IdeaLabs In Yer Eye!

[LeeLemonoil]

Thanks, very interesting !

 

[jaminhealth]

Reading this thread and I have my story too about not going to an eye doc for at least 10 yrs and escaping all the negative eye issues MANY develop. I know of some others who use DMSO for eye but I would not. So so many avenues to good health. I see people naming companies, I guess that is permitted here? Someone called me on one company I mentioned in another thread.

 

[managing]

Wanted to give a brief update on this thread...

I have toyed with the ocular route of administration on and off for about 2 years now. Here are some observations:

• Virtually any amount of alcohol in the eye is unpleasant. The only reason I imagine I was able to tolerate it was a moderate to severe "ocular block" -- which was one of the reasons I was using ophthalmics in the first place. I think I would have been able to use vitamin K indefinitely if it weren't for the alcohol in the IdeaLabs formula.
• Zaditor (ketotifen) is subtle but works. The effects plateau early on, after about 10 drops per eye, but the psychological relief it provides is real.
• Bromantane, which I've been using orally in high doses,~500 mg/day, to some effect, not only doesn't hurt in the eye, it works and continues to work after repeated administration. I'm using a 3% solution in saline, which is 100 times more concentrated than Zaditor (.035%).

Updates to follow.

What are the effects of Zaditor that you experience?

 

[cjm]

What are the effects of Zaditor that you experience?

Hey man. Nice to see you back. I had seen you post some detailed results from trying some antihistamines in the eye iirc. I was impressed but then again I've come to expect a nice level of detail from you. Always a pleasure to read your posts. Anyway.

Zaditor reduces pressure on my eye I think. Gives me slightly more psychological bandwidth. I didn't and don't track temps, pulse, any of the classic Ray metrics. It's more of a "I'm less crazy than I was before" kind of thing.

In case anyone is interested, I've been reading Reich and the "segments of armor" portion of his Character Analysis book and he says an ocular block ("armor ring") must be removed before blocks further down the body will respond/loosen. There was a remark somewhere on the internet about how his students were more impressed by the improvement of psychological well-being more so than any gains in visual acuity after removing an ocular block. When I first started this experiment, I wasn't aware of how much of a master switch it would/could be. I just knew I was getting more relief from eye drops than from oral or even topical supplements of various stripes.

Bromantane seems so promising that I think I can drop oral supplements altogether, i.e., eliminate confounding variables, and see where the eye experiment takes me. @Lokzo, you inspired me to pick up some bromantane and I'm really happy with the decision. I wish I had known about it years ago.

 

[managing]

Hey man. Nice to see you back. I had seen you post some detailed results from trying some antihistamines in the eye iirc. I was impressed but then again I've come to expect a nice level of detail from you. Always a pleasure to read your posts. Anyway.

Zaditor reduces pressure on my eye I think. Gives me slightly more psychological bandwidth. I didn't and don't track temps, pulse, any of the classic Ray metrics. It's more of a "I'm less crazy than I was before" kind of thing.

In case anyone is interested, I've been reading Reich and the "segments of armor" portion of his Character Analysis book and he says an ocular block ("armor ring") must be removed before blocks further down the body will respond/loosen. There was a remark somewhere on the internet about how his students were more impressed by the improvement of psychological well-being more so than any gains in visual acuity after removing an ocular block. When I first started this experiment, I wasn't aware of how much of a master switch it would/could be. I just knew I was getting more relief from eye drops than from oral or even topical supplements of various stripes.

Bromantane seems so promising that I think I can drop oral supplements altogether, i.e., eliminate confounding variables, and see where the eye experiment takes me. @Lokzo, you inspired me to pick up some bromantane and I'm really happy with the decision. I wish I had known about it years ago.

Interesting. I feel that I get these results from Ketotifen under my tongue or on the skin. Very low doses too--from 10-40mcg. I think some of your benefit may be systemic. But some is almost surely related to direct effect on your eyes as well.

