u/maliolani

OK, I'm having a crisis here. I'm 70. When I was a kid, once in a while my father would buy me a jar of pickled pigs feet as a special treat. Heaven knows why pickled pigs feet would be delicious, but there you go. And all those jars were actually the color of pigs feet, at least for all I know, never having met a pig (at least not of the porcine variety). They were whitish with a subtle pink tone. Today, after so many decades, I went to walmart-dot-com and looked to see if the store had them. None of the stores in my area carry them, but if you have them shipped they are ------ RED! And if you look at the ingredients they have all kinds of dyes, maybe red dye number 2 -- you remember that one, sure to kill you. So when in the last 60 years did someone feel the need to dye jarred pickled pigs feet red? I'm telling you, it's treason.

If I quit (permanently) renewing my Quicken Classic Deluxe subscription, what do I lose besides the ability to connect with my financial accounts? Does Quicken quit working altogether, or become read only, or let me continue in some form? I would be fine if it let me keep doing everything except connecting to accounts to download or pay bills, especially if all the budgeting was still available.

This is a request for suggestions about what might help with central apneas. I went to a terrible sleep study years ago, one where the supervising sleep doctor normally never talks to or see patients, and was given a diagnosis of sleep apnea. I got a Rx for CPAP with seemingly unhelpful settings of 4-20. I've made various CPAP attempts without success, but since I'm suffering a lot, I'm trying again. Six days ago, I started using an Airsense 11 on Autoset mode, no ramp, EGR 3 (without which I find it very difficult to exhale), and pressure set at 7-20. The sleep report for those 6 days says my AHI is 5.6, of which 5.2 is central apnea. I effectively don't have OSA, no snoring or snorting.

I've known for decades that I have central apnea, not because some sleep doctor said so but because, even if I am awake, if I relax lying on my back I will stop breathing after 30 seconds or so, which I don't become aware of till perhaps 20 seconds later when I get a big kick of adrenaline to start breathing again. It happens repeatedly till I get up. I also have many other neurological issues, such as idiopathic peripheral neuropathy, essential tremor, areflexia, and an EEG that shows the two sides of my brain aren't operating at the same speed, if I understood it correctly. I have a neurologist, but there is no real treatment for any of those.

Every time I look at the pressure at night, it is at 7, but the sleep report gives a pressure over 6 days of 9.4, probably because of tossing and turning and gasping after I stop breathing. Oddly, I noticed that without CPAP my resp. rate is about 14-16 a minute, but with CPAP it is MUCH slower, perhaps 8-10, because the CPAP feels so good inhaling deeply. I'm not really sure what to set the pressures at. From what I've understood about central apnea, it seems I should lower the pressure to get rid of the central apneas, but it isn't clear. I'm thinking of lowering the pressure range to 4-9. Going back to the sleep doctor (who never saw me in the first place) is not an option. I'm getting an AirCurve ASV in a couple days, and hopefully it will help. Any advice would be welcome.

I've been on LDN for nearly 6 months. I was on 1.5 mg for 10 days, then 3 mg, then 4.5 mg. In the background, I have high blood pressure. I'm taking losartan to lower my BP. I'm also taking propranolol because that is the one approved medication for essential tremor, which I have. Since propranolol is a beta blocker, it slows your pulse, and can also lower your BP. So I was doing fine on losartan and propranolol with my BP. I was generally most of the time below 120/80. But I have many other problems (fibromyalgia, ongoing chronic pain throughout my torso, dissociation, PTSD, etc.). That's why I started LDN, and it seemed to help just a tiny bit with the pain. But about the time that I got to 4.5 mg LDN, my BP started to rise for unknown reasons.

So, I wondered if LDN was contributing to my rising BP, but of course it could just be bad karma from 70 years of trauma, or who knows? So it was recommended to me that I quit taking LDN for a few days and see how it affects my BP. Well, surprise, surprise, my BP came down, but I have to confess that I made one other change also at the same time, which was to return to doing isometric wall sits, which supposedly lowers your BP. I don't know what to attribute my lowered BP to.

But what interests me is that quitting LDN altogether cold turkey to do this investigation has not (so far) resulted in any effects. I still have all the problems I ever had, and the tiny, tiny, microscopic pain reduction that I may or may not have gotten from LDN doesn't really seem to have changed. So now I'm in a bit of a quandary. I cannot be certain that there was any real benefit to LDN for me. In fact, there may (or may not) have been harm in terms of raised BP at 4.5 mg/day. I don't really know what to think.

I plan to stay off LDN completely for at least 2 more weeks. I would have expected to see some difference between taking or not taking LDN, but I don't yet see it. And I would not have expected LDN to raise my BP. Any thoughts.