I'm not sure if dry skin co-occurs with AS sufferers a lot (though psoriasis is one condition which seems to affect AS-ers a fair bit) but I've always seemed to have problems with cracked skin, not just on my hands, but most of my body. As yet, I've not found a miracle cure, but, after trawling through hundreds of dubious cider vinegar recipes on the internet, I have found some things which worked for my horrible dry scalp.
On the recommendation of my GP, I bought one bottle of Neutrogena Coal Tar shampoo and one bottle of Nizoral shampoo from Boots, and have been alternating using them over the past two months or so... to my surprise, this is one time when my GP was dead on the money, and my dry scalp has almost completely cleared up.
If buying Nizoral, see if you can get it on prescription because it retails for nearly a tenner, and even if you have to pay for your prescriptions, it will be around £2 cheaper.
Wednesday, 11 September 2013
Tuesday, 30 July 2013
Today's headlines
Two female users of Twitter, journalist Caroline Criado-Perez and Stella Creasy MP, have been receiving abuse in which they are threatened with rape for expressing their views.
Worryingly, it sometimes seems as if this is spilling over into our daily lives outside cyberspace. I am not particularly good-looking as a woman. I am short, have a childish face, large shoulders and dress fairly conservatively. Some would say boringly. However, in the past month I have been harassed in the street at least 6 times by men. Normally I swear, flick the Vs, anything to show I am not complicit in their harassment, and that I will not giggle or walk faster (which I feel almost condones harassment). I have not yet been threatened with rape, but I have had some incredibly angry reactions, and I have had men who just will. not. let. it. go. and continue to harass me as I walk.
Who can I report this to? Who will be questioned on my behalf? Who will be punished for ruining my day through intimidation and rude words?
And one day, when I have finally, finally had enough, and pushed that idiot off his bike, or punched him full in the face, will there be justice?
Twitter executives are likely to be questioned by MPs over the site's handling of abuse, the chairman of an influential Commons committee has said.It is about time, to be frank. I may only have been alive for a couple of decades, but I have seen attitudes to not just women, but everyone, change, particularly as the Internet has taken off. It has been said before, but it worth repeating: people think they can hide behind internet anonymity and therefore that they can say and act as they want without repercussions.
Worryingly, it sometimes seems as if this is spilling over into our daily lives outside cyberspace. I am not particularly good-looking as a woman. I am short, have a childish face, large shoulders and dress fairly conservatively. Some would say boringly. However, in the past month I have been harassed in the street at least 6 times by men. Normally I swear, flick the Vs, anything to show I am not complicit in their harassment, and that I will not giggle or walk faster (which I feel almost condones harassment). I have not yet been threatened with rape, but I have had some incredibly angry reactions, and I have had men who just will. not. let. it. go. and continue to harass me as I walk.
Who can I report this to? Who will be questioned on my behalf? Who will be punished for ruining my day through intimidation and rude words?
And one day, when I have finally, finally had enough, and pushed that idiot off his bike, or punched him full in the face, will there be justice?
Friday, 24 May 2013
Chatternoster. n. the mix of gossip, advice, screaming over the noise of the hand-dryer and miscellaneous talk in the ladies loos. See also: chatternosing.
The mother of one of my sister's primary school classmates used to wear huge and numerous earrings when she came to pick up her son. Gold hoops, beads that looked like bunches of grapes, diamond studs, loopy chains. I wanted a word to describe what they looked like in her ears: heavy, lobe-dragging, substantial, meaty. It had been a long day, and the best I could come up with was watuung. But it got my point across, once everyone had stopped laughing.
There are loads of books about new coinages of words, websites about new slang terms (Urban Dictionary), or words that exist in one language but not in another (eg Schadenfreude), or even those words that describe seemingly culturally specific concepts (eg saudade). Some coinages last, while some are what are known as nonce formations: a new word invented for a specific moment in someone's life and that never sticks around for long afterwards. I thought it would be interesting then to have a go at coining some words for the 'female experience', some of which seem to be sorely lacking in English. The challenge was outlined in a book about women's rights published in 1996 as part of a series called What's the Big Idea? If I were a teacher, something like this would definitely be on the homework agenda.
