Tag: insomnia

Lion’s Mane Mushrooms: The Last Word (?)

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One year ago, I started taking lion’s mane mushrooms in capsule form. This is merely a dietary supplement, so there’s no need for a prescription, and I expected it could take weeks or even months to see any results. Thus, I told you at the time that I would report back with any results after a year. And so, here we are. And I have indeed noticed significant improvements in some areas. These are those:

Better Sleep:

Prior to starting the lion’s mane regimen, I would often wake up multiple times during the night. Sometimes I could get back to sleep, sometimes not. In any case, I almost always got out of bed between 4:00 and 7:00. After about five months on lion’s mane, I began experiencing solid sleep. Once in a while, my dog wakes me up, or I’ll get up to urinate, but I almost always get back to sleep quickly. And I’m sleeping until somewhere between 7:00 and 9:00 (some days, even later).

Awakening Alive:

Before the shrooms, when I got up in the morning, I would take the day’s first dose of Levodopa (Levo) then just crash on the couch for half an hour (which is about how long it takes for the Levo to kick in). Until the Levo took effect, I usually felt incapable of doing ANYthing. Since about five months after starting lion’s mane, I have generally felt capable of doing things the instant I get out of bed. Once in a while, I even forget to take the day’s first dose of Levo!

Off Periods Reduced:

I take Levo every 3 waking hours. Prior to shroomin’ it up, I could always feel when time was approaching for the next dose. About 2.5 hours after taking a dose of Levo, I would start having anxiety, or sometimes depression. Since about five months after starting lion’s mane, the anxiety / depression have been noticeably less prevalent, and the Levo doses don’t tend to start wearing off until just a few minutes before my next dose is due. I’ve even been seriously late (up to nearly two hours late) taking a dose, and STILL didn’t have any anxiety / depression (though I did feel the ol’ physical fatigue on those occasions).

No RLS:

Before lion’s mane, I tended to experience Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) one or two nights per week. (In my case, it manifests in the upper body, so I call it Restless Arm Syndrome.) Over the past month, I have only experienced RLS / RAS once. And that one time may not even have been RAS, as I was laying on the couch in a goofy position. And I’ve also been taking nicotine supplements during that time, so it’s conceivable that nicotine is what fixed the problem.

Reduced Medication:

I might expect improvements such as those described above if I had added a new medication or increased the dosage of one I’m already on. But there have been no such additions / increases. In fact, around the time I started noticing these improvements, I actually decreased one of my meds. I get Pramipexole (Prami) in tiny 0.125 mg pills. I had been taking eleven of these each day for the last few years, but reduced it to nine each day. (Since then, I tried reducing it to eight, but that led to a significant increase in anxiety.)

In conclusion, I highly recommend all you Parkinson’s sufferers out there try taking a lion’s mane mushroom supplement for at least a few months. But make sure you read those labels first to make sure you’re getting the correct part of the mushroom. Y’see, there are two main parts to a mushroom: the fruiting body and the mycelium. According to the articles I read, the helpful stuff is found only in the mycelium. I saw quite a few products on Amazon that only mentioned fruiting bodies. In the end, I settled on a brand that says it contains both parts.

Getting Better? Is This Even Possible?

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It seems like every time I read a news article about Parkinson’s Disease (PD), somewhere in the article they mention there’s no cure for PD. If you ask any neurologist, they’ll say the same. There are treatments that may slow the progression of PD but nothing that will fully halt, much less reverse, the worsening of the disease. But I’m starting to wonder…

A friend recently informed me that a PD sufferer at his church had been taking a product called Restore Gold (TM) and reported that his tremors had stopped about two months after he started taking it. I have not yet researched this product, but a quick web search found some people claiming it had worked well against their PD, and others claiming it was a flat-out scam.

A couple weeks later, another friend sent me this link. This video asserts nicotine (yes, THAT nicotine) is in reality neither addictive nor harmful, and that it is an excellent fighter against PD and many other maladies. To be clear, the video is NOT pro-tobacco. Indeed, it blames the tobacco industry for falsely claiming nicotine is addictive, while they were secretly adding the truly addictive chemicals that are found in cigarettes. Ultimately, the video attempts to steer the user towards the nicotine patch (specifically the Rugby(R) brand of nicotine patch) as a way to reverse PD. I have not yet fully researched the use of nicotine in the fight against PD, but a quick web search found what appear to be several legitimate studies supporting this claim, including this study funded by the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

I am tempted to add both Restore Gold and nicotine patches to my daily medication / supplement regimen. However, adding multiple approaches at once would make it difficult to know which one is doing what, assuming I actually do see some changes. And I am already seeing some changes. Changes that I can only attribute to ‘shrooms. And I don’t mean “Magic Mushrooms”, though there are studies underway trying to determine whether psilocybin has any effect on PD.

