The Activation if The Division has begun.
People are dying. Evil has become institutionalized. Corporations make billions of dollars off the pain, suffering, death, and anguished cries in the night of millions of Americans.
Based.
Back pain is a hell of a drug.
Fortunately, back pain is in the drug formulary. Claim approved.
He did everything right and believed in the system.
And then he himself, or someone close to him, got a diagnosis that ensured life-long medical debt and poverty.He seems to have had a spinal surgery and had pins put in his spine. Books he’s looked at seems to indicate chronic pain and fights with insurance companies.
It was exactly what every single person thought who wasn’t paid to think otherwise.
Had exact same fusion performed.
4 screws, 2 rods to connect them, and a 3-d sintered titanium cage between the vertebrae.
I can attest to the chronic pain and wanting to armor a bulldozer
chronic pain conditions are something our healthcare and disability systems specifically don’t handle well and I haven’t met anyone suffering from them that doesn’t want to [redacted].
my experience with it has been nebulous and hard to diagnose but incredibly disabling. certain treatments like acupuncture or cupping that specifically target fascia, or shit like somatic therapy, aren’t really legitimized by insurance so absent of a diagnosis with a known intervention your choices are to go to a pain clinic and take something possibly addictive or pay your way into alt medicine providers who can either be exactly who you need or hokey grifters.
and I can only imagine the hell that insurance companies put you through for surgical interventions they are supposed to cover but definitely don’t want to. reading my partner’s rejection letters from her company disability provider has been fucking fascinating
Many chronic pain patients suffer from something called central sensitization.
I do, though didn’t really know about it in detail before finding a clinic that treats those patients.
I did 3 weeks at Mayo hospital’s pain rehabilitation clinic to run their program for patients that are all specifically central sensitization. You go in a bit blind not knowing what the program is, intentionally on their part.
It is run by several world class cognitive behavioral therapy doctors, and a team of nurses and physical therapists that work with you daily. It is… aggressive. You have no option to not do physical therapy or cardio, of which there is 2 hours and over 20 exercises to do every day. No matter how you hurt or feel. People who were there were all objectively seriously injured at one point and had like me real issues and real disabilities. The most empathetic thing that could do for you is to not acknowledge your symptoms and just make you do it.
They also took all and I mean ALL medications. Couldn’t have miralax. No advil. No gas medicine from the gas station. Nothing taken for symptoms. You could take things prescribed for conditions like aside reflux disease or insulin for diabetes, but nothing for how you felt.
So imagine having to do 2 hours of intense exercise, giving up all medications in about 3 days time, and doing things cold turkey for 3 weeks without any room to tap out. On top of that it is 35 hours a week of lectures on various topics related to the condition of centralized sensitization, chronic pain stress management, biofeedback, depression, anxiety, and skills to better enable you to live life.
They even held 1 hour sessions a week with family to summarize key lectures and give Q&A for them to help the patients be better supported in this weird chronic pain thing most families don’t understand.
It’s intense and not for everyone, but I went from being unable to do any physical activity, even walking the dog while I was taking pain medications and muscle relaxants etc. I went from that to biking 10 miles a day, at a 3:45 minute mile pace. I started their reconditioning program at 1 lb dumbbells doing curls for ten reps. I am now, 8 months after the program, curling 30 lb dumbbells and doing my own 2 hour workouts every week day.
I am still in incredible amounts of pain. They could not and will not fix the underlying causes physically or biologically.
However, they change patient lives with the CBT focus on how to live a more function filled life with chronic pain. They make us more active and better able to live a life worth living, within the constraints of moderate, sustainable, and adaptable.
Anyway, it changed me life and I would recommend it to anyone if they are in the long term battle with chronic pain. I saw specialists and got dozens of medications and scans for things. Surgical procedures, injections, blocks… you name it.
Only this worked to give me part of my life back.
