back. One of my patients with (not so severe) psoriasis had lower back ache. He was aware of the possibility of psoriatic spondylitis. I told him that lower back ache from psoriasis is relatively uncommon and the back-pain might not be related. He went to a homeopathic "physician" practising nearby and was promptly recommended x-ray of the spine. The homeopath diagnosed psoriatic spondylitis or its homeopathic equivalent and started treatment. I must admit that I lack his skills to promptly diagnose psoriatic spondylitis from x-ray. But why do these scams use the diagnostic tools of modern medicine. Hope they don't dilute it to make it more potent.

The COMplete growth PLAN

2012-01-01T14:31:00.000+04:00

Image via Wikipedia

Just as we welcome Dr Prasad's Laddoos, our TV advertisements also give us several "medically (in)correct" information. Today I saw one ad while watching a malayalam movie. A group of mothers go to a nutrition research centre to find the truth about a children's dietary supplement. The doctor explains to them that he has been conducting research on kids consuming the COMplete PLAN and show kids in bright yellow T shirts. The others not taking the drink are in dull grey outfit and look visibly depressed. I was impressed by the doctor's claim that consuming the drink makes the kids grow twice as fast. But my excitement was short lived. Another drink promised to boost the stamina three times! They had none other than Dhoni and Sachin to vouch for them. I am sure tomorrow's world will be full of giants with huge stamina!

CRAZY IDEA - 1 [Smart Traffic Signal]

2011-12-30T22:54:00.001+04:00

Image via Wikipedia

Todays 'CRAZY' idea is for reducing the congestion in certain intersections.

If the traffic signals at intersection are not efficiently timed, it can lead to traffic congestion. Ideally the green signal duration should be proportional to the traffic load in the segment. Right now (where I live) the duration is static and preset based on available data. But the pattern of traffic may change depending on time of day and diversions leading to congestion in certain directions, during certain time of the day.

My idea is to have 'smart signals' which can adjust the duration of signal based on traffic load. This can be implemented by setting up radar at a certain distance from the signal that can calculate the average speed of the vehicles near the signal. The average speed of vehicles will drop if there is congestion. The duration of green signal should be inversely proportional to average vehicle speed.

Smart Traffic Signal by Bell Raj Eapen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Totalitarian Agriculture

2011-12-29T00:27:00.001+04:00

Image by anaxolotl via Flickr

So continuing with the discussion on diabetes, my theory is that diabetes is a by-product of the totalitarian agriculture. We can see that the incidence of diabetes increased with our gradual (cultural) shift from a predominantly protein based diet of hunter-gatherers to a predominantly carbohydrate based diet of agriculturists. As Daniel Quinn's Ishmael ( a Gorilla) points out, human civilisation is unsustainable and our fall towards an apocalyptic destiny is accelerating. The combination of diabetes and obesity is the largest epidemic the world has faced and could well be the driving force behind this acceleration.

Well, as an afterthought. Did you turn vegan because you feel hunting/killing animals is against nature!? Think again!!

The Story of D

2011-12-27T00:37:00.000+04:00

Image via Wikipedia

Sorry guys! I am bored of Dr Prasad and his laddoos. So let me put him on the back burner for now and continue my discussion on diabetes. But I may return to this topic later, especially if I receive any comments on my previous posts.

Let me start off today with a reference to a book and its sequel, both of which are popular. The book is Ishmael by Daniel Quinn and the sequel is 'The story of B'.

If you have not read the book, see if you can find it in your library. Anyway the core messages are the following.

Takers as people often referred to as "civilized" represented by the agriculturists.
Eating of the forbidden fruit of the tree from the book of genesis would not actually give humans divine knowledge but would only make humans believe they had been given it, and that the Tree represents the choice to bear the responsibility of deciding which species live and which die.
Abel's extinction metaphorically represents the nomadic Semites' losing in their conflict with agriculturalists.
In the story of B he proposes that the people of our culture established a style of agriculture that B labels "totalitarian agriculture". "Prehistoric" hunters and gatherers operated according to a worldview that promoted coexistence and limited competition between predator and prey. However, the totalitarian agriculturist operates with the worldview that the world is theirs to control and all the food in the world is theirs to produce and eat.

