What does an EE do if they happen to have polyps?

[Assafl]

An EE deals with their polyps with 68V. And for some reason gets published.

http://article.sapub.org/10.5923.j.ajbe.20150502.01.html

[jmelson]

WOW!  I have the same problem, but I am pretty hesitant to try this method.  68 V up inside your nose??!!??
Yikes!
Jon

[Bicurico]

Cool!

Thumbs up for submitting an article instead of a patent.

[hans]

Aren't there many more articles to be found of self experimentation.. also among doctors?

Like, Sigmund Freud was a heavy supporter of cocaine. He thought it was a great antidepressant, because it made him feel great. He prescribed it to patients and the like. Back then it was also legal, as cocaine was present in foods, or drinks like Coca Cola. Now we know a lot better.. (or so we think - any treatment isn't without risks).. but this a negative case example. Sure there will also be positive cases of self experimentation.

So not surprised it's published. I do find it interesting though to read the conclusions and future recommendations. On the one hand it's written in a quite humble way (admitting he is an EE instead of dr), on the other hand quite convinced it really works wonders with little to no side effects..
Another example of self 'experimentation': I had a colleague who got fed up with some stitches from leg surgery. He had to wait more than half a week to get them removed... Anyone who's had stitches for a large area can tell how the last few can start to sting quite badly. Fortunately a standard EE workbench includes isopropyl alcohol and side cutters.. 

Anyhow, 68V sounds reasonably high in terms of electrical safety. Anything <50V is considered ultra low voltage, 50-1000V is low voltage and >1kV is high voltage. Typ. 60V is used as the cut off for skin breakdown IIRC, so 68V is pushing it into dangerous territories (especially when hooking up voltages to bodies is also not the safest idea)

[Assafl]

So not surprised it's published. I do find it interesting though to read the conclusions and future recommendations. On the one hand it's written in a quite humble way (admitting he is an EE instead of dr), on the other hand quite convinced it really works wonders with little to no side effects..

It was a treatment long ago. Maybe 50 years. My fathers uncle was a otolaryngologist and had one of these devices with wood and all kinds of implements that you can see on many of the "American Horror Story" opening credits. I still blame myself for not taking it when he died. Probably ended up in a land fill. It had a big voltage potentiometer with a mA meter with a club pointer. Made in England.

Another example of self 'experimentation': I had a colleague who got fed up with some stitches from leg surgery. He had to wait more than half a week to get them removed... Anyone who's had stitches for a large area can tell how the last few can start to sting quite badly. Fortunately a standard EE workbench includes isopropyl alcohol and side cutters.. 

In the clinic they usually dab the wire with lidocaine. It smarts to just pull it out.

We all self medicate. I even self froze once...
40 years ago I had a skin tag I disliked. So I went to a dermatologist who froze it. And it grew back. I went again. It did so again. I then thought to myself I have a Servisol Component Freeze spray. So sprayed it every day for two weeks. To this day - that skin tag has gone....

[SiliconWizard]

The approach is probably interesting, but I could not find any (after admittedly a quick search) other publication on that. Which in itself is not a good sign.

As to implementation, I would be a lot more reserved.
First thing (that I may have missed, or the author may have not stated): is this properly isolated? Is this battery-operated, or otherwise has proper isolation means?
Second thing, it's apparently just a fixed, constant voltage, alterning stimulation. I think this is the wrong way of doing it. It should be current-controlled instead. The resulting impedance between electrodes will vary widely depending on conditions, skin, skin preparation, and other factors. Thus the stimulation current will vary widely. This is definitely neither a good idea for safety, nor for reproducibility.

For those reasons, and the fact it's solely an experiment the author did on themselves, I'm surprised this got even published. Since when experimenting on oneself (with all biases that can come with it) can be a valid scientific approach?

[TimFox]

Independent of this particular experiment and therapy, there is a long history of real medical science involving experimentation on oneself.
A somewhat recent example, which completely overturned conventional thought about ulcers:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727772-000-zeros-to-heroes-ulcer-truth-was-hard-to-stomach/

[jpanhalt]

I hate to associate with Elon Musk, but I also believe in virtually free speech, porn involving children is an exception.  Let informed readers (i.e., not Twitter or Facebook readers) respond.  Any reasonable person will understand that this study of "somewhat less than 1000 cases" (as we used to say about case reports in Lancet), needs validation.

[Alex Eisenhut]

They'll grow back. Getting them to resorb is nice, but polyps are tenacious fuckers.

[hans]

For those reasons, and the fact it's solely an experiment the author did on themselves, I'm surprised this got even published. Since when experimenting on oneself (with all biases that can come with it) can be a valid scientific approach?

This is no different than technical work. We also do our own designs, experiments, and reporting. We have good faith that every piece of information published is complete, honest, verified and correct, but can't know 100% sure (even with peer reviews). There are a ton of cognitive biases. No human is perfect or robotic enough to be resistant to each and every bias.
Being impartial is obviously a big pillar in science. The way this article was written, does raise some eye brows, but in terms of medical studies.. usually a small sample size, poorly controlled groups, or research partially funded by pharma, is already frowned upon to begin with.

A slightly related story on trust: some papers may look suspicious, but there is little evidence to say it's fraud. It can take dozens of papers before it's caught. I believe there was 1 prof that was submitting amazing IC designs to top conferences each year. He photoshopped dieshots and analog signals (with noise etc.) to get the results he wanted to report on. He was finally caught because the noise waveforms between papers looked identical..., and so researchers were requesting more info to reproduce the results and the whole story was uncovered.

