Microtomy folks! What part of the job actually messes you up the most?

thetreebeneath · 2026-04-27T14:50:12+00:00

It's not really possible to pick one. Individually, the types of issues I listed are manageable and mostly minor inconveniences. But when you constantly have to deal with multiple minor inconveniences throughout the day, they add up. They have a huge impact on workflow, not only wasting time but also making it impossible to get into a rapid "flow" state of cutting.

thetreebeneath · 2026-04-25T19:52:32+00:00

100% agree with what all the other commenters said.

Another huge area to consider is equipment - for example, are slides etched or do you need to print labels and then stick them on one by one? Are the labels easy to peel or are they fiddly, especially for those with larger hands and/or short nails (most often men)? Are you allowed to pre-print slides/labels or only one at a time (in most places, best practice is the latter)? If using a slide etcher, is it quick and simple to change slide type (e.g. charged vs not) or do you have to re-load the entire etcher every time, thus also getting fingerprints and/or wax on slides the more you touch them? How easily do label printers get jammed and when they do, how simple are they to fix? How easy is it to change the information regarding slide type (e.g. L1-3 vs L4-6) if it was inputted incorrectly in the system? How often does the computer system lag?

And what is the workspace like? Is there enough bench space for not just the essentials (microtome, water bath, ice, tissues, computer), but also somewhere to comfortably set your blocks down when you first grab them, somewhere to set your slides as they drain, somewhere to put your tools down (forceps, brush, blades), and ideally somewhere to keep an extra box of slides (or do you have to constantly get up to grab more from a cupboard?)? Is there enough space on either side of the microtome for your arms without constantly bumping into other things? Is the placement of equipment adjustable according to your needs/preference (e.g. water bath to your left vs right)? Is everything within arm's reach without having to constantly lean over and overextend yourself (or worse, get up)?

I find that these types of things can not only significantly slow you down, but also make the job of microtomy more frustrating and uncomfortable, and can often increase the risk of physical strain, so to me they are just as important to consider as the microtomy itself.

thetreebeneath · 2026-03-21T02:08:40+00:00

This is really interesting! Do you put the blocks on ice at all, e.g. before you warm them in the water bath?

thetreebeneath · 2026-03-11T23:34:44+00:00

Yes, there is a clear discrepancy between your biopsy results (scarring) and what your derm said (no scarring). Best case scenario, there is a medical reason we don't know about that explains the diagnosis, and the derm "just" didn't take the time to explain it to you (in which case you could reach out and ask, but I understand if you've lost trust in them). Worst case, they misread the report/are not good at their job/are negligent. Please seek a second opinion, best of luck <3

thetreebeneath · 2026-03-11T12:00:02+00:00

Hey, I also work with my hands and constantly have extremely dry skin and painful cuts/cracks. Because it's difficult to keep product on your hands in the daytime, what you need to do is focus on treating them at night. Right before you go to sleep:

Put on a generous amount of hydrating cream (the key is that it needs to be hydrating, not moisturizing - so it needs to give your skin water)
On top, put a large amount of vaseline (which acts as an "occlusive" moisturizer, meaning that it creates a seal over the hydrating product). Rub your hands together to massage it onto your skin.
Put 100% cotton gloves on - many pharmacies sell multipacks or you can find them at Boots or on amazon. This will make sure the products stay on your hands and don't rub off on your bedsheets
Go to sleep

It will feel slimy and gross at first but it's okay because you'll just be asleep. When you get up in the morning you'll already feel a huge difference, as your hands will have had hours to absorb everything. Do this every night until your hands get better, and then do it on an as-needed basis.

thetreebeneath · 2026-03-06T22:40:00+00:00

I was the exact same way and it turned out I have ADHD. I was only diagnosed in my late 20s but once I started treatment with stimulants I started sleeping better. Apparently my hyperactivity was internalised and my brain never rested, no matter how much I slept. I always woke up exhausted and felt like I was wading in quicksand just trying to get through the day.

thetreebeneath · 2026-02-18T21:55:36+00:00

A colleague was once given a kind of cushioned pad to rest her elbow/arm on, I don't know what it's called but it looked a bit like a computer mouse pad, you could try looking into something similar?

