#Functions of Insulin In the Human Body

[diabetes-health-corner]

Insulin and its importance

Insulin is considered an anabolic hormone—in fact, it is the main anabolic hormone in the body—as it is needed to synthesize protein. This also means that low insulin levels are responsible for catabolic reactions in the body, i.e. breakdown of tissue, including stored body fat. This is also why fasting has such a strong effect on fat breakdown.

Click here to know more: https://www.freedomfromdiabetes.org/blog/post/diabetic-insulin-and-its-importance/2834

[reasonsforhope]

"People living with diabetes might have a new hope. Scientists have tested a new drug therapy in diabetic mice, and found that it boosted insulin-producing cells by 700% over three months, effectively reversing their disease.

Beta cells in the pancreas have the important job of producing insulin in response to blood sugar levels, but a hallmark of diabetes is that these cells are either destroyed or can’t produce enough insulin. The most common treatment is regular injections of insulin to manage blood sugar levels.

But a recent avenue of research has involved restoring the function of these beta cells. In some cases that’s started with stem cells being coaxed into new beta cells, which are then transplanted into patients with diabetes. Researchers behind this kind of work have described it as a “functional diabetes cure.”

Now, scientists at Mount Sinai and City of Hope have demonstrated a new breakthrough. Previous studies have mostly involved growing new beta cells in a lab dish, then transplanting them into mice or a small device in humans. But this new study has been able to grow the insulin-producing cells right there in the body, in a matter of months.

The therapy involved a combination of two drugs: one is harmine, a natural molecule found in certain plants, which works to inhibit an enzyme called DYRK1A found in beta cells. The second is a GLP1 receptor agonist. The latter is a class of diabetes drug that includes Ozempic, which is gaining attention lately for its side effect of weight loss.

The researchers tested the therapy in mouse models of type 1 and 2 diabetes. First they implanted a small amount of human beta cells into the mice, then treated them with harmine and GLP1 receptor agonists. Sure enough, the beta cells increased in number by 700% within three months of the treatment. The signs of the disease quickly reversed, and stayed that way even a month after stopping the treatment.

“This is the first time scientists have developed a drug treatment that is proven to increase adult human beta cell numbers in vivo,” said Dr. Adolfo Garcia-Ocaña, corresponding author of the study. “This research brings hope for the use of future regenerative therapies to potentially treat the hundreds of millions of people with diabetes.”

The results are intriguing, but of course being an animal study means there’s still much more work to be done before it could find clinical use. So far, harmine alone has recently undergone a phase 1 clinical trial in humans to test its safety and tolerability, while other DYRK1A inhibitors are planned for trials in humans next year.

Perhaps most importantly, the team will soon experiment with combining beta-cell-regenerating drugs with others that modulate the immune system. Ideally this should help overcome a major hurdle: the immune system will continue attacking new beta cells as they’re produced.

The research was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine."

-via New Atlas, July 14, 2024

[lostestleo]

I apologize, I forgot to put a trigger warning before. I do mention suicide.

As a chronic pain patient/advocate who is newish but oldish to the game, I have learned that the argument of addiction is the reason people in pain are not getting proper pain relief. And if you are lucky to get pain relievers, it comes with a big, red scarlet sticker saying the medication “can cause dependency” on the bottle... well, think about it: if you have daily pain, you will need daily relief if you hope to live a normal life.

But there is a major difference between addiction & dependency:

Addiction is an insatiable desire for the medications immediate “euphoric” effects, aka “chasing the dragon” which typically lasts all day. The patient may end up over using/taking much more or all of the prescribed amount within a shorter time period.

Dependency is when the person needs the medication to sustain a decent quality of life. The patient is taking their prescribed medications as directed so that their body can function properly.

An example of dependency is a diabetic patient needing insulin so that they can live.

The problem is that addiction is in everyone, and everyone has some form of addiction that is waiting to be ignited. It is a basic human condition to “want more” and it can be a result of MANY things including a traumatic experience, or even the dreaded “peer pressure” during a high-school party. It can happen with gambling, sex, exercising, even food… It is a spectrum. And it is up to the person to determine their path.

We have reached a new stage of our awful human evolution. Being thin is a societal influence, something that people will kill them-selves for, and we now have everyday people using the diabetic prescription drug “ozempic” as a way to lose weight.

Diabetic patients who are dependent on this type of drug are unable to fill their prescriptions because of the high numbers of non-diabetic people using this drug for their personal gain- pun noted.

To be blunt or a bit dramatic, we could say they are abusing or misusing a diabetics drug.

A person in pain asking for medical attention is shamed, mocked, reported, harassed, and some extraordinary nurses have even taken it far enough to record their rejected “drug seekers” walking out from the hospitals as they’re laughing in the background.

We have been waiting for justice for what seems forever, and some pain warriors have even decided death is better than endless pain… there are so many. It’s not just pain patients either, an ER doctor Dr. Steve Ortiz committed suicide, because he was unable to help his patients. He was continually harassed by the ones who made these fucking rules. He wanted to bring light to the corruption with his death, leaving behind his wife and children in hopes for justice.

And now pain patients everywhere get to watch our society do exactly what they claim to hate us for: abusing someone else’s medication…

Self reflection is free, and everyone should use it daily.

[cellu-lightreading]

Day 9- Euphoria

Your young years are supposed to be filled with self-destructive decisions, at least that’s what TV tells me. I don’t think that they imagined what my friends are doing. I mean, I guess it’s a little cliché. Lots of kids move out of their parents’ house as soon as they possibly can to do all the stuff their parents didn’t approve of. Lots of kids move in with their friends thinking it will be the best time ever. A staggering amount of young people use how hot they are to make money online. I guess the difference is most of them are not over 500 pounds trying to concoct ways to get fatter.

I’m not sure it’s fair to say we’re like most other gainers either. After all, most gainers would hit 500 and wonder if they’re getting too big to function in human society. The question becomes: how do you support yourself?

“We don’t. That’s what the internet is for.” Robin was the pragmatic one who was good at planning. As a teen, he disguised his interest in gaining in sports.  He joined the football team and let the coach demand that he eat big and grow big. The whole time he knew that when he quit sports that his newly expanded appetite wouldn’t stop, but all the muscle he had gained would dissolve into fat. Now he’s so big that his old jersey wouldn’t even be able to cover the giant shelf of moobs that sit on top of his belly, but he is an absolute beast at eating contests.

Robin suggested turning our apartment into the perfect fantasy for feeders, chasers, and encouragers to watch. One glutton willing to show off every stretchmark of their six-foot wide belly already drives them wild, imagine four.

It all goes just as he said when we get our first viral clip. The four of us moving around on a bed frame turned the poor thing into tiny pieces of scrap metal in the middle of a stuffing. The sound of creaking things is practically ambient noise in a house where nothing is built to withstand the weight of even one of us. Why stop eating for that? We were enjoying  ourselves with bucket after bucket of fried chicken and fries. It was already so fattening that grease would drip down our fingers and mouths, then we had the nerve to start dipping the food in vats of cheese and gravy.

This was really Davie’s idea. He was a fat kid, so he’s been experimenting with the most pleasurable and wildest combinations of food for years. Finishing off a pint of ice cream by eating it with a couple stacks of McDonald’s pancakes? That’s normal for Davie. It’s also why his blood sugar levels are obscenely high. He doesn’t even care ever since he found out he can use insulin and turn all his worst fattening instincts to get even fatter. It’s his voice at the end of the clip, right after the bed collapses asking: “What are you guys thinking of for dessert?”

A house with four growing superchubs has certain logistical problems that have only gotten worse as we feed each other. All the walking required just to take out the trash makes it the least favorite chore in the house. But we’re also getting to the point where we need just to take care of ourselves. None of us can bend to the ground and tie our shoes. Even if we get most of our stuff delivered, someone has to be able to fit behind the wheel of the car- seatbelt extension or not.

