#prevent autoimmune diseases

[centralbiohubgermany]

Research on Autoimmune Diseases

What exactly are autoimmune diseases?

Have you ever thought of a situation where our body becomes our enemy? Autoimmune diseases refer to a condition in which our immune system tends to destroy our healthy tissue due to an abnormal mechanism called autoimmunity. It is a chronic lifelong condition, and millions of people across the globe are living with it. Most of the time, autoimmune disorders are abrupt in onset, regardless of age, and females are more likely to develop than men. There are more than 80 autoimmune diseases that affect millions of people across the globe. It includes rheumatoid arthritis, Grave’s disease, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), antiphospholipid syndrome, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, coeliac disease, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Sjogren’s syndrome, and many more.

Strengthen Research on Biospecimens of Autoimmune Diseases

The growing incidence and prevalence of autoimmune disorders called for the immediate attention of global research to discover novel treatments and prevent autoimmune diseases. Today, medical science has endless possibilities. As far as immunology research is concerned, a lack of a clear understanding of the causes and exact pathway of autoimmunity is the main roadblock to discovering a permanent cure for autoimmune conditions. Against this background, it is of paramount importance to utilize the banked human biospecimens, such as serum, plasma, tissue, and PBMC, isolated from patients with autoimmune diseases. A well preserved, richly annotated human biospecimen can act as in-vitro patient models to intensify more studies on autoimmune disorders. Therefore, powering human biospecimens to foster research can uncover the secret behind autoimmunity and discover disease-specific autoimmune disease treatments.

The largest collection of Autoimmune Disease samples. Order online.

Today, research on human biospecimens has immense possibilities. Therefore, the demand for best-quality reliable human biospecimens is rising exponentially. Understanding the limitless possibilities of human specimen research, Central BioHub unveils a meticulous collection of autoimmune disease samples exclusively for drug and diagnostic research. It provides samples that are ethically obtained from autoimmune disease patients diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, systemic lupus erythematosus, myasthenia gravis, antiphospholipid syndrome, Grave's disease, Hashimoto's disease, Sjögren's syndrome, etc. Being a marketplace for human biospecimens, all samples are in-stock and readily available for purchase, reservation or quotation. Central BioHub offers human serum samples tested for antinuclear antibodies (ANA), antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA), antibodies to double-stranded deoxyribonucleic acid (anti-dsDNA), Rheumatoid factor (RF) and more parameters. To find out more about the samples and the ordering process, click here: https://centralbiohub.de/biospecimens/autoimmune-diseases

Central BioHub is eager to provide top-notch human biospecimens with the fastest global delivery. Pave your path to a moon shoot discovery in autoimmune disease research. Let’s start with Central BioHub today.

[antique-symbolism]

(11.28.23)

Living in a dying body,

Stranded on a dying world,

What shall the dying do?

Grind our bleach-white coral bones,

Drown in rising water, our limbs too weak to tread?

How about this instead?

On New Year's Eve, my father, a doctor of the weather said: 

"I believe in the resilience of our atmosphere."

And thus began my year,

With a body set for ambush storms, and unprepared to take my cover,

Hopeful, kicking at the knees that wouldn't last the summer.

But if Dad can see the damning data and give us yet our chance, 

Then I will face the fates that are written in my scans,

Feed the sturgeon lunch at the museum,

Bend slowly to the waterline and whisper this to them:

"I believe in our resilience, too."

[eatclean-bewhole]

The conversation is finally happening!! Thank you to those fighting for our health & being our voice. 👏🏽🔥🙌🏽

[justposting1]

What Happens to Your Body When You Quit Sugar For 30 Days?

Sugar is a common part of many diets, but it’s also linked to a host of health issues when consumed in excess. For many, cutting out sugar can seem like a daunting task, but doing so can lead to remarkable changes in your body. Here’s what you can expect if you stop consuming sugar for 30 days. Week 1: Withdrawal Symptoms and Cravings The first week of quitting sugar can be challenging as your…

[teaboot]

My vet: So is Ollie going to be an indoor or outdoor cat?

Me: Indoor, but I will be taking him outside on leashed walks. No free-roaming, only supervised walks.

Vet: Okay, so we'll be giving him a preventative treatment for fleas and ticks, but he likely won't need a rabies vac-

Me: I would like him to have the rabies vaccine

Vet: Fantastic. And we also offer vaccinations for-

Me: Yes. We'll take all the vaccines that you have.

Vet: Well if he's not free-roaming, he'll likely never come in contact with-

Me: All the vaccines that you have

Vet: I mean we can do that but it'll be a six month plan, and it'll be a hassle for you to bring him in and pay for that many treatments, especially with how unlikely some of these diseases are

Me: My cousin was eaten by alligators, my uncle was almost taken out by a beaver, everyone in my family has been divorced once and married twice minimum over the past four generations, every family line I have has been kicked out of their country of origin, and my immediate family has experienced three divorces, four marriages, seven parents, three international moves, two missing persons incidents, two house fires, a tornado, two car collisions, one of which involved a semi truck that leveled the car, two sewage drain backfloods in two different houses, a wolf attack, two con artists, a pyramid scheme, two autoimmune diseases, three congenital deformities, one incident of bacterial meningitis, three medical quarantines, sepsis, and the sudden deaths and disappearances of eight dogs, thirteen cats, three guinea pigs, four consecutive sheep named Dorothy, thirty-two rabbits, a rooster, two ducks, four hamsters, nine fish, four cockateels, a parrot, a llama, and a bear

Me: We will take all the vaccines that you have

[ayeforscotland]

Holy shit.

Researchers at the University of Chicago have been able to create an ‘inverse vaccine’ that can remove the immune systems memory of specific molecules.

Reading that, sounds like a horrendous bio weapon in the making. But the plan is for it to be used to treat autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, type one diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.

This was already proven to be able to prevent autoimmunity but the new work shows it can be used to treat ongoing autoimmune issues.

Source.

[reasonsforhope]

"The Biden administration on Thursday [August 15, 2024] released prices for the first 10 prescription drugs that were subject to landmark negotiations between drugmakers and Medicare, a milestone in a controversial process that aims to make costly medications more affordable for older Americans. 

The government estimates that the new negotiated prices for the medications will lead to around $6 billion in net savings for the Medicare program in 2026 alone when they officially go into effect, or 22% net savings overall. That is based on the estimated savings the prices would have produced if they were in effect in 2023, senior administration officials told reporters Wednesday.

The Biden administration also expects the new prices to save Medicare enrollees $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs in 2026 alone.

“For so many people, being able to afford these drugs will mean the difference between debilitating illness and living full lives,” Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, told reporters. “These negotiated prices. They’re not just about costs. They are about helping to make sure that your father, your grandfather or you can live longer, healthier.”

It comes one day before the second anniversary of President Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, which gave Medicare the power to directly hash out drug prices with manufacturers for the first time in the federal program’s nearly 60-year history.

Here are the negotiated prices for a 30-day supply of the 10 drugs, along with their list prices based on 2023 prescription fills, according to a Biden administration fact sheet Thursday.

What Medicare and beneficiaries pay for a drug is often much less than the list price, which is what a wholesaler, distributor or other direct purchaser paid a manufacturer for a medication before any discounts...

The administration unveiled the first set of medications selected for the price talks in August 2023, kicking off a nearly yearlong negotiation period that ended at the beginning of the month.

The final prices give drugmakers, which fiercely oppose the policy, a glimpse of how much revenue they could expect to lose over the next few years. It also sets a precedent for the additional rounds of Medicare drug price negotiations, which will kick off in 2025 and beyond. 

First 10 drugs subject to Medicare price negotiations

Eliquis, made by Bristol Myers Squibb, is used to prevent blood clotting to reduce the risk of stroke. 

Jardiance, made by Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly, is used to lower blood sugar for people with Type 2 diabetes. 

Xarelto, made by Johnson & Johnson, is used to prevent blood clotting, to reduce the risk of stroke.

Januvia, made by Merck, is used to lower blood sugar for people with Type 2 diabetes.

Farxiga, made by AstraZeneca, is used to treat Type 2 diabetes, heart failure and chronic kidney disease. 

Entresto, made by Novartis, is used to treat certain types of heart failure.

Enbrel, made by Amgen, is used to treat autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. 

Imbruvica, made by AbbVie and J&J, is used to treat different types of blood cancers. 

Stelara, made by Janssen, is used to treat autoimmune diseases such as Crohn’s disease.

Fiasp and NovoLog, insulins made by Novo Nordisk.

In a statement Thursday, Biden called the new negotiated prices a “historic milestone” made possible because of the Inflation Reduction Act. He specifically touted Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote for the law in the Senate in 2022.

Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, said in a statement that she was proud to cast that deciding vote, adding there is more work to be done to lower health-care costs for Americans.

“Today’s announcement will be lifechanging for so many of our loved ones across the nation, and we are not stopping here,” Harris said in a statement Thursday, noting that additional prescription drugs will be selected for future rounds of negotiations."

-via CNBC, August 15, 2024

[surinderbhalla]

What is Lupus- Can it Be Prevented?

Our immune system is a remarkable defense mechanism, shielding us from harmful bacteria, viruses, and other intruders that can make us ill. However, in the case of lupus disease, our immune system mistakenly turns against our own body’s tissues, causing damage. These conditions are referred to as autoimmune diseases. Doctors have yet to uncover the exact cause of lupus, but they believe that…

[genderqueerdykes]

to every medical professional ever who complains about how working with fat patients is "harder":

why the hell did you go into medicine thinking it would be easy? for anyone, in any case? why the hell did you go into medicine thinking it would be an "Easy" career choice?

you're literally there to prevent people from dying, falling sick, or becoming permanently injured. that's an extremely difficult job no matter who you're working with. someone who can't keep on enough weight to survive is just as "hard" to deal with as someone whose weight genuinely impacts their health. all health issues are complicated and thus "hard"

even treating a cold can be difficult when someone has autoimmune issues. people literally die from the flu every single year due to complications. medicine is not and will never be "easy". claiming that fat people are "harder" to work with is a bullshit excuse that isn't even true. there are "average" weight people out there who struggle with extremely intense health issues that are not "easy" to deal with.

skinny and "average" weight people still can deal with horrific and difficult health issues. skinny and "average" weight people can develop cancer. they can have diseased organs. they can have issues with their red and white blood cell count. they can have life threatening allergies. they can frequently need surgery for a variety of reasons

surgery will never be "easy" no matter who you're operating on. a simple or "easy" surgery is still difficult. blaming fat people for medicine being difficult is taking the coward's way out. fat people do not make practicing medicine any more difficult- it's an inherently difficult field to get into

if you seriously get into the medical field because you believe it will be "easy" you're an idiot. it doesn't matter if your patients are critically thin, average weight, or fat- all of their problems will be "hard" to deal with because human health is scary. even if someone is dealing with a less "difficult" issue it's still going to be hard. don't go into medicine if you want a free ride through life: you're the one who's wrong if you seriously thought medicine would be easy.

[truth4ourfreedom]

THE BENEFITS OF IVERMECTIN. IF YOU HAVE CANCER, FREQUENT COLD OR INFECTIONS, MUSCLE SHRINKAGE, CARDIAC ISSUES, CROHNS, HERPES, ETC.

The study was published in the Cureus Journal of Medical Science.  LET'S TALK ABOUT IVERMECTIN 1 �� Ivermectin prevents the damage caused to RNA Vaccines.  2 – Ivermectin blocks the entry of Spike Protein into cells.  So, if the person was vaccinated with COVID, they have hope, they have a way to treat themselves through Ivermectin.  3 – Ivermectin is a treatment after Covid and after vaccination, it is an effective medicine in all phases of Covid 19, even before entering the cell, Ivermectin already destroys the virus in the blood.  It only has beneficial effects and no harmful effects in the treatment of the coronavirus.  4 – Ivermectin has a very powerful anti-inflammatory action against Coronavirus.  5 – Ivermectin has a powerful action for traumatic and orthopedic injuries, it strengthens muscles and has no side effects like corticosteroids.  6 – Ivermectin treats autoimmune ailments such as: rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, fibromyalgia, psoriasis, Crohn's disease, allergic rhinitis.  7 – Ivermectin reduces the frequency of flu and colds.  8 – Ivermectin improves the immunity of cancer patients.  9 – Ivermectin treats Herpes Simplex and Herpes Zoster.  10 – Ivermectin reduces the frequency of sinusitis and diverticulitis.  11 – Ivermectin protects the heart in cardiac overload, in an embolism for example, it prevents cardiac hypoxia because it stimulates the production of basic energy so that the tissue is not destroyed and thus improves cardiac function.  12 – Ivermectin is antiparasitic.  13 – Ivermectin is anti-neoplastic (anti-cancer), it suppresses the proliferation and metastasis of cancer cells, only killing cancer cells and preserving healthy cells, improving the effectiveness of chemotherapy treatment, as it kills cancer cells resistant to chemotherapy, defeating the resistance to multiple chemotherapeutics that tumors develop, and combined with chemotherapy and/or anti-cancer agents, it provides an increase in the effectiveness of these treatments.  14 – Ivermectin is antimicrobial (bacteria and viruses), and increases immunity.  15 – Ivermectin reaches the Central Nervous System and regenerates the nerves.  16 – Ivermectin regulates glucose and insulin metabolism.  17 – Ivermectin regulates cholesterol metabolism.  18 – Ivermectin reduces liver fat in steatose.  19 – Ivermectin protects the liver exposed to insecticides.  20 – Ivermectin attacks the virus wherever it is, regardless of mutations.  21 – Ivermectin serves for the prevention and treatment of coronavirus, surprisingly.  Unproven efficacy is not of Ivermectin, but of vaccines.  22 – Ivermectin, used as a prophylactic agent, was associated with a significant reduction in infection, hospitalization and mortality rates due to COVID-19.  23 - Ivermectin does not attack the liver, since it is not metabolized in it, and if in the intestine, on the contrary, it protects the liver. 

BIG PHARMA DOES NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW THIS.THEY WANT TO SELL YOU THE EXPENSIVE MEDS THEY MAKE BILLIONS ON.

Please read, save and re-blog before Tumblr takes this down.

[sugarcoatednightshade]

thinking about how Humans Are Space Orcs stories always talk about how indestructible humans are, our endurance, our ability to withstand common poisons, etc. and thats all well and good, its really fun to read, but it gets repetitive after a while because we aren't all like that.

And that got me thinking about why this trope is so common in the first place, and the conclusion I came to is actually kind of obvious if you think about it. Not everyone is allowed to go into space. This is true now, with the number of physical restrictions placed on astronauts (including height limits), but I imagine it's just as strict in some imaginary future where humans are first coming into contact with alien species. Because in that case there will definitely be military personnel alongside any possible diplomatic parties.

And I imagine that all interactions aliens have ever had up until this point have been with trained personnel. Even basic military troops conform to this standard, to some degree. So aliens meet us and they're shocked and horrified to discover that we have no obvious weaknesses, we're all either crazy smart or crazy strong (still always a little crazy, academia and war will do that to you), and not only that but we like, literally all the same height so there's no way to tell any of us apart.

And Humans Are Death Worlders stories spread throughout the galaxy. Years or decades or centuries of interspecies suspicion and hostilities preventing any alien from setting foot/claw/limb/appendage/etc. on Earth until slowly more beings are allowed to come through. And not just diplomats who keep to government buildings, but tourists. Exchange students. Temporary visitors granted permission to go wherever they please, so they go out in search of 'real terran culture' and what do they find?

Humans with innate heart defects that prevent them from drinking caffeine. Humans with chronic pain and chronic fatigue who lack the boundless endurance humans are supposedly famous for. Humans too tall or too short or too fat to be allowed into space. Humans who are so scared of the world they need to take pills just to function. Humans with IBS who can't stand spicy foods, capsaicin really is poison to them. Lactose intolerance and celiac disease, my god all the autoimmune disorders out there, humans who struggle to function because their own bodies fight them. Humans who bruise easily and take too long to heal. Humans who sustained one too many concussions and now struggle to talk and read and write. Humans who've had strokes. Humans who were born unable to talk or hear or speak, and humans who through some accident lost that ability later.

Aliens visit Earth, and do you know what they find? Humanity, in all its wholeness.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Mild Primary or Breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 Infection Promotes Autoantibody Production in Individuals with and without Neuro-PASC - Published Aug 26, 2024

Abstract Patients with long COVID can develop humoral autoimmunity after severe acute SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, whether similar increases in autoantibody responses occur after mild infection and whether vaccination prior to SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infection can limit autoantibody responses is unknown. In this study, we demonstrate that mild SARS-CoV-2 infection increases autoantibodies associated with rheumatic autoimmune diseases and diabetes in most individuals, regardless of vaccination status prior to infection. However, patients with long COVID and persistent neurologic and fatigue symptoms (neuro-PASC) have substantially higher autoantibody responses than convalescent control subjects at an average of 8 mo postinfection. Furthermore, high titers of systemic lupus erythematosus– and CNS-associated autoantibodies in patients with neuro-PASC are associated with impaired cognitive performance and greater symptom severity. In summary, we found that mild SARS-CoV-2 primary and breakthrough infections can induce persistent humoral autoimmunity in both patients with neuro-PASC and healthy COVID convalescents, suggesting that a reappraisal of mitigation strategies against SARS-CoV-2 is warranted to prevent transmission and potential development of autoimmunity.

[eatclean-bewhole]

Steps you can take now to start taming inflammation:

1. Prioritize anti-inflammatory foods:

•Heathy fats (omega-3s) - Olive oil, avocado, coconut, nuts & seeds

•Fruits high in vitamin C - citrus fruits

•Antioxidants - berries, green tea

•Vegetables -leafy greens

•Lean protein & legumes

•Herbs & spices - turmeric (curcumin), ginger, garlic, cinnamon

•Fermented foods (probiotics)

2. Juice alkaline, antioxidant, & chlorophyll-rich vegetables & fruits. Especially those that are green (kale, spinach, broccoli, spirulina, chlorella, basil, cilantro…).

Chlorophyll is alkalizing, high in antioxidants, & detoxifying. All of which help improve oxygen delivery throughout the body by promoting red blood cell production. Oxygen is like water on the inflammation fire.

3. Anti-inflammatory therapies:

•Hyperbaric oxygen therapy

•Cryotherapy or cold plunges

•Red light therapy

If you’re local, you can visit my friends @upgradelabsriverton and try these therapies.

#antiinflammatory #antioxidants #health #healthylifestyle #healthyfats #nutrition #wellness #guthealth #healthyfood #antioxidant #cbd #organic #antiinflammatorydiet #inflammation #detox #turmeric #chlorophyll #longevity #healthy #healthyliving #holistichealth #painrelief #natural #immunesupport #antiinflammatoryfood #immunesystem #omega #juice #juicing #foodismedicine

[synbiosys]

So, I’m not proud of it, but I’m back to ask for help again. Above is the link to my Ko-Fi account; I can accept donations via Stripe and Paypal; I don’t have a preference of which method you use. Below is a more detailed explanation of the events that have led to my current predicament; it’s not entirely necessary to understand, but it should make sense of why this happened to me.

I’m dealing with some health problems and a recent car accident and I need help paying my bills for the next few months while I use that time to finish incomplete coursework for classes I took last year. In case it’s not clear, an “Incomplete” is a grade that can be given by instructors at some schools in situations where a student wasn’t able to complete a major assignment for a class due to circumstances outside their control, and allows students a pre-determined amount of time to finish that work beyond the end of the course. I had a plan for covering my expenses with a summer job at the Oregon State University Arthropod Collection (OSAC) while I finished the incomplete work, but the nature of my health issues, an outbreak of fleas, and a car accident have all prevented me from making it work. Now I’m kind of trapped; the cost of living in Corvallis is too high for food stamps to last an entire month, I don’t have a car anymore, and I’ll probably end up homeless if I can’t pay October rent and also pay November rent on time. I’ve managed to find some work doing landscaping and yardwork in my neighborhood, but I’ve realized that it’s impossible to make enough money and also handle the incomplete coursework; focusing on the former will impact the completion of my degree in June, while focusing on the latter will likely result in homelessness. The loss of my car is exacerbating all of this, in part because I live further away from all of the stores/banks/etc. in Corvallis, and public transit here is not very good.

Since late 2022, I’ve been experiencing sleep apnea-like health problems arising from swollen turbinate glands. I have some known allergies, but they’ve never caused swollen turbinate glands. The impact on my sleep quality became so severe that I had to resort to nasal strips every night. I saw doctors about this problem as early as spring of 2022, but none of them were helpful; most of them didn’t listen to me, and none of them considered trying any kind of testing. This ineptitude continued even after directly asking my primary doctor about autoimmune conditions and how we could test for them. Despite how obviously informative blood samples can be, nobody suggested a blood test. I finally lost my patience and demanded they give me a blood test for hypothyroidism at the end of August. Lo and behold, my thyroid hormone levels were an order of magnitude out of the normal range. Autoimmune problems run in my mother’s family, and it’s likely that I have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis; this disease is rarer in men, and the symptoms appear very gradually. While I can understand how this would delay detection of the disease, there were FIVE different doctors who saw me in relation to the sleep/allergy problems and none of them considered a blood test. I started taking levothyroxine the same day as the test results, but before being treated, my symptoms became so severe that my ADHD medication stopped working, my OCD symptoms went out of control, and I was experiencing severe brain fog. This is what forced me to request incomplete grades for my courses; I was trying to complete coursework despite all of this, and I was barely able to keep up. Once treatment begins, it takes at least a month to take effect, so my symptoms didn’t start improving until early October. Most recently, I found out that I needed to increase my dosage, but thyroid problems often have complex consequences, and any changes to the dose of the medication will result in unwanted side effects.

My original plan for this summer was to work at OSAC to cover my expenses while I tackled the incomplete coursework. I calculated the gross income I’d need to meet my expenses, and working 30 hours a week at this position well exceeded that amount. My duties as a curatorial assistant change slightly depending on the tasks at hand, but because I am paid from grant money, I must work efficiently, accurately, and in an organized manner. Because I have ADHD, extra measures are necessary in order to meet these requirements. I’ve worked this job intermittently since 2018, so I know how prevent my ADHD symptoms from interfering with my work. Because of the failures by my doctors to address my health problems, I was already struggling to arrive at work on time by June. By July, my symptoms had worsened to the point that I was no longer able to focus on work consistently, voluntarily cutting some days short because I wasn’t accomplishing much, and continuing to work in that state was inherently a waste of grant money. By August I could only make it to work sporadically. As a result, I missed most of the income I could have earned for August and September of this year. I was able to make up for some of this impact by selling old trading cards and video games from childhood, but that money didn’t last very long.

I was also confronted with a flea infestation that suddenly appeared in August. I rent a bedroom in a house with housemates; we tried to eradicate them ourselves, but the landlord suddenly informed us in early September that he hired an exterminator, who was arriving in less than 24 hours. I have some pet reptiles and pet invertebrates I needed to protect from pesticide exposure, so I suddenly had to move my pets to a friend’s house. I also had to re-arrange my bedroom to accommodate the exterminators. Based on the chemicals that were used, the only way I could make room safe again for my pets was by mopping the floor in my bedroom and the adjacent hallway three times. This ultimately cost me four days, and then the exterminators came back in early October, which forced me to repeat the process.

As if this wasn’t enough, I had a serious car accident in late September that annihilated my car and left me with severe lacerations to my left arm and a fracture in my thumb. The car spun out and flipped in the process, landing in the opposite lane. If another car had been about to pass me, it would have caused a direct collision at around 55 mph, and I probably wouldn’t have survived that. I realized the danger immediately and crawled out of the car, but most of the other possible outcomes would have involved my demise. I’m very lucky, but it took almost a month for the lacerations to heal, and one of them was deep enough to cause nerve damage, which hasn’t completely healed yet. My left hand has healed enough for me to use it, but I’m still having some issues with my thumb.

I wish I could say that I had help from my family, but my parents were impacted by both of the recent hurricanes that made landfall in western Florida. Even before the hurricanes, my parents weren’t really willing to understand what I was dealing with. I grew up in an abusive household; my sister and I were neglected by our parents, and we experienced emotional abuse from them as young adults. This is particularly true of my father, who himself is the product of a highly abusive upbringing. Unfortunately, research on the dynamics of child abuse has shown that children from abusive households often suffer a lack of economic mobility relative to children from more supportive family backgrounds as a result of mental health impacts. This has absolutely been the case with my sister and I; both of us are well into our 30s, and neither of us is anywhere close to long-term financial stability. That’s why it was deeply hurtful to hear my father blame me for being unable to fly to Florida on a whim to help him clean up the house, blame me for paying $950 a month for rent, and shame me for being 35 years old without a “stable job”. Both of my parents visited me in Corvallis in late July; they could tell that I was struggling, they apologized for neglecting me, and they told me they’d be more supportive, but apparently everything they said to me then must have been an act.  

