whome's OF 5.75G journal

[whome]

I’m back. Kinda. Maybe?

As I mentioned in my LTU5 journal, my plan was to start ketamine treatments for depression, and had been pondering how good an idea the use of LTU5 would be, given that my subconscious tends to rebel hard against subs. The consensus was that there wasn’t a good way to know. (FYI, this is not Rule 16. Yes, some people use ketamine recreationally, but I am not talking about the use of ketamine recreationally (and people shouldn’t do that). This is the clinical administration of ketamine by a licensed medical doctor for the treatment of treatment-resistant depression.)

So, yes. About a month ago I started on ketamine. It’s been going OK, and I have been feeling better. But it’s not quite like the last time I was treated with ketamine, where it really caused the pain to just be shut off. The pain is still there this time. And then OF was released, and I thought that perhaps it was worth giving it a shot. So I ran OF for the 6 days on, and then evaluated.

First, this is the summer where I live, and I sleep with earplugs so that the air conditioner doesn’t keep me awake. So running the sub ultrasonic while I sleep is a non-starter. (I did try leaving the A/C off one night while running the sub, but then the bedroom hit 80°F and I woke up from that.) I ran it ultrasonic during the daytime, which mostly worked, but I had to occasionally pause.

After 6 days I was not feeling emotionally good. The grief was much more present, and my sleep got even worse. So I decided that it wasn’t for me. But... I was evaluating my weight, and starting about a week ago, when I started running the sub, my weight started dropping, in a good way. I’d been stalled around 160 lbs forever, but suddenly it started dropping. And it wasn’t muscle; my scale does body comp estimates, and even though it’s ±3 pounds or so, it’s showing my lean body mass staying about the same.

While I’m overall not super inclined to continue, what does dropping fat weight mean for OF? Is it a sign to persist? Is it a neutral sign?

[Shannon]

I have been waiting for a few different things to be reported in response to people using OF. One was less desire to drink alcohol; someone reported that. One was ED and/or PMO dropping; someone reported that. One was that it should have the effect of allowing people who have gained weight out of fear to eventually start losing weight as the causative fears are released.

I would say that seems like a very likely explanation in this case.

OF isn't going to be the easiest thing to run in the beginning for those who have the most need to run it. But it is well worth the effort to keep going. You cannot benefit from it if you run away and don't use it. I suggest you use it as directed for the entire eight months. It seems likely that within 3 or 4 ASRB2 cycles, you're going to see a whole lot of positive changes. Do it right, and get the results you paid for. It will get easier and easier as those fears are taken care of.

[THolt]

I have been waiting for a few different things to be reported in response to people using OF.  One was less desire to drink alcohol; someone reported that.  One was ED and/or PMO dropping; someone reported that.  One was that it should have the effect of allowing people who have gained weight out of fear to eventually start losing weight as the causative fears are released.  

I would say that seems like a very likely explanation in this case.

OF isn't going to be the easiest thing to run in the beginning for those who have the most need to run it.  But it is well worth the effort to keep going.  You cannot benefit from it if you run away and don't use it.  I suggest you use it as directed for the entire eight months.  It seems likely that within 3 or 4 ASRB2 cycles, you're going to see a whole lot of positive changes.  Do it right, and get the results you paid for.  It will get easier and easier as those fears are taken care of.

@Shannon 

Do you anticipate E4 having similar effects like weight loss or a reduction in drinking alcohol?

[Shannon]

I have been waiting for a few different things to be reported in response to people using OF.  One was less desire to drink alcohol; someone reported that.  One was ED and/or PMO dropping; someone reported that.  One was that it should have the effect of allowing people who have gained weight out of fear to eventually start losing weight as the causative fears are released.  

I would say that seems like a very likely explanation in this case.

OF isn't going to be the easiest thing to run in the beginning for those who have the most need to run it.  But it is well worth the effort to keep going.  You cannot benefit from it if you run away and don't use it.  I suggest you use it as directed for the entire eight months.  It seems likely that within 3 or 4 ASRB2 cycles, you're going to see a whole lot of positive changes.  Do it right, and get the results you paid for.  It will get easier and easier as those fears are taken care of.

@Shannon 

Do you anticipate E4 having similar effects like weight loss or a reduction in drinking alcohol?

It's a definite possibility.  These effects were only theorized, though.  But that they seem to be happening is supporting my theory that it's fear behind all this crud.

[whome]

I suggest you use it as directed for the entire eight months.

I have a question on that. One of the decisions that I had made was that I would avoid listening for the 24 hours following any ketamine infusion; this was out of concern that they would not interact well. Since my ketamine infusion schedule does not match up with the ASRB cycles, there’s no way that I can adhere to the schedule as directed.

Is this a wise precaution, or should I not worry about listening to a sub while there are traces of ketamine in my system?

[Shannon]

I suggest you use it as directed for the entire eight months.

I have a question on that. One of the decisions that I had made was that I would avoid listening for the 24 hours following any ketamine infusion; this was out of concern that they would not interact well. Since my ketamine infusion schedule does not match up with the ASRB cycles, there’s no way that I can adhere to the schedule as directed.

Is this a wise precaution, or should I not worry about listening to a sub while there are traces of ketamine in my system?

