Tag Archives: brain

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betrayed by my own brain

I took a very long nap after pulmonary rehab yesterday, pushed myself on the treadmill. I was tired. So then at midnight I can’t sleep, feel sad and sappy, get up, write Sorrow.

Then my own brain starts making fun of me.

It plays a soundtrack:

Yeah, ok, so my OWN BRAIN is making fun of me feeling heartbroken. Ok, ok, I am over it for this night. Let’s move on, I think I will manifest this instead. Yeah. I need a skintight dress and some heavy makeup, so there.

The header photograph is from Centrum’s Blues Fest on Saturday. Fabulous and fun!

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how doctors think, a dual pathway

A friend calls today and says that another person is bleeding and yet they have been set up to be seen Monday. Why isn’t this an emergency?

Based on the limited information the friend tells me, I agree with the doctors. It is NOT an emergency and I explain why. It is uncomfortable for the person because it may be cancer. Why is that not an emergency?

Let’s use chest pain in the emergency room as an example. Doctors have two brain tracks that are triggered simultaneously by every patient. The first one is “What could kill this person in the next five minutes?” The second is “What is common?” Common things are common and more likely. In medical school the really rare things are nicknamed zebras. You know there are a lot of horses but you can’t miss the zebra. I suppose that in Africa the common things are zebras and the rare ones are orcas or something like that.

Anyhow, the killers for chest pain are heart attacks, sudden death. But there could also be a dissecting aortic aneurysm, where the largest artery in the body is tearing. That person can bleed to death really really fast and that is a surgical emergency. No doctor wants to miss it. There could be a pulmonary embolism, a clot blocking the lung. Chest pain could be from a cancer. A very rare chest pain is from the valve leaflets in the heart tearing so that the person goes in to flash pulmonary edema. And there is Takayasu’s Arteritis, “broken heart syndrome”, where the heart suddenly balloons in size and again, heart failure ensues. Heart failure is actually pump failure, so fluid backs up in the lungs or the legs or both. It is usually slow but rarely very fast and dramatic. A collapsed lung can also cause a lot of pain. And my list is still not complete, I haven’t mentioned pericarditis or myocarditis or a compression fracture.

The common things do include heart attacks, but also anxiety, musculoskeletal problems, inflamed cartilage of the chest wall, fibromyalgia flares, broken ribs, trauma and other things. I was very puzzled in clinic by a woman with pain on both sides of her lower chest wall. In front but cutting through her chest. I ruled out many things. I thought that it was her diaphragm. I sent her to a rehab doctor for help. The rehab doctor sent her to radiology. She had a compression fracture of her spine and the nerves were sending pain messages on both sides. That was not even on my “differential diagnosis” list, because she had no back pain at all. My list changed that day.

Physicians and nurse practitioners and physicians assistants and registered nurses and licensed practical nurses and medical assistants are all trained to think of this differential diagnosis. We are alerted by the history and have to think down both pathways. Last year working as a temporary doctor, the medical assistant came to me saying, “This patient’s blood pressure is 80/60.” “Is he conscious?” I asked, as I went straight for the room. “Yes, he’s talking.” He WAS talking, which means that he’s gotten to 80/60 slowly or is used to it. His heart rate was fast, up near 120. I immediately had him drink water and keep drinking, as soon as he denied chest pain. The problem was dehydration: he was developmentally delayed and had only had one cup of fluid that day and it was now midafternoon. I spent time explaining that he needed 8 cups each day. Not more than that, because if he had too much fluid, it would lower his sodium and make his muscles weak. Most days he drank 3-4 cups. His chart graphed the problem: some days he had normal blood pressure and a normal heart rate. Other days his blood pressure was below normal and his heart rate was fast, his heart trying to make up for the low level of fluid. Cars don’t do so well when there is almost no oil, do they? His kidneys were affected as well. I asked him to drink the 8 cups a day, discussed the size of the cup (not 8 gallons, please) and then recheck labs in 2 weeks. If his kidneys did not improve, he would need a kidney specialist. It turned out that he had nearly fainted that morning in the waiting room. His group home person admitted that no one had noticed that he really was not drinking fluid. I thought that the patient understood and would try to drink a better amount of fluid.

