tegid’s BodyBlog

-Introduction-

It’s nearly 8 years since my first epileptic seizure. Many types and doses of drugs have been prescribed but none have worked.  The side-effects got so bad that I brought myself of all meds in November 2007.

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Back in March, I got an interesting message from Dom, telling me about a doctor that he knew who had experienced encouraging results for people with difficult-to-control epilepsy when they followed the ketogenic diet. Well that’s my category of epilepsy. Dom has been brilliant, listening to my concerns and directing me to helpful information. He got me wondering if the ketogenic diet was possible in my case.

I had a disastrous meeting with a senior neurologist in May who discredited any dietary changes being able to influence epilepsy. He also said that I was likely to die in the next 8 years.

A month later, MK2004 tracked down medical research showing that the ketogenic diet had been researched in the UK for the past 7 years in its top children’s hospital. The research showed that the ketogenic diet certainly did work, although its exact process was not understood.  Not long after this, Adrian (the therapist at the gym) figured out that I had reactive hypoglycemia – which means that I have sudden ‘bursts’ of insulin, which send my blood sugar levels down very low – and that this was triggering my epileptic seizures.

So, the thought of a low carb/high fat diet in somebody my age and with my conditions seemed not only illogical, it was also dangerous - as it could leave me having unstoppable seizures.

I knew that following the same macronutrient proportions as used with the children’s keto diet would be inappropriate for my situation.  I’ve had a high carb diet for the past 24 years and it would cause a huge ‘jolt’. I was scared that I’d end up losing muscle mass.  So I looked at the ketogenic diet used by bodybuilders while they reduced body fat preparing for contests. The macronutrient amounts that they used seemed to make more sense to me, given my age (and need to avoid saturated fats) and lifestyle (the gym!) All I had to do was survive the initial transition while body glycogen stores ran down and keytones started up. This was the point at which low blood sugar was likely to hit me.

Luckily for me Adam was preparing for contest at the same time, so he was ketogenic while these thoughts were flying around my head. All credit to Adam, as he was the one that figured out what makes me tick and how to get me to stop worrying and start the diet.  He had two conversations with me, where he asked some soul-searching and horizon–grabbing questions that asked what fundamentally makes me ‘Mike’: he pointed out it wasn’t epilepsy. And he’s right.

The deal I made with Adam is this: if the ketogenic diet works and controls my seizures, I’ll compete. That’s right – I’ll find some natural bodybuilding contest here in England and do something else that scares the living daylights out of me – appear on the stage.

I started the ketogenic diet on 15 July…  Watch this space.

I want to say a huge, huge thanks to Dom and Adam because already they’ve brought me 10 days of freedom from seizures.

I have just watched an insightful TV programme about the effect that the images of the human body have on us.  We get bombarded with flawless, airbrushed images selling us the ideal as to how we should look – a set of images that in fact are very limited  and which encourage people to go to extremes to mimic the things seen on magazine covers and TV screens.

I was surprised at the astonishing levels of digital manipulation that are routinely employed – using machines identical to mine – and how magazines utterly insist on this. Any bits that don’t quite conform their ‘ideal’ notions of how we ’should’ look are re-touched, decreased, enlarged, coloured etc. The media, as an industry, admitted that it finds it acceptable to utterly manipulate an image of a person’s body. They also admitted to knowing that the public is unaware of the ubiquitous influence of this digital manipulation.

There is now a generation of people that see cosmetic surgery as perfectly acceptable – and so does the medical industry they pay to perform their boob jobs, nose jobs, liposuction, botox and collagen injections. And I have to ask myself: HOW is this any different to the anabolic steroids that have been outlawed by the same society?  

OK: with the steroids and ‘performance enhancing’ drugs people are still expected to work very hard personally in order to get the changes to their bodies that they hope for.  I’m not saying that I agree with either approach – I’m not saying that I criticize either approach. I’m just saying that to accept one as “OK’ while condemning the other as illegal simply isn’t balanced – the philosophies simply collide. It’s not making sense.

Both focus on our dissatisfaction with our own bodies – what we see as flaws. The media encourage people to destroy these flaws, as they reduce the visual perfection that we wish for ourselves.  Bodybuilding and dieting give us the control to alter our appearance using a different approach to the medical/cosmetic ones. Bodybuilding is about taking responsibility and taking control for the way that your body changes into your own hands.  With medical/cosmetic approaches, you hand this control over to a third party – you give them the responsibility to the physical changes you go through.  In my opinion, the use of steroids and other outlawed substances could be described as similar to this, as there is an element of control being taken away from the individual.  

