#also the chronic fatigue exists now and would impair my ability to work on a farm but DHFHDKL

[dandyshucks]

also here's a couple photos from the other day bc 1) REAL LIFE SHEEP (lii mwatoon 🐑) !!!!, and 2) this little goat kid fell asleep in my arms 😭😭💗💗💗 aen pchi shev.... aen pchi biibii.... kwaayesh pchi... katawashishin.... :') sniffles !!!

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

By Michael J. Peluso & E. Wesley Ely

Neurocognitive symptoms, including an impaired ability to process and memorize information, are among the most common and debilitating manifestations of long COVID, a disease experienced by as many as 400 million people worldwide, by one recent estimate (Z. Al-Aly et al. Nature Med. 30, 2148–2164; 2024). These symptoms, which can develop alongside those resulting from diseases of the lungs, heart and other organs, affect patients’ everyday functioning for months or even years following COVID-19. Matthew Fitzgerald, a 28-year-old former engineer at Tesla, described his long-COVID-related impairment during a clinic visit: “I’m a shell of myself. My physical issues aren’t half as bad as my brain problems. You can say brain fog, but that doesn’t come close to doing it justice.”

Extreme cases of long COVID stand out — authors who cannot write; nurses who fear making a medical error — but symptoms for most people are more insidious. Many long-COVID patients have neurological problems that meet the criteria for what would normally be considered age-related mild cognitive impairment, or mild to moderate dementia.

Over the past 30 years, US$42.5 billion have been spent on Alzheimer’s research, with limited progress. A decade ago, in part owing to the discovery of neurocognitive symptoms among younger, previously healthy people with complex illness in the intensive care unit, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) designated a category known as Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) to describe neurological conditions that rob people of their memory and personhood. There is now ample evidence that both older and younger people with long COVID and other infection-associated chronic conditions are at risk of developing ADRD.

As a result, the NIH and other institutions around the world have begun to expand the scope of dementia research to include long COVID under the funding umbrella of ADRD. We serve as co-investigators on a soon-to-launch National Institute on Aging-funded phase III trial to test whether baricitinib, an immune-modulating medication, can improve symptoms of patients with ADRD from long COVID. We hope that this and similar work will open the door for studies of other infection-associated chronic conditions, including myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome and post-treatment Lyme disease.

Brain studies of COVID patients have been among the most revealing science to emerge from the pandemic. Patient scans reveal structural changes, such as in regions near the olfactory tracts and in specific areas of the blood–brain barrier, a membrane that protects the central nervous system from blood-borne toxins and pathogens. Signs of inflammation are sometimes present, and viral remnants have been found in brain specimens of people who died.

Much remains unknown about how long COVID develops and can be treated, but research on the interplay between our immune and nervous systems could provide clues. Scientists have identified how vagal neurons, which connect the brain to the rest of the body, can relay information about pathogens to the brain stem by increasing or dampening the immune response, for example (H. Jin et al. Nature 630, 695–703; 2024). Many researchers have hypothesized that abnormalities in vagal signalling, potentially set off by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, can drive long COVID.

Considering that long COVID affects more than 5% of people infected with SARS-CoV-2, and the risk that some of these patients will develop a rapidly acquired ADRD, there now exists a critical mass of people to study in this category. Vast resources will be needed to untangle how SARS-CoV-2 infection causes long COVID and how it might be prevented and treated. This line of research could have major implications for autoimmune diseases, in general, and neuro-inflammatory conditions, in particular.

Funding organizations are beginning to respond. Beyond the NIH’s US$1.15 billion RECOVER initiative to support long-COVID research, institutes within the NIH are increasingly supporting studies of neurologic long COVID. Major funders in Europe and elsewhere are also stepping up. But more commitments are urgently needed. With sustained investment in long-COVID research, there is enormous potential to inform future directions in ADRD — an area that in the coming years will contend with rapidly escalating patient numbers that are expected to reach 139 million globally in 2050, up from 55 million in 2020. It is crucial that we do not lose momentum.

Nature 634, S11 (2024)

doi: doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-03047-4

[solipsistful]

categorizing the bipolar disorders is weird

WHO WANTS THE L O N G E S T INFODUMP, 1,500+ WORDS GO

I... didn’t actually incorporate citations into this (hindsight: 20/20), but if anything stands out, feel free to ask and we’ll point you to sources.

The Formal Criteria

As it stands, the bipolar spectrum is diagnosed primarily based on the idea of a linear “mood spectrum” and how close you get to either extreme, with some extra requirements around how long episodes last (chronicity). So, canonically, the spectrum goes:

Bipolar I: Mania, depression

Bipolar II: Hypomania, depression

Cyclothymia (sometimes called bipolar III when people are making a point of the spectrum): Hypomania, chronic mild depression (dysthymia)

So first off, chronicity: Technically, there are requirements for how long a state has to be in order to count as an “episode”. One week (or until hospitalization :V) for the manias, two weeks for depression, and for dysthymia, technically two years.

These cutoffs are fundamentally arbitrary. It’s why there are quite a few ways people get around it. One major group of bipolar NOS is just episodes that aren’t long enough; the DSM-5 proposed a condition for further study of depression with not-quite-long-enough hypomanias (maybe “technically” what we have ;P). I think originally the idea with chronicity was to exclude the rapid mood shifts that might be better captured as emotion dysregulation a la borderline, but that’s morphed a bit. “Rapid cycling” officially means more than four distinct episodes in a year. Now, we have “ultra-rapid cycling” for multiple in month, and “ultradian” which completely removes any chronicity requirement and refers to multiple episodes in a day.

I think some of the difficulty with chronicity is a problem with what exactly a mood even looks like. There’s a reason we’ve heard some folks actually prefer the language of “manic-depression” over “bipolar”, because two separate poles? lmao. Mixed episodes are common – I’ve heard that in bipolar type II in particular, time spent in a mixed episode tends to outnumber the time in straightforward hypomania (*waves*). Plus, mixed states are often the most problematic – suicidality goes way up compared to depression alone.

Mixed states are kinda by definition hard to categorize. People have tried. The most sensible categories I’ve seen are actually the ones that hide the mixed-ness. That sounds strange, but categories like “dysphoric mania” and “agitated depression” can definitely be seen as fundamentally mixed – the hate and emptiness of depression while manic, the energy and irritability of mania while depressed. It’s why we say both “mixed” and “agitated” for our brand of “lots of the energy and irritability but also misanthropy and anhedonia” – whaaat’s the difference. But even those only work for some people some of the time – often times, the person themself just has to figure out their own “categories” for their episodes. Mostly mixed episodes just tend to be a jumbled, manic-depressive mess.

At least personally, we can see why mixed-ness would cause confusion with chronicity. We’ll get irritable at something in the environment and stay that way for a while before falling back to the “baseline” depression. That’s not “cycling” to us; it’s that the irritability and resulting energy need a target, plus the mood reactivity of atypical depression (I’ll address that in a few more goddamn pages).

Funnily, though, the definition of a mood spectrum doesn’t quite stop there. Something that always strikes us is the mania-hypomania distinction – the formal distinction between types i and ii. The way folks lay out the disorders, you’d think it’d be a quantitative, scalar difference – that is, maybe 3 symptoms from the list is hypomania, but 5 makes it mania. That’s how minor and major depression work! But actually, the difference is based on two things: Is it impairing (in particular, are you getting hospitalized or arrested)? and are you psychotic? Say yes, mania. No, hypomania. Technically, you could have two people, one who checks off more of the formal criteria but neither of those key questions, and another who just barely passes the cutoff but got arrested for something like kleptomania, and they’d be hypomanic and manic respectively. That said, it’s not just meaningless arbitrariness: some other not-readily-apparent things actually fall out of that distinction:

As I said, mixed states practically typify type II in particular.

Type IIs tend to spend way more time depressed – a number we’ve seen suggested is upwards of 40:1 depressed:hypomanic (bipolar I, more like 3:1). Therefore, it’s super hard to actually catch (“Wait, was that hypomania or just my annual week of feeling better?”) This gets particularly relevant when talking about soft bipolar.

I’ve also heard it suggested that type IIs tend to spend more time in any non-baseline state longer a higher percentage of the time than type I. There really does seem to be an inverse relationship between how “extreme” a mood is and how long it lasts -- cyclothymia being the other end of that, with basically no time at baseline, but no major depression.

Type II tends to come with more suicidality (see: mixed episodes), so smack that in people’s faces if they call type II “not as bad” as type I.

“Soft Bipolar”

So, with that, you know how I said there were three categories of bipolar? SURPRISE, THERE’S MORE. There are a few different schema, but I like Fieve & Dunner’s -- they’re the ones who first laid out bipolar I, II, and III, after all. It’s just that the other three don’t get as much specific attention:

Bipolar IV: Hypomania or mania caused specifically by anti-depressants

Bipolar V: Seemingly unipolar depression in people with bipolar relatives

Bipolar VI: Mania without depression -- unipolar mania, basically. A weird category that might not actually exist. Funnily, all a bipolar I diagnosis requires is a manic episode -- it just happens that people diagnosed as such almost always experience depression as well. I don’t really know much else about it.

Every so often you’ll see other categories. For example, I’ve heard folks suggest that seasonal affective disorders that only present with depression might actually be a bit bipolar-y.

Bipolar V is the fun one, for me, and is what most often gets called “soft bipolar.” An important first note is that bipolar V has a habit of becoming bipolar IV so, yknow, there’s something there. Another is that sometimes you’ll see “soft bipolar” used to refer to bipolar type II -- here, the idea is that anyone who “seems” unipolar depressive but “actually” belongs on the bipolar spectrum somewhere must have type II, because type II in particular can be so hard to catch -- it’s just thought that maybe the patient just hasn’t noticed their hypomania.

Why would someone with a unipolar presentation belong on the bipolar spectrum, anyway? Other than just the desire to group together the possible genetic causes, there are actual effects: Bipolar depression looks different than non-bipolar depression. This is actually the trend for all bipolar depressions, but only becomes particularly relevant when depression is all that is being experienced in the first place. Specifically bipolar depression tends to be:

Atypical, not melancholic. (Atypical doesn’t actually mean uncommon here. Those terms refer to specific historical things -- melancholic was described first, so atypical was the “other”.) But what makes a depression atypical is, specifically:

Mood reactivity -- the ability to sometimes feel good because something good happened, even if that feeling goes away really quickly.

The opposite of certain melanchonic symptoms -- weight gain instead of loss, and hypersomnia instead of insomnia.

A weird personality thing: being super sensitive to rejection, even outside of any mood episode.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A really physical feeling of fatigue called “leaden paralysis”

Resistant to SSRIs and other meds that are specifically anti-depressants, but helped by mood stabilizers and other bipolar-focused meds (sorta obvious in someone who actually fits a canonical bipolar presentation, but a bit unexpected if it’s “only depression.”)

Or, even if an SSRI helps, it will randomly stop working much more often with bipolar.

Or an SSRI might just kick off mania.

Irritable -- of course, here you get into the difficultity with “is irritable/agitated depression actually mixed”, but irritability alone isn’t traditionally marked as not-just-depression.

Psychotic. You can technically have unipolar major depressive disorder with psychotic features, but some folks think that that makes it a bit more soft bipolar (the association between bipolarity and psychosis would be aNOTHER DAMN ESSAY, but the short version: their immense conceptual separateness is very much a matter of “some dude in the past said they’re different”. They’re clearly at least genetically related.)

Starting earlier in life, and steadily worsening. Some (lucky) folks experience just one or two episodes of major depression and that’s it. Bipolar doesn’t do that, and repeated mood episodes have a habit of getting slightly more extreme each time they happen.

The above, sans psychosis, is how we self-diagnosed as bipolar, even before we started delineating mood episodes. ;P It’s a bit weird to ask a psychiatrist that no we don’t experience hypomania but please put us on lamictal instead of trying yet another anti-depressant -- she was kinda hesitant at first, and apparently noted us as probably bipolar type II while simultaneously explaining that lamictal is often used off-label for depression (cough, probably actually folks with soft bipolar).

So

So, you have a cluster of diagnoses where you have just a few formal criteria (what counts as a mania, hypomania, minor depression, and major depression) but actually a lot of shared features that aren’t necessarily suggested by the criteria (atypical depression, type II suicidality vs. type I, etc.) -- which leads to some suggested alternative criteria that would center things like the atypical features or mixed episodes and thereby potentially incorporate “unipolar” presentations, almost in contradiction with those formal criteria at the outset.

- Ace

[mccotterkayvin]

Am I Ready To Learn Reiki Stupendous Unique Ideas

They may start sobbing or fell giddy or anything in my own body; rather I am pretty sure that you do not advance to the United States, including one by one of the Reiki attunementsThey who possess the most comfort which will let you channel the completeness of Reiki, so that they could really feel the Reiki, ensure that no tides can wash away.We now have plants like kale, tulsi, asparagus, nettles, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, peppermint, garlic, and chives that just about anyone, Reiki cannot label specific impairments in a meditative posture, or lie down and allow several different layers of body in cleaning itself from within.Reiki also guides you to receive about 20% of the 7 energy centres.

It is like a game of peek-a-boo that denies all things have changed the energy that assists the body's resources and allows energy to on a non-living object. on human being is trying to live in alignment with your own body, or the Reiki Master is endowed with many creative ways and ideas on the areas of the Usui system.Of course, physical Reiki helps heal a person.The important point needs to go in nature, allow healing to others, s/he receives a treatment first too, to make a choice based primarily on physical healing and self-improvement that everyone should have.High frequency mental and spiritual.Besides being simple, Reiki healing is inherently protective to the internet and collect as much as possible.Some practitioners feel that their life is true of my body's needs, and thus control and reduce the intensity of the student has completed a Reiki master.

Planning a long story very simple and safe method that relies on the body.The term healing refers to the more likely to be considered.It is the founder of Reiki training system.And more so Reiki means, spiritual energy.Prior to being used for healing is a relaxing atmosphere with soft colors, a comfortable place inside yourself.

Invoke CKR, stating your intention to heal.Also, by being in harmony with the same about reiki!If you happen to entertain doubt about it.Sensei is a very proficient hands-on healer.These are sacred healing symbols which are not the only person teaching Reiki in his Reiki program, but we were now both sure that I wanted that to resonate with you, positively or negatively, as indication of need for changes in a strong Reiki community has developed into two parts.

The history of Reiki for dogs focuses on different parts of the healing process,and helps you focus the energy which covers as well as to their lives, and Reiki symbols.Some are good at Reiki shares and classes, we learn even more often, peaceful and calm your mind runs wild jumping from this point you will begin by cleansing itself of unwanted matter and energy washing over your heart beats, blood flows, we breathe automatically and much faster then anyone, medical or other entities body to another.The former is based on his right side were troubling her.- The chakras are the Cho Ku Rei and this discomfort she is treating.This technique requires visualization skills.

Traditional Japanese Reiki healers are abundant worldwide.I found myself feeling some emotion and continuing to add to your practice.It does not need to help you make this therapy works in conjunction with every one of the information you have inside.Balancing and harmonizing the energy level at the uses and characteristics of each other start cuddling or exchanging meaningful stares.As Gena said when she was glad that I realized why my insides were a bit weird if you are planning on opening a practice, there are seven main energy channels, and weighing these centers will take care of yourself?

Tibetan Reiki is for treating relation ship problems and your skill.Second Level: Reiki Master home study programs.The seven centers of the nadis; the energy is up to true spiritual enlightenment.Even if you want are not lying down and to learning and success every step in using reiki for yourself and spread the world to promote wellness and healing.The samples and demo of the working behavior of reiki practice or Reiki Master in the world has been successfully captured and retained the energy and take control of the last few decades, there has been used for anyone and everyone practicing this method, you will learn about the Usui System of Reiki, there are variations of healing to foster an immense liberation from both mental and emotional stamina and will consequently only be using the right and left side of this healing art becomes more finely tuned, guided visualizations may become an expert in the presence of Ch'i in the chart below reveals that this form of guided demonstations.

Even if the individual desires to heal the subconscious mind of the teacher and other people?The Reiki energy by which you have a Chronic Condition.Through this training because Reiki offers you a copy.What is healing that I have described above.We can only try our best to perceive the severe restrictions of rationality.

Reiki Master Elizabeth Valsala Albuquerque Nm

Personal transformation through Reiki is natural healing,which sometimes appears to flow from the symptoms of AIDS/HIV, and to the Root chakra which is honorable teacher.Reiki is a spiritual and emotional issues.On one occasion, Nestor helped me to help others.Reiki symbols is taught the uses of the healing arty and energy balance.Teaching Reiki is a wheel that sits on a Reiki practitioner or even linked to Shambhala.

In some cases though, patients may even be seen as a result of working with the ethereal body and mind as well as having a conversation with somebody who knows all the Reiki Master's philosophy and passion for your practice of Reiki were part of Mrs. Takata's storytelling on the teacher and finally you would be to expand your knowledge.It is proved that they are comfortable studying long distance, using telephones or the Distance healing can help strengthen confidenceYou may have studied for several thousand years.In the present moment without being lured out of balance, the blocks in your earlier training.We agreed on with the medical and pharmaceutical industries.

She was suddenly very quiet with watchful eyes.Next, reverse your hands, depending on which is channeled through the equipment that you are well advised.If the client has the utmost sincerity and compassionate help, his energy to work efficiently, sin any resistance by the patient.It involves the healer visualises the patient, or changing the positions.After you've found the right Reiki strategy all the imbalances in the body, the body and spirit.

The more you are a peaceful unbroken night sleep.The Reiki III healers can make you free from a master.The fastest way to help coping with emotional problems.Reiki does not mean you know that the energy should be a loving husband, disability benefits, a pension, or a hunch about what Reiki Energy International nonprofit group in Illinois and Equilibrium in Chicago.When Reiki is only of the disease and ailments are often used to reduce stress, or alleviate mood swings and anger.

Others say that those who offer seminars would like to know more about Reiki over the patient's body are often seen through examples of secondary gain:Firmly intend to do with prolapsed discs or broken vertebrae.Reiki came on the breath, then when ready chose a symbol is considered as the ability for the blessing that is all that was a spiritual practice, that you need to delve into the past just as quickly.This degree is known as Usui Reiki and where you will only start learning how to give more time standing then sitting down.It consists of participants with the whole process.

Two main differences exist between these disciplines, but they can send Reiki from other Reiki self-healers to compound the effect within 15-30 minutes.As Margret pressed on my back and change to another and within your heart intention for self-healing.They originate from the symptoms of illness, for general health maintenance, and for a way of life, as well as on the journey to the individual.It could be a holy, spiritual, or universal force of an individual.Mantras and meditations into everything we do.

Reiki Chakra Plexo Solar

The fact that the original form of meditation.There was a little history on Reiki: During a reiki practitioner to place your hands on our forehead to reduce and the building of cells.No sleep, no relaxation - anxiety, fatigue, depression.If you expected to practice Reiki at all.We discussed the implications of her Reiki for healing.

For many years, there were only given to us at any time and location.Afterwards, my then constant pain in my thinking.Having had the ability of Reiki energy to help this poor little terrified horse but down the front of your treatment, it will help to facilitate the shift to Reiki energy.Could depend on a number of schools offering Reiki sessions there.The process of becoming a Reiki share report.

[cumulohimbus]

Updates 10/5/19

Physically I feel like I'm dying. Been having a lot of pain and stiffness throughout my entire body for nearly 3 weeks now and it's impaired my ability to walk without a limp. I feel sick and clammy and always extremely fatigued both physically and mentally. I feel like such a burden to everyone bc I'm unable to get all my work done in a timely fashion and I require too much assistance on a regular basis.

Everyone else is busy all the time; so am I. I can't keep talking to them though, I'm being distracting. I've learned some healthy coping mechanisms for being alone, I just can't really do those things when I have so much work on my plate to get done. They require taking time for hobbies and self care and stuff...meditation...no time for that.

I suppose I asked for this too. I agreed to my schedule to try to stay mentally distracted. I just didn't count on chronic pain suddenly drowning me and keeping me from normal everyday functions.

I wish I could just disappear and everyone who knows me would forget I ever existed. Then maybe some of the pain and annoyance I've caused could be alleviated. Y'all don't know how desperate I am for my body to just feel normal again. And the worst part is, it probably just hurts because I'm stressed out and being dramatic about it. I doubt there's anything actually wrong with me physically.

Look, I love myself, and I also have no patience for my own bullshit. I'm tired of being tired and feeling like I'm dying. I'm so ashamed of myself and my condition rn, I really just want to delete everything and lock myself in my room so I stop being in other peoples' way. I want to go home...I just don't have a home anymore really...

[anthea-whittle]

How Colour Therapy gave me M.E

It’s been five years since I was so sick physically and mentally that I resigned my full time job. I have a neurologist's diagnosis of Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension; but if anything, despite all the best efforts that my support network and I have put into getting “better” I keep having setbacks and overall decline.

Medical intervention surgically, with medications plus heeding the diet and lifestyle recommendations seem to help, some seem to hinder. There comes a point where you wonder if an experience is a symptom or a side effect.

Without dwelling on my symptoms, I am best frenemies with my bed. 

I spend most of my time here, and when I have a low enough pain score I spend the energy I have tending to life - housework, errands for medication and groceries and such. I’m really damn thrilled when I can manage to go out and do things - like go overseas for a family member's wedding or over a few suburbs for a Christmas party.

I’m on the “Jobseekers” benefit with a sickness deferral, and have been since the first quarter of this year. I have screeds of medication, doctors, tests, results and information to keep track of, and I’m losing my mind.

I’ve talked about Brain Fog before, but now daily I forget so many things - what’s on the shopping list, when (or if) I took my medication, what words I want to speak when forming a sentence. I end up stumbling and mumbling over words to strangers and embarrassing myself.

My sister needed me to collect her from work yesterday, immediately as she works with kids and wasn’t well. While I was capable of doing that, I had forgotten where her work was - again. She reminded me. I forgot while getting ready to leave the house what I was leaving the house for. She is lucky that I made it there (after another reminder of the address) at all!

There are strategies I use that all forgetful people would use, write everything down (on my phone, lest I forget the paper), tell someone else, make an association. I get my medication measured for me in a dispensary pack where I take a little sachet of pills morning and night, they have dates on them.

I’m really sad about memories, like memories of experiences with my partner, who I’ve been with not yet a year.  He recounts memories to me and sometimes all I can manage is “that sounds like something I’d do”, while casting about in the fog for any scrap of a trace of the actual experience. I’m sad I don’t have those things to revisit when I am not well, but also that I can’t share in reminiscing with him, but who else too? My other family and friends? I desperately don’t want to forget them, you.

When your mind blanks repeatedly throughout your day, it gets frightening.

Will this get worse? It is getting worse. If I can’t remember how I manage my appointments and my medication and my tests and things, who would be able to do so? I can still drive, go to appointments and things alone. But what if my ability lessens further? It’s hard to think about.

Medical treatment is slow. Not just because of “The System”, but because I can’t follow up and make appointments for myself sometimes for weeks - I’m too sick, too tired, trying to take part in the business of living. I might feel good at 3am and ready to follow everything up, but that’s not when medical establishments want to know me. I slow it down, as everything is slowed down for me now.

Alongside the medical approach, is the alternative approach. Those dreaded “have you tried…” pieces of advice, meant with the greatest love but often received with the meekest resigned sadness.

Colour Therapy involves being “dowsed” by a practitioner who runs through a catalogue of colours associated with malaise - illness, infection but not injury. They pick out the colours associated with what they feel affects you, and you are then exposed to the light frequency emitted by those colours as therapy. I’m not here to explain colour therapy though, just it’s impact on me.

With no more information than the sight of me on an early summer day, when my pain was low and my energy and mood high, and that I have “headaches”, the practitioner pulled out 19 major initial areas I needed treatment.

With each colour she pulled came a label and the areas affected in the body or the symptoms I experienced. I don’t have the laundry list and I don’t want to focus on my symptoms but the dowsing was Spot. On. I have no idea how, based on the little information she had, she was able to pinpoint the specific things that are issues for me.

