The Curse On My Family
Something has dripped through the genes and behaviour in my family, that could well explain, factors that contributed to the early death of my paternal grandfather and my youngest son; George.
I have known six of my relatives well; my father and mother, my father’s mother and my three sons.
I will ignore my mother and grandmother, as both lived to their eighties, which is probably good by any standards.
I shall also ignore my eldest son, as I am not in contact with him.
I believe that my coeliac disease, which must be inherited, came from my father and both my late wife and myself believed that if any of our three children were coeliac, it would have been George. But neither my father or George were ever properly tested.
As a child, I was sickly and I was always being taken to the doctor and I had endless tonics and potions.
It only gradually improved when I got to about ten or so and why it did has never been successfully explained. But I can remember being off-school for large parts of the Spring term several times.
I can remember a couple of times in summers, when I was about eight or so, suddenly giving up playing with friends and going home to watch television or play with my Meccano. I think I just found it too hot or perhaps my eyes didn’t like the sun.
In some ways, I was just following my father’s behaviour, which generally involved tinkering with his car in the garage or working in his print works. He would occasionally sit in the sun to smoke his pipe, but I never ever saw him strip off on a beach say.
From about seven, he always took me to work at the weekend and I enjoyed myself doing real jobs, like setting type, collating paper and pulling proofs.
If it left me with any psychological traits, it was that hard work is good for you!
But it kept me out of the sun.
I got married to C at twenty-one and within four years we had three sons. In some ways this got me out in the sun more and perhaps in my late twenties, when we were living in the Barbican, I started to experience better health. I was probably getting more sun, as in those days, I tended to cycle across to Great Portland Street regularly. But C used to drag me out in the sun.
Over the next thirty years or so, my health often tended to deteriorate in the winter, but I think it is true to say, it improved marginally, when the boys grew up, as we started to take more holidays in the sun.
Then in 1997, when I was fifty, I had a particularly bad winter and a very elderly locum decided I needed a blood test to see if I lacked anything. It was the first time my blood had been tested and I was found to be totally lacking in vitamin B12.
I struggled on, with nurses injecting me with B12 every month or so, until my GP sent me to Addenbrooke’s. After another set of blood tests, they said, I was probably coeliac and this was confirmed by endoscopy.
I certainly felt a lot better on a gluten-free diet.
I was also now able to walk and work in the sun and sunbathe without getting burnt. Although, avoiding the sun was still burned into my behaviour, so I often retreated under an umbrella.
Another change was that whereas before going gluten-free I was always bitten and C never was, after going gluten-free, the reverse was true.
I only remember one bad winter from that period and that was when C had breast cancer in 2003-2004, which I think was a sunless winter. We didn’t have our long winter holiday in the sun and I paid the consequence with plantar faciitis, which some reports claim is linked to vitamin D deficiency.
After she died, my problems to a certain extent returned and my GP actually suggested I wasn’t getting enough sun. So in all weathers, I drove around in my Lotus Elan with the top down, to make sure that I got the sun.
I felt a lot better.
If I look at George, he also had my father’s and my behaviour of avoiding the sun. As he smoked heavily, whilst he wrote his music in the dark, was it any wonder he got the pancreatic cancer that killed him?
The curse on my family is of course coeliac disease, which before diagnosis, seems to make us avoid the sun. My father and George certainly did and I would have done before diagnosis without C’s constant persuasion. Now though as I showed in An Excursion To Lokrum, I have no problems in the sun and rarely use any sun screen.
We’ve had some miserably weather over the last few months in London and I come to the conclusion, that I just haven’t got enough vitamin D.
I’ve also only recently found out, that gluten-free foods are not fortified, as regular ones are. So I don’t get any vitamin D through my food.
An Excursion To Lokrum
As I’d missed all of the full day trips, I took the boat to Lokrum and had a walk round for three hours or so.
Before I was diagnosed as a coeliac and went gluten-free, I couldn’t have done a walk like this.
It was almost, as if my blood couldn’t move the heat away fast enough from my skin and it all overheated. But once, gluten-free and with blood full of B12, the heat transfer was better.
I used to burn badly some years ago, but I don’t now. After Lokrum my face was just a healthy colour.
Intriguingly, my father, who was probably an undiagnosed coeliac, rarely went in the sun and was very much a man for wasting time in his garage or shed.
My son who died, appeared to me to be the most likely to be coeliac and he was always hidden away working on his music.
Vitamin D And Me!
On Tuesday, there was this article on the BBC, which was entitled Vitamin D ‘heals damaged hearts’. This was said.