“That’s where in person feeders come in.” Troy suggested. He’s the most conniving of the group. He literally wore his parents down until they gave up and enabled him through his teenage years. Now he’s 22 and considers a 5 minute walk an intense workout that should leave everyone out of breath and drenched in sweat like him. “Countless boys want to come experience the house. Let’s see who can really handle it. Encouragers will relish the chance to help you shower if you tell them it’s their opportunity to rub every square inch of your body and feel between your folds. They will jump at the chance to clean up if you tell them about how you made the mess by falling asleep after an hour long binge. If the price for a butler is that they call us fat ass pigs, which we already say to each other because it’s true, I think it’s worth it.”

That little tidbit is how we started getting other men in our house. The feeders would come do everything for us just as Troy wanted. Muscular men would come through the house and put down cinderblocks to reinforce the couch and clean the kitchen. The prices ended up being a little flexible. It could just be a tease here and there. Sometimes they did it to feel the folds of our belly on their head while they sucked our dicks. We would make videos with them and they would charm us completely.

The problems started when Robin and one of the feeders started getting really close. They were texting all the time and he was coming over a lot. Robbie had gotten attached, and it was evident to everyone but him. He did everything but make Pinterest boards for the wedding. The feeder wasn’t nearly as interested; he was just looking to live out some fantasies.

So it didn’t mean anything to him when Robin was gone but Troy answered the door one afternoon. It didn’t mean anything to him that he fed Troy a buffet of McDonald’s. It didn’t mean anything to him when Troy kissed him and seduced him and fucked him. It didn’t mean anything to him that they did every day of the rest of that week. But it meant something to Robin.

When Robin saw that Troy had uploaded a video of the two of them to his page, he was distraught. He chewed out Troy who could only defend himself by saying that the feeder didn’t think they were exclusive. He had a hard and heartbreaking conversation with the feeder who never once thought about how he would hurt Robin. Lastly, he came to me with a gallon jug of ice cream and a tote bag of toppings to cry on my shoulders.

The hard parts of life were fully my domain in the house. I couldn’t start trying to gain until I could support those dreams myself. At 16, I got a job at fast food chicken place and spent my checks and my late nights in high school and college munching on all the greasy food I could handle at once. The more time I had to work, the more money I had in my bank account, the more I was eating. The boys had appointed me the dad friend, and I was the one up late at night mindlessly eating a pie and paying bills with sticky fingers. I was the one who balanced the house’s budget in the morning and relaxed with a beer at night.

When boys start acting like teenagers, you need an adult to step in. I consoled Robin until the early morning, letting him eat his feelings until he fell asleep in my bed. I shook Troy down until he felt some remorse and apologized. When it was all over, Davie brought me a small bowl of ice cream, wrapped his arms around me and said,

“You wouldn’t last an hour in the drama of a Euphoria episode, but you’re a good enough friend that we never worry about that stuff.”

[dreamy-love222]

This is what happens after you eat

1 ) your blood glucose levels rises up (0h to 3h after eating)

2 ) your blood glucose levels go down (3 h to 6 h after eating)

3 ) after 9 hours your glucose levels stabilise

Once the food is digested the body ceases to produce insulin glucagon lets glycogen becomes our main source of energy

4) 11 hours after not eating you start to use fat as main source of energy. The average human body has about 80000 calories of fat on their body.

There is hormones that come into play during this stage

Somatotrophine

Glucagon

Testostérone

Adrénaline

T3 (triiodothyronine)

Somatomédine C (IGF-1)

These hormones basically have an important role in fat burning

5) after 12h to 16h after a meal after those hormones boost the utilising of fat as energy ketones are produced in the liver as a sub product of fat burning.

These ketones give energy to the heart brain and vital organs. Ketones activate neurones and reinforce intellectual functions this is the part where you start to feel productive and concentrated in your fast.

We tend to believe that the more we spend time not eating the worse the hunger will get and this is not true at all.

Fasting more than 72 hours or less when you eat small portions when you break your fast isn’t good for cardiovascular health so please take care 🩷 this is just for educational purposes because I think the human body is interesting

[luna-rainbow]

(I apologize in advance for any grammatical errors; English is not my mother tongue.)

Hi!

I have a few questions for you and I'm fairly certain that you've probably been asked them before, so I apologize if this has been the case. I'm relatively new to fandom (only since 2020). But I keep wondering if there is some illness that Bucky could suffer from. I'm thinking of things like: E.g. stroke, aneurysm, heart attack, Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's disease. Would there be any impact in the long term? Or does the serum prevent him from generally getting such “diseases of civilization”? Or, if he suffers from it, does the serum help him to recover where a "normal" human being wouldn't been able to? It's said in some places that Hydra didn't use the same serum that Steve got, so it might perhaps be within the realm of possibility (I mean, we're talking about non-existent things like super soldier serum) that such "side effects " may occur? I know you're not a medical professional, but I really value your opinion and in-depth knowledge of Bucky and have enjoyed reading many of your assessments of him.

Thanks for your time!

Oooh! Thanks for the fascinating question! You've actually been in the fandom longer than I have 😂 And your English is fantastic!

In TFATWS Isaiah spoke of his squad of men all dying from the effects of the serum. In the comics, Isaiah did have two major weaknesses as a side effect of the serum: he got early dementia and he was rendered infertile. This is not true of TFATWS!Isaiah though, because he looks like he’s well in control of his mental faculties.

I feel like the serum, if it was flawed, would kill rapidly because of how powerful its effects on cells are. It's supposed to increased strength, endurance, stamina, speed, healing and longevity; we also know that it increased metabolism of alcohol (and maybe other drugs too).

But what are the side effects on increasing strength, stamina and speed? Presumably they would need a much higher energy intake than the normal person to maintain the function of the muscles (and their level of activity). Presumably there would be cascading changes on insulin sensitivity and energy storage. What happens when they become sedentary? Do they store a lot of that excessive energy on their body like Alexei? Or do they get the zoomies because their body is forcing them to burn off the excess energy? What does it mean for sleep? Are they needing more sleep because of the energy expenditure, or less sleep because of the rapid rejuvenation? What does that change in sleep cycle mean when they have to live amongst normal humans? And how do they balance their meals against that?

The higher metabolism is interesting, because does that mean a higher rate of cell turnover? In most normal humans, we know that higher cell turnover rates mean bigger chances of mutations, hence things like chronic inflammation increases risks of cancer. Sure, healing speed might be fast, but sometimes it’s a matter of quality over speed, you know? Are they closing wounds or replacing lost blood but actually spawning cancerous cells? Sometimes I wonder if a lot of Isaiah’s squad may have died from cancer like these 🤔 There is an interesting bit of DNA on our chromosomes called the “telomere”, that seems to be somewhat of a genetic marker for “best before date”, if you will. When the telomere gets shorter, there are higher incidences of age-related diseases, but I’m not sure we’ve figured out which is the chicken or the egg 🤔 The reason I bring it up is we don’t know how the increased metabolism given by the serum will affect the mechanisms for cell repair. Do the cell repair happen faster too? Or do they — as you point out — hit a physiological roadblock and after that it’s all down hill?

And finally, what does the serum do to mental health specifically? Not just the improved memory or the heightened senses (leading to heightened anxiety), but physiological changes can definitely cause emotions, eg people with fast thyroid or fast heart rate feeling anxious and jittery all the time. If your energy is always elevated, how do you let your mind rest? If you’re not able to fall asleep, how does your brain repair itself and consolidate memories? And what is the psychological effect of always living on juice? Is that what drives comics!Isaiah to an early dementia?

Sorry, this raised far more questions than it answered! I think it is definitely possible that there are long term side effects of the serum that we don’t know about. Although I suspect a MCU was thinking is “magic mcgaffin juice, heals all illnesses” which I guess is all you need when the original point of the story is that the physique didn’t matter as much as the man inside, and what was most important was he was going to punch Nazis.

