Saturday, June 10, 2017
Wednesday, May 31, 2017
Sunday, May 14, 2017
Spring Stuff!
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| My Uncle Jim and his beautiful grand daughter! |
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| Gel Stained the garage door to blend better with the porch |
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| Addy |
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| hair cut! |
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| neighbor dog came over for a treat |
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| my baby Eddie |
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| fun, cold water hike |
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| painting Kat's cabinets for her tiny house! |
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| My paint your pets portraits classes are going well! |
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| Eddie and I on a hike |
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| 3rd grade field trip to Lake Powell and Dinosaur museum |
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| Addy and Samantha |
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| 3rd grade with a Paleontologist |
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| Making fossil prints with clay |
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| Paula and David Andrews at clamshell petroglyphs |
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| Daron and David and I testing out Davids guns |
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| Addy made a fairy garden with Grammy |
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| David tried his hand at rock climbing! |
Sunday, April 09, 2017
Sunday is Family Rock Climbing Day!
Addy, Daron and I are having so much fun rock climbing on Sundays. Addy climbed FOUR times today which was great since the first time she said she was scared at the highest point. Apparently the exhilaration of the climb inspired her to go again and again and again.
Saturday, April 08, 2017
Migraine & Dementia Research
I found this and it made me so happy and I am keeping it here so I can find it in the future:
Clinical Endocannabinoid Deficiency Syndrome (CEDS) is an umbrella term for a group of illnesses, including fibromyalgia, migraine and irritable bowel syndrome. A growing number of respected scientists in the medical community think low levels of endocannabinoids are the root cause of these devastating conditions.
https://www.projectcbd.org/article/dr-ethan-russo-cbd-clinical-endocannabinoid-deficiency
Project CBD: So I’ve heard it described that CBD is like THC without the psychoactivity. Is that accurate? Or is that sort of a blunt description that really doesn’t get at what’s going on here? Are there other conditions that really CBD seems more suitable than THC?
Russo: More the latter. It is really distinct. Something I haven’t mentioned is that in its own right cannabidiol is an endocannabinoid modulator, in other words, when given chronically it actually increases the gain of system, which is, at its core, a homeostatic regulator. To explain that: homeostasis is a state of balance. Many diseases interfere with a balance in a given system and if we can bring that balance back to where it should be there’ll be improvement in the overall condition. This is one reason that cannabidiol is such a versatile medicine because so many disorders operate on that kind of level. So, if there’s too much activity in a system homeostasis requires that it be brought back down. If there’s too little, it’s got to come up. And that’s what cannabidiol can do as a promoter of endocannabinoid tone, we call it.
Russo: It was a concept I introduced then, I had a larger review paper in 2004, and just this year 2016, I submitted further review that’s currently under consideration for publication. Basically it occurred to me that many diseases affect neurotransmitter levels. A couple of examples: We know one of the primary problems in Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias is a lack of Acetylcholine, the memory molecule in the brain; similarly in Parkinson’s disease there’s not enough dopamine and you try to replace that with a medicine with a medicine call L-Dopa. So what would a deficiency of endocannabinoid function look like? Well, we already knew that. If you don’t have enough endocannabinoids you have pain where there shouldn’t be pain. You would be sick, meaning nauseated. You would have a lowered seizure threshold. And just a whole litany of other problems. It occurred to me that a number of very common diseases seem to fit a pattern that would be consistent with an endocannabinoid deficiency, specially these are migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, and fibromyalgia. They have some things in common. They’re all hyper-algesic syndromes, meaning that there’s seems to be pain out of proportion to what should be going on, in other words you can look at the tissues they look okay, but there’s biochemically something that’s driving the pain.
Additionally, they occur in the same individuals. If someone has a chronic problem with migraine there’s a high likelihood they’re going to have fibromyalgia at some point in their life; similarly, with the irritable bowel syndrome. Previously there wasn’t a lot of genetic linkage, but we’re still looking for evidence of that and there seems to be a possibility that there’s some linkages there. But again, the theory as it started out was that they would have in common an endocannabinoid deficiency. Subsequently to the review paper in 2004, there’s been a great deal of work done both clinically and experimentally that supports the concept. I’ll just give one example: Some years ago in Italy a group Sarchielli, et al, measured the anandamide levels in the cerebrospinal fluid. They did lumbar punctures, spinal taps –
Project CBD: Anandamide being one of the endocannabinoids.
Russo: Exactly. They showed in people with migraine that the levels were vastly lower than in normal people that didn’t have migraine headaches. So this was the first strong objective proof, if you will, behind the theory. There have been other examples that have tried to document the new paper.
Project CBD: Given just the notion of measuring of the levels of one’s own endocannabinoids, if there was a technology that was relatively inexpensive and accessible that would seem like a very, very valuable diagnostic. Is there such a thing in the works as far as you know?
Russo: Well, in development – we’re not there yet. There are direct measurements, hopefully we’d have a technology that didn’t require an invasive procedure like a lumbar puncture to figure these things out. There are also physiological scans like PET scans and to a lesser extent functional MRI scans that could look at that, but we’re still in early stages of trying to harness the kind of technology that would give us these answers particularly without resorting to more invasive techniques.
