Thursday, June 14, 2012

Will Colloidal Silver Work Against the New Drug-Resistant Form of Gonorrhea?


The news media has been abuzz lately with articles about the new drug-resistant form of gonorrhea, which appears to be spreading around the world. 

Unfortunately, gonorrhea, also known as “the clap,” is one of the most prevalent of all sexually transmitted diseases, with more than 100 million people infected each year.

Will colloidal silver or other forms of antimicrobial silver turn out to be the solution to stopping the spread of this deadly new form of gonorrhea?  As you’ll see in the article below, at least one medical news source is now calling on researchers to start looking into its use…

Hi, Steve Barwick here, for www.TheSilverEdge.com...

According to an article in Medical News Today, the World Health Organization says a new drug-resistant form of the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea could cause “an epidemic of sexually transmitted infections around the world.”

Apparently, the standard treatment for stubborn gonorrhea infections, an antibiotic drug called ceftriaxone, is slowly losing its effectiveness, and doctors are beginning to run out of treatment options for patients with the drug-resistant form of the disease. 

So the World Health Organization is calling on researchers to come up with different treatment options before the problem gets out of hand.

Antimicrobial Silver to the Rescue?

Apparently, one of those options could be a return to the use of antimicrobial silver, or at least the silver compound known as silver nitrate.  Note the last paragraph in the Medical News Today article.  It reads:

“In the middle ages, physicians are said to have used mercury injection via the urinary meatus, but by the 19th century, silver nitrate became widely used and later colloidal silver, which was marketed as Protargol by Bayer from 1897 onwards, until the first antibiotics became available in the 1940s. Perhaps researchers would be wise to take another look at the silver nitrate possibility.”

The writer acknowledges that both silver nitrate and an older form of colloidal silver called Protargol (a silver protein compound) were used to treat gonorrhea in the early 1900's.  And now that antibiotics are no longer working well against this new "untreatable" strain of gonorrhea, the Medical News Today writer recommends researchers take another look at silver nitrate as a potential cure for the disease.

The only problem with the early silver treatments for gonorrhea – such as silver nitrate, Protargol and others -- was that for the most part they either had to be administered intravenously, or by injection, or by "inunction" which was a method of mixing the silver with an absorbable substance and then forcing high levels of silver into the body by rubbing it into the skin (which, unfortunately, sometimes left permanent skin staining). 

Dr. Wilson’s Stunning Clinical Report from the 1900’s

However, in an older clinical report from the early 1900’s titled “Venereal Diseases: Their Treatment and Cure” by Dr. Omar Wilson, M.D., and published in a journal called The Canadian Medical, the colloidal silver protein compound known as Protargol was said to be an astonishingly helpful treatment for gonorrhea when instilled into the urethra of the penis. 

While this does not sound particularly pleasant, here’s what Dr. Wilson wrote in his report:

“Some years ago I was afforded the opportunity of experimenting with germicidal preparations in gonorrhea. After prolonged experiments I became convinced that Protargol gave the best results, and curiously enough, that one-half percent Protargol was remarkably more efficient than solutions of greater strength.”

Dr. Wilson believed that “one hundred per cent of cases of gonorrhea are curable” if the right treatments were used in a professional manner.  “Such results, however, are only obtainable,” Dr. Wilson advised, “with men properly and scientifically trained.”

Dr. Wilson goes on to say that in cases where the gonorrhea symptoms are largely focused in the urethra (i.e., the tube of the penis) causing inflammation, irrigating the urethra with the colloidal silver protein compound Protargol is effective.  Here’s how he described this treatment:

“In early anterior urethritis it is my practice to endeavour to abort the condition by daily anterior irrigations of Protargol, either by patient or physician. With a rubber-tipped urethral syringe the patient is directed to inject Protargol four times daily, holding the same in for a period of four minutes.”

In other words, using a syringe with a rubber tip and no needle, the Protargol silver protein compound solution was instilled (or squirted, to use a layman’s term) into the urethra through the little hole in the tip of the penis.

Can Modern Colloidal Silver Be Used In This Manner?

While researching this story, I discovered that one anonymous commentator on the internet has interpreted Dr. Wilson’s comments and updated them, substituting modern, electrically generated colloidal silver for the Protargol silver protein compound solution.  Here’s what he wrote: 

If gonorrhea occurs in the urethra (the tube inside your penis) you have to do an instillation of colloidal silver there:

1.     clean the outside of your penis with an alcohol swab

2.     next get a syringe without the needle, full of colloidal silver, and put the tip of the syringe in the "little hole" of your pennis. (use a new syringe each time)

3.     gently push all the colloidal silver inside the urethra and keep it there for 4 minutes minimum before letting it go outside

4.     repeat the process 4 times per day or more, until cured. You can use high ppm colloidal-ionic silver, the higher the better.

