#also MRSA

[unkindcorvid]

I was born a "first world problem."

i just found out merriam webster has a time traveler feature that tells you some of the words that were “born” the same year as you. it’s pretty neat yall should do this

[strandnreyes]

had a dream that I missed the premiere and had to catch up on what happened with tarlos in the morning and it… wasn’t good skfnsjdj so let’s not manifest that

[the-hilda-librarians-wife]

Gosh I hope Frida's new design means we'll get to see her having a Kaisa parallel arc. I hope we see her building her magic and her confidence like they're one and the same. I hope whatever happened to Kaisa to make her so repressed and insecure, happens to Frida so she gets to take the exact opposite path. Now that she saw what happens when you grow up worried about disappointing the person who raised you and not living up to the expectations of those around you, I hope we see her letting it all go and choosing herself. God, I hope she takes Kaisa's "I'm not the witch you taught me to be" and bends it into "I'm the person I want to be" with her own bare hands. I hope for it so hard.

[maraeffect]

just saw my neighbor toss a FULL cup of pinesol into her laundry, which looked like mostly bed sheets 🫠🫠🫠 idk that i'd trust an industrial grade disinfectant against my skin every night 💀

[phaeton-flier]

The Boeing Whistleblowers Weren't Assassinated

Anyone who looks into this past a few memes and headlines realizes that it's not actually much of a conspiracy.

The first whistleblower, John Barnett, did his whistleblowing back in 2017. The legal proceedings he was in before he died were related to a defamation case against Boeing, who "he claimed deliberately hurt his career and reputation because of allegations he’d made of grave safety breaches on the aircraft company’s production line."

He was suffering from PTSD and Anxiety Attacks from the length of the case, which shows the unjust levels of stress you get form being a whistleblower, but which also are not surprising comorbidities from suicide. Add to the fact that his wife had died a little over a year before, and it's a lot less suspicious that he would kill himself.

He did not tell his family "If I die, it wasn't suicide". The alleged witness was a friend of his mom who claimed he said it. That's not something we should treat as solid evidence.

The second whistleblower, Joshua Dean, got the Flu, then pneumonia from the Flu, then got MRSA in the hospital. These are very common diseases that also have C-grade death rates: Only ~30% of patients die of it, so it hardly makes sense as an assassination weapon.

Boeing has 32 whistleblower complaints, which is shocking but if they're going around killing whistleblowers they sure seem to be behind the fucking curve on it.

In both cases these deaths came long after the initial complaints, such that killing them doesn't get rid of the complaints, and given the 32 other cases it sure doesn't seem like they're trying to scare off new ones.

And beyond that, killing off whistleblowers is a strategy that only makes sense if you think of Boeing as a single organism and not an abstraction made of thousands of people. Yes, it's theoretically better for Boeing's bottom line if whistleblowers die, but the executives responsible for the fuck-ups these whistleblowers are pointing out? Won't go to jail for them. They will go to jail if they're caught hiring an assassin, something they would have zero practice doing and would be highly likely to fuck up like they did the company if they tried, and that risk isn't worth a little extra bonus on your stock options or whatever.

I really do not want this "Boeing killed the whistleblowers OMG" shit to stick around because it's blatantly unsupported and it will scare off future whistleblowers if this becomes common bullshit wisdom.

[t4t4t]

Hi

I'm still recovering from bottom surgery I got on July 25th in some ways but I'm healing up well in many ways. I got a MRSA infection that hasn't totally passed, might've been from the hospital, might've been from a roommate. Which was kinda an additional reason we wanted to move from smwr to smwr else that's cheaper anyway in a number of ways, utilities/location/etc.

Collie's bottom surgery is scheduled for November 13th, I hope that actually happens. She's wondering if she should recover at the new place but now it's so soon I'm not sure we can find anything else. She seems really suicidal and stressed about it. I'm worried.

We wanted to leave as soon as we could tbh so they're asking for the 5 days rent of the end of September but I only have to have that by the next time I pay rent. If we stay here. Idk. I kinda like the roommates but she thinks the house isn't soundproofed enough. But it's been less annoying than Brook's house in the past few days in my eyes.

I still haven't been able to pay the PO box and they're giving me until the 10th to pay the 100, and I can't pay month to month or anything cheaper apparently.

The place is also asking for a deposit of 500 but they're kinda only expecting that in a 2 to 3 month range, or like. Kinda on the basis of how my income changes / if I get a job / etc.

