Re: Sick People Take Medicine

1

So is this the thread wherein we brainstorm helpful suggestions?


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 9:40 PM
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Have you tried positive thinking? It's not on your list.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 9:41 PM
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Fuck yeah, al! Well put.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 9:41 PM
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But have you tried macrobiotic? I hear that it's big, and, um, alive?


Posted by: Bave | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 9:42 PM
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My dad's brothers both died of lung cancer. At the funeral of the first to die, after the diagnosis of the second, my dad's cousin had to suggest that a cigar a day was his secret to health.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 9:51 PM
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headed for a wheelchair
Is this from SLE? Won't her chemo stop the progression (at least until a potential future outbreak, which may be a long time from now and milder with age)?


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 9:56 PM
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No, but, seriously, al, two words: neti pot.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 10:05 PM
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That just injects an ameba into your brain.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 10:11 PM
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How long have doctors specializing in interactions been common? One of my grandmothers, near the end of her life, went through a whole to-do because her doctor of long standing retired and she had to have a new doctor who was untrustworthily young and he TOOK HER OFF SOME OF HER DRUGS!

And she got rather better from some things, though not from others.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 10:25 PM
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6: probably I'm being gloomy in my desire to emphasize that she is really very sick indeed. people dislocating their hips alla time tend not to be strolling around indefinitely after, but goodness knows we're hoping for the best.
things I forgot to mention that I have also tried: positive thinking; macrobiotic-ness; prayer; wishing on eyelashes; getting faith-healed by a famously healing evangelical pastor; worshipping the guru sai baba. shameful admission: I haven't tried the neti pot yet. I just don't tend to get a blocked up nose with that kind of cold; I can breathe perfectly, it's just that random pressure changes in my blocked sinuses hurt badly.
my liver is fine; its a very resilient organ. just had a full work-up at the hospital obviously, all is well on that front, kidneys fine, etc etc.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 10:40 PM
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clew: my grandmother had a similar doc-switch late in life and the bright young man took her off the valium she had been taking for 20 years without a taper or any warning of side effects. she suffered agonies of withdrawal, not even knowing what they were, and fell into a deep depression that lasted until she ended her own life (by starvation, in a benign fashion) 8 years later. so, fuck that guy and his smarty-pants medicine-changing.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 10:44 PM
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This is the first I've heard of a full-time "interactionist" unless it's what Cedars called a "hospitalist".

'Cause of the auto-immune shit, the DE was on about 12 different meds, some of them with known interactions. It's a bit of a gamble that any given med will improve some things more than it will hurt others. She and I could ask questions, lots of other people aren't paranoid nor knowledgeable enough about the system to check up on it.


Posted by: Biohazard | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 10:57 PM
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Have you tried drinking more water and sleeping to achieve clarity? I'm also uncomfortable with all this labeling of people as sick and not sick. 'Cause really, who's to say? Can't we all just be humans on the great big continuum of being?


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 11:03 PM
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I don't know if that's all the doctorin' he does period or just all the being a doctor for her. he does have a title though; I just can't think of it.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 11:04 PM
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Society needs interactionists for parties and raves and shit. Or call it a shaman or whatever. Some old dude who's gotten high on fucking everything for decades could wander around all "whoa motherfucker, do NOT mix those, that's going to end up with you naked getting tased by the cops".


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 11:09 PM
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You should totally try green tea with honey, al. Also: Jesus.


Posted by: Lord Castock | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 11:13 PM
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my old dealer told me not to mix tricyclic anti-depressants with E because I might have fatal seizures. so, you know, free-lancing with the advice.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 11:15 PM
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I can breathe perfectly

Them I'b nob sure whap your complainim aboub.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 11:15 PM
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Also, raw diet.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 11:15 PM
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oh christ, I've never actually tried raw food only.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 11:30 PM
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15: Wasn't Sifu going for that job?


Posted by: Biohazard | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 11:33 PM
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You should try fresh raw food first, and then slightly-rotted raw food the way the Romans apocryphally used to do it. Just to test the full spectrum.


Posted by: Lord Castock | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 11:33 PM
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I like to tell people that they should stay out of the hospital because that place is full of sick people, but I'm joking when I do it.