[cuttingpenisblackmetal]

edit: now on AO3!

in the first week after toki's rescue, skwisgaar figures out how to proceed (post-requiem/pre-aotd, 5k words, tw: references to torture, injury/medical stuff)

-

The doctor goes out of the way to specify that it's not a coma. "He's just tired. God. Don't be so dramatic." Even a human body claimed by prophecy can only endure so much, and Toki's has much to contend with, these days. There's IV antibiotics for the festering hole Magnus has left in his side, a morphine drip for the same reason, IV fluids plugged into the skin further up his arms. There's a glucose monitor plugged into his shoulder alongside the insulin pump, keeping close eye on the damage wrought by several months of untreated diabetes and a diet apparently consisting of, if Toki's bouts of incoherent rambling are to be believed, cat food. A heart-monitor cabled to his chest that almost looks like a stack of amps by the bed. There's medics checking in frequently, changing bandages or administering creams for the shackle-shaped rash around his neck. The periodic anxious visits of band members. The sedative shots they give him every twelve hours, because everyone is still worried about what state his already-fragile psyche will be in when he achieves sustained consciousness, and there's some desire to make his body habitable before forcing him back into it. There's a lot of hand-wringing and touching and disgusting displays of emotion over him. Even for an attention whore like Toki it must be exhausting. He never wakes up for more than half an hour at a time.

Skwisgaar questions the doctor with stoic indifference, like he's just trying to pass the time. He's in that hospital room continuously, keeping vigil at the bedside, and he's taken it upon himself to receive the periodic updates from the band's physician. He is forced to expand his English vocabulary to include words like 'neuropathy' and 'sepsis'. He doesn't understand the fine details of what is told to him (how does one even get sugar in the blood with an all-cat food diet? He's fairly sure there's no sugar in cat food.) He writes down notes for Pickles, because Pickles invariably asks, and then Pickles gets his own reports from the doctor anyways, because Skiwsgaar's notes 'barely count as English', and for some reason Pickles takes issue with the fact Skwisgaar's only remarks are about how his injuries will probably affect Toki's already abysmal guitar skills. They almost fight about it, once, and then Pickles sees something in Skwisgaar's face and cuts short his obnoxious scolding. He leaves Skwisgaar to his lonely vigil by their perpetually unconscious and now functionally useless rhythm guitarist.

They've only had Toki back for a few days, so the fact that Skwisgaar never leaves the bedside hasn't started to cause problems for him, yet. He's stayed up much longer than this before, usually while facing record deadlines and having to re-record guitar parts that had been so handily bungled by the man currently sleeping before him. Surprisingly boredom fails to be a problem. At this point, his life is so shitty and complicated and weird that it's actually a relief to be able to sit in silence, staring at the array of complex medical machinery. He sits for hours thinking everything and nothing at once, strains of random and disarticulated thoughts mingling with ideas for guitar riffs and new song compositions.

He doesn't remember anything from the rescue itself; he's thinking that their next song should feature a canon, two identical guitar riffs played out of time with one another. Being at the centre of a religious apocalypse prophecy is going to fuck with his identity as a nihilist; the canon should feature a melody that starts slow and gains in speed, like a chase. The sight of amateur sutures over an angry red slit in one side of Toki's sunken stomach; his canon won't be any of that classical major-key bullshit he despised in music school, but something epic, something ferocious. An upside-down cross; a dragon chasing a valkyrie through the melting ruins of Greenland, ice flying everywhere, fire ripping through pillars of frost. Toki mumbles something in his sleep, turning his head; Skwisgaar hears clearly a bridge of elaborate harmonic scales plunging in mutual abandon towards a frozen sea. After months of heavy drug use and every best effort at self-annihilation, it comes as a relief to sit with his own thoughts, dark and disarticulated though they are. He hasn't heard music in his head so clearly since before Toki's abduction, since even before Dethklok attempted to break up.

Unfortunately, he is interrupted often. His bandmates are embarrassingly eager to check in on their rescuee, and even Skwisgaar's mumbled warnings that all the attention will go straight to Toki's head doesn't deter them. Murderface comes the most often, usually with some harebrained scheme to try and make Toki "feel better"-- by making him watch Civil War documentaries, by gifting him exclusive Planet Piss merch, by reading him cat memes from his Dethphone-- the fact that Toki is soundly asleep through each visit Murderface doesn't seem to consider a problem, and it is only the appearance of the band physician that succeeds in driving him away (Murderface had acquired a hostility towards doctors that Skwisgaar doesn't care to understand). Pickles has a routine: he comes by three times a day with a bottle in hand, he receives Skwisgaar's update on Toki's condition, he asks Skwisgaar a few incredibly awkward questions about whether he's sleeping or eating much (Skwisgaar does not dignify these with answers), then he goes to Toki's bed, pours a healthy serving of liquor out on the floor near his pillow ('Jus' payin' my respecks!') and stumbles out of the room to find the physician. Nathan visits very rarely, and always seems overly-fragile and distracted when he does, unable to even look at their youngest band-mate except for while Skwisgaar is telling him about his new musical ideas.

"Just, uh…" Nathan concludes one exceptionally uncomfortable visit, hovering in the doorway, "Tell us when he wakes up."

Nobody's remarked on Skwisgaar's constant presence in the room. They haven't commented on the fact that he's been glued to Toki since they found themselves without recollection in the DethBus, and Toki-- emaciated, filthy, incredibly alive Toki-- was tucked under one of Skwisgaar's arms, holding onto his hand with both of his own. If Skwisgaar ever recovers his memories of that night, he'll seriously interrogate his own judgement, how he found himself in the dreadful situation of affectionate physical contact with Toki of all people-- but he'd held him like that for the entire ride home, and he'd practically carried him to the Mordhaus medical wing, and he's not left since. The rest of the band seems to have accepted this as normal-- Toki and Skwisgaar have been ]inseparable since the kid first joined their band more than a decade ago. Skwisgaar's constant presence here is little more than a refreshing return to the status quo.

This works in Skwisgaar's favour, because it means he's the only one who knows that the slumber that grips Toki is not a coma. He's the only one around when Toki wakes.

Toki wakes infrequently, incompletely. Most of the time he's confused when he does; high off his ass on painkillers and sedatives, his brain seems to pick moments from time at random to thrust him into.

Sometimes he seems to think he's a young kid, and he wakes up speaking Norwegian, asking for his mother or begging forgiveness for some chore-related transgression.

Other times he thinks he's in their old apartment, the first Mordhaus. "Skwis-gaar," he whines, without opening his eyes or moving his head from his pillow, "You says we goes to Ikea if de records sells a hundred copies… I buys pekhult."

And sometimes he's back in that abandoned building. "Don't wants no more cat foods, Magnus," he mumbles once to his pillow, "My kitty-friends says he only eats herrings now, you must bring Toki a herrings…"

During Pickles' next visit, Skwisgaar asks him to bring pickled herring, in case Toki wakes up and feels like a snack. The physician overhears. "Are you serious?" he says, "Have you even been listening to me? No solid food until his blood sugar's back under control. Also, pickled herring? He's already been tortured. Dicks."

The worst times are when Toki opens his eyes. It happens rarely-- Skwisgaar glancing up at the bed and finding himself subjected to a sunken-eyed, glassy stare. The first time, now in the harsh light of the hospital room, he notices that Toki's left eye has two new voids at the bottom of the iris, and he stares at them until he remembers that Nathan had blinded Magnus in the left eye. He's so disturbed that he looks away; he hears Toki smugly mumble, "You blinksed, you're a blinkster," and his throat can't manage to form a reply, and Toki falls asleep again soon after.

Probably an iris tear, the physician explains later, someone probably hit him in the eyeball, but is that really the priority here? He's dying of sepsis and you're worried about a cosmetic wound? Jesus.

But most of the time Toki sleeps soundly, and whatever delusions visit him seem pleasant, for he smiles in his sleep. Toki's always been prone to retreating into his own mind during moments of pain and stress-- a habit Skwisgaar understands, with his own tendency to shut down under duress-- however, whereas Skwisgaar's shut-downs draw him into a thoughtless churn of inner music, he's aware Toki finds more comfort in outright fantasies. Of course he's sleeping so much; he's probably off flying through clouds and rainbows in a stupid fairy world on Planet Toki. The real world, where his bandmates let him endure months of literal actual torture because they were scared to address an old drama Toki didn't even have anything to do with, probably seems pretty fucked up in comparison.

On the fifth day they've had Toki back, Nathan enters the room and tells Skwisgaar in no uncertain terms that it's his turn to be a sad piece of shit next to Toki's bed, so Skwisgaar needs to clear the fuck out. Nathan is the one band member capable of making Skwisgaar do anything, and it would be far too humiliating even now for him to fight over his cherished post, so Skwisgaar sulks out of there with only a warning that he'd better not even think about giving Toki any pickled herring. Doctor's orders.

