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Joined: Apr 2008
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Apprentice_AS_Kicker
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Hey All,

It's been a few years since I've stopped by. I just started my first day of a ten day stay at the Free Enterprise Radon Mine in Boulder, Montana. This is my fourth year. The effects of Radon typically keep me 75% AS pain-free (meaning I can get along with maybe a little ibuprofen sometimes at nights, a huge difference from living on biologics and the heavy NSAIDS. So nice not to have bleeding ulcers and peeing blood!) for about ten months. This year, logistically, I couldn't make it here until 14 months. I'm shocked at how bad I actually have this disease! I had forgotten. Anyway, I'm frozen and have had to dip into the Indomethecin bottle a few times the past few weeks. Even went to oxycodone.

So I'm here starting Day 1. If anyone wants to monitor my progress and ask questions, feel free to email me. I kept a little online Kickas daily journal of sorts my first year here (2008?). I saw tremendous relief and had a few people interested but got so much negative feedback from angry (have no idea why) "anti-radon" folks that I kinda gave it up.

Feel free to email me at bradbowhunts@gmail.com.

Good luck and hope ya'll are finding a solution to your pain.

Joined: Jan 2010
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Major_AS_Kicker
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I'm a little puzzled about what radon actually does for AS? Living in the UK, where radon is seen as a serious health risk, it does seem rather odd for anyone to deliberately expose themselves to something that is a known major cause of lung cancer and has teratogenic and genotoxic effects.

Would I be right in thinking that the hope is that it does something to kill an overactive immune system? Do you have any way of actually measuring the exposure you get?

Glad it appears to work for you though.

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Apprentice_AS_Kicker
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Think of it like a vaccine. It might seem weird that we would expose ourselves to a small amount of a poison or a "dead" virus but now that we have science that understands it, we accept it as something that stimulates our body's defense mechanism against large amounts if the poison or to the live virus. We're taught about vaccines as a child so we grow up knowing they're normal and accepted by mainstream even though they're highly controversial and something that I have mixed feelings about.

I don't think of it as killing my overactive immune system, more like "waking it up" or "resetting it" for a time.

There is a lot of scientific information backing low dose radiation and it's ability to stimulate the body's immune response (especially in the case of an auto-immune disorder) but some countries' government seems opposed to buying in to it while other countries embrace it as a scientific therapy. Politics are hard to change.

Do a little research and you'll find countries in east Europe and Japan who educate their population the opposite of the UK and the US. Health care providers and insurance companies actually prescribe and pay for radon treatments.

It took me some time to overcome the indocrination I've received, too. But, ultimtely, does anyone really believe that the United States federal government would actually allow these facilities to remain open if there was proof/science/incidents of complaints (I went "here" and now believe I have lung cancer from it) from the facility patrons? These facilities are closely monitored by the US Environmental Protection Agency and are allowed to fully operate. I'm guessing because of the lack of complaints??

Furthermore, Google (pick a drug used to treat AS) coupled with "complaints", "negative side-effects", "lawsuits" and read some personal experiences with the drugs. Then Google "radon therapy" with the same cross search and I think that will answer a lot of questions.

I fully believe that allopathic medicine has it's place and I dip in to the pill bottle from time to time. In fact, my wife is an anesthesia provider specializing in chronic pain management. She loves the idea of treating her pain patients with alternatives to drugs when she can. But life pre-radon therapy and post-radon therapy for me just doesn't compare.

Hope this helps,

Brad

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Magical_AS_Kicker
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Low dose ionizing radiation works by hormesis which is the process by which a mild or acute stressor increases resistance to other, more intense or chronic stressors. This is the same principle by which low dose naltrexone works. Many other things that are known to be 'good' for you also work by hormesis such as high intensity exercise, alcohol, intermittent fasting, hot or cold stress. When using a treatment that works via hormesis it is important to understand that more is not better and can often cause more harm than good. Since hormetic treatments work by initially causing damage, it can also be a bad idea to combine them even though each one is known to be 'good' for you e.g. intermittent fasting followed by high intensity exercise, sitting in a sauna and then having a glass of wine will be much more than a 'mild' stressor that is optimal for hormesis.

The key factor that determines whether something will be beneficial or detrimental is the dose and duration. For example with LDN a dose of 50mg will block your opiate receptors for 24 hours and give you the blues whereas a 4.5mg dose will only block receptors for a couple of hours whilst stimulating increased opiate production which continues after the receptor blocking effects have worn off. With radiation a treatment period of around one week per year seems to be beneficial but exposure to that level of radiation all year round would likely be harmful.

Radiation doesn't appear to work by suppressing an overactive immune system but by stimulating a favourable adaptive response. Low dose radiation initially causes low levels of DNA damage to cells but stimulates immune response, damage repair, removal of damaged cells, increased levels of cellular antioxidants such as glutathione and superoxide dismutase, and changes in gene expression. There will probably be many other mechanisms by which radon can cause damage and stimulate various types of adaptive response that have yet to be discovered but we do know that it is effective for rheumatic diseases as clinical trials have been done such as 'Radon therapy for the treatment of rheumatic diseases—review and meta-analysis of controlled clinical trials' (Rheumatology International, 2005). The effects of radiation seem to be long lasting compared to other treatments with treatment groups showing significantly better pain reduction 6 months after treatment compared to placebo groups.

