Status Update

So, as some of you might know, I’ve been having back pains since last Christmas. I got some lose advice layered under sexist, fatphobic bullshit on the 2nd of January. Advice I followed strictly, but a lot of the time I had to rely on gut instinct. I didn’t feel like the doc was taking me seriously.

Then, on the 20th of January, all hell broke lose: my lower back hurt, the pain was radiating down my right leg into my toes, I had cramps worse than during periods. I took the max. dosage of the prescription painkillers we have stached for just such a case, and I still felt on fire. I had to wait an entire week for a new appointment.

I still didn’t feel taken seriously, but I got the referral for an MRT scan which was the end-goal anyway.

(detailed medical discussion under the cut) [TL;DR I’m in surgery on March 1st]

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Heads Up: Ingno is AWOL

Hey so I’m back from the doctor’s and getting emergency-delivered to the hospital. I don’t know how long I’ll be without internet, it might be a couple days. The queues full up though.

Don’t worry, I’m just getting a spinal disk removed.

So apparently "emergency" is code for "getting an immediate appointment" not, you know, an actual emergency. I got an appointment for the operation soon, more info to follow as the situation developes

Has anyone ever considered that most of the science about obesity is probably biased in favor against obesity? Like who are the ones funding these studies and what are their interests. If you “follow the money” most of these studies are funded by the weight loss industry and some of these people that do the studies have an investment in such. So of course there is an incentive and investment by making studies that show how obesity is supposedly “bad” and actively suppress information that shows that some of these studies have been falsified and obesity is not the harbinger of death that it’s made out to be. Also, these same special interests and corporations control the media as well which is probably why we don’t see the studies that are neutral or favorable toward obesity.

Yeah I know this sounds like a conspiracy theory but this is something I have been thinking about for a while.

Hey, this is MG from TITP.

Yes, we have considered it, and you are absolutely right. We’ve talked about it several times. There are a ton of studies known to have been falsified or diddled. Your submission, along with our response, is in the queue and will be posted when it comes up.

That is true.  Lots and lots of studies have their data either falsified or manipulated in order to reach a desired outcome.  Others use methods that scream incompetence (I remember reading about one study that had a sample size of 12 - twelve! - and purported to show results that applied to the world’s population.  *facepalm*).  That’s one of the reasons I liked the “skinny gene” study, as it’s sample size was 36,626, which gives a much more statistically relevant finding.  Also, they gathered their data from 26 other genetic studies, reducing the chance of selection bias or that any participant in their sample was self-selected.

That skinny gene study also reinforces what so many of us have been saying all along, that fat/size bias in healthcare is dangerous for both fat and thin people.  A doctor could assume, based on a thin person’s outward appearance, that their blood sugar is normal and not bother to screen them for diabetes - when in fact if they have the skinny gene, and they are eating the diet commonly and erroneously ascribed to fat people - high fat and high sugar(and because of the gene there is no outward sign of it) - their body could be building up to full-blown diabetes.  And like many other diseases, not only is diabetes easier to treat when caught early, but complications, death and treatment costs are also reduced.

And then on the other side of the equation, you have doctors either running too many costly tests on fat people that don’t necessarily need to be done (because they assume that if they are fat that they must have all the “fat diseases”), or refusing to treat fat people at all for their health complaints (many of which have nothing to do with being fat) until they “lose 50 pounds.”

Young women are having difficulty accessing tubal ligation, despite it being a relatively safe (death rate is 1-2 per 100,000) and elective surgery.

Say that at 18 I slap down enough money so I could have my whole body covered head-to-toe in tattoos, piercings all over myself, a mountain of cigarettes, plastic surgery, and plan to have like 20 babies… but if I try at all to safely make it impossible for me to breed for the sake of my health suddenly its like WOAH THERE SLOW DOWN MISSY YOU’RE NOT READY FOR THIS KIND OF COMMITMENT YET

I have stage III Endometriosis, which means I have to get my uterus removed because I literally have terrible cramps ALL THE TIME and not just when I’m on my period. Now, I’ve always said I don’t want any children for personal reasons and I don’t need my uterus, really. I am not worried about that surgery and I don’t feel any kind of nostalgia over an organ I won’t ever use. 

The thing is, my doctor is a ‘man’. This ‘man’ told me I had to get pregnant right now before it’s too late. I told him I didn’t want to get pregnant and explained the multiple reasons but what, do you ask, did my doctor have to say about this? 'Well, better have a kid now because just imagine how depressing it must be being a thirty-something woman without children and a husband?'

