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Archive for August, 2009

Is psoriasis a genetic problem?

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

It has long been considered that psoriasis has a genetic component. What that means is there might be something in your DNA that makes it more likely that you could develop psoriasis. There are several specific DNA abnormalities that have been linked with various conditions, and it now looks like psoriasis may be added to the list.

A report from the University of Utah has found a genetic variation that "stands alone as a high risk for psoriasis". This genetic variation, called HLA-Cw*0602, appears to be a major factor in developing psoriasis. Just as there are many forms of psoriasis there are almost certainly various other genetic variations that determine how psoriasis might manifest itself in any particular individual, but this is a big step forward.

Gene Variation Is ‘Major Genetic Determinant of Psoriasis’ (08/27/2009)

(this links to the article posted on the University of Utah Health Care web site)

 

 

Why is Health Insurance So Difficult to Deal With?

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Health insurance  has been much in the news recently. The only people who seem particularly happy with insurance in general are those who own insurance companies, those who lobby for insurance companies, and members of Congress. Sadly, over the last few years, what laws do regulate the industry were written by insurance company lawyers; just like in a casino as with insurance companies, the odds are always stacked in favor of "the house". You play the games, you take your chances.

Paying your insurance premiums regularly (i.e. remaining in compliance with your policy) has little to do with how well, or for what you are actually covered. Nobody, at least nobody in the US, can truly consider themselves to be "well insured" until they actually have to use their insurance by filing a claim (i.e. asking the insurance company to comply with your policy)… This means you usually have the procedure BEFORE you ever find out how it is going to cost you, and if you can even afford it. "After-the-fact" reimbursement policies benefit only the insurers, and often end up costing people their jobs, their homes, their families and even their lives. There is no other industry that authorizes actions without letting you know what your costs are going to be; insurance companies do not have to provide "estimates", and anything you are told over the phone is never a promise of a guarantee. The words "insurance", "promise" and "guarantee" used to be closely interlinked… but no longer with health care.

Most people find tremendous frustration when calling their insurance company’s customer service line. When you finally get a person on the line, they ask what they need. If you are talking with "Claims" and you have a question about your benefits, you will get put on hold and transferred to the "Benefits" department; who has no information regarding your claims. Ask the wrong question again, and once again you will find yourself listening to repetitive, annoying music while "waiting for the next representative" in yet another department. If you ask about "Durable Medical Equipment" (the category that UVBioTek narrowband home systems fall into, among many other things), you’ll find yourself transferred yet again to someone who has no information regarding either your claims or your benefits.

There are several reasons for this. One major factor driving all this compartmentalization is a set of regulations called "HIPAA" (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). HIPAA was intended to protect the confidentiality of a patient’s medical information. This mandates people to being restricted to only having access to what they need to know to complete their job. So, anyone working in "Claims" is prohibited from seeing your "Benefits" information, and so on. Getting a simple question answered can be maddening, causing many people to simply give up and pay for it themselves or go without the treatment. Going without a medically prescribed treatment, primarily because you cannot afford it is hardly "fully insured", and yet it happens to thousands of people every single day.

Oddly enough, this can be almost as frustrating for the people answering the phones at the insurance companies. They are much like waiters in a restaurant; they don’t have any control over what they present to you; but they have to deal with the person who ordered steak and was served soup instead. One thing is for sure; it can test the patience of almost any person… and was most likely deliberately designed and intended to do exactly that

Not to worry. When you purchase a UVBioTek system, we will deal with your insurance company so you don’t have to. We can tell you what you need, what you need to send to us, and how much you can expect them to cover. We can help remove the stresses associated with getting insurance answers, and work towards getting you approved for the therapeutic needs your doctor has prescribed, at for the largest reimbursement you are entitled to.

 

Child & Teen Cancers Linked to Biological Meds (from 8/4/2009)

Monday, August 10th, 2009

The FDA has issued a warning that TNF blockers (including Enbrel, Humira, Remicade and others) may cause lymphoma, leukemia and other cancers in children and teens. This is in addition to the "black box" cancer warning such medications already carry. 

You can read it from the FDA’s website here: FDA:

       Cancer Warnings Required for TNF Blockers

And this is the information they offer to healthcare providers:

       Information for Healthcare Professionals

These medications certainly still have their uses, but a very large number of people who are currently on Biological meds could probably be seeing good results with narrowband UVB phototherapy instead, without such established links to cancer and without stressing the internal organs.

Treat lightly instead…

Home UVB is just as safe as clinical treatments.

Friday, August 7th, 2009

This article from the British Medical Journal publishes the results of a study comparing UVB patients being treated at a clinic and those using home UVB systems. It not only found home phototherapy to be slightly more effective, just as safe & a lot easier to keep using than through clinical visits.

