For the past few days, i've had the primordial urge to write. I've had flashes of inspiration, the fledgling urgings of a good compelling idea, tangles of connections that are murky in the distance, but ultimately I am remote, closed off and linear.
I've been inspired to describe many things...
Designer drug in works, which purports to be a MOR neutral, kappa receptor antagonist. Its basically buphrenorpine (partial MOR agonist, kappa antagonist) packaged with equal doses of a MOR receptor antatgonist.
I would like to write to you and explain this drug only works because contrary to pharma claims, MOR agonism is happening, which is why the high doses of the drug fail when the low doses are successful (2/2 dose = significant improve; 8/8 dose = not significant? Hmmm, time to reevaluate ur hypothesis that this drug is working through KOR antagonism, maybe)
I would like to describe the intertwined relationships of MOR / DOR receptors, which are the gateway to brain energy, BDNF , brain recovery.
I also would like to point out kappa receptor is the anti mu opioid receptor, so you canNOT talk "kappa bad for mental health" without tacitly stating "mu is good", even if physiology didnt paint that landscape for you to see as it is. You don't see much, so i dont expect anything.
Today on twitter Stephan asked the question "why does the potato diet work, if carbs/insulin cause obesity".
How i would love to examine this moment in time and spend a blog responding to it. He's either incredibly stupid, or incredibly biased, and i don't think a scientist can be that stupid.
We've been through this before with "carbosis-gate" and the absurd isocaloric reduction of fat vs carb reduction study. Stephan has a poor memory it seems.
All obesity is related to insulin signalling, that does not mean all obesity responds ONLY to carbohydrate restriction. Insulin and carbohydrate are related but by no means absolutely so.
Only a simplistic SAHM dieter believes the sole arbiter of insulin signalling is "carbohydrate". Dietary fat is massively influential in controlling insulin level, signalling sensitivity.
People who respond to the potato (low fat) diet are likely not particularly insulin resistant, so a reduction in dietary fat is very effective method to reduce insulin. Very low fat diets are quite effective to reduce insulin particularly in the insulin sensitive and they will lose weight attending.
Low fat diets fail in people with *endogenous* metabolic dysfunction, abnormal insulin for reasons other than "crappy fat ass diet", so in these individuals a targeted low carb diet is more effective as it a very useful tool to normalize insulin , when it is otherwise pathological/abnormal, disrupting fuel regulation.
None of this disproves the general insulin hypothesis, all weight loss occurs related to a drop of insulin OR a rise in counter-pressure to insulin in the WAT. There are many roads to rome. All the CIH argues is that for the majority of obese people with metabolic dysfunction a targeted carb reduced diet is the best tool to achieve clinical goals.
Still, we must be treated to such dullness: "why do low fat diets work, if insulin?" The mind boggles how this man is employed. He reasons like a crash dieting housewife who thinks carbs = insulin.
More fun for people who own brains, vs eat them like zombies: recent SCIENZ REPORT over a study "PWOVING" that LCHF makes you fat, cuz mice.
I mean this one is so dumb, as far as I am concerned it requires no comment. It is self evidently stupid. You cannot extrapolate health impact of diets in between species. Why do i even have to write that. Its a level of stupid so dire , that I am more interested in examining the dynamics of your thinking failure, than the question at hand. Its a kind of, voice stopping , silencing stupidity. "How can anyone think this way?
"How can this person with a presumably human CNS , evolved to solve problems and fashion tools, NOT appreciate different species eat wildly different diets. How can this person not INSTANTLY realize it is not appropriate to hypothesize ideal human health from a murine protocol?"
