Health(care) is political
Plus, The Antidote #27: "calm-mongering," Putrino-on-pod, and iron deficiencies
The Tonic is a lighthearted, heavily resourced newsletter for folks interested in learning about long COVID, ME/CFS, and other health conditions. Come for the info; stay for the whimsy. Or vice versa.
Wish list shout out!
Many of my readers have chosen to support my efforts here via the Amazon wish list in lieu of paid subscriptions (which would reduce my disability benefits). A big Tonic THANK YOU this week goes to wish list two-timer Molly D.!
The Tonic is free to read - Amy is so happy you’re here! There is no paid subscription option here like with other Substack newsletters. However, if you are valuing the experience and are able, please consider a show of support by sending a gift of health, wellness, or joy from this Amazon wish list. There’s something for every budget and any help is appreciated. Anyone who does gets a 📢 in an upcoming post (be sure to include a note with your gift). Thank you!
Nope nope nope
I am publishing off schedule this week (a week early) because although I dreaded the (admittedly self-imposed) expectation of profound post-election shitshow commentary, I do have a few things to say (to the surprise of no one, I’m sure). I will not be going on an archaeological dig here, since plenty of my fellow writers who are equally as devastated and yet either more talented or better able to put words to these complicated, heavy emotions have done so quite ably in the days since. I will provide links to the ones I found most poignant below.
I spent almost the entire day after first checking in via text with my Black/brown/queer/trans friends and family. I tried to digest their deep level of fear, anger, and disgust - which I could only do inadequately at best as a cis het white woman beyond her reproductive years. But as someone who loves them all deeply, I felt their despair, their well-worn cynicism over a country that has disappointed them before at best, and actively harmed them and their ancestors at worst.
I felt my own as well. I think back to the one time I was pregnant (after many months of whack-a-mole fertility cocktails), when two weeks after getting the best news of my life, they couldn’t find the heartbeat. Hours later, I began bleeding out. My pregnancy was ectopic, and I had to be rushed into surgery. This was circa 2005. I didn’t have to worry whether I’d get the care I needed or make it out alive. I live in New York, one of the few states where voters approved a proposition on Tuesday to enshrine reproductive rights into the state constitution, along with anti-discrimination language that will protect our trans and gender non-conforming residents, among others. But don’t think my mind hasn’t gone to, “what if my painfully non-viable pregnancy had happened to me in Texas in 2024?”
Back to Wednesday. I entered into a fog of confusion, rage, and sadness, with physical symptoms of fatigue and neuropathy like I haven’t had in months, and with one long, intractable headache. None of my usual heavy-duty prescription drugs could touch this headache. I fired up my Curable app and hit the lightning symbol at the top of the page, signaling, “I’m in pain RIGHT NOW and need help immediately.” I chose the Identifying Emotions Audio Guide, and after listening to the 13-minute audio, I was miraculously able to quiet the pain. Not all the way, but a good deal of the way.
The recording helped me realize that I was spending my time in a very heightened state of arousal, even if I believed I was numb and down in the dumps. And what wasn’t helping was the obsessive doom-scrolling I was doing to try to find an answer to, “how TF did a majority of voters in my country choose a depraved, lying, narcissistic, racist rapist and felon over the NONE-OF-THOSE-THINGS, qualified candidate?”
In other words, I was thinking and feeling in ALL CAPS, and this was sending major fear and danger signals to my brain, which chose fatigue, neuropathy, and headaches as its way of telling me to cool it, stat.
And so I listened, for the most part. I meditated more. I watched Shrinking and the Pamela Anderson documentary on Netflix and That Was Us (The This Is Us rewatch podcast that I highly recommend if you loved and miss that TV show).
I did still consume analysis on what happened, but I did so in several-small-meals-a-day fashion. I read high-level political overviews of what went wrong, but most of what I read was health-related, and since that is our focus here at The Tonic, I share with you these links. Some will help you understand the uniquely shitty situation that the disabled and chronically ill (especially those felled in some way by COVID-19) feel is going to be compounded now that the original pandemic fuck-up president will soon be back in power.
We start with the quackery many are worried about with the impending appointment of RFK, Jr. to any sort of top health-related post in the government: RFK Jr. Threatens the Very Fabric of Healthcare (free MedPage Today account required).
Here’s
with what to expect from a public health perspective.Here’s the
with a “how we got here” that’s very much worth checking out.Here’s
with a round-up of excellent links going deeper specifically into the COVID-related implications of the election outcome.And
with “how did we get here and what comes next?” that is also very well written (as usual) and specific to COVID and long COVID. I particularly wanted to emphasize this line:
I also want to give a gentle reminder that making jokes about moving to Canada or saying that people should simply flee the country is not helpful right now. Many disabled people are trapped in the United States. Those living in poverty, the elderly and/or multiple marginalized feel the same.
I too am done hearing the privileged and non-disabled say this (most won’t act on it anyway).
A word to my readers on politics
I recognize that not everyone shares my leanings. That is every individual’s right. A few weeks ago, I posted an article in Notes (for those not on the Substack app, Notes is a feature of Substack that is the equivalent of Twitter/X or Threads). The article was about a pregnant woman in Texas who was miscarrying and died three days after seeking emergency care. I urged undecided folks to vote accordingly, and by that I meant, “vote for the party that didn’t cause this needless tragedy to happen.” I guess I was hoping that the connect-the-dots that this woman did would happen with more voters, especially women.
A Tonic reader commented on my Note that she was canceling her subscription to my newsletter because she was tired of my “political meanderings.”
I replied by letting her know that Substack writers are (for the most part) not journalists who are bound to any sort of objectivity or neutrality (laughable, I know, when we think about how biased mainstream media is). I said that it was my prerogative to write about what moves me, as it is hers to choose to leave if she’s not enjoying it or finding it helpful. I wished her well on her health journey.
Folks, as you know, the Tonic is a health newsletter at its core. Most people from any political party would should agree that good health is a worthy goal, and that dying is NOT one. Dying from a highly preventable health condition is its own kind of travesty, especially when a year or two ago, these deaths were being prevented routinely.
Political leanings and policy changes directly caused that woman’s death. They caused over a million deaths over the last five years, tens of thousands of which were preventable through science-backed public health measures at our disposal. They cause millions to encounter great difficulty accessing life-saving gender affirming care (and by life-saving, I mean the number of suicides would go down, because imagine being forced in a body that did not feel like your own). They are funding a genocide, where hospitals are targeted and destroyed, food and clean water are withheld, communicable diseases are spreading, and of course, preventable deaths have been happening for over a year.
Politics directly impacted me in 2020; they caused me to become so sick that I had to give up my career and accumulate mountains of new debt. They impacted many of you in similar, devastating ways. They impact us to this day, when laws are being passed that infringe upon personal liberties by banning the face coverings that can save our lives.
Our health is directly impacted by politics. There is no getting away from that fact. And I will not stand quietly on the sidelines of injustice. In fact, Tonic readers are all fairly forewarned; this line in my bio has been there since day one:
Loves to rail against injustice and still find a way to laugh most days.
The railing comes with the laughs. It is your choice to take it or leave it. Most of you choose to take it, and I am grateful and happy that you’re here.
By the way, I’m willing to bet that some of you don’t agree with everything I say (dramatically clutches plastic pearls) and yet you just scroll by those parts to access the parts you do find helpful. What a refreshingly old-timey and adult concept! I’m happy you’re here too.
Okay, that’s it from me this week. I am sure the next four years will give me plenty of links and political outrage to share. For now, I hope you prioritize regulating your nervous system and seeking joy and community where you can.
The Antidote #27
COVID, Long COVID, and ME/CFS
📖 Long COVID definition: here’s
with a succinct and helpful post on the NASEM (National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine) definition.😷 Mask bans: Friend of The Tonic
published a great piece on KevinMD last week on why mask bans are the latest attack on American freedom. From me and all of us fighting to protect our health, thank you Doc.🎭 More masks, more sanity: Bay Area counties implement mask mandates for health care facilities.
🫠 COVID-19 minimization propaganda: You’ve heard of fear-mongering; check out this excellent piece on calm-mongering.
🤧 COVID, the flu, or something else? 2024 symptoms and testing to know.
💓 POTS or anxiety: check out
on being misdiagnosed and gaslit.😖 Autoimmune and connective tissue disorders: long term issues following COVID-19.
🧫 Damaged mitochondria: a summary of recent ME/CFS studies.
📰 Long COVID news: do like I did and donate to The Sick Times’ end of year fundraiser to support the latest scientific research, investigations into powerful institutions, and the sharing of perspectives from people impacted by Long COVID. NewsMatch will be matching every donation up to $1,000, for a max total of $15,000. Help support independent, bias-free journalism on the issue most important to us!
Webinars/conferences/podcasts/videos
🦸🏼♂️ David Putrino! Folks, my delightful comrade
from and the fabulous podcast A Friend for the Long Haul used her substantial charms to snag an interview with thee David Putrino, head of the new Cohen Center for Recovery from Complex Chronic Illnesses (CoRE) at Mount Sinai Hospital in NYC (one of the first and most cutting edge long COVID centers to open in the U.S.).Check out their conversation where she helps to humanize this LC icon by choosing to ask about David Putrino the man and not draining all of the LC knowledge out of his big brain (he’s done a zillion of those interviews on other pods already). You can access the links in Beth’s post:
Health miscellany
😫 Endometriosis: it’s understudied and uterus-having people are in PAIN.
🍴 Is It Bad to Eat the Same Thing Every Day? Find out here (but short answer: your gut needs diversity).
🧀 Cheese recall: a brie-call? (I’ll show myself out now).
🖤 Black spatulas: I posted the piece from The Atlantic last time that said to toss them, but here’s a counterpoint.
🏢 Work-related stress: no bueno for your ticker, says a multi-ethnic study.
🫥 OCD is often misunderstood. This is what it’s really like.
🦷 Dentists Are Pulling ‘Healthy’ and Treatable Teeth To Profit From Implants, Experts Warn. Not my dentist, who is an angel sent from above, but a dear friend of mine told me just a few weeks ago that her new dentist suggested doing this! A crime.
🩸 Iron deficiency: weird signs and how to spot them. Folks assigned female at birth (AFAB), you especially need to get your ferritin checked. A great long hauler friend suggested I had a deficiency after I told her about my own weird signs and sure enough, I am very deficient and starting infusions soon.
🧠 The human brain: what’s so special about it? An extremely cool, scrolling infographics article that is not to be missed!
🙄 Menopause weight gain: how to prevent it. Alas, it has begun here…sigh.
😺 Cognitive decline: how cats’ brains are helping scientists understand this in humans. (No cats are harmed in this study - it’s just medical records and blood samples. Phe-ow! You know we love the felines here at The Tonic).
💯 Perfectionism: How Striving for 'Perfect' Can Hurt Your Health. This is a big premise of many of the long COVID and ME/CFS recovery programs. Big perfectionist here; learning to let go of these patterns has helped me a lot with my recovery.
🧑🏻🦽 Accessibility enforcement:
with a great piece on the frustrations of ADA violations. Standout quote: “Proving inaccessibility feels like having to prove to others that I am human and deserving of equal treatment. It harms my heart to wage each and every battle.”Now stick around for…
🥳 The After-party 🥳
Added resources, joy, tomfoolery, and buffoonery
🦃 Just in time for Thanksgiving: 11 Things to Say to Your Relative Whose Politics You Hate.
🐒 Even the monkeys are revolting: Residents warned after 43 monkeys escape research facility.
🧘🏾 Stress reduction via murder mystery comedies, courtesy of
:
🌲 The world’s oldest tree? (You’ll think this is a forest of trees, but it’s one giant tree, sharing a massive root structure - mind blowing!)
🤦🏽♂️ Buffoon of the week: we’ve covered this already. It’s the Divided States of America. We are the buffoons.
🏆 Winners of the week: fortunately in the name of hope and progress, we have a few winners this week. Congratulations to these powerhouse women!
Sarah McBride wins in Delaware, becomes Congress' first out transgender lawmaker
Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, and
Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware win their Senate races, and for the first time, we will have two Black women U.S. senators.
🐈⬛ 💩 And finally, it’s this week’s Cat Dump. It’s Zira’s week, the elder stateswoman. We had a health scare with her a few weeks back. So thankful to have an excellent, caring vet who quickly figured out and began treating the problem.
Brilliant post. So much I want to say but without the capacity to note it all right now! Many stand out elements.
In some ways I get the political thing in that I don’t like to get involved (though it could be argued I am now 🙃) but it’s important to be aware of the horror show that is going on and the continued negative impact this is having on the health of the nation (& the world), women’s right and marginalised people and communities. There are no winners here.
Dear Amy - Must admit I can't read more politics, but because I always at least scroll my fave-publisher's articles ;-) I went through and saw 'That was US'!!! OMG Thank you!😅🩷 I miss that show SO much.
If you have brain-space for intrigue I recommend 'The Diplomat', or if you need some feel-good music, watch the John Williams Documentary on Disney—lots of insights into the composer-conductor.