Good luck to you
Intense training program, in the blind
They take away all medication, including pain medication
Intentionally and empathetically ignore your symptoms and tell you to just go with it, as if it was how we treat mental patients
Intentionally will not fix the underlying causes
“World class” “doctors” and behavioural theorists
So basically, they torture you until you accept the pain and just take it, rather than seeking out an actual solution?
Wow, that defintively would inspire me to kill a health CEO. Or, in this case, a health theorist.
It may seem like that is the case for a bit, and often does to many patients. Myself included.
Keep in mind the target population is patients who are centralized sensitization patients. There are alpha channels of nerves that through real physical injury have created a feedback loop in the nervous system with the brain.
In these patients, who do have very real injuries, the pain levels are outside expectations for the things we can test, scan, see on imaging etc.
The mechanism is complex but essentially you can think of it as the nerve bundles of specific types are far more sensitive to stimuli and the brain becomes far more sensitive to signals received.
Breaking this feedback loop, which is often fed by avoidance of things, is important.
As for data, they have published papers in many journals with more than 20,000 patients who have been through the clinic showing progress improvement. Reductions in standard assessments for depression, improved mobility and exercise function, as well as removed reliance on medications / the polypharmacy causing underlying greater symptoms is proven in their large data set.
A lot of the mental model that has real impacts to physical symptoms revolves around breaking previously unrealized classic and operant conditioning that patients with this chronic pain sensitization often have present.
To correct and see the clear picture without clouding it, medications must be removed from the picture as polypharmacy issues can create a mess of problems that seem like they are bodily in origin but are in fact from the medication interactions.
It is a program vetted by the chronic pain treatment community for over 20 years, and the data is well reviewed, with every hour of the time a patient spends there carefully considered and measured for efficacy.
The program gets referral from many physicians in various other disciplines within and outside their hospital system for patients that meet their criteria.
To be clear, this is not a fly by night theory. It’s one of the best hospitals in the world with a program of pharmacists, doctors, PTs, nurses and supporting specialists who all meet daily per patient and make individual care plans. You seem them daily for hours a day. They monitor blood work and vitals as well as metabolic data as they taper medications. It’s deeply unpleasant but designed very intentionally to help. It does help.
Anecdotally, a patient story:
They came into the program malnourished, on a feeding tube, intense abdominal pain, GI bleeding, and on significant opiates to tackle pain levels from the GI issues.
On discharge, the patient had no expressed pain, was back to eating normally without the feeding tube, and was regaining weight . GI bleeding stopped.
6 months later they went back on pain medication from a pain physician and were right back in the ER with the same symptoms. Following the program’s instructions the same reversal took place again!
The power of the operant conditioning from taking medications when feeling symptoms is a powerful one that impacts the baseline arousal states of the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system. These impact all sorts of bodily processes which seem counter intuitive to apply to physical real problems, but the results speak volumes.
Everyone arrives a skeptic. I left seeing benefit in my life as a patient who these things apply to. I am not uneducated, I have created software to run clinical cancer trials for years. Yet even with that formal intellectual background I was missing things that had impact to my health condition. The average patient has less exposure to these things, and I spent 10 years seeking help for the pain before this from many physicians. Many things were tried. So all of that experience and exposure to alternative therapies and modalities to this one was brought in with skeptical critical analysis of their methods.
There is an element of trust required, and it is HARD, but the easy path of medicate or cut it out is often not the solution with patients like us. Since pain is very much a central nervous system process, treating as such makes sense.
I am so happy to hear you found something that worked for you and it sounds like it was a hell of a fight but that kind of intense care can be so impactful if it’s the right fit for you. It sounds not unlike a good psychiatric crisis center but more focused on treating physical symptoms that are often deeply interlinked with mental health in a way few providers treat effectively.
ultimately no two cases are the same and I feel like I’ve needed the opposite treatment in some respects. I hit a wall with PT and strength conditioning and while it’s definitely still an important part of my recovery, it seems that isolated muscle strength is not the problem, and it’s actually possible I’ve been overtraining to try to feel better. best working theory is I’m hypermobile and instinctively locking my joints to retain stability. I generally have a lack of sensation and don’t feel much direct pain, until my posture / muscle arrangement is so out of whack that I can’t function anymore.
