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cripplecharacters · 2 months

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Where to Start Your Research When Writing a Disabled Character

[large text: Where to Start Your Research When Writing a Disabled Character]

So you have decided that you want to make a disabled character! Awesome. But what's next? What information should you decide on at the early phrase of making the character?

This post will only talk about the disability part of the character creation process. Obviously, a disabled character needs a personality, interests, and backstory as every other one. But by including their disability early in the process, you can actually get it to have a deeper effect on the character - disability shouldn't be their whole life, but it should impact it. That's what disabilities do.

If you don't know what disability you would want to give them in the first place;

[large text: If you don't know what disability you would want to give them in the first place;]

Start broad. Is it sensory, mobility related, cognitive, developmental, autoimmune, neurodegenerative; maybe multiple of these, or maybe something else completely? Pick one and see what disabilities it encompasses; see if anything works for your character. Or...

If you have a specific symptom or aid in mind, see what could cause them. Don't assume or guess; not every wheelchair user is vaguely paralyzed below the waist with no other symptoms, not everyone with extensive scarring got it via physical trauma. Or...

Consider which disabilities are common in real life. Cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, stroke, cataracts, diabetes, intellectual disability, neuropathy, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, thyroid disorders, autism, dwarfism, arthritis, cancers, brain damage, just to name a few.

Decide what specific type of condition they will have. If you're thinking about them having albinism, will it be ocular, oculocutaneous, or one of the rare syndrome-types? If you want to give them spinal muscular atrophy, which of the many possible onsets will they have? If they have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which one out of the 13 different types do they have? Is their amputation below, or above the knee (it's a major difference)? Not all conditions will have subtypes, but it's worth looking into to not be surprised later. This will help you with further research.

If you're really struggling with figuring out what exact disability would make sense for your character, you can send an ask. Just make sure that you have tried the above and put actual specifics in your ask to give us something to work with. You can also check out our "disabled character ideas" tag.

Here are some ideas for a character using crutches.

Here are some ideas for a character with a facial difference (obligatory link: what is a facial difference?).

If you already know what disability your character is going to have;

[large text: If you already know what disability your character is going to have;]

Start by reading about the onset and cause of the condition. It could be acquired, congenital, progressive, potentially multiple of these. They could be caused by an illness, trauma, or something else entirely. Is your character a congenital amputee, or is it acquired? If acquired - how recently? Has it been a week, or 10 years? What caused them to become disabled - did they have meningitis, or was it an accident? Again, check what your options are - there are going to be more diverse than you expect.

Read about the symptoms. Do not assume or guess what they are. You will almost definitely discover something new. Example: a lot of people making a character with albinism don't realize that it has other symptoms than just lack of melanin, like nystagmus, visual impairment, and photophobia. Decide what your character experiences, to what degree, how frequently, and what do they do (or don't do) to deal with it.

Don't give your character only the most "acceptable" symptoms of their disability and ignore everything else. Example: many writers will omit the topic of incontinence in their para- and tetraplegic characters, even though it's extremely common. Don't shy away from aspects of disability that aren't romanticized.

Don't just... make them abled "because magic". If they're Deaf, don't give them some ability that will make them into an essentially hearing person. Don't give your blind character some "cheat" so that they can see, give them a cane. Don't give an amputee prosthetics that work better than meat limbs. To have a disabled character you need to have a character that's actually disabled. There's no way around it.

Think about complications your character could experience within the story. If your character wears their prosthetic a lot, they might start to experience skin breakdown or pain. Someone who uses a wheelchair a lot has a risk of pressure sores. Glowing and Flickering Fantasy Item might cause problems for someone photophobic or photosensitive. What do they do when that happens, or how do they prevent that from happening?

Look out for comorbidities. It's rare for disabled people to only have one medical condition and nothing else. Disabilities like to show up in pairs. Or dozens.

If relevant, consider mobility aids, assistive devices, and disability aids. Wheelchairs, canes, rollators, braces, AAC, walkers, nasal cannulas, crutches, white canes, feeding tubes, braillers, ostomy bags, insulin pumps, service dogs, trach tubes, hearing aids, orthoses, splints... the list is basically endless, and there's a lot of everyday things that might count as a disability aid as well - even just a hat could be one for someone whose disability requires them to stay out of the sun. Make sure that it's actually based on symptoms, not just your assumptions - most blind people don't wear sunglasses, not all people with SCI use a wheelchair, upper limb prosthetics aren't nearly as useful as you think. Decide which ones your character could have, how often they would use them, and if they switch between different aids.

Basically all of the above aids will have subtypes or variants. There is a lot of options. Does your character use an active manual wheelchair, a powerchair, or a generic hospital wheelchair? Are they using high-, or low-tech AAC? What would be available to them? Does it change over the course of their story, or their life in general?

If relevant, think about what treatment your character might receive. Do they need medication? Physical therapy? Occupational therapy? Orientation and mobility training? Speech therapy? Do they have access to it, and why or why not?

What is your character's support system? Do they have a carer; if yes, then what do they help your character with and what kind of relationship do they have? Is your character happy about it or not at all?