 

[cjm]

Interesting. I feel that I get these results from Ketotifen under my tongue or on the skin. Very low doses too--from 10-40mcg. I think some of your benefit may be systemic. But some is almost surely related to direct effect on your eyes as well.

Is your ketotifen OTC? I can only find Zaditor.

I'm envisioning mechanical effects, which would be both local and systemic:

• reduced eye pressure...
• reduced strain on the optic nerve hence a lesser load on the occipital lobe and maybe the muscles of the back of the head, which give major direction to the rest of the body through the superficial back line, if you're into the whole fascia angle...
• Reich said the optic chiasma, where the optic nerves cross, is a nexus of sorts involving all the vegetative centers. "Contraction of the vegetative centers can well reduce all autonomic functioning, including respiration, and interfere with development of various organs of the body, especially the circulatory system and genitals, and even the body itself, thus giving rise to the asthenic type." [link]

 

[cjm]

Zaditor reduces pressure on my eye I think. Gives me slightly more psychological bandwidth. I didn't and don't track temps, pulse, any of the classic Ray metrics. It's more of a "I'm less crazy than I was before" kind of thing.

I was thinking about it and I do feel intimately connected to my libidinal urges and appetite. They are RARELY present and feeling them gives me great joy. It's pedantic to track temps and pulse when you feel dead.

In that context, Zaditor moves me subtly in the direction of being sexual and hungry, more integrated and whole. It might be slightly sedative.

 

[managing]

Is your ketotifen OTC? I can only find Zaditor.

I'm envisioning mechanical effects, which would be both local and systemic:

• reduced eye pressure...
• reduced strain on the optic nerve hence a lesser load on the occipital lobe and maybe the muscles of the back of the head, which give major direction to the rest of the body through the superficial back line, if you're into the whole fascia angle...
• Reich said the optic chiasma, where the optic nerves cross, is a nexus of sorts involving all the vegetative centers. "Contraction of the vegetative centers can well reduce all autonomic functioning, including respiration, and interfere with development of various organs of the body, especially the circulatory system and genitals, and even the body itself, thus giving rise to the asthenic type." [link]

Ketotifen is OTC in the US and many other places. However, nobody sells Ketotifen (other than Zaditor) in the US. I buy mine in Mexico as a liquid suspension with each drop = 10mcg.

Marca del Ahorro Ketotifeno 20 ml oral Adulto 120 ml solucion

 

[cjm]

Ketotifen is OTC in the US and many other places. However, nobody sells Ketotifen (other than Zaditor) in the US. I buy mine in Mexico as a liquid suspension with each drop = 10mcg.

Marca del Ahorro Ketotifeno 20 ml oral Adulto 120 ml solucion

Thanks! Where do you find luck with topical admin?

 

[LeeLemonoil]

Have you experienced any prounounced effects especially on the eye from any substance? Redness, dryness or the improvement of any such conditions perhaps? Did the vascularity of the conjunctiva change?

 

[managing]

Thanks! Where do you find luck with topical admin?

A lot of the time I put it under my tongue. Which is really topical and not oral if it adsorbs there. Otherwise, the inner forearms. It has some sugar in it (to cover the flavor of ketotifen which is mildly bitter) so it can leave a little stickiness. But even that seems to absorb eventually.

 

[cjm]

Shutting down my participation in this experiment. Thanks for the interest. I keep saying I need to start a log, probably won't happen, I have a backlog of reality to take care of.

Wanted to let folks know I'm getting relief from the muscular stiffness and rumination from simple saline in the eye. I've been confused for a while because my symptoms are systemic but I think the nexus of inflammation, the source of the problems, is somewhere in my face/sinuses.

In other news, I got a heart-rate monitor and have been tracking heart rate variability. I find it easier to focus on one thing* that conveys a picture of health. It's not fool-proof, is open to interpretation, but it's insanely real-time data, costs nothing after the initial investment, and has clinical studies to boot.

