Tag: Illness

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Biohacking Media Travel

Day 1652 and Back in Istanbul

I’m a mess and somewhat scared. This abcess saga has grown from dismissive preventative care visit (which I did did out of an abundance precaution) and ended with me meeting a general surgeon at a Turkish medical tourism hospital tomorrow to discuss labs and my ultrasound. It’s my second time this year so that’s quite an endorsement as a revealed preference.

But I am serious with this sidebar. Don’t go to SkincareMT’s dermatology practice if you have a layered case that needs more involvement. I found Dr Oetken pleasant but entirely unaccountable when a patient needed advice and weightings on a complex case. I should have known better.

I was afraid she would be a box checking paper pusher afraid to give an opinion. But maybe younger doctors are afraid to treat that way given our system. I needed to know is it worth getting a clearer diagnosis before it is a crisis? Is imaging necessary? I have a set of drugs I take with these specific side effects. Given that risk profile and nuance at hand needed the interpersonal relationship that would guide me.

I do endorse SkincareMT’s cosmetic practice, and Addison in particular is fantastic, but their healthcare wing is clearly designed to extract maximum Medicare dollars from Montana seniors. 

My failure to get an ounce of prevention means I’m flown to Istanbul to attempt to get a pound of cure. Don’t worry I was already in the Mediterranean. Not in the way way some think though.

Yesterday we found out by pulling teeth that I had a problem. It’s clear I need this excised and quickly. The ultrasound is gnarly. Drainage, removal of the foreign object, and potential curratage to make sure the walls of the cyst are removed forever are what is needed. 

The sprawling medical tourism complex in Istanbul is amazing and I trust them more than any other system or talent pool on the planet right now.  What they have built is an incredible achievement and in challenging conditions.

Doctors who listen, who educate you on your options, and most importantly are up to date on current research and global innovations so don’t give you glassy eyed stares when you mention a new medication like a next generation IL-17 inhibitor it’s exotic side effects.  American doctors like that are rare and their hands are often tied by our horrific mess of state failure and lack of market innovation. 

I’m relieved to have choices like “general surgeon or gynecological surgeon” and texting discussions with my case lead (a full time liaison for you and your family on the entire case) on how we will handle excision and culture pathology. 

It does feel like I’ll have good choices. But it also seems like I booked less time than is necessary and I don’t know how I feel about that. A week of waiting on labs in a hotel while in pain is scary. Sure I can work and be productive and maybe even do some tourism but I just want this shit sliced out, an IV of the right antibiotic that will work and some sleep. 

I’ve been doing some crazy bi-phasic sleeping as the Mediterranean is hot as hell from noon to 10pm. So I’ve been doing a bit of staying up late and sleeping in to avoid the heat. It’s not clear how much it’s messing with me yet because I’ve got all these odd infection fever doctor nonsense. A quick surgery and some answers can’t come fast. Thankfully I’m at the crossroads of empires.

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Biohacking Chronic Disease Medical

Day 1649 and Physician Heal Thyself

I’ve been having some side effects from my new biologic injection Bimzelx. Whenever I travel, I do a spate of doctors appointments before I leave so I can be adequately prepared for likely scenarios. Be prepared is my motto.

I had gone to a dermatologist a month ago to check on a cyst or swollen lymph node in an awkward spot. It’s on my pubic bikini area so I’ve been playing hot potato with dermatologists versus gynecologists.

The dermatologist appointment was so horrifying I’d recommend you stay away from Dr. Tara Oetken at SkincareMT as it was such a degrading and frankly useless experience. I do fully endorse their cosmetic practice and Nurse Addison.

I ended up at the dermatologist as the gynos were like “uhhh it’s on the outside and involves no reproductive organs so you need a dermatologist” and then dermatologist was a bit “its close to your vagina ewwww icky scary did you go to the gyno?”

Yes dear that’s how I got sent to you, this ain’t no picnic for me either.