How did their life change after becoming disabled? If your character goes from being an extreme athlete to suddenly being a full-time wheelchair user, it will have an effect - are they going to stop doing sports at all, are they going to just do extreme wheelchair sports now, or are they going to try out wheelchair table tennis instead? Do they know and respect their new limitations? Did they have to get a different job or had to make their house accessible? Do they have support in this transition, or are they on their own - do they wish they had that support?

What about *other* characters? Your character isn't going to be the only disabled person in existence. Do they know other disabled people? Do they have a community? If your character manages their disability with something that's only available to them, what about all the other people with the same disability?

What is the society that your character lives in like? Is the architecture accessible? How do they treat disabled people? Are abled characters knowledgeable about disabilities? How many people speak the local sign language(s)? Are accessible bathrooms common, or does your character have to go home every few hours? Is there access to prosthetists and ocularists, or what do they do when their prosthetic leg or eye requires the routine check-up?

Know the tropes. If a burn survivor character is an evil mask-wearer, if a powerchair user is a constantly rude and ungrateful to everyone villain, if an amputee is a genius mechanic who fixes their own prosthetics, you have A Trope. Not all tropes are made equal; some are actively harmful to real people, while others are just annoying or boring by the nature of having been done to death. During the character creation process, research what tropes might apply and just try to trace your logic. Does your blind character see the future because it's a common superpower in their world, or are you doing the ancient "Blind Seer" trope?

Remember, that not all of the above questions will come up in your writing, but to know which ones won't you need to know the answers to them first. Even if you don't decide to explicitly name your character's condition, you will be aware of what they might function like. You will be able to add more depth to your character if you decide that they have T6 spina bifida, rather than if you made them into an ambiguous wheelchair user with ambiguous symptoms and ambiguous needs. Embrace research as part of your process and your characters will be better representation, sure, but they will also make more sense and seem more like actual people; same with the world that they are a part of.

This post exists to help you establish the basics of your character's disability so that you can do research on your own and answer some of the most common ("what are symptoms of x?") questions by yourself. If you have these things already established, it will also be easier for us to answer any possible questions you might have - e.g. "what would a character with complete high-level paraplegia do in a world where the modern kind of wheelchair has not been invented yet?" is much more concise than just "how do I write a character with paralysis?" - I think it's more helpful for askers as well; a vague answer won't be much help, I think.

I hope that this post is helpful!

Mod Sasza

#mod sasza #writing reference #writing advice #writing resources #writeblr #writing disabled characters #writing resource #long post #writing tips #writing guide

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theid0loftimeandspace · 1 year

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italians give themselves too much credit for food bruh that's the mediterranean you're borrowing from ...........

#pasta is objectively shit tier food #enjoy your insulin spikes and early onset of diabetes

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reasonsforhope · 2 months

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When Swiss cardiologist Thomas F. Lüscher attended an international symposium in Turin, Italy, last summer, he encountered an unusual “attendee:” Suzanne, Chat GPT’s medical “assistant.” Suzanne’s developers were eager to demonstrate to the specialists how well their medical chatbot worked, and they asked the cardiologists to test her.

An Italian cardiology professor told the chatbot about the case of a 27-year-old patient who was taken to his clinic in unstable condition. The patient had a massive fever and drastically increased inflammation markers. Without hesitation, Suzanne diagnosed adult-onset Still’s disease. “I almost fell off my chair because she was right,” Lüscher remembers. “This is a very rare autoinflammatory disease that even seasoned cardiologists don’t always consider.”

Lüscher — director of research, education and development and consultant cardiologist at the Royal Brompton & Harefield Hospital Trust and Imperial College London and director of the Center for Molecular Cardiology at the University of Zürich, Switzerland — is convinced that artificial intelligence is making cardiovascular medicine more accurate and effective. “AI is not only the future, but it is already here,” he says. “AI and machine learning are particularly accurate in image analysis, and imaging plays an outsize role in cardiology. AI is able to see what we don’t see. That’s impressive.”

At the Royal Brompton Hospital in London, for instance, his team relies on AI to calculate the volume of heart chambers in MRIs, an indication of heart health. “If you calculate this manually, you need about half an hour,” Lüscher says. “AI does it in a second.”

AI-Assisted Medicine

Few patients are aware of how significantly AI is already determining their health care. The Washington Post tracks the start of the boom of artificial intelligence in health care to 2018. That’s when the Food and Drug Administration approved the IDx-DR, the first independent AI-based diagnostic tool, which is used to screen for diabetic retinopathy. Today, according to the Post, the FDA has approved nearly 700 artificial intelligence and machine learning-enabled medical devices.

The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, is considered the worldwide leader in implementing AI for cardiovascular care, not least because it can train its algorithms with the (anonymized) data of more than seven million electrocardiograms (ECG). “Every time a patient undergoes an ECG, various algorithms that are based on AI show us on the screen which diagnoses to consider and which further tests are recommended,” says Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, director of the Mayo Clinic’s Cardiovascular Health Clinic. “The AI takes into account all the factors known about the patient, whether his potassium is high, etc. For example, we have an AI-based program that calculates the biological age of a person. If the person in front of me is [calculated to have a biological age] 10 years older than his birth age, I can probe further. Are there stressors that burden him?”

Examples where AI makes a sizable difference at the Mayo Clinic include screening ECGs to detect specific heart diseases, such as ventricular dysfunction or atrial fibrillation, earlier and more reliably than the human eye. These conditions are best treated early, but without AI, the symptoms are largely invisible in ECGs until later, when they have already progressed further...

