Oxygen: the stuff we breathe

This post (like most posts so far) will be about oxygen, the stuff we breathe daily (all being well) including links loosely connected to measuring and increasing oxygen in the body.

I started taking high density oxygen therapy (breathing 100% O2 in a decompression chamber) three and a half years ago.

When I first started the treatment there was a definite, noticeable effect: picture the dullness of a grey, overcast day and compare that with how we can feel utterly lifted on a bright, sunny, blue sky day. That’s the best way I could think to describe the therapy when I started.

Physiologically, I believe the sessions were addressing low level yet chronic hypoxia in me. I don’t notice those benefits quite so sharply now but I believe that’s because regular sessions keep the level of O2 where it should be and I was treated for CCSVI almost three years ago which I think addressed shortfalls in the easy circulation of blood around the head.

view through a decompression chamber porthole

As well as improving mood it helps bladder function and decreases my fatigue.

These things haven’t been tested although an interesting study in pubmed from April 2013 looks at the effects on an injured brain. Refractory (persistant, not easily fixed) depression they conclude improves with hyperbaric O2 therapy and doesn’t carry any of the adverse effects of anti-depressants. Removing the troughs but also the peaks of life seems a pretty rubbish side effect of something that’s supposed to bring you back to a place of experiencing joy in life.

Regular exercise has also been reported as good for depression perhaps by increasing bloodflow to the brain?

The brain not getting enough oxygen knocks all the brightness out of life. Literally, we’re not firing on all cylinders. Which is a very unscientific way to describe what a number of people with (and without) MS are experiencing every day.

A group of people who are interested in exploring the effects of less oxygen getting to the brain is NASA, in partnership with Paulo Zamboni and the Italian Space Agency. More is reported on the study here. An Italian astronaut has been measuring the effects of zero gravity on the human body’s ability to deal with slowed venous return from the brain.

This is a study, reported by the BBC and I wanted to highlight some of its crapness. As soon as folk start using the word ‘could’ they’re not making any claims that can be backed up, they’re just filling column inches. This ‘could’ be an interesting line of investigation but it is a study formulating a theory based on the patient’s own feelings. The study participants self reported on how forgetful they felt they had become and conclusions were drawn from that?

Now, I’m all for not putting all one’s hopes in what has been delivered to chronic conditions via the double blind placebo controlled trial but a whiff of scientific rigour might be nice.

The Cochrane Group do meta analyses of already published research. This is their section on studies of the condition of MS and other diseases of the CNS (Central Nervous System) and their analysis of the various treatments whose studies reach their requirements.

Oxygen and the Brain; The Journey of Our Lifetime is a book written by the professor who, I believe, has been advising to the MSTCs (Multiple Sclerosis Therapy Centres) since they were set up in the UK in the 1980s.

The therapy has been reported in The Telegraph it was also in the Daily Mail but I’d heard the Telegraph may be serialising parts of Prof James’ book in 2015. Both papers highlighted the benefits that injured returning soldier Ben Parkinson has experienced.

When trying to find an explanation of what happens during an hour’s breathing in a pressurised container I stumbled on this link.

Reduced oxygen it seems isn’t even good for our furry friends!

 

 

Avenues of MS research everywhere!

My own research into increasing variety of movement.

New news, apparently… not the same old news!

Quite often there’s not much to report in MS research or what there is to report is all the same shape – either ineffective or carries the potential of life threatening side effects but… there appear to be a handful of avenues opening up!

A family friend from the US sent me this link last week the way concerned friends do. It’s nice to know that folk care and are thinking about you which can give as much of a lift as anything from a blister pack or bottle.

This article was referenced in the Newsweek article and it prompted me to buy some

  • Tavegil/Clemastine, an OTC (over the counter, no prescription required) antihistamine. It was the only molecule tested (out of a 1000 in their lab) that had any effect on the growing of a myelin like substance on little glass pyramids or something like that (yes, science is strange) but perhaps it will help my body regrow some myelin?
  • I’ve been using phospholipid complex since December (mentioned here) and enjoying a poached egg yolk every day to try and support my brain by giving it building blocks for the last few months.

Interestingly, to an utter non-scientist like myself this page describes part of the reason as to whether there might be a useful effect.

I’ve been signed up to be contacted and perhaps get enrolled in the SMART trial. It will be trialling three existing treatments that were developed for other conditions and, I believe are now out of patent so there is little money to be made from them in their original setting (it could be argued).

