I’m born and raised in Appalachia, my daddy worked in the coal mines and drove an 18 wheeler. Certified redneck enough that I confuse the shit out of my New England neighbors.
I went out and marched with striking nurses when Bernie put out the call, and I’ve never voted Republican in my entire fucking life.
Lmao, I’m your age and literally inhaled a bag of Werther’s while I had Covid because Paxlovid tastes so bad. And I’m about to buy a cane for those days when it would be very helpful to make my invisible disability more visible to all those people trying to rush around me in the grocery store. I old.
But that’s literally true and fully acknowledged by the physics and astronomy fields. It’s why those things received the names “dark.” Because currently we can’t see what’s causing those effects. And there are currently physicists and astronomers who spend their time researching these effects in hopes of publishing that exact “Hey! I figured out what it is” paper. Then we’ll praise that person, add their name to the pantheon and fail to acknowledge the hoards of other people who contributed to the foundational research that allowed them to finally figure it out.
Even Crohn’s has different subtypes that are suspected to explain why different Crohn’s patients respond differently to the same treatments. Much like the comment about lupus. Crohn’s also is much more complicated than the general public is aware.
For example, it is well established that there is a subset of people with Crohn’s disease who go into remission while taking an antidepressant called bupropion and we have no idea why. No one believes this is because these people’s Crohn’s was caused by a psychological problem, but rather that the bupropion appears to have effects on the immune system that aren’t well understood. And this appears to only work in certain people. Do those people have a different “kind” of Crohn’s? Different underlying genetic response to bupropion? Those questions aren’t as easy to answer as you might think.
Derived from chamomile flowers (and other plant sources), I’ve found this to be more successful in treating my chronic insomnia than any of the pharmaceutical options. (And believe me, I’ve tried them all.)
Sign up for a health savings account and USE IT. (United States specific advice.)
It lowers your taxable income. The only caveat is you have to remember to use that money to buy things you were already going to buy anyway. Convenient hack to know what you can and can’t use: Doordash now labels HSA-eligible items at CVS. You don’t have to actually use Doordash to see which items you can buy with your HSA card.
I have neighbors who got a one story tall inflatable dragon for Halloween last year and just left it up until Christmas. It was so popular that this year they have an entire yard full of Christmas dragons. I love it.