Dear Friends,

This seems to me sufficiently important to report to the list, even though
my information source is merely a few minute report that I just saw
at the Israeli TV as part of the news program.

According to the program, in Kaplan Hospital in Israel they are reviving
a method to treat diabetics whose foot suffers from gangrene and is in
danger of amputation. The hospital team claims that their treatment is not
new and was discarded several years ago as not helping, but now they decided
to give it a second try (with some variation, I understand). They tried
it on 14 patients and all recovered!

The treatment has two parts: In one part they put the foot in oxygen
under pressure. This revives the blood cells (if I understood it
correctly). The other part is to bring the foot under laser radiation.
This enlarges the blood vessels.

I saw patients undergoing the two treatments. The gangerened foot looked to
me horrible. I saw it put in a plastic cover into which oxygen was pumped.
I saw the foot being radiated with laser. A patient was interviewed. He said
that three months ago he thought that he was losing his foot and now it was
healed.

Until now I was told that when gangrene starts, there is very little one can
do. I have a dear friend whose both feet were amputated a few years ago.
It seems that this treatment gives a new hope.

Rachel