I was embarrassed but the cyst/enflamed lymph node had been unchanging for a few months (not growing or differing in texture but malleable & squishy). So I checked in, was mostly embarrassed, got no direction that helped and left feeling degraded.

Given my previous issues with meiborn gland infections on my eyelids, I’d been instructed to keep a close eye any side effects common like folliculitis that is common Bimzelx. This was clearly a complex side effect that I’d had multiple issues with all year. The next step was imaging but I could get zero sense in the very short visit of whether or not the doctor felt it was warranted. “It’s up to you” sounds nice until you want a doctor to give you their professional advice.

Well now I’m in a foreign country and the almond sized squishy bit has ballooned in just four or five short days to thrice or quadruple its size, it’s now quite firm and not easy to move around or squish and I’ve got to do the same dance all over with doctors ago don’t speak English.

Thankfully I have artificial intelligence and an interpreter. I’ll get the imaging ultrasound done (AI says get it done immediately based on the differential it did) and then we can see if it’s a cyst or a lymph node that needs an I&D. I started antibiotics 3 days into this ballooning and it has done little to fix it so let’s find out. Hopefully I don’t need someone lancing and squeezing out stuff in a foreign country. But if I do need that I may pop a flight to Istanbul for that.

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Biohacking Travel

Day 1645 and A Sleep of Prisoners

I’ve had several day’s worth of poor sleep. My sleep debt had reached a good full night’s of rest at over 9 hours. And boy did I make it up and then some last night.

A screenshot of my Whoop’s recovery page

I wasn’t asleep all of those 15 hours according to both Whoop and Apple but it sure felt like I was in deep slumber.

With earplugs and an eye mask in, I felt dead to the world. And what’s worse is I’ve had an entire month of pooor recovery and sleep

The 4th of July is now my independence from a month of poor biometrics

Now on July 4th I have been liberated from a long month of poor biometrics and awful recovery scores. And it only took 15 hours of being in a dark cold hotel room and a build up stress, exhaustion, mistreatment and other sundry social frustrations.

Mixing more strain than recovery into my Whoop cocktail for maximum life

Today really does feel like Independence Day for me. I’ve been freed from a body weighed down by physical realities and I am now free from it.

There is a poem that comes to mind anytime freedom and sleep arise to my conscience thought. A Sleep of Prisoners is a 1951 verse play by Christopher Fry

A SLEEP OF PRISONERS

Dark and cold we may be, but this

Is no winter now. The frozen misery

Of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move;

The thunder is the thunder of the floes,

The thaw, the flood, the upstart Spring.

Thank God our time is now when wrong

Comes up to face us everywhere,

Never to leave us till we take

The longest stride of soul we ever took.

Affairs are now soul size.

The enterprise

Is exploration into God.

Where are you making for? It takes

So many thousand years to wake,

But will you wake for pity’s sake!

–Christopher Fry

His writing captures something in my imagination with turns of phrase like “the longest stride of soul we ever took” evoking a crossing to the harsh wakefulness of reality. And as he says “it takes so many years to wake, but will you wake for pity’s sake?”

I have been slumbering in both reality and in the metaphorical ties that bound me to others. And today is the day where all Americans ponder how our founding fathers contemplated the reality of waking to the dawn of a new experiment. The American experiment continues and we must remain awake to our role within it. I have many thoughts on this which may now soon flow having awoken from quite a sleep indeed.

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Aesthetics Biohacking

Day 1636 and Bounce Your Boobies

Somewhere along the way I leaned into my hippie heritage and stopped wearing bras. Don’t fret, I didn’t burn them. Nor do I view it as any sort of political or fashion statement. It was the pain that did me in.

Sure, the pandemic’s homebound nature gave me the freedom to let loose. But it was the pain in my middle thoracic spine that sealed the deal. It’s at its worst right at my bra line.

