charlz_lynn (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
charlz_lynn) wrote2009-02-24 12:01 pm
charlz_lynn) wrote2009-02-24 12:01 pm
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I had a really horrible night of sleep last night. I don't know why I didn't take Ibuprofen when the cramps started. Well, okay, yes I do. I wanted them to go away. I wanted it to just be spotting, not a full-on period, and i wanted to be fully in touch with my body and what level of pain was going on. So, I had cramps, I slept from 6-9, then got up and had dinner. Went back to sleep at midnight-ish, fully aware that this was a whole period, but not cramping too much. Since I quit drinking caffeine I haven't had very horrible cramps at all. Just an hour or so of dull ache and then nothing. This is huge for me. But this was not the case yesterday. I was so uncomfortable all night. Holy shit. In and out of sleep, moaning, in tons of pain, sweating... and still I don't get up and take drugs. Finally, when my mom was getting ready for work at 5am I rolled ut of bed, buttered a piece of bread, and took 4 ibuprofen with a glass of water. I went back to bed. Just after the sun came up I fell asleep soundly until 10:30. Whew. I needed it.
Lately I don't want to take anything. No caffeine, no alcohol, no pain killers of any sort. I like this new way. I need to, of course, apply this way to the mass quantities of sugar I've been consuming, but... all in good time.
On another note: I've been obsessively listening to Radio Lab. I just finished the show titled "Diagnosis" and in the last part of the show, they discuss how in the 20's, scientists diagnosed SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) as being the effect of an enlarged thymus gland.Status Thymeco Lymphaticus (sp?). So, they started shrinking their thymus glands by erradiating the throats of babies. And then 20 years later, the children whose loving, concerned parents had taken them to have their thyroids shrunken, died of thyroid cancer. 20-30,000 people! And, as it turns out, SIDS is not the effect of an enlarged thymus....
In the 1700s, when med schools started to pop up, the schools needed bodies to dissect. Cadavers. There was no system in place for procuring cadavers, so people were robbing graves. The graves of poor people, without fancy coffins, barely buried, easily accesible... There were riots, and then there were laws made about where cadavers should come from. So, naturally, anyone who died in a poor house would have their body given over to science.
So... the point? All the thymus glands that medical researchers had seen before they started dissecting SIDS babies had belonged to poor people. This is significant because, as a report in 1936 showed, being poor "... actually warps your body." If you are poor you are constantly under stress, which messes with your immune system. Job, food, rent, bills... Chronic stress, by messing with your immune system, shrinks your thymus gland!! So, the thing was not that the babies had enlarged thymus glands.. no. It was that they had been looking at shrunken thymus glands of poor people.
I love Radio Lab.
Lately I don't want to take anything. No caffeine, no alcohol, no pain killers of any sort. I like this new way. I need to, of course, apply this way to the mass quantities of sugar I've been consuming, but... all in good time.
On another note: I've been obsessively listening to Radio Lab. I just finished the show titled "Diagnosis" and in the last part of the show, they discuss how in the 20's, scientists diagnosed SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) as being the effect of an enlarged thymus gland.Status Thymeco Lymphaticus (sp?). So, they started shrinking their thymus glands by erradiating the throats of babies. And then 20 years later, the children whose loving, concerned parents had taken them to have their thyroids shrunken, died of thyroid cancer. 20-30,000 people! And, as it turns out, SIDS is not the effect of an enlarged thymus....
In the 1700s, when med schools started to pop up, the schools needed bodies to dissect. Cadavers. There was no system in place for procuring cadavers, so people were robbing graves. The graves of poor people, without fancy coffins, barely buried, easily accesible... There were riots, and then there were laws made about where cadavers should come from. So, naturally, anyone who died in a poor house would have their body given over to science.
So... the point? All the thymus glands that medical researchers had seen before they started dissecting SIDS babies had belonged to poor people. This is significant because, as a report in 1936 showed, being poor "... actually warps your body." If you are poor you are constantly under stress, which messes with your immune system. Job, food, rent, bills... Chronic stress, by messing with your immune system, shrinks your thymus gland!! So, the thing was not that the babies had enlarged thymus glands.. no. It was that they had been looking at shrunken thymus glands of poor people.
I love Radio Lab.