As my recent sorry nonposting should suggest, I’ve had to have to
suspend my blogging indefinitely. It’s because we’ve had a kid.

There is some good news – the kid was created via PGD, and has tested HD-free.
It wasn’t cheap, but it did work. We are deeply grateful to those who
worked on the team that made this possible.

Before he came, I had naive hopes about the compatibility of
blogging and having a baby. There are, after all, baby-bloggers. But
I can’t seem to make it happen. They’re made of sterner stuff
than I am; I couldn’t even get this post out the door for months.

At some point before he makes it to 18 years, I should be able to get
back to this….

Thanks readers, and I wish you the best of luck with your anti=HDly
daily battle.

Sorry about not letting you know faster.

I’ve been looking at neurogenesis-related blogposts today, and found
the following reference to an interesting article appeared. It’s
actually a year old.

Part of it is the kind of wide-eyed thing tech magazines do too often,
about Elizabeth Gould, the woman who effectively discredited the idea the
neurogenesis doesn’t happen in the adult brain.

The article also talks alot about drugs shown to encourage
neurogenesis. Apparently, antidepressants work by encouraging
neurogenesis rather than the mechanism previously posited. Several
drugs targeted to optimize neurogenesis are being researched.

According to the article, one drug is being targeted to Parkinson’s,
secretively called sNN0031. Mice with Parkinson’s saw a reversal of
symptoms in weeks. That was rat models and Parkinson’s, though, of
course. So, still a ways to go.

I need some naptime whenever I bike more than about twenty minutes,
preferably almost as long a nap as I spend riding. This is yet
another problem to face when spending much time each day biking. How
does Lance do it?

Not only do I feel tired after riding for a while without napping, but
in effect, the neurons are much more available after the nap.
E.g., I feel smarter, but only after the nap.

Sorry I haven’t been blogging so much.

There’s an interesting online Scientific American article.
It’s about neurogenesis adaptability research at Johns Hopkins.

. . . The team found that there is a two-week window, or critical
period, about a month after these new cells hatch during which they
act like the neurons of a newborn baby.

That’s pretty hopeful, though it does suggest that there’s also a
month-long pipeline for a neurogenesis program to reach its peak.
That could explain some of my starting troubles. It also explains
something else I feel.

Weirdly, although I clearly am far worse at plenty of skills than I
was before I developed my disease, the daily neurogenesis gives
my thinking a kind of immediate and adaptable feel that I used to have
only when I was a kid, and later, when I biked to class in college.
But that feeling is deceptive, since I clearly can’t do as much now.

It confuses other people, because I look more awake and aware
than most people, and even can be more energetic strictly at doing
simple things or things I do alot. People come to wrong conclusions
about my abilities or get confused trying to judge me.

I also have a comment about something else in the article:

“Unfortunately, adult neurogenesis is limited to very specific
structures of the brain and, therefore, the remainder of the brain is
left with reduced levels of plasticity typical of ‘old’ cells.”

This is true. You old cells will stay, more or less, and become more
and more swiss-cheese-like, especially for us HD patients. But
Properties of computer neural net simulations give me some hope that
that can avoid being too limiting. Neural nets are intrinsically very
adaptable to additions and subtractions. BUT, using long-term
neurogenesis deliberately to reverse HD and other neurodegenerative
diseases is utterly new; it’s only been done unwittingly, at most. We
don’t know how it will work out.

You do, I think, have to make sure and regularly practice skills that
you want back or want to have instead. I regularly practice my
pre-disease skills, though not as much as I would wish.

There is some evidence I see that long-term neurogenesis can be
successful. I have a hobby of reading biographies, especially
Presidential ones. Virtually every President has, at least exercised
more than usual at some point. All the ones in my lifetime have had
daily serious routines. The current one even shares my habit of
biking more or less first thing each day. For all we always like to
grumble about stupidity of Presidents in office, he did get there
somehow.

And I’ve seen a case or two of HD patients that exercise alot having
very slow onsets.

In my hydrating goop post, I theorized that:

On these days, I think back to a line in one of LeGuin’s Earthsea books:
“On these days, all things done are ill-done.” Because it’s true. On
bad days, I’m likely to mess up anything I try. I’m likely to
hurt myself biking or doing repairs. Cooking is likely to fall on the
floor at some point (I lost TWO lasagna attempts this way). Blogposts
will be hopelessly messed up.

I have them about every two weeksish, but am not entirely sure, because
I haven’t been able to get myself to log them (yeah, I tried to do it
the day AFTER, but still no joy). Alot of the time, they come the
day after hard physical work or drinking, but not always.

This post is about various bike problems I’ve run into and summaries
of my solutions. I’ll probably be back to this topic.

Hard to pick up bike maintenance: Bike maintenance is
complicated and hard to get right. I used to ride in college, though.
When I was restarting, it was frustrating that this was so hard now
when it used to be so easy. Of course, much of this was because it
had been so long. But it’s the sort of thing that annoys because it’s
evidence of degradation; some of that degradation was real, some not,
I think. I think this made me too stubborn about taking my bike to
the shop for maintenance or taking classes.

