u/idunnorn

Quick background: Put on way too much fat the last few years. Am in Class 2 Obesity (above 35.0 BMI). Obviously need to drop body fat. Early 40's male. Also prob relevant: Moderate OSA (never successfully used any treatment for it, including CPAP, tho weight gain likely made this worse)

Challenge: This year, have had a lot more "random joint soreness" out of nowhere. Relatively little exercise would tire me out or get me sore more than what I felt was explainable by "deconditioning". Also, I seemed to have gotten...a lot more colds and being sick this year than usual (maybe 3-4 colds/flu/covid/who knows) where I'd be out of commission for like...a week.

Suspicion: It was really this joint soreness that made me think "wtf is this chronic inflammation or something?"

CRP: On that note, I did a hsCRP test, was near 3.5. Above 3.0 is generally not good. The one other time I checked was 3 years ago - at 0.95. (I was ... wow ... 70 lbs lighter.) BMI was like 26.0.

Sidenote: Liver enzyme ALT is much higher this year than it was in the past (30s-40s). Was in teens to 20s for prior decade so. Wonder if I actually have NAFLD. Suspect I should pursue a dx w PCP, but haven't initiated that yet.

Now, obviously, I can retest CRP and see if it was just transiently high.

Obviously, CRP is not especially specific. Not a problem IMO, but also means that I'm not 100% sure how to consider using the data...

Possible takeaway 1: All that extra fat -> produces more inflammatory markers. OSA being much higher than it was in the past -> produces more inflammatory markers. Can't do much about it, just lose fat and find out how to properly treat the OSA.

Possible takeaway 2: Would any drug like NSAIDs be reasonable to make joint pain and possibly DOMS/soreness a non-issue so workouts don't get in the way, and taper down as possible? I think this is prob bad...

Possible takeaway 3: Pursue NAFLD dx and see if that helps add any clarity. (Am on 4 total medications these days so I'll also want to find out whether those might be raising liver enzymes too which would be worth knowing.)

Given that CRP is elevated and I have multiple plausible causes, how do I prioritize what to address first? Is tracking/measuring the CRP even worth doing before losing fat? I wonder if the reason I measured in the first place (more joint pain than expected) is even explained by that level of CRP anyway, and not sure if the inflammation can be driven down without fat loss.

Churlish

Does paying attention to general inflammatory markers (CRP, Fibrinogen, IL-6) offer much? CRP was over 3.0 recently.

Oh, Tony Robbins, whatever happened to you...