Tag: Health

Categories
Biohacking Chronic Disease Travel

Day 1800 and On Steroids

I’ve been on the move, and in wet, rainy, and polluted weather (in other words coastal cities) where I tend to do the worst.

It is frustrating to see nearly five years of work in my journals and tracking amount to very little in the face of wet moldy environments.

It’s not a terribly pleasant topic for day 1800 and makes me feel as if I’ve made little to no progress on moderating my immune system.

I’m particularly upset as it’s bad enough I chose a steroid course. I am too afraid of getting an infection. I loathe prednisone. It works so well. It is like a hammer on inflammation.

Prednisone crushes every inflammatory condition instantly. Red itching oozing welts in a matter of hours. But I can speak from hard experience that even though it stops a cytokine storm in its tracks, it leaves you crazy and fat in quite short order.

I am simply terrified of picking up a skin infection as I’ve had a doozy of a year dealing with them in areas delicate and unusual. It’s been horrifying to have issues with eyes, an incision site and abscesses in even more personal areas.

It seems safer to use the hammer before an area of open skin can be found by an invasive species just looking for somewhere wet and broken. I pray it was the correct choice.

Categories
Culture Travel

Day 1791 and Hack, Hack, Cough Cough

One of the oddest post pandemic norms we’ve come to accept are the hacking coughing fits we pretend are normal parts of public transit.

By public transit I don’t just mean just subways or busses. I’m sure they suffer from this issue as well.

But rather our most expensive version of public transportation, air travel, is riddled with passengers clearly infected with one variant or another of a respiratory illness.

Now I get it. It’s not cheap to fly. A cold coming on won’t stop you from going as you paid a lot to travel. Everyone is on the road trying to make their way to family, friends and community. It is hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to get from here to there.

So as you stand in long boarding lines where people queue seemingly at random in groups 1 through infinity, you see various flavors of sneaks, cheats and idiots bottlenecking the mess.

And then you hear the coughing, hacking, sniffing, sneezing and other variants of ignoring the body’s strain.

I am prone to skin infections rather than respiratory ones or this trend would worry me more. I generally don’t mask unless I’m stuck in tight quarters. Sometimes I wish I had. Dealing with Chicago and the sweating, panting, running, struggling human masses, I feel I should have.

You still see depending( on the city, its demographics and its politics, a range of mask wearing. The elderly are often masked. I see frequent flyers wrapped up tight in the good N95. There is quite a lot of masking and I think it’s a good thing.

Maybe these maskers know something. They must be used to persistent cold and flu season and understand some folks who don’t care about their impact on others. Masking must work well enough to be worth the hassle for some.

I hate to bring up the old awful politics of the COVID era, but we should have learned a thing or two from Asian nations who politely mask themselves when ill to benefit their fellow citizens.

Wouldn’t that be an impressive thing to see? Americans caring about each other’s welfare. If I have a cold, it will be because I was too stupid to mask up. But if I get a cold I promise I’ll mask up to avoid passing it on.

Categories
Biohacking Homesteading

Day 1788 and Where is Our Winter?

We’ve not had any real snowfall in our corner of Southwest Montana just yet. It’s not unusual to get snow in September but it is now late November, and I can only recall a smattering of frost and a light dusting of snow. We’ve not needed to shovel the walkway, let alone plow out the drive.

The Bridgers are bare without even a hint of a snowcap. It has been 50 degrees and sunny for too many days. It just doesn’t feel natural.

Last night we set ourselves up for our idea of a wild Saturday night with sauna session after sunset. It was a balmy 180F inside our cedar sauna. Cooling off was a little trickier than usual though.

We set a sand timer for 15 minutes. When it finished we rush out with our felt hats and drop our towels to let the sweat evaporate. It is glorious to go from heat to cold shock.

Alas that doesn’t work as well when it’s in the mid fifties even in the November nighttime. Staring up at the stars, we could see the heat mist off our bodies and our breath but only just. It was twenty degrees too warm for that party trick.

Getting back in the sauna for round two was harder than I expected. The rush from heat to freeze to heat is part of the experience. Without the full range of our normal temperature change it just felt a little off. Stimulating but also a little scary. Where is our winter?

Categories
Aesthetics Biohacking Chronic Disease Medical

Day 1787 and On The Same Wavelength

For someone with clear skin on my face (not even a humble brag), I spend what feels like irresponsible amount of time and energy on my skin health. The rest of my dermis is not as tractable as my face. I’ve been fighting eczema my whole life.