Antioniades’ team at the University of Oxford’s Radcliffe Department of Medicine analyzed data from over 250,000 patients who underwent cardiac CT scans in eight British hospitals. “Eighty-two percent of the patients who presented with chest pain had CT scans that came back as completely normal and were sent home because doctors saw no indication for a heart disease,” Antioniades says. “Yet two-thirds of them had an increased risk to suffer a heart attack within the next 10 years.” In a world-first pilot, his team developed an AI tool that detects inflammatory changes in the fatty tissues surrounding the arteries. These changes are not visible to the human eye. But after training on thousands of CT scans, AI learned to detect them and predict the risk of heart attacks. “We had a phase where specialists read the scans and we compared their diagnosis with the AI’s,” Antioniades explains. “AI was always right.” These results led to doctors changing the treatment plans for hundreds of patients. “The key is that we can treat the inflammatory changes early and prevent heart attacks,” according to Antioniades.

The British National Health Service (NHS) has approved the AI tool, and it is now used in five public hospitals. “We hope that it will soon be used everywhere because it can help prevent thousands of heart attacks every year,” Antioniades says. A startup at Oxford University offers a service that enables other clinics to send their CT scans in for analysis with Oxford’s AI tool.

Similarly, physician-scientists at the Smidt Heart Institute and the Division of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles use AI to analyze echograms. They created an algorithm that can effectively identify and distinguish between two life-threatening heart conditions that are easy to overlook: hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and cardiac amyloidosis. “These two heart conditions are challenging for even expert cardiologists to accurately identify, and so patients often go on for years to decades before receiving a correct diagnosis,” David Ouyang, cardiologist at the Smidt Heart Institute, said in a press release. “This is a machine-beats-man situation. AI makes the sonographer work faster and more efficiently, and it doesn’t change the patient experience. It’s a triple win.”

Current Issues with AI Medicine

However, using artificial intelligence in clinical settings has disadvantages, too. “Suzanne has no empathy,” Lüscher says about his experience with Chat GPT. “Her responses have to be verified by a doctor. She even says that after every diagnosis, and has to, for legal reasons.”

Also, an algorithm is only as accurate as the information with which it was trained. Lüscher and his team cured an AI tool of a massive deficit: Women’s risk for heart attacks wasn’t reliably evaluated because the AI had mainly been fed with data from male patients. “For women, heart attacks are more often fatal than for men,” Lüscher says. “Women also usually come to the clinic later. All these factors have implications.” Therefore, his team developed a more realistic AI prognosis that improves the treatment of female patients. “We adapted it with machine learning and it now works for women and men,” Lüscher explains. “You have to make sure the cohorts are large enough and have been evaluated independently so that the algorithms work for different groups of patients and in different countries.” His team made the improved algorithm available online so other hospitals can use it too...

[Lopez-Jimenez at the Mayo Clinic] tells his colleagues and patients that the reliability of AI tools currently lies at 75 to 93 percent, depending on the specific diagnosis. “Compare that with a mammogram that detects breast tumors with an accuracy of 85 percent,” Lopez-Jimenez says. “But because it’s AI, people expect 100 percent. That simply does not exist in medicine.”

And of course, another challenge is that few people have the resources and good fortune to become patients at the world’s most renowned clinics with state-of-the-art technology.

What Comes Next

“One of my main goals is to make this technology available to millions,” Lopez-Jimenez says. He mentions that Mayo is trying out high-tech stethoscopes to interpret heart signals with AI. “The idea is that a doctor in the Global South can use it to diagnose cardiac insufficiency,” Lopez-Jimenez explains. “It is already being tested in Nigeria, the country with the highest rate of genetic cardiac insufficiency in Africa. The results are impressively accurate.”

The Mayo Clinic is also working with doctors in Brazil to diagnose Chagas disease with the help of AI reliably and early. “New technology is always more expensive at the beginning,” Lopez-Jimenez cautions, “but in a few years, AI will be everywhere and it will make diagnostics cheaper and more accurate.”

And the Children’s National Hospital in Washington developed a portable AI device that is currently being tested to screen children in Uganda for rheumatic heart disease, which kills about 400,000 people a year worldwide. The new tool reportedly has an accuracy of 90 percent.

Both Lopez-Jimenez and Lüscher are confident that AI tools will continue to improve. “One advantage is that a computer can analyze images at 6 a.m. just as systematically as after midnight,” Lüscher points out. “A computer doesn’t get tired or have a bad day, whereas sometimes radiologists overlook significant symptoms. AI learns something and never forgets it.”

-via Reasons to Be Cheerful, March 1, 2024. Headers added by me.

Note:

Okay, so I'm definitely not saying that everything with AI medicine will go right, and there won't be any major issues. That's definitely not the case (the article talks about some of those issues). But regulation around medicines is generally pretty tight, and

And if it goes right, this could be HUGE for disabled people, chronically ill people, and people with any of the unfortunately many marginalizations that make doctors less likely to listen.

This could shave years off of the time it takes people to get the right diagnosis. It could get answers for so many people struggling with unknown diseases and chronic illness. If we compensate correctly, it could significantly reduce the role of bias in medicine. It could also make testing so much faster.

