Tag: Illness

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Biohacking Chronic Disease Medical Uncategorized

Day 1476 and Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough

I’m thrilled to see that the very week I began my hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy that we’ve had multiple experiments and data come in.

Bryan Johnson helped answer a few questions in my set up so I was delighted to see he himself was just wrapping up a major experiment with HBOT.

Step into my hyperbaric chamber courtesy of Bryan Johnson’s Twitter

Earlier in the week Harvard professor David Sinclair tweeted a thread on with links to the newest scientific literature on treatment. Stuff with names like Activation of SIRT1 by hyperbaric oxygenation promotes recovery of motor dysfunction in spinal cord injury rats

Esssays

A lovely meditation on what happens when you write 11,000 blog posts. In this case startup blogging. I’m written an order of magnitude less so hopefully I can avoid some of the negative consequences and enjoy the lessons.

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Biohacking Chronic Disease

Day 1475 and Equalizing Pressure

I scared someone really badly today. As I was being locked into the hard shell for my eighth hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy session, I realized I had forgotten my chewing gum.

At 2 atmospheres of pressure it can be a real challenge to keep your ears from getting painfully congested. Even with yawning and blowing oxygen out your nose, it’s like going into an airplane with a sinus trouble. It’s uncomfortable but it can also be dangerous.

Careful. Equalize the pressure in your ears. If you feel your ears stuffy, equalize the pressure in the following ways. 1. Yawn 2. Swallow saliva. 3. Close mouth, pinch the nose, out of breath, blow the nose (all spelling mistakes theirs)

I got a little panicked as I was trying to stop the clinic technician from finishing the sealing process as I wasn’t sure if they could stop it once it was sealed or if I would need a full decompression cycle.

I was texting frantically “I forgot my gum can this be stopped ASAP so I can get it?”

I was tapping the window on the hardshell with a worried look and showing the text. I kept trying to make the font bigger and be clearer. FORGOT GUM OPEN?!

But it was confusing enough that everyone in the room thought something was seriously wrong. Which it would have been without the gum as I can’t do a full hour at 2 atmosphere without the help of the chewing. All the yawning, blowing out through the nose and other techniques aren’t quite enough.

It wasn’t yet an emergency. If it was I would have hit the big red button. But everyone seemed to think it was. After 2-3 minutes of frantic miscommunication it turned out that it was fine to open it up but we’d need to restart the seal and pressurize it again. I got the gum. And look who was on the TV screen.

Just don’t die while inside the chamber

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Emotional Work

Day 1474 and Process over Outcome

It’s hard to trust, well, anything. The uncertainty of the near future looks like the uncertainty of the far future right now.

It feels as if one is in a fog so thick that you can’t see your own hand reaching out to touch something at arm’s length let alone glimpse gjr far horizon

How do we set goals and work towards outcomes in that kind of world? I find it unsettling despite having years to prepare for a more chaotic world.

I am learning to let go of grasping for specific outcomes and lean on process to bring me to outcomes. I work the problems in front of me. I maintain the protocols that work for me. When they cease to yield results I change as rapidly as I am able.

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Biohacking Chronic Disease Medical

Day 1473 and Sunday Slumber

I dislike having to set specific wake times up for early morning obligations. It always disturbs my sleep the night before as my mind convinces my body I must avoid missing the obligation. I’ll wake up 3-4x more than average to check the time and I’ve not oncd overslept.

As I’ve been doing an intensive course of HBOT (hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy), I’ve been obligated to show up at a specific time and place each day. And it’s really messed with my sleep as my mind seems intent on reminding me to wake up early enough to be on time.

I’ve got a day off today and I’m happy to be spending it sleeping and browsing the news.

News

A bear steepening or selloff of longer duration bonds is freaking markets out. The WSJ thinks maybe you should take the other side of the trade. Knowing what government will be functional and fiscally stable in 30 years is a hard bet for anyone to make.

Remember GameStop frenzy trying to mess up Steven Cohen and his hedge fund Point72? Well he beat other funds with 5 billion in profit this year and increased fees. But diamond hands are forever.

Trends

Disaster girls are the new professional girlfriend.

Nuclear energy is making a comeback according to Bloomberg. I’ve got an SPV for you if you are looking for early stage projects. HMU on DMs and I’ll send you along.

Luxury is tanking so maybe cater to older shoppers with money?

Reading

One of my favorite founder/authors Hannu Rajaniemi has a new book called Darkome. It’s not available in the American markets yet but he’s hosting a book party for the JPM Health Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. I have a few invites. Again DM me for the hook up. It’s a fantastic thriller

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Biohacking Chronic Disease

Day 1471 and Lemons into Lemonade

I was so disappointed yesterday as I read over my most recent set of bloodwork and found my autoimmune biomarkers headed in the wrong direction.