Vitamin D supplements may help people with diseased hearts, a study suggests.
A trial on 163 heart failure patients found supplements of the vitamin, which is made in the skin when exposed to sunlight, improved their hearts’ ability to pump blood around the body.
The Leeds Teaching Hospitals team, who presented at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology, described the results as “stunning”.
I have been discussing this with two of Europe’s top cardiologists and we’ve come to the conclusion, that I don’t get enough vitamin D.
And would you believe low vitamin D can cause; bad nails, conjunctivitis and plantar fasciitis.
I have all three!
One cardiologist pointed out that gluten-free bread and breakfast cereals aren’t fortified with vitamin D, like normal ones are.
No-one; coeliac, doctor or dietician, had ever told me that before!
So I get my vitamin D from the sun!
But as the devil has switched it off this winter, no wonder I’m in poor health!
That woman doesn’t like me!
On the other hand, I’m a London Mongrel of German Jewish and French Huguenot roots, with quarters of stubborn Devonian and solid Northants yeoman stock thrown in. A large proportion of my ancestors are also real East Enders and of course my father was a genuine Cockney.
So I hope I can give her a fight!
Incidentally, this winter, I’ve never found so many other people suffering from plantar fasciitis, so are we all suffering from a lack of sun and therefore vitamin D. Two of the sufferers were people, who had indoor jobs, that involved a lot of standing and walking.
Intriguingly, the only other time, I had bad plantar fasciitis was the winter of 2004/2005. I’m still looking for data on that winter’s weather, but this article on the BBC from 2006 says this.
Deaths in England and Wales fell to 25,700 last winter, a decline of 19% on the previous year.
Office for National Statistics data shows the rate, which hit 31,640 in 2004/2005, is back to similar levels as the previous four years.
Statisticians look at deaths between December and March, and compare them to those during the rest of the year.
I shall not be surprised if 2015/16 has been a bad winter for the deaths of the elderly.
For myself, I’ve started taking a vitalimn D supplement as I have been advised.
I’d sit in the sun, if that woman would let it out!
You might ask, why I don’t go to the sun for a week, as I can certainly afford it.
But when you don’t like taking holidays in the sun on your own and can’t walk long distances to explore interesting sites because of the plantar fasciitis, you’re stumped!
Rain, Beautiful Rain!
I’m feeling so much better today and it must be the break in the weather.
My face and beard doesn’t feel so dry, my gut would score at least 9/10 and my nails feel like real ones. The muck pouring down my throat has eased too!
Strangely, my INR was 2.8 on Wednesday, 2.7 yesterday and 2.1 today. It goes up and down with the weather.
London Air Ambulance Gets A Brain Scanner
The BBC are running a story this morning about the London Air Ambulance having a portable brain scanner and that they are able to scan injured patients on the way to hospital.
I’ve had a few brain scans in my time, but I can’t imagine one of the machines that have scanned me, being air-transportable in anything less than a C-130 Hercules.
But search the Internet and you find the device. It’s called an InfraScanner. It works using the same infra-red spectrum as a television remote control.
This superb piece of medical engineering, or others based on the same technology, must end up in the bag of every A&E doctor, or those who work in areas where there is a high risk of brain injuries, like sporting events or combat zones.
Fasciitis In My Foot
I have got fasciitis in my right foot. It has nothing to do with my current conditions, as I have had it at odd times over my lifetime.
The last time was probably about twelve or fifteen years ago and it was a lot worse than my current bout.
A chiropodist and my doctor have both recommended rolling a cold drinks can with my foot.
I keep the tin in the fridge. Incidentally, I chose the tomatoes as it is more robust than say a can of Coke.
Doing it on a carpet is easier too!
Let’s hope it all works!
Incidentally, are there any other words with a double-i in the middle? You have a few plurals like radii with the letters at the end.
Sounds like a Pointless question to me!
Why The London Tramlink Should Be Extended To The Royal Marsden Hospital
One of my Google Alerts picked up this article in the Sutton Guardian entitled Bunker for breakthrough cancer therapy machine could fit 24 Routemaster buses.
It is about the creation of a concrete bunker at the Royal Marsden Hospital to house a cross between an MR Linac machin which is decribed like this here on the Institute for Cancer Research web site.
The MR Linac combines two technologies – an MRI scanner and a linear accelerator – to precisely locate tumours, tailor the shape of X-ray beams in real time, and accurately deliver doses of radiation even to moving tumours.
