Wednesday, August 31, 2016

This is Why

Because all our dreams slip away, and we don't know the reason.

A Photographer Captured Homeless Men And Women As They Dream To Be Seen

Monday, August 29, 2016

Yes. This.

'It was a conspiracy': recovering addicts wage legal battle over prescription use
Groundbreaking lawsuit unfolds in West Virginia as ‘pill-pushing’ doctors and pharmacists are being accused of colluding with medical industry to get rich.

Oh Thank Goodness

Sad Face
Another classic finding in psychology—that you can smile your way to happiness—just blew up.
Oh Oh Oh- now THIS does make me happy...
Do you know how many times people have told me to try that nonsense???

The article is way too long, but it does make clear the massive amounts of time and money and brain cells that have been wasted on this unmitigated bullshit.

(And for the record, one position improves breathing, the other impairs it.   Sheesh.)

Sunday, August 28, 2016

From Extensive Personal Experience

Mania + Unpredictable Mouth = Disaster

Friday, August 26, 2016

A Two Dollar Analysis

The American Psychiatric Association issues a warning: No psychoanalyzing Donald Trump

Oh that's rich. They promulgate their bullshit on society for a century and then warn everyone against believing it?

They're right, though. You should totally ignore them and never bother using their paradigm. Trump's impulse control problems are legendary, and their psychobabble does nothing to explain it.

But since Mr. Trump has decided to attack Hillary Clinton's health based on tripping and falling-
I will now catalog some of the visually obvious evidence of Trump's serious head infections and dental problems to explain his erratic behavior.

Despite the fact that his "doctor" claims he's in the most perfect health ever-
Donald Trump's adenoids are so infected they are the most prominent thing on his face.  I do not understand why nobody seems to notice the large swellings on either side of his nose.

Adenoid hypertrophy  (or enlarged adenoids) is the inflammation of the adenoid tonsil at the back of the nose.  Long term adenoid hypertrophy causes an obstruction of the nasal airways, and obligate mouth breathing.   This further leads to a facial growth anomaly that is called "adenoid facies".  Adenoid inflammation results in mouth breathing, which changes the shape of the face.  It causes nostril constriction, smaller upper jaws, protruding upper teeth, and long slack cheeks.

Trump has exhibited this symptom since he was a small child.
It was also more noticeable when he was a young man.
These days his whole face is saggy and he tends to sniff a lot.
He also has to push up his mentalis (chin) muscle to close his mouth.  This is the origin of the Donald Duck Face.

Now I don't think any of those things are especially alarming in themselves.  But-  Sleep Deprivation is a predictable outcome of impaired breathing. And Mr. Trump is well known for his insomnia. He proudly proclaims NO NAPS, although it's clear he googles himself until the wee hours.

There are a few relevant consequences of long term sleep deprivation:
Emotional volatility. Check.
Impaired memory. Check.
Weight gain. Check. Underneath the fancy suits, he's obese. There's no denying that.   (Unless you're his "doctor", I guess.)

On a slightly different tangent-
He has all the best words. That's a too perfect example of his verbal impairment.  He speaks in short repetitious phrases when spontaneous, and has trouble pronouncing complicated words when reading. Most people want to chalk this up to dementia, but I disagree. I think he has something much more mundane.
Dysarthria is a speech disorder resulting from injury of the motor component of the motor-speech system and is characterized by poor articulation of sounds and words. Problems occur with the muscles that help produce speech, often making it very difficult to pronounce words. It is unrelated to any problem with understanding written or spoken language, however.
I had this problem myself recently. I had some sharp spots on my teeth after dentistry, but I couldn't feel them. And after a while there were just some things I couldn't say anymore.
The weird thing was, I could hear myself saying words I didn't expect, and I would flinch and lose my train of thought.

A couple sources report that all of Mr. Trump's teeth are caps. They sure look fake.  Anyhow,  I think his new teeth don't fit his mouth, or he has some residual infection from the procedures or something. So every time he goes to say something complicated, his mouth can't complete the task, and lots of small easy words and phrases come out instead.
Yeah, he's got that face twitching and "topic switching" at the pauses too.

