Tag: Health

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Culture Medical

Day 1962 and Piss in a Can

Women are at a bit of a disadvantage to men when it comes to relieving ourselves. Yes I am talking about taking a piss.

From road trips to the backcountry, we’re forced to hike up our skirts (or worse shimmy down our pants) and aim our stream through squat & thrust such that it lands where we desire without soiling our garments or surrounding areas.

You might be wondering why I’ve got such a urological topic on my mind. And I might remind you it is not as if my writing lacks for lewd colloquialisms. Some readers may recall my viral hit “dick riding” so if you are inclined towards Freud we can have a chuckle about penis envy. And today it might even be true.

I am at the moment stuck in a literal can. I am nearing the end of a session of hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy. To be specific, my 27th session on my second round of the therapy. My first round of it was forty sessions last fall. I am rounding the end of my second set in the next two weeks.

I happen to feel dare I say good this most recent round of HBOT. It’s a marvel what it can do for the lungs and for healing wounds. However I can’t credit my current upswing just to the oxygen I’m breathing in while under two atmospheres of pressure.

I have gone off my biological injection Bimzelx after a frightful year of infections despite its excellent ability to squash down inflammatory biometrics like CRP and sed rate. I’ve added in hormone therapy via testosterone and estradiol pellets (also my second round of them). The big change is that I am heading into my forth week of injecting experimental peptides.

Those had a hell of an adjustment, but seem to have done absolutely everything which was claimed by their champions in terms of anti-inflammatory benefits. Alas I am not sure if I should discuss them too much lest I get in trouble for being ahead of the insurance rackets. My doctor supervised and approved of them which should be good enough but one never knows.

That was a long way of saying that this combination of discontinuing old expensive therapies and adding in new cheaper less expensive treatments is adding up to a lot more mobility and capacity for me.

So today I went hiking and I lifted weights. Actual under the bar squats in my own rack like an actual human. The kind of active life that I’ve been desperately trying to regain for years.

So I’ve drank rather a lot of water today. More than perhaps I should have, as here I am in a pressurized can absolutely desperately wishing I could urinate.

Alas I am waiting the timer praying for decompression to arrive so I can relieve myself in a proper water closest. And thus we circle back to the penis envy.

It’s just that I have an empty can in here with me, it’s not out of the question I could find relief in that manner. Perhaps I’d have a better treatment. My heart rate is higher than I’d like and my bladder is unhappy about the pressure. But I’ve got no aim and little room for error.

Just imagine the smell. If urine smells in a well ventilated area like a roadside rest stop, just imagine how it might smell in a pressurized tube. It’s not a place you want to fart I’ll tell you that much. So wetting the blankets, upholstery, and my clothing in here would be a disaster. I’d never get the smell out.

So here I am laughing to myself about wanting to piss in a can. Maybe a good reminder to buy one of those hiking helper devices for women. You never know what kind of situation I may find myself in this summer if I can actually move my body comfortably again.

Categories
Biohacking Chronic Disease Medical

Day 1956 and Mother’s Day Message on Fertility

One of my mutuals Riva Tez wrote an exceptional read on her research into the American approach to fertility, and in particular, the maximalist hormone dosing that goes into programs like egg freezing, embryo freezing, and in vitro fertilization

It’s a topic on which I have written extensively, as I am one of the women who was hurt by the American approach of high hormone intensity to extract eggs efficiently. To make a long story short, it kicked off an autoimmune process in me that we’ve never fully gotten under control.

I think a lot about what the fertility industry did unknowingly to me and how it forever changed the course of my life. I went from thinking I had an insurance policy to being too ill to work within the space of a year. There is no recovery for me as of yet, even though I spend quite a bit of time and effort on my health.

If you were a millennial or Zoomer thinking about these procedures, I’d like you to consider reading her research and my personal experiences and educating yourself so you can make the most informed decision in your family planning.

Becoming a mother may have been an easy or unexpected decision for other generations of women, but we live in a very different time with very different technologies and different social constructs.

The more you know about your options, the more likely it is that you will find the right path for yourself without doing harm to your body in the process.

Categories
Chronic Disease

Day 1954 and Constriction

I am in so much pain today. The tendon bands that wrap from my sternum around my thoracic to my spine is badly inflamed. It’s hard to breathe smoothly when your own tendons are choking you out.

I had a fairly intense week what with the chaotic back and forth in the national policy debate around artificial intelligence. There have been swirling rumors and much back and forth. Nothing feels worse than seeing your own industry shoot itself in the foot as the stakes get bigger.

Last night Alex and I went for a long walk in the long hours of sunset. It felt as if every living creature from the ducks in our pond to horses out to pasture was taking in the perfect spring evening.

