Cholesterol (high), alcohol (back), autoimmune disease (eliminated), symptom logging (done), e-bike (awesome)

Covid knocked a two-month hole in my life. I have been scrambling to catch up on everything ever since, so I’m just sending out a few updates today. This is not the kind of writing I want to do for this newsletter — reporting about self-treatment experiments — but it’s just the best I can do right now, and it’s all relevant. In this post…

• A short version of long COVID? Or a long version of short covid?

• The end of a full year of health logging.

• My brand new and major cholesterol complication.

  • Covid + cholesterol = doom.

  • Implications for booze.

• Autoimmune disease ruled out at last — one of the major goals of Project Try Everything!

• I got an e-bike — my “wheelchair”!

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Not-so-long covid (but still too damned long)

The worst of my post-Covid unpleasantness seems to be over, and so now I can get back to being frustrated by all my usual problems.

I don’t think I had a short version of long Covid, but it’s hard to tell. It seems like I suffered a major exacerbation of the same chronic symptoms I have had for years… which were “like long Covid” to begin with! So what’s the difference? 🤷🏻‍♂️ Maybe none. Maybe I have a post-viral syndrome from 2015 (one of the big diagnostic candidates), and now it just gets stirred up every time my immune system is challenged.

This also makes me wonder how much “long covid” is just people reeling from the worsening of whatever health problems they had before covid. Got to account for some of it.

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Logging no more

The big symptom spreadsheet is now paused. I have stopped logging everything I feel and every potentially relevant variables I can think of.

That monster spreadsheet was probably the most obvious ways in which I have been taking Project Try Everything seriously for the last year and half. I did a really good job with it for a long time, but I just cannot keep it up any longer.

Stay tuned for a report on the experience of long-term intensive health logging and whether I’d recommend it to anyone else with chronic pain/illness. Spoiler: nope!

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Cholesterol complications

Eventually any chronic unexplained health problem will collide with other health problems, making everything more complicated and confusing.

This summer I confirmed that I have great deal of cholesterol in my blood thanks to a genetic glitch, familial hypercholesterolemia. My liver is genetically programmed to pump out a lot of fat independently of what I eat or how much I exercise. I have also learned that this is much more serious than merely an unfortunate “tendency” to have high cholesterol: it involves a dramatically greater risk of stroke and heart attack.

Still processing this news.

Bonus bad news: cholesterol meets covid

Guess what Covid does with high cholesterol?  It substantially accelerates atherosclerosis and plaque instability. How lovely to get Covid and an FH diagnosis in the space of a month! 😱

Cholesterol, livers, and drinking: booze update

The FH diagnosis probably also explains why my liver is irritated. So it’s probably not the alcohol. So no surprise that quitting drinking this summer had no effect — it did not calm my liver down one bit.

Quitting drinking also had no other benefit for me.

And so I have resumed drinking, albeit more abstemiously than ever. Never more than one drink now, and no longer daily.

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Autoimmune disease ruled out at last

The possibility of a hard-to-diagnose autoimmune disease has been looming over my case for years. I have never considered it likely — I didn’t even put it on my list of top diagnostic candidates — but it has always been possible. With a dramatic surge in morning spinal pain and miscellaneous "hot joints” since 2022, it was time to try to rule it out properly

And that's done now.  I’m not surprised, but I am glad to rule out autoimmune disease with high confidence.

The rheumatologist was great, ticked all the boxes for high quality modern healthcare. He was very clear that I didn't seem much like an autoimmune disease patient to him, but equally clear that it was worth making very sure. So we did a bunch of testing … and found not even the tiniest flicker of any sign of any kind of why-are-you-hitting-yourself disease.

My new wheelchair

(This last section is taken straight from a Facebook post, so many of you have already seen it.)

Introducing my new “wheelchair”! I bought an e-bike, and it’s my first official major concession to being mildly disabled by chronic illness, because I need some help getting around…

Why didn't someone tell me how much fun these things are? I would have bought one years ago!

I’ve been losing the ability to get around by regular bike, like I did so much of for the last 20+ years. If my wife suggests a ride to Steveston, say — roughly my maximum range on my best day — I know that it will hit me hard even if it goes well, and there’s a real risk that it could turn into a bit of nightmare. You would be amazed by how many times I have taken risks like that, and by the prices I have paid. I’m a slow learner, but I have been catching on and skipping or curtailing more and more trips. Wise.

But my world has been getting smaller.

And the e-bike is embiggening my world again!

It has only been three weeks, and already I think of this thing as my new best friend: a best friend who takes me places I couldn't go before and enables more of a life. Several times I have found myself somewhere nice, and I know that I would never have gotten there without the help.

It’s still a workout. I’m still exercising, often spending 50% of the energy that I would have without the motor. But if things go poorly, the ability to turn up the juice and practically fly home is just priceless. And the option to dial it up for that one nasty hill... priceless. Or the power to carry 3x the load, even when I’m already worn out, without burning a single extra calorie... priceless!