#MEDS

[accidentalkilljoys]

What order do you take pills in?

A followup post, because this has been fascinating!

[yellow-dress-basil]

QUICK PSA FOR THE DISABLED COMMUNITY

If you take any daily medication, do not eat grapefruit or activated charcoal unless you know for a fact they won’t affect your medication.

Both Grapefruit and Activated Charcoal will cancel out medication.

‘Where would you ever eat activated charcoal?’ You may be asking

Well

Halloween eve is here y’all and if you want a black cocktail or cupcake, it was probably made black with activated charcoal! So please double check before consuming!!

[draw-the-squad-like-this]

Draw your character like this

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[alostwanderernotfound]

Why do sometimes really weird & unexplainable things kind of happen?

Looking at the Theoretical Intersection between Anatomy & Physiology & Electronics

***This is coming from the perspective of attempting to explain (in the most simple ways possible) how foreign advanced technology possibly “hacks” the foundations of organic life. ***

Our bodies are composed of nerves. When electricity goes from one nerve and travels to another nerve then an action occurs. When something in our environment is sensed (like hearing a noise) our organs are able to sense the information & produce electricity to carry that information back to the brain to be processed.

Anatomically we have the brain, the spinal cord, our sensory organs, cranial nerves, and “all the other individually named nerves” that branch off of those.

(There is further differentiation between central nervous system, peripheral nervous system, & autonomic, and other ways to differentiate in anatomy and physiology, but for simplicity this is how I will refer to it).

Cranial nerves are differentiated out on the list in comparison to “other nerves” because they are a specific list of major nerves that do very important & essential functions in the body.

So, nerves act as a path for electricity to follow. This electricity can produce voluntary action or involuntary actions.

Choosing to raise your hand we consider voluntary action produced by the nervous system. When something occurs without your conscious choice & occurs automatically, it is considered an involuntary action of the nervous system. For example, your heart beating would be an involuntary action.

Nerves have gaps between them & in this space neurotransmitters are released. Neurotransmitters are chemicals with the ability to cause another nerve to have an action. Neurotransmitters have different actions at different places in the body. After neurotransmitters are released they stay in this space until they are broken down by the body. The body breaks down the neurotransmitters and attempts to recycle the components to be used to make other things in the body.

Our bodies are able to use electricity because of many processes, but one major one is because we store electrolytes. Our organs and tissues use electrolytes like Sodium and Potassium to create electrical charge. This “electrical spark” causes electricity to generate so that it can be conducted through the nerves.

The human body is very complex & requires more than just electricity to function due to many components of its design, but each neuron as an individual unit is incredibly similar functionally to wires bundled into computer cables.

How does this process intersect with technology?

If someone were to attempt to hurt you with insidiously with technology it could create A LOT of very weird experiences.

If you know how to electrically stimulate parts of the body, like if you put an electrical stimulator/microchip/or another component that alters electricity in someone’s nervous system you could do a lot of weird things that people with no medical background would struggle to explain.

Machinery causing electrical impulses or “shocks” to be sent to certain part of the brain can produce many effects.

If someone sent electrical impulses down the cranial nerves it would produce a wide range of effects.

If certain cranial nerves were stimulated by someone controlling a technological component then someone could cause your body to involuntarily do the following by stimulating one of the 12 cranial nerves with electricity:

Involuntarily, as if your body moved on its own, you could feel the following:

> Your eyes to move in a certain direction, like your eyes are “locking on” to an object. Similar to how a computer program is able to “lock on” to a target

> Cause your vocal cords to move even when your mouth isn’t open

>Jaw movement & other motions of the face

>cause vertigo/dizziness/altered proprioception or your sense of orientation in space. So a lot of the symptoms of being inebriated

>control of your tongue muscles

> ***Vagus nerve or cranial nerve 10 does a lot, tampering with it could do a lot of weird things *** Possibly weird respiratory and/or internal organ symptoms like shortness of breath, changes in swallowing like dysphagia, vocal hoarseness, & many other possible and serious side effects

> Specific neck movements & turns of the head

You could also produce the sensations in someone of:

>hearing voices that aren’t there or altered processing, they talk but it’s like you can’t understand

>hearing sounds that aren’t there or altered hearing

>seeing images that aren’t there or altered sight

>smelling things that aren’t there or altered smell

>feeling things that aren’t there or altered feeling

>tasting things that aren’t there or altered taste

All of these actions and the degree to which you could “control it” would vary. Some of these are more technically complex to do, but at the most basic level “micromovements” from even just these few nerves are highly likely.

