Demo for Spanish women’s reproductive rights
This was missed by most media
With all the excitement of the attacks on Occupy Congress and the monster response demos lets not forget Saturday was also the Global Action Day for free abortion, safe and free..
Some cities, such as Madrid and Barcelona, turned violet to demand the decriminalization of abortion.
Feminist platforms throughout Spain have held today, for the first time in the country, the Global Day of Action for Access to Safe and Legal Abortion. The festival, which began in Latin America in the 90s, gained special importance on this side of the pond due to the announcement of the Minister of Justice, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, of the anti abortion legislation.
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DOG Sharon 
Well not as though it’s important is it? Actually, the proposals have been going on for some time now 😦
And, I was reading in a Spanish paper today about clamping down on demonstrations, but it didn’t fit with my blog post today so I had to hold that one over. Like I said elsewhere, too much to write – who needs ideas? 😀
But back on topic, Spain is turning worryingly fascist 😦
October 4, 2012 at 12:06 am
But so is America….
October 4, 2012 at 12:07 am
I share your analysis, although such flippancy early in the morning can be challenging to a simple soul like myself while the tramadol hydrochloride still has my mini-mind in its mitten-like grip as if I had emptied some dull sythetic opiate to the drains 🙂
National boundaries don’t really mean a lot nowadays as the economic system lies across us all like a grubby, unwashed quilt (it’s the tramadol guv, honest it is)
The US supported fascist Spain under that Frank bloke and as you say appears to have as little regard for contemporary political freedom.
Both states are scared of their females becoming fully conscious of their latent power so try to keep them in the house, washing nappies
PS Is that Frank the same geezer as on the UK’s drug awareness campaign? It’s a small world after all…
October 4, 2012 at 7:34 am
Sorry about the am flippancy. I had three hours wonderful sleep and woke up full of beans so thought I had better tire myself out reading on the tinties. It usually works. Not that I am suggesting I was reading sleep-inducing material, just that reading and thinking makes me want to go back to sleep (says she, yawning).
Spanish women (the ones I have met) are quite sensible in their approach to family planning, despite the alleged Catholicism of the nation. Basically, they don’t get married, they don’t have children, until they have a home, a secure income and they can afford all that entails. That’s a generalisation, but I’ve not seen – where I live – evidence of the ghastly teenage pregnancies or even the marry and have kids by the time you are 21 syndrome which seemed to afflict the UK when I lived there.
Women have three main opponents: right-wing governments, religion, and patriarchal society. No wonder we struggle.
October 4, 2012 at 8:15 am
Agreed – I’d rather use the term contraception then ‘family planning’ – what about all the childless people who don’t want a family? 😉
October 4, 2012 at 9:00 am
I was thinking about people I knew and who literally had planned their children – they did want them, but they waited until they could afford one.
Yes, I don’t think the words family planning were invented for my partner and I. They aren’t words I would normally use unless, as in this case, I was specifically thinking about people who had decided when they wanted to have children. A bit like planning a holiday except more expensive.
The other time I have used it is when I have been (uselessly) discussing contraception and abortion with religious American republican zealots.
It’s a euphemism isn’t it though? Family planning sounds so much more polite than contraception which implies SEX! Family planning implies cute little babies (?) and that the ultimate goal is to have those cute little things and keep faithfully reproducing the destructive human race. You might not be having them just now, but later you will.
October 4, 2012 at 9:24 am
Very well put matey – I said that because I guessed that about you – not sure if you revealed it, but you did mention a dog and folks with kids usually talk about offspring first 🙂
If I seem a bit spiky occasionally it’s because when I’m talking to clever educated folk like you, it seems disrespectful not to be – I wouldn’t be so sharp if I thought you were less intellectually gifted. I hope you will treat me the same 😉 or worse haha
October 4, 2012 at 9:46 am
Yes people with (small) kids do drone on about them endlessly (usually – but fortunately not always). I’m pretty thick skinned.
This arthritis is doing my head in. It is most strange, and so is the HUGE range of drugs. Are you on anything right now? Mail me if you don’t want to write it in public.
October 4, 2012 at 9:51 am
I thought I was the victim of a voodoo doll attack at first 😉
Tramadol HCl for pain, Gaba Pentin for neurogenic pain (I had cervical discectomy and fusion due to neck injury at work but still have some pain) and have tried Naproxen and omezaprole. The rheumatologist said to leave that and try diclofenac with gastric stuff, in mixture called Artrotec, but it made me ill with dyspepsia. Then I couldn’t take the Naproxen again as my tum was strangely hypersensitive. I’ve got a diclofenac gel but it’s not much cop.
I’ve gotta pop out for an hour, but will list my symptoms later. There’s quite a few 😦
PS Remind me sometime to tell you about an unrelated voodoo doll story…
October 4, 2012 at 3:24 pm
I get inflammation in any synovial joint that flares up in a couple of hours, last a couple of days and then vanishes. The pain is severe, and a mix of the worst pins and needles, crushing, twisting, burning and throbbing. So far I’ve had flares in both feet, ankles, knees, hips, shoulders – on top and in synovial capsule – elbows, jaw, forearms, wrists, thumb joints and hands. The pain is constantly in my arms, wrists, thumbs and hands.
