Using methamphetamine and flonase

I just got the house under contract after searching for 4 months. House is 1450 sq ft, and inspector wants $420 for home inspection but just sent contract with all this exclusions.

When our characters suffer addiction we know little about we should look up these different things to add into the description of the traits to provide more depth and reality to them. It makes it more three dimensional and can build into different subplots that are integrated into a larger storyline.
Here are just a few of the things people are addicted to and how those addictions are manifested into traits that are part of a full character profile.

1. Alcohol:
   
   • Dependence
   • Craving
   • Tolerance
   • Withdrawal symptoms
   • Loss of control
2. Tobacco:
   
   • Nicotine dependence
   • Habitual use
   • Respiratory issues
   • Withdrawal symptoms
   • Health deterioration
3. Cocaine:
   
   • Intense euphoria
   • Increased energy
   • Agitation
   • Paranoia
   • Rapid heart rate
4. Heroin:
   
   • Euphoria
   • Drowsiness
   • Needle marks
   • Respiratory depression
   • Nausea
5. Marijuana:
   
   • Altered perception
   • Memory impairment
   • Lack of coordination
   • Dependence
   • Impaired judgment
6. Prescription opioids:
   
   • Pain relief
   • Sedation
   • Dependence
   • Tolerance
   • Respiratory depression
7. Benzodiazepines:
   
   • Anxiety relief
   • Sedation
   • Dependence
   • Withdrawal symptoms
   • Memory impairment
8. Methamphetamine:
   
   • Increased alertness
   • Euphoria
   • Agitation
   • Psychotic symptoms
   • Cardiovascular issues
9. Gambling:
   
   • Compulsive behavior
   • Financial losses
   • Obsessive thoughts
   • Relationship strain
   • Chasing losses
10. Video games:
    
    • Escapism
    • Social isolation
    • Obsessive gaming
    • Impaired daily functioning
    • Disrupted sleep
11. Social media:
    
    • Constant checking
    • Fear of missing out (FOMO)
    • Validation-seeking behavior
    • Time distortion
    • Negative impact on mental health
12. Internet:
    
    • Excessive online time
    • Cyber addiction
    • Social disconnection
    • Impact on real-life relationships
    • Compulsive browsing
13. Shopping:
    
    • Compulsive buying
    • Financial strain
    • Temporary emotional relief
    • Hoarding tendencies
    • Impaired financial decision-making
14. Work:
    
    • Workaholism
    • Neglect of personal life
    • Burnout
    • Constant need for achievement
    • Difficulty delegating tasks
15. Exercise:
    
    • Compulsive exercising
    • Exercise as a primary source of identity
    • Physical strain
    • Disregard for rest and recovery
    • Negative impact on mental health
16. Food:
    
    • Binge eating
    • Emotional eating
    • Loss of control
    • Negative body image
    • Compulsive overeating
17. Sugar:
    
    • Craving for sugary foods
    • Energy crashes
    • Weight gain
    • Increased risk of health issues
    • Difficulty moderating intake
18. Coffee:
    
    • Caffeine dependence
    • Increased tolerance
    • Physical withdrawal symptoms
    • Disrupted sleep
    • Jitters and restlessness
19. Tea:
    
    • Caffeine dependence
    • Ritualistic consumption
    • Calming effect
    • Impact on hydration
    • Withdrawal headaches
20. Energy drinks:
    
    • Excessive caffeine intake
    • High sugar content
    • Stimulant-induced alertness
    • Potential health risks
    • Dependency for energy boost
21. Sex:
    
    • Compulsive sexual behavior
    • Relationship strain
    • Risky sexual activities
    • Obsessive thoughts
    • Impact on daily functioning
22. Pornography:
    
    • Excessive consumption
    • Escapism
    • Distorted views of relationships
    • Impact on sexual health
    • Relationship strain
23. Prescription medications:
    
    • Dependence on medication
    • Over-reliance
    • Impact on physical health
    • Potential for misuse
    • Tolerance
24. Codeine:
    
    • Pain relief
    • Sedation
    • Dependence
    • Respiratory depression
    • Misuse potential
25. LSD:
    
    • Altered perception
    • Hallucinations
    • Distorted sense of time
    • Potential for psychological distress
    • Flashbacks
26. MDMA (Ecstasy):
    
    • Increased empathy
    • Euphoria
    • Dehydration
    • Hyperactivity
    • Potential for overheating
27. Ketamine:
    
    • Dissociation
    • Hallucinations
    • Impaired motor function
    • Dependence
    • Bladder and urinary issues
28. Inhalants:
    
    • Euphoria
    • Dizziness
    • Short-term hallucinations
    • Potential for brain and organ damage
    • Sudden sniffing death
29. Caffeine:
    
    • Stimulant effects
    • Dependence
    • Withdrawal headaches
    • Increased heart rate
    • Insomnia
30. Nicotine:
    
    • Stimulant effects
    • Dependence
    • Withdrawal symptoms
    • Increased heart rate
    • Respiratory issues
31. Sex:
    
    • Compulsive sexual behavior
    • Relationship strain
    • Risky sexual activities
    • Obsessive thoughts
    • Impact on daily functioning
32. Pornography:
    
    • Excessive consumption
    • Escapism
    • Distorted views of relationships
    • Impact on sexual health
    • Relationship strain
33. Prescription medications:
    
    • Dependence on medication
    • Over-reliance
    • Impact on physical health
    • Potential for misuse
    • Tolerance
34. Codeine:
    
    • Pain relief
    • Sedation
    • Dependence
    • Respiratory depression
    • Misuse potential
35. LSD:
    
    • Altered perception
    • Hallucinations
    • Distorted sense of time
    • Potential for psychological distress
    • Flashbacks
36. MDMA (Ecstasy):
    
    • Increased empathy
    • Euphoria
    • Dehydration
    • Hyperactivity
    • Potential for overheating
37. Ketamine:
    
    • Dissociation
    • Hallucinations
    • Impaired motor function
    • Dependence
    • Bladder and urinary issues
38. Inhalants:
    
    • Euphoria
    • Dizziness
    • Short-term hallucinations
    • Potential for brain and organ damage
    • Sudden sniffing death
39. Caffeine:
    
    • Stimulant effects
    • Dependence
    • Withdrawal headaches
    • Increased heart rate
    • Insomnia
40. Painkillers:
    
    • Pain relief
    • Tolerance
    • Dependence
    • Risk of overdose
    • Respiratory depression
41. Sleeping pills:
    
    • Sedation
    • Dependence
    • Tolerance
    • Impaired cognitive function
    • Disrupted sleep patterns
42. Compulsive lying:
    
    • Habitual dishonesty
    • Concealing the truth
    • Strained relationships
    • Loss of trust
    • Need for constant validation
43. Plastic surgery:
    
    • Body dysmorphic tendencies
    • Constant pursuit of perfection
    • Psychological impact
    • Financial strain
    • Societal pressure
44. Cutting/self-harm:
    
    • Coping mechanism
    • Emotional release
    • Negative emotions relief
    • Risk of infection
    • Concealing scars
45. Powecontrol:
    
    • Manipulative behavior
    • Desire for dominance
    • Strained relationships
    • Lack of empathy
    • Fear-based control
46. Fame:
    
    • Constant pursuit of recognition
    • Validation-seeking behavior
    • Impact on mental health
    • Shifting priorities
    • Loss of privacy
47. Attention:
    
    • Constant need for validation
    • Disregard for personal boundaries
    • Impact on relationships
    • Social media-centric behavior
    • Self-worth tied to attention
48. Sugar-sweetened beverages:
    
    • High sugar content
    • Increased calorie intake
    • Weight gain
    • Tooth decay
    • Dependency on sugary drinks
49. Fast food:
    
    • High-fat content
    • High calorie intake
    • Dependence on convenience
    • Weight gain
    • Negative impact on health
50. Selfies:
    
    • Constant need for self-documentation
    • Validation-seeking behavior
    • Impact on self-esteem
    • Comparison to others
    • Social media-centric behavior
51. Cosmetic procedures:
    
    • Desire for physical enhancement
    • Psychological impact
    • Financial strain
    • Body dysmorphic tendencies
    • Societal pressure
52. Hoarding:
    
    • Compulsive accumulation of possessions
    • Difficulty discarding items
    • Impaired living space
    • Emotional attachment to objects
    • Strained relationships
53. Overeating:
    
    • Binge eating episodes
    • Emotional eating
    • Loss of control
    • Negative impact on physical health
    • Guilt and shame
54. Prescription stimulants:
    
    • Increased alertness
    • Improved focus and concentration
    • Dependence
    • Tolerance
    • Potential for misuse
55. Over-the-counter drugs:
    
    • Self-medication
    • Potential for misuse
    • Dependency
    • Health risks
    • Lack of professional guidance
56. Romantic relationships:
    
