But for me, now living in the USA, I’m astonished at how little this has been regarded and how estimates of the risk have been consistently lower than they should be.

Obesity-related deaths stood at 5%; that was the official figure–till today! Now it’s 18%, according to a new study published online Aug. 15, 2013, in the American Journal of Public Health. That’s almost quadruple the previous estimate and much more believable.

Researchers analyzed 19 years’ worth of annual U.S. National Health Interview Surveys from 1986 through 2004 and compared those findings to individual mortality records from the National Death Index. They focused on ages 40 to 85 to exclude deaths caused by accidents, homicides and congenital conditions, which are the leading causes of mortality for younger people.

Earlier estimates of the dangers of obesity erred by overlooking generational differences. Because younger generations have been exposed longer to risk factors for obesity, they are at even greater risk of becoming overweight or obese and suffering all the health problems that accompany the extra pounds.

So, for example, obesity accounted for about 3.5 percent of deaths for those born between 1915 and 1919, but it accounted for about 5 percent of deaths for those born 10 years later; obesity killed off around 7 percent of those born another 10 years later; and so on.

“A 5-year-old growing up today is living in an environment where obesity is much more the norm than was the case for a 5-year-old a generation or two ago. Drink sizes are bigger, clothes are bigger and greater numbers of a child’s peers are obese,” study co-author Bruce Link, a professor of epidemiology and sociomedical sciences at Columbia, said in a statement. “And once someone is obese, it is very difficult to undo. So, it stands to reason that we won’t see the worst of the epidemic until the current generation of children grows old.”

Study published Aug. 15, 2013, American Journal of Public Health, online

Nevertheless, there is widely held belief that people use one side of their brain more than the other, and that this influences their personality traits. For example, left-brained people are said to be linear, logical and detail-oriented, while right-brained people are creative, caring and thoughtful.

We need both sides equally and what really matters for optimum performance is integrated right and left brain function, plus lowered brainwave states. Alpha is especially relaxing and whereas theta is more relaxing still, you could not drive or use computers and machinery while in that state.

Integration of brain function is easily influenced by modern audio equipment, such as binaural beats or isochronic tones.

The right- and left-brain thing is simply a myth. It was started, remember, by Roger Sperry looking at the function of severely damaged brains, with the corpus callosum severed (the bridge between the two brain halves). Sperry got his Nobel prize but this anomaly has nothing to do with how healthy, intact brains actually function.

Now a new study from the University of Utah simply confirms what I have been saying. Brain scans show no evidence that people are predominately right- or left-brained.

For the study, neuroscientists analyzed brain scans from more than 1,000 people, aged 7 to 29, and examined thousands of brain regions for indications that people are more likely to use either the right or left side of the brain, but found no signs that this was the case.

The metaphor and language of so-called right brain thinking and left brain thinking is harmless enough and, in any case, it’s not going to go away. But for the good of your soul, know the truth!

The study was published in the Aug. 14, 2013, online edition of the journal PLoS One.

We now believe that at least some activity we call allergy or intolerance comes, not from the physical substance, but its characteristic coded molecular “signature”. To explain this, let me start by introducing a simple observation – startling, maybe – but quite simple. I have observed it many times, so have other alert open-minded physicians: occasionally a patient may become sick, simply being near or in the presence of their key allergen. This means they did not swallow it, breathe it or touch it in any way whatsoever. It does not mean the patient is neurotic and “afraid of their allergen” or reacting through a Pavlovian conditioned response; it happens even if the patient is unaware of being in the presence of their allergen.

That’s odd. It must mean that the substance is transmitting some kind of signal. If so there would be an energy field and modern physics thinks a lot about fields and their properties. All fields are infinite in size; they may become very faint but if the tomato you are allergic to has a field, it extends to the ends of the universe! This field effect would explain another frequent observation of the allergy doctor, especially those engaged in skin or challenge testing: sometimes the patient will get sick INSTANTLY before any of the substance can have diffused or been transported to the body tissues.