So back to the person I was called about. Infection has been ruled out. This is blood in the urine. A kidney stone has been ruled out, but there is something in the kidney. This is urgent, but if the person is not bleeding hard, it is not emergent. When there is blood in the urine it does not take very much to turn it red. If there is a lot of blood, that can be an emergency, but from the story I got third person, it’s not very much. The emergency things are ruled out but there is still not a clear diagnosis. Yes, cancer is one of the possibilities but it could also be benign. Now a specialist is needed to figure out the next step and the differential diagnosis, the list of things it could be. They will order tests in the same dual order: what could kill this person quickly and what do we need to rule out as common? People often can be very anxious during this period, which is normal. The person says, “I don’t care what it ISN’T, I want to know what it IS.” But sometimes it is a zebra and it takes a while to get to that specific test.

Another example is a woman that I sent to the eye doctor. The optometrist thought it was something rare and bad. He sent her to the opthamologist, who ruled out the first thing, but thought it was something else rare and bad. He sent her to a retinal specialist. The retinal specialist ruled out the second rare and bad thing and said, “No, you have something very rare that is benign.” My patient said, “I have three diagnoses. Who do I believe?” I replied, “No, you have one. The optometrist knew it was unusual and sent you to an eye doctor. The eye doctor know it was unusual and sent you to an even more specialized eye doctor (a “sub specialist”. We keep them in basements.) Now you have a diagnosis. It was a scary process, but I think you should focus on the third opinion because hey, she said it’s benign and it won’t hurt you! That is the best outcome!” She thought about it and agreed. The process was frightening but the conclusion could not have been better.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: disquieting.

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stranded mermaid, cilia and tubulin

I took this photograph last summer at North Beach. I thought she looks like a stranded mermaid, thrown up on shore. I couldn’t move her, she was twice my length. The rock attachment had come too, up from our sea beds.

Happy solstice. Today marks the one year day from when I realized that I was having my fourth round of pneumonia, with hypoxia, agitation, fast twitch muscle dysfuntion and felt sick as could be. I am way better but not well. That is, I still need oxygen to play flute, to sing, to do heavy exercise and to carry anything heavy. Which is WAY better then having to wear oxygen all the time. Today I find a connection between the lungs and the brain, in quanta magazine. This video talks about a new found connection between cilia and the brain. We were taught that cilia and flagella are for locomotion, powered by tubulin. However, this shows that cilia behave like neurons and there is a connection. Since my peculiar illness seems to involve cilia dysfunction in my muscles and lungs, so that I get pneumonia, and the brain, because I am wired when it hits, this is a fascinating connection. If neurons developed from cilia, the dual illness makes a lot more sense. Hooray for quantum mechanics! We use it in medicine every single day.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/before-brains-mechanics-may-have-ruled-animal-behavior-20220316?mc_cid=80d950ddd6&mc_eid=5faa14000f

Happy solstice! Here comes the sun!

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released like stars

I have had strep A sepsis and pneumonia twice. It was terrifying and I ended up having to take care of myself. I would be dead if I was not a physician.

Not to be named obscure website helped to sustain me, because it was a place I could go while I was alone, terrified and very very ill. The bout in 2014 took me out of clinic for six months and then I was barely able to work seeing half my usual number of patients. My local hospital refused to help me, but other people did. I am deeply deeply grateful to the people who did help me, including people on everything2.com that I have never met.

I wrote this in June 2014.

released like stars

________________

My sister used to tell me

“Everything2 is like a brain.

That’s what attracted me.

All the nodes, like neurons

Connected to each other more and more.”

Or something like that.


Isn’t it annoying?

Now that I’ve taken that memory out

Dusted it off

Embellished it

Who knows what she really said


Flashes of light now

And some where I blank out entirely

For just a moment

Only when I’ve eaten

I’m still avoiding carbs


Could be absence seizures

But she said seizures hurt

These do not hurt

And are accompanied by muscle twitches

Or muscles rolling gently across my frame


I am scared at first

Because I think they are neurons

Bursting into brain flame

And burning out

Brief candles


But I don’t think that’s right either

I think it is plaques

Deposits of antibody

Small pushpins in the wrong place

Being released like stars

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Tobacco Use Disorder

With the DSM-V, there is no longer a separate diagnosis of Opioid Dependence and Opioid Addiction. The two are combined into Opioid Use Disorder. Opioid Use disorder can be mild, moderate or severe. And all of the addictive substances have the same list. So here is Tobacco Use Disorder.

According to the DSM-5, there are three Criterion with 15 sub features, and four specifiers to diagnose Tobacco Use disorder. Use of tobacco products over one year has resulted in at least two of the following sub features:

A, Larger quantities of tobacco over a longer period then intended are consumed.