I was diagnosed a year ago. I should have gone through surgery six months ago and I still can’t find a doctor that will perform the surgery without trying to force me to have children first. Basically, if you’re a woman you don’t have a say in what can and cannot be done to your body without a shitload of people getting in the way AND I’M FUCKING SICK OF IT.

Women are getting non-consensually sterilized in prison but no doctors in my area while tie my tubes at 24 because I might regret it? Fuck you, doctors. I have more purpose in life than dropping babies. Some of those women in prison are probably great moms and I have no interest in parenting. Let us have a say!

A dear friend of mine wanted to have her tubes tied.  She was about to give birth to twins and the doctors wouldn’t consent because she wasn’t 21 yet.  She had already had children and they still refused to let her have the procedure.

My friend got a vasectomy a week after asking his doctor for one, no problem. He was 25.

Me? I’ve asked 4 different doctors for some kind of permanent sterilisation—tubal ligation or Essure or whatever—and I get a pat on the head and a “You’d regret it if you did.”

Oh, DIDN’T REALIZE YOU HAD A DIRECT LINE TO MY BRAIN.

On the flip side, as a vagina-having person who had her tubes tied at the age of 26 (after having 4 children, however):

MY HUSBAND HAD TO SIGN A CONSENT FORM IN ORDER FOR ME TO HAVE THE PROCEDURE DONE.

How many times have we heard stories about husbands having vasectomies behind their wives backs and never telling them, letting those wives wallow in guilt and misery, thinking it’s their fault that they can’t get pregnant?

And yet I had had to get my husband’s permission to have my tubes tied.

(Obviously this was a decision we’d talked about extensively beforehand, so it’s not like he was about to say no, but we both couldn’t believe the fucking audacity of the hospital, asking HIS permission for ME to do something with MY body.  In fact, he said as much to the nurse that brought in the forms.)

I am 36. I’m single, I don’t have kids and I don’t want kids.

I also had horrendous, frequent periods. When I went to the gynaecologist, she recommended that we try a Mirena. I let her know that I’d had menorrhagia on a previous form of low-dose, oestrogen-only birth control (implanon), and that I was apprehensive that it wouldn’t work.

She said “Well, after that you’re out of options.”

I was incredibly upset. I was willing to try, but what if it didn’t work? Was I literally condemned to a life where I’m bleeding and in pain more often than not and I just have to put up with it?

I rang my parents. My Mum listened to me and said “That doesn’t sound right” and put my Dad (who’s a doctor, and a qualified obstetrician/gynaecologist) on the phone.

Apparently I was not out of options and she shouldn’t have said I was. The next option is a surgical D & C to see if that fixed it, and if that didn’t work, an ablation, which would have left me permanently infertile. If that didn’t work, a hysterectomy (although Dad warned me that I should do what I could to avoid the hysterectomy, it comes with a horde of other side effects.)

I don’t know whether it was fear, I don’t know whether it’s because I was a public patient. I don’t know what it was. But the gynae was so scared of female infertility that she wouldn’t even give me information about treatment options. I had to ask my father.

(FYI, the Mirena worked and I had a shouting row with the gynaecologist where I accused her of having her objectivity and medical judgement biased by the religion of her employers.)

I’m so lucky that my doctor is almost “pushing” sterilization on me. He’s super supportive and knows that I’m done having kids, but still don’t have anything permanent planned. 

When I approached my specialist about permanent forms of birth control, the first thing she said to me was that I was too young (I was 22).  I kept telling her that it was a decision I had made nearly a decade ago because of having Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and now POTS and scoliosis, but she kept trying to convince me that I wasn’t old enough to make that decision.  My decision has been formed because of my poor health and high complications with pregnancy that could be deadly.  My mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother all had complications with birth and miscarriages from EDS, and it’s a miracle that my mother even lived through her miscarriage.  After explaining this, my rheumatologist and EDS specialist finally said that they could get me in contact with an  high-risk OBGYN to see if there are other options for me for having children.  

BUT I DON’T WANT CHILDREN.  I don’t want to pass along these disorders.  I don’t want to be on five months of bed rest.  I don’t want to risk miscarriage after miscarriage or dying during giving birth.  I don’t want to dislocate my hips whilst giving birth.  I don’t want my organs to tear and never heal properly because of EDS.  I don’t want to have to care for another being while I can’t even take care of myself because of the fatigue and pain.  I don’t want to subject a child to have to take care of me as I become more disabled.  I ALREADY HAVE A CAT.  I CANNOT TAKE ON ANOTHER DEPENDENT.