And here is where the up-to-the-minute science comes in, thanks to Professor Jacques Benveniste, the man who set the scientific world alight by showing that diluting a substance even beyond the point where even a single molecule is left, does not stop it having a biological effect (predictably, he was attacked as a fraud since “it couldn’t be true” and therefore he must have cheated in some way). Davenas E, Benveniste J et al. ‘Human basophil degranulation triggered by very dilute antiserum against IgE’, NATURE, 1988, 333: 816-818). Fortunately, several other laboratories have since confirmed what he found (Effects of embryonic bursectomy and in ovo administration of highly diluted bursin on adrenocorticotropic and immune response to chickens. International Journal of Immunotherapy (IX:169-180) 1993, B.J. Youbicier-Simo, F. Boudard, M. Mekaouche, M. Bastide, J.D. Baylé). But by then Benveniste had been hounded out of his top scientific job.

What Benveniste had shown is that the traditional model of biochemistry is flawed. If it doesn’t need the presence of the substance to have an effect, it means the idea of molecule reacting with molecule or the lock-and-key model for “receptor sites” was not strictly correct. Since all of molecular biology is based on these supposed truths and molecular biology at the moment is regarded as the (only) path to the holy grail of understanding nature, it is easy to see why Benveniste was howled out of office. But his turn of fortune may have been lucky for science. He went on to investigate the electromagnetic properties of substances and discovered that each chemical had a unique identifying “signature” that could be copied through a transducer and recorded on a computer hard disc. This may sound weird but to prove his point, Benveniste sent the chemical signals around the world on the Internet, to different laboratories, including top universities. When copied and decoded at the other end, the “digitized” substance had exactly the same effect as the parent substance, though none was present.

For example, acetyl choline was recorded through the transducer and the file shipped off to a distant laboratory. It did not matter if it was sent on a floppy disc or even as an e-mail attachment. When the digital recording was “played back” to guinea pig hearts thousands of miles away, they responded just as they should if acetyl choline had been administered as a physical substance. All this was done with controls and digitized plain water for comparison, using verifiable standard protocols by the way, and has been repeated with many different chemical substances (J. Benveniste, P. Jurgens, J. Aïssa, Digital recording/transmission of the cholinergic signal. Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal (10:A1479(abs), 1996). And in case you are wondering, these remarkable findings too have been confirmed by other workers on many other substances (P.C. Endler, W. Pongratz, R. van Wijk, K. Waltl, H. Hilgers, R. Brandmaier, Transmission of hormone information by non-molecular means. FASEB Journal (8:A400(abs) 1995).

From these results Benveniste has constructed a hypothesis which may help us further understand the allergy/intolerance phenomenon. He calls it the “electromagnetic signalling” theory. The key points are:

• it requires only a very weak field to have an effect
• direct contact between molecules is not required
• range is not a problem
• the effect is instant over small distance

QASR

This stands in direct contrast to the standard model, known as QASR for short (Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship), which requires that molecules come into contact and thus there must be sufficient of the chemical present for this to be likely, or even possible. The more is present, the quicker the collisions occur and therefore the faster the chemical reaction (hence: quantitative). This may be fine for chemistry but how relevant is it, really, to biology, where only tiny traces of a substance, such as an enzyme or a hormone, may in fact be present?

Benveniste is quick to point out that this old-fashioned theory requires frequent random collision on a trial-and-error basis at a rate that is statistically virtually impossible. Even the simplest biological event would require a very long time.

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Hans Selye, a Viennese by birth who moved to Canada and practiced medicine in his adopted country, began with the observation that many people ill from different causes had similar symptoms. These were general symptoms, which seemed common to all afflictions, such as pallor, fatigue, loss of appetite, vague pains and a coated tongue. Selye, still a medical student, likened this to the ‘syndrome of being ill’ and he couldn’t’ understand why his teachers didn’t pay more attention to these symptoms: they were obviously important, since everybody got them, no matter the illness.