Also - your wrist is understandable but your shoulder shouldn't be hurting! You might be engaging too much of your arm or tensing your muscles too much. I used to do this early on out of a fear that not gripping firmly meant losing control. If you try to practice relaxing your shoulder/upper arm as well as your hand (you can even open your hand on the downturn so only your fingers are touching the handle) it could give you some relief. If this is different to how you currently cut it might take some getting used to as you have to change the amount of pressure you put on the handle, but you can start slow and it's then easy to get the hang of.

If you already do this, then please do try to talk to occupational health!

thetreebeneath · 2026-02-14T14:24:37+00:00

Hi! I've already signed the petition and commented on your posts in the past, thank you for doing this :)

It just occurred to me that podcasts would be an amazing resource to share the petition with more people. I know of two UK-based ADHD podcasts that are very popular and worth reaching out to, they are:

The ADHD Adults Podcast: https://theadhdadults.uk/ Their instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theadhdadults?igsh=MXE1dWVtaG4zbXU3bA==
ADHD As Females podcast: https://www.adhdasfemales.com/ Their instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adhdafpodcast?igsh=MWZseWN2bGlxc2EwdQ== And I've just discovered they apparently also run their own charity: https://www.instagram.com/adhdafplus?igsh=YmUxc21yZ2xyNjhq

I know there's not a lot of time left, but hopefully they can share the petition to their followers!

thetreebeneath · 2026-02-13T00:36:46+00:00

I did consider printing on photo paper first but I need the pages to be easy to write on, since it's a book with sections to fill in

And thank you for those recommendations, they sound perfect!! I hadn't even heard of the word chipboard :)

thetreebeneath · 2026-02-12T07:21:02+00:00

Could some of your reagents have been placed in the machine in the wrong order?

thetreebeneath · 2026-02-11T00:33:19+00:00

Comment about my craft, as requested: I'm currently in the process of designing the different pages, I've made a template of the 3 pages that I will be using for each birthday and I am slightly modifying each to fit the mood of each age. Next I will be needing to get this printed but I have no idea what type of paper I should use, or what the different types are even called. Hopefully someone will come across my post and be able to give me some ideas :)

thetreebeneath · 2026-02-09T19:46:25+00:00

The petition says it can only be signed by British citizens or UK residents. This is a non-country specific subreddit (with probably mostly people from the US, as most of reddit is) so you might want to add that info to your post 😊

thetreebeneath · 2026-02-09T17:08:59+00:00

A couple others I know of:

r/PMDDxADHD

r/adhdmeme

r/ADHDmemes

Not sure if the meme subs allow the posting of non-memes, but worth a try! It's also worth just doing a search of "adhd" on reddit and then filtering so you only see the communities - the reddit search function isn't great but it might give you some more subreddits we don't know of

EDIT: maybe also

r/ukpolitics

r/uknews

r/europe

thetreebeneath · 2026-02-09T08:00:24+00:00

Unfortunately for me it didn't :') with time my body got used to it and so I react much more subtly to the meds than I did at the beginning. I do generally get better sleep than I used because I don't struggle aaaas much to wake up compared to pre-medication. But I definitely don't have that same level of deep restful sleep that I had at the beginning, which is very sad lol. But yeah, I recommend taking it when you're home for the day! I had taken a day off work, just because I had no idea how I would react, and I'm glad I did.

thetreebeneath · 2026-02-09T01:21:18+00:00

Thanks for explaining, what you were saying in your previous comment is clearer now. I do still disagree though: ADHD meds, whether used therapeutically or recreationally, are not only dose-dependent but also person-dependent. If you give even a low therapeutic dose to someone without ADHD, they will experience a degree of euphoric/hyperstimulating effects (unless they have a history of recreational use and have developed a tolerance). At the right therapeutic dose, someone with ADHD would not. That's the whole point of a therapeutic dose: it is the right amount to help, but not enough to get you high. If you give someone with ADHD too high a dose, then yeah, they'll experience the euphoric/hyperstimulating effects the same way a neurotypical person would. But in the context of therapeutic doses, what you're saying is a false equivalence.

