Pico de Orizaba

Pico de Orizaba
Taken from Huatusco, Veracruz, the closest town to Margarita's family's ranch.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Me against all sides of the medical "community"?

...whit's end decisions?  Since we can't know if we will find someone in the traditional medical community willing to address the issue of low testosterone and deficiency of Immunoglobin M (IgM) and cardiovascular disease, we decided to continue being as proactive as possible and giving our alternative nutritionist the green light on intravenous Chelation Therapy for removing arterial plaques and certain heavy metals...  

At the moment, it seems that no matter what I do, diet 90% vegetarian (animal protein limited to natural yogurt, fish and eggs), fats limited to olive oil, coconut oil, avocados, and what is in the natural yogurt, flax seeds and Pacific Mackerel), daily exercise of 3+ miles running or rowing (30-38 minutes depending upon the activity), supplementing and drinking certain "teas" or extractions... my blood pressure rises and doesn't fall to the levels as before and the heart palpitations appear at any given time, along with certain aches or pains from the upper abdomin to the chest, shoulder, throat, teeth and head...  


When considering visits with traditional doctors, I encounter myself immersed in heavy concern.  The problem is that I don't want to butt heads with these people and their need to practice exclusively "pharmaceutical" medicine...  I'd prefer they practice medical science and look at my lab results and the literature connecting low testosterone levels and IgM deficiency to plaque build-up. Although my stance is uniquely related to my need to truly and adequately address my personal health situation (to find a cure; to save my life; to prevent unneeded suffering--unnecessary destructive side effects), they see me as telling them that they don't know how "to do their jobs" or that I believe I know more about cardiology or medicine than do they... as you'll see with the nutritionist's response...


Truthfully, there is no less of a reason to perform EDTA chelation therapy than there is to do an angioplasty/stent proceedure...  The issues existing in my body treated by EDTA are clearly diagnosed.  However, upon reading about the proceedure, I found myself with certain concerns and I sent the nutritionist a small blurb from the University of Maryland Medical Center:



For heavy metal toxicity: EDTA chelation therapy is often given intravenously with calcium, magnesium, and vitamins B and C over a period of 1 to 3 hours. The recommended adult dosage varies depending on the size of the person and the amount of lead or other metal in the body. The amount used would be determined in a hospital setting.

Precautions

The most common side effect is a burning sensation at the site of the injection. In addition, some people may have an allergic reaction to EDTA. Other serious side effects that have been reported include low blood sugar, diminished calcium levels, headache, nausea, dangerously low blood pressure, kidney failure, organ damage, irregular heartbeat, seizures, or even death.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there have been deaths associated with hypocalcemia (low levels of calcium) from intravenous chelation therapy.
A qualified health care provider will monitor blood pressure, blood glucose, cholesterol, organ function, and other vital statistics during treatment with EDTA. EDTA may lower levels of nutrients such as calcium, zinc, and potassium. Your provider will perform blood tests to monitor vitamin and mineral levels before, during, and after EDTA chelation therapy. Your doctor may recommend supplemental vitamins and minerals, either orally or intravenously.

I wasn't surprised by the nutrionist's response:  

hi
you send me this information as If I did not know what I am doing? is this your point? I am ACAM certified and never ever have had any incidents.

If there is so much distrust, please do not come

...and responded to her calmly:

I thought you would respond so... It's more a question of fear and heavy nervousness these days.  

The interventionist cardiologist was highly certified and I'm certain he did the angioplasty/stent proceedure impecably...  However, I almost died on his table from an allergic reaction to the resonance ink...  I don't know what they injected me after I had lost consciousness with the heart rate over 200.  However, when I came to, I was blind for at least an hour...  Nothing is written on the paperwork what happened and what they gave me to stop the reaction...  All I know is that the cardiologist said that this had NEVER occurred in his experience as an interventionist cardiologist and that someone just informed him that the risk of an allergic reaction to the resonance ink is 10%.

Maybe it is best for you to not risk having a very bad experience that has never occurred... I've wondered what would happen if I had a reaction in the middle of the proceedure...  I find the University of Maryland Medical Center very liberal in their medical/scientific perspective... When everyone else in their world writes against spirulina and chlorella, they write in favor.  They're the only ones who I've read express the belief that people with lymphoma should avoid all sugar, especially bread, meaning that they see a connection between celiac and lymphoma, although no one has qualified that possible connection.  I didn't share with you their belief of the effectiveness of EDTA for cardiovascular disease... since I believe that at this moment most health care is a crap-shoot, much like alchemy--sorcery...  

I won't be able to look into my arteries to see if the EDTA removed the plaques...  just as I can't look into the stents to see if they are half full or about to become blocked and about to kill me... Yes, you can check with an angiogram.  But, that means spending at least $50,000 pesos and injecting resonance ink.  I don't know if you can imagine how I feel about that day when I should have another angiogram...  A form of Russian Roulette, but with more odds against me...  