Selye eventually pursued his interest to the point of describing a mechanism of stress and adaptation that seems to be universal. It is not just applicable to humans but to all life: any organism, any stress – from an amoeba crawling into tainted water to a busy executive having a tough time at board meetings. The stages of ‘adaptation’ to outside stress he called the General Adaptation Syndrome, or GAS for short.

Briefly, stage one is the first encounter, when the body reacts and alarm signals herald the onset of some adversity (a stressor). These signals we know as symptoms: These signals we know as symptoms: pain, discomfort, etc,; some unpleasant response that entails a desire to limit the exposure by escaping from whatever is causing the symptoms.

Avoidance brings the reaction to an end and the symptoms go away. But if the individual does not desist and instead keeps on, eventually he or she might learn to tolerate the stressor and find it doesn’t worry him or her too much. For example, someone moving to a much hotter climate might feel very unwell at first, but with persistence learns to tolerate heat at a level that would have been dangerous to him or her on first arrival. We call this adaptation process stage two.

It might be possible to go on coping with a stressor to which we are adapted for a long time, perhaps indefinitely. But circumstances may come about where there is too much load at one time, or something might cause resistance to run down (a virus infection, too many late nights, intemperate drinking or even the gradual process of ageing). The adaptation is then lost and the stressor begins to produce symptoms once again. This is stage three.

But this time, the consequences are more serious. The individual concerned no longer has any powers of resistance. His or her body has run out of fight and the stress can become overwhelming. This is the stuff of coronary heart disease, perforated ulcers, cancer and strokes. When the effect is less threatening to life, increased allergies can certainly be a possible outcome. If stage two is ‘adaptation’, this stage could be termed maladaptation.

We can illustrate this with an example from an allergy doctors’ experience: If an individual, as a child, is allergic to milk, he or she will experience unpleasant symptoms when ingesting it, such as mood changes, rashes, hyperactivity or whatever (stage one).

If the parents insist that the child must continue to drink milk ‘because it is good for you’, not knowing that is the cause of the condition affecting the youngster, the child may get used it and learn to tolerate it. The rash or other symptoms may even clear up. Doctors often say that a patient can ‘outgrow’ an allergy this way. He or she is now adapted to the milk allergen (stage two).

As the years go by, little of note may be observed; perhaps just the occasional bout of illness or digestive disorder, probably made worse at examination times and other periods of stress. But gradually the clock is running down. That individual’s intolerance of milk is slowly wearing out the body’s resistance. Trouble will inevitably follow.

Either because of ageing or at a specific trigger, the milk allergy will return and symptoms start up all over again. This time it could be asthma, migraine, arthritis or any one of dozens of conditions. The patient may be quite unwell and yet never suspect milk – because he or she has always drunk it and has never had any previous trouble.

In fact patients often become addicted to their allergy food and may find that avoiding it for any period results in unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. This encourages further ingestion of the food; the patient may even feel it ‘does me good’ since it tends to relieve the symptoms. At this stage eating the food ‘masks’ unwanted symptoms; it keeps them at bay. Providing he or she eats the food regularly, ill effects are kept at a minimum. This is what we mean by a masked allergy.

You probably know that milk is often said to soothe stomach ulcers; patients who suffer this complaint are encouraged by their surgeon to drink it in great quantities. It does sometimes appear to work – you now know why!

One other example might serve, and that is smoking. Those who smoke will doubtless remember that their first attempt was accompanied by unpleasant consequences: headache, dizziness and nauseas are not uncommon (stage one). But by persisting, the would-be smoker gets used to tobacco and the symptoms are no longer experienced (stage two). Finally, as the addiction takes hold, the individual will find that unpleasant symptoms come on with a vengeance when going too long without a ‘fix’ for the nicotine craving. This is stage three and one of the hardest of all addictions to break.

Signs of Danger

Selye published a list of warning signs that patients should look for when they are under stress and about to become maladapted to foods and other stressors. It is remarkably similar to the lists that allergy doctors have arrived at, traveling via a different route.