(There's a bunch of other articles about all of the ways that AI diagnoses are proving more sensitive and more accurate than doctors. This really is the sort of thing that AI is actually good at - data evaluation and science, not art and writing.)

This decade really is, for many different reasons, the beginning of the next revolution in medicine. Luckily, medicine is mostly pretty well-regulated - and of course that means very long testing phases. I think we'll begin to really see the fruits of this revolution in the next 10 to 15 years.

#confession I always struggle a lil bit with taking the mayo clinic seriously #because every. single. time I see it mentioned my first thought is mayonnaise #the mayonnaise clinic #lol

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gatheringbones · 11 months

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[“For some of us, taking a deep breath and a moment to reframe or refocus our thoughts after an upsetting event will be enough to halt our physiological stress response. However, members of populations subject to weathering are rarely—if ever—responding to a single acute stressor. Their bodies are in constant biopsychosocial motion fulfilling their many and compelling responsibilities, which also steals their chances of having “me time.”

A 2004 ethnography of low-income mothers in Chicago (Black, white, and Latina) described the complex puzzle that many face to meet the basic daily necessities for their families. Mothers commuted up to five hours a day (and rarely less than two hours), facing severe weather conditions and patching together the meandering routes of their underfunded public transportation systems. Long wait times and limited hours of availability at public-aid offices meant missing meals in order to navigate their schedules successfully. Not only was their discretionary time scarce compared to their more affluent counterparts, but the consequences of missed obligations were dire. The investigators wrote, “Mothers who received TANF benefits [Temporary Assistance to Needy Families],” for example, “faced work requirements that often did not take into account changing circumstances. If they showed up late for work because of sudden illnesses or emergencies, they often were docked prime hours or even fired. Changing family circumstances had continuing repercussions because public benefits could be cut or terminated when employment was lost.”

All in all, these strangling time constraints meant drastically reduced sleep, less family time, and less time to unwind from the day—the cruel irony being that more-structured stress meant less time to decompress. Two-thirds of the study sample led such “highly challenging” lives. One participant averred she “could never get a break.” Another observed, “With working, the kids, and cleaning, […] you just ‘do’ until you can just sit in a chair and nod off.”

Another study of low-income mothers (Black, white, and Latina), using data from the same ambitious three-cities ethnography, exemplifies the kind of extraordinary stresses and choices faced in the communities most subjected to weathering. Francine, a thirty-year-old mother of three, had no time to attend to her own stomach cancer diagnosis because she had to attend to her asthmatic son, as well as her mother who recently suffered a stroke and heart attack at the age of fifty. Lourdes, a thirty-four-year-old mother with diabetes and glaucoma, was expected to comply with welfare work requirements because her doctor insisted she could still work despite partial paralysis and blindness. As noted, 80 percent of mothers studied suffered from chronic conditions (83 percent of whom were thirty-nine or younger) yet could not afford regular doctor’s visits, owing to either lack of income or “more immediate concerns,” such as the need to attend to their child’s health problems or their need to hold on to jobs that did not give them personal time off. It is hard to imagine a “more immediate concern” than an early-onset cancer diagnosis. That addressing it might not be an immediate priority reflects the constant juggling required in high-effort coping.”]

arline t. geronimus, from weathering: the extraordinary stress of ordinary life in an unjust society, 2023

#arline t. geronimus #brainspace #cw racism #cw cancer

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covidsafehotties · 6 hours

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Published Feb 14, 2024

Results Also Suggest the Diabetes Risk Persists Across COVID-19 Variants, and That Upfront Vaccination May Help to Reduce Risk of Post-Infection Diabetes

Investigators in the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai have confirmed that people who have had COVID-19 have an increased risk for new-onset diabetes—the most significant contributor to cardiovascular disease.

“Our results validate early findings revealing a risk of developing Type 2 diabetes after a COVID-19 infection and indicate that this risk has, unfortunately, persisted through the Omicron era,” said Alan Kwan, MD, first and corresponding author of the study and a cardiovascular physician in the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai.

The trend, Kwan says, is concerning because most people in the United States will eventually experience a COVID-19 infection. “This research study helps us understand—and better prepare for—the post-COVID-19 era of cardiovascular risk,” Kwan said.

The findings, published today in the journal JAMA Network Open, also suggest that the risk of Type 2 diabetes appears lower in individuals who were already vaccinated against COVID-19 by the time they were infected.