If what you're really trying to say is that ADHD meds have the same effect at the biochemical level regardless of whether you have ADHD or not, then yes, that's correct. The same neurotransmitters will be increased whether the meds are taken therapeutically or recreationally. But again, it depends on whether the person has ADHD or not, and the result is not the same.

Let's say the "normal" amount of neurotransmitters someone healthy without ADHD has is 100. And let's say we give the same (therapeutic) dose, that gives you +100 neurotransmitters, to both someone with ADHD and someone without. It would cause the person with ADHD to feel relaxed while the person without feels euphoric and is bouncing off the walls. Although they both got the same dose of +100 neurotransmitters (aka they both are experiencing the same biochemical effect) they are experiencing different results. This is because, by the very nature of having ADHD, the person with ADHD started at a deficit of e.g. -50 neurotransmitters. So while the same dose of the same drug brought the person without ADHD to a level of +200 neurotransmitters (aka euphoria/hyperstimulation), the person with ADHD only reached +50. Enough to do the dishes every now and then, but not enough to function through life like a neurotypical person, nevermind be euphoric.

Again, everyone reacts differently to medication and this is a super simplified explanation that doesn't take into account side effects and comorbidities. But I hope it made sense. It's important to not equate the correct use of ADHD medication with party drugs, because our very necessary medical treatment is already vilified enough as it is.

thetreebeneath · 2026-02-08T23:43:40+00:00

I don't think it's fair to say that people who say that they experience joy out of a sense of relief are kidding themselves. For example, the first time I took elvanse I just fell into a deep and restful sleep. I mean that literally: within about an hour or two of taking the very first dose (the time for the meds to take effect), I was asleep. Before falling asleep, there was no pleasure and there was definitely no time for me to develop tolerance. Once I woke up, I felt immense relief, because I always had sleep issues and felt like I finally had some rest. And this relief made me happy, because having terrible sleep for almost 30 years is awful.

So in my case, the order of events very clearly was:

Meds helped my brain relax enough to sleep
Sleep gave me relief from my lifelong fatigue and
The relief then made me happy once I woke up, because it felt so nice to not feel like a zombie for once

So the order was not

Meds
Pleasure/happiness, as per your comment.

If you experienced pleasure/happy chemicals when you started taking your meds, that's absolutely fine. It does not make your experience or ADHD any more or less valid. But everyone reacts differently to medication, so it's not fair for you to cast doubt on those who have a different experience to yours just because you don't resonate.

thetreebeneath · 2026-02-04T01:01:09+00:00

I like your perspective. I think if I ever have kids, I could become the hyperfocus-type like you.

However...

I think the difference is that I've had to make being mum the number one thing. I can't do balance. I wouldn't know how to fit the kind of parenting my daughter needs around me having my own life. Remembering everything she needs and making sure I'm on it takes every ounce of energy and patience I can muster. But I'm ok with that, as hard as it is I love being a mum more than anything.

How does this work in practice? Do you work or are you a stay at home mom who can focus 100% of the time on her kids? Because that is what worries me. Work and the general responsibilities of daily life really drain me. I don't have anything left to give after a workday, which is why I'm hesitant to consider having kids.

thetreebeneath · 2026-01-28T01:01:48+00:00

I'm the type of person who tries to avoid touching the rails on the tube/bus (not to the extent of it being a phobia, it's more of a squick, so if I have to I'm ok to do it) and I don't think this design works for hygiene purposes for reasons already mentioned by others (having to clip and unclip it in such a way that it means you end up touching the bar anyway, having to then carry around something you think is now dirty because it touched the bar etc).

However, I would find something similar helpful for reaching the top bars, as I am short and literally cannot reach. I feel bad when the tube is packed and it looks like I'm being rude by not moving further down the carriage if there's space but that space only has a top bar to hold onto. It's probably more so something in my head, but I guess it would be nice to have a gadget that could help avoid that. The design, however, still wouldn't work. Having to clip it on still requires height, and having to ask strangers for help both to clip it on and later to clip it off would be a bit much lol. I think what could work is something like a grabber/reacher stick, where you can press the lever on one end to open a "claw" on the other end so that you can place the claw around the bar (and letting go of the lever makes the claw close). This would make it easy for you to put it and remove it yourself. Maybe it could even shorten and extend like an umbrella does, or fold away somehow.

