I’ve struggled with migraines for the lasts seven years and change. It came along with my autoimmune diagnosis but has lived a separate life from ankylosing spondylitis and psoriatic arthritis.
Typically I get them in my luteal phase of my cycle but as I’ve began to experiment with hormones in pellet form (just tucked away in my fat) I’ve began to struggle with them on a more regular basis. It’s no longer tied to any phase of my hormonal cycle.
I don’t know what I did today to kick one off, but about an hour ago I had to lay down in the dark because I just cannot seem to get any relief from the pressure inside my head.
I have a prescription for something called Imitrex, which helps quite a bit, but I’d really prefer to not have them in the first place.
I am not sure I can get anything else out today, except that this is happening and I can’t fix it, so my apologies there.
Yesterday I was firing off zingers left and right like some kind of Internet Yosemite Sam hollering like cartoon frontier gunslinger.
Hair trigger with a side of facial hair
I am displeased with how silly things have become as I ponder the downsides of things falling apart and the upside of accelerating into the turn. That darn rabbit though right?
So this afternoon with some intentions of productivity on my mind, it only makes sense that I passed out sometime after lunch. I got an hour of deep sleep in the mid afternoon. Which is upsettingly more than I got the entire night before.
Don’t mind the alarmingly high heart rate
My heart rate was racing but my body did not care. I’d been exposed to too much autonomic stress the past couple of days and it was just done with letting that happen.
They say Sunday is a day of rest but that is because we are meant to use our response to consider the things that matter most in life. Family, faith and in some cases football. But I spent it passed out in a dark room without a thought in my mind. I hope it helped.
Apologies that today’s post is going to be only partially organic human produced writing. I’m a tad more focused on cobbling together my current end game which feels promising.
I am now dosed off my current biologic. Tomorrow I go in to run a bunch of bloodwork but I feel more stable than expected for 11 weeks since my last injection.
I take it for psoriatic arthritis and active ankylosing spondylitis. I do not recommend this devil of a medication unless you intend to reboot your entire autoimmune system (which I did), can tolerate a lot of soft tissue infections (which I couldn’t) and have tried everything else. Which I have. And this past year was brutal fighting off the side effects but I think I might actually have a shot at remission.
I am now layering a bunch of mechanical interventions to rework years of compensatory patterns my body has used to manage the constant pain in my thoracic spine and other areas of inflammation including my sternum, rib cage and joints.
But after seven years of trying everything I can to recover from prednisone to methotrexate to Humira and Taltz to literally just not eating for ten straight days (don’t worry I was supervised) my inflammatory biometrics are coming up clean. The pain isn’t fully gone but I think the pain can be diminished by quite a lot as I rebuild.
So it’s now or never if I want a shot at life without suppressing my immune system. I have no idea if I can do it and I may need to dose back on something else but at the moment I’m managing with a new arsenal.
Here are the artificial intelligence bits of the mechanical interventions I am leveraging. I am using a bunch more than the two below but it’s what I’ve got so enjoy.
1. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT)
Mechanically, HBOT does a few things that line up with what my data is showing:
More dissolved oxygen in blood and tissues Breathing 100% oxygen under pressure increases the amount of oxygen dissolved directly in plasma. That can:
Support tissue healing (skin, soft tissue, surgical sites)
Help inflamed or energy-starved tissues keep up with demand
Autonomic “downshift” for some people Research is mixed, but many people (and some small trials) show:
Lower resting heart rate and subjective anxiety after sessions
A tilt toward parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) dominance In your data, the days after HBOT blocks are exactly when we see HR drop back toward baseline and Recovery go green.
Anti‑inflammatory & microcirculation support (early evidence) HBOT can:
Modulate certain inflammatory pathways and oxidative stress
Improve microvascular blood flow, which matters for both autoimmune-affected tissues and healing pelleted areas / irritated skin
In your context (autoimmune, infection risk, prior soft‑tissue complications), HBOT looks like it’s acting as:
A structured, time‑boxed reset that helps your heart rate settle and supports healing, without adding mechanical strain.
You’re already doing the key safety piece: using it under medical guidance and watching how HR, Recovery, and symptoms respond day-to-day.