There are those who like to give poor people condescending advice about thrift. If poor people would just save money, they wouldn't be poor, right? That's exactly the logic of your annoying friends.


Posted by: Zb | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 11:40 PM
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From the time I was five until I was eleven, I ate nothing but cereal for breakfast, macaroni and cheese for lunch (homemade, not boxed), and chicken for dinner. If we went out, I had a hamburger, fries, and a coke. Except at Chinese restaurants, in which case I had wanton soup, an egg roll (or two!), and moo shu pork. I remember being incredibly healthy those years, al. I think you should give it a try. I mean, if you're not committed enough to getting healthy that you're going to go full-on raw diet.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 11:41 PM
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I've eaten worse things.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 11:42 PM
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Or just eat a pound of bacon a day like Halford.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 11:50 PM
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Or just eat a pound of bacon a day like Halford.

And if that doesn't work, go one step further: eat nothing but lions.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 11:56 PM
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I think that would be, like, reverse-paleo or something.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 01-26-12 11:56 PM
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I would like to try wanton soup. Perhaps with an entree of insatiable steak.


Posted by: Chopper | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 12:01 AM
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I am, in actual fact eating lots of wanton soup. (it says that on their sign). I eat it with abandon, naturally...


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 12:44 AM
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alameida, I am sorry about your grandmother. Also retroactively congratulating my dead grandmother on her successful to-do.

She was funny about his age, though. I think the whippersnapper was forty.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 1:10 AM
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I like to tell people that they should stay out of the hospital because that place is full of sick people, but I'm joking when I do it a very earnest public health analyst.


Posted by: Keir | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 1:20 AM
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my daughter got a norovirus at a hospital from going to the ER for asthma the weekend before. they analyzed it and it was their strain; they were very apologetic. 7 days of puking and shitting her guts out every 45 minutes. she would obviously have died without the IV. I felt very grateful for being rich and having access to good health care.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 2:43 AM
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And if that doesn't work, go one step further: eat nothing but lions.

The Renfield Diet taken to its logical conclusion.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 3:20 AM
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somehow I only just noticed 13. argh! dude, I drink so much fucking water, you couldn't imagine. there are four empty and one full cans of soda water next to right now. know how long I've been sleeping? 12-16 hours a night. 16 motherfucking hours. not much time to do anything, is there? how the fuck much more do you want me to sleep/drink water? will 18 hours do it for you? you holding out for 20? this is just the type of shit I'm talking about. "hey, maybe al hasn't thought of being well hydrated and getting a good night's sleep, I'll suggest that."

unless you were being ironic and my aphasia is creating understanding FAIL. I guess I'll hope you were joking. but look, if you're chronically ill and in serious pain every day it seems kind of stupid to pretend you're not "sick" in some sense. I like to try to pretend it away as much as the next person, and am extremely stoic about pain and exhaustion, so I "look" normal, but am I normal? no. that's not anti-power of positive thinking, that's just bringing a little realism to the situation. can I plan to do this taxing thing on this certain day? probably not. just scheduling things as if I won't be sick leads to pointless cancellations and unhappy friends. better to say, I'm not going to be able to go out after work but I can see you for lunch on day x etc. I don't see any huge need to tell everyone I know about it; if they became a close friend I would tell them. to say "I'm sick" at that point is just to describe things as they are, not as we wish them to be.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 3:26 AM
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34: "who's at the top of the food chain now, bitch?" maybe I could also eat killer whales.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 3:27 AM
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Probably a bad idea. Apex predators tend to bioconcentrate stuff. That's why you shouldn't eat polar bears - loaded with bioconcentrated retinol. Your skin will fall off.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 3:46 AM
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And, you know, it sounds like you've got quite enough going on as it is, medically speaking.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 3:47 AM
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it's always been my understanding that top of the food chain carnivores such as tigers taste gross. like how no one eats cats (on purpose). but yeah, not planning to eat any polar bear liver anytime soon.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 4:23 AM
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Not all of them. I had crocodile last time I was over in your part of the world (well, not Narnia; its bitter rival, Smackharbour).


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 4:42 AM
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23.1 is actually good advice IF you can afford to follow it (.e. if whatever you have is not super serious).

