The month I could not pay and what happened

Started 25 February 2026 · 17 replies · 127 hearts · read 2.1k times

HettieLancaster, UK · 25 February 2026

5 months ago

Something I have been sitting with: The month I could not pay and what happened Not looking for advice so much as other people's experience.

Money post. No apologies, this circle is for it.

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.

The thing that has surprised me most is how much of this is about other people rather than about me.

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.

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

ZoëHackney, UK

What helped was lowering my own expectations of the week rather than trying to hold the week together.

9me too 4

PetraFacilitatorMelbourne, Australia

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.

KateBelfast, NI

Building on what the opening post wrote rather than answering the original question.

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.

GavinDundee, UK

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

NadirCasablanca, MA

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

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.

GwennoPwllheli, UK

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

7me too 9

MoBradford, UK

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.

OttoPrague, CZ

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

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

LlianCarmarthen, UK

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

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.

PeronelCanterbury, UK

#10

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

6me too 4

IlyaAlmaty, KZ

#11

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

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

HettieLancaster, UK

#12

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.

ZoëHackney, UK

#13

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.

7me too 7

SaffHastings, UK

#14

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

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

KateBelfast, NI

#15

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.

PetraFacilitatorMelbourne, Australia

#16

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.

NadirCasablanca, MA

#17

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

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.