I’m getting in the habit of counting how many times I call myself an idiot during the day. The rate seems to be increasing with age, after 60 anyway. My personal best is 4 times in a single day. Let’s see when I break the record.
Tag: health
The Baseline – Post #4
“If you’re over 60, you wake up one morning and don’t feel any pain or discomfort, it means: you are dead”
Unknown origin
OK, I’m planning to finish the baseline because it takes too long and it’s now a moving target; so, I’m going to nail it in place, even if it’s too short and formal. So here it goes:
- Enlarged prostate: waking up about once every two – three hours to pee. Haven’t checked it at doctors office. The reasons are: (1) don’t want to get another pill into my system, (2) don’t think it’s cancer: don’t have it in my genes (my dad had the same issue, and, as far as I know, none of my ancestors had cancer), (3) don’t like the process of checking the prostate, if you know what I mean. More on this in the future when things change to the worse (obviously). And yes: I do eat pepitas regularly.
- Two injured knees: torn ACLs (or PCLs, don’t know, don’t care). The left knee was reconstructed (they took a part of a ligament from the front of my knee (not sure what kind of CL is that one) and replaced the ACL attaching it with two titanium screws (that’s my first step in gradually turning into a cyborg). I didn’t do anything with my right knee to see if it can somehow recover by itself – another experiment of mine, which didn’t go that well: I developed osteoarthritis and now that injury bothers me whenever I go to long hikes or need to be on foot for extended periods of time. Reconstruction is no longer an option, but I have the option of taking a more substantial step towards the bright cyborg future and replacing my knee with artificial equivalent. Waiting for now though: I’ve seen some promising research regrowing ligaments, still undecided…
- Sporadic pains in joints, muscles, tendons, etc., usually gone in few days, sometimes leaving some lingering discomfort for long time. Lower back pains come and go. I used to have really bad back pains since young age, but it is more than 25 years now that I’m exercising every morning: mostly stretching and flexibility, and I haven’t had really debilitating backpain since.
And to finish the baseline posts, here’s the picture of myself taken on 9/11/2024:
New Development #1
If you’re not getting older, you’re dead.
Tom Petty
Here it comes: a welcome interruption in the boring baseline description of my health condition: a new development: shortness of breath. (Is it allowed to have three colons in one sentence?) At least it feels like shortness of breath, but after 3-4 weeks of watching and analyzing it, I’m inclined to think it might be a symptom of a stomach problem. However, it is here, it lasted for more than 3 weeks, it doesn’t go away and I have never had it before. New, exciting development in this story bringing me one step closer to the finish line: woo-hoo!
It dose get worse after I eat, especially if I eat after 8 pm, and then I have hard time sleeping/breathing, especially when I lay on my right side. This often is accompanied with the heartburn. It’s still possible that the problem is of a cardiovascular nature, but I would think my blood pressure would be going up in this case. I’m, of course, using my primitive, layman logic here, it goes like this: my original hypertension is mitigated by vessel dilators, thus, the brain gets enough oxygen and doesn’t send distress signals to the heart to pump harder. If my current shortness of breath, were due to heart problem, causing insufficient oxygen going to the brain, that should have caused a similar distress signal which caused my original hypertension. However, while feeling this discomfort, my blood pressure was pretty low. I even tried to reduce my blood pressure medicine dosage to see if that makes a difference. My blood pressure went up, but no effect on the breathing problem. At the same time not eating anything for some time, especially not consuming stomach irritating things like coffee, makes all the difference and I can breath normally again.
So, the plan is to take it easier on food and hope this is a temporary stomach irritation that will go away. Or I’ll go away. Anyway, we’ll watch it and see what happens.
OK, I’ll try to finish the baseline in the next post. I know it’s taking too long: my first post was back in November 2023, so it’s no longer an up-to-date baseline anymore, but I hate leaving it unfinished.
The Baseline – Post #3
“All things are poison and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing not a poison”
Paracelsus
Ok, let’s deal with the rest of my body: I’ll just list the problems; so, if I don’t mention a body part or function you are curious about, just assume it’s in an ‘OK’ state, perhaps past its prime time but still capable of fulfilling its function in satisfactory manner without the need for any auxiliary medication, if you know what I mean.
By the way, about the medication: I’m taking regularly blood pressure (mostly vessel dilators) meds. I used to take statins as cholesterol reducing drug, but after I read lots of controversial information about it, I stopped taking them. My cardiologist still prescribes it for me and even tried to increase the dosage, but I convinced him not to. He doesn’t know yet that I’m not taking them. Yeah, I like to gamble with my life that way, and I’m going to pay dearly if I’m wrong. OK, let me explain my reasoning in the next couple of paragraphs.