To the OP, have you tried getting better? It seems like that would help...


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 4:51 AM
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40: I've also always heard that carnivores are gross, but for some reason that doesn't apply to aquatic carnivores.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 4:52 AM
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42: Well, the folks I know from non-coastal areeas seem to dislike fish (I assume because they've never had good quality well prepared fish). Maybe the quality of lion hereabouts is just inferior to what you can get closer to their natural habitat, where there is more lion-eating culture?


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 4:56 AM
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Al, are changes in air pressure a migraine trigger for you? I don't have any answers, but that's the biggest for me and so I'm always curious about it.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 4:56 AM
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Now I feel really awful that I suggested acupuncture. Never meant it as something to replace the other medication though, just something to supplement it.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 5:07 AM
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23.1 is always good advice when you can keep to it.

Gator is tasty.

35: "hey, maybe al hasn't thought of being well hydrated and getting a good night's sleep, I'll suggest that."

I do have a question that's been bugging me: have you had a recent full thyroid panel and/or full endocrine system? Curious because ex-person has a somewhat similar physical symptomology and so I meant to ask. Perhaps that isn't annoying.

max
['If it is, sorry.']


Posted by: max | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 5:22 AM
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Ah, norovirus. I recently learned that my wife and I are both immune. Random genetic mutations represent!

(This useless bit of trivia courtesy of 23andme, which is entertaining but, in fact, mostly useless trivia)


Posted by: Nathan Williams | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 6:39 AM
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44: hmm, I'm not sure. not obviously so. we have huge thunderstorms which I imagine involve pressure changes but I otherwise haven't noticed anything. this recent thing has just been bizzaro world migraines every day. for 6 weeks. it has improved a lot in the last few days but for many long days I was waking up each morning in total agony. so not helpful.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 6:44 AM
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BG, please don't feel bad! this wasn't directed at you, and yours wasn't a bad suggestion. I'm actually doing acupuncture now for the first time in ages at the suggestion of my chinese business partner. it has actually been proven to relieve pain, so what the hell. and all these suggestions are made in a spirit of genuine helpfulness; it's just that I think sometimes people don't realize the implications of what they're saying.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 6:54 AM
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somehow I only just noticed 13. argh!

I was making fun of parsi.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 6:58 AM
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49: Studies suggest you might be better off having sham acupuncture.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 7:12 AM
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There's no way a sham can puncture anything.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 7:14 AM
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Sham acupuncture has been proven effective when used on cases of champagne.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 7:16 AM
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things I forgot to mention that I have also tried: ... prayer; ... getting faith-healed by a famously healing evangelical pastor;

Oh, ye of little faith; these only work if you really believe.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 7:16 AM
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sham acupuncture

More commonly known by its trade name, Sham Ow!™


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 7:44 AM
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48: Gotcha. I'll just be Barometer Girl all by my lonesome, then.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 7:51 AM
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57

Chelation.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 7:52 AM
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56: gives you an excuse to live only at high altitude where the air pressure is lower. You can go for the Magic Mountain or a Zeppelin.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 7:53 AM
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Cantonese eat cats -- and everything else! (The stereotype is at least 1200 years old).


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 7:53 AM
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yeah but they clearly taste nasty or they would be a staple in the diet of poor people all over the world. everybody's broke...here are all these cats...see what I'm saying?


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 8:05 AM
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If cats aren't delicious why do they lick themselves all the time?


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 8:10 AM
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http://blogs.sfweekly.com/foodie/2011/08/what_dogs_and_cats_taste_like.php


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 8:22 AM
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I remain convinced that meat-eating Americans' refusal to consider cats, dogs, and other meat sources, such as horses, as legitimate food options, demonstrates a alienation from the actual creatures they are willing to eat. Not that this is a novel observation on my part, but it's truly baffling that someone's willing to eat fleshy bits kept in a grocery store under cellophane but not Plucky the one-eyed horse that gave us so many good years, or whatever.

If it's food, chow down, carnivores.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 8:30 AM
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63: It's not that I don't think you're right about our alienation from our food sources generally, but I don't think that considering some food animals taboo is exactly about alienation. I think food taboos are pretty universal, it just varies what they are. Rural English peasants who were totally engaged in raising livestock were disgusted by the French eating frogs and snails.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 8:34 AM
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Sham acupuncture for my real friends...


