My hairdresser noticed before I did

Started 15 November 2024 · 20 replies · 223 hearts · read 4.5k times

NyreeChristchurch, NZ · 15 November 2024

1.7 years ago

My hairdresser noticed before I did — putting it in its own thread so it does not get lost in the check-in.

Something is going on with my body and I would like to know whether it is ordinary.

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.

Here is where I am. The medication side has been more or less as described, and the part nobody prepared me for is everything around it: what to say to people, how to plan a week, and how to tell the difference between a thing to endure and a thing to raise.

I have read the guides here, which were more useful than anything else I have found, and I still have a question they do not cover.

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

CoralieMarseille, FR

I asked my nurse the same question and she said something I have repeated ever since: that the aim is to keep you on treatment, not to get you up the schedule.

GroverPortland, ME

Please do not read the comments under news articles about this. I lost a fortnight to that.

NyalaAddis Ababa, ET

I have been in this circle a year and this question comes round every few months. It is not a silly question. It is the question.

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK

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.

15me too 4

MarthaCork, IE

Mine lasted about seven weeks and then lifted over a few days. I cannot tell you why. I can tell you it lifted.

BlySheffield, UK

Yes. All of this. I had the same in my third month and I remember thinking there was something specifically wrong with me, which there was not.

OsmanAnkara, TR

I would take that to a clinician rather than to us, and I would do it this week. Not because it is definitely serious — because it is the sort of thing that is much easier to rule out than to worry about.

10me too 8

WinnieCarlisle, UK

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

Two things that helped me, neither of them clever: small amounts more often, and drinking a lot more than felt necessary.

MairéadMayo, IE

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.

12me too 9

IkeChicago, IL

#10

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.

PerrinNice, FR

#11

Different experience here, for balance. Mine did not improve and in the end I stopped, and that was the right call for me. Both outcomes exist.

FabianBasel, CH

#12

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

The phrase that unlocked my appointment was asking what specifically she wanted me to watch for. It moved us from reassurance to a plan in about thirty seconds.

WystanCheltenham, UK

#13

the reply above — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

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

AnnikaStockholm, SE

#14

I keep a two-line diary and it is the only reason I could answer this question about myself. Worth starting even now.

9me too 3

GudrunAkureyri, IS

#15

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?

EphraimBrooklyn, NY

#16

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

DillyNewport, UK

#17

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.

MargueriteQuebec City, CA

#18

Reading the reply above, I recognised more of that than I expected to.

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

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK

#19

the reply above — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

Two things, both boring. First, none of us can tell you what to take. Second, the conversation you want to have is with your prescriber, and we can help you write it down.

16me too 1

CoralieMarseille, FR

#20

Similar here, and mine turned out to be a completely unrelated deficiency picked up on bloods.