2. SCM (sternocleidomastoid) muscle work
The SCM runs from behind your ear to your collarbone and is heavily involved in:
Head and neck position
Breathing assistance when things feel tight
A dense web of nerves and fascia near the vagus nerve, carotid artery, and jugular vein
Working on SCM (gentle massage, trigger-point release, careful stretching) can impact:
Perceived heart‑rate “rev” and breath tension Tight SCMs show up when:
You’re chronically bracing, in pain, or anxious about pain
You’re using accessory neck muscles to breathe
Releasing them can:
Make breathing feel less effortful and more diaphragmatic
Reduce that “I’m keyed up in my chest and throat” feeling even if HR number isn’t wildly high.
Headache/migraine and neck-related pain SCM trigger points can refer pain to:
Temples, behind the eyes, jaw By easing those trigger points, you sometimes reduce:
Migraine severity/frequency
The background neck/jaw tension that keeps your nervous system on edge
Autonomic tone (indirectly) The area around the SCM is rich with baroreceptors and vagus-adjacent structures. Gentle work there can:
Encourage a downshift in sympathetic drive (less “fight-or-flight bracing”)
Pair nicely with breathwork (especially long, slow exhales) to reinforce parasympathetic activation
In practice for you, SCM work + HBOT looks like a two-pronged calm signal:
HBOT: physiological support + autonomic softening from the inside
SCM: mechanical and sensory de‑bracing around your neck, jaw, and breathing
My Whoop is seeing HR and Recovery respond in a way that suggests this combo is genuinely helping my system get out of that “stuck high-gear” state.
Everyone is maxing now. You can barely read a proper broadsheet without the Zoomer coinage crossing your transom. Maxxing is everywhere.
Maxxing means maximizing a certain aspect of one’s life. Comes from “minmaxxing”, a term for extracting the maximum output from the minimum input.
Urban Dictionary gives its history though the minmaxxing, though lately I’m not sure minimum input is actually part of the Maxxing game.
Maxxing is now maximizing every aspect of wherever you are focusing on improving. And boy do people want to improve across all possible vectors and all at once.
Is a geopolitical conflict all about Chinamaxxing? Is an influencer Looksmaxxing? Is a certain venture capitalist Retardmaxxing? It’s a little uncomfortable all around but time is short so why not go all gas no breaks.
I myself have noticed a kind of JulieMaxxing creep into my life I refuse to settle for a set of interconnected yet impossible to tease apart health issues.
From hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy to everyone’s favorite semaglutide I intend to do it all. The same goes for face. I do an ABC+SPF routine just for starters for my skin. I am going to JulieMaxx if only so I can get back to Minimum Viable Julie.
We did not have much of a winter to speak of Montana. Sure, Farmer’s Almanac predicted a lot of snowfall but even such an august institution can’t always get it right.
We got almost no pre-season snow fall. Which one can shrug off. We dutifully schedule our snow tire switchover at the end of September anyway. Alex bought his lift tickets with high hopes for a good ski season. Then the openings of our local mountain and Big Sky looked dicey. And yet still we hung onto hope.
We had no white Christmas. The deep freezes of January usually come with snowfall. It was grey this year. February would surely come through right? Alas wrong again. March did not go out like a lion. There was little water to whip up in our non-existent bay. And so, in April we cried and our hopes stepped aside as we waited for pretty little May.
People began to take off their snowtires. This just wasn’t our year. Spring would arrive early right? Any hopes of good days of powder were thoroughly dashed. It was over till next year right? Wrong!
The weight of wet snow
It snowed a big wet mess of deep sloppy powder on Good Friday. Hooray! Indeed it was a good Friday. Except, oh no, our snow tires are off.
Then, last night, when no one honestly believed the forecast for 6-10 inches one bit, we went to bed expecting a normal day. The days had already begun to lengthen substantially. Birds were hatching and the green was growing.
A heavy wet mess dumped onto our patio overnight
Clearly we were wrong. I tossed and turned all night as my joints bubbled and ached. I thought I was using a flare. But when I woke up it was clear my body knew more than my brain and the weather forecast was correct. It has snowed almost a full foot.
The hot tub needed to be dug out
Now the particulars funny aspect of all this is that Alex took the snowblower off the tractor yesterday. He needed to cut the side pasture down before new growth hit so the snowblower attachment was replaced for the trimmer. We’d let long grass grow and then flatten which required more than a riding mower. It needed the Deere to cut through.
So the front walkway was hand dug out but the drive to our road is going to remain snowed in for a bit. The sun will come out tomorrow. I did however have to reschedule a haircut. But that’s the price you pay for trying to get ahead of the weather. We never should have taken off our snow tires early.
