Last Thursday (December 22), I published the aforementioned piece wherein I explained the connection between my fever spikes and my SuperSlow-TSC workouts. Therein, I reported that a workout (performed on December 20) of three such exercises had failed to produce a spike and that I would perform another but longer workout to further test if the Still’s condition was still present.
Yesterday (December 27) I performed a workout of five exercises. Two exercises were performed dynamically (SuperSlow protocol) and three were performed TSC. My pre-workout temperature was 97.2° and my temperatures four and six hours after the workout were 97.3° and 97.4° respectively. My temperature now (11:00, December 28) is 96.3°. I can now safely conclude that no meaningful spike occurred.
The workout was extremely intense, so intense that I was barely capable of walking or standing for 15 minutes thereafter. I was afraid that I would be unable to drive my pick-up home and I was unable to start my usual supervision of Brenda’s workout (Drew took over briefly). Note: I had intended to include seven exercises in this workout, but I was unable.
Over this past weekend, my trusted Welsh nurse friend and editor, Sean McNicholas, had expressed his surprise that I did not plan to increase the workout volume from three exercises to five (instead of the full seven) in the first place to progress more cautiously in this regard. I explained to Sean that my only reason to restrict the first workout to three exercises was my coughing. Also, I was not trying to carefully test for the fever spike. Indeed, I was trying my best to provoke it so as it would be a true test.
I’m now convinced that my bout with Still’s disease is over. Of course, my experience with the strep infection (including the Still’s) and its sequelae has permanently damaged my lungs and my heart and my peripheral nervous system and left me partially crippled. And there’s no guarantee that the Still’s will not relapse. I’m fairly sure that the SuperSlow-TSC workouts will not cause a relapse, but other stresses could.
And note that the “other stresses” might include excessive activity volume whereas the high-intensity workouts don’t seem to. This is a crucial distinction for the medical community that escapes them.
As stated in my previous article, I will have a blood draw on December 30 to check the inflammation markers. We will then know if they agree with the outcome of my spike test.
[Note: I failed to mention in the previous article that one of the three exercises (leg press) performed on December 20 was performed dynamically (SuperSlow protocol).}
For those so interested, the five exercises (in sequence) were: heel raise, leg press, lateral raise, compound row, biceps.