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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2357 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 11, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Things have been kinda shit lately. 4 year old daughter got diagnosed with Lyme Disease and then Alpha Gal Syndrome, which has really sucked. The Lyme got knocked out (hopefully) with 30 days of amoxicillin. The Alpha Gal is basically permanent, although there is this kind of woo-woo acupuncture treatment which supposedly works. If it were just me, I'd be stubborn and refuse to try some bullshit I think is fake. But kids change you, and you're willing to do anything to help them, so we may end up trying it. Who knows.

So to cheer everyone up we got a dog. Happiest I've seen my daughter or my wife in a hot minute. Just a sweet 5/6 month old rescue from a shelter. It was a bit of an impulsive decision, but the wife has been really longing for a dog for a while. So we were at the humane society visiting this one dog, and she seemed really sweet and got along well with our daughter. So I told my wife lets just get her before someone else does. $25 and some paperwork later, we came home with a dog. Some sort of lab or shepherd mix?

Picking my daughter up from school today, and she's so excited she's telling anyone and everyone about the new dog she just got. Spent the last 2 hours I've been working in my home office just drawing and coloring next to the dog's crate. They can't get enough of each other. Cutest damned thing I've ever seen. Highly recommend it.

This oral immunotherapy drug seems to work, based on a 100% success rate in an early clinical trial. It's probably some years away from general availability, but it might be something to look forward to.

There's also a desensitization protocol using only beef and beef extract described here. Seems like DIY might be viable.

The Alpha Gal is basically permanent, although there is this kind of woo-woo acupuncture treatment which supposedly works.

I've seen reports of people getting rid of it by eating tiny amounts of the offending substance, working up from miligrams to normalcy.

That's really rough luck. You and your daughter have my family's sympathy and prayers. Hope the adjustment isn't too painful.

Sorry to hear about Alpha Gal, but look at the bright side of life: at least it's not something like soy, shellfish or nut allergy, which are a pain in the ass to manage.

She can still eat poultry and fish, right? That's still a lot of recipes for you to enjoy together.

Acupuncture works by placebo effect. If you tell her convincingly that you believe it will work, it just might.

Acupuncture(sticking small needles in people) also works on a simple biochemical level by triggering certain repair responses, which can be beneficial for some (auto-)immune diseases . It's just that acupuncture(the traditional theory) is bunk.

Stuff like microneedling seems to have some effect (both for skin damage and thinning hair) but I don’t know that that’s really in the same realm as acupuncture of any kind.

Rough. On the bright side, nominative determinism may have a silver lining for your Alpha Gal.

Alternative medicine may sound crazy, but that sort of thing has worked for me. There is obviously a lot of crap out there, but don't take the Western medical model as God's own truth. If you keep trying many things can be healed that our medical views say can't be.

I'm sorry to hear about your daughter.

Also, dogs are amazing. I love dogs. Great choice.

That's some super bad luck on Alpha-gal syndrome. I remember my boss and the company owner talking about a tick bite that makes you allergic to red meat, and they both agreed that life would not be worth living if that happened. I disagree, I like chicken a lot and surely there are other meats that can be eaten and even an older adult would eventually adjust, but I honestly didn't even know it was a real disease that happened to real people. I'm sorry to hear that.

Yeah, its been an adjustment. We already ate lots of fish and chicken because thats ehat my wife likes and she does the shopping and cooking. Whats harder are all the animal byproducts in everything. Its basically forced us to vegan stuff when it comes to prepackaged foods.

She doesnt go into shock thankfully. Presents more as IBS and stomach pains. At first she barely noticed her diet changed, but lately shes been asking about missing beef which breaks our hearts.

The Alpha Gal is basically permanent, although there is this kind of woo-woo acupuncture treatment which supposedly works. If it were just me, I'd be stubborn and refuse to try some bullshit I think is fake. But kids change you, and you're willing to do anything to help them, so we may end up trying it. Who knows.

There is a massive rabbit hole you can go down with "chronic Lyme disease". Don't do it. I know it's hard because you want to do everything you can for your daughter, but seriously, resist. Nothing but scammers who want to bleed you dry of all your money.

Also dude you're going off about UAPs downthread but talking shit about alternative health rabbit holes up here? Come on.

Yeah I figured someone would bring that up.

I think I've been pretty open and consistent on my stance on UAPs whenever someone asks. I want them to be real, but I ultimately don't think the probability of them being real is very high. It's not something I would bet money on. Thankfully it costs me nothing to refresh /r/UFOs every once in a while to check the latest news.

If someone told me that they were about to drop $1k on New Paradigm Institute's online UFO classes (which is something that you can really do with real money!) because they thought that it would give them the inside scoop, I would tell them that that's obviously a scam and they should not do that.

If someone wants to just try some acupuncture or homeopathy method at home I don't actually have a problem with that. I'm not the thought police. But alternative medicine is filled with scammers who prey on emotionally vulnerable people for financial gain, so anyone charging money for alternative treatments deserves extremely strict scrutiny.

I agree with extremely strict scrutiny, I guess I would just say don't discourage people entirely. There are genuinely good practitioners lurking out there.

It's not just alternative health though. I'd say 95% of legitimate therapists are total shit and may even make things worse for their patients.

It's a similar ratio for alternative health.

If someone wants to just try some acupuncture or homeopathy method at home

Acupuncture is a little different from homeopathy in that there's a plausible mechanism in terms of stimulating nerves or whatnot -- the Asian Woo (Wu?) wrapped around it seems shitty and I haven't tried it myself, but certainly people I know have said it helps with various things. People who are into homeopathy on the other hand just seem to be sick all the time -- for which they need more homeopathy!

Disagree it's all scammers. Many chronic diseases are much more complicated than we take at face value. I have personally overcome chronic issues I've been told repeatedly by dozens of doctors were permanent.

It's difficult but can be done.

People might be interested in a longpost about overcoming those chronic issues?

Hmm I have made many a long post on here. Wish I had a quick reference to share.

Seems plausible that it's all scammers for some chronic diseases but not others.

The way I see the mechanism is basically stored emotional trauma "causes" almost all chronic disease/illness so. I disagree.

That’s not a “mechanism”. What would be the actual mechanism behind this proposed effect?

Idk what you mean by mechanism but there are all sorts of ones proposed.

Read "The Body Keeps the Score"

So what solution do you propose, then? Just therapy of some sort? Honestly asking in a non-snark manner, as I know two people with chronic illness who also (I thought coincidentally) have significant amounts of stored emotional trauma.

Yoga is also good, or the Feldenkrais method or Alexander technique if people have bad chronic pain. Getting back into feeling the body is often a big part of all this.

Hmm I basically suggest exploring with an open mind various alternative healing modalities. Ones which focus on the felt sense like Focusing are often good, or body scans or somatic meditation.

Ideally finding a therapist or healer who is good at this sort of work, but again it can be a hassle. Took me a long time and wading through a lot of bullshit to find people who could help me, but it was worth it.

So you think that stored emotional trauma causes, say, leukemia? Or cystic fibrosis?

Hmm, good question. I would say they exacerbate it. I think that these diseases often come from or at least are made worse by massive emotional trauma. You can fill in the word "stress" which effects these things.

Not all though. My claim was too strong.

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