Published Feb 14, 2024

Results

The cohort of 23 709 patients (mean [SD] age, 47.4 [19.3] years) included 12 706 females (54%) and 10 981 males (46%) (22 patients of unknown sex) with 1 or more COVID infection. Rates of new-onset diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and benchmark diagnoses occurring in the 90 days after COVID-19 infection were higher than those before infection (Figure). The highest odds postinfection were for diabetes (2.35; 95% CI, 1.94-2.89; P < .001), followed by hypertension (1.54; 95% CI, 1.35-1.76; P < .001), benchmark diagnoses (1.42; 95% CI, 1.25-1.61; P < .001), and hyperlipidemia (1.22; 95% CI, 1.03-1.47; P = .03). In adjusted multivariable models, risk of new-onset diabetes (vs benchmark) diagnosis occurring after vs before COVID-19 infection was significantly elevated (OR, 1.58; 95% CI, 1.24-2.02; P < .001); however, risks of hypertension and hyperlipidemia vs benchmark diagnoses were not (Table). Although the diabetes risk after infection was higher among unvaccinated (OR, 1.78; 95% CI, 1.35-2.37; P < .001) than vaccinated (OR, 1.07; 95% CI, 0.64-1.77; P = .80) patients, the interaction term between vaccination status and diabetes diagnosis was not statistically significant (OR, 0.59; 95% CI, 0.34-1.06; P = .08). There was no evidence of interaction by age, sex, or preexisting cardiovascular risk factors, including hypertension or hyperlipidemia. Age, sex, and timing of index infection regarding the Omicron variant were not associated with an increased risk of a new cardiometabolic diagnosis before or after COVID-19 infection in any model (Table).

#mask up #covid #diabetes #covid isn't over #covid 19 #pandemic #covid conscious #covid is airborne #wear a mask #coronavirus #long covid

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thegreatlearning · 2 months

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Trying to make a list of all of the ailments my hypochondriac ass has thought I’ve had from one week to the next (these are all from the past two-three weeks)

- heart disease

- brain tumor

- stroke

- lymphoma

- gradual blindness

- early onset dementia

- diabetes (today)

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thesituation · 7 months

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trying to research OCD symptoms and signs is annoying every single source is like “the main symptom is an intense fear of germs” like no i’m a hypochondriac but i’m worried my dna is fucked up and will give me awful incurable diseases over time. i’m not scared of a fucking virus i am the thing i’m scared of. i’m worried about early onset dementia and late onset diabetes and heart disease and cancer. not fucking.. smallpox. who cares

#.txt

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daughter-of-sapph0 · 1 year

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people in poverty are more likely to die from diabetes because they can't afford insulin because the insulin is priced at thousands of times what it costs to make and our entire food system is designed that healthy foods like fruits and vegetables are far more expensive than fatty foods like chips and soda and hamburgers, so much so that you can buy three big macs for the price of one small head of broccoli.

one in three children will develop early onset diabetes. among minorities, it's one in two.

#dostxt

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death-munchkin · 1 year

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What Hypoglycemia looks/feels like, from someone who has it (for writers/artists who wish to include the topic of Hypo in their SGA (or other) art/stories)

Summery:

I'm making this post as a resource for fellow writers in the SGA fandom (and others in general) because I've come across one too many fanfics which explore Rodney's hypoglycemia but do so in a... let's just say less than realistic fashion. Now I have nothing against these stories, they're still fun! and cool!, and it's not the writer's fault most of the time that info on what Hypo is like can be quite misleading online, but I wanted to make this quick resource for anyone in the SGA fandom, writers/artists in general or just curious people who want an overview of what hypo looks like (to an outsider), feels like (to the person suffering it) and what the signs/symptoms are + how to treat it!

First off, let's dispel some myths!

"Only people with diabetes/pre-diabetes get hypoglycemic" False. Hypoglycemia can occur in anyone and there are various causes. Let's get rid of the fancy words for a second and remember that hypoglycemia just means low blood sugar. If anyone avoids eating sugars & carbs long enough, their blood sugar will drop dangerously low and they will become hypoglycemic. However, people who *have* hypoglycemia typically mean they have a condition which causes their blood sugar to drop dangerously low more often than most or despite a healthy diet. People with diabetes are at risk of hypoglycemic attacks if they take too much insulin for example, but diabetes is not a requirement for the condition and many (like myself, and presumably McKay) are not diabetic.

"You have to go without food for a long time to get a hypoglycemic attack" False. When considering non-diabetic hypoglycemia (which is what I'll mainly be covering because it's what I have) there are 2 variations of conditions which cause hypoglycemic attacks. The first, and the one from which the above presumption is created, is called "fasting hypoglycemia". In this condition, your body constantly produces slightly too much insulin which will gradually drop your blood sugar levels (but faster than what is considered "normal" for a non hypoglycemic person). People with this version of the condition will typically start experiencing symptoms 8-12 hours since they last consumed sugar/carbs, and the symptoms will show & progress more slowly compared to the second condition variation (you might feel light headed, then an hour later a bit sick, then another hour later more sick etc etc). The second variation is called "reactive hypoglycemia", in which your body normally produces the correct amount of insulin (thus fasting is not a major risk as with the 1st variation), but your body does produce substantially too much insulin specifically in response to a large influx of sugar in your system. People with this version will experience symptoms only 2-4 hours after an influx of sugar/carbs (sugars tend to trigger attacks faster, carbs tend to trigger slower), and due to the sudden nature of the insulin spike, symptoms can appear and worsen rapidly (it can take as little as 5 minutes to go from "I'm a bit dizzy" to "get me a bucket or I'll spew on you"). NOTE: of course, each person's condition will differ and how they present/progress will differ too.

"Hypoglycemia isn't a serious condition" Ok I have to include this because it's just plain wrong. Hypoglycemia is often not severe if caught early, and the fact that the cure is literally just consuming sugar (eg. drink some juice) it can come across as no big deal or even silly, but make no mistake, hypoglycemia can and does kill. Without sugar your brain will eventually shut down and you will die. Don't make fun of me, just give me my juice, thanks.

