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Parkinson’s: An Athlete’s Journey is for athletes navigating Parkinson’s, the coaches and clinicians who train them, and anyone who wants real-world strategies for performance and longevity. Hosted by Eric Von Frohlich and Todd Vogt, the show focuses on tactical takeaways: how to train, recover, manage symptoms, and stay consistent when the rules keep changing. Expect honest conversations, tested routines, and guest experts who go deeper on what works.
TODD VOGT (00:31)
do you look at specific biomarkers? Do you have like a regular ⁓ schedule of blood testing or something like that?
Eric Von Frohlich (00:37)
trying to get that stuff dialed in. I have like some history I can refer back to and establish some normal baselines versus that's
TODD VOGT (00:36)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (00:48)
Last night I had a rough night's
TODD VOGT (00:48)
anything, anything changed?
Eric Von Frohlich (00:50)
I got a bit of a head cold.
TODD VOGT (00:50)
say, anything changed in your blood work pre and post
Any differences in your blood work pre and post Parkinson's?
Eric Von Frohlich (00:55)
My testosterone's down a little bit, which didn't surprise me because I'm training differently. I'm not doing as much HIIT training and I'm not walking around with as much muscle mass as I usually do. So that's a little different.
TODD VOGT (01:07)
Sure. Yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (01:09)
Resting heart rate's been affected more by my AFib and the heart conditions that I'm working with. Right now, I had a CT scan last night because some other stress tests had indicated that there was a lack of getting into my heart. So it turned out that I had some calcification. So yet to talk to my cardiologist about that.
TODD VOGT (01:20)
yeah.
jeez.
Okay.
Eric Von Frohlich (01:36)
affecting how I'm approaching
my training as a general rule because I have AFib and then I have this blood flow problem. So those two are dominating what I would do traditionally. I'm just doing steady state, zone two on the
TODD VOGT (01:45)
Yeah.
Yeah, was going to say, you're just limited to zone two,
Eric Von Frohlich (01:54)
end, zone two.
TODD VOGT (01:54)
one, zone two,
would imagine, right? Just stay, nothing that gets your heart rate. would imagine you try to limit your heart rate to whatever, 75 %
Eric Von Frohlich (01:58)
Yeah.
Yeah, and I'm being pretty cautious about it, you know, keeping an eye on it during my workout because every now and then it will jump back up into an AFib number where it's like one yesterday I saw was at zone two. I didn't change that, but my heart rate was Yeah,
TODD VOGT (02:10)
Yeah.
That's wild.
How does that actually feel like?
Eric Von Frohlich (02:23)
It doesn't feel like I'm gasping for breath, but it feels like I'm working harder than...
my zone two would indicate. it's a little unsettling, really being sure which number you should be following. Do I back it down so my heart rate comes back down or do I stop so my heart rate comes back down and then try to fire it up again? It's a little tricky to figure out, but I'm working through that and then working through the...
TODD VOGT (02:40)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (02:51)
CT scan that I got yesterday. But I'm gonna still go out and walk the dog and be active and stretch and do all the normal stuff. But I looked at my HRV score for someone with AFib is unusually high. So I'm happy about that.
TODD VOGT (03:07)
Okay,
probably reassuring, because that indicates probably your overall health is good. You just got like a couple of these things that are funky, you know?
Eric Von Frohlich (03:15)
And that's how I'm reading it. I'm reading that the majority of stuff is working well. But I have this one thing that's kind know, affecting a couple systems. So we've to get it straightened out. And once we get the hard thing straightened out.
TODD VOGT (03:21)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, for sure. That's a little bit of a bummer.
Yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (03:33)
Yeah, it's just, it's the unknown element of it that makes it, you know, kind of like a whack-a-mole, you can take care of it and then something else pops up and you go chasing that and try to figure that out. And if I wanted to know this much about my heart, would become a cardiologist.
TODD VOGT (03:38)
Yeah.
Seriously. Yeah, like 225 mean, for me, of my heart rate, my sort of functional max is like 175, maybe 180 if I'm absolutely going absolutely bonkers, but anything above, let's say, anything above 170, that's like all out basically. Anything above 150, know, my end-to-end threshold is typically about, well, let's say like 140 to 155 at
Eric Von Frohlich (03:53)
Right.
TODD VOGT (04:16)
So zone two is like 105 to 125. Yeah, zone two is 105 to 125. So you're at 225, that's like, yeah, that's kind of a scary thought, you know?
Eric Von Frohlich (04:18)
Your mind's just a little lower than that.
which
TODD VOGT (04:30)
I know, that's the strange thing. That's why I would imagine that feels odd because in order to get there naturally, I guess you would say, you'd have to running flat out for whatever, two miles, know? Like literally, as fast as you possibly could go, you know? So... Yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (04:42)
Exactly.
Yeah.
So that's been interesting. My heart rate variability is like 128 to like 140. It's been kind of running in that range. So it's really high. I have to find out whether or
TODD VOGT (04:53)
Wow, that's really high. That's super high. I mean, that's excellent.
Eric Von Frohlich (04:59)
that's getting affected in a negative way from my AFib. I know AFib can affect your HRV score, but it usually affects it by making it lower than usual. I'm wondering if for some reason it's making it higher than usual and I'm misreading it. So there's some homework to be done.