There is a lot of controversy around effectiveness of statins in reducing the probability of serious heart illness or death. The known official study observed two groups of patients for two years and found that there is 1.9% of deaths in the group that was taking statins vs 3% of deaths in the group that was taking placebos. Obviously the research was sponsored by big pharma and they claimed that statins reduces the chance of death by 36% (1.1 / 3). A nice marketing stunt to fool the public and the medical community. As far as I’m concerned it may reduce the chance of death by 1.1% for the first two years (unless you know you are within those 3% destined to die otherwise), but there is little research on what happens after, and there is a known effect of the statin that causes calcification of the vessels, which is strongly correlated with heart issues in the long run. My most recent CT scan showed significant calcification, which prompted me to stop taking statins completely.
Now, if you ask mainstream cardiologists, they will say that calcification is a good thing, because statins convert the softer blood vessel plaques, which are more dangerous, to less dangerous hard, calcified plaques. However, there is also a known negative interference of statins with the K2 vitamins responsible for removing calcium form the blood and absorbing it into bones and muscles where it belongs. Which may also be the cause of a well known side effect of statin: muscle pain. Adding to this my genetics (no heart issues: my dad’s death because of supposed heart failure at the age of 97 is not a valid counter-argument), the fact that cholesterol reduction is tied to few other issues, e.g. testosterone deficiency, my final decision was to drop statins. After all, dying from heart attack is so much better than dying from cancer or Alzheimer’s. Of course a stroke wouldn’t be nice if I don’t die right away, so, not everything is perfect in my plan right now. Let’s wait and see what happens.
I don’t take any other prescription meds. I take some fish oil, but prefer getting Omega-3s from food; I take NAD+ increasing supplements (mostly NR – Nicotinamide riboside) and that’s it.
This may be sufficient for a single post. I’ll continue describing the baseline in the next one. I know it’s a bit boring reading so far and posts with new changes and observations could be more entertaining, but, if you are at all interested, and you are not a gen-Z-type with non-existent attention span (which, if you’re reading this, you are probably not), please bare with me, I’ll try to finish this quickly, maybe just one more post to complete the baseline. Thanks.
The Baseline – Post #2
Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.
Ambrose Bierce
Before getting to its majesty, not-entirely-useless, brain itself, let’s scan some more important organs responsible for most of our senses, which, with the exception of the tactile sense, are exclusively located in the head.
As could be deduced from the photo in my previous post, (aside from the apparent deep intelligence and stunningly charismatic nature), my originally almost perfect vision has lost its former glory and now requires some assistance in the form of reading glasses. I wear +1.75 glasses, though now, I probably need +2 or +2.5 glasses. Yet, I stubbornly don’t upgrade (or, rather: downgrade) with the believe that my current glasses are pushing my eyes out of their comfort zone and making them do some work, in the hopes that it will slow down further deterioration; which is why I also have been doing eye exercises for over 10 years now. But despite all the promises by the “best-kept secret” experts, that didn’t save or restore my vision to its former pristine condition. Did any of this help to slow down this process? There is no way to tell.
I think I really started feeling the need for glasses around 7-8 years ago. The deterioration slowed down some 4-5 years ago, and, like I said before, I still wear the same kind of glasses. However, recently, I started to notice that the distance at which I see better with than without glasses is gradually increasing. This tells me that my vision continues to get worse, though at a slower pace. Anyway, enough on sight; I will report any serious changes as they happen (that is, if I still can see the screen).
Not much to tell about the hearing, smell and taste; all are more or less in a satisfactory state, slightly deteriorated from their prime time but not causing serious problems, yet.
Okey, let’s talk a bit about the pinnacle of existence, the ultimate triumph of the universe, (also, sometimes, the source of mortifying embarrassments) the one and only, the most exquisite brain of mine.
It may not be obvious from all this rambling I subjected you to, but I’m still capable of speech and logical thought, or, at least I believe so. Having said that, there is no doubt that my brain is slower than in its prime time, not as sharp and it is more difficult to stay focused for extended periods of time. My short-term memory is definitely worse. All of this may have caused certain difficulty when facing complex problems, but surprisingly, I’m still doing satisfactory job in most such cases. I suspect that experience and intuition are covering for the lack of brute analytical force.
A brief digression here: I believe that, with age, our intelligence, the sharpness of our mind deteriorates, in simpler words: we get more stupid. However, our wisdom continues to increase, albeit with the slowing rate up to the point when our brains starts loosing some of their basic functions, meaning: when we’re starting to go senile. Thus, for non-mental elderly, whenever facing a problem that requires sharp mind capable of quick or deep analysis, the brain finds some shortcuts we call intuition to deal with the problem.
Intuition is just an acquired pattern of thought as a result of experience, and wisdom is the entire set of those patterns. Hmm… this definition is so good, I’m going to also post it separately in my “random thoughts” category.
Anyway, I feel that analyzing my brain, by using my brain, is not a creditworthy exercise; though, I suspect, I’ll have to do it from time to time as part of this series. Whether these evaluations hold any merit is for the reader to decide. But for now, I think this will do. Adios.
Armen' s Random Thoughts 