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

Tuesday, January 15, 2019

alzheimers news-make it last longer

ALZHEIMERS NEWS-MAKE IT LAST LONGER
Image result for organicgreendoctor
the research person emailed me last week
she said
can you bring my wife she with you to your mri scan on tuesday
why i emailed her back
she said
the aducanumab study the long term extension part just got extended to 5 years
we need yall to sign the paper work tuesday to continue you in the extension
well be there

now i had planned to drive down myself to ucla today to get my mri
zoom down and zoom back
the brain mri is being done every so often to make sure i dont have microbleeding in the brain

however
if you have read my last two blogs you know that i got a little waylaid with my recovery from my two cataract surgeries
only one was planned
i got the special
i got two
so i cant drive today anyway

my wife she had planned to help out with grandbaby duty with ms b and mr h
maybe later today

then
it seems floods may occur sometime today in the montecito area
its been about a year since the floods happened
oprah and the rest of the montecitians are asked to evacuate
she could stay at our place if she wants

then
the recent fires along the 101 in the thousand oaks area are going to be prone to mudslides today and tomorrow
our plan
get there then get back home

normally i would reschedule all this since there is so much happening today
but
we have decided that only death will keep me from keeping my appointments for this study

the biogen aducanumab biib037 study that i am in may be the partial answer to slowing this disease down for me and the other 1600+ of us in the study
then
if it does work some it may be available some day for you and your family

briefly
the aducanumab an antibody obtained from older folks who dont get alzheimers is made in large amounts in the lab
when given intravenously it goes to the brain and removes the amyloid plaques from the brain removes any amyloid floating around and stimulates the garbage guys microglia to clean up and also fight the inflammatory response that happens

if removing the amyloid and cleaning things up makes a difference it will show up in better memory tests and delayed disease
already in those who get the drug the amyloid gets mostly cleared out as shown on amyloid scans called the amyvid pet scans
if it does all this it will be on the market

i did 18 months initially of either the placebo or the real drug
i had a 67% chance of getting the real drug
i think that i got the real drug since i had headaches a week after my first dose
headaches being the number one side effect thats seen
headaches were more common in folks like me who carrying the apoe 4 gene known as the late alzheimers gene
then in october of 2018 i started another 18-24 months of for real getting the real stuff
all placebo folks were started on the drug
this part of the study is called the long term extension

today
i and my wife she will be signing the permits to be part of the new long term extention of another 3 years
which means if i got the real drug in the beginning  then i will get a total of at least 6-7 years of the real drug

this if this stuff really works this could be a life changer for me

i have said my goal is to make it to ms bs high school graduation
i have 15 more years to go
at the end of this study i will be halfway there

if i dont make it well i really cant complain since 8 years ago i really didnt think would be able to sit here today and write this blog

yep i cant complain
a little inconvenience is not going to waylay me at all today

the organicgreen doctor

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