234 replies to this topic

[resveratrol_guy]

A different friend of mine received hyperbaric oxygen therapy for treatment of a stroke which left him with motor deficits. He was frustrated after paying close to $4K for about a month worth of sessions, resulting in no improvement in motor function. He explained, however, that his cognitive function appeared to have improved, even though the stroke had not caused any obvious damage in this regard. (He later had cerebrolysin followed by BMSC therapy, which resulted in obvious motor improvements, which he mostly attributed to the latter.) So I've been debating whether or not hyperbaric therapy is sufficiently effective to justify. (A third-world option might make good sense here, as it's relatively easy to verify authenticity of therapy.)

 

In any event, we now have some pretty good proof that hyperbaric oxygen therapy doesn't work, except that it does. Confused? Read here.

 

[resveratrol_guy]

Sally will be at the dentist today in order to address some serious dental hygiene issues. As has been widely published, poor dental hygiene correlates with the development of Alzheimers. (Although various mechanisms have been proposed, I personally don't think that the correlation is causative. Rather, I suspect that poor dental health is merely a strong reflection of an industrial proalzheimers diet. Her diet has been decent lately, but peppered with too much sugar and occasional junk; it may well have been worse before.)

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 18 November 2014 - 05:37 PM.

[resveratrol_guy]

I've been doing some research on GCSF and analogs. Based on results so far, which are detailed in the videos, I would say it's actually worth the $700ish price per day. Tentatively, I would consider it drug #1 for "basic" stem cell therapy. Of course, it would be great if a cheaper version were available. To that end, I've been looking into alternatives. If anyone has a recommendation, please post here.

 

Unfortunately, due to the refrigeration requirements, and likely interference from customs in various countries, it's not really amenable to international shipping (like self-enforcing copy protection -- must a dream drug for Big Pharma!). But a "run for the border" is probably viable if it involves only ground transport. I know lots of Americans used to get cheap drugs in Canada, for instance. One other option is pegfilgrastim, which is long-acting and might be effectively cheaper.

 

Granix and Zarzio, in particular, are generics which are theoretically available in the US and might be cheaper than Neupogen.

 

Another idea: Synth our own GCSF. (I don't think it's patentable, judging from the presence of generics, and the fact that it occurs in nature -- at least, the pure stuff as opposed to the analog.)

 

Here's what I got from Teva tech support on Granix, which sounds typical of GCSF analogs:

 

Needs refrigeration at 2-8 C without light exposure up to expiration date.
Can be removed from fridge up to 5 days 23-27 C, once.
Can be exposed to -5 to -1 C up to 72 hours.
Can be exposed to -25 to -15 C up to 24 hours.
 

These tempature ranges are obviously gapped, which I don't think was my misunderstanding; maybe it was a gap in their testing.

 

The keywords below contain a list of GCSF analogs, to the best of my knowledge.

 

keywords: Emgrast, Filatil, Filgen, Fillif, Frastim, Grafeel, Granix, Granocyte, Grastim, Imupeg, Itact, Neukine, Neulasta, Neumax, Neupogen, Nfil, Nufil-Safe, Pegex, Pegstim, Religrast, Xphil, Zarzio

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 19 November 2014 - 09:19 PM.

[resveratrol_guy]

Head inflammation is still not in evidence, and has been gone since I first mentioned this change, but for the one incident which seems to have related to eating a popsicle the day before. After a year of status migrainosus, the only statistically tenable reason for this improvement I can think of is GCSF, with assistance from c60oo. I've also not recently heard the previously common complaints of a "dissolving" feeling and "inflammation at the back of my head". Tinnitus persists on the left as a hissing.

 

I think this is a major victory for the GCSF/c60oo approach. The effect was seen within days, and shows no signs of recidivism. It would appear that she has achieved a cure for her persistent migraine headache. No doubt she'll have another headache again at some point, but status migrainosus is now in her past.

 

[resveratrol_guy]

She did it! Therapy notes are below. Videos will be released in a few days as I get them uploaded and sorted out. Other videos should follow about once a week for a while.

I delayed the release of some of this information because I wanted to prevent the search engines from helping the therapist to discover this data trove. Otherwise, there was a risk that he would change his behavior somehow as a result of the publicity.

At this point, I have been authorized to release all data on hand, except of course for real names.

 

First of all, the therapist was Dr. David Steenblock (yeah, his real name), a doctor of osteopathy in California, and colleagues. Dr. Steenblock is a maverick in the stem cell therapy field -- an aggressive therapist who has had his share of troubles, as you can see from his public record. But there are a few things that made him an ideal choice: (1) He's willing to do therapies that most doctors won't touch, allowing his patients more freedom to decide on their own treatment regime. (2) His technical execution is brilliant, with minimal pain and proper sanitary precautions. (3) He says he has his own stem cell lab complete with PhD students; this would be easily verified, but I did not do so. (4) In the greater scheme of stem cell therapy in an overregulated legal context, his therapies are economically priced, despite being high in absolute terms. (5) He's very busy with patients, thereby maintaining some balance between reading research papers and practicing medicine. (6) He takes the possibility of surgical complications seriously (and prescribed ciprofloxacin to Sally in order to prevent infection during the fragile healing phase). (7) My friend who was treated by him previously had good results; you know who you are, so thanks for the insights. By the same token, he doesn't jump directly to stem cell therapy as a panacea without examining more conventional therapies first. (It was he who recommended that Sally increase her levothyroxin from 75 mg/d to 100 mg/d, for instance.) He has some rather unconventional theories of stem cell biology, some of which I find plausible and others not, but at the end of the day, like me, he's an empiricist who cares more about results than mechanisms of action. Dr. Steenblock himself is in considerably good mental and physical health for his age, which is something I look for in a person in whose hands I would place my own health.

