Christmas letter

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TheresaB
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Christmas letter

Post by TheresaB »

Our local TV station recently carried this bittersweet segment about a couple sharing their Alzheimer’s Diagnosis in a Christmas letter. http://www.9news.com/life/family/couple ... /496416670

While nice, I contrasted this with the Christmas letter my husband and I just wrote. Along with family news and amusing anecdotes from the year, we also shared about our travels, including the ApoE4 meet-up at the Low Carb Conference in San Diego, Dr Bredesen and Dr Gundry with their recently published books, and my thoughts that by knowing one’s genetic status one can influence their fate, not feel powerless or victimized. We don’t preach, but we do like to spread good info, folks can do with the info as they please.

I’m sure there are some who view such things in a Christmas letter as odd, that’s okay, it fits us. I’m also sure many will ignore what we’ve said. But wouldn’t it be nice if some how we’ve helped prevent future Christmas letters where couples don’t have to write about living with Alzheimer’s?
-Theresa
ApoE 4/4
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Julie G
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Re: Christmas letter

Post by Julie G »

LOVE! More Christmas letters like yours could prevent heartbreaking letters like theirs. xo
PBW
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Re: Christmas letter

Post by PBW »

Love it! I gave Dr Bredesen's book to my brother and Dr Gundry's book to my sisters niece who does all the cooking for my sister. These were their gifts from me this year! They may be offended.
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Re: Christmas letter

Post by Orangeblossom »

I gave some of my family copies of this Blood Sugar Diet book last year, which is about helping prevent diabetes etc. I'm not sure if they liked it or not but it helped me feel I was helping them a bit!
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Re: Christmas letter

Post by Bettylacy »

Spreading the word about your personal health journey to me is an important info in any holiday letter. I think you are on to something Theresa. Thanks for sharing the idea. My mom announced her Alzheimer’s diagnosis in her’s 4 years ago. I was just looking it over this week. She’s a role model as you are!
APOe 3/4; If you want to go fast go alone. If you want to go far go together. African proverb. :D
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TheresaB
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Re: Christmas letter

Post by TheresaB »

Bettylacy wrote:Spreading the word about your personal health journey to me is an important info in any holiday letter. I think you are on to something Theresa. Thanks for sharing the idea. My mom announced her Alzheimer’s diagnosis in her’s 4 years ago. I was just looking it over this week. She’s a role model as you are!
Aw shucks Betty :oops: Sending love back to you.
-Theresa
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TheresaB
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Re: Christmas letter

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It's been 5 years (2017) since I wrote my initial post after seeing a bittersweet news segment about a couple sharing their Alzheimer’s diagnosis in a Christmas letter. That inspired me to write in my Christmas letter about ApoE4, on how knowing one’s genetic status and certain lifestyle choices can positively influence a person’s fate, and about this ApoE4.info group.

Since then, every year, I've continued to include some information on ApoE4.info in my Christmas letter in hopes, as I expressed 5 years ago, that maybe spreading the knowledge will help prevent future heartbreaking Christmas letters.

In this year’s Christmas letter, I again added my positive paragraph, but I also had to write heartbreaking news about immediate family members. My siblings likely hold one if not two 4s, since I'm a 4/4 and so much has changed with them in the past 5 years. In 2017 all my siblings were alive and seemed to be in fairly good stead. Okay, two had health issues but nothing of immediate apparent consequence and while I knew of certain poor lifestyle practices, none seemed to indicate health would shortly fall off a cliff. In 2018, one of my sisters died unexpectedly at age 70 (ApoE4s are longevity challenged, very few in my family - grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, siblings have made it out of their 70s). In this year’s letter I had to write of my brother's passing this year after struggling with post-COVID lung issues, exacerbated by his previously diagnosed cardiovascular disease (another disease ApoE4s are susceptible towards), and Type 2 diabetes, (another health concern of ApoE4s). I have two remaining siblings, both with dementia, and one of those two was also recently diagnosed with an autoimmune disease (ApoE4s are pro-inflammatory and inflammation certainly can affect cognition). So far, I’m the last ApoE4 standing.

I told my siblings about my status and the risks it confers right after I learned it myself 8 years ago. Since that time I repeatedly nudged them on the subject, but I guess they felt they didn’t need advice from their baby sister. I can’t help but think if there was more dialogue on this subject from other sources, they might have taken me more seriously.

Despite all this family doom and gloom, I am optimistic for myself! They made their choices and I’ve made mine.
• I changed my diet and reduced inflammation
• I adapted my body to readily produce ketones
• I intermittent fast to encourage autophagy (body’s housecleaning) and ketone production
• I keep my glucose/insulin levels down
• I worked at healing a slightly leaky gut
• I mind my mitochondria
• I try to keep LDL levels reasonable to reduce small, dense, oxidized (inflammatory) LDL
• I encourage a healthy gut microbiome
• I’m very particular about my sleep hygiene and honor my circadian rhythm
• I try to keep active and exercise
• I try to keep stress to a minimum
• I follow practices to stimulate my vagus nerve
• I added certain supplements
• I protect my head
• I learn something new every day
• I try to avoid toxins, mold, chemicals leaching into food from cookware and storage containers
• I sauna regularly
• I drink purified water and try to stay hydrated
• I try to keep positive thoughts and practice gratitude
• I walk in nature whenever I can (forest bathing) and try to get some sunshine every day
• There’s probably more

My siblings turned a deaf ear to my advice, but hopefully, nieces/nephews and some friends who also get my Christmas letter are listening. I know one friend reached out to me this past year (APOE status unknown) and I was happy to point her in certain directions.

Anyone else writing about their personal health journey in their Christmas letter?
-Theresa
ApoE 4/4
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Re: Christmas letter

Post by JD2020 »

TheresaB wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 11:13 am My siblings turned a deaf ear to my advice, but hopefully, nieces/nephews and some friends who also get my Christmas letter are listening. I know one friend reached out to me this past year (APOE status unknown) and I was happy to point her in certain directions.

Anyone else writing about their personal health journey in their Christmas letter?
Hi Theresa,

Yes, that is heartbreaking. I am very sorry. I don't share this information in the Christmas letter, but I make reference to it in conversations, any time that I possibly can. I figure that maybe a light goes on for someone in the future, and I will have helped in some small way. I reconnected with an old friend a couple of months ago, and she mentioned that her family has a very intense history of dementia, and I asked if she had heard of Dr. Bredesen and ReCODE. She had! But she had no idea that it was for real, that this community is here, that doctors are doing this, that the books exist. She bought the books as a starting point.

I tried to get the family behind helping my mom when it might have made a difference. I was dismissed, sort of the same way that they used to tease me about eating organic. I think they think that I think that I am going to live forever, whereas, of course, I just want to live well. Now another family member appears to be in decline. So...I am with you in the heartbreak. Best wishes.
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