What’s up doc? 🙂
PS Hence the voice recognition editing
October 4, 2012 at 5:59 pm
Not sure where to start in my brief foray into parabolics.
My exceedingly lay and cynical view is that medics don’t know what causes it, and therefore by default they struggle to treat it. You may have worked that one out and didn’t need me for it.
It’s a bit like people with depression (which apparently also accompanies arthritis unsurprisingly) where they just keep trying one different SSRI after the other until a least worst fix is found.
There seems to be a range of different drugs used for yours, normally for arthritis it is straightforward NSAIDs.
Yours has ‘soft’ painkillers, antibiotics, NSAIDs, steroids and the DMARGs – ie your sulfa drug.
Everything has a side effect, they all do.
Let me use the dog as an example (!). He’s on cimicoxib. This is an NSAID cox 2 inhibitor. Early NSAIDs inhibit both cox 2 and cox 1. But cox 1 is meant to be a good thing, so you are stopping the bad (cox 2) but also the good (cox 1). I’ll find the link to his post where it explains it nicely 😀
The issue with NSAIDs is the gastro side effects which – at a total guess – will probably explain your earlier problems. I think from memory the prob with cox 2 is that there is a slightly increased risk of heart probs.
I’d have to look all that up and not enough time right now.
Back to your drugs. Looks like your medics are taking you through the rote, and trying the different routes to see what works. What’s your worry about sulfa? I have to confess I’d never heard of them before today. Or do you think the drugs are getting stronger/more chance of bad side effects?
Sorry I’m not much help on this one. It threw me tbh – it is not bog standard at all.
Symptoms are so out of my league, all I can do is interpret drugs in lay terms.
What you probably need is an American dog blogger whose dog has been diagnosed the same way. I have never met such an educated lot of lay people about drugs, symptoms, conditions, alt treatments as American dog bloggers. I joke not.
October 4, 2012 at 6:38 pm
Woof 😉
Thanks for your efforts mate – I appreciate it!
Sulfasalazine was originally a chemotherapy agent.and supresses the immune system. As the condition is to do with an incorrect auto-immune response, the idea is that the sulfa half kills the immune stuff and as a side effect no inflammation.
The same case could be made for guillotining – no symptoms after the head rolls 🙂
My concern is the damage to my immune system because of the DMARD.
Will you see what you make of this research please mate? I’ve read about this research but need a more educated perspective.
http://www.jrheum.com/abstracts/abstracts06/1973.html
PS Palindromic Rheumatism often turns into Rheumatoid Arthritis
October 4, 2012 at 7:01 pm
yeah, I read about the chemo thing. I learned a bit about chemo drugs as cancer was my remit in the NHS. gloomy subject 😦
sounds like the typical chemo thing – poison everything off, good, bad and indifferent?
I’ll have a look, let me get a beer. Yes, I read about the links between PA and RA. I didn’t read much but I think I grasped the basics 😀
October 4, 2012 at 7:31 pm
Ta matey!
October 4, 2012 at 7:38 pm
Woof 😉
Thanks for your efforts mate – I appreciate it!
Sulfasalazine was originally a chemotherapy agent.and supresses the immune system. As the condition is to do with an incorrect auto-immune response, the idea is that the sulfa half kills the immune stuff and as a side effect no inflammation.
The same case could be made for guillotining – no symptoms after the head rolls 🙂
My concern is the damage to my immune system because of the DMARD.
Will you see what you make of this research please mate? I’ve read about this research but need a more educated perspective.
http://ard.bmj.com/content/49/2/76.abstract
PS Palindromic Arthritis often turns into Rheumatoid Arthritis
October 4, 2012 at 7:11 pm
Not sure how much research you have done or what you need to know, etc so if you’ve got specific queries give me a quick shout. Otherwise I won’t be online for a few days.
Here are the posts from Pippa the Pharma Dog about NSAIDs 😀
and
and a bit on my blog too about NSAIDs and doxycyclin – think that is an anti bio recommended for parabolics too?
October 4, 2012 at 6:47 pm
Cheers mate – I’ll work my way through this. I’ve just sent link to some research.
Look forward to your return., and thanks again 🙂
October 4, 2012 at 7:02 pm
Just realised I keep calling it parabolics and not palindromes. Anyway, they are both the same as they go back to the beginning the same way and parabola is a nicer word.
Now, while I think clinical trials can be a bit precious, (and I do know about peer review and RCTs before we go down that silly road) – I wouldn’t have thought anyone would take a trial of SIXTEEN patients seriously.
Have I missed something?
I don’t know if you are worried about fish oil supplements, but once you are on the drug trail (not trial) there is bound to be animal abuse in there somewhere sadly.