The levels of radiation at the mines in Montana have been measured so you can vary the duration of treatment depending on what dose you think is appropriate. They have guidelines for this at the mines. I did approx 40 hrs at free enterprise health mine in May. I didn't notice any improvements for 6 weeks afterwards (I seemed to get worse) but have since had huge improvements. Unfortunately I introduced a number of other confounding variables around the time of improvement so I have no way of knowing whether it is the radon treatment or other factors.

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An excellent summary. Thanks for the deets and glad you're doing better. For me, I noticed relief by day 5 (after 4 really "sick days") and it continued to improve for another month or two to the point where I was 90%. The 10% was treated occasionally by ibuprofen.

I'm sure radon therapy isn't going to send the disease in to remission for everyone but I can't begin to imagine how many people it could actually help if they were able to overcome the fear factor from indoctrination and just give it a chance. For me, it's been virtually miraculous.

I have found absolutely nothing to make me afraid of short-term, low-dose radon therapy. I've looked and looked for a black eye; something, anything to give me reason to doubt. There just isn't anything there. Just a lot of warnings from people who have never tried it.

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Very_Addicted_to_AS_Kickin
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good to see you here again.

so glad you found something that helps! every little bit helps and it all adds up.

wish i lived close enough to go. but traveling is very difficult for me and so its really too far.

on the other hand, i've got LDN and that has helped.

i'm like you. i use some traditional drugs for this: zanaflex, prednisone when i need need it, wear a flector patch over my SI joint

some less traditional drugs: LDN

supplements: fish oil, vitamin C, vitamin D, etc

go to a chiro (used to go to a PT)

have a home ultrasound machine

have had trigger point injections

whatever it takes is my motto! good for you! and sorry you got such negative feedback. i think even if something isn't for us personally, we shouldn't judge what someone else chooses to do. and if we share it, who knows who else it might help smile so thanks for sharing!



sue

Spondyloarthropathy, HLAB27 negative
Humira (still methylprednisone for flares, just not as often. Aleve if needed, rarely.)
LDN/zanaflex/flector patches over SI/ice
vits C, D. probiotics. hyaluronic acid. CoQ, Mg, Ca, K.
chiro
walk, bike
no dairy (casein sensitivity), limited eggs, limited yeast (bread)
Joined: Dec 2005
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Second_Degree_AS_Kicker
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The state of Montana monitors the radon levels in the mine and based on a certain number of hours per day you can calculate a dose.

The premise here is that lower doses of radiation like this one are theorized to cause a dna repair mechanism reaction. It is all about the time versus the dose. Your body is stimulated with little bits of radiation damage....kind of like resistance training causes muscle damage which when repaired ends up stronger than before. Well too much radiation is too short a time period would be like "overtraining". The damage occurs faster than the body can keep up and damage starts to accumulate.

Look up "radiation hormesis" if you are interested. I have been for 3 visits to the mine with positive results.

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First_Degree_AS_Kicker
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Hey Guys,

Ditto for me, the positives on this post. I did so much research on low dose radon in my foggy, pain inflicted, full blown AS days, but now that I know radon works for me, I just schedule it like an annual appointment and go. No more pharmas. No more rheumys. I feel like I've been given a second chance and I am so grateful.

I've still kept my blog alive and the research is all still there in the sidebar if anyone is interested (see the link in my signature). It is science, pure and simple. I wish more people could get rid of the radiophobia so heavily ingrained into the western mindset, but then again, I wouldn't really want to go back to the days where they charged $50 an hour with an 8 hour wait just to get in to the mines (and that was in the day when $50 meant something!).

PS - Hi Brad...Hope the horses are treating you well.


If you ever drop your keys into a pool of lava, forget about them, cuz man, they're gone.

- Jack Handey.

.......................................

http://h20girladventures.blogspot.com

Joined: Apr 2009
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Hi Brad! I tried emailing you a couple of months ago but it wouldn't go through. Glad to hear you are doing better.

Josh-Do you wear a neck brace to hold up that large brain of yours?? You rock at the explaining of hard stuff.

I went back to the mine in May and unfortunately didn't get the same results as the first time. I had three really good days upon returning home, but then a really bad summer. After 4 1/2 months "post-mine" with no improvement I've tried a few new things. Long story, I'll make a new post.

And Sue:

"whatever it takes is my motto! good for you! and sorry you got such negative feedback. i think even if something isn't for us personally, we shouldn't judge what someone else chooses to do."

This is one of the things that make you one of my "favorite-est" KA-ers. **Hugs**

Joined: Apr 2011
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Active_Member
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just a simple question tongue4

the mine is deactivated yes?

the thought of AS suffers crawling into an active mine sounds comical XD I would make it mabey.. 4 feet in befor making Dwarf and goblin jokes



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