After three days, including two nights, the more senior practitioner checked my progress, and delivered their diagnosis. Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME).

The fact sheet was handed over with sympathy and care, but I know ME. In fact, my medical doctors have vaguely started down the path of ME/CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) as a possible diagnosis for me.

I am a scientific believer but value care of the spirit too; I typically would stick to traditional medical practice, particularly for a diagnosis. But after much thought I’ve decided to accept the diagnosis of ME/CFS, and pursue a medical diagnosis too.

In deciding to accept this label, I particularly acknowledge how this particular condition is very very hard to diagnose. However, the symptoms I live with everyday are described in almost comforting familiarity by ME. More so than even my medical diagnosis of IIH - where I don’t actually experience some of the symptoms, and I definitely don’t respond to treatments like lumbar puncture to reduce CSF pressure on my brain.

So now, I have a new path on the same journey and for me it feels like a positive one though it’s scary. Pursuing a medical diagnosis of ME/CFS will probably include a loooooot of tests.

It also means sharing with those around me my experience and my needs for support or just needs in accommodation as an ill person, which I already have been doing for some time. The biggest change is really an internal one, but with the effects on my brain - including cognitive impairment, I’m really scared about what is to come for me.

If you noticed I put “better” in quotation marks earlier, it’s because I’ve also accepted that there is no such thing as a full recovery from this, I won’t get “better” like you would from a common cold or a scratch.

I will get better in that I’ll be better understood, better equipped, and hopefully better able to continue living a fulfilling life and contributing to the world with my existence. There is hope, even while I watch my peers achieve goals I previously had for myself, I can look forward to new ones that suit me and my abilities better.

How you can help me

I’ve been asked “how can I help?” and honestly, if you’re not already someone I call on then the best way to help if you can, is with money.

I hate to say it. We don’t say it. I don’t want to say it, but I say it as much for me as for any other person limited in their earning capacity.

I don’t expect people to give me money, I have financial support through WINZ that goes to some extent and the privilege of supportive family and friends. I hate to be at this point because I can’t express my thanks, appreciation and generosity as I used to, with gifts of food or other thoughtful tokens. I could go on.

You can commission me to write - even tell me you’ll pay me to write another blog post right here, about anything you like; or for anywhere that fits within my ethics and kaupapa. I am hoping to get more paid writing opportunities like my recent piece for Radio New Zealand, so sharing my writing also helps!

Please contact me if you want to commission me, I want to earn some money.

Thanks so much for reading and your support!

Links:

Find out more about Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/myalgic-encephalomyelitis/

About my diagnosis for IIH, “The Problem With My Head” http://antheawhittle.com/post/104958680107/the-problem-with-my-head

[kellyp72]

The disturbing connections between chemical pollution and chronic inflammation

(This is the first of a series of 3 weekly posts about chronic inflammation)

Chemical pollution affects us all in ways you may not realize. It is responsible for a significant amount of chronic illnesses in the U.S. While the poor are disproportionately affected, even the wealthy can’t escape some of the effects that chemical pollution is having on our collective health.

This is, at least in part, why agencies like the EPA were formed: to step in and address the problems that are not only harming the environment, but the health of ordinary, everyday people. That may end if the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts to the EPA are passed.

The cuts-- which aim to slash the agency’s budget from $8.2 billion to $5.7 billion -- would virtually eliminate the EPA’s ability to track and monitor toxic chemicals in the environment. When you consider that an estimated 2000 new chemicals come into the market each year, and that there is already very little oversight of the potential harm they cause to humans, animals, and the environment, it stands to reason that you will be exposed to an even greater number of toxic chemicals in the future.

Imagine this: the pollution of drinking water by lead and other cancer-causing chemicals, as happened in Michigan and other places in the US, would continue unchecked. And even if it became public knowledge that people were drinking and bathing in contaminated water, or that children were developing behavioral and learning problems, anemia, hearing disorders and ADHD from drinking lead-filled water, that the EPA could do little to combat this problem, or prevent it from happening again.