Posted by: Mister Smearcase | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 8:44 AM
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Horse meat is a funny one -- that's a longstanding taboo here, since well before people became so alienated from livestock, but it's, again, not taboo in France (or wasn't. Don't know if it is now.) I always assumed it just tasted foul, but I've read that that's not true.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 8:46 AM
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64. The anglophone aversion to horse meat is even more striking. In the heyday of the empire, there were people trying to popularise eland and wildebeest meat, but horse was right out.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 8:48 AM
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pwned as can be.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 8:49 AM
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Do French people eat Chevy Chevelles, too?


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 8:50 AM
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ISTR we had a thread about catcooking a while ago. I suggested cat au vin.


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 8:52 AM
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Ah, thanks, google. With Bitch! And Becks! And read! And stras!


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 8:55 AM
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I, for one, am totally willing to eat horse. In fact, I have -- in Switzerland, steak de cheval was on the menu a lot and cheap. Not the best meat, bc not fatty enough.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 8:58 AM
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California banned the slaughter of horses for meat by initiative, which passed with like 95% of the vote. I was one of the 5%.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:00 AM
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Food taboos are pretty universal, it just varies what they are.

A statement that needs careful unpacking.

I'm not sure that the Chinese have any, especially Cantonese. I look through KC Chang's book Food in Chinese Culture for the items indexed "taboo", and none of them seemed to be real taboos. Some foods with certain kinds of medicinal value are forbidden to people who need foods with the opposite value, but it's not a taboo.

Dog meat increases male virility, but cures female acne. Figure that one out, Levi-Strauss.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:02 AM
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62: Badly prepared cat doesn't taste good. Obviously this wasn't a skilled cat cook.

Most of the peculiar fooods marketted in Taiwan are more expensive per pound than routine foods. It's not poverty, it's curiosity, adventurism, foodieism, and medical needs.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:06 AM
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Horsemeat was sold in OR for decades. It's like lean beef and it was cheap.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:06 AM
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74, 75: Aren't the Chinese largely disgusted by dairy to a degree not well explained by lactose intolerance? I could be wrong, but that's my stereotype.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:07 AM
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76: My mom's family ate it during the war, I think. At least they saw it in the store.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:09 AM
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Yeah, dairy and salad are the least Chinese foods. They're also suspicious of raw anything and are sort of the opposite of Japanese that way.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:09 AM
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80

The only meat I wouldn't try on principle is ape/monkey.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:09 AM
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80: I would add to that cetaceans. I would try human, as long as consent was obtained.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:12 AM
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Rural English peasants who were totally engaged in raising livestock were disgusted by the French eating frogs and snails.

There's a funny bit in one of the Hornblower books where Horatio dismisses the idea that the French could eat snails as crude anti-French propaganda.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:12 AM
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I don't think the horse taboo is all that strong -- introspecting, I'd be grossed out by cat, but just a little surprised by horse. And I like horses. Dog, I think I could eat in context: if I were someplace where eating dog was a normal thing to do, I doubt I'd have trouble going along with it.

Funny, I sort of think of dogs as closer to human than cats -- I'm fond of them both, but I'd probably pull the switch on a trolley car to kill a cat to save a dog. But I think eating dog would bother me less than cat.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:12 AM
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Badly prepared cat doesn't taste good

Picky, picky.


Posted by: Opinionated Bob's Dogs | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:12 AM
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Badly prepared cat doesn't taste good

Picky, picky.


Posted by: Opinionated Bob's Dogs | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:12 AM
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Ape is its on special horror, but I'd put elephant and dolphin meat at least as high as monkey on the immorality scale.

(Of course, I don't support any trade in threatened animal products, but that's a different sort of principle as it's contingent which animals have small populations.)


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in" (9) | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:13 AM
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Stupid dogs


Posted by: beamish | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:13 AM
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80: When they rise to rule the Earth, they'll eat you regardless of your ethics.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:14 AM
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I'm actually surprised that ape/monkey aren't (AFAIK) taboo where hunting and eating them is practical. I can't look at a gorilla in the zoo without wanting to get him a lawyer.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:16 AM
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There's a funny bit in one of the Hornblower books where Horatio dismisses the idea that the French could eat snails as crude anti-French propaganda.