Maybe you can understand my position enough to not allow your ego to dictate your behaviors...  ;-)

It's more a question of feeling her ego stepped upon and bruised.  But the truth is that she is NOT asking me for laboratory tests before beginning the EDTA proceedure... She will NOT know how are my potassium, magnesium and calcium levels before Friday.  So, it is possible that the therapy will drop my electrolyte levels too low.  And as you know, heart rhythm has all to do with Calcium, Potasium, Sodium, Chloride and Magnesium levels...  PLUS, like what is written about resonance ink and angiograms, that the doctors must first ask their patient if they have a tendency towards allergies no matter what... in order to be prepared for the possible alergic reaction event, the nutriologist should be equally prepared, since that's what the UMMC says;  risk of allergic reaction to EDTA.  

The thing is that the nutritionist is not working in a hospital.  So, if something goes wrong...?  Margarita was waiting on the other side of the door (in small waiting room) of where the angiogram was being performed and says that suddenly the cardiologist left the proceedure room running and returned a few minutes later with a woman (who must be the specialist in allergic reactions in the operating room).  

Who knows?  Maybe I am just protecting myself and she is doing me a favor while protecting herself from something exploding in her face...  

Truthfully, reading the UMMC page made me a bit anxious last night; enough so to raise my bp and cause insomnia...  

I was going to say back to the drawing board.  But that's not true.  We just find ourselves exactly where we always were...  The EDTA chelation therapy is just one possibility...  Maybe there aren't really any adequate solutions and we've just gotta accept what is evolving inside my body.

Who knows?


Saturday, November 14, 2015

On revisiting past events or regurgitating difficult histories...

While showering after terminating Amy Tan's most recent novel "The Valley of Amazement" (read in Spanish) I had this sense that I had dreamed something connected with my childhood last night...  The feeling was surprising, since I hadn't awakened thinking about the dream and had passed 5 hours awake without thinking about what I may have dreamed last night...

It turns out that I was "revisited" by my first childhood bully (outside of my household) who began the ball rolling of my ostracizement, alienation and anti-Semitism in the second grade.  Of all the children who picked on me in elementary school and middle school Tommy Murray frightened me the most.  And when I think of the stereotyped faces of Nazis, Russian or Polish anti-Semites I imagine a face like his... Although, truthfully, his face was that of Scotts-Irish decent with the red hair and pinkish freckled face...  

In the dream we were adults in an adult world somewhere between Mexico and New Jersey... Somehow I had stumbled across Tommy and his henchmen (all bullies are surrounded by henchmen) in public space and it was announced that I must fight him later on in the day causing a dilemma I had experienced with another bully in 8th grade, certainly described in this blog.  You may ask, "why dilemma?"

The children picked on in school or on the play ground or the bus stop etc, don't seek out the bullies for creating conflict.  In as much as the bully generates hate in the picked-upon kid, and that child may have fantasies of being able to KO the bully, the picked-upon would prefer avoiding potential contact and attention by the bully.  Plus, bullies generally select children who are already suffering something or another, showing a certain amount of insecurity in their stance...  

In 8th grade, when Mike Szmanski gave me a time and place for fighting him after school, although I hadn't done anything that required a "duel" between the two of us, I found myself in a dilemma... The dilemma of fleeing or fighting...  But, truthfully, I didn't want to fight...  

Regarding Tommy Murray and comparing him with Mike Szmanski at the time, I know that Mike wouldn't have fought Tommy because Mike wasn't truly aggressive... He was one of those semi-popular kids who wanted more attention.  He was just a semi-athletic cream puff... He was full of hot air.  Tommy on the other hand was clearly dangerous...  and he had developed the reputation of being a fearless fighter...  I wasn't a fighter... In fact, at the time I was just trying to "fight back" against my mother and my sisters and the small bullies my size...  

In the dream I found myself in my Nissan pick-up in a parking lot soon to fill up with "neighborhood folk" appearing for a public event I believe was a rock concert.  Unlike Tommy, I had no henchmen surrounding me, encouraging me, supporting whatever move I made.  Part of me said that I must fight him and hopefully it wouldn't turn out so bad, although I knew what those chances were... Not fighting him wouldn't resolve the problem because it would only fuel the ostracizement and they would return repeatedly until he had the chance to plaster me...  It's better to get the inevitable over with...  and not prolong it... I didn't understand that in childhood and tended to procrastinate and make things linger on and on...  In the dream there was a certain sense of relief upon thinking about just getting it over with, although the eventual beating immediately slipped into my mind...  

The strange thing is that at the moment I was supposed leave the pick-up to meet with Tommy and his group, I noticed that cars had parked so close to my pick-up that I couldn't open the doors enough to leave, nor through the windows...  

My immediate destiny was determined for me... It wasn't my decision...  But, it was inevitable...  There was nothing I could do for the moment.

