Glider

So do I. It's fear (through lack of understanding). There's the rub. The disease is not in your mind, it's a disease of the mind, or, more accurately, of the brain. But given that a person (i.e. all characteristics that are not physical) is their mind, anything that affects/alters the mind will alter the person. This is what people find so scary. Research into these conditions is relatively new. For so long any helpful progress into understanding them has been hampered by unhelpful concepts, e.g. demonic posession, and the idea that the person somehow brought it on themsleves or were in some way deserving of the condition. Locking them up in lunatic asylums was just sweeping it under the carpet and families would never talk about a comitted family member because of the shame. The protocols have changed since Victorian times (although not as much as you might think in some places, e.g. Eastern European and post communist countries), but attitudes haven't changed that much, particularly among the genereral population.

Yep, just started this week and so I can be as obtuse as I like now (anything less would be a busman's holiday), ... ...I'm still hobbled by the professional obligation not to present anything I know is not true, dammit! .

It depends on the amount of dissonance you have to deal with, and that depends on a number of things. A basic outline would be that the more effectively you had justified your original position to yourself, the harder it becomes to alter that position without damaging your self-image and the more dissonance there will be to overcome. I am a smoker but, like you and doG, when I quit (as I keep planning to), it's unlikely that I would become a sanctimonious, proselytising convert, because I can't justify my current position to myself. Smoking in front of my non-smoking friends embarasses me so much that I can't bring myself to do it. So my self image won't be taking much of a hit when I do come to quit as, psychologically, I already identify with the non-smoking group and it's smoking that causes dissonance in me. If I had managed to justify my current position to myself, than the change would be harder (reconciling my new position with my previous stance whilst protecting my self-image) and it would be more likely that I would become an annoying, happy-clappy convert.

I am.

You're right. This particular phenomenon is down to cognitive dissonance and group identity. 1) Group identity. You can separate a group of people on the most arbitrary basis and assign each sub group a different task (or even the same task) and within an hour, each group, if asked, will be performing much better than those muppets over there. 2) Cognitive dissonance. Whenever we make a decision, we close off other options. This results in dissonance. To reduce this dissonance, the decision we made becomes 'righter' and 'better' and more correct and more adventagious and more insightful and wiser.....ad nauseum As a smoker, the individual is quite happy with the situation and has already justified their position to themselves and identifies with the 'smoker' group. To alter that stance takes a lot (addiction aside). Making the move from one group to the other results in a huge amount of dissonance because the individual is now confronted with knowledge that their previous stance was wrong (I'm a good and sensible person...this just can't be!). To reduce this dissonance and reconcile their action with their self identity as a good and sensible person, the decision must become even 'righter' and better and more moral and ...you get the idea. Also, the individual now identifies with the 'opposing' group. This too creates dissonance. Previously, these people were a bunch of smug, self-satisfied gits who didn't understand how hard it is to quit. Now, I have to reduce the dissonance cause by my being one of them. So, as a group, they become wiser, morally superior and generally better (they have to be. I'm one of them after all!). Now I'm one of these superior types, it behoves me to demonstrate that loudly and frequently and to proselytise to those other poor, deluded muppets that haven't seen the light wherever the opportunity presents itself in order the silence the little voice that's telling me I was wrong all these years.

[consciousness raising rant] It's a lable because it (inaccurately) refers to the person and not the condition. Manic depression is the more accurate term and refers to the condition, not the person. This kind of labeling appears to be unique to psychological conditions. People with depression become 'depressives', people with eating disorders become 'anorexics' or 'bulimics', people with schizophrenia become 'schizophrenics'. You don't tend to see this in medical conditons. People with leukemia tend not to be labled 'leukemics', people with cancer are not termed 'oncogenics', people with eczma don't become 'eczmatics' . The only exception I can think of is diabetes. This kind of labelling is pernicious because it changes the way people think about the sufferers. The sufferer becomes the condition and so also gets to accept some of the blame for it. For example, you have a person (good), and you have cancer (bad), then you have a person with cancer (a good person with a bad condition) who is therefore deserving of sympathy and help (check out the donation levels to cancer charities). On the other hand you have a person (good) and you have schizophrenia (bad), but then you have a 'schizophrenic' (who is now a mix of good and bad, i.e. definitely less good/innocent than the person with cancer) who is therefore less deserving of sympathy and help (check out the donation levels to mental health charities). [/consciousness rasing rant] Sorry for the off topic, but never miss an opportunity to raise consciousness

"A glass full of H2O and Na and Cl is What?" An Emetic.

Turtles eat jellyfish. Most other creatures avoid them. Turtles are green or brown. Some jellyfish are red. It must be hell for them.

But ovaries aren't cells, they're ogans. They produce oocytes and are analogous to testes. Oocytes are alive, in the same way a grain of pollen is alive. It carries potential, but will only achieve it after fertilization. It is 'less' alive than any other cell (except erythrocytes) and the same degree of alive as sperm, which also don't have any other function or metabolism. A better term than 'alive' to describe the state would be 'viable'.

