GREAT post Martin.  Very informative, well-balanced, and humanitarian
without neglecting the need for scientific rigor.

(Cross-posted to alt.psychology.personality since some personality typing
will be discussed at the beginning - Note: I've set all followups to sci.med
since most of my comments are more sci.med oriented and I'm sure most of the
replies, if any, will be med-related.)

They are just responding in their natural way:  Hyper-Choleric Syndrome (HCS).
Oops, that is not a recognized "illness" in the psychological community,
better not say that since it therefore must not, and never will, exist.  :^)

Actually, it is fascinating that a disproportionate number of physicians
will type out as NT (for those not familiar with the Myers-Briggs system,
just e-mail me and I'll send a summary file to you).  In the general
population, NT's comprise only about 12% of the population, but among
physicians it is much much higher (I don't know the exact percentage -
any help here a.p.p.er's?)

One driving characteristic of an NT, especially an NTJ, is their obvious
choleric behavior (driver, type A, etc.) - the extreme emotional need to
control, to lead, and/or to be the best or the most competent.  If they are
also extroverted, they are best described as "Field Marshalls".  This trait
is very valuable and essential in our society - we need people who want to
lead, to strive to overcome the elements, to seek and thirst for knowledge,
to raise the level of competency, etc.  The great successes in science and
technology are in large part due to the vision (an N trait) and scientifically-
minded approach (T trait) of the NT personality (of course, the other types
and temperaments have their own positive contributions as well).  However,
when the NT person has self-image challenges, the "dark-side" of this
personality type usually comes out, which should be obvious to all.

A physician who is a strong NT and who has not learned to temper their
temperament will be extremely business-like (lack of empathy or feeling),
and is very compelled to have total control over their patient (the patient
must be obedient to their diagnosis and prescription without question).  I've
known many M.D.'s of this temperament and suffice to say I don't oblige them
with a followup visit, no matter how competent I think they are (and they
usually are very competent from a knowledge viewpoint since that is an
extreme drive of theirs - to know the most, to know it all).

Maybe we need more NF doctor's.  :^)

Enough on this subject - let's move on to candida bloom.

You've helped me already by your post.  Of course, I believe that I have
been misdiagnosed on the net as suffering from '{*filter*}retentivitis', but being
the phlegmatic I am, maybe I was just a little too harsh on a few people
myself in past posts.  Let's all try to raise the level of this discussion
above the level of {*filter*}effluent.

In my well-described situation (in prior posts), I definitely was immune
stressed.  {*filter*} tests showed my vitamin A levels were very low.  My sinuses
were a mess - no doubt the mucosal lining and the cilia were heavily damaged.
I also was on antibiotics 15 times in 4 years!  In the end, even two weeks
of Ceftin did not work and I had confirmed diagnoses of a chronic bacterial
infection of the sinuses via cat-scans, mucus color (won't get into the
details), and other symptoms.  Three very traditional ENT's made this
diagnosis (I did not have any cultures done, however, because of the
difficulty of doing this right and because my other symptoms clearly showed
a bacterial infection).  Enough of this background (provided to help you
understand where I was when I make comments about my Sporanox anti-fungal
therapy below).

The first question I have is this.  Can fungus penetrate a little way into poor
mucus membrane tissue, maybe via hyphae, thus causing symptoms, without being
considered 'systemic' in the classic sense?  It is sort of an inbetween
infection.

I was concerned, too, because of the toxicity of vitamin A.  My doctor, after
my {*filter*} tests, put me on 75,000 IU of vitamin A for one week only, then
dropped it down to 25,000 IU for the next couple of weeks.  I also received
zinc and other supplementation, since all of these interrelate in fairly
complex ways as my doctor explained (he's one of those 'evil' orthomolecular
specialists).  I had a {*filter*} test three weeks later and vitamin A was normal,
he then stopped me on all vitamin A (except for some in a multi-vitamin)
supplement), and made sure that I maintain a 50,000 IU/day of beta carotene.
Call me carrot face.  :^)

Hopefully, Elaine's doctor will take a similar, careful approach and to
all supplements.  I'm even reevaluating some supplements I'm taking, for
example, niacin in fairly large dosages, 1 gram/day, which Steve Dyer had
good information about on sci.med.nutrition.  If niacin only has second-order
improvement in symptomatic relief of my sinus allergies, then it probably is
not worth taking such a large dose long-term and risking liver damage.

