On 12/14/2012 8:24 PM, Han wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote in
:

On 12/14/2012 2:40 PM, Han wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote in
:

On 12/14/2012 7:16 AM, Han wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote in
:

On 12/13/2012 8:02 PM, Han wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote in
:

On 12/13/2012 2:43 PM, Han wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote in
:

I would be inclined to go with the mist up my nose since
that's where I believe the flu virus enters the body anyway. I
know there are different vectors but a virus can get into you
if you touch contaminated surfaces then your mouth so the
immune response is going to start in the mucous membranes. Why
not start there? O_o

So far I myself have always gone with the shot, but I believe
the mist is supposed to be better. While your idea has appeal
- that is the location where you get the infection, so
immunizing there is better - I don't think that is necessarily
the most important reason.
Immune cells have a way to travel to the sites where they
are needed
anyway, so where the immunization takes place isn't very
important. I think the reason inhaling the mist is working so
well is the abundance of bloodvessels near the surface of the
nasal mucosa (design by Mother nature to get as fast as
possible at the bugs you breathe in). So entry of the vaccine
into the blood stream is easy and effective right there - no
pain, all gain. Addicts don't inject cocaine subcutaneously,
they snort it. For the anal retentive there is another route.
In fact, suppositories are a very effective way to introduce
medications.


I'm no physician or medical expert, my field of study was
physics not medicine so I defer to the medical experts but I can
read and comprehend things scientific and from what I've read on
the respiratory system, it seems to me that a great deal of the
body's immune response mechanism is concentrated in the mouth
and nose where most everything is being taken into the body. I'm
guessing that the mucous membranes of the nose, mouth and lungs
are going to produce things like histamine a lot quicker than
the skin. Is it not true that some things that you may breathe
in or swallow may be harmless but devastating if you got them in
a cut or puncture of your skin? I'm just assuming that the
immune system has more resources concentrated around openings in
the body even though our marvelous immune systems go after
invaders no matter where they are. I have an idea that breathing
in a vaccine may be less likely to make me ill than an
injection. Every time I've ever received a flu shot, I have
become very ill. ^_^

TDD

I was in medical research before I retired 2 years ago, but I am
far from a qualified physician. Nevertheless, getting sick from
a flu shot is something to talk to your doctor about, since it
suggests you are allergic to something in those shots. Better to
find out what it really is that makes you sick, since flu shots
aren't supposed to make you sick at all, at least not the ones in
the last 5-10 years.

Indeed, those parts of your body that come into contact with the
outside world are heavily defended by the immune system - your
skin, mouth, nose, gut etc. Therefore they have many blood
vessels (transportation network), and immune cells.


Yea, the trick question, "What's the largest organ of the human
body?" "The Skin." ^_^

That's often debated. My answer (actually one of the coauthors on
our paper) is the cells lining the blood vessels, endothelial
cells. In capillary blood vessels, that's the only cell surrounding
them, and there are a lot of capillaries, especially in skin and
mucosa.


I'd have to defer to your expertise but as you point out the
multilayer skin contains a lot of those blood vessels? I suppose an
argument could be made that the interior walls of the blood vessels
have more surface area that the skin. I have no idea how to
calculate it but I'm sure some genius could do it. ^_^

TDD

My colleague Eric Jaffe calculated it. This was in 1980. A relevant
few sentences:
The surface area of an endothelial cell is ~30 x 50 micrometer (1,500
micrometer^2) (10) and the area of the capillary vasculature in a
70-kg man is ~1,000 m2 (20). Thus the capillary vasculature of the
average subject is lined by ~7 x 10^11 endothelial cells.

This was in the J. Clin. Invest. vol 66 p979-986. This discussion is
on p985. The article is freely available at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC371534/


Very cool! Thanks, that's going into my medical information
collection. I really love learning new things. I suppose I'll stop
learning and thirsting for information the day I die. ^_^

TDD

You're welcome!


I developed a love of reading and learning when I was a kid and it has
never left me. I wish more people loved to learn but I suppose that's
too much to ask, I know people who have never read a book! Those are the
types who would come up to me as I was reading a newspaper and ask if
they could have the sports page. I tell them there are plenty of
newspapers in the machine over there and they answer that they're not
interested in that other junk in the paper. For some reason they would
get angry when I offered to sell them the sports section for what I paid
for the newspaper. ^_^

TDD