Back in his room he feels intolerably alone-- he hates sleeping alone, how could Nathan not realise that's the only reason he's been in Toki's room all this time, because they're all acting so miserable and sappy that inviting some groupies over would make him look like a total dick?-- trying to postpone his collapse, he takes a shower that feels as if it lasts for years, spends a true hour applying various products to his hair, drinks half of the bowl of beef broth someone left in there for him. He sits with his Explorer for a while, drawing out the preliminary notes of the canon he's been contemplating in Toki's room, but sleep deprivation is turning the melody to mush in his head, everything sounds discordant, inferior, sloppy. Defeated, he throws himself into his bed, attempts to jack off, fails even at that, and, finally, lapses into an unsettled sleep.

Twelve hours later, Skwisgaar wakes in a thrashing panic. He doesn't remember what he dreamed about but he's convinced that everything after the rescue has been an illusion. He swears he remembers holding Toki's corpse. He dresses in a hurry, grabs his guitar, and goes back to the medical ward, trying to keep his pace slow so that nobody might notice his distress.

Inside the hospital room Toki is asleep and not dead. Nathan is also sleeping, doubled over in the chair by the bedside, his face planted into the mattress near Toki's hip. One of Toki's hands is buried in Nathan's hair, clutching a handful of greasy black tresses with a desperate strength Skwisgaar hasn't seen in him since the rescue. Duh, he thinks. Of course that sappy overbearing homo responds to physical closeness. With Nathan's hair to cling onto, he looks more peaceful than Skwisgaar's seen him in a long time.

When Skwisgaar resumes his constant vigil, he sits a little closer to the bed. He has his Explorer, this time, so he can whittle away the hours by composing that canon he's been thinking of. His playing doesn't seem to bother Toki, who sleeps soundly as ever, totally unappreciative of the fact that the world's pre-eminent Guitar God is giving him a private convert at his bedside. He still talks in his sleep, occasionally, and to Skwisgaar's indignation, it's not even about him. "Abigail? Abigail?" he moans out sometimes. Or, "I loves you too, clown, I loves you too." Or, "Fucks you, Moidaface, I goes to the water-parks without you…" He talks to everyone he's ever known at one point or another. He's always been the neediest of them.

But the canon comes along well, despite Toki's unconscious interjections. Sitting in this room, it's easier to recall the notes-- the white of the room evokes the punishing gleam of an ice-sheet, the beeping of the heart-monitor the steady wing-beats of a dragon in flight. The trick is making sure that every note will work with each other when overlaid; it's self-indulgently technical, the sort of music Skwisgaar loves to figure out: compositions that makes him feel like a genius. While Toki dreams his sedated rainbow dreams and argues with nobody, Skwisgaar plays, and he feels better for the practice.

He experiments with things other than music. Toki does seem to sleep more peacefully when someone is close to him or even touching him. When Toki speaks in his sleep, Skwisgaar moves from his chair and sits, instead, at the edge of the mattress, so that his weight dents it. Even this abysmal excuse for physical contact mollifies him, and his nighttime rambling always stops, replaced with a beatific smile. During one of Nathan's scarce visits, Nathan awkwardly blurts out that Abigail told him that she and Toki held each other for much of their captivity, and that his absence made her feel vulnerable. Skwisgaar, a perfectionist, is oddly chafed by the idea that this intrusive producer has managed Toki's well-being far better than he is able to now. As if she didn't realise that spoiling Toki with love will only do him a disservice in the long run.

But he has his composition, now, to serve as an excuse. The physician had mentioned diabetic nerve damage, and Skwisgaar uses a professional interest in Toki's musical aptitude to justify a battery of tests. He starts by pressing his fingertips against the sleeping man's fretting-hand, testing the response (it curls immediately, the fingers twitch towards his.) Next, later, he takes that hand in his own and presses his thumbpad to each of the fingertips; he finds the callouses are still there, but only barely, thin and inadequate over the sharp bones beneath. His next evaluation is to lace his fingers with Toki's. They're much more slender than they once were, even bony, and he doesn't sense much strength in them-- that will have to be rectified with practice, but perhaps the loss of finger-weight will somewhat compensate for any atrophy of skill. When he gropes along Toki's arms he finds them thinner than they were, muscles clinging tightly to bone and stringy under the skin. His shoulders, likewise, feel narrow and flabbier than they once were. Would a loss of muscle tone affect his playing? He factors this into the canon he's writing, forcing himself to run at a lower tempo.

They've had Toki for a week when the physician delivers an update. The major risk of sepsis has passed, it seems, and the nascent infection in the abdominal wound has been abating at impressive speed. The next step is to reduce his sedatives, introduce proper meals, let him regain a degree more consciousness, start thinking about therapy of both physical and psychological varieties. The update is given to Skwisgaar; he resolves not to pass it on to the rest of the band. If they hear Toki will be waking up properly soon, he'll never get them out of here.

So the meds are reduced, and Skwisgaar continues working on his composition. He soon realises that this isn't something he can do easily in analog; he needs a second him, someone to learn the same pattern and play it a few measures behind him, so that he can hear how it's all coming together. The second him he'd need to write this properly is currently sleep-mumbling a Dimmu Burger order, so Skwisgaar just has to make do with his imagination. It's sounding good, despite everything. Not quite as fast or as brutal as he'd like it to be, but he's going to be working with damaged goods, concessions need to be made.

There's one more test Skwisgaar feels he needs to run. The day the doctor cuts the sedatives, Skwisgaar waits until he's certain they won't be interrupted. Then he takes his guitar from his lap and gently, slowly, lies it across Toki's lap. He takes Toki's fretting hand-- the one that's loose, without tubes running from it-- and wraps it around the neck of the guitar. He holds his own breath and Toki's wrist and he waits to see what will happen.

He watches Toki's hand curl around the neck of the guitar. Fingers seek out strings on pure instinct, forming the shape of a nonsense chord, pressing very weakly down. Pure muscle memory. Skwisgaar lets out a long exhale.

Then he glances up and finds that Toki is staring at him bewilderedly. He's frowning, his eyes are puffy and ringed with near-black bruises.

"… Eugh," Skwisgaar says. "Thoughts you might…. urrrh…. needs… to practices."

Toki stares. He blinks slowly. Then he raises his other hand, with its train of tubes, and extends to Skwisgaar one stick-thin middle finger.

Once news gets out that Toki's awake, Skwisgaar bids farewell to his composition time. Toki isn't even really awake-- he still sleeps almost constantly-- but his intervals of waking can now be measured in hours rather than minutes. He can also hold conversations, now, though the painkillers do little to improve his already erratic train of thought. The rest of the band is eager to speak to him, which confuses Skwisgaar, because these conversations always seem to be about nothing. In fact, Toki hardly speaks, but he's awake and vaguely responsive and that seems to satisfy everyone else.

The first real conversation Toki has after waking up is with Abigail. Not twenty-four hours after Toki had begun to enjoy bouts of continued consciousness, they receive the news that Abigail was leaving Mordhaus' medical wing and returning to her own house, in her own city, far from the band who'd caused her so much grief. She comes to Toki's room to say goodbye, and Skwisgaar, still jealously guarding his place by the bed, pretends not to watch as the two abductees embrace each other and weep into each other's shoulders. It is Pickles who drags Skwisgaar out of the room after that first teary embrace. Skwisgaar is forced to join Nathan in miserable exile in the hallway, where they exchange some awkward words about nothing in particular and pretend not to listen into the conversation inside. The words themselves are indistinct, but neither of them fail to notice the genuine love in Abigail's voice, the tender affection with which she comforts the bandmate they'd almost abandoned.

"I think she's uh… mad at me or something," Nathan remarks at one point. "You know, I guess we kind of, uh… took a while… to save them… yeah, I think she's mad at me or something."

"Dat's womens for you," Skwisgaar replies without emotion, staring at the wall.