so the work has been more focused on building bodily awareness and imporoving proprioception, and when I work out it tends to be pretty freeform and meditative and I have to aim for working out less than I want to but making the most of it. I have a provider who does specialized massage therapy combined with somatic work, and acupuncture has been an amazing low-impact way to poke into my fascial tissue and get it to chill the fuck out a bit. PTSD work and psilocybin have also been really helpful. I needed a muscle relaxer in the early days but am glad my doc stopped prescribing it after a few months. definitely getting back to feeling more normal though I suspect it won’t ever fully go away. but I’m happy to have been forced into building up this much awareness of how my body works.
The movie Falling Down, but replace terrible temper with chronic back pain.
It just shows anyone can do the right thing
Is chilling how thenwhole internet is fed up a story of a man before his sentence. If this guy is innocent his whole life is already exposed forever just for memes and a penny. We are the big brother and we suck.
The “we did it reddit!” phrase comes from redditors trying to track down suspects of the boston bombing. Redditors found a guy they strongly suspected, then found personal info on them and began harrassing him and family, including death threats.
Imagine being that person accused! One day just living life, the next experiencing a horrible bombing, the next being tracked down by a misguided internet randos on a manhunt.
This is why having some basic privacy is important before you need it
it wasnt the internet that exposed him to the media, it was the police and feds who sold him out to the media. There is no “we did it” here. “They” did it.
Fair, this situation is different in a lot of ways
I’m sorry, but just one detail from what I’m seeing on the linked article - “that person” committed suicide a month before any of that went down. I don’t think it invalidates the point, even though being alive and present to be interrogated might’ve changed things, but it comes off comical when talking about how horrible the experience must’ve been.
Still horrible for his family…
You’re right! I should have said “those people accused” because there were multiple suspects. The one I linked was the most prominent of them. Sorry!
im big skeptical of the photos and videos they’ve been circulating. everything about this investigation is sus.
Yeah the real guy is gone, the cops are finding someone to blame it on because they are afraid of continuing to totally fumble the bag.
Luigi just now said the NYPD planted evidence.
we
ITT: some really healthy skepticism over some of the “evidence” allegedly written by the shooter. I’m kinda impressed. Some other lemmy communities are leaning harder in to conspiracy ideas (planted evidence or whatever), but quite a few of the comments here are taking the time to analyze the info.
We really just don’t know yet. And likely won’t know until the trial (if there even will be a trial).
deleted by creator
Did you read anything past the first sentence?
The simplest answer is he was pissed at UHC for denying medical claims for him or the ones he loved, and the CEO had dialed up the denials so an obvious target.
iirc on one of his social medias the banner was a back X-ray with medical nails or screws in it. I assume he (or someone he knows) was having back issues and got denied.
His former college roommate said he always struggled with back problems which is one reason he tried to work out so much
This claims to be his story. I haven’t verified it, but I have no reason not to believe it. Basically, UHC tortured his mother for years through denial of care, then they did the same to him.
I would note that he is 26 years old: He likely just aged out of his parents’ health insurance policy, and I would guess that he can’t get decent coverage on his own due to his pre-existing condition.
Doubt. Doesn’t include any of the statements authorities have quoted. They also mentioned the handwritten manifesto was 262 words.
Even if this isn’t the manifesto, his family had money, this reads like it was written by a high schooler, and it was posted yesterday.
real one was just posted https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/luigis-manifesto
I doubt anything NYPD has published so far. it’s all sus.
This does seem very amateurish (Gladiator, Greenday, “smile through the pain”). These are emo tropes. I’d be disappointed to know it’s him.
You’d be disappointed if he isn’t also a genius writer?
Not necessarily but basing an idealogy in fantasy (as he talks about the emperor being god in gladiator) neglects reality. Anger and whatever sense of righteousness you subscribe to should be based firmly in reality, otherwise you’ll find you are acting on nothing but hypotheticals.
