All’s good. I ran the numbers, and it looks like I’m seeing very predictable increase in my platelet count of 85-92% increase every 3 months. I was aware of the trend pretty early, but I was difficult figure out exactly what it looked like. Aside from the obvious drop in platelets, the three biggest changes post ginger experiment were:
Increase in resting heart rate. I took my resting heat rate daily. Pre ITP, it was between 41-44. After the ITP onset, my resting heart rate averaged 68 bpm. It’s been gradually coming down, but my resting heart rate was 58 this morning. Right now, it generally hovers between 53-58.
Decrease in inflammation? Something happened. It’s impossible for me to feel lactate acid pain right now. This is actually kind of fun. I’ve been skiing 5hrs/day for the last several days Normally, your thighs start burning and you have to stop. For me, there’s no pain. Instead, I notice that my legs start losing strength. I stop because my muscle strength becomes unpredictable. I wait 2-3 min, and then keep skiing down the moguls. It also changes what it’s like to ride my bike (because there’s no pain). It’s like I’ve chugged a whole bottle of aspirin.
Impossible to overtrain: Also, it’s virtually impossible for me to over train. Last summer, I tried. I rode as hard as I could every day for 2 weeks. I checked my blood after. If you do that, your hemoglobin should drop. Mine didn’t move and it was impossible for me to get that tired/heavy feeling in my legs.
I also saw a significant drop in muscle strength. My hunch is that this is due to increased AMPK and less mTOR. Additionally, I’m finding that my skin no longer burns. I’m very fair skinned. Normally, I need to be very, very careful. When I was in Mexico last Christmas, I didn’t burn at all. I was careful initially, but eventually I stopped using sunscreen. I just didn’t need it. A few of the workers in the hotel noticed that I’d been in Mexico for almost one month, and didn’t tan or burn. I’m also noticing the same thing in Tahoe. It was always impossible for me to avoid burning my forehead when I went skiing here. This time, I haven’t burned at all (but I wear sunscreen anyway). This makes sense if you have higher then normal DNA repair / ROS scavenging as both burning and tanning are a response to DNA damage. I didn’t really think anything of it until I was reading about how Glutathione IV injections can cause skin whitening.
I do feel like I’ve increased genome wide expression of genes (hence the high resting heart rate and appetite) while dropping inflammation.