My CAR-T Strategy

Note: I started writing this prior to my Car-T procedure. I didn’t get it done prior, and I wanted to document the procedure as I was going through it, so this post got tabled until afterwards. So the post might be written slightly funny.

Here you go…

When I think about the Car-T treatment, a few things come to mind. I’ve come up with two main points that I’m going to focus on.

The first one would be actually getting through the procedure and the side effects from it. I’m going to follow the same strategy that I employed for my SCT. I can’t control what side effect I’m going to have, but I can be as strong and as healthy as I can be to withstand the treatment.

I’m not going to go too much into it since I’ve already written about it. I’m eating tons of vegetables and lentils so my body can have what it needs to repair and recover.

I’m getting as much exercise as I can. I have a few physical bumps and bruises from a slip from when I was hiking. That’s limited me more than I would like, so I’m not doing as well in this aspect as I would like to be.

Lastly, I’m trying to shore up my mental aspects using Qi gong and meditation. With all the potential issues that can come up, it can be mentally taxing. This process has already been going on for 2 months, with all the doctor appointments, tests, cell collection and driving in between.

I’m at the point of “just get on with it already” and thankfully that’s where I’m finally at. Sometimes I do find myself teetering between being positive and negative. So I’ve been utilizing meditation to re-center myself.

The second aspect of this procedure is the Car-T cells themselves. The cells have been edited to find and destroy the myeloma cells. But the biggest problem with the edited T cells, is they get exhausted from doing this after a certain point.

Clearly, science hasn’t quite figured out manipulating cells, because body-made cells don’t have this issue as it will just replace the worn out cells.

There have been a few articles, that I know of, written about studies talking about reversing T-cell exhaustion. Two articles that I’m going to cite were written by Healthtree for Myeloma, which is a great myeloma resource if you aren’t currently using it.

Reversing T-cell exhaustion using antioxidants

How your T-cells become exhausted in fighting cancer

Essentially, again eating well, especially eating food that are high in antioxidants can give your engineered cells new life and help them replicate.

So where can I get a high concentration of antioxidants from?

In 2010, the National Library of Medicine came out with a study of various food sources and the levels of antioxidants that were in them. They found that plant-based foods are generally higher in antioxidant content than animal-based and mixed food products, with spices and herbs having the highest concentrations of all food types. It’s a fascinating read, even if you only look at their charts.

So post Car-T, I’m making sure to eat a wide variety of whole plant based foods that are quite flavorful because of an assortment of herbs and spices. I’m doing this to give my body a wide variety of antioxidants with the hope of supporting my T cells to do their best job. Besides the antioxidants, my body is receiving a tremendous amount of nutrition for further support.

None of this is guaranteed for success, but I feel like it’s giving me the best odds for success. I don’t feel as sharp mentally 🥴 as I normally do (side effect of Car-T), so I think I’ll end this post here. Maybe at some point I’ll come back and edit it when I’m fully functional again.