The best nugget from the M.S. doc

Doc says that many therapies are coming on. He says that in a couple of years we should have a huge difference in available treatments -- as much as when the interferons were a whole new day when they came on board.

M.S. Doctor Questions for today's appointment...shared with you

1) DO INSURANCE FORM, please
2) Liver-blood test, please. [Thyroid hyper/hypo test too?]
3) Any advice on my suspected left-eye/nose chronic infection? See my photo.
4) Are skin brown spots and crusty patches a side-effect of interferon? or #3? [I am 42 years old, true.] See my photos over time.
5a) Any advice on Tysabri?
5b) How about 6 months on, 6 months off?
6) Very tired of chronic fevers which do make me feel bad (definately cause bad eyesight) and lead to too much ibuprofin (due to at least M, W, F Rebif doses, plus more). (I think I'm wearing out my esophagus.) Time for Copaxone, don't you think? See bonus Lancet report on Copaxone.
7) Constant and frequently severe fatigue.
If I miss Provigil, I don't get out of my chair all day--it seems too difficult!
I suspect bad sleep as a major contributor.
a)I wake up exhausted, especially when I do not dream (which is my norm for two+ years)
b)I LOVE it if I dream! It means my mind will be working much better afterward.
c)Perhaps sleep apnea is contributing to my M.S. problems
1)I snore
2)My family snores; my diagnosed brother has a machine that has helped him a lot.
Any medical advice on sleep problems?
8) The only noticeable improvement of pain (which has been constant within my left leg, right arm, and back of my neck; frequent in my left eye/head and on my skin, especially my left face and left shoulder/arm, as well as behind my left knee on my calf; and constant on the bottoms of my feet when standing,) has occurred after I started turmeric ingestion. I started at the end of February and noticed improvements beginning at the end of April and after. The same with the only noticeable improvement I've ever experienced with memory function. I am constantly lost and have to work very hard to keep a line of thought. It will not happen naturally. This does get worse and better a little.
I'm suspecting that anti-inflammatories and anti-oxidants are much more effective than … Neurontin, for example. [I admit that Elavil was a necessary treatment for skin-on-fire for me. I took it for 8 months and have been hoping to stay off of it due to its contributing to cognitive problems.] Any advice on anti-inflammatories and antioxidants? (See Dutch study.)
9) The only other thing that has happened to me that made me feel better (including steroid drips which never made me feel better): Ketek!!! (a new replacement antibiotic that I had to take for 10 days for the infection in my nose)
Any possibilities along this line? Previously, I've never liked using antibiotics. They, in the past, made me feel hung-over.
10) Perhaps start Hormone Therapy? Can you prescribe? Lowest standard dose, please. (The concept makes sense to me.)

I will try to post the doctor's responses too.

1982

Evokelution: The next philosophical/scientific "wave of understanding"

Evolution as a scientific idea showed up simultaneously in many places as it became a legitimized idea. Previous to the Enlightenment / world-expansion-of-trade, it wouldn't occur to people that things changed that much because things didn't change much--relative to a person's lifetime--until trade and philosophies picked up their tempi, and then we noticed evolution!

Today we watch international corporations create themselves and expand into creatures larger than countries. Relative to that, as people, we are little cells and our institutions are cell colonies within the huge organism.

So, just as some of the best social science research has established that people participating in communications within events generally cause more positive outcomes for all involved parties (whereas imposed actions upon people tend to create even more problems) [e.g. in risk assessment science], we will know that we will want to be heard from within the bodies of the huge creatures inhabiting this planet--the corporations. It's kind of like how we feel about our right to vote, plus.

So, suddenly biology is going to be about communications from cells, and maybe colonies of cells, toward the more largely-motivated, incorporated, self-organism. (Mostly cells "should just communicate". Ignoring cells' communications "causes" generally less desirable outcomes for the cells and the whole organism.)

Biology is going to be looked at as the whole organism attempting to honor cell "truths", just as we, as individuals, are going to be hoping that we are heard by obviously motivated corporations that resemble gigantic organisms.

Call the new science: the noise placed on top of other noise to distinguish beneficial pattern or order . . . Responder-lution . . . No . . .

Evokelution.

Actually, simply:
Resolution.

It caused this essay.

I'm moving

The costs of living in Washington D.C. are prohibitive, especially long term. Later I will post about the helpful situation that I've found. You have to be a genius to be sick. You also have to be very lucky.

Existential problems left and right: If I'm not my own character, then who am I? If I'm needy and not [as much] of a contributor, then what am I worth?

I'm sure these are only too familiar musings for all of us with M.S.

An online toy for music/math people

WolframTones -- An Experiment in A New Kind of Music

Do you ever wonder . . .

if it isn't all of the ibuprofin that we take that delays our M.S. onsets, and perhaps the Rebif or Avonex or beta interferons are not as important as purported?

(Don't mean to confuse the science, but it seems that everyone has always taken a lot of ibuprofin in order to control the temperature that the shot causes.)