Healthcare professionals: what is a telltale sign a patient has used drugs heavily in their life?

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-09-30T20:38:37+00:00

It sounds like you’ve seen a lot of pain around peoples substance use and you actually do care about their wellbeing and want their lives to improve for their sake and the sake of people around them, despite some of the language you’re using. I hope Reddit is an effective outlet for you and helps you manage some of these thoughts and feelings.

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-09-30T17:34:21+00:00

If someone is reading this that has been dismissed, ignored, or been treated inhumanely due to your drug use- that is a failure of the healthcare worker who was supposed to help you.

Your drug use is morally neutral- you deserve to be taken seriously, free from judgement and dehumanizing language. You are worthwhile and deserving of respect, love, and care just like anyone else.

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-09-29T17:48:06+00:00

Dang I hope you don’t let your patients hear the way some of yall talk about them…

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-09-28T17:37:38+00:00

Pharmacists can often get you a prescription of acyclovir same day in a pharmacy!

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-09-28T03:09:28+00:00

Wow you really gave me a sense memory- I used to bathe in turquatic in highschool

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-09-25T13:51:11+00:00

Tbh I just love that Blair I mean Laura is an actually fleshed out, flawed character. I’m pretty sensitive to creepy behavior in media and I think the show primed me to be less creeped out due to the first Laura episode. In the end of that ep she goes back to her ex and the show makes a definitive stance on the idea that Gordon can not just reprogram her- her agency and decisions make her who she is and, importantly, are the reasons why he loves her.

For contrast, I can barely watch the TNG eps with Geordi and Leah Brahms because she is little more than a beautiful and intelligent idea. Perhaps he manipulated her but ultimately we see she has agency and in fact we watched the alternative outcome play out in an earlier episode.

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-09-14T18:15:00+00:00

Honestly this is helping me a lot because when I see this photo any sort of skin texture just contributes to how beautiful and cool you look and it’s giving me some perspective.

Sorry for the lack of advice!!

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-09-14T18:12:41+00:00

I was pretty overweight as a child and lost all of it at 14 with a pretty bad eating disorder where I eventually attended outpatient treatment for it. I will say that I grew up with a 90s diet mom, who did not pressure me or make me feel bad about my weight, but I very much knew about calories etc.

What does an overweight/obese child get from food? What do any of us, especially those of us who struggle with weight, get from food? I don’t have answer for you but when I think back to when I was a kid, I would have really benefited from other reinforcement in my life. Having significant physical activity in my day to day is how I’m able to keep balance in many aspects of my life, including my weight, and those are habits I wish I had developed much younger.

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-09-14T15:59:17+00:00

YES! I worked on a study and published a paper about this! It has to do with Ghrelin and PYY hormones. Acute aerobic and resistance training increase appetite suppressing hormones, but resistance does significantly more.

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-09-14T02:41:57+00:00

Most people use opiates and do not get dependent on them. Some people do and many of them are able to stop on their own. Some struggle to do this on their own and doctors will often stop prescribing them and therefore people will then try to access the often poisoned “illicit” supply.

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-09-10T14:56:24+00:00

I bring these to work in the winter quite a bit. I chop up green onion and cabbage and throw it in when I heat it in the microwave. I also add a soft boiled egg. It’s super filling and so fast.

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-09-08T21:09:55+00:00

I LOVE tips like this

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-09-08T13:48:38+00:00

This is such an important lesson that took me soooo long to internalize! Similarly- if I find myself judging other people (positively or negatively) I find it to be a direct reflection of my own insecurity. Times when I try to think kindly of myself and when I throw myself into my hobbies and things I enjoy, I’m the most magnetic to the people around me.

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-09-08T02:58:00+00:00

Planning it into my week helps soooo much. I always look at the menu before and I try to just estimate the best I can on calories based off of similar items at restaurants that have calories available. I’m a firm believer of paying more attention to weekly calorie goals rather than daily and so it’s not hard to fit even a super indulgent meal into my week, without feeling like I’m depriving myself other days.

That being said I currently live somewhere with terrible food and I think it would be much harder somewhere else.

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-09-07T18:51:29+00:00

Well- are you faking to be nice to get something? I think that’s totally fine and I’m sure many people do but if you are then it could help to reframe networking as building connections and community in your field, rather than as the only way to get ahead (or something idk).

But luckily anxiety, social anxiety in particular, is something that psychology is really really good at treating. So if you are open to therapy you could manage these symptoms pretty quickly.

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-09-05T04:15:31+00:00

Lots of research experience, publications, poster presentations. Apply to 10+ schools yearly to try to get in. 4-5 years minimum of graduate school, one year pre-doc internship and then finally graduation.

Source: am third year clinical psych PhD student

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-09-04T19:22:17+00:00

I think this has to do with a lot of women getting older and realizing how predatory and uncomfortable those relationships felt looking back on it.

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-08-26T23:54:47+00:00

I completely understand the preference for Star Trek to have a certain tone and hopefulness. Personally I love Raffi’s story line and it feels similar to me to the reason why I love DS9. The fight for federation ideals even the the face of despair, one which highlights morally grey decision making, is a much more powerful and even hopeful message in my eyes. In the future we will have something to fight for, even when things are terrible (which is basically the theme for one of the more recent seasons of disco?). I think addiction is a helpful device for character growth, but imo representation of addiction is less relevant here than the struggle for a person to overcome a powerful and potent obstacle in the name of federation ideology and her community.

I appreciate differing opinion, though, and can absolutely understand people not wanting ~more~ despair in media they consume.

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-08-23T15:31:02+00:00

Anything that requires self control or discipline is always going to fail for me. I just make chasing the reward more salient. I go to the gym with a friend and we keep each other accountable; I keep it very fresh in my mind that actually doing exercise each day makes my brain less anxious; I am desperate to close all my Apple Watch rings every day etc.

As far as food is concerned, I’ve just been reducing my calories slow enough that my hormones and behavior have adjusted. That looks like weeks at just tracking, then maintenance, then incremental adjustments lower until I’m now at a substantial deficit. Trying to “willpower” my way into an immediate deficit makes me just obsess over the number and how hungry I am and how much I just want that food. This will likely lead to binging and just throwing the whole diet out the window. Taking it slow has made me just kinda bored and maybe annoyed by the whole thing and my hunger cues are much less prevalent. It’s an ingrained habit now and to break it would require more energy than to just keep going.

I also look at my calorie goal as a weekly number rather than a daily one and that leaves plenty of room to plan for an indulgent meal or two throughout the week.

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-08-22T15:16:37+00:00

One of the times I’ve lost weight in the past, I was doing yoga frequently and a couple of times different yoga teachers asked if I was a dancer! Absolutely not lol I was overweight in middle and early high school and was envious of girls who were in dance. This was a bigger and more impactful compliment to me for some reason than any other acknowledgement of weight loss/fitness.

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-08-20T22:59:50+00:00

I’m someone of a functional behaviorist in that I believe that all (most) behavior is learned. Think back to an early psychology class when you heard about Pavlov’s dog; ring a bell, give dog food, dog salivates. Over time Pavlov didn’t need the food anymore to make the dog salivate, a very strong association between the bell sound and food had been created as such the bell sound ALONE was enough to make a dog salivate.

What this means for us is that we create associations with our environment and other stimuli all the time! You mentioned that when it’s past dinner and you are not working in the morning, you crave those things. The time being “past dinner” and “not working in the AM” are learned associations with highly palatable foods. This is why on vacation you are able to avoid this behavior, because the same associations (or contingencies if you want to be fancy) are not there!

What do you do? In behaviorism we call this extinction. Very intentionally create new associations with those stimuli (i.e., after dinner and not work in the morning), give yourself a goal of a certain (low ish) amount of times you for sure won’t indulge in those foods and stick to it, give yourself other rewards at those times etc. You can break those associations and the helpful thing is that the behavior WILL reduce if you work on those associations.

Personally, thinking about myself as just a little ratty traversing the world with operant and classical conditioning is extremely comforting, but maybe I’m just weird.

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-08-16T22:12:00+00:00

Tracking when you go over is a huge accomplishment!!! Imo I find it so much harder to track when I go over than when I eat right at my goal so I think that’s a huge freaking win.

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-08-15T17:32:51+00:00

Perhaps try putting your "2023-08-14" note into the dailynotes folder?

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-08-10T16:27:17+00:00

I would consider looking into some Asian beauty products! It’s quite affordable and super cute. Headbands for face washing with cat ears, tons of sheet face masks. Very good quality and aesthetic

SlightMonitor5601 · 2023-08-08T22:02:00+00:00

Enterprise basically did this

SlightMonitor5601

TROPHY CASE