[langwadt]

The approach is probably interesting, but I could not find any (after admittedly a quick search) other publication on that. Which in itself is not a good sign.

As to implementation, I would be a lot more reserved.
First thing (that I may have missed, or the author may have not stated): is this properly isolated? Is this battery-operated, or otherwise has proper isolation means?
Second thing, it's apparently just a fixed, constant voltage, alterning stimulation. I think this is the wrong way of doing it. It should be current-controlled instead. The resulting impedance between electrodes will vary widely depending on conditions, skin, skin preparation, and other factors. Thus the stimulation current will vary widely. This is definitely neither a good idea for safety, nor for reproducibility.

For those reasons, and the fact it's solely an experiment the author did on themselves, I'm surprised this got even published. Since when experimenting on oneself (with all biases that can come with it) can be a valid scientific approach?

Several Nobel laurates in medicine did experiments on themselves, it avoids all the medical and ethical approvals needed for human experiments on someone else

[borjam]

Go to a real doctor. Some "polyps" can be nasty tumors that require surgery.

[eugene]

Independent of this particular experiment and therapy, there is a long history of real medical science involving experimentation on oneself.
A somewhat recent example, which completely overturned conventional thought about ulcers:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727772-000-zeros-to-heroes-ulcer-truth-was-hard-to-stomach/

As a teenager I discovered something interesting about acne. The most popular belief is that pimples are simply clogged pores. But anyone with acne knows that keeping your skin clean is not enough. The truth is that the inflammation is caused by bacteria. Benzoyl peroxide, etc is used to kill the bacteria with limited success. What I learned is that the bacteria doesn't survive at temps just a few degrees above normal body temperature. If I ran a fever of more than about 101F for a couple of days, my acne would clear up. I believe that this is the reason that spending a lot of time in bright sunlight helps; it heats the skin.

Anyway, I started covering my face with a cloth soaked in hot water. I did this a couple of times each day for five or ten minutes. I would replace the hot water as it cooled, trying to keep it as hot as I could tolerate. It almost completely cured my acne, which was pretty bad at the time.

I've never heard of anyone else using heat to directly kill the bacteria. Or, if they did, they attributed it to 'drying' of the skin or something misguided.

[cdev]

Heat helps resolve all sorts of medical problems.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

@ Electroboom
can you investigate this?

pls I will subscribe.

[Assafl]

Independent of this particular experiment and therapy, there is a long history of real medical science involving experimentation on oneself.
A somewhat recent example, which completely overturned conventional thought about ulcers:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727772-000-zeros-to-heroes-ulcer-truth-was-hard-to-stomach/

As a teenager I discovered something interesting about acne. The most popular belief is that pimples are simply clogged pores. But anyone with acne knows that keeping your skin clean is not enough. The truth is that the inflammation is caused by bacteria. Benzoyl peroxide, etc is used to kill the bacteria with limited success. What I learned is that the bacteria doesn't survive at temps just a few degrees above normal body temperature. If I ran a fever of more than about 101F for a couple of days, my acne would clear up. I believe that this is the reason that spending a lot of time in bright sunlight helps; it heats the skin.

Anyway, I started covering my face with a cloth soaked in hot water. I did this a couple of times each day for five or ten minutes. I would replace the hot water as it cooled, trying to keep it as hot as I could tolerate. It almost completely cured my acne, which was pretty bad at the time.

I've never heard of anyone else using heat to directly kill the bacteria. Or, if they did, they attributed it to 'drying' of the skin or something misguided.

One would wonder if the heat kills the germs like the peroxide does. Or it softens the oxidized fats that clog the pores (as a trans fat it becomes hard at higher temps). And that allows opens the pores up.

Sunlight might work also because of UV.

[Assafl]

Heat helps resolve all sorts of medical problems.

I am sure it creates as many problems as it solves. Heat related issues (burns, heat stroke, dehydration, exposure to sunlight causes cancer) etc.

But so does cold. Sprained ankle? Ice helps. Ben Gay gives a feeling of cold and heat. But it may be just a chemical irritant. Like peppers cause a sensation of pain. But not real pain.

Too much cold and you get limbs amputated.

Generally speaking heat and cold is bad. We need to be at a constant 37C. Unless there is an infection. Or trauma. Oh - and testes perform best at 34-35C. Why? Maybe whomever designed is had the wrong version of the spec. So the lazy engineer put them outside.

[eugene]

One would wonder if the heat kills the germs like the peroxide does. Or it softens the oxidized fats that clog the pores (as a trans fat it becomes hard at higher temps). And that allows opens the pores up.

Sunlight might work also because of UV.

Good point about the UV in sunlight.

[Assafl]

reading the article reminds me of an omron electric massage device which i still have but seldom use, the discharge voltage pulses is up to 90v. the sensation is electrifying 

Ah TENS. Yet another quasi-quackery of medical “science”. It works. Sometimes.

With no hypothesis except that it stimulates or (IMHO more likely) causes the release of endorphins.
As an example, When there is a painful acne (or any other boil or carbuncle) sometimes pushing against it is extremely painful - and then becomes numb. I am sure electrocuting the carbuncle will result in the same.