Some days end up being so much more interesting than you expect. I awoke to a family member, who has been preparing for a set of major surgeries, saying they had in fact gone in that morning for the first round of procedures.
I had been concerned they were putting it off so I was quite relieved that their lack of communication on the topic was simply their preparation to face what will be a grueling health challenge. Preparing for a procedure well gives you the best chance at success.
Then I went about a normal work day having lobbed a question, or maybe a prayer, onto the network as the reality of human lives is that imperfect options are always what remains. Being clear eyed about the choices in our lives and how the weight of our past actions have set us on a path can be hard. But it is necessary.
And as I wrapped up my day I was the recipient of some good news. I can’t share anything but the shape of it. But a project that was an experimental approach to a space I care deeply about has bravely faced the whipping winds and looks like they will successfully come to a safe berth intact with all souls.
Which is not such an easy thing to do when you set out for uncharted territory. I am so very proud of what has been accomplished thus far.
All things in life are the fruits of imperfect options that remain. That we make the best use of them is our obligation not only to ourselves but to those to whom we have committed. I am grateful that today was a day where those hard choices were made.
I am no spring chicken. That’s why we bought some spring chickens this weekend. I kid I kid. I do however have a forever 35 face. I come from a line of women who age well sure but I have very consistent habits.
I’m lucky to have an ageless look. My husband would say I have a forever 28 face as I somehow look better having crossed into my forties than I did when we met at 28. Meanwhile my husband has gone from boyish wonder with full head of hair to distinguished grey beard with a bald pate.
Now sure husbands are supposed to say nice things like “no honey you haven’t aged a day!” Except I really do seem to have benefited greatly from genetics and routine.
He may be right, not out of any urge to flatter me, but simply because some women do look better with a little age on them. I looked young with a rounded features right until I looked ageless somewhere in my late thirties.
Alex and I at 29 where you absolutely can spot my pre-retinol skin Alex and I two weeks ago before touring the West Wing during our trip to D.C
I don’t look all that different when I compare and contrast between photos from then and now. I gained and lost as much weight as a Kardashian (more than once damn you prednisone and bless you semaglutide) but my face has somehow retained its plump without a maximalist approach without gaining wrinkles. I’ve lost the fine lines.
I didn’t start Botox till forty and I’m grateful as I need much less now. I didn’t pull anything out either even when cut looks were all the rage. I’m glad for my rounded features now.
But I have added in more to my beauty routine as I age because I enjoy it. I found it humorous when a 31 year old pursing a doctorate in clinical psychology said out loud what I’ve darkly joked about with girlfriends for years. It’s really hard to be completely controlled.
For a year in my early 20s, I was also spending literally all of my money on a psycho 100-step skin-care process. Looking back, I didn’t have the executive functioning to be successfully anorexic, which is what I also wanted. But I did have the discipline to enjoy this complicated multistep ritual of the skin care. I found it satisfying.” New York Magazine
Now we can all joke and say she shouldn’t be in practice but I never felt I could pull off an eating disorder either even though I often wished I could. That eating disorders are dangerous enough to kill you isn’t the point. It’s being able to control your body enough that you can kill yourself that we desire.
I hated that no matter how much effort I put into diet and exercise I could never achieve the standards of waif like beauty put out in the heyday of Anna Wintour’s heroin chic era. Millennial beauty expectations were a bitch and I could never quite work up the control to hate myself. Sure I got really fit with a heck of a squat but I always had to watch every single macronutrient and instead of skinny I got lean.
And while I appreciate a good Molière joke about The Imaginary Invalid, weight was never the issue that got me in trouble.It was hormones that got me.
So I knew poor health with a healthy weight and I knew poor health with a lot of weight gained trying to fix the poor health.
I will never allow myself to get over the BMI band again to avoid the medical discrimination I faced when I gained weight while on prednisone.
Alas no my autoimmune condition was not mitigated even an iota by weight loss. I had it before I was fat. I got fat treating it. I still have it now that I’m at a healthy weight.
But the desire to maximize your looks and your health always intertwine with women. Increasingly it does for men too. Body dysmorphia respect neither sex nor gender. I doubt it will ever again.
Beauty is a skill set. And some of that skill set is now pharmaceutical in nature. And if we are honest, it’s been that way for a few decades. It’s just that everyone know about it now. The network age comes for us all.