It just infuriates me that between the health risks, family history, and my own decision about my life and body, I am still not taken seriously.  This shouldn’t be a problem!

as someone who has family history of rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, thyroid and heart issues, as well as personally has diabetes and narcolepsy… having a child would take me off of all medication and i would be almost a vegetable and on bed rest for most of my pregnancy. this is not conducive to the health of a child nor my own health. but as we all know, women are useless except for being incubators, right? :/ at 24, i pleaded with my doctor to give me something permanent. i was told that i would regret the decision because i wasn’t in a stable relationship. when i explained that i’ve never wanted children, that i have health issues that make bearing children dangerous, i was told that being on the pill would be good enough. completely ignored. i’ve fought unsuccessfully for the past 5 years to have a gynecologist listen to me when i tell them that i need a more permanent birth control in consideration of the fact that half of my medications for chronic disorders NEGATE birth control. the pill? is only 40% effective for me. on a good day. i’m allergic to nickel so i can’t even spring for Essure, although my doctor refused to give me that either when i asked. i’m almost 30, and i’m currently in talks with a guy friend to masquerade as my stable relationship just so i can get myself sterilized. i don’t want to pass on the numerous chronic conditions in my family. i don’t want to risk having miscarriages because the stress of pregnancy triggers my cataplexy. i can’t function without medications that would be addictive to the baby if i got pregnant. my brother payed $250 to get himself sterilized. i can’t pay enough to get a doctor to hear me about STRONGER birth control, let alone sterilization. i shouldn’t need to belong to a man to make a decision about my own health. honestly, i shouldn’t even have had to explain to my mom that the misery i go through 2 weeks out of a month (extreme fatigue, debilitating cramps, complete incapability to control my narcolepsy or my diabetes) makes me want to get rid of my ovaries altogether. i would THRILL for a hysterectomy, knowing as i do that it would mean hormonal shifts. but i have no desire for children. and i want to try to care for the rest of my system. i am willing to let go of the reproductive system to get the rest of my health. this shouldn’t be up for argument. this shouldn’t be up for discussion. this is my body and it’s my decision for a fucking healthier me.

Ok, since those ‘Breakfast is the most important meal of the day’ PSAs don’t tell you why, here’s what you need to know:

Do not go twelve hours without eating. Period. Just don’t. If the last time you eat before going to bed and the first time you eat the next day has a gap of twelve hours between those times, you are fucked. Rearrange your schedule. Have a midnight snack if you can’t manage breakfast because that darn stress hormone means you have no appetite in the morning, Here’s why.

If you don’t eat for twelve hours, your body will go ‘oh, there’s a famine on,’ and cut the energy allotment for your cells. This is the calorie budget they get to spend on upkeep and keeping you from feeling like shit. It’s called the ‘resting metabolism,’ the amount of calories you burn just keeping yourself healthy and basically surviving.

Your body still needs  the same amount of energy to keep itself healthy, but it doesn’t get the amount of energy it needs when you go 12 hours without food. It has to make cuts. So it’s weak. It can’t do the processes it needs to do for you to feel healthy and alert. You feel like shit, you can’t focus.

And the calories your body saves with these cuts to essential services go right to your fat cells.

This is one of the ways eating less can make you fatter: the ‘calories in, fat out’ model doesn’t work because our bodies have had all these ages to evolve tricks for surviving famines. In theory, this reaction to going 12 hours without food would help keep you alive when there’s no food to be had. But, if you’re not dying for lack of food, all it does is make you constantly fatigued, lower your grades, cause you to develop health problems because the budget spent keeping your cells healthy has been cut and cause you to put pounds on. 

This is why not having breakfast is on the list of the cruelest possible things you can do to your poor brain, because your brain cells have to last you your whole life. They need to spend that energy on upkeep. 90% of the cells in your brain are glial cells there to keep the neurons alive and healthy for a reason. If you go 12 hours without food, you are cutting the life support budget of your neurons. Do this during high school, when you need to be building neural networks in order to actually learn what you’re being taught?

Ha. Hahahaha. If you’re not eating breakfast, your brain doesn’t have the calories to spare for that. It’s using what little energy it has keeping your brain cells from dying, it can’t afford to build the upgrades that would make math easy for you. 

Do not go twelve hours without food. You will feel like crap and it will turn your body and brain to crap. Buy protein bars, eat ice cream at midnight, whatever. Just watch the clock and get some calories into yourself before the 12 hour mark passes and your body goes into famine mode.

a new perspective.