 

THERAPY JOURNAL:

 

Sally is in constant contact with me, and these notes are taken from her. Another person was assisting with the logistics because I could not travel with her.

 

11/16/2014

 

In preparation for therapy, she ate pizza, fudge, and sugary granola before bed, in the hopes of generating a headache during therapy, as previously explained.

 

11/17/2014

 

Chatted with Dr. Steenblock about some other issues that might impact stem cell success, in particular dental health, HPV and HSV1. It was decided that a dentist visit was of paramount importance. (Her dentail hygiene was awful.)

 

Therapy time! (Unfortunately, no headache occurred.)

 

She was put on an IV drip and given valium. Dr. Steenblock applied some local anaesthetic to the skin, then after some delay, penetrated her left iliac crest, resulting in a moderate twinge of pain lasting a couple seconds, then nothing. She went to sleep due to her own fatigue from travel and, no doubt, the valium. When she awoke, she had been disconnected from the IV, and discovered blood stains on the left side of her sheet. She said that the stem cells had been reinjected following some minimal processing, which she thought included centrifugation, based on her prior discussions with Dr. Steenblock. I think debris filtration is also part of the process. In any event, we have no reason to believe that the cells were modified.

 

She rested for the remainder of the day.

 

11/18/2014

 

Dental appointment in the morning. Major cleanup!

 

Exact same procedure in the afternoon, but on the right hip. Same exhausted aftermath. Dr. Steenblock also saved some collected bone marrow because she said that she wanted to do an additional procedure on 11/21/2014.

 

11/21/2014

 

After much debate, she opted for an additional 3 procedures, using the aforementioned saved cells:

 

1. Lumbar puncture. After a few seconds' moderate twinge in the legs (as opposed to the lumbar area itself), there was no pain at all (under local anaesthetic) while she had some of the cells injected into her spine. Based on my literature survey, I don't think these should be expected to migrate very far from the injection site. So on the face of it, at most, we should expect some improvements in gait and foot sensation, and nothing more. But the growth factors secreted by the stem cells should spread throughout the CSF. For this reason, they might impact cognition.

 

2. Nasal drip. After a drug was sprayed in her nose, another portion of the cells was dripped into both nostrils. The drug was intended to aid the passage of the stem cells into the brain by transendothelial migration in tiny capillaries. She was required to keep still with her head tipped slightly back for 3 hours (although the dripping itself was done in minutes). I read a study where this was verified to occur in rodents within a matter of hours, but I can't take the time to find links at the moment. NOTE: Nasal dripping is dangerous due to amoebic and bacterial hazards; know your therapist!

 

3. Arm injection. The remainder of the cells were shot into a vessel in her arm.

 

Sorry, I don't have any information regarding cell counts or marrow volume. My understanding is that it's on the order of 100 ml per hip -- certainly not 10 ml or 1000 ml. Sally said that the doctor said that the extracted cells were "good".

 

COSTS:

 

5 days of GCSF followed by 2 iliac crest procedures: USD10K

Lumbar, nasal, and arm injections: USD8K

 

Sally intends to follow up with more GCSF after allowing her bone marrow to recuperate for a while. The relative merits of when and how much are open to debate, to say the least.

 

PHYSICAL EFFECTS SINCE 11/17/2014:

 

Fatigue, more than anything else. This is unsurprising, under the cirumstances. (And she ran out of c60oo a couple days ago; she'll continue in a few days.)

 

No mental improvements noted. (Most blogs seem to observe changes after a week or so, with progress continuing for several months.)

 

Her Hashimoto's thyroid has shrunk in size in the past 2 days. Her doctor back in the UK had told her that it was filled with "fluid-filled cysts", presumably as a result of the disease. It had shrunk once before, back in 2013, for over a month. In any event, this was unexpected. Maybe it's a weird feedback effect from normalizing TSH with increased levothyroxin. Or maybe it's due to the stem cells decreasing inflammation in the organ, and swelling along with it. We really don't know.

 

Just today, starting after the 3-phase procedure, a whopper of a frontal headache (i.e. not her usual location) occurred. It has since reduced in intensity, and she has evidently gone to sleep. Theories: (1) Fatigue, strong medicine (cipro?), and a stressful week. (2) Sinuses filling with fluid for mundane immunological reasons (maybe because we didn't evolve to inhale bone marrow!) or due to having her head tipped back for so long, causing a pressure headache. (3) Stem cells getting down to work, having crossed into the brain from capillaries in the nostrils.

 

DIETARY RECOMMENDATIONS

 

The doctor and his team recommended what amounts to a low-sugar paleo diet. He theorizes that polyunsaturated fats are better than monounsaturated fats for stem cell development. I find this hard to believe, but maybe it's true because omega-6 is more associated with cancer, and thus presumably also growth of the healing variety.

 

SALLY'S PLANS

 

Rest, rest, and more rest. Low stress and minimal physical activity to avoid destroying fragile repairs or neovascularization before they solidify. Increase to moderate physical activity after a month. Stick to the unappetizing diet. Stay on existing supplements and drugs, but no modifications for several weeks yet, while the effects of the therapy make themselves known.

 

For my part, I'm sold on the GCSF idea, and intend to proceed with that in due course. I'm still in watch-and-wait mode on iliac crest, though.

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 22 November 2014 - 05:54 AM.

[resveratrol_guy]

On a personal note, I quit taking Protonix (pantaprazole) because my stomach has finally healed, for all practical purposes. A few days after I stopped it, about 10 days ago, I started noticing improved mental function. This is consistent with what happened on the previous times that I attempted to stop it unsuccessfully.