Personally, I’d be very skeptical of doing this. 

For one, modern electrically-generated colloidal silver and the old-fashioned Protargol form of colloidal silver protein compound are two completely different animals, so to speak. While Protargol is said to work in the manner described above, there’s no clinical evidence that modern, electrically generated colloidal silver would work effectively if used in the same manner.

Indeed, I’ve known women who have used modern, electrically generated colloidal silver as a vaginal douche in an attempt to get rid of a vaginal candida yeast infection, and found that the silver tended to inflame and irritate the soft tissue in the vaginal tract to the point that peeing later became painful for several days.  It may have been that an overly strong concentration of colloidal silver was used.  Or there may have been some other reason for this reaction. 

But the point is there’s simply no telling what a urethral instillation of modern, electrically generated colloidal silver might do to the soft tissue inside the urethra.  If it increased inflammation rather than soothed it, then the woes would be compounded rather than alleviated.  So this type of experimentation is not for the faint of heart. After all, you do like to be able to pee when you have to go, right?

The bottom line is this:  For serious conditions like sexually transmitted diseases, always follow the advice of a good, licensed physician, and not something you’ve read on the internet.  As the old saying goes, “Don’t attempt this at home, kids.”  And remember, I’m just reporting this stuff for historical reference, in context with the subject of this article.  I’m not advocating it. 

Prostatic Gonorrhea

Dr. Wilson went on to say that the Protargol silver protein compound solution could also be used when gonorrhea spreads into the prostate area.  He claimed that in such instances, after instilling the Protargol into the urethra as described in his report, prostatic massage should be applied afterwards.  According to Dr. Wilson in his clinical report:

“…In prostatic cases the patient carries out treatment identically the same. Private ambulatory cases are required to report every three days for prostatic massage followed by bladder irrigations of one-half per cent Protargol. In institution life where such cases are more readily controllable, such treatment can be given every two days, without danger of producing orchitis or other complication.”

Dr. Wilson further wrote:

“A prominent urologist has stated that prostatic massage alone will cure the great majority of cases. There is a smattering of truth in his statement, for we all know that any case that’s been untreated or improperly treated for a fortnight becomes prostatic. Assuredly prostatic massage with Protargol irrigations will clear up one hundred per cent of our cases, if they be otherwise uncomplicated.”

Dr. Wilson went on to say that certain complications from gonorrhea would require additional forms of treatment:  “It is quite unnecessary to discuss here the various complications other than prostatitis. Orchitis, epidymo-orchitis, seminal vesiculitis, gonorrheeal rheumatism, peri-urethral abscess, prostatic abscess and stricture, all demand special treatment…”

In other words, instilling Protargol into the urethra is only successful if there are no serious complications taking place from the gonorrheal infection.  And if there are complications, additional and quite different forms of treatment would be necessary.  Dr. Wilson doesn’t discuss those treatments in his clinical report.

A Case In Point…

Apparently, based on an internet account I’ve seen, at least one person has tried the urethral instillation method of combating gonorrhea, using modern, electrically generated colloidal silver instead of Protargol.  But the results, if they can be believed, were less than stellar.

If you conduct a Google search on the phrase "colloidal silver gonorrhea" one of the hits you'll get will be a string of posts on the CureZone.com web site, in which a man with gonorrhea had written in explaining that he'd ingested gallons of colloidal silver orally, and still his gonorrhea was not cured. 

CureZone.com members gave him many suggestions, one of which was to follow Dr. Wilson’s technique described above, by putting modern, electrically generated colloidal silver into a syringe (without a needle) and squirting it directly up into the urethra, holding it there for at least four minutes at a time and repeating the process several times a day. 

The gentleman wrote back that he’d already tried this, and as long as he did it every day the gonorrhea seemed to be abated.  But every time he quit doing it, the gonorrhea returned full force. 

Could this be because he was already at the stage of gonorrhea where other serious complications such as those described above had set in, and the gonorrhea had spread to other parts of his body such as the prostate and beyond? 

I don’t know.  Regardless of the reason, however, it’s another example of why serious diseases such as gonorrhea require professional medical intervention.  Don’t be an alternative medical martyr when your long-term health and well-being is at stake. 