When Abigail leaves, Skwisgaar elbows back into the room and finds Toki wiping his face with the edges of his blanket. He looks a mess, sitting upright for the first time since he'd been back; his unwashed hair falling limp over jutting shoulder-blades, scarred skin pulled taut over prominent ribs. He looks up at Skwisgaar, both eyes brimming with tears. "She's leavin's me," Toki blubbers, "She's leavin's-- she's leavin's me-- tells her not to leaves me, tells her she can't leaves Toki, Toki loves her more den anythings--"

The first coherent sentences Toki's spoken to him since the abduction, and he's proclaiming his love for some woman they barely know. Skwisgaar makes a derisive sound. "She shouldn'ts has upsets you's." Toki gives him a miserable betrayed look; Skwisgaar ignores him, takes up his post by the bedside, and gets back to work on his canon.

Maybe it's the loss of sedatives, or maybe it's that Abigail's departure breaks something in him, because after that day Toki becomes much more childish. Skwisgaar has always thought of Toki as three different variants of himself: as well as Toki his musical counterpart, there is the fawning crybaby Toki who loves kid things, and the frightening megalomaniacal Toki capable of astonishing violence. He's the crybaby more often now. It makes him easier to deal with in some ways-- he's completely pacified when Nathan starts reading him Watership Down, for example, and Pickles' bringing him a care package of his deaddy bear and several colouring books delights him for a whole day. But the crybaby is also more prone to mood swings than he's ever been before. Skwisgaar finds, to his discomfort, that exchanges which once would've been natural for them now reduce Toki to tears-- any raised voice, any hint of criticism, any cynical statement, and he starts blubbering. It quickly begins to wear on Skwisgaar's nerves.

There's only so much he can take. He concedes. He starts letting his bandmates drive him out of Toki's room so that they can spend their own time alone with him. He has the melody for his canon, at this point, he feels confident about how the notes will fit together. All that's left is to refine it. He starts spending plenty of time in the studio, first recording himself, then playing over the recording. He sits on his hands before he performs the second part, waiting for them to go numb, the way he always does before re-recording Toki's tracks.

He hasn't brought up the canon since Toki's been awake. He's afraid that, if he does, Toki will dissolve under the pressure and start crying again. He'd offered to let Toki practice on his Explorer during one of his first bouts of proper wakefulness, and Toki had been predictable petulant about it, whining that he couldn't practise with those 'stupids tubes' in his arm. He'd shed tears because he'd thought Skwisgaar's offer of practice was an expression of disapproval, so Skwisgaar had stopped bringing up guitars after that, which left him with absolutely nothing to talk about.

It's becoming more and more difficult to ignore that the other band members are so much better at this than he is. Skwisgaar can't stand that he alone is utterly incapable of making Toki feel better. They've always provoked each other, even at their closest, but now that feels less like proof of their bond and more like a glaring fault.

As the week goes on, Skwisgaar visits less and less. It becomes easy to let himself go for days without doing so.

Perhaps it's for the best, his pulling away. The canon hasn't turned out how he wanted it to be. When he first imagined it, he saw fire and ice, dragons and valkyries; somewhere over these awful few weeks it has transformed into something darker and more hopeless. He's anchored the melody with a heavy thud on the lowest string at irregular intervals, which, as the two tracks play over each other, begins to sound like a palpating heartbeat, overlain by anxious minor scales, skittering rats. A pseudo-classical succession of repeating arpeggios evokes churches filled with ghosts. When he listens to his first recording, Skwisgaar finds himself thinking of damp and dungeons, an upside-down cross, crucifixions, shackles, impaled people, burning stars. He listens through it twice, and then he deletes the track.

They've had Toki back for two whole weeks and Skwisgaar is lying on his bed when Pickles lets himself into Skwisgaar's room. "Dood, the're sayin' he'll be allowed out soon," he says triumphantly. "They're takin' him off the drugs and everythin'! He's gonna be okay. You know? He's okay, we can say that now." Finally, a pause. "Uh, hello? Anyone in here?"

"Ugh," Skwisgaar says. He's been staring at the ceiling for the past while, his guitar lying in one arm like a lover, his other hand behind his head.

"You, uh, doin' okay?" Pickles asks. "You heard what I said or…"

"Yueh. Gots it."

A pause. "You should visit him, dood," Pickles says. "He's been askin' about you."

Skwisgaar makes a dismissive sound. Pickles shoots back something about moody teenagers never wanting to leave their rooms, and then he slams the door, leaving Skwisgaar to stare at the ceiling in silence. He's been lying there for some time, trying to decide what to do with the inadequate canon he's composed. He knows he should admit to himself that it's going nowhere, start writing something else, it's not like him to get attached to a failed piece of music. Writing something else sounds less appealing than simply staring at the ceiling. He's been spending a lot of time doing that in the past few days.

It's never going to work no matter how he writes it. The parts may be identical, created for each other, but they are not beautiful when they're combined. The second melody may be equal to the first, but when lagging behind its counterpart it is ugly and discordant, it evokes something resentful, maybe something even hateful, something deeply frustrated. Skwisgaar may have succeeded in evoking the chase he first imagined, but there are no dragons here, no valkyries-- there is a rabbit with a snared leg, designed for speed but failing to run. There may have been magic in this world, once, but Skiwsgaar can no longer capture it. Perhaps it was never his to capture.

And yet, he still wants to capture it.

When he arrives in Toki's room he finds that Toki's fast asleep again. Murderface is slumped over in the chair next to the bed, and a portable DVD player has been set up on Toki's lap; Skwisgaar hears the strains of some corny animated movie over the sounds of Murderface's snoring. He places the two guitars he's holding at the foot of Toki's bed, goes to Murderface's side, shakes Murderface awake. Murderface rouses loudly, begins cursing out Skwisgaar for startling him until Skwisgaar informs him that, if the tantrum wakes up Toki, he'll tell Nathan; the threat of retribution shuts Murderface up, and he takes his DVD player and leaves with only a cursory amount of resentful grumbling.

With Murderface departed, Skwisgaar waits to ensure nobody else will come in. He waits for several minutes.

He meant to wake Toki up. He meant to tell Toki about the song he was composing for them to play. He's brought two guitars-- his own Explorer, and one of Toki's Flying V's, not the show guitars but one Skwisgaar has taken from a shrine-like sconce in Toki's closet, an old battered guitar repaired with duct-tape in places. He'd been going to press the old guitar into Toki's arms and say, practice, for once in your miserable life, and he'll wait out the crying if he had to, and he'll guide Toki's hands onto the strings if it was required. They can't talk like this-- he hasn't been able to talk-- they need to play together if anything worth saying is to pass between them, and so Skwisgaar needs Toki to learn to play again. These past several months have been so desperately lonely.

Lying motionless in the hospital bed, his wounds barely beginning to heal, Toki looks absurdly like the guitar Skiwsgaar's brought to him-- second-hand, hard-worn, duct-taped back together. Skiwsgaar once scoffed at the idea of playing on such an instrument unless out of sheer desperation, but here he is.

He leaves the guitars at the foot of the bed.

Toki is fast asleep, and he remains asleep as Skwisgaar climbs onto the mattress next to him. He feels ridiculous, like a kid crawling into his mother's empty bed, desperate not to be alone. If anyone catches him he'll take all the morphine from that drip and kill himself on the spot. Awkwardly, trying to avoid any physical contact, he positions his body parallel to Toki's. His feet hang off the edge of the bed, dangerously close to the guitars; his head is on the mattress by Toki's shoulder. So positioned, choking on the shame of it, he tries to settle. Toki smells like blood and sweat and antiseptic.

Everything is already so fucked up, everything is already falling apart. They're embedded in some sort of apocalyptic prophecy and nothing will ever be the same. Carefully, Skwisgaar extends one arm and rests it over Toki's lap, low enough to avoid the wound Magnus has created. In theory he's cuddled with people before, but it's been a long time, he doesn't do that with his hook-ups, it's too much. This feels different. He doesn't know what he expected. Not this-- disproportionate smallness, horrid vulnerability. Toki isn't even awake to ridicule him for it, so he doesn't understand why it's so difficult. He shifts a little on the mattress, astonished by how uncomfortable it is. How could they have made Toki endure sleeping on this for weeks?

