Crossing the finish line, once again, and my final WWWP5k results

Background information

I have secondary-progressive multiple sclerosis. In 2008 my maximum walking distance was less than one kilometer in one go. Luckily I have found a medicine that has helped me and enables me to exercise again. In 2010 I was already walking several kilometers every day. Here’s a video of my walking results in 2010.

Earlier this week

I have been participating in Automattic’s Worldwide WP 5k event. See all my WWWP5k posts in chronological order. I am from Finland (the only participant from Finland?). I’ll put us on the map:

I have had some problems with my feet this week, but only on Thursday I was not able to walk full 5 kilometers on one go. Yesterday (Saturday) I walked 5 kilometers with my friend in a sunny weather, and that was already the fifth ”five kilometer lap” for WWWP5k.

Today

Today (Sunday, April 10th) is the actual date set for the walking event, and I was very happy to have my feet working so I could go for one final 5 kilometers. While I was walking I was thinking about all the Automatticcians and the WordPress bloggers around the world who participate this walking initiative, and how I was part of this crowd. Birds were singing and the weather was great, feet were OK. Here’s me at the ”finishing line” of the last 5 kilometers:

My head got cut off the picture accidentally, sorry 🙂 As you can see, there is still some snow here in Central Finland, but the roads and walkways have already melted from the snow and ice and are mostly dry. Temperature was about 2 °C.

Final results and mileage

Today’s walk was the 6th 5 kilometer walk this week, so that makes a total of 30 kilometers for WWWP5k.

I have also walked 10,4 kilometers in shorter than 5 km distances (just for fun, to grocery store, etc), so this week I have walked a grand total of 6 x 5 kilometers + 10,4 kilometers = 40,4 kilometers so far. I think I’ll walk later today the two kilometers missing from marathon.

Thank you for reading about my participation in this WWWP5k event here in Finland. Tomorrow I’ll continue blogging mostly in Finnish again.

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Ja sitten vielä lyhyesti suomeksi: Kävelin eilen 5 kilometriä ja tänäänkin vielä 5 kilometriä, yhteensä matkaa WWWP5k-haasteeseen tuli tällä viikolla 6 x 5 km = 30 km. Muita kävelyitä on lisäksi tullut 10,4 km, joten matkaa on viikolle tähän mennessä kertynyt 40,4 km. Kävelen luultavasti vielä tänään maratonin täyteen. Ensi viikolla jatkuu taas bloggaus pääosin suomeksi.

Muscle cramps – cannabis hot chocolate to the rescue

My right leg’s muscles had been cramping for a couple of days, and the day before yesterday walking was difficult. My parents visited me and brought me some groceries so I did not have to walk to a grocery store. For several years I was on a vegetarian only diet, but recently I’ve started eating fish again. My parents brought me some vegetables, a nice rainbow trout fillet and salmon tweezers by Fiskars, to pluck the fish bones. Thank you! The tweezers worked really nice, and I cooked a delicious meal from the fish, some broccoli, beetroot, onions, celery and coconut milk.

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images one by one

Yesterday morning I made myself a hot chocolate from cannabis stems that I still had from my medical cannabis grows. That softened the muscle cramps and eased the pain so that I could quite easily walk the fourth 5 kilometer distance for Automattic’s this week’s WWWP5k walking event.

Cannabis stems cooking in a pot

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Suomeksi: Sain vanhemmiltani erittäin hyvin toimivat Fiskarsin ruotopinsetit, suosittelen. Eilinen varsikaakao auttoi hyvin jalan kramppeihin ja kävelin neljännen 5 kilometrin lenkin tämän viikon WWWP5k-haasteeseen.

T-shirt idea and yet another 5 kilometers

With multiple sclerosis you may have some problems using your body and for example with balance, and people may wonder what is wrong with you. I came across this T-shirt idea, a T-shirt with the text ”I Have Multiple Sclerosis, What’s Your Excuse?”.

I developed the idea little further for multiple sclerosis patients using medical cannabis:

You may copy the idea, but please leave me a comment, if you do so. 🙂

Third time in a row

This week I decided to participate in Automattic’s worldwide 5 km walking challenge. One 5 kilometer walk was not enough for me, nor was two: yesterday I walked already the third 5 kilometers for this WWWP5k challenge. On Monday the sidewalks were still covered with ice, and yesterday, just two days later, almost everything had melted.

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Lyhyesti suomeksi: Kävelin eilen kolmannen 5 kilometrin lenkin Automatticin kansainväliseen kävelyhaasteeseen, ei tuo yksi eikä kaksikaan lenkkiä riittänyt… T-paitaideaani saa kopioida ja käyttää, mutta jätä mielellään kommentti, jos niin teet. 🙂

Sibeliuksen kolmas

Jean Sibeliuksen kolmas sinfonia, C-duuri op. 52, valmistui vuonna 1907. Tämän kolmiosaisen sinfonian tunnelma on hyvin luonnonläheinen ja melodiat kauniin suomalaisia. Tässä hyvä tulkinta sinfoniasta YouTube-sivuiltani, pituus yhteensä noin 26 minuuttia:

Soittolista YouTubessa
 

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Kävelin eilen tiistaina toiset 5 kilometriä WWWP5k-kuntoiluhaasteeseen:

WWWP5k walk

Yesterday (Tuesday) I walked another 5 kilometers for the WWWP5k challenge. It was a sunny spring weather here in Finland.

While you are here, you can listen to Finnish composer Jean Sibelius’ 3rd symphony (op. 52, in C major) – very beautiful, pastoral and Finnish.