I simply could not tolerate the pain from the pressure of even the most forgiving fabric bralette. No bra fitter in the world (not even the famed Orchard Corset of the lower east side) could get around the physics of an inflamed spinal and intercostal condition. My breasts would have go free.

I do have some sense of propriety about the situation. I lock the girls up firmly for business and conservative occasions, but even then if I can find a way to style myself such that I can hide the lack of brazier I do it.

It’s long been hippie lore that the pressure of the straps and clasps of lingerie prevent lymphatic drainage, which can lead to any number of problems. The most feared outcome was breast cancer. Though I do not have any family history of the disease, I did not care to increase my chances as my health waned.

And as I pack for a summer camp out in which I will be socializing with some very conservative people indeed, I found myself humming a crass tune from my maternal grandmother’s third husband’s family.

It was a 4th of July tradition in the raucous La Flair clan (a flavor of French Canadians who oddly settled on Long Island) to host a talent show. The well endowed Boomer women of the clan, who wonderfully possess no shame, had a chorus line dance they called “Bounce Your Boobies!”

I won’t be dressing or dancing in the manner of this fantastic clan but it’s quite likely my boobs will be doing a bit of bouncing for the rest of my life.

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Biohacking Chronic Disease Medical

Day 1629 and IL-17 Changeover Results

I need to do a better job at tying up loose ends. I’ll bring up a change and then forget to do updates until I’ve concluded the experiment.

My January health reboot included changing my IL-17 biologic injection (moving from Cosentyx to Bimzlex) in the hopes of reducing my soaring inflammation markers has its last loading dose today. I take it for my psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis.

I got a fresh round of bloodwork done last week and am pleased to have seen my CRP & my sed rate at the best point in some years. Subjective metrics like pain and energy are usually leading indicators for my erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein coming down. And that is my priority with pharmaceutical choices and holistic ones.

I have had a lot of negative side effects that were new to me that did show up during my Bimzelx transition. I got a meiborn gland infection on my eyelid twice. I had to get it sliced and lanced TWICE! And I took two rounds of antibiotics (which I love as I feel terrific when I’m on doxycycline or amoxicillin).

You’d think needing that down while in Istanbul would have been scary but no it was informative and fun. And I was able to learn more about hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy which is the next big adventure coming up.

So it’s looking good for Bimzelx even though I’m not wild about how my immune system has reacted. The eyelid stuff is scary. I’ve had folliculitis in odd places so I’ll need more topic antibiotic washes presumably. My scalp has not taken it well.

Other oddities of note. Bimzelx also hurts way more than any other injection I’ve ever gotten in my entire life. I’ve done methotrexate, all the hormones for egg retrieval, multiple biologics (Coesyntx and Humira) and nothing comes close to this kind of pain. It’s a big vial and an auto-injector so you have no control so you must muster up the willpower to hurt yourself for 45 seconds of burning pain. Because you can’t restart you’ve got to do it. I scream. It’s bad.

It does appear to be working so we shall see how the change from loading dose to regular every two month maintenance dosing goes. I don’t know if I have multiple weird infections a year in me but I do like being able to exercise and have more work capacity. I’d say on balance it’s worth it for me.

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Chronic Disease Community

Day 1626 and Sleep It Off

I am coming off multiple days of in-person interactions. It has been nice to go from Costco to committees to backyard bbq.

I am tired. I intend to rest and alas because I am doing things in the moment I have had too few moments for even a brief rest. It has been a good time.

My HRV and my RHR are way down and way up respectively. I need that to reverse so I’ll sleep it off.

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Biohacking Chronic Disease

Day 1622 and Pulsed Electromagnetic Field

On a bit of a whim, Alex bought “on the go” PEMF Infrared Mat from HigherDOSE.

This is the year of acquiring mechanical intervention medical equipment for us.

Yes as biohackers we trial a lot and some of it is less woo-woo than others. Treatments like hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy have significantly more clinical data than say pulsed electromagnetic field treatments.