TODD VOGT (05:07)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, okay, that's a good point. It might be artificially high.
generally, okay, HRV, like I used to wear a whoop all the time. I wore a whoop for like six years, you know, the recovery data score, and then the HRV data on the whoop is great. That's the real utility of a
But for us, normally, super fit guys are, a normal HRV is probably like 40 to 70, you
Eric Von Frohlich (05:35)
Right.
TODD VOGT (05:36)
yeah, you might hit like, I don't know, I remember if like I hit like 60, if like I slept great, ate great, like did everything right, it might be like 60, whatever. And on a bad day when you worked out hard the day before, didn't sleep great, it might be like 40 or something like that, know, 35, you know? That's when you're toast. above 100, you gotta be like 28 years old, you know? 28 year old, 1500 meter runner, you know? Olympic swimmer.
Eric Von Frohlich (05:56)
be the
t-shirt I'm wearing, 28 years old.
TODD VOGT (05:59)
Is that what it says? can't go into here.
Eric Von Frohlich (06:02)
quite, you know, are some of the favorites that do seem to stick around a little longer than others.
TODD VOGT (06:04)
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
Eric Von Frohlich (06:09)
So, HRV blood oxygen is good and my resting heart rate is not particularly great given the amount of time I've spent in fitness. It's like upper 60s.
TODD VOGT (06:14)
That's good.
Eric Von Frohlich (06:24)
Real true resting heart rates probably in low 60s, upper 50s, I think is like 55, 56. But again, not someone who's spent a lifetime training and stuff.
TODD VOGT (06:37)
Yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (06:38)
to answer that question as soon as we get offline. I'm going to have to figure out whether the HRV score is legit or not. My sense is that there's something wrong with it, but we'll figure it out.
TODD VOGT (06:50)
skeptical that your HRV just sort of naturally is that high. I that seems credible like couple songs
Eric Von Frohlich (06:54)
The other thing
that's weird is in-body score is Not unusual for me, it's unusual person my age and with my degree of fitness and
It's reading to 7 percent body fat at like 108 pounds muscle mass and a total weight of like 195. really good. But again, you
TODD VOGT (07:19)
Dude, rock on.
Eric Von Frohlich (07:24)
that through a couple other systems like a DEXA scan or something like that would be good. It would give me a little reassurance that my numbers aren't getting skewed by some weird anomaly like Parkinson's that makes you more muscular than ⁓ one would otherwise indicate. So, that was it.
TODD VOGT (07:28)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
That's your tagline, right? Get Parkinson's and get
jacked, right?
Eric Von Frohlich (07:45)
Exactly. A whole new reason to get Parkinson's.
TODD VOGT (07:51)
Parkinson's diet plan, you know, it's like to shake, you're just like constantly moving and shaking, you know, you're just burning calories, you know, you need to, who needs to like 10,000 steps and get a dude Parkinson's and be constantly moving 24 hours a day, you know?
Eric Von Frohlich (07:57)
Exactly. Exactly.
Exactly. ⁓ got to be joke about protein shakes also, like shaker bottles. We're particularly effective at mixing But I agree, maybe our metabolism is higher because we have a tremor going all night when we're trying to sleep.
TODD VOGT (08:10)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's what's sticking along same line.
Yeah, it probably does burn. mean, it might be, who knows if you did the actual thermodynamics of it, you might only burn like an extra like 100 calories. So it might be something negligible, you know, so, but who knows? I don't know.
Eric Von Frohlich (08:34)
I'm sure it is because I haven't found any other perk to it.
TODD VOGT (08:38)
Yeah, exactly.
There's only a couple perks I've found from having Parkinson's. I haven't actually, the main one I'm not even actually partaking of. Handicap parking spot at some point, you So.
Eric Von Frohlich (08:48)
Right, I don't do it either.
TODD VOGT (08:50)
Yeah, I did have one for a long When I was training with my friend Pearl, the blind athlete, ⁓ she moved to Portland. She has a guide dog. She's a pretty impressive person She's been blind since she was 18 years old. She's 25 or 26 now. She lives independently. She lives here in Portland. But yeah, she had a handicapped parking pass.
So obviously, I used to drive her to practice and help her out and drive her to the grocery store. So it helped if I was going to drive her around to use the parking pad.
Eric Von Frohlich (09:16)
Well, I would imagine
it wasn't her driving.
TODD VOGT (09:21)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So, but even still, I just left it in even when she wasn't in the car with me, I still had my handicap park. wife Heather was like always joking about it. She's like, somebody's gonna, in the parking lot is gonna see me parkin'. This is like in 22,
So she was joking that somebody can be standing in the parking lot, see me pull into the parking space, to the handicapped space, jump out and like run into the store and come back out with like a bunch of bags of groceries and they're just gonna sort of shake their heads, you know?
Eric Von Frohlich (09:45)
Nice.
I actually think that they'd probably stone you in Portland for that.