Project CBD: So if you have a situation where the cannabinoids like CBD and THC from the plant are binding not only to the cannabinoid receptors but other receptors, and then we have other herbs – you mentioned kava, there’s others as well – that are interacting with the cannabinoid receptors, what does this mean in terms of our conception of what the endocannabinoid system is? I remember years ago when I was fumbling around as a non-scientist trying to get a handle on some of these concepts, the idea was I think maybe somewhat narrow: you have compounds in the plant, they bind with these receptors, great, and good things happen. Is that too narrow a conception when we say the endocannabinoid system in that classic way, do we need to expand our idea of it?
Russo: Well it’s a great question because it highlights the problem that we have. First and foremost, we need to better understand the role of the endocannabinoids in our lives and our health status. That’s been ignored, possibly because of its name – having cannabis in the name of this pejorative connation has impeded education, even in medical school. Basically, it hardly exists. Let’s consider this. There are more cannabinoid receptors in the brain than there are for all of the neurotransmitters put together. That being true – and it is – recognizing that fact, why would one ignore this system? Why isn’t this being taught? Our public needs to know about this and how lifestyle and diet affect this system, and how it could be brought to bear to improve their life condition.
http://www.bellasgold.com/
Side note. I decided to look up anandamide since they said the levels in those with migraines is lower than the average person. At the bottom of the Wikipedia post on Anandamide there was a mention of people having Lucid Parties where people eat 20–30 kilograms (which is almost a pound) of chocolate and therefore lots of anandamide, are legal and becoming trendy. What? People are so crazy. Maybe chocolate will be illegal soon....
https://amuse-i-d.vice.com/is-cacao-the-best-new-party-drug/
Clinical Endocannabinoid Deficiency Syndrome (CEDS) is an umbrella term for a group of illnesses, including fibromyalgia, migraine and irritable bowel syndrome. A growing number of respected scientists in the medical community think low levels of endocannabinoids are the root cause of these devastating conditions.
https://www.projectcbd.org/article/dr-ethan-russo-cbd-clinical-endocannabinoid-deficiency
Project CBD: So I’ve heard it described that CBD is like THC without the psychoactivity. Is that accurate? Or is that sort of a blunt description that really doesn’t get at what’s going on here? Are there other conditions that really CBD seems more suitable than THC?
Russo: More the latter. It is really distinct. Something I haven’t mentioned is that in its own right cannabidiol is an endocannabinoid modulator, in other words, when given chronically it actually increases the gain of system, which is, at its core, a homeostatic regulator. To explain that: homeostasis is a state of balance. Many diseases interfere with a balance in a given system and if we can bring that balance back to where it should be there’ll be improvement in the overall condition. This is one reason that cannabidiol is such a versatile medicine because so many disorders operate on that kind of level. So, if there’s too much activity in a system homeostasis requires that it be brought back down. If there’s too little, it’s got to come up. And that’s what cannabidiol can do as a promoter of endocannabinoid tone, we call it.
Russo: It was a concept I introduced then, I had a larger review paper in 2004, and just this year 2016, I submitted further review that’s currently under consideration for publication. Basically it occurred to me that many diseases affect neurotransmitter levels. A couple of examples: We know one of the primary problems in Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias is a lack of Acetylcholine, the memory molecule in the brain; similarly in Parkinson’s disease there’s not enough dopamine and you try to replace that with a medicine with a medicine call L-Dopa. So what would a deficiency of endocannabinoid function look like? Well, we already knew that. If you don’t have enough endocannabinoids you have pain where there shouldn’t be pain. You would be sick, meaning nauseated. You would have a lowered seizure threshold. And just a whole litany of other problems. It occurred to me that a number of very common diseases seem to fit a pattern that would be consistent with an endocannabinoid deficiency, specially these are migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, and fibromyalgia. They have some things in common. They’re all hyper-algesic syndromes, meaning that there’s seems to be pain out of proportion to what should be going on, in other words you can look at the tissues they look okay, but there’s biochemically something that’s driving the pain.
Additionally, they occur in the same individuals. If someone has a chronic problem with migraine there’s a high likelihood they’re going to have fibromyalgia at some point in their life; similarly, with the irritable bowel syndrome. Previously there wasn’t a lot of genetic linkage, but we’re still looking for evidence of that and there seems to be a possibility that there’s some linkages there. But again, the theory as it started out was that they would have in common an endocannabinoid deficiency. Subsequently to the review paper in 2004, there’s been a great deal of work done both clinically and experimentally that supports the concept. I’ll just give one example: Some years ago in Italy a group Sarchielli, et al, measured the anandamide levels in the cerebrospinal fluid. They did lumbar punctures, spinal taps –
Project CBD: Anandamide being one of the endocannabinoids.
Russo: Exactly. They showed in people with migraine that the levels were vastly lower than in normal people that didn’t have migraine headaches. So this was the first strong objective proof, if you will, behind the theory. There have been other examples that have tried to document the new paper.
