Cedar Pollen of DOOM

Do you see that? That cloud that looks like smoke emanating from the tree (hint: it's a cedar) is cedar pollen. Evil, evil, cedar pollen. The cedars in central Texas tend to hurl this insiduous substance at us from December through February. Three months.


Three months of sinus headaches, puffy head, foggy brain, itchy red eyes, waking up with eyes glued shut, and sinus infections, sinus infections, more sinus infections and sneezing. Oh the sneezing.

But as it is the nature of myself, I get to wondering, just what sort of an impact does cedar allergy, or any allergy, have on school performance, mood, and over all mental and physical health? (Further more the precurser, what the fuck is off in the body that causes this shit.)


It has to do with IgE so they say. That's THE explenation. Clearly there's a lot of research indicating it isn't that simple, and I am not satisfied with simplistic answers so we'll do more with that later. For now this brings us to brain inflammation.


" if chronic depression is proven to be a neuroinflammatory condition, then anti-inflammatory treatments should also have some antidepressant effects. Several small trials with depressed patients have already been published that support this possibility, though Markou cautioned that much more specific research and larger clinical trials are required."


Cool. Can you guess what their proposed anti-inflammatories will be? Probably not DHA. (That stuff in fish oil.)


Which is a shame because DHA actually has shown some promise:


Docosahexaenoic acid supplementation increases prefrontal cortex activation during sustained attention in healthy boys: a placebo-controlled, dose-ranging, functional magnetic resonance imaging study

Selective deficits in erythrocyte docosahexaenoic acid composition in adult patients with bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder

Docosahexaenoic Acid Suppresses Neuroinflammatory Responses and Induces Heme Oxygenase-1 Expression in BV-2 Microglia: Implications of Antidepressant Effects for Omega-3 Fatty Acids

In case you didn't get all that IF that research were done correctly it would imply that:


DHA improves focus
DHA improves Bipolar and depressive symptoms
DHA reduces brain inflammation.


But I can't tell you if that research was good or not because MY BRAIN IS INFLAMMED AND I CAN'T THINK.


All I want to do is destroy these evil cedar trees. Yeah. That's what those little motherfuckers look like. Fuck you cedar!

A rant about Bi-Polar and Hypersexuality: You're Not Normal

I have always been a horny motherfucker. Look, I'll just be honest. And in taking a few psych classes and hearing teachers procclaim with certainty, "young children are not orgasmic and their play is not actually sexual" I kind of got to wondering... so what the fuck was up with having orgasms every night since I was five? Not going with suppressed molestation as there is really nothing of significance to suggest this is a solid possibility.


So what's up? This isn't normal? I've talked to many women who say this was their experience as well, and I've talked to many women who say this is not their experience at all and clearly I was hypersexual child for some mysterious reason. We could go into sexual fantasies about machines but that'll take up a whole post and would detract from the point I want to make here.


This article comes up about vasoppressin and oxytocin in hypersexuality and many other things and of course I can't read it (grrr) but I have to mention:


"Future studies should profitably focus on pharmacogenomic and genomic imaging strategies facilitated by the ease and efficacy of manipulating AVP-OXT neurotransmission by intranasal administration."


Why, oh why, does it always have to be pharmaceuticals and gene manipulation? If I read one more sentence saying, "This opens up fascinating possibilities for genetic therapies" I will puke. (That's going to mean I'll be doing a lot of puking.) Genetic therapies are the trend right now but I don't believe we're in the clear for safety. Nor are we with pharmaceuticals. With all of these diseases we are looking at chain reactions of responses from entire systems of organs and glands and brain regions. If you're not addressing the root of the problem, it won't be fixed. You can give someone lithium to reduce brain inflammation and reduce bi-polar systems, but if in doing so you're fucking up the liver and adding to inflammation there, you're chain reaction of responses will ultimately be causing more inflammation in the body. Fighting fire with fire?


But a quick search turns up that hypersexuality is claimed to be a diagnostic factor in a controversial new diagnosis called "childhood bipolar disorder". I have big problems with childhood bipolar disorder diagnosing but for the sake of time we'll focus on this hypersexual/bipolar connection nonsense.




"Hypersexuality was significantly less common than any other symptom or associated feature of mania, and it manifested in fewer than half of all cases in all samples with relevant data."