The more interesting aspect to me, is the dunning kruger like lack of insight/education that would lead to an aggressive victorious gloating over a perceived the "debunking of the low carb diet" via this pop health sound bite. An arrogance/confidence so unwavering as it is uniformed and oblivious, that one is mercifully protected from any twinge of shame after tagging every LCHF diet author on twitter with a link to it. I actually saw some bell curve wrong end do this yesterday on twitter. Some NZ paleo, and not jamie scott. (Jamie Scott was displeased with the study, as it implicated his precious orthorexia paleo, otherwise i'm sure he'd be out there high fiving "TEH DEBUNKING"). IDK guys, but i am starting to suspect NZ should consider mass lead poisoning testing. Its bad when a tiny country contributes the majority of paleo retards. (OTOH, 'murica has the good ones like Robb Wolf and J. Stanton.)
So long story short, I've wanted to write. This is an improvement.
Peter has been rather excellent lately. Perceiving inspiration in others is related to inspiration within thoughts. Others thoughts are fertilizer for your own. I have had flickers of ideas which dissipate like a Raccoon's candy floss when i attempt to pursue them from distant corner of thoughts. I started writing a blog entry on monday, and kinda got the engine revved while reading and thinking. I believe i think visually; ideas are objects in space, I see exciting relationships between them and pursue them within my mind. This ability to SEE: to live within my mind, to examine, to contemplate relationships and arrive at new understanding is cherished. It is the foundation of who I am. Almost nothing is as gratifying as thinking, an immersive reality of imagination and dopamine insight, of questions. I am equally aware others do not do this, and if so, it is a means to an end they regretfully default to so as to accomplish a task. For the "typical", reward is externalized and outsourced: promotions, income, degrees, feedback from others, the size of your house, the maker of your car. My reward is internal, my own thoughts and perceptions, the movie theater of my mind, the excitement of interest and the chase of insight. There is nothing more interesting to me than the pleasurable feeling of new understanding.
Its inspiration, its like music. You might hear the same song, and one day it is compelling rhythm that envelops you , with passion and pleasure and escalating excitement, and its all quite emotional and intense. At other times you might hear the same song and its nothingness, a gray flat response. Perhaps you favor the song, but the click is not there; you are restricted from accessing the depth of intensity or pleasure you might feel in that same music at other times. This describes my relationship to thought and idea. It is gratifying. It is a basic pleasure to see the relationships unfold in my mind, the moment in time of insight, and that is escalating and exhilarating.
The relationships were unfolding a little bit, like feeling the music. Ultimately i stopped, and I told myself i would write later in the week. I didnt.
But, a chip in the brick wall of "nothing" is an improvement over nothing at all, which was more or less my condition before, a few weeks ago. Flickers of passion in thinking have been occurring, even if as fleeting as an amazing dream you just cant remember seconds after waking. You wake up with the feeling of needing to write it down or remember but you're already aware its x time and you have to do y or z. There may be a seasonal element to this thought constipation .
Other than likely "season" , a significant reason I am having trouble putting my thoughts down in blog format is likely because i am taking a high supplement dose of lithium.
So i think to myself, if I'm not really up to the task of going into tangents, unteasing details and writing about the workings of the endorphin system, one thing I can examine is what lithium has done for me.
I relate my lack of blogging to lithium, which is likely a trade off for superior linear thinking. Linear thinking: the daily grind, life sustenance, routine, every day consistency and continuity. Lithium does not stop me from thinking, it does not hurt or impair me and greatly enhances my general function in day to day life. However, it might disrupt, or restrict, what i would call non-linear thinking, blips off center, which is the price I pay for superior improvement in routine daily living functionality. I am writing this particular blog entry in a fit of inspiration, at the end of the day, before taking lithium, which is my best for abstract thinking of any kind. Right at the end of the day, at night, before taking lithium and repeating the cycle. Even delaying it is noticeable. However, when i take the lithium, i will stop writing and prepare to sleep. My day will start to end. I will lose the interest, it will close off, my brain will tune down, and the cycle begins again every day. Like a parent putting a child to bed, lithium puts up limits within me and that has pros as well as cons.