Article can be located here: Home UVB versus Clinical Treatments (BMJ)

Vitiligo & nbUVB for East Indian patients

Friday, August 7th, 2009

Phototherapy dosage is based on the skin’s response. The darker the skin, the longer the dosage required. Many people have expressed concern that nbUVB would be less effective for them, because they have particularly dark skin. A study that was released on 08/07/2009 by the Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology (IJDVL) offers proof to the contrary.

Out of the 150 patients who were treated twice weekly for a year (every other day is considered the optimal regimen), 99 patients saw repigmentation of 25% or more. The remaining 51 patients did see repigmentation, but less than 25% of their affected areas. As with all other studies conducted to this date, nbUVB was found to be both safe and effective with good to excellent results, and virtually no negative side effects.

The article can be read here: Evaluation of narrow-band UVB phototherapy in 150 patients with vitiligo

Had the subjects been treated at the more medically therapeutic rate of once every two days, the results would likely have been even more positive. It is worth noting that vitiligo is a particularly stigmatizing condition amongst the Indian population. Even worse, there is a higher than average incidence of vitiligo throughout the country. It is often called "white leprosy" and those who have it are treated like ‘lepers’; often prevented from marrying.

Kumar YH, Rao GR, Gopal K, Shanti G, Rao KV. Evaluation of narrow-band UVB phototherapy in 150 patients with vitiligo. Indian J Dermatol Venereol Leprol [serial online] 2009 [cited 2009 Aug 7];75:162-6. Available from: http://www.ijdvl.com/text.asp?2009/75/2/162/48662

About our “Success Stories”, and the Insurance companies that inspired them

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

We have added a new section to the web site called Success Stories. These describe some of the difficulties with insurance that some people have had to endure in order to get their home UVB systems, and some of the ways they managed to get their systems anyway. The procedure seems simple and straight-forward. It is supposed to go something like this:

  1. Get diagnosed with a nbUVB treatable condition (psoriasis, vitiligo, eczema, CTCL and the rest)
  2. Take phototherapy treatments for at least long enough to tell if nbUVB therapy is effective for your condition.
  3. Get a prescription and letter of medical necessity from your doctor for a home nbUVB system.
  4. Submit a claim for the home system to your insurance company.
  5. They verify that the condition and equipment is covered, and pay you their share of the purchase (which is dependent upon your particular policy).
  6. You order and install your system, which will cover virtually all your phototherapy needs for many decades, if not for life.

Many people are being given the newer "biological" medicines like Enbrel, Humira and Raptiva and are seeing wonderful results with them, despite the many undesirable side effects they can carry. Unfortunately, most patients were never told about, or given the chance to try nbUVB treatments before having such medications prescribed.

Insurance companies regularly and routinely cover the costs of administering such medications, which cost thousands of dollars each and every quarter, while at the same time fighting, denying or only partially reimbursing policy-holders for home nbUVB systems that provide many decades of effective therapy for far less than the cost of a single dose of the "biological" meds. That’s without any injections, without perpetual co-payments, and eventually with no outward signs of your skin condition.

Why they reject a one-time purchase in favor of endless pharmaceutical treatments is anyone’s guess, but it can certainly be argued that it is not in the best interests of the patient to skip past phototherapy and go right into the heavy meds. Most insurance policies specify that phototherapy should be tried before biologicals, but this is frequently ignored.

Don’t put up, speak up if your doctor wants to try the "latest & greatest" medications on you before even giving the "oldest & greatest" therapy a chance; nbUVB phototherapy. While the biologicals have been around for several years, clinical phototherapy has been around for almost a century… and people have been using natural nbUVB therapy at the Dead Sea for millennia.

A simple change in such a policy would literally save insurance companies tens of thousands of dollars, per patient, each and every year. Nobody can explain why they insist on paying more.


If you have a story you’d like to share about your experiences in dealing with your condition or your insurance and getting a home system, we’d love to include them in our new section and share them for the education of others.

 

I heard that UV light exposure causes cancer. Will this give me cancer?

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

Short answer: Not likely.

The American Academy of Dematology recently declared UV light to be a carcinogen. That means they believe that exposure to UV light can lead to an increased risk for cancer. However, this does not mean you will get cancer if you are exposed to UV light. Like so many things, UV light has the potential to increase your risk for cancer when you get more than your skin is capable of handling; this usually results in sunburns of varying degrees of severity.

The more often you get sunburned, and the worse those sunburns are, the greater your risk for skin cancer becomes. Does that mean if you avoid UV light you will not get cancer? Far from it. In fact, there are all kinds of problems that are caused by not getting enough UV light and there are many other things that are known to elevate your cancer risk. The secret is, as with so many things, moderation. Virtually all medications are toxic, if taken in large enough doses. Determining the proper dosage is always a balance between figuring out how much is too much and how much is not enough. If you properly follow the directions, you will receive the benefits. Phototherapy is no different than any other medication in this regard.