 

In other news, I quit my sertraline cold-turkey a couple days ago (NOT advised with SSRIs). I guess I'll take it again if I feel massively depresssed or angry, but thus far meditation is preventing that. Lumosity is noticing an uptick in careless errors, despite good speed at solving problems, so I need to keep an eye on the jitteryness level. All in all, I feel sharper, if slightly jittery. Hopefully it won't reverse my memory improvements, but it might, if the research works in reverse as well. The mental benefits could also be the raw bok choy I've started at the same time, but I doubt it would matter that much.

 

Still sleeping well with c60oo before bed.

 

[resveratrol_guy]

I just spoke to Sally. She says the thyroid shrinkage was a deception due to lying on her back. Oh well.

 

[resveratrol_guy]

The first 6 videos have been released. I hope to get another 2 or 3 before she returns to the UK. Here is the first video. Links to subsequent videos are provided in the descriptions. Also, you can visit the channel page here, which appears in most-recent-first order.

 

Apart from the persistent migraine relief post-GCSF, her topsy-turvy (see-sawing) visual field has reverted to almost normal (horizontally and vertically stable); it's unclear the extent to which this latter development is due to GCSF or bone marrow reinjection, apart from the relief having occured after those interventions. In any event, we suspect, based on this observation in light of her pretherapy PET scan, that perfusion and/or vascular integrity in the parietal lobes has improved, as they are responsible for making sense of environmental inputs according to Wiki; nonetheless, this might be due to an improvement elsewhere in the primitive brain, such as the brain stem. Whatever -- it's a good development. Cognition is still stuck in the mud; we have plans to attack this issue after a month or so, once the neovascularization firms up and the stem cells have maximally engrafted (and may have started to migrate elsewhere).

 

She visited the neurologist just prior to video #6. We still haven't told him that she received GCSF or stem cell therapy. He measured the sensation in her toes using a tuning fork as part of a standard neurological test, and mentioned that the "delay" (sensory response latency, I suppose) had decreased since her last visit, and for mainly this reason concluded that her exam performance was better than prior to GCSF. He did not speculate as to why the improvement was evident.

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 25 November 2014 - 06:18 PM.

[resveratrol_guy]

A few personal updates before I shoot Sally's next video Mondayish...

 

First of all, GCSF therapy is in the pipeline. After pausing to see how she would fare (wasn't that brave of me?), I've concluded that this stuff can work well enough to justify the substantial cost and modest risk. Gotta love them CD34s! I'll revisit the idea of bone marrow aspiration after the fact, once she's had more time to heal.

 

Since quitting the sertraline, my Lumosity scores have suffered (@40-44: LPI 94%, speed 87%, memory 97% (LOL Lumosity scoring algorithm!), attention 90%, flexibility 86%, problem solving 96%;  @20-24: LPI 85%, speed 70% (duuuuuuh... one of these shapes is supposed to be different... duuuuuuh...), memory 91%, attention 77%, flexibility 75%, problem solving 95%) -- above all, I seem to be experiencing increased response latency to simple challenges, in addition to slightly worse memory. (LPI actually increased a point since last report, to 1545, after peaking at 1549, if that tells you something about how bogus it is.) I suppose this is unsurprising, given that SSRIs have been found to improve memory in Alzheimer's trials; it may do the same in normal individuals as well, although I'm not aware of any data one way or the other. I have nothing against conventional drugs if they actually work, and to be sure, sertraline is an extremely cheap nootropic. But while I found that it improved my mental performance, it did so at the expense of work focus. (Pantaprazole might also have contributed; I quit a few weeks ago, which has been a success because my dyspepsia has not returned. Likewise, I ate a lot of nuts during the score decline, particularly almonds and pecans, which are antinootropics for me.) In particular, prior to quitting sertraline, it had become very difficult to focus on my software job. While it didn't make me lazy, and I certainly had no trouble getting off my butt and heading to the gym, I found myself working too hard on artistic projects. That's really unusual for me, as I'm hardly a brilliant artist. So I suppose you could say that I had great task focus, but only on right-hemisphere stuff. It was fun, but I have more important things to do from both a personal and societal perspective.

 

I'm working very hard to break my Lumosity record again, this time without sertraline -- or any SSRI, for that matter. I may have to go back on vegetable juice to make this happen -- if it can happen at all -- but that's a price I'd be happy to pay. I'm also really jonesing for a shut-up-and-work drug, like Nuvigil; recommendations are solicited.

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 29 November 2014 - 05:57 PM.

[resveratrol_guy]

Just a quick update video. She's going to start irradiating her head soon at 850 nm, in a crude approximation of the latest lostfalco LLLT protocol. But first, we need to wait a week or two in order to exit the healing critical period. As shown in the video, she has acquired a cheap but hopefully effective LLLT device.

 

The only major thing we didn't discuss is olfactory acuity, which has not regressed and remains at the "reasonably functional" level. She's very tired (apparently typical around this time, perhaps due to massive resource diversion to bone marrow replication). She also had a posterior migraine relapse, which we think is probably dietarily related.

 

Some advice: if you're going to do something like this, you have to balance the instructions to follow a "perfect" organic diet against the need to merely meet nutritional RDAs in the event that such high quality food is not available. In other words, you might be better off surviving on canned food which at least supplies a complete panoply of essential nutrients, then refusing to eat anything but the very best, only to crash out and turn to junk food due to starvation. Her situation hasn't been quite so extreme, but this tradeoff has been challenging to her, not the least of which because the ramifications of such tradeoffs are unclear.

 

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 04 December 2014 - 04:43 AM.

[resveratrol_guy]

Sally's YouTube channel has new videos. There will be more to discuss later when the blood tests come back, which will be published in this thread. I think that video #9 is a good summary of the effects, most of which have likely set in at this point.

 

I would describe the results as "foundational" in the sense of demonstrating statistically unambiguous benefits relating to basic brain function and reduced inflammation. Higher cognitive results have been barely detectable, however. But as I said in that video, I think at this point, she has a much more solid foundation upon which to build cognitive repair based on the vast Longecity nootropic toolchest.