    • Codependency
    • Obsessive thoughts
    • Fear of abandonment
    • Emotional highs and lows
    • Strained personal identity
57. Codependency:
    
    • Excessive reliance on others
    • Neglect of personal needs
    • Difficulty setting boundaries
    • Fear of rejection
    • Strained relationships
58. Social approval:
    
    • Constant need for validation
    • Fear of judgment
    • Impact on self-esteem
    • Conforming behavior
    • Social media-centric validation
59. Thrill-seeking:
    
    • Constant pursuit of excitement
    • Risk-taking behavior
    • Impaired judgment
    • Adrenaline dependence
    • Impact on personal safety
60. Narcotics:
    
    • Pain relief
    • Sedation
    • Dependence
    • Tolerance
    • Health risks
61. Designer drugs (e.g., bath salts):
    
    • Intense euphoria
    • Hallucinations
    • Agitation
    • Increased heart rate
    • Severe health risks
62. Over-the-counter cough medicine abuse:
    
    • Euphoria
    • Dizziness
    • Hallucinations
    • Impaired coordination
    • Health risks
63. Social media stalking:
    
    • Compulsive checking of profiles
    • Intrusive thoughts
    • Obsessive behavior
    • Impact on mental well-being
    • Strained personal relationships
64. Fear of missing out (FOMO):
    
    • Constant need to be involved
    • Anxiety about social events
    • Comparison to others
    • Impact on mental health
    • Social media-centric anxiety
65. Collecting:
    
    • Compulsive acquisition of items
    • Difficulty discarding possessions
    • Emotional attachment to collections
    • Strained living space
    • Financial strain
66. Fantasy sports addiction:
    
    • Excessive time spent on fantasy sports
    • Impact on work or relationships
    • Obsessive tracking of player stats
    • Financial investment
    • Escapism from reality
67. Conspiracy theories obsession:
    
    • Constant consumption of conspiracy content
    • Alienation from mainstream information
    • Impact on critical thinking
    • Strained relationships
    • Difficulty accepting evidence-based information
68. Extreme diets:
    
    • Obsessive focus on dieting
    • Impact on physical health
    • Emotional distress related to food
    • Social isolation due to dietary restrictions
    • Negative body image
69. Extreme couponing:
    
    • Compulsive pursuit of discounts
    • Hoarding of coupons
    • Excessive stockpiling of items
    • Impact on financial well-being
    • Strained living space
70. Internet trolling:
    
    • Habitual provocative online behavior
    • Seeking emotional reactions
    • Anonymity-driven aggression
    • Strained online communities
    • Legal consequences
71. Spiritual bypassing:
    
    • Avoidance of negative emotions through spirituality
    • Denial of personal challenges
    • Strained relationships
    • Lack of emotional authenticity
    • Disconnect from reality
72. Extreme minimalism:
    
    • Compulsive decluttering
    • Obsessive focus on possessions
    • Strained relationships due to minimalistic lifestyle
    • Anxiety about material belongings
    • Rigidity in lifestyle choices
73. Gaming loot box addiction:
    
    • Compulsive spending on in-game purchases
    • Chasing virtual rewards
    • Financial strain
    • Impact on real-life responsibilities
    • Gambling-like behavior
74. Rumination:
    
    • Constant overthinking
    • Obsessive focus on past mistakes
    • Impact on mental health
    • Difficulty moving forward
    • Strained relationships
75. Approval-seeking behavior:
    
    • Constant need for validation
    • Fear of rejection
    • Impact on decision-making
    • Strained authenticity
    • Mental health implications
76. News addiction:
    
    • Compulsive consumption of news
    • Anxiety related to current events
    • Impact on mental well-being
    • Difficulty disconnecting from news cycle
    • Strained worldview
77. Anger addiction:
    
    • Habitual anger expression
    • Seeking confrontation
    • Strained relationships
    • Negative impact on mental health
    • Legal consequences
78. Religious zealotry:
    
    • Extreme devotion to religious beliefs
    • Intolerance of other perspectives
    • Strained relationships with non-believers
    • Willingness to harm others in the name of faith
    • Resistance to critical thinking
79. Mindless scrolling:
    
    • Excessive time spent on scrolling through content
    • Impact on productivity
    • Impaired attention span
    • Social isolation
    • Disrupted sleep patterns

I just posted on the Migraine subreddit, and a helpful commenter mentioned about the possibility that my visual distortion that has worsened recently was caused by a histamine intolerance. This makes sense because I am allergic to a ridiculous amount of environmental triggers plus I have experienced brain fog intermittently for years, although still have to explore this further with my doctor.
I have tried Claritin and Flonase very intermittently before for allergies and both of them make me feel like I cannot think clearly and almost zombie-like--I call it feeling tired but wired because I have a hard time falling asleep and feel super energized even though I feel out of it. The effect dissipates the next day, it's been this way since 2020 around the time COVID lockdown started. I used to take Claritin when I was a kid daily and I didn't feel any different, it's only been in the past four years where I was having trouble. I have stopped taking either of those.
I can take Benadryl which is Gen 1 and (usually) tolerate it without getting additional brain fog although of course get very tired and doze off a bit. I only really take it when I am suffering a strong reaction because I heard it can damage the brain with long-term use and the exhaustion would mess with me being able to work.
Are there any Gen 2 allergy medications that can reduce histamine without the unpleasant side effects of the Claritin and Flonase?

