Dongshan’s Illness, Tim’s Illness

Dongshan_LiangjieCatherine listens to a lot of podcasts and often recommends some to me.  A few days ago she recommended one on How Illness Deepens Us by Michael Stone.   I got through all the fluff yesterday and finally got to the meat of the talk today and could very much relate to one of the main koans used in the talk – Dongshan’s Illness.  This is Case #98 in Dogen Zenji’s collection of 300 koans – The True Dharma Eye or Shobogenzo (not to be confused with The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye also called The Shobo Genzo.   It is also found in several other koan collections and is Case #94 in The Book of Serenity.

 

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Cholesterol Clarity and my numbers

After listening to a podcast with Jimmy Moore I decided to read through his book Cholesterol Clarity:  What the HDL is Wrong with My Numbers?   I did a skim read of the book but the real meat is the very end which gives you the testing guide and optimal ranges.  How did I stack up on my last test?

Standard Lipid Profile

The Total number and LDL-C numbers are really kind of irrelevant according to Jimmy, it is the Triglycerides, HDL-C and the ratio of the two that matter the most.  There I’m in good shape even though my total numbers look high.

Total Cholesterol    Mostly irrelevant but should be   254 a bit high
                     250 or below for women and 220
                     or below for men
LDL-C                130 or below but higher levels    155 a bit high
                     are not necessarily relevant to
                     your heart health
HDL-C                Above 50 is good but 70 or higher  91 great!
                     is best
Triglycerides        100 or below, under 70 is best     41 great!

Advanced Lipid Profile

This looks at the sizes of the particles

LDL-P             Below 1000 nmol/L                 1481 high
Small LDL-P       less than 200 nmol/L, and          148  good!
                   20% or less of total LDL-P         10% good! 

In general the markers that matter I’m good on, the ones that doctors look at but don’t seem to matter I’m showing high on.   It it crazy that doctors are still looking at bad information and prescribing statin drugs based on these numbers.

It looks like my high numbers could be high for a couple of reasons that relate to my health in general and not my Paleo diet.   In the Nine Reasons Why Cholesterol Levels Can Go Up chapter I have a few of them.  These include:

  • Consuming a low-carb, high-fat diet.  This is my diet these days thanks to SIBO.  Evidently there is a segment of the population whose LDL-P,  LDL-C and Total Cholesterol numbers will spike on this diet and they don’t know why it happens.  Still, it appears the Triglyceride and HDL-C numbers and particle size are the important numbers.
  • Chronic Bacterial Infections.  Well, yes, I have one and they have been shown to raise these numbers too.
  • Weight Loss.   Thanks to SIBO I’m still down 10-15 lbs from my optimal in great shape weight.  My cholesterol numbers may just adjust themselves once my body fully adapts to the new set point.

One other thing I learned from the book which I found interesting is that Dr. Ornish’s famous study that recommended a Low-Fat Vegetarian Diet to reduce heart disease was very flawed.   It was a 5-year study that never isolated diet since it also required lifestyle changes related to smoking and exercise that would have a huge impact. Not only that but 28 out of the 30 participants ended up having heart attacks or requiring heart surgery within the time of the study.  That does not sound like a plan that took care of heart disease.  I had just listened to Dr. Ornish promoting this study as part of the class I’m taking a few weeks ago.

 

 

 

A podcast for everyone with SIBO

A few days ago I listened to Dr. Ruscio’s summary of the SIBO Symposium podcast and in it he mentioned a previous podcast with Chris Kresser about how Chris turned his illness around by simply choosing to live again instead of being so focused on his health and illness.  I pulled that podcast down and listened to it yesterday, you can find the transcript here and the podcast in iTunes here.   In this podcast several examples are given of people who got better when they finally stopped obsessing about their health and just went out and lived.  One guy even got better on a beer & pizza diet, primarily because he was out living life and being social again.

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So how’s that SIBO going?

It has now been 60 days since I took any antimicrobial herbs and I must say, I’m feeling pretty darn good.   Is the SIBO gone?  No, I don’t think so since I still get some symptoms if I eat a bit too crazy on the FODMAP scale but overall I’m doing well and out enjoying life every single day.  I had a few days where I considered starting herbals again but that passed and I blame it on a restaurant meal that just didn’t sit right with me.   My liver enzymes went back to normal after 30 days off the herbals, AST at 25 and ALT at 20 which was a big relief.  Everything is testing in a good range at this point.  I’m going to review my Organix test next week and expect that will just be adding in some vitamins and maybe a few supplements.   My weight is still on the low side but still I’m holding steady with a  hunter-gatherer BMI with typical up and down fluctuations based on what I eat or how active I am.

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“No evidence of demyelinating lesions”

Good words to wake up to in email this morning.   I had my MRI on Thursday and the results are already in, no sign of MS.   It looks like all this weird arm/shoulder stuff could be cervical cord compression which makes sense given the state of my neck.  I’ll know more on Friday when I go in and discuss this but was just very glad to find out that I definitively do NOT have MS.  Huge relief.

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Still have it after 20 months

sibo_tests

My high numbers on all 8SIBO tests for the last 16 months

I had my 8th SIBO test yesterday at the SIBO Center in Portland while we are down here for a long weekend.  The good news – my numbers are down even lower than the test in February, in fact the lowest they have been during this whole strange trip I’ve been on.  The bad news – I’m still positive for SIBO.  I only have 7 points to go on methane to get to a true negative test at this point.   The frustrating thing is that I just did a protocol for 8 weeks that was shown to clear SIBO in 85% of cases and all it did for me was take a few points off each of my methane and hydrogen levels.

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Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3…

images_testingI took my last handful of herbal antimicrobials last night and am getting ready to do the prep diet tomorrow for re-testing on Friday morning at the SIBO Center in Portland.   A few weeks ago I would have said that I thought I had this thing licked but then I started having some evening symptoms again so now I’m not sure what to expect from this test.  I’ve used up all the protocols I know of so if I’m still positive I’m going to have to figure out what the heck to do next.  I will be reviewing the results with Dr. Keller on Monday morning so will have a chance to sort this out.

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Autoimmune results back

This was kind of a tough week.  On Monday I went in to see Dr. Bowen and we went over my autoimmune panel results.  Not too surprising something showed up, I knew something had or she would have e-mailed me the results.  I was in the equivocal range for Myelin Basic Protein antibodies, not necessarily high but in the top portion of the normal range.   I knew what that meant right away, back to the specter of MS hanging over my head.  She suggested I get back in to see Dr. Srivatsal, my neurologist, and get an MRI so we can rule this out or deal with it.   Everything else was fine which was really good news.

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Starting the (hopefully) last round

IMG_6491I finish up my second break week this week in the Mullen Protocol and am ready to start my last round of it in the morning, I organized my pills this morning.  I really debated whether or not to even do this last few weeks since I’ve been feeling so much better but I decided that it wouldn’t hurt just to get in a last 10-12 days and see if I can knock this stuff out all the way.   This break week went well, I only did one of the S.boulardii caps a day instead of two and had no bad reaction to that.   I have had pretty much no SIBO symptoms all week long, just a bit of deeper stuff very occasionally late in the evening and even that is nothing.

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