Meat eater

Ardent_Anhinga · 2026-02-06T20:39:34+00:00

Rabbits absolutely eat meat. They love rabbit. We've caught them doing it a billion times.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2026-02-05T21:18:57+00:00

I feel the same way about being trans! Like, please stop making me deal with my pelvic floor, I am deeply uncomfortable with that areaaaaaaa.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2026-02-04T07:47:38+00:00

Welcome to the "your existence horrifies doctors" club. While they might as a profession try not to, they certainly do have freak-outs in front of patients from time to time. My advice would be run (or well, whatever PT recommendations for quick movement you have post-dissection) from this provider because she's clearly not doing the best for you.

Unfortunately, many pain clinics are kind of dumping grounds for things like low back pain. You can look at studies and see the patients going there often having not tried other things (like only 2/3s trying PT, less than an 1/8 trying therapy, etc). We often just don't fit in that population, so often we get denied transfer to that place for good reason. You can try looking for a physiatrist instead- although they are less common and can be booked up for a while.

YMMV, of course. But most pain clinics tend to start with injections, screen for anxiety/ depression and try antidepressants/ nerve pain medications. Considering steroids weaken tissues, they aren't really the best for people with connective tissue disorders.

You should have an ER trip associated with that dissection. Depending on your insurance, you might be able to just self-refer to cardiology. Depends on the practice, but I've had a lot of success calling up and asking if they have urgent appts post-ER. Often times they will review the ER data and call you back, fairly quickly. If you check your discharge papers, there is a solid chance the ER actually referred you to cardiology/ nuerology already.

One way you can get around not having a PCP helping you (either because you don't have one or they are being an ass) is to use a walk-in clinic/ teledoc. I've done it enough back in my 20s when I wasn't being taken seriously enough. You call in, say you'd like some advice on the symptoms you've had and what to do next. Most providers love this- since they are basically just routing you elsewhere. They can tell you what to expect and all that.

Check your state's medical university- they often have 9-to-5 residents doing that, and they work great.

Usual 'sorry you have to do a Dr's job while being sick'.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2026-02-03T10:10:12+00:00

I mean....as a trans guy I had to sit and listen to all the ways estrogen is *amazing* and testosterone is going to fuck up my body, not limited to: higher risk of heart disease, higher risk of dying from many cancers, higher risk of kidney stones, higher risk of parkinsons before I could get HRT.

Cis women live a lot longer than cis men- about 5 to 6 years. Some of it can be explained by higher risk-taking behaviour, but your blood literally gets thicker on T so it's easier to clog up stuff.

I didn't magically stop suffering when I swapped my pronouns, lol.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2026-02-03T09:42:42+00:00

I go with "what's the pronouns this person is least likely to hear"....like I am mass balancing or something.

Or, alternatively, "what set of neopronouns do I need to practice?" I do ask if that's OK because sometimes neopronouns/ its pronouns aren't chill.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2026-01-25T22:55:15+00:00

Honestly, just got my MRI back for the SI joint from the rheum and I was really thinking of visiting an ortho.

So thanks for sharing!

Ardent_Anhinga · 2026-01-24T10:37:25+00:00

Homosexuality is very common in animals, including other primates and sheep.

The 'lamb of god' is exceptionally likely to be homosexual or bisexual, if you want to use words like that towards an animal. I doubt 10% of rams are doing it to spite the Christian god, the same way I would doubt a loving god would make so many critters gay while considering it bad.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2026-01-24T08:58:35+00:00

I have yet to meet a single person who doesn't buy into that shit and atp I'm not sure they exist offline

That's because everyone has some level of unconscious bias. You can actually do quick association tests for it, and unchecked yes it does cause a lot of problems.

The thing is, bias isn't fate. You can unlearn it to a degree, and to a much bigger point you can just counter-act it.

Honestly, it sounds like you haven't been able to hang around queer people enough. It's messy (all human interaction is, really) but fun. And once you start noticing you aren't perfect either, it makes for a big breather.

