You may be interested in the VITALITY study out of China from 2022. 400+ people given FOLFOX + Avastin (standard of care, first line for colorectal cancer) vs FOLFOX + Avastin + high dose Vit C.
Thanks for sharing. This is an interesting, though somewhat disappointing, paper.
One thing I didn't get while reading it was the specific blood concentration achieved. I noticed they mentioned 12 rounds with 3 infusion days and 1.5g/kg. I'm assuming they injected that amount daily.
I noticed they injected over a period of 3 hours. To my knowledge the half life of vitamin c in blood is only 2 hours. I wonder if the concentration of vitamin c ever got sufficiently high to induce apoptosis.
At IV clinics near me they offer 75g bags of vitamin c on the website that are administered over an hour. I bet you could go back to back and get a higher concentration. In the same trip I wonder if you could get something fun - an IV clinic near me offers a nootropic, methylene blue, might charge you up for a day of studying cancer treatments.
One final idea I've had, not sure how useful it is to you, is that you can an at home ultrasound for a few thousand dollars. You should be able to use it to see your intestines and the tumors growing inside. You could use this to monitor your own treatment - i.e. take daily pictures and examine before and after vitamin c therapy, to see if it does anything.
Best of luck to you. If you want to bounce ideas for DIY cancer treatments off of anyone let me know and we can exchange emails.
For other brothers who are by character and upbringing on the right side, but want to and put work in understanding and keeping connection with the left side, I'd recommend this Jordan Peterson's podcast episode: 395. Difficult Conversation as the Precondition to Progress | Adam Smith.
It helped me understand the steelman version of argument behind diversity, equality and inclusion, which are often ridiculed in the traditional right wing bubble.
There really can be no meeting in the middle to the left because the ideas being opposed by the right are those that involve fundamental rights for those groups.
I don’t think it’s swappable. No one on the right is losing fundamental rights due to the lefts views. They might see a decrease in the quality of their lives (reduced privilege, sharing job options with immigrants etc.), but it’s not a fundamental attack to their personhood.
Stella Maris, volume 2 of his most recent two volume novel, and The Road, have blown my mind. SM in particular focuses on a math prodigy committed to a mental asylum. I think it would speak to many people here.
I'm actually thinking of reading his entire collection, I've been so impressed by him. I just got No Country for Old Men.
McCarthy simplified his style dramatically with "No Country For Old Men". That novel, and the ones following, are of course still tremendous but lack the almost mythological force of language of his earlier stuff.
My personal early-style favourites: "Child Of God", "Blood Meridian" (of course), "The Crossing"
I’ve read Blood Meridian and then went back to The Orchard Keeper. Going to work forward in rough chronological order of his published dates. Didn’t know about The Sunset Limited, will have to check out both the screenplay and the film.
I had a fantastic job while taking care of my Dad towards the end of his life. Emergencies would come up that required me to fly to him (he was in Boston in assisted living and nursing homes, I was in the Bay) and the company and my manager were so understanding about it.
I think a job where it's understood that you may have to take a day off with very little notice, or more, will go a long way to everyone's peace of mind, and I found it was possible to find that.
Along these lines, there is a whole range of care options to consider. You have to do something sustainable as a caregiver, not sacrifice yourself to a death march. Paying someone to provide hands-on care, while you work, may be more sensible than losing your career and financial stability in an attempt to do it all yourself.
A board and care home can provide full time basic care, usually with monthly "rent" for the full package. Respite care is a shorter term variant for when a caregiver needs a break. These are not nursing homes because they lack staff doctors and registered nurses. They have a little economy of scale by sharing caregiving staff with several residents.
There are also hourly/daily caregivers who specialize in providing in-home care. This can get very expensive with frequent use though. There are less specialized variants for "sitters" and transportation escorts who can be a companion but don't handle as much of the patient needs.
Try to check with your hospital system or county social services, as they can probably help you bootstrap your knowledge of these topics. There also may be local support groups where other caregivers may have relevant experience and tips to share, as well as camaraderie.
It also shows compassion at a difficult time and something you're unlikely to forget.
Prior to the need you might be already planning the next job move. Now you might be planning the next decade at the same employer because of how they treated you.
I’m midway through a batch at Recurse Center — (www.recurse.com) and I both personally am getting a lot of energy connecting back to the part of programming I just think are intrinsically satisfying, and I’m meeting other programmers who are also finding it helpful for recovering from burnout.
Having read some of the comments, it seems really important to me to center the information that you're queer, supporting a disabled partner. I worked in tech from 2013-2020, and from 2015-2020 my Dad's health was very fragile, and he had made no financial plans. I became his guardian, paying for homes, doing the paperwork, managing the care, and I think this is a huge piece of any situation like this.
