With the matter of the placebo vs. active drug settled, the big unknown for me is the MRI. I had the MRI last Wednesday, and they said I'd likely see results soon. But they didn't elaborate on how soon is soon.
I'm told they will compare the results from the outset of the study (one year ago) with the new results. I very much want to know what they have to say about my hippocampus volume. The report of my 2015 MRI at Harborview judged my hippocampus volume to be at the 30 percentile of the general population but two MRIs in February 2017 found me at the 1 percentile. That's pretty bad. However, they acknowledged that there is more art than science involved in reading the machine's output, and the difference may be due to technique. My Harborview neurologist said that it's hard to say which is more accurate.
The hippocampus is where memory begins. Memories are (hopefully) encoded there and then moved into other parts of the brain for longer term storage. On the one hand, the hippocampus is what (apparently) is attacked first by Alzheimer's disease, but it is also where stem cells reside that can participate in neurogenesis. When I was first diagnosed, they took note of the hippocampus shrinkage. I think that watching it is an important key in understanding the progress of my improvement.
So I wait eagerly for the radiologist's report of this last MRI.
In my book, "Beating the Dementia Monster," I describe what has occurred since 2015 when I first knew I had memory problems. (You can find it on Amazon.com.) I have experienced remarkable improvement, and I’m certain that I can share valuable information with many others. In this second edition I continue my story to 2020 and provide greater understanding of how Alzheimer's advances and why what I did worked.
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