Hmmm. Ok so it's not particularly common, why then are we dooming masturbating kids to a bipolar diagnosis? I find it interesting that in studies like these they spend a lot of time focusing on symptomology, claim this symptomology is "biological" and spend absolutely ZERO time on what is happening in the brain and body biologicaly.


Aren't scientists missing something here? If this is a biological problem why aren't we studying how inflammation in the liver, brain, wherever is affecting these symptoms? Why aren't we studying the levels of neurochemicals? Why aren't we doing brain research on this phenomena? Why are we just hurtling meds at people without studying WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE BODY?


If this is a biological condition-- than this is a field for neurobiologists. Psychologists can step the fuck down. But neurologists don't want this because the reality is that these issues are a complex interaction of environment, biological processes and emotions that may not BE rooted in biology. Biology may be AFFECTED but in order for the root cause to be a biological malfunction you're still going to need to find a cause for the malfunction. Find the genes, find the organs that are struggling. What areas of the brain are functioning differently and what is setting them off course in the environment meaning, diet-family life-social life-exposure to toxins-allergic reactions in body-lower functioning digestive system, hormones------


What is going on?


Since scientists seem so determined to continue throwing drugs at people rather finding out what in their environments, diet, activities, social lives, and hobbies could improve their health-- I'ma have to do this research myself.


It sucks that I suck at research don't it? That'll just have to change.


And another key point--- what if hypersexual kids develop differently because they feel bad about themselves? What if their entire sense of self is confused because they are exploring their sexuality when others aren't and they are being shamed for it? What if hypersexual kids are having an allergic reaction and using their sexuality to give a relaxation response in their system? (Not to be all TMI but masturbation totally lowers my allergic symptoms). What if masturbating a lot in and off itself changes hormones in the body and the neurochemistry itself? Where is the exploration of the myriad ways that "symptomology" could be rooted in different things and setting of chain reactions in the body and brain?

She-Ra's Castle in the Ink Blot

What exactly are the benefits of the ink blot test? Back when I was a wayward student falling off the path of decency, I was recommended for some testing to see if I had developed any "learning disabilities". This involved some testing that all seemed to make sense, auditory, IQ, attention span. All things one would assume make sense to explore in order to determine if there was a learning disorder.


I did brilliantly, and so fucked my get out of jail free card. Well, all except the Rorscache test.

Apparently, you can fail at those. Did you know it? They found the results unsatisfactory because my responses to were "too immature" and "too humorous".


You're thinking I said penis. I totally did not say penis! They more often look like vaginas anyway. Honestly I can't remember what I said they looked like other than distinctly remembering one looked like She-ra's castle. It really did! I was taking it seriously, it just fucking looked like She-Ra's castle. I loved that castle, how does that mean I'm not taking your Rorsache test seriously? If you want to aske me what sorts of issues are fucking up my life, why don't you ask me what's eating me inside? "Oh my dad's always gone, I hate myself, I'm failing at everything, I have no friends, I have a horrible secret case of sexual masochism, I'm a perpetual disapointment and have no relationship with my parents..." I could have rambled on about any number of things for you to analyze, but no you ask me what a blot of ink looks like and expect that to unravel my psyche. Well, there you have it. You discovered that I think She-Ra's castle is fucking awesome. What more did you want?

So does the Rorscache test really work? It makes sense that surely one could make vague assumptions by studying the various ways that ink blot responses match up to known psychological or neurological conditions and as one can imagine there are people who get REALLY INTO this field of study. However, is it really a good basis to make a diagnosis? Someone comes in with a case of mild depression and does a Rorschache test and the Doc says, "I'm sorry to let you know but you actually have schizophrenia. So says the Rorsasche test. Let me just write up a prescription for some high doses of anti-psychotics before you get yourself into some trouble now."


I don't have any more problem with people using the Rorsasche test as a fun way to explore their answers and find out trends in other people's responses, any more than I have a problem with people getting Tarot card readings. (TAROT CARDS ARE FUN SHIT!) But I wouldn't recommend Tarot card readings for mental health diagnosis despite that I am certain you could do research on trends in Tarot cards for various disorders and conditions and probably find results that looked like usable results. That doesn't mean psychologists should pull out their tarot cards as a diagnostic tool:

It looks like you're schizo-effective sir.



More on problems in Rorsasche research to come. But seriously, it really does fucking look like She-Ra's castle.