I don’t see the issue in quoting works of fiction if you think they express something you’re trying to say. People quote Shakespeare all the time to make a point but nobody cares because that’s old and accepted. No I’m not saying Gladiator is on a level with Shakespeare but there’s a weird imbalance in what you’re allowed to quote in your argument and what not. If the imagery spoke to him, why not?
Point taken. I will admit I have been more critical given I don’t believe this is real.
I don’t see the issue in quoting works of fiction
Otherwise the whole of marxism would be off limits
Did… Did you just gatekeep anger?
I liked that the writer stuck with clear and simple english instead of flowering up their prose, but I just feel that using borrowed quips and popart philosophy isn’t an honest way to write. It feels more in line with a teen or a young adult trying to find their voice in the words of others (and we’ve all been there)
I still feel being “disappointed” is harsh. He’s 26 and just wanted his thoughts out. He may have been trying, maybe even subconsciously, to emulate some literary devices more or less successfully in an effort to better convey his feelings but I really don’t think the point was to write great literature.
To theirs credit, the part about watching their mother suffer was very relatable and felt extremely honest. I guess I was hoping that they would open with something like that instead of talking about their philosophy first. You’re right though, the writer is likely young and I shouldn’t expect so much.
Because of the ACA (Obamacare) requirements, he can’t be refused or charged more for coverage because of a pre-existing condition.
Whether that insurance denies claims for treatment, however, is still very much in play. I’ve heard you should ask the names and certification of the person or people responsible for the denial of your claim, in writing. Because a lot of the time it’s an algorithm or an unqualified peon, and the company can get in trouble for that.
You’ll tooootally get that information.
the company can get in trouble for that.
Tricky to press charges when you’re dying
Oh sweet summer child.
I imagine you mean they won’t, and you may be right. But too many people don’t even start trying to fight denials, which is why insurance companies do it. Often it doesn’t take a huge pushback to get them to change, especially if it would expose their corrupt practices. Of course, sometimes they are obdurate, and United Healthcare is one of the worst.
As for the ACA, it’s still true, at least until Trump takes office.
I’m deeply curious about the source
I, too, am curious. But, I read this part of a short story in The Things They Carried, many, many, years ago, and it stuck with me:
You can tell a true war story by the questions you ask. Somebody tells a story, let’s say, and afterward you ask, “Is it true?” and if the answer matters, you’ve got your answer.
For example, we’ve all heard this one. Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast and saves his three buddies.
Is it true?
The answer matters.
You’d feel cheated if it never happened. Without the grounding reality, it’s just a trite bit of puffery, pure Hollywood, untrue in the way all such stories are untrue. Yet even if it did happen - and maybe it did, anything’s possible even then you know it can’t be true, because a true war story does not depend upon that kind of truth. Absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth. For example: Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast, but it’s a killer grenade and everybody dies anyway. Before they die, though, one of the dead guys says, “The fuck you do that for?” and the jumper says, “Story of my life, man,” and the other guy starts to smile but he’s dead.
That’s a true story that never happened.
I don’t know that this article was written by Luigi Mangione, or if Luigi Mangione killed the CEO. But, I do know that this story is true, even if it never happened.
i think there are two different meanings of truth here, and it sounds like one of them might be referring to aletheia. from the wikipedia page:
Heidegger gave an etymological analysis of aletheia and drew out an understanding of the term as “unconcealedness”.[6] Thus, aletheia is distinct from conceptions of truth understood as statements which accurately describe a state of affairs (correspondence), or statements which fit properly into a system taken as a whole (coherence). Instead, Heidegger focused on the elucidation of how an ontological “world” is disclosed, or opened up, in which things are made intelligible for human beings in the first place, as part of a holistically structured background of meaning.
edit: just want to say that i agree with the message, and i think it’s true that things don’t have to actually happened in order to be true in some sense. i think the term aletheia can be helpful for making the distinction and wanted to share it for that reason
I really hope this is genuine, because whoever wrote this did an amazing job of conveying their feelings and experiences in a very short piece of literature.
