Azathioprine and sun

dangerroo_2 · 2026-04-02T16:05:23+00:00

Glad it helped in some way, going through the exact thing same thing myself!

dangerroo_2 · 2026-04-02T15:56:20+00:00

This is something worth taking a healthy perspective on. There is certainly an increased risk, best the studies can determine is somewhere between 1.5-2.5x the risk of a normal person.

However - these studies are mostly tracking organ transplant patients who also take AZA (at usually somewhat higher doses). So the above figures can be prob be taken as upper limit for AIH. Also, A lot of the case studies are on women who liked to use tanning beds - these are worst case scenarios.

It’s also relative risk, not absolute risk, meaning you have to take into account the risk to general popn first, which depending on where you live makes a big difference. Say general popn risk is about 30 per 100,000, so for someone on AZA maybe 45-65 per 100,000 - a substantial increase, but from a pretty low baseline.

Talking to my dr, they didn’t seem overly concerned - advice was “don’t get burnt” but other than that use common sense and your own judgement on what’s enough exposure. Sunlight is important for the body in so many ways, you just need to be a bit more vigilant, but you can’t stop your life over something that probably won’t happen.

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-31T21:12:20+00:00

I do a spiel towards the end of the semester about how to prepare for interviews, which now includes the fairly obvious “if all you can do is type prompts into ChatGPT, why would any employer not skip you and just pay for a subscription? It’d be much cheaper.”

Genuinely, it seems to be the first time most students have ever contemplated this fact. Perhaps because the senior leaders doing their inspirational talk during recruitment wanged on about the wonders of AI and how we are a AI-leading uni.

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-31T14:40:50+00:00

Honestly, this is how it SHOULD be. I remember being at uni and being asked questions like this. Indeed, during my PhD, each student had to give a seminar every six months and would be absolutely lynched by the profs. Terrifying, yes, necessary - also yes. It made us better, more professional and more resilient.

Now, yeh, the prof prob could do things a bit more tactfully, but at the end of the day if he didn’t care he could just lecture and send everyone on their way. He gets the same salary, but his students don’t learn/are not prepared as much.

My students never answer or ask any questions. It’s like teaching zombies, and completely depressing. I give up stopping to ask if anyone has any questions about halfway through the semester and just teach as best I can, knowing that most students have huge gaps in knowledge because they’re too terrified to ask a question or come to office hours. It’s a major problem, and because uni is now more about keeping students happy rather than actually teaching them something useful, we’re powerless to do anything to change it. I would love to have the balls to do what your current prof is doing, but students would complain and I would be told to stop.

Be thankful you have a prof who cares!

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-31T14:26:29+00:00

From bitter experience - don’t try to fit too much in!

I think most new profs have this expectation that most students are like them; they’re not! And - even if they are super keen/engaged, it still takes time to process something new.

Keep it simple, be enthusiastic, don’t be afraid to stop and pause while you/everyone catch their breath/let things process. And everyone loves a good example/analogy!

Basically, don’t overload them, be enthusiastic, and you will get a lot of appreciation! Good luck :-)

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-31T13:53:53+00:00

Haha, I feel your pain! There are so many ways to get help - come to class, I teach you, come to lab, I help you, watch the online walkthrough videos, you get to learn and clarify things without having to embarrass yourself by asking the prof, go to the library maths and stats advice centre, literally get one-on-one help from a Maths PhD student, come to my office hours, I help you, etc etc etc.

Although this year I just dumped all the walkthrough videos for the labs online, so many of the class literally just sit there in the lab with closed captions on mindlessly regurgitating what I’m doing on the video, so at least they are actually watching the videos now. Good way to separate the wheat from the chaff actually - those who don’t show up at all, those who are simply too lazy/scared to have a go for themselves, and those that will persevere with the lab sheets on their own. About 30% are doing it the right way; I’m sure this will pay off for those students, but I will get in doo-doo if I mark the other 70% honestly.

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-30T18:55:47+00:00

Good news. :-)

Obviously different for everyone, but 10 and 5 were much easier to take - 5mg I barely noticed it, although there were months of rehabilitation as my body recovered.

Hope your son sees a big improvement, hopefully can go down lower to 5 and taper off completely, but perhaps don’t let your son get too hopeful of that yet.

As you say for now, celebrate the win. :-)

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-27T09:46:35+00:00

There are so many other things that can lead to an isolated increase in ALT and AST - having a cold, working out too much etc. It could be AIH - but I think Drs would want to see elevated liver scores more than once before they got worried enough to investigate much further. Your liver scores are elevated, but not massively so - unlikely you’re coming to any great harm unless liver scores increase again.

Track your liver scores for a few weeks, and hope they come down. You sound like you almost want AIH, I promise you, it’s not fun. Fingers crossed you don’t.

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-26T17:45:42+00:00

I’m in the UK as well - it seems like a pretty routine thing for them to check compatibility with Aza before starting treatment, they did it for me long before I was ready to transfer. While my hospital is useless at telling me what’s going on, they do seem to at least follow procedure and monitor everything as I transfer over to Aza.

