Australis13

Ouch.

CLearly getting in the week’s supply of cuddles.

Really glad to hear that - sounds like you have found a good vet. They are worth their weight in gold!

The next step is doing what I did - get a second office chair. One for you, one for the cat.

I have actually encountered those sort of potential differences between ground planes. They can indeed wreak havoc under the right circumstances.

Indeed! Covers most of the instances where I would otherwise have to use find.

That’s great news! Glad to see he is healing and is more active - definitely indicates he’s feeling better.

Top right quadrant - where exactly depends on multiple factors.

I just gave up and got a new desk chair.

He knows he’s on a good wicket.

I am glad Blue has been treated. Hopefully his wounds will heal properly.

I agree with another comment suggesting you get the details of the dental surgery in writing. They should also be able to tell you the urgency of the situation. I’m sorry to hear that the costs are so high and wish I could assist more. My wife suggested asking if the vet clinic can do a payment plan.

My final thought was that if your “dad” really doesn’t care about the cat and is just using Blue to get attention (perhaps he hopes something will happen to him so he can go “Woe is me! Somebody killed my cat!”), then it might be best if you are able to rehome him. He seems like a lovely-natured cat and you clearly care about him a lot; if your “dad” is going to deliberately harm him (or allow him to be harmed), though, Blue may be safer in a new home. I hate suggesting lying, but since Blue has already been attacked you could arrange for him to get outside and “disappear” if you need a way to avoid your “dad” finding out you rehomed “his” cat.

I can’t decide whether to laugh or cry.

You’re welcome. Unfortunately there’s no one place where you can read up on it; in my case I searched for any studies or papers on autism and/or serotonin to get a better understanding of how the system worked. Whilst some research is behind paywalls, a lot is still publicly accessible (ResearchGate is one such site). Google Scholar is probably the easiest way to search for relevant papers, though, as it usually lists where the full paper (as a PDF) is available.

Some of the papers I’ve come across that may be of interest to you:

• Serotonin is a key factor in motor function - Jacobs, B.L. and Fornal, C.A. (1999) ‘Activity of serotonergic neurons in behaving animals’, Neuropsychopharmacology: official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 21(2 Suppl), p. 9S–15S.
• Serotonin seems to play a role in “hot” vs “cold” processing; this may be why emotional processing is affected in autism - Robinson, O.J. and Sahakian, B.J. (2009) ‘A double dissociation in the roles of serotonin and mood in healthy subjects’, Biological psychiatry, 65(1), pp. 89–92.
• One form of the serotonin transporter is linked to increased sensory sensitivity, often found in autism - Homberg, J.R. et al. (2016) ‘Sensory processing sensitivity and serotonin gene variance: Insights into mechanisms shaping environmental sensitivity’, Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, 71, pp. 472–483.
• Vitamin D’s role in serotonin synthesis and relevance to autism (this paper notes that CNS serotonin is lower in autism than in NTs) - Patrick, R.P. and Ames, B.N. (2014) ‘Vitamin D hormone regulates serotonin synthesis. Part 1: relevance for autism’, FASEB journal: official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, 28(6), pp. 2398–2413
• Serotonin-NAS-Melatonin pathway affected in autism (Melke et al in particular notes the genetic basis for this) - Pagan, C. et al. (2014) ‘The serotonin-N-acetylserotonin-melatonin pathway as a biomarker for autism spectrum disorders’, Translational psychiatry, 4, p. e479., Martinez-Cayuelas, E. et al. (2022) ‘Melatonin Rhythm and Its Relation to Sleep and Circadian Parameters in Children and Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder’, Frontiers in neurology, 13, p. 813692. and Melke, J. et al. (2008) ‘Abnormal melatonin synthesis in autism spectrum disorders’, Molecular psychiatry, 13(1), pp. 90–98.
• The TPH2 gene (which controls the rate-limiting enzyme for serotonin synthesis in the brain) may be involved in autism - Coon, H. et al. (2005) ‘Possible association between autism and variants in the brain-expressed tryptophan hydroxylase gene (TPH2)’, American journal of medical genetics. Part B, Neuropsychiatric genetics: the official publication of the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics, 135B(1), pp. 42–46.

As for the quantity of melatonin, that was in discussion with my doctor. He expected that the commonly available 2mg supplements wouldn’t do anything and that it would probably take 10mg to have a significant impact. He also said not to go above 20mg. In my case, 10mg works very well, but was increasing the risk of being tired the next day - so I am currently on 5mg (this helps, but I don’t sleep through the night as well as I did on 10mg).

Also on the safety side of things, be aware that 5-HTP should not be taken with SSRIs without careful medical supervision due to the interaction and risk of serotonin syndrome.

I have never had many dreams, but they experienced an uptick when I started melatonin. Stress also makes me have more nightmares.

There is growing evidence that autism involves a dysfunction of the serotonergic system, particularly the central nervous system (CNS) pathway (Tryptophan -> 5-HTP -> Serotonin -> N-Acetylserotonin -> Melatonin). There are also studies showing that the conversion from N-Acetylserotonin (NAS) to melatonin is impeded in autism.

I did a lot of digging into this to try to aid my sleep and general health. Here are the key takeways:

1. Vitamin D regulates serotonin synthesis and Vitamin D deficiency can reduce the amount of Tryptophan entering the CNS, so make sure you’re not deficient. Unfortunately Tryptophan competes with other large amino acids for entry into the brain, so if you can’t get enough through your diet, you can use 5-HTP supplements to aid serotonin production.
2. Vitamin B6 is required for the conversion of 5-HTP to serotonin.
3. Low magnesium has been correlated with a reduction in serotonin production.
4. Melatonin supplements (anywhere from 5mg to 20mg) can help a lot with making up for the poor conversion from NAS to melatonin.

If anyone’s interested I can dig up the studies/references I used.

(As an aside, sleep apnoea will also reduce the amount of REM sleep, as past a certain point your brain will keep pulling you back into light sleep in order to breathe. If you haven’t checked if you have sleep apnoea, please do so!)

At least a tag I can fix… A woollen jumper (aka woolen sweater for the US folks) is just a no-go. Too itchy.

Definitely! One of ours has gotten more vocal as she has worked out she can “ask” for different things.

Cats’ body language is often more subtle or more complicated than dogs. It’s no surprise that the average person gets it wrong. It takes time and close observation to learn an individual cat’s signals.

Only problem is my battery usually starts off at 50%…

I think it’s just that we’re possessive/protective of “our” code, even more so if one is passionate about programming. We’ve put a lot of effort into it, then somebody else comes along and “ruins” our “perfect” (to our eyes) formatting/styling!

Some linters can do both. Getting one set up as an automated job whenever code is pushed to the repo is on my TODO list…