Getting your first period: commencements
(a beginning; neutral; neither curse nor blessing)
The female equivalent of 'stud': brightling
(positive connotations of bright, still vaguely horsey to be in-keeping with 'stud')
A word to describe your best girl friend: kindrel
(from 'kindred', also 'kind'; -el because it is often a female ending in French, analogy with 'elle'. 'Kindrette' would sound too diminutive and cutesy and full of washing machines.)
The craving you get for chocolate when you're suffering from PMT: the zeenans
(the noise in your head when you set your teeth and your internal monologue goes "Eeeeeeee I want chocolate")
A woman who doesn't want to get married through her own choice: rectrice
(a tail feather which is important in the flight of birds)
How you might feel if you had been up all night nursing a screaming baby: geschloggered
(quasi-Yiddish/German, a sounds-like-you-feel kind of word)
From What's the Big Idea?: Women's Rights by Victoria Parker (with illustrations by Andrew McIntyre)
I would add womanine to this list too, because feminine has come to mean one particular set of attributes (flowers, daintiness, kittens --- blergh) and has fairly negative connotations, rather than meaning "being a woman", whereas masculine, seems to me to still mean "being a man".
There are loads of books about new coinages of words, websites about new slang terms (Urban Dictionary), or words that exist in one language but not in another (eg Schadenfreude), or even those words that describe seemingly culturally specific concepts (eg saudade). Some coinages last, while some are what are known as nonce formations: a new word invented for a specific moment in someone's life and that never sticks around for long afterwards. I thought it would be interesting then to have a go at coining some words for the 'female experience', some of which seem to be sorely lacking in English. The challenge was outlined in a book about women's rights published in 1996 as part of a series called What's the Big Idea? If I were a teacher, something like this would definitely be on the homework agenda.
Getting your first period: commencements
(a beginning; neutral; neither curse nor blessing)
The female equivalent of 'stud': brightling
(positive connotations of bright, still vaguely horsey to be in-keeping with 'stud')
A word to describe your best girl friend: kindrel
(from 'kindred', also 'kind'; -el because it is often a female ending in French, analogy with 'elle'. 'Kindrette' would sound too diminutive and cutesy and full of washing machines.)
The craving you get for chocolate when you're suffering from PMT: the zeenans
(the noise in your head when you set your teeth and your internal monologue goes "Eeeeeeee I want chocolate")
A woman who doesn't want to get married through her own choice: rectrice
(a tail feather which is important in the flight of birds)
How you might feel if you had been up all night nursing a screaming baby: geschloggered
(quasi-Yiddish/German, a sounds-like-you-feel kind of word)
From What's the Big Idea?: Women's Rights by Victoria Parker (with illustrations by Andrew McIntyre)
I would add womanine to this list too, because feminine has come to mean one particular set of attributes (flowers, daintiness, kittens --- blergh) and has fairly negative connotations, rather than meaning "being a woman", whereas masculine, seems to me to still mean "being a man".
Tuesday, 30 April 2013
The moral maze
Possible triggers warning: discussion of child and sexual abuse
The fall-out from the Jimmy Savile scandal continues as Max Clifford and Rolf Harris are the latest high-profile men to be involved with the off-shoots of Operation Yewtree. In each case, accusations of abuse and, in some instances, rape of underage girls have been alleged. These recent revelations have prompted me to think about my own links with these stories. You see, I was taught by a paedophile. And Mr X was one of the best teachers I ever had.
I was 9 years old when I was first taught by him, but well into secondary school when Mr X was convicted of producing and viewing obscene images of children, some of which were photographs of his pupils (all under 7s) who were changing for PE.
When the local newspapers printed details of his arrest and subsequent trial, I was disgusted and horrified, and I still am now. I cannot begin to imagine how his actions have scarred the very children he was supposed to be looking after. And it is even stranger because he taught me so much about Judaism and Israel, facts that have stayed with me for years, that I rely on in conversations and arguments. He encouraged my creative writing, allowing me to spend hours writing a ridiculous story about non-identical twins on the ancient classroom computer. There was nothing strange that I remember about him, no inkling of any shame to come. The technology for his crime was not really available either (primitive internet, obvious camcorders and Kodak disposable cameras). Had this not been the case, I am sure my memories of that classroom would have been far more tarnished than they are today.
The trouble is, I am struggling to see things as purely good or evil. I can't square things in my mind without concluding that either my old teacher was a good teacher with a dark, horrible side, or a horrible, broken man who somehow managed to impart knowledge, or both. It's not a new idea. Yin and yang, the vast majority of "human sinners", the antihero... it's something of a cliche, and like the cliche of cliches: it is a cliche because it is true.