 

Just today, she finished her final 300 ug Neupogen (original, not generic) 1 ml injection, of a series of 5. (This is in addition to the same series of 5 several weeks ago using generic Filatil.) She has been fatigued, which is probably due to bone marrow replication. But I might add that on a visit to the park today, she walked a mile at a normal healthy pace and didn't seem any worse for the wear, so the fatigue may be waning.

 

We've agreed that the next logical steps are: (1) start nicotinamide riboside in a few days, (2) start LLLT in a few weeks, and (3) resume dark chocolate shortly thereafter. Basically, start with the excellent bets for cognitive improvement, leaving the research drugs for later.

 

Do I think the bone-marrow-centric approach is worthwhile for treating dementia? Yes. I would make some optimizations with the benefit of hindsight, but as I said above, my own spin on the therapy is in the pipe, so I'm wagering a substantial bet on it. I will update you as appropriate.

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 11 December 2014 - 03:39 AM.

[resveratrol_guy]

Here are the latest blood tests, compared as shown below with the previous tests. Out-of-band tests are highlighted in red. I double-checked all of the latest numbers. I'll leave this post just for the data, and discuss below.

 

NEW / OLD
L = LOW
H = HIGH
X = NO DATA

Bilirubin total 0.8 / 0.5
Alkaline phosphatase 90 / 85
AST 23 / 16
ALT 16 / 9
TSH 0.19 L / (3.32 & 6.98)
Sed rate (Westergren) 1 / 1
White blood cells 4.9 / 5.5
Red blood cells 4.76 / 4.65
Hemoglobin 14.5 / 13.8
Hematocrit 44.9 / 42.5
MCV 94.4 / 91.6
MCH 30.4 / 29.8
MCHC 32.2 / 32.5
RDW 15.1 H / 14.2
Platelets 195 / 198
Iron total 95 / 64
Iron binding capacity 293 / 326
Iron % saturation 32 / 20
B12  X / (632 & 596)
Cholesterol total 297 H / 223
HDL 46 / 47
LDL 234 H / 153
NonHDL 251 H / 176
Triglycerides 83 / 114
Fasting glucose 87 / 46 (46 is suspected bad data)
BUN 26 H / 18
Creatinine 1.00 / 1.0
eGFR Nonafrican 63 / 63
Sodium 140 / 142
Potassium 4.2 / 4.2
Chloride 102 / 106
CO2 21 / 24
Calcium 10.6 H / 9.7
Protein 7.5 / 7.4
Albumin 4.7 / 4.2
Globulin 2.8 / 3.2
Folate serum > 24.0 / > 24.0
HbA1c 5.5 / 5.9
T4 free X / 1.2
Methylmalonic acid 72 L / 98
T4 total 13.3 H / X
T3 total 71 L / X
Absolute neutrophils 2073 / X
Absolute lymphocytes 2347 / X
Absolute monocytes 397 / X
Absolute eosinophils 54 / X
Absolute basophils 29 / X
Neutrophils 42.3% / X
Lymphocytes 47.9% / X
Monocytes 8.1% / X
Eosinophils 1.1% / X
Basophils 0.6% / X
Homocysteine 12.0 H / X
C-reactive protein 0.10 / X
Vitamin D total 55 / X
Vitamin D3 55 / X
Vitamin D2 < 4 / X
 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 17 December 2014 - 04:07 AM.

[resveratrol_guy]

So these tests are a mixed bag. Anyone is welcome to weigh in. As I read this: (1) Homocysteine is the elephant in the room. This one particular inflammatory pathway is moderately elevated, probably in reflection of thyroid and kidney dysfunction. (eGFR is "low" below 60, so we're borderline.) OTOH, we appear to have low systemic inflammation as reported by sed rate and CRP, which is a good thing and not unsurprising in light of stem cells' antiinflammatory capabilities. (2) LDL is in the red zone, especially compared to HDL. The rise might be due to an increase in seafood intake (but in that case, I would expect HDL to leap as well). (3) We obviously have thyroid dysregulation. This is treatable and not particularly alarming, although important. (4) Calcium is high, possibly indicating a treatable parathyroid tumor but more likely just elevated vitamin D; parathyroid hormone (PTH) testing is advised. (5) Methylmalonic acid is low. I think this would indicate high serum B12, so I don't know why the lab considers it a problem, but it needs investigation. (6) RDW is barely high and I don't know if or how it matters.

 

Lyme was not retested, but Sally was still taking her antibiotics (doxycycline and ciprofloxacin) as of the last video. I haven't asked her about them since. We are of the opinion that Lyme is not an issue here, but she is taking the antibiotics out of an abundance of caution, which might explain the modest but unconcerning elevation in her otherwise low liver enzyme numbers (AST, ALT).

 

So at least we can say that her stem cell therapy did not result in any more than minimal systemic inflammation. Moreover, as previously reported, it appears to have reduced inflammation in the head.

 

The upshot of all this is that I'm beginning to think: (1) BMSC therapy and CD34 therapy in particular are antiinflammatory in a longterm persistent manner, rather like an aspirin regimen but without the stomach and rye syndrome issues. (2) These therapies do repair leaky blood vessels, which I think is the simplest explanation for her near-complete remission from "see-saw world" visual perception and partial remission from tinnitus. (3) If the blood vessels are clogged with plaque but not inflamed par se, these therapies are of no help. This would explain the basal brain function benefits despite zero change in eGFR. In other words, John Schloendorn was right: neovascularization was negligible; however vascular repair and in particular improved endothelial barrier (pericyte) function in the brain precipitated a robust neurological repair in the aforementioned areas. (4) Cognition improvement ain't happening, but it might with other Longecity style therapies, now that the blood vessels would appear to be functioning better.