119 + 710 + 500 + 100 = 1429

I need 100 by the 10th of October and 829 by the 1st of November and 500 eventually. Idk. I hope I'm able to get a job before my FFS on January 28th. I wonder how long that will me put me out of work.

(I already was able to pay them 710 for October based on what had been donated.)

Anything helps.

Help two disabled trans women not be homeless like they have 80% of the time been waiting for surgery for 4 years and finally get the surgeries they've been waiting to get for 4 years. <3

https://www.paypal.me/NoraEstherRose

https://venmo.com/u/nora-esther-rose

https://www.paypal.me/androgynophore

https://venmo.com/u/Leah-Esther-Rose

[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.

[yonderlyporcupine]

more medical whump since y’all seem to like it

With open abdominal or thoracic cavity type wounds, patients rapidly lose body heat and will start to complain of being cold pretty quickly

sedation doesn’t always equate to loss of sensation. Unless your patient is completely unconscious (under anesthesia) they will likely still react to painful stimuli at least a bit.

Some of you might know about lividity from true crime. In medicine, when a patient is about to die, they can develop something called disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) where their blood just kind of can’t stay in their veins (super super layman’s terms, I don’t even know a whole lot about this as it’s kind of rare in my field) and it pools within their body similar to lividity in postmortem patients. It can look like bruising all over the side of their body that their lying on.

Seizures can come in a lot of forms not just Grand Mal (what you see in the movies) and they can leave you really out of it for a while afterwards (post ictic). Some other forms are focal or localized seizure activity which can look like hand and facial spasms, as well as “absence seizures” where the patient might seem to be staring into space or looking around in an almost robotic kind of way. Seizures also heat up your body to a tremendous degree. If they last over a certain amount of time, they can lead to hyperthermia and brain damage.

crush or blunt force injuries can come with complications such as pneumothorax/collapsed lungs or rupture of fluid filled organs like the spleen or bladder.

Infections that are not treated lead to sepsis. Infections that are treated improperly lead to MRSA (antibiotic resistant)

[discworldwitches]

my dear friend avi is in need of help. i reblogged their old-er donation post with updates a few days ago but wanted to make a cleaned up one.

avi has been enduring complex health issues made worse by a traumatic loss a year ago as well as the grief of losing their father in the last few months. avi has also been supporting their wife liira, who is currently in hospital due to spinal MRSA.

the staff at liira's hospital are misgendering her, neglecting her hygiene, and delaying meds such as MAT and ibuprofen. avi is currently trying to get her moved a new hospital. they need money for the transport copay on the shuttle (with an iv & their wife in critical condition, transport by avi's car isn't feasible) , copay for meds (including aforementioned iv meds), and to replace liira's phone. their fixed income is still weeks away.

please help any way you can! if you can't donate please please reblog.

cashapp: $nrnwv Paypal: maedori7@gmail.com Venmo: @Reduxwv

[0xo]

good golly i just got startled by a fucking nother one and i killed it. i didn't even scream even though i really really really wanted to (my wife is asleep two feet away from where i found it) but i Got It very calmly and didn't even cry.

just got jumpscared by a brown recluse and you best believe i killed that thing immediately

[mindblowingscience]

Scientists have developed a vaccine against a notorious drug-resistant superbug, targeting molecules on its surface that are also found on other bacteria and fungi. Although only tested in mice, the vaccine offers high levels of protection against Staphylococcus aureus, a species of bacteria found in people's noses but also causing skin and blood infections, and its relative, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Bacterial vaccines aren't easy to develop. As of December 2022, 94 bacterial vaccine candidates were in animal trials, and another 61 were in clinical development. But at the time of that review, a vaccine against S. aureus was considered unlikely and unfeasible.

Continue Reading.

[arlo-venn]

I made a little amazon wishlist for some of the things I need to help with the broken toe and MRSA things. My hands are already in pain from these crutches, so if anybody would like to buy these cushions for me, I would appreciate it so much. I could draw you your favorite flowers or something in return :•)

[heepthecheep]

There is so much medical misinformation on Tumblr that people take at face value and it's kind of fascinating but also really fucking bad

Off the top of my head?