There’s something about the loss of control that society finds unacceptable- society prefers individuals to be in control of their actions and to make informed decisions. I think this is what society is trying to use to justify this imbalance in philosophies I described above.  Thanks to the media, we live in an increasingly visual society.  So visual reinforcement of this ‘idealized’ control is being portrayed in the images shown in the media.  But control isn’t necessarily a visual thing.  So maybe we need to be far more questioning of about the images that we see in the media at present. And what is REALLY being said by them.

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Finally – just to consider…

Three years after first introducing TV and idealized images of people to the Pacific island of Fiji, 12% of the girls there had developed bulimia. They explained that they felt inadequate, inferior and alienated from the modern world. Fiji had never had bulimia as a condition prior to this.

OK, this might get slightly controversial.. There is a film coming out in three days’ time called Bigger, Stronger, Faster. Its trailer is at http://www.apple.com/trailers/magnolia/biggerstrongerfaster/hd/  (hi def trailer at http://www.apple.com/trailers/magnolia/biggerstrongerfaster/hd/). Now I haven’t seen the film yet, so I want to make sure that I don’t make any ignorant assumptions about the film. The trailer is obviously trying to ’shock’ people into going to watch the film (sorry - movie!) and I’ll leave it to others to form their own opinions on the film itself.

There is one brief scene in the trailer showing the words ‘Whatever the cost’ and then a guy sat at a stadium asking "if you had to take a drug with the known side-effects of anabolic steroids, to keep your job right now and support your family, would you do it?" and this has really got to me. Basically because there are ethical similarities with my own situation at the moment (despite me not actually using anabolic steroids).

For those that don’t know, I developed the condition known as epilepsy eight years ago. This means that the way that my brain’s cells send chemical messages to each other has changed. This has altered the excitability of my whole brain in a way that predisposes it to seizures. I need to take this opportunity to thank the people at the gym that have helped me when I have gone into seizure - Adam247 and Jdavidson1987 in particular.

When I first developed the conditions, doctors simply handed me some drugs and said ‘take these twice a day’. I ended up unable to look after myself (I was manager of a University’s Fitness Services at the time) and hence I had to go and live with my parents. Nobody knew what was happening: my Mom thought I had a brain tumor, my Dad thought I was having a breakdown. I still kept having seizures. Funnily enough, the doctors changed the drugs they had given me for epilepsy and the effects diminished in about a week. So I went out and re-trained and rebuilt my life, becoming a special needs teacher.

Seven years passed and during this time I became slowly more and more sick. By November 2007 I was unable to work at all, had Chronic Fatigue, lowered immunity and a digestive system that was intolerant of more and more foods. I was still having seizures.  So I took matters into my own hands and stopped taking the epilepsy pills. Since that time my health has gradually improved. (I have kept weight training throughout all of this).

Here’s the bit that ties in with that film. The doctors have told me that I MUST take their drugs again, because the drugs will reduce the seizures that I have. They predict that I will either be killed by a seizure or injure myself during a seizure. They have told me that they will not treat me unless I take these anti-convulsant drugs, so I feel that I am being forced into a similar predicament as people that are ‘having’ to take drugs with the side-effects of anabolic steroids in order to keep jobs and support families.

The doctors treating me recently admitted that drugs they want me to take DO have side-effects on the immune system, the hormone system (lower testosterone), the digestive system, sleep (insomnia), vision, skin, memory, concentration and speech. Looking through medical journals such as ‘Neurology’ indicates that there are a number of other side-effects associated with the chronic use of these anti-convulsant drugs, including osteoporosis (brittle bones), and disorders of the blood, liver and heart. A number of psychological illnesses are noted too. These drugs are used to treat mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, too.

So, If I go back to the phrase that I saw in the movie trailer, showing the words ‘Whatever the cost’, I would like to ask a similar question: "if you had to take a drug with the known side-effects of anti-epileptics, to keep your job right now and support your family, would you do it?". I wonder how people would answer….

I have a suspicion that the same drugs companies developed certain anabolic steroids and anti-epilepsy drugs in the 60’s 70’s and 80’s. How interesting that one of those categories is now seen as ‘a dirty little secret’, ’sends the wrong message’ and ’something simply un-American’ whereas the other category is assumed to be safe and repeatedly prescribed to millions of people around the world. I’d say a lot of this involves people’s attitudes, and dangerous assumptions based on information given out by whoever developed both categories of pharmaceuticals.

People getting yelled at for taking drugs on one hand, people getting yelled at for NOT taking drugs on the other… Crazy.