So Would Colloidal Silver Work, Or Not?

While oral and topical use of colloidal silver is widely known, anecdotally and in some clinical reports, to be effective against many types of infections, even some very serious infections such as MRSA (see the Colloidal Silver Success Stories web site), I’ve never seen a single clinical medical study demonstrating modern forms of colloidal silver, used orally, to be effective against gonorrhea. 

Nevertheless, if I were so unfortunate as to catch this new drug-resistant strain of gonorrhea (God forbid!), I'd certainly try using colloidal silver.  But I'd probably use it in conjunction with the appropriate prescription antibiotic drugs.  And of course, only under the direct supervision of an infectious disease specialist. 

After all, a BYU study demonstrated that many antibiotics appeared to miraculously regain their infection-fighting qualities against drug-resistant pathogens when colloidal silver treatment was added to the antibiotic drug treatment. 

Indeed, you can see the famous BYU study on the "Clinical Studies and Reports" page on TheSilverEdge.com web site.  The study is titled “Bactericidal Activity of Combinations of Silver–Water Dispersion™ with 19 Antibiotics Against Seven Microbial Strains.” It’s located about 23 studies down the list, at the link above. 

It’s a very interesting study.  And there’s certainly merit in the idea that adding the use of a high-quality oral colloidal silver solution to an antibiotic drug treatment plan would be worth investigating in a case where the gonorrhea infection was not responding to the antibiotic drug alone.

So from my strictly layman’s position, I have to agree in principle with the writer of the article at Medical News Today:  If the World Health Organization really wants to stop this drug-resistant form of gonorrhea before it turns into an epidemic, they need to start looking into the use of antimicrobial silver – the world’s most powerful natural infection-fighting agent. 

It has worked in the past, however inconvenient the treatment may have been.  With modern forms of antimicrobial silver (including ionic silver, nanosilver, mild silver protein, and many others), combined with modern forms of treatment, it certainly could work again.  But the clinical research needs to be done now, before this new drug-resistant strain of gonorrhea gets out of control.

Ultimately, it’s possible that intravenous silver nitrate treatment could work, or perhaps silver nitrate given by injection.  That’s what the writer at Medical News Today suggested health authorities should look into. 

But…are there any doctors around who still understand how to use silver nitrate safely, internally?  Sure, a highly diluted form of silver nitrate has been used in newborn baby’s eyes for decades, to prevent blindness from the gonorrhea pathogen that can be picked up in the mother’s birth canal. 

But used internally, silver nitrate is a very caustic chemical silver compound that’s been linked to numerous serious side effects when misused, and therefore must be used judiciously in the human body in accord with strict medical protocols.

Yet surely if researchers would more closely examine the many different forms of antimicrobial silver now available, they could find a type that would either work well on its own merits against the new drug-resistant gonorrhea without the side effects of a chemical silver compound like silver nitrate, or that would work well against the insidious pathogen in conjunction with the appropriate antibiotic drugs.   

Meanwhile, if all of this talk about drug-resistant infectious diseases is freaking you out, and you’d like to learn how to make your own high-quality micro-particle colloidal silver for less than 36 cents a quart, just click the link.

Yours for the safe, sane and responsible use of colloidal silver,


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Important Note and Disclaimer:  The contents of this Ezine have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.  Information conveyed herein is from sources deemed to be accurate and reliable, but no guarantee can be made in regards to the accuracy and reliability thereof.  The author, Steve Barwick, is a natural health journalist with over 30 years of experience writing professionally about natural health topics.  He is not a doctor.  Therefore, nothing stated in this Ezine should be construed as prescriptive in nature, nor is any part of this Ezine meant to be considered a substitute for professional medical advice.  Nothing reported herein is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.  The author is simply reporting in journalistic fashion what he has learned during the past 17 years of journalistic research into colloidal silver and its usage.  Therefore, the information and data presented should be considered for informational purposes only, and approached with caution.  Readers should verify for themselves, and to their own satisfaction, from other knowledgeable sources such as their doctor, the accuracy and reliability of all reports, ideas, conclusions, comments and opinions stated herein.  All important health care decisions should be made under the guidance and direction of a legitimate, knowledgeable and experienced health care professional.  Readers are solely responsible for their choices.  The author and publisher disclaim responsibility or liability for any loss or hardship that may be incurred as a result of the use or application of any information included in this Ezine.

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