Drug allergies and intolerance – neglected aspects

Dr. med. Rolf W. Sextro, Ober-Olm

INTRODUCTION

Dear colleagues,

Each day we are confronted with assertions and claims of varying quality which we either accept or reject

a) based on our confidence in or mistrust of the person or media involved

b) based on our assessment of the accuracy, likelihood or feasibility of their content.

This and our own experience form the basis of our convictions, opinions and “doctrines”. I should like to encourage you to examine the way you accept these as a “matter of course”.

This paper aims to learn to consider and examine more critically assertions made by pharmaceutical manufacturers and testers, by those offering treatment and by diagnosticians as well as by patients. The same applies to our own past assertions. This will increase our chances of improving individual therapy and also reinforce our self-assurance as therapists or patients in the face of genuine or “supposed” “authorities”, for

“knowledge not only brings power but with it the duty and responsibility to pass it on”.

I do not wish, at this point, to take the side of the pharmaceutical industry, “orthodox” medicine and dentistry or “alternative medicine. Rather than reproach, I prefer to point out shortcomings based on examples from my own experience and findings and to demonstrate viewpoints. I do not want to bother you with statistics and tables but instead to direct your attention to the problems by considering individual cases.

IMPLANTS

We all “know” – based on the “findings” of orthodox medicine – how well titanium is tolerated as a knee and hip implant and also to replace missing roots of teeth. I myself have assisted in hip replacement operations and also attended the congress commemorating the 25th anniversary of the first implanted dental prosthesis. I was so convinced by the technique that I subsequently used titanium implants myself in my work. I put aside my unanswered questions regarding the cause and reasons for the – all too frequent – failure of, for example, hip implants after 10–15 years. Yet, doubts kept recurring when I looked back at the tests I carried out on patients for material tolerance. Titanium proved to be well tolerated or did not adversely affect the patient in only 5, at most 8 %, of all cases where it was used for crowns and bridges. Yet, over a 9 year period, in only 8 cases was it preferred over other, e. g. high-quality gold alloys. I found an explanation for many of my questions in 1994 at a BRT course led by Dr Jürgen Lehmann, who reported the results of American investigations which revealed that titanium only produced rejection reactions after 8–10 years.

This opens up a wide sphere for bioresonance therapy with its emphasis on aftercare while also offering preventive treatment. After 5 titanium implants in the lower jaw, my patient G. still had problems – which I obviously shared. One implant failed despite corrective surgery; however, following titanium intolerance testing as instructed by Lehmann and subsequent BICOM therapy (program 999), the remaining four screws were not only still intact, X-ray images indicated that the bone was regenerating.

How can my experience be reconciled with that of orthodox medicine? Experiments on animals usually only run for a maximum of four years; afterwards the researcher is supposed to produce a dissertation or postdoctoral thesis before retiring. Consequently, subsequent rejection reactions go unnoticed and are not investigated, at least not “on the living object”. This explains why titanium is used in implants unquestioningly “to the best of our knowledge and belief”, in other words, without being individually tested.

Consequently we have banned both amalgam and titanium from our practice. We use zirconium instead of titanium for implants, also for crowns and bridges on request or following tests. This material, the best tolerated up till now, is offered by numerous (interested) parties for “metal free” restoration in the same way as for patients who have had unpleasant experiences or suffered prolonged pain with (heavy) metals. In the periodic table, zirconium lies directly beneath titanium with the transitional metals. This highlights the importance of individual material testing in each case.

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

The same assertion can be made in connection with prescription drugs, supported by the following three cases:

Case 1

As part of her pain therapy, a patient with pleural carcinoma metastasising into the ribs had a catheter fitted in the area of the thoracic spine to allow her to self inject a “cocktail of drugs” which included the local anaesthetic Bupivacain. When the doctor on duty made a house visit, she claimed she was unable to tolerate this local anaesthetic, which is now no longer available; she complained of dizziness, headaches and nausea and had asked her husband to stop adding this drug to the mixture. He “confessed” to us however that he had nevertheless tried and had observed that the patient tolerated half a 5 ml ampoule without noticing its presence. This confirmed my view stated at the start of the conversation that I did not believe in Bupivacain intolerance. I then tested the preparation “Carbostesin“ (Astra) with the same quantity and concentration of active ingredient: the patient was able to tolerate it! When the preparations were compared, the only difference was in the composition of the accompanying substances. I did not make a note of what these were at the time; it was enough for me that we had been able to help the patient and that I had been proved right that, in case of doubt, each pharmaceutical product should be tested.

