Jun 13, 2012 | Pressure!
As best as I recall, I first became aware of Labelling Theory sometime during my first Degree – probably around 1980 or ’81. As traditionally used it is to do with the labelling of deviance and the power of the label to impute something which may not actually be there.
In one way or another I have noticed it cropping up in all sorts of situations over the years and I became particularly interested in it in the modified sense of ‘self-labelling’ – putting oneself in some labelled box or other and using that box as a kind of reductionist catch-all to explain facets of behaviour or circumstance. This modified form became particularly interesting to me when I first encountered Myers-Briggs Type Indicators which induced all sorts of labelling and self-labelling behaviour in people on the basis of remarkably shaky evidence (take a look at Annie Murphy Paul’s “The Cult of Personality Testing” for more on this).
See me? I've got an unpronounceable condition.
I came across it again when I first had the High Blood Pressure diagnosis when my Doctor commented that we had to be careful to ensure that I remain a person, not a patient. It is in this latter context that I have been pondering it again for the past couple of days.
It looks as though I have a problem with a hormone called Aldosterone and specifically I have too much of it. If this is the case then I am happy that it has been identified and that I am being seen by a specialist who knows what he is doing.
However.
I did what comes naturally these days and did some Googling and came across an internet group for others with in the same circumstance in the hope that I could learn from other people’s experiences. And maybe this will happen. However my first few days of observing have been interesting from a labelling perspective as so many of the people on the list now seek to define themselves by reference to the condition.
This isn’t surprising in one sense – it is a self-selecting group after all – but it is somewhere between worrying and amusing in another sense. I occasionally look in on groups for photographers and guitarists where people’s signature lines list their cameras or guitars (which always seems to me to be a somewhat sad species of self-affirmation). I shouldn’t be surprised to find a group where people’s sig lines can include all sorts of detailed blood measurements and a note of their current medication. This seems to be not merely self-labelling but a kind of inverted badge of honour. My selfhood consists in more, needless to say, than an excess of a hormone and a handful of meds.
I was very interested to see, though, that a blood test which specifically focuses on DNA and potential genetic transmission of the condition was being quoted at Aus$6,000. I had it last week as a matter of routine – free at the point of care.
Because they've got no bones
This is not to say that there are not some interesting things to learn from being aware of the condition and the effects of changes in medication.
For a long time I found myself with unaccountable muscle weakness when hill walking – not tiredness just a lack of power in the muscle. This was, on reflection, probably an early indicator of the Potassium deficiency. Similarly, when I was going to the gym regularly at Scottish Government I would often, after lunch, be somnolent to the point of nearly fainting and certainly ‘brain-fogged’. This too was almost certainly Potassium deficiency.
Perhaps more interestingly, I have for as long as I can remember been somewhat introverted in the sense, ironically enough, used in Myers-Briggs which is to say more inclined to be comfortable in my own company. At some points this has meant struggling with feelings and thoughts which, had they been somewhat more amplified, could have been labelled as depressive on some indicators. This was certainly the case latterly in Scottish Government when I had a hard time focusing on some of the things I was meant to be doing. Since starting on Potassium supplements and certainly of late when I have been on quite high quantities of Potassium supplements, I have been aware of being much more alert and focused.
I may be over-analysing: now, let me write that sig line…
May 21, 2012 | Pressure!
Back in September 2009 I ran a half marathon in Glasgow. You can read about it here. That was the last serious piece of running I did. I cannot help but look at the photo of me on that posting and wonder where all the weight which I have put on has come from 🙂
One of the things which at the time was given as an explanation for my problems was
I had over-hydrated and had diluted the electrolytes in my system and specifically I was way down on potassium – remedy was a 1Litre intravenous drip of saline/isotonic solution.
As it turns out this may be mistaken. It now seems that the reason that I was short on Potassium – and the reason my BP was so unfeasibly high a few days later – has got nothing to do with nutrition. Pending some final confirmations it looks like I have an excess of a hormone called aldesterone. This has the effect of retaining sodium in my system while flushing out Potassium, causing high blood pressure.
If this is correct then addressing the hormone issue leads to a reduction of BP and hence I can come off the BP medication.
That will be great because my current medication (Verapamil) is causing significant swelling in my calfs, ankles and feet so that I can get my feet into neither my running shoes nor my walking boots – and the latter is a significant impediment to my plans for holidays.