This year has been a particularly challenging, as my the IL-17 immune suppressant Bimzelx, I take for my ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis (it’s eczema on the inside), has left me almost catastrophically prone to skin infections.

I’ve had maybe 3 weeks without a disaster (and I traveled) though have still needed doxycycline so I’m optimistic.

I am hoping I can rack up a few more weeks or maybe even multiple months without needing to slice an abscess, manage a deep tissue infection, or get a subcutaneous skin infection.

I do have a new weapon in my battle to keep my skin healthy. I recently acquired a new deep infrared cosmetics mask from Beauty Pie that they are calling “medical grade” but mostly means it has one longer wavelength than their previous mask offering.

Beauty Pie
The Dynamo Deep LED™
Medical-grade technology
Collagen-Boosting Mask $238
  • Medical-grade LED mask proven to improve the overall skin complexion
  • Using 1070nm – the deepest penetrating wavelength used in at-home LED devices to date – to reduce under-eye bags and puffiness, and smooth texture and tone
  • Helps the skin look fresh & hydrated. Using 830nm – supports the skin’s natural restorative and healing function – to boost circulation, improve blood flow, and increase oxygen
  • Skin looks plump & glowing. Using 630nm – enhances the production of collagen and reduces redness – to leave skin radiant and hydrated

I don’t know if it will do much but the longer wavelength is an improvement on their past mask which required something closer to 4 months of continuous use to see results and I was simply never off of antibiotics that interact negatively with red light long enough to get any results. Theoretically I should see results in a few weeks with the longer wavelengths.

I can’t recommend it yet as I just got it and I’ve only used it twice but I used it on my face, my neck, my left butt cheek where I had the infection from inserting testosterone pellets (long story if you missed that one) and on my scalp to see if I can stimulate some growth on my scalp as I shed a lot of hair this year from the stress.

That’s about 40 minutes of mask time so no joke but also pretty amusing. I hope I can use it enough between antibiotics rounds for a win as infrared is meant to do a world of good for pain and inflammation in addition to cosmetics so I’ll use the heck out of it while I can.

Categories
Biohacking Chronic Disease

Day 1786 and 40 HBOT Sessions Later

The days becoming shorter has hurt my attempts at getting out in the sun for a walk every day. This matters to me as I’d like to get regular readings of my V02 maximum and my heart rate. I rushed out without sunscreen to get in a mile.

I hit an important milestone in my current biohacking regimen this week. I made it to my 40th session of hyperbaric oxygen chamber therapy or HBOT. I began on September 13th and did session 40 on November 20. I only traveled once during this period (a five day trip) so I could have fit it all in within a two month period but I was consistently doing two hours a day.

I intend to get bloodwork for comparisons next week, but in some ways this was a terribly experiment period. I had a small procedure to insert testosterone and estradiol into my left buttock which turned into a saga when I got a skin infection. Not the procedure’s fault and I’m glad I did it as my numbers are already better.

Fortunately HBOT is renowned for healing soft tissue infections so if I was going to suffer for having compromised immune health across my skin biome, then at least I had the state of the art treatment available.

We didn’t purchase the HBOT for its skin benefits. In fact, I didn’t even know I’d be have skin immunity issues. They began with my new IL-17 inhibitor which I started in January We’d acquired the HBOT around the same time but I had no idea how challenging Bimzelx would be. It could have gone worse.

We had originally acquired the HBOT as several of our friends and acquaintances had succeeded in managing impressive inflammation rate reductions as well as progress with a slew of autoimmune issues from long COVID to mold toxicity. The kind of troubles we only test in fancy labs with extreme athletes or the enterprising technology brother.

My wound has mostly healed save a small lump, my V02 max has improved despite virtually no exercise (hard to do much cardiovascular exercise with an infection in your posterior chain) and I have overall found the balance of improvement in my energy and pain to be significant.

Thanks for noticing Whoop

If I could just get a month without a health crisis where I have enough energy to workout consistently I just might make some progress. So if I disappear for a bit that will be what I’m doing. Once I’ve got bloodwork I will share obviously.

Categories
Culture Preparedness

Day 1782 and Sweeping Rolls and Unrunnable Rapids

Navigating the rifts and eddies in the river of human scale time takes more skill and endurance than I fear I have.