I’ve been well controlled though my disease is not “inactive” or in remission. I manage it as it’s worth it to me to have a quality of life that includes working in technology as I want to be a part of making the tools that enable material progress in health.

Seeing things go in the wrong direction when my life is going in the right direction had a clarifying effect on me.

Not that I’ve been unaware that I must work at my health but rather it’s hard to always be working at health as it’s a matter of survival. But when you see a change in the data you act. I got serious and immediately went into action.

I’m so lucky to have to have access to an incredible community of biohackers. That I can ask someone who is studiously pursuing health in public is the best of the internet. I get the benefit of Bryan Johnson’s open sourcing his work. I’m doing an experiment with HBOT or hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy and I learned from him I need it to be 2 atmospheres to be effective. This helps me plan and find hard chambers.

I can use Perplexity and Claude and even make my own personal assistant trained on my condition and my data is the remarkable thing.

I’ve found a new IL-17 inhibitor that looks to have twice the efficacy of my current one at the same dose. It was only approved in Europe but finally came on the American market. I was able to discuss it with my doctor immediately after going down a short question sequence on perplexity. You have so much power to improve your life now.

Shopping

I’d like to improve my V02 max and cardiovascular health in a way that works around my psoriatic arthritis and ankylosis. I have significant fatigue from the pain and obviously high impact isn’t in the cards for me. But I can try something like a DeskCycke. It’s even possible for me to do HIIT training with one. So I bought one. My goal is to improve my V02 by 10% in 8-12 months which shouldn’t be hard as mine is absolutely awful

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Biohacking Chronic Disease Medical

Day 1470 and Disappointing Biomarkers

After my anaphylactic adventures over New Year’s, I decided it was time for a fresh round of bloodwork to see just how my inflammatory responses were doing.

I got them back and it shows exactly what you’d imagine from a patient with an active autoimmune condition. My sed rate, or erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) made a significant jump from last measurement.

I’d been on the high end of normal for almost two years and this set returned with doubling of the previous number. This biomarker is used in conjunction with C-reactive protein (CRP) test to determine overall inflammatory responses. That test came back modestly elevated but not atrocious. I also have elevated IgA levels, also known hypergammaglobulimia so that’s a bummer.

It would seem that my relatively well controlled autoimmune disorders (psoriatic arthritis and ankylosis) are moving to an active phase.

Given my use of IL-17 inhibitor injections along with a pain management protocol, lifestyle and nutrition management and a focus on holistic interventions, these results are obviously quite disappointing to me.

It would seem 2024 was harder on me than I’d have preferred and 2025 will be a year of doubling down on holistic therapeutics. Red light, infrared sauna, cryotherapy, hyperbaric chambers oxygenation, and any other anti-inflammatory treatment I can throw at it. Not that I’m looking forward to trying get another round of elimination diets but needs must.

I’ve not changed my the cornerstone therapy secukinumab since the pandemic, so it may be time to see other options like Janus Kinase (JAK) Inhibitors.

I’ve tried Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF) Inhibitors as well as methotrexate (otherwise known as chemotherapy) and none of those treatments (Humira, Embrel) helped much and dosing on and off of biological injections is a long process. It can take up to six months to see results and changing a treatment that has been working comes with significant risks.

I’m lucky that even with these biomarkers I am still functional. I am able to work semi-normal hours and am able to groom and exercise. I have no personal life to speak of nor do I have hobbies beyond my work (unless reading counts) so I’m lucky to love my family and work enough to have it provide enough meaning to keep going.

Much of my success in treating this chronic complex case has been made easier with the breakthroughs in artificial intelligence.

Even as my physicians have retired and my care team rotates, I am able to progress and learn more thanks to large language models and search tools like Perplexity. I’m confident I will find a way to get back to remission quickly with little disruption.

Nothing provides me as much motivation to work as disease. I see how I and other patients like me suffer and I double down.

The progress we’ve made on autoimmune conditions in the wake of Covid and the rapid progression of protein discoveries as more AI tooling comes online. A chaotic world with a chaotic body drives my investing. We can do better as I see so much progress.

Categories
Chronic Disease Medical

Day 1468 and Going HBOT

I was extremely frustrated with an autoimmune reaction that got out of hand over New Year’s. I don’t care for taking corticosteroids as their side effects are quite severe even if they can be the only option when an immune response refuses to calm down.

To repair the damage, I went to a holistic clinic that offers a range of services like infrared saunas, IV therapies, cryotherapy and hyperbaric chambers.

