"We don't wear it on our sleeve": Sickle cell disease and the (in)visible body in parts.

This paper approaches the lived experiences of patients with a genetically inherited chronic disease, sickle cell disease (SCD), through the lens of (in)visibility. SCD has been referred to as an "invisible" disease for a variety of interrelated reasons, including the difficulty of objectively measuring its characteristic symptoms, the lack of popular or specialist attention, and its characterization as a "black" disease. By mobilizing "invisibility" as a way of probing the day-to-day reinforcements of marginality, this article delves into how structural forces are experienced, interpreted, and negotiated by individual actors. To this end, we present ethnographic data collected from November 2009 until November 2013 with SCD patients and healthcare workers in Chicago. These data emphasize that rendering (in)visible is not a totalizing act, but rather meaningfully breaks the body into differentially visible and ideology-laden parts. More broadly, this indicates the need to rigorously question sources and effects of authority in biomedicine

Feline Hyperesthesia Syndrome with self-trauma to the tail: retrospective study of 7 cases and proposal for integrated multidisciplinary diagnostic approach

This was a retrospective study on the clinical features and response to treatment in seven cats with feline hyperaesthesia syndrome (FHS) and tail mutilation. FHS is a poorly understood disorder characterised by skin rippling over the dorsal lumbar area, episodes of jumping and running, excessive vocalisation, and tail chasing and self-trauma. The majority of the cats were young, with a median age of 1 year at the onset of clinical signs, male (n = 6) and with access to the outdoors (n = 5). Multiple daily episodes of tail chasing and self-trauma were reported in five cats, with tail mutilation in four cats. Vocalisation during the episodes (n = 5) and rippling of lumbar skin (n = 5) were also reported. Haematology, serum biochemistry, Toxoplasma gondii and feline immunodeficiency virus/feline leukaemia virus serology, MRI scans of brain, spinal cord and cauda equina, cerebrospinal fluid analysis and electrodiagnostic tests did not reveal any clinically significant abnormalities. A definitive final diagnosis was not reached in any of the cats, but hypersensitivity dermatitis was suspected in two cases. A variety of medications was used alone or in combination, including gabapentin (n = 6), meloxicam (n = 4) antibiotics (n = 4), phenobarbital (n = 2), prednisolone (n = 2) and topiramate (n = 2); ciclosporin, clomipramine, fluoxetine, amitriptyline and tramadol were used in one cat each. Clinical improvement was achieved in six cases; in five cats complete remission of clinical signs was achieved with gabapentin alone (n = 2), a combination of gabapentin/ciclosporin/amitriptyline (n = 1), gabapentin/prednisolone/phenobarbital (n = 1) or gabapentin/topiramate/meloxicam (n = 1)