Even if I assume that Earth time still running on any sort of human scale (which I don’t believe to be true), I find myself wondering if it’s better to head for the riverbank for a moment. Like Lewis and Clark, I only dimly understand where this river will let out.

I once paddled lightly, easily, even joyfully with the currents of my time. When I capsized, to continue with kayaking metaphors, I would simply snap myself back upright with a sweep or C-to-C Roll roll and carry on downstream spluttering wet and bursting with laughter.

Kayaking the Zeitgeist River was a fine past time for the quick witted and able shouldered amongst us. One could build an entire career by correctly the judging the river of time. And what fun it was to carry along with friends as time did most of the work.

But ever more frequently, I search for the eddies to pull myself out of the stream to stop for a while. Tired and hurting, I look for a refuge to catch my breath and slow my heart. As the timeline rages on without me, through crashing white water and its drowning currents, I wonder if I should even be alone on these waters at all.

Simply staying upright is now a bare minimum of a concern. A hip snap and good instincts does little when the course never ends and the rapids unexpectedly turn from a fun day of Class III rapids to Unrunnable class VI without so much as a posted sign. There are no maps or forecasts to be had. Your gear might be whatever you brought onto the water in entirely different conditions.

There be dragons here? Hardly so dramatic a metaphor applies from naval history pertains to river ways. But it’s no less dangerous for its lack of vista. Unseen rocks, snapped branches and water logged organic materials rise and decay into froth and burble. Lurking like so many unseen estuarine creatures swimming inland.

I already feel as if the tattered veil which separates our shared reality with whatever exists beyond is far too fragile. That any one of us can choose to run the rapids of passing time serves to remind me of how fraught the pastime of participating in history can be.

A small kayak with one intrepid soul can be righted quickly. But an endless run of rapids designed to sink any who choose to run it? The public experience of our shared time should not be such a battle. We all want to see where we are going don’t we?

Categories
Aesthetics Homesteading

Day 1777 and Spacing Out

Yesterday a severe geomagnetic storm hit Earth. I had been following its trajectory for a few days I think space weather is a fascinating topic.

Last year I was in Europe during a G5 event which is considered an extreme storm. It proved to be as unsettling as it was beautiful. Also migraine inducing. Just half an hour in the sun and I felt completely awful.

Naturally I wanted to tear the effects. I went out for a late afternoon stroll just as the storm first began to hit and I found myself in a rage over “this and that” as my vision flickered with red and green.

I thought I was so mad I was seeing red but I suspect the more logical explanation was that space weather affects us here on earth.


G4 (Severe) storm levels reached on 12 November at 0120 UTC (8:20pm EST)! Geomagnetic storm conditions are anticipated to continue into the night. Stay informed at spaceweather.gov for the latest. The included aurora images are of the aurora shining over northeastern Colorado.

I thought I was getting the auras that occasionally accompany a migraine for many people but now I’m not so sure. I rarely get visual disturbances in my migraines. Still our bodies run on electrical signals too. And I went outside just as the planet was getting hammered at the full severe G4 limit.

Alas after sunset I don’t take any particularly good pictures of the auroras that painted the skies though many others posted pictures from Montana.

I was focused on health needs from hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy to a stint in our 180F Finnish cedar sauna. The glory of nature’s night is best experienced without a phone and ideally sweating out the day. No need to try to capture a picture of the moment. I was in the moment

Later, as I went outside freshly oxygenated, sweated out and showered, most of the sky had cloud cover.

The night was uncannily still. We usually have a lot of nocturnal noises as we have a whole ecosystem of creatures on our property and out into the mountain range above us, but I didn’t hear a peep. The animals must feel the space weather as deeply as we do.

Thankfully today dawned (with me having had a poor night sleep as expected) with all our homestead creatures out and about on the pond from duck to muskrat. More solar activity is expected so keep an eye on the NOAA forecast.

A pair of MilFred Muskrats with one of our ducks photobombing in the background
Categories
Chronic Disease Internet Culture Reading

Day 1772 and No Signal

The volume of communication we receive digitally has risen to deafening levels. I’m shocked we aren’t all in a civilizational stupor muttering “mawp” like the cartoon secret agent Archer.

As we attempt to balance the barotrauma of the increasing volume of dings, pings, tings and Slack bings trying to reorient our attention towards them, the temptation is level the pressure explosively. Shut up!