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 17 December 2014 - 04:42 AM.

[resveratrol_guy]

Just spoke to Sally. She's been sleeping a lot lately, probably due to a combination of bone marrow replication, ongoing global vascular repair, and her antibiotics (which should be done shortly). Her conversation was fluid, clear, and sensible. She seemed in good spirits and evinced no paranoid obsessions or inflammation complaints typical of our pretherapy discussions. She only just a few days ago added nicotinamide riboside to complement c60oo. She didn't notice anything besides yet another step up in olfactory function. (I told her that she might need a methyl donor to make it work, as discussed elsewhere, e.g. SAMe or TMG(sp?).) Headache is detectable but low. The near-remission from see-saw vision remains intact. Walking remains challenging as previously. Tinnitus remains at a tolerable level as in video #9 posttherapy. She plans to start LLLT after New Year's with the device shown in one of her videos.

 

For the record, her progress is not unlike this guy's. (Thanks to Adaptogen for the link.) I suppose you need to join to get the full history, but evidently he achieved partial tinnitus remission using CD34s and other cells from cord blood. In his case, though, it took several months to accrue clinical significance. So I suppose that stem cells take a while to (1) locate inflammation and engraft themselves and (2) realize the full effects of their commands to various slave cells, as the slaves may be busy executing repairs for some time after the stem cells have departed the site.

 

[resveratrol_guy]

I played my final brain games on Monday. Therapy is imminent. My internet connection is in travel mode, so I have quit playing temporarily so as to preserve objective performance assessment. I have double-checked the following score data:

 

Lumosity:

 

Age 40-44: LPI 94%, speed 87%, memory 97%, attention 91%, flexibility 86%, problem solving 96%.

Age 20-24: LPI 86%, speed 70%, memory 90%, attention 79%, flexibility 75%, problem solving 96%.

Screenshots attached.

 

Cambridge Brain Sciences:

 

I just started playing this recently. But due to extremely slow performance and the additional time burden on top of Lumosity, I was only able to run the memory tests (which seemed the most relevant). Some days I missed some tests. On the plus side, these games are free of charge, and users can break global records from the very first attempt, and therefore plateau rapidly, as opposed to Lumosity, which requires levels to be unlocked, thereby forestalling the achievement of plateau. Scores are as follows, most recent last:

 

Monkey ladder: 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9, 8

Spatial span: 7, 7, 5, 7, 6, 5, 7, 6, 6

Digit span: 9, 10, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10

Paired associates: 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5

 

Attached Files

•  40.jpg   151.3KB   1 downloads
•  20.jpg   112.22KB   1 downloads
•  line.jpg   90.17KB   1 downloads

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 10 January 2015 - 03:44 AM.

[resveratrol_guy]

While I have not yet started therapy, I've taken some blood tests which will be posted after I receive results. I will also reveal therapist contact info after the fact, and provide subjective updates as appropriate. My BMSC therapy will likely consist of more than one session.

 

Over the past 2 months, Lumosity has noticed a modest regression of my performance, which is almost certainly due to the cessation of sertraline. SSRIs can mitigate the physiological ramifications of adrenaline, especially blood pressure spikes, thereby enhancing mental performance. They may also compensate in some more direct synaptic manner for generalized tauopathy. I quit them cold turkey (ill advised, generally) because they had turned me into a somewhat unfocussed artist, whereas my career requires brain activity of a more dopaminergic prefrontal mathematical variety. I will do what I can to minimize stress and regain my previous performance maximum. In particular, Lumosity seems to have found deprovement in terms of (1) increased "nervous mistakes" due to rushing and not paying attention to detail (Lost in Migration) and (2) visual memory and angular span (Eagle Eye, River Ranger, Memory Matrix, and Train of Thought). The decrease in scores is absolutely consistent with my everyday experience.

 

Current ailments, apart from the aforementioned mental issues:

 

1. Right knee aches pretty much constantly at a mild level.

 

2. Lower back pain, sometimes to the point of inhibiting standing, despite being generally moderate and tolerable. No doubt this is due to L4-L5 arthritis as visualized on MRI.

 

3. Some return of my previous stomach inflammation, no doubt due to stress ramifications associated with SSRI cessation.

 

4. Occasional headaches, mostly of the blunt pressure variety, as though someone is attempting to inflate a balloon inside my head. Mostly biased to the left.

 

5. Persistent tinnitus, bilaterally but slightly louder on the right. It's at the upper limit of tolerability, in the sense that any increase in volume would negatively impact my sleep.

 

6. Increased receptive and expressive lingual processing latency, but not to the point of aphasia as it existed during my period of dementia.

 

It's hard to say what I expect. Given Sally's experience, I should expect some relief of inflammation and perhaps some improvement in basal brain functions, but nothing at the level of higher cognition. I would be quite satisfied with that as a baseline pending alternative treatment approaches in the future. But beggars can't be choosers. We'll see.

 

Finally, I have not altered my regimen in any way except: (1) I've doubled c60oo as of today to approximately 6 mg/d and plan to continue that and (2) I cut out pterostilbene temporarily as of a few days ago.

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 10 January 2015 - 04:16 AM.

[resveratrol_guy]

Therapy has begun. I weigh 78 (seventy-eight) kg. I was given 960 (nine hundred sixty) ug of Neupogen (not generic), which is a hefty dose in light of my weight. The injection was delivered subcutaneously into the abdomen in 2 480 ug doses, but not intravenously. It was barely painful at all. I had this done at an excellent facility which I will disclose after the fact.

