Research Articles

Our Functional Medicine Doctor

/ Shirleyjdietz / Leave a comment

December 4th was the long awaited appointment time with the functional medicine practitioner.

Dennis was very excited about the book “End to Alzheimer’s” by Bredesen and wanted to find a doctor who would put him on that protocol. The book pointed us to a website of functional medicine doctors and lo, one of the ones listed was in our medical group.

Armed with all his records, and having filled out numerous detailed questionnaires, we made the 90 mile trip to Duluth for our morning appointment. Dr. Nancy Sudak, who is also a family medicine practitioner, spent 90 minutes with us! That is more than we could have hoped for, but even with all that, she had to tell Dennis to stop his stories and let her get to pertinent facts (in a kind, respectful way).

We liked her demeanor, and she was patient with Dennis. She did allow him to talk about his spirituality, his words from God, etc… without making him feel demeaned or demented. At the conclusion of the interview she even approached the subject of needed changes by asking him to ask God about the changes. Would God want him to consider going gluten free or dairy free in his diet? I thought that was pretty clever.

She also had heard of Dr. Bredesen’s protocol and was interested in it. She ordered some of the pertinent tests which we remembered from the book. (GImap, bloodwork) She also was able to recognize the measures Dennis had already implemented and encouraged him in them.

Overall, it was a good start. The only disappointment was that she had basically nothing to recommend until the test results returned and couldn’t give another appointment time until February. It will be a tele conference this time, so we won’t have to go so far.

Hospitalization #1

/ Shirleyjdietz / Leave a comment

11-16-2019

Dennis has had a lengthy time of stability – a couple of months with no delusional thinking. In fact, he seems to be doing better cognitively, having read a couple of books that really interested him and comprehended them. He does a lot of TV watching, and for a while it was only sermons on TBN because violent shows or even the news was too traumatic for him. Now he’s back to watching the news and some documentaries, and that is almost back to pre Lewy normal for him.

Back on November 1, in the morning, Dennis met me in the hall as I was going over to check on Mom. He said his leg had felt funny during the night when he woke up – not exactly painful, but swollen and harder. I felt it and agreed that it was slightly larger and warmer to touch. It was worth sending a note to the doctor (my Health app gives access) and they messaged back that he should be seen in the clinic. He got in by 11 am and they decided to check for DVT with an ultrasound of his leg. We were walking over to radiology when he got faint, diaphoretic and couldn’t go further. I got him a wheelchair and we made it to the ultrasound. He felt better by then so the tech did the procedure while I watched.

They saw an extensive DVT and sent him to the ER right away. I was impressed with the number of people who practically mobbed him. He was hooked up to all the monitors in no time flat. The ER doc sent him for an CT scan of the lungs and it showed multiple emboli in both lungs. So it wasn’t long before he was put on anticoagulants and admitted to the hospital.

The whole ordeal sent his blood pressure sky high too, so he was put back on medicine for that as well. He stayed for two days and was discharged on Sunday afternoon. All this to say that he has been tired and weaker than usual, even though his cognition has seemed better. He stands and walks like a very old man, his right hand is afflicted with a persistent tremor, and everything he does is slow, slow, and slower.

He had a follow up appointment this week and when getting ready, he was commending himself for showering and dressing himself without help. Is he getting somewhat more independent? Maybe.

From time to time he puzzles over his “words” that he is sure God has given him, and tries to reassure himself that he hasn’t made them up. A couple of days ago he had an “aha!” moment over the word “proteolytic”. It has been harder to figure out than some of the other words and he hasn’t been able to attach it to any certain function, until now. It was brought to his attention after the CT scan that he had some sort of mass showing on his stomach which will need to be addressed after he is done with the anticoagulants. He started thinking maybe there would be a connection to the proteolytic enzymes, and sure enough, he found an article where someone’s stomach cancer had been eradicated with bromelain, an enzyme in pineapple. So God had him working on his stomach, eating pineapple and taking proteolytic enzymes way before he even knew he needed them. He’s expecting the mass to be gone by the time it’s investigated.

He is not exactly at the place where I feel he would be safe alone at home. He doesn’t find things easily, including food and clothes, so it might be awkward if I left for any length of time longer than a few hours. I cancelled my trip to NC for a writing conference and watched it online instead. Maybe if he had to take care of himself, he would rise to the challenge, but I think it would be hard on him. I think it’s going to be a long winter with a lot of staying home for us.

Finding Hope

/ Shirleyjdietz / Leave a comment

9-8-2019

I am excited to learn that what is happening in LBD is really the body’s attempt to defend itself. God has designed us marvelously and if we treat our bodies right, they will heal themselves. Sometimes, that is the miracle.

Originally, I started this blog site with the word “hope” in the title because I believed that God would help us through whatever was ahead with Lewy Body Dementia, or maybe even heal Dennis of it completely. I thought a miraculous healing was the only way that would happen. The medical specialists we encountered gave no other hope from their side of things. I was even a little shocked that having been given the diagnosis, and a prescription for a drug that could maybe help cognitive function for “a little while”, we were dismissed with no recommendation for follow up of any kind.

Dennis did some research shortly after that which started him on a different track. He believed, or wanted desperately to believe, that he was going to turn this disease around. Several things made him think that, one of which was a report that claimed cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s Dementia had been reversed in a small study. The patients involved responded to the therapy and regained what they had lost, went back to work and normal functioning.

Since then, the researcher, a UCLA based physician, has written a book detailing the therapy. He also shares the story of how the research progressed to develop a new understanding of cognitive decline in neurodegenerative diseases. I love this quote from the book:

“Now, often the most interesting and revealing experiments – the moments when an invisible chemical or an inconsequential cell can move the Earth – are not the ones that succeed as expected, nor are they the ones that fail outright: they are the ones that yield results that are just the opposite of what you expected.”