Suddenly there is a hand in his hair.

Skwisgaar freezes. He sees his life flash before his eyes. He thinks about jumping out of the window. He tries to think of any plausible excuse and finds nothing.

Toki's fingers tangle themselves in his hair, the tips of them sliding soothingly along his scalp before picking up a lock and squeezing it.

"Ams okay, Skwisgaar." Toki mumbles it as if he's just woken up. "There, there. Ams okay. Everything's okays now."

His fingers still move in Skwisgaar's hair. This is mortifying. He doesn't move away.

He shifts closer, lies his body against Toki's side, hides his face in the side of Toki's sharp ribs. Thank Odin, he does not cry, but he's guilty of sniffling a bit. Toki strokes his hair back, then pats him in a friendly way between the shoulder-blades.

"There, there," Toki repeats himself. "Ams okay, ams heres now. Don't worries, ol' Toki's right here to looks afters you."

Is Toki mocking him? Skwisgaar wants Toki to be mocking him-- it would be so normal, so comfortable. But the hand stroking Skwisgaar's hair feels too sincere. He grinds his face into Toki's ribs, marveling at his own shamelessness. Toki is literally the last person in the world who should be comforting him-- it should be the other way around-- none of these thoughts can persuade him to move away. He just lies there, a charlatan, a fraud, a weakling. Toki's playing with his hair again, petting him like a cat. He is so humiliated he could die. He does not move away.

Things have changed; Skwisgaar understands this. He knows things will never again be the way they once were. But at last, miserable and comforted and in spite of it all at peace, he understands something crucial about their weird new fucked up lives:

The end is not nigh.

[gotta-pet-em-all]

If we are sharing service pokémon stories, I gotta tell you about my family's.

So, both of my grandparents have service mon. Grandpa has a froslass for mobility assistance and gradma has a glailie for thermoregulation reasons (her body tends to overheat and not cool itself down properly). Way back when my mom was a little girl (and able-bodied), she asked her parents when she'd get her snorunt, since clearly that's a family tradition.

Grandma and grandpa discussed it and agreed that their daughter was old enough for a pokémon, so they called the local shelter and asked if they had any snorunts available. They had one, thing is that snorunt had been surrendered by its trainer after a diabetes diagnosis.

Well, they went ahead anyway and gave my mom the snorunt. She was overjoyed and promised to take good care of her little buddy, even learned how to measure blood sugar and inject insulin.

40+ years later and mom still has her froslass, now trained as a mobility assistance mon since mom's getting older. The tradition is still going and this weekend my glailie and I are taking my oldest to the shelter to pick up his own little snorunt.

He wants to name it Snowball.

Oh gosh, thank you for sharing, anon! It's funny how certain types of disability are normalized as you get older, you know? The categories of Abled/Normal and Disabled/Abnormal start breaking down when you realize that it is in fact normal for the human body to not function as well in later years.

Humans and pokemon gotta help each other out, yknow?

Since you shared, I'll tell you something I've never told anyone outside of therapy: my Cherrim is sweet and beloved, of course, but ever since I found her in the wild, since she joined my team, she's become a lazy hedonist. She puts holes in food she likes and she steals the sunspot and she's taught me that it's okay to rest and take up space. And I am so grateful for her even though objectively sometimes it sucks when she ruins the entire fruit bowl by nibbling on each piece.

[celestie0]

book recs? if you read. biology books are fine as well.

hiii my dear LOL yes i do read but not that often haha. not sure what genres speak to you but i tried to give a bit of a range!!

i just finished reading "pachinko" by author min jin lee n thought it was really wonderful. it's a story that spans multiple generations from a war era to modern era so it was really interesting seeing the cultural developments, i can tell the author put a lot of research into it. i mean i was already bawling by end of the first chapter and i very rarely actually cry when i'm reading books. the minimalistic style of the writing is so lovely i think this book has most influenced my own writing style. it's a hefty n lengthy book though, but so worth the ride

this one is really popular but def worth the hype "the seven husbands of evelyn hugo"! it's about sort of a marilyn monroe type character named evelyn hugo who was a famous actress (it's all fictional though) and all of her love affairs. i love the unique voice that she has throughout the book, she keeps it super real and so those moments of vulnerability from her end up hitting hard. i so very enjoy the way taylor jenkins reid writes aaa i'm reading another one of her books rn called "one true loves" (although tbh it's not that great so far haha)

a romance i read sort of recently was "before we were strangers" by renee carlino and i liked it!! the angsttt ugh. it's a second chance romance ab two characters who met in uni and then went their separate ways and didn't reunite again until they were in their thirties i believe. i love those types of romances where ppl have had a lot of time away from one another, exploring all the growth inbetween is sm fun. tbh there were so many times i wanted to slap the shit outta both the main characters for their horrendously poor decision making lmfao but i appreciate stories like that bc they feel raw and real. def recommend!

since you mentioned bio books i'll shout out my two faves LOL:

"who we are and how we got here" by david reich. i love this book, it's a really amazing collection of geneticists research to account for all the variations in humans across the world and throughout hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. it touches on why diff demographics are more susceptible to certain illness/disease, w explanations ranging from things such as colonization & racism, social isolation and even early language development!!

"the body" by bill bryson. this one is simple n kind of functions as a lil encyclopedia for the body, including famous discoveries and tips on how to take care of yourself. i think it's both a leisure read and also really educational so i loved it. there's stuff like women's anatomy, history of insulin production and there's even a section on food/metabolism which was my fave. it's all in layman's terms so it's suitable for anyone to pick up

i got kinda carried away w this haha but i hope you enjoy reading if you do read any of them! it's overcast where i live and now i wanna curl up with a book :'')

thank you lovely for the ask <3

[moonsilkwisdom]

Notes on Self-care

I would like to talk about self-care. Some self-care is remembering that you as a human have some of the same needs as a complicated house plant. This means getting good food, water, and sunlight. Yes, humans need sunlight for vitamin production, specifically vitamin d. Beyond a few food sources where modern practices add it in, most of the vitamin d the human body needs, is acquired through sunlight interacting with our skin.  At minimum, please work on feeding your body the food, water, and sunlight it needs to function well. This is the minimum of taking care of yourself. Then there is getting enough physical activity to keep bodies healthy. Good exercise is finding ways to keep moving. Not just bid muscles like arms and legs, but fingers can benefit from being kept busy.

            Health and self-care is more than caring for the physical body. Mental and emotional health is important as well. One reason I keep writing guided meditations, is it helps to exercise and calm your minds. I believe that part of my job as a volunteer minister is to help with mental and emotional health as well as providing space for spiritual work. Puzzles and crafts are great for keeping minds sharp and help with keeping hands flexible and strong. The requirement is materials you can access and something you enjoy. For me that is all kinds of needlework, embroidery, knitting, crochet, mending. You might also try origami, tradition paper folding, gardening/helping with landscaping or cooking as suggestions.   

            Also, I will say it out loud. There is no shame in needing medication for your mental health or your physical health. Some people do not produce enough insulin to keep their blood sugar from getting too high. Others do not produce enough neurotransmitters, chemicals like serotonin that help regulate brain function, to keep their moods balanced. I rather you all take the prescriptions the doctors give you to keep you healthy.

            Finally, personal connections are important. Healthy non-toxic relationships are important to humans as we are a pack creature. It is usually described as tribal, but the meaning is the same. Individualism is a lie designed sold to us, when communities have been the norm since the beginning of civilization. Sharing talents and supporting each other helps us all be better people. This also means being able to say no and set boundaries to what we can and will do for others and having that respected.  

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #88

Today is the day. I'm going to try to write about ACEs. It's a big topic, and I'm pretty exhausted, so my efforts might be clumsy. Sorry in advance.

So, ACEs is short for Adverse Childhood Experiences. An organization called Kaiser Permanente conducted a study that involved thousands and thousands of people, the purpose of which was to look at how adverse experiences in childhood, especially in the absence of appropriate support, impacts the development and health of the resulting adult.

You can find lots of information about it here:

…But the short version of it is basically, the more kinds of abuse and adversity that a person experiences during childhood, the more likely a person is to have significant health problems when they get older.