OK, now that that's out of the way, on to the meat of this post!

What does Hypoglycemia look like to onlookers, and what does it feel like to experience it?

Depending on the type of hypoglycemia someone has, the presentation of their symptoms will vary. They can either have a slow or rapid onset, and remember that not everyone will show the exact same symptoms. The nature and severity of the symptoms will also depend on the stage of the hypoglycemic attack. While this isn't official, I personally categorize my hypoglycemic attack into 3-4 stages, and they appear as follows below. Each stage can last either mere minutes (5/10/20 minutes) or hours depending on the nature (fasting/reactive) and progression (rapid/slow) of the attack. Note, I'm getting my "onlooker" data from my amazing partner, who has to deal with my sorry ass, and my experience data is of course mostly from my experience, though I try to include other possible/common experiences too, but keep that in mind your experience may differ <3

Stage 1: Mild

This is the first stage of a hypoglycemic attack and will have the least severe symptoms. For many the symptoms might be so subtle that they go unnoticed, possibly up until the next stage of the condition, especially if your condition advances rapidly. A person in stage 1 will 100% still be able to eat/drink foods/drinks with sugars in them by themselves and will not need a glucose drip yet, just give them some juice. The symptoms: In this stage you typically start with the emotive/mental symptoms, described as "feelings of unease" etc. You might also experience mild physical symptoms such as feeling peckish or being a bit jittery, but not much so. How it feels: You might feel jumpy, anxious, annoyed, irritable, and have a general sense of being on edge. For some this expresses as anger, for others fear, and it's not always the same each time. You might feel a little bit hungry and your mind might be a bit more scattered than normal, but generally you'll feel fine if a bit uncomfortable. How it looks: Due to the mild nature of the symptoms in stage 1, it's very possible that onlookers will totally miss any sign/symptom in this stage. Your best bet is noticing that the person is more irritable or jumpy than normal, but otherwise it's likely to go overlooked until stage 2 hits.

Stage 2: Moderate

This is the 2nd stage of a hypoglycemic attack and is typically the stage where both the person suffering from the attack and onlookers are most likely to first notice the symptoms and piece together that a hypo attack is occurring. The symptoms in this stage is slightly more severe and physical symptoms start to present more prominently (allowing onlookers to notice what is happening). A person in stage 2 will likely still be able to eat/drink foods/drinks with sugars in them by themselves and will not need a glucose drip yet, just give them some juice. The symptoms: At this stage physical symptoms become more prominent. Most sufferers will have constant tremors in their limbs, making it difficult to do fine work as their hands will become clumsy and shaky. Their breathing might also be shaky/uneasy as a result. Rapid heart rate and what is known as "hot flashes" (sudden spike in body temperature, causing the face to become warm, flushed, and the skin to become clammy) will likely occur. This stage also typically features feelings of fatigue, moderate to severe nausea, disorientation/confusion and weakness. How it feels: Absolutely fucking terrible. Stage 2 is the worst feeling of the 4 as you are typically still lucid enough to know how shit you feel while feeling worse than in stage 1. You will feel hot, feverish, and the feeling of hunger will typically be replaced by being sick to your stomach. You will likely throw up. Your brain will start to go foggy and it will be hard to concentrate/work. You will feel tired, but too uncomfortable to fall asleep. You will likely feel uncomfortably hot and sweaty. Your hands will be shaking too badly for you to do much (drinking water becomes hard because liquid gets shaken out of glass) and your arms/legs will start to feel heavy. If you're not sitting already, you will want to sit down soon because legs no work. How it looks: The person might be flushed with a sheen of sweat on their forehead, clammy shaky hands, wobbly legs. They might also turn pale. They will look tired. They likely won't be able to hold a conversation, coming across as confused and disorientated. They will likely throw up. Imagine someone with a bad flu but they're also drunk, and that's pretty much what it will look like.

Stage 3: Severe

The third stage of Hypo, at this point the symptoms may become alarming and the person may not be able to consume foods/drinks themselves anymore and thus may need a glucose drip.

The symptoms: At this stage the person will likely become fully disorientated and incapacitated. They may be unable to walk/stand themselves and thus might need help moving around. If they haven't thrown up yet they probably will. They will likely be unable to focus. Their vision may become blurred or they may pass out. Slurred speech, loss of consciousness and severe confusion is likely. Mobility will be greatly limited. How it feels: Surprisingly not nearly as bad as stage 2, considering you're out of it for most of the time. You might feel sleepy, uncomfortable, vaguely aware that you feel sick, but at this stage you will likely be so out of it that you'll be drifting in and out of consciousness for the most part. Things might feel vaguely off and you will have gaps in your awareness. You probably won't want to move much if at all and just sit/lay wherever you are and hope to pass out (because being passed out feels better than being cold and hot and clammy and shaky and btw you're tired and hungry and sleep sounds good right now) How it looks: Fucking terrifying. The person will at this stage lose a lot of awareness and very likely start passing out/drifting off. They will likely stop responding, their speech will almost definitely be slurred and/or incoherent. They might still throw up/move but not with much will of their own. If you haven't gotten them medical attention yet at this point, do so, because they probably won't be able to drink juice themselves to get better.

