TOPIC: PMMA and Blood Pressure

If you have had PMMA done would you please answer this poll?
PMMA patients only please.

Do you have high blood pressure?

The BBB\'s (Blood Brain Barrier) width is 38-64 nm (Thorne RG, Nicholson C. In vivo diffusion analysis with quantum dots and dextrans predicts the width of brain extracellular space. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA103(14),5567'5572 (2006)). The size of the PMMA beads for metacrill/Newplastic range from 0.2-60/0.2-70 micrometers, 1 micrometer = 1,000 nm (nanometers). So based upon the particle size I feel that a stroke caused by rouge PMMA beads is unlikely, but in human health and science, there are always statistical outliers. It extremely hard to rule out the impossible because there is inconsistent size of these bead particles. If 90% were 40-50 micrometters, maybe we\'d be in the clear, but the manufacturing process seems to be the only flaw here. I\'d really like to see how PMMA beads are made and what quality control tests are conducted by the bioengineering company to ensure top product quality. I think I had these same questions when we had EP around, not much progress in these last few years.

No peer reviewed articles. However, it suddenly dawned on me that for people who already have arterial sclerosis, PMMA might aggravate/accelerate the condition if beads were to get into the blood stream and get stuck in arterial plaque. This might cause blood pressure to rise slowly over time as more beads were lodged into plaque \"dams\".

But I\'m not a doctor and I don\'t have much knowledge of biology, generally. I\'m more of a systems person.

Systems as in computer science/engineering? My genetics professor was a CS guy and he knew his shit. I\'m sure you would stand well in any bio or chem class, you just have to have the patience for wet labs and maybe the redundant learning curve.

Coolhandluke,
Do you feel that a stroke could actually be caused by PMMA?

unlikely because it needs to cross the blood brain barrier. It would end up in a lymph node before any other destination.

I think if PMMA was injected in the blood stream in the penis area, it will cause immediate and severe reaction locally and of course will cause more problems as it travels through the blood stream hence there will be immediate recognition of the cause of the problem...Scary stuff and I hope it never happens to any one.