We stopped and chatted with each neighbor as being outside was on everyone’s agenda with the clear sky and warm weather. The joy of greenery had the undercurrent of concern. A dry winter will have its consequences. One of our neighbors who keeps horses mentions their hay costs had doubled from last year.

The worry and activity is taking its toll today. O am paying for all this activity. My activity costs are just as high as alfalfa. From phone calls and activism to sunset rambles through the foothills the costs are mounting. I am hurting from the good and the bad.

Categories
Biohacking Chronic Disease

Day 1950 and No Sleep in the Long Hours

I seem to have accidentally fallen into polyphasic sleep. Those experimental not for human consumption, long amino acid chains that everyone is doing n of 1 research with?

Well, my n of 1 experiment seems to be yielding the occasionally odd sleep pattern. I’ll be up early after having a night of sleep that feels more nap than fully weighed sleep hours.

Think out by 9pm and awake before dawn. I feel fine, so I pack in the full day till around 3pm when lunch digestion & the general slumps have me saying “maybe a short nap.”

I’ll find myself popping back up at 6pm with an eye on dinner. Another accidental siesta has stolen the afternoon hours back from the long evening hours to which I’d applied them.

I won’t have any trouble going to sleep on time early. This pattern seems to be applied to days where I have a lot of physical strain.

If I get in a workout, a long shower, extra walking time, and other physically demanding tasks in alongside my mental work I end up needing the nap and still fall asleep on time.

Categories
Biohacking Chronic Disease

Day 1948 and Rotational Work

I’ve been struggling with migraines since I was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition maybe six or so years ago.

I seem to be particularly struggling with them the last two months, as I work through an experiment with hormonal balancing and tapering off biologic autoimmune inhibitors.

And so I am rotating various different activities every day in the hopes of avoiding triggering a migraine, while still getting in adequate movement and exercise, as well as treatments within the biomechanical profile that I have put together with my doctors and helpful AIs.

If I stuff too many experiments into a given day, I’ll almost surely end up with a migraine. Even if I only do one sometimes I get unlucky. Red light and infrared are, of course, a classic way to trigger a migraine, so I try to do those carefully and when my heart rate is stable and low.

Of course, sometimes you need to get your heart rate up, and there’s nothing you can do but get your exercise and hope it won’t trigger a migraine. Afterwards exertion when I have a need to get down my heart rate, I’ll try to mix that with my hyperbaric oxygen chamber therapy.

I’m in the middle of my second round of HBOT treatments and enjoying seeing things like my VO2 max improve. I’ll be tempted to do something like go for a longer walk to test my lungs and trigger some neck compensation, and then I’ll be right back where I started with a migraine.

I’m always rotating something in and around keeping my brain from feeling the pressure of my body’s adjustments. There is no stable equilibrium just the constant pressure to find a new balance.

Categories
Aesthetics Biohacking

Day 1947 and Pretty Skills

I have been feeling rather sad. I am stymied on a few matters (family matters, visas for said family) and absolutely wretched over the state of artificial intelligence. The successes are in shadow and so I need to cheer up.

In an effort to do, I have a little group chat going for women interested in having friendly conversations about pretty skills. That’s right being pretty is a skill set. From nutrition and exercise to scalp care and makeup, looking good is a series of skills that can be taught.

If one feels like personal agency is a stretch, nothing is quite so fine a balm as learning a new skill. And might I suggest your personal appearance as an easy uplifting place to start?

Pulling together a beautiful look is not just some genetic privilege meted out by fate. Our presentation is something we sculpt with attitude, posture, movement, care and thousands of tricks and tips that add up to a lifetime of skills. Pretty is a skill set.

If you didn’t learn those from your mother or aunts or an elder sister. Or if you learned everything and want to pass it down. It’s safe to share and learn the skill sets you’ve picked up that make you feel pretty. It’s in your hands.

So if you want a space to learn more about those skills there are a bunch of women who want to be friends with you.

Categories
Chronic Disease Medical

Day 1943 and Lubing Up My Synapses

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.

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Uncategorized

Day 1942 and Deep Sleep Sunday

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.

Categories
Biohacking Chronic Disease Medical

Day 1935 and My Current Mechanical Device Usage Patterns in End Game Taper

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.

For a year and a half I’ve been stabilizing my immune system’s reactivity with a particularly gnarly humanized anti-IL17A, anti-IL-17F, and anti-IL17AF monoclonal antibody autoimmune master blaster that is named Bimzelx.

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.

Categories
Aesthetics Internet Culture

Day 1933 and JulieMaxxing

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.