Addicted

“In teaching, I wanted to offer a general pharmacology course based on chemical principles, biochemical classification and mathematical modeling. In the event I achieved neither of my ambitions.“
— James W. Black

What I have loosely defined within this blog as “pharmacology” (which really should have been drugs ‘n everything that goes along with them) would be useless without the essential element of interest, what keeps people, such as myself, enthralled with this topic. That element is the human element. Not only what contortions a drug can perform on a human beings internal structure, but also he simple fact that people have the ability to create and use such drugs, and that some can be driven to the depths of addiction because of their own, internal or otherwise, strife.

No on can be sure when people first began using drugs, or necessarily if it was by accident (which most probably it was), or an intentional act based on observation. However, one thing is certain, and that is that drugs have evolved from the crude grime shot up or snorted among hippies and musicians, with little to no care for after effects, to a recognized problem (illegal substances), and a definitive and absolute science marked by precision, where one wrong step could destroy organs or cost a life (both).

How did people develop addictions?

How did we, as a human race, discover the medicines and substances to which people become addicted?

If people are aware of the risks then why do they continue on, abusing substances?

These questions can begin to open up what is the essence of this blog, a mish-mash of pharmacology and drug abuse, and why it matters.

To the question of causes of addiction. This raises two answers, on for the old drug culture, who had little care for what they placed in their bodies, and the modern drug culture, who know the risks and go for the thrill of it anyways. If you choose to believe Prof. Charles Whitebread, the first man to publish a full legal history of marijuana, then “almost all addiction at the turn of the century was accidental.” (By turn of the century, it means 1900′s). People were getting involved with products they weren’t aware contained addictive substances, such as morphine, as many popular pain remedies, tonics, and elixirs in the first half of the 1900′s were nearly 50% morphine. Nowadays, many people become addicted because of their conscious involvement with addictive substances, whether their involvement be because of peer pressure, inadequate personality comlex, or poor environment.

Blood Doping

This is the face of an athlete about to engage in an illegal practice known as “blood doping”. He doesn’t look too scared does he, smiling at the camera and all while having a needle plunged into his arm, sucking about a full pint of blood from his body. So, while you may think that blood doping is entirely safe, hence the smiling man in the picture there – guess what – you are wrong and smiling man is as idiot.

Let us analyze this picture first. Notice that the participant [we'll call him John for anonymity's sake], John appears to be in lab setting. As noted above blood doping is illegal, and John cannot have blood drawn at a free clinic and then ask for it back so he can “shoot up with it” in his apartment. From this one can safely assume that John has a rudimentary lab of his own, or has an accomplice with their own lab. Well, either that or he bribed a nurse to help him, but that’s an entirely different subject. The assistant is also wearing gloves, and John seems to be in a sterile environment (maybe he did bribe a nurse). Even without these visual clues, you can deduce that blood doping does carry risks, and every precaution needs to be taken to ensure the blood taken, and the donor, are safe. In the background there is a bottle of sanitizer – safety first!-and a centrifuge. Blood doping uses the centrifuge to separate the blood plasma from the red blood cells used in doping.

All of the above inferences are, indeed, true of blood doping. It does carry risks, requires a personal lab to carry out because the activity is illegal, and necessitates a safe, clean environment.

Now, all of this may be a bit confusing if you don’t know what blood doping is exactly, and proper conclusions may be hard to come up with if one does not properly understand blood doping.

Blood doping is literally “doping with blood”, or the transfusion of RBCs (red blood cells). “Doping” refers to the use of performance enhancing drugs, particularly illegal substances banned by those who regulate competitions. Doping, particularly blood doping, are common in athletic sports, especially competitive cycling. Blood doping is not exclusively the transfusion of RBCs, however, and can include the transfusion of EPO (recombinant human erythropoietin, a hormone regulating RBC production), or THG (tetrahydrogestrinone, an anabolic steroid). However, John is doping with concentrated RBCs, so we will stick to that topic.

