Positive Self Care Results
Now more than ever ...
Six weeks ago in Cardiapocalypse Averted I reported live from a local ER after having been checked for signs of a heart attack. In retrospect, this was likely orthopedic/neurological trouble. I’ve had issues on the right side since a car crash in the mid-nineties, and now the same gremlins are bugging me on the left … by mimicking heart attack warning signs.
Even so, that’s not the first time a doctor has said “off to the cardiologist with you”. Lyme often causes heart related issues, like the mitral valve prolapse I was seen for a decade ago. As long as I walk a lot, I don’t have to hear that audible *click* of the valve when I lay down at night. When I get to the cardiologist, I know what’s coming - stress test. I just hope it’s treadmill and not the technetium like last time, because that is the most absolutely awful feeling.
But as the title indicates, there are some RESULTS, implication being that they’re positive. I always review my blood work and try to correct anything that’s out of spec, and in this case they ER doctor said I was very anemic. That doesn’t make a lot of sense with my diet, but I took it to heart, so to speak. Amazon brought me sublingual B-12 and iron bisglycinate, which is far friendlier to one’s stomach than the iron sulfate you find on the shelves of your local pharmacy.
I’m a relentless Mahjong solitaire player and it’s a nice proxy for overall cognitive condition. These were my scores last May.
These were my scores a week before the ER visit. Improvements of five seconds, twelve seconds, and five seconds. There had been a round of Noopept in between spring and early October.
And this is since I got the iron supplement. Nineteen seconds, a one second bump, sixteen seconds, and an eight second improvement. The scoreboard doesn’t show it, but there have been quite a lot of games where I’ve been just a second or two off my best times; I knew I was going to be scoring some improvements …
Previously bursts of big improvements like this have come via sixty day Noopept treatments. This time simply supplementing iron did the trick. There isn’t a well organized Mahjong solitaire league but some of the reading I’ve done has included record times - if I could consistently turn out times in the teens I’d be in the running. And if they had age brackets I suspect I’d be the terror of the seniors division :-)
And here’s another handy proxy for overall condition. My Garmin Fenix has a function called “Body Battery” and a component of the score is HRV - heart rate variability. The crappy scores in the first month are the long term norm for me ever since I got this model of fitness tracker. My most recent bout of COVID19 had left me with a nagging cough, one so constant I was on cough suppressant more days than not.
The iron supplement arrived October 12th and I got my COVID19 booster on the 15th. Being consistently rested since then is pretty amazing and I’m trying to work out what causes the low bottoms. Caffeine is a known factor and I’ve been off daily use for about three months - I’ve been caffeine free for roughly half of the time since the turn of the century, the longest period being seven years. I think what the chart is showing is that even a once a week indulgence is a bad plan.
Conclusion:
I debate saying anything specific about my health, but given that I’m periodically dishing advice on self care, I think reporting that I’m doing it and getting significant positive results lends some weight to suggesting that you guys take better care of yourselves.
The COVID19 and heart stuff were both serious hits, the election was a shock, and I’ve had a couple other things not go my way. I wasn’t personally involved in any of the incidents, but the driveway for this place is cursed - two total losses, two multi-thousand dollar accidents, and one single vehicle fender bender last weekend made it a clean sweep this fall - not one vehicle that roosts here has escaped. Amazingly enough, no injuries in all that, which is a minor miracle. I was supposed to move last week, but my too good to be true new housing situation … is at the very least delayed until December, and there’s a good chance it’s not going to happen at all.
And the very best thing I’ve done in the last couple weeks? I simply stopped reading the Washington Post and got back into keeping up with Phys.org. Our climate crisis is dire, but there are positive incremental improvements among all the impending doom articles. Humanity’s Hope: Helion, back on election day, was my public wish that we’re about to see a workable aneutronic fusion from Helion, or one of their many competitors.
So there you have it. If you start paying attention to how you feel physically and mentally, you can probably score some improvements with a supplement or two, or maybe by getting on with one of those life changes you know you should have done some time ago.