Budapest; March 2012
In the meantime I post a pic of a couple of great buskers usually to be found in Budapest. I enjoyed listening to them although whenever I passed them they were usually playing either the love theme from Dr Zhivago or a jazzy version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
No matter, they are fun. I post them because I picked up one of my Martins a couple of nights ago and realised that my callouses were rapidly disappearing, a sign that I have been playing insufficient guitar of late.
I really have to do something about this. I have recordings I made just a couple of years ago of things I was working on and I can’t remember how I played them!
Sep 14, 2010 | Legs!, Pressure!
This would have been a trainblog written on my return from Suzie and Andy’s wedding over the weekend but there was little room to write on the journey back and so this has had a little time to mature (or fester).
Well hello there...
After a quick trip to the doctor’s on blood pressure business (160/86 – meds tweaked to up the Lisinopril dosage slightly) I headed for Waverley last Friday lunchtime to catch a train down to Leeds for my cousin Andy’s wedding. I wasn’t at the ceremony itself but was at the meal and the party in the evening. As always at such events the pleasure was not just in the wedding itself but also in the opportunity to catch up with aunts and cousins.
The journey itself, at least going down, was straightforward and hassle-free. I have to say, though, that on both outward and return trips I was in the “quiet” coach where electronic equipment is supposed to be at a minimum to avoid disturbing one’s fellow passengers. What a joke! Both trips featured fellow passengers with loud and insistent voices either conversing (or holding forth) or pointing out passing landmarks: “Look! The sea!”. In the end I had to put on the MP3 player in order to get some peace and quiet.
Conversely, at the wedding reception, I would have enjoyed conversation but this was made next to impossible most of the time by the soundsystem and band. I was chatting outside the hall for a while but was accused of being a “stick in the mud” by my mum who was busy dancing the night away with my Aunty Pat who was herself working her way through some cans of Guinness. I enjoyed the night, although I was dismayed by the number of people smoking (or in the case of the Geordies, smerking.
On Saturday, while getting a taxi back to the station I was looking around Leeds briefly as the students came back to town. According to the cab driver the city is weathering the current economic conditions well – or at least better than its immediate neighbours. There were, though, several substantial gap sites where new developments had been planned but abruptly cancelled.
autumn sunlight
The journey homeward was broken at Newcastle because of maintenance works on the line and coaches had been laid on for the Newcastle-Edinburgh leg. Looking out the window as the coach headed out of Newcastle on the route of an old Roman road (now the A186) I spotted the Solomon’s Head halal punjabi restaurant immediately next to a protruding chunk of Hadrian’s Wall and reflected on the diversity and multiculturalism of Newcastle and Leeds. My initial thoughts were that Scotland is obviously less diverse than the major English cities.
I was thinking of this as something which had happened since I first passed through Leeds in the late nineteen sixties on the way to my Gran’s in Anfield Plain, County Durham, but then became conscious of the significance of those Roman ruins which, all those centuries ago, would have been garrisoned by legionaries from all over the Roman empire.
A couple of things caught my eye in the press over the weekend. The first was a lengthy piece in The Economist about the future of the internet. I’m not entirely convinced by the piece itself but it did occur to me to note the irony that those who talk most about the necessity and virtues of unfettered markets are the quickest to try and put an end to an unfettered market (such as that brought into being by the internet) when one emerges.
The second was a piece by Charlie Brooker in The Guardian. I do not agree with the initial premise of the piece which seems to me to be a device to introduce his comments towards the end re the internet as a hinderance rather than an aid to productivity. That I do agree with. The notion that you can get anything done with a world of distraction at your fingertips is an obvious nonsense.
Finally, I am delighted to say that over the past week and a half I have been a regular in the refurbished gym at work and am at base-camp on the long climb back to fitness.
Sep 5, 2010 | Legs!, Pressure!
As I type at 9.00 on a Sunday morning it is precisely a year today since I was standing around in George Square in Glasgow, trying to keep warm and waiting to run the half marathon element of The Great Scottish Run. You’ll find the story of that here.
Today the world looks different, not simply because it looks as though it will be a pretty warm day for those running in contrast to last year’s cold dampness, but also because I have lost so much of the fitness I had then. My BP has been up and down through the year but with one thing or another I haven’t ever really got back into my stride, so to speak, with running. Yesterday, for example, I did a quick circuit round a couple of miles which last year would have taken me 20 minutes or so but yesterday was run a mile, walk two minutes. run half a mile, walk two minutes…etc. And it took quite a lot more energy out of me than I expected.
