If you buy pre-made herbal tea blends (usually have names like Bedtime, Calm, etc) check the ingredients. I just saw a Nighttime blend that had St. Johns Wort in it, which can be dangerous when mixed with some medications. Talk to you doctor what herbs you should avoid. (Especially when you want to ingest st. Johns wort or mugwort)
A simple hint to remember is just because its in a food store, doesn’t mean its safe.
St. John’s Wort shouldn’t be taken with antidepressants as well as many anti-anxiety meds (such as Xanax)! For a full list see below:
St. John’s Wort reacts with a scary high amount of medications. Seriously. As a pharmacy tech, I’ve learned to notify a pharmacist EVERY TIME someone has some with them/some tea with it in there when they come to pick up their prescriptions. Even if the tea’s not for them or it’s not their own meds, we notify them just as a friendly head’s up.
fellow tea lovers, have each other’s back
Always, ALWAYS check the herbal ingredients against your meds. People recommend St. John’s Wort and valerian to me all the time for insomnia. Guess what herbs are on the “DO NOT CROSS WITH THESE MEDICATIONS NO REALLY WE MEAN IT” list for me?
Check the ingredients.
I mean shit, grapefruit can kill you on some meds
St John’s Wort absolutely interacts and messes with birth control meds, and lowers the protection of the hormones.
Just for once I’d like to tell the gate agents and flight attendants that my folding wheelchair is going into the onboard closet and not have them tell me there’s “no room”. Bitch that’s a wheelchair closet, not a “your bags” closet. Move your damn bags where they belong.
Ok, so according to my friendly aviation expert, this is a Big Fucking Deal. In fact, if an airline argues with you about putting your wheelchair in the wheelchair closet or even suggests there may not be room, unless there is already anotherpassenger’swheelchair in that closet, they have violatedfederallaw.
CFR Title 14, Chapter II, Subchapter D, Part 382, Subpart E, Section 382.67, Subsection (e)
“As a carrier, you must never request or suggest that a passenger not stow his or her wheelchair in the cabin to accommodate other passengers (e.g., informing a passenger that stowing his or her wheelchair in the cabin will require other passengers to be removed from the flight), or for any other non-safety related reason (e.g., that it is easier for the carrier if the wheelchair is stowed in the cargo compartment).”
This is hugely important because it means that if this happens to you, you should report their asses to the DOT. Why? Because these statistics are published every year for every airline, and the airline gets a huge ass fine for every violation. If we want to see change, we need to make airlines literally pay every time they treat us this way.
@annieelainey you should share this with your followers! This is important info!!
To my mutuals on wheels, print out the law before you fly and whip it out at the gate if they don’t accomodate your wheels.
Thanks a lot for posting this, bro! Flying while crippled is already difficult enough without people pulling this kind of shit. Also, make sure that if there is a piece of your wheelchair or something important missing off of it, that you make a big fucking deal out of it! I’ve had pieces fall off of my wheelchair and nearly lost a decoration I had on it that meant a lot to me because people were careless with my chair. Don’t let them mistreat your wheelchair.
Non-wheelchair folks:
Now that you know, speak up.
You never know when you’re going to see someone who needs an ally.
I was actually looking for this post the other day for someone who was worried about flying with their chair. I can’t remember your username, but here! this is the thing I was talking about!
Former Alaska customer service rep/trainer here:
If you have an electric chair, confirm that they’re NOT going to carry it down the jetway stairs.
They need to drive it to the elevator (this means they might need a 10second tutorial on how to turn it on). But it takes longer to get someone who has access to drive it to the elevator and instead, the baggage crew invariably tries “save time” and manhandle it down those steep, sharp stairs at the back of the jetway and this is how shit gets busted-up and outright broken. Remind the gate agent that your chair needs to go to the elevator to get down to the tarmac.
Quick tutorial: anymore, the baggage crew almost never works directly for the airline. They’re pretty much all contract companies. Meaning, they don’t report to the same people that your gate agents do. They don’t get the same training and the job is so hard that an enormous number of people quit during the week of initial training. I seldom met a ground crew member who actually knew they weren’t supposed to use the stairs.
