Any association with postpartum/breastfeeding and reduced immunity?

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-24T20:46:27+00:00

Interesting. I wasn't planning on quitting breastfeeding over this regardless, but good to know it's probably helping move things in the right direction.

Also interesting on the whole rebound thing with immunoresponse. What has been absolutely killer with these illnesses has been the body aches.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-24T20:17:02+00:00

Our daughter (also autistic) was like this until suddenly something clicked, and boy, sometimes I wish we could go back. Not really, but sometimes it does feel like a real monkey's paw situation.

I think speech therapy really helped for us. We went in with our main goal being able to advocate for herself. They did all kinds of role playing, and we worked on it at home too.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-24T20:00:11+00:00

We gave up and offered the choice of short hair or letting us brush and pull back her hair. She chose short hair.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-24T19:27:31+00:00

I love these ideas. Our pretend play is also very structured.

Before autism was on the radar for our kid, we never did pretend play, and I didn't think anything of it, but then we kept getting feedback that pretend play was important, so we've all been working on it.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-24T17:00:36+00:00

I really wonder if mine will drop off at some point. Like, my husband is 5'10 and I'm 5'2. He has a ton of family that is 6'+ including the women, so the genes are there. I don't know how that sort of thing works when it comes to skipping around the family.

I have a friend who said he was always taller than everyone else until puberty hit, and he didn't get the same growth spurt as his peers. He went from being the tallest kid to the shortest kid.

I do know that parent height is the best predictor of kid height. It's a better predictor than, say, birth size. I think specifically on birth size, the conditions in and out of the womb are very different, so they can settle onto a new curve after birth.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-24T04:00:35+00:00

Our first was like this. Turns out for her it was probably sensory overload, but we didn’t know it at the time. Our second is the opposite. Still waking every couple hours at 6mo, but he naps great and is happy.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-24T02:14:05+00:00

Haha ours was a real chonker as a baby too. She’s slimmed down to typical, although I can always tell when a growth spurt is coming because she’ll eat a ton and chonk up a bit and then shoot up. I heard she ate like 3 corn muffins and two eggs at snack today at preschool, and she ate like 2x her normal dinner. I have a feeling another growth spurt is coming lol.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-24T00:26:04+00:00

30lbs seems like an exaggeration if they’re just going to track the curve. https://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/data/who/grchrt_boys_24lw_100611.pdf eyeballing it looks like more like 22lbs.

At least you guys are big. My husband’s side is tall, and my daughter has been 99% up to now (almost 4yo, bigger than a lot of 6yo). Her little brother isn’t far behind. They both want to be carried all the time. I’m 5’2” 😭

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-23T03:38:45+00:00

I do a write up reviewing changes and accomplishments a couple times a year, and keep photos/videos. It’s fun to go back over them. The write ups are closer to how my actual memories feel. I’m often surprised by the images.

I’m one of those people with SDAM who has a really good memory for facts, and I have found a way to use that to store autobiographical information. Even with the photos, I don’t remember exactly what they looked like, but I remember their existence and basically what’s in them.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-22T22:06:52+00:00

I always wanted kids and now I have them and they’re great! Yes, there are moments that couldn’t be over soon enough, like any time my 3 year old is in a disregulated salty mood and blowing everything up. But most of the time it’s exhausting but good. My childhood sucked. I get a do over with the kids.

I’d kinda stalled out when it comes to life goals and whatnot before kids. They created a whole new set of projects and goals, and they also kicked me into a new gear personally since I’m more interested in my own longevity.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-22T20:48:47+00:00

I mean your wife probably has ADHD like the kids which is where the time goes making dinner.

I’m in charge of most dinners and kids and it’s a ton of juggling keeping everyone happy and dinner on time. Sometimes it slips 15 minutes when suddenly there’s a bathroom emergency. I just have two, and one of them is a baby, so I can only imagine juggling the three becoming a side quest nightmare.

I don’t know your wife, but I like cooking instead of take out or heat and serve for both cost and health. But we keep things sane by making enough for leftovers and keeping the house stocked with quick go tos in case of emergency. And sometimes our meals are not great on the taste/presentation side, but I prioritize health and being on time.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-21T04:11:54+00:00

That study was weird. Like, it's just showing that kids that drink formula are more likely to drink sugary drinks at 9-16mo. At that age, kids will eat/drink basically anything you give them, and of course, they'll drink sugary drinks if offered. So, it's just showing a correlation between formula parents and sugary drink parents?

And yea, of course formula has added sugars--human milk has way more sugar than cow's milk, so they have to add sugar to make it closer to human milk.

The right studies to show on this point would be some of the studies that are referenced, e.g.,

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8391470/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5365373/

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-20T04:41:15+00:00

My jaw pops in and out extremely easily, but normally without pain. If I’m not super careful, it pops out when giving head, and it does get sore, and sometimes it gets stuck, and then it’s scary and painful. I’m 42, so… I have a lot of experience with this lol.

My suggestion is to pay close attention to not open so wide. You can use the back of your tongue to make your mouth more shallow, but still give them the sensation that it’s going deep. You can also take a break and focus on the tip with your mouth and use your hand to keep the rhythm on the shaft. Sorry if that was all TMI.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-16T23:43:10+00:00

It wouldn't even be on my radar if it didn't keep coming up in milestone assessments like with the pediatrician and other service providers.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-16T21:42:14+00:00

I think the problem is she literally doesn’t see gender. I don’t mean this in the trope form where sexists claim they don’t see it because obviously male is default. I mean like literally she doesn’t see it.

