Talk:Salicylate sensitivity

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[edit] Misdiagnosis

For those with Fybromyalgia, an all over muscle and tendon pain, some doctors insist that salicylate free products be used as much as possible in combination with a twice daily regimen of guifenesin capsules.

It seems that the fibromyalgia was caused by the kidneys failure to open up enough to let the phosphates through. If the body cannot release excess phospates, it is theorized that the phospates build up in the body until they create small crystals in the body which are very painful.

So in order to get rid of the fybro pain and other fibro symptoms, the sufferer must restrict use of salicylate free products and take guifenesin twice a day.

Two points:

(1) If all of your fibromyalgia symptoms go away when you dump salicylates out of your diet and drugs, then you don't have fibromyalgia. Instead, you have a misdiagnosed salicylate sensitivity.

(2) If you want to add something like this to a Wikipedia article, let me suggest that you put it on the fibromyalgia page, under differential diagnoses -- and that you make sure you have multiple, independent, impeccable sources before you do that. WhatamIdoing 03:22, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ADHD not related

I have removed the unsourced ADHD assertion from the list of symptoms because this source indicates that it's wrong. There may be secondary effects -- dumping junk food will stabilize blood sugar swings, for example, and dumping food dyes will reduce undiagnosed allergies -- but there is no direct relationship. WhatamIdoing 20:04, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sensitivity vs intolerance

This article uses both "sensitivity" and "intolerance" throughout, which is confusing. I think "intolerance" is the more descriptive term, and it is the term used on Food intolerance and Drug intolerance. How about moving this page to Salicylate intolerance? --Una Smith (talk) 21:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

SS seems to be used somewhat more frequently than SI, but IMO the choice is unimportant. If SI seems better to you, then I have no significant objections. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:34, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, "sensitivity" and "intolerance" don't mean exactly the same thing. The trend seems to be to use "sensitivity" when it is not certain whether the matter is an allergy, a pharmacological response, or in the patient's consciousness (people vary greatly in whether they regard a side effect as an adverse effect), and reserve "intolerance" for a pharmacological response. So perhaps the choice is not unimportant. --Una Smith (talk) 16:59, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Where reality lies is important. Where the article sits while various researchers haggle over the phenomenon is "really" immunologic, pharmacologic, or psychologic is unimportant to me: both names will need to be mentioned in the lead, whichever isn't chosen will need a redirect, and the reader is unlikely to be either inconvenienced or confused by either choice.

As I understand it, SS is most probably entirely pharmacologic in most patients (COX pathway complications). However, it's possible for aspirin, at least theoretically, to function as a hapten and, upon binding with a suitable protein (e.g., serum albumin) to trigger a Type 1 "true allergy" IgE-mediated reaction (very much like penicillin allergy, actually), so the final outcome maybe a case of both/and instead of either/or. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:12, 8 May 2008 (UTC

Exactly. An explanation of the difference between sensitivity and intolerance is needed in this article, and probably in many other articles. Or, is this getting too technical? --Una Smith (talk) 15:37, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

It might be just a bit on the technical side. Can we start with explaining the implications, like "practically everyone is this, but a few people are that" and "your GP will insist that aspirin desensitization happen in an allergist's office," and seeing if we can get by without the explaining the background? Wikilinks to the appropriate details would be in order, of course. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:35, 9 May 2008 (UTC)