Maybe see you all again soon. I went on a manic streak posting around the forum, I apologize for confusing or irritating anyone. It helped me realize I should be working towards my own problem's solution with complete honesty.

~~~

*I've been lounging around with the idea of the "silver bullet" and why you shouldn't divorce yourself entirely from the idea of one.

"The fact that many kinds of cancer cells can be killed by emodin makes it slightly interesting as a cancer drug, but its simple generic nature has caused the drug industry to look for a more Ehrlichian magic bullet; for example, they are still looking for ways to keep doxorubicin from destroying the heart.

Emodin isn’t a magic bullet (in fact it isn’t a bullet/toxin of any sort), but when combined with all the other adaptogens, it does have a place in cancer therapy, as well as in treating many other ailments."

Cascara, energy, cancer and the FDA's laxative abuse​

Instead of letting a drug or a supplement hold the silver bullet title, why not think of it as your ability to see the light at the end of a dark tunnel? A silver bullet is a right path that coalesces into a single image. The true silver bullet is actualized intention. Be the change you want to see. Hoping this resonates with anyone.

 

[cjm]

I took a month off and came back to dabble with a little Clonidine. I dissolved a 100mcg tablet in some saline and let the excipients fall to the bottom. I poured as much pure solution into an eye dropper as I could but some irritants ending up making their way into the final solution. I experienced a de-pressurizing effect in my head, less tinnitus, less mental chatter. But the irritation is too much to bear to make it worth administering this way, unless I can filter the excipients out better. Maybe they are suspended in the saline to some extent? I don't know, but I ended making a nasal solution the same way that works without the irritation. Eyedrops really need to be clean to work, I've found. Maybe that should have been obvious from the onset.

 

[cjm]

@LeeLemonoil

My dumb **** just put a solid drop of methylene blue (MB) in my right eye. Undilluted, so probably about 1mg. Everything turned blue for a second, lol, and then the pain came. It was intense, especially under my eye, and keeping it open too long was impossible. I felt a burn in my throat where I had taken some MB earlier, I wonder if the eye drop made its way through my sinuses. After maybe 15 minutes of agony, the pain dulled down and focused in the front. I'm feeling around on it and there's a ridge (or a dip) as I feel up towards my brows, and below it (right about where the iris starts) there is some hurt-so-good dull pain that responds to the most gentle massage.

Wasn't planning to continue the experiment per se because my intentions can't be easily communicated, but I keep coming back to it. Might have an actual eye injury. Had an accident in sports a few years back where I flat-out face-slammed another player running at full speed. Definitely had a concussion. Right eye (same eye) was the focal point of the injury. Never had any rebound pain, or any sensations I would associate with healing. Just deadness.

I was actually intending to put a very diluted drop of MB in my eye prior to this, though I'm reckless and tend to make advances through accidents, so I didn't let this go to waste. I don't intend to use a full mg again (never did) but it brings up a neat angle in one of Peat's papers on cataracts:

"There is some knowledge about the effects of systemic disease on the eye, but very little about the effects of particular parts of the eye on systemic physiology, and relatively few physicians are aware of the effects of one part of the eye on the other parts of the eye. A few of these physiological interactions within the eye are very interesting. For example, injury to the lens powerfully stimulates regeneration of nerves in the retina (Fischer, et al., 2000). Things which injure the lens enough to cause cataracts to develop might also be injuring the retina, but the emission of stimulating substances from the lens must be a compensating influence."
Cataracts: water, energy, light, and aging

Couldn't find the full article but the full abstract to the Fischer study is here: Cataractogenic lens injury prevents traumatic ganglion cell death and promotes axonal regeneration both in vivo and in culture

One can imagine less torturous, more finely tuned methods of injury than an oral dose of MB in the eye.

What about a diluted drop with red light (photosensitization [PDT])?

 