Blood doping has become common is sports because it enhances the athletes performance by increasing an athletes capacity to transports oxygen to the muscles, giving an energy, speed, etc, boost. The muscles require oxygen to function, and many doctors believe that it is the rate at which hemoglobin delivers oxygen to exercising muscles which can result in limited muscle performance. Blood doping, as you may have already figured out, boosts the amount of hemoglobin in the blood stream, more hemoglobin equals higher oxygen carrying capacity, equals increased muscular performance and endurance.

There are two ways to receive blood, or blood dope, autologous and homologous. John is going to receive an autologous transfusion, can you guess what that means? Yes, an autologous transfusion is a transfusion of ones own blood. The person has their blood drawn, then stored in a freezer until they wish to blood dope (freezing the RBCs keeps them sanitary with little loss of viability). This method has become increasingly common because it is easier and safer than buying blood on the black market for transfusions. Black market blood (yep, it exists), not only poses the obvious risk of contaminants like STD’s, but it may not be a compatible blood type. If this happens, the doper risks death because their own immune system will attack the foreign blood. Autologous transfusions are also easier, with the doper simply taking some of their own blood, as John is doing, and freezing it for later. A homologous transfusion is, you got it, a transfusion of blood that is not the dopers. This carries the obvious risks that the blood could be contaminated, incompatible, and expensive.

Many problems arise with blood doping, though long time dopers preach that it is harmless. Ha. They wish. One of the problems comes from poorly stored blood. This can be seen in the case of cyclist Jesus Manzano, who nearly died after using poorly stored blood in 2003(too bad, now he gets to rot in jail). A high level of RBCs can also tax an athletes veins and heart, because there is more blood in their circulatory system, and the heart has a tough time pushing sludgy blood throughout the body. As mentioned above, a blood doper also runs the risks of receiving contaminated blood and becoming sick themselves.

SOURCES
1. http://www.velonews.com/article/12924, A Doctor Explains Blood Doping, Shannon Sovndal, M.D., Jul. 24, 2007.
2. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0801/is_9_65/ai_n6160195
3. http://www.slate.com/id/2107096/

HELP

Some people have (apparently) been wondering how images are inserted into a blog, headers are made effectively, etcetera. So….here you go, how to do that and anything else possible.

This is how I did it, so if you know a better way, let me know.

INSERTING AN IMAGE.

1. FINDING THE IMAGE
Find an image. (Google works well).

2. STARTING TO RESIZE YOUR IMAGE
Click until you see the full size image, then, copy and paste the image into a program you can use to edit it. Actually, just use MS Paint, it will make this blog simpler.

NOTE: this is only if you need to re-size the image, so you can see the pixel width and size (so the image isn’t squashed, stretched, or out of focus) to later put into the …”image insert device” available on WordPress. If the image you found is the right size, and you aren’t looking for a smaller one to insert on the side of the text (as can be seen in this blog), you can simply skip to STEP 5.

3. RESIZING YOUR IMAGE
Here’s the good part. Take the image you pasted and resize it to your liking.
Go to “image” on the topmost toolbar, move your mouse down till it is on “stretch/skew”, and click.

This box should pop up:

Type in how much you want the image to be shrunk or expanded. Really, you should only use this to shrink, expanding the image could result in poor pixel quality because the pixel cells have been enlarged too much.
MAKE SURE that you have the same stretch/skew quantities in the horizontal and vertical “number boxes”.

4. PIXEL COORDINATES
Wonderful, you’ve reached step four! Now you’ll learn why you had to do all the work of resizing your image and how to INSERT your image into your journal.
Alright, the reason some of you had to “resize your image is because you need to pixel x pixel coordinates so you can properly resize your image.

You see those little numbers circled in red in the bottom right hand corner? Remember those.

5. INSERTING AN IMAGE HOW TO FILL IN THE BOXES
Now, on your WordPress tool bar you will notice you have an image insert button. CLICKETY CLICK IT.