So it is crucial that the *gate agent* knows and is enforcing the loading policy.
There is little to no contact between the gate agents and the baggage handlers unless we specifically run them down to tell them something (we couldn’t just call them, we had to go physically find them) and it can be difficult to find someone senior enough to help once boarding has begun, so I recommend touching base with your gate agent about it before boarding begins, when possible.
At least on Alaska, it was expressly forbidden for baggage handlers to carry electric wheelchairs down the stairs and it still happened all the goddamn time. If you have to, remind the gate agent that the airline is 100% liable for any damage done to a mobility device. This is true (and also an enormous pain in the ass for you) and sometimes may strike fear into the hearts of a reluctant (read: shitty) agent.
If they cannot/will not confirm, or just seem to deflect or dodge the question, don’t get out of your chair. Sit right there in the bottom of the jetway and tell them that you’ll wait until the crew supervisor arrives with the elevator key (this was always this issue, most of the ground crew didn’t have access so they needed a crew supervisor or an actual airline manager) to surrender your chair. They will probably continue boarding around you, that’s fine–if they did not build enough time into the schedule to properly load the aircraft, that’s their fault, not yours.
It deeply angers me that you have to be so knowledgeable about every tiny damn policy just to do something as simple as board a fucking plane. The only other insight I can give is that after safety, the airlines’ next biggest concern is being on-time so if you’re not being heard or helped:
Make. Them. Wait.
Agents deal with distressed people all day. Getting screamed at or cried on can happen dozens of times a day (and for most people, think 10-12 hour days). Some agents get hardened to passengers’ distress as a coping mechanism (or just because they suck, that’s true sometimes, too). But they all have a manager breathing down their neck to push planes on time. Very few non-safety problems will get addressed as quickly and concisely as one that is threatening to delay a departure.
I think I’ve reblogged this post in past but new info has been added
I was definitely a profit killer when I worked in a pharmacy (which honestly was my favorite job in the entire world, but it was short-lived and nowadays you can’t work at a pharmacy like that, it’s all tied in with corporate retail and no one should ever trust me with a cash register ever). It was not, however, actually a profit killer for the pharmacy, just for the drug companies, so no one cared. These days I do medical billing, which means I actually bill OUT from hospitals so I’m mostly spending my professional time taking money away from insurance companies.
I will now impart all of my profit killing resources onto you, in case you don’t know them. I think most of you know them, now. But just in case you don’t.
THIS IS US-CENTRIC. I’M SORRY.
1. GoodRx – this thing has an app now, so you can look up the best places to get your expensive medicines at the lowest possible prices without insurance on the go, and you no longer have to print coupons because you can just hand over your phone or tablet. Times have changed for the better with GoodRx. Definitely use it before trying to fill your scrip, because it will tell you the best place to go. (You can do that on the website, too.)
2. NeedyMeds– Needymeds is basically the clearinghouse of drug payment assistance. They have their own discount cards, but also connections to many patient assistance programs run by drug companies themselves. They are good assistance programs, too.
3. Ask your county – This is not a link. This is a pro tip. Most county social services will have pharmacy discount programs for people with no and/or shitty pharmaceutical coverage. You can often just find them hanging around at social services offices; you can just pick one up and walk off with it.
4. Ordering online – There are a few safe online pharmacies. I keep a little database in a text file on my computer. Most of them are courtesy of CFS forums, my mother or voidbat, so a lot of that is a hat tip to other people, but if you’re in need of a place to get a drug without a prescription … first I’ll make sure you 100% know what you’re doing for safety reasons and then I’m happy to turn over a link.
5. Healthfinder– A government resource that helps find patient assistance programs in your area. This might also point out the convenient county card thing. RxHope is something a lot of people get pointed to via Healthfinder that’s a good program.
