Back from Oxfordshire

[qatarperegrine]

I'm back in Doha after two weeks visiting my family in Oxfordshire.

Realizatons made on this trip:

• babies are cute
  
• childbirth is not cute, but anyone who has gone through it has my undying respect and awe [Edit: gone through it on the birthing side, that is. Obviously we've all been through childbirth on the being-birthed side.]
  
• I desperately desire to live in a city that is not just walkable but walking-centric, like English towns with a medieval city center tend to be
  
• Britain is full of these brown, fibrous upright cylinders with little green wavy bits at the top; Doha should look into acquiring some:
  

The original plan had been to go hike the Ridgeway Trail for a week, but for various health reasons I had to scrap that plan. In the end I managed a 1.5-day, 29-mile hike from my sister's house in Abingdon down the Thames Path for a day, and then east on the Ridgeway following a prehistoric earthwork called Grim's Ditch (pictured above). It covered some really beautiful scenery, and hiking is always good for my overall serenity. I wish I could do more of it.

Pictures of the trip are here.

And in case anyone is jealous of my jet-setting ways, I also spent three days in bed with a migraine and a new medical condition that you don't want to hear about. I like to travel, but my body sure does not. Dear roboticist friends: please to make me a cyborg body to transfer my brain into, for I am royally sick of this one, kthxbye.

Comments

[mdrnprometheus.livejournal.com]

You realize, of course, that migraines are a brain condition and thus you would just be a cyborg with migraines, right?

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Oh, the migraines are totally livable. It's the various autoimmune problems I want to die a painful death. They're not in the brain, are they? Shouldn't I just be able to get just get nanite mast cells or something? :-)

[mdrnprometheus.livejournal.com]

Well, they *can* affect the brain, although in your case, probably not.

Ummm

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

Quite a few autoimmune problems are also entirely "in the head", i.e. having psychological basis, so I'm curious what a brain transplant would do to those. But talk about having body-image issues, sheesh... ;-)

Re: Ummm

[(Anonymous)]

Problems are by definition in the head, doofus.^^

Re: Ummm

[y-pestis.livejournal.com]

No offense, Kahnman, but that's about the stupidest thing you can say. If someone had a limb chopped off and was spurting blood everywhere, would you tell them it was all in their head? Why is it okay, then, to tell someone with a different medical condition that it's "entirely in the head"?

There's no bedside manner quite like telling someone their reality is just a made-up world view with no validity. Try walking a mile in someone else's shoes before you pass judgement.

Re: Ummm

[(Anonymous)]

No, it could have been much stupider.

Right, Sherlock

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

I was NOT at all saying that qatar was "imagining" her very real medical problems, nor in any way mitigating the suffering these conditions cause her. Nor does using the term "mental issue" mean in any way, that someone is "mental ill". We ALL have issues.

What I *was* saying, is that is has repeatedly been scientifically demonstrated, that the root cause for many autoimmune problems, is NOT some specific physiological issue, but rather a mental issue. While B. F. Skinner may have been a crazy loon, he DID demonstrate, as far back as the 80s, that something as simple as Classical Conditioning, can directly affect the autonomous immune system, to the extent of turning it OFF, or as in the case with autoimmune issues, making it over-react...

It is also pretty easy to demonstrate that many such autoimmune problems are triggered by non-physical stress. So yes, many such problems develop not because their is something physically wrong, but because of various psychological triggers. You mean to tell me that you've never developed a migraine because of some big event coming up, say a test, or that you've never experienced the idiom "that person gives me a rash", these are both physiological manifestations of "mental issues".

Re: Right, Sherlock

[(Anonymous)]

"You mean to tell me that you've never developed a migraine because of some big event coming up, say a test, or that you've never experienced the idiom "that person gives me a rash", these are both physiological manifestations of "mental issues"."

I don't mean to tell you anything. Since you ask, yes I haven't. Moreover, can't you come up with a good autoimmune example, it being the topic at hand? kthxbye

The Google is Your Friend, Trust the Google

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

Let's see what Google has to say:

• Googling autoimmune "psychological stress" gives us 37,200 links.


• Googling autoimmune "mental stress", being the less scientific term, gives us 12,800 links, with quite a few interesting articles on the first page, such as:
  
  
  1. Stress affects hormones which affect immune system which alters mental and physical disease.
  
  
  2. Can Stress Cause Autoimmune Disease? Dr. Richard Weinstein Thinks So.


• Lets narrow the field somewhat. Googling "autoimmune diseases" "rheumatoid arthritis" "mental stress" gives us 511 links, such as:
  
  1. Stress as a Risk Factor in the Pathogenesis of Rheumatoid Arthritis.
  
  
  2. Neuroendocrine–immune relationships between emotion regulation and health in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
  
  
  3. Linking Stress to Inflammation.
  
  
  4. How psychological stress via hormones and nerve fibers may exacerbate rheumatoid arthritis, which isn't the actual paper, only a reference to it.


• Googling "autoimmune diseases" "juvenile rheumatoid arthritis" "mental stress" gives us 87 links. Quite a few to good solid sources.

JRA has been "renamed" to "Juvenile idiopathic arthritis", idiopathic meaning they haven't the foggiest idea what causes it. So while JRA is not directly related to "regular" rheumatoid arthritis, it too shows a direct link with various forms of "stress", physical, emotional or otherwise. With many other autoimmune diseases, such as Psoriasis, the connection between the initial occurrence or later outbursts, is much clearer.

"Seek Search, and Ye Shall Find".

Re: The Google is Your Friend, Trust the Google

[(Anonymous)]

that is what i was suggesting you should have done, yes

Re: The Google is Your Friend, Trust the Google

[(Anonymous)]

and by "that" i mean use google

Re: Right, Sherlock

[don-k-hotay.livejournal.com]

Headaches because of stress are tension headaches, surely? My migraines are triggered by bright lights and flashing lights. I do wish you could have sat with a thin 11 year old whose knee had swollen to the size of a melon ( I have a photo of the tape measure around it) before the doctors drained off nearly a pint of fluid. Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis is no more in the head or triggered by stress than the chicken pox that she had at the same age. (Remember that year, Qatar?)
I do appreciate the Get out of Hell card but you aren't getting off free on this one, are you?
This is from materjibrail on Don k Hotay's computer

Migraines

[shmuelisms.livejournal.com]

I know a number of people who get actual migraines, not just "tension headaches", from stress. As I replied above, there is plenty of evidence that stress is a direct factor in JRA and other autoimmune conditions.

Re: Ummm

[(Anonymous)]

Writing stupid comments on blogs is certainly a psychological issue.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh... pretty trail. :) You should stop by Seattle at some point - I'll introduce you to bunches of those funny upright cylinders.

Hope you start feeling better and may the semester go well.

Miss yah,
-Jess

[qatar.livejournal.com]

I've only been to Seattle once... We camped in Olympic National Park and got rained on a bunch, and then the most brazen raccoon I've ever met tried to steal our dinner WHILE WE WERE STILL EATING IT.

It was exceedingly pretty, though. I'd love to go back sometime. :-)

[y-pestis.livejournal.com]

"It" was pretty? The park, or the raccoon?

:-)

o/` But I'm sorry to say that we must leave too soon
'Cos we lost all our food to them thieving raccoons...

[qatar.livejournal.com]

I meant the park. The raccoon may well have been pretty, but I was too busy shrieking and waving my arms at it to notice.