
“Time Collapse” and My Broken Brain - ssclafani
http://uncrunched.com/2014/11/10/time-collapse-and-a-broken-brain/
======
Shinkei
Glenn Beck's article reeks of a promotional piece and I am somewhat skeptical
of the reporting of his medical symptoms. It's like 'telephone' where a lot is
lost in transmitting the information, because it doesn't sound reasonable to
me that a physician would say any of the things he said. For example, you
always hear the whole, "You've got x number of years to live," but in reality
almost no physician I've ever worked with would say something like that. They
will give you data in cancer survival for example, but someone with an
undefined illness as he describes could not be given a prognosis! And then the
moment he refrences this 'healing center' that performs 'miracles' my alarms
were going off. I think you need to also consider that a lot of the symptoms
he was supposedly showing are commonly seen in facticious or somatization
disorder.

Open up his medical record to scrutiny by other physicians and let me see the
data, otherwise I am very doubtful of his 'facts.'

~~~
tptacek
I got the same vibe; top of the first Google SERP for the "Carrick Center":

[http://neurobollocks.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/brain-
balance-...](http://neurobollocks.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/brain-balance-
centers-total-and-utter-neurobollocks/)

"Adrenal fatigue"?

~~~
scott_s
I poked around their website, and found their FAQ
([http://carrickbraincenters.com/learning-
center/faqs/](http://carrickbraincenters.com/learning-center/faqs/)). The
answer to the question "How long has this treatment been around? Does it
work?" is telling:

 _The chiropractic practice of functional neurology is at the heart of our
practice here at Carrick Brain Centers. Pioneered beginning 35 years ago by
our namesake, Dr. Ted Carrick DC, PhD, functional neurology leverages the
rapidly expanding knowledge of the brain and central nervous system to build
diagnostics and individually targeted therapies that stimulate brain
plasticity, the restorative power of the brain to build new neural connections
in response to stimulation._

If you google "functional neurology", the first hit is:
[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Functional_neurology](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Functional_neurology)

Sounds like woo.

~~~
pavel_lishin
For what it's worth, it lost me at "chiropractic", and completely spiraled out
of existence when it was followed up by "neurology".

------
adventured
This isn't meant to be flippant at all, but I wonder if Arrington has had his
Vitamin D levels checked recently.

VitD plays an important role in memory, and people with extremely low levels
often report brain fog. Working all the time indoors over the span of many
years, tends to deprive people of proper access to the sun (or peak sun, when
you'd normally get the bulk of your VitD). And it's impossible to keep your
VitD levels up at ~40 or 50 where they should be, with diet alone.

The sustained lack of Vitamin D has also been increasingly linked to
neurological disorders.