The mechanism for that is basically this: children get adrenaline and cortisol in their bodies when they're hit, screamed at, neglected, abused, or needing to withstand living in tense, unpredictable environments, and growing brains cannot develop properly if a child has adrenaline and cortisol coursing through their blood all the damn time. And this does not only affect a person's mental health as they get older - it also impacts the brain's ability to do other important stuff, like regulate blood pressure and composition, regulate insulin levels, regulate various hormone levels, regulate digestion, regulate the sleep cycle, regulate immune system function, regulate the metabolism overall, and SO MANY MORE THINGS, because chronic exposure to adrenaline and cortisol ACTIVELY INTERFERES with the development of the parts of the brain that control these very basic bodily systems. When the parts of our brain that are responsible for the functioning of our basic organs do not grow in properly, it has widespread effects on a body's health and on the body's ability to maintain homeostasis overall.

So essentially, whether or not a person was abused during childhood or went through difficult shit without much support DIRECTLY AFFECTS whether or not the organs in a person's body get to function properly. Pause here and let that fucking sink in for a moment. Sit with it, and with all the ugly, horrifying implications that come from it. Take all the time you need.

Just to drive the point home, here is a handy-dandy infographic that can explain a lot of this FAR more succinctly and completely than I can:

Then there's this little page, too:

And yeah, you read that right in the previous link: if you have an ACE score of 6 or more, there's a decent chance that you'll take a dirt nap 20 years earlier than most other folks, and that's not just from risky behaviors like substance abuse, eating disorders, and whatnot. No, you get 20 years shaved off your lifespan just because if your body can't properly do things like regulate its blood pressure, insulin, hormones, sleep cycle, immune system, and all that jazz, it causes damage over time, which means that a person's cells will need to divide more frequently to repair the damage, which shortens a person's telomeres (and can also lead to cancer!), which results in, you guessed it, less life to live. Hoodathunkit.

You can find more sciency stuff about all this in this spot:

…Like I said in my 86th letter, this rabbit hole is HUGE. If ACEs impact even base functions (all it takes for this is an ACE score of 1), you can bet your ass that a person's higher functions (such as emotional regulation, decision-making, executive function, and all that fun stuff) are ALSO impacted, because these systems are even more delicate than basic things like "making sure your heart beats properly". Untreated ACEs FUCK. PEOPLE. UP.

Fun fact: my ACE score is at least 8. The questionnaire we were given when I studied Early Childhood Education is woefully underinclusive (it doesn't include things like living as a marginalized human, for example), and I think there are better ones out and about now, but it still covers most bases. You can find it here if you wonder what your ACE score is:

So here's a caveat: I know that this all probably looks pretty bleak, but recovery is ABSOLUTELY possible, and awareness of this stuff is the very first step on that road. Congratulations - you've been made aware. Now you can DO something about it. You can start today. You can start tomorrow. You can start a year from now. Whatever. It's NEVER too late. It's NEVER too late to try something new, to walk a different path, and to choose a healthier and more wholesome life for yourself, no matter how you've suffered before, and no matter the mistakes you've made before.

So get on it; if some derpy-ass autistic chick from an unremarkable, backwater planet can walk this difficult road, then someone amazing like you sure as hell can! You're a lot smarter and a lot more resilient than some nobody like me could ever possibly hope to be. So if you choose not to walk down this road, then you'll have to admit that some random noodley weirdo like me is braver, stronger, and more flexible even than you in all the ways that matter (yes, even if by some wondrous and merciful miracle you manage to zoop yourself all the way over here and use that fancy sword of yours to liberate me from my defective meat-mech), and LITERALLY NO ONE WANTS THAT TO BE THE CASE. So for fuck's sake fix it already, willya? Goddamn!

Anyhoot. I'm tired. So I'm gonna call it quits here for today. If you got questions about any of this stuff, go ahead and ask me and I'll try to answer it in my next letter to ya. Assuming any of this ever reaches you, or that you could ever reach me. Impossible, I know, but I'm going to hope for it anyway; after a childhood like mine, I fucking deserve to believe in magic sometimes, even if other people think I'm weird and crazy for it; I'm getting too old and cranky to give a crap about what someone who has no intention of understanding my circumstances thinks about my existence.

I love you. And I'll write you again tomorrow.

Your friend, Lumine

[captain-kit-adventuress]

Here’s something I need people to understand about hormone replacement therapy (HRT):

It is already the standard of care for so, so many other conditions. Cis women who undergo menopause often need HRT because their bodies can’t make enough estrogen on their own, and they need it for quality of life in addition to physical survival, ie, you can die without enough. Some cis men need HRT for the same reason as they age, because their bodies don’t make enough of a hormone they need to survive with a quality of life they have a right to expect.

People with diabetes who take insulin are also participating in HRT, because insulin is a hormone and their bodies stop producing it or don’t produce enough, and without insulin, they’ll die.

People with adrenal problems are routinely prescribed hydrocortisone/prednisone/dexamethasone, which is HRT for cortisol, another hormone the body requires to survive. Without sufficient cortisol circulating in your blood, you can be dead in a matter of hours.

None of these hormones do just one thing. Estrogen and testosterone have multiple functions in the body, some of which have nothing to do with reproduction, sex, or gender, and the wrong balance of them can lead to long-term and sometimes fatal complications. Without insulin, your cells can’t access blood sugar (which they need to survive), and you’ll die. There isn’t a single system in your body that cortisol doesn’t touch, and without it, you’ll die.

Needing HRT because of being transgender isn’t different: the body isn’t producing enough of a hormone it needs to survive, and trans people have the right to expect it as a standard of care just like everyone else who needs HRT does. There are even doctors who already specialise in exactly this kind of care; they’re called endocrinologists. This is not some sort of new and untested treatment, humans have been regularly using HRT as a therapy for over 70 years now. It predates the MMR vaccines by at least two decades.

There is nothing different about trans HRT versus any other kind. It’s just as safe as the hormones we give others, because it’s exactly the same hormones. It is heavily supervised by an individual who specialises in the body’s hormones. It’s not dangerous, it’s not untested, and above all, it is not new.

It’s time for trans people to have the same level of access to a standard of care we extend to literally everyone else.

[theofficialkaylerjane]

Natural remedies - storage of cure for ailments

Do you visit site here remember how your grandma used to fix a mixture and cure all your ailments? Whether it was cold, cough, fever or a simple wound, she had the cure for it all.

She would pull out ingredients from her secret box and you would be cured! Did you know that her secret box actually included some natural remedies that were passed on to her from her mother? For years people have been hearing about the benefits of fish oil. Earlier the only source was through fish but as time passed, this ingredient was converted into tablets and prescribed as supplement.

What is it?

This is a useful ingredient that is found in fish like trout, mackerel, and herring to name a few. It includes omega-3 fatty acids which usually help in heart and blood ailments.

What are the benefits?

This ingredient has numerous benefits. Some of them are as follows.

Protection

It has been proved by medical researchers that omega-3 fatty acids protects people from heart and blood ailments which are triggered by air pollution. With the air pollution on the rise, this is by far the best way to protect oneself from the hazardous effects of air pollution.

Anti-ageing

Studies by medical researchers show that proper intake of omega-3 fatty acids over a period of time helps fight ageing.

Slim you

Good news for all those who have been trying desperately to lose weight. It has been found that a diet; exercise and fish supplement is a great combination for losing weight. Therefore researchers state that the insulin-sensitizing ability of DHA, the anti-inflammatory benefits of EPA and the fat burning ability of both makes this supplement a good option for weight loss and healthy body.

Decreases symptoms of osteoarthritis

Inflammation caused due to swelling and pain can be cut down by taking proper dosage of omega-3 fatty acids.

Helps preserve lean muscle

The body burns calories even when we are at rest (sleeping). Therefore, your diet should include all the nutrients that will not lead to excess muscle loss during this process. It has been observed that those who include omega-3 fatty acids in their diets do not lose lean muscle mass when at rest.

Improved bones

Researchers state that omega-3 appears to be a vital element of healthy bones. Further it also helps maintain bone mineral density. Above all these supplements, one must also add in a regular strength training exercise routine to prevent osteoporosis.

