• The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

Badzilla, the disease of champions

Page 8 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Aug 15, 2013
46
0
0
Visit site
Freezers are a big thing in cycling, but this is a new trend.

It starts sounding like Froome has some frozen poo in hand to stage his relapses when needed.
Or some bottles of crazy buggy water to drink just before getting tested!
But frozen poo sounds funnier :)
 
Parasites and blood values

Ahh here we go - another of our Parasite Infections :rolleyes:

Parasite infection ruins Ryan's season thus far

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/parasite-infection-ruins-ryans-season-thus-far

After months of tests revealing all sorts of symptoms such as low iron and a low haematocrit, Ryan and her medical team finally struck an answer.
"I've had a debilitating parasite infection. Which has led to quite bad anaemia and liver disease," explained Ryan.

She has spent the better part of the last decade racing successfully in Europe, but this year something has been bugging her, quite literally. As a former dual national Australian Champion and respected climber, she has a palmares that boasts an ability far greater than she has shown this season.

Hitting rock bottom
And as her performance plummeted further, the rumours began, and the frustration mounted

Rumours = Dopers Fatigue !!

This will be hilarious for Froome when other riders latch onto the PARASITE AND BLOOD PASSPORT OLD CHESTNUT:rolleyes:
 
Oct 16, 2010
19,912
2
0
Visit site
Cycle Chic said:
This will be hilarious for Froome when other riders latch onto the PARASITE AND BLOOD PASSPORT OLD CHESTNUT:rolleyes:
not an implausible prediction.
"i've got badzilla" will soon be the new "never tested positive"
froome is a pioneer.
 
Beech Mtn said:
"You too can become an athletic phenomenon. Just send 249.99 to 1-800-Brailsford right now, and we'll send you a jar of special contaminated Kenyan "Power Water," along with our exclusive booklet of training plans for pushing shopping carts up hills. Call today - operators are standing by" :p

This is gold!

Those training plans also help you focus by mastering zen-like techniques through staring at your stem.
 
Ripper said:
This is gold!

Those training plans also help you focus by mastering zen-like techniques through staring at your stem.

The Steak-knife up sell for 1800-Brailsford will be a anti-anti-doping cream called Cookson.

"Anti-doping comes knocking? Don't worry because when you sign up for 1800-Brailsford you also get one free jar of anti-anti-doping cream called Cook-son. Its been patented with Cook-son technologies and is guaranteed to make you never never test positive. Just rub the cream into your nether region and you should clean within five minutes and p1ssing blood for 4 hours"
 
Nov 27, 2012
327
0
0
Visit site
kovi123 said:
Interesting article on Froome's bilharzia http://bit.ly/15mJYDu

Besides misinformation on bilharzia, I notice the blog included the name of Froome’s Kenyan doctor.

Quote: ‘I recently saw a very accurate source which confirms that Froome was diagnosed in a lab in Kenya and then treated by Dr. Charles Chunge, who is a specialist in Medical Parasitology.’

Some questions for the blogger and/or the blogger’s accurate source:
- how does an anonymous blogger know the name of Froome’s doctor
- has Froome been re-infected since the reported diagnosis in Dec. 2010
-if no re-infection, why so many ‘relapses’ and why so many repeated praziquantel treatments (4-5 treatments over 2 ½ years ??) when literature and experts (thanks Patswana) indicate this is not typically required

Edit: Oops. The doctor’s name has now been removed from blog. Wrong doctor or TMI?
 
May 26, 2009
4,114
0
0
Visit site
northstar said:
Besides misinformation on bilharzia, I notice the blog included the name of Froome’s Kenyan doctor.

Quote: ‘I recently saw a very accurate source which confirms that Froome was diagnosed in a lab in Kenya and then treated by Dr. Charles Chunge, who is a specialist in Medical Parasitology.’

Some questions for the blogger and/or the blogger’s accurate source:
- how does an anonymous blogger know the name of Froome’s doctor
- has Froome been re-infected since the reported diagnosis in Dec. 2010
-if no re-infection, why so many ‘relapses’ and why so many repeated praziquantel treatments (4-5 treatments over 2 ½ years ??) when literature and experts (thanks Patswana) indicate this is not typically required

Edit: Oops. The doctor’s name has now been removed from blog. Wrong doctor or TMI?

Nice catch regarding the name of the Doctor.
 
northstar said:
Besides misinformation on bilharzia, I notice the blog included the name of Froome’s Kenyan doctor.

Quote: ‘I recently saw a very accurate source which confirms that Froome was diagnosed in a lab in Kenya and then treated by Dr. Charles Chunge, who is a specialist in Medical Parasitology.’