1. Unsuccessful efforts to quit or reduce intake of tobacco

2. Inordinate amount of time acquiring or using tobacco products

3. Cravings for tobacco

4. Failure to attend to responsibilities and obligations due to tobacco use

5. Continued use despite adverse social or interpersonal consequences

6, Forfeiture of social, occupational or recreational activities in favor of tobacco use

7. Tobacco use in hazardous situations

8. Continued use despite awareness of physical or psychological problems directly attributed to tobacco use

B. Tolerance for nicotine, as indicated by:

9. Need for increasingly larger doses of nicotine in order to obtain the desired effect

A noticeably diminished effect from using the same amounts of nicotine

C. Withdrawal symptoms upon cessation of use as indicated by

10. The onset of typical nicotine associated withdrawal symptoms is present

11. More nicotine or a substituted drug is taken to alleviate withdrawal symptoms

Additional specifiers indicate the level of severity of Tobacco use disorder

1. 305.1 (Z72.0) Mild: two or three symptoms are present.

2. 305.1 (F17.200) Moderate: four or five symptoms are present.

3. 305.1 (F17.200) Severe: Six or more Symptoms are present

(American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

from: https://www.theravive.com/therapedia/tobacco-use-disorder-dsm–5-305.1-(z72.0)-(f17.200)

We have much more stigma attached to Opioid Use Disorder, but list for Tobacco Use Disorder is the same. Most chronic pain patients on long term opioids qualify for at least mild Opioid Use Disorder. UW Telepain says that if they only have withdrawal and tolerance, then it is questionable if they qualify. They also have said that “we don’t know what to do with patients with mild opioid use disorder”.

I find our culture peculiar. People get accolades for saying “I am quitting smoking.” or “I am a recovering alcoholic.” But it’s not ok to say “I am a recovering opioid addict.” People will shun you. Demonize. Gossip. It’s all addiction, so we should stop the demonization and stigmatization and help people and each other.

The photograph is not a brain. I took this about a month ago: it’s a brain size mushroom that was in the church lawn…

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Heart and brain and alcohol, 2018

For the Daily Prompt: infect. Maybe heart and brain health could be an infectious idea…..

Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the US, around 24% of deaths every year. Strokes are fifth most common cause of death at 5%, dementia sixth most common at 3.6%, data here from 2014. Accidents have beaten strokes out for fourth place because of “unintentional overdose” deaths.

I did a physical on a man recently, who said what was the best thing he could do for his health?

“Reduce or better yet quit alcohol.” is my reply. Even though he’s within “current guidelines”. I showed him the first of these studies.

Two recent studies get my attention for the relationship between the heart and the brain and alcohol.

In this study: http://www.onlinejacc.org/content/64/3/281, 79,019 Swedish men and women were followed after completing a questionnaire about alcohol consumption.

They were followed from 1998 to 2009 and 7,245 cases of atrial fibrillation were identified. The relative risk for atrial fibrillation was alcohol dose dependent: that is, the people who did not drink had a relative risk of atrial fibrillation set at 1.0. At 1-6 drinks per week the risk was 1.07, at 7-14 per week the risk was 1.07, at 14-21 drinks per week 1.14 and at >21 drinks per week 1.39. They also break it down by number of drinks per day. So why do we care about atrial fibrillation? “Atrial fibrillation (AF)/atrial flutter (AFL), the most common cardiac arrhythmia, is accompanied with a 4- to 5-fold increased risk for stroke, tripling of the risk for heart failure, doubling of the risk for dementia, and 40% to 90% increase in the risk for all-cause mortality.”

Atrial fibrillation, stroke, congestive heart failure, dementia and 40-90% increase in all-cause mortality. Want to protect your brain and live longer? Quit alcohol.

Well, that instantly decreased my enthusiasm for alcohol, now down to one drink per week if that.

Here is a second study: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)30134-X/fulltext?code=lancet-site

“Findings:
In the 599 912 current drinkers included in the analysis, we recorded 40 310 deaths and 39 018 incident cardiovascular disease events during 5·4 million person-years of follow-up. For all-cause mortality, we recorded a positive and curvilinear association with the level of alcohol consumption, with the minimum mortality risk around or below 100 g per week. Alcohol consumption was roughly linearly associated with a higher risk of stroke (HR per 100 g per week higher consumption 1·14, 95% CI, 1·10–1·17), coronary disease excluding myocardial infarction (1·06, 1·00–1·11), heart failure (1·09, 1·03–1·15), fatal hypertensive disease (1·24, 1·15–1·33); and fatal aortic aneurysm (1·15, 1·03–1·28). By contrast, increased alcohol consumption was log-linearly associated with a lower risk of myocardial infarction (HR 0·94, 0·91–0·97). In comparison to those who reported drinking >0–≤100 g per week, those who reported drinking >100–≤200 g per week, >200–≤350 g per week, or >350 g per week had lower life expectancy at age 40 years of approximately 6 months, 1–2 years, or 4–5 years, respectively.”