Truthfully, the story doesn't interest me in as much as the placement of the dream:  I'm 46-years-old, so far away from that reality, laying asleep next to my wife Margarita who hasn't had the fortune of being able visit the places of my youth to get a little bit of a sense of where I came from...  

Why have such intense, vivid and difficult dreams about things you would say have nothing to do with the present... That aren't my current interests.  I don't think about Tommy Murray frequently...  But, it is clear that he had a certain important role in part of my childhood development.  And because of that, he appeared in the dream as he did... the only form in which I knew him... so long ago.  

One of the diagnostic criteria of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is recurrent nightmares... or flashbacks...  Last night's dream was a flashback...  What role does it serve?  In my current health situation...

At the moment I don't have the "luxury" of spending time on the far past and those difficulties.  Truthfully, the difficulties that have arisen since March render all past traumas virtually obsolete, with the exception of those events' possible contribution to the lesioning of my coronary arteries....  But aside from that, I don't believe I have space, time or energy untangling certain knots created in my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood.  There isn't anything of the past to "resolve"...  There aren't bye-gones to let be bye-gones...  Time has been cut short.  All that's truly important is how I feel today and what comes tomorrow... short-term planning, if I have that luxury.

Yesterday José "Montaña" said to me, "don't worry.  You'll find that you still have many years left of life and will see your 70s..."  I responded, "José, you know I don't appreciate trite, insignificant statements... It would be different if I knew that person was psychic and they could see into my future.  But, you weren't making that statement based upon something you truly sensed..."  He didn't contradict me...  And I said, "I'm not complaining or whining.  It's just something I know.  My body was created with a self-destruct button or programmed premature death...  It's something I must try and accept."

How much does it have to do with past experience? I don't know.  Maybe the time bomb would have exploded regardless of what occurred in my childhood and adolescence; what was done to me and what I did to myself..."  We can't know this stuff.  I believe the impetus to fill one's life with dense quality and production increases the velocity towards death, as I believe I see in my father's and my uncle Henry's stories.  Although my Uncle Henry outlived my father 22 years...  But, I do believe that those who don't fill their days with productivity and learning, thinking and developing themselves or their families or careers or business etc, who spend their time just watching the leaves fall from the trees or engage in frivolous activities, live longer lives...   The pressure to use every possible minute of the waking hours constructively/productively brings us closer to our deaths, although we believe that maybe we are more satisfied with our lives...  

I believe that I wasted a lot of time in childhood into adulthood... Who knows?  Maybe that's part of what allowed me to live to the age of 46...  In as much as I may feel regret of not having accomplished more in my life or accomplished something more important, such as having become a doctor, I now realize that it really doesn't matter, because I would have brought my death that much earlier...  Afterall, it's programmed in...  

What can we say about the bullying in school and at home?  The abuse by my uncle or my mother?  The death of my father... the inheritance of his illness or illnesses...  Maybe they were just necessary distractions or other spiritual lessons...  I don't know if it really matters...  I guess it does in some form... at least for those studying the outcomes of PTSD, especially for those connecting childhood trauma with adulthood heart disease...

How many times in childhood did I have my heart broken?  The broken heart is both symbolic and metaphorical.  But, those medical anthropologists studying PTSD and how it affects the body physiologically may see that it is much more literal than symbolic and metaphorical...  Truthfully it doesn't really matter if my heart was broken when my father died or when my mother became as she did or when the family neglected my small child fears and needs within the situation and never wanted to understand my side of the horrible experience...  Truthfully, it doesn't matter because no understanding of the situation will change the damage it produced on my heart...  No one will return me to the reality I was living upon returning from Sayulita last March 11th; what Margarita and I were talking about; the hope and the planning...  Little did I know that it was too late...  

How many times in childhood did you find yourself riding your bike and then without any warning you feel a thumping of the back tire because a bubble had appeared suddenly.  And before you know it, the bubble suddenly pops and you've gotta walk your bike miles back home to fix the flat...?  Did you know that the tube inside the tire had a defect or was worn?  Absolutely not!

I guess that's what I discovered between March 12th and March 14th...  I couldn't believe it!  I didn't want to believe it...

Now tell me:  What experience of bullying or child abuse/neglect/alienation/isolation is more important than this?  Tommy Murray?  Chris Love and Sheri or Craig and Sheri or Todd Golub and Tommy Murray or Mike Szmanski or all of those kids in summer camp or the other kids who ostracized me in elementary, middle and part of high school?  My uncle Stan...  A lot of histories... But, nothing is as traumatic and destructive as what truly destroys hope for the future and the present...  

Can you imagine walking around believing that your motor is about to blow?  If it were the brain, that would be a different story because its dysfunction would cause you to lose sense of reality, possibly relieving you from suffering, like with Alzheimers Disease...  

