If  you are overflowing with joy, you may want to restrain yourself somewhat so as to not set off people’s insanity detectors. I did not have that problem though, since I was alone at work.  But I still behaved. Of course, the headache may have helped.

I had some breathing troubles last night – not asthma type, felt more like pneumonia, but I guess it was not since there was no fever and I felt better in the morning.  But I got less sleep than I had hoped, and had a light headache during the first part of the workday.

At the same time, I was also filled with joy, thinking about my bookshelf of happiness and good things that have happened in my life.  It was a kind of weird combination, headache and happiness, and I noticed it myself.

It would probably have been different with a stronger headache, I’m afraid. I don’t think I really have achieved “permaplat” in my life, or what easterners call “Enlightenment”, the state of mind in which no event of the senses can touch the Self.  Those who have reached Enlightenment may experience pain, but not suffering, it is said.  That is to say, they may experience the senses crying out, but they do not identify with the senses but rather with the true Self. There is some disagreement about whether this is a gradual process or something that suddenly happens. I would not know.  I am pretty sure I would worry if I felt a strong pain, since this is the body’s way of telling that it is in danger.  And I don’t really feel ready to let the body go yet.  I may not feel a constant fear of death anymore, but I am surely able to feel a specific threat.

Courage is cool, but sometimes you can’t tell it from stupidity. Young people in particular take a lot of risks because they simply don’t think very far ahead. It may be less pronounced in us middle-aged types, but if you just look at how people behave, you have to wonder how far ahead they think, when they think at all.

Since I seem to be temporary back to Earth, I may mention that I bought a bread. The other day I realized that it was months since las I had eaten bread. Bread is reasonably priced as food goes, and now that my income and expenses are more balanced, that is not a bad thing. (Though I think the noodles at Joker may be cheaper.) Bread is also reasonably healthy, especially bread not made entirely from white flour. The type I bought is somewhat rougher and has sunflower seeds that add taste and texture. I liked it, though I vaguely remember another sunflower bread that was even better.

See, I am still kind of human! I have not been transposed to pure spirit by the spiritual books I have been reading. ^_^

And probably the last.  The lung lady was quite upset that I had not taken the medication. I explained why: There had been no measurable effect of the drug they tested last time, and it seemed likely that my lungs simply were only 80% effective because I had spent my whole life breathing only 80%. After my childhood asthma, I had automatically checked myself every day and night of my life, slowing down before getting seriously winded. So there was no reason for my lungs to develop fully.

She still thinks I have asthma, which is probably true in a certain sense – you may call it potential asthma – but I still think there must be better ways to go about this than giving pharmacy companies a drinking straw in the health insurance for the remainder of my lifetime.

The throat specialist agreed that it was quite likely that part of the reduction was irreversible, and what they had wanted was to find out just how much. If I ever want to try that, I can call them after about a month of using the drugs, he said.

From what I have dredged up, the long-term inhaler is a local-effect anti-inflammatory drug. It basically dampens the immune system in the lungs. That seems like a pretty bad idea unless my body gets upset over nothing and attacks itself. Of course, a lot of people experience just that.  But meditation and self-reflection is known to prevent it, as the main source in most people is chronic stress.  I intend to continue down that road and see what happens.

Food – the final frontier!

I definitely can eat more fat now without getting fat poisoning.  I am not sure quite how much. But when I don’t get sick, the inborn human tendency causes me to gradually eat more fat. Not every day, but now and then, a little bit more, taking a chance.  Over time, oh so slowly, it adds up.  I get used to eating a little more fat than before, and then a little more again.

I still eat a lot less fat than before.  I still eat less fat than healthy people.  But there is definitely more of it than before.  This past couple weeks I have several times eaten noodles with some added cheese.  I have done that before with low-fat cheese and not gotten sick, but this time I used normal cheese.  (I have returned to low-fat now, the shop was just out of it briefly.)  My weight loss has stopped, although it is too early to say if it is reversed yet.

I have no idea what happened.  Perhaps my liver has just regenerated – it has lots of stem cells after all, and it has been 5 years since the illness that brought this to a head.  Perhaps the brainwave entrainment plays a role – several of the symptoms were neurological after all. Perhaps even the changes in my soul affects my body.  Or perhaps it is just part of the natural changes of growing older.  It may even be, though I am loath to even think it, that a hidden tumor may be sweeping up fat from my bloodstream for its own nefarious ends.  You just never know everything, not being a god or anything.  But I can’t say I feel ill in any way, so that last part is pretty far down on my probability list.

In any case, fat is very tasty and I enjoy being able to eat a little more of it, even if just a bit. Those of you who can eat as much fat as you want should enjoy it.  And then work out like crazy, I suppose. From what I read in scientific magazines, pretty much all the problems with obesity come from the inactivity that is either the cause or the effect of the obesity, sometimes both. It is not actually enjoying fat that is a problem, it is Just Sitting There. Our bodies were not designed for that.  The muscles we use when standing and walking mop up huge amounts of dangerous fat from the blood, but if we don’t stand or walk some hours each day, the stuff will just pile up. Or that is the current theory.  There may well be another next year.

