This is a page that seeks to help, encourage, and share information on Wellness and Health, and Healing. ***disclaimer: I am not a Healhcare Expert. I share things as a layperson here that is intended help others to help themselves. Use discernment please, and research for yourselves always.
Signs of a heart attack are different for each gender yet we only really teach the male warning signs. Make sure you’re aware of both and spread it to as many other women as possible!
EVERY SINGLE TIME I HAVE TAKEN A CPR CLASS I have had to be that person who points out that the training videos ALWAYS frame the “male” symptoms as the default universal heart attack experience, while the “female” symptoms are framed as though they’re a deviation from the norm, rather than the primary symptom set that cis women experience.
ALSO: I just showed this post to my roommate, who is an MD at a clinic that specializes in care for the LGBT community in the Baltimore area. I asked her whether hormones were responsible for the difference in the “male/female” symptom arrays. I asked how that would apply to her trans patients (which, she treats a LOT of trans patients). She said, basically, that the longer you’ve taken testosterone the more likely you are to get the intense chest pressure and the arm pain, versus the upper back pressure and shortness of breath.
Obviously I am not a doctor myself, consult your own health care provider, etc.
Reblogging this comment because this is the FIRST TIME I’ve ever seen someone address what XYZ medical condition would look like in trans patients. Also this is partly why my great-grandma died: the (male) doctor dismissed her heart attack as basically indigestion, because she didn’t have the typical male symptoms.
Hi! I have a question, does autism/ADHD affect a person’s response to caffeine or sugar? After doing a lot of research, I’m pretty sure I’m neurodivergent in some sort of way, and this is something that I’ve experienced my whole life. In some cases, if even made me sleepier!
Hi there,
Yes, I do believe it affects a person’s response. I did find a website that shares a personal experience: here’s an excerpt:
Caffeine affects us all in different ways. Being autistic/Asperger’s does not alter this fact. Some people with autism are affected much less, by caffeine, than others. As autism and ADHD are strongly linked, the effects of caffeine could change dependant on whether you have autism with or without ADHD. This aside, I strongly believe that most people with autism are hypersensitive to caffeine (and any drugs, including alcohol). I certainly fall into this category.
They even listed how caffeine has affected them:
These are few of the affects I felt, but I have experienced many more at other times which include:
Being agitated
Increased anxiety
Jittery
Not being able to sleep
Being addicted to it. So I would need it to wake up properly and function throughout the day.
Not having a regular caffeine fix would make me: overly tired, grumpy, depressed and at times even angry.
Personally, coffee and caffeine doesn’t really do much to me. But I can understand why and how it affects people.
I’ll link the article below so you can read through it if you want.
Autism: How Caffeine Affects Us and Benefits of Giving it up – Autism Guide
I found an article from ADDitude that goes into more detail on how it affects ADHD:
The effects of caffeine consumption on ADHD remain largely anecdotal. The stimulant calms some people, while increasing anxiety in others. However, many parents and adults with ADHD, (and some studies) report light to moderate caffeine use as a way to help boost focus and concentration.
Tuckman, however, notes that patients taking stimulant medication for ADHD tend to crave caffeine less. “The amount of caffeine you’d need to consume to affect ADHD would probably cause agitation,” said Larry Silver, M.D.6, clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and director of training in child and adolescent psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine. “I don’t recommend drinking caffeinated beverages [or taking caffeine-containing pills] as a way to treat ADHD.”
The article will be below in case you’d like to read through that too.
Caffeine — in a travel mug, Hershey wrapper, or mid-day Coke — is a natural stimulant that boosts dopamine production in the brain. This hel
I hope this answers your question and I hope you have a wonderful day/night. ❤️
I understand that the term is no longer used. And I’ve stated that in my blog numerous times. I only copy and pasted the excerpt. I’m doing my best to help okay.