A couple more suspicious head symptoms-
- His nose is so inflamed that his forehead sinuses cannot drain.   The deep wrinkles between his eyebrows are caused by swollen frontal sinuses.    This usually causes nasty headaches and can trigger visual auras.    Not only does it make you look angry, it makes you feel like screaming.
- I can't tell if his hearing is impaired.  (He pays people to hear things for him.) Complications in the eustachian tubes are common with nasal infection.   If so, that would explain the paranoia.   But I suspect that's just an act.   He's so toxic, he fears nothing.

Now in themselves, most of these symptoms can be pretty benign. (I filed my teeth smooth, my mouth healed, and now I can speak properly again).   The problem comes in when a person like this doesn't understand the condition and doesn't address the underlying chronic infections.  Especially if they are sleep deprived.  This results in a cycle of ever increasing respiratory distress, stress hormones and mania.
And my extensive experience in that realm convinces me the most likely way to get out of a really manic spiral is to crash and burn.   Nobody ever slows down when they're feeling righteous.

His mania is self-evident and easily explained by just looking at his face.
In addition, his apnea, obesity and dental surgeries are high risk factors for cardiac arrest and stroke.   And they're cumulative.   If anyone is likely to have a catastrophic health event, it's him.

No psychoanalysis is required:  Donald Trump is quite obviously sick in the head.

Thursday, August 25, 2016

This is Why

Good Lord. Even the Price of Insulin Is Skyrocketing.

Yeah, my husband noticed this a while ago.
It's not just the "orphan" drugs anymore.

It's a truly awesome thing, this drug dependence spiral.
These companies are the same ones who sell the antibiotics that cause diabetes...and allergies...

Friday, August 19, 2016

Good News

FDA Fast-Tracks Ketamine for Depression Treatment


Hey Bruce-
Tick Tock.
Say Buh-Bye to your Zombie patient pool...

Thursday, August 18, 2016

See the Vortex

The daily struggle of living with extreme fatigue
After many injuries and neurological illnesses, people often face a mysterious, unimaginable exhaustion that can last for years.

 The older you are, the worse the hospital is for you
The unique needs of older patients are not a priority for most hospitals, experts say.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

For the Geeks

Sorry I have been slacking off on the blog again.    I am starting to work on my book.   I have been collecting and sorting all of my notes and citations and previous essays and all that.
I'm cleaning my brain.   Extreme cognitive purging.

Anyhow, I am also reading a few new things before I get started on the actual writing.


This book was pretty good:
The Human Superorganism: How the Microbiome Is Revolutionizing the Pursuit of a Healthy Life

Today I am reading this review. 
Commensal–Pathogen Interactions along the Human Nasal Passages

So Exciting!

Saturday, August 13, 2016

A Few for You

Period Pain Drug Can Cure Alzheimer’s Disease, New Study Suggests
This is a correlational study using behavioral metrics of mouse memory.   It has not been tested for anti-beta-amyloid effects, although most NSAIDs help reduce endotoxin effects somewhat.
Menstrual cramps seem to more attractive for headlines,   but Mefenamic acid is very commonly used for TOOTHACHES.  Head infections.  Go figure.

Botulinum toxin study proves possibility of remote effects
When Botox and related botulinum drugs entered the market, "the idea was that they are safe to use, they stay where they are injected, and you don't have to worry about toxin going to the central nervous system and causing weird effects," says Edwin Chapman, an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor of neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The concern that this powerful toxin can move beyond the injection site was reinforced in 2009, when the Food and Drug Administration added a prominent warning to prescribing information "to highlight that botulinum toxin may spread from the area of injection to produce symptoms consistent with botulism," including "unexpected loss of strength or muscle weakness. ... Understand that swallowing and breathing difficulties can be life-threatening and there have been reports of deaths related to the effects of spread of botulinum toxin."
In a study published today (Aug. 4, 2016) in Cell Reports, senior author Chapman, first author Bomba-Warczak and colleagues present clear evidence that toxin is moving between neurons in a lab dish.
Using VR technology, an exoskeleton and software, study claims participants have unexpectedly experienced partial recovery of movement and sensation.