About 10 minutes later, I developed nausea to the point that I needed to sit down. This was entirely unexpected, considering that there's no doubt that the dose did not directly enter my digestive system. The nurse told me that it was actually a common side effect when Neupogen is delivered to a person on an empty stomach. She gave me some nuts, and I rapidly recovered. I then engaged on a long walk back to my hotel. When I returned, the nausea had crept up on me again. So I stuffed my face with vegetables, cheese, and dark chocolate. The nausea has not returned since.

I was warned to avoid strenuous activities, or precarious activities which might result in injuries, especially broken bones. As she explained to me, that's because any such injury would severely deplete my circulating CD34+ population, thus making them less available for other purposes. Apart from a brief daily walk to keep the blood flowing, I plan to heed her advice during the critical period. As a cautionary tale, she told me of a patient who had broken bones in an accident shortly before starting Neupogen. In the end, the patient's therapy was a failure, presumably for exactly this reason. (This was the same story relayed to me previously from another nurse, so it's slightly more likely to be accurate.) Additionally, she cautioned me that many patients had begun to feel aches around bone injuries which had healed long ago, starting a day or 2 after the first injection. Although her intent was clearly to dissuade me from taking too many chances with dangerous activities, I found her comments illuminating from a scientific perspective, because they strongly suggest that CD34+ cells are inflammatory bloodhounds, able to sniff out the vaguest hints of injuries long ago assumed to have maximally healed. If they can find them, then it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that they can marshal the resources to heal them even more.

For the record, I took only 1 mg of c60oo yesterday. I have taken none today, and intend to avoid it for a short while. This is mostly guesswork on my part as I struggle to find the optimal balance between avoiding DNA replication errors on the one hand, but causing newly minted stem cells to become epigenetically lazy with respect to oxidation defense on the other.

The nausea was a surprise. But other than that, there's nothing of note to report apart from some mild arthritis feeling in my fingers, which is quite rare for me and not consistent with any recent activity.
 

[ceridwen]

Interesting

[ceridwen]

I shall watch with great interest

[resveratrol_guy]

This is weird! I've been relaxing in my hotel room, just trying to think and work a bit without engendering too much stress. My aforementioned finger pain has steadily disappeared to almost zero at this point, for whatever reason. So just 20 minutes ago, I got up to go to the bathroom because I was having an odd pressure headache, worst behind the eyes but not particularly painful. When I looked in the mirror, my face looked different somehow -- sort of fatter. I'm not dressed or groomed any differently than I was earlier today, but somehow, I looked different. I thought that perhaps the mirror glass might have been distorted in some way, so I started looking around the frame for clues as to why I was seeing myself in this odd manner. It was at that moment that I noticed that I was rapidly understanding what I was seeing. Previously, I had been so used to visual comprehension latency on the order of one or 2 seconds, that I didn't think anything of it; it was just "normal". But now, as I move my gaze around the room, I can understand what I'm looking at almost instantly. I think I might understand what Sally meant by her head being more "solid". She used this expression many times. Let me see if I can explain this better to you young whipper snappers who don't know what it's like to have visual processing delays.

 

Imagine that you see your suitcase on the floor as you rotate your neck toward the sofa. By the time you're focussed on the sofa, you finally realize that you had been looking at the suitcase. It's not that you didn't see the suitcase to begin with; it's that you didn't know what it was for or what it was called. A second or more later, you (finally) do. But no one realizes you're slow, for the most part, because you can hide this latency in conversation. But now, it's like a fraction of a second later that I understand the purpose of the suitcase as opposed to merely seeing it. Then I tried to test this by thinking of the word for the thing I was looking at. The words came rapidly, like they did sometime years ago which I've long since forgotten. But my heart rate is clearly lower than it was after I had my chocolate earlier, so if anything, I'm getting less prefrontal bloodflow now than on my most recent caffeine buzz.

 

The headache persists. It's migratory and pressurizing the right side at the moment, especially behind the right eye. It's not really painful, and just feels as though someone is blowing up a balloon inside my head, much as in the past. However, to my recollection, it is of larger volume than typically. I'm also slightly nauseous, perhaps in an echo of my earlier postinjection symptoms.

 

So the world is more "solid", to use Sally's adjective, because I understand what I'm looking at, right then, without delay.

 

Yeah, ceridwen, we'll see. Maybe this is all "in my head" in the metaphorical sense. Maybe it's the box of blueberries I ate causing a nootropic boost. Or maybe CD34s are engrafting and starting to secrete antiinflammatories in my cerebrovascular system. I'm not entirely sure. But something unusual is occurring.

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 12 January 2015 - 08:35 PM.

[resveratrol_guy]

So I just ate a tin of Bumble Bee sardines, in an effort to alleviate the nausea. The ingredients are: Polish sardines, spring water, and salt. Now, I hate sardines, and especially the ones in water as opposed to sauce. They taste fishy and the intact guts make them extra disgusting. But I eat them anyway because I've heard that they're good for me, and I don't want any dubious sauce messing with my metabolism. So you can imagine my surprise when I chomped down on the first bite and tasted something very similar to pepperoni and cheese pizza. It was a distinctly engineered-for-deliciousness fast food type of taste -- meaty on the one hand, but only slightly less delicious than a double cheeseburger on the other. I thought I might have been experiencing gustatory hallucination because the flavor was so utterly rich and delicious. Yet it persisted until I quite rapidly finished the entire tin. I had, by the way, washed out most of the sodium with tap water before consumption.

Now, I have heard of and personally experienced otherwise unappetizing foods tasting like candy. This is well documented to occur under circumstances of severe malnutrition, for example. It seems to be the brain's way of tricking us into acquiring desperately needed nutrients. For example, I have eaten raw eggs which tasted like white chocolate on several occasions. But to be sure, I've been well nourished for a year, and especially lately, in anticipation of an exacerbated nutrient requirement. OTOH, it may be the case that I'm malnourished for the repair which actually needs to be done. Somehow, the stem cells may be signalling my brain of some such deficit, and my taste buds are rapidly reconfiguring themselves to the demand.