We tried Pippa on glucosamine for a while, not sure if that was in any of the posts I sent, seemed to work originally but later – nothing – and his vet said better in younger dogs without joint degeneration. Maybe worth a thought because as I read PA doesnt have degeneration unlike the others. Sounds pretty similar to the fish oil really.
But seriously 16 patients over 12 weeks? I haven’t found the detail on that one, like how many were better on the fish oil than the placebo? Is this 15:1 or 9:7?
Anyway, I’m ploughing through some of the other articles right now, see what they have to say.
But they are talking about rheumatoid too not parabolas, I mean paradigms, no palindromes. Got it right for once.
October 4, 2012 at 7:50 pm
I thought you might say that about the small sample, and don’t want fish to be killed for me, but wondered if you knew of other sources of the useful oils?
My feeling is that my palindromic arthritis is evolving into Rheumatoid Arthritis – it’s quite common and symptoms have evolved over 6 months. There’s less coming and going and more staying in the same places – sounds like adult life haha!
October 4, 2012 at 8:05 pm
I’ll have to look up the oil stuffs later. Truth is, I thought that study was rubbish. Says the non-medic. But seriously, All the patients were loaded up to the eyeballs with other drugs, they gave no numbers at all about who had improved by whatever degree. There was an awful lot of stuff about fatty compositions – or something like that – and stuff all about quality of life. There was also something mentioned about a few minor side effects, I mean medics always consider side effects to be minor. Yeah, diarrhoea is really minor if you want to catch a bus. So is nausea and you think you might be about to vomit.
Let’s leave out the fish aspect, but you still have to admit that 16 people over 12 weeks is not a sound study.
As for tomorrow, if you can find an NSAID (eg a cox2) that you can tolerate, you might want to try that before a sulfa?
I’m groping around because I don’t know enough about the range of drugs for PA, and I’m not sure the medics do either!
You can obv research as well as or better than I can, so you need to decide what you want. Painkillers? Prevention of joint degeneration? Minimal damage to your system ie side effects, auto-immune damage (which is a problem with an auto-immune illness)?
Sorry I’ve not had time to be helpful. Doesn’t sound the rheuma has helped that much so far eitiher. Can you still take anti-bios? I’m back to the beginning, no-one knows enough about it, so they just chuck something at you. I feel bad I can’t say more. I’ll have another look in a few days, try and get in my head and let me know how tomorrow goes.
Oh I did read some of the other reports. They are all the same. They are vague and not specific, and they are talking RA not PA. They are still not good studies (to me).
They might as well have said, ‘yeah a bit of fish oil might help but don’t forget to keep taking the NSAIDs.’ Gotta love science.
Night!
October 4, 2012 at 9:00 pm
Brilliant reply – thanks mate – now I know the options. I’ve never had much bodily sympathy for NSAIDs.
As you say, I’ve done a little research and my findings match yours. Did I tell you what I’ve studied BTW?
October 4, 2012 at 9:03 pm
Found the PDF now. Thought the view from the Dundee guy was pragmatic (that’s cos he said the same as me). Let you know when I have read through the report.
October 4, 2012 at 7:54 pm
Thanks luvvy
October 4, 2012 at 8:24 pm
it’s not brilliant at all. I was obviously getting frustrated as I have no idea what the sentence about rheuma was meant to be 😀 Probably something about trad rheuma drugs not being particularly successful. I must have been thinking ahead of myself and forgot to finish the sentence.
And if you don’t get on with NSAIDs what would steroids be like? 😦 My obnoxious MIL knocked those on the head. (she’d knock anything on the head).
Have you seen that rather interesting UK PA blog? I’m sure you have. Interesting because s/he talks about the drugs they are taking.
So what have you studied?
Luvvy???!!!! Mate will do fine thanks 😉
October 4, 2012 at 9:46 pm
Luvvy was a joke – wasn’t meant to be serious.
Steroids are bad news unless on last legs.
Yes, am member of blog but but got bored – everyone swops lists of medications
BA English, communications and cultural studies, MA English literary studies and creative writing, 2nd MA international organised crime, international terrorism, gender and international human rights and threats to global security, and separately creative thinking.
You said you would have liked to do some English didn’t you? Did you do History and journalism?
October 4, 2012 at 10:00 pm
Yeah but reading about the meds can always be useful.
I knew you said you had studied some of those, you just forgot to mention you had a few qualifications stringing along behind you. Just as well I didn’t rise to your bait about clever educated people 😉
Second MA sounds a good one.
Did I say about English? I honestly can’t remember what I say from one minute to the next. Mind like a butterfly.
First degree – Ancient and Medieval History and Archaeology
Second – MBA (got a blog post to do about degrees and jobs when I can be bothered)
Indentured journalism apprentice – PPITB qualification National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ)
Managing Health Services Certificate (IHSM recognised)
and a load of other clart too, trade union certs, and can’t remember what else.
Now I need to be up early tomorrow so I MUST go to sleep RIGHT NOW.
October 4, 2012 at 10:11 pm
Cheers, it was fun. Go to sleep now – thanks for your work matey 🙂
October 4, 2012 at 10:16 pm