6. Mental Health America – Keeps a list of their best PAPs for psychiatric medications, which can be some of the most expensive and a lot of pharmacy plans don’t cover them at all.
This is so important ppl.
Signal boost the shit out of it!
Booooooooooooooooooost
Good Rx Saved my family a hundred dollars a month while I was getting signed up for CHIP seriously it’s a life savor especially for ridiculously expensive drugs like abilify
Useful info, friends! 😉
Since many of our followers are on medications, I feel like this would be an important resource. -Luna
Also! Some drug companies have patient assistance programs where they send you the drug for FREE if you are uninsured, or if your insurance doesn’t cover that drug.
Do a Google search for “patient assistant programs” + (your med), or search the manufacturers website. Sometimes the info is online; other times you have to call.
Even some of the big name pharma companies have this. It’s certainly not all companies, or all meds, but it is worth a shot.
Before Obamacare, I lost insurance and couldn’t pay for my mood stabilizers (kiiiiinda important to have those when you’re bipolar.) I was on generic Lamictal, but I went to the official Lamictal website, filled out a form with a valid prescription, and they mailed my meds to me every month for free.
If you know anything about bipolar disease, you know that that was a literal life saver. Patient assistance programs ftw!
Some eaiser variations of push ups to help you build the strength to do a traditional one!
I was always frustrated how my P.E. teachers wanted all of us to go “all-or-none” and basically hurt ourselves without letting us build up from square-one like in the first gif. Then they’d fuckin yell at us for not doing it right >:|
Knee-pushups is not square-one.
When I got my first personal trainer, she had me doing push ups almost standing upright in the weight lifting bars so that I could do 15 reps and 3 sets of them. It’s more about the technique of the push up, and if you’re pushing too much weight, you can’t exersize the correct muscles within their tolerances. This post is pretty important to know cause of that.
I’m reblogging this here because as someone who spends almost the entire day on bedrest, it is incredibly difficult to find exercises I can do at my strength level.
Please ignore this if it is not for you. I know that exercise is not for everyone or every illness.
Loads of reps of something gentle can work your muscles pretty hardcore if you do enough of them.
Part of intro to P90X (DEATH TRAINING) is just standing, making a fist with each hand, holding your arms perpendicular to your body (like a kid ‘flying’ around as an airplane) and then moving your arms in tight circles for a minute, then reversing direction of the circles for a minute, then doing BIG, slow circles for a minute, then repeating the reversed version that. Like, full ‘60 seconds’ ‘minute’
At first its like ‘lol just my arms whatever I can do this all day’ and then it turns into ‘omg my arms are going to fall off this is terrible gravity plz no’
Also, water bottles can serve as light dumbells for gentle repetitive lifting (bro do you even lift) if you don’t want to dump cash into exercising. Having a bit of air in the bottle will help your forearm no matter what you do, as you try to keep it steady.
Laying on your back and lifting one leg up – just keeping it hovering over the ground with your toe pointed can work your abs. Hovering both legs at the same time is harder. Hovering both legs while making little ‘swimming kicks’ is stupid and i hate ithard.
Hell, even just tensing your abs and keeping them tensed for periods during the day will work them – no need to flail around a ton, or set aside a bunch of time for it.
This! Even if your muscles atrophy so severely you can’t fight gravity—and mine have, bring bedridden for six weeks will do that—you can still exercise and get stronger. (And if/when you do finally get strong enough to lift $bodypart against gravity it feels AWESOME. Everyone can see that you did it, including you. Take that, gravity!)
I go to a yoga class for disabled people, so some people are doing chair yoga, some mat yoga, some against the wall
and some days I’ve done all of those – and my teacher repeats this a lot
your body is not a machine – it is constantly changing, and you’re going to have good days and bad days
so if you normally can do 100 reps and one day you can just do 80 – that’s not a bad thing, you’re not letting yourself down, maybe the next day your form will be crisper and you can do more, or maybe it’ll be 80 again, you do as much as you are comfortable doing, because every little helps
if it aches a bit that’s not bad – but if it hurts stop
For PE in middle school, one of our warm ups was the arm circles mentioned above. One day some kid decided to claim to the teacher that it wasn’t exercise. Instead of scolding him, the teacher goes, “okay, then you wont have a problem if we continue doing them.” Needless to say, the rest of the class was not too happy with him that day.