A flashback, or involuntary recurrent memory, is a psychological phenomenon in which a person has a sudden, usually powerful, vivid, and 'new' re-experiencing of a past experience, or elements of a past experience. These experiences can be happy, sad, exciting, or any other emotion. The term is used when the memory is recalled involuntarily, and/or when it is so intense that the person 'relives' the experience, unable to fully recognise it as memory, and not something that is happening in 'real time
“With emotional abuse, the insults, insinuations, criticism, and accusations slowly eat away at the victim’s self-esteem until he or she is incapable of judging a situation realistically. He or she may begin to believe that there is something wrong with them or even fear they are losing their mind. They have become so beaten down emotionally that they blame themselves for the abuse.”
~ Beverly Engel, The Emotionally Abusive Relationship
I just wanted to tell you and your followers something. I’m not diagnosed autistic, but I’ve been questioning. Anyway, my Dad was a well-respected psychologist who died several years ago. One of the last things he told me before he died was that the DSM 5 is “all politics.” Ever since, I have taken it with a grain of salt. There are way too many bad psychologists and psychiatrists out there, so I hope people also remember that they are a business relationship and they are free to find a new one for any reason. That was another piece of great advice I got from him. Thanks for your blog! Even if I’m not autistic, I appreciate the insight 😊
Yes, I highly agree with your dad's view.
The autism criteria isn't based on the many ways autism presents. It's based on how we present when suffering. Or how much we bother allistics.
"Narrowed interests"? You mean the thing that allistics would just be encouraged to go to university to pursue because it's a "passion"? But when Autistics do it, it's a "criteria".
Repetitive movements? You mean, fidgeting? No, we're Autistic and we do it enough to bother allistics, so it's criteria.
Inability to socialise? You mean, questioning the bizarre rules and asking for accommodation for people to meet us at our level? Oh, hell no. Criteria!!
But any of the other things that Autistics experience? Nah. Anyone can experience those.
Unlike the highly universal "criteria" that must be done enough to be a bother. Or, we swallow it down into the depths of our being and act better than any Oscar nominee and lose ourselves in the process.
I feel like this is a gross oversimplification of the diagnostic criteria and it does not consider mid/high support needs autistics.
“It’s based on how we present when suffering”
This is not true. The diagnostic criteria is based on studies of autistic people. I will admit that the studies were heavily focused on little white boys, which means that the original criteria was also based on little white boys.
There have been several updates to the DSM since autism was first introduced as a diagnosis, the most recent being the combination of autistic disorder, PDD-NOS, and Asperger’s syndrome into one spectrum disorder.
The symptoms that are listed in the DSM-V are not “traits that bother allistics”. In order to even be diagnosed as autistic you must be clinically impaired by your symptoms.
If you don’t have autism symptoms when you’re not miserable or in the midst of trauma, you’re not autistic. Trauma can present like autism, which is why testing for other possible disorders is necessary before diagnosis.
“‘Narrowed interests’? You mean the thing that allistics would just be encouraged to go to university to pursue because it's a ‘passion’? But when Autistics do it, it's a ‘criteria’.”
Narrowed interests as defined in autism must be more intense/focused than allistic people, otherwise it’s not a narrowed interest.
I literally cannot go for more than 10-15 minutes without talking about my special interest. That is textbook abnormal.
“Repetitive movements? You mean, fidgeting? No, we're Autistic and we do it enough to bother allistics, so it's criteria.”
Again, it has to cause clinically significant impairment for you in order for it to be considered an actual symptom.
My repetitive behaviors consistently cause me physical harm. I get bruises, muscle cramps, and headaches from accidentally hitting myself; my fingertips are shredded; my skin has small scars and scabs all over it due to dermatillomania.
“Inability to socialise? You mean, questioning the bizarre rules and asking for accommodation for people to meet us at our level? Oh, hell no. Criteria!!”
No, inability to socialize quite literally means inability to socialize. The criteria is “persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts”, not “tee-hee my communication style is different but it doesn’t impact me at all”.
The fact is that even with accommodations, autistic people will still be autistic and will still have those clinically significant autistic traits (yes, even if you’re low support needs or level 1).
The symptoms in the DSM wouldn’t be there if they weren’t clinically significant and hadn’t been observed widely throughout the autistic population.
Just saw this and I admit I was wrong in my hasty reply to the ask.
Whilst I do feel the criteria is very ableist and problematic, I have to admit that, as @mischiefmanifold stated, it is observed and therefore a reason. It is wrong of me to pronounce it all as wrong based on my level and needs. My late diagnosis has given me tinted glasses, and I apologise for painting this topic with such a broad stroke.
Thank you to @mischiefmanifold for giving me a proverbial kick to remember my place. I genuinely mean that. I will remember this before giving such broad statements that seem to be solid fact.
I ask that people reblog this version because the correction is important.
It began as a visionary notion—that patients could die with dignity at home. Now it’s a twenty-two-billion-dollar industry plagued by exploitation.
Over the years, Marsha Farmer had learned what to look for. As she drove the back roads of rural Alabama, she kept an eye out for dilapidated homes and trailers with wheelchair ramps. Some days, she’d ride the one-car ferry across the river to Lower Peach Tree and other secluded hamlets where a few houses lacked running water and bare soil was visible beneath the floorboards. Other times, she’d scan church prayer lists for the names of families with ailing members.
Farmer was selling hospice, which, strictly speaking, is for the dying. To qualify, patients must agree to forgo curative care and be certified by doctors as having less than six months to live. But at AseraCare, a national chain where Farmer worked, she solicited recruits regardless of whether they were near death. She canvassed birthday parties at housing projects and went door to door promoting the program to loggers and textile workers. She sent colleagues to cadge rides on the Meals on Wheels van or to chat up veterans at the American Legion bar. “We’d find run-down places where people were more on the poverty line,” she told me. “You’re looking for uneducated people, if you will, because you’re able to provide something to them and meet a need.”
Farmer, who has doe eyes and a nonchalant smile, often wore scrubs on her sales routes, despite not having a medical background. That way, she said, “I would automatically be seen as a help.” She tried not to mention death in her opening pitch, or even hospice if she could avoid it. Instead, she described an amazing government benefit that offered medications, nursing visits, nutritional supplements, and light housekeeping—all for free. “Why not try us just for a few days?” she’d ask families, glancing down at her watch as she’d been trained to do, to pressure them into a quick decision.
Once a prospective patient expressed interest, a nurse would assess whether any of the person’s conditions fit—or could be made to fit—a fatal prognosis. The Black Belt, a swath of the Deep South that includes parts of Alabama, has some of the highest rates of heart disease, diabetes, and emphysema in the country. On paper, Farmer knew, it was possible to finesse chronic symptoms, like shortness of breath, into proof of terminal decline.
When Farmer started out in the hospice business, in 2002, it felt less like a sales gig than like a calling. At thirty, she’d become a “community educator,” or marketer, at Hospice South, a regional chain that had an office in her home town, Monroeville, Alabama. Monroeville was the kind of place where, if someone went into hospice, word got around and people sent baked goods. She often asked patients to write cards or make tape recordings for milestones—birthdays, anniversaries, weddings—that they might not live to see. She became an employee of the month and, within a year, was promoted to executive director of the branch, training a staff of her own to evangelize for end-of-life care.
Things began to change in 2004, when Hospice South was bought by Beverly Enterprises, the second-largest nursing-home chain in the country, and got folded into one of its subsidiaries, AseraCare. Not long before the sale, Beverly had agreed to pay a five-million-dollar criminal fine and a hundred-and-seventy-five-million-dollar civil settlement after being accused of Medicare fraud. Its stock value had slumped, and Beverly’s C.E.O. had decided that expanding its empire of hospices would help the company attract steadier revenue in “high-growth, high-margin areas of healthcare services.” Less than two years later, as part of a wave of consolidations in the long-term-care industry, Beverly was sold to a private-equity firm, which rebranded it as Golden Living.
It might be counterintuitive to run an enterprise that is wholly dependent on clients who aren’t long for this world, but companies in the hospice business can expect some of the biggest returns for the least amount of effort of any sector in American health care. Medicare pays providers a set rate per patient per day, regardless of how much help they deliver. Since most hospice care takes place at home and nurses aren’t required to visit more than twice a month, it’s not difficult to keep overhead low and to outsource the bulk of the labor to unpaid family members—assuming that willing family members are at hand.
Up to a point, the way Medicare has designed the hospice benefit rewards providers for recruiting patients who aren’t imminently dying. Long hospice stays translate into larger margins, and stable patients require fewer expensive medications and supplies than those in the final throes of illness. Although two doctors must initially certify that a patient is terminally ill, she can be recertified as such again and again.
Cognitive dissonance is a term for the state of discomfort felt when two or more modes of thought contradict each other. The clashing cognit
Cognitive Dissonance
Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff
Cognitive dissonance is a term for the state of discomfort felt when two or more modes of thought contradict each other. The clashing cognitions may include ideas, beliefs, or the knowledge that one has behaved in a certain way.
The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people are averse to inconsistencies within their own minds. It offers one explanation for why people sometimes make an effort to adjust their thinking when their own thoughts, words, or behaviors seem to clash with each other.
When one learns new information that challenges a deeply held belief, for example, or acts in a way that seems to undercut a favorableself-image, that person may feel motivated to somehow resolve the negative feeling that results—to restore cognitive consonance. Though a person may not always resolve cognitive dissonance, the response to it may range from ignoring the source of it to changing one’s beliefs or behavior to eliminate the conflict.
What is cognitive dissonance?
When someone tells a lie and feels uncomfortable about it because he fundamentally sees himself as an honest person, he may be experiencing cognitive dissonance. That is, there ismental discord related to a contradictionbetween one thought (in this case, knowing he did something wrong) and another (thinking that he is honest).
Who created the concept of cognitive dissonance?
PsychologistLeon Festingerpublished the bookA Theory of Cognitive Dissonance in 1957. Among theexamples he usedto illustrate the theory were doomsday cult members and their explanations for why the world had not ended as they had anticipated. Many experiments have since been conducted to illustrate cognitive dissonance in more ordinary contexts.
How We Deal With Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance poses a challenge: How can we resolve the uncomfortable feeling that arises when our own thoughts or actions clash with each other? Some responses may be more constructive than others.
A man who learns that his eating habits raise his risk of illness feels the tension between his preferred behavior and the idea that he could be in danger. He might ease this feeling by telling himself that the health warning is exaggerated or, more productively, by deciding to take action to change his behavior. If a woman reads that her favorite politician has done something immoral, she could conclude that the charges have been invented by his enemies—or, instead, rethink her support.
What are some effects of cognitive dissonance?
It may lead us to alter our attitudes to be more consistent. Study participants who complete an uninteresting task have been found to rate the task as more enjoyable if they were first asked to tell someone else it was enjoyable—an effectattributed to cognitive dissonance. Theoretically, dissonance may contribute toa variety of changesin behavior or beliefs.
How do you avoid cognitive dissonance?
There are a variety of ways people are thought to resolve the sense of dissonance when cognitions don’t seem to fit together. They may includedenying or compartmentalizing unwelcome thoughts, seeking to explain away a thought that doesn’t comport with others, or changing what one believes or one’s behavior.
Is cognitive dissonance a bad thing?
Not necessarily. By bringing attention to the inconsistencies in our minds, cognitive dissonance may present an opportunity for growth. People who feel it could realize, for example, that they need to update their beliefs to reflect the truth, or change their behavior to better match the person they want to be.
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