The palpitions appeared while working in San Luis Potosi.  And they got worse as the fair progressed.  Fortunately for me, the park within which I ran 3+ miles was a 10 minutes drive from where we lived and the fair and was in the middle of my shopping route... I didn't lose time in order to go out of my way for running...  It didn't cause me stress.  And when we closed the coffee bar at night, we walked relaxingly home to bed...  However, for some reason or another the palpitations began upon laying down to sleep.  And they increased in intensity... and caused problems falling asleep... And then I found them starting up again in the mornings upon awakening...  

So I'd go to the wonderful parque Tangamanga where I've run every August for 3 summers now and I would begin the run with a mantra:  I'd rather die running than die sleeping  It's true... It's about feeling that you are in "control" or proactive until the end...  Exercise is the only thing that gives me "a piece of mind"...  

When things became so much worse this past October during he fair of Guadalajara and the palpitations were begun or caused by the late night drive home from the fair, I found that the only way I could fall asleep in the wee hours of the night was if I did between 60 and 70 fast push-ups...  You would think that that is a bit risk considering the pressure the push-ups would place on my heart.  But I believe it is better to die of a heart attack doing something that makes you healthier in other ways and understanding that you did all you could... than to die of a heart attack feeling vulnerable and scared, relinquishing all your "power" to the problem...  

In childhood I didn't fight the bullies and the other kids... I didn't fight back.  I didn't know how to defend myself... This time around, although I may not find the solution/answers, there isn't one moment that I'm willing to procastinate encountering an adequate solution for improving the situation.  I refuse to be defenseless, allowing others to determine my destiny...  Yes, it's possible that two trucks parked too close to the doors of my pick-up all my life or ever since we returned from Sayulita... And my hands are tired... However, I will still consider kicking out the windows and sliding between the two vehiculos, even if that means I will fall face first into a mud puddle below...  

Fighting back feels much better than helplessly awaiting the other person's next move, the return of the bully and his henchmen...  

If I die running 3.5 miles today or on the rowing machine in our bed room tonight... I will not die a loser.

However, I do believe that we will have lost something very important... And I greatly worry about Margarita and her loss.  That's what worries and confounds me most these days... about preventing that loss for her... I lost my hope and wonderful expectations of 10 months ago...  I can't change that.  But, I'm battling the best I can so that she doesn't have to experience that loss so soon.  

Why did I dream with Tom Murray while sleeping alongside Margarita in our wonderful bed here in Guadalajara, Jalisco Mexico... especially if it has so little to do with our life here and our relationship?

Or is it that I'm missing a certain point?  Maybe its an important message to continue fighting for what is most important to me...  Something I hadn't done during childhood and adolescence...  I guess I didn't know what I would have been fighting for...

Ross  


Thursday, November 12, 2015

Hollywood Medical Dramas, success stories and pop culture mind...

...something constantly evolutioning within my mind... Doctors and their responsibilities... to me...  But the truth is that they're humans living with responsibilities to themselves and to their families...  Now what does this have to do with me?  Always re-calibrating... putting things into perspective...  

Truthfully, what were the doctors' responsibilities when we were diagnosed with Familiar Adenomatous Polyposis?  What were their responsibilities when my father was dying of liver cancer caused by FAP?  And what were their responsibilities when his mother (my paternal grandmother) died from what was not at the time understood as FAP caused illness?  

What the doctors don't understand or have no possibility of knowing is not their encumbrance...  If you didn't teach me the answer to question #5 on whatever exam, should I have known the answer?  

So, here I am with a lot of questions and doubts... And the incredible notion that something else is occurring within my body that no one is taking into account when they diagnose me and suggest treatments...  For 3 years now I'm beating my brain for asking myself the correct questions, questions more apt for encountering responses that come closer to the truth within my body.  

Without adequate questioning, without random miracles falling from the sky, we can't respond adequately to difficult situations.  

We're about to enter the process of third opinions of medical "experts" here in Guadalajara.  But, before entering their consultation rooms, I must have all the data infront of me, along with the themes they typically do not consider.  For instance while perusing the laboratory results of 3 years, I noticed that the year before removing all wheat products from my diet, I was repeatedly shown to be experiencing Basophilia (high Bosaphile levels)...  Basophiles are white blood cells that respond to allergic reactions...  Allergy to mold spores... allergy to pollen... Allergy to cats and dogs... allergy to peanuts...  We've lived in a heavy mold spore situation for 4 years now due to heavy water damage to the ceiling of our house to which the "landlord" responded inadequately and with which we repaired the best we could over the past few years... Hence, I've had respiratory issues on and off over the past 4 years... some very serious accompanied with hives and swelling...  That said, the basophilia went away with the removal of wheat... It didn't go away with the removal of mold spores because the mold spores are still here as shown with my most recent bout of respiratory problems in October--November...  But, the basophiles returned to normal with the removal of wheat.  So, does this mean that I'm allergic to wheat?  I wouldn't know.  I haven't been tested for wheat allergies...  