My maintenance cycle:
weekly: chain oiling, tire check
biweekly: brakes (when using rim brakes)
monthly: derailleur oiling
biyearly: take to shop for cable fixup

High Impact and Rate of Bike Failure: ANY day I don’t get
exercise is a bad one. So, any period my bike doesn’t work I’m going
to be in bad shape unless I go to the gym every day. OR unless I have
a second bike. That was my choice, in the end. After a year of
starting the biking falling cycle and mismaintenance, my first bike
was already in bad shape, anyway….. The second bike is still fine.

Wheels: My irregularity in biking means I have to underinflate
my wheels somewhat.A

Brakes: If you bike with an irregular motion, or commute, your
brakes will need alot of adjustment. In the end, I shelled out for disc brakes
when I got my second bike, and became alot happier. Most bike brakes
are rim brakes – they live on the wheel rim. But rims inevitably go
out of true quickly if you bike daily, or have an irregular motion or
crash alot. When your rim goes out of true, you have to adjust your
brakes or see them rub. Or true the rims, which takes awhile, so you
don’t want to do it too often.

Dehydration: See my goop post, below.

I just compounded some of my special rehydration goop. In order
to bike much beyond half an hour a day, I’ve had to compound a
special rehydration compound. I drink a little over a bottle per hour
of vigorous biking. The recipe is enclosed at the end.

If I just have Gatorade, I have to drink over two bottles of it to
recover from an hour of biking outside, and chow down on a salted
banana and some other fruit. EVERY DAY, while tired, or face cramps.
Or I drink a bottle of goop, end of story.

I could just buy stuff that’d fill the need, but it’d get expensive
(>$5/day?). So I make it instead, needing to spend an hour and $4-5
per week. Plus, I can fiddle with it. And, maybe it’ll even work out
as a marinade (see post two previous).

Because it does take work to make it, I also drink alot of Gatorade
and other retail sports drinks as well.

Now that I do most of my biking indoors on a trainer setup, this isn’t
quite as necessary. I could conceivably live without it by drinking even
more Gatorade and eating more bananas. BUT it’s vital whenever
I bike outdoors. My neighborhood is hilly, and I live in a windy
region, though since bike-friendly, non-major, roads are usually
less level, I suspect lots of bikers face plenty of hills. It does
feel good to get to the top of them.

The Recipe:

This is a high-intensity rehydration mix. It’s basically a slightly over
double-strength hydration recipe, using pureed fruit as a base.
Because it’s a pain to make, I make a week’s worth at a time.

Interestingly, I’ve found that I need to to add a little bit of oil to
the standard hydration recipe for it to work for me; well, it’s not
surprising that the fat-intolerant medical industry would ignore that
need. BUT I binge on much more and less healthy fat if it’s not in there.

Even this isn’t quite complete for me. I also need a small amount of
meat afterward that I should try adding.

Ingredients:

Because of allergies, I use a filtered water pitcher as the water
base. Allergies to things in water are worse when biking (though air
allergies are easier, go figure).

TO MIX INTO 5 3/4L GATORADE BOTTLES)
==============================
5 cups fruit / whole bananas / whole apples
1 3/4 cups sugar
6 tbps salt
3 tbps canola oil

To make:

Get out blender
Get out liquid measure, w/filtered water
Add some fruit and blend in batches, dding enough water to blend completely
Once it’s all in, blend for 2 1/2 min
Add salt, oil, sugar, blend
Taste mixture for sugar/salt balance, add one if needed.
Divide mixture equally into bottles
Fill bottles w/filtered water, using liquid measure
Cap, shake, clean, and refrigerate each bottle.

The original hydration recipe I started with:

TO MIX WITH 1 LITER
===================
1/3 cup + 1.5 TBPS sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup fruit or banana

I want to apologize for my lack of response to comments. Although it
also feels good, there’s something terrifying about HD-blogging. It’s
literally a deadly enemy, so talking about it is talking about death
as well.

That’s made me alot shyer even than normal. I do post to another blog
regularly, and think that blog’d agree I’m alot friendlier there.
Hopefully I can get used to to HD-blogging a bit and get better at
posting and responding.

I do appreciate the comments and encouragement, though. Thanks!

It looks like wearing a little more protection was the answer to making it.
This week, I’ve averaged about 63 min.

There were two parts to this. I now wear jeans whenever I bike, and
socks whenever I’m out of bed (otherwise they get bonked/cut too often).

P.S.: after reading a new Cool’s Illustrated Korean quick-BBQ recipe
(hint: the marinade isn’t instant), I’m speculating that a special
hydrating goop I make for riding could double as a marinade. The
recipe calls for pureed pear for its acid and helpful flavoring, and
soy sauce as a brining agent. My goop usually involves several
different pureed fruits, often including a probably-similar-in-effect
apple. It also includes salt and sugar and oil. About the only
common marinade ingredient that’s not there is garlic. Am I
marinating my interior? Good thing for gastric linings.