Hydrotherapy for Mental Illness

Neuroskeptic has an interesting (and rather disturbing) post on a "treatment" called le packing used on autistic children in France. It involves being restained and wrapped entirely in cold wraps. While hydrotherapy in and off itself does not require restaint, this seems to be emphasized in le packing.


So does hydrotherapy work for mental illness? In interviews with nurses who used hydrotherapy on mental health patients when it was reutinely used in mental hospitals the nurses claimed that it worked.

The nurses interviewed for this study indicated that, although labor intensive, hydrotherapy worked, at least temporarily


Read More: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01612840802509460

The nurses interviewed for this study indicated that, although labor intensive, hydrotherapy worked, at least temporarily


Read More: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01612840802509460

 But then again, doing anything can often work temporarily. The same article claims that hydrotherapy is regaining in popularity, so again... what exactly happens in the body when cold compresses are applied? Where are the randomized controlled double blind studies on hydrotherapy and it's affects on mental health?


The closest I can find is this article about using alternahealth treatments for bronchial illness:
"Along with treating diseases and improving wound healing, circulation, relaxation, digestion, and the immune system, hydrotherapy has been proven to be beneficial for people with acne, anxiety, arthritis, asthma, back pain, burns, chronic fatigue syndrome, constipation, depression, and varicose veins etc"


It's been proven? Where? There seems to be no reference to any actual research mentioned. One of the following sentences follows that up,
"The majority of the evidence on the effectiveness of hydrotherapy to treat the described disease states and 'conditions' comes from small case series/reports and subsequent low level evidence."


I see. So what you meant to say is that there is no proof that hydrotherapy is effective.

Googling hydrotherapy and mental health we find lot's of snake oil salesmen promoting hydrotherapy with no real research to back it up.


"With the regular use of Medical Hydrotherapy™, and the proper intake of healthy water, the right minerals and nutrients our body can overcome almost anything."
(Excuse me I just spit out my coffee snortling.) Really? Well that sounds promising, on what do you base this claim?


On google scholar we find lot's of studies on hydrotherapy for fibromyalgia and other physical health problems. If hydrotherapy is really "gaining popularity", I'm still waiting on the availability of studies that prove there is any reason for this to happen.

All You Need is Hugs

Naturally in researching inflammation in the brain I came to the important subject of hugging for biological health. There in fact seems to be a scarcity of neurological studies on hugging but the few that have been done did show that womens with physical support had lower cortisol and heart (but not higher oxytocin) It's old news---

I'm sure they haven't done much research on it because what do you do then? I mean you can't have hug therapy, what therapists hug people? That sounds terrible. And you can't have random people hugging each other because that's just weird.

And extra hugging in relationships is tied to better health HOWEVER it doesn't make the relationship better.

Interestingly, elevated plasma oxytocin seems to signal distress in a relationship and not the other way around, (what happened to oxytocin being the chemical of love and bonding?) and the same went for elevation of vassopressin in men.

 And I wonder if higher need for intimacy actually strains relationships because people whose system is off and need more hugs are more needy and well, always wanting hugs. So therefore--- one partner is like, dude what the fuck, I don't want to hug you all fucking night every night geez! So does having higher oxytocin, vasoppressin signal that perhaps the man/woman is more geared toward intimacy which puts pressure on the partner? Does the level of physical contact/emotional intimacy cause the changes in the chemicals, or do the differences in chemicals precede the difficulties in the relationship?

So who wants to be held more, men or women? In looking for research I'm clearly not using the right key words because I'm turning up nothing on this phenomenon and I can't believe that no one has done research on how much hugging men and women want respectively. I did however find this particularly interesting piece by Dr. Needles Medical Blogs. There's no research, (poo), but it describes my own personal experience with desire for hugs quite well. What do women want? What do I want? Shit if I know. But I'd be willing to bet that in general, women want a lot more holding that men do. (I'll be keeping my eyes out for any studies. If you know of any, link up!)

Fear not for if this theory is correct, I have concocted a solution. It's brilliant so hold on to your britches:

All the womenz become lesbians and hug each other all day long!

Fucking brilliant. I am so glad I am here to solve all the worlds problems, what would we do with out such ingenuous and innovative solutions?!!!!!!!!! If the menz are feeling left out they can show up for the occasional threesome and sperm donation for the propogation of the species.

Ah. All in a days work.