Some questions for the blogger and/or the blogger’s accurate source:
- how does an anonymous blogger know the name of Froome’s doctor
- has Froome been re-infected since the reported diagnosis in Dec. 2010
-if no re-infection, why so many ‘relapses’ and why so many repeated praziquantel treatments (4-5 treatments over 2 ½ years ??) when literature and experts (thanks Patswana) indicate this is not typically required

Edit: Oops. The doctor’s name has now been removed from blog. Wrong doctor or TMI?


The "blogger" (feels wrong to call that nonesence a blog) is a member of this forum, notorious for how little he knew about cycling. Looking at this surprisingly poor even by his standards attempt at an article, he isnt that great at doing research either.

I have not written a blog about Bilharzia, yet I understood that if I wanted to understand a subject totally alien to me, I had to read, a lot, from all sides, and even contacted a full blown Froome fanboy posing as a scientist asking for his side of the story, and pm'd the posters who claimed they had experience with Bilharzia, and emailed the author of an article on Froome's Bilharzia.

Froome_19 - the poster behind this "blog" (consider for a sec whether with that name he can even claim objectivity) has just taken at face value everything Sky have said, even when their comments contradicted eachother, without bothering to research what Bilharzia is, put those things in his own words as if the audience was not capable of understanding it themselves, and tried to sell it as a actual account of Froomes' Bilharzia.
 
Nov 9, 2010
295
0
0
Visit site
thehog said:
Froome looks to have believed the "you to can lose 10kg of your racing weight and still gain power!" claims from the infomercial.

I haven't lost 10kg. But I've lost 4kg and still gain power.

The secret? Crossfit :cool:
 
Posting this post which belongs here:

Originally Posted by sideshadow
That's why I was asking earlier about which species of Schistosomiasis he has.

The treatment is the same. A single day of Praziquantel in divided doses. [1]

Side effects are usually mild and nothing like Froome described. Didn't they once say it kills your own cells etc. Total horsesh!t. In only targets adult worms causing a build up of calcuim ions in the cytosol leading to paralysis of the adult worm and eventually death. The only adverse effects are related to the worms dying and may include abdominal pain, diarrhoea etc.

Chemotherapy hasn't been used in ages as it's less effective than praziquantel, even for severe infections, and anybody who uses it needs to go back to med school.

The only adjunctive treatment used is glucocorticcoids for Katayama fever and neurological complications.

Efficacy — In endemic areas, most studies have suggested praziquantel cures more than 85 percent of individuals, and reduces the intensity of infection by more than 90 percent, even among those who are not cured [2]. Retreatment of patients with residual infections results in cure in more than 80 percent [3]. So to not be cured after retreatment is attempted is very rare.

S. Hematobuim has shown treatment resistance. [4] Which is why I asked what species did he have. The problem with this though is that Hematobuim parasites are located mainly in the bladder wall and symptoms occur very early, with burning urine etc. Any doc would pick it up very quickly. Hematobuim also doesn't cause anemia.

The anemia caused by Schistosomiasis is mainly due to secondary iron deficiency caused by intestinal complications d.t. S. mansoni, S. japonicum, S. intercalatum, S. mekongi.

The fact is that in a first world country this disease is treated easy and you would expect to present early in the disease course. The treatment is simple and fast with minimal side effects. The only time you would expect treatment to fail is when there is a very high disease burden with a prolonged period before treatment, in someone who doesn't have access to treatment.

I think we should find out exactly which species he had and from there it would be easiest to debunk it. I believe he had it. I don't believe it altered his hematology. I don't believe the treatment gave him huge side effects and I also don't believe it's curing is what caused his huge performance gains.


(1) Drugs for Parasitic Infections. Medical Lett Drugs Ther; August 2004
(2) Shekhar KC. Schistosomiasis drug therapy and treatment considerations. Drugs 1991; 42:379
(3) Ismail MM, Attia MM, el-Badawy AA, et al. Treatment of schistosomiasis with praziquantel among school children. J Egypt Soc Parasitol 1994; 24:487
(4) Silva IM, Thiengo R, Conceição MJ, et al. Therapeutic failure of praziquantel in the treatment of Schistosoma haematobium infection in Brazilians returning from Africa. Mem Inst Oswaldo Cruz 2005; 100:445.
 
thehog said:
Posting this post which belongs here:

Walsh's take on Badzhilla. For better or worse.

foi2cl.jpg


34qojrl.jpg


1zw0q4j.jpg


15nrj0y.jpg
 
northstar said:
Besides misinformation on bilharzia, I notice the blog included the name of Froome’s Kenyan doctor.

Quote: ‘I recently saw a very accurate source which confirms that Froome was diagnosed in a lab in Kenya and then treated by Dr. Charles Chunge, who is a specialist in Medical Parasitology.’

