Hiding the sharps bin because seeing it sets me off

Started 20 March 2025 · 23 replies · 234 hearts · read 4.1k times

Bryn MNeath, UK · 20 March 2025

1.3 years ago

Hiding the sharps bin because seeing it sets me off — putting it in its own thread so it does not get lost in the check-in.

Squeamish subject, so I am going to be plain about it and get it over with.

What I would find most useful is not advice. It is somebody describing what their version of this was, and how long it went on for.

I am aware some of this may be nothing. I would still like to know whether other people have had it, because I have spent a fortnight assuming I am the only one.

Anyway. Thank you for reading this far. Any experience gratefully received, and I promise to come back and say what happened.

DelythBala, UK

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

PerrineStrasbourg, FR

Reading the opening post, I recognised more of that than I expected to.

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.

12me too 7

EsiFacilitatorToronto, Canada

Gently: you have apologised three times in a post where you have done nothing that requires an apology.

HéloïseGeneva, CH

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

TavitaApia, WS

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.

WinkleWeymouth, UK

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.

IslaOban, UK

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.

9me too 5

BramwellRipon, UK

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.

BronLincoln, UK

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

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.

PietPretoria, ZA

#10

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

TaaviTallinn, EE

#11

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.

9me too 6

BassCoventry, UK

#12

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.

Ollie OPeterhead, UK

#13

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

Bryn MNeath, UK

#14

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.

DelythBala, UK

#15

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

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

PerrineStrasbourg, FR

#16

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.

6me too 2

BessLouth, UK

#17

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.

HéloïseGeneva, CH

#18

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

TavitaApia, WS

#19

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

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.

WinkleWeymouth, UK

#20

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

IslaOban, UK

#21

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

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?

9me too 6

EsiFacilitatorToronto, Canada

#22

I will leave this open for a few more days and then add it to the circle's resources, because the answers here are better than anything I would have written.

BronLincoln, UK

#23

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