A few days ago, I received a file from a journalist friend who teaches at a private university in Montevideo. I known this person for years now and the exchange with her on our countless bar nights basically made me want to try to study journalism. After I started my career we became even closer and we shared concerns about the evolution of information, social media and the infamous cerebral callosity we acquired to endure the tragedy.
My friend, let's call her Valeria, was part of a public competition to accompany a minor scientific expedition to the Uruguayan Antarctic base. Her thesis was about investigating how information reception behaves in remote and isolated areas.
I barely read it , but basically tries to show that information circulates and is received in a particular way in these circumstances by a group of unfamiliar people living under extreme climatic and isolation conditions, having as an example, life in submarines and in military bases in Siberia. The Antarctic base gave her the chance to observe some of her postulates up close.
Finally, she was chosen and traveled with this scientific group in a commercial flight Montevideo - Santiago de Chile to later arrive at Punta Arenas and fly to the Antarctic base.
The last communication I had with her before she sent me the almost 90 photographic captures of the Journal, was on March 15, 2024.
We talked over the phone about how the weather was in Montevideo, that it does not stop raining and the cars are practically floating on the streets. She told me that the transport that was going to take them back was having mechanical problems and they would probably have to order spare parts for the plane from Punta Arenas. Then She told me that it is freaking cold down there and his colleagues are all very boring. Nobody has whisky for the evenings. We laughed about that part because I told her to bring at least one bottle of Grappa in her purse.
Before saying goodbye, she told me they had spotted some old metal structures south of the base. The soldiers told her that it was safe to go near that part so she was going to explore them. It wasn't there when they first arrived and that the recent and atypical heat wave probably must have exposed it. I told her to be careful and we said goodbyes.
Three days later I received an email. “Valeria shared a file with you.” As I start to see what it was about she calls me.
“Mauro? MAURO!, can you hear me?” She said in a nervous and excited voice.
“I can barely hear you, what happened?”I asked half asleep, while still lying on my bed.
“Listen to me carefully, don't talk, just listen” I could tell by her agitation that she was walking fast or maybe running. The creaking footsteps in the snow could be heard in the background. in the distance, a catastrophe-type siren was blaring.
“Are you alright? What happened? What's that noise?” I said, now sitting on the edge of my bed.
“I sent you a file. Transfer it to a flash drive, delete history and reset your cell phone, the computer and your email address. I'll explain everything later, it'll be worth it.”
“What? What are you talking about Vale?, what for? Tell me what's going on - I started to yell at her, in slide panic.
“Listen, I found something that is not supposed to exist. In the diary he explains everything. I'm going back to the base, I think someone is following me, I set off an alarm or something. Save that file for me until I get there and remember that... “
There were two loud booms and the sound of water invading the transmission. A choked bubbling and cracking sound reminded me of ice collapsing. My friend had fallen into the water, in Antarctica.
“HEY, are you OK?! What happened?!” - I kept screaming hysterically until the call was cut off.
I looked at my cell phone for a second. My hands were shaking, I tried calling several times but the phone went dead. I looked at the compressed file. I jumped up and ran to the dining room furniture, frantically looking for a white flash drive that had to be in a drawer somewhere. I couldn't find it, so I went back to my desk. I pulled the drawer so hard that it came off the rail and fell to the floor. I started to dig through my belongings on the floor, coins, papers, cards, nothing.
I thought, I struggled to remember where I had fucking put it. Finally I saw my backpack peeking out from behind the desk chair, I jumped on it and in the second small pocket from the inside, there was a cheap white 16G flash drive. I put it in the pc, downloaded the file directly there, took it out and fabric restored the entire system on the computer. I do the same with my cell phone as Valeria said.
At the time I didn't even question if those measures really prevented me from being tracked, and the idea that that was the reason made panic run through my body like lightning. Sitting on the floor of my room next to the mess, my body was numb with tension. After a few seconds, I rebooted my cell phone to try to call Lucia, her sister.
“Hello?”
“Lucia, it's that you? I think something bad happened to Vale, I hear her over the phone as if she fell into the water, and some rumbling. I don't know what I heard, I think she got into some trouble or some place she shouldn't have been - I realized that I was mumble and not saying anything clear. For some reason, I didn't mention the file.
“It can't be Mauro, I just spoke to her on the phone. She was at the airport in Santiago de Chile at the boarding lounge, we talked for about half an hour, she told me she was bringing a fancy bourbon to share and…”
I stopped listening, it didn't make sense, how could it be? what the fuck is going on!
“Mauro, are you ok? Is something wrong? it's too early, are you sure you didn't dream it?”
“Did you talk to her? half an hour ago? But...,” I exclaimed without being able to hide my confusion.
“Are you... sure it was her?”
“Yes, of course you moron, it's my sister! Did you smoke pot again on an empty stomach?”
“No, you're right, nevermind, thanks Lucia, talk to you soon.” I ended the call without letting her say goodbye.
Had I dreamt about it? I erased everything now, how will I know if I dreamt it? I hesitated absurdly.
This is surreal, I thought to myself as I looked at the flash drive in my hand. I refocused my attention and went to the attic looking for my brother's old laptop he left me before going to live in Spain. It was practically useless, but it was enough to see the file. I turned it on, waited for the decrepit Windows XP to load, and put the flashdisk in, opened the compressed folder and found two files.
“LabNotes.pdf”
“PersonalDiary.pdf”
I decided to open the journal first. From what I interpreted from the loading order of the screenshots, after reading it, I opened the image of the last page.
I transcribe as is.
Day 243 of the 2nd mission 10: 40 am. March 12, 2019.
I am the head researcher of the Psychological Area at the UN Antarctic base; I'm currently assigned to Project Sisyphus categorized as the highest classified rank.
This is going to sound crazy, but the person living with my family is my clone.
It still surprises me when I say it out loud, but after being able to replicate the brain-muscular history (a perfect copy of our memory) of any person and having mastered replicating every cell of our bodies at any age, it was only a matter of time before the development of social biotechnology would emerge. Now and by worldwide agreement, as a complete secret.
There is absolutely no shame or a shred of ethics in what we do, there is no longer any constraint on what we can do to the subjects for the sake of research. That haunts me every day.
It all went to shit so fast, I doubt anyone will come to our rescue. The protocol says so, the base in the face of an imminent security risk will erase itself. The structure was designed to collapse methodically following a protocol of incineration and sinking. The immediate perimeter has underwater mines that make the ice collapse almost imperceptibly, but deadly to anyone who tries to leave.
No one can escape from the base, neither the research staff nor the subjects. Our place in the world is already taken.
I only hope that this journal along with my lab notes will be found at some point. I managed to construct a small insulating gasket for it so I trust it will survive in case this part of the building collapses as well.
Please use this data to let the world know what happened here and don't let perversity define us once again.
To my family: I love you and miss you every minute.
B.
At the exact moment I ended the reading I received a video call that made me jump with fright, it is...
Valeria.
With my pulse shaking, I answered the call.
“Hi you! The flight was delayed, can you believe it? This one is absolutely in my top three, worst trips of my life. I'm really hungry and everything is so expensive here. What are you up to? Tell me something, please, I'm soooo bored!”
I looked at her with confusion and I couldn't manage to pronounce words. When I was about to modulate an answer she interrupted me.
“What's the matter Mauro?, are you on pause? Is the signal OK? HELLO! Can you hear me? Can you see me?” She started to walk through the boarding lounge looking for better signal
“Yes yes, Valeria I can hear you.”
She laughed and looked at me with a face between sensual and serious, and continued.
“Do you miss me?” while raising the phone jokingly as she typically does in her selfie pose.
“Valeria, don't you remember calling me earlier today?”
“I? called you? Nop. Why? Ah! By the way, did you know there are penguins in Tierra del Fuego? I would have liked to go and see them.” She continued his verbose conversation in a carefree tone, with her typical hand gestures and playing with his hair.
“Well, at last!” She interrupted herself and shouted, jumping up from her chair.
“We are being called to board, see you in a couple hours!” She said goodbye with a smiling sonority, and began to walk towards the boarding gate.
But at the last second, before ending the call, her gesture changed. She looked directly at the camera with a hardened and emotionless face and almost mechanically, she whispered.
“(I'm going to retrieve that diary).”
My stomach dropped to the floor and I could feel as if my blood was running cold with fear. I could not shake the awful and eerie feeling that this person, who was returning, whom I had never in my life called by her full name, was not my friend.
So, the next couple of hours I put everything in to transcribe the rest of important passages of the diary. Something was compelling me to do it, i can't explain it, Some mix between moral duty, and morbid curiosity. Here is my selection of it.
Lab notes. day 96 of 1st mission 08:00 am December 22, 2016.
Subject JON X012:
First physical assessments: Normal, alert and inquisitive, exhibits some alteration to screens.
We place 100 cc of sedative in room air. The subject attentively follows the narrative of scenario B5 “The last mission”.
The subject responds positively to the premises of the story, where he is asked to address an audience threatened by a natural disaster, convincing them to choose a certain path out of the city.
He offers to collaborate but fails to articulate the message with the power to overcome the simulation.
We resort to pouring 125cc of concentrated Psilocybin into the air as stipulated in the protocol sheet.
The vocal frequency and body language reading receptors in the observation room are activated. The subject manages to formulate a series of premises articulately and with discursive power, circulating around the observation room.
Successful reaction.
We move on to the next stage.
Case is filed under the label “Jobs Project.”
Diary entry: Day 96 of the 1st mission 21:30 pm. December 22, 2016.
Today they transferred subject JON X0012 for psychological evaluation, several in the lab were very anxious about this arrival. I was never the religious type, but I can understand why. Truth be told,
I always imagined Jesus would be taller.
*********
Day 106 of the 1st mission 08:00 am January 02, 2017
Today we received a new lab assistant for the night shift. Much needed as I was covering these shifts myself and am really burned out. The underground operates at full power at those hours, the hum of the machinery becomes unbearable. This must be why the rooms have an insulating structure.
********
Day 112 of the 1st mission 19:00 pm January 08, 2017.
The new integration is not very bright. He labeled the transcripts wrong again yesterday and doesn't seem to fully understand the importance of these. I'm going to have to go through the whole method with him again. I don't have much patience lately, it's not his fault, he seems like a nice guy and it's real that I need a second of confidence. Better train him from now on. Maybe start a sketch of a short explanatory document.
*******
Small introductory guide.
When the subjects conclude the incubation and breeding process (pages 19 to 52 of the manual), that is to say, that they have at least remembered speech and with it, depending on the time in which they lived, reading and writing, they generally begin to perceive themselves. Just before situational curiosity is when the psychology department comes into action. Either to run the “stand by” simulation or the main tests.
In each subject's file is the target of their cloning, the era in which they lived, and the recommended scenarios to trigger the desired response. If the file has X amount on the cover, this corresponds to the generation of the subject, whether it is the first or 10th time it is incubated.
Generally, it takes between 2 and 5 attempts to generate the correct simulation, and administer the appropriate drugs.
It took 5 attempts to come up with the correct amount of methamphetamine that subject AH X005 (Hitler) needed to function in the scenario, as the correct amount bordered on overdose.
Simulations are much easier since the implementation of multisensor AI. We managed to generate almost any scenario including temperature, smells, lights and sounds. We tried not to use familiar ones, as human smells are impossible to replicate. We found this out in a complicated way. We tried to recreate a conversation between RR subject X003 (Reagan) and his mother, but he recognized the fakery by the absence of body odor. His mind collapsed and we had to move him to the Underground. The people in Area C (Private Clients) almost lost a very large Chinese account.
After calibrating the subject, we ran both psychological and behavioral tests, scanned retinas, analyzed blood, as well as vocal and body language. But what has really yielded surprising results are the free interviews. It is amazing what some minds are capable of with the right environmental and chemical stimulation. That's why transcription is vital (!!)
Our area develops BC (Behavioral Algorithms) which are then bought by the private sector, and some government agencies.
To give you some examples: Twitter was an idea of subject JO X008 (Orwell).
Bots in social media and the use of big data was an idea of JG X002 (Goebbels) and KM X014`s worst nightmare (Marx) was bought by Amazon.
It is an arduous process and the success rate is low, but when we achieve the goal per subject, well, these results are a mein part of the latest revolutions of mankind.
So follow the lab rules, never refer to subjects by their actual historical name, and always remember, they are assets, not people.
***********
Day 117 of the 1st mission 16:30 am January 12, 2017.
Today is a rest day all over area D. I miss many things from the old world that I thought I would never miss, taking a bus, standing in line with strangers, and today I miss Sundays. We only have one on the month. So as usual we gather in the rest area to listen to a liberated jukebox that tries to lighten the mood. I know, right? Why I wrote about this “Saturday” photocopy, well besides the same nostalgic drunks, I was approached by a person I didn't recognize.
From what I understood he was a rehabilitated alcoholic, maybe that's why I didn't see him on “Saturdays”. He must be in his 50's, he was portly and wore thick black-rimmed glasses, he seemed to have a slight limp, I noticed it when he went to refill my beer.
I am a very reserved person and find it hard to talk to people. Truth be told, I've lost the desire to talk to people here. What can you actualy fucking talk about here, if it's not about the same thing. Everything revolves around work and some inter-area gossip, which never escalates much.
But yesterday was Clara's birthday and to hide the remorse and sadness of only having shared with her the first 3 years of her life, I had a few too many beers.
We chatted about banal aspects of life in isolation, and the things we miss. For him it was going to the stadium to watch soccer with his grandchildren. I think it was loneliness and nostalgia that brought us together that night.
His name was Sigfried, I don't know if I spelled it right, but it was clearly Nordic, i notice because of some of the words he mixed up with English. He works as the underground level security manager. We all know that it is one of the most restricted areas and what we have learned in these almost 10 years in the project, is that the more restricted, the less questions you should ask.
But that day, I think I felt the urge to hurt myself, to go off the rails, so I asked what we all suspected but no one knew for sure. I asked about the blenders. I wish I hadn't.