Students in government-funded school meal programs at higher risk of being overweight 
"We found that the longer children were in the programs, the higher their risk of being overweight. We also saw the most negative effect of the government-funded school meal programs in the South, the Northeast, and rural areas of the country," You said. "The question now is what to do in order to not just fill bellies, but make sure those children consume healthy and nutritious food -- or at least not contribute to the obesity epidemic."
Not to mention insulin resistance contributes to cognitive problems....

Librarians Have an Olympics, Too


Endurance Starvation Was Once a Crowd-Pleasing Sport

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

You Don't Say

Infection Linked to Large Increased Risk for Death by Suicide
Infection requiring hospitalization has been linked to a 43% increased risk of dying by suicide. The finding raises questions about the role of biological mechanisms of infection, particularly neuroinflammation, on suicidal behaviors.
"Our findings indicate that infections may have a relevant role in the pathophysiological mechanisms of suicidal behavior," the investigators, with first author Helene Lund-Sørensen, BM, Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark, write.
"To our knowledge, this investigation is the largest study to date to examine infections as a predictor of death by suicide," they report.
The researchers also note that although "psychiatric disorders and previous suicide attempts might constitute stronger predictors of suicide, we found that hospitalization with infection accounted for a population-attributable risk of 10.1%.
"The implication is that 1 in 10 suicides could be prevented if infections were to be eliminated entirely, provided that the association was causal," they write.

Sunday, August 7, 2016

Future Moments in History

Google firm hopes to control organs with electrical signals

Yeah, Google collaborating with Glaxo-Smith-Klein sounds like a good start to creating a Matrix.   Whether that's the intention or not...

Saturday, August 6, 2016

This and That


Vaccines fail to protect obese mice from severe influenza infections

Hidden tooth infections may predispose people to heart disease

Blood sugar slumps affect how lean men treat the more rotund
Low blood sugar makes them cruel.   Shocking, isn't it?

A simple treatment for a common breathing problem among premature infants
This is so fascinating, they put electrodes on their hands and feet and make their brains think they are running.  

Discovery of infants' airway microbiomes may help predict lung disease
In contrast to the general belief that the airways of an infant are sterile until after birth, University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers and colleagues have found that the infant airway is already colonized with bacteria or bacterial DNA when a baby is born—and this is true for infants born as early as 24 weeks gestation.
Hypocretin/orexin knock-out mice display disrupted behavioral and dopamine responses to cocaine.
 I knew it... liked a lot of stimulants, but not cocaine.    Pretty sure this effect is the cause of the meth epidemic...

Thursday, August 4, 2016

My Two Cents

Trump is in a manic bacteriotoxic spiral and he's likely to have a yuge stroke or heart attack.   The best one ever.

(oh, and Clint-  your crazy is showing again.   You might want to tuck that back in.)

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

ICYMI

Speaking of conclusions made without any empirical evidence-

Everyone recommends flossing – but there's hardly any proof it works
Dental organizations and the federal government have long urged people to use dental floss, but the latest US guidelines have dropped the recommendation.
Without notice.   Because that is pretty damn embarrassing.

Monday, August 1, 2016

Zombie News Today

Florida just announced that mosquitoes are probably transmitting Zika in the US
"Zika is now here."

Girl Talk

 Mystery of the female orgasm may be solved
 While men need to orgasm in order to transfer sperm, women end up with the nerve and muscle tissues for orgasm as “a fantastic bonus”.

Could Women Be Trusted With Their Own Pregnancy Tests?
Unmarried teenagers would jump off bridges, and other crazy reasons at-home kits weren’t approved until the late 1970s.

The tale of the home pregnancy test is not unique. Breakthroughs that give patients control over their bodies are often resisted. Again and again, the same questions come up: Are patients smart enough? Can they handle bad news? And do they have the right to private information about their bodies?
One of the most enduring themes in medical history is:  Men have insisted they were the rational ones while making outlandish conclusions about women based on no empirical data whatsoever.