The irony is that the English have historically eaten cockles and winkles with gusto (or with vinegar and pepper, for preference). Why do snails suddenly become edible if they live in water?


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:16 AM
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89: There are retrospectively obvious infection disease reasons also.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:18 AM
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Wow, the first sentence in that article apo linked tells of some really insufferable people.

San Francisco residents are delivering a petition today to the South Korean consulate, asking that country's residents to stop eating dogs and cats.

Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:19 AM
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15 existed in institutional form for a while: there was a harm reduction group that would set up tables at raves and offer information on interactions, best practices (yes, drink lots of water!) and test people's E for purity (they had two tests: one immediate one that would at least tell you if it was something entirely non-E/poisonous and one lab test that took a few weeks). Needless to say it made law-and-order types completely furious.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:21 AM
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90: Sand and salt water are clean; dirt and rotting vegetation are dirty. I love snails, but I don't have trouble eating marine shellfish raw; a garden snail raw would disgust me for probably a similar reason.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:22 AM
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I can't look at a gorilla in the zoo without wanting to get him a lawyer.

You could seriously make a career in higher-primate law. There are plenty of people who would support your lavish lifestyle while you lost case after case. If you ever won a case you'd be immortalized and become a legend.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:22 AM
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96

I'm not going to undeceive LB about what oysters and shrimp eat.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:23 AM
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97

OT bleg: Would someone please tell me what about Google's new privacy policy I should care about and what settings and/or behavior I should change?


Posted by: Sir Kraab | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:23 AM
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Commercial snails are raised in clean conditions and fed greens of various kinds. They're noisy eaters for their size, and you can't help noticing the noise made by 100 of them.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:26 AM
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Apes, of course, eat monkeys very happily. Not gorillas AFAIK, but chimps and, I think, bonobos. And they've just recently filmed Orang Utans eating Lorises (prosimian primates).


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:27 AM
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35: That's curious. How is it that you caught the humor in other people's deliberately loops suggestions but not in 13? He even explicitly poked fun at the whole "I don't like the sick-not sick dichotomy" thing from the offending thread.


Posted by: Lord Castock | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:28 AM
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I have eaten horse, and lost a school girlfriend by admitting to it.


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:32 AM
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I have eaten horse, and lost a school girlfriend by admitting to it.


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:32 AM
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103

Alex, this is a safe space and no one will judge you for sleeping with a horse, but calling it your girlfriend is IMO a bit creepy.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:38 AM
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97: it all sounds sort of sucky, but there doesn't seem to be much you can do. If you'd like to avoid the worst of it, don't stay logged in to google and/or use a different browser for mail/calendar/reader than you do for search. Also, if you have an Android phone, you're SOL.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:38 AM
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I have eaten horse, and lost a school girlfriend by admitting to it.

I really hope the admission was preceded by the girlfriend bemoaning the mysterious disappearance of her beloved pony, Dapples.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:40 AM
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OMG how could they do that?!? They said they weren't evil!?!?!


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:42 AM
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97: Use duckduckgo or some similar search engine, set up email through roundcube, and don't buy an Android phone.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:44 AM
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108

The fact both my father and I partook of the horseflesh only makes it worse.


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:46 AM
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108: in a sick Peter Shaeffer-styled moonlit feeding frenzy.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:48 AM
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110

OMG how could they do that?!? They said they weren't evil!?!?!

Do you mean Google? Or the Orang Utans? Or Alex and his dad?


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 9:54 AM
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111

Yes.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 10:02 AM
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112

I once bought an excitingly offally-gristly piece of meat in the Chinese supermarket which was labelled "Fat End Of Pork" on the packaging. I knew I was in a world of trouble when the guy scanned it and the dot matrix thing lit up with "Pig Uterus: £2.50". Inedible. You could braise that bastard thing for a day with no effect.


Posted by: dsquared | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 10:08 AM
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11: took her off the valium

Quitting the benzos cold-turkey is a real BAD idea. There is a risk of strokes with that. Stupid young Doctor.


