We Now Pause for this Commercial Break

Well, I knew this would happen at some point. I’ve gotten through the last year and a half of research through funding from one primary provider: me. There’s a long story I may post on later as to how I had the savings to spend and why I did it. (In fact, it’s a pretty interesting side story.)

This changed somewhat in the last month when I put up a “Donate” button and many wonderful readers contributed directly. And to these amazing people: THANK YOU! With these added contributions, I was able to fund another few weeks and nearly all of the last experiment. And as it happens, that was one of the biggest I’ve yet to have.

However, the time has come for me to refill the coffers. I’ll be ramping up some contract work in app development for a while and plan to pack away the acorns for the next major stretch of research, which I hope to get started on soon. Indeed, as I’ve said many times before, I could just stick to this 24/7 if I had the means. But beyond just the costs of living, the bloodwork alone is my second biggest bill after the mortgage.

Whenever I mention this subject I get one of three common suggestions which I’ll pre-answer to save everyone time:

• “You should charge for your information/research given it costs money to conduct.” – I intend to never charge for the information on this site. I started it precisely because there needs to be something available for fellow hyper-responders in their personal research and at that critical time they are first confronted with scary numbers. That’s what I was missing when it happened to me.
• “You should get a research grant; it’s easy.” – I get this a lot from academics. But this is also an unfamiliar process to me that I’ve likewise heard can be time-consuming and very uncertain. Moreover, I’ve been told bluntly by a few conventional doctors that my research won’t likely be embraced by many of the entities writing the checks. (My favorite quote from an endocrinologist: “Your pursuit probably means a lot of money being lost in prescription drugs, not gained. I don’t think they will be anxious to help you out with that…”)
• “You should get a corporate sponsor.” – I’ve been approached a couple times and I necessarily turn them down. For the time being it is very important that I maintain no corporate financial ties to my research. The integrity of my data is well preserved right now by being funded directly by my own money — and now those readers kind enough to contribute. (And let me again say, THANK YOU!)

From a cost-benefit standpoint, it just makes the most sense I spend my time with the contract work given I can get ahead of finances for the next major run. As options go, this is the most reliable and predictable.

Of course, the big downside is pausing the experiments and research temporarily, and drawing down on my total social media participation. This is especially frustrating given the most recent breakthrough cliffhanger and the next experiments I have planned for the queue to further this front. Moreover, I had a number of other projects I mean to get back to such as Part III of the Simple Series (no need to keep pinging me, I haven’t forgotten! :D). I’ve also wanted to do a series of short videos on frequently asked questions; more of a 101 on cholesterol from LCHF perspective in small bites.

Thus, this may be my last post for a while and I might be a bit less active than usual as much of my time will be filled writing code. But make no mistake, I’ll be anxiously working my way back to full operation here soon. 😀