This is important.  With the removal of wheat, I dropped over 30 pounds... of inflammation...  My pouchitis (a type of Irritable Bowel Syndrome) went away...  But what doctors would have suggested removing wheat for treating Basophilia?  What J-Pouch experts are talking about wheat as a cause of pouchitis?  What is pouchitis?  The equivalent of colitis...  meaning that it can cause horrible bowel issues such as ulcers, obstructions, varicose veins and cancer... leading to more preventative surgeries.  But, before the surgeries the "patient" lives in misery...  And what if the "patient" doesn't have the economy for more surgeries?  And what if the "patient" doesn't live where j-pouch specialists exist?  If a tree falls in the woods and you didn't see it fall...  Did it fall?  Does it matter who experiences what if they aren't who you truly care about? or if they didn't appear on the big screen like the boy in the bubble or Lorenzo?  Would we care about the probability of success of Will Smith's character in "Pursuit of Happiness" if we hadn't seen the story within a Hollywood movie?

The problem is that I grew up within the "American" television/Hollywood movie popular culture.  So, it seems that my expectations of doctors and life is based upon a Hollywood fantasy medical success drama.  I expect them to become intrigued by the information/data and ideas I share with them... They should see a wonderfully interesting and satisfying medical challenge infront of them...  But, what I think they truly see is a headache...  They should see a challenging medical/scientific puzzle with a very great possibility of solving...  The other day Margarita mentioned that what I've stumbled across over the past few days or so reminds her of Dr. House episodes...  What would it take for Mexican intellectual youth planning on studying medicine to be truly inspired or influenced by the medical/scientific perspectives of Dr. House?  Who inspired scientists and doctors to pursue responses to difficult medical situations?  Were they only pursuing fame and fortune?  all of them?

So, putting everything into perspective for me has much to do with trying to understand why people are doctors and what is their true pursuit, what that has to do with my own personal situation (what is the probability of truly resolve my own personal medical issues), and truly what is my existential reality...  

If a tree falls in the woods...  If the patient isn't related to someone who is wealthy, popular or important...  How many people are we on this planet?  How many of us have the same issues or worse issues...?  How many suffer worse issues of social justice etc?  How many are more "deserving" of humanitarian aid and who will not receive anything?

Humanitarianism doesn't have to refer to "Live Aid" or "Wave Aid" (responding to the various tsunamis)...  We all can be humanitarians... at times... and decide to help someone momentarilly (like helping an elderly woman cross a busy intersection...) 

The question is what is the possibility of a doctor having the time and focus for listening to me and understanding what I've placed infront of them and decide that they "should" assist me in my personal health "project"... But, that brings up the question of what are their own personal responsibilities to themselves?  

It's frustrating... because the information is very clear... and it is all found within the scientific liturature...

The problem is that endocrinologists, cardiologists and gastroenterologists see Inmunoglobin M and Basophiles as being outside their focus and related to allergenists and immunology specialists...  So, those data are ignored...  

The problem is that the wonderful project created between Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College and the University of Massachusetts/Amherst called Hampshire College in that they believed in the 60s that interdisciplinary studies was a more affective way of addressing social, political, technological and scientific problems for one reason or another was not grasped by the rest of the intellectual/academic/scientific and innovative "world community"...  Although I understand what it is I'm doing and the connections at which I'm looking, that doesn't mean the doctors can understand interdisciplinary focussing and looking at things from "outside the box"...  

You have no idea just how exhausting this battle and project is...  Granted, you also may not understand just how satisfying are the discoveries and connections I've made.  And, that's why I've been writing about this...  Sometimes I think that maybe it isn't the outcome that matters as much as knowing that I've been on the right track for almost 3 years now... although the doctors haven't been much of help...  Actually, I don't believe that there is a success story with a happy ending for me...  But, at the very least you will have the documentation here... someone will know where I was standing all the time... Maybe this information will be of service to someone...  

My father was a doctor.  He was diagnosed with FAP when he was dying of liver cancer...  None of his education and the science was of service to him...  His story or our story is a fable... a trajedy and a story of survival.  But, truthfully, how important is it?

And that's where I am at this moment.  Should I continue battling within the investigation and spending money on mediocre science and medicine?  Or should I see destiny as being what is out of my hands and beyond my control and just allow to come what is coming and go on vacation...? Not a vacation in a metaphorical sense of the word but truly on vacation...