Posted by: Tripp | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 10:10 AM
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I haven't been following the current google privacy debacle. Is there a precis somewhere? One that isn't 'LOL! Ironic motto!'.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 10:11 AM
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I'm actually surprised that ape/monkey aren't (AFAIK) taboo where hunting and eating them is practical. I can't look at a gorilla in the zoo without wanting to get him a lawyer.

Gorillas are special. Chimps are also special. Monkeys, on the other hand, are bothersome little jerks that deserve to be eaten. I feel the same way about rotten little garden-eating rabbits. The same with rotten big garden-eating deer. Screw their big eyes.


Posted by: Tripp | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 10:12 AM
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116

114: this is fairly informative.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 10:14 AM
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117

Arr. This.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 10:14 AM
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118

Monkeys, on the other hand, are bothersome little jerks that deserve to be eaten.

So are three-year-olds, but I still wouldn't eat one.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 10:14 AM
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119

This suggests bonobos don't eat monkeys, or at least if they do it's very rare.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 10:16 AM
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120

114. As far as I understand it, the big G is now going to conflate all the information you give them in all the applications you use (inc. Android). They claim they need to do this to better fine tune their advert targetting, although there must come a point where additional data of this kind has disappearingly small marginal utility.

i have to say it never occurred to me that they weren't doing this all along, so I'm strangely unmoved.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 10:20 AM
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Pig Uterus is highly prized for its medicinal powers. Not a poverty food. I've had it. You need to have a refined palate.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 10:20 AM
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122

i have to say it never occurred to me that they weren't doing this all along, so I'm strangely unmoved.

Yeah, I mean they've been running loads of ads on the London Underground (in conjunction with, or possibly at the behest of, the CAB) saying they're already doing this.



Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 10:22 AM
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113: Yes! Getting off nicotine was trivially easy compared to getting off Ativan. Fuck-with-extreme-prejudice the docs Rx-ing that "to take the edge off"!


Posted by: Biohazard | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 10:30 AM
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124

104 & following: Thanks.


Posted by: Sir Kraab | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 11:50 AM
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125

This is not a good thread to rehearse my stories about ripping up prescriptions for Percocet and walking around on an untreated broken leg for a month, is it?


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 1:51 PM
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125: Only if you were competing in the Olympics during that month.


Posted by: Biohazard | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 2:05 PM
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127

But...have you tried pop rocks and soda?


Posted by: Britta | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 2:37 PM
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128

Have you tried soda pop and rocks?


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 2:41 PM
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129

Have you tried rock salt and yodels?


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 2:41 PM
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130

Have you tried stop, drop, and roll?


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 2:42 PM
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131

Have you tried shake, rattle and roll?


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 2:47 PM
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132

Have you tried droll rattlesnakes?


Posted by: Benquo | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 2:50 PM
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133

Jeepers, Alameida. Are you mad at me?


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 5:19 PM
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yeah but they clearly taste nasty or they would be a staple in the diet of poor people all over the world. everybody's broke...here are all these cats.

In a place with poor people and no cats, though, there's probably a reason why. My guess is that there would be a lot more cats in the world without the cativores.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 5:34 PM
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133: 35 was directed as gswift


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 5:36 PM
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135: I know. If Al wants me to explain my comments in the previous thread, I will; otherwise I'm not in the mood.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 5:55 PM
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I want you to explain the role of the steel tipped plow in the settlement of the great plains. Use examples from three different states and two different decades.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 5:59 PM
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15 existed in institutional form for a while: there was a harm reduction group that would set up tables at raves and offer information on interactions, best practices (yes, drink lots of water!) and test people's E for purity (they had two tests: one immediate one that would at least tell you if it was something entirely non-E/poisonous and one lab test that took a few weeks). Needless to say it made law-and-order types completely furious.

I met a guy at a party a few months back wearing an Erowid t-shirt. We had a great and intense coversation, but damn if I could remember any of it the next day. Still, we're Facebook friends now.


Posted by: x.trapnel | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 6:00 PM
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Fuck. I totally can't do that.