TODD VOGT (09:50)
Yeah, depends where you go I
Eric Von Frohlich (09:53)
Yeah, there doesn't seem to be any other perk. mean, we frustrate and aggravate our caregivers. you know, there's no benefit there. I'm sure they much rather we don't have Parkinson's. It f**** your sleep for the most part.
TODD VOGT (10:02)
Yeah.
Certainly.
Eric Von Frohlich (10:07)
should make a list one day. It kind of definitely, definitely jacks up your plans because you think you're to have a good day and then you end up having like a symptom day where you're completely off and don't feel like doing anything or you're apathetic and no one wants to be with you.
TODD VOGT (10:09)
The pros and cons.
Yeah.
Yeah. so I got back last night at my plane landed like 11 o'clock at night. got back, by the I got back to the house and like took shower, emptied some of my stuff out of my bag, by time I got to bed, it was probably like 12, I didn't get a ton of sleep this morning, but so I could definitely feel as though it definitely makes my symptoms a little worse, my tremor a little worse. I could definitely feel like I felt okay on the bike. I was just riding. I was on the bike doing zone two, essentially.
But yeah, my tremor was bugging me a little more than usual, so I had to take just a little more medication, just a little more Carbidopa Levodopa than I otherwise would. Sometimes I feel it out, if I start riding or I'm on the ergometer and everything feels great, and I can kind of feel like a tingle almost, I'll just pop like a quarter tablet Carbidopa Levodopa just to sort of cut the edge off of it, you know? That's what I was noticing today, so. yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (11:06)
It's
good that you're so sensitive to my medication update is and I have yet to tell so I'm going to probably get yelled at. I cut my dosage down 30 % feeling pretty good considering. I mean, there's times where it's like somewhere between 8 and 12 hours between doses and.
TODD VOGT (11:17)
Yeah.
yeah?
That's good.
That's amazing,
man. That's awesome. That's great.
Eric Von Frohlich (11:33)
exciting, know, that I might be on to something myself if the rest of the medication doesn't seem to really be having a negative effect. So I'm feeling motivated by that. Now I have to make some diet changes
TODD VOGT (11:34)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (11:50)
clear up some of heart issues. So that's going to be interesting, but it should be in alignment with what's going on with my Parkinson's diet. like Mediterranean plus
TODD VOGT (11:57)
Okay.
it. They have the pro diet. The Parkinson's diet, right?
Eric Von Frohlich (12:01)
They do. ⁓ I have a tendency to load up a little bit more of my proteins high.
TODD VOGT (12:02)
with itself.
Oh yeah, sure, sure, sure. say I kind of follow the pro diet. The only thing I don't do is I do eat dairy products, you know, but not a ton. That's like, so I've been trying to limit my, like, cut back my dairy, but it's not like I really have that much. My morning granola, it's probably like eight ounces of milk. And one thing it's like that I do really like is a little splash of half and half of my coffee, you know what I mean? that's about it.
Eric Von Frohlich (12:28)
Well, I think it doesn't seem
to be affecting you that much. I I'm conscious of the idea of loading protein into your diet when, you know, within your window of taking your medication. It doesn't seem to affect me. And when I looked at data on it, it seems to only affect about 15 % of people with Parkinson's.
TODD VOGT (12:31)
Yeah, so.
Okay.
Eric Von Frohlich (12:51)
not surprised that it doesn't really affect me that much, but I'm not really consciously... I try to within an hour of taking my medication, but for the most part, if I'm hungry, I just kind of go for it and don't really notice much of a difference. What about yourself? Do feel much of a difference with protein in your diet?
TODD VOGT (13:04)
Yeah, sure.
I haven't actually calculated the amount of I could probably do the macros. I did it at one point a long time ago. I'm conscious of trying to get a fair amount of protein from my body Whether that's Greek yogurt or smoothie with some whey protein in is is one of the components of every dinner. I think I'm probably doing alright.
Eric Von Frohlich (13:34)
Right.
TODD VOGT (13:35)
I would say I'm probably in to 1.5 gram per kilogram or something like that. Not a massive amount.
Eric Von Frohlich (13:41)
Right,
and those numbers have gotten pumped up recently and seems like the data is pushing more like 1.5 to 2 grams body weight.
TODD VOGT (13:45)
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know, what I typically do is, I generally take my morning dose right after I eat breakfast, give it a little time to hit my system, you Right before I head out the door, either to the boathouse or the gym.
Eric Von Frohlich (14:03)
Yeah, but your breakfast is what?
TODD VOGT (14:06)
my typical breakfast. It's probably like a cup of granola, whatever type of granola I'm on, like some, what's the one I have, like the Annie's like granola, like probably like cup of granola, probably a cup of some sort of nuts. I'm a big fan so I probably took, put about a cup or a half cup to a cup of like pecans. Then I threw some raisins in there as well. And then I had like a handful of raspberries in there. And then it was probably about like,
Eric Von Frohlich (14:16)
Uh-huh.
TODD VOGT (14:31)
six ounces of almond milk and then like six ounces of milk. So just like organic 2 % milk. So
and a cup of coffee
Eric Von Frohlich (14:37)
Not bad.
TODD VOGT (14:38)
Join the nuts.
Eric Von Frohlich (14:38)
There's nothing
in there that you're affecting that I'll take.