At times I want to relax from these issues and leave for places I haven't been or haven't been in a long time... like Oaxaca, Chiapas, Quitana Roo, Guatamala... Puerto Rico... the United States... We have Salvadoran "friends" here in Guadalajara who visit their country of origin 2 times per year...  Yesterday Margarita showed interest in the possibility of visiting El Salvador... We can start working towards her visa for entering the U.S..., since she finally received her revised birth certificate...  The problem is my tendency towards pragmatism here...  Issues of money saved or spent, diet, stress... and being in the position to respond to whatever medical issues arise... Travelling removes the base from where I've been working the past 3 years... working on my health issues...  If we decide to travel, that means we're putting aside aspects of the health project, such as second opinions with cardiologists and trying to connect a gastroenterologist with a cardiologist with the idea of connecting my FAP/Gardners and the digestive structure caused by the preventative surgeries with the coronary issues.  It means putting aside the heavy metals (mercury and lead) detox program or the process of cleaning my arteries of plaque which is another program...  

This is a problem.  It means a measure of giving up upon a possible medical success...  It's the interchange of being chained to an "improbability" and being freed to live free in the time I have... I don't see freedom in lack of hope and not being able to plan for a better future as I've been doing the almost 13 years I've been with Margarita.  Removing the future and planning and hope for something new and improved is the removal from my life what it has been based upon the past 13 years...  I guess it's like what work-a-holics encounter when they consider retirement...  Do you know how many people enter rapid physical and mental deterioration upon retiring?

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

A new discovery: #10 on the list of possible causes of my heart problems...

10)  Inmunoglobin M deficiency:  

Over the past two years and at least 15 blood tests, there has existed one constant that does not change, my Inmunoglobin M (IgM) is ALWAYS low.  When I notice results outside of the recommended field, I immediately investigate on the internet to see what the science says about low or high numbers.  But, with IgM, I've repeatedly encountered the same lack of understanding, although it is linked with Lupus, Multiple Myeloma and various skin infections/diseases/reactions...  The cause is unknown.  Hence, without understanding the cause, it is more difficult to find an adequate resolution.

Today I decided to return to the investigation. However, I changed the search term to Inmunoglobin M Deficiency and Heart Disease.  

Here are some of the titles that appeared: 

"Primary selective IgM deficiency: an ignored immunodeficiency"
 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23760686

"Protective Roles of Natural IgM Antibodies"  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3341951/

"Autoantibodies in Heart Failure and Cardiac Dysfunction"
http://circres.ahajournals.org/content/110/1/145.full

Naturally Occuring Antibodies 
https://books.google.com.mx/books?id=BLxyJUquBJEC&pg=PA9&lpg=PA9&dq=IgM+deficiency+and+cardiovascular+disease&source=bl&ots=39gARH3byd&sig=RQ9-eOYB9hjQXfvJca4lkOkYznQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAzgKahUKEwiMkt3qiIrJAhUCKiYKHdkmBwI#v=onepage&q=IgM%20deficiency%20and%20cardiovascular%20disease&f=false

Heart Diseases: New Insights for the Healthcare Professional: 2013 Edition
   

Low levels of Inmunoglobin M leads to atherosclerosis and heart disease.  In the chapter of "Heart Diseases: New Insights..." the authors explain that low levels of IgM antibodies to oxidized cardiolipin increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and high levels of IgM decrease the risk...  In Naturally Occuring Antibodies, the authors explain that low levels of IgM accelerates the process of plaquing in Atherosclerosis.

In one of the articles, rats bred to be genetically IgM deficient given IgM antibodies were found to greatly decrease their atherosclerosis.  

The other day I shared my discovery connecting low testosterone levels to increased levels of TMAO circulating in the blood stream that causes a great increase in cholesterol sticking to the artery walls; meaning that the logical solution to the problem is to increase the person's testosterone levels.

In the articles and books mentioned above, low levels of IgM is linked to higher levels of oxidized LDL cholesterol circulating in the blood stream. It is believed that 30% of the IgM antibodies work is to remove oxidized LDL cholesterol (and dying apoptosed cells; apoptosis is programmed cell death).  Are you aware that with atherosclerosis, the main reason Statins are prescribed is for preventing an Apoplexy, better known as a Stroke.  The statins supposedly cause the plaques to become cemented to the walls of the artery in order for reducing the risk of a plaque breaking off and lodging itself into the brain causing a stroke...  But, what if producing enough IgM reduces the production of plaques and reduces other debris floating in the blood stream reducing the risk of a "log jam"?

The question is how to increase my levels of IgM?


Saturday, November 7, 2015

Addressing important issues with inadequate information...

In Dr. David S. Grimes epidemiological study of world disease "Vitamin D and Cholesterol; the Importance of the Sun", he states that medical science has discovered 240 possible causes of Coronary Heart Disease.  However, the industry has the tendency towards focussing upon only 2 possible causes:  Diet and psychological factors (mainly stress).  

One of his statements I find most supportive of my experience with cardiologists over the past 3 years is  "The problem with Coronary Heart Disease is that we do not have a good understanding of it. But this is not generally understood."  