[Waynish]

@LeeLemonoil

My dumb **** just put a solid drop of methylene blue (MB) in my right eye. Undilluted, so probably about 1mg. Everything turned blue for a second, lol, and then the pain came. It was intense, especially under my eye, and keeping it open too long was impossible. I felt a burn in my throat where I had taken some MB earlier, I wonder if the eye drop made its way through my sinuses. After maybe 15 minutes of agony, the pain dulled down and focused in the front. I'm feeling around on it and there's a ridge (or a dip) as I feel up towards my brows, and below it (right about where the iris starts) there is some hurt-so-good dull pain that responds to the most gentle massage.

Wasn't planning to continue the experiment per se because my intentions can't be easily communicated, but I keep coming back to it. Might have an actual eye injury. Had an accident in sports a few years back where I flat-out face-slammed another player running at full speed. Definitely had a concussion. Right eye (same eye) was the focal point of the injury. Never had any rebound pain, or any sensations I would associate with healing. Just deadness.

I was actually intending to put a very diluted drop of MB in my eye prior to this, though I'm reckless and tend to make advances through accidents, so I didn't let this go to waste. I don't intend to use a full mg again (never did) but it brings up a neat angle in one of Peat's papers on cataracts:

"There is some knowledge about the effects of systemic disease on the eye, but very little about the effects of particular parts of the eye on systemic physiology, and relatively few physicians are aware of the effects of one part of the eye on the other parts of the eye. A few of these physiological interactions within the eye are very interesting. For example, injury to the lens powerfully stimulates regeneration of nerves in the retina (Fischer, et al., 2000). Things which injure the lens enough to cause cataracts to develop might also be injuring the retina, but the emission of stimulating substances from the lens must be a compensating influence."
Cataracts: water, energy, light, and aging

Couldn't find the full article but the full abstract to the Fischer study is here: Cataractogenic lens injury prevents traumatic ganglion cell death and promotes axonal regeneration both in vivo and in culture

One can imagine less torturous, more finely tuned methods of injury than an oral dose of MB in the eye.

What about a diluted drop with red light (photosensitization [PDT])?

Interesting. Any updates? Was sight different after the MB-eye accident? :)

 

[cjm]

Interesting. Any updates? Was sight different after the MB-eye accident? :)

Haven't done that again lol! Not worth the reward. My vision wasn't any better (or worse, thankfully) afterwards.

Funny you are back now, I've been working with vitamin C, making a silicone cream at first, and then going for a low concentration in saline for the eyes. Not sure what the % is, probably under 1%, and it still stings like muthaflippa, but the sting feels productive, does that make sense? It also doesn't last for 60 minutes lol, more like a few seconds, and then vision is a little brighter, but less "troubled" by surrounding muscle tension.

My intestines are still bombed out and don't respond to most oral supplements, that's why I gravitated to eyedrops in the beginning, hence this thread, but I find skin is much kinder to supplementation. My vitamin C cream was 10% concentration, much like many "leading" brands offer, and I felt noticeably antioxidated, the dose through the skin had a noticeable de-pressurizing effect. I added some cistanche herb (3%) to my little batch yesterday with decent results.

Skin admin takes the worry out of "ow my eye" or "oh no my stomach" -- I might need to start a Topical thread.

 

[CreakyJoints]

Although the damage/regeneration paper is very interesting, MB possibly stains the cornea. I would be curious to see a study with extremely diluted MB and red light at 670nm, since this has recently been discussed as a possible treatment for cataracts. I hasten to add I am not recommending this as a thing to do, whilst they can be synergistic it might be extremely damaging if done without proper precautions.

I'm very fascinated by this thread, will be following in case there are more write-ups, and will be on the look out for any topical ones you start.

 

[cjm]