I reproduce them here without any comment:

Now we come to yet another model of health and disease, concerning the way food residues are dealt with by the gut.

It is important to realize that the contents of the bowel are outside the body. If you imagine a piece of string entering at the mouth and emerging from the anus, you will readily see this is true. The defined space of the bowel (or lumen) contains a considerable immunological and toxic burden, including potentially allergenic food residues, waste toxins, food toxins (both natural toxins and artificially added man-made chemicals), bacteria, parasites and free radicals released by many processes taking place. Precisely because of our very intimate entanglement with this space, our bodies need to be protected from these deleterious substances.

There are a number of defense mechanisms which ensure the danger is contained. The lining of the bowel is designed to be impenetrable to this degraded matter and accepts molecules specially chosen for absorption. There is also an important immune defense system right on site in the wall of the intestine, to overwhelm and contain suspect immune material, before it breaks free and enters the circulation. Naturally, at times, this membrane protective layer is overburdened, especially if our lifestyle is abusive, and may let through some of the toxins. These enter the blood in the intestinal network of veins and are then transported to the liver, where detoxification takes place. The liver is our major defense organ, designed to detoxify chemicals before the cleansed blood is allowed to re-enter the normal circulation.

A serious problem can arise once the impenetrability of the gut mucosa is impaired. We call this “leaky gut syndrome” (of course!) and a whole cascade of problems can ensue, giving us yet another model of food allergy/intolerance and toxic overload.

The commonest causes of damage to the gut wall are:

• Viruses
• Bacteria
• Protozoa (amoeba etc)
• Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)
• Oxidative damage by active oxygen species

What is supposed to happen is that our food is broken down in to small generic molecules: sugars go to glucose, for instance and proteins to amino acids. But if the digestive process is defective, the food remains considerably unaltered and remains identifiable by its immunological source. In other words “wheat-ness” or “pork-ness” of the food survives. This is then capable of setting up and allergic reaction, to wheat or pork, or whatever culprit is to blame. Even this wouldn’t be a problem, if the larger food molecules would only stay put: in the lumen of the bowel.

Unfortunately, as a result of increased permeability, the larger immunologically-active molecules escape into the blood, set up immune complexes, and wreak havoc. This results in an inflammatory process, which can affect all parts of the body, including the gut. This in turn leads to further loss of integrity of the gut wall and further leakage. Thus food allergy can become a cause of the problem, as well as the result, and a kind of vicious circle is entered.

The liver tries to handle these extra-large molecules and remove absorbed toxins, which should have remained behind in the bowel. When this happens the liver is also overloaded, leading to compromise of the cytochrome p-450 detox system, with resultant escape of toxins, production of excess free radicals and loss of nutritional essentials, such as glutathione and other sulphur-containing amino acids. The liver has to dispose of toxins somewhere and usually this ends up in the bile (most mercury, for example, is excreted into the bile). “Toxic bile” in turn will injure the gut mucosa and a second vicious circle is in progress. Toxic bile is also known to lead to chronic pancreatitis and possible pancreatic cancer (Braganza, J.M., Pancreatic disease: a casualty of hepatic “detoxification”? Lancet, 1983. ii: p. 1000-1002.).

But it is worse. For every toxic molecule excreted in the bile, the liver has given up one molecule of precious glutathione, to create a conjugate. That is what is supposed to happen. But when the conjugate enters the bowel and encounters more toxic bile with active free radicals, these attack the conjugate and release the toxin once more. The glutathione molecule is wasted and the toxin is back on the loose.

You will see at once why a diet rich in antioxidants is really essential in combating the chemical plague of our world. We cannot go on squandering our biological reserve in this way, without facing increased risk of cancer and, of course, accelerating the ageing process.