London-based student Lewis Hornby is a grandson on a mission. When he noticed that his dementia-afflicted grandmother was having trouble staying hydrated, he came up with Jelly Drops—bite-sized pods of edible water that look just like tasty treats.
Each of these colorful “candies” is made up of mostly water, with gelling agents and electrolytes making up just 10% of their composition. Available in a rainbow of colors and presented in packaging reminiscent of a box of chocolates, Jelly Drops are an easy and engaging way to avoid dehydration—a common problem for those suffering from degenerative neurological diseases.
“It is very easy for people with dementia to become dehydrated,” he explains. “Many no longer feel thirst, don’t know how to quench thirst, or don’t have the dexterity to drink.” With this in mind, Hornby set out to find a solution. In addition to seeking advice from psychologists and doctors, he opted to “experience” life with dementia himself through the use of virtual reality tools and a week in a care home.
Once he was familiar with what dementia patients need, he brainstormed what they want. “From my observations, people with dementia find eating much easier than drinking. Even still, it can be difficult to engage and encourage them to eat. I found the best way to overcome this is to offer them a treat! This format excites people with dementia, they instantly recognize it and know how to interact with it.”
Case in point? Hornby’s own grandmother’s reaction: “When first offered, grandma ate seven Jelly Drops in 10 minutes, the equivalent to a cup full of water—something that would usually take hours and require much more assistance.”
Second of all, I’d like to remind everyone that Jell-o counts as a fluid.
That is, many doctors prescript Jell-o, and Gelatin treats to children and adults who, for whatever reason, have trouble keeping hydrated. Maybe they have jaw issues. Maybe dementia, or they are on a fluid-only diet and drinking broth for weeks is mind-boggling boring.
Jell-o brand in particular has a lot of sugar added to the packets, however it’s quite straightforward to buy plain gelatin and make low-sugar jelly blobs to snack on for that sweet fruit-pop of hydration.
Soo~ Here we goooo~
2 cups juice – Orange juice, grape juice, whatever you want.
Fuck, you could even use your favorite blend of tea, or coffee (though coffee,
in my experience, needs a little more gelatin to set properly)
Low heat until juice is hot, but before it starts to boil – once
you see a bit of bubbles rising, add 2 tablespoons gelatin, and stir gelatin into hot
juice until totally dissolved.
Turn off heat
Add another cup and a half of juice (or whatever), stir for
another minute or so, then pour into a mold.
You could pour it into ice cube trays, a Tupperware container,
or any sort of silicone candy mold.
Cover it, stick in the fridge overnight, and viola~
Bite-sized taste snacks, full of water.
Gelatin is broken down very easily and put to use once in
your gut, so it’s fine to eat loads of it, and otherwise you’re just taking mouthfuls of juice… or tea or
whatever.
If you want it a bit more sweet, feel free to add sugar or honey to your hot juice… or hot…whatever…
I was pondering about the guy’s electrolytes worked and now I’m paralyzed with the idea of turning Gatorade into jell-o.
Don’t use pineapple juice for this!!! The enzymes break down the gelatin and you’ll be left with soup.
Right on, forgot about that! Kiwi, Pineapple, Figs, Ginger, Guava, and Papaya have an enzyme that flips the bird to gelatin.
Apple, Grape, Strawberries, Orange, Cherries, Blueberries, Blackberries, Lemons, Peaches, Raspberries, and Cranberries all make great gelatin snacks, though.
So I was taught a lesson in how to get rid of a migraine in 30 seconds and omfg listen my migraines don’t go away ever but I was shown what part of my body to touch and like???????????????
It’s witchcraft????????? Like I would be burned at the stake if I lived in ye olde days knowing that information?????