But for now, I enjoy it for all it is worth… while it is still reasonably healthy!

I have been stepping up my exercise bike training. Not that it is in any way impressive, but still.  After the whole asthma test affair on the 10th, I have decided to try to gradually expand my exercise.  But the thing is, my muscles are no more used to it than are my lungs, which were the ones I was planning to exercise. So after yesterday, I felt slightly stiff, but just a little bit.  After work today, I spent a while on the bike again – not as much as yesterday, but more than before.  I walked around outside a bit, and then sat down and played Civilization 4.

When I got up next, it was fairly late, and my left calf was stiffer than it has been for many years, not counting the days after a leg cramp.  It is not so bad that it actually bothers me, since I am not planning to run marathon tonight, and light pain makes very little impression on me.  (Intense pain, on the other hand, is QUITE distracting, but so far has been rare indeed. Long may that last.)

The problem is that chances are excellent that I am going to have a leg cramp tonight.  I had one some months ago after exercising late in the evening, and I was not nearly as stiff as this. I have applied painkiller gel and also taken a quarter of a Dispril (similar to Aspirin, for you foreign readers, but soluble in water). Non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs work against stiffness, but should preferably be taken earlier for best effect.  I take them just after a leg cramp, but I am not sure they can actually prevent one.

I am not sure I can even get to work if I get a leg cramp.  So far I haven’t heard of anyone dying from them on dry land though.  But in any case, I guess my training program will have to rewind a little.  I seem to have reached the age where even my warm-ups require warm-ups.  Still, better than NOT reaching that age at all!  “Despite the high cost of living, the option remains popular” to quote something severely out of context.

I won the Civ 4 game, by the way. Space race victory. ^_^

Of the two, I suppose arrogance is the most dangerous. Take tonight, for instance.

Before going to bed, I spent half an hour grappling with a seemingly insane comment to my blog, where the reader has read something I could not possibly intend to write.  I got irritated, which is good in the sense that it shows me that there is something in myself that needs to be pulled out into the Light. But it is bad in the sense that it triggered an asthma attack.  Albeit a small one so far.  Still, the “good” old tightness in the chest and the characteristic wheezing toward the end of the out breath  were there, so it was definitely an attack.

As late as in the 1950es, asthma was seen as a psychosomatic illness. That is to say, it was thought to be caused by factors in the mind only, or predominantly. The pendulum has swung far to the opposite side now:  It is seen as a mechanical reaction from the body to allergens.  Since the wheezing was not getting better, I got out of bed again and went downstairs to check on the Internet.  I should probably not have done that, since all the asthma sites were filled with pure scaremongering:  If you get an asthma attack, you must immediately inhale drugs or you will die, pretty much that was the impression I got. I know that for some people this is literally true, but we did not have inhalators when I had childhood asthma.  I took some tablets (which tasted so bad that I had to take them with jam even though my life presumably depended on it), but mostly I breathed over steaming water for a long time until the attacks were over.

Anyway, it was a great opportunity for self-reflection.  My first impulse during the doctor visit had been to reject drugs completely, since I could simply avoid triggering an attack and continue living my comfortable life.  So in response to this, God or my subconscious or some such arranged for this attack to teach me that no, I cannot necessarily control all things that happen to me.  Behind my seemingly noble wish to live a naturally healthy life lay an arrogance in the form of conviction that I could simply decide and it would be so.

When I lay in my bed listening to my wheezing breath, I thought that perhaps I should have gone to the drugstore today after all with my prescription.  Oh well. I did not do that. In fact I had planned to not do that until I had talked to my regular doctor and got a second opinion. I know that he is a big fan of exercise as the solution to all health problems except perhaps appendicitis and such.

Now, barring divine intervention of the more direct kind, I think it is pretty clear that there is a mental component to some asthmas after all, including mine.  But then again there is to pretty much everything:  For instance, men are far more likely to break their legs during the first months after a divorce.  I assume they become careless.

Ryuho Okawa believes that a great majority of health problems come from “negative spiritual influences”, basically possession or lighter forms of the same by the dead people in hell.  That is a somewhat extremely religious way of looking at it, but that the complexes in our minds can influence our health is beyond doubt.   I don’t think these complexes actually are the souls of the damned, but I believe they are of the same nature.  The kind of thoughts that dwell in these dark cellars of the mind – arrogance and irritation to take the flavor of the day – are such that leads a human to a state of spiritual suffering unless we admit them and judge them.  Whether that suffering continues after death is a matter of faith, but I don’t intend to test that out. Rather, I will clean out these thoughts and feelings now while I see them.

So I am glad this came along, but I would have been even happier if it had not been necessary.

An unexpected outcome indeed.