- drugs; prescription, OTC or recreational can absolutely have an effect on your health. Dosages aren't suggestions and neither is stuff like "don't take with alcohol" or "don't operate heavy machinery"

-in addition to the last point, addiction is real and not something made up by your parents to keep you from doing weed in highschool. It can take different forms

- don't take other people's prescriptions. Again, with the dosage thing, expiration dates, and especially not antibiotics

-speaking of which, antibiotic resistant infections (ie. MRSA, ERSA) are caused by not finishing your prescription of antibiotics or taking antibiotics inappropriately (ie. When you have a viral infection) (and there are other issues too but these are probably the main ones that are most relevant to a layman) and are not caused by "antivaxxers" (seriously, I've seen this argument applied to the covid vaccine. A vaccine for a virus that no doctor would treat with antibiotics- not the mention that MRSA is literally referring to Staph Aureus)

-just because a disease is uncommon or "extinct" in your part of the world doesn't actually mean it is. Pathogens have animal and environmental reservoirs. Similarly, diseases that have been eradicated in your well developed and wealthy part of the world still kill people in places that aren't as wealthy and/or developed. The only diseases that are actually extinct are Smallpox and Rinderpest- and no, the parents who think vaccines cause autism aren't going to cause them to come back

-your weight, diet and lifestyle ABSOLUTELY affect your health.

-people on Tumblr seem to have some weird vendetta against doctors ordering blood work, but it's an absolutely valid and important screening and/or diagnostic test, and is helpful in monitoring many conditions

-Puberty, pregnancy and aging are natural processes that are not inherently harmful. Furthermore, people on Tumblr act as if pregnancy is the most dangerous thing in the world...while blaming the process itself and not the shitty, abusive and corrupt obstetrics community (or they point to history (and focus entirely on Europe) and act like issue is the process and not the ignorance towards germ theory, lack of or misunderstanding of hygiene, not understanding how women work, etc)

-hormones control a lot in your body and aren't just your sex hormones. They exist before you're even born and continue to exist after puberty ends.

[mistydeyes]

pharmacist! hcs

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summary: ik some people put themselves in the role of the pharmacist but here are some headcanons i have for her if you consider her more of an oc :)

pairing: 141 x pharmacist!reader

see her here counseling the 141

her story if she likes price

her story if she likes ghost

PS. Another part of her story is coming soon! Look out for next Wednesday :)

┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊

joined the British Army as a pharmacy captain after a two year pharmacy residency in a London hospital

she realized that working at a local chemists and in a hospital weren’t for her so she decided on the career change

speaking of her life before being a pharmacy captain, she was a good student — not at the bottom but not at the top

she primarily struggled with anything related to pharmacology but excelled with therapeutics and counseling

her blood type is O- (a universal blood donor)

before becoming a pharmacist, she had aspirations of becoming a linguist or historian

was amazing at picking up languages and learning them after some time

but she was drawn to pharmacy after seeing how it helped a close family friend who had an MRSA resistant infection

knows 10 different languages and counting (with varying speaking and writing fluency) - English obvi, Spanish, Mandarin, Greek, Latin, Russian, Arabic, Swedish, German, French, and is currently learning Portuguese

loves taking walks and runs at the base gym (she has to get in her recommended 150min of exercise a week)

if you think she’s listening to music while exercising you’re wrong, she’s listening to podcasts and always loves the medicine focused ones

always will show up to military balls or formal events and talk to you about anything under the sun

loves interacting with people 1 on 1 rather than behind a pharmacy counter

also keep in mind she’s not flirting, she just loves chatting with people and knowing how to make their day better

one time, she met a linguist and after the initial awkwardness (she thought the pharmacist was hitting on her), they had a whole conversation about the nuances of languages

if you know her well, you’ll notice how she deflects the conversation onto you and talking abt yourself as she loves observing

Gaz and Ghost frustrate her at times as she finds herself revealing things she normally won’t tell patients

despite the health risk, she loves caffeine and always has an energy drink or cup of coffee during the day

her diet is completely different, she prefers to prepare things in her room or look for the best things in the mess hall (she needs a balanced diet)

her bookshelves in her room are filled with books in a variety of languages and are often history books or classics

she also is currently reading a book that details the history of women in medicine

she has pictures in her room which show her happiest times aka being in pharmacy school

carries a large water bottle with her at all times and her tech’s have to remind her to stay hydrated during a shift

her techs are basically her siblings and she likes to take them off base occasionally to chat about something different than drugs and immunizations

her drink of choice is a tequila sunrise because tequila is the only alcohol that isn’t a depressant and also orange juice is a great source of Vit C!