What the fuck??????
Spill it! Lol….Hooooowwwww?? Had migraines since age 9….😓😓😓
Its called the T4 push, but I literally can’t find the info online????? I guess I’m not searching good enough? These medical fuckers are holdin out on us lol.
It’s best to have someone do this for you while you stand up and relax your muscles as best you can, but if you’re alone, a tennis ball and a flat surface will probably work. Alternatively you can lie on the edge of a bed at the pressure point. (But no really do try to find someone to do it for you)
Find the area in your spine between either the first, second, third, or fourth vertebrae. It should be sore and uncomfortable to press down on, so look for the one that’s most painful, and press down with as much pressure as you can on that area for 30 seconds.
Realize that 80% of your pain has magically disappeared and keep the info secret if you live in a small puritan town, lest you be tried for witchcraft.
If you don’t have to worry about being burned or hanged, then share the info with your migraine suffering friends.
As someone who wrote a 10k word paper on pressure points for a high belt ranking test in her martial arts class, I can tell you that you just found a pressure point used in acupressure and acupuncture to relieve pain, particularly that in the head. 🙂
Hand to god we discovered this by accident when my husband was rubbing my neck and I nearly collapsed it felt so good
This post was sent by literal angels??? I’ve had a persistent low-level headache for nearly 24hrs and now it’s gone??? In 30 seconds? What gods did you sacrifice to for this information!?!?
As a medical massage therapist, I thought I would give my two cents.
This is good for tension migranes and normal migraines, but actually pretty useless for sinus migraines. It’ll help for a hot second, but quickly come back. (These are usually the migraines behind your eyes, in your ears, and behind your forehead. Sometimes it can feel like jaw pain or TMJ) for sinus migraines, behind the ear in a divot. Press down firmly and pull towards your collarbone. That’ll drain your sinuses. Also, pressing around the eye socket on the cheekbones help. There is also a little triangle up away from the eye in the eyebrow bone. Press and hold pretty hard and that’ll relieve that behind the forehead pain. Also, ear pulling is great to help move sinuses around.
Don’t forget the temples too! Press firmly and hold. Open and close your jaw while holding your temples. It’ll feel weird, but it’ll help with jaw pain. It’ll work a similar way if you hold the jaw joint under your cheekbone.
And never underestimate the power of a foot massage!! Give minutes can be all the difference!! Our feet are our base. If they hurt even a little, somewhere else in your body will hurt. Treat your feet and sinuses kindly!
As a lifelong sufferer from frequent migraines I will reblog this everytime I see it, for myself and my fellow sufferers!!
I remember reading somewhere that in Iceland, only 2-3 babies with Down Syndrome are born each year. The rest are aborted, just because they have Down Syndrome. It’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard of. I also heard of a mother whose doctor detected DS in her baby and SUGGESTED an abortion over anything else. Obviously, she replied “Heck no!” She said in an interview that she was absolutely mortified that her doctor even suggested that.
I also watched a documentary about parents with children who have severe cerebral palsy. All of the comments said “Thier bodies are just shells. They don’t deserve to live.”
Pre natal scans for Autism are being pushed for. And that most likely means more abortions to come.
This is the world we live in. People literally think that we don’t deserve to live just because we have an extra chromosome, or our brains work differently, or we can’t move our muscles. This is the world that ableist people have built, and pride themselves for “improving humanity.” But they’re not improving humanity. If anything, they’ve proved they’re inhumanity to the world by spouting such nonsense. By saying we don’t deserve to live. By supporting and even PERFORMING eugenics.
If you’re reading this, please know that you deserve to live. Your disability makes you wonderful and unique, and the world is a better place because you’re here. Don’t listen to the ableists. They’re totally and completely wrong.