As I've found with my experience since the so-called heart attack of March 12th 2015, (normal cholesterol levels, moderate physical activity, very healthy diet, normal triglyceride levels, low levels of C-Reactive Protein, normal levels of homocysteine, blood pressure easily regulated with diet and sleep and without medication), Grimes mentions that within the medical science world "there are many dissenters from the conventional wisdom" due to important anomalies or paradoxes.  

'Discovery commences with awareness of anomaly'. If interventions based on incomplete understanding are not shown to be effective, then they should be withdrawn, but there is rarely the enthusiasm to do so: Professionals are very ready to apply their dogma to the population, even for the best of motives, but are very reluctant to reverse it.  It has been described well as 'the tyranny of health.'

I don't believe you can better phrase my experience with 3 of the 4 cardiologists I've seen over the past 3 years; 3 of them since March:  "The tyranny of health"... 

The problem with the cardiologists is that they don't want to pay attention to the anomalies...  the very clear and present paradoxes... I feel it very important to enter their consulting offices armed as would a trial lawyer entering the courtroom: with a pile of blood tests, toxicity tests, genetic tests, ecocardiograms and the rest of my medical history that they wish to believe is unrelated to my heart issue and their specialty...  

I'm in the process of creating a list:

1)  Mercury toxicity:  my level increases risk of acute myocardial infarction 30%

2)  Colectomies and J-Pouches create a tendency towards deficiency in Vitamin D (although the cause is not understood) that greatly raises the risk of hypertension.

3) Allergy to mold in water damaged buildings is one of 14 top causes of heart attacks (mercury toxicity is on that list too).

4)  Lead toxicity creates both a hightened risk of hemolytic anemia and pulmonary hypertension.

5)  I have a single mutation on two of my VDR genes that causes the risk of vitamin D deficiency.

6) I have 2 double mutations (from both parents) on the GCLC genes that increases the risk of hemolytic anemia and Acute Myocardial Infarction.

7)  I have 2 double mutations on the GSS genes that increases the risk of Glutathione Synthase Deficiency (which causes Gallstones--I had them 9 years ago--and atherosclerosis), Hemolytic Anemia and Pulmonary Hypertension.  

8) and now I'm reading about TMAO and its relationship with heart disease but caused by SIBO.  People with "short bowel syndrome" are both at hightened risk of SIBO, malnutrition and disnutrition, which puts them at hightened risk of heart disease...  

9) Testosterone suppresses FMO3 gene expression which decrease levels of TMAO blood circulation.  Hence,. men with low testosterone levels have greater risk of heart attack due to risk of higher levels of TMAO circulating in the blood... In May I had read that there was a connection between low levels of testosterone and heart disease.  But the scientists didn't know if low testosterone caused the heart disease or was caused by heart disease.  So, I had my testosteron levels checked and they came back low, which I showed the endocrinologist who didn't have time for working with me (too many patients).  But, if it the connection between Testosterone, FMO3 gene expression and the production of TMAO is correct, we have another cause of heart disease.  Hence, the cardiologist truly concerned with the health of their patient upon seeing their levels of testosterone should get on the phone with their endocrinologist colleague and suggest testosterone therapy for their patient...  Is this not logical? 

I recently developed a friendship with an investigator for the Guadalajara health department who connected me with his brother-in-law (gastroenterologist) and brother-in-law's wife (cardiologist), since it is very clear to me that the issue of my heart issues is greatly related to my preventative surgeries.  As I said to Margarita, what the cardiologists should first do when I enter their offices is ask themselves what makes me different from the general public of heart patients THE ANOMALY, and start looking at my health (possible causes) from there...  especially if I'm physically fit, my sodium level is low, my cholesterol and triglyceride levels are normal, my diet is healthier than the average person and I exercise regularly.  But, for some reason, the doctors don't want to look at the anomaly and don't want to consider the other 138 possible causes of heart disease.  

The first step to a cure is isolating the cause...  But if you are a doctor without the desire for isolating the cause, it is more probable that you are not being adequately effective for your patients' needs.

The nutrionist says, "Ross, you can't blame the doctors.  They're just a product of their environment.  In this situation, you've gotta be your own doctor.  Because they aren't trained to truly help you."  

So I order the exams they don't order... and I must find alternative ways of detoxifying myself in my household and... and I must experiment with supplements and herbal remedies and more diet changes...  

A friend of mine who sells Yucatan Guayaberas (a type of blouse for men typical of hot and humid Mexican regions) is married to a woman who had open heart surgery 12 years ago due to a heart murmur with the first surgeon to do a heart transplant in Guadalajara or Mexico... One day returning to our coffee bar in the October Fair of Guadalajara, I found Margarita talking to Nacho and his wife... about me... and my intensifying health issues... Nacho's wife suggested I visit with her surgeon... After explaining all of my conflicts with the short sighted cardiologists here, Nacho said, "Look Ross, if you're not going to move back to the U.S. and you're concerned about dying, I don't see how it could hurt going from Cardiologist to Cardiologist until you find one who is willing to truly listen to you.  Afterally, you are very intelligent and informed and giving up on the doctors means that all of your information will go to waste...  And his wife said, "How could it hurt calling my surgeon?  I'm living proof that he knew what he was doing... I've only seen him one time since the surgery, 11 years later as a nostalgia visit since my health has been perfect since the surgery."  