You know what else I can't do? Build a telescope. It's true what they say about the American worker being underskilled.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 6:01 PM
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Only sort of off-topic: the state-run high-risk insurance pools have an interesting incentive structure: at least in CA, you have to have been uninsured for 6 months to get the (low premium, good benefits) Pre-Existing Condition plan, but can get the (much worse) Major Risk plan immediately. If you do get the latter, though, you'll never be eligible for the former. So if you lose your coverage, not only do you need to sit tight and hope nothing bad happens for six months, you get to do so knowing that if something catastrophic happens, you'll feel horrible for not having done the safe thing by signing up with the MR plan (and no doubt, any Official person you deal with will castigate you as irresponsible because of it). Weird.

Luckily for me, I've only got a month to go!


Posted by: x.trapnel | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 6:04 PM
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Insofar as the apparently good terms of the PCIP are a result of the ACA, though, I should in fairness say, hooray for socialized Kenyan medicine! "Hooray" conditional on nothing bad happening till March, of course.


Posted by: x.trapnel | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 6:06 PM
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at least in CA, you have to have been uninsured for 6 months to get the (low premium, good benefits) Pre-Existing Condition plan

I think that's national policy. I know of a few people, myself included, who've considered whether they should voluntarily let their (expensive, individual) coverage lapse for 6 months in order to qualify for the Pre-Existing Condition plan, but I believe you have to be uninsured because nobody will actually insure you, not just because they'll only insure you at exorbitant rates. Hrm.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 6:11 PM
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At least in CA, you don't actually have to have been denied coverage; you can also just prove you have some sort of medical condition, or that you're paying super high rates:

A letter dated within the last 12 months, from a licensed doctor, physician assistant, or nurse practitioner, stating the individual has or had a medical condition, disability, or illness (go to PCIP website for a sample form), or
An offer of individual (not group) health coverage at higher premiums than the MRMIP preferred provider organization (PPO) rate where you live. The offer letter must be dated within the last 12 months (see pages 8-13 for MRMIP's PPO monthly premiums.),

Posted by: x.trapnel | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 6:15 PM
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(I should emphasize that I'm really in about the best-case scenario, and have nothing to complain about; but I imagine that somebody with a number of dependents, just at the beginning of the 6-month clock, would be facing a really agonizing choice.)


Posted by: x.trapnel | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 6:17 PM
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An offer of individual (not group) health coverage at higher premiums than the MRMIP preferred provider organization (PPO) rate where you live

Ah. I'm not in the running, then -- or wouldn't be if I were in CA -- as I cleverly, I thought, arranged for myself a so-called "group of one" plan several years ago, according to which I'm self-employed and a potential employer of others, and am in a "group" plan, but I'm the only member of the group. Still costs a hell of a lot, on the order of what an individual plan would cost, but the insurance broker I speak to about this explains repeatedly that I would be uninsurable otherwise, and I *must not* let the coverage lapse, else nobody would insure me. Hrm, again. It's not clear to me whether I'll even be eligible for the new insurance exchanges, which are chiefly for people on (or failing to be on) individual plans, but I think do include small groups.

In any case, many other people are in a worse situation, and the Pre-Existing Condition plan as it stands is an improvement.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 6:43 PM
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Even before Google announce this privacy change, they'd turned my gmail account into a sort-of-youtube account (no channel, but a profile). Turns out that I've been having my video watching history tracked and recorded, my search history tracked and recorded, and even a "watch later" playlist created, all without my knowledge. I assume the playlist was created by some mis-clicks on a few videos where I was probably looking for a setting/url.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 8:02 PM
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And as far as I can tell, you cannot turn the watch history off, though you can "pause" the search history. Fuck you, google.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 8:03 PM
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This is not a good thread to rehearse my stories about ripping up prescriptions for Percocet and walking around on an untreated broken leg for a month, is it?
so that when you actually perform them in a later thread they're perfect? no, but why would you go and do a thing like that? I can see stubborn refusal to rest/go to the doctor/etc. easily enough, but tearing up the scrips seems to tip the scales over from doughty, stoic yankee to ornery masochist. and it also sounds awful; sorry you were suffering like that.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 01-27-12 11:03 PM
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133: no, parsimon, I'm not mad at you, I'm mad with you.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 01-28-12 6:22 AM
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125, 148: Flippanter, do you never think of others? Surely you had a friend at that time who would have made good use of that scrip, and if you had given it to them they would have shown their gratitude by coming back and stealing your stereo.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-28-12 6:30 AM
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ripping up prescriptions for Percocet

You, sir, are a monster.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-28-12 6:54 AM
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Now Apo's going to steal your stereo anyway.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-28-12 7:00 AM
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148, 150, 151: Batman Flippanter has no limits.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 01-28-12 7:46 AM
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Have you tried placebos? Or do I mean placentas? One of them is meant to be very effective.


