Monday 26 September 2016

Exercise updates, photodynamic therapy and the iKnife.

Exercise was a huge seizure trigger for me since acquiring brain tumour related epilepsy. Over time my seizure threshold has improved thanks to a high DHA ketogenic diet. Yesterday I was able to run for the first time in 4 years. I managed 20 minutes plus a light resistance workout. Today I ran 30 minutes without stopping at a decent pace. 


I never thought this would be possible when I look back at where I've come, suffering those horrible grand mal seizures and now being on no medication with complete seizure control. 

Never forget that our brains are made of fat and cholesterol. As I have written on several occasions, in and around malignant brain tumours we see dysregulated lipid composition when compared to healthy, disease free brains. This is often how neurosurgeons actually identify tumour tissue for resection, as described from the study below and from use of the iKnife, which identifies malignant tissue and can be combined with a form of photodynamic therapy. 

Photodynamic therapy- 5-ALA: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/glow-in-the-dark-brains-aid-tumour-surgery
The tissue that 'glows' represents diseased tissue and the differences in lipid composition are clear. The smoke coming from the iKnife during resection of the tumour can analyse the lipid composition of tissue using a mass spectrophotometer http://publishing.rcseng.ac.uk/doi/full/10.1308/rcsbull.2016.88


Epilepsy and neurodegerative diseases can all me managed more effectively with manipulation of dietary fatty acids. I believe this has been an essential part of my strategy to manage my disease and the epilepsy I have acquired as a result. I have been fine-tuning this approach over time and I have regular blood tests to monitor the efficacy of this approach. I wrote about this in more detail in my post on fatty acids and brain tumours which can be found here: http://mybraincancerstory.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/fatty-acids-and-brain-tumours.html 




The iKnife: