“we need to stop the stigma towards drug users and addicts” and “we need to challenge the idea that being sober makes you boring” and “we need to stop acting like binge drinking to the extent you’re doing medical damage is fun and normal for young people” are all ideas that can and should coexist.
just so we’re clear, the threshold for “binge drinking to the extent you’re doing medical damage” is waaaay lower than you think.
I work in an obstetrician and gynaecologist’s office. we have to tell patients on a regular basis that they are binge drinking weekly when they think they are simply consuming a normal amount of alcohol on the weekends.
having more than 3 drinks in a single sitting if you have an estrogen based endocrine system is a binge that is medically significant.
having more than 5 in a sitting is a medically significant binge for someone with a testosterone based endocrine system.
every time you do this, it significantly impacts your risk of getting breast cancer, and damages your liver. it takes time to recover from that liver damage. if you’re having a 3-5 or more drink binge on a weekly basis, you are an alcoholic, medically speaking, and your liver is not recovering.
again: the bar for what binge drinking is, medically, is so much lower than what you think it is.
alcohol is a really toxic substance and not something you should fuck around with.
again: if you have an estrogenized hormone system (common for most women), then 3 drinks is a binge. if you have a testosteronized hormone system (common for most men), then 5 drinks is a binge.
anything above that number, consumed as frequently as weekly or more, and you’re medically a binge drinking alcoholic.
also, if you’re drinking any quantity of alcohol 6 days a week or more, that’s another threshold at which, medically speaking, you meet the definition of alcoholism. your liver needs more days without alcohol in your system than just one a week to recover and be healthy.
I don’t say any of this to shame anyone—to me, alcoholism or substance use disorders aren’t a sign of weakness or moral failing. and most of us genuinely don’t know this stuff.
rather—I point this out because it’s important to reduce harm, and find ways to live healthier, happier lives. there is a life outside of constant binge drinking. it’s not always easy to find it. but it’s out there. you deserve a life where your emotional needs are met by something other than alcohol, and a life in which your liver is healthy, and the ways you cope and celebrate and find joy don’t put you at increased risk of cancer.
also–even if alcohol is the only way you can self-medicate, or if you choose to go on with your alcohol usage anyway regardless of other options–you still deserve to know what it’s doing to your body.
information is key. you don’t have to stop drinking, but the utter lack of education on alcohol + the normalization of binge drinking in current society leads to many people drinking without any idea of what it’s doing to their bodies.
addicts deserve accurate medical information regardless of what they decide to do with it. for some people, losing liver function is worth the benefits they get from binge drinking, but they can’t make that choice if they don’t know what the consequences are to begin with.
addicts deserve accurate medical information regardless of what they decide to do with it.
what’s up I fucking despise the way we as a society have normalized caffeine addiction
capitalism: it’s literally impossible to both earn enough to support yourself and take proper care of your health let alone engage in hobbies all at once but good news! your desperation to relieve yourself of the exhaustion we forced on you creates demand for an unregulated mildly addictive drug!
how many times have you heard someone say they get “the WORST headache if they don’t get their morning coffee lol” like its a normal thing and not literal withdrawal
Caffeine can increase anxiety, cause panic attacks and prevent you from sleeping well. It can also lead to further burn out. It doesn’t actually give you more energy if you’re tired, it just masks symptoms of tiredness, so you might keep pushing yourself when you need rest. The more you consume the higher your tolerance tends to become. I drink caffeine only very rarely and find I am sensitive to it–i get uncomfortably jittery if I have so much as a green tea on an empty stomach, while a strong tea like black tea on an empty stomach has given me panic attacks before, and too late in the day prevents me from sleeping (I don’t drink coffee). I have found that when I start to feel tired, eating a snack or resting will replenish my energy rather than relying on caffeine. If you are feeling chronically exhausted there’s likely a reason: lack of sleep, burn out from too much activity, unhealthy diet, lack of exercise, etc. Caffeine doesn’t solve the problem it just masks the symptoms.
In order to fully respect mentally ill and disabled people, you have to give up the idea that the world is a fair place where everyone eventually gets what they deserve and work for. Because if you don’t consciously challenge that mindset, you’ll find yourself directly or indirectly blaming struggling people for their struggles. Facts are that disability and illness can hit anyone, and facts are that sometimes there isn’t an effective treatment – and those are facts that you have to face and internalize if you want to be a genuinely supportive ally.
They literally work every day with very ill cancer-stricken kids who can’t get the vaccine.
This makes 100% sense.
If you’re an employee of a world renowned hospital and are anti-vax, you didn’t deserve to be hired to begin with because that hospital tends to hire people who understand evidence-based medicine and apply that to clinical practice. If you’re an anti-vax healthcare worker, you aren’t practicing evidence-based medicine and are therefore a danger to patients.
Had a doc appt (just my yearly checkup) a couple days ago and I asked her about checking to see if my measles vaccine from when I was a kid was still good, since I’d heard it could lose effectiveness over time. She nodded and had a lab done and turned out I was NOT still immune to measles, so got my booster today.
Get your vaccines, folks!
