Category Archives: my health

Fat poisoning again

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At work today, just before and during the lunch break, I had a new case of fat poisoning. Or at least to the best of my knowledge that is what causes it. The symptoms are not obviously connected to fat in any way, they are mostly neurological. First I felt very sleepy. This is not something unique and exciting on a Monday, so I paid no heed to it. But after a while the classic symptoms of hypothermia began: Feeling of cold from inside, shivering and then shaking uncontrollably from frost, teeth clattering. Queasiness and sudden bowel activity as the muscles of the digestive tract also join the desperate attempt to heat the body, along with the usually voluntary muscles of arms, legs, neck etc. It is basically as if the body had been cooled down to a dangerous level.

I put on the outdoors clothes I had used on my way to work, and started opening and closing my arms and walking in place, lifting my feet as if walking knee-deep in loose desert sand (a mental image meant to heat the body along with the heat from the muscles). It took about half an hour, but I seem to be over it now.

I suspect the noodles. Due to sores in my mouth, I have stuck to low-friction food this weekend. (The sores are healing now, by the way.) In the evening I ate a plate of noodles, but after a while I grew hungry again and cooked another. I have read that noodles are fat bombs, but I have not had a problem with just one of them. The thing is, the dry weight of a package of noodles is pretty small, so even if it consists almost entirely of carbohydrates and fat, there just isn’t enough fat in them after cooking to set off my system. Two of them within 4 hours seem to be too much, though. So now I know.

Also, I know that I still have this mysterious fat sensitivity. It’s been many months since I have had a serious fat attack, possibly a couple years, so I was starting to wonder if it had healed. Obviously it had not. Well, that means no low-carbohydrate diet for me. I thought so. But having lost a few pounds from all the walking, I am growing hungrier than I used to. Noodles are not the answer, it seems.

Yeah, this is the kind of entry that should go into the new more personal sub-blog because it has a very limited appeal. I haven’t been able to set up the new blog yet though. There is backing up to do, installation etc. Have upgraded WordPress and PHP so far. Now it is midnight again.

Heart episode

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“My heart skips a beat.” In fact it has been doing so more lately, seemingly in step with me losing weight. But nothing like what happened today. This hasn’t happened since 2005.

Today I had a heart episode, and to some extent still have. Not an infarct, it seems: I just came home from the clinic and they did an EKG. As always it was perfect. The only thing unusual is that while I was out walking, my pulse began to go up and up until it stabilized at 190, probably my max pulse. Well, that certainly qualifies as an episode in my book, although it happened twice in 2005 as well.

I had left my cell phone at home again, but luckily I had just passed a school where some event was going on, and a handful of parents were out in their cars. I showed them my pulse watch and they called an ambulance. When it arrived, my pulse had gone down into normal human range (although not my range, and it is still about 40 higher than usual. Like 100 when sitting, 120-130 when standing or walking slowly.)

They drove me to the local clinic where a Swedish doctor checked me. Apart from a slight fever (and human heartbeat instead of superhuman) I was in great shape. Even my blood sugar was 5.2 mmol. (This won’t mean anything to Americans.) I explained that it is ALWAYS 6.1, even after 12 hours without food and with an hour’s walk thrown in. They seemed to think it was great that it had gone down. Evidently I can now have perfect blood sugar, at the price of my heart running much faster. I would not be surprised if one of these was an effect of the other, but nobody else seemed to think so.

I had a slight fever: 38.8C (101.8F), and the doctor wondered if that might be the reason. I really don’t think a fever suddenly appears over the course of half a minute. It is more likely the other way around. Or perhaps whatever caused this episode also caused the fever. I have had 3 ticks suck on me this past week, but I killed them all young and put antiseptic salve on the wounds. No red rings this time like some years ago. Still… hmm. I cannot remember how many years ago that was. It is theoretically possible that the body ran across some tick protein and went crazy, but I find it unlikely. The temperature is already down to less than 38, so not fever for normal humans. (I usually have a little lower.)

I drank a glass of juice and water a while after I came home, to check whether the higher pulse was really caused by my lower blood sugar. (Normal human pulse with normal human blood sugar, instead of lower pulse with higher sugar.) That makes sense if there is plenty of oxygen, in which case blood sugar might be the bottleneck in the body’s operations.  However, the pulse remained in nearly the same range. The only thing that gets it down a bit is meditation, but I do that only for a few seconds at a time. I am not sure whether it would be wise to consciously lower the heart rate, as I may be able to do in meditation. Didn’t I just worry a few days ago when it fell to 50? Be careful what you wish for, you might get it!

In any case, there you have it. If I die before I wake, I fully intend to not haunt you, and not check whether my grave is kept clean. If I don’t die – or something very close to it – you can expect to hear from me again.