Is there anyone awake at the end of all that??

I wrote this for somebody that asks me a lot of philosophical questions. Once I told them that I’d written something about it in my bodyblog and they read through EVERY bodyblog post I’d ever written. I’ve recently been told that I could die at any point and this has had an impact on my thoughts.  I guess that now is as good a time as any to write down some of those philosophical things for them.  It would be a shame if they were never said and they could have somehow gained something from them.

Anyhow: this is for them.

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1. Believe in your dreams – others may put them down but they are what make you unique.  Dreams can be physical, emotional or spiritual and they pull you toward the better you of the future – the you that you will become in time.

2. Welcome change – in yourself and in others.  Change is always going to happen – to prevent it is counter-productive.  Preventing change will prevent those dreams coming to fruition.  Admittedly change can be both for the better and for the worse.  Preventing change altogether stops any improvement happening.  This means that the future version of you is allowed to be different from the current version of you.  With time you will gain so much experience and become so resourceful. The world can benefit from all your future achievements, so allow these changes to happen – and never fear change.

3. Remove fear from your life - whenever you can.  Fear is what freezes situations and prevents change.  Hence fear stops dreams from coming true.  Learn to recognize fear and learn how to manage it.  As you become more experienced and more resourceful, you will become more expert at realizing when fear is lurking behind situations and when it has the potential to freeze you and others.  You will learn new and inventive ways to disarm fear so that your life becomes incredibly peaceful and full of calm and joy.  You will be able to share this calm and joy with those you love.  Experience peace, love and joy to the full.  Build family life early – that way you will get the most time to enjoy sharing these things.  You will get to experience the gift of life going from you to your children and grandchildren.  The joy will be unsurpassed.  I know that you have the courage to confront fear and you’ll pass this to your children, too.  When they come along, I am convinced they will adore you for it.

4. Don’t be afraid to adore – be it your partner, your children, your hobby, your work, your life.  The sensation of adoration is fantastic and it is infectious – people will adore you back.  By all means scrutinize situations and motives – just make sure you don’t mistakenly adore something that has the potential to increase fear.  Be free to adore and enjoy the sensations it brings.  Hiding behind reserve only leads to loss.  So adore life – and life will adore you back.

I am actually taking some time off training - I’m going to a place called Sandbanks, next to the sea, to stay with friends there for 3 days. My objective while there is to make sandcastles the way I experienced when I was a kid. I remember my dad creating huge sculptures in the sand - castles, crocodiles and dragons - and all of us would join in and help. I remember the actual tactile sensation of the sand while making these sand ‘castles’ and thought that I’d like to experience it again, particularly after the things I experienced yesterday.

My Dad and I went to see the neurologist (epilepsy specialist) in a specialist hospital for epilepsy in Chalfont St Peter (north London). I’m afraid it wasn’t a productive meeting.  I explained that I had stopped taking the drugs they recommended and my overall condition had improved. I was experiencing more seizures than when I was taking the drugs.  Another consultant had diagnosed me with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and I wanted to inform the neurologist of the Treatment Plan that I was following for Chronic Fatigue. The neurologist declared that this was ‘doctor shopping’ and had led me to make ‘uninformed decisions’. They explained that I had a degenerative and terminal condition, that I was unsuitable for surgery - as it could lead to brain injury, that I had to accept that all medications came at a cost - I had to live with that cost and that unless I followed their directions exactly, they would refuse to treat me any further.

This was the first time I had been told that I have a degenerative, terminal condition (after nearly 8 years of unsuccessful treatment for epilepsy). Not surprisingly, I felt scared, sad and very angry.

I found it astonishing that somebody who had just told me that I was going to be killed by a seizure then invoked the exact emotional conditions that are shown to be the most likely to trigger a seizure. I felt particularly hurt when my Dad was told that his son was going to die; his father died very early and now he’s been told his son will.

So….. I have to decide what I want to do next; the consultant delivered an ultimatum that they described as similar to ‘divorce’ (I didn’t realize we were married - how very polygamous of me). Either I choose to follow their directions exactly, without question, accepting that side-effects were necessary and without ‘doctor shopping’ or I choose to die.

I’m writing a ‘to do’ list.  Of things I want to do before I die. One item on the list of ‘things I want to do before I die’ is go back and make sandcastles. There’s a bodybuilding contest on it, too.

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A huge thanks to Jordan and Adam who got to pick up the pieces of me/for me by the time I got to the gym with this lot going around my mind. Legends.

