Traveling around, being a nurse.

Ann Jones tried everything short of surgery for her chronic migraines, which have plagued her since she was a child.

“They’ve actually gotten worse in my old age,” says Jones, who is 70 years old and lives in Tucson, Ariz.

Jones would have as many as two dozen migraines a month.

Over the years, some treatments might work initially, but the effects would prove temporary. Other medications had such severe side effects she couldn’t stay on them.

In 2018, her doctor mentioned a study that was taking place nearby at the University of Arizona: Researchers were testing if daily exposure to green light could relieve migraines and other kinds of chronic pain.

Jones was skeptical.

“This is going to be one more thing that doesn’t work,” she thought to herself.

But she brushed aside the hesitation and enrolled in the study anyway.

It began with her spending two hours each day in a dark room with only a white light, which served as the control. In the second half of the study, she swapped out the conventional light for a string of green LED lights.

For more than a month, Jones didn’t notice any change in her symptoms. But close to the six-week mark, there was a big shift.

She began going days in a row without migraines. Even when the headaches did come, they weren’t as intense as they had been before the green light therapy.

Some patients in the study of about 25 people noticed a change in just a few days. For others, it took several weeks. Dr. Mohab Ibrahim, the migraine study’s principal investigator and an associate professor at the University of Arizona, says that on average, people experienced a 60% decrease in the intensity of their migraines and a drop from 20 migraines a month to about six.

Researchers Explore A Drug-Free Idea To Relieve Chronic Pain: Green Light

Racist old lady called him a n***** here’s what she get…

It’s above me now

No, I don’t believe Black Girls and Women lack communal protections in the Black Community.

I KNOW Black Girls and Women lack communal protections in the Black Community. This gets proven time and time and time and time and time again.

…. and in America’s subconscious they know it too. Which is why people don’t rush to protect Black Women when they are being publicly assaulted. This is why people look at Black Women as the aggressor in every situation. This is why teenage black girls get called fast and the men who prey on them get a sigh of sympathy. This why no one bats an eye at Black Men who make degrading jokes about Black Women, specifically those women with dark skin. This is why people tell Black Women not to report their abusive spouse because “we don’t need more Black Men in prison”. This is why Black Women get treated the way they do.

You can tout the “we protect our black queens” all you want, but the truth is in real life. IN REAL LIFE THAT IS NOT THE CASE. It hurts but it’s true. A lot of people still hold the “black twitter 2000s mentality about Black Women” they just don’t want to get dragged online.

With that being said, there are members of the Black Community who do get communal protections. It’s Cis Heterosexual Black Men.

1. Stop slandering our natural features. Stop with the dark skin jokes. Stop with the natural hair jokes. Stop dehumanizing black women for our features. Black women–especially young black girls–internalize these “jokes” and grow to sincerely hate their blackness. Cut it out.

2. Respect our choices. All of them. You don’t have to like it but you need to respect it. If we choose to wear our natural hair, respect it. If we choose to wear weave, respect it. Stop chastising us for the choices we make for ourselves. Stop policing how we choose to live our lives. Let us be great. Gahdamn.

3. Stop with the respectability politics. You can’t say you love black women and then pick and choose which black women you’ll respect based on your standards. You still give a black woman respect regardless of how she chooses to live her life. You respect all black women because we are human just like you, not just the ones who wear natural hair, listen to erykah badu and shit.

4. No means no. If you approach a black woman and she says she’s not interested, oh my fucking god, my nigga, just leave her alone. Move on. Let it go. Please do not persist. Take the rejection gracefully. Don’t call her out name, don’t follow her, don’t assault her. Let her be. She doesn’t owe you an explanation. Her “no” is enough and you will deal my friend. 

5. LISTEN. Bruh, when black women are telling you something you’re doing is harming them, can you put your ego aside and just L I S T E N. Why is that your first reaction is to get defensive? If you love black women like you say you do, wouldn’t you want to know when you’re doing something harmful to them? Stop getting defensive every time a black woman calls out your misogynoir. Stop brushing that off as “bashing black men.” Stop calling black women “shea butter bitches” for calling out how you harm black women. Black women are just asking for empathy at the end of the day. That’s the least you can do.

6. Stop slut-shaming. Stop shaming black women for their sexuality. Stop calling black women “thots” and all kinds of hoes because her sex life is something YOU disagree with or because she presents herself in a way that conflicts with YOUR standards. Someone’s sexuality has nothing to do with you and you don’t have the right to police what a woman does with her body. Stop reducing a black woman’s worth because you don’t like what she does with HER body.

7. Understand that our identity intersects. Stop telling black women they have to “pick a side.” Black women aren’t black men or white women’s “side kicks.” We are our own people with our own unique struggle that, yes, may have similarities to BM’s and WW’s struggles, but is not identical to theirs. We are black and we are women. You can’t be an ally to black women and not be intersectional when our existence is the epitome of intersectionality. Black women don’t just experience racial violence, we experience gender violence as well. Stop insisting that we have to divide our identity down the middle to suit you.

8. Say something when you see black women being attacked. When you see black women being harassed online and offline, do something. Ya’ll gotta start holding each other accountable. Stop @-ing me telling me how terrible it is that I’m being attacked. @ ole dude who’s attacking me. Tell them to stop. Have my back. Intervene in the best possible way you can. Stop allowing the violence against black women to persist right in front of your eyes.

9. Please kill the “strong black woman” narrative. Placing this title on us constantly, denies us humanity. Black women aren’t allowed to be vulnerable like everyone else. We’re constantly told be strong or we’re written off as only angry and bitter. We’re told how we’re suppose to feel and how to respond to violence against us. Black women are humans. We laugh, we cry, we smile. We can’t be your idea of “strong” all the time.

ATTENTION: Black women, if you’re in New York or the Chicago area, pls stay alert of this disgusting man. His twitter username is @butteryassvince

OR ‘PEAKED’

BUT PIQUED

‘PIQUED MY INTEREST’

YOU ARE NOT ‘PHASED’. YOU ARE ‘FAZED.’

IF IT HAS BEEN A VERY LONG DAY, YOU ARE ‘WEARY’. IF SOMEONE IS ACTING IN A WAY THAT MAKES YOU SUSPICIOUS, YOU ARE ‘WARY’.

ALL IN ‘DUE’ TIME, NOT ‘DO’ TIME

‘PER SE’ NOT ‘PER SAY’

BREATH - THE NOUN FORM

THEY ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE

WANDER - TO WALK ABOUT AIMLESSLY

WONDER - TO THINK OF IN A DREAMLIKE AND/OR WISTFUL MANNER

BALL- A FUCKING BALL

Call me when we see Western Asian people portrayed as anything other than terrorists.

Call me when we see East Asian women playing roles that aren’t Dragon Lady, China Doll and Tiger Mom speaking broken Engrish.

Call me when Asian men are romantic leads PERIOD.

Call me when Latin@ folks aren’t maids, gardeners, thugs or spicy Latin lovers.

Call me when we actually see Black women getting to show the fuck up in science fiction and fantasy as leads as BLACK WOMEN and not painted or cgi aliens.