![here is some advice about menstrual cramps: take lots of aspirin
i found this out by trial and error, then wikipedia to confirm the theory behind it. it turns out one of aspirin’s mechanisms of pain relief is to block the production of the hormone that causes muscle cramping, preventing cramps before they start. wikipedia:
Aspirin’s ability to suppress the production of prostaglandins and thromboxanes is due to its irreversible inactivation of the cyclooxygenase(PTGS) enzyme required for prostaglandin and thromboxane synthesis. Aspirin acts as an acetylating agent where an acetyl group is covalently attached to a serine residue in the active site of the PTGS enzyme. This makes aspirin different from other NSAIDs (such as diclofenac and ibuprofen), which are reversible inhibitors.
Low-dose, long-term aspirin use irreversibly blocks the formation of thromboxane A2 in platelets, producing an inhibitory effect on platelet aggregation. This antithrombotic property makes aspirin useful for reducing the incidence of heart attacks.[110]40 mg of aspirin a day is able to inhibit a large proportion of maximum thromboxane A2 release provoked acutely, with the prostaglandin I2 synthesis being little affected; however, higher doses of aspirin are required to attain further inhibition.[111]
Prostaglandins, local hormones produced in the body, have diverse effects, including the transmission of pain information to the brain, modulation of the hypothalamic thermostat, and inflammation. Thromboxanes are responsible for the aggregation of platelets that form blood clots. Heart attacks are caused primarily by blood clots, and low doses of aspirin are seen as an effective medical intervention for acute myocardial infarction. An unwanted side effect of the effective anticlotting action of aspirin is that it may cause excessive bleeding.
EMPHASIS MINE.
what is this hormone? prostaglandin. it’s the shit your body makes to cause your uterus to spasm, which expels the blood and tissue that has built up on the walls during the menstrual cycle. wikipedia again:
They are mediators and have a variety of strong physiological effects, such as regulating the contraction and relaxation of smooth muscle tissue.[1] Prostaglandins are not endocrine hormones, but autocrine or paracrine, which are locally acting messenger molecules. They differ from hormones in that they are not produced at a discrete site but in many places throughout the human body. Also, their target cells are present in the immediate vicinity of the site of theirsecretion(of which there are many).
The prostaglandins, together with the thromboxanes and prostacyclins, form the prostanoid class of fatty acid derivatives, a subclass of eicosanoids.
sounds serious. what’s the mechanism involved? take us away, mayo clinic:
During menstrual periods, your uterus contracts to help expel its lining. Hormone-like substances (prostaglandins) involved in pain and inflammation trigger the uterine muscle contractions. Higher levels of prostaglandins are associated with more severe menstrual cramps.
Many experts believe that severe contractions constrict the blood vessels feeding the uterus. The resulting pain can be compared to the angina that occurs when blocked coronary arteries starve portions of the heart of food and oxygen.
the part wikipedia mentioned earlier about aspirin being a blood thinner as well as a prostaglandin blocker is important here because aspirin is lauching a two-part attack on the mechanisms that cause menstrual cramping specifically:
uterine contractions caused by prostaglandin
lack of blood flow to the uterus itself caused by vessel constriction
i have sicknasty cramps. they do not respond to anything, not even weed. we’re talking rolling-involuntarily-on-the-ground-in-a-fetal-position-level cramps. 8 on the pain scale, where a 10 is uncontrollable screaming. aspirin, between 4-6 of them at the first sign of cramping and doses of 1-2 as bumpers until the cramping part of the period ends, is the only effective treatment i have ever found.
so if you have a uterus and cramping problems, and you do not have any sort of ulcers, aspirin sensitivity, bleeding or clotting problems, or are on medications that could potentially be disrupted by aspirin, please give it a shot. i just take plain, uncoated, generic-ass aspirin. if you don’t have a uterus or dont menstruate but know people who do, pass this on. please include warnings about potential complications for anyone with aspirin sensitivities due to health, genetics or medication.
edit: for some fucking reason, Midol and other menstrual-specific preparations do not appear to actually contain any fucking aspirin. Midol for example is primarily paracetamol, which does not as far as i can tell affect prostaglandin production in the least and is just a mild analgesic/anti-inflammatory. so, fuck everything marketed to women, i guess is the lesson here.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/609804d9728e5ada5f55eae800d10807/tumblr_mn9wkfZTux1qzvg5fo1_500.gif)
here is some advice about menstrual cramps: take lots of aspirin
i found this out by trial and error, then wikipedia to confirm the theory behind it. it turns out one of aspirin’s mechanisms of pain relief is to block the production of the hormone that causes muscle cramping, preventing cramps before they start. wikipedia:
Aspirin’s ability to suppress the production of prostaglandins and thromboxanes is due to its irreversible inactivation of the cyclooxygenase(PTGS) enzyme required for prostaglandin and thromboxane synthesis. Aspirin acts as an acetylating agent where an acetyl group is covalently attached to a serine residue in the active site of the PTGS enzyme. This makes aspirin different from other NSAIDs (such as diclofenac and ibuprofen), which are reversible inhibitors.