You may not see any immediate relation to diabetes, but that's what I am coming to!

Sweet SCAM - Part 2

2011-12-26T01:02:00.000+04:00

Image via Wikipedia

So Dr Prasad has treated about 100,000 diabetic patients with the 'unconventional treatment', laddu! He claims that if sugar is included in the diet, it can rejuvenate the pancreas damaged by conventional treatments like insulin. So you just have to eat a laddu and go for jogging to cure diabetes. Our honourable MP Mr PT Thomas took no time to realise that diabetes being an incurable disease is a myth and started eating laddu. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation alone contributes $110 million for diabetes research every year. So if laddoo was missed by them, then it is a very costly mistake indeed!

So Is this an an all too familiar combination of a placebo effect and over emphasized anecdotal evidence?

I will discuss my (philosophical) views on this (in short) but I don't claim that I am right. It is a well known and accepted fact that mind has a profound effect on health and disease states. But unfortunately modern medicine is designed to ignore this effect. Our clinical research protocols are designed to ignore/nullify this effect by introducing the concept of 'double blind placebo controlled trial'.

But we have successful systems of alternative medicine like homeopathy that depends entirely on placebo effect. Yoga, as per my knowledge is a very well designed system to augment this placebo effect. So it could have a beneficial effect on many (almost all) ailments. I think Indian Yogi's were infact the first proponents of the philosophy of idealism that we now attribute to Kant. But if we try to test these systems of 'medicine' all trials will fail because of the intrinsic 'weakness' of clinical research.

To enhance the placebo effect these alternative systems adopt two strategies.
1. Give a very complicated and sometimes irrational explanation for the effect which nobody can understand and hence perceived as plausible.
2. Give a ridiculously simple explanation that everybody can identify with.

Homeopathy adopts the first strategy with the principle of 'dilution augments potency' while Yoga and Wayanad treatment adopts the second strategy of 'massaging the pancreas'. There is nothing wrong in this approach as long as it gives favourable results. But it may not work for me since I can think of more direct ways of pancreatic massage. Now will it work for you?

Sweet Scam - Part 1

2011-12-24T00:49:00.001+04:00

Hey.. This is not about the top 10 Indian scams this year! I have used SCAM here as an acronym for a Specialist in Complimentary and Alternative Medicine. And you must be wondering who is the SCAM I am referring to. He is none other than Dr M.V.Prasad, who proposed a revolutionary sweet treatment for diabetes.

[Courtesy: Onionlive online newspaper]

Though I am an allopathic doctor, my intention here is not to set a partisan tone to a debate on its credibility. In this and subsequent posts, (probably it may take quite a few posts to complete this and I don't blog frequently) I will blabber on the philosophy of such scams (believe me guys, no pun intended.) BTW Dr Prasad is not even a SCAM, He passed MBBS in 1995, from Calicut medical college, and is presently working as Asst.surgeon at PHC, Kenichira. Since laddoo is not the conventional treatment for diabetes, let us give him the title of SCAM and continue with the discussion of his revolutionary methodology in the next post.

Profiling a potential client

2011-06-11T22:32:00.000+04:00

Recently someone asked me a reasonably straight forward question. How do we profile potential clients based on the input from a simple web form? I gave some suggestions to improve the form so that our intuitive profiling becomes a lot better. The person asked me if there is any way to automate this process at least partially. Well...May be!

Customer profiling has become extremely important in today's customer-oriented business environment and is a well characterised specialty. Various statistical techniques like clustering, neural network algorithms and logistic regressions have been used for customer profiling. But in this case the problem is even more complicated as we are talking about profiling of potential customers.

Still a neural network predictive model based on past experience may still be the right answer even in this case. But how much data we can collect from a simple web form? Not much.

Is it better to include open ended questions so that we can collect as much data as possible? Open ended questions may not be amenable for model creation.

It may also be important to collect and analyse all the information available during the HTTP request, that the client did not enter personally. Like the IP (and hence the location and sometimes the employer), browser type, OS, referring URL etc.

Is there any way to analyse free form or open ended form data? More on this next time.