The noise is bearing down on us relentlessly. Just when we think the pressure might equalized and we have adjusted to the din, a new chime will force a recalibration.

MAWP!

Our phones become dysbaric monsters. The ambient pressure disorder that is leveling your attention span to the cacophony of alerts and aggravated existential noise leaves us deaf, dumb and disoriented.

Different people cope with this in different ways. Many of my friends have committed email bankruptcy including me. Some people make big claims of having screen free homes. Others go to physical therapy or osteopathic craniosacral specialists for cervicalgia. Isn’t it nice to know your text neck is killing you even if the tinnitus and vertigo doesn’t get you first.

This is all to say that my Signal Mobile application inexplicably stopped working this morning and the silence is causing me some degree of anxiety. If I were a woman with fewer scruples I’d consider it disabling.

Alarmingly, because I’ve been forced to mute virtually every other channel of communication to avoid the noise, this means it’s been largely impossible to get work done.

Hopefully I find a solution soon. I rebooted my phone, cleared my cache and updated to the new iOS. Nothing works. I’m afraid that I’ll be losing the one channel that actually functions for me.

If not, you may very well not hear from me again. Twitter direct messages still work. If you are looking for me check the nearest ear, nose and throat specialist. If I can’t fix my ankylosis in my thoracic maybe I can improve my posture in the meantime. The worst case scenario will be installing WhatsApp but I’ve not given in to that nightmare scenario just yet. I’m running silent in my attention submarine but I’ll have to resurface at some point.

MAWP!

Categories
Emotional Work Politics

Day 1770 and Making Suffering Worthwhile

A long time ago, in a past life so foreign I can barely recall, I made some bad choices in the hopes that I was making good choices for the people I loved.

I froze eggs and embryos with my husband thinking that some day we’d have the money, health and stability to have children.

That day never came. And it’s unlikely to change. My health is what it is and I won’t ever be able to carry them. We’ve spent a small fortune trying to get me healthy enough just to go back to work and being healthy enough to carry just didn’t happen in time.

The high costs of surrogacy are daunting and the extra help I would require to raise them isn’t forthcoming. Being somewhat disabled means I’d need a lot of help and not the kind you can easily pay.

The extended family who does want to help and raise them (not blood family but nevertheless family) has never succeeded in getting a visa approved for so much as a vacation in America. So that route seems rather shut and has remained a small beacon of hope that seems ever less likely.

I could go abroad and raise children near them but that would be admitting defeat on a level on life in America that feels like dying.

My husband wouldn’t be able to come. We have a home and a life and careers in America. Funny how we don’t really have family in America that cares one way or another though all our existing blood relatives are American it’s the extended not quite family that seems to care most about family.

So a day after a socialist won the mayor’s race in New York City I have to ask myself how can we make the suffering of so many feel worthwhile? What did I achieve through my sacrifices? What did America achieve with our choices that can be seen as worthwhile? if those questions cannot be answered I don’t know where America goes from here.

Categories
Biohacking Chronic Disease Medical

Day 1768 and Maybe A Corner Is Being Turned or Maybe I Should Turn Back

I feel as if I lost almost all of October to combating a medical hard left turn from what was supposed to be a pretty simple procedure requiring no downtime and little healing.

I feel like I got quite a scare and yet you’d think I’d be used to it, as this is all downstream of the interleukin-17 inhibitor that I changed onto at the beginning of the year for my autoimmune condition.

Every single quarter, and in some cases every other month this year, I have had some bizarre skin infection resulting from otherwise pretty benign situations. An infected gland in my eye (twice!) an abscess that turned into a deep tissue infection, and a tiny incision that allowed in a subcutaneous infection all rocked my world.

As much as I am thrilled to see all of my inflammatory numbers rolling in to baseline normal, I just don’t know if I can sustain having a health crisis this frequently for a medication that is supposedly working. It’s working at an extremely high cost to my sanity and body.

And you might say, “Well, the numbers don’t lie.” And I’d agree. But there are many other factors I have to consider, not the least of which is that healthcare access in America is so bad that I have managed two of the four crisis points with medical tourism abroad.

I am going to give my IL-17 inhibitor a full year as dosing on and off biologics is no easy matter and the compounding effects are quite real. But I do very much wonder if in order to go forward I must turn back.