TODD VOGT (14:42)
Yeah, that's what I figured. Sometimes I might swap out the berries, like swapping some blueberries or a banana or something like that, and then change the nuts around, like walnuts one day, maybe some almonds another day. That's kind of my thing that tastes good, feels pretty sustains me for quite a while through a long workout.
Eric Von Frohlich (15:01)
I have a tendency to fall back on eggs quite a bit, but I just have to be just conscious of it. Eggs and cashews for the most part are one of the two or both.
TODD VOGT (15:04)
Yeah.
Yeah, mean eggs are awesome. They're delicious and they're versatile,
know, so.
Eric Von Frohlich (15:14)
and
they build your profile for testosterone. So everyone forgets that the cholesterol gets converted to testosterone.
TODD VOGT (15:17)
Yeah, exactly.
Well, yeah,
because they're in the same like chemical family. That's right. Yeah.
was gonna say, the only thing I do sometimes is, I'll eat maybe like little too much and then for the first half of a row or a bike or something like that, especially like rowing, because you're like compressing your stomach a little bit. So it's like, you don't wanna eat too much and then it feels like you're rowing with a bowl full of...
Eric Von Frohlich (15:37)
Yeah, you're diverting some of your blood supply.
TODD VOGT (15:40)
the only upside of those days is like the first 30, 40 minutes of the row is like kind of torturous because you've got this bowling ball in your belly, but by the time like 30, 40 minutes goes by, you're pretty much like digested. Then the second, the back half of the row, you have like tons of energy, so.
Eric Von Frohlich (15:55)
There's definitely something to be said for that. It's I'm still falling back on my ketones. I'm still a big fan of my IQ. That seems to supplement for breakfast if I'm running out the door and don't have time to really grab something.
TODD VOGT (15:55)
13.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I've heard good things about those things, it'll keep you going during a workout, during the course of a workout. Better than like other things.
Eric Von Frohlich (16:19)
Well, they have
an MCT powder that you can add to your shake that does that. Or you can just do the exogenous Ketones ⁓ with like a shot.
TODD VOGT (16:25)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Or can you do like in a spray, I don't know, what are the means of ingestion?
Eric Von Frohlich (16:37)
more like a ⁓ like a five-hour energy it's kind of like a two-ounce liquid shot now
TODD VOGT (16:41)
Okay, okay.
That's not too bad. Because you can kick that back,
work out whatever.
Eric Von Frohlich (16:48)
Yeah, I mean, it tastes terrible, but that's okay. so. It's kind of on the bitter, sour side. one's drinking them because they like the taste.
TODD VOGT (16:51)
what does it taste like?
Okay.
Yeah.
I suppose. I went to visit my dad. He was his 80th birthday. parents and sister all live in Florida, in Sarasota.
Eric Von Frohlich (17:02)
So what were you doing in Florida?
TODD VOGT (17:11)
So
Eric Von Frohlich (17:12)
cool.
TODD VOGT (17:12)
it was nice. was like high 70s there. my sister lives near the beach, near the ocean, so that was nice.
Eric Von Frohlich (17:14)
Yeah, I'm a
TODD VOGT (17:19)
Got my dad some cake, had dinner with my dad on his birthday, so.
Eric Von Frohlich (17:20)
cool.
Happy birthday to you, Dad.
TODD VOGT (17:25)
Yeah, he's 80, like, he's pretty healthy. Yeah. That's what I'm hoping is that, you know, I could do longevity
Eric Von Frohlich (17:26)
Well, genetics go a long way.
Your grandmother lived to be how old?
TODD VOGT (17:33)
I was gonna say my grandmother lived
in 1999. My dad's 80 and he's like, really, he has like no real significant health issue, He could use more exercise, but that's about it. Like he doesn't get much, he was pretty active for a long time, but he's a lot less active than he should be right now for an, I mean, even for an 80 year old. Like he was a postal carrier. He was a mailman. He did that for like, he had a walking route for like 30 years. Then he played golf and he played like, you know,
Eric Von Frohlich (17:38)
wow.
Okay.
TODD VOGT (18:02)
was pretty active for a while after retiring, so
But yeah, they live in Florida in like a development, know, some in like a little like there's like walking paths all over there. It'd be good, you know, people cruising around on golf carts as well, you know, so.
Eric Von Frohlich (18:05)
Exactly.
TODD VOGT (18:15)
He can walk
there.
Eric Von Frohlich (18:16)
Yeah, you know he's gonna
lift back if he gets tired.
TODD VOGT (18:19)
yeah, exactly. You can just like, you know, put his thumb out and somebody else on the golf cart will take him back the mile back home, you know, so.
Eric Von Frohlich (18:25)
Someone should buy him a dog.
TODD VOGT (18:27)
Seriously, that'd be funny. So anyway, yeah, back home.
Eric Von Frohlich (18:31)
Like, dad, here's
one more thing for you to take care of. After a lifetime of service, taking care of our family, here's a dog you can take care of.
TODD VOGT (18:34)
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
My sister would love that. My sister lives nearby, over there quite a bit, helping them out, whatever, getting food or stuff like that. So she would love that.
