Re - fibromyalgia and breast pain, I have seen one mum who was diagnosed
with fibromyalgia by a rheumatotlogist and was also presenting with shooting
breast pains. All her symptoms (including breast pain) were greatly relieved
with a managed exercise and sleep program and 10mg Endep (Amitriptylline)
nocte (a very low dose). Of course this could have been coincidental, sample
of only one!
Re - milk cultures. Although my current research is in biochemical changes
occurring in milk during mastitis I am attempting to culture all milk as
well. (Sometimes not possible as half my mums with mastitis race off to the
doctor in a panic and start their antibiotics before I can get out to take
their samples). The medical scientist in the lab who services my hospital
(Jim Wells) has very kindly consented to do this for me and he did have
initial problems developing a technique he was happy with. He is currently
away on holidays so I cant refer to him to ensure I have got everything
exactly right. But will follow up next week with a correction if I err in
any of my information.
Firstly he found doing a bacterial count too difficult as the fat in
milk being the major problem as it clogs up the counting machines (having
said this the dairy industry has special counters that will do this easily).
Although we considered defatting the milk, which is a simple process, I
think we could lose bacteria to the fat layer so bacterial counts might not
be accurate on milk serum only. So we don't do it.
.
Leukocyte counts can be done as follows (I know this is right as this is
courtesy of Professor CS Lee - Veterinary Sciences, Melbourne):
Take equal volumes of milk and PBS and centrifuge for 650g for 20mins at
4 degrees centigrade and remove supernatant. Wash cell pellet once with PBS,
concentrate by centrifugation, remove supernatant and resuspend in a small
volume of PBS. Smears of cells can then be prepared as for blood cells.
Another procedure published by Thomsen et al(1983) is as follows
Mix 25 microlitres of milk and 475 microlitres of methyl violet in acetic
acid and place in a Burker Turk counting chamber and read x 400
magnification.
Cultures , I'm pretty sure, we do as for conventional methods.
Again Thomsen et al(1983) also cites methods and mediums for culturing for
aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, mycoplasmas and chlamydia.
Reference: Thomsen, AC Hansen B, Birger, R 1983. Leukocyte counts and
microbiologic cultivation in the diagnosis of peurperal mastitis. American
Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 146: 938-941.
Collection of milk sample should be done by using sterile gloves, the nipple
and areola washed with sterile water and allowed to dry, a ml or so
expressed off and then a sample expressed for culture and counts, never
freeze the sample, destroys all the cells.
Hope this helps
Cathy Fetherston
Perth, Western Australia
>
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