The second plateau was easier than the first

Started 22 May 2024 · 22 replies · 275 hearts · read 5.5k times

MattNottingham, UK · 22 May 2024

2.2 years ago

A question rather than an update: The second plateau was easier than the first

I do not know if this belongs in this circle. Move me if not.

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.

NissaHaifa, IL

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

TorKeswick, UK

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

NazneenDhaka, BD

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

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK

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

Noticing out loud that this conversation has drifted into comparison. That happens without anyone intending it and it does not help anyone. Let us come back to the person who asked.

25me too 7

BrunoMilan, IT

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

11me too 6

TobinCork, IE

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

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

NikitaYerevan, AM

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

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

PersisBristol, 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.

ShadeIbadan, NG

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

PerrineStrasbourg, FR

#10

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

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.

15me too 1

PerduMontpellier, FR

#11

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

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.

MimiHong Kong

#12

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

BibiRabat, MA

#13

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.

PetuaKampala, UG

#14

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

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

12me too 1

NolCork, IE

#15

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.

NkosiJohannesburg, ZA

#16

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

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.

OsmanAnkara, TR

#17

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.

11me too 5

LinneaTurku, FI

#18

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

OmarAmman, JO

#19

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

12me too 8

OttilieCheshire, UK

#20

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?

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK

#21

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

I want to slow this down a little. There are four different answers flying about and they are all somebody's real experience, which makes them true and not necessarily relevant to the person who asked.

TamzinPoole, UK

#22

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.