Yeah, are your parents still alive?
Eric Von Frohlich (18:50)
You can
They're not, unfortunately.
I didn't have quite the length in my family as much as you do.
TODD VOGT (18:53)
Okay, it's already here.
Eric Von Frohlich (18:59)
Grandma kind set the bar kind of high for you guys.
TODD VOGT (19:03)
Yeah, think we have really good longevity genes, like both sides of my family, but everybody is kind of crazy. there's a of mental, a little bit like alcoholism and mental illness. Exactly. That's the balance. You live a long time, but you're kind of mentally unstable.
Eric Von Frohlich (19:10)
Well, the balance.
You would think that would lead to a shorter life, not a longer life. But I guess if you're unstable enough, people avoid you. So maybe it has some extra benefit that we haven't figured out yet.
TODD VOGT (19:22)
this way.
Yeah.
Yeah, my dad, okay, one more story about my dad's name is his birthday. My grandfather, his father, my paternal grandfather, I never met him, he died right before I was born. I wanna say he was particularly young, he died really young. But he was a heavy smoker, he was a really hard drinker, he was a pretty raging alcoholic. So he died at 52, right before I was born.
Eric Von Frohlich (19:42)
Okay.
TODD VOGT (19:54)
My father's really never talked about it at all. He rarely, like our grandfather, like, my grandmother would tell us stories about her husband, my my father didn't talk about him at all. and he didn't drink, my dad doesn't drink at all. He never had drank alcohol. As a mail man, here's the point of the story.
Eric Von Frohlich (19:57)
Uh-huh.
TODD VOGT (20:12)
He gets like, he would get Christmas gifts, Like cash or whatever, fruit baskets and things like that. would occasionally, you would get like every year he'd get like a bottle of wine or a bottle of booze, you know? So we had this like liquor cabinet that was, you know, decent size, but it was full, but everything was like completely full except for like when we were teenagers and we would try to like sneak some out of there, you know? So
yeah, every place, water, whatever. But we knew it wasn't going to be checked. Like, cause my father like doesn't touch like a drink of alcohol, sip of alcohol. So yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (20:32)
Right.
That's fun. That's usually how the pendulum swings, right? It goes from one extreme to the other. But apparently it serves him well because he doesn't have any of those health related issues. So that's great. Good for him.
TODD VOGT (20:42)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
smoke. He's never smoked and so he doesn't drink as well. And like I said, up until maybe 10 years ago, he was really active. So
Eric Von Frohlich (21:02)
Yeah,
I think it's kind of a mixed blessing that, you if you have a parent that smokes heavily or drinks heavily, you're pretty much guaranteed not to make those same mistakes.
TODD VOGT (21:11)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. the blood.
Eric Von Frohlich (21:13)
kind of
the trade off of, you know, smart person learns from other people's experiences.
TODD VOGT (21:19)
Yeah,
Eric Von Frohlich (21:20)
what's going on with your Parkinson's today? Is it flaring up or is it manageable or like where you're having a good day?
TODD VOGT (21:25)
⁓ It's pretty manageable. I feel pretty good right now. It was maybe a little
worse than normal on the bike this morning. It was just like I had a little more tremor than usual but on a scale of one to one being the worst my symptoms typically are which just means it's probably my tremors is like tremoring so much that I can't get it under control really with the Carbidopa Levadopa and it's and I have to really struggle to work like workouts whether it's on the erg or on the water on the bike.
have to take like a ton of breaks and just like shake out my hand and feet like if that's a one and a ten is like no symptoms at all I would say even given the fact that I'm kind of sleep deprived it's probably more I don't know maybe a five or six like it's not bad but it's not as great as I don't like it to be on a typical day so I don't know that's my that's good that's a good way to frame this too I never really thought about this framing your symptoms from like
Eric Von Frohlich (22:04)
Okay.
TODD VOGT (22:12)
worst on your worst day to your best day you so
Eric Von Frohlich (22:15)
Right, one being
worse, ten being best.
TODD VOGT (22:19)
Yes, exactly.
First of all, what are your ranges? What's the worst they look like for you? What's a one look like?
Eric Von Frohlich (22:25)
One looks like lots of brain fog, ⁓ lots of apathy, unmotivated to do my exercise, unmotivated to eat right. Or even eat at all. Because the apathy seems to fall back to lack anything that takes effort. So worst thing...
TODD VOGT (22:28)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Totally. The apathy sucks. It's horrible.
Like Parkinson's induced apathy is
Eric Von Frohlich (22:48)
I mean, it has nothing to do with whether or not it's sh** that you love doing. It can be, you it could be surfing or something that I really take a lot of joy in and you just have no motivation whatsoever to do it. So the apathy kicks in when you get apathetic, you have a tendency to get a little depressed also. So it's more of the non-motivated symptoms. Motivated symptoms are ⁓ stiffness and
TODD VOGT (22:53)
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Totally.
Eric Von Frohlich (23:14)
and my tremor are probably the most noticeable. The most annoying though is my voice and my masking ⁓ is the most irritable to my observation. But
those combinations of symptoms hit, ⁓ it's not particularly fun to work through, but it ⁓ becomes more of a fight than a compromise. Most days I can kind of compromise with my symptoms and kind of work around them and find a balance of one thing will usually work, so I'll get something and take some...