Today I went to see a nutrition specialist who specializes in food intolerance and sensitivity testing. The system that indicates food intolerances was developed in Germany and is known as a BER Resonance Medicine. it measures changes in the body’s resistance which can help to pinpoint problem foods.  The foods that have been found to commonly cause difficulties include wheat, dairy products, yeast, sugar, chocolate, tea, citrus fruit and coffee.  These are foods that we consume on a daily basis and the body becomes dehydrated when trying to excrete these. The body also increases the production of histamine in reaction to these foods.  With raised histamine levels, the body’s immune/defense system is thrown off balance and the symptoms associated with food sensitivities and intolerances then show up.  

For me, this makes a lot of sense, as blood tests through the years have shown that I have dehydration (despite drinking a LOT of water every day) plus my immune system is low: I have had low white blood cells and leucopenia/neutropenia for over two years.

To start with, the tests indicated that I had low levels of zinc, potassium and chromium.

The machine then tested 90 different types of food and the following were shown to cause a change in my body’s electrical resonance - and are suggested as things that I have an intolerance with:

Buckwheat, cow’s milk, cheese (cow’s), yoghurt, beef, potato, swede/turnip, soya, cabbage, beetroot, peppers (capsicum), tomato, orange, pineapple, yeast, sugar (beet & cane), chocolate, alcohol and monosodium glutamate.

Well, being a skeptic I was ‘testing’ the method and am pleased to say that it picked out chocolate and monosodium glutamate which I have reacted to badly ever since I was a baby. So I’m quite impressed. The beef thing was a surprise… but never mind – that’s easy to take off the menu as I mostly eat chicken and fish.  Yeast may be more of an issue because it is an ingredient used in many things – including ketchup, pickles and salad dressings.

The idea is to now eliminate the things on the list above from my diet, for a period of 6 weeks and then attempt sensible re-introduction.  To be honest I don’t think it will be that difficult because I have eliminated most of the things on the list already.  I think the biggest problem will be whey protein (which is a cow’s dairy product. I am hoping that whey isolate is not a problem, though.  Failing that, I’ll be drinking a lot of egg white (yuck!)

The low levels of zinc, potassium and chromium are strange as I take supplements that are supposed to specifically increase these minerals. Strange.

Anyhow, I’ll let you know how things go during the diet!

Today I went to see the UKBFF South Coast Show- despite the layer of snow that met me when I first woke up and clambered aboard the train. It was the first time I’d ever bee to a bodybuilding show. Wow. I had no idea that there were so many people that bodybuilt. Phil Heath was there and did a seminar. He came across as a very polite, professional guy who has achieved astonishing things in a very short space of time (I think he said he’s only been body building for 5 years). http://www.phillipheath.com/

As impressive as the pro’s were the thing that really struck me were the amateur competitors, each with incredible stories of determination and courage. While waiting to go onto stage, they sat out in the audience, covered in pro-tan and with astonishing definition. Really inspiring.

It’s taken a lot out of me and luckily Adam Read (Adam247) offered to drive me part of the way home. Oh dear - I had a full-blow seizure about 20 minutes into the journey. If I’d been on the train I’d have been taken to the nearest hospital, miles from home and with no way of getting home because I’d have missed the last train. So I am very, very grateful to Adam for his outstanding consideration during the seizure and coping with the whole thing in such a responsible way. I count myslelf so incredibly lucky to know him.

I have to say, I’ve come across some astonishingly inspiring characters through bb.com. They are the sort of people who are a little quiet about their achievements - it takes a little time to get to know them but when you learn their whole story, it leaves you lost in wonder.

I used MSN to chat with a guy from bb.com last night. He actually lives near my old home in Wales. (Last weekend Wales won the 6 nations rugby tournament. Rugby is the national sport so the whole of Wales - I know it’s not very large - celebrated). I chatted to this guy about that, initially.. As the talk progressed, I learned that he had created his own home gym and that he encouraged younger people to come and use it. He explained that it helped them build esteem in a place where there was little else to keep them occupied. I thought that this was excellent. I’m convinced that this will work - based on my own observations while working with kids that had emotional and behaviural difficulties at a special school and taking them to a gym once a week.

In the UK, the insurance companies won’t allow people under the age of 16 to use gyms - hence nobody will let them do strength and conditioning. That is something I can identify with, seeing as I am banned from many UK gyms these days because their insurance doesn’t cover epilepsy. Now I know that there will be arguments galore over both these situations. However, I’ll leave that for another time.

