welcome to the organic green doctor blog

i am a family physician who was diagnosed with
early mild cognitive impairment(mci) amnestic type on december 21, 2010
this is a precursor to alzheimers disease
because of this diagnosis i have opted to stop practicing medicine
this blog will be about my journey with this disease
please feel free to follow me along this path
i will continue blogging on organic gardening, green living,
solar power, rainwater collection, and healthy living
i will blog on these plus other things noted to be interesting

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

alzheimers news-dontcha remember

ALZHEIMERS NEWS-DONTCHA REMEMBER
Image result for organicgreendoctor
well thats sort of what im being asked to do today
see what i remember

i know i wrote after the alzheimers panel i was on a
couple of weeks ago
dont use the word remember is what those affected said

well today i have to test my memory skills
at the one year follow up for
biogens aducanumab research study at ucla
aducanumab is an antibody against amyloid which attaches
itself to the amyloid and removes it from the brain
its given as a monthly infusion

one of the indications that it is working is
an improvement or no change in ones memory

to get in the study
you have to undergo a lot of testing
labs scans neurological exams and memory testing

so one year ago there was a lot of memory testing
memory testing is the part of the research study that
i dont like
i call it sort of torture testing

if you have any memory issues
its bothersome real bothersome to do the memory testing

so one year ago the original testing is the baseline
memory testing that future testing
gets compared to

i had memory testing about 6 months ago
it was not as comprehensive as the beginning testing

from looking at the schedule today i probably will
have about 2 hours or so of memory testing

if this stuff is working
if i am getting the real drug and not the placebo
my memory will not have worsened
it may not  have improved
it may have just stayed the same
which is acceptable to me

i read today that alzheimers disease may be like hiv
you will be able to take medications that will stabilize
the disease so that it doesnt takeover the brain
thats ok with me
thats acceptible

my guess
my memory hasnt changed
its hard to tell if it got better since im so early into the
disease as it wasnt bad to begin with

ok i admit trump had a better moca memory test score than i did
on my first one

heres hoping i do remember things

also
i have to have a repeat liver enzyme test
they were slightly increased two weeks agao
i think because of the excessive acetaminophen and ibuprofen
and naprosyn along with some hydrocodone i took while
fighting the flu and the dental abscess
i do expect those to have settled back down to normal
heck
when i had my molar tooth removed last week and
had a bone graft done
i opted to skip the pain meds completely
they wanted me to alternate the ibuprofen and acetaminophen
i smiled
i didnt do that
i did take a couple of pain pills the first night but none since

there is nothing i want to interfere with me being in the study
nothing
it has the potential to be life changing for my wife she and i

so
im one year in
i have at least 2 plus years to go
in 6 months i will definitely be getting the real drug
aducanumab

i think my remembering is ok

the organicgreen doctor

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