Although the damage/regeneration paper is very interesting, MB possibly stains the cornea. I would be curious to see a study with extremely diluted MB and red light at 670nm, since this has recently been discussed as a possible treatment for cataracts. I hasten to add I am not recommending this as a thing to do, whilst they can be synergistic it might be extremely damaging if done without proper precautions.

I'm very fascinated by this thread, will be following in case there are more write-ups, and will be on the look out for any topical ones you start.

Thanks, Creaks, glad you are getting something of my madness! :)

Speaking of topicals...

The water-in-silicone kit is a game changer, it will handle quite a bit of "actives" - water-soluble additions like vitamin C. My sister shills for this MaryKay esque MLM called Beauty Counter and they make a 1 ounce 10% vitamin C with an entourage of a thousand different herbal extracts for $90. I made an ounce of my own 10% cream (without the nice smells) for approximately $2.50.

Even if none is absorbed systemically, the skin probably has big requirements for C. My city's water smells like it came out of a swimming pool some days and I take long baths in it, there must be some damage from the chlorine exposure.

The highest concentration C cream I've seen is weirdly the cheapest and has 23%. People say it's grainy. I wonder if that's undissolved C crystals. No graininess in my 10%, that's probably high enough.

I'm browsing Lotioncrafter's site, they have a list of active ingredients they sell for creams, and GABA (!) is one. (Added to cart.) There is such a thing as a commercial GABA cream and it's dumb expensive. Here's one that has GABA and theanine that's cheaper but apparently you can just toss plain l-theanine on the skin and it has an anti-inflammatory effect.

"Topical application of vehicles (acetone and saline) or L-theanine alone [???] on the ear did not alter the skin thickness notably (data not shown)."

Ref: Topical delivery of l-theanine ameliorates TPA-induced acute skin inflammation via downregulating endothelial PECAM-1 and neutrophil infiltration and activation

Weird.

Further in the Lotioncrafter catalog, these are cool: Silk Amino Acids PF

"The principal amino acids in Silk Amino Acids are glycine, alanine, and serine." [unknown concentrations]

"The approximate amino acid composition of gelatin is as follows: glycine 21%, proline 12%, hydroxyproline 12%, glutamic acid 10%, alanine 9%, arginine 8%, aspartic acid 6%, lysine 4%, serine 4%, leucine 3%, valine 2%, phenylalanine 2%, threonine 2%, isoleucine 1%, hydroxylysine 1%, methionine and histidine < 1%, and tyrosine < 0.5%." [ref]

I'm not implying it's gelatin because: "The bulk of the other major amino acid, tyrosine, has been removed due to its lack of solubility." i don't know where they are deriving it from. Cool parallel nonetheless. (Added to cart.)

Might add glycine to tonight's cream if I can figure out how much Lotioncrafter is able to stuff in theirs.

EDIT:

"proline 5%-glycine 5% water emulsive ointment"​

[ref: Effective therapy with a glycine-proline ointment in a patient with recurrent ulcers from prolidase deficiency]​

Anyway, there's a real good chance I'll get weird enough with the creams to start a thread.

EDIT 2: glycine or aspirin is sticky I'm not sure which, I made an ounce of 10% C cream with ~3% each of those. Aspirin did not dissolve well, might need heat next time. Made a second ounce of ~15% C, nothing else, and it all dissolved, but might have stung a little on the skin.

 

[CreakyJoints]

Thanks, Creaks, glad you are getting something of my madness! :)

Speaking of topicals...

The water-in-silicone kit is a game changer, it will handle quite a bit of "actives" - water-soluble additions like vitamin C. My sister shills for this MaryKay esque MLM called Beauty Counter and they make a 1 ounce 10% vitamin C with an entourage of a thousand different herbal extracts for $90. I made an ounce of my own 10% cream (without the nice smells) for approximately $2.50.

Even if none is absorbed systemically, the skin probably has big requirements for C. My city's water smells like it came out of a swimming pool some days and I take long baths in it, there must be some damage from the chlorine exposure.

The highest concentration C cream I've seen is weirdly the cheapest and has 23%. People say it's grainy. I wonder if that's undissolved C crystals. No graininess in my 10%, that's probably high enough.

I'm browsing Lotioncrafter's site, they have a list of active ingredients they sell for creams, and GABA (!) is one. (Added to cart.) There is such a thing as a commercial GABA cream and it's dumb expensive. Here's one that has GABA and theanine that's cheaper but apparently you can just toss plain l-theanine on the skin and it has an anti-inflammatory effect.

