My employer was better about this than I expected

Started 30 January 2025 · 24 replies · 245 hearts · read 3.3k times

HollisBath, UK · 30 January 2025

1.5 years ago

Something I have been sitting with: My employer was better about this than I expected Not looking for advice so much as other people's experience.

I have avoided asking about this for six weeks out of pure embarrassment.

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.

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.

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

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

PeggyRotherham, UK

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

KikiFacilitatorGlasgow, 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.

13me too 4

BrunoMilan, IT

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

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.

GethinMerthyr Tydfil, UK

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.

NettieBarrow, UK

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

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

SinéadCork, IE

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.

MarenBremen, DE

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

Ollie OPeterhead, UK

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

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?

NorahDerry, NI

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.

TobySwindon, UK

#10

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

RillaAberdeen, UK

#11

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.

TychoLeiden, NL

#12

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

6me too 2

TorinBelfast, NI

#13

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.

NikolaiSofia, BG

#14

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

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.

BassCoventry, UK

#15

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

12me too 7

SamPortland, OR

#16

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.

OssianTromsø, NO

#17

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

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.

RunaAarhus, DK

#18

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

OrrinGlasgow, UK

#19

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.

AshSunderland, UK

#20

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

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

NkemPort Harcourt, NG

#21

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

RufusGuildford, UK

#22

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

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

9me too 1

KikiFacilitatorGlasgow, UK

#23

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

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.

HuwWrexham, UK

#24

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.