Table of symptoms which may indicate leaky gut syndrome

1. Chronic fatigue
2. Joint and muscle pains
3. Fevers of unknown origin
4. Food allergy and intolerance
5. Abdominal pain
6. Abdominal distress
7. Variable bowel habit
8. Skin rashes
9. Toxic feelings (“constipated”, “liverish”)
10. Woolly brain syndrome
11. Schizophrenia
12. Poor exercise tolerance
    Beware: with all such lists, there can be more than one cause of these symptoms.

Verifying leaky gut syndrome

A neat and useful model. But is it valid? A test has been developed to establish whether or not the gut is releasing larger molecules than are biologically acceptable. It concerns absorption of two complex sugars, mannitol and lactulose.

Mannitol is a relatively small molecule and should be absorbed, lactulose is larger and should not be absorbed significantly. The patient fasts and both sugars are administered simultaneously.

The information which can be gained is interesting:

• If the absorption of mannitol is low, suspect malabsorption
• If the absorption of lactulose is high, suspect leaky gut
• If both are normal, this suggests healthy gut performance

In fact what is normally measured in the mannitol/lactulose ratio. A recent study published in the Lancet found that the lactulose-mannitol ratio was an accurate predictor of relapse when measured in patients with Crohn’s disease who were clinically in remission (Wyatt, J., et al., Intestinal permeability and the prediction of relapse in Crohn’s disease. Lancet, 1993. 341(8858): p. 1437-9).

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Hypersensitivity (a heightened state of extreme sensitivity) is another word you will hear applied to allergy. There are four distinct types of hypersensitivity: Types I to IV. These divisions are useful for discussion but may not necessarily occur as single entities in an individual.

There is good evidence that Types I and III hypersensitivity can cause food-allergic symptoms, and some evidence that Type III mechanisms can be associated with gut disorders such as colitis. However, it is vital for doctors to appreciate that reactions to food and environmental substances may occur, proven empirically, without any of these mechanisms appearing to be invoked.

Type I Hypersensitivity

Type I reactions are basically antigen-antibody reactions. This is what is usually meant by a classic allergic reaction. Mast cells release chemical mediators such as histamine, bradykinin, anaphylotxin, slow-reacting substance-S and others. This gives rise to severe local inflammation, which may cause bronchospasm (asthma), sneezing (rhinitis), urticaria (or other skin rashes) or diarrhoea and vomiting if the gut is the target organ.

The occurrence of Type I reactions to foods is undisputed. Typical offenders are milk, eggs, fish and nuts, though any food can do it. Reactions normally occur shortly after food ingestion and are usually associated with positive skin prick tests and generally a positive radio allergosorbent test (RAST) to the relevant food (see conventional allergy tests).

Type I reactions are more common in children and have a tendency to disappear as the patient gets older.

Reactions to insect bites and stings are Type I in nature and can be fatal, if severe, though this is rare.

Type II Hypersensitivity (Cytotoxic)

This type of reaction occurs when an antibody is directed against a cell-surface or tissue antigen. Complement activation leads to the generation of inflammatory mediators, with resulting tissue damage. Cytotoxic tests probably rely on this process.

Diseases caused by Type II hypersensitivity include certain haemolytic (cell-destroying) anaemias, purpura (bruising) and systemic lupus erythematosus; it is also usually to blame in incompatible blood transfusions. The infamous Minamata disease (mercury poisoning) was of this type.

Diagnosis is done by detecting serum antibodies. Raised levels of circulating serum anti-bodies are seen in many cases of bowel disorder thought to be due to food sensitivities but, unfortunately, they are also seen in healthy individuals and their role in food allergy seems confusing and unclear.

Type III Hypersensitivity

Type III reactions result from the deposition of antigen/antibody complexes in the tissues. These complexes are commonly produced after eating, and indeed would be expected. Normally they are removed by the reticulo-endothelial system. But if the formation of immune complexes is excessive, the quality of the complex is abnormal or the reticulo-endothelial function is impaired, then this normal process is unworkable and disease results.

Tissue damage occurs as a result of the inflammation surrounding these abnormal deposits. Rheumatoid arthritis is an example deposits. Rheumatoid arthritis is an example of a Type III process, systemic lupus another. These are all types of auto-immune (self-damaging) diseases.

