All of a sudden, every ad I get on YouTube is for HRT. I don’t know where to go and what button to press to inform the ad agency that I am the absolute last person on the planet ever to be in the same room with HRT.
When I say this kind of thing, people immediately assume that I judge them for taking HRT. But I judge no one. People have their own situation, physical condition, moral, religious, and political beliefs. And that is completely fine by me. I find incomprehensible the idea that the female body is so immediably broken that it has to be constantly medicated out of its natural state. Other people conceptualize this differently and, once again, it’s fine. I have noticed that nothing creates so much resentment as the suspicion that you might want to separate people from their medication. I don’t want to do that. But I do find it entertaining that, once the algorithm shows you have hit a certain age, it begins to operate under the assumption that you’re a good customer for this medication.
I don’t know if people are aware, but some of these ads state very directly that without HRT you’re going to die. You’re going to have a heart attack, you’re going to go into kidney failure, your children might be adults but they still need you. Since these are social media ads, they never mention the risks or the side effects. The whole thing makes a sad impression.
Clarissa's Blog 
“begins to operate under the assumption that you’re a good customer for this medication”
My ‘family doctor’ is part of the outpatient clinic of a research/teaching hospital and I usually don’t ask for any specific doctor when making appts. Nonetheless, over the last four or so visits (for very different usually trivial things) they try to get me on ozempic or something similar…
I came down with something nasty last week and the doctor (I don’t think I’d seen her before) also brought it up but then quickly dropped it and moved on to dealing with my illness when I signalled a lack of enthusiasm. I think they’re doing some study (one doctor a few visits ago sort of hinted at that) and trying to recruit as many warm bodies as they can….
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I’m sorry you’ve been unwell! Praying for you to get better soon.
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On the subject of GLPs, I’m not in favor but the Provost is clearly stepping into them hard and all of a sudden she actually looks pretty. And comes up with good ideas, which I don’t know if it’s related. I never Imagined she could look anything but horrific. It is tempting, I won’t lie.
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They’re really interesting meds. Lack-of-oral-trauma in a weekly shot.
I’ve been on a very small dose of retatrutide for 6 months now, and the weight loss is the least relevant part of it tbh. What’s far cooler is that I don’t really think about food anymore unless it’s mealtime, and binging (on either food or drink) just doesn’t happen anymore.
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What’s lack-of-oral-trauma in a shot?
Congratulations, I’m very glad it’s working for you!
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Oral stage trauma, sorry. My mom really used to obsess about my eating as a baby, kinda made it the one thing she felt she could control in her family at that moment in time. Pretty much the one symptom I didn’t have was smoking (she smokes like a chimney soooo….) , otherwise it was all there with the obsessing about food, the drinking (I could have 2 drinks but if I had the 3rd it was hard to stop at 4), being pretty psychologically dependent/manipulative in close personal relationships and, probably, spending too much time having arguments with randos on the Internet :))
And this was after quite a bit of psychoanalysis (although granted, the oral fixations weren’t my main focus).
I guess what I’m getting at is there’s a *craving* that’s upstream from food, from drink, from needing your man to do X right now and precisely otherwise it feels like the world ends. Retatrutide blocks that, I can get physically very hungry, or emotionally very vulnerable, but the desperation of it went away. And I had no idea that feeling like that was even possible. Next time I’m starting analysis, I have a better idea of what I’m aiming for.
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Yes, this is classic oral stage trauma. It’s really great that you know what it is because most people are no connection between this cluster of symptoms and the terminology scares them, although who cares about the terminology when the effects are what matters?
It’s also really great that you have been able to use this med to isolate the unhealthy part of the phenomenon like this. I’m an oral stage sufferer myself, and I’ll never be anything but mouthy and symbiotic. Which is fine if it doesn’t come with a gigantic portion of anxiety.
Very happy for you!!
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I’m extremely curious about how they work, as they seem to be yet another diabetes med that has no effect, or only negative effects, on diabetics I am related to. At least three relatives so far: one lost most interest in life, another got pancreatitis and almost died, and third died within a year of telling me she was on it (she was, to be fair, very old), and none of them lost an ounce while using it.
Knowing that it works well for other people should tell us something, but I lack the biomed background to figure it out.
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Based on the amount of cheering, a significant part of the effect is placebo. There’s nothing wrong with that because only the results matter.
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