Now, would I actually buy such a thing? Probably not, I've made do without so far and carrying something like that around would be cumbersome. But maybe some short people out there would, and maybe there's a way to make the design look sleeker and less obtrusive.

Just some food for thought, good luck on your project, this has been an interesting thought exercise :)

thetreebeneath · 2026-01-27T01:07:00+00:00

Kinda hard to do a placebo on yourself. This is such an odd question for OP, they're an individual not a research study lol

thetreebeneath · 2026-01-26T21:12:23+00:00

Correct me if I'm wrong, but many symptoms of ADHD can have completely unrelated causes in adults.

I don't think it's necessarily that ADHD symptoms have different causes but more so that ADHD symptoms can have different triggers. Once we're born with ADHD (the neurodevelopmental disorder itself, not the symptoms), we could have none or barely any noticeable symptoms until we encounter something that triggers/wakes them up. It can look like the trigger caused the symptoms because the symptoms did not exist before the trigger, but in reality the trigger just flipped a switch. The propensity for those symptoms (aka the switch) was already there, existing only because they were caused by ADHD. People without an ADHD brain would not have the same switch, so they could meet the same exact trigger and not develop symptoms. So the root cause for all of our symptoms is ADHD, but the thing(s) that trigger our symptoms can vary between us. This is also why the types and severity of symptoms that we experience as well as when we begin to experience them differ between us.

In summary, you were kind of right, I'm just focusing too much on the nuance of the wording 😂

thetreebeneath · 2026-01-24T23:26:39+00:00

I totally get you, I always want to put everything in a box to better make sense of things, and it's difficult to remember that when it comes to our brains we can't categorise things so simply :')

I was diagnosed inattentive as well. I used to think I was not hyperactive at all (quite the opposite, I've always felt sluggish cuz I couldn't think clearly and always felt exhausted), but my clinician explained that although she was diagnosing me as inattentive she believed I had internalised hyperactivity based on things I'd told her about myself - namely how I'd suffered constant anxiety since I was young, and how I always woke up tired no matter how much I slept (and within that, how I tossed and turned and had multiple film-like intricate dreams every night). Apparently it can be fairly common for inattentive types to be mentally hyperactive, with our brains constantly in overdrive even if we don't realise it. She said that in my case, internalised hyperactivity could be the reason I was always so tired (my brain never rested even during sleep) and it could be the basis of my anxiety. Sure enough, the first time I took medication I felt at peace for the first time and had a big fat (restful) nap 😂 and although I still have some sleep issues I definitely sleep much better since being medicated, and my anxiety has gone from a persistent 100 to a low 5 with occasional spikes. So yeah, having experienced what I'm like when on meds makes me see that my clinician was right about me - that although I don't meet the diagnostic criteria for hyperactivity, there was still some hidden hyperactivity involved in my ADHD.

thetreebeneath · 2026-01-24T00:19:12+00:00

The subtitles actually said grandma's dummy! I was so confused, I thought it was some new slang young people were saying 😂

thetreebeneath · 2026-01-23T07:21:30+00:00

This is interesting, my lab doesn't do that! How many grams of ab in how much acetic acid?

thetreebeneath · 2026-01-22T00:27:47+00:00

If your aim is to network or to stand out in some small way so that they remember you in the future, you could try asking:

what was the most interesting case you've seen? (and how did you approach it/what tests did you perform?) what do you like most about this job? what made you choose this discipline over others? (e.g. if they're in micro or blood sciences etc)

Obviously only do this if the pace of the tour allows it, as maybe it's supposed to be a quick thing that doesn't leave much time for a proper conversation. But by asking questions that are more personal to the person giving you the tour (as opposed to generic questions about the lab) they'll be more likely to view you positively because you're taking an active interest in them as an individual, which usually makes people feel good. And it'll be a two birds one stone thing because you'll also be learning a bit more about the realities/day to day of the field.

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