• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Reactive oxigen species and oxidative molecules

joe12

Senior Member
Messages
114
I believe I could be suffering from a disease process that is causing me to have high levels of reactive oxygen species or some other oxidative molecules. This could be either systemic or more likely an isolated process in and around the tissues of the nasal mucosa, the eyes, the trigeminal nerves, and even the meninges or other brain tissues. These high levels of oxidative molecules could be the cause for premature vitreous liquefaction with high levels of visual floaters, and more importantly the cause of a chronic pain disorder known as new daily persistent headache, which is an unremitting, bilateral pain in and around the sinus area, related to the ophthalmic and maxillary divisions of the trigeminal nerve. I have been suffering from this headache for over six years without any remission and without a good treatment or explanation. I believe the current treatments and pathologic explanations for this disorder are very lacking and disappointing, most patients don't recover or improve. I would like to know what metabolic or immune dysfunctions you can think of that could be a cause for high levels of ROS being generated in a chronic way, that could be damaging and/or be stimulating nerves to cause them to generate chronic pain signals in that area. I think the answer might be diverse and complex, or simple, but I think there is a good answer and that there are good ways to find out.
 

lansbergen

Senior Member
Messages
2,512
I think the disease I have, is a chronic infection with one aspect of it SOD2 dislocation and depletion.

I use an immunemodulator that also is a superoxide scavenger. I have improved a lot.

Mine was systematic, not only in the areas you mention.
 

ahmo

Senior Member
Messages
4,805
Location
Northcoast NSW, Australia
My limited understanding is that most of us might be experiencing vicious cycles of oxidative stress, as Martin Pall suggests. But as to your specific symptoms, I wonder if there could be mast cell involvement. Here are a few MC links, see if they make sense for you. If so, there are supplements that can help stabilize mast cells.

Links to Martin Pall in my signature. I now use a high antioxidant strategy, per his recommendations, which has made my life easier.

https://mastcellblog.wordpress.com/2013/11/12/canary/

http://mastcellaware.com/whatisthis.html
 

joe12

Senior Member
Messages
114
My limited understanding is that most of us might be experiencing vicious cycles of oxidative stress, as Martin Pall suggests. But as to your specific symptoms, I wonder if there could be mast cell involvement. Here are a few MC links, see if they make sense for you. If so, there are supplements that can help stabilize mast cells.

Links to Martin Pall in my signature. I now use a high antioxidant strategy, per his recommendations, which has made my life easier.

https://mastcellblog.wordpress.com/2013/11/12/canary/

http://mastcellaware.com/whatisthis.html
I haven't read these links yet, but they look very interesting. I wonder if you have heard about upregulation of antioxidant transcription factors like Nrf2, and upregulation of growth factors to stimulate cellular repair. I think tumeric, green tea, bacopa, and other extracts do this, but I don't know if these are the best options. Supposedly a new drug for MS upregulates Nrf2, its called Tecfidera. There is also a supplement claiming it does the same, its called Protandim, its based on plant extracts, they claim it upregulates Nrf2 up to 40% in a month, but I am very skeptical. However, I think upregulation of these kinds of factors is key and a possible cure for my chronic pain. Since I kind of have evidence for free radical damaging my vitreous then they are probably doing the same with the nearby axonal membranes of the trigeminal nerves. The question is why is it localized in that area and not in the brain or other parts of the body. But I guess it might be too much to answer that, so right now I am just trying to figure out how to upregulate beneficial transcription factors. What do you know about this? Have you tried to do this? Do you know of somebody who knows about this here? Thanks.
 

ahmo

Senior Member
Messages
4,805
Location
Northcoast NSW, Australia
I wonder if you have heard about upregulation of antioxidant transcription factors like Nrf2, and upregulation of growth factors to stimulate cellular repair.
Sorry, I haven't gone into this.

The question is why is it localized in that area and not in the brain or other parts of the body.
Here's from Pall. This is taken from his now N?A website, but the same info is probably available from the link in my sig.
Principle 4 is so important that it takes up an entire chapter in my book (1). Because nitric oxide, superoxide and peroxynitrite, the three chemical compounds most central to the NO/ONOO- cycle have relatively short half lives in biological tissues, they don't diffuse very far from their site of origin in the body. Nitric oxide has the longest such half-life and it only diffuses about one millimeter from its origin or less. Furthermore, most of the mechanisms implicated by the arrows act at the cellular levels. The consequence of all of this is that the NO/ONOO- cycle may be elevated in one tissue of the body but an adjacent tissue may show little elevation and therefore have little impact by the cycle. This local nature of the cycle biochemistry means that we can have all kinds of variations in tissue impact from one patient to another, leading in turn to all kinds of variation in symptoms and signs from one individual to another. This striking variation in symptoms from one individual to another has been repeatedly been noted in these illnesses and has been one of the great puzzles about this group of illnesses. The variation can be easily explained by the local nature of the NO/ONOO- cycle mechanism.

The primarily local nature, outlined in Principle 4 does not imply that there are no systemic effects. The antioxidant depletion produced by local oxidative stress will be, to a substantial extent, systemic and some of the effects of the inflammatory cytokines are also systemic. These may, in turn, produce changes in neuroendocrine function and immune function that are also systemic. However the primary local nature helps us to understand the profound variations in symptoms and signs seen from one patient to another, how these different diseases may differ from one another and also differ from possible additional diseases that may share this NO/ONOO- cycle etiology, such as tinnitus (12).