I can feel his excitement from the beginning of his search right up to the present. Hundreds of people have benefitted from this protocol which has been named ReCode and word is spreading quickly, thanks more to the web than anything else. Dr. Dale Bredesen and those who have gotten their life back after Alzheimer’s have a passion for conquering this devastating disease. He writes “…for if necessity is indeed the mother of invention, then perhaps passion is its father.”

I have finished most of the book, finally. We have had it for some time but there have been so many things to cope with, so many surprises, so many caretaking problems to solve, that I have been overwhelmed. Fortunately, we have been learning about and doing some of the things in the protocol. Even though I was skeptical of some of Dennis’s practices of magnesium supplementation, of autophagy, and his extremes of fasting and avoiding electricity, we have been doing a lot of it. Maybe that has been responsible for staving off further decline.

I am hopeful. Everyone should know about this because Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, LBD and other dementias are becoming epidemic and they can be prevented. As Bredesen and his researchers agree, no one should die like this and they don’t have to. Read the book. Find hope.

It’s All Connected

/ Shirleyjdietz / Leave a comment

3-30-2019

This is a list of links to articles that the husband has been reading and discussing with his brother for the last couple of months. I intend to read them one or two at a time and try to summarize what they mean, in addition to what they mean to him.

His research often starts with a symptom he’s experiencing and trying to understand. He uses google on his phone and reads, then he forwards the link to his brother who is a retired university biologist. One article will lead him to another one, and there is always a connection to be made to the next thing. Sometimes I can see his reasoning and other times I think he’s stretching things a bit. A common thread is that he believes many of his symptoms have something to do with magnesium deficiency.

Magnesium is needed for so many functions on the cellular lever that a deficiency could affect any organ system in the body. He believes correcting the deficiency could reverse the damage in the brain that causes diseases like AD and LBD. That’s what he’s trying to do.

http://www.LBDA.org  The Lewy Body Dementia Association, nonprofit, national

https://www.aging-us.com/article/100690/text#fulltext This is the article about reversal of cognitive decline that gives the husband hope

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/06/27/autophagy-health-benefits.aspx?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=facebookmercola_ranart&utm_campaign=20190205_autophagy-health-benefits  about autophagy

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11850416/  this is where the interest in magnesium began

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110110103832.htm all about nitric oxide’s influence, enhance NO may prevent inflammation

https://www.fasebj.org/doi/abs/10.1096/fasebj.31.1_supplement.1035.4 he tries to figure out why eating cheese gives him a sensation in his head

http://milkgenomics.org/article/magnesium-milk-overlooked-mineral/ about how milk is a good source of magnesium and how magnesium has to be present for vitamin D to be processed

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/1390610/ soy beverages decrease the bioavailability of Mg and Ca

https://sciencing.com/red-clay-22940.html red clay interest him, however magnesium levels are low in clay because of leaching

https://draxe.com/10-bentonite-clay-benefits-uses/  the uses and actions of bentonite clay, a source of magnesium and a chelating agent for heavy metals

https://www.drperlmutter.com/bone-broth-benefits/  nutrients in bone broth such as collagen and other proteins contribute to skin health and gut health

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/10454449/  magnesium and autonomic cardiovascular regulation, hypertension

https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/#starred/FMfcgxwBVzsNPrgBfflvCRmRJSpkvsfg?projector=1&messagePartId=0.1  pdf of magnesium rich foods

https://www.thoughtco.com/laughter-therapy-verse-of-the-day-66-701910 laughter promotes health, use in relieving depression

https://www.rnareset.com/products/remag-magnesium-solution?variant=13899661319 magnesium in a more bioavailable form from Dr. Carolyn Dean – ReMag

http://researchpub.org/journal/jbpr/number/vol1-no2/vol1-no2-2.pdf Rapamycin and autophagy as potential treatments for AD

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4203545/ autophagy contributes to limiting viral

pathogens

https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/#starred/FMfcgxwBVzrDtTxvLjhzbxfQDNnddRxD?projector=1&messagePartId=0.1 dietary buffers for dairy cattle – no clue why this is relevant

https://triggered.clockss.org/ServeContent?rft_id=info:doi/10.1124/mi.8.5.2 the brain, PTSD, TBI

https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/#starred/FMfcgxwBVzrCxWxJpDWHlDzrwLfNNQrV?projector=1&messagePartId=0.1 this is a good one on magnesium deficiency, why it’s widespread and dangerous.

https://www.dietdoctor.com/renew-body-fasting-autophagy doctor get Nobel Prize for discoveries about autophagy. Fasting and autophagy to rid body of damaged/broken cellular components

https://www.healio.com/optometry/nutrition/news/print/primary-care-optometry-news/%7Bf857ffe3-f195-4455-9040-4f353e311c9b%7D/pilot-study-data-indicate-macular-degeneration-responds-to-nutrition the role of nutrition and supplementation in macular degeneration

https://draxe.com/varicose-veins/ Varicose veins, home remedies and nutritional advice

https://www.viviscal.com/hair-care/magnesium-for-hair-growth/ magnesium deficiency can lead to hair loss and scalp problems, dietary and supplemental Mg can have positive effect on hair growth

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/11/26/fasting-powerful-metabolic-therapy.aspx magnesium for maximum heart health

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZFa-yw3znE Dr. Carolyn Dean on magnesium

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDAjQFPiAIs&feature=youtu.be Dr. Carolyn Dean on fibromyalgia and CFS

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4455825/#__sec7title Magnesium basics, importance of Mg in numerous body functions