Being the product of my mother, I couldn't help but end the conversation asking for a recommendation of where I can find a pig farm with certified healthy pigs on the off chance that the surgeon suggests a heart transplant...  

Thursday, November 5, 2015

A new twist on Heart Disease not connected to circulating cholesterol or triglyceride levels...

Testosterone suppresses FMO3 gene expression which decrease levels of TMAO blood circulation.  Hence,. men with low testosterone levels have greater risk of heart attack due to risk of higher levels of TMAO circulating in the blood...

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

The truth is...

From my father, I inhereted FAP/Gardners... It's also possible that from my father I inhereted "midlife" heart problems, since his older brother and his father both died of heart attacks at the age of 62.  Considering that my father died from cancer of the Colon/Liver at the age of 34, we can't know if he would have developed heart problems in the following decade of his life...  

Thinking about my past history and my present situation, I can't imagine just how much stress family events, school histories (struggle with peers/bullies) and the inheretance of my father's illness along with the preventative surgeries placed upon my heart... Considering that much of the issue of my heart problems today are related to reactive hypertension (hypertension caused by momentary situations) and lack of sleep (especially during the fairs or years earlier when I painted or read until wee hours of the night) I can imagine that the 20 years of horrible insomnia in childhood and early adulthood along with the horrible homelife situation of childhood and the interpersonal conflicts of adolescence and early adulthood combined with the incredible stress placed upon my body by the preventative surgeries caused irreparable damage to my heart and we don't really need to talk about this anymore... As I've said earlier:  I have the body of a physically fit 46-year-old and the heart of a 72-year-old... 

It's tired... and truthfully, I don't know how much I can do for preventing its failure...  When I say that it is tired, I can feel its tiredness in the center of my chest.  Need I say more?

The other day a friend of mine asked me if I am painting... This friend of mine, Raul, is an artist the age my father would have been had he lived...  He also has heart problems.  But he is 30 years older than me... Another friend of mine, José Luis, Raúl's younger brother, also an artist, also has problems with his heart at least 20 years now... a pacemaker was suggested 20 years earlier and has never been placed... He's a healthy and a happy 69-year-old "schizophrenic" (Bruce and my mother had dinner with him in Puerto Vallarta a few years back)...  I responded to Raúl that painting causes too much stress... He replied that many people use painting for escaping stress.  I acknowledged that use back in NYC 15 years ago.  But, then suddenly, when people started suggesting my selling the paintings with the focus on painting as a measure of personal success or that possibility, painting became stressful.  At this moment I'm trying to avoid anything that raises my blood pressure.  So, I avoid painting... and I avoid writing in this blog...  

I'm writing today because I must respond to histories, experiences, perceptions, perspectives, all that I  "published" on this blog and all that I didn't write or say...  What will be left behind when I leave all behind... What people will be reading about me when I am not here to explain what I truly meant for them to understand...  the truth...  The truth is... that it really doesn't matter... that they read basically nothing... Afterall, I could never put it all down on "paper" in a way that I truly understood my life... and it really doesn't matter.

Where are all of the major "players" in this history?  DEAD.  Everyone dies... and they leave behind memories that gradually fade.  And the funny thing is that those memories began fading even before they died... Much of my memories have faded too, making writing the stories or the better histories or the experiences, thoughts and feelings and how I relate to all of the "players" obsolete...  I didn't become an "important" painter or writer or chef or thinker... I didn't become a father.  I'm only an important person for Margarita and her family... for myself... a little more than a quarter part of my life.  That's important.  Very important.  But not important enough for maintaining this blog...  The rest of my life (the other almost 3/4 part of it) and the people who existed in that part became obsolete when I left New York City for Mexico and never returned... Why write about it..?

The truth is that I only have time or energia for salvaging of my life what I can with/for Margarita...  Today on is about tomorrow with Margarita... or about leaving her behind when my heart can't withstand more...  It's a strange thing.  But a reality we live... anothing more... not a reality we "lived"... Lived is past and past is dead and a memory fading into oblivion...  At these moments, all we have is now and the future we anticipate.  A "five-year-plan"?  But plans all the same...  I must plan with Margarita... I must plan for a Margarita without Ross...  I'm hoping that there is still "adequate" time between the with and the without.  But, at this moment we are day to day...  Maybe tomorrow I will feel better and strong and healthy... enough to have the illusion of being able to plan for a longer future... But at this moment I don't have that luxury...