Hopefully, this explanation sufficiently articulates the situation I’ve ended up in. I almost have enough money to pay my October rent, and I need to have my November rent paid by 11/5. I would have tried using Ko-Fi sooner, but in the interest of upholding my own responsibility, I wanted to exhaust my other options before resorting to donations again

[wheelie-sick]

What is immunocompromisation?

Being immunocompromised means you have a weaker immune system than most people. There are two main ways people become immunocompromised

1. Medical Conditions

Certain medical conditions cause your immune system to be weaker. Some examples include:

Immunodeficiencies- A category of conditions causing a lower number of or lower efficacy of immune cells. This category is divided into two subcategories: primary immunodeficiency and secondary immunodeficiency. Primary immunodeficiency is a subcategory consisting of hundreds of different conditions all causing a lower number of immune cells. Secondary immunodeficiency is a smaller category consisting of conditions where a person lacks immune cells due to other causes such as malnutrition.

HIV/AIDS

Some cancers

2. Medications

There are two main types of medications that result in being immunocompromised: Immunosuppressants and chemotherapy

Immunosuppressive medications- Immunosuppressive medications are medications designed to suppress your immune response. These can work in many different ways with some targeting a broad range of immune cells and others being highly specific. These medications are often used for organ transplant recipients and people with moderate-severe autoimmune diseases. Some medications in this category include: organ transplant medications, biologics, and high dose corticosteroids

Chemotherapy- Chemotherapy often comes with the effect of preventing new fast-dividing cells from being produced. This is why hair loss is such a common side effect of chemotherapy. Immune cells are fast dividing and therefore frequently are unable to be produced while on chemotherapy

The effects of immunocompromisation

Immunocompromisation has a large range of effects depending on the reason someone is immunocompromised. The most common effects are an increased susceptibility to illness and cancers. Increased susceptibility to illness can look like:

Frequent illnesses

Illnesses that are more severe than they would be for other people

Recurrent infections

Infections that don't respond to medication

Delayed response to infection

Infections that last longer than usual

Some people are more susceptible to certain types of infections. For example anifrolumab, a biologic used for lupus, makes people more susceptible to herpes zoster and respiratory tract infections while prednisone, a corticosteroid, increases risk of infection across the board. This occurs due to different causes of immunocompromisation affecting different immune cells with different roles in preventing and responding to infection.

Grades of severity

Recently the term "moderately and severely immunocompromised" has been used in covid-19 resources. Certain factors are considered to make someone moderately or severely immunocompromised, these include:

Advanced or untreated HIV infection

Moderate or severe primary immunodeficiencies

Hematologic malignancies

Active treatment for solid tumors or hematologic malignancies

Immunosuppressant medications used for solid organ or islet transplants

CAR-T cell therapy or hematopoietic stem cell transplantation

Treatment with alkylating agents, antimetabolites, high-dose corticosteroids, chemotherapeutic agents, TNF blockers, and other biologic agents that are immunosuppressive or immunomodulatory

What immunocompromisation is not

It's worth noting that getting sick frequently or getting seriously sick from illnesses that are usually mild is a warning sign for being immunocompromised but does not inherently make you immunocompromised. Some people are just more susceptible to illness without being immunocompromised.

Having minimal response to an infection that is usually more serious is a sign of a strong immune system, not a weak one.

Being immunocompromised is also not the same as being high risk for serious infection. All immunocompromised people are high risk but not all high risk people are immunocompromised. Immunocompromisation is specifically when someone is high risk because their immune system is weak. Particularly in regards to covid, there are many conditions that make you higher risk that do not involve a weak immune system.

Autoimmune diseases do not automatically make you immunocompromised. Something being a disorder of the immune system does not mean that you are immunocompromised because immunocompromised means a weaker immune system not a malfunctioning immune system.