TODD VOGT (23:36)
Yeah.
Yes.
Eric Von Frohlich (23:52)
extra time doing the things that are working. there was an interesting study that I just saw that might be applicable to brain fog and apathy. And it was when you procrastinate, there's a tendency for it to be
thought of as being a mental glitch in your operating system. And it really seems to be, this study was saying that it seems to be more of a biological glitch. Your body freezes up and your mind kind of follows. And if you can shake your body for 30 seconds, was like an 85%.
success rate that you can begin the test that you've been avoiding and kind of jump in wholeheartedly within 15 minutes of doing that. So it seems like it's just a way to kind of shake some life into your system to get yourself moving. I think it was a NASA experiment that they came across. They tracked a cohort of ⁓
astronauts over a bunch of years and they found that the ones that didn't procrastinate had the habit of shaking their body vigorously for 30 seconds and jump starting their activity. I think it was within two minutes of doing that. ⁓ to... So I'm kind of curious if that carries over to when I'm feeling apathetic or just kind of have some brain fog. If I fall back on...
TODD VOGT (25:03)
That's how you should do it. That's interesting.
Eric Von Frohlich (25:17)
doing some jumping jacks or some like full body hinging and stuff, kind of like a ski erg motion or a kettlebell swing, ⁓ whether or not that's enough to kind of snap me into action. So we should follow up with each other, give that a shot and see if that works.
TODD VOGT (25:25)
Yeah.
Yeah, probably.
Alright,
I'm gonna give it a try, because yeah, I experience I mean this a lot in a couple different ways. just for couple different ways to manifest yourself, like in a real way. say I need to go to the grocery store, after going to the gym, like just like.
pull into the parking lot for a second, I'll just grab my phone to see if there's any emails or anything, but then I'll just start scrolling. suddenly it's 20 minutes later and I'm scrolling reels on Instagram because I just cannot motivate myself to get out the car door.
And it seems like if I can just get out the door of the car, I'm good to go. And on the flip
doing chores, like cleaning up the house. Like I do a lot of the household stuff just because Heather has the full-time job that pays really, like her job pays like our mortgage and all that. So I try to compensate by doing a lot of the chores cooking dinner. So I found lot of times like in the middle of the day when I'm doing stuff, like I really, really want to like just take a seat on the couch for a minute, but I know it's gonna take, once I go down, I'm gonna be down there longer than I want to. So it's like, I just tell myself like, gotta keep.
Eric Von Frohlich (26:16)
Right.
Great.
TODD VOGT (26:37)
moving got to keep moving don't stop don't stop don't stop which is it's an adaptive strategy i don't know if it's the best strategy in the long run it's it's
Eric Von Frohlich (26:43)
Yeah, but
it seems to work. I have the same problem.
TODD VOGT (26:47)
off this couch.
Eric Von Frohlich (26:47)
Yeah, and when you go
to the gym, we always say the heaviest weight at the gym is the front door. So maybe in your case, the heaviest weight in is the car door. You just got to get the car door open now that you know that that's a problem.
TODD VOGT (26:52)
That's good, that's, you know,
Yeah, totally.
Eric Von Frohlich (27:02)
Or check your Instagram after you do your shopping.
TODD VOGT (27:00)
Yeah. Yeah.
Exactly, that's what I need to do. need to have a routine, like turn off the car engine or put my phone in my pocket. So it's like turn off car engine, open door, something like that. A routine, like the two things together so that I don't have to think about it. You know what mean?
Eric Von Frohlich (27:07)
That's your reward.
Right.
Exactly. Until you can set an alarm for your phone to shut off until you complete your task.
TODD VOGT (27:22)
That's what my daughter said.
Yeah, that's good.
So, oh, as you can see, like, where are you on a scale of one to 10 today?
Eric Von Frohlich (27:32)
I got a head cold that my daughter brought home from work and I thought I thought everyone in the house dodged it and I got a lighter version of it than she had but I still am dealing with some of the symptoms so I had less than great night's sleep and
TODD VOGT (27:36)
up on that.
Eric Von Frohlich (27:49)
feeling congested and kind of, so I'm saying that with a couple of the other symptoms. I haven't gotten to the gym yet. So ⁓ I'm probably like a four or overall. I'm doing okay. I'm going to get to the gym as soon as we're done. ⁓ And that will get me to a six or seven, hopefully, and kind of allow me to push through the rest of the day.
So we'll see.
TODD VOGT (28:12)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Eric Von Frohlich (28:14)
But I like
that idea of rating it on a scale of 1 to 10.
TODD VOGT (28:18)
Yeah. back to the apathy have like a ton of that but it seemed to have gotten a little worse last winter. yeah, I couldn't figure out what was going on. thought that's why I did like some blood testing and things like that. So I was like, oh, maybe my testosterone is just dropping and that's what's causing it. it's fine.
wasn't so was like alright I guess this is just indicative that the disease doing its thing you know brain is doing its whatever it's doing up there you know or not doing
Eric Von Frohlich (28:43)
Yeah, think that that's exactly it's not doing what it's supposed to do.