Low-dose, long-term aspirin use irreversibly blocks the formation of thromboxane A2 in platelets, producing an inhibitory effect on platelet aggregation. This antithrombotic property makes aspirin useful for reducing the incidence of heart attacks.[110]40 mg of aspirin a day is able to inhibit a large proportion of maximum thromboxane A2 release provoked acutely, with the prostaglandin I2 synthesis being little affected; however, higher doses of aspirin are required to attain further inhibition.[111]
Prostaglandins, local hormones produced in the body, have diverse effects, including the transmission of pain information to the brain, modulation of the hypothalamic thermostat, and inflammation. Thromboxanes are responsible for the aggregation of platelets that form blood clots. Heart attacks are caused primarily by blood clots, and low doses of aspirin are seen as an effective medical intervention for acute myocardial infarction. An unwanted side effect of the effective anticlotting action of aspirin is that it may cause excessive bleeding.
EMPHASIS MINE.
what is this hormone? prostaglandin. it’s the shit your body makes to cause your uterus to spasm, which expels the blood and tissue that has built up on the walls during the menstrual cycle. wikipedia again:
They are mediators and have a variety of strong physiological effects, such as regulating the contraction and relaxation of smooth muscle tissue.[1] Prostaglandins are not endocrine hormones, but autocrine or paracrine, which are locally acting messenger molecules. They differ from hormones in that they are not produced at a discrete site but in many places throughout the human body. Also, their target cells are present in the immediate vicinity of the site of theirsecretion(of which there are many).
The prostaglandins, together with the thromboxanes and prostacyclins, form the prostanoid class of fatty acid derivatives, a subclass of eicosanoids.
sounds serious. what’s the mechanism involved? take us away, mayo clinic:
During menstrual periods, your uterus contracts to help expel its lining. Hormone-like substances (prostaglandins) involved in pain and inflammation trigger the uterine muscle contractions. Higher levels of prostaglandins are associated with more severe menstrual cramps.
Many experts believe that severe contractions constrict the blood vessels feeding the uterus. The resulting pain can be compared to the angina that occurs when blocked coronary arteries starve portions of the heart of food and oxygen.
the part wikipedia mentioned earlier about aspirin being a blood thinner as well as a prostaglandin blocker is important here because aspirin is lauching a two-part attack on the mechanisms that cause menstrual cramping specifically:
- uterine contractions caused by prostaglandin
- lack of blood flow to the uterus itself caused by vessel constriction
i have sicknasty cramps. they do not respond to anything, not even weed. we’re talking rolling-involuntarily-on-the-ground-in-a-fetal-position-level cramps. 8 on the pain scale, where a 10 is uncontrollable screaming. aspirin, between 4-6 of them at the first sign of cramping and doses of 1-2 as bumpers until the cramping part of the period ends, is the only effective treatment i have ever found.
so if you have a uterus and cramping problems, and you do not have any sort of ulcers, aspirin sensitivity, bleeding or clotting problems, or are on medications that could potentially be disrupted by aspirin, please give it a shot. i just take plain, uncoated, generic-ass aspirin. if you don’t have a uterus or dont menstruate but know people who do, pass this on. please include warnings about potential complications for anyone with aspirin sensitivities due to health, genetics or medication.
edit: for some fucking reason, Midol and other menstrual-specific preparations do not appear to actually contain any fucking aspirin. Midol for example is primarily paracetamol, which does not as far as i can tell affect prostaglandin production in the least and is just a mild analgesic/anti-inflammatory. so, fuck everything marketed to women, i guess is the lesson here.
just a heads up: i am cleaning up my dash, which has become a Tumblr Saviour wasteland.
this means i am aggressively unfollowing people, even people i love, who post untagged fandom stuff i dont care about, large numbers of posts with >10k notes (i’ve generally seen them! a few times! thank you!), extensive tumbleft argue/callouts, lots of untagged tmi tuesdays, lots of untagged ask memes, click here to sign petition to convince sociopathic plutocrat to do a thing out of the goodness of his heart, please donate to such and such a thing or cause which i cannot do because i’m fucking broke, and/or constant and unrelenting self-criticism*.
all this shit is exhausting to me when i’m just trying to look at reference photos, paintings, read essays, etc. and yall should be allowed to post whatever the heck you want on your own god damned blog without me squinting and scrolling so resentfully hard that i get a headache + wheelburn.