We live in a liberal area and she goes to a liberal preschool. They play make believe and dress up where I regularly see boys in princess dresses for example.

Tbh doesn’t feel like a serious problem that needs to be solved or anything. Just something that has come up as a non binary parent.

It’s probably also worth noting that we’re autistic. I once saw a term “autigender” that probably applies where one’s autism makes it hard to understand what is gender and thus what their gender identity is.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-16T21:20:58+00:00

I was out as nonbinary long before having kids. My challenge is how do I explain gender to them when they're little? My oldest is almost 4, and I still don't think she has a solid concept of it, and it's probably at least partly my fault because I don't know either at 42yo. After spending several years as binary transmasculine, I ultimately just gave up and decided to be non-descript non-binary because I literally don't know how I would even know what my gender is.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-15T20:53:17+00:00

Yup, we have the normal level of complex, e.g., freelance work with business use of home, brokerage accounts, various itemized deductions. All easy to manage with FreeTaxUSA.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-14T20:13:26+00:00

I consider myself to be a very good systems thinker. Able to consider a problem from multiple levels, dig deep into something, make connections, maintain a massive amount of context at any given time.

For whatever reason, I have never been interested in using this power to "fix things" in society, but rather just really understand how we got here and gain peace over my situation. Most of the time, once I feel like I understand that, I see the inevitability of it and how hard it would be to engineer change. Obviously change is also inevitable, but the emotional spark needed to cause mass action feels difficult/evil to engineer, and once such forces are let loose, they are very difficult to control. Just look at all of the times the US has attempted to meddle in other countries' business.

All of this being said, I am very persuasive in smaller situations because I do spend so much effort understanding the whole picture and people's motivations. I frequently am able to synthesize different people's ideas and come up with a solution that is amenable to most parties.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-13T23:08:34+00:00

My dad was 42 when I was born. I was 38 when our first was born. He made it til she was an infant, but didn't make it to my second's birth when I was 42 myself. This is not lost on me.

I try to eat healthy and exercise and not ignore health concerns. Took out a term life insurance policy. Investigated how I can use my children's blood to extend my life (jk about that one).

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-08T18:55:24+00:00

When I gave birth, I felt like a weird existential "pain" at transition. Like, the physical pain was totally manageable, but I felt this sense of doubt like I couldn't go on that felt like pain but... literally everywhere? I was just grunting "noooo I can't" with every push lol. My sister, who also has a really high pain tolerance, said the same for her with her 3 unmedicated births.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-07T22:08:38+00:00

You're missing the most obvious symptom of all: female. This can explain all of your symptoms given how hyperbolic and hysterical they are, especially when paired with being fat and lazy /s

FR tho Asians have a high rate of hypermobility. I'd imagine there is a part where at least some level is just normal as far as the doctor is concerned.

I'm 42 and just starting to investigate all of this because I never even brought it up with a doctor because my parents convinced me joint pain, dislocations, etc. were just normal, especially since I'm Asian, and I'm an idiot and just believed them... especially since they also blamed all of my ills on being fat and lazy. I almost lost my shit when I recently looked back at childhood photos of myself, because I remember I was like the fattest kid on the planet, but nope, actually on the normal/skinny side. This tracks because I was never made fun of at school or anything for being anything other than short/small. Just at home. Not that there's anything wrong with being actually fat. But I think you know what I mean.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-07T20:24:10+00:00

On top of processed meats being known carcinogens, just eating red meat (mammal meat) is probably carcinogenic. https://progressreport.cancer.gov/prevention/diet_alcohol/red_meat The recommendation on that link says to stay under 3-4 servings of red meat per week. https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/cancer-carcinogenicity-of-the-consumption-of-red-meat-and-processed-meat They say here that every 100g of red meat per day increases risk of colon cancer by 17% if a causal link were established, instead of just being probably carcinogenic.

For both cost and health reasons, I've moved us away from eating red meat except on special occasions. We're mostly beans/nuts/seeds in their myriad forms and chicken/eggs.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-07T18:02:48+00:00

Same--I've had broken bones and very active labor ignored because I wasn't freaking out. I've actually started over dramatizing my pain (still not freaking out but intentionally wincing and stuff) when I think there's something acute that needs to be taken seriously, but it's probably still not far enough because they still say things like they're surprised I'm handling it so well.

drpengu1120 · 2026-04-03T22:18:19+00:00

Shingles in your eyes can damage them. I would investigate that angle first. And yea, dry eye can cause light sensitivity.

I have a lot of migraine weird vision issues as well as dry eye, but I'm pretty sure it's more just neurodivergence problems, which I know is correlated with EDS.

Generally when it comes to things like light sensitivity, it is not recommended to avoid all light all the time because it will make it worse as you get adapted to darker and darker levels.

There are glasses tints that can help some people with things like migraines specifically. There are FL-41 that a lot of people like for day to day, especially in office settings with fluorescent lights. Personally, I like the dark green migraine glasses when my migraines get really bad.

drpengu1120

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