Our bodies have more than just electricity that contribute to our ability to do voluntary control as a defensive system to prevent these types of tampering events from occurring, but I think on a basic level it would still be possible to do some of these micromovements.

Without a lot of technological advancement required, the most worrying to me is a combination of seizures (which can occur when you just overload something with electricity) and/or lots of trauma producing something similar to disassociation & making people hear voices. It unfortunately often produces a mind control like feeling where other people attempt to control and/or influence your behavior.

I think in the quest for mind control, some very bad people use these types of things to hurt other people & technological advancements in subliminal messaging have greatly hurt the world through our time.

In order to fix things I think we must first understand them.

[a-totally-reasonable-username]

I really wish meds didn't so commonly have child locks on them. If the issue is keeping small kids safe, you should be keeping medications out of their reach either way. But you know who is most likely to need the medications? Disabled and chronically ill people. And there are thousands of different disabilities that can cause someone to struggle to open medications that are designed to be difficult to open.

Alt description: designed to be difficult to open in italics

[liberaljane]

Mentally chill (thanks to my meds)

Digital illustration of a fem wearing a fuzzy coat and tank top. The image has a strong orange color palette and there’s a speech bubble with text that reads, ‘it’s okay if you need meds to be okay.’ There’s a banner overhead that reads, ‘mentally chill’

[cheatsykoopa98]

COMMISSIONS POST!!!

Things are not going good to me rn, I am about to be fired from my job, debt is creeping up on me and I'm running out of money to pay for my meds

But look, YOU can help!! How? COMMISSIONING ME!!! starting at a single dollar through paypal you can have any drawing that has a similar quality to THESE! OR BETTER!!!

I put a lot of effort into those, so here's the deal, commission prices start at 1 USD, IF you want to pay more for it, that's up to your heart's generosity, but know that one dollar already helps a lot

So yeah, fanart, lineless, pixel art, original characters, icons for profile pictures. anything goes, just don't make it morally weird.

if you read all of this, thank you. My DMs are (probably) always open and my contact/paypal email is pablosooma@hotmail.com, so let's get started!!! Even if you can't afford it, reblog this post, spread the word! it goes a long way!!!

UPDATE: I finally remembered to get a paypal link so people can donate or pay for the commissions easily, here it is:

[evilwriter37]

Stop telling disabled people to smoke weed. I’m serious. Chances are that we’re on too many meds, smoking would kill us, or we’ve already tried it. We know our bodies better than you. Just stop it.

[youdeserveanaward]

You did it! You took your meds today! You’re a rockstar!

[youngchronicpain]

At the end of your life no one will give you a prize for enduring more pain than other people before taking measures (such as medication) to help manage your pain. It is okay to take meds when you need to before you've hit your absolute breaking point and need even more medication to reach your baseline. I know it can feel like weakness, but knowing yourself and when/how you need to manage your pain is an incredible strength.

[whereserpentswalk]

When I say I want pysch meds to be less stigmatized I don't just mean people should be allowed to talk about the ways meds helped them, or talk about how they used to have depression and then meds cured them. People need to be allowed to talk about the way medication has harmed them and hurt them, about going off of meds, about the way the system forces meds onto people and doesn't care about their well beings, about side effects that most neurotypical people would find horrifying, about not wanting to be on meds, about being on meds but not magically becoming normal. The neurodivergent/mentally ill experience should not be watered down to make people comfortable, and especially not to make people comfortable with the largely neurotypical run medical system that often victimizes us as much as it helps us.

[schizopositivity]

I know too many mentally ill and disabled people to think that taking medication every day is strange. At this point it's more baffling to think that some people don't take any medication. Like people are really out here rawdogging life? People exist who don't have to constantly worry about refilling their meds? Now THAT is strange to me.

[incognitopolls]

Psychiatric help could include medication, therapy, institutionalization, etc.

Hitting or hurting could include spanking, yanking arms or hair, etc.

–

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[alostwanderernotfound]

PANDEMICS- Hostile Power Takeover? Learnings on Urban & Domestic Warfare, “Disease: Bacteria Part 1, Fundamental Considerations”:

Let’s say the hostile power is more technologically advanced & half robot/half machine or full machine, so seemingly unkillable. Organic beings are very vulnerable to having disease used as a weapon against them.

Disease can be a major benefit to this type of hostile power & it would be an incredibly powerful weapon. This allows the destruction of an organic-based domestic population & it can also allow the harvesting of resources to build new bodies and/or reuse of the entire body depending on the disease process.

There are many insidious ways diseases develop & spread. This process DOES NOT just occur in a laboratory. Remember that there are many different “groupings” of entities we refer to as pathogens or things with the ability to cause disease.