I condemn child abuse with all my heart. I cry and taste bile at the experiences that stronger people than I have endured. In some of my darker moments, I ponder the merits of the death penalty. But I cannot read the papers or watch the news, switch on the radio or the computer today without thinking of my old teacher, and the lives he ruined, and the lives he enriched. How can a bag of flesh and bones - like me, like you - be capable of both? I wonder how, and I wonder why.
The fall-out from the Jimmy Savile scandal continues as Max Clifford and Rolf Harris are the latest high-profile men to be involved with the off-shoots of Operation Yewtree. In each case, accusations of abuse and, in some instances, rape of underage girls have been alleged. These recent revelations have prompted me to think about my own links with these stories. You see, I was taught by a paedophile. And Mr X was one of the best teachers I ever had.
I was 9 years old when I was first taught by him, but well into secondary school when Mr X was convicted of producing and viewing obscene images of children, some of which were photographs of his pupils (all under 7s) who were changing for PE.
When the local newspapers printed details of his arrest and subsequent trial, I was disgusted and horrified, and I still am now. I cannot begin to imagine how his actions have scarred the very children he was supposed to be looking after. And it is even stranger because he taught me so much about Judaism and Israel, facts that have stayed with me for years, that I rely on in conversations and arguments. He encouraged my creative writing, allowing me to spend hours writing a ridiculous story about non-identical twins on the ancient classroom computer. There was nothing strange that I remember about him, no inkling of any shame to come. The technology for his crime was not really available either (primitive internet, obvious camcorders and Kodak disposable cameras). Had this not been the case, I am sure my memories of that classroom would have been far more tarnished than they are today.
The trouble is, I am struggling to see things as purely good or evil. I can't square things in my mind without concluding that either my old teacher was a good teacher with a dark, horrible side, or a horrible, broken man who somehow managed to impart knowledge, or both. It's not a new idea. Yin and yang, the vast majority of "human sinners", the antihero... it's something of a cliche, and like the cliche of cliches: it is a cliche because it is true.
I condemn child abuse with all my heart. I cry and taste bile at the experiences that stronger people than I have endured. In some of my darker moments, I ponder the merits of the death penalty. But I cannot read the papers or watch the news, switch on the radio or the computer today without thinking of my old teacher, and the lives he ruined, and the lives he enriched. How can a bag of flesh and bones - like me, like you - be capable of both? I wonder how, and I wonder why.
Monday, 1 April 2013
Petrolheads
This week I had my first encounter with Racemax, a motorsports round-up programme shown on Sky Sports. It's one of those shows which are unintentionally thought-provoking, in that you start worrying about the future of mankind.
It's hard to know, for example, whether the person who decided that the world needed a Formula 1 for 5.5 tonne trucks deserves a medal or a brain scan. And if you were trying to come up with a new sport and alighted on racing motorbikes and specially crafted sidecars around a cemetery in New Zealand, sorry to break it to you, but someone's done it already. And lastly, if you want to give the impression that someone in the Mercedes F1 team hasn't quite grasped the meaning of irony, stick Nico Rosberg in a rainforest and have him discuss climate change before jetting off halfway across the world to drive really fast for 50 laps.
 |
| Sidecar racing (from the Waganui Chronicle Website) |
Monday, 18 March 2013
Blast from the past
I was sorting through old notebooks today and found a little piece I'd written about AS. I'm not sure what prompted it, whether I was planning to send it to somebody (although who, I don't know) or whether something had just happened and I was feeling angry. It's pre-anti-TNF treatment, so some of it is slightly inaccurate now, but I thought I'd put it here for a (teeny-weeny) section of the world to see.
*you can actually get DLA in some instances. NASS are very good at supporting people with applications and helping obtain funding.
**I know now that this is actually unlikely, especially with anti-TNF treatment. Getting a hunchback is really rare, especially now that people are diagnosed and treated properly and quickly.
***some people have this, but again, see Quasimodo point above.
****I don't say this anymore, not even on those equal opportunities forms that come with job applications, which sometimes causes problems when Occupational Health come calling and want to know why you didn't declare it.