Though I do now believe, based on my successful therapy with Sporanox, that
I definitely had some excessive growth of fungus (unknown species) in my
sinuses, I still want to ask the question:  have there been any studies that
demonstrate candida "blooms" in the sinuses with associated sinus irritation
(sinusitis/rhinitis)?  (My sinus irritation reduced significantly after one
week of Sporanox and no other new treatments were implemented during this
time - I did not have any noticeable GI track problems before starting on
Sporanox, but some for a few days after which then went away - considered
normal).

BTW, my doctor dug out one of his medical reference books (sorry, can't
remember which one), and found an obscure comment dating back into the 1950's
which stated that people can develop contained (non-lethal or non-serious)
aspergillis infestations (aspergiliosis) of the sinuses leading to sinus
inflammation symptoms.  I'll have to dig out that reference again since it
is relevant to this discussion.

My doctor tested me (I believe a RAST or RAST similar test) for allergic
response to specificially Candida albicans, and I showed a strong positive.
Another question, would everybody show the same strong positive so this test
is essentially useless?  And, assuming it is true that Candida can grow
part-way into the mucus membrane tissue, and the concentration exceeds a
threshold amount, could not a person who tests as having an allergy to
Candida definitely develop allergic symptoms, such as mucus membrane
irritation due to the body's allergic response?  As I said in an earlier post,
one does not need to be a rocket scientist, or have a M.D. degree or a
Ph.D. in biochemistry to see the plausibility of this hypothesis.

BTW, and I'll repost this again.  Dr. Ivker, in his book, "Sinus Survival",
has routinely given, before anything else, Niz{*filter*}(a pre-Sporanox systemic
anti-fungal, not as safe and not as good as Sporanox) to his new chronic
sinusitis patients IF they have been on antibiotics four or more times in
the last two years.  He claims that out of 2000 or so patients, well over
90% notice some relief of sinus inflammation and other symptoms, but it
doesn't cure it by any means, implying the so-called yeast/fungus infection
is not the primary cause, but a later complication.  He's also found that
nystatin, whether taken internally, or put into a sinus spray, does not help.

This implies (of course assuming that excessive yeast/fungus bloom is
aggravating the sinus inflammation) that the yeast/fungus has grown partway
into the tissue since nystatin will not kill yeast/fungus other than by
direct contact - it is not absorbed into the {*filter*} stream.  Again, I admit,
lots of 'ifs', and 'implies', which doesn't please the hard-core NT who
has to have the double-blind study or it's a non-issue, but one ...

read more »

[Cross-posted from alt.psychology.personality since it talks about
 physician's personalities.  Apologies to sci.med readers not
 familiar with the Myers-Briggs "NT/NF" personality terms.  But,
 in a word or two, the NTs (iNtuitive->Thinkers) are approximately your
 philosophy/science/tech pragmatic types, and the NFs (iNtuitive-Feelers)
 are your humanities/social-"science"/theology idealistic types.  They
 hate each others' guts (:-)) but tend to inter-marry.
 The letter "J" is a reference to conscienciousness/decisiveness.]

Jon Noring emits typical NF-type stuff

Please get it right, Jon.
(This NTJ has a strong desire to correct semantic mistakes,
 because the NFs of this world are fouling the once-pristine NT
 intellectual nest with their verbal poop.)

The {*filter*} correlation is NT <-> Phlegmatic (and _not_ NT <-> Choleric).
One of the semantic roots of "choleric" is the idea of "hot" (emotional)
and one of the semantic roots of "phlegmatic" is "cold" (unemotional).

Here is a thumbnail sketch (taken from Hans Eysenck, refering to Wundt)
relating the Ancient Greek quadratic typology with modern terms:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                 Emotional  
                                     ^
     ("Melancholic")                 |                     ("Choleric")
                                     |              
           Thoughtful Suspicious     |    Quickly-aroused Hotheaded
                  Unhappy Worried    |   Egocentric Histrionic
                           Anxious   |  Exhibitonist
                             Serious | Active          
 Unchangeable < ------------------------------------------------> Changeable
                                Calm | Playful          
                         Reasonable  |  Carefree
              Steadfast Persistent   |   Hopeful Sociable
     Highly-principled Controlled    |    Controlled Easy-going
                                     |              
    ("Phlegmatic")                   |                     ("Sanguine")
                                     |
                                     v
                               Non-emotional
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I suspect that your characterisation of NTs as "choleric" is what
you psych-types call a "projection" of your own NF-ness onto us.