I think this is true, to an extent. Have you ever been given a general anaesthetic? I think that's what it must be like to die; the non-volitional loss of consciousness. You can feel it coming and you can't fight it, but it's not unpleasant if you don't fear it. If I want to think about what happens after death, I just think about what happens after the anaesthetic (nothing; no sense, no affect, no memory. Nothing). I think the only difference is that with the anaesthetic, I'm still here to reflect on the experience. More specifically, I knew that I would be back when they put me under. If that is in any way what it is to die and to be dead, then I can't fear it. I think it is only the idea of its permanence that makes death different from a GA and, if there's anything to fear, it is the idea of that permanence. Fear, and the suffering it causes, are as fragile as the consciousness that generates them. Once consciousness is gone, there is no more fear. So it seems to me that dying is (and being dead) are quite easy. Living (with fear) is hard. That's interesting. Why is it depressing? Apart from certain Buddhist beliefs, the only concrete idea of life after death I've encountered has been from a Christian perspective and I think it's a lot more depressing to think of my whole life as merely some kind of extended viva voce than as some transient 'miracle' of probability. That's what gives it it's value, the fact it's a temporary state. Judging by the number of my friends who got married in their late teens -early twenties (and who stopped being married at some point soon after that), I think most people can't even grasp how long their own lives are going to be. Yet, these are the people who want to live forever? I think that if something goes on for eternity, it becomes pointless. It's a bit like a race with no finish line. Completely meaningless. Even if, as balls of energy, we explored thouroughly every single star, plantet, moon, asteroid and interesting shaped bit of floating rock in the universe, that would still only account for that groggy few seconds after the alarm goes off on the first morning of the first day of eternity. It sounds awful.

Not really. In synaesthesia, the sensation would be physical, i.e. you would physically see green, rather than be reminded of it. The responses in synaesthesia are entirely physical.

Acute pyrexia. I.e. fever of short onset and short duration. Infection (usually). What? Well, short term elevation of body temperature above normal. What did you think the symptom of a spiking fever wouild be? Of the pyrexia, paracetomol usually does the trick in the short-term. Of the underlying infection (if that's the cause of the spike), depends what's causing it. Here's a question for you: How many question marks does it take to turn a written statement into a question? (the question was also a clue).

You're welcome.

Hmmm, two people who suffer severe chest pains and rather than going to a doctor asap, choose instead to chat about it on their favourite forum. This is evolution in action. If you suffer chest pains, you really need to get checked out by a doctor! The pains may be benign, but nobody can tell you that online.

The symptoms also describe angina pectoris. The underlying condition is coronary heart disease. The pain is due to myocardial ischemia.

It's very hard to say why one combination of analgesics works where another doesn't. You might not be far from the answer, but it's hard to know. Codeine is quite different to tramadol. It's actually a drug precurser and is converted to morphine by liver enzymes. Codeine is going to be more specific than tramadol, which affects a number of systems (e.g. serotonin and noradrenaline), but will also work at a range of opitate receptors rather then just Mu receptors. Endorphins tend to be more acute, i.e. they tend to be released at effective levels under severe, but acute situations. For example, the endorphine release that causes the 'runner's high', i.e. induced by physical exertion, only happens at around 75% VO2 max. Endorphins are more effective in acute pain situations, and less so in chronic conditions, so I doubt endorphin production had much to do with your diffuse pain. I suspect it is the difference in the qualities of the new analgesic combination working on different systems and receptors.

It's consistant within people but differs between people, although there are certain combinations that are more common (e.g. linked vision & audition). It's not a disease. I recommend the book; The man Who Tasted Shapes by Richard E. Cytowic. It's an excellent read on the topic.

Read the post dates!

Do you two guys think gryphin is still waiting for an answer?

Tramadol is an opioid (albeit atypical) and has effects on a number of systems in the body, including the opioid (Mu opioid) system. The basic action of any such drug occurs at synapses. Synapses have feedback systems which means that if any kind of postsynaptic receptors are activated by substances artificially introduced (i.e. by drugs), for a long period, retrograde messengers will tell the presynaptic cell to reduce production of the natural substance (transmitter). In short, taking opioid painkillers (exogenous opioids) for a long enough period will reduce the levels of endogenous opioids (endorphins) produced. Subsequent sudden withdrawal of the exogenous opioids can therefore be problematic. People on long-term opioid pain medication should be weaned off. So, taking tramadol long-term is likely to have an effect on endorphin production, but as to whether this would cause diffuse pain sensation near the original pain site is hard to say. If you are withdrawing from tremadol, there may be some hyperalgesia as your body adjusts and elevates endorphin production. That might explain it, but only if you have stopped taking the medication.

Bellbottom25, you are not making any sense.

Analogue. I find it's a lot easier to work out future and past times quickly (i.e. how long until/since...) than with digital. I have a citizen eco drive. No winding or batteries, just go out in the sun now and again (Oh no! Such a trial! )

Could it be that you play basketball because you're tall, rather than your tall because you play basketball?

Yes, that is a factor. As a rule, the more a person has to work for a thing, or the greater the sacrifice a person must make to attain a thing, the more valuable that thing will be to the person. That person will (in their own mind) attribute that thing with more positive qualities than it might posess. You might know somebody who has paid over the odds for something (e.g. a car, or a computer) and who will subsequently defend it, focussing on the positive and ignoring the negative, even in the face of evidence to the contrary (this effect may even be a factor in the pervasive nature of religion). This is not unique to humans. Konrad Lorenz noted that even in birds that imprint (e.g. ducks), the harder a young bird had to work to keep up with its parent, the stronger and longer lasting the subseqent bond. This phenomenon can be seen in many social animals. In the case of placebo, it is entirely probable that a placebo that is worked for, or paid for, would have a greater effect than one given freely. It's important to note that placebo is only effective at treating symptoms that are susceptible to psychological intervention (pain is the most common example), so any way to get a person to attribute a placebo with more positive qualities would enhance its effect. That is also a factor.

We still have the rest of this week to go. By early next week, I'll have a pile of marking that's more easily measured by the kilo than by number