Ok, over half a million people followed, 40K+ deaths, 39K+ heart events (heart attack, atrial fibrillation, new congestive heart failure, etc), that’s a pretty impressive study.

A 5% 12 ounce beer is 14 grams of alcohol. Here: https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/what-standard-drink. Our local brewery and pourhouse usually serve pints, 16 oz, and the range is from 5% to over 9% alcohol. Two 9% pints is how many standard drinks? You do the math. Currently the recommendations in the US are no more than seven drinks per week for women (98 grams) and fourteen for men (196 grams) per week, no saving it up for the weekend, no bingeing. The UK stops at 98 grams for both men and women. The rest of Europe goes higher.

Heart and brain, how I love you! I like my brain and don’t want to pickle it. I think I’ll choose heart and brain over alcohol, long term over short term, health over escapism.

Have a great week!

More:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180220183954.htm

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(18)30022-7/fulltext

http://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/articles/2016/08/26/16/48/consumer-news-stroke-esc-2016

I took the photograph. It reminds me of neurons in the brain.

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Adverse Childhood Experiences 5: Love your brain

L for Love your brain, in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

I have just been to another conference and met a woman neurologist. She is studying traumatic brain injury patients. She is applying for a grant to study adverse childhood experience scores in traumatic brain injury patients because they have noted that the people with fairly awful or very awful childhoods tend to cope better than the people with a nice childhood. She wants to do a formal study to see if this observation holds up.

Why would people who have had major trauma during childhood do better after a traumatic brain injury than those with a good childhood?

The suspicion is that their brains are wired differently. The high ACE score people have “crisis” wiring. They have brain wiring for survival in difficult circumstances. They have already used this wiring in childhood and have survived something or survived many things. When they have a catastrophic injury, the wiring kicks right in: ah, back to this, well, I can survive.

The brain is especially plastic as a child. We want to see all children treated well and loved and cared for, but it may be necessary as a species to have a survival back up. What if there is a disaster or a tsunami or a war? How do we adapt? Who survives? What becomes necessary that was unthinkable previously? Children are still growing up in the midst of wars and disasters and the crisis wiring is put in place to help them survive.

Children growing to adults in difficult circumstances work hard to survive and continue to work hard as adults. Dr. Clarke, from the OHSU primary care review, says that the personality characteristics of responsibility and hard work described in my last essay “produce a strong positive response from the world. Over time (sometimes a long time) this tends to overcome the poor self-esteem and eventually produces a major shift in how a person views him or herself. This major shift can be summarized as “I DESERVE BETTER.”

a. Often the individual will decide that they deserve a better partner or a better work environment.

b. Often they will no longer tolerate being treated disrespectfully.

c. Often there is the idea that the individual deserved better treatment when they were children.

d. The first relationship with a supportive, respectful partner may occur at this time. This, too, can be stressful because it is such a change from the past.

e. Resentment or anger about how the individual was treated as a child may be generated at this time though it may not be consciously acknowledged. It is common for the anger to be suppressed because it is an unpleasant emotion, because childhood stress survivors spent years learning how to control emotion and because the anger is often directed at people about who there is still some caring. When there is enough of this anger present it can cause physical symptoms that can be mild or severe or anywhere in between. Many people are unaware of how much anger they have. Highly educated people often have the most difficulty comprehending their level of anger.

f. Imagination techniques to uncover anger: pretending that you are watching a child you care about endure the same environment you did; pretend you are overhearing a conversation between a child you don’t know who suffers as you did and the child’s parent.

g. Often it is during this time of significant change in self-image that physical illness occurs.”*

My hope is that as we learn more about how the brain is wired in childhood and how versatile and adaptable it is, we will also gain understanding of the differences among adults. That we will grow in tolerance and in ability to support growth and healing, rather than judging and rejecting.

*Dr. Clarke has kindly given me permission to quote from his work. This is from his handout at the 46th Annual OHSU Primary Care Review.

Further reading, that I am looking forward to:
They can’t find anything wrong!, by David Clarke, MD. See also http://www.stressillness.com/