************
Day 126 of the 1st mission 08:00 am January 21, 2017.
I almost can't express how furious I am today, but I'm going to try because if I don't, I'm going to punch the new assistant in the face. He has nothing to do with this, he's just mildly irritating.
Anyway, in Genetic Mapping or area A, they approved the incubation of another Anomaly. It seems to be an express request from a major shareholder and there is not much to say. Anomalies are very risky to reproduce, nature is wise, and for some reason it placed them in history moments where they had their limitations.
It seems that after the crisis of 2010 with “The Russian Devil” it is no longer scary enough. New school morons... If they had been there they wouldn't even dare to think about it. I AM FURIOUS.
The arguments are that this case lived longer, that the clone would be in his 70s, and that he possessed noticeably more “civilized” traits. As if the court of the last Zar had not been somewhat civilized.
Personally I think this is a big mistake. Since the discovery that some people possess unknown DNA components and with the 2010 background, they should draw the line. There are certain things, still beyond our ability to understand. But it is delusional of me to think that there are limits, someday the absence of them will consume us all.
************
Lab notes day 142 of 1st mission 08:00 am February 06, 2017.
Final free interview with JON subject X012
Scenario B-24 or “The Dinner Party” Result: Normal.
Notes: Subject is grateful, positive, docile and hopeful for the future. Offers to cook next time by asking for spices and ingredients of typical Hindu dishes.
The subject is directed to the Underground area.
Attached audio for transcription.
Case is filed under the label “Jobs Project”.
**********
Day 142 of the 1st mission 21:00 pm February 06, 2017.
Today was the last session with subject JON X012, I managed to extract the last retinal and body language readings, as usual before sending them to Underground level. We ran the dinner scenario, the truth is that is one of the best simulations we have achieved. The subjects are relaxed resulting in the best free interview environment. This one was no exception, I must say I understand the charm of the “messiah” turned out to be quite an entertaining subject. I hope his next generation will be similar.
**********
Day 152 of the 1st mission 19:00 pm February 16, 2017.
I was tasked with the continuous monitoring of subject NT X004. I am not at all happy with this transfer. First of all, I know nothing about area B of engineering and technology. Secondly, I still think this is a really bad idea.
One of the laboratories has been set up with the essential simulation equipment and personnel. Tomorrow we start with the calibration.
**********
Lab notes day 153 of the 1st mission 08:00 am February 17, 2017.
First interview with subject NT X004, we run simulation scenario 54-A, “Signal from another planet.”
Subject is observed to be receptive at first but quickly changes to paranoid. We administer 300cc of MDMA via air, according to protocol.
We introduce the reconstructed figure of a colleague in a cry for help speech.
The Subject laughs and doesn't believe a word, we move to a physical approach plane,
I volunteer myself with a room operator from the engineering area, we show him unfinished plans of an experimental vacuum propulsion engine.
He laughs again and tells us that we are not who we say we are.
We administer 50cc of DMT and move on to the next scenario.
From the screen an astronaut with non-human features sends a distress signal and intergalactic coordinates.
The subject looks thoughtful, reassesses, picks up the blueprints and begins to shout out values and what appears to be mathematical and physical formulas.
Air is charged with percentages of absolute sedation.
Audio recording is attached.
It is filed under the name “Project SpaceX.”
**********
Day 153 of the 1st mission 21:00 pm February 17, 2017.
I'm not sure what happened today, this is the first time in 10 years that a subject overcame the deception of 3 simulations. We had to place absolute sedation in the air, as risky as we know it is. I recommended that we restart the process from scratch, but it was a resounding no, the client is in a hurry.
I need to get more involved in this case to recalibrate the subject. I don't know if I want to. The words before full sedation still resonate with me. “are you still using DC current? interesting...”
**********
Day 154 of the 1st mission 21:00 pm February 18, 2017.
Something happened, I don't quite know what. The rooms have an emergency lockdown active. Outside hear security personnel mobilizing. I tried the intercom but it didn't work. The insulation prevents my screams from being heard from the outside. If this goes on another day I'm going to break the lock. I'm going to set my backpack to the bare minimum.
**********
Day 157 of the 1st mission 21:00 pm February 21, 2017.
Yesterday I heard explosions in the B area. I couldn't take it anymore and broke the lock. Whatever it was I had to go out and see. The corridors were dark, and the underground buzzer went on, at least that worked.
I went right to the north staircase, down the 4 floors in near darkness, the power was failing. The entrance to the underground area was barricaded but I managed to see a figure peeking out from inside as they felt me making noises.
It was Sigfried, he pointed me in the doors direction and I entered through a heavily armored side door. I was surprised by the immensity of this section, it encompassed a large hall below almost all the sectors of the base. In front of us there were 4 large industrial pipes with switches and multiple smaller pipes coming out of their bases. These were repeated like mosaics throughout the area until they disappeared into the distance in the darkness.
Leaning against one of them were 3 officers in formerly white coats and a nearly dead guard bloodied on the floor. Poor guy, his legs were crushed with his flesh in the open. He was lying in a pool of his own blood.
He had a blank stare and was panting, it seemed from the pale of his skin, that his fate was imminent. My asthma began to pound in my chest sharply, so I reached into my bag looking for my inhaler. I told them between visible gasps of bad breath to please tell me what's happened.
One of the doctors had a badge from area B and another from area E which corresponds to bio-armamentistics. The latter burst into tears and said “We deserve it, every one of us, we deserve it”.
I knew the other guy, he is an engineer in area B. I could hear him babbling almost nonsensically about, as why they never thought about it, an issue with electrical power.
He looked at me carefully as if recognizing me and grabbed me tightly by my jacket pulling me close to his face transformed for the panic.
“He let them out, all of them!” but not only that, no no no no... he told them the truth. Nikola fucking Tesla hacked us and told them the truth.”
He began to laugh frantically with a face of absurdity until he burst into a choked cry. At that moment everything went dark. The emergency lights activated, and from far away and getting closer, along with the emergency sirens that began to sound, we heard a large mass of people screaming and running through the corridors outside.
Sigfried looked at me as they started to pound on the shielded door and said.
“We're fucked.”
**************
Day xx of the second mission, month xx of 2017
“()The industrial sounds of spinning blades, the cries for mercy followed by the thunderous, liquid crack, down that big pipe, into the green barrels, with the Monsanto logo, dripped down one side an elongated drop of pink paste ending in the letter E on the chemical label. FERTILIZER.”
**********
After finishing the transcription, my whole body began to want to flee, the walls of my house were tinged with a faint blue light as the cloudy dusk came through the window, the lights turned off by my abstraction at the computer gave way to the dark corridors that began to feel alien. As I gently closed the pc my ears began to ring as if under pressure, my breathing became more present and the vibration of my cell phone interrupted my trance.
A call from the office. It was to tell me that I had a vacation week pending, that by schedule, I had to take it starting today.
Sons of bitches, now they even choose your time off - I thought at first, but at the same time I found the voice on the phone very strange, and to tell the truth, the procedure itself.
The anger turned into confusion that only added to the paranoia. The sounds in the street began to seem erratic, a chaotic and strangely familiar feeling came over me. My senses seemed increasingly acute, and they screamed:
Go away.
I grabbed the old laptop, the flash drive and headed for the bus station. The short trip from my house seemed like a long journey. People on the street looked at me with strange faces, the cell phone kept ringing with unknown numbers on the screen and a strange idea began to formulate in my head that whispered “Them, Valeria is one of Them”.
Already on the platforms I rummaged through my backpack where I confirmed that I had the key to the family beach house in San Luis, 60 km to the east of Montevideo. I turned off my cell phone, got on a bus heading to another and much far away town called Treinta y Tres. Sat near the last seat and slipped my cell phone in my front pocket of the seat in front of me, got off and commented to the driver with a clueless face, “I got confused, I'm going to the coast”.
I almost jumped onto the steps of the correct bus to where I was heading, unable to avoid the gazes of the passengers questioning me for the last minute drop in. I sat in my numbered seat and defragmented in dissociation, trying to understand what I was doing, I was running away, but from what?
The images of the last transcriptions were engraved in my mind, the last paragraph was repeated over and over again making me shake my head from time to time trying to get them away from my thoughts. The road was dark and I lost track of time, the digital clock within sight of the passengers jingling since we left, reading 10:40.
“San Luis Station!” - I heard the guard's shout in low volume.
I staggered to my feet, hurried to get off and with the same impulse I entered the dirt roads.
I zig-zagged through the dark, cold and silent beach town. The moonless night and the smell of the sea calmed me.
When I turned the corner to the gabled beach house of my family, on the steps of the front door lit by a white light, was her. Sitting, waiting for me. I stopped dead in my tracks and a chilling vertigo ran down my torso to my throat. We looked at each other for a short two seconds, until she stopped and started walking in sliding steps towards me, smiling and playing with her hands, crossing and uncrossing her arms. The growing sound of the wind through the trees covered us.
“Darling, how are you? How nice is the summer house, I don't think we ever came here, did we? Is it the one your grandmother left you?”
I felt the adrenaline rushing through my bloodstream, how could such a familiar attitude from such a familiar person transmit such panic to me? I had to answer something.
“Yes, this is it. I came to clear my head for a while, they gave me a few days at work and I wanted to take advantage of it.” I tried to excuse myself with failed dissimulation, since I stuttered in the middle of the words.
“Yes, I know! We arranged it with them, so you can be more relaxed and as a gesture for taking care of the file. Ah! and another thing. I think someone stole your cell phone at the bus station.” She looked at me with a smart-ass smile.
“Anyway, don't worry, they already found it on a bus on the way to “Treinta y tres”. You can get it back later.”
At this point I opened my mouth to ask for explanations, but as terrified as I was I only mumbled a “thank you”.
All this dialogue let us half a body length away, Valeria looked at me now a little more serious and stood at my side. She took my arm petrified and I could feel how a strong smell of neutral soap invaded me, as if she had rubbed herself in it too much.
“Shall we go inside? it's getting cold,” She said, finishing the sentence with a sweet gesture of pleading.
“Emm, shure.” I said.
My trembling hands managed to hit the lock on the 3rd attempt, we entered, turned on the lights and from his backpack she took out a red wine. Our favorite.
“Bring me some glasses, Mauro”. - She said to me as she sat down on the armchair against the window overlooking the gentle hills outside.
She poured wine until he almost filled the ex-cottage cheese glass, looked at me and in a toast gesture said.
“To... Dr. B?”
I slid a little smile and raised my eyebrows. Then I took half a glass in one sip.
“Well!” - She exclaimed, leaning over and resting the glass on the coffee table, and continued.
"You must be very confused, I understand, I saw it many times, the mind trying to adapt to a new, unsuspected reality and in your case all at once. It is not easy. First, make sure that no one is going to hurt you or anyone you know, second, what you read in that file, as you may have noticed, is not intended for public knowledge. Also to tell you”. I couldn't take the stress anymore, I exploded.
“You're not Vale. Who are you?! You're almost identical, but....”
“Ah yes, that one it's a tricky one to explain. Let's try, let's see:
“I'm a version of Valeria that she accidentally gendered when entered the lab. In one of the incubation rooms she touched a scan button that photographs her mind for 48 hours. It contains a micro needle that took her blood and thus generated me.”
“The thing is that we were in a situation of self-destruction of the systems, and that part of the programming code of the protocol was also copied in Valeria's mind.”
“And Valeria? She 's... dead?”
“Well, yes and no. If she tried to leave the base she's probably dead. if she's still there, she's probably frozen to death or killed by the cleanup command, but basically, if I'm here, she's not anymore.”
the coldness with which she answered me made me lose the little calm I had, I got up from the armchair and started to back away with my hands on my head, I couldn't stop repeating,
“this can't be happening, this can't be happening”.
“Hey! Mauro, calm down, it's going to be alright. I'm Valeria too. In every way, I'm still your friend, I know who you are and everything we went through, really, it's me, and when I finish managing the leak, the code, it won't work anymore, it will be erased from my mind and I'll be me. So don't worry. You only have to give me the flash disc and this issue ends here. We go back to normal life and nobody will know about anything.
“I'm not going to pretend that my friend didn't die! Alone, fucking freezing to death, I'm not going to let you take her place, I'm not going to let you!” - She interrupted me.
“Mauro, listen to me” - She came closer to me and grabbed my hands, her big, lined eyes looking at me with sweetness, like so many times before.
“I AM Valeria, I have the same fingerprints, the same blood, the same DNA, the same memories, the same scars, absolutely everything. Are you going to tell my mother that I died? to my sister? Are you going to report me? Nobody is going to believe you at all. If anyone even wants to believe you, how would you prove it? I am an exact copy”. - she told me, smiling with real sweetness and empathy.
I could only cry, for my friend, for the helplessness of the conclusion that she was right. I collapsed on the couch, and watched as the hills swayed in the night.
“Let's have the last glass and I'm leaving.”- she said to me.
“After I give you this, and that part of you disappears, will you remember that you are not... really Valeria?
“No, there is already a simulation on pause about Valeria's last week, she won't remember anything about this situation when she wakes up, because the memory is simply overwritten.”
“So I'm going to be the only one to know about this?”
“Take it as a gift Mauro, a glimpse behind the veil. And if you keep it that way, everything will be fine” - The threatening tone was soft but evident.
“Okay, hand me your PC and the flash drive.”
I looked at her evaluating all possible actions and if this decision was the right one, she stretched out her hand and smiled sympathetically. I gave her the old computer and the black 16G flash drive with the file. She inserted it, typed mechanically fast until the screen went black.
“Perfect, That would be all - She took out the flash drive, threw it on the floor and stepped on it violently with the heel of her shoe, put on his backpack and headed for the door.
“Stop,” I said.
“The things that Dr. B wrote... about the underground…
“Yes, they are true, it was the only way to be self-sustainable and to be able to isolate the complex from the rest of the world. Even the most morally flexible scientists would question the work if they knew where the subjects ended up, and what we were doing with their bodies... Anyway, I'm going home, Lucia called me 5 times already. Talk to you tomorrow.
“Love you,.” - She smiled at me and closed the door behind her. I felt a car slowly drive away from the house.
From my pocket I took out the white flash drive and looked at it. Now I had a decision to make.