  • Ibudilast was one of the three therapies to be tested on secondary progressive MS patients when I showed interest last summer. It has been used in Japan (mostly) for the past 20 years as an asthma therapy. It’s a very good anti-inflammatory, apparently.
  • Riluzole has been used to treat The Ice Bucket Challenge disease or more properly Motor Neurone Disease once also known as ALS or Lou Gehrigs disease, I think?
  • Amiloride which is used to treat heart disease – got no punchlines or interesting facts about that treatment or condition.
  • Fluoxetine (better known as Prozac and usually used to treat depression) is taking the place of Ibudilast.

To a layman, I see the mention of having an effect from the antihistamine on asthma and see that the Japanese asthma treatment has been taken out of the MS trial (being funded by Edinburgh University) and I wonder whether perhaps the drug’s creator might be able to change a molecule or two and get another lease of life out of the out of patent drug by repackaging it as an MS treatment?

Seeing this article about the possible role of a psychedelic drug in the treatment of asthma (well, it worked on mice in the lab) leads me to think the creators of pharmaceutical interventions employ  what seems to be a scattergun approach to the therapies they push on us the patients and it really is worth not holding one’s breath for miracles. I’m an entire human being – my body and brain can’t easily get by without the other!

“What we have demonstrated for the first time is that they are also effective in treating physiological diseases outside of the brain, a completely new and exciting role for this class of drug” says study author Dr. Charles Nichols.

a line of wild animal toys

Whilst keeping an eye on various pharmaceutical offering in the pipeline I think I’ll keep up with my personalised integrative approach. My most recent exercise addition is ‘walking like an animal’ using hands and feet not on hands and knees. I can’t manage the half an hour a day that was recommended to me but after a few goes each day for the last couple of weeks I’m an awful lot better at it than I was!

This physiotherapist in Scotland was reported in New Pathways magazine last year and has now received funding to investigate his results from Edinburgh Napier University. I don’t know how or even whether it is allied to the Edinburgh University conducting the MS SMART trial at the top of this post but I think I’ll continue looking at healing my body from a number of different angles.

making life a little bit better

A scarecrow frightening birds from a snowladen field in midwinter nicely sums up just how ‘surplus to requirements’ my poorly performing body can sometimes help me feel. At the same time the image reminds me the world keeps turning and what seems fixed and permanent now will eventually pass.

I figure this online presence allows me to share the stuff I’ve found makes my life a little better (see some of them here) in the hope that you will also share some of the approaches you are taking that have been making your life a little better. We could all try some of these things and by doing this we could make all our lives a little bit better.

I’m not making any huge claims. This is intentional. I, like everyone on earth have good days and bad days so I don’t want to set myself up for a fall (or fail for that matter) which would leave me with useless negative thought patterns shuffling through my head. I believe making life a little bit better can be well within all our grasps.

I’ve been away for a couple of weeks as my eyes have been playing up; making staring at screens awkward at best and the comprehension of words delightfully imprecise. I seem to have a jazz interpretation of predictive text going on between my eyes and brain.

I’ve been trying to work out whether this change in my vision is the fallout from a sugary christmas bringing on a New Year bloom of the opportunistic pathogen, candida albicans or simply recovery from a 24hr viral tummy bug that involved being sick a lot just before christmas.

small improvements

I now wonder what the point is in wasting valuable brain processing power on a query whose answer won’t bring a different outcome. The question of whether a viral fallout or a refreshed candida overgrowth has given me a blurry eye is unlikely to bring any improvements (I’m already back to being on the sugarless wagon).

  • Instead I’ve been going to bed early and sleeping deeply behind our blackout curtains. Our brains fix themselves best when we give them plenty of sleep.
  • I’ve been keeping up doing superslow hand weight exercises to try and stave off sarcopenia (muscle wasting through age isn’t inevitable but through inactivity it pretty much is).
  • The other thing I’ve been doing that helps me feel a little bit better is lying down for 20 minutes minimum with knees bent, feet flat on the ground and a book under my head. The vertebra in my spine seem to like having the chance to soread out (especially as I sleep on a slope (mentoned in the link list on the first line of the second paragraph of this post)

On the radio this morning was an interview with Dr Kate Granger who, after feeling dehumanised and no more than a bed number whilst in hospital started a twitter campaign to get consultants (the folk who mostly are no longer in white coats) to introduce themselves to patients under their care when on their rounds.

It’s the small things that can make life a little bit better. See a report into the benefits of compassion led patient care here.

I’ve touched on a number of things in this post which I’ll be returning to more fully in future. I guess I can sum up the content by saying getting lots of sleep and lying down have been helping me feel a little bit better recently.