A Quick & Easy Guide to Sex & Disability

 

A Quick & Easy Guide to Sex & Disability by A. Andrews

Sex is a complicated topic to talk about for able bodied people let alone adding in things like disabilities that may be hard for people to talk about as well. This book does an amazing job of trying to start that conversation. Mental health, sexual health, and physical health are topics that overlap and many times people may know how to address one of these topics, but not how they overlap. The book is filled with ideas that can help not only with the conservations around sex & disability, but also goes into some of the physical aspects and the different things that can impact intimacy. I would highly recommend this book to both those with disabilities and abled bodied people as well. This book is important for able bodied people because it will help them understand both their family members and partners in relation to how their lives are impacted by these topics and trying to find loving relationships. 4 stars out of 5 or a A-. The only reason why it didn't get the 5th star was because I wish the book was longer with more detail.

Conquering Negative Body Image

Conquering Negative Body Image By Viola Jones and Edward Willett

This book was designed to help teens with topics around body image. I actually decided to read this book right after my abnormal psychology class to see how good it was. For teen and preteen readers I felt like it still did not go into the topic deep enough. It felt more like an elementary book. It also mostly focused on trying to get kids to talk to an adult and the role peer pressure can play. I think it would have been much better if it would have made negative body image something that anyone could have issues with and not just teens. I see this book making teens think that it is something that they could just grow out of instead of being a lifelong issue and that it's the larger society that is putting pressure on us and not just peers. I know my college level research showed that sometimes parents can actually be a massive driving force behind a lot of mental health issues including concepts around body image and this book should have went more into that as well. I think the book just needed expanded a lot more to actually be meaningful for its target audience. 2 stars out of 5 or a D+.

Picture from: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27113569-conquering-negative-body-image

It's Not Hysteria: Everything You Need to Know About Your Reproductive Health

It's Not Hysteria: Everything You Need to Know About Your Reproductive Health By Karen Tang

This book was amazing and what every medical book for general audiences should be. The book was well organized and made me feel not so out of sorts. Even as a full fledged adult woman it had information I was not familiar with and helped to normalize my experiences. I wish I would have had this book as a young adult fresh out of high school. It would have been a big help. I think that this is also an important book for any male that has women as a loved one. I think that anytime I have friends getting married forward I will give the groom a copy of this book. I think women throughout history have been living with partners that don't understand their bodily experience and this book could really help. If nothing else it may open up lines of dialog. This is one book that I would highly recommend. 5 stars out of 5 or a A+. 

Picture From: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/195790756-it-s-not-hysteria

Breast Cancer: Learning Fast

When a family member got diagnosed with breast cancer I felt that I had to do a deep dive into the subject matter in order to help them navigate the situation. The first place I decided to look for information was in books. I know that info in books can be very dated, but it is usually good for basic information and you can carry it around with you and read on the go. For this article I'm going to highlight two different book experiences I had that in a way shows some of the extremes you can run into using books to do medical research.

Of the books I found, The Breast Cancer Survival Manual by John Link, was one of the best. It goes into a lot of detail and helped us to figure out which questions we should be asking the doctors. It also let us know when the doctors were withholding information from us. I tell people that they have to become experts on their medical conditions because both doctors and the American medical system can not be trusted. My specific example of this is that the doctors would only tell us the stage of cancer and not the type. It took me asking very pointed questions and talking about the specific types to get them to tell us the type of breast cancer she had. Knowing the specific type makes a big difference in the options you have and by doctors withholding this information they block you from knowing what your options are. This book was pivotal in helping me build specific questions and hold the doctors accountable for what treatment options we had. I would highly recommend this book to both people diagnosed with cancer and their families. I also found this at the local library.

Taking Charge of Breast Cancer by Julia Eriksen was less then helpful. During this time I had access to a college library. To be specific the Auraria Campus library that serves 3 different colleges including students in different medical programs. For a library that supports medical students I found their medical and health books really lacking compared to the public library. I thought that this would have been the reverse, but was super disappointed. This was actually the best book on breast cancer that they had. It mostly was just a collection of different peoples' experiences, which is great to know how varied the breast cancer journey experience can be, but it didn't really have any useful information in it. It was too personal and not educational enough. When you are going through the breast cancer experience you don't have a lot of time to educate yourself, and reading this book was a waste of time when compared to other books out there that had information that you could put into instant use. I would say don't waste your time on this book, there are better options out there to help you in your breast cancer journey.

These two books show the differences in quality of the books you can find on a subject and how where you can find quality books on a subject can be surprising. I would have thought that a college would have held the more useful and information packed books, but in this case my local library was much more helpful. At the same time I felt that both locations had very few books on a subject that impacts the lives of so many people. The breast cancer center had posters up where they talked about 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer. That's really high. Then even if you don't get it, more then likely a friend or family member will get it. Breast cancer is very impactful to our society and I feel that there needs to be easier access to more information on it in general. For my own learning experience I had to focus more on medical journals and peer reviewed articles. Which for the general population, understanding the language alone used in those type of resources makes the information out of reach for them. I'm lucky because of my background in science and medicine, but for most the information is very much gate kept by the medical profession. There are a few basic places people can turn, like Web MD, but you need to be careful of what you find on the web. As always I recommend doing research on not only where your info comes from, but on the authors of any books or articles you turn to.