Type IV Hypersensitivity

This is often called the delayed hyper-sensitivity reaction, so-named because of the fact that in skin testing the reaction may not show up for 12 to 48 hours. Antibodies are not involved. Contact dermatitis is one clinical condition caused by this process.

Conventional allergists say this reaction has little to do with food allergy. Clinical ecologists disagree: it quite commonly causes food allergy. Many patients react late after challenge testing. The reason the patients’ reactions are considered irrelevant is that most doctors do not see them (the patients have gone home) and, since some doctors are not in the habit of listening to information from their patients, they miss it!

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By means of chemical language (a sort of local hormone called a lymphokine), the macrophage attracts nearby T-helper lymphocytes. They ‘read’ the antigenic matter and go off to program B-cells to produce antibodies to this pattern. The antibody is our own, the good guys’ response, to lock onto antigen carriers and cripple them.

T-helpers also secrete other lymphokines, which attracts further T-cells, killer cells and boosts the function of the B-cells, resulting in more antibodies against the invader.

Eventually, the enemy is overwhelmed by force majeur.

Two further steps are important. One is the introduction of memory T-cells. This really is the essence of lasting immunity; the cells learn to ‘remember’ the particular antigen involved. When a subsequent infection takes place, they can almost instantly mount the antibody response, without going through the above steps, because they remember the antigen and already have the antibodies ‘on tap’.

Finally, there must be some way of switching off the reaction. This is where the T-suppressor lymphocytes come in. They scale down the whole process and limit further response. Nature doesn’t want this destructive process to go on any longer than necessary.

It is a clever and spectacularly successful system, the detailed complexity of which surpasses our full understanding so far. The main drawback is that the body has to meet the foreign protein (antigen) before it can mobilize its counter-attack (the antibody). In other words, we must be invaded before we can fight back. This may not matter much with an illness like German measles or chicken-pox, but it is a serious inadequacy when it comes to potentially fatal diseases such as smallpox and diphtheria. Basically, those who survive such dangerous infections do so because their immune systems work very fast and start to produce antibodies in the nick of time, just before death supervenes. Those with a slower immune response are not so lucky and will die.

Or at least they used to. Now we can use vaccination to prevent such deaths. We introduce an artificial infection, commonly done by injecting a dead or weakened virus which does not harm the patient, but teaches his or her body to recognize the virus protein and make antibodies. Thus when the real invaders come along the body is ready and can start its counter-offensive by mobilizing antibodies within hours, instead of days, and so beat off the attack.

The frightening new disease AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) destroys T-lymphocytes and B-lymphocytes so that the body cannot make enough antibodies. The victim, therefore, dies of simple everyday infections which can no longer be resisted in the way in which a healthy individual routinely shrugs them off. Ironically, of course, it means also that the body is hampered in its ability to round on the AIDS virus and so this is a particularly grim infection. The search for a vaccine seems very bleak.

Other Cells which may be involved

The eosinophil is a cell mobilized especially against parasites and allergens. The monocyte is a short-lived circulating phagocyte that differentiates into the macrophage, a cell that may live from months to several years. The macrophages (literally “great gobbler” cells) are the sweep clean army of the immune system, engulfing bacteria, viruses, circulating cell debris and aggregations of immune complexes.

These cells tend to reside in various organ systems, where they selectively differentiate according to the needs of their host organ. For example, macrophages in the liver are celled Küpffer’s cells, and those in the lung are termed alveolar macrophages. The macrophage, like other phagocytes, depends on the generation of free radicals such as peroxide to destroy its target matter.

Mast cells are involved in the histamine response (redness, swelling and itching) that characterizes allergic reactions, such as dermatitis.

Click here to learn more about mast cells and histamine release.

Complement

The complement system is another immune response highway which helps to amplify the efficacy of immune reactions. “Complement” is actually a group of active enzymes which work in a cascade or tumbledown effect; the release of one triggers the next and so on, in sequential fashion. They are generally identified in the laboratory as C1 to C9.