Today I dutifully went to the ear – nose – throat specialist my main doctor had referred me to. (Yes, in Norway they really are called “ear – nose – throat” specialists.  I don’t know what the corresponding specialists are called in English. You tell me.)

First we talked a bit about the symptoms, when they started, and what situations they arise. Then, after a couple minutes, the doctor jumps to the conclusion.  He has observed me speaking, and I am doing it wrong.  I speak too much on the last part of the breath; I don’t bring enough air through my vocal cords for the amount of sound I wish to make, so I have to use more effort in my throat to actually create the necessary sound. The problem is either that I have bad habits, or my lungs are not working as they should. Just to be sure, he looks quickly in my ear, nose and throat.  My vocal cords are a bit red, but there are no irregularities.  This is not his problem.

But as it happens, the neighboring office has a lung specialist, and she is willing to see me right away.  She writes a list of numbers on my arm with a ballpoint pen, adds a drop of liquid near each number, and pricks a small hole in my skin inside the drop.  Then she conducts an interview about my family history of allergies and asthma, which from the outset is her main suspect.  (Even though at this time she is not aware of my childhood asthma.) I also have to blow through some measuring tube that records my lung function.  She is not impressed.  I have to do this 3 times, while she tries to get me to just keep blowing.  But I already blow my lungs so empty I am afraid of not being able to breathe again.

My lungs function on 78% of the capacity expected by my age, gender, height and weight. This is not good.  (Really?  Almost 80% is not good?  There must be pretty low expectations then.  Most people make a good living with less than 78% of my brainpower, so you’d think I’d be able to earn my bread with 78% of their lung power, especially in an office job.)

The interview has pretty much concluded it already, but then the allergy tests all turn out negative.  I have no problem with any of the normal Norwegian pollen, dust mites, dogs or cats.  (I also seem to be more or less immune to needle pricks, as at first I was not sure whether she had actually pierced the skin.  My lack of reaction caused her to cut deeper in the final drops, something I can see now hours later. But still no allergy.)

What I have is exercise asthma.  (It seems to be called “exercise induced asthma” in English, if Google is not misleading me.)  It is evidently quite common, especially in people who had childhood asthma and grew out of it, like I did.  The unusual thing is that it is in such a “pure” form, without an obvious allergy component.

I already knew that I had exercise asthma, but since I am not doing sports, it has not bothered me.  I don’t need to have an athletic body since I am not doing manual labor or, more likely in this age, soliciting sexual intercourse.  My weight is already ideal (or was, before it started going down again.)  It never occurred to me that I would need to be near the optimal lung function for my age in order to answer telephones.

But never despair, Big Pharma is here to help you!  The lung specialist (shouldn’t that be “bronchies – lung – diaphragm” to fit the pattern?) was disturbingly quick to write prescription for two types of inhaled medication, one to take in case of symptoms, and one to take anyway, morning and evening. They both contain some kind of powder to inhale.  That cannot possibly be a good thing, inhaling powder.  Who came up with that in the first place?

The thing is, I did inhale one of those things after the first blow test, and after a while I did a second test, which showed no change.  And she still wanted – insisted, really – to prescribe both of them.  I felt as if I was sitting in front of not a doctor but a salesperson from Big Pharma.  The one I should take every day anyway (for the rest of my working career, I suppose) was a brand new product which could not possibly have side effects.  Isn’t that what they always say, until users die like flies and someone finally manages to launch an investigation that shows that they knew this from the start but it paid so well, they are still in the black even after losing in court?  That said, when Vioxx (the pain med) was withdrawn, I wished I had stocked up on it.  Of course, I don’t need that kind of low-level pain meds anymore now that I use meditation and brainwave entrainment.  For some reason, though, meditation has not improved my lung function.  Something must be done about that.

But what to do?  The obvious answer is to exercise more.  It should be possible to get closer to the trigger level (and thus breathe more deeply) without actually going far enough to trigger an attack.  This should improve lung capacity.  Perhaps I’ll do that starting tomorrow…

No, seriously, I did start exercising today (then again I do that every day after work, just a little) and found that my pulse was once again around 20 beats higher than normal.  Perhaps I am running an infection in the background, in which case the test today may not be accurate, at least if it is a respiratory infection.  Or perhaps this is a reaction to the powder I inhaled, or the extreme exhalation tests.  They really felt like an asthma attack at the very end there, when I had no air and could not breathe out more, and they did cause me to start coughing.  I kept coughing up mucus for a while after I returned to the city.  Whether that is good or bad, I cannot say, but I felt pretty much like I do in the hours after a light asthma attack.  (I have had severe attacks in my childhood.  The ones I have had from training have not been that bad, but then again I stopped immediately when I recognized them.)

I suppose my immune system may even have been mobilized from multiple breaks of the skin. Although they just look like small red dots, it is not something I experience every day.  If I were in charge of the immune system, I would probably ramp it up too after a day like today! So I exercised less strenuously than I had planned, and only for about 40 minutes.