I will try to share more of my experiences of the breast cancer journey as I can. It is a lot of appointments and then also trying to support someone on the emotional path can also eat up a lot of time. I wish all who have to deal with this in any way the best of luck.

Picture 1 From: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33574220-the-breast-cancer-survival-manual
Picture 2 From: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2190850.Taking_Charge_of_Breast_Cancer

Living with PTSD By Lindsay Wyskowski

What was really good about this book is that it went into the different forms that PTSD can take. It also didn't focus on just military forms of PTSD like most books focus on, but on how trauma can have many different forms and impact people of all ages. This is a good quick introduction to PTSD and I would recommend it for people in any field that may come in contact with people with PTSD. To be truthful that really could be anyone since there are so many forms of PTSD.

Picture From: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61049110-living-with-ptsd

What Are Sleep Disorders? By L.K. Currie-McGhee

 

Wondering around my local library (I found this book at the main branch of the Aurora Public Library) I went into the the young adult section to see what kinds of nonfiction books I could find. I was kind of surprised to find that they did have a mini health and wellness section. I found this book to be a good simple introduction to sleep disorders. Not only would this book be good for young readers, but also adults who are on the go and want some quick information about sleep disorders. I could see this as a first book that a person would read if someone in their family just got diagnosed and are trying to fit getting information in while trying to support that family member. I wish I would have had this book years ago just to help me build a base. Unfortunately our current medical system leaves you hanging a lot of the times and people have to self educate just to stay alive sometimes. 3 stars out of 5 or a C and the only reason why I rated it so low is just because I wished that it had a little more detail on some of the topics.  

Top Picture From: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26483887-what-are-sleep-disorders

Chronic Muscle Pain Syndrome: Understanding and Treating Fibrositis- The Body's Powerful Reaction to Deep-Rooted Stress

Chronic Muscle Pain Syndrome: Understanding and Treating Fibrositis- The Body's Powerful Reaction to Deep-Rooted Stress (1989) By Paul Davidson, M.D. ISBN: 0-394-56860-5

This book review may seem random, but I will also be covering books on different health topics. I picked this specific book because our current health system is forcing me to become an expert in fibromyalgia. I say forcing because it really is. A family member was diagnosed with fibromyalgia years ago and since then we have been bouncing from specialist to specialist and back and forth to the primary all because everyone says they can't help even though they were recommended by someone else. It is frustrating and it forces people to learn how to be doctors themselves because no one will help them. Because of all of this I am using all of my science and limited medical background to try and get a medical understanding to help my family member. This is unfortunately normal in our medical system. I figure that I would share the information I find, which is the overall goal of this blog any way, so that others can find additional resources to help themselves navigate health in our modern world and crazy medical system.

One of the first things that this book talks about is the history of fibromyalgia and the different names that it has been known as through the years. This is actually a thing that has been known for hundreds of years if not longer. Some doctors will tell you it is a new thing, but it is not and there is no excuse as to why by this point there is not more info on it. It does really seem that doctors don't care about the disease or the people that suffer from it. He also talks about how primary care doctors will send you to specialists to get treatment. The problem is that in today's medical world that the specialists send you back to the primary care doctor saying they can't help you and that it is the primary care doctor's job to take care of fibromyalgia. The primary care doctor is a generalist that doesn't have time to try and specialize in something because they are busy dealing with colds, sports exams, and the such. This book did talk about some treatments, but it seemed like he blamed fibromyalgia on either the lack of sleep or on a person's mental health. If it was this simple then treatment would be easy, but it's not. There was also a section of the book that recommended some different exercises. I think this is a good book for people to start with like myself, but I really feel like it was just trying to explain away the issue because if you have dealt with the disease for awhile what he recommended really doesn't work and just in a way is general health recommendations. I do not feel like Davidson is an expert in any way on the subject or that he should be fully trusted.

Note Highlights:

-back in the 1970s studies were showing a connection between fibromyalgia and poor sleep. (P43-44)

-"doctors can find major clues to the diagnosis by listening carefully as the patient relates his or her complaints instead of relying primarily on the results of laboratory and x-ray studies." (P48)

-Some disorders can mimic fibrositis like polymyalgia rheumatica, giant cell arteritis, multiple areas of tendinitis, and hypothyroidism. (P61)

-Prednisone has little to no effect on fibrositis. (P62)

-Stress can cause fatigue. "not in physical disease but in a mind wearied by stress, anxieties, tensions, and depression." (P102)

-stress can also cause headaches, irritable syndrome and disturbed sleep. (P103-104)

-General physicians will "relinquish the investigation and care of patients to rheumatologists, neurologists, orthopedic surgeons, physiatrists, industrially based physicians, and dentists." (P109)

I found this book in the medical section at the college library on the Auraria Campus in Denver. Three different schools support this library, but even with that they have a limited selection of physical books. They only had two books on fibromyalgia and I checked them both out.