AT this particular moment i am examining the con: it blunts imagination, it restricts the intensity, the depths, the distance of thinking. I call this "THE con" because all other "cons" are trivial and barely worth mentioning. Limitations in expansive thinking is a huge sacrifice for someone whos greatest pleasure is thinking and insight.
Lesser "sacrifices" I have had to make are a restriction of pleasure from drugs and alcohol (i can no longer feel intense dopamine "highs" from my beloved kratom, or even from ETOH). There is a handicap of my ability to "hustle", to rush to perform a task. In the morning, my hand is a bit tremor if i attempt fine motor behavior, making even applying makeup annoying. I am also too physically slowed to rush. This gets better at the end of the day. None of that is an enormous life ending problem, and at worst i would classify it as "inconvenient" It might be making me fatter and lazier, or happier and more content, so i weigh more and don't care. This is also not a terrible issue, as stated I've gained a pound only so what. I'd rather be content and fat than thin / obsessed and miserable having experienced both.
So with that said, lets examine the pros, the positives of my protocol of taking the lithium at a high supplement level, a sub medical dose.
Everything has resolved. That's the best way to describe what it has done. "Everything has resolved".
I no longer have to cope with anything. The struggles and bullshit is pretty much entirely gone. I dont have to starve myself, and i no longer worry of the fate of "kratom" in my state or the world, i don't have to plan or deal or anticipate quite as i used to. Days go by and everything is okay all the time. I sleep, I work, I live, and it is simply uneventful. My life feels more free ; i do not have the burden of dealing with things as i did before.
Considering this, i am remarkably disinterested, unceremonious about the victory. Curing yourself ought to be something that you attach more emotion to, but i've approached my new freedom as neutrally as the flow of time under lithium.
This evening, however, I would like to take a moment to examine and appreciate my freedom.
First, I will say, kratom was the first glimpse into the concept that substances can offer relief. As a loser / nerd, with no substance history, and not particularly enamored of alcohol, it never occurred to me that psychoactives can change the struggle. Whether clinical or illicit, up until that point in my life, the only way i could really have any kind of "appreciable" relief would be to starve myself, as keto was the only intervention that helped in any meaningful way. When i experimented with kratom, I learned that agitation can stop, i can be quiet, things can make that end. I learned my emotional state can be richer, intense, pleasurable, all of the time using psychotropic interventions.
However, even while using kratom, on my "off days" i was at risk for symptoms returning... although kratom usually helped calm even a day or two w/o use. At this point, "kratom" was the only thing i ever used that worked to stop it.
I've written about what kratom meant to me, and i have written about the conditions leading up to using lithium. Basically stated, I refuse to go back to the way i was BEFORE having help, and if kratom is going to "crap out", i will augment lithium. I know lithium works, and even a trace meaningless supplement dose i can tangibly feel with a positive result.
I have discovered lithium is actually far more effective than kratom to "calm" and control the issues I have had to deal with. Sometimes , now, I think back to the shit i dealt with before and I cant believe that happened. I'm not even talking about, persistent agitation and insomnia periodically which tends to come seasonally, but stuff like, becoming so agitated after *eating protein*. Even using kratom, at least once per week or so i might have very bad agitation from something like that: eating a frigging non keto meal.
Seriously , this was what i used to deal with, my brain was like this, hyperactive irritable NERVE that i just had to orchestrate my life around subduing.
Kratom had massively improved my work performance via normalizing my thoughts and social behavior, but lithium did so even further. What lithium does for me more specifically than kratom, is give me focus and peace from stimulation. I go to work calm and focused, and it very much helps me filter distractions, noise, chaos, in my work environment. Before kratom or lithium, i would be paralyzed and tortured by the sounds, the people, all of the stimuli; it would overload, and i could not function effectively. With lithium, it is much much easier for me to restrict environmental distractions, chaos and noise, to focus only on my objective and to complete it. I am unflappable within chaotic environments that were previously distressingly overwhelming. For much of my life i felt this was "anxiety" in social situations, but now i realize the problem all this time was overstimulation. I suspect lithium is somehow positively impacting my ability to filter distractions, likely via superior acetylcholine function. Relatedly, I find choline supplementation is helpful for this in general and would reduce my "brain noise". Either way, it is an ENORMOUS help, and i can say only in hindsight do i now realize the majority of my work difficulty was related to an inability to filter distractions in chaotic environments. Work is so so easy now that i am free of this debilitating issue, vs the painful struggle when taking nothing at all.