Haastekilometrit ja blogin päivitystä

Briefly in English: I walked yesterday 5 kilometers for the WWWP5k-challenge. My feet have been a bit sore, it was raining and the sidewalks were icy and slippery, so it took about an hour to complete the five kilometers. I live in Central Finland.

I think I was the first to participate here in Finland (or at least first who used the tag ”wwwp5k”). 🙂

Automattic’s Worldwide WP 5k

Pidän tätä blogia WordPress.com-palvelun alaisuudessa. Automattic eli WordPress.comin pyörittäjät järjestävät tällä viikolla maailmanlaajuisen kuntoilutempauksen, jossa he kävelevät 5 kilometrin matkan. He haastoivat myös bloggaajat mukaan tähän WWWP5k-kuntoilutempaukseen. Varsinainen kävelypäivä on sunnuntai, mutta osallistua voi minä tahansa päivänä tällä viikolla.

Kun kerran huomasin tämän, niin pitihän siihen osallistua – käveltyä tulee kuitenkin paljon. Jalat ovat taas olleet kipeinä ja koska niiden kunnosta ei voi olla varmuutta loppuviikolla, päätin kävellä 5 kilometriä varmuuden vuoksi jo eilen. Satoi vettä, liukkailla jalankulkuteillä kävellessä aikaa meni noin tunti.

Blogin päivitys

Lisäsin Tutkimukset-sivulle uuden tutkimuksen: Kannabidioli ehkäisee patogeenisiä T-soluja, vähentää selkäytimen mikrogliasolujen aktivaatiota ja parantaa [kliinisiä oireita] MS-taudin eläinmallissa hiirillä.

Kozela E et al (2011). Cannabidiol inhibits pathigenic T-cells, decreases spinal microglial activation and ameliorates multiple sclerosis-like disease in C57BL/6 mice. Br J Pharmacol. 2011 Mar 30. PMID: 21449980.

Venus vaporizer review

Background: I have multiple sclerosis. I use Bedrocan, which is medical cannabis, to alleviate the symptoms of MS and to control the disease. My nickname MS-potilas simply means MS patient.

I mainly use my medical cannabis by vaporizing it with Volcano vaporizer. I have tried also other vaporizers, for example hot air gun constructions, flame heated glass devices, iolite and Vapolution (older version 1.0). Volcano is the ”Mercedes-Benz of vaporizers”, no doubt, and its biggest problem is the need of electricity (or battery and inverter).

There were no satisfactory vaporizers for mobile use, so I became interested as soon as I heard of the new battery operated Finnish Venus vaporizer. I was hoping that Venus vaporizer could solve some of the problems of other devices, such as:

• Vapolution and iolite: small filling chamber
• iolite: not warm enough (about 190 degrees Celsius, not adjustable), does not vaporize everything from plant material
• Vapolution 1.0 and flame heated devices: correct temperature difficult to achieve, plant material may smoke

After seeing a couple of videos of Venus vaporizer, I ordered the appliance. And then to the tests.

MS-potilas tests the Venus vaporizer

My single dose using Volcano is 0.2 grams of cannabis, so I used the same amount when testing Venus vaporizer. The device came with a prototype filling chamber, and the manufacturer promised to send the actual chamber afterwards, when they have completed machining. Prototype chamber was a bit difficult to handle with my numb fingers. Now I got the real chamber, and it is really good and easy to use. Chamber is filled with pland material, closed, and placed on top of the heating element, then the glass dome is put over the chamber, and then the device is turned on to warm up.

Venus vaporizer uses materials like wood and aluminium. Materials don’t affect the operation, but I like the use of wood, in this modern plastic world.

The device has a power/boost button and a temperature adjustment knob. The heating element is a halogen bulb, whose power can be adjusted 0–100 %. The device has an automatic 2 minute preheat at full power, after which the temperature adjustment setting is used. You can see through the glass when the plant material produces vapor.

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images one by one

Most of the pictures are from my older review of Venus vaporizer in Finnish and thus still contain the prototype chamber. But I took two new pictures featuring the new filling chamber, too.

The device was even surprisingly good. Boost button is a good and working invention to increase the temperature while sucking the vapor. The maximum temperature is sufficient (vs. iolite), and not even at 100 % the plant material did not produce smoke (although I wouldn’t leave it for long time at 100 % without air flow by sucking). After vaporising with Venus, I tried the same plant material with Volcano, if any cannabinoids were left, but no vapor was produced, everything was evaporated by Venus. The body of the device got a little warm during vaporizing, but not hot, wood is pleasant to hold. For example, iolite gets hotter.

Pros

+ portable, relatively small and lightweight
+ adequate filling chamber size (up to perhaps 0.3 grams)
+ a suitable temperature range, neither too cold nor too hot
+ vapor can be seen through the glass
+ silent

Cons

– prototype filling chamber was a little hard to use with numb fingers, but the new final filling chamber fixed this problem completely.

Summary

After using Venus vaporizer a couple of times, it seems to be a very good vaporizer; I have not tried as good portable vaporizer so far.

For more information about different vaporizers:

• Venus vaporizer site, Venus vaporizer videos
• iolite review
• Vapolution 1.0 review, Vapolution 2.0 site
• Volcano review

A note for Finnish readers / suomalaisille lukijoille:

Sain Venus-vaporisaattorin valmistajalta luvatusti lopullisen pesän, joka on laadukkaasti koneistettu ja kätevä käyttää, myös puutuneilla sormilla. Ei vaadi sen suurempaa näppäryyttä kuin esimerkiksi Volcanon pesä. Pesän saamisen kunniaksi päätin julkaista aiemman Venus-vapojutun englanniksi, päivitetyillä pesätiedoilla ja kahdella uudella kuvalla.