Bacteria are an important one. Bacteria & other pathogens can reproduce by multiple means. Here I’m going to speak about bacteria with the capacity to do Bacterial conjugation. This involves passing characteristic between two different bacteria similar to how sexual reproduction can pass on characteristics. This is overall an important conversation because a lot of the most complex & common life forms in our daily lives also spread these characteristics through similar principles through sexual reproduction.

> A lot of bacteria to our awareness are able to pass on characteristics. Bacterial DNA contains the “instructions”/“resources” for bacteria to either have or not have characteristics.

-Bacterial conjugation for example allows one bacteria to attach to a second bacteria & send resources to the second bacteria. After this process, the second bacteria is able to transform and display the characteristics transferred to it. Example: Bacteria A can change colors like a chameleon. Bacteria B cannot change color. Once Bacteria A attaches to Bacteria B and they are compatible, Bacteria A passes on resources to Bacteria B. Bacteria B then acquires the ability to change color. Bacteria B now can change color & has attainted the same advantage as originally only bacteria A had. Now Bacteria A and Bacteria B can change color like a chameleon.

- The other way characteristics form & occur in a bacterial population is through mutation. If a bacteria’s DNA is altered or mutates then it can produce a bacteria with new traits & characteristics. Radiation for example, like from X-rays, often causes mutations. Sometimes mutations do “nothing” we can really perceive with our eyes. But overtime, they will eventually create large changes and can produce huge benefits for bacteria. For example: A bacteria could have always have been wiped out from nuclear weapons then overtime from mutations it can acquire the ability to survive living inside an area with nuclear radiation.

-This is a very important concept to fully understand so that you can become cognizant of how insidious this process is when discussing what bioterrorism in the modern world can look like. Pandemics are not caused just from mysterious lab leaks. The practices we do everyday are still contributing to the next pandemic occurring.

-This also gives everyone a better understanding of how MRSA or an antibiotic resistant bacteria really was “made” inside our hospitals.

> Bacteria can possibly have random or genetically engineered characteristics.

-If there are 100 random bacteria on an isolated surface that formed there naturally, some will have favorable characteristics to cause severe disease. But, some bacteria will not have those characteristics to cause severe disease. The bacteria lacking these deadly characteristics, but are still part of the same family of bacteria, would be considered weaker pathogens (weaker pathogen meaning they would cause less severe disease in organic beings).

-**But it is important to remember, If someone purposefully put bacteria down on a surface there is a chance it will not be a random distribution in strength of bacteria & they will mostly all be bacteria with strong characteristics. That group would probably be closer to 100 out of 100 of the bacteria carrying the deadly characteristic.**

>There are 2 main basic premises (which can be further subdivided and added onto when discussing what makes pathogens strong, but for now I’m discussing a more fundamentals explanation) we consider when determining bacterial pathogen strength: number of bacteria & the amount of deadly/harmful characteristics each bacteria possess.

-Reducing the overall number of bacteria in a group of random bacteria does not always mean you make a pathogen less strong. (Example: Purposefully killing 50 bacteria out of 100 and now there are only 50 bacteria in the group.)

If you destroy many of the weaker bacteria & only leave strong bacteria to reproduce, pathogens overtime can get stronger & more deadly. So, by destroying only the weaker bacteria in a group of bacteria, you slowly make pathogens stronger through this natural process & it doesn’t have to occur inside of a laboratory. To make a bacterial pathogen less strong by focusing on decreasing the overall number of those bacteria that exist in our world, you would also have to consider how many of each strength you eliminate. This is because we currently we do not use practices that wipe out groups of bacteria 100%, so we must consider these two elements together instead of separate when evaluating pathogen strength. Example: Lets say there are 100 bacteria and you wipe out 90. Bacteria A can cause humans to be paralyzed. Bacteria B cannot paralyze humans. Out of the 10 bacteria still alive, if all 10 are Bacteria A then you have eliminated the chance people would be infected with the less severe version of the disease, with Bacteria B. In the long term Bacteria A now has a strong chance to reproduce & when Bacteria A infects people it would then cause paralysis in everyone & the population could collapse. In another scenario, consider if you wiped out 90 bacteria out of 100, but you did it purposefully. Out of the 10 bacteria left, 9 were Bacteria that were Bacteria B & couldn’t cause paralysis. The last 1 out of the 10 left was Bacteria A. Then when those 10 bacteria reproduced it effectively helps “dilute” this negative characteristic in this bacterial family. Based off randomness & probability, when there this group reproduces to the size of 20 bacteria only approximately 2 of them may carry Bacteria A’s paralytic characteristic & 18 will carry bacteria B’s characteristic that does not cause paralysis. So, even though we can’t stop the bacteria number from growing, since we mindfully intervened we can still divert the trajectory of the pathogen from becoming a pathogen with the ability to become “pandemic level” and/or very very harmful.

