Mr. Rounded hurt his back.
My advice was: ibuprofen and rest.
His treatment: keep moving, and apply tiger balm.
We actually had to go out in search of tiger balm, so we went to the one place in our smallish town that I thought would have it, a place I will refer to as "Ye Olde Placebo Shoppe."
I thought of that name while I was in there, the lovely scents of essential oils surrounding us, colorful prayer flags flying, pairs of cardboard spectacles with "rainbow vision" lenses in them right there at the counter. We bought the tiger balm and some ginger candy at the counter.
I am not knocking placebos. Sometimes, instead of the order that it's okay to substitute a generic medication for a "name brand" prescription, in the cases where placebo has been shown to do just as well as a frequently prescribed medication, I think that I would authorize the pharmacist to substitute a placebo for me instead. As long as I thought I was taking the "real thing."

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In other news, my little human has turned a back on bathing. Showers are now the bane of this small person's existence. We insist, but there is screaming and crying involved (baths are not effective as 3.5 year olds are really good at getting out of them.) Also, there's the desire to wear the same clothes over and over. It's funny how in terms of picking battles, this isn't one that I'm making a giant stand about, in part because there's not a huge amount of dirtiness happening, and who says that it makes sense for small children to be spotless. Showers happen, but not with the frequency I would like. I could feel like a horrible failure as a mother, a parent, to have raised a child who hates to be clean. Or, maybe it's something about being 3.5 that makes complying with a parent's wishes just about the least desirable thing in the world. I know my little one would rather eat slugs than listen to what I say much of the time. (That includes my instructions to "not eat slugs"). My child does things that are generally considered typically boy-things as well as typically girl-things. Being dirty, not looking particularly put together (we have many great outfits that would make it easy for this to be accomplished), liking frogs and slugs and other slithery, slimy, creepy creatures are some of the boy things. Liking purple, red, and pink, playing with stuffed animals, are some of the girl things. Little one seems comfortable with the likes and dislikes, I'm not trying to change them, nor do I feel the need to label them, particularly. A gender has already been assigned, and we're not trying to change that, either.

As readers may have noticed (that sounds very arrogant to me, to say that I have "readers"), I'm trying to go as long as I can without mentioning the specific gender of my child. It's an experiment, and also an attempt to protect the anonymity of this young person whose consent has not been given to be mentioned here.

I'm in the midst of many transitions. It's a gorgeous June day (which does not go without saying in the Pacific NW) but I'm inside at the computer, finally caught up on skimming the fatosphere feed after nearly a week away from my computer.
I've missed you, fatosphere, and my self-esteem has suffered a bit.
I am transitioning between two jobs with a short, far too short, break in-between.
I've spent this free day (I have the house to myself, the computer to myself and a million things to do) about a million times over in my head.

Speaking of my head, I need to get two questions I have out and into inter-space.

Question 1: If there are more fat people than thin people in the U.S., why is there so much virulent fat hatered in the comments that appear on press web sites?

Is that the class/weight divide showing up? Internalized fat hatered? I know, I know, this is how these things (namely, rampant baseless hatered) work. But still, it's disturbing. If I had more Sanity Watchers Points, I would try to collect the worst offenders and store them up as evidence.

I really, really need a nap. But first, this question.

Question 2: Do you need to know if you have diabetes? Or would you rather go for years with undetected high blood sugar?

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued a revised recommendation in June: People who do not have obvious symptoms, and also do not have blood pressure above 135/80, do not need to be screened for diabetes.

In other words, you could have abnormal glucose levels for years, and as long as your blood pressure isn't creeping up, the U.S.P.S.T.F. thinks you don't need to know you have it.

Junkfood Science recently reviewed changes to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and how this group whose recommendations were previously seen as unbiased reviews of the scientific evidence are now subject to greater influence by non-scientific entities.

In the Reuters article linked above, one of the members of the Task Force that issued these particular guildlines, Dr. Susan L. Norris, stated:

In other words, all fat people, regardless of their actual health status, need to be counseled to pursue "agressive lifestyle changes." Because, we have evidence that it works, right?

If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that this is an attempt to stop providing preventive services to people with type 2 diabetes until they are much, much sicker, at which time they can be blamed for not having adopted the "agressive lifestyle changes" that all fat people should adopt. Maybe their care won't be covered, or they will be triaged so low that they go untreated.

If you can, try to be one of the lucky fat people without undetected, uncontrolled diabetes. Or one of the lucky thin people without undetected, uncontrolled diabetes. Or, if you do want to have your glucose level tested, you know, just to be on the safe side, try to sustain a blood pressure of more than 135/80 so your insurance company will cover the cost of provider adherance to the "evidence based" guideline.

I think (hope?) most providers will continue to order fasting blood glucose tests of patients that they suspect might have diabetes, based on the American Diabetes Association's guidelines. But what use are the U.S.P.S.T.F. guidelines if they don't lead to better health? Are they now more about the bottom line for health insurers and payors, state and federal governments included?

What do you think? Will you use this as fodder if a health professional wants you to have a fasting blood glucose test, and say, no thanks? Would you prefer to wait until you had symptoms, such as frequent urination, excessive thirst, extreme hunger, unusual weight loss, increased fatigue, irritability or blurry vision? How many of those symptoms might you dismiss (increased fatigue, for example)?