Project CBD: Given just the notion of measuring of the levels of one’s own endocannabinoids, if there was a technology that was relatively inexpensive and accessible that would seem like a very, very valuable diagnostic. Is there such a thing in the works as far as you know?
Russo: Well, in development – we’re not there yet. There are direct measurements, hopefully we’d have a technology that didn’t require an invasive procedure like a lumbar puncture to figure these things out. There are also physiological scans like PET scans and to a lesser extent functional MRI scans that could look at that, but we’re still in early stages of trying to harness the kind of technology that would give us these answers particularly without resorting to more invasive techniques.
Project CBD: So if you have a situation where the cannabinoids like CBD and THC from the plant are binding not only to the cannabinoid receptors but other receptors, and then we have other herbs – you mentioned kava, there’s others as well – that are interacting with the cannabinoid receptors, what does this mean in terms of our conception of what the endocannabinoid system is? I remember years ago when I was fumbling around as a non-scientist trying to get a handle on some of these concepts, the idea was I think maybe somewhat narrow: you have compounds in the plant, they bind with these receptors, great, and good things happen. Is that too narrow a conception when we say the endocannabinoid system in that classic way, do we need to expand our idea of it?
Russo: Well it’s a great question because it highlights the problem that we have. First and foremost, we need to better understand the role of the endocannabinoids in our lives and our health status. That’s been ignored, possibly because of its name – having cannabis in the name of this pejorative connation has impeded education, even in medical school. Basically, it hardly exists. Let’s consider this. There are more cannabinoid receptors in the brain than there are for all of the neurotransmitters put together. That being true – and it is – recognizing that fact, why would one ignore this system? Why isn’t this being taught? Our public needs to know about this and how lifestyle and diet affect this system, and how it could be brought to bear to improve their life condition.
http://www.bellasgold.com/
Side note. I decided to look up anandamide since they said the levels in those with migraines is lower than the average person. At the bottom of the Wikipedia post on Anandamide there was a mention of people having Lucid Parties where people eat 20–30 kilograms (which is almost a pound) of chocolate and therefore lots of anandamide, are legal and becoming trendy. What? People are so crazy. Maybe chocolate will be illegal soon....
https://amuse-i-d.vice.com/is-cacao-the-best-new-party-drug/
Monday, April 03, 2017
Spring herb chicken pot pie with asparagus
http://blog.marleyspoon.com/2016/04/27/spring-herb-chicken-pot-pie-with-asparagus/
Made this yummy dish for dinner and ate it for lunch. Hopefully Daron and Addy will like it.
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Addy's 9th Birthday
Addy got tons of beautiful gifts from everyone including fabric wrapped presents from her Grandma and Grandpa Andrews and a beautiful dress and shirts from her Grandma and Grandpa Nagle. Daron got her a skateboard and fighting dummy. I created a surprise party for her and planned a day in St. George shopping with her Best Friend. Bottom line she was sad because she didn't get any stuffed animals. I never know what is going on in that head of hers and I guess I never will! It didn't help that she was sick the whole week of her birthday and she was feeling eh. I told her we were going to write thank you notes to the 100's of people that sent her gifts and she whined. So this is the tweens. Help me. I tried to take some photos of her with her gifts and ya that wasn't happening. She loved the gifts but wasn't in to mood for photos. At the end I added photos from the St. George shopping trip. I told her I would give her money and some for her friend. She told me that she wanted $30 and wanted her friend to have $30 as well. In addition, McKynna gave her $10 and she split it with her so they each had $35. THAT impressed me. Whew!
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| Birthday in the sick bed |
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| new shirt |
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| new shirt |
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| new shirt...Addy smile please |
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| please |
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| cool animals and minecraft goodies..Addy smile... |
Sunday, March 26, 2017
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Addy is NINE!
So this year I asked Addy if she and her best friend McKynna wanted to spend the day in St. George (about 1.5 hours away) instead of having a birthday party. She said yes so her birthday was on a Tuesday and we planned her friend to come over after school and also to go to St. George the following Saturday. I also decided that we had to have a small surprise party for her on her actual birthday. Well her birthday came and she didn't feel good. I took her up to school at lunch to deliver the cookies she bought to celebrate her birthday. I picked McKynna up from school to play with Addy and pretended that my car broke down when I went to get the pizzas. Daron told the girls they had to drive over to Pizza Hut and help me. Surprise! She was surprised and seemed to feel ok. That night however she had a fever and her cough was worse. We postponed our St. George trip for a week and hopefully everyone will be healthy by then. She got lovely gifts from everyone.
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| Daron bought her an mixed martial arts dummy |
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| Pizza Hut Surprise |
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| She was surprised thought she said she wasn't |
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| Addison and Addyson |
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| Samantha, Addison and Addyson |
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| Addison, Addyson, Samantha, Alivia and McKynna |
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| Needless to say she has a runny nose. |
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| Mary and Brian on Addy's Birthday sent this so she wouldn't forget them! |
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