No, my friends, I’m typing about “lion’s mane” mushrooms. As you may and/or mayn’t recall, this friendly fungus was featured five months ago. For a few months, I seemed to be getting some positive results, but it was kinda hard to tell. Over the last month, I have definitely seen improvements in the following:

Better Sleep:

Prior to starting the lion’s mane regimen, I would often wake up multiple times during the night. Sometimes I could get back to sleep, sometimes not. In any case, I almost always got out of bed between 4:00 and 7:00. Over the last month, I have been experiencing solid sleep. Once in a while, my dog will wake me up, or I’ll get up to urinate, but I almost always get back to sleep quickly. And I’m sleeping until somewhere between 7:00 and 9:00 (some days, even later).

Awakening Alive:

Before the shrooms, whenever I got up in the morning, I would take my first dose of Levodopa (Levo) then just crash on the couch for half an hour (which is about how long it takes for the Levo to kick in). Until the Levo took effect, I felt incapable of doing ANYthing. Over the last month, I have usually felt capable of doing things the instant I get out of bed. On a couple of occasions, I even forgot to take my first dose of Levo!

Off Periods Improved:

I take Levo every 3 hours (except overnight). Prior to shroomin’ it up, I could always feel when time was approaching for the next dose. About 2.5 hours after taking a dose of Levo, I would start having anxiety, or sometimes depression. Over the last month, I have hardly experienced anxiety or depression at all. I’ve even been seriously late (up to nearly two hours late) taking a dose, and STILL didn’t have any anxiety / depression (though I did feel the ol’ physical fatigue on those occasions).

Reduced Medication:

Now, I would expect improvements such as those described above if I had added a new medication or increased the dosage of one I’m already on. But there have been no such additions / increases. In fact, a little more than a month ago, I actually decreased one of my meds. I get Pramipexole (Prami) in tiny 0.125 mg pills. I had been taking eleven of these each day for the last few years, but reduced it to nine each day. With the encouragement of my medical provider, I reduced it even further last week, to eight each day. So far, that’s working well.

One final note:

The news articles that led me to start taking lion’s mane supplement concluded that 1,000 to 1,500 mg per day was the appropriate dosage. But the brand of supplement I settled on comes in 7,500 mg capsules – and they recommend taking two of these each day. So far, I have only taken one of these each day because for crap’s sake, that’s already 5 times the amount recommended by studies. But I am ever pondering as to whether I should try bumping at up to two-a-days. If I do, I’ll let you know in a new post.

Nevada 2024 Trip Report (Day 1)

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Today was a long day. First, I couldn’t sleep last night; this appears to be happening every time I travel now. At a little after 5:00 AM, I left home and headed to the Charlotte airport. Here, I found the line just to drop off a checked bag for an American Airlines flight was nearly as long as the TSA line. And both were HUGE! It was cold this morning in Charlotte, and there are some cold days in the forecast for this trip, so I was wearing my winter coat. In this mass of humanity. By the time I had to take off my coat at the security checkpoint, I almost couldn’t get the thing off, as I had been sweating so much that the inside of the coat sleeves were soaked to the point of sticking to my arms! Ultimately, I was reminded yet again that I need to get TSA Pre-Check.

Then there was The Flight. I was flying to Las Vegas, Nevada, but had a stop in Los Angeles, California. From Charlotte to L.A. is a 5.5-hour flight, and for a flight that long, I did NOT want to be stuck in “Basic Economy” (read “no leg- or even foot-room”). So, I threw down an extra ninety bucks for an exit row seat. I also took a dose of Lorazepam, hoping this would keep any anxiety at bay AND cause me to sleep through the flight. I did sleep off and on, and the leg room was marvelous!

It took a LONG walk to switch planes in L.A. I have to say, there are large portions of LAX that look more like a high school basement than a major city’s international airport. But never mind that. I made it to the second flight, and on into Las Vegas with no trouble. Since my flight was an early one and I was flying west across three time zones, it wasn’t much past lunch time when I got my rental car. So, I headed to Naked City Pizza, which was recommended on the “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” web site, which specifically endorsed (among other things) the “Steak and Cheese Fries”. So that’s what I ordered. I was a little disappointed. They were good, but not the taste explosion I was hoping I would get.