Stage 4: Worst case scenario

This stage I have not experienced myself (thank the gods) and is reserved for some of the severe complications which can/will occur if someone isn't treated during stage 3. Namely: Seizure, coma, death. The person will NOT be able to consume sugar themselves at this point and will need medical intervention (if applicable), though ideally you want to get treated BEFORE then. There isn't really much to say on this stage because it's pretty much as labeled. Get them treatment or they will pass out and eventually (if still untreated) die.

So for all y'all wump writers out there, make sure to get McKay to Carson/Keller before then ;)

But anyway, I hope this can give some useful insight to people on what Hypo actually looks/feels like, and hopefully well have less stories where the symptoms and progression are all jumbled out of order and/or myths about how/when/why hypo presents will be reduced.

Take care and remember to carry an emergency juice box ;)

#stargate atlantis #sga #rodney mckay #mckay #hypoglycemia #writing #sga fanfic

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wellhealthhub · 1 year

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Understanding A1C and Its Role in Diabetes Diagnosis

Hey there! At Well Health Hub, we’re all about sharing valuable info on diabetes and everything related to it. Today, we’re diving deep into the importance of the A1C test when it comes to diagnosing diabetes. We want to give you a resource that goes beyond the usual articles out there, providing you with a clear and in-depth understanding of A1C and how it relates to your blood glucose levels.…

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#are diabetic socks the same as compression socks #Childhood type 1 diabetes #Diabetes education for kids #Early onset diabetes #Future implications of diabetes in youth #Pediatric diabetes #Type 1 diabetes in children #Type 1 diabetes mellitus #Youth diabetes management #Youth-onset diabetes

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sarkos · 5 months

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Covid deaths have been elevated since September at about 1,200 to 1,300 deaths per week, inching up to about 1,500 per week in December. Researchers say they will most likely continue to rise unless more people get the updated Covid vaccines and antiviral treatments. Dr. Fessel said that over the course of the entire million-person N.I.H. study, about 10 percent of high-risk patients eligible for Paxlovid took it, though the rate rose to about 15 percent toward the end of the study period in early 2023. All told, the N.I.H. authors estimated that about 135,000 hospitalizations and 48,000 deaths could have been avoided if half of the patients eligible for the antiviral got it. Paxlovid, made by Pfizer, is a two-medication treatment meant to be taken within five days of the onset of Covid symptoms to quash viral spread within the body. It was approved for adults who are at high risk for severe Covid, which tends to include those 65 and older and people with diabetes, obesity, asthma and other conditions.

Paxlovid Cuts Covid Death Risk. But Those Who Need It Are Not Taking It. - The New York Times

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biggothbelly · 8 months

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"You must be looking at this content because you secretly like it" I've sent anon asks to many people struggling with ED's over the years because I used to struggle myself. I do wish someone would've reached out to me all those years ago but everyone was affirming which made it harder to understand something was wrong. I browse the pro ana tags sometimes too because I've dealt with both ED's at different times in life, I like knowing that there's a small chance I could be that person I needed for someone else.

I've seen how morbid obesity wrecks mental health and physical, a couple people in my family and a close friend have all had early onset arthritis before 30, and one had a knee replacement which inhibits how she can move & She's only 27. You could potentially develop diabetes, lose a limb from infection, develop edema, sleep apnea, hypertension, heart issues, increased risk of dementia, etc.

It's very similar to the mindset of someone with anorexia in the way that people are often in total denial, they claim that it's not a danger to their health because they're still alive. Also they use hell sites like this to feel validated (i.e it's ok because other people do it too or it makes me happy) It gives you a sense of community but in reality it's an echo chamber of disordered people pushing eachother down + predatory users looking for fetish content. I wish you the best. Just consider your health first.

All I hear is a lot of yappin’. Good for you you’re such a hero!! Would you like a cookie? You don’t know me so honestly I really don’t give a shit. I’m glad you’re such an angel. Chill the hell out. Quit stalking me and get a life. It’s hilarious how you think every fat person is the same lol. Physically and mentally I’m good. Consider these nuts 🥜 brother I really don’t give a fuck get off your yappin ass high horse

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warningsine · 12 days

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Scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine say that an experimental monoclonal antibody drug called mAb43 appears to prevent and reverse the onset of clinical type 1 diabetes in mice, and in some cases, to lengthen the animals' lifespan.

The drug is unique, according to the researchers, because it targets insulin-making beta cells in the pancreas directly and is designed to shield those cells from attacks by the body's own immune system cells. The drug's specificity for such cells may enable long-term use in humans with few side effects, say the researchers. Monoclonal antibodies are made by cloning, or making identical replicas of, an animal (including human) cell line.

The findings, reported online and in the May issue of Diabetes, raise the possibility of a new drug for type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune condition that affects about 2 million American children and adults and has no cure or means of prevention.

Unlike type 2 diabetes, in which the pancreas makes too little insulin, in type 1 diabetes, the pancreas makes no insulin because the immune system attacks the pancreatic cells that make it.

The lack of insulin interferes with the body's ability to regulate blood sugar levels.

"People with type 1 diabetes face lifelong injections of insulin and many complications, including stroke and eyesight problems if the condition is not managed properly," says Dax Fu, Ph.D., associate professor of physiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and leader of the research team.

