I refer to the following eight articles as the beginning of my "Anecdotal" Medical Treatment Series. It is my intention to turn it into a book. Included in the book will be lots of information that is critical of the pharmaceutical industry, as well as of the very expensive clinical trial system -- both of which I believe play a huge role in keeping important treatments like the ones I describe here from being prescribed by American doctors.
1) ♦ Silverlon and Surgery: Our Search for Healing -- (Published in the National Brain Tumor Foundation’s Newsletter, SEARCH, Winter, 2003, Issue #54, as their cover article), I wrote this article in an effort to let the world know about Silverlon, so that other brain tumor patients wouldn't have to suffer the way my husband Tim did, when his suture line wouldn't close for eight months following his 2001 brain surgery. (Silverlon is the inexpensive, FDA-approved product that finally healed Tim's skin, which had become infected, and was leaking cranial fluid.)
Unfortunately, by the time I found Silverlon for him, Tim was already severely brain injured, as a result of the numerous "standard of care" surgeries his doctors had performed, in a vain effort to achieve the same result that Silverlon achieved almost instantaneously!
THE RESULT? As far as I know, Silverlon is still not being used in hospitals on post-operative brain tumor patients, like Tim, with non-healing head wounds. In these cases, doctors continue to operate on their patients' skin -- often over and over again, until the skin closes.
Why do they refuse to try something different? Because, they say, without “the studies,” Silverlon will continue to be an “anecdotal” treatment.
2) ♦ Four Lifesaving Medical Treatments: Not So “Anecdotal,” After All!
Here, I tell "The Rest of the Silverlon Story," about how my husbands’ doctors -- and the many other doctors who read our story -- were not at all eager to learn anything about how Silverlon saved Tim’s life. They preferred to just dismiss the product, and our success with it, as being “anecdotal.”
I decided that there must be other treatments that -- like Silverlon -- were saving lives, but that, also like Silverlon, doctors were NOT recommending to their patients.
I was right!