Two lines from the bottom they are missing:
Discovered DOTA2
This implies the existence of two other CEO assassins working the Broadway and Wall Street lanes
lmao
The privatized healthcare system happened.
I don’t get it
The libertarian flag is yellow and black. The anarchist flag is black and red.
The implication is that a libertarian only looks like an anarchist by proximity. As soon as they’re left to their own devices, they’re revealed to be Christian Nationalists (the black symbol on white robes is used by the Klan.)
thank you
I thought black and gold was the ancap flag, not libertarian.
It’s the same picture
What about the red armband?
Very badly rendered swastika flag. You can kinda sorta see the black pixels at the center making up the crooked cross.
That comic is so crusty that im surprised you can still see the red arm band.
Most ancaps/right-libertarians are often just right-authoritarians that like drugs, addicted to loli-hentai (although this one is falling out of fashion due to “nofap” reasons), weirdly “free speech extremists”, etc. Exceptions may apply.
I think labeling is so fucking stupid. Like I get that it’s easier to shove a label on people and yourself, but we’re seriously assigning an entire fucking socio-political economic identity to this kid from like 2 Goodreads reviews and a few Facebook posts?
Gimme a fucking break
They might be referring to anon’s flag in the greentext?
Don’t worry. It’s stupid.
Yellow/Black is the flag of anarcho-capitalism.
oh
haha
Base on what I’ve read about this kid: I probably wouldn’t like him as a person. I probably wouldn’t agree with a lot of the things he believes, and I’d probably vehemently oppose a lot of it. I don’t think he’s a genius – in fact I think he’s probably a similar to the edgy, dumb kid I was at that age.
Sometimes “good” people do bad things, and sometimes “bad” people do good things: real people aren’t one dimensional caricatures.
Someone said he was in a surfing accident and needed pins/plates put in his back. His profile (https://i.imgur.com/2g1ZGBa.png) shows an X-ray of a back that’s had surgery done on it.
He’s 26 and just come off his parents’ healthcare. [Except his family is wealthy, so I’m not sure if this one is relevant or not.]
You can be wealthy and not be “pay your own medical bills” wealthy.
Doesn’t his family own nursing homes and other businesses? Shouldn’t that be wealthy enough for healthcare? You would think there are some connections to the medical sector there as well.
US doctors can’t always afford healthcare
Nursing homes are typically run poorly because they’re in a position that has a hard max on profit. Medicare pays what it pays and that is all. Unlike a hospital which can just make things up and charge whatever, alongside pricy elective surgeries, nursing homes have settled into their x Medicare $$ for each patient.
So while there is profit it won’t be anywhere near the profit of a hospital.
Couldn’t a private nursing home charge whatever they want for room fees, recreation fees, meal fees etc? There are some very shitty nursing homes and some very fancy ones out there, and id bet the profit margins on the fancy ones are much higher.
A long term care bed at a nursing home costs anywhere between $5500 to $20000 monthly. There are many rich, retired people who would have their finances depleted in a few years with a cost that high.
The average middle class individual would never be able to afford that so the fall back is usually medicaid.
There are private pay. And there are Medicare pay. Depends. Any will charge for anything: private room, tv, etc. Meals are mandated by regulation.
So yes, if they own private pay they could be wealthy. Which shows how shitty health insurance has become, if they can afford Luigi’s posh schooling and not afford their healthcare.
Apparently his mother was also being screwed around by UHC.
Sometimes you can have wealthy parents and still barely make ends meet
This, also, just because he may have had good coverage to do the surgery, stuff like that can have lifelong consequences that can need routine, expensive, medical care, for years, if not the rest of your life. Even if they are getting care, their insurance, even “good” insurance, could have denied much better therapy, for the cheaper route, which will have a major negative impact.
It is too early to be making up our minds about this arrest, this guy, etc. However, just because your parents have money, doesn’t mean you can escape the evils of the private healthcare system.
He was activated as a sleeper agent by the [redacted]