When there’s lots of pollen or a fluctuation in the weatheair pressure, I tend to get severe sinus headaches in the middle of my head that takes me out for the rest of the day. I currently take nettles, quercetin, vitamin c (in daily multivitamin) to prevent sinus infections (which has helped thus far) and use Flonase daily. Anything else I can incorporate to PREVENT the sinus headache? I also take magnesium glycinate at night as well just an FYI. I’ve tried turmeric as I know it’s used to inflammation with no luck. Any suggestions would be so helpful! :)

[recording begin]
The video quality is shoddy at best due to the encryption but you can make out a dimly lit warehouse filled with workers wearing unmarked grey jumpsuits, in the centre there is a table where a very bald man appears to be directing the operations. Everything is business as usual for the first few minutes and you wonder why you even bothered with this, when red dots start appearing on the chests of each of the workers and panic starts to break out.
Leader - "All of you drop your weapons."
Worker - "But sir-"
Leader - "No buts, these are commando droids, if they wanted us dead we'd already be corpses"
A woman walks in through the main entrance, heels clacking against the dirty concrete floor, the Trion logo can barely be made out on her outfit.
Woman - "Bravo mister Hartwell, bravo. Gentlemen, applause"
numerous sets of eyes light up, what you can safely assume are the commando droids and a stock applause audio plays.
Hartwell - "you know my name."
Woman - "Walter Hartwell, more commonly known in the criminal world as Nagayoshi, you have a very impressive resume my good sir. One of the last graduates of Mayasura before the planet's fall, you wanted to start a pharmaceutical company to develop a treatment for your ailing daughter. During your time you discovered a number of compounds which could be used as narcotics, everything from by-products to alternate optical isomers. When the fall happened your daughter was killed and your company bankrupted, to keep yourself afloat you sold these narcotics and made a major profit. Once Mayasura was reconnected to the galaxy you used you contacts to establish a small drug empire."
Walter - "As much as I appreciate the intimidation tactics I don't see how this i-"
Woman - "I'm.Not.Finished. Your narcotics business became one of the most succsesfull in recorded history for a brief few weeks, even today of the ten most popular narcotics five were invented by you. Of course, your ego grew too large. You betrayed your associates in the hope of clawing your way to the top, instead you have been reduced to a man hiding on a backwater mining colony, believed to be cursed by Miss Fortune herself."
Walter - "What do you want?"
Woman - "Me, oh I want nothing more than to be payed by the anonymous benefactor who told me to come here, what matters is what you want. Despite having the highest quality product your competitors are able to outsell you through superior connections and better reputation. We are offering you the opportunity to take your rightfull place at the top of the drug world."
Walter - "And how does Trion benefit from this?"
Woman - "Oh, you misunderstand. None of this is officially connected to Trion in any way. All of the company assets I'm offerring you as well as the individual who instructed me to perform this task are completely anomymous and have no official connection to the company."
Walter - "Official connection."
Woman - "Semantics. The point is my employer wants to get their... foot in the door within the criminal underworld. In return you will have access to equipment and connections far beyond anything your competitors have. You will also be granted an official position within Trion R&D as an experimental medicine developer."
Walter - "You said so yourself, my ego grew too large, how do you know I won't betray you."
Woman - "Because, my dearest Nagayoshi, you're smart enough not to repeat the same mistakes and you're smart enough to realise that betraying my employers is not a decision you will survive. This is a great opportunity and the company rewards those who prove themselves valuable assets."
Walter - "I think, this is a good deal. Would you mind telling me your name?"
Woman - "Oh, my name doesn't matter, I am just another faceless middle manager. My employers will appreciate your decision, as well as Trion when the money from our little enterprise inevitable ends up back in their pockets"
[recording end]
/uf context for the post:
Nagai Nagayoshi was a japanese scientist and the first person to synthesise methamphetamines in 1893.
Optical isomerism is what happens when a molecule has the same formula but an opposite arrangement in space. This can greatly alter the effects of the chemical such as during the thalidomide controversy in the 1960s where one isomer was completely harmless in appropriate doses and used as a common treatment during pregnancy and the other caused harmfull mutations in foetuses.