After lunch, it was still a little too early to check into my hotel room at The Strat (formerly The Stratosphere). So, I hit up the “Pinball Hall of Fame” (PHOF). Please note that this place is not so much a “Hall of Fame” as it is a HUGE arcade with an amazing selection of pinball machines of all ages. There are a fair number of arcade video games as well, and a couple other coin-operated machines of yesteryear. For my purposes, I’ll divide the pinball machines into three categories, like so:

  1. Old (anything built before 1980). PHOF has an AMAZING selection of Old pinball machines, many of which you can still play. Many others cannot be played at any given time, which is understandable, since it must be hard to find parts for them.
  2. Middle-Aged (built between 1980 and 2000). All my favorites fall into this category. I was a little upset at the condition of most of these machines. Yes, it’s gotta be increasingly difficult to find parts for them, but I’ve seen machines in dive bars that are better maintained than many of these are at PHOF. Some of them weren’t even leveled – they wobbled back and forth as if one leg were shorter than the others.
  3. New (built in the 21st century). PHOF had a surprisingly large variety of New machines, and all the ones I tried were in great working order!

Much to my dismay, my arms started cramping after a couple of hours here, so I checked into the hotel and just rested until bed time. I am hoping to go back to PHOF before I leave Las Vegas. If I do, I’ll try to get some pics while I’m there.

Stay tuned, this is planned to be a long and varied trip, so there’s MUCH more to come!

No…Sleep…’Til Brooklyn!

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OK, not Brooklyn. More like “no sleep ’til Charlotte Douglas International Airport.”

My flight to Nebraska (more accurately, my flight to a layover at Midway) is an early one. So early that I have to get up at 2:15 AM. Problem: for the last few nights, I haven’t been going to bed until almost 2:15 AM. So, I feared that I would not be able to get to sleep at a decent hour; I even considered just staying up all night. Instead, I went to bed at about 11:30 PM. For about 40 minutes, I got some fitful sleep, before deciding to just get up. It’s now 1:15 AM, and I am just hoping to get some good sleep during my flights, though I haven’t completely given up on the idea of getting a little more sleep before I leave home.

Restless [insert body part] Syndrome

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I’ve briefly mentioned Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) in this blog, but haven’t addressed it head-on., so let’s do that, shall we? I have only had three nights of true RLS, which were a result of trying to quit Pramipexole cold turkey. Those three nights kicked off The Worst Two Weeks of My Life. For more on those two weeks, see The Disease. I’ll just say this much for now: thanks to RLS, I now understand the concept of “sleep deprivation torture”. Every single time I was JUST on the verge of falling asleep, my legs would tense up, and I would feel that I HAD to move them around. This happened probably a dozen times each of those three nights.

Since getting myself back on a stable dosage of “prami” I have not experienced true RLS. I say “true” here because I periodically experience what I describe as Restless Arm Syndrome. The sensation is exactly the same as RLS, except it occurs in my arms and/or pectoral muscles. It only happens about once a month, but when it does happen, I just get out of bed. I am not about to put myself through the aforementioned sleep deprivation torture. Sometimes I’ll take an impromptu dose of Carbidopa/Levodopa. That helps sometimes, but not always. Whether I take the extra dose or not, the Restless Leg/Arm Syndrome ceases with the sunrise. Therefore, I think RLS is a vampire.

Talkin’ bout my m-m-medication

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I haven’t listened to my old “Who’s Greatest Hits” CD for a long time, so I decided to play it while I type up this entry. Nearly the first thing I heard was, “Hope I die before I get old.” And I’m thinkin’: “Too late…I’m already old.” This despite the fact that I’m not even 50. But Parkinson’s Disease (PD) can sure make you feel old. Which scares me, because…what will it be like if/when I still have PD AND am actually old? Hopefully by then there will be something akin to a cure. I know there are “gene therapy” treatments that have reached the human testing phase. I really want to stay up on these things, so I signed up for a Parkinson’s Foundation webinar on the topic of gene therapy. Then I checked my calendar and realized that I’m planning on being in Dinosaur National Monument that day. I’m sure they’ll record the webinar and post it on their site, so I’ll be able to go back and watch it any time. But will I actually do it? Or will I continue wasting my time playing Cities: Skylines and reading web comics?

In other news: I’m a boy, I’m a boy, but my mom won’t admit it.

In real other news: I recently enrolled in MediCare, specifically a MediCare Advantage Plan (i.e., through an insurance provider) that includes prescription drug coverage. Under this plan, three of my meds have a zero-dollar co-payment. But the stuff that’s been ensuring I sleep at night is not exactly covered. I say “not exactly” because Mirtazapine is covered, but only up to 15 mg per day, and I’ve been taking 22.5 mg each day. So, I tried scaling back to 15 mg per day. That was three or four weeks ago and I’m happy to report that I’m still sleeping well. Until the last 3 days, that is. But hopefully the last few nights of less sleep are just due to me staying up too late. Which I’ll be doing more of now that football season is beginning, and I’m still living two time zones east of my alma mater.