Posted by: dsquared | Link to this comment | 01-28-12 7:56 AM
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"limits" s/b "speakers"


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-28-12 7:56 AM
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Broken bones without prescription painkillers are sucky, I tell you what.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 01-28-12 8:07 AM
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OT: You guys would bail me out if I brained my mother, right?

She's very sensitive to feeling snubbed and insufficiently included in things. I heard from my daughter (who my mother drives home from an afterschool activity. She does this because she asked if it was necessary or helpful, I told her it wasn't necessary, we could manage just fine without it and there was no need for her to put herself out like that, and then she told me she was doing it anyway) that my mother was interested in attending a play being put on by my daughter's school. My daughter isn't in it, but we have to go because she has friends in it. It had never occurred to me that anyone would want to attend a middle school play other than because they had a friend or relative in it, but no problem; I called her and asked her if she wanted to meet us for the 2 pm show. Her response was that she didn't want to get in anyone's way, and she'd just go to the 7 pm show.

I can't win.


Posted by: Duchess Gloriana of Grand Fenwick | Link to this comment | 01-28-12 8:14 AM
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156: I thought it was a sprain for a while.

157: No jury of women I have known would convict you.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 01-28-12 8:26 AM
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158.1: I had that happen once with a broken hand. Then I biked around in the rain the next day and fell on it. Then I knew for sure.

The break I'm talking about in 156 was not doubtable, however.


Posted by: Sifu Tweety | Link to this comment | 01-28-12 8:29 AM
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The only bones I have broken are the little toes on each foot. You don't get much sympathy for those.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-28-12 8:43 AM
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149: Ah. I will say that I get mad at people who think I should stop taking my medication, so right, we're on the same page.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 01-28-12 6:33 PM
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160: actually those are supposed to hurt horribly and take forever to heal! I've got sympathy.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 01-29-12 7:03 AM
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I wondered if it was me. I wasn't making fun. I really did have possibly the worst migraine I've ever had, and I really did take Tums, and the headache really did get better. Either it really was a migraine and there is some category of migraines that responds to Tums (it seemed like a migraine and I had eaten A LOT of migraine triggers over the previous several days), or it was a sinus infection that responds to Tums (I'd never even heard of sinus infections causing that kind of pain until I searched the Internet that morning for medical advice), or migraine-like headaches can be caused by acid reflux (which I'd almost be willing to credit, at this point, personally).

Sorry if it seemed flip or if taking random suggestions isn't something you can do. I wouldn't want to be in your shoes, but at this point I have a doctor who hasn't diagnosed anything or even sent me home with self-care instructions or an OTC recommendation in all the time I've been seeing her, and who's capable of feeling an ankle ligament inflamed to the diameter of a small rope and saying, not this isn't serious, but there's nothing wrong here, you had some problems with your hip when you were pregnant, maybe it's a referred pain? So I'm happy to find new benign methods for self-care.


Posted by: bianca steele | Link to this comment | 01-29-12 8:56 AM
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Alameida's problems are actually familiar to anyone who has read much 19th c. fiction. during that era adult women of good family developed various female problems due to their sequestration and the consequent and unsatisfied desires.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01-29-12 9:08 AM
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And it wasn't a placebo effect because everything else, regarding which I won't bore everybody, did not get better.


Posted by: bianca steele | Link to this comment | 01-29-12 9:13 AM
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re: 162

Quite sore, yeah. Like Apo I've broken minor things: fingers, toes, and my nose. But nothing major. Was mildly jealous of kids with stookies when I was a kid. I've been present when people have broken bones, though, and am glad I never did.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 01-29-12 9:14 AM
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