I have been hobbled by a migraine for most of the day. I wish I could pinpoint the triggers for it as right now I am lost as to what is causing both its intensity and unrelenting nature.
I’ve gone through all the basic remedies from putting your feet in hot water to total silence and darkness along with an alarming number of Imitrax. You can’t overdue them or it makes the cycle worse so I am at the gutting it out phase of this batch.
The migraine just didn’t seem to be breaking for more than a couple of hours and if I use those hours in any kind of active way I am setting myself up for a relapse. Yesterday we made a trip to Tractor Supply and then I spent my night in misery.
I was fighting a fever as my husband managed a stomach bug last week so it might be the aftermath of whatever happened there. I wish I had more to say that wasn’t a complaint about pain but it is hard to look at a screen for longer than a Tweet response.
You’d think Europeans would be a little more on the up and up when it comes to their fine young strapping men getting into scrapes with Persians. But judging by the current reaction to the goings on in the crescent of civilization nobody has time to study antiquity anymore. That seems to be a pretty pressing issue in America as well. We also don’t teach math so it’s a real toss up on who is fucking up civilizational gains more.
Still I presumed your average movie goer saw some Zach Snyder action films even if they weren’t into say Athenian city states struggling with their gerontocracy only to lose their best and brightest to the other side. No Melian dialog fans? Ouch. Tough crowd.
I am extremely caustic today as I went from nervously fucking around with petroleum derivatives in consumer packaged goods to running a fever today.
I’ll just have to chalk all of my stupid whining up to modest discomforts of peak human achievements even if I’d like to blame all my problems on the betrayal of super ripped Greek dudes.
I assume Alcibiades was in decent shape giving how much certain Athenians thirsted over him but girl (no gendere intended but I mean Socrates) he left for Persia when Pericles wouldn’t listen.
Yes I’m running fast and loose between a hundred years but I’m not a Helot so maybe I’m allowed to run my mouth a little. But if you are running a frontier AI lab I’d appreciate it if you don’t. Same applies if you the secretary of any major departments. Or retired hedge fund managers.
Really anyone with anyone power should be keeping it moderate. The rest of us are probably free to be idiots online if they choose. Still keep up the good spirits, stock up on the essentials and pick up some history books when you get the chance.
A chunk of preppers and preparedness enthusiasts are just shopaholics. Shopping is common response to anxiety and depression. Doing something that you can control in a world you can’t control has logic to it.
So if you aren’t up for getting first responder certified or spending time in your local library I’ve got just the thing to sooth your anxieties about the current situation in the straight of Hormuz.
I vibe coded a dashboard of common household items with petroleum byproducts in them. It analyzes ingredients and wholesale pricing and assigns risk scores so you can make a shopping list of items most impacted by the ongoing supply chain crisis.
A screenshot of the dashboard I vibe coded today to soothe my anxiety about supply chain disruptions and get ahead of pricing hikes and potential shortages
From diapers to sunscreen, you’d be shocked at just how much our basic needs are downstream of petroleum byproducts. Now it’s just a silly little thing I used AI to put together, but petroleum dependency in consumer packaged is high.
From food products and personal care to drugs, you will find we that we rely on petrochemical feedstocks everywhere.
I’ll mess with it as I add in new data sources and get suggestions for categories I’ve missed. But I’d love for you to check it out even if I am not quite done improving upon the basic idea. You might learn something.
Even if the fighting ends today (as I write this a temporary two week cease fire has been agreed to), the damage to processing, production and manufacturing is already enormous.
Say you aren’t worried about price hikes but you are concerned with the environmental impact of your purchasing habits. I included alternatives in the dashboard if you’d like to make a switch.
Time to buy Aquaphor and Vaseline
The data is compiled from DOE, S&P Global, Investing.com, Packaging Insights, VCCI trade reports. A petroleum dependency score is assigned based on estimates of ingredient analysis.
The prices reflect wholesale market trends so you can be prepared to get ahead before retail prices go up. I’ve even included a bit of context on what aspects of the product are petroleum derived ingredients just for fun.
Below is a screenshot for food preservatives. A type of dependency many of us would like less of in our consumption. Maybe the dashboard helps you improve your diet with a little knowledge. Who knows! Isn’t vibe coding fun?
On another note, I remain amazed at what we can do with artificial intelligence and natural language input. This took me very little time thanks to Claude Code, Perplexity Pro and Cloudflare. If you haven’t explored the wide world of vibe coding now is definitely the time.