I’ve been addicted to oxymetazoline for probably 4ish months now…. Honestly I knew right from the start that this stuff was addictive…. Perhaps not aware of the full extent of HOW addictive it is… but my boyfriend got it for me when I was sick… I used it for just 3 days like it says on the packaging when I was sick at first…. But my god… it felt so good… I could finally breathe not only all day when I was sick but ALL NIGHT I could breath through my nose. 😍
I have always been a mouth breather while I sleep… cuz I’m too congested to breath through my nose at night, and mouth breathing is embarrassing, and uncomfortable, and bad for you… plus I get extremely bad allergies in the spring and summer, and on and off throughout winter and fall too, and I have no idea what I’m allergic to. I’m sure some of it is pollen considering how much worse they are in the warmer months. I don’t have a family doctor, and there are no walk in clinics, or ENT doctors in this small town where I live. I would have to go to the damn emergency room and be like “lol I’m chronically congested can you help 🤪” I’m moving soon so hopefully I can go to a ENT soon enough and get my chronic congestion figured out but in the meantime I guess I want to quit this stuff…
Anyways when I first tried it when I was sick I actually stopped no problem cuz I used it for only 3 days… for a couple weeks after that, at night while I tried to sleep with my blocked up nose… I couldn’t stop thinking about the stuff… 😅 it sounds dramatic but god that relief was like nothing else, so I looked up the side affects besides the dependency/rebound congestion… and I couldn’t find any! 😁 so I figured… if I just never stop taking it I’ll be fine! And consciously made the decision to get addicted to the stuff! 😅
But it feels dirty not being able to live without a substance, and I knew there’s gotta be some other side affects I just didn’t know what they were…. And my boyfriend is worried about my addiction lmao…. So I got Flonase. It was suggested to me by my boyfriend’s mom who is a nurse, and I found a study that said it helps with the rebound congestion and tolerance…. So I tried it and it did not help with the rebound congestion… but it did help with the tolerance so I just started using both 🙃 haha. And I’ve been using bother for maybe 2 or 3 weeks now.
But I still want to quit… so this morning I’ve been scrolling through this subreddit… and I’ve learnt a lot. I now know the actual concerning side effect of using this stuff long term is (I forget exactly what they called it but) basically that once you finally stop using it after years of use, you could have done permanent damage and made your congestion permanently worse and need surgery? It’s like permanently enlarged something or other? And I already suspect I have a deviated septum and will have to get surgery for that, and don’t really want to add more permanent problems on top of that so now I want to quit even more, before I cause my chronic congestion to be worse when I stop. I’m hoping stopping now will prevent that, I have seen people on here have been using for 15+ years so I think I’m catching it early? I don’t know…
I’ve also learnt about all these ways to help with the quitting process on here. Which is great, because like a lot of the people who’s posts I’ve read on here, the rebound congestion gives me a LOT of anxiety, I HATE the feeling of not being able to breath through my nose… it makes me irritable, and frustrates me to the point of just having a mental breakdown, and knowing it could all go away with just a couple sprays… I have not had the balls to stop and face the rebound congestion…. I am looking for ANY way I can to be able to relieve the rebound congestion when I quit….
Some of the things people are suggesting are the Rhinostat kit, a Neti pot, Flonase, sutafed tablets, the vicks inhaler stick, breath right strips, and SinuOrega natural nasal spray. My plan is to get EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE, and use ALL of them. As a desperate attempt to not have rebound congestion 😭 But I’m wondering if anyone has any more suggestions/advice, or if anyone knows whether all of these things are okay to use together? /how to use them together? Specifically the sutafed and the Rhinostat kit… because I know you still have to wean yourself off of the sutafed as well… if I use both I worry that the sutafed will make the rhinostat pointless or vice versa because I’m already using the rhinostat to wean off of oxymetazoline and then also just getting addicted to another thing?? I don’t know.
Any advice, tips, or even just encouragement, and moral support would be greatly appreciated 🙂 I’m scared guys. 😭

This is the worst allergy season ever recorded. And next year will be wore. More rain, warmer temps, and exposing plants to more CO2 makes more pollen.
Here is what has helped me with my sinus issues:
-always using distilled water in humidifier on my BiPAP
-two hepa filters in my apt
-hot showers
-neti pot
-Flonase daily
-when it got bad, got a script for oral steroids for 5 days from urgent care
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/04/health/pollen-allergies-getting-worse?cid=ios_app

This is the worst allergy season ever recorded according to the internerts. extra rain, warmer temps, and more CO2 makes more pollen.
Here is what has helped me with my sinus issues:

• always using distilled water in humidifier on my BiPAP
• two hepa filters in my apt
• hot showers
• neti pot
• Flonase daily
• when it got bad, got a script for oral steroids for 5 days from urgent care

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/04/health/pollen-allergies-getting-worse?cid=ios_app