H Syndrome

2010-04-24T23:30:00.001+04:00

Have U
heard of
H syndrome? OMIM 612391

H Syndrome
has
hyperpigmentation
hypertrichosis
hepatosplenomegaly
heart anomalies
hearing loss
hypogonadism,
height is low
hyperglycaemia/diabetes mellitus
hallux valgus and

Histologically
histiocytic infiltrate

haha

The city of Kombodinjamakkal in Google Earth

2009-01-01T21:34:00.000+04:00

(Click on the image to enlarge)

Speckled Lentiginous Nevus

2008-03-31T22:51:00.001+04:00

Dubai Floods - 2008

2008-01-16T21:50:00.000+04:00

A depression in the Persian Gulf caused torrential rains in UAE over the last 2 days.

Vanilla Cultivation in Kerala (South India)

2008-01-11T13:10:00.000+04:00

Vanilla planifolia is an orchid native to Mexico, now widely grown throughout the tropics. Decreased demand caused by the production of synthetic vanilla (95% of vanilla products), have pushed the international market price down to the $40 per kilo range in the middle of 2005.

The farmers of the South Indian state of Kerala realized the potential of this crop and started cultivating vanilla in the fertile lands of this picturesque state in the last few years. However they are now in a crisis owing to lack of local demand and export policies bringing the cost down to less than $15 per kilo.

The picture shows last years crop, carefully processed and stored in air tight wooden containers to retain the flavour. Contact us for more information.

2007-06-01T21:04:00.000+04:00

GLYCOLIC PARADOX

Paraben paradox is a phenomenon described by Fisher in 1973. A paraben-sensitive persons, who react to parabens on patch testing and develop a dermatitis when paraben-containing products are used on compromised skin, may continue to use paraben-containing products on other areas of the body that have intact uninvolved skin, without any adverse reactions.

Recently I observed a similar phenomenon with Glycolic Acid. This patient is taking Glycolic Peels for acne scars. She did not develop any reaction during the patch testing or the first session. However she developed this reaction on the neck after her second session after 2-3 days.

DermART - Vitiligo

2007-04-05T22:48:00.000+04:00

Zostavax

2006-07-15T17:30:00.000+04:00

Merck recently gained approval for a vaccine called Zostavax for preventing herpes zoster reactivation in elderly people. This live virus vaccine is unusual in that it is to prevent reemergence, not to prevent initial infection. Can the same concept be used for recurrent herpes simplex infection which is much more disabling than herpes zoster in younger people?

Seborrhoeic Keratosis

2006-05-28T09:57:00.000+04:00

A biosy proven Seborrhoeic keratosis (acanthotic varient) in one of my European patients.

Tomcat installation

2006-04-19T08:34:00.000+04:00

Tomcat installation

Today I installed Tomcat 5.5 on my computer. Though it may be helpful to debug my servlets (if I write a new one) I actually installed it because of some other reason. I started the service from the program menu. But the loop back address with 8080 port was not working. I tried to figure out the problem. I tried to start the service through component manager and I found that the service was automatically shutting down after some time! Internet search was not helpful. However it started working after updating the JRE. So it was a version incompatibility. So if somebody else encounters the same problem try updating your JRE.

Bell
GulfDoctor.net

View from our flat

2006-03-31T23:05:00.000+04:00

Ethics of Clinical Trial

2006-03-12T11:12:00.000+04:00

What makes clinical trial ethical? [Notes from Clinical Research Training Program of NIH]

Collaborative partnership: To be ethical, clinical research must involve the community in which it occurs.

Social Value: To be valuable, clinical research must lead to improvements in health or advancement in generalizable knowledge.

Scientific Validity:

Fair Subject selection:

Favourable Risk/Benefit ration:

Independent Review: Independent review helps to minimize the influence of potential conflicts of interest that you will encounter as a Principal Investigator and it also assures society that your study will not benefit from the abuse of your subjects.

Informed consent:

Purpose and duration of participation

Risks

Benefits

Alternatives

Voluntariness and right to withdraw without penalty

Confidentiality of records

Compensation for injuries

Person to contact for answers to questions

Respect for human subjects:

Psoriasis

2006-03-08T12:23:00.000+04:00

A Case of psoriasis on phototherapy.