Case 2

A dental patient complained of dizziness and nausea following the injection of a local anaesthetic containing Articain. The anaesthetic was effective but I wanted to conduct some tests to find one she would be able to tolerate better for the next session. Imagine my surprise when the result did not suggest a different substance (Procain, Lidocain, Bupivacain) but Articain again, although this time the rival product (Espe’s Ubistesin, Hoechst’s Ultracain D-S). Both preparations are virtually identical in composition and accompanying substance with the “tiny” difference that one contains sodium sulphite, the other sodium disulphite.

Case 3

The patient C. M. had been suffering for a number of years from “allergic” cutaneous reactions – usually to prescription drugs – and pronounced maxillary sinus problems on the right side. Tests had already indicated a basic food allergy. However the patient could not opt for medical treatment outside the health insurance scheme because of the costs involved. Finally a deterioration in her condition led her to undergo amalgam cleansing and elimination therapy during the course of which teeth had to be extracted from the upper right jaw. As her symptoms persisted, I referred her to an ENT specialist who was unable to diagnose anything other than slight mucosal hypertrophy and assumed it was a case of chronic ostitis following earlier inflammation of the maxillary sinus and/or of the recently extracted teeth. He prescribed a 10 day course of Clindamycin (Clindastad 300; Stada).

Two days later the patient presented in my practice claiming she was unable to tolerate the medication which had been prescribed for her. By this time I was “impudent” enough to say that I did not believe or accept this since the pharmaceutical industry first tests all drugs for their allergic powers. I then tested the same active agent and quantity as the preparation Sobelin 300 which proved to be well tolerated and was prescribed for 10 days, followed by Sobelin 150 for a further 10 days. Until this point, I had thought that the intolerance was caused by different galenicals.

When the patient returned to the practice twelve days later with an allergic reaction, the plot finally began to unravel. Sobelin had tested as well tolerated; in theory, an allergy to the substance could actually have developed. Yet when checked again, Sobelin 300 continued to be well tolerated, although Sobelin 150 was not.

The following picture emerged from consulting the “Rote Liste” [Red List] and package inserts: Clindastad 300 has two constituents not contained in Sobelin 300, namely talc and E 172 (iron oxide and hydroxide). Sobelin in capsule form – we all probably know of patients unable to tolerate this particular capsule preparation – was well tolerated in the 300 form, i. e. where both halves of the capsule were violet. In the 150 form, where one half of the capsule was violet and the other dark red, it provoked allergic reactions triggered by E 132 (indigo carmine). Patient’s comment: “My family doctor will say I’m mad if I tell him this.”

The conversation now turned to this patient’s vitamin B12 intolerance claimed by the same family doctor. This was “diagnosed” when she reacted to injections of a B12 solution some years previously. Moreover, it had been known for some time that she was unable to tolerate non-steroidal antirheumatic agents, particularly “voltaren”/diclofenac, and also ibuprofen. Finally, I should like to mention that, in the time before I learnt to test drugs, the patient complained so much of cardiac/ circulatory problems when local anaesthetics were used, that she even made me carry out preparatory work for a dental crown without anaesthetic: considerable stress “at both ends of the drill”.

Before we come to a final assessment, I should like to present just one survey, that of Diclofenac preparations for oral administration: of 35 preparations, some in different dosages, the constituents include:

A similar picture results for Ibuprofen:

CONCLUSIONS

If patient C. M. reacts to talc and E 172, it is not surprising that she is unable to tolerate (almost) all diclofenac preparations and most ibuprofen preparations. We may possibly find an explanation for multiple “drug” allergies here which should concentrate on the accompanying substances rather than the active ingredients.

The assertions regarding vitamin B12 intolerance probably need no further comment for this is not possible. Without vitamins we would depart this world in our infancy for not one single erythrocyte would be formed.

This train of thought leads however to the question whether iodine allergy may actually exist in connection with preparations used in diagnosis and wound treatment, for example. If so, then these patients would have been unable to form one single molecule of thyroid hormone – also a fatal initial condition.

Although as a young assistant I acknowledged and passed on these assertions, I now have to state that I advocated things without testing them, things which cannot now be allowed to stand. Obviously, in each of these cases, reactions to accompanying substances or constituents of chemical compounds are always the cause of the intolerance.

As for the unexpected frequent titanium intolerance, I can only offer suppositions. Is this connected with the frequent use of this white colouring in drugs, possibly also with (sun) cream, which can penetrate broken skin?

What this means in practice is that we can initially prescribe as usual but, if problems occur, we must find the cause through individual tests so that we can then treat colourings with the Schumacher test set, for example, or substances such as talc with bioresonance therapy.

Thank you for listening.