TODD VOGT (28:48)
Yeah. I can tell, I have a crazy story. Maybe we need to save this for a whole other episode. But I did, when I did this Iboga trip, I like a couple of visions, like weird thoughts, visions, whatever. One of them was regarding like apathy and motivation. So
Eric Von Frohlich (28:59)
Uh-huh.
You kind of have me intrigued. don't you give me the story, give me an abridged version and then we'll go into it in depth at some other point.
TODD VOGT (29:03)
Okay.
I will.
Okay, so I went down to Costa Rica last April for this Iboga ceremony, this Ibogaine ceremony. During the first time we took the drug, the plant or whatever, the wood as they call right around that time was when I was noticing a lot more apathy and lack of motivation to do anything. So While I was in the drug, laying there, and it was in the trip, I guess you would say.
I asked my brain, I was like, okay, Iboga brain. I asked where did my motivation go? And so this is strange, okay, My old dog, his name is Sonny.
suddenly Sonny appeared to me and I had this picture that I was standing inside my brain. My brain was the size of a room. Sonny appeared. My dog appeared.
And I was like, Sonny, show me where my motivation is or where my motivation went. So he's walking me around the room and he walked to the back of my brain where I think the substantia nigra is, where the disease process is, where your dopamine production is normally. And he walked me back there and I could see there's big gaps where these brain cells should be. And the ones that were there looked all diseased and weird. And it hit me and I got really sad and I started crying because I was like, that's what's happened.
Eric Von Frohlich (30:05)
⁓ huh. Right?
TODD VOGT (30:21)
they're no longer there. The part of my brain that like provides, gives you dopamine and provides you and gives you motivation is like it's dead or it's gone or it's like disease or dying or dead or just not altogether there. And it like hit me like emotionally, like that's what's going on. You know what I mean? Like obviously that's what's going on. My brain is deep. But it was like, it hit me like on an emotional level, I should say. So it was kind of weird. It was pretty wild. was one of the.
Eric Von Frohlich (30:22)
wow.
All right, let's.
Thanks.
Did Sunny
like go dig around in the back of your brain and find some motivation and some dopamine for you?
TODD VOGT (30:50)
I haven't quite figured that part of the equation out yet, so.
Eric Von Frohlich (30:53)
You
can do another trip. Maybe you can get Sunny to like go like retrieve your dopamine for you and go find it.
TODD VOGT (30:59)
Yeah,
One of the things we listen to, you know who Ram He's like a healer.
He was one of the first guys who experimented with psilocybin at LSD with Timothy Leary back at Harvard in the late 60s, early 70s, and he got kicked out of Harvard along with Leary.
Then he went to India, and by his spiritual teacher, he gave him the name Ram Dass. And he's like, a lot of people know these chants, but they were playing one of the Ram. They're really cool. There's two that are very popular in modern culture. You can easily find them on Spotify. One is called Loving Awareness, and the other one is Sit by the Fire.
The Sit By the Fire when he talks about like how there's like an ember of like life in you and the ember went out, but you can like rekindle it. And I was like, ⁓ that was kind of good. That was, that's what I heard after that first epiphany, whatever. So.
Yeah, sit by the fire.
Eric Von Frohlich (31:45)
Very cool.
Ram Dass has ⁓ one of my favorite sayings, which is, we're all just walking each other home.
It's such a
profound statement, you know, and it's it kind of encapsulates what we're going through with our journey is you just kind of like walking with each other, sharing the experience and, you know, just eventually we're all heading back to the same house.
TODD VOGT (32:07)
Exactly. that was my big, that's the bridge version of the Iboga Sunny story.
Eric Von Frohlich (32:09)
Exactly.
I kind of feel like there's more that Sunny wanted to reveal to you, but that's pretty amazing you had a retriever that went to where dopamine was.
TODD VOGT (32:22)
I know,
it was strange, yeah, and that, I'm not exaggerating, that's that's verbatim, kinda like.
Eric Von Frohlich (32:28)
Did Sonny have a voice in that dream or is he just a dog?
TODD VOGT (32:31)
No,
he just started like walking me around, like leading me by walking me around, like looking at me and walking at me, you know, so he didn't speak to me, he just like walked me around and pointed her up, you know, he just like led me, so.
Eric Von Frohlich (32:42)
the next time, somebody will actually have a conversation with you.
TODD VOGT (32:46)
Yeah.
other thing that happened during that is like, I don't know, was kind of joking with myself a little bit, was like, what's my spirit animal? While I was like in this animal, I don't know if it's the national animal of Costa Rica is the sloth and I like the sloth, it's got a cool name in Spanish, it is also.
So I was like, what's my, I was like Iboga, what's my spirit animal? And a sloth appeared to me, I gave him a name, his name is Jack. Like this occurred to me, speaks in like only like one word phrases like zap or bam or go, but he's like action words, but he's a sloth, you know?
Eric Von Frohlich (33:15)
huh.
TODD VOGT (33:19)
It's gotta like learn to do things differently. Cause like part of me is like, part of this like retreat was like self acceptance of like who I am now, you know because a lot of it is like, we've talked about, you lose your identity with Parkinson's a little bit, especially as athletes, know? Like, so that was part of it.