I’d heard good things about using HBOT therapy for autoimmune responses, particularly ones that are rheumatoid in nature. I’ve done two sessions so far and I have seen a remarkably swift improvement in inflammation and pain.

I’ve got 8 more ahead of me along with some glutathione and vitamin IV drips so I’m hoping to be ship shape soon.

News and Sundries

The Chinese venture ecosystem has funds engaging in some suboptimal behaviors. They are clawing back personal assets, banning them from services and putting founders on no fly lists. Which is needless to say not the best way to encourage innovation.

Mark Zuckerberg is taking a new tack with speech at Meta. The company employing content moderators for what is true is out and enabling Twitter style community notes are in.

Many moons ago Antonio Garcia Martinez warned that Facebook shouldn’t be involved in policing and censoring speech as it would lead down a dark path.

Much To Consider

Is most memetic self help that propagates well online now predatory in nature? A tweet thread to consider for those looking to have emotions or control them.

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Medical

Day 1465 and Biohacking Help Request

I’m having a bit of trouble with an autoimmune flare so I’ll keep the narrative but short.

Essays

Everything is About Sex. Femininity is About Power

Shopping

I am going to take a course with a Twitter mutual on building an AI life coach for myself. It’s an exercise in accountability for my playtime & learning.

Considering buying this Hooli vagus nerve stimulator.

Tweets

Geeks, Mops and Sociopaths in the Memetic Of Woke

Medical

I’m looking for my next step in my medical care. If you’ve been watching the blog over the last few years you’ve seen my struggles with chronic health issues and the work I do to be well enough to pursue my work.

But I’m at an impasse and I know we must have more solutions than what I’ve got. Looking for a doctor or research group that may have protocols or care capacity for the autoimmune buffet of nonsense that plagues so many. I have ankylosis & psoriatic arthritis, joint pain & anaphylactic allergy issues along with migraines.

I’ve worked with woo, lifestyle and nutrition changes, supplements, osteopathy, injections and IVs, longevity science & expensive biologics to pursue the functionality I have now to work. But I long to work the hours of my youth and I don’t believe science has progressed so little that arthritis and migraines should be so painful and exhausting. So please feel free to DM on Twitter with recommendations for clinics and physicians.

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Internet Culture

Day 1463 and Nuke It From Orbit

Seems like everyone I talk with is extremely sick. We’ve got norovirus ripping through a bunch of populations in America and Europe. Lots of reports of flus and Covid variants taking folks with respiratory cases in my professional and personal life. And of course everyone is worried about the H5N1 the bird flu variant.

I myself am having some autoimmune flares that I’m resorting to treating with steroids which is extremely frustrating. I fear the power of immune system rebooting drugs like prednisone.

Steroids are the “nuke it from orbit” option when your system is too reactive. I try to dose it down as soon as symptoms clear but blowback sometimes means you can’t titrate off them without symptoms returning. I rarely do more than 5mg a few days in a row.l but even then I worry about its usage. Being covered in hives and unable to think from an autoimmune response is probably worse though. Minimum viable dose in all things.

Reading

The SEC Wrote Off 10B in Fines it Can’t Collect

The News is So Awful 40% of WaPo Coverage Triggers Advertising Safety Blocks

Maybe Skip Breakfast?

The WSJ shows some terrifying price trends in the most important meal of the day

People To Follow

Andy and Keturah Hickman are some of the most interesting people I know. And you can be pen pals with them.

Stuff to Buy

I’ve never quite managed to keep up regular usage of a red light mask (needed antibiotics a few times since I purchased one and they make you photosensitive) but Beautypie has the same OEM as much more expensive versions if you are in the market. Affiliate link for $20 off.

Categories
Emotional Work Internet Culture

1443 and Irreducible

Being “spreadsheet brained” has become a shorthand critique for the technocratic mindset that prefers to see with abstractions rather than through immediate physical reality.

I don’t have a full history of the term but it was brought into my lexicon by Ashley Fitzgerald of Doomer Optimism.

A Wojack suffering from an inoperable tumor called spreadsheet brain.

Having spreadsheet brain can be a quality of life problem. If you are particularly numerate you can easily fixate on the negative statistics. We then use those facts to isolate themselves from the each other. It’s a classic case of seeing the price of things and not the value. It can easily become a very smart form of stupid.

I’m more of a whole to parts thinker myself so I’m amused by this meme even though as someone who works with tech startups I’m obviously susceptible to spreadsheet brain issues.

It’s reasonable to have concerns with thinking only in abstract terms. The topology of human experience is complex and yet we have many tools that take the irreducible and cook it down into something concentrated, clear, and altogether too legible. We desire to be seen but perhaps not too closely.