Fu says mAb43 binds to a small protein on the surface of beta cells, which dwell in clusters called islets. The drug was designed to provide a kind of shield or cloak to hide beta cells from immune system cells that attack them as "invaders." The researchers used a mouse version of the monoclonal antibody, and will need to develop a humanized version for studies in people.

For the current study, the researchers gave 64 non-obese mice bred to develop type 1 diabetes a weekly dose of mAb43 via intravenous injection when they were 10 weeks old. After 35 weeks, all mice were non-diabetic. One of the mice developed diabetes for a period of time, but it recovered at 35 weeks, and that mouse had early signs of diabetes before the antibody was administered.

In five of the same type of diabetes-prone mice, the researchers held off giving weekly mAb43 doses until they were 14 weeks old, and then continued dosages and monitoring for up to 75 weeks. One of the five in the group developed diabetes, but no adverse events were found, say the researchers.

In the experiments in which mAb43 was given early on, the mice lived for the duration of the monitoring period of 75 weeks, compared with the control group of mice that did not receive the drug and lived about 18–40 weeks.

Next, the researchers, including postdoctoral fellows Devi Kasinathan and Zheng Guo, looked more closely at the mice that received mAb43 and used a biological marker called Ki67 to see if beta cells were multiplying in the pancreas. They said, after treatment with the antibody, immune cells retreated from beta cells, reducing the amount of inflammation in the area. In addition, beta cells slowly began reproducing.

"mAb43 in combination with insulin therapy may have the potential to gradually reduce insulin use while beta cells regenerate, ultimately eliminating the need to use insulin supplementation for glycemic control," says Kasinathan.

The research team found that mAb43 specifically bound to beta cells, which make up about 1% or 2% of pancreas cells.

Another monoclonal antibody drug, teplizumab, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2022. Teplizumab binds to T cells, making them less harmful to insulin-producing beta cells. The drug has been shown to delay the onset of clinical (stage 3) type 1 diabetes by about two years, giving young children who get the disease time to mature and learn to manage lifelong insulin injections and dietary restrictions.

"It's possible that mAb43 could be used for longer than teplizumab and delay diabetes onset for a much longer time, potentially for as long as it's administered," says Fu.

"In an ongoing effort, we aim to develop a humanized version of the antibody and conduct clinical trials to test its ability to prevent type 1 diabetes, and to learn whether it has any off-target side effects," says Guo.

Other scientists who contributed to the research include Dylan Sarver, G. William Wong and Maria Golson from Johns Hopkins; Shumei Yun from the University of Maryland, Aaron Michels and Liping Yu from the University of Colorado; and Chandan Sona and Matthew Poy from Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital.

#health #diabetes

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healthcare2025 · 1 month

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Health Promotion and Disease Prevention

Introduction Health promotion and disease prevention are critical components of public health strategies aimed at improving the health and well-being of individuals and communities at the 15th American Healthcare, Hospital management, Nursing, And Patient Safety Summit Here's an overview of these concepts: Health Promotion:

1. Health promotion involves empowering individuals and communities to take control of their health and make positive lifestyle choices.

2 . It focuses on promoting behaviors and conditions that contribute to good health, such as regular physical activity, healthy eating, stress management, and avoiding tobacco and excessive alcohol consumption.

3 . Health promotion activities often include health education, community outreach, and the creation of supportive environments that facilitate healthy choices.

4 . The goal of health promotion is to enhance well-being, prevent diseases, and improve quality of life.

Disease Prevention:

1 . Disease prevention involves efforts to reduce the incidence, prevalence, and impact of diseases and health conditions.

2 . Prevention strategies may target different stages of the disease process, including primary prevention (preventing the onset of disease), secondary prevention (detecting and treating diseases in their early stages), and tertiary prevention (managing and reducing the complications of existing diseases).

3 . Prevention efforts may include vaccination programs, screening initiatives, health behavior interventions, and environmental modifications to reduce exposure to risk factors.

4 . Disease prevention aims to reduce the burden of illness, decrease healthcare costs, and improve overall population health outcomes.

We cordially invite you to attend the "15th American Healthcare, Hospital management, Nursing, And Patient Safety Summit; (15AHNPSUCG2025)," which will be conducted from May 14-16 as a hybrid event in San Francisco, United States & Virtual.

15th American Healthcare, Hospital management, Nursing, And Patient Safety Summit: This blog focuses specifically on health promotion practice, offering insights, best practices, and case studies from professionals working in the field of health promotion and disease prevention.

Important Information:

Conference Name: 15th American Healthcare, Hospital Management, Nursing, And Patient Safety Summit Short Name: #15AHNPSUCG2025 Dates: May 14-16,2025 Venue: San Francisco, United States & Virtual Email: [email protected] Visit: https://health.universeconferences.com/ Call for Papers: https://health.universeconferences.com/call-for-paper/Register here: https://health.universeconferences.com/registration/Call/WhatsApp Us: +442033222718

#AmericanHealthcareconference2025 #Hospitalmanagementsummit #healthcare #health #primaryhealth #nursing #patientsafety #healthcaremanagement #patientcare #occupationalhealth #healthsystem #pharmaceutical #clinicaltrials #diabetes #changemanagement #mentalhealth #familyplanning #ACP #Infectionprevention #telehealth #oralhealth #Healthcareconference

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