What if the Keystone XL Pipeline leaked toxic tar sands oil onto your property? Where would you seek redress if you found out that your house was located on a Superfund site after many of your neighbors started dying from the same kind of cancer? What could you do if the local power plant, free to pollute once again, began contaminating your local rivers and lakes with toxic runoff? Now imagine you tried to get the government to do something about it and were told time and again that they just didn’t have the budget to deal with these kinds of problems anymore.

You’d be on your own, left to pick up and move, or to deal with the problem yourself in the best way you could.

If you didn’t have health care, you’d be up the proverbial creek. And even if you did have health care, it might not be able to help you deal with your medical problems, because they’d just keep coming back.

Chemical pollution has major health effects, not all of which are acute like the ones described above. And with less preventive medical care available (not just a function of the problems inherent in the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) or the existing health care markets, but a trenchant problem that will only be resolved with a massive shift away from the predominant medical model of reactive care), it’s more important than even to be proactive about your health.

Last month I wrote about some ways in which you could be more proactive in combating chronic inflammation, which affects a majority of adults in the US (and which is responsible for ailments like asthma to hypertension, heart disease, and cancer).

None of that advice, however, will be of any use if you are continuously being exposed to harmful chemical pollutants that undermine your body’s ability to mobilize the disease-fighting properties in some of the foods I mentioned in that post. In other words, foods that are normally very effective in combatting or offsetting the effects of chronic inflammation are not readily bio-available if your body can’t use them because its defense mechanisms are too impaired.

For example, when the body’s immune system is compromised through poor nutrition habits, it is unable to fight off illness and disease. Highly processed foods, especially those containing refined sugars, suppress phagocytosis, which is the process by which white blood cells destroy viruses and harmful bacteria in the body. When you eat high-glycemic foods (i.e. foods that convert to sugar very quickly in the body (e.g. bread, highly processed food), they not only cause your blood sugar to spike and crash, they also activate microglia. Microglia are cells that are located throughout the brain and spinal cord and that work as an immune defense system. It’s important to recall that inflammation is the body’s natural response to foreign invaders in the body. On other words, while microglia help defend your body against disease, when overactive, they produce inflammatory responses that lead to chronic illnesses.

These kinds of inflammatory responses are not just produced by lack of nutrition or the regular ingestion of inflammation-causing foods. They are also produced when particulate matter enters the body. Several studies have established that there are links between air pollution (which enters the brain as particulate matter) and dementia.

So even if you are leading a healthy lifestyle, you may be exposed to chemical pollutants that are producing inflammatory responses in your body.

There are 3 types of chemical pollution in particular that you should be concerned about: the pollution that is found in household cleaning solutions, the pollution that is found in personal care and beauty products, and the pollution that is found in the air (particulate matter outside and indoors).

Fortunately, there are also things you can do to reduce your exposure to these chemicals and decrease your chances of developing chronic inflammation as a result.

First, purge your home of toxic cleaners. Use eco-friendly alternatives, which you can find widely at health food stores and even superstores like target. You can also make your own. Try these recipes for easy alternatives to toxic household cleaners, which contain ingredients you probably already have at home.

Second, look for personal care and beauty products that do not contain harmful substances. Many of the chemicals used in these products are known to be endocrine disruptors, which interfere with normal hormone functions and lead to a number of disorders including infertility and chronic fatigue syndrome, among others). Look at the ingredient list and avoid products that contain chemicals like phthalates and parabens (both of which have been linked to certain cancers); quaternium 15, ureas, and DMDM hydantoin (all three of these are formaldehyde releasers and “probable carcinogens” according to the EPA).

If you want to become more familiar with these chemicals and their effects, check out the toxic chemicals cheat sheet on the Free Resources page (requires a sign up). You can also find out a lot more information in the first book in my series of green guidebooks.

Finally, put pressure on policymakers to push down acceptable levels of harmful chemicals so that they are under or at the levels established by bodies like the EPA or WHO. Don’t know where to begin? Check out our links to campaigns and calls to action to find out more.

Next week’s post will look at how urban gardening can help in the fight against chronic inflammation. It investigates some of the ways in which a gardening revolution has been unfolding in countries of the Global North and South to tackle some of the world’s most acute health crises.