The only way you can know for sure is to try both and compare your results.  But you must have a reasonable number of data points on both sides of the fence to consider.

[whome]

I was on the fence about starting up again with OF, but I had a realization. I can’t go into the details here, but there was a moment about two weeks ago when I got massively unstuck at work with a conflict with a colleague that was very emotionally-charged on my side (it pushed the “you’re broken” button deep in my chest). I realized that that moment was about two days into the abandoned run that I’d been doing.

So I’m back.

Today is day 1, and I did the ultrasonic overnight. I also went in for a ketamine treatment today, and it was unlike other treatments that I’ve had. Usually the dizziness passes after about 30–45 minutes, but it’s two hours later now and I’m still feeling dizzy and almost motion sick. In addition, usually during the treatment the ketamine has my body feeling buzzy, but this time there was no sharpness to the buzz, but it was dull and overpowering. I don’t know if that’s intentional, unintentional, or totally unrelated and just a weird variation on how the treatment proceeded, but I wanted to note it.

[whome]

Day 3

Ultrasonic overnight.

I woke up exhausted today. It’s hard to pin poor sleep on OF; to listen to it ultrasonically overnight means no air conditioning, and the fan I have is loud, so I’m getting poor sleep that way. This morning for hours I had acid reflux and nausea.

Starting at 10:30pm two very bad things happened.

First, my downstairs neighbor let me know that my A/C is dripping into the walls, and into her apartment. So tomorrow it’s a trip to the hardware store to figure out better drainage. She’s being very kind, but having to deal with this is going to be a pain.

Second, it looks like my work computer just died. No signal, it won’t turn on. The hard drive is encrypted and it’s a T2 Mac, so without a backup all the stuff I’ve been working on might be gone. And I’d noticed yesterday that it wasn’t backing up and I filed a ticket. So unless it miraculously comes to life this is a huge setback.

Is this my subconscious rebelling? I would rather have taken grief and sadness rather than this.

[whome]

Day 4

Today I pulled the A/C out of the wall and looked at the sleeve. I’m pretty sure it’s installed correctly. If water is dripping out of the A/C, it’s going to drip out of the back of the sleeve and down the outside of the building.

Which means that if it’s re-entering the building, it’s on the outside of the building and the building’s problem, not mine. So phew! that was a close one.

My computer still looks dead. That continues to really suck.

[Shannon]

I tend to make backups that are easily restored, and they are manually done so I don't end up with, "Oh, it wasn't backing up for the last month before my computer died..."

I have learned the hard way. Several times. It's not hard to get an external drive and encrypt it, and then just copy a partition across once in a while. You could do that on top of automated backups. Just a suggestion.

[whome]

I’m very good at backing up my personal computers, on-site, off-site, the works. My work is paranoid about data, so they have their own backup system, and I wasn’t aware that it wasn’t working, and it wasn’t on my radar like the backup systems of my personal computers.

I will file a ticket for them to monitor their backup systems better.

[whome]

Day 11

Checking in occasionally here. I’m still on schedule; day two of the second cycle.

I’m listening overnight ultrasonically, which means no earplugs, which means the A/C is off. For the first week of the sub it was a stand fan, but now that I have a ceiling fan I’m using that. Mixed results. I’m experimenting with cooling my bedroom during the day and using the fan overnight at a low level, with leaving the A/C entirely off and using the fan at a high level, and different combinations. I haven’t found anything that really works; for the past week I’ve woken exhausted and a bit dizzy.

I have no idea why. Sleeping in an 80°F apartment can do that, but I do have a fan so it’s possible that this is subconscious pushback. Or both. Or maybe my subconscious was just angry at me for other reasons and is punishing me. I’m tempted during the next ASRB off-time (Fri–Sun) to try earplugs and the A/C, though if things get better it’ll be hard to say for certain why.

[fab10]

Day 11

Checking in occasionally here. I’m still on schedule; day two of the second cycle.

I’m listening overnight ultrasonically, which means no earplugs, which means the A/C is off. For the first week of the sub it was a stand fan, but now that I have a ceiling fan I’m using that. Mixed results. I’m experimenting with cooling my bedroom during the day and using the fan overnight at a low level, with leaving the A/C entirely off and using the fan at a high level, and different combinations. I haven’t found anything that really works; for the past week I’ve woken exhausted and a bit dizzy.

I have no idea why. Sleeping in an 80°F apartment can do that, but I do have a fan so it’s possible that this is subconscious pushback. Or both. Or maybe my subconscious was just angry at me for other reasons and is punishing me. I’m tempted during the next ASRB off-time (Fri–Sun) to try earplugs and the A/C, though if things get better it’ll be hard to say for certain why.

I have a suggestion: why don’t you try playing the sub on noise isolating sleep earpods and leave the A/C on? (Passive noise reduction ear pods, specifically designed for sleep)

[whome]

I have a suggestion: why don’t you try playing the sub on noise isolating sleep earpods and leave the A/C on? (Passive noise reduction ear pods, specifically designed for sleep)

I’m extremely sensitive to noise. I wouldn’t be able to sleep with anything playing on them, and playing ultrasonic subs on earbuds isn’t safe.