Brain power and memory enhancement

Studies have found that there is a connection between omega-3 fatty acids supplements and cognitive function of humans. Those who had regular intake of this ingredient possessed better memory. They also showed better brain power and their thinking was deeper than the rest. Further, they showed better concentration than those who did not have omega-3 fatty acids. Thus, it can easily be stated that the lack of this ingredient can cause your brain to age faster. One can also lose memory and thinking abilities faster.

[thoughtportal]

For patients battling diabetes, a group of Chinese scientists and clinicians may offer a glimmer of hope. For the first time in the world, a patient’s diabetes has reportedly been cured using cell therapy.

The patient, a 59-year-old man who had been living with type 2 diabetes for 25 years, was at serious risk of complications from the disease. He had a kidney transplant in 2017, but had lost most of his pancreatic islet function which controls blood glucose levels, and relied on multiple insulin injections every day.

“He was at great risk of serious diabetes complications,” Yin Hao, a leading researcher at Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, told Shanghai-based news outlet The Paper earlier this month.

The patient received the innovative cell transplant in July 2021. Eleven weeks after the transplant, he was free of the need for external insulin, and the dose of oral medication to control blood sugar levels was gradually reduced and completely stopped one year later.

“Follow-up examinations showed that the patient’s pancreatic islet function was effectively restored,” Yin said. The patient has now been completely weaned off insulin for 33 months.

The medical breakthrough, achieved by a team of doctors and researchers from institutions including Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, the Centre for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Renji Hospital, all based in Shanghai, was published in the journal Cell Discovery on April 30.

“I think this study represents an important advance in the field of cell therapy for diabetes,” said Timothy Kieffer, a professor in the department of cellular and physiological sciences at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

Diabetes is a chronic condition that affects the way our bodies convert food into energy.

What we consume is broken down into glucose – a simple sugar – and released into the bloodstream. Insulin, produced by the islets of the pancreas, is essential for regulating blood sugar levels.

In diabetes, this system is hijacked: either the body does not produce enough insulin, or it cannot use the insulin it produces effectively.

There are several types of diabetes, of which type 2 is the most common, affecting almost 90 per cent of sufferers. It is largely diet-related and develops over time.

Regardless of the type of diabetes, failure to maintain normal blood glucose levels over time can lead to serious side effects, including heart disease, vision loss and kidney disease.

According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, “there isn’t a cure yet for diabetes”.

Along with losing weight, eating well and taking medication, insulin is the mainstay of treatment for some, but this requires frequent injections and monitoring.

Scientists around the world are researching islet transplant as a promising alternative, mainly by creating islet-like cells from human stem cell cultures. Now, after more than a decade of work, the group of Chinese scientists has come a step closer.

The team used and programmed the patient’s own peripheral blood mononuclear cells, Yin said, which were then transformed into “seed cells” and reconstituted pancreatic islet tissue in an artificial environment.

While preclinical data from Kieffer’s team supports the use of stem cell-derived islets for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, the report by Yin and colleagues is, to Kieffer’s knowledge, “the first evidence in humans”.

Yin said the breakthrough was another step forward in the relatively new field of regenerative medicine – where the body’s own regenerative capabilities are harnessed to treat illness.

“Our technology has matured and it has pushed boundaries in the field of regenerative medicine for the treatment of diabetes.”

Globally, China has the highest number of people with diabetes. According to the International Diabetes Federation, there are 140 million people with diabetes in the country. Of those, about 40 million depend on lifelong insulin injections.

China’s diabetic population is disproportionately high, according to Huang Yanzhong, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.

In an article last year, he pointed out that while China accounted for 17.7 per cent of the world’s population, the country’s diabetic population made up a staggering quarter of the global total, placing a huge health burden on the government.

If this approach for cell therapy ultimately works, Kieffer said, “it can free patients from the burden of chronic medications, improve health and quality of life, and reduce healthcare expenditures”.

But to get there, he added, studies in more patients based on the findings of this Chinese study were needed.

[ofdinosanddais1]

One business idea I have is a cafe/restaurant that is dedicated gluten free (as well as a separate kitchen for top 8 allergies) that is also dedicated to accommodating mental health (especially eating disorders)

The stuff it'd include:

A tablet ordering system that can omit nutritional information BUT if you have diabetes then it can also calculate the sugar for you so you don't have to spend so much time looking at it and getting anxious over calories and stuff or, if the sugar numbers overwhelm you too, then a medical professional be requested to help you with you insulin and everything so that you can eat without exposing yourself to triggers.

The ability to eat in an open space OR a separate booth that can be closed off with a curtain OR a room that can be reserved ahead of time if space is limited that you can close and staff will not interact with you at all if you want to eat whether this be because you're autistic or you feel uncomfortable eating in front of other people.

A dining room that is accessible as I can physical manage not only for mental illness but for mobility aid users, people with chronic pain, heat intolerant people, plastic straws in a cup at the table so that, if you need a straw, you don't need to ask for it but you aren't obligated to take a straw if you want to reduce plastic waste but also stuff like utensils for people with limited mobility, seats designed to make it easier to transfer in a wheelchair, a place to keep your crutches and canes without worrying if it'll trip someone.

I'd also want some kind of function where you can request heating pads if you have chronic pain so that you don't have to bring your own.

CNAs to assist disabled people so that waitstaff can focus on serving people and the CNAs, who have proper training in assisting disabled people, can help with what task someone needs it because, even with how I want to use as many accessibility tools as possible, some people with higher support needs might need a helper and might not be able to afford a full-time helper or be able to afford one at all.

I'd want it to be a place that connects with certain mental health/occupational therapy practices where people who don't feel comfortable eating in restaurants and have that as a goal in their recovery or accessibility, can have that place as a stepping stone in their journey or if someone just wants to go out to eat with their friends and family like every other person, then they have that option. Clarification: I also want to figure out a way to show that the restaurant does not support ABA practices and that the restaurant is about centering disability so I wanna dissuade people who bring others to that restaurant to be like "oh we'll use it to train our autistic child to go to a non-accessible restaurant". Fuck no, unacceptable. I not only want the child to have a nice dining experience but also, I don't want people coming into a restaurant full of autistic people and trying to teach an autistic person that their autistic body and brain is wrong.

That like program thing where people can pay a little extra to donate a meal to unhoused people or people with unstable housing or if someone just can't afford a meal then they don't have to worry about going hungry.

Service dog relief area but also like a service dog unwinding area with maybe like a little bit of green space where they can run around for a bit and take a break from taking care of their human and also a menu item where dogs can get a treat or something. And also a bed for them so they can lay on something nice instead of the floor. Essentially a service dog appreciation service. (I would consider charging for the little service dog treat but specifically to donate to organizations that train service dogs or an animal rescue). Idk my mom has a service dog and I've always had that idea and I would have training for ALL of my staff about proper service dog interactions as in no petting, no talking, no asking for "registration" or "papers" and that, if a service dog is having a bad day and causing a disturbance, then they can only ask the managers to ask them to leave. Nobody can make an assumption that a dog is not a service dog and they can only ask the two questions the ADA allows.

In addition to the training on service dogs, they'd also get training on how not to be an asshole as in don't make assumptions, don't ask inappropriate questions, don't be an asshole about someone's diet, all that shit.

Overall, this is an expensive business venture especially since I want all employees to be making a comfortable wage (ie: afford living expenses, be able to take out a loan for a car or something, go on vacation, be unburdened with medical bills, be able to have savings so like $25/hr minimum probably for my specific location). So I'd probably also have like a giftshop or something where people can buy t-shirts or like mugs or something so that the food wouldn't have to be outrageously expensive.

Anyway, would any rich people like to fund this idea?

[angelosearch]

I feel like it is a flaw in the design of humans for so many systems depend on a functioning thyroid. Like. Mess with that one organ and you have insulin production issues, problems regulating energy, problems regulating hunger, problems regulating body temperature, issues with sexual arousal, hormonal imblanace (unusual hair growth, acne, cramps, etc.), I can go on. Oh, and it messes with your mental health in so many ways because it's in charge of the god damn fight or flight reflex.

0/10 design gotta say.