The guy trusted me enough to explain why he and his wife set upon this quest to ‘rescue’ people by encouraging them to use the gym and try bodybuilding. Obviously I don’t want to betray any confidence placed in me by divulging unnecessary details but it was a story that profoundly inspired to the point where I wanted to share it. Mainly because this man is another person that has a malformation in his brain - which like mine is on the left side.  Just like me, nobody realized the reason for the difficulties he faced. He ended up in prison. What a tragic waste.

We recognize the frustration that each other faces when it comes to everyday tasks that need not be difficult - society makes dangerous assumptions about us and sentences us to something far worse than incarceration.

However.. We both discovered bodybuilding as a very successful way of self-management. He has achieved far greater gains than I ever have and I am delighted for him (20" arms, huge chest, 34" waist). It shows that he has the capability of being good - really good. And THAT is what is important about bodybuilding. It allows people to ‘own’ their own hope - their own goals. And if things don’t work out exactly as planned, there are still ways to improve things… and you control your own destiny.

He has an utterly inspiring story. Like me, he can’t rely on some of the more pharmaceutical solutions to improving his physique - it’d jeopardize medical/mental equilibria. He’s done it entirely through graft, determination and spirit..  What a star.

I have to say, I’ve come across some astonishingly inspiring characters through bb.com. They are the sort of people who are a little quiet about their achievements - it takes a little time to get to know them but when you learn their whole story, it leaves you lost in wonder.

I used MSN to chat with somebody from bb.com last night. They actually live near my old home in Wales. Last weekend Wales won the 6 nations rugby festival. Rugby is the national sport so the whole of Wales (I know it’s not very large!) celebrated - so I chatted to this guy about that, initially.. As the talk progressed, I learned that he had created his own home gym and that he encouraged younger people to come and use it. He explained that it helped them with esteem in a place where there was little else to keep them occupied. I thought that this was excellent - based on my own observations while working with kids that had emotional and behaviural difficulties at a special school.

In the UK, the insurance companies won’t allow people under the age of 16 to use gyms - hence nobody will let them do strength and conditioning. That is something I can identify with, seeing as I am not allowed into gyms because their insurance doesn’t cover epilepsy. Now I know that there will be arguments galore over both these situations. However, I’ll leave that for another time.

The guy trusted me enough to explain why he and his wife set upon this quest to ‘rescue’ people by encouraging them to use the gym and try bodybuilding. Obviously I don’t want to betray any confidence placed in me by divulging unnecessary details but it was a story that left me awe-struck. Mainly because this man is another person that has a malformation in his brain - on the left side - like me.  Just like me, nobody realized the reason for the difficulties he faced. What a tragic waste.

He went to prison. I went to University. We recognize the frustration that each other faces when it comes to everyday tasks that need not be difficult - society makes dangerous assumptions about us and sentences us to something far worse than incarceration.

However.. We both discovered bodybuilding as a very successful way of self-management. He has achieved far greater gains than I ever have and I am delighted for him - it shows that he has the capability of being good - really good. And THAT is what is important about bodybuilding. It allows people to ‘own’ their own hope - their own goals. And if things don’t work out exactly as planned, there are still ways to improve things… and you control your own destiny.

He has an utterly inspiring story. Like me, he can’t rely on some of the more pharmaceutical solutions to improving his physique - it’d jeopardize medical/mental equilibria. He’s done it entirely through graft, determination and spirit..  What a star.

Today the guys at the gym found the footage of me having a seizure in the gym. The gym has those security cameras that record 24hr a day. After Monday’s adventures, I realized that the cameras had probably caught my performance and this meant that for the first time I could get to see what it actually looked like.

I wasn’t that surprised by the images - I knew that I fell to the floor and shook but it was really interesting to see how people around me reacted during the seizure (and if they use bb.com - guys I’m sorry if it startled you but I really don’t get much warning of these things). I’m 6′3" so I blocked the gangway going through the gym for a while, as nobody wanted to deadlift me and carry me out of there…

The most surprising thing was HOW I fell to the floor - my upper body just plummets, which means my legs are literally swept off the floor and into the air with the momentum. THAT did surprise me. I am glad that the flooring in the gym is padded and not carpeted - hence a soft landing and no carpet burns. I didn’t even break my glasses this time.

The other good thing was that there were loads of first-aid qualified people there (including an ex-paramedic) who all knew what to do, so I was clearly in the safest place possible. I was particularly impressed with the people who just got on with their workouts while I was being treated by staff. Once the right staff had been summoned, they didn’t flap, didn’t fuss or run around, they just got on with things and that’s exactly what those of us with epilepsy would ask for.

So well done, everyone at the Workshop Gym, Guildford!