The antigen-antibody complex combines with C1, which in turn acts on C2 and C4. This acts on C3 and son on, in what is called a cascade effect, each step leading to the next. The resultant enzymes act on the invader in a variety of ways and also participate in a local tissue reaction, familiar to us as inflammation. Although this is unpleasant and can be painful, it does serve a purpose in containing the attack.

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eyeNetra’s invention is a way to measure refractive errors (near or far-sightedness) by combining a simple optical attachment with software on a mobile phone.

With billions of people in the developed and developing worlds alike needing glasses to stand any chance of being able to read, you can imagine the impact on illiteracy, unemployment and poverty. eyeNetra points out that the cost of providing eye glasses is down to $3, but the cost of an eye exam is still far too expensive.

iExaminer

Coincidentally, I read a piece about an even better UK invention, called the iExaminer.

This innovative new hardware and medical apps combination turns the iPhone into a full-on ophthalmoscope! Called the iExaminer, it connects the popular Welch Allyn PanOptic ophthalmoscope to the iPhone 4, and then a native medical app enable an examination of the back of the eye (fundus). What’s more, the practitioner can share videos and images with colleagues, right from the iPhone.

This is good for teaching uses, in medical schools. But also great for use in mobile clinics: A physician can screen large numbers of individuals at one time and then review the saved images later, to determine correct treatments.

The iExaminer was created by Intuitive Medical Technologies.

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Here’s the story: the patient is me (truly, this happened to me yesterday afternoon). I was sitting in a restaurant on the shores of lovely Lake Lucerne (photo), eating a plate with Parma ham and melon salad–a mix of watermelon, canteloupe and honeydew, drizzled with a balsamic dressing. It was delicious.

Suddenly, there came a sharp pain in the side of my cheek. Gosh, I thought, a fish bone spike! Then I realized that was silly; but it could have been a spicule of bone from the ham. I felt it with my tongue and it seemed soft and small.

Nevertheless, the pain rapidly increased until I was forced to borrow a pair of lady’s tweezers from a fellow diner and dash to the restroom.

It was too dark to see much in the toilet so I literally groped blindly with the tweezers inside my mouth and, after a few minutes, got lucky. I pulled something out and the pain lessened a little.

Back outside in the sunshine, I could see a strange object: it was a tiny soft round sac, about 3 mm in diameter, with a little spiky “tail”, another 2.5 – 3 mm long. It reminded me of a small piece of berry fruit with a spike, called a drupe (like in a blackberry).

All was suddenly clear!

YOUR QUESTION: what is the diagnosis? (what was this object?) and what two treatments should you always have with you, for casual emergencies, that would have made this immediately more comfortable for me?

It was a bee sting! The strange object I removed from inside my cheek was the actual sting. That meant it was a bee: the bee loses its sting when it is activated. The bee dies.

But I did not have a bee inside my mouth; trust me! The bee sting arrived on the salad. I called the attention of the management to this unfortunate event and they were profusely apologetic. The boss arrived, very concerned and offered me compensation. I was quite sure at that point that they knew. I think an employee must have swatted the bee hovering over the melon salad, killed it, that pushed out the sting and… lucky me!… I got to swallow it. Most people don’t know that a bee sting is detachable.

But here’s the second part of the question: what two simple remedies should you always have with you, that would have made me more comfortable?

Rescue remedy (Bach flower remedy) and homeopathic Traumeel. Rescue Remedy is great for shock and upset of all kinds; worth taking. Traumeel is an OTC remedy, widely available, designed for traumas of all kinds.

Unfortunately, I had neither with me! Ouch! But if I had, I would have asked for a glass of water, dropped a Traumeel tablet in it and then added 10 drops of Rescue remedy. That’s for sipping slowly over an hour or so. It would have made a big difference. As it was, I had to take the cable car back up the mountain to my apartment, feeling very sore inside my mouth!

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