There's a lot of curiosity in the comments about what the right environment and role is. I share those questions, but I also think it's important to just feel into the situation more before moving to action.
Queerness I also know for me, in tech, reminded me of the idea - everyone has to learn the dominant paradigm, and then there's ours. Meaning, I do think I experience the world differently through queerness, and it was a navigation to own that and lean into its gifts, rather than just feel a sense of otherness. I don't know if that's part of your experience or not, but it felt worth sharing.
I have started offering coaching - if you'd like to just connect for an hour (no charge or anything, just connection) my email is in my profile. My instinct is it would just be good to drop into what you're saying and really feel through the layers of life situation, the creeping in fear, the aloneness, the stuckness, and see where forward might be in all of it...
Because of the presence of MAOIs, mixing ayahuasca with other drugs that affect serotonin such as MDMA or anti-depressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), may be particularly dangerous.
Good thought - but nope, and I've done it. The issue with SSRIs are them being reuptake inhibitors - they actually change how the brain functions vs. MDMA is simply causing serotonin to be released.
I also happen to be taking a dopamine agonist to treat a benign brain tumour I have (prolactinoma) - first line of treatment is adding a dopamine agonist to the system, and not using an SSRI/SNRI/etc that changes the actual function was fine as well for ceremony; a caveat to research or understand/have caution with is that I had done 30+ Ayahuasca ceremonies prior to taking a dopamine agonist - and so my mind/brain was generally already "opened" how it will be. Care/caution may be necessary if a person has never "opened" up their mind/brain yet (after X ceremonies/experiences) and if they are taking dopamine for whatever reason, as maybe once the pathways that get opened from Ayahuasca et al then the impact of the dopamine would shift as well - perhaps then overcompensating for blocks that get cleared by the Aya etc - and the person may then experience undesired levels of effects from the dopamine.
MDMA isn't directly changing the actual function, they're not causing inhibition; the action of how is important, the nuance is important to understand - though like from your comment - there isn't this general understanding that there is a difference, and I imagine most doctors/professionals will jump to the same conclusion without thinking about it - misattributing the different actions instead of critical thinking from foundational principles. It's not the neurotransmitter(s) that are a problem, at least not serotonin and dopamine, it's if the function change of how they're allowed to flow changes that's the problem.
Interview/chat between Dr. K (Healthygamer_gg) and Rick Doblin - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e2h-awLC-s - where he mentions taking half-therapeutic dose; more of a casual conversation where you can also hear a bit of Rick's origin story.
I did fairly deep research on this beforehand, looking into actual pharmacological aspect of interactions with things like dopamine, etc - a few people over the last 20 years have been keeping track of all related research. I don't have the link for the most succinct, detailed writeup I read handy.
> I did fairly deep research on this beforehand, looking into actual pharmacological aspect of interactions with things like dopamine, etc
While you can read about mechanisms and in vitro this and that all day, this is not the same as quality applied clinical research, which frankly just doesn't exist in any meaningful quantity. I am a practitioner, and I am very sympathetic to the movement of alternative treatments counter to established standards of care, however at the end of the day it doesn't change the fact that the controlled research is non-existent or poor, and things like the MAPS manual are essentially woo.
And specifically the problems I have is that ironically, these alternative treatments which are supposedly trying to overcome boundaries of established care are extremely proscriptive themselves.. they're limited, just differently, and the justifications have very little evidence based backing.
Many studies have been done, not just in vitro but in real people with just about the most severe mental issues there are: severe depression and PTSD, and the results have been positive, and these studies have been published in peer reviewed journals and been well received by the scientific and medical community.
So can you describe what evidence you're looking for and what would satisfy you?
Also, you say you're a practitioner. I wonder what you are a practitioner of exactly. If it's some sort of traditional therapy you should be aware that for PTSD and severe depression the evidence is that traditional therapy is very ineffective. So what would you suggest for those suffering from these conditions if not psychedelic-assisted therapy, which from my reading is actually far more effective for these conditions than traditional therapy?
I’ve also sat a comparable amount of ceremony — and so of course there’s strictness about SSRIs...but I have never thought about the mechanisms like this. It just wouldn’t have occurred to me to explore in this way.
If you do find the succinct, detailed write up I’d love to see. Thank you for finding the YouTube link, I want to check it out!
You may be interested in the VITALITY study out of China from 2022. 400+ people given FOLFOX + Avastin (standard of care, first line for colorectal cancer) vs FOLFOX + Avastin + high dose Vit C.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35929990/
Roughly showed no change for the overall population, but a significant increase in progression free survival for folks with RAS mutations.
As someone with a stage 4 colorectal cancer with a RAS mutation, this is interesting to me!