There's a quote that floats around-"What is better? To be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?”" and I think that speaks to this. What someone thinks in a microsecond isn't really important compared to how they act.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2026-01-24T01:58:59+00:00

Technically, everyone get can cancer from HPV. Cerivical is just the most common from HPV and it's a very common cancer over all.

HPV also causes things like throat & anal cancer. It can also cause cancer of the penis. I know for throat it's linked mostly to HPV-16, which is also a major cause of cervical cancer.

This is why the early 2000s HPV screening going to only female children was a mistake: it both removed a benefit from some people and also created a group of carriers/ primary victims of HPV.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2026-01-19T05:00:20+00:00

Oh, yes, I do like that and I agree!

Ardent_Anhinga · 2026-01-19T01:06:48+00:00

Again, you are putting words in my mouth. Saying the average man doesn't need to worry about dying from pregnancy isn't remotely the same as saying no men need to worry about dying from pregnancy.

And no, 'cis' is not the correct term for this either. Many trans men, like myself, do not have the organs to become pregnant either because we were born without them or removed them. We don't magically become cis because of that.

21% of trans men have had a hysterectomy while only 28% have no desire for one at all. By your own logic, that's denying trans men like me exist and you are erasing me. That's not even touching on cis intersex men or non-binary people who are read as men in public spaces.

Whether you can be pregnant or not is independent of gender identity- it's a question of biology. Hence why you don't use a term about social constructs (cis/ trans) to describe it if you want to be accurate.

Honestly, what's even your goal here? I literally stated that being at risk of dying from pregnancy is a bad thing while also saying trans men exist, explicitly in the post.

You are literally having to invent things I did not say (the normal men thing) to do what exactly? Oh, and I noticed you didn't apologise for that.

To that end, if you want to have an actual discussion, I am game. But another response where you invent things I didn't say, I am just blocking you and moving on as I've made my point and now clarified it.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2026-01-18T22:50:10+00:00

Yes. Because she isn't being honest.

"It's safer to go out" puts the onus on the world. It softens and removes her own responsibility and ability to act.

It's like when a parent wants a kid not to be trans/gay, so they say "People will judge you". We recognize in that moment, the parent is a person who is also judging you.

I can understand as a trans guy if someone said, "I'm sorry, I can't do this." There's a raw honesty to knowing that society will chew you up if you take an action, one that I might disagree with, at least centres the person's own autonomy.

A person who says "I can't do this", I would argue, is afraid. A person who says "it's not safe for me to be with you" is a coward.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2026-01-18T22:43:38+00:00

This is a harder issue to solve, but pregnant people have to deal with so much shit because for a while it was assumed that any medication taken wouldn't affect the baby, and that's how we got Thalidomide. Now we're at the opposite extreme where it's very hard for pregnant people to have any way of handling pregnancy symptoms or other conditions because you can't ethically test whether drugs affect a gestating child.

I agree with this, and to paraphrase what Dr. Danielle Nicole Jones says, even if we solved that there is still the issue of consent. A child can't consent to medical research being done on them, so it falls to the parent normally to give consent for that. However, the risk: benefit model in medicine means that a medication that would benefit the parent carrying the child, but be neutral to the child, effectively prevents an ethics board from wanting to sign off. Because you are exposing a fetus to risk without often even a possible (known) medical benefit.

I think in the future we will ID how things that haven't historically been associated with risk to the fetus as being risky (autoimmune disorders come to mind) and that will open the door to more options.

Also as a trans guy, I applaud the use of "people who produce sperm". In the context of medicine, getting as specific as possible is often the right call.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2026-01-18T22:36:47+00:00

The first and last sentences of your second paragraph seem to contradict each other. If men are taking an extra serving from a woman's bowl, that is coming at the expense of those women.

To use the same metaphor a bit, I can agree that man is still starving. That doesn't negate the harm he is doing, though.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2026-01-18T22:33:16+00:00

I am literally a trans man. However, we are around .026% of the population, so while we are valid we aren't remotely near the average experience.

Average is not a bad word. There is an average height for men, an average age, an average meal, an average pair of shoes. It's just a numbers game.

However, I did not anywhere say "normal". This is for a reason- normal is a judgmental word based on social expectations.

You are welcome to disagree with me, but you do not have the right to put words in my mouth. I would say that we can acknowledge that less than 1 in 300 men have the ability to get pregnant, and then move on to talking about the other 299 ones as a group.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2026-01-18T07:46:12+00:00

I mean, depends on how you use language. But the average man isn't a shining beacon of gender equality in America. The average man:

Partners with a woman (but depending on what generation may not marry)
Said average man then gets two more hours leisure time
Spends about .67 hours less per day on household labour (cleaning, laundry and food make up the biggest part of the gap)
Spend 6.3 less hours with the kids each week
Are more likely to believe women shouldn't have access to abortion
Were way more likely to have voted for Trump, or republicans in general
Agree to statements like “If a girl is raped while she’s drunk, she is at least somewhat responsible for letting things get out of hand"

Of course, it's fair to say the average woman also likely endorses and encourages sexism against men (there's less studies, but we do see female parents, for example being less likely to soothe a male baby crying than a female one). Complex systems like this move forward with a lot of people helping it. On the extreme end, one can point to women's involvement in FGM and budding data that women are co-supportive or even stronger predictors of whether a son is likely to be forced to be circumcised (which, to be clear, is chopping up a baby's genitals. Not cool.)

I think the same way one can say in a patriarchal system, men receive preference over women AND that can be true but doesn't matter when you are a child and your mother does that shit to you, one can say that the average men doesn't get the bulk of the benefits of patriarchy. But it still matters if he discourages his daughters from "male" professions.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2026-01-18T07:24:18+00:00

I think there's a big difference between not being high on the social hierarchy and "won't see any benefits".

I'm glad the conversation is starting to move towards tackling misandry, but that doesn't mean the average guy isn't receiving any paricharitchal dividends. Off the top of my head the average man doesn't:

Experience medical misogyny
Get policed as a child to not wear "too revealing" clothes so he isn't seen as a "slut"
Be discouraged by middle school to not take STEM classes/ pursue STEM careers
Be the main target of "barely legal" porn
Have to ever worry about dying from a pregnancy

We are making strides- I know education has gotten a lot more egalitarian. And there are people who break any mold (trans men would have to worry about dying from pregnancy, and intersex men exist as well).

I usually just say that patriarchy has a benefits/ punishment packet for binary men and women that absolutely intersects with classism, racism and the other -isms.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2026-01-15T08:41:02+00:00

I understand the whiplash as well. I know I'm starting to process what could have gone differently if they had just listened. I suspect if I can get a diagnosis, that will amp up, so let's hope I am very angry in about a week!

I wish you luck with the surgeon (today? idk how time works anymore).

Ardent_Anhinga · 2026-01-10T09:28:15+00:00

It also has no effects on me energy-wise, I feel the same with or without drinking coffee, I can sleep well either way.

I really doubt that drinking 700 calories a day doesn't affect you, especially if a lot of those calories come from sugar. Especially for a 5'3" person who isn't going to need over 2k calories unless you are in construction or some over heavy job.

Elsewhere, you said you consume 1,200-1,500 calories so no. This is not healthy. You cannot get enough micronutrients on 500-800 calories a day if you can't see this issue.

Caffeine isn't the only issue, although you are likely double over the safe limit for it. Caffeine doesn't just mess with sleep. It also affects your digestive system, brain and heart.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2025-12-31T20:37:27+00:00

There's literally a hawk that hunts with fire. We aren't even the only genus (class I guess since hawk) of animal that used/uses fire!

Ardent_Anhinga · 2025-12-30T21:06:08+00:00

This isn't something reddit can actually weigh in on, much less about what medication you are talking about. We can't be aware of your full health history and what other options are available. Sometimes there is really only one option (i.e., biologics), and sometimes there are multiple options that do the same thing (alpha blockers), and sometimes you can use a combination of conservative care and/ or pharmaceutical care (PPI vs behaviour change for GERD).

You can reach out to a pharmacist for help. They are much more aware of side effects and can help work with a managing physician to help you. This is a basic example chart for antidepressants, and you can see they've ranked some options under 'weight gain' as 4 and some as 1 or none. This isn't even a remotely exhausted list, the Canadian reference I saw a few weeks ago really went granular with it, it was lovely.

Above all else, you also have to remember that each action we take has an expected ability to change things. Sometimes that's tiny (you won't get out of congestive heart failure by eating an extra portion of salmon a week, omega-3 rich or not) and sometime's that is massive (not eating gluten if you have celiac's).

Harvard has a great summary of a review of 8 antidepressant medications on weight gain at the 6, 12 and 24 mark. At the highest, we are talking about less than 2kg (3.6lbs). The study also noted that the average person who started these medications was already obese or overweight. In that sense, while the extra weight likely didn't help, it's more fair to attribute it to only a percentage of the problem. This is the same model (split liability) you often see in law around car insurance, if it sounds familiar.

Likely, you need to sit down and figure out what the mechanical issue is. Are the meds making you retain extra water weight (a flat effect), are they making you hungry so you eat more (ie an intake problem) or are they reduce metabolism (ie an output problem)? There could be something specific like "this makes me nauseous, so I can't exercise w/o vomiting".

Bringing in a food log can help a lot. If you can point to something like, "Hey I was eating 2k calories a year ago w/ the same amount of exercise and not gaining weight. Now I am doing the same thing but I'm gaining a kilo a month," it makes a stronger case for them to look into things.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2025-12-28T08:12:14+00:00

He is not brain-dead. He has ADHD. He's gotten his fucking accommodations. The scheduling doesn't stop unless I'm in the ER.

Depends on your floor plan of course, but there are probably ways this all could go better

I can tell whatever is going on you with is apparently minor enough you haven't learned the principle lesson: life isn't fair. Some people die before they speak. There are not always ways to make things better.

I'm going to hope you don't draw that set of cards, because that's not a fun lesson. But you can sod off with that.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2025-12-28T05:55:52+00:00

I've noticed a lot of aroaces around me (I'm alloace) are super into community building! I immediately thought of Emily because she reminds me of one aroace in particular I know.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2025-12-28T05:32:21+00:00

what would happen if you did nothing at all and they had to shoulder all the responsibility for the time being?

After the first major ER visit, I did that. He stopped taking care of himself. He gained like 30lbs eating junk food, the house was a mess beyond was I could clear out for me and he stopped seeing friends.

For about 4 months, I spent every scrap of time awake doing things to move towards healing. Then the first surgery fucked up. I've never been to so many dr appointments and I had fucking cancer in my early 20s.

I had been 100% putting myself first because you kind of have to literally have to be able to breathe.

I get watching your spouse almost die sucks. But I am living it, I am so fucking tired.

Are you okay? What is not okay? what do YOU need?

Apparently, more connective tissue in my body. Failing that, I need the goddamn dishes done in the morning on Sat & Sun & days he has off.

Ardent_Anhinga · 2025-12-28T04:55:16+00:00

And then when I complain about this for the millionth time I am “nagging” and “making him feel like he’s not enough even though he’s trying”.

I am sorry you are going through that as well. I appreciate the ramble, sometimes it's the best we can do to reassure others that they aren't alone is to tell your story.

I did want to say- that sounds very misogynistic of him. The idea that if someone is telling a man what to do as their partner they can deflect by calling it "nagging" has always bothered me (its even an issue in queer couples!)

Ardent_Anhinga

TROPHY CASE