When the body is exposed to UV light (like anytime you’re in sunlight) it causes several things to happen. Right away it allows and is required for the body to properly process Vitamin D, which is directly related to bone strength and general health. The next thing that happens is the skin cells near the surface (the ones being most exposed) get irritated by the light and call for something known as "melanin". Melanin is what gives our skin color. The condition that causes a complete lack of melanin is commonly known as "albinism".

The nucleus of our cells contains DNA. If our DNA gets damaged, it can cause unpredictable effects. Usually such damage just causes the cell to die off and be replaced; in fact, this happens all the time. But every so often, and for reasons that nobody fully understands, such cells can become cancerous. In order to protect the nucleus, melanin is delivered to the exposed skin cells and collects above the cell’s nucleus to shield it from the the UV light – just like sunglasses.

The production of melanin in response to UV exposure is a natural, normal, protective process. Tanning does for our body what the ozone layer does for the planet. It shields us from much of the UV light. When you develop a tan, your skin is responding properly to its environment. However, if you get too much UV too quickly, you end up actually killing skin cells; we experience this as a sunburn. Unlike the tan response, a sunburn is not a protective reaction. Instead, it is simply the body’s response to cellular damage. 

The proper use of UVB phototherapy calls for regular exposure to slightly less UV than what would cause you to burn. If you are properly following the protocol, you will avoid getting burned.

What that all comes down to is that no link has ever been established between the proper use of UVB phototherapy and an increase in the risk for skin cancer, and that’s over nearly a century of therapeutic usage. It does not stress the internal organs the way many internal medications frequenty do. There is no safer form of therapy.

So the problem does not really appear to be with UV light exposure, but with UV light OVER-exposure. That can subsequently lead to a burn, which can leads to cellular damage, which can lead to cancer. The solution, as with so many things in life, is not to avoid all UV light, but simply to avoid getting burned. That can easily be done by following the standard treatment protocol developed by the National Psoriasis Foundation.

What is phototherapy? What is ‘Narrowband’? What’s it used for?

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

Phototherapy refers to medically therapeutic exposure to light, or using light to treat medical problem. Ultraviolet (UV) light is most frequently used, and it is broken down into three band-ranges. the A range (the "colors" that generate suntans; ~320-400 nm), the B range (the "colors" that can cause sunburns; ~290-320 nm), and the C range (the "colors" that are lethal to most living things; ~100-250 nm); these bands are also known as UVA, UVB and UVC.

While UVC lights are used in a variety of air & water purification and sterilization systems, there are currently no therapeutic uses for UVC light; it is simply too intense.

UVA lamps are most commonly used in tanning systems, but they are also used medicinally for what’s called "PUVA" therapy. For decades, PUVA was the only effective treatment for many people.

Too much UVB light and you’ll quickly get a sunburn, but when carefully administered it can be the solution for millions of people suffering with psoriasis, along with a long list of other conditions.

Within the UVB range, there is a very specific frequency range that appears to be what most skin problems are thirsty for; this is called "Narrowband UVB" (nbUVB; 311-313 nm) and it is effective for roughly 80% of all applicable patients. Its only side effects are sunburns (if you over-do it) and cataracts (if you don’t shield your eyes). While a history of moderate to severe sunburns has been linked to an increased risk for certain skin cancers, the proper use of UVB light has never been shown to increase the risk for skin cancer; and that’s with almost a century of medical use.

Phototherapy, specifically nbUVB, is most often used to treat conditions like psoriasis, vitiligo and eczema. Less common problems that respond well to nbUVB are certain types of dermatitis, prurigo, porphyria, pruritis, a form of cancer usually called CTCL (Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma). And phototherapy is safe enough to be used with pregnant women and children.

The basic goal behind nbUVB therapy is determining how much light exposure causes your skin to burn by slowly increasing your exposure amounts untill your skin begins to burn. You take treatments that are just below that amount every other day (at most) until you are clear again following the basic protocol developed by the National Psoriasis Foundation. 

UVBioTek, Phototherapy, this blog, and you

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

Welcome to "UVBioTek / Talk". The sooner you can start treating most skin problems, the better off you’ll be… so think "Tek/Talk, Tek/Talk, Tek/Talk"…

UVBioTek systems are the best phototherapy units available at any price. We use steel where others use plastic, sheets of Acrylic where others use wire gratings, and we blend into any room where others stand out for all to see. Our systems can last a user their entire lifetime, and are built with that in mind. All UVBioTek systems are made in the USA. We only make medical phototherapy systems, and all systems require a doctor’s prescription to purchase.

As we see it, anything that’s good for phototherapy is good for UVBioTek. Many doctors have been told to fear it, most insurance companies do all they can to refuse it, and too many patients are simply unaware of it; I hope to address all those fears and concerns while hopefully increasing patient awareness of phototherapy in general, and Narrowband UVB (nbUVB) in particular. Thanks for checking out our blog. I hope you find it informative and (hopefully) somewhat entertaining.

*UVBioTek™ Phototherapy Equipment is safe when used properly.
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