I'd be curious about this too, I also take long baths, and I've wanted to look into those vitamin C filters that are around which you can just wrap around the tap, but I'm not sure how effective they would be, if at all. I'm quite wary of ascorbic acid in general (is that the form you'd be using?) - because Ray Peat has warned in quite strong terms the issues with adulterants. I've bought Quali-C products manufactured in the UK before, and the first batch I got was very grainy, but uniform - the texture was similar to white sugar. The next batch I got, after the same company started distributing on Amazon, was an extremely fine powder, which clumped together easily. I noticed faster bowel titration with the first batch than the second, but I'd built up a tolerance by the time the powdery stuff came. Do you suppose the process of turning it into cream might filter out some of the adulterants Peat is concerned about? Or is it still a potential issue you'd just rather not worry about?

Gelatin is a substance which confuses me quite a lot. I read a very lengthy article once on different kinds of it, the levels of sensitivity to heat and cold, &c. - but I came out of it more confused than I came in. I would have thought the same site might sell perhaps some kind of serrapeptase product if they had a supplier who was harvesting silkworms, given that seems to be quite a popular thing, but there's nothing there. Probably doesn't mean anything.

Notable Exposure symptoms: Non-toxic by oral ingestion (based on nature of material). No other adverse clinical effects are known to be associated with exposure to this material
If ingested: Drink water, seek medical attention
...
Skin contact: Wash material off the skin with soap and water

I found this pretty amusing.

 

[cjm]

I'd be curious about this too, I also take long baths, and I've wanted to look into those vitamin C filters that are around which you can just wrap around the tap, but I'm not sure how effective they would be, if at all. I'm quite wary of ascorbic acid in general (is that the form you'd be using?) - because Ray Peat has warned in quite strong terms the issues with adulterants. I've bought Quali-C products manufactured in the UK before, and the first batch I got was very grainy, but uniform - the texture was similar to white sugar. The next batch I got, after the same company started distributing on Amazon, was an extremely fine powder, which clumped together easily. I noticed faster bowel titration with the first batch than the second, but I'd built up a tolerance by the time the powdery stuff came. Do you suppose the process of turning it into cream might filter out some of the adulterants Peat is concerned about? Or is it still a potential issue you'd just rather not worry about?

Yes, Quali-C only. I did a sniff test of the market offerings a while ago and settled on it. It's cheap and relatively uncontaminated. Interesting your observations, though. Not sure what to make of it. And maybe I'm lacking the mental bandwidth to process the significance of Peat's warning, because I also felt it was strongly worded, but it was a homunculus on my brain preventing experimentation so I stopped giving a crap (or as much of one) one day and started using it. The transdermal route avoids irritating the insides -- mine are awful, really really sensitive in a way where I get no feedback or acute symptoms, there's just this potent weariness about me all the time, so I try to avoid oral supplementation. I'm glad the cream powerful enough of a dose to feel a difference but I don't know the long term adverse effects of the chemicals in the body, if they are getting through the skin, I'm sure they are.

Gelatin is a substance which confuses me quite a lot. I read a very lengthy article once on different kinds of it, the levels of sensitivity to heat and cold, &c. - but I came out of it more confused than I came in. I would have thought the same site might sell perhaps some kind of serrapeptase product if they had a supplier who was harvesting silkworms, given that seems to be quite a popular thing, but there's nothing there. Probably doesn't mean anything.

I wonder if the "Silk" refers to silkworms? Cool way to source raw materials, from life itself. In the interest of keeping it simple and on track, I'll avoid enzymes for now, though I have to say I'm intrigued if they could help break down scar tissue. I'm into self-massage and it helps for this purpose.