Eric Von Frohlich (33:34)
Yeah.
TODD VOGT (33:35)
I need to be more like the sloth. I need to embrace my inner sloth.
Eric Von Frohlich (33:40)
That's pretty cool. I didn't think of that as being a symbolic animal for Parkinson's, but it certainly would be appropriate. It's a. What was your slots name?
TODD VOGT (33:45)
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. There you go.
Jack.
Eric Von Frohlich (33:54)
pretty funny. I would hope they're herbivores because I'd imagine anything else is getting away from it pretty quickly.
TODD VOGT (33:56)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think you're
Eric Von Frohlich (34:04)
Well, it gives me a whole new
appreciation for the slots.
TODD VOGT (34:07)
Yeah, exactly. my case in person.
Eric Von Frohlich (34:08)
It sounds like the Ibogaine
is pretty powerful trip.
TODD VOGT (34:12)
Yeah, it is, it is, absolutely. We did like a proper Iboga ceremony. There's a guy who runs this clinic, Troy, he was awesome. Troy got this place called Root and Wisdom. He's been initiated in like three different African tribes, so he tries to do it right, but.
On the flip side, there's a bunch of places that are sort of medical clinics, like in Mexico particularly, like in Cancun and Cozumel, but they use Ibogaine, they don't use the Iboga root, so they can use really much higher doses, which might be more purely therapeutic for what we're trying to do, you know? So yeah, a lot of them are right across the border, and they're in sort of medical space as well, using straight up Ibogaine. So I wonder what...
Eric Von Frohlich (34:54)
be curious
to see as we start interviewing people, if we come across anyone who has more experience with that world or ⁓ that is a modality.
TODD VOGT (35:02)
Yeah.
Yeah,
I wonder if like taking just a straight up Ibogaine would be more effective for us, what we're trying to do, you know?
Eric Von Frohlich (35:07)
Very cool. I'm taking it.
Right. Yeah, I'm kind of still intrigued by Jack the Sloth. Seems like there's a lot of wisdom in the spirit animal being a sloth.
TODD VOGT (35:18)
Yeah.
Yeah, maybe you need to take some ibogaine and iboga and figure out what your spirit animal is, you know.
Eric Von Frohlich (35:30)
No, I think you think you've it's universal it might be I think you've tapped into something
TODD VOGT (35:34)
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah. Yeah, that is a good point. That is the Parkinson animal, you know?
Eric Von Frohlich (35:41)
We can come up with a whole chart, Parkinson's animal, a rating of your symptoms and and Sunny, your retriever, dopamine retriever.
TODD VOGT (35:46)
Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah,
that was wild. That was a wild part of the
Eric Von Frohlich (35:56)
I'm intrigued by the ability to interact with yourself, where you can have that conversation like from like the third person.
TODD VOGT (36:03)
don't know about other psychedelics. I do use THC occasionally, because it helps with my symptoms. What I mean by occasionally is maybe once or twice a week at absolute maximum, I'll take two milligrams of THC to help me sleep. It cuts the tremor.
But it also, I have the same experience with THD occasionally, if I take a lot more, if I get a little more of a high, guess you would say it. Is that I can look at conversations differently, or if somebody says something to I know when I was sober, I would probably process what they're trying to tell me, or their body language in one way, I think when I'm having a little THD in me, I'd suddenly look at things from a little bit of a different perspective. It's kind of similar to that, so.
I don't know you've ever experienced what your experience with THC
Eric Von Frohlich (36:48)
It's pretty limited I done it enough or at a high enough dosage to really have had anything that's notable or different. mean, obviously I feel a little more detached, I need to go down that path where my symptoms have flared up and see if I have the same benefit. Primarily for the tremor, I would think.
TODD VOGT (37:00)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. both CBD and THC are like really, for me personally, like they really help so well because it takes away tremor, helps me sleep. Like, and if you're feeling banged up too as well, like after a hard workout, like if your joints are like suddenly all your like muscles feel like loose and it's like really good for sleep too, for me at least. So
Eric Von Frohlich (37:27)
From a sleep perspective, I'd be curious.
TODD VOGT (37:30)
Yeah, vary, but yeah, I find it pretty useful, like drug, know, so. And also, I've had that same experience where I've done this before where I'll take a Weed gummy or whatever, I'll be, like, something I've been thinking about, I don't know, maybe it's like an interaction with Heather, with my spouse, or something with rowing, or like, and there's a problem I'm trying to solve, so I'm like, all right, I'm I'm all right, this is what I've said to myself before, I'm like,
I'm like, weed brain go to work on this, you know, Then like just your brain starts thinking about things from a different perspective. You're like, ⁓ this is what that person really meant. Or maybe I should have tried this or maybe I'm just like thinking about the situation all wrong. I should have done this, you know, you have suddenly those thoughts, you know, and hopefully you can hold on to them to when you're sober, you know, so.
Eric Von Frohlich (37:57)
Yeah.
Exactly. You're having these amazing epiphanies and fortunately you don't remember any of them.
TODD VOGT (38:15)
Go.
Exactly.