~~~
Kronopath
Do you have any more resources to read up more on these effects? After working
in a windowless office I've started to notice some psychological issues with
the lack of sunlight, especially during the winter, and with what you're
saying I'm starting to wonder if the problems are worse than I'm even
realizing.

~~~
adventured
I got a blood test back that registered a 5 on my Vitamin D levels (30 being
the desired floor, and 40 or 50 being closer to ideal). Everything else was
perfect except for that VitD level. I was shocked, but after reading up on
Vitamin D it made sense: I've had maybe two tans in 15 years, I don't get
anywhere near enough sun exposure, and diet hardly makes a dent in the amount
of VitD it takes to bring your blood levels up to a 40 or 50 range. I also
felt fortunate after reading up on what very low levels of VitD can cause. I
spent a few weeks reading just about everything I could get my hands on
relating to VitD and what it does.

I don't have all of my sources handy now, but I can run through some of what I
came to understand.

It has a role to play regarding depression, and or a general sense of malaise,
having to do with serotonin levels. There are Vitamin D receptors in the areas
of the brain linked to controlling depression. You'll find people often feel a
significant pick-me-up when they correct low Vitamin D levels - often right
from the first week of taking D3 supplements (whether that's a placebo effect
or not, it seems to be very common).

VitD is now believed to be an important regulator when it comes to
neurological diseases / conditions such as multiple sclerosis and alzheimers.
They've found a direct link to low levels of VitD in children and M.S. - which
you can see in the rate of M.S. in people in countries far north of the
equator.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D_and_neurology#Vitamin...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D_and_neurology#Vitamin_D_and_neurological_disorders)

There have been some links made to schizophrenia:

"A new study finds that vitamin D-deficient individuals are twice as likely to
be diagnosed with schizophrenia as people who have sufficient levels of the
vitamin."

[http://psychcentral.com/news/2014/07/23/vitamin-d-
deficiency...](http://psychcentral.com/news/2014/07/23/vitamin-d-deficiency-
common-in-schizophrenia/72813.html)

People with cancer and heart disease frequently have particularly low levels
of Vitamin D. This is a bit tricky though, because that can just as easily tie
into lifestyle; but it's interesting non-the-less.

Common fatigue and bone pain often ties into very low levels of Vitamin D. As
is well understood now, it has an important role to play in working with
calcium and magnesium.

VitD is very important to the immune system:

"Deficiency in vitamin D is associated with increased autoimmunity as well as
an increased susceptibility to infection."

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166406/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166406/)

VitD seems to play an important role in memory, and staving off age related
memory loss (and perhaps keeping memory strong in general):

[http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-
vitamin-...](http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-vitamin-d-
memory-decline-20140927-story.html)

There has been a variety of interesting discussion around whether Vitamin D
has a role to play in type 2 diabetes. It's often found that type 2 patients
suffer from especially low levels of VitD, but the counter arguments are that
those low VitD levels have more to do with lack of physical activity:

[http://www.nih.gov/news/health/oct2013/niddk-21.htm](http://www.nih.gov/news/health/oct2013/niddk-21.htm)

[http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/34/6/1284.full](http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/34/6/1284.full)

[http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/283275.php](http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/283275.php)

It's claimed that Vitamin D can help reduce levels of LDL cholesterol:

[http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/vitamin-d-may-
lower...](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/vitamin-d-may-lower-
cholesterol/)

~~~
aw3c2
Are you sure the blood sample was handled correctly? Vitamin D tests are cheap
to do nowadays but most doctors have no idea that they have to immediately
enclose the sample in darkness or it will be tainted. Vitamin D decomposes(?)
in sunlight.

I was tested deficient by one ignorant doctor, then another tested again and
everything was fine. The second one told me about it. It is a pain to google
so I cannot find proper sources in English.

~~~
adventured
It's a fair question. It was done by a hospital's lab by a dedicated lab
worker, as a comprehensive, and then sent off to Labcorp (versus being done in
a doctor's office by a nurse etc). So hopefully they knew what they were
doing.

Given the amount of Vitamin D you need to to get your levels up to a 30+
marker, and given most of the US population is Vitamin D deficient (and I get
far less sun exposure than your average person) - it's probably a safe bet my
D levels are very low.

A 5 was a bit surprising, but it's no exaggeration that presently I'm probably
as close as you can get to being a vampire without actually being one, sun
exposure wise. My primary curiosity is whether my VitD levels have been single
digits for ... a decade at this point. I think I'm fortunate that I was very
active outside growing up, and that I got plenty of sun - as apparently having
Vitamin D levels as a child akin to what I just tested at, is particularly
dangerous.

------
akanet
I actually have similar symptoms on a smaller scale - I never remember my
dreams, and I generally can't tell you if an event happened in the last month
or the last year.

I get plenty of sleep, though, so I'm just going to chalk that up to having a
bad memory.

~~~
Osmium
> I never remember my dreams

It was my understanding (and maybe this is incorrect) that someone only
remembers their dreams if they wake up during them. Therefore, not remembering
them could just be a sign you've had a good, uninterrupted night's sleep.
Anecdotally, this seems to be the case for me–I remember my dreams if I'm
woken up e.g. by a car alarm but never if I wake up normally.

~~~
zo1
I've always been told that you have to practice remembering dreams in order to
get better at it. And the often-cited way of practicing that is by keeping a
dream-diary that you're suppose to write in whenever you wake up.

Likewise, I've never heard of the whole "you only remember a dream if you wake
up during it". Sometimes I go through a few dreams, wake up naturally, and
remember some of the previous ones (and not the last one).