Another, somewhat awkward / embarrassing issue that had made work difficult, is my paranoia. I've written about "paranoia" in the past and my struggle with that. Again, kratom significantly improved this, I also feel cats claw was quite helpful in this regard. In the same general vein of kratom - lithium doing similar things , but Li does them more strongly and specifically, Li has also offered near total relief of such "jags" of thought. Now, I cannot comprehend i used to think that way *ever*, it has not happened in months. In comparison, when i was only using "kratom", i might start thinking that way by day 2 or 3 of not using it. Cats claw had helped me, but i believe lithium has helped this tremendously as well.
As is true of so many characteristics of our life experience, we may not know what the problem is until its gone and we contrast the difference. I now realize an inability to filter stimuli as well as paranoia, were *massively* disruptive to my ability to work. Now that these things are turned down or gone, I feel more like others, who are unburdened by these limitations. While i always knew my "paranoia" was an obstacle i was completely unaware that awkward, nervous, paralyzed thing was because I was being murdered by noise and chaos. Its such a gift to be more free of it.
A persistent issue i have struggled with is insomnia, as many of you know.. I can say since arriving at this stable level of lithium, that allows me to be free of these prior struggles, my sleep is also fairly much a non issue. I do not have "fantastic" sleep, but virtually every night i sleep over 6 hours, most nights i sleep between 6.5 and 7.5 hrs. I do not require "kratom" to sleep anymore, as was the case in the past, and i can sleep this stable way with lithium alone. When i began sleeping 7 hrs again, is when i stopped increasing lithium. Since then it's been groovy.
In summary, if you describe my entire life , lithium cures it more or less.
Yes i realize it is a bit "odd" to have "cured" these persistent problems and I seem to almost barely care. I guess that's the down side of using lithium: its highly fucking stigmatized even at a low level as i am taking it. You cant just say "I cured myself with lithium" without people being freaked out. It puts a damper on how much you are willing to celebrate or talk about it.
Well, 45 minutes ago i took my lithium and as predicted it is now impossible to write, but fortunately the entry is completed. It takes away the poetry and inspiration, whatever you might have had, and thats how it creates contentment and sleep and superior day to day functioning it seems. It trades non-linear thinking for linear thinking. It is just like waking up from a dream, where the intense interesting and novel melts into the ordinary and routine of your AM bedroom. Lithium does this to thoughts.
One perspective is to comment how difficult it is to write, but that is only so because it is so much easier to function free of bullshit. At least that seems to be true for me, and I'll take it.
When was the last time i was in painful agitation and coping with it? Months. Literally. This no longer happens to me, it is gone.
These days I try to stay away from reflective and personal blog entries because people are cruel and merciless , but meh.
I would like to formally recognize how my life has improved using lithium, so here we are.
If i look back at the past few months, they were entirely uneventful literally like, every day is the same mellow mode more or less. In the past when not doing well i agonized over what is wrong with me, wishing for relief or a "cure". I have had "powerless" experiences with myself, where it was like torture and there was no relief or help. Kratom was my first glimpse into the possibility to be free of this and lithium seems to target it more precisely.
So, yes, this blog entry is a formal recognition of triumph/freedom. just 2 years ago i wondered "what is wrong with me" as i had no tools to use to help myself other than ketogenic diet. Now, i can say it is as if I am cured entirely.
I've learned never to say that "I am cured" and i know it is entirely possible this bullshit will return. For now i am enjoying being able to say that, and I feel more confident than ever I do not have to endure or cope with BS produced from my mind.