no not a biopsy of the brain
that doesnt sound good
it seems ripe for something to go wrong
like infection nicking a blood vessel hitting the wrong spot eg
now i had two spinal taps as part of the first alzheimers study i did called the adni 2 study
i had no problem but on the second one he did stick my nerve and i felt a bolt of lightning go down to my big toe but it quickly went away
i did say a four letter word when it happened
i had no problems afterwards
well my wife she did
she fainted and she wasnt even in the room when i got my spinal tap
she was in the waiting room
she required care not me
i even had to drive to the pet scanner since she was too woozy to drive
this last week i went to the dermatologist
i had a mole he wanted to biopsy so he removed it with a simple biopsy
i use to do them all the time
i used a punch biopsy
for this one you would use one the size of an ink pen opening
you know where the ink pen pokes through
my guess thats about 3 mm in diameter
now it may be possible to do a skin biopsy to tell if you have alzheimers disease
you just do a local injection to numb the area
use a punch to take out say a 3 mm piece of skin
then put a bandaid over it
done
the specimen would be sent to be read to see if you have alzheimers disease or parkinsons
your primary care doctor could easily do the biopsy
takes about 5 minutes to do
here is a review of the discern test by the american academy of neurology
they did skin biopsies on patients who had brain biopsies at autopsy
they found the discern skin biopsy was 95% accurate sensitivity and specificity
those with alzheimers have a 7 times increase in tau proteins in the skin biopsy
those with parkinisons have an 8 times increase in alpha synuclein proteins
now you still need a good neurological history and exam
some labs
memory testing
maybe an mri
then to definitively diagnose alzheimers you can do
a blood test thats available in research but eventually will be available in private practice
a spinal tap checking for amyloid and tau levels in the spinal fluid-ouch
an amyloid pet scan to check for amyloid plaques and or a tau pet scan for tau tangles
or
maybe
just just get a punch biopsy for a discern test
the skin test sounds so easy
the blood test is really a screen test for now
the spinal tap is accurate but many folks wont or cant get one
just dont bring your spouse
the amyloid pet scan is the definitive gold standard test and also gives you more information
then
the discern skin biopsy test will give you the answer also
plus medicare pays for it
last week i thought about this as the dermatologist was biopsying my mole
hey
add an alzheimers skin test to that study i started to say to double check all my testing i have had done
but
no i didnt
physicians may use this test to decide if someone with memory issues really has alzheimers disease so they can decide if eg aricept or donepezil is needed
or
if my drug aduhelm or the new one leqembi or soon to be here donanemab would be administered
right now an amyloid pet scan is required first
who would have thought a skin biopsy could verify you have alzheimers or parkinsons
join me for our santa barbara walk to end alzheimers on saturday october 14th
join us and or donate to our organicgreendoctor team
or do your own local walk
the organicgreen doctor
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