“I have a question about a vaccine,” I say, and the look of ‘god fuckin dammnit not again’ that flashed across this poor doctor’s face, followed by abject relief when I said “I’ve heard that the measles vaccine can lose effectiveness over time and I’d like to make sure mine is still good.” says everything really.
“Oh thank god,” she literally said. “Yes of course. That’s true, and we can do a blood test and see. If you don’t still have antibodies we can get you a booster scheduled.”
“That question goes poorly a lot, doesn’t it,” I say.
“You have no idea.”
Boosting this (lol, pun unintended but allowed to stand with pride) and adding: measles often needs updating in adulthood, they’ll usually throw in a rubella update with it; chickenpox might also need updating, mine did; and get your whooping cough updated, especially if you spend time around pregnant folk or small babies. (I say this from an Australian perspective.)
Pro tip from a college student and a biochem major: if you’re drinking alcohol and you feel like you need to throw up, just throw up. Your body’s natural response to too much alcohol is emesis, aka vomiting. If you wanna vomit it’s because your body has had too much. Just throw up. You will feel SO much better both directly afterwards and the following morning.
I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: this is why you shouldn’t mix alcohol and weed. Your body’s natural response to too much alcohol is emesis (vomiting). Weed is an anti emetic. This means that if you have too much alcohol, the weed will make it very fucking hard for you to throw it back up.
It also means that you won’t feel how much you’re drinking because usually, you gauge when to stop when you feel like throwing up. But weed takes away that nausea sensation. So you’re also a lot more likely to drink in excess and your body won’t be able to get rid of it.
Another important drug fact since pharma is my main study focus: if you do drugs, particularly hard drugs, TELL YOUR DOCTORS. Especially if you’re going in for surgery. If you do hard drugs, especially if one of those drugs is cocaine, some anaesthetics can literally fry your heart and kill you. Your doctors and surgeons won’t rat you out, they just don’t want to accidentally kill you out of ignorance.
-Ask yourself the last time you drank some water. Drink a few sips even if it wasn’t long ago. Coffee doesn’t count (neither does soda unless it’s the only option)
-When was the last time you ate? Get a small snack if able.
-Are ANY of your clothes too tight or uncomfortable? This includes socks, headbands, hats, and shoes.
-Stretch! Pop those shoulders, arch that back, straighten those legs. It Helps.
-If you happen to stim, do it! Do whatever feels right!
-Look for sounds, smells, etc. That are bothering you.
-Get your headphones and put on whatever music makes you feel happy/good/energetic.
-Loosen your shoulders, take some deep breaths. Drop your head and loosely roll your head. Try to relax as many muscles as you can.
-Close your eyes for a second.
-Did you take your meds (if you have them)? Do you need to take a Tylenol, ibuprofen Etc.?
-Are there allergens in the vicinity, are there any allergy medications you need to take?
-Breath deep.
I am by no means a professional and I don’t know what could be causing it but I know that these are kind of helpful. I’m not you and you aren’t me so these might not work. If the feeling bad is medical attention worthy, these might not help.
Still a good precaution. And definitely necessary for everyone for when life has returned to normal in like three years just in case you meet the love of your life and they’re positive.
Couldn’t share this fast enough.
Rebloging this to add a little more info because it’s very important:
Antiretroviral therapy when used correctly can cause the user’s “viral load” (your viral load is how much of the virus is in your bloodstream), to drop because the medicine prevents HIV from creating copies of itself.
Regular blood tests are done to monitor your viral load, and after taking the medication long enough, it can drop so low that it becomes “durably undetectable”. This means that the HIV virus in you has become so miniscule that it can’t be detected, and by extension can’t be transmitted either. It’s important to note that in order to be considered durable undetectable, you MUST test as undetectable for atleast 6 months after testing as undetectable for the first time.
Also very important, being durably undetectable does NOT mean that you’re cured or that the virus is gone, not by a longshot. The HIV virus is still very much there, but instead of being active, it’s gone dormant in a small number of cells called “viral reservoirs”. This why it’s EXTREMELY important that even after achieving durably undetectable status, you continue to take your Antiretroviral medications correctly. Because if you stop, the HIV virus will reemerge from the viral reservoirs and pick up right where it left off in creating copies of itself, and you will have to start all over again if you want to become durably undetectable again.
This is great advice for people struggling with or know someone who has HIV.
Clarification: PrEP is for taking beforehand if you think you might get exposed (like you can take it to minimize the risk of transfer if your partner has HIV), and PEP (no r) is for taking after you’ve been exposed. Basically, PrEP is like the birth control pill, and PEP is the Plan B, but for HIV instead of pregnancy.
Has anyone else noticed how, when you have a chronic condition of some kind, that there’s always the basic assumption from people around you that you’re not already doing everything you can?
It’s all about the illusion of control. People who are healthy like to believe they can always keep being healthy if they do the right things. They don’t want to think about how good people get struck with terrible circumstances for no reason.
So they keep assuming that if they got sick, they could do something to make it better.
And if you’re still sick, that must mean you’ve done something wrong or not done enough.
Nail. Head. The same attitude can be seen in how a lot of people talk about poverty.
ifesbob 