For the record, she actually abandoned the movement BEFORE they all got whooping cough, but abandoned it too late. There’d been a breakout of measles in her area that caused her to reassess, and she and her doctor had already drafted and started a catch-up vaccination schedule, but her kids caught whooping cough just before it could be started. Then she wrote a blog post for The Scientific Parent explaining how she and her husband had come to wrong decisions in the first place, how they changed their mind, the consequences they suffered as a result, and asking other parents to please vaccinate their kids. And now she’s an activist for destroying the misinformation of anti-vaxxers, and reaching out to anti-vaxxers because she’s understands their fears but knows their kids deserve better.
She was trying to the best for her kids and just didn’t know how to interpret the validity of information or its sources, an actual skill that can be actually difficult and that is under-taught and a necessary first step to being able to trust vaccination research, so chose no action over taking an action she wasn’t sure of. She kept looking into it with family and friends and even eventually came to the right conclusion before her kids became sick, but it was still too late.
Honestly it was pretty brave of her to publicly admit she was wrong. She could have just quietly vaccinated her kids and not become a national news story, but instead she spoke out, even saying “I’m writing this from quarantine, the irony of which isn’t lost on me.” and also “I am not looking forward to any gloating or shame as this ‘defection’ from the antivaxx camp goes public, but, this isn’t a popularity contest. Right now my family is living the consequences of misinformation and fear. I understand that families in our community may be mad at us for putting their kids at risk.”
She understood the consequences and still put herself and her story out there.
You know what, it does take a big person to admit they were wrong so publicly and work to undo the harm. I believe I made fun of her in the past, but timemachineyeah changed my mind.
My face is having uncontrollable spasms. Great. It hurts really, really, really bad.
I think part of why I have trouble explaining pain to the doctor is when they ask about the pain scale I always think “Well, if someone threw me down a flight of stairs right now or punched me a few times, it would definitely hurt a lot more” so I end up saying a low number. I was reading an article that said that “10” is the most commonly reported number and that is baffling to me. When I woke up from surgery with an 8" incision in my body and I could hardly even speak, I was in the most horrific pain of my life but I said “6” because I thought “Well, if you hit me in the stomach, it would be worse.”
I searched and searched for the post this graphic was from, and the OP deactivated, but I kept the graphic, because my BFF does the same thing, uses her imagination to come up with the worst pain she can imagine and pegs her “10″ there, and so is like, well, I’m conscious, so this must be a 5, and then the doctors don’t take her seriously. (And she then does things like driving herself to the hospital while in the process of giving birth. Probably should have called an ambulance for that one!)
So I found this and sent it to her. Because this is what they want to know: how badly is this pain affecting you? Not on a scale of “nothing” to “how I’d imagine it’d feel if bears were eating my still-living guts while I was on fire”.
I hate reposting stuff, but I’ll never find that post again and OP is deactivated, so, here’s a repost. I can delete this later, i just wanted to get it to you and I can’t embed images in a chat or an ask.
This is possibly why it took several weeks to diagnose my fractured spine.
Pain Scale transcription:
10 – I am in bed and I can’t move due to my pain. I need someone to take me to the emergency room because of my pain.
9 – My pain is all that I can think about. I can barely move or talk because of my pain.
8 – My pain is so severe that it is difficult to think of anything else. Talking and listening are difficult.
7 – I am in pain all the time. It keeps me from doing most activities.
6 – I think about my pain all of the time. I give up many activities because of my pain.
5 – I think about my pain most of the time. I cannot do some of the activities I need to do each day because of the pain.
4 – I am constantly aware of my pain but can continue most activities.
3 – My pain bothers me but I can ignore it most of the time.
2 – I have a low level of pain. I am aware of my pain only when I pay attention to it.
1 – My pain is hardly noticeable.
0 – I have no pain.
It’s also really important to get this kind of scale to people who have chronic pain, because chronic pain drastically lowers your perception of how “bad” any kind of pain actually is, and yet something like this pain scale is extremely user friendly.
For example, if someone asked me how much pain I’m in at any given time, I’d say hardly any, and yet I’m apparently at a chronic 2.5, and it only goes up from there depending on the day.
XI's Archived Tumblr Blog 