this applies to facebook, tumblr and twitter.
thank you for understanding, i’m not mad at you, and please keep in touch via PM or IM or whatever else; i swear to god i still like you as a person
(* think about it: if you saw someone on your dash constantly talking shit about your friends you would probably want to scream at them and/or unfollow, right? right )
i was on facebook (first mistake) putting up art show promotion stuff and saw an acquaintance asking for computer advice about a slow, 6 year old windows laptop. the thread was already full of shitlords demanding that he install Ubuntu (and run Photoshop/sketchup in a VM, lmao) and i commented (second mistake) that with a laptop that old, with slowdown symptoms, if it wasn’t fixed by a windows reinstall it was very very likely a hard drive or motherboard issue. a bunch of goons jumped on me to correct me (apparently when you have a big beard, even figuratively, laptop components just never wear out), so i went to PM and was like “yo im not going to get into a public throwdown as the token girl v a bunch of open source shit heads so here’s what i think you should do” and literally the first thing the OP says to me, a dude i met once 6 years ago at an art show we were both in and havent spoken to since, was:
It takes me having a computer malfunction to get you to say hi, huh? :)
it never fucking stops
Outside the venue for the IAMX show, either station or I got mistaken for Chris Corner by someone who had apparently never seen Chris Corner before.
we walked past the ticket line and someone peeped “omg is that them” as we passed and its like ahahhaha yes definitely IAMX is three blonde goth teens with bad posture, you nailed it
i got dressed the FUCK up for the IAMX show and it was 100% worth it. i went with station and kurt and aside from an unfortunate incident where a dude got so excited about IAMX that he literally took a shit, it was pretty much the best thing i’ve ever seen.
photos of the whole Bleached Earth Kickmurder Squad are probably going to show up at some point.
remember that time i was in jerkcity
i recently installed Status Board on my ipad (a handmedown item i never really use for anything) and while my board is not all that pretty, I have managed to cobble together a functional, if somewhat clunky, updating todo list.
I would prefer that the todo list refresh itself on a timer but using timed refreshes in the page code made both Status Board and Dropbox (where I’m hosting the todo files) flip their shit. so I put an XML retrieve button in there instead.
right now I just keep TextWrangler open with todo.html, and updated the lists manually. when something is finished, I drag it to DONE, and the strikethrough tags cross it out for me.
Status Board was only released about a week ago so I think there are going to be much much better todo list solutions than this in the near future, but I figured I would post it in case anyone was interested.
i met her when she was homeless, when we were both living in the ghosttown neighborhood in oakland. she was really round, much fluffier than she is now. it gets really cold in the winter in oakland, so she was growing enough fur to keep her warm, and it meant her round stubby body was even more seal-like and hilarious. so i called her Round-Faced Cat.
there were a few other homeless cats (oakland has a rat problem which means it also has a cat problem) around but the only three who would be social were round-face, a cat who stood up on her hind legs and patted her front paws together when i fed her (knighted Golfclap) and an old clouded tabby who was so polite and circumspect that I named him Gentleman. i would have let any of them live with me but none of them wanted to stay when i let them inside, and rather than trap and panic them i let them come and eat and leave again.
then my friends clayton and diana moved into the apartment across the hall. round-faced cat, always an alpha in her hood, got into one rumble too many and ended up with an ear abscess. Diana, a veterinary tech who was working at a clinic, took RFCat in for treatment, then kept her inside for recovery, and of course you cant put a cat back out on the street after that. Gentleman was taken inside in similar circumstances. I saw Golfclap through a window, happily owned by someone else.
Round Faced Cat they renamed Ushi, possibly because of her texture. Gentleman became a completely undignified “Toesocks”, which I refuse to call him to this day. one day i realized i was able and willing to adopt a cat full time so i visited their moggy scrum and asked who was most in need of rehoming. I wanted Gentleman but he was getting along well with the other cats…unlike Ushi, who despised every single one of them. so i took her, and, thinking Ushi sort of ungainly, and, she being the only cat in the house, she was stripped of all titles and is now simply “the cat”. there are no other cats to confuse her with, and she herself has no use for a name, being an animal with a brain the size of a walnut. she knows to come when summoned with smoochy noises, fingers scritching on a pantleg, chair or floor, “cat”, or sometimes just “hey”.
she is a really really good cat, with a large vocabulary and many amusing tricks and idiosyncrasies, and if she were cute or beautiful she would be a youtube sensation by now.
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PlayNick Cave & The Bad Seeds — Red Right Hand
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what she says: *a howl that unmakes the earth and heavens*
what she mea*static*