I’m brand new to this sub and was elated to see that it was actually available. I’m a recovering meth addict and have been free from it for almost a year now. Admittedly I’m not 100% sober but I’m still so unbelievably happy to be free from the shackles of death. I’ll keep this short (which I can actually do now since I’m not spun!) and put myself out there to see if anyone wants to identify with me and maybe chat. 4 years straight of smoking ice every single day and without missing one days use. I maxed out my record of days without sleep at 37 in a row, and I’m not bragging or proud of that being that it was the sole cause of my mental illness dealing with psychosis. Even after the last year I’m struggling with the issue and after tests were performed on my brain there was identifiable signs of damage and I was told I would be lucky if it repaired itself entirely. Essentially I played with fire… and I got burned. I’m struggling with several lingering issues, the most disturbing is when I lose consciousness and experience what I call “losing the time “ and randomly regain it sometimes days later and can’t account for the time that has passed. It’s almost like blacking out from alcohol use and not remembering anything that next day, only I typically lose much more time than someone who ties one on for the night. I’ll give you an example…
(This one still affects me and I need to get help)
I came back into consciousness lying completely naked on my bedroom floor, shivering and shaking, all the while screaming out the name of my best friend. It was kind of like the Terminator movies where the resistance captures a T-101 cyborg and wipes the entire memory bank and reprograms it to aid them. Well as soon as I came out of it the only bit of information stored in my brain was that I knew my first name only. I then identified the source of my shivers as my window was wide open and it was pouring rain outside and entering the room (it was winter time also). Every piece of furniture was haphazardly kicked around the room. The next bit of memory I could identify was where the story gets appalling…. The next memory I accessed was the execution of murdering my best friend along with his wife. While I obviously did not really perform the task, the memory implanted in my brain was completely viable and genuine, all bundled with visual evidence that I could see and process the emotions tied to the event. This is only one tragedy filled with damaging emotions both visually and audibly and are still accessible now and then when I sleep or lose the time again. During the four years I used methamphetamine I lived in active psychosis and simply learned to live with it, and I let the unacceptable become acceptable all the while destroying my moral compass in life. I most certainly don’t have any “normal “ friends or family that I can share this with. My entire family dropped me on my ass when I needed them most and we haven’t spoken for several years. I do have a childhood friend who happens to be a green beret who served 4 tours and quite obviously saw “some shit”. I felt bad about bringing it up to him since he physically experienced death and mayhem but he was very understanding and entertained a chat with me. It ended up taking me about 45 minutes to figure out that I was in my own bedroom which was comforting in small doses but the memory remains and I would like to hear from anyone that might have experienced something similar or could relate. Thanks guys

Okay so I typically camp monthly with the scouts. In a tent. I didn't go in April because I was getting used to my new CPAP.
I practiced at home with my (AirSense 10) CPAP and plugged it into my battery pack, turned off the heated hose and humidifier. Slept all night, woke up great, my throat was a little dry without the humidifier but it was fine. Battery pack worked!
Last night was my first trial run camping with my CPAP. I packed it up and got in my tent and plugged it into my battery pack before bed. Except it was extra hard to breathe in my tent for some reason. I got my (full face) mask on and machine on and I was able to breathe through my mouth but it was a struggle through my nose. Usually I just breathe through my nose with my CPAP.
Anyway, my sleep was... not great. I mean, it was way better than before CPAP. But not as good as home with CPAP. My sinuses were clogging, my nose kept feeling like it was gonna be running. I took claritin yesterday and used flonase... but man it was just harder to breathe even with my mask. :( Maybe it was just a fluke because pollen counts are so high?
I'm signed up to attend summer camp which will be 7 nights in a row in a tent in a rustic campground. I have a place I can charge my battery pack each day for use each night so that's figured out. I just hope I'm able to breathe better through my mask. And I really wanted to kinda clean it out because my nose ran a little and that was gross... but we don't really have great facilities for cleaning CPAP stuff at camp. We have a latrine at the campsite, only running water is a rusty well. Any tips for me from people who have had more experience camping with CPAP?

I've never had an allergic reaction this bad before but it really started up this year. I'm quite allergic to ragweed and dandelions and oh god there are so many dandelions. I can't avoid going out as I have a very active dog but my nose is constantly itchy and runny, my eyes are itchy and sticky, I have post nasal drip, and sticky inflammed eyes with a dry itchy nose when I wake up in the morning. I can't deal with it anymore please give me some advice 😭😭
I've been seeing flonase pop up a lot in other threads but I'm seeing a lot of mixed reviews, some people saying it changed their life and others recommending you use the children's version etc. I would greatly appreciate some products, where to get them in etc in Canada.

Hey everyone, I’ve had a sinus infection for the past 3 weeks.
Finally finished my round of antibiotics. Both my ears were infected and have been clogged.
Now the infection is mostly gone, other than green mucus occasionally and tinnitus/reduced hearing.
I’m trying to speed up the process of clearing my ears because I hate the reduced hearing loss and tinnitus, I just want my ears to go back to normal.
I’ve been doing this massage regimen:
https://youtu.be/vAs9uFYvcrk?si=mfhpJ-5QT_AKrl1n
Using Flonase once a day
Avoiding smoking
Drinking lots of water
Steamy showers
What else can I do to help clear my ears? Thank you.

This week I wrote an autobiographical account of my history with sleep paralysis, RLS, and hypnagogic hallucinations.
I was not sure where to share it. I added it and deleted it from a few subs. The only place it ended up was the creative writing sub, though.
And this appears to be the right spot! There are several themes but the hypnagogia is the focus. So it's quite long and probably no one reads it and that's fine. I just wanted to find somewhere to put it in case my experience could benefit someone.
⚠️ ⚠️ WARNING first part is scary and a bit gory... ⚠️ ⚠️

Childhood

The first time that I encountered sleep paralysis was when I was nine or ten. I woke up screaming, my mind gripped with the sensation of searing pain radiating from my left big toe. Though my mouth wasn't moving, I could hear my own blood-curdling cries, echoing through the darkness. An eerie orange glow spilled into the room, illuminating a sinister cauldron at the base of my bed, around which stood three squat witches. Their dark, smoky faces shifted and morphed constantly, eyes glowing red like embers recessed deeply into the shadows of their crawling flesh, jagged teeth gnashing along with their discordant laughter as roaches crawled from their mouths and disappeared into their black straw hair.
Each witch held their own dainty knife and fork, shaking along with their trembling bony hands, and one was slicing expertly down the center of my big toe with the impossibly sharp blade of their knife. I struggled to move my arms and legs, feeling as though I had freedom of movement, but my physical body remained paralyzed. Unfathomable terror washed over me as I realized that I couldn't scream for help; my mom wouldn't hear me, and I was powerless to stop these witches from feasting on my toes.
I lay there, unable to break free from the oppressive paralysis, forced to endure the excruciating pain as my toes were sliced off and consumed. The air buzzed with the witches' terrifying, joyous laughter, as if they delighted in my agony more than the taste of my flesh. Eventually, my body in a full state of terror jarred itself awake, heart beating more wildly than I had ever experienced, my lungs struggling to gasp more than the tiniest breath. After perhaps a full minute of gathering myself, I drew a deep breath and screamed into the night.
My mother came, of course, but was unable to understand the depth and terror of my experience. Her own reality did not include anything close; for her, it was an exaggeration born of childhood fear, and she became exasperated after a time with my refusal to admit that it was a dream, despite being an extremely caring parent.
The witches appeared to me several times between the ages of 10 and 15, their ghastly faces returning to torment me with each episode of sleep paralysis. Every time, I would be trapped in that terrifying limbo, my body frozen while my mind drowned itself in screams of agony and horror. I knew that they would feast on my toes, the slicing of their knives relentless, inexorable. They would smack their lips and toast each other with my blood-covered flesh as I watched.
During those years, restless legs syndrome (RLS) also began to plague my nights. As soon as I began to drift off to sleep, a discomfort would arise in my legs, like there was a swarm of fat round beetles exploring, searching for an exit. A quick kick would settle it down, but it would rise again in a cycle of building tension, acutely uncomfortable climax, and brief relief of a second or two would follow before it began again. My mother, again meaning well but busy and unfamiliar with RLS, told me it was leg cramps and made me eat more banannas. This didn't help.
It became an increasing problem, stealing precious sleep that my young body needed to thrive. The frustration of RLS merged with the terror of a potential visit from the witches. Without medication, I would lose entire nights to the relentless discomfort.
By the age of 15, the sleep paralysis episodes had occurred at least 10 times, each leaving me with the gut-wrenching memory of being eaten alive that I would carry all the next day in my gut like a sack of bricks. As I lay sleeping, every single night, I wondered if they would visit, and braced myself for an encounter.

Early adulthood:

I can't remember how many times the witches visited before I finally stopped panicking. It was after countless God awful nights when I finally accepted that no matter how terrifying or painful the ordeal felt, I would be whole once it was over. I had survived the agony a hundred times before and could endure it again. One night, when the eerie glow of the cauldron illuminated their shifting faces, I felt a calm settle over me. I saw the witches, but for the first time, I wasn't afraid.
They noticed my defiance, their laughter fading into an uneasy silence. Without fanfare, they stood up, collected their cauldron, and retreated into the darkness of my room. Though I still saw them occasionally at the foot of my bed, they became more present than threatening. Sometimes, at the start of an episode, they'd appear briefly before disappearing altogether. They had become inconsequential, and I couldn't even be sure if they were there half the time.
In my early 20s, I discovered that I could almost guarantee a bout of sleep paralysis simply by sleeping during the day. At first, nothing particularly unusual happened, but the paralysis always returned whenever I dozed off, particularly between the hours of 11am and 2pm. I was often sleeping during the day because by then, the restless legs syndrome (RLS) had grown so severe that many nights passed without sleep at all. My body felt like it was full of angry snakes now instead of beetles, desperate to escape. The sensation soon crept upward from my legs to my arms. The cycles of build up, climax, and agonizly brief relief increased in frequency and magnitude. I would often resort to sitting in the shower, flipping the water from icy cold to scalding hot all night, simply to keep myself alert enough to avoid the twitching and spasming until the blessed relief of dawn arrived.
With the daytime paralysis came a variety of hallucinations. Sometimes the witches stood at the foot of my bed, other times they'd disappear, leaving behind benign apparitions like tickling gnomes. There was nothing threatening about these visions, and I began to find a strange sense of comfort in them. I would relax into a dark place where I felt my own energy burning like a sun, present but without physical form. In this state, I felt euphoric, fully aware yet separate from myself. I started taking naps during the day and eagerly anticipated this odd experience.
Yet at night, my sleep remained troubled as RLS tormented me. Eventually, I began taking ropinirole to manage the symptoms, and it brought much-needed relief, helping me reclaim my nights and giving me several years of mostly not worrying about RLS unless I forgot to take my medicine, or the odd night where it bothered me but was still less severe.

