@Hip , are you looking to do anything about your urine bacteria results then? What are your next steps in this area, if anything?
Yes, last week I contacted the Markov Vitacell clinic, and enquired about the possibly of becoming a remote patient of Dr Igor Markov, ie, the possibility of having a remote consultation with Dr Markov, and being tested, diagnosed and treated without having to travel to Kyiv.
I am communicating with Dr Oleg Markov (the brother of Dr Igor Markov), and we have both started exploring this remote patient possibly. He tells me that that clinic has not done this before, as they usually have distant ME/CFS patients or their relatives visit them, carrying the bacterial samples with them on the airplane, and carrying the autovaccines back home by airplane.
So Dr Oleg Markov and I are currently looking into the logistics and legal regulations of me shipping bacteria extracted from my urine to Dr Igor Markov in Kyiv, so that if appropriate, he can prepare an autovaccine from it.
The head of the Markov clinic's bacteriological department is also weighing in on our discussion, as it may be necessary to devise a means to ship these bacteria on Nutrient agar in a test tube (called Nutrient agar slopes or slants, which look
like this), in order to prevent the bacteria from drying out and dying in transit. So the bacteria grown on the dipslide may have to be transferred to the Nutrient agar in the test tubes by a sterile tool. But it's not clear as yet whether this will be necessary.
So there are some complexities to consider, but so far, it looks like from the shipping regulation perspective, it is feasible to ship these bacteria, as commensal organisms in the human gut or urinary tract are classed as non-pathogenic, and thus can be shipped. Some details in the
WHO regulations for international shipping of infectious substances, pages 5 to 7.
If we can sort out the transport logistics and regulations, I will attempt to become a remote patient of Dr Markov, and if I get a CBIS diagnosis from him, I hope to try out his autovaccine treatment.
If this works out, I will write up all the details of what we have learnt regarding remote patients logistics, so that if anyone else here is considering autovaccine therapy, they will have a full set of instructions to follow.
Dr Igor Markov told me that a remote email initial consultation with him will cost $200, and if any further email consultations are required, these are $100 each (but they may not be necessary). An initial video consultation he says is $300. I am going use email rather than video, because I find it easier to compose my thoughts via email communication.
Then each course of 10 autovaccines shots is $100. In the first year you would normally have 2 or 3 such courses, so the total upfront costs for the first year of consultation and treatment would be $400 to $500, excluding any shipping costs, and the costs of buying dipslides, agars for shipping, etc.
I think by the end of the first year of autovaccine treatment, you should know if your ME/CFS is getting a bit better. If it is, then you may decide to continue with the treatment, which will cost $200 to $300 for the second year (the cost of the autovaccines), and the same again for the third year, if a third year of treatment is necessary (it takes 2 to 3 years to reach remission, Dr Markov says).
I would think that if anyone is interested in this autovaccine treatment, a good first step might be to get hold of some CLED and MacConkey urine dipslides, and then check that you can observe a bacterial growth on the dipslide agar when following Dr Markov's high sensitivity urine culture protocol.
Because if you cannot get any bacteria from your urine to grow on the dipslide, then it may not be possible to create an autovaccine. Although I understand in these circumstances, Dr Markov can prepare an autovaccine from bacteria found in nasal mucous samples, but I am not sure how effective that is in terms of treating ME/CFS.