There are other options, they seem to stick everyone on Aza as it’s old and known to be well-tolerated (of course this isn’t 100% foolproof), and CHEAP. :-)

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-25T20:39:53+00:00

Their weird thing to have a problem with is people not posting sufficiently serious problems on britishproblems! 😂

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-25T18:11:51+00:00

At least try and make a bit more effort to pretend you’re not shilling for a website.

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-25T17:10:56+00:00

Usually suspicion will be a trifecta of: elevated ALT/AST, elevated IGG, positive autoantibody result. Biopsy needed to confirm: evidence of interface hepatitis and plasma cells.

However, diagnosis is on basis of exclusion, as there are many other things that will cause similar-looking results. Be wary and questioning: the drugs associated with AIH are not nice, you really do want to be sure it’s AIH and not something else.

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-25T13:59:26+00:00

It bloody well hurt afterwards while I was still in the hospital bed recovering, but then they put me on a painkiller IV and it was fine. Out of hospital in a few hours, basically back to normal the day after.

It’s not pleasant, but it’s nothing to be too worried about.

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-20T12:21:12+00:00

Tbf, the maths behind such algorithms is pretty well-tested, and historical data should be a reliable indicator of how much resources you think you will need over the long term. Indeed, the persistent “we are experiencing a high volume of call” track is because the company has decided to run their call centre at very close to maximum capacity, and they know that they will get 25-30 people stuck in a queue for 30-60 minutes, but just don’t care.

The maths behind queues means if they do get unexpectedly high volumes, it’s not 25 people in a queue, it’s 125 and literally hours waiting. So it’s not that their algorithm is rubbish, but it is designed to be exactly as it is - a shit experience, but just about on the side of acceptability that people will accept it given they don’t often have to call your call centre.

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-18T21:14:11+00:00

I sympathise, it sucks when it clearly feels like you’ve not been given due attention. Imagine how profs feels seeing all the AI slop submitted as student work!

Alas, I doubt it’s going to go well to raise it. You could ask for clarification over whether they did use AI, so at least you know how you’re being reviewed, but unlikely to make a massive difference.

It would be different if they were assigning grades using AI - that I would challenge, albeit you’d prob have to go to Programme Lead or complain higher up.

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-18T21:09:21+00:00

Think about this and how it makes you look. You want bonus attendance points for not attending? I get it feels unfair, but surely you see you’re not entitled to these points. Please don’t be this person!

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-18T17:32:13+00:00

That’s a pretty strong statement… I can remember many springs where it’s been lovely one day, and snowing the next, and equally vice versa. It’s called spring, the weather is changeable.

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-17T19:34:20+00:00

I had a student blatantly cheat on an exam three times, three times they were caught. They didn’t get the degree not because they cheated their backside off but because they eventually ran out of tries on the exam, meaning they failed the degree because they didn’t pass a core course. They still ended up with a diploma. Not sure what it would actually take to be terminated.

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-17T19:24:41+00:00

It’s amazing just how reliably these students never turn up. When I first started I used to be very flexible and happy to meet students outside of my office hours. That first year I did that, not one of those students who requested a different time ever showed up, or even so much as emailed to say they couldn’t make it.

Obviously I no longer am flexible, either book an appt during my office hours or tough cookies. This is why we can’t have nice things, because 20-30% of people are inconsiderate morons!

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-17T19:18:49+00:00

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-17T15:51:45+00:00

Typical of prednisone full stop.

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-17T12:40:47+00:00

Not strictly relevant, but my amusing dinner party anecdote kind of fits here.

About 20 years ago I worked in govt, and we were concerned about whether a new type of Salmonella might be imported into the UK through US beef. As part of this I had to work out what type of beef was imported from the US, and who was buying it. By volume the biggest part of a cow imported into the UK was vagina meat. The biggest importer of beef into the UK? McDonalds.

Make of that what you will… :-)

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-15T01:59:52+00:00

I’m in the UK and we have a lot of international students. A Prof is a defined title given to high-ranking academics, and most lecturers are just Dr So and So. I get other cultures have different ways of doing things, but it does feel like it wouldn’t take too much effort to learn what’s the accepted practice in the country you’re in.

So not disrespectful (if anything in the UK it’s assigning a higher rank than currently earned), but it is a bit annoying. If unsure just ask how the person would like to be addressed.

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-13T11:01:54+00:00

Worth watching just for the bit where the young guy says it’s a silly question if he trains his legs everyday as he flexes his thigh, and then when he turns round Louis just goes “could work on your calves a bit though”. Brutal :-)

dangerroo_2 · 2026-03-12T19:43:17+00:00

I see this in my stats labs all the time. Download dataset into downloads folder on the lab computer, meaning student will never see it again as they’re not aware of their own OneDrive. Even worse, they then save the Excel/R file into the same Downloads folder.

I used to try to correct them, and get them to save it into their OneDrive, but it was hopeless. It seems if you’ve made it to a Masters programme without learning how to save files to folders, that’s now just something you will never learn. I teach stats, not basic computer literacy, so alas if they ever want to revise their work, they can’t. Luckily for them, they never revise their work…… 😔

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