 

Or, it's just a pleasant neurological side effect of this moderate case of headache and nausea. Either way, I'm feeling pretty drained and need some rest.

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 12 January 2015 - 09:39 PM.

[resveratrol_guy]

At some point I'll stop bumping this thread with play-by-play comments, but I feel that now, in the midst of clinical evolution, I should report noted changes, and especially unexpected ones.

I have some minor nausea which is not a concern.

GCSF is weird. If someone had lied to me and told me it were a nootropic plant extract, I would be thoroughly convinced, even if all this disappears tomorrow. In addition to the above changes in environmental interface, there are some other trends of note:

The tinnitus is more tolerable, and migratory -- usually barely detectable on the right, which had previously been the louder side.  Oddly enough, I didn't "just notice" this. I was actually dozing off, having forgotten to turn off the TV. In my drowsy state, I noticed just how exceptionally clear the audio sounded, even though I was watching the same talk show that I had seen last night. I figured it must be that the TV was some great new ultra high definition model that I had never seen before, but the manufacturing date on the back was 4/2012, Samsung. I must have seen a hundred of these similar TVs since that time, in various places. So I put on my earplugs, closed the bathroom door, and turned off the lights to kill 50 Hz interference. Only then did I notice the tinnitus change.

I spent the evening reviewing some technical documents. I breezed through them with relative ease, stopping only at the most difficult parts to analyze carefully. Strange as it may sound, it felt as though someone else was understanding the documents for me, then simply passing me the understanding. This might be due to isolated brain areas starting to reconnect, creating a vague illusion of separate people. BDNF secretion or vascular pericyte disinflammation might explain that, if it's actually real. It's too abstract to be certain.

My head still contains an inflating balloon, as it were. But it's not painful. The pressure has moved to the left, which has had the worst problems, historically.

Unexpectedly, and especially so under these experimental circumstances, my anxiety level has dropped noticeably. It's like I'm back on sertraline, but without the artistic aimlessness, and with decent judgment and focus. Physiologically, my adrenaline spikes cause less pain in my chest and head. It's as though someone cushioned my blood vessels with foam, so it doesn't feel like a sledgehammer when it hits me. I guess this is what it must have felt like in my teens, when I was a nervous kid, but long before adrenaline was actually a source of pain. I don't honestly remember. It must indeed have been a long time since I last dealt with adrenaline in this way, apart from my sertraline stint. I had 50 or 100 g of sugar today, as well, largely due to fruit and chocolate.

The black floaters in my left eye (as reported a while back in the c60oo/eyesight thread) have diminished in size. But I just report this out of thoroughness; I don't see how this could relate to GCSF, and they will likely soon return.

It really does feel as though I'm just along for the ride inside someone else's brain. He knows what's going on and just summarizes the situation for me. I have never felt so weird, yet I feel quite at ease. If this is all I ever get, and it only lasts a day, then I'm still happy that it happened.
 

[resveratrol_guy]

I received another 960 ug of Neupogen today in the same area. I confirmed with the doctor that it's merely subcutaneous and not intramuscular. By way of comparison, pulling off a bandaid hurts way worse than the actual injections. So far, I feel the same as yesterday, which is great as far as I'm concerned. I can feel a dull ache in my thighs, likely as not due to stem cell depletion from my femurs. That's fine with me. My "balloon" headache has dulled, but it's still there. Fingers are normal. I have one small black floater in my left eye. Tinnitus is unchanged from last night, and well below the tolerability threshold. I'm glad I recorded above that it was annoying in my right ear before therapy; I'm very meticulous about delivering  accuracy in my reports here, and otherwise I might forget that I ever had it that bad on that side. I think it's increasingly clear that I'm in the midst of the engraft-and-secrete phase of CD34 therapy. I don't actually expect a lot of structural repair to occur yet, but these apparent secretory effects are simply wonderful, minor aches notwithstanding.

 

I do wonder why GCSF has never been approved for other uses, even simply stroke damage. IMO they should inject people as soon as they arrive in the ER, having suffered a stroke, along with c60oo to lower oxygen demand. That way, accelerated healing could commence even as the trauma is still stabilizing.

[Flex]

What do You mean with Floater ?

A dark dot which is on day 1 perresistent on the same spot

but moves on the 2nd day ?

 

Did You´ve informed the Doc about Your headache ?

Because this could mean several things or just beeing a headache.

Since You´ve injected a "white blood cell growth factor", You should consider that too much can be produced and knowing what could happen when You have too much of them.

 

Btw: nice to hear about a potentional brain repair tool.

Thank You

[resveratrol_guy]

Hi Flex, a floater is a piece of fibrous debris floating in the liquid in one's eye. It is distinct from, say, a vascular injury on the retina because it moves around, sinking slowly due to gravity. I can actually watch them move over the course of a few seconds if I rotate my head. (When you do this, you need to keep your focus fixed on a stationary object, and not try to look directly at the floater.)

Thanks for the note about the headache. Actually you have an important point: people have actually experienced dangerous brain injuries due to a massive surge in the macrophage population in the brain's meninges, which as I understand it, can actually create severe pressure in some cases. (I can't immediately find a link, but I believe this was mentioned in the Neupogen side effects somewhere.) However, this seems to be very rare, and likely only occurs with protracted high dosing. My own headache is indeed pressure-related, but it's not painful. Along the same lines, and somewhat more common, is spleen rupture. This is why we don't take Neupogen with our daily vitamin pill. It's only suitable for use under acute and justifiable circumstances. Annual stem cell maintenance might constitute reasonable use, for instance. And the doctor said that headaches are a common response, when I mentioned today that I had one.

