Showing posts with label MightyTogether. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MightyTogether. Show all posts

Thursday, January 23, 2025

MS anti-inflammation and improvement from a cheap, safe OTC supplement we all know?

Studies show that oral N-acetylglucosamine produced benefits for remitting-relapsing, primary progressive and secondary progressive types of MS. After one month, nearly one-third of subjects reported less disability. No serious side effects were seen even after supplementing for long periods of time. As of last summer, the National Institutes of Health was continuing to study it, but as lead researcher Dr. Michael Demetriou of University of California Irvine School of Medicine points out, "Anyone can get their hands on [it now] if they have $20."

And that’s just what I’ve done, except that it was $17.99 — for potential MS anti-inflammation and symptom improvement.


I don’t know how many out there are like me, but I’m without an MS treatment. With primary progressive MS like mine, there are few disease-modifying drugs available. The DMT most prescribed for PPMS is Ocrevus, but my neurologist, who was one of the researchers that helped to get the drug approved, strongly warned me away from it because of the risk of respiratory infections that I, as a full-time wheelchair user, may not be able to fight off. So while the MS Society recommends that everyone with MS should be on a DMT, I haven’t been on one for years. At this point my case is only very gradually worsening, but I don’t know how much more spinal cord I have left before I develop breathing and swallowing problems or more.

Then, instead of just playing defense with symptom management alone, I’m been open to looking at promising research-study results. Nothing crazy. I stick to NIH-related stuff. One of my past neuros, who had MS himself, pointed me to a study about intermittent fasting, which I read and, yes, gave a try for a few months. It wasn’t for me, but I tried.

Another, I still stick to. Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis is a program started by Dr. George Jelinek in Australia, who has MS and went through the scientific literature of the time to come up with his protocol. It’s a number of lifestyle changes, like exercise, meditation, minimizing stress and taking daily omega-3 fatty acids in the form of flaxseed oil. The most difficult step for most would be the largely plant-based whole foods diet, except for allowing various cold-water fish — so really it’s a pescatarian diet. The thinking behind it is to minimize saturated fats, which according to the work of influential doctors Swank and McDougall, contribute to the most rapid MS deterioration. I tried going the extra step of cutting out meat altogether, since I was 95% of the way there already, and I did fine with it, and have been vegan now for about a dozen years.

There are no miraculous cures anywhere on this page. OMS is about maximizing your well-being while living with MS, including using DMT’S, Jelinek writes.

Still, taking glucosamine — make sure it’s oral N-acetylglucosamine for best results — which is available for cheap at your local anywhere store, to maybe get both anti-inflammation and improvement? With little or no side effects? Tantalizing, yes?

Related articles:

https://jneuroinflammation.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12974-023-02893-9

https://www.webmd.com/multiple-sclerosis/news/20240710/could-help-be-coming-for-progressive-multiple-sclerosis

https://multiplesclerosisnewstoday.com/news-posts/2023/09/19/sugar-molecule-supplements-glcnac-may-ease-inflammation-ms-trial/

https://www.ucihealth.org/news/2024/07/progressive-multiple-sclerosis

https://tinyurl.com/baj4ejzb

https://multiplesclerosisnewstoday.com/news-posts/2020/10/09/simple-sugar-molecule-may-be-potential-myelin-repairing-therapy-multiple-sclerosis-mouse-study/

Wednesday, January 6, 2021

Something Fishy: Here's to beautiful, boring Routine

On this hellday, hypnotized by horrible images, I'm sooo looking forward to a chunk of sanity to grab onto. Something nice and predictable and boring. I'm going to play Mr. Fish again.


During the lockdown my wife @char2go and I started drifting. It was a weird, anxious time for all. So what we tried was to exercise to a YouTube video together. It could be short, it could be easy, but we tried it. Then we tried it a second day, and then a third, and eventually it became our habit that we laughed about and looked forward to every day.

I'm a quadriplegic, she is not. She does all the movements, I do few if any. But I flop all over the place. I flop around like a fish out of water. It ain't pretty. But every day I do so, and I laugh and by the end I'm out of breath just like she is. It became our routine, boring and beautiful.

Today that routine sounds mighty good. I'm zipping into my Fish suit.

Who dat, bottom right of Skype screen

BTW congrats to my lovely @char2go for helping ring the closing bell yesterday with @PlanetFitness on the New York Stock Exchange! The sky's the limit, Coach.



#disability #multiplesclerosis #PTSD #BipolarDisorder #Anxiety #Depression #PanicDisorder #Agoraphobia #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder #MentalHealth  #MightyTogether #ADA #planetfitness #move #exercise