Perhaps in serious pediatics and "my little boy's got a runny
nose, doctor" general practice, but, please God, not in neurology,
opthamology, urology, etc. etc.  And NF-psychiatry should seperate
from NT-(i.e. real) psychiatry and be given a new name .. something
like "channeling"  :-).

--

Hate to wreck your elaborate theory, but Steve Dyer is not an MD.
So professional jealosy over doctors who help their patients with
Nystatin, etc., can't very well come into the picture.  Steve
doesn't have any patients.

Yes, everyone who is normal does that.  We use candida on the other arm
when we put a tuberculin test on.  If people don't react to candida,
we assume the TB test was not conclusive since such people may not
react to anything.  All normal people have antibodies to candida.
If not, you would quickly turn into a fungus ball.

You've just discovered one of the requirements for a good quack theory.
Find something that no one can *disprove* and then write a book saying
it is the cause of whatever.  Since no one can disprove it, you can
rake in the bucks for quite some time.  

That is odd, isn't it?  Why do you suppose it is that MDs with these
common problems don't go for these crazy ideas?  Does the "professional
jealosy" extend to suffering in silence, even though they know they
could be cured if they just followed this quack book?

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Banks  N3JXP      | "Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also remember that most people map the
sanguine/choleric/melencholic/phlegmatic division onto the extraversion
and neuroticism dimensions (Like Eysenck) and that the MBTI does not
deal with neuroticism (Costa & McCrae).

Frank Fujita

-*-----

I hope Gordon Banks did not mean to imply that notions such as
hard-to-see candida infections causing various problems should not
be investigated.  Many researchers have made breakthroughs by
figuring out how to investigate things that were previously thought
"virtually impossible to test for."

Indeed, I would be surprised if "candida overbloom" were such a
phenomena.  I would think that candida would produce signature
byproducts whose measure would then set a lower bound on the
extent of recent infection.  I realize this might get quite
tricky and difficult, probably expensive, and likely inconvenient
or uncomfortable to the subjects, but that is not the same as
"virtually impossible."

Russell

I recall reading in the recently revised edition of the "Yeast Connection"
that there is indeed work by researchers to do this.  Of course, they are
working on the theory that candida overbloom with penetration into mucus
membrane tissue with associated "mild" inflammatory response can and does
occur in a large number of people.  If you reject this "yeast hypothesis",
then I'd guess you'd view this research as one more wasteful and quixotic
endeavor.  Stay tuned.

Jon Noring

--

Charter Member --->>>  INFJ Club.

If you're dying to know what INFJ means, be brave, e-mail me, I'll send info.
=============================================================================

| JKN International   | IP    : 192.100.81.100   | FRED'S GOURMET CHOCOLATE |
| 1312 Carlton Place  | Phone : (510) 294-8153   | CHIPS - World's Best!    |
| Livermore, CA 94550 | V-Mail: (510) 417-4101   |                          |
=============================================================================
Who are you?  Read alt.psychology.personality!  That's where the action is.

-*----

I do not have enough medical expertise to have much of an opinion
one way or another on hidden candida infections.  I can
understand the skepticism of those who see this associated with
various general kinds of symptoms, while there is a lack of solid
demonstration that this happens and causes such general symptoms.
(To understand this skepticism, one only needs to know of past
failures that shared these characteristics with the notion of
hidden candida infection.  There have been quite a few, and the
proponents of all thought that the skeptics were overly skeptical.)

On the other hand, I am happy to read that some people are
sufficiently interested in this possibility, spurred by
suggestive clinical experience, to research it further.  The
doubters may be surprised.  (It has happened before.)

I realize that admitting ignorance in the face of ignorance may
not endear me to those who are so sure they know one way or
another.  (And, indeed, perhaps some of them do know -- I am the
one who is currently ignorant.)  But I find this the most honest
route, and so I am happy with it.

Russell