Thursday, August 04, 2005
Urine my dreams
Wow the day is getting late and I promised I Nian I would update my blog. I had meant for the last two days to go back and recount a sore throat I had shortly after returning from New York and an idea it gave me, but before getting to that however, a quick comment that I have made three posts to Larry’s Top Tens this week, so if you are more in the mood for humor, check out:
Top Ten Reasons Your Clone Hates You
Top Ten Worst Ways To Inform Someone A Loved One Has Died
Top Ten Cool Things About Being a Supreme Court Justice
The first two are original categories, the last from a David Letterman Top Ten Contest.
On with my sick day story:
I developed a mild sore throat late one night about two weeks ago. When I awoke for work it was worse. I complained about it to Nian even suggesting that perhaps I should go to the doctor. I can’t remember if she talked me out of this, but she was fairly convinced it was just a cold. I thought about seeing my doctor throughout the day, but it just stayed a very annoying but not critical level, then after 5pm shortly before finishing work it worsened and I went home a little earlier than I would have otherwise figuring I had missed the opportunity to see Dr. Basler, my home physician.
Nian thought I was being a bit of a baby, but by 11pm my throat had reached a stage I could only swallow with great difficulty and I feared it might soon make breathing hard. I told Nian I was going to the hospital and she insisted on accompanying me, all the while insisting I probably only had a cold, while I felt pretty certain it must be something like strep-throat having never had a cold settle in my uvula, causing it to swell into an ugly red mass with sacs of clear fluid clearly widening it to look more like a triangle than small punching page. My throat in general had an unhealthy look, and my tongue had a thick white coat, I had also spiked a small 99-100 degree temperature.
At the hospital emergency room we were informed it would be awhile before a treatment room and doctor would be available. I suggested perhaps they should take a throat swab in the mean time. I was only concerned with getting the lab work started to save time, but I’m sure Nian and the nurse thought this was out of some unfounded panic or concern on my part.
While I’m sure I get no credit in Nian’s eyes for saving us some time, the lab work arrived shortly after the room and doctor became available. Result… no strep-throat, none the less I did appear to have something more serious than the common cold going on and the doctor prescribed 4 medications to deal with my inflammation, pain, and possible nasal cavity infection. I wish I hadn’t mentioned I thought I had strep to Nian, but I’m glad for the treatment, rather than lay in bed in total agony not know whether the symptoms would worsen still.
I have just finished off the Penicillin that was prescribed, and I couldn’t help but notice the strong odor the pills omit. It turns out this same smell greats me when I urinate, and probably has given me a slightly offensive odor in some areas or possible bad breath (sorry Nian). It then occurred to me that the majority of modern antibiotics may be flushing through the body unaltered chemically. An observation supported by concern by some that antibiotics eliminated from the body and flushed down the toilet might contribute to microbes acquiring antibiotic resistance in the wild.
This is when I had an Ah-Ha moment. Could antibiotics and other powerful drugs be recycled for use in third world countries? Should urine from patients either first world or third world be collected to try and retrieve this precious resource? I’m sure the drug companies would say no, but from a resource utilization standpoint I can see no reason not to do so. Some people even drink urine straight for supposed medicinal reasons, and supposedly urine can be recycled five times through the body before becoming concentrated enough to be toxic. This would solve or at least amileorate two problems at once, powerful drugs leaching into the ecosystem, and a possible cheap source of cutting edge drugs for those that need them.
Granted no one wants to drink pee directly, there is certainly a yuck factor, but I’m sure a modest reprocessing would eliminate most of the squeamish factor, and if not, we’re still talking about a possibly life saving process. Even with no chemical reprocessing the raw urine could probably be distilled to a powder for ingestion in pill form without much effect to the antibiotics and other drugs therein contained. Only a reasonable typing protocol would be needed and followed in setting the urine aside and concentrating it for cheap shipment.
Ironically in the early days of penicillin this is exactly what was done as a little Google.com research shows. Has this method of drug reuse been completely forgotten? Certainly in the first world it has.