I will have more to say about white cells later, pending test results.

Obviously, in the longer term, pushing growth factors too hard could lead to cancer. As previously explained, I'm of the theory that BMSC is actually anticarcinogenic despite being mildly angiogenic, but of course this is the subject of considerable debate.

Strictly speaking, I have injected an analog of granulocyte colony stimulating factor -- not a growth factor -- whose sole purpose is to encourage CD34 cells to migrate from the bone marrow into circulation. Any growth factors released would in turn come from the CD34s or their "employees". This matters because, at least, there is some degree of homeostatic control over the amount of growth factors released.

I would say that my experience thus far is quite similar to Sally's, in the sense that basal brain functions apart from memory appear to have improved. Maybe Lumosity will detect this, but I won't know for a while yet. Granted, the analysis is complicated by the fact that the effects are abstract and largely perceptile in nature.

My right knee and lower back are fine, but will likely return to aching when I resume jogging. After all, this is a vascular repair, not a connective tissue repair.

Otherwise, I'm quite tired, as you might expect. The most obvious change thus far is my calmness. If anything, I should be panicky, considering all the odd changes to my body and the murky risk/reward tradeoff. But for some reason I'm better able to deal with problems rationally instead of from the distorted perspective of anxiousness.

 

[resveratrol_guy]

If I forgot to mention, a few percent of people apparently do not respond to Neupogen (and presumably GCSF generically). From what the center has told me, there is no way to predict responsiveness at the present time, except to say that obviously younger stem cells are more likely to mobilize than older ones. No doubt there is a heavy genetic component here.

 

In this regard, I can assure you that I am a responder: my femurs feel as though I've just played an hour of tennis after not exercising for a week. (I only walked about a mile today, which is minimal exercise for me. That would never result in this level of pain, tolerable though it is.) It's making it hard to rest in a still position. The nurse had warned me that the bone pain might increase, and she was right. I suppose I can't count on things getting any better until my dosing is complete. Nevertheless, the pain gives me confidence that if this is a complete failure, then at least I tried the real thing and collected potentially useful data for others. For all the good reasons that you would not attempt my approach to health maintenance, do not let the pain stop you. It is tolerable. I have not taken any pain meds, and generally avoid them anyway.

 

Now that it's abundantly clear that the therapy is proceeding as planned, I could not be happier, regardless of the end results. Some day, this data may help someone solve a far more serious problem, if only by telling them what not to do -- to say nothing of Sally's therapeutic extremes, moreover.

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 14 January 2015 - 03:53 AM.

[resveratrol_guy]

I received a 3rd dose of 960 ug Neupogen today, in the same manner. Right now, I'm quite exhausted. The femur pain has died down for the moment, but it may well spike up again later, depending on the exact timing of mobilization. My ballon headache is still there and I'm starting to get some visual flashes suggesting an oncoming migraine-with-aura. I'm somewhat nauseous. But I'm not going to overinterpret this. I just need rest, and my usual vegetables and cheese. For the record, I just had 7 mg of c60oo. Talk with you all later...

 

[Flex]

I got also once this certain floater that You´ve explained.

In my case, its was a pesudo tumor cerebry, so an increase of cerebro spinal liqour pressure which pressed my left eye and caused a small hemorrhage.

The floater dissapeared on its self after a few days.

So this pressure headaches could, at least , partly be related to the increased pressure.

 

My pressure is arround 20-30 cm h2o(?) which is slightly elevated and I only feel like my left eye is a bit clinched.

However, a patient who was in the same Hospital had 50 cm h2o and had headaches.

In the very most cases, the pressure normalizes, but I cant say what pressure is even at short periods problematic, though I actually dont want to cause too much worry.

Mine is on the longterm bad because it presses the eye nerve which eventually impairs perresistently my vision to some extend if untreated.

 

I wouldnt think too much whether its a placebo or not, because I cant imagine that a placebo is that strong.

Taking alone the calmness can indicate an improved stress coping due e.g. decreased HPA axis respeonse or otherwise since simple GABA, as far as I know, tranquilizes also other brain functions as well for e.g. problem solving & etc.

I think that with Your report You have added on more voice i.e. a clue that the GCSF analog can help, which could encourage people, which in turn could perhaps helps them

Therefore I find You are doing a good thing with this thread.

[Flex]

Consider to pause for while/a few days untill the headaches dissapear.

At least I would do it, if it doesnt affects the benefit of the therapy

[resveratrol_guy]

Indeed Flex, I take your point that headaches could intake tumors (or pseudotumors, in your case). I received a brain MRI just a few months ago, and it came back clear for malignancies, but as I mentioned it indicated some modest degree of ischemic and possibly hemmoragic damage. Nothing I've done in the past few days could manifest in a tumor at this point, but your warning should be taken seriously; I expect to repeat the MRI in the future, particularly if I develop tumor symptoms (and obviously in any other part of my body as well).

 

The headache has gone completely. My next posts will explain why. It's not a random accident.

 

I don't know anything about this "HPA axis" you mentioned. And I don't see how this relates to GABA, either. Clearly I need to research these terms after I deliver today's report. In truth, I hardly have a clue as to how this stuff is working. If it's all a giant placebo but it permanently lowers my stress level, then I cannot complain that it was a waste of money! To your point, the calmness really sticks out as the strongest effect. And now that I think about it, I believe the foregoing reports mention Sally's noticeable decrease in paranoid ramblings (and for that matter, panic attacks several times per week) within a week of starting GCSF. This is one point which I had completely forgotten since before starting to inject it myself, so as you suggested, the calmness aspect is actually unlikely to be placebo.

 

Yes I certainly hope this will be useful, perhaps in ways that I will never know. Data, analysis, debate, and criticism are the only way forward. At least, I can supply some data.