All this leads to more and more patients going to the Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton to get treatment.
As many will not be in the best of health and would not relish a stressful journey, surely now is the time to build extension A of the London Tramlink to Sutton and the Hospital. This map shows the current proposal.
St. Helier Tramlink
The Royal Marsden Hospital is South of Sutton.
As Sutton is a Thameslink station, this Tramlink extension will give access to the Royal Marsden from a large area of London and the South East.
Glasgow Bin Lorry Driver Should Have Been Charged
According to this article on the BBC web site, a former prosecutor has said that the driver of the Glasgow bin lorry, that killed six people should have been charged. The report starts like this.
A former senior prosecutor has strongly criticised the decision not to charge the driver at the centre of the Glasgow bin lorry tragedy.
Brian McConachie QC said there was sufficient evidence to prosecute Harry Clarke.
He said the Crown Office had “jumped the gun” in not pressing charges.
I feel very strongly about this. After I had my stroke, my eyesight was terrible and I decided that to start driving again would not be a responsible thing to do.
My current GP, who has seen me for three years, feels that if I wanted to, I could get my licence back.
But quite frankly I couldn’t be bothered. And I have a lot of backing from my healthy bank account.
What worries me, is how many other Harry Clarkes are there driving around?
In the last four years, I had lifts from other drivers a few times and quite frankly with two of them my eyesight seemed better.
My eyesight problem incidentally, is that I can’t see moving objects low down on the left. So one nightmare on the street, is meeting a crocodile of young children, say being led by their teachers. Luckily I haven’t done anything I shouldn’t! A few times though, people wheeling cases have pulled in front of me from the left and I’ve bumped into the case. Only once have I ended up on the ground, as usually my balancing skills which are still tip-top have got me out of trouble.
Harry Clarke was extremely irresponsible, in not reporting his failing health problems!
Incidentally, if say I was fifty and had got my eyesight problem, as I live in London, I would get a Freedom Pass, entitling me to free public transport in Greater London. I get one anyway as I’m over the qualifying age.
Dementia Has Stabilised
According to this report on the BBC web site, research from the University of Cambridge has shown that dementia levels are stabilising.
A few years ago, Oxford University proved a link between having low B12 levels at 50 and dementia, if you had dementia in your family.
Could it be, that GPs, who now check out bloods regularly are having an effect?
When first tested at 50, my B12 levels were non-existent. Now at 68, they’re spot on!
And what is one way to help your B12 levels? – Go gluten free!
As other studies at other world-class universities, like Nottingham, have shown that a gluten-free lifestyle lowers your changes of getting cancer, I think that going gluten-free because of my coeliac disease, wasn’t one of the worst lifestyle decisions I made.
INR Testing Around A Simple Procedure
A couple of weeks ago, my dentist found a small lump in my mouth,so he advised getting it removed and tested to see that it was nothing serious. The procedure was booked to take place on Thursday, the 30th of July and he advised me to make sure my INR was lower than 2.4 and not to take any Warfarin on the day before. Obviously, he didn’t want me to bleed too much, especially as the position of the lump made stitching impossible.
My INR had been 2.6, 2.5 and 2.6 on the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, taking my normal dose of 4 mg., which as I take it most days, is unsurprisingly my average dose.
On the Tuesday, to lower te INR slightly, I cut my dose to just 1 mg., with the consequence by Wednesday morning the INR had dropped to 2.3. As the doctor had said no Warfarin on the Wednesday, my Control Engineering training said that could drop the INR below 2. So I just took 1 and the INR was 2.1 on the day f the operation.
After the operation, as I wasn’t bleeding I took 3 mg of Warfarin, but by the Friday morning my INR had dropped to 1.6, so that evening I took 6 mg. On the Saturday morning, the INR had gone up a bit to 1.7, so to nudge it towards the desired value of 2.5, I took six that day.
In the week of the operation despite changing the dose to control my INR, I sactually averaged 3.8 mg. over the week.
Since then I’ve taken my normal 4 mg. and my INR has been fairly steady around 2.4.
I think this exercise shows the value of self-testing your INR. Admittedly, I was employing my Control Engineering training and experience to give the doctor what he wanted and keep my INR at a reasonably safe level, but the ability to self-test regularly around an operation must make things better for everybody concerned.
The doctor told me afterwards that I hadn’t bled too much, but then when I’m cut by a professional as opposed to torn in a fall say, I don’t seem to bleed much!
In the end, the lump had been removed and I heard today, that it was totally benign.
The Anonymous Widower 