>Two ways pathogens can get weaker is by lowering the amount of bacteria in the world & by lowering its severe disease characteristics, but this these two categories have an important interplay.

-This is an oversimplified explanation of how disease spreads & evolves, but the fundamental principles are VERY important to the overall understanding of what’s occurring. Imagine a group of bacteria you count has 100 total bacteria. 50 of them carry a gene to cause paralysis in humans & 50 do not carry this gene. When 100 people come in contact with the 50/50 bacteria distribution and get sick only 50 out of 100 of the people get paralyzed. This allows the other 50 people time to work on vaccinations & interventions to stop everyone from eventually being paralyzed.

-But, if you kill the 50 out of the 100 bacteria that do not carry the gene for paralysis then your bacteria group went from 100 to a total of 50 in size. In the short term the spread of the disease is likely to go down, as it is less likely people will randomly spread 50 objects instead of 100. BUT, those 50 bacteria with the gene to cause paralysis will only reproduce with other bacteria that also have that gene. So this bacteria, since you wiped out the 50 that don’t cause paralysis, now ALL cause paralysis & anyone who comes in contact with this bacteria strain will get paralyzed. So eventually with time the group of 50 bacteria will reproduce to 100 & spread at the same rate as they were originally, but now they cause more harm to people.

>When you unknowingly touch a colony of bacteria on an object or life form, you pick up a random sample of random “strength” of bacteria.

>****PLEASE READ: you can ALSO pickup a sample of bacteria that is all “strong bacteria” but this is NOT usually a natural occurrence you will see & is suggestive someone or something altered the bacteria and purposefully put those bacteria there. A group of bacteria that looks like it formed organically vs one that was purposefully placed there can be differentiated with taking samples of surfaces and people & counting how many strong bacteria vs weak bacteria there are, but we as a population do not regularly test for this in this way. Due to this I’m going to speak with the viewpoint of natural bacteria groups that have a gradient of “strengths”. In an ideal world we would identity groups of bacteria that have gradients of strength of bacteria vs groups of all similar strength, as interventions to stop them from becoming strong pathogens work DIFFERENTLY.)

>After you touch those bacteria they attempt to multiply and stay alive on you. Then if you touch other things they can be placed on another surface or thing. Sometimes they are placed on other surfaces in an environment or you touch your body & they are placed closer to an entrance to the inside or your body & then they are able to enter your body.

-This process will cause one of the following to occur: bacteria will stay in the area you touched & colonize it, they will die when attempting to enter the body, the bacteria will give you a disease , or in some cases the bacteria will live symbiotically inside you & help your body. If a bacteria lives symbiotically with you & does not cause harm then we do not refer to that as a pathogen, but rather just as a bacteria.

>Anytime you wipe out a group of bacteria by taking out 100% it causes that pathogen to get weaker overall, but the issue is that we do not do interventions that wipe out 100%.

-Currently anytime you clean an object in the hospital with a sanitizing wipe, you always kill less than 100% of the bacteria. This leaves behind a certain % of bacteria & they will be the strongest of that group of bacteria, because they were able to live even though you applied a cleaning product on them. This means the strongest bacteria left, even though there are less after cleaning, are now reproducing over and over again & getting stronger.

-So, when there is an environment with a large amount of bacteria variability (so all these new patients with new exposures to new bacteria that travel and touch things all the time), with shared equipment, with not 100% effective methods to destroy pathogens, & this long list of variables, we slowly produce very strong & deadly pathogens inside of hospitals.

-IF someone purposefully puts deadly bacteria ontop of a surface inside a hospital and it is a group of 100 strong & identical or cloned bacteria with no difference in genetics then wiping them out through imperfect cleaning will overall reduce pathogen deadliness. This is because there are no “stronger” pathogens vs “weaker” pathogens. They are all the same strength in this example and therefore will always get weaker when you reduce their number because they won’t reproduce to be more deadly.

>People often think when people are trying to cause them harm that would only occur when someone makes a pathogen in a lab & then deceptively goes and places some near you. This is not accurate.

-With knowing this do you see how for a hostile power there is actually LESS incentive to going through with all that work & instead a hostile power can abuse the system to cause harm? If you expect biological warfare to ONLY come out of a lab, this means you would be looking for the wrong patterns of behavior & pathogens will spiral out of control.

A lot of practices we currently use now unfortunately heavily contribute to this process that causes pathogens to get stronger.

[chronicillnesshumor]