Category: health
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Day in the life: Thyroid pause
I started taking levothyroxine this fall, and got the standard spiel from the pharmacist: Take first thing in the morning. Do not eat anything else for 30 to 60 minutes after, including other oral medication. Do not take with calcium or iron supplements for 4 hours after taking levothyroxine. “You CAN have coffee!” the pharmacist chirped happily. I was happier when she confirmed I could have my…
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No, Really, Treat the PROBLEM
A comment for Treat Weight First? that I did not approve, but found striking for its ability to completely misunderstand, was: There must be some powerful drugs in that koolaid you’re drinking. You admit you are morbidly obese, you have multiple health problems directly related to obesity, yet you shun the doctors that are trying to help you and others like you to lose weight. Amazing! I posted here…
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Treating Weight First?
The Twitterverse has been busy talking about some new treatment guidelines for fatties. Ragen Chastain posted about a piece from Medscape called “New US Obesity Guidelines: Treat the Weight First,” which also has quotes from the lead author. I also clicked over to the guidelines themselves. They start with an extremely helpful objective, to wit: Objective: To formulate clinical practice guidelines for pharmacological management of obesity. That’s…
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Tests Are In …
I posted before that I’ve been having some medical tests. And that I’m seeing an endocrinologist to treat hypothyroid. Some of you may have seen my tweet about getting a growth hormone test. Turns out I’m deficient in human growth hormone. This may explain why I have less strength, stamina, and endurance than I used to have. I have met with my doc to discuss treatment, and am…
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Bad For My Blood Pressure
First visit at the endocrinologist to treat hypothyroid. Waiting in the lobby with chairs whose arms are a bit too tight. I am weighed. The doctor asks me to sit on the exam table, so I do – no back support, legs dangling. In taking my medical history she asks about my weight history. After more history, the doctor decides to take my blood pressure. While she wraps the…
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Healthy Habits Better Than Statins
You may recall a study from a few years ago about how certain healthy habits — consumption of ≥5 fruits or vegetable/day, regular exercise >12 times/month, moderate alcohol consumption, and not smoking — decreased mortality risk regardless of weight. You may not have seen this part: The results of this study reinforce the association between healthy lifestyle habits and decreased mortality risk regardless of baseline BMI. This finding is…
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Quote of The Day: On Sex
[Warning: rape] I had a conversation with a therapy patient of mine recently that spoke volumes to the problems of living in a rape culture that no longer wants to use the dirty word rape. She told me that she and her best friend (both 19-years-old) frequently endured sex with their boyfriends that involved heavy drug use, painful and coerced anal sex, utter boredom for the women, regular transmission…
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Milestones
So I threw this on twitter, but I’m repeating it here: I’m 48 years old & it’s been over a year since my last period. I’m OK with the first. I’m HAPPY about the second — and yes, it means I’m “officially” considered menopausal. I had a few years of skipping periods in the fall & winter, then getting returning to regularity each summer. I wasn’t entirely…
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Back from Norwescon!
As mentioned on Twitter, I was at Norwescon this weekend! One of the most delightful parts was the interview session with special guest Seanan McGuire, who is also Mira Grant. I don’t have that to share with you, but I do have this from her book tour last fall for her book Parasite (which IS about genetically engineered parasites, and yes, it’s touched on in the video). Minute…
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Wheezing Around the Block
One of the recent rants I moderated out of the comments included something* about how “wheezing around the block doesn’t count as exercise.” Wheezing is a symptom of asthma, bronchitis, sinusitis, pneumonia, and other illness. Deciding that wheezing is only due to weight and only will be treated by weight loss is DANGEROUS. I do wheeze. I have asthma. Now that it is properly treated I can…
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Saturday Ramblings
1am is still Saturday if you haven’t gone to bed yet, right? Note to self: The expensive twice-daily asthma med works best if the evening dose is 12 hours after the morning dose, not 18 or 20. You carry it with you. Set an alarm on your phone & use it. Don’t just turn it off. Kath posted about a current fat acceptance tag on twitter, if you haven’t seen…
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N Things Make a Post
Thanks to This Is Thin Privilege for the shout-out. Jeanette took on the “Obese women get only an hour of exercise a year” thing. …as did This is Thin Privilege. …as did Marilyn Wann and many commenters on Facebook (signin needed). On a personal note, my allergies are bothering me much less since Sunday. Why? I spent over 3 hours Saturday doing “soak, rinse, repeat until the water…
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Tell Me Again How It’s “For My Own Good”
Lara Frater wrote about this and I wanted to boost the signal. The Rudd Center recently came out with a study (PDF link) showing that weight stigma affects the stress hormone cortisol. Exposure to weight-stigmatizing stimuli was associated with greater cortisol reactivity among lean and overweight women. These findings highlight the potentially harmful physiological consequences of exposure to weight stigma. It doesn’t require being fat to have this kind of reaction, by the…
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Health At Every Size Principles
I sometimes post about Health At Every Size®, both the concept (which is trademarked by ASDAH) and the book Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth about Your Weight, by Linda Bacon. So I am pleased to see that ASDAH has updated its HAES® Principles to be more inclusive of different abilities and backgrounds. Weight bias and weight discrimination is explicitly called out. Supporting individual choices is more…
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Things I’m reading
Kath as a post at Fat Heffalump on the feedback from her recent interview by Jasmin Lill on news.com.au, Brisbane blogger speaks out against online bullies. Go Kath! Closet Puritan has a thoughtful response to some of the conflation between “Fat people are more common in communities with a Walmart” and “Eating more processed food from Walmart makes people fat”. This Adipose Rex has some musings on Christianity and the…
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Things to Read
You may have seen this poor as folk post on why poor people might not eat healthy. There’s also a great post on why “healthy food vs junk food” infographics are inaccurate, misleading lies. From Linda Bacon and Lucy Aphramor at the the Health At Every Size® Blog: “Obesity-related” disease actually tracks your social status more than what size clothing you wear. In developed nations, data show,…
Living ~400lbs 