This box will pop up:

Image URL: Now, go find that image again! You’ll need to view it full size and copy the URL (those letters and numbers in the address bar), and paste it into the appropriate column.
Image Description: Simple enough. Type in a description.
Alignment: Choose one of the options. They are where your image will go in relation to your text.
Dimensions: Allllright. Remember those numbers you were supposed to remember? If you had to resize the image, type those into the appropriate boxes. This ensures that your image was properly sized and doesn’t turn out skewed.
Border: If you would like a border placed around the edges of your image, type in a number. 1is similar to the line the pencil tool makes in paint, or one pixel.
Vertical and Horizontal Space: about 20 should do it. This just makes sure your text doesn’t crowd around the image.
Class: Don’t bother. It is the same as alignment.

Once you have all the information filled out click “insert” and you are set!

MAKING YOUR OWN HEADER

There really isn’t that much to this one. The header of this blog was entirely handmade in paint (with a mouse). If you don’t have those kinds of skills, you can simply take an image from Google, put text or draw on it to the best of your abilities, and then save it. You can insert it by loading it onto an image hosting website (such as tinypic), copying the URL, and following the above steps to insert the image [minus resizing ]. I have had trouble loading images directly from my computer onto WordPress, so I would recommend the above steps.

If I know you and you explicitly ask me to make you a header, ask me in person. They don’t take to long to make and I’ll be happy to do it.

NOTE: If you do make your own header, make sure when you upload it, it is the same pixel height and width as the default header for the profile you are using.

INSERTING YOUR OWN IMAGE
See above.

ABOUT TINYPIC [IF YOU USE IT]
A thing to know about tinypic.com, if you are using that to host images as I did, is that you will need to click the image until you see the “raw image”, and copy the URL from there.

Now go here:

And then here:

And finally copy and paste the URL in the address bar and follow step 5 of the first tutorial.

USEFUL LINKS
Google Images
Tinypic Image Hosting

Introduction

Hello, nonexistent viewers.

Here is a plethora of pills and a mountain of medical maladies. this is about drugs, illegal or otherwise. How medications work on the body. Why some have been pulled off shelves. This blog is essentially going to be about (a very butchered definition of) “pharmacology”. [1] You can expect to see an analysis of various drugs and the conditions they treat. Prepare the occasional segues into the actual condition and (if possible) the effects of the drug in raw form [as in, if there is a raw form of the drug, like "opium from poppies", then the effects of you wolfing down a raw poppy[2] could be discussed]. Adventures into the underbelly of society will be undertaken and you can see the how, why, where, and when of drugs and their consumers.

Sound good yet?

Well, how about this? Despite the subject matter which will require a primarily objective tone, there will be a sarcastic wit where the material permits. If you haven’t seen the footnotes already, take a look now and prepare yourself for the ridiculous humor you will see. The combination of a serious topic (drugs, pharmacology and etcetera) and dry (or so I’ve been told) wit are what’s likely to set this blog apart from other typical adolescent blogs, or other blogs for that matter. How many blogs about Pharmacology do you know of?

So, why bother writing about such a seemingly dull topic? Well first off it is not dull. And to put it simply, I have always had an interest in what I have loosely defined as “pharmacology”. From the complex links of Google to the more thorough, less reliable articles of Wikipedia, I have spent many a night flipping through cyber-page after cyber-page of information on drugs and diseases. I’ve found that Pemoline[5] (my user names inspiration) is used to treat ADHD and narcolepsy but was removed due to suspicion of it causing hepatotoxicity[6], that “shrooms” can cause paranoia. and that when making posters of the negative effects of drugs, students often emphasize physical detriments to internal detriments. These things interest me. I adore the subjects, the information. They have inspired me to pursue a career in the medical field. (Well….I want to, financing that dream is a whole other story).

[1] wikipedia definition
[2] The author does not recommend you consume raw poppy.[3]
[3] Or cooked poppy, for that matter.[4]
[4] Or Opium. NEVER do Opium.
[5] Wikipedia Definition of Pemoline
[6] Wikipedia again. Guess where to!