her second drink of choice is a penicillin

wants to be a professor when she retires and dreams of teaching about self-care recommendations and emergency medicine

has a small tattoo of a mortar and pestle on her forearm, she got it with some of her friends when they all graduated

her tech joked that she should get a notepad tattooed on her wrist because she always writes reminders on her arms

primarily lives on base and occasionally visits her parents who live in Brighton

she updates them weekly but they know their daughter is in one of the safest places in the UK

her favorite drug to administer are any antimalarials, eye drops, nasal spray, and inhalers (she loves that she just has to count the boxes)

her least favorite is Metformin and thyroid drugs as they often are in counts of 90 or 180

constantly uses pink pen and colorful sticky notes (peep her little notes in the medical files)

the reason she hates doctors is not because of anything significant but because of an ex that told her that her degree was irrelevant because she didn’t go to med school

hates the stigma against pharmacists, in the US they’re literally considered doctors so why is there such disrespect?

she’ll never admit it but her favorite patients are the 141, they all have such unique personalities that she constantly looks for their scripts every morning

[macgyvermedical]

Question (i mostly need my suspicions confirmed) So I've got an OC who's got a myriad of vices; eventually he gets hospitalized w/ sepsis, and then a bad hospital-acquired MRSA infection. But while he's dealin w/ the sepsis and the MRSA there's still the matter of the very serious withdrawal symptoms of alcohol and benzodiazepines, which might kill you in withdrawal, or cocaine & amphetamines, which from my research won't kill you but WILL really suck

am i right in assuming that considering this character is already in a very fragile state, it'd be a bad idea for them to let him go through withdrawals and would instead treat them regularly w/ something like diazepam? like, that it'd be difficult/dangerous to wean him off of his severe addiction until his state stabilizes?

tl:dr; how do drug addictions affect treatment plans when treating patients (i know susceptibility to anesthesia is one consideration, but i'm not sure of the others)

If you haven't read this post, please do.

For alcohol or benzodiazepine withdrawal, there are several drugs that are frequently used. The first is, like you said, diazepam. There are also chlordiazepoxide and phenobarbital. The clinician often has a choice to either administer these at a fixed dose (the patient gets a certain dose on a fixed schedule) or administer them based on symptoms. The fixed dose regimens typically work best for severe withdrawal, while the symptom-based doses work best for more mild withdrawal.

This is a great podcast where they talk about inpatient management of alcohol withdrawal. If you don't want to listen to it, on the same page if you scroll down a little you will find excellent show notes.

[dersandmannkommt]

!! tw: ocd !!

new contamination trigger!!!!! woohoo! guess what it is?!?!

showering. yes. showering. y'know, the thing that makes you clean?...had a panic attack in the shower not even 20 minutes ago because if the water if touching me, then it's also touching potential germs and viruses and rashes, and the water will spread to non-contaminated parts of me, and spread it there, and so on. ive convinced myself that i somehow have mrsa??? i know that in less than a week, i'll be okay again, but ocd is ocd. writing these out actually help a lot; reminds me that even though my fears are valid and justified, obsessing the way i do is a bit silly.

if you have ocd, and youre still reading, heres a coping tip (this works for all ocd's btw) (currently the only thing keeping me from running to urgent care "just to be sure"). let's say theres a spot on your arm, dont tell yourself that "its not (fill in the blank), its not ____, its not ____, its nothing contagious!!" because youre only feeding into the fear. instead, imagine the worst case scenario head on. you have to. otherwise you'll just be running from the fears you obsess over for the rest of your life.

you have to imagine the worst case scenario, and then walk yourself through it all working out. like, i also have a fear of cars. ever since i was a kid, i would imagine them flipping over, me getting impaled by whatever i was holding, flying out the window, getting crushed, ect, the only reason i can even get into a car is because i imagine the worst case, and then picture everything working out. the car flipped over? im okay, a trip to the hospital and im home within a few days. or what about something like pink eye? worst case, i get it in both eyes. does that suck? yeah. is it scary? yeah. BUT people get pink eye, and then they. get. better. they wash their hands after touching their eyes, wash their pillow case, put some eye drops in, and move on with their life. i have to be able to do that. i have to be able to continue living.

so yeah, i was afraid to shower. but i did. i dont think i have mrsa. but even if i do, the sun stays warm, the earth spins, and it will heal and go away. if i have it, i will live as i did last week, but be a bit more careful, and change the bandaid out. i will have to contintue to live. just as everyone else.

if you're still reading this, and you have ocd, you'll be okay. stop getting stuck in your head, you know your brain is a little off, thats not good, but it is okay. you're okay. the earth still spins, the moon still rises. if all is not well, dont panic, because all will be well.