Some questions for the blogger and/or the blogger’s accurate source:
- how does an anonymous blogger know the name of Froome’s doctor
- has Froome been re-infected since the reported diagnosis in Dec. 2010
-if no re-infection, why so many ‘relapses’ and why so many repeated praziquantel treatments (4-5 treatments over 2 ½ years ??) when literature and experts (thanks Patswana) indicate this is not typically required

Edit: Oops. The doctor’s name has now been removed from blog. Wrong doctor or TMI?

I did know the name of the doctor, it was in internet, Froome told the name in an interview.
 
thehog said:
Walsh's take on Badzhilla. For better or worse.

foi2cl.jpg


34qojrl.jpg


1zw0q4j.jpg


15nrj0y.jpg

Probably worth throwing in this timeline to compare:


"I probably had it for year before I found it." (Sep '11)

"I found it 18 months ago and they had probably been in my system for a year before that." (May '12)

Dec 2010 - Diagnosis (and presumably Treatment)

"Bilharzia – it’s a water-borne disease, which I found that I had it in December last year." (Sep '11)

March/April 2012 - Treatment

"I took the treatment three weeks ago and I've got to wait six months to see if it's still active or not." (May '12)

“The bilharzia is not totally cleared up. I did repeat the treatment about three months ago in March. I am clear for now. I need to go check again in August-September." (Jul '12)

“I had a two week treatment in April last year, and have since been clear of the parasite. I have it checked every six months to make sure it hasn't returned.” (Dec '12)

January 2013 - Check-Up (and inferred Treatment)

”I do go for a check-up every six months. The last was in January and it was still in my system. I take Biltricide. It kills the parasite in the system.” (Jul '13
 
The side effects are brutal...For a week to ten days the patient is wiped out...

Compare this with what SafeBet said upthread (post # 90):

I used to work with political refugees coming from Africa and some of them had caught bilharzia in the previous months. As mentioned before, it's a one day treatment. You get half of the dose in the morning, half in the afternoon. The body does not suffer any particular side effect. I witnessed guys treated for bilharzia being able to run and play football the day after.

And Patswana, who describes himself as a specialist in tropical medicine who actually treats patients with schisto (#6394 in Froome talk thread):

Again, from UpToDate: Adverse effects of praziquantel are generally mild, but occur in approximately one-third of patients. Side effects include dizziness, headache, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, and pruritus. These symptoms may be partly related to the drug itself and partly related to host immune responses to dying parasites. Some data suggest that there may a correlation between the severity of adverse events and the intensity of infection.

The patients I give it to generally feel a bit nauseated and dizzy for a day or two but that is it.

He had a third dose after the Criterium Internationale in 2012 and in early 2013 tests showed that the condition persisted.

As sideshadow noted in the Walsh bandwagon thread, it’s quite rare that the disease is not cured after a second dose (maybe 3% of individuals). If the disease persisted in Froome after three doses he should be the subject of a special medical study.

Note also this post by Patswana (#153):

It is important to highlight the difference between the local living on the shores of Lake Victoria with the traveller who has a brief exposure. (I definitely include Froome in the latter group). The worm burden is much lower in the latter group and they never get relapses with appropriate treatment dose. If Froome has repeated diagnoses of schisto, then he must be really stupid to keep getting re-infected.

The other thing that would be interesting to know is how these "relapses" are being diagnosed. If it is finding eggs in stool/urine, then yes, he should be re-treated but also slapped around the head for re-exposing himself. If it is just on serology (blood) test of his antibody level, then that is not an indication for re-treatment and his doctors need the slap around the head.

My feeling with this condition is that it’s a case of move along folks, there is nothing to see here.

By moving on, does Walsh mean that schistosomiasis will no longer be used as an explanation for why Froome pre-2011 was so much poorer than the more recent Froome? I’m very good with that.

I also want to reiterate a point I made earlier in this thread. According to a study of the disease (linked in post #91 upthread), red blood cell count (HT) is not affected, but hemoglobin levels are reduced 10-15%. That should result in definite passport abnormalities. Yet I think it was Walsh who said last summer that he had examined Froome’s passport over a period including when the latter claimed to have symptoms, and there were no irregularities.
 
Sep 29, 2012
12,197
0
0
dearwiggo.blogspot.com.au
Merckx index said:
I also want to reiterate a point I made earlier in this thread. According to a study of the disease (linked in post #91 upthread), red blood cell count (HT) is not affected, but hemoglobin levels are reduced 10-15%. That should result in definite passport abnormalities. Yet I think it was Walsh who said last summer that he had examined Froome’s passport over a period including when the latter claimed to have symptoms, and there were no irregularities.

It was Walsh quoting a Team Sky doctor who said the Badzilla had no impact on Froome's passport.

It's also a recent post by someone who said the Badzilla does not eat the RBCs, but

The anemia caused by Schistosomiasis is mainly due to secondary iron deficiency caused by intestinal complications
 

TRENDING THREADS