Scalp Psoriasis

2006-02-12T22:13:00.000+04:00

Google Desktop

2006-02-10T22:55:00.000+04:00

Google Desktop
I was very impressed with Google picasa. I do not know how they manage to pack so many useful features into such small software. Today I decided to try their next product DESKTOP. The installation was not very event free as I expected. My laptop crashed during the installation (Probably because of bad network connectivity during installation). It failed to start with windows. So I had to manually add it to startup. However it installed without any problems in my Desktop. DeskTop is for desktop only? :-)
One function I would have liked in this product is the capacity to index CDs. Right now I am using another software for this. Probably I may have to use the same for some more time. It will also be useful if the To Do list has a provision to enter time and a reminder function.
It has the ability to search contents on My Documents and web history on another computer. However my shared folder was not My documents. To make full use of this functionality I transferred my shared folder to My Documents which unfortunately was not an easy thing to do.

PGMEEnotes-for PGMEE AIIMS PGMCET DNB AIPGMEE MAHE USMLE PLAB PGIMER UPSC JIPMER-notes reviews advice books dates mock tests exams.

2006-02-05T13:55:00.000+04:00

PGMEEnotes-for PGMEE AIIMS PGMCET DNB AIPGMEE MAHE USMLE PLAB PGIMER UPSC JIPMER-notes reviews advice books dates mock tests exams.

My website GulfDoctor.net get many visitors from here! A nice blog for PG entrance exams.

Battle of Wesnoth

2006-02-01T22:01:00.000+04:00

Battle of Wesnoth.
Today I installed the GNU freeware game Battle of Wesnoth. Though I adore Age of Empires and European war Cossack, I have never played a good turn based strategy game before. There is a well designed training module and it is easy to learn. The network support is also good. A nice game to play in the clinic when you are bored. Since it is turn based, you can go and see the patients in between without affecting the game.

Chicken Pox scars

2006-02-01T00:32:00.000+04:00

Chicken pox scars though not permanent is often a cause for serious concern in the young. Visit my Dermatology Blog for more skin related posts.

Mango season @ keralafarm.com

2006-01-25T00:59:00.000+04:00

I am going to miss mangoes this time!

Home Networking

2006-01-25T00:45:00.000+04:00

Finally I figured out the correct settings for connecting my Desktop and Laptop to the DSL modem. Desktop is connected through network card. A static ip was given over the DHCP range (192.168.254.101) The DNS server was set to the DSL modem’s ip (192.168.254.254) and NetBIOS was set to ‘Enable over TCP/IP’. Default gateway was set to the ip of modem. All the devices should start with 192.168.254.xxx. Laptop is connected through wireless card. Ip and DNS were set to DHCP and NetBIOS was left to DHCP server. Now both are working fine.

2006-01-24T23:59:00.000+04:00

Hi.

Welcome to my random thoughts Blog. Here I intend to put job applications and my crazy thoughts and events in my life.

Leukodermic Vision

My personal experience with KIRTADS healer

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KIRTADS

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Is there more to yoga than exercise?

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Crazy Idea - II (Mobile Communication Network)

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Diluting the Diagnosis

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The COMplete growth PLAN

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CRAZY IDEA - 1 [Smart Traffic Signal]

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Totalitarian Agriculture

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The Story of D

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Sweet SCAM - Part 2

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Sweet Scam - Part 1

Profiling a potential client

H Syndrome

The city of Kombodinjamakkal in Google Earth

Speckled Lentiginous Nevus

Dubai Floods - 2008

Vanilla Cultivation in Kerala (South India)

GLYCOLIC PARADOX

DermART - Vitiligo

Zostavax

Seborrhoeic Keratosis

Tomcat installation

View from our flat

Ethics of Clinical Trial

Psoriasis

Scalp Psoriasis

Google Desktop

PGMEEnotes-for PGMEE AIIMS PGMCET DNB AIPGMEE MAHE USMLE PLAB PGIMER UPSC JIPMER-notes reviews advice books dates mock tests exams.

Battle of Wesnoth

Chicken Pox scars

Mango season @ keralafarm.com

Home Networking