It seems easier to send electromagnetic waves at different frequencies than create a sealed oxygen chamber but consumer is weird and the military and elite athletics tested HBOT whereas mere hippies played around with PEMF.

A temperature setting swaps for 4 separate vibration settings Delta Waves, Theta Waves (Schaumann Reponse, Alpha and Beta Waves

So it’s qualia only here on the good vibrations but I am excited to try it out. I can’t exactly feel the vibrations unlike in other clinical settings where I’ve experienced much more intense (it’s measured in gauss or Tesla) but infrared warmth is a nice experience even if the vibrations don’t do much. But I will report on it.

Categories
Biohacking Medical

Day 1617 and Trap Queen

I am struggling with some biomechanical issues in my upper body that are intersecting poorly with the inflammation of my ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis.

The upper fibers of my trapezius muscles are killing me. I presume I have some soreness and pain as I’ve been incorporating a new slow progressive full body workout program. But a little digging is making me reassess that conclusion.

Via Physio-Pedia

I’ve been patiently working the problem of my inflammatory issues for literally half a decade and yet I am regularly finding new information thanks to the wonders of deep research products.

Somehow I had never really researched enthesitis despite it being a fairly core symptom in my case presentation of spondyloarthropathies.

It is an inflammation where tendons and ligaments attach to the bone and I have it something fierce in my intercostals and trapezius muscles.

There are many other areas where enthesitis can occur, he says, including the area where the ribs meet the breastbone, the back of the head where it meets the neck, and in the spine in the area closest to the skin. Creaky Joints

It’s possible current pain not delayed onset muscle soreness at all. It’s enthesitis. I don’t know if my new IL-17 inhibitor is working as it should but the strain of my new workout regimen is just a part of a wider issue in my condition. I’ve got a deep dive running on exercises but right now I’m going to take a muscle relaxer (magnesium) and lay down.

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Medical

Day 1615 and Ounce of Prevention

I had a preventative care appointment at the doctor today and I came away from the experience wondering why I bothered.

I felt like a fool for checking on something before it had become a problem. It was merely a concern and no answers could be found without a substantial escalation in investment and time. Which I chose not to dod.

I will still get a bill whether it’s 90 seconds or 90 minutes which I do understand. But does it have to be so “escalate to maximum” or “just ignore it” as the poles of preventative care? Can’t it be more of a spectrum of options? And because “fuck you that’s why” I have no more certainty on the problem than when I started.

And that’s not how I want to experience the care and maintenance of anything under my care in my life let alone my body. Our house, our relationships, our business, our car, heck our chickens deserve better than “don’t know why you bother” care. I bother because I care.

We have a home maintenance sheet excel, a seasonal rotation system for disaster supplies, and an inventory management system for key household goods.

Yeah, we are that kind of family. My husband has opinions on label makers. I have strong opinions on sweater brushes and leather are.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Sure that’s a very Mary Poppins kind of approach to life but I think it’s a worthy one. I want to live a life where I am responsible to my own life.

Categories
Aesthetics

Day 1604 and First Weekend of the Season

It is so beautiful today in Bozeman it almost doesn’t feel real. It’s warm but not hot. It’s sunny but we have fluffy clouds breaking up intensity. Cool breezes waft in and out without ever really turning to wind. I hope our entire summer has this weather.

Because of the holiday weekend the town has fully switched into “seasonal” mode from daily New York flights to way more availability at restaurants and service. One of Alex’s friends from college is headed into Yellowstone with his whole family from grandparents to kids.

Mountain towns make as much money in the summer as they do in the winter so you always wish for fluffy snow and cool clear summers.

The snowpack is smelting, the grass is green and the sky is oh so blue

While Yellowstone is worth the travel, I appreciate being able to work and hike all flavors of public trails from city to state in Bozeman.

On days like today I want to fully throw myself into a Bryan Johnson super adherence biohacker as I want to be able to enjoy as much of our summer as I can outside.