The Great NetXperiment!

This week I was interviewed by the lovely Charles A Rovira. I really recommend that you get on down to his site and sign up for his podcasts because they are informative and entertaining. Charles did a great job and made me feel right at home while we chatted.

I think the end result is fabulous and I thank Charles for making it all happen!

Click to download and listen

I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.

There has been a lot of water under the bridge since then. Some of it murky and full of rubbish, but in the last 4 years it has cleared and is quite pleasant to swim in.

After diagnosis I wrote a great piece on having my first MRI and submitted it to an internet writing site. If I recall rightly it won second prize for true story that month. I have been looking desperately for that site to put the story in here but my memory has erased the URL and many Google searches have failed to find it.

I was 34, had two children, was living in a long term relationship and working full time.

Seven years later the only things that have changed are my age, who I work for and the name of the long term partner.

There has been a lot to come to terms with in that seven years. The first couple were filled with grief. Even though I had known for a looooong time something was wrong with me, finally having a name was a blessing and a curse. The next few years were tentative steps back to self confidence and the last couple have been me going full steam ahead and never mind the gangbusters (or however the saying goes).

This being pulled up, like a dog running out of leash, has completely swept my feet from beneath me.

This was never meant to happen. I am not like this. I am invincible and indestructable. I can do it ALL with a smile and an incurable disease.

Bummer.

An idea perculated to the surface of my mind this afternoon. I am not sure if it has been done before. No matter, I thought, it will cost me about $1 to list my idea for an auction on eBay and lets see how it goes.

So please visit my auction and tell me what you think!

Review Tracking Neurological Disorders Shows 1 in 1,000 Americans Have Multiple Sclerosis

By Miranda HittiWebMD Medical News Reviewed By Louise Chang, MDon Monday, January 29, 2007

 29, 2007 — Multiple sclerosis (MS)Multiple sclerosis (MS) may be 50% more common in the U.S. than previously thought, according to a new research review.

Almost one in 1,000 people in the U.S. have MS, according to the review.

“Our estimate of MS prevalence is about 50% higher than a comprehensive review from 1982,” says researcher Deborah Hirtz, MD, in an American Academy of Neurology news release.

“Whether this reflects improvement in diagnosis or whether incidence is actually increasing deserves further study,” says Hirtz, who works at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.Hirtz and colleagues analyzed about 500 studies published from 1990 to 2005 to track 12 neurological disorders.Their findings appear in the Jan. 30 issue of Neurology.

• Migraine: 121 in 1,000 people
• EpilepsyEpilepsy: 7.1 in 1,000 people
• Alzheimer’s diseaseAlzheimer’s disease: 67 in 1,000 people 65 or older
• Parkinson’s diseaseParkinson’s disease: 9.5 in 1,000 people 65 or older
• AutismAutism spectrum disorders: 5.8 in 1,000 children
• Cerebral palsyCerebral palsy: 2.4 in 1,000 children
• Stroke: 10 per 1,000 people
• Traumatic brain injury: No prevalence estimates available
• MS: 0.9 in 1,000 people
• Spinal cord injury: No prevalence estimates available
• ALSALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease): 0.04 in 1,000 people
• Tourette’s syndrome: No prevalence estimates

Multiple Sclerosis Rates Up 50%

In a novel experiment, moderate doses of carbon monoxide protected against the symptoms of multiple sclerosis in mice.

Researchers believe that the poisonous gas prevents the development of symptoms, such as paralysis, by stopping harmful molecules called free radicals from forming in the nervous symptom.

Miguel Soares at the Gulbenkian Science Institute in Oeiras, Portugal, and colleagues injected the animals with a protein mixture known to cause experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, a mouse model of multiple sclerosis (MS).

Ten days later some of the mice were placed in a chamber where they breathed carbon monoxide (CO) at a concentration of about 500 parts per million for 20 days. Soares notes that while the mice functioned normally at this level of CO exposure, a similar concentration of the gas can cause headaches and fainting in humans.

At the end of the trial, the mice that had breathed CO showed much greater mobility than their control counterparts. While the experimental mice had limp tails, the control mice suffered complete hind limb paralysis.