~~~
Osmium
>Likewise, I've never heard of the whole "you only remember a dream if you
wake up during it".

I can't speak to its validity, but there are studies like this:

[http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00419](http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00419)

> Studies in cognitive psychology showed ... nocturnal awakenings ... are
> significantly related to dream recall frequency

Though there are clearly many other factors too!

(link via: [http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-08/clues-how-
reme...](http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-08/clues-how-remember-
dreams) "People who are better at remembering their dreams wake up more often
during the night")

------
Swizec
Interesting, I never considered my reliance on meta-data to place events in
time to be a symptom of anything. I thought that was just how memory works.

You mean to say people normally remember approximately how long ago something
happened? Like, not just from "Ok so event X happened, and it couldn't have
happened before event Y, and Y relates to Z that I know for a fact happened in
so and so year, so I think X happened D months/years ago"

Similarly, I have never been able to remember a name, but I can always
remember a face for forever. To the point that I will see random people in the
street and wont' be able to tell if I only saw them once randomly in the
street or I went to high school with them.

Remembering conversations, hah, funny. People actually remember those more
than just the two or three key takeaways?

Funnily I can almost always remember my dreams to the point that I usually
can't tell the difference between dream memories and real memories.

~~~
meowface
I have poor short term memory (I'll often forget what I'm supposed to be doing
at work), but I can usually remember when conversations happened within a
rough range (a few days, a week, 2 weeks, months...) without relying on
metadata, though I sometimes use metadata when I really can't remember. I
haven't remembered a dream I've had in a few years, with maybe like ~10
exceptions.

Memory can be weird. I think recall of dreams is generally unrelated to memory
though, and is more about sleep patterns (though poor sleep will worsen your
overall memory).

------
tokai
I thought it was common knowledge that stress kills memory.

~~~
mcjiggerlog
Stress and anxiety can cause all sorts of horrible cognitive side effects.
Memory issues, cognitive impairment, dizziness, "brain fog" etc. are all
hugely prevalent in today's society and people rarely think to attribute them
to plain-old anxiety.

------
DanBC
Churchill had alcoholism, which is probably a better explanation for memory
problems than some mystery illness.

~~~
SnacksOnAPlane
He also had depression, which is an even better explanation.

------
troymc
Last year, I read the autobiography of Isaac Asimov (the first two books, not
the later memoirs) and he wrote that he was terrible at remembering names of
the people he met.

I thought this was very odd, because he was famous for remembering millions of
little facts about history and science. Maybe he experienced a similar
phenomenon?

------
Legogris
I am experiencing exactly this, and I have been reflecting over how it got
worse recently. Can't say I process an insane amount of information, though.
Could it be a warning sign that one might expect Alzheimer's later in life at
this rate?

~~~
tallanvor
Probably not, but there are plenty of potential neurological illnesses, so if
you feel that you're having memory problems you should definitely take time to
see a doctor. They'd likely start with blood tests and some cognitive tests,
and if they agree there are problematic results, they'd probably order an MRI,
CT, or PET scan, or a combination of them.

When it comes to Alzheimer's specifically, less than 10% of cases are early-
onset (where it is diagnosed before 65), and it's very rare for it to be
diagnosed under the age of 50. My mother was diagnosed with it at 53, and
there weren't really any symptoms until she hit 50. She was 52 when she had to
stop working, and even then her doctors weren't willing to conclusively
diagnose Alzheimer's until the next year. She passed away this year, about a
week after her 62nd birthday.

~~~
Asparagirl
I'm sorry for your loss.

------
nashashmi
So glad to come across this article. Thanks ssclafani and Michael Arrington.

I think I am coming across the same thing after my bout with Salmonella + 19
days of painkillers

------
oldstrangers
Arrington referencing Glenn Beck is definitely cause for concern.

~~~
onewaystreet
When discussing health issues the character of a person matters none.

~~~
msbarnett
PT Barnum would love to give you some health advice, I'm sure.

(The "miracle health centre" Beck is pumping in the linked piece _reeks_ of
scam. The phrase "Chiropractic Neurology" ought to send you running for the
hills.)