Still, nil desperandum: it just means that I have to start to work my way up the fitness tree again from a lowish basis.
I took the first harvest from the reliable old apple tree at the back of our garden yesterday and cooked up an apple and blueberry crumble which the gannets scoffed with alacrity. There were some blueberries left over so when I got up this morning I rustled up some blueberry muffins. Hoorah! And now it is time to take a pot of tea (Ceylonese, leaf not tea bags) out onto the decking to read for a while in the early morning sunshine.
May 13, 2010 | Pressure!, Uncategorized
And so we have a new government: given the way that the final electoral arithmetic worked out we got the only one of the possible permutations which made arithmetical and political sense. Quite how long lasting the arrangement will prove to be I do not know but as they have only been in office for 48 hours or so it would be churlish to snipe and rant.
interesting times
Not that such scruples have stopped others: the political blogs and the comments pages on the websites of the media are still in pre-election froth mode with a dearth of rationality and an over-abundance of venomous spite, reductionist claptrap, partisan points scoring and other nonspecific bullshit. This is coming from all sides and is as tedious as, from a civility perspective, it is worrying.
The difficulty, once Parliament resumes, will be the lack of strong opposition in the House which is the hallmark if good Parliamentary democracy. The Lib. Dems. are are now part of the governing coalition and Labour is rebuilding itself and facing a leadership contest. This is common enough when an adminsitration falls, of course; it is ‘normal’ to have the defeated party in some disarray. The importance this time is that, although the the coalition parties are clear that they are in this for the long haul, there remains a chance that it will crumble and require a further election to try and sort things out. No party can afford not to be making contingency plans for that eventuality.
Even were that not so, given the ideological divisions within the parties (though not always between them) and in our society then a high quality of debate and decision making will be essential. We seem to have a dearth -on all sides- of forensic minds coupled with strong debating skills. The only ones who spring to mind are Ken Clarke, Vince Cable (now securely whipped, tethered and neutralised) and, maybe, Alastair Darling. There may be more talent on the back benches and in the new intake but I sense that something important has been lost with the apparently inexorable rise of the professional party political apparatchik (witness the tautology uttered yesterday which I have used as the title for this post).
In the meantime I am on day two of a new regime of BP meds. So far so good although I will know better in a couple of weeks. I do not appear to have a bilocated brain today and that can only be a good thing.
May 10, 2010 | Legs!, Pressure!
I composed the following blog entry shortly before Mr. Brown’s political coup du theatre. I’ll post it anyway and ponder Brown some more for tomorrow.
=====
Gary Younge, commenting in this morning’s Guardian about the widely reported demands of the financial markets regarding the outcome of the election, wrote as follows:
The very sector we bailed out with public money, run by incompetent people who are once again paying themselves bonuses, is now threatening to destabilise the next government unless it fires thousands of low-paid workers, cuts their wages and withdraws the services to millions of mostly poor people.
It’s as though you borrowed money against your home to save a wayward relative from penury only to have them roll up a week later in a brand new Porsche and tell you to cut your food bill or they’ll repossess the property.
I couldn’t say it any better.
I was at the doctor this morning and my meds are being changed again – we are looking for a combination which works as well as the first one did (except that it also gave me awkwardly swollen ankles and triggered a recurrence of old aches and pains as a side effect). The change is because my current meds aren’t making any particular difference despite, as I wrote to The Big Canadian earlier this week, my shuffling through the Edinburgh sands with my head in Mississippi for the past few weeks. Hopefully the latest change will get me back on track. Despite my best efforts to stay chipper, this ongoing issue with the BP has been quite dis-spiriting and my self-image has taken somethingof a knock, as has my motivation to keep running. I need to find a way to reset my self-image and I’m pondering this a lot recently. I really need now also to start some light jogging again, particularly as I can feel my waist band tightening. I’m still wearing 34″ waistband jeans but would be wearing 35″ if such things existed.
Great news is that I did finally get out on my new bicycle for an extended run yesterday – down along the seafront at Crammond/Silverknowes/Granton. It was only for an hour but it was good fun and great to be in the open air doing something again. I would have enjoyed doing more but, putting this delicately, I require to build some tolerance to the effects of a saddle on middle aged buttocks.
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