New experiences:

I spent several years relishing those euphoric moments of peace, where I could feel the pure energy of being alive without a personal history or identity. In those moments, everything else faded away, and all that remained was a brilliant, infinite energy. My waking life was absorbed by study of comtemporary and historical teachings of non-duality, and with my family and progressing my career as a software developer. I was absorbing Eckhart Tolle and Gautama, Meister Eckhart and Seuhn Sang and integrating their teachings into my daily life. The feeling inside of me that reality ultimately made no sense had found an expression, and I dug in every waking moment for a clue as to the true nature of experience. Given this context, I especially looked forward to and found solace in the experience of being impersonal, boundless energy.
In my late 20s, I also experienced a new type of sleep paralysis hallucination. One day it began that there were no visions or hallucinations; instead, I simply lay in a state of paralysis, aware of the room as a darkened and monochrome version of itself. I entertained myself by trying to move my arms and legs against the paralysis, and developed the idea that I had two bodies; my physical body lay on the bed, while my energetic body struggled and flailed. It was like my energy body could move separately, creating a phantom limb sensation. I felt my energy arms and legs extend out, yet my physical body lay still. As my energy body reached further from my physical self, it would snap back as if held by a rubber band.
Intrigued, I began experimenting with this phenomenon, managing to build enough momentum to "pop" out of my body one afternoon. Suddenly, I found myself looking down at my own sleeping form, resting on my back and breathing gently beside my wife, who was playing a game (probably Candy Crush) on her phone in the bed. It was surreal, and I wasn't sure whether I was hallucinating or truly perceiving my own body from a different perspective. Regardless, it was a revelation, and I felt a new sense of exploration as I gazed down at myself.
That first time, I found myself drifting through the house, checking on my two young stepdaughters as they slept. I had recently married, and it was a quiet weekend afternoon with everyone napping peacefully. Once satisfied, I ventured outside, where I took to the sky and flew around the neighborhood, spying on my neighbors. Though it felt like I was limited in speed, I seemingly had no constraints on the continuity of this hallucination. Everything appeared as a perfect physical representation of Earth, and I could travel without interruption.
The landscape was strikingly accurate, but it appeared in monochrome hues — grays, blacks, and whites — with no bright colors. Letters and numbers were unreadable, reduced to blurred nonsense. Despite these distortions, the sensation of soaring above the rolling hills and rooftops was pure euphoria. I sped along at hundreds of miles per hour, basking in the freedom of movement, and immersed in the stunning view that stretched out below me. There did seem to be some sort of very generous limit to how far I could travel, but I thoroughly explored within the boundaries for hundreds of miles around my home.
Over the years into my early 30s, I tried to pursue this opportunity of flight and exploration every chance I could. But during that time, my restless legs syndrome also became more relentless. In the past, no matter how agonizing the night had been, dawn would bring relief like a cold bath washing over me. I would sit outside and watch the sunrise, and the sensation of snakes slithering through my body would finally calm down, perhaps due to circadian rhythms and dopamine regulation. The cycles now began to climax in totally involuntary movement, spasms that caused me to tense my whole body and draw in a sharp breath every time. It would be 5 seconds of rapid buildup, spasm, a second or two of relief, repeat.
Eventually, even the dawn failed to provide respite, and I struggled during night or day whenever I relaxed too long or became even a bit drowsy. Napping became impossible, depriving me of the euphoric dreams I had learned to look forward to. I switched from ropinirole to pramipexole, hoping for relief. The medication helped me sleep five or six hours a night on good nights, but I still missed one or two nights of sleep entirely each week and rarely could nap during the day, because I took the medicine only a couple hours before bed.
Even though my restless legs syndrome worsened, one out of every ten times, I'd still manage to avoid twitching and drift into that state of peaceful paralysis during the day when I dozed off involuntarily. I gradually lost interest in pursuing out-of-body travel and instead sought every time the burning energy of the sun inside of me — the sensation of being infinitely powerful and formless simultaneously. I would retreat into this boundless feeling whenever I had the opportunity.
During these rare occasions when I could sleep during the day, I stumbled across a third type of experience. It felt like I was being sucked into space at impossible speeds, zooming past the planets of our solar system and beyond until I reached a darker patch of space. This spot seemed like a vast, corrugated sewer pipe that swallowed me whole. I rocketed through the universe, traveling at what could only be the speed of light. Eventually, I would break into the atmosphere of some unknown world, drifting down to its surface sometimes, others crashing painfully into terrain. Sometimes, I would hear a loud sound like an explosion in mid travel, and suddenly aterialize on another distant world without any sort of entrace.
These journeys were exhilarating, and each new landscape presented a mystery, revealing worlds unlike anything I'd ever seen.

The Traveling Years:

One of the first journeys I had involved zipping through space before drifting down through a hole in the top of a greenhouse. The world was painted in shades of orange and brown, its dirt swirling in powerful winds like clay cyclones. The greenhouse itself was dirty and grimy, almost opaque with crusted dirt, and filled with dense green plants — ivy and other dark green foliage that covered every inch inside. Outside, the orange sky churned with the swirling clay, making visibility nearly impossible.
I made my way down a ladder and emerged outside, where I found a man and a boy standing beside a white pinto horse. They both wore hardened leather over rough potato sack-like clothing, their long hair dotted with bone jewelry, their noses and eyebrows profusely pierced with other fragments of bone adorned with feathers. The man seemed to be instructing the boy on something to do with the horse. I approached them cautiously, fully aware of my lucid dreaming state and retaining all my memories, reasoning, and thoughts. Everything about the scene was vivid, from the clay dust swirling around to the squinting struggle to see in the wind.
Unlike the man and the boy, I had no long hair, no mouth covering, and no leather visor shielding my face from the swirling clay-dust. As I tried to speak, it seemed like they couldn’t hear me, and I wondered if I might be invisible to them. Unconcerned, I reached out to pat the horse on its nose, but before I could make contact, the man swiftly drew a long knife from his belt and stabbed me. He struck again, and the intense pain and feeling of my own scalding hot blood streaming down my pants legs snapped me awake.
Not long after my experience in the greenhouse, I found myself learning more about the worlds I could explore, though the opportunities remained rare. One day, I was transported to a beautiful blue tropical world, crashing into the dunes of a pristine white beach. There, I encountered three women, each towering over me at seven or eight feet tall. Their long black hair framed their pale faces, with blood-red lips striking against their alabaster skin. But what stood out most were their fingernails — long and crimson, curling back upon themselves dozens of times like spiraling ribbons. They were two or three feet in length and added a surreal menace to their presence.
They asked me my name and the name of my father, along with other odd questions, and seemed absolutely intriqued with me. There was a certain sort of heavy molasses quality to their voices that was more than sound and impossible to describe. It had the effect of making me feel drowsy and stupid and slow to move.
As I stood there, they began touching me with their nails, tracing them across my body in elaborate, almost ritualistic patterns. I felt my energy drain with every stroke, a profound exhaustion seeping into my core. The sensation was so intense that I woke up feeling completely drained, my limbs heavy and my spirit sapped.
Another time, I appeared without explanation after my space travel in a cavern brimming with glowing fungi and luminescent crystals. I wasn't myself in this world but instead had taken the place of someone else. My father stood beside me, guiding me through the luminous landscape. He taught me how to identify the bizarre and fascinating flora surrounding us — lessons that etched themselves into my mind and last to this day despite the surreal, made-up nature of this world. The glowing crystals and fungi cast eerie shadows across the cavern walls as my father explained the properties and uses of each.
In real life, these experiences would last for about five to eight minutes, but in the dream realm, the passage of time was different. What seemed like mere minutes could stretch into hours or even days, and in rare cases, the dreams spanned much longer.

RLS becomes terrible:

I had a new busