your psychiatrist doesn't understand that mechanism
@ymirjotunn
before you follow / about me
cass (she) and crow (they/it) share this blog
florid hysteric and queercrip justice worker
this blog reaches ever-hopeful towards a politics of solace
i use captions to access images
its all bwcause youre bones arent attached to you. your bones dont connect to you. did you know that your body and your bones are separate. most people are in one piece but you my friend are detached of bone. ypure going home with a clean bill of health but you should know that your bones dont even touch the rest of you because of how they arent connected. im sending you home but if anyone asks, no tendons at all
i just think it's really interesting that we have all these studies about how medical misinformation affects prescribing rates (drastically!) but then this is painted as "patients are highly vulnerable to misinformation" which is weird because prescribing rates are historically not something patients themselves can do much about. sure you can argue that at least some of those prescriptions are from patients lying but it's ridiculous to say that all those ivermectin prescriptions for cancer or the steep drop in acetaminophen prescriptions to pregnant women are because of hysterical patients who don't know any better and should just listen to their unbiased, objective physicians
like i genuinely really like yourlocalepidemiologist. she's wrong about a lot of things but most of the time i agree with her on big picture stuff. but this is such a pathetic article
i just think it's really interesting that we have all these studies about how medical misinformation affects prescribing rates (drastically!) but then this is painted as "patients are highly vulnerable to misinformation" which is weird because prescribing rates are historically not something patients themselves can do much about. sure you can argue that at least some of those prescriptions are from patients lying but it's ridiculous to say that all those ivermectin prescriptions for cancer or the steep drop in acetaminophen prescriptions to pregnant women are because of hysterical patients who don't know any better and should just listen to their unbiased, objective physicians
i am a prodigious sleep-talker (it seems to have gotten worse as my mcas has progressed weirdly enough, even apart from the quasi-delirium sleep paralysis episodes that ketotifen fixed) and sometimes vaer will tell me what he heard. most of the time i remember it bc i have extremely vivid dreams but i have no idea what the context for this one was. he sent me a discord message while i was sleeping:
you're threatening someone in your sleep..........
heard you say "do not EVER do that again. or i will," (very quiet and deep) "k i ll y ou"
So this morning I found out that the RPG Maker forums will be shutting down this year, and it’s really just another depressing thing to see.
If you read the link the company does of course say they’re replacing the existing forums with new ones, and I’m sure no one would say the old ones didn’t perhaps need a lil bit of a glow up, some tech debt fixing… but there’s a few key notes in there:
They are NOT carrying over any history, data messages etc. from the old forums
They are NOT archiving, retaining or in any way saving the existing forums in any way
They have NOT provided any reasoning past ‘as part of continued efforts to support developers’
As an offhand, moderate read, this sounds to me like a desire for some change in the forums but deciding nuking everything is less expensive than rebuilding and carrying over info.
If I’m cynical, and likely realistic? Probably to increase sales of their latest GameMaker software by making it inherently more difficult for someone getting the older software for cheap pushing it to its limits. The amount of institutional knowledge on those forums is absurd.
And even if it is a benign reason, it’s still terrible because what do you mean you’re doing this with no recourse or potential for change? You sell software that runs on community goodwill? In an era where people are pulling away to open source software?? Crazy.
There are yeeeaaars of answers, plugins, suggestion, community built up on those forums - I’ve used the em to learn and grow my own skillet!!! And soon it won’t exist.
At the very least, they gave a ‘heads up’ - the deletion occurs mid December, so archiving by the community is possible from now. It’s just absurd that it needs to happen in the first place.
It’s just reflective of how the industry is right now - and why it’s so important for communities to grow and build up knowledge together, knowledge that is NOT reliant on a company that can pull the plug at any time in the very name of the very customers, users and supporters they are screwing over.
i need everyone to get into college football right now i am dying to talk about the texas tech situation. this is the kind of thing that will be referenced for the next 100 years. there will be documentaries and biopics about this.
texas tech's quartback, brendan sorsby, was investigated for sports gambling. i know sports betting is all the rage right now, but athletes themselves are not allowed to do it. it is Rule Number 1 and it is the highest priority rule for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), who governs all athletic programs at about 1,100 colleges in the US.
the invesitagetion of sorsby revealed that, not only did he place more than 9,000 sports bets when he himself was a collegiate athlete, but 40 of those bets were AGAINST HIS OWN TEAM when he was playing at indiana university. immediately, this threatens the integrity of the sport, and especially because indiana is the hottest team right now as the defending national champion.
the NCAA, which is largely a sham organization these days (they've truly lost their grasp and college athletics are the wild west now) actually enforced their Number 1 Rule and told sorsby his career is over, that he would never play college football again (and, subsequently, that he would never get drafted into the NFL because his college career was cut short).
well, because the NCAA is a husk of its former self, sorsby and texad tech immediately took this to court. MANY athletes have learned these past few seasons that if you can find a judge who's a fan of your team, you can get any NCAA ruling overturned. that's exactly what texas tech did. they filed a suit in Lubbock, where the university is located and where every judge is an alum of texas tech. so sorsby was granted an injunction and will now only be suspended for the first 2 games od the 2026 season (which are alwayd against no-name teams that will be destroyed regardless of who's suspended).
every other school in the country immediately went on the defensive because this is a very clear integretiy issue. so nebraska and georgia (sic em dawgs) released statements saying that all currently-scheduled competitions witb Texas Tech in ANY sport will be canceled and there will be no future schedulings. at least 3 of the major conferences (SEC, Big 10, Big 12) , who account for almost all division 1 sports teams in the country, are also in discussions about cancelling comtests. Texas Tech is part of the Big 12, and there is serious talk of all other teams in the conference shutting texas tech out.
now would probably be time where i say that texas tech is one of the wealthiest programs in college football becaise there is a single billionaire alumnus pouring money into the program with hopes of essentially buying a championship. so texas techs integrity has always been questionable. anyway, the university president put oit a statement that he doesnt care that sorseby violated regulation and that texas tech will sue any school that refuses to play them because it jeopardizes their championship prospects if they're umable to play any games.
this is all just startomg but its so juicy and delicious. the NCAA is going to crumble to dust if they cannot get this injunction overturned. schools like georgia and nebraska have plenty of money so a suit isnt necessarily a concern, but this will absolutely change college football forever. i cant stop reading about it.
update on this: texas tech is claiming that every school who has/is considering cancelling all contests is "afraid" that texas tech is better than them. what's funny about this is that sorsby's stats are average. he is not good enough for this kind of protection. many schools who have already cancelled or are considering it have much better quarterbacks than sorsby. also, texas tech's head coach had said that it's actually ok that sorsby bet against his own team because it "its not murder or assault."
the claim is now that texas texh university just cares so much about brendan sorsbys mental health that they have to sue everyone who calls this an integrity violation. any other school who wouldnt defend an athlete that committed this violation "doesnt care about mental health"
Drug name: Duloxetine delayed-release (generic for Cymbalta) -- 30mg, 60mg
Manufacturer: Towa Pharmaceutical
Recall alerts say the impacted medication may contain more than the recommended limit of N-nitroso-duloxetine, which belongs to a class of compounds classified as probable carcinogens for humans.
“These impurities may increase the risk of cancer if people are exposed to them above acceptable levels over long periods of time,” an alert from the California State Board of Pharmacy explains. There have been no reported adverse effects reported in connection with the recalled prescription medication.
...
This recall is classified as a Class II recall, meaning exposure to the product may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences, according to the FDA.
This is a voluntary recall, the article links to FDA files for it but it's not listed yet on the FDA recalls page.
updated the character limit on the blinkie maker! previously 15 characters, you can now attempt to cram a whopping 25 characters on your blinkies!! certain fonts and font sizes WILL cut off. use your best judgement ok?
@3liza do you have any sense the nasal cromolyn can cross the bbb? i definitely haven't found any direct evidence for it yet so my sense thus far has been "idk maybe" but curious what you think
cool interaction with the american healthcare system:
i have tachycardia. is it because of POTS or some other condition? no one knows. to get diagnosed for POTS OR to exclude it from diagnosis based on other information, the single most common dysautonomic condition in the world besides like, hayfever, i have gone through something like 10 general practitioners in as many years at my insurance-assigned clinic, who wont diagnose me because they dont have a tilt table on premises. a tilt table is a gigantic, extremely expensive piece of specialized equipment used to tilt patients. i know what youre thinking: "cant they just tilt the patient on a piece of plywood in the parking lot and take their pulse at the same time" and the answer is yes.
i know what else youre thinking: "arent there any other clinically-acceptable ways to diagnose POTS besides a tilt table?" the answer, surprisingly! is yes. NASA, in fact, to check and see if an astronaut got fucked up in space, they just have him lean against a wall for a bit and fiddle around with a heart monitor. this advanced space technology from the 1950s is unknown to American medical science based on the zero acknowledgement of any of the half-dozen times i have suggested it to general physicians
so naturally, instead, i was put on a year+ waiting list to see the only dysautonomia specialist in the city who has a tilt table. this one doctor also doesnt charge $600 cash per appointment (i already saw the $600 guy, he doesn't have a tilt table, but he gave me prescriptions without any diagnosis which means my insurance has been rejecting the prescriptions randomly for years). i still have tachycardia. sometimes i faint when i stand up, or when ive already been standing up. i drop cups and pencils and priceless faberge eggs in humorous ways with cartoon sounds effects because my grip strength randomly gives out. this is a problem because my last remaining option for employment is being an "artist", a type of petit bourgeoisie that owns a printer he can make zines with to sell on Etsy, which requiires a lot of typing and holding pencils and folding etc. they give me a propranolol prescription which helps with the tachycardia but makes my low blood pressure worse and eventually makes half my hair fall out, which is a problem because my other employment option is being visible on cmaera in various ways and also i like having hair. so i quit the propranolol. the tachycardia gets worse. Trump makes it gradually harder and then impossible to order the grey market antioxidant-antiischemic that has been helping with moving blood to the parts of my body that need it (apparently all of them) but isnt available in the usa by prescription or at all, but also isnt illegal to import. this is relevant because the NFL has destroyed anti-ischemic/hypoxic drug research in the country for decades because if people find out taking a 300lbs linebacker directly to the face dozens of times a week is bad for your brain, democracy will collapse. so i was sent to a cardiologist. the cardiologist also doesnt have a tilt table. im still on the dysautonomia clinic waiting list.
POTS is the single most common symptom of long covid. approximately 30% of people who get covid will get long covid for some period of time, or forever. so just on raw math we can expect slightly <30% of the american civilian population to currently, or at some point, have POTS. i find this interesting from a public health quantics perspective.
anyway the cardiologist tests my heart with a stick-on monitor for two weeks and also gives me prescriptions for ivabradine and midodrine, which are rejected by insurance. in the office he does a quick 12-lead ECG and finds right atrial enlargement, a type of heart defect that is common in people with shitty collagen because, duh, your heart gets all stretched out from overuse and being made of wet tissue paper.
the cardiologist doesnt tell me about the atrial enlargement because i guess its around the holidays so you know, understandable. probably busy with his family. the heart defect is usually caused by lifestyle factors i dont have (alcohol, cholesterol, etc), so there's nothing i can do about it. i find out about this heart defect from reading my own test result documents after wondering "hm i havent heard back about my test results i wonder if they found anything". as i do this and find the technician's notes about my shitty heart i think about someone's grandma who doesnt know how to use MyChart not being able to download and read and interpret a PDF and never finding out about her heart defect and then having a heart attack, which i assume happens daily.
i message the cardiologist and say, hello, i see you found a heart defect! great shot kid, dont get cocky. anyway do you think you can try prescribing the ivabradine again with the new diagnoses included so maybe insurance wont reject it. the nurse writes back and says i mean i guess we can try. whats their fax number (this is because insurance doesnt reject a medication to the doctor, they reject it by 1. not filling at the pharmacy and 2. not telling you about it except via paper mail you may or may not receive within several weeks). so the doctor does not have the fax number of insurance. ok. i find the rejection letter by some miracle and send the nurse the fax numbers for both "Grievances" and "Appeals" (two separate departments apparently), but note to her that the medication was rejected weeks ago and they wont honor appeals that occur more than 10 (ten) days after the claim is rejected. i, the patient with no medical billing or medical diagnostic qualifications, advise ****her **** (the cardiac nurse who is handling billing, with a college degree presumably) to skip the appeals fax and just 1. put the diagnoses of "palpitations" and "right atrial enlargement" on my medical file because i assume no one has bothered yet (i didnt say this part) and 2. submit a NEW prescription with the new diagnostics attached. the diagnostics that say "patient has heart condition and need drug to not faw down pls :[".
so she writes me back and says "Dr. Heartguy has decided to send a new prescription with the new diagnoses attached" thats great man im glad you thought of that. thats why youre the nurse and im the cringing pewling little ghoul that crawled into your office after spending 30 minutes (i counted) on hold in your phone tree on the way there because my $50 Uber ride (3 miles) was stuck in traffic. when i got to the front desk i said "Does your phone work?" and the receptionist, who was not busy, nor cradling 5 comically oversized 1960s analog phone receivers with tangled spiral wires while chainsmoking, gave me the ol' shit eyes and said "yes it does". "Oh good," i said politely, taking my phone away from my head and hitting End Call. "I was just on hold with you for half an hour on the way here so I'm glad your phone works." the Google Maps reviews for this clinic are 60%, and for the last ten years, complaints about the shitty receptionist and how the clinic simply does not pick up the phone. multiple reviewers state they had to reschedule heart surgery with another clinic specifically because they couldn't spend another day on hold. interesting! anyway i told the cardiologist about the phone thing and he said "yeah that's why i always see the patients even if the appointment is delayed". in the tones of helplessness usually reserved for someone being held captive by bandits
my tilt table test was negative. so i think we can just write this off as another hysterical white woman pretending to swoon for attention. hit the showers