More here

Carbon monoxide may protect against MS symptoms - health - 26 January 2007 - New Scientist Tech

I am glad that at the end of this article they point out that YOU SHOULD NOT INHALE CARBON MONOXIDE. It is poison and will kill you.

But still, the science is interesting.

eBay Australia: NBC TODAY Show 2006 8th Annual Signed Green Room Book (item 180077268759, end time 02-Feb-07 12:00:00 AEDST)

Throughout 2006, we at NBC News
“TODAY” have asked some of the notable guests visiting our studios in
New York and Washington, D.C. to sign an autograph book. The end result
is an interesting collection of signatures, notes, and doodles from
actors, singers, politicians and other newsmakers who have appeared on
“TODAY.” The eighth annual edition of this book contains over 400
signatures.

100% of the high bid for the “TODAY” 2006 Green Room Book Will Benefit The National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Names of signatories http://media.kompolt.com/todayshow/grb07/grbsignature.html

I spent most of yesterday (that’s most of the bit I didn’t spend in bed) reading up on how to make changes to improve my cognitive powers. I have known with absolute certainty that it is possible to permanently change, through practice, attitude*, so why not other parts of your brain’s workings. A good thing too, because science in the last 10 years apparently has also come to this conclusion.

This week Time Magazine (US version) has a special on the brain. Very interesting it is too. I found this article quite informative about rewiring the brain.

The doctrine of the unchanging human brain has had profound ramifications. For one thing, it lowered expectations about the value of rehabilitation for adults who had suffered brain damage from a stroke or about the possibility of fixing the pathological wiring that underlies psychiatric diseases. And it implied that other brain-based fixities, such as the happiness set point that, according to a growing body of research, a person returns to after the deepest tragedy or the greatest joy, are nearly unalterable.

But research in the past few years has overthrown the dogma. In its place has come the realization that the adult brain retains impressive powers of “neuroplasticity”–the ability to change its structure and function in response to experience. These aren’t minor tweaks either. Something as basic as the function of the visual or auditory cortex can change as a result of a person’s experience of becoming deaf or blind at a young age. Even when the brain suffers a trauma late in life, it can rezone itself like a city in a frenzy of urban renewal. If a stroke knocks out, say, the neighborhood of motor cortex that moves the right arm, a new technique called constraint-induced movement therapy can coax next-door regions to take over the function of the damaged area. The brain can be rewired.

Yes i know that the articles themselves are popular science and that my neurologist would scoff at the simplistic nature of the discussions, but it did inspire me to work harder at getting back to where I was.

The video found here would also make my father very happy as he is an exercise enthusiast. If the implication of what is suggested in this video is true, then I better get myself more mobile and increase my brain volume. The more you have, the more you can rewire to.

And if I ever get all pity potting about the damage in my MRIs then remind me to watch this video again and see what shocking brain injury Sarah Scantlin has rewired.

So plan of attack on my brain. Get back to the gym and get into as much aquarobic type activity as I can. Keep reading learning and doing as much mental activity as I can (a bit tricky with the permanent headache I have,but not impossible) and maintain my fish intake, because I eat fish at least 5 times a week.

* I get very impatient with people saying “I can’t change, that’s just me”. Bullsh*t I say. I have done it! I would rather they be honest and say “I choose not to change”

If it is January 26th in your neck of the woods then it is Australia Day.

On Australia day Australians love to drink beer, get outside and watch strange sporting events like thong (flip flop) surfing or ferry racing. Then they will drink some more beer, have a BBQ, watch the Poms get thrashed in the cricket and drink some more beer. Wrestle a kangaroo or two*. Then they will watch some fireworks, drink beer and fall asleep in the hot hot evening.

*for non-Australian readers, this may, or may not, be true

See Allison’s brain
Think brain Think
Allison’s brain hurts
Why?

Yep that’s what my multiple sclerosis looks like. Kind of spotty and not very impressive compared to say MRIs of end stage Alzheimers, but hey it’s my brain and it is not often you get to see into a woman’s mind *wink*

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