*****Yup, they were still trying to wreck the NHS 3 years ago.
Sometimes it's easy to get bogged down in the detail. Take a look in an anatomy book and you'll see cervical, thoracic, lumbar, sacral and coccygeal vertebrae; bifid spinous and superior articular processes; sacral promontories and pedicles and foramen... but what it boils down to is this: spine. Men and women in the UK have back problems. Some are the result of bad posture or heavy lifting, some from accidents or previous illnesses, and some, like mine, are a little more mysterious.I suffer from a condition known as ankylosing spondylitis, a type of arthritis, and it took me nearly long as it took to be diagnosed as it did to master the pronunciation (but not quite. I waited nine years to be told what the source of my pain was, and some wait even longer). AS (official shorthand, not just laziness) is an autoimmune disease, which may be triggered by an injury, but as often as not seems to have no real environmental cause. Some AS-ers, including me, possess the gene HLA-B27, though a large number of people have the gene, but not AS. If there is a correlation between having both, it seems it might be that the gene codes the tumour necrosis factor white cells which attack any intruders. But in AS, they go a bit mad and attack any part of the body showing inflammation. Consequently, areas around the joints which become inflamed can fuse together. In the past, therefore, it was called “bamboo spine”, which sounds almost romantic. Personally, I think ouch-ouch-#?!@*-I-can't-move disease, while being distinctly less poetic, is probably more accurate.As disabilities go, it's particularly difficult to pin down, which is ironic, seeing how slowly I move when I'm going through a bad patch. In the Top Trumps of Life, it scores fairly low, and means I don't get any DLA* or a blue badge to put in the car windscreen. Considering I can't drive anyway, the latter is no skin off my nose, but I am a student, and travelling to and from hospitals around the country can get a tad pricey, so DLA wouldn't go amiss. However, in the long term, even with physio and medication, you're pretty much destined to resemble Quasimodo for the rest of your life**. Now me, I've nothing against pavement-gazing, but I never signed up for it. Nor did I envisage a future of permanently bent knees***, and pain from sitting, standing or lying down. I really, really like sleeping.So don't stand there and disbelieve me when I say I'm disabled****. Just because I don't limp doesn't mean I've not known more pain that you ever will. And don't mock me when I do walk strangely. But most of all, don't ignore that twinge in your lower back, or those stabbings in your legs. Don't be fobbed off with “It's only growing pains”. Don't just gulp down ibruprofen like there's no tomorrow. Go to your GP and get referred to find out if there's something more serious going on. Use the NHS while you still can*****.
*you can actually get DLA in some instances. NASS are very good at supporting people with applications and helping obtain funding.
**I know now that this is actually unlikely, especially with anti-TNF treatment. Getting a hunchback is really rare, especially now that people are diagnosed and treated properly and quickly.
***some people have this, but again, see Quasimodo point above.
****I don't say this anymore, not even on those equal opportunities forms that come with job applications, which sometimes causes problems when Occupational Health come calling and want to know why you didn't declare it.
*****Yup, they were still trying to wreck the NHS 3 years ago.
Friday, 8 March 2013
Definitely not eavesdropping
Some more London-centric language, this time on the bus. Imagine the scene...
A highly-pierced woman of about 17 at the front of the bus, shouting on her mobile and mouthing off about her pervert boss to a friend. This goes on for some time, and she gets more and more agitated. She pauses for a moment mid-rant and suddenly explodes:
Not to be confused with a big man's ting-a-ling (a giant male's genitalia), a big man, an' ting (a really really giant man), or ting-ting! which is your stop...
N.B just to make tings really confusing, big man ting can be used to mean what I first thought it meant... It seems only London, at the minute, uses it in the you-get-me sense.
A highly-pierced woman of about 17 at the front of the bus, shouting on her mobile and mouthing off about her pervert boss to a friend. This goes on for some time, and she gets more and more agitated. She pauses for a moment mid-rant and suddenly explodes:
"BIG MAN TING!!! Big man ting!"I spent the rest of the journey wondering why she was yelling about giant male genitalia. It took Urban Dictionary to let me down gently and explain that "big man ting" is a phrase used to mean "in all seriousness" (see also: "you get me", "true say", "swear down").
Not to be confused with a big man's ting-a-ling (a giant male's genitalia), a big man, an' ting (a really really giant man), or ting-ting! which is your stop...
N.B just to make tings really confusing, big man ting can be used to mean what I first thought it meant... It seems only London, at the minute, uses it in the you-get-me sense.
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