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The first step up knocked me flat for three days

Started 25 December 2025 · 16 replies · 117 hearts · read 2.6k times

NualaArmagh, NI · 25 December 2025
7 months ago

A question rather than an update: The first step up knocked me flat for three days

Long one, sorry. I have been chewing on this for a fortnight.

My prescriber has been fine, genuinely. The problem is that I get nine minutes twice a year and there is no version of nine minutes that covers this.

I have written down what has actually happened, in order, because I find that more useful than my summary of it.

What I keep tripping on is not the physical bit. It is the not knowing whether what I am experiencing is normal, and having nobody to ask who is not either selling something or frightened for me.

I will report back either way, because I have been helped by other people's follow-ups more than by their questions.

39

OllieCardiff, UK
#1

My pharmacist was more use than anyone. Ten minutes at the counter, no appointment, no charge.

7

IlyaAlmaty, KZ
#2

Can I gently push back on one thing? Not the substance, just the framing — you have written twice that you should be coping better. Who told you that?

6

EsiFacilitatorToronto, Canada
#3

If any of this has landed close to home for you while reading, our support resources page lists the kinds of services worth finding. No obligation and no drama.

14me too 5

BramleyBath, UK
#4

Gently disagreeing with the opening post, or rather adding the other half of it.

No advice, just recognition. That sounds exhausting and I am sorry you are in it.

8

KateBelfast, NI
#5

For what it is worth, the trial data on this is thinner than the confidence of the internet would suggest. Worth knowing when you read the posts.

6

SindriReykjavík, IS
#6

Gently disagreeing with the reply above, or rather adding the other half of it.

It got worse before it got better for me, which I wish someone had said. About ten days of worse.

9

NikoTbilisi, GE
#7

Yes to the burping. It is real, it is unbeautiful, and it does settle.

5

MargueriteQuebec City, CA
#8

I am about four months behind you and I have been dreading exactly this, so thank you for writing it down before I got there.

8me too 1

TavishIsle of Skye, UK
#9

Practical, boring answer: write the three questions down before you go in. I have never once remembered them otherwise.

3

Obi OEnugu, NG
#10

I did exactly the same and felt terrible about it. You have not done anything wrong.

7me too 9

OndineLausanne, CH
#11

Coming back to this a fortnight later to say it settled. Leaving the update because I hate reading threads that stop.

7me too 7

BlueStroud, UK
#12

I am the person who had the frightening version of this. I went in, it was investigated, and it was not what anyone feared. Going in is the whole of my advice.

8

StefanZurich, CH
#13

the reply above said something I want to sit with for a second.

Have you got anyone who can be with you when you do it? It made an enormous difference to me and I felt silly asking.

5

Ozzy GWalsall, UK
#14

The thing that changed it for me was going slower, agreed with my prescriber. I am not suggesting you do that. I am saying the conversation exists.

7

EsiFacilitatorToronto, Canada
#15

Thank you for writing this. I am not going to add information to it. I am going to say that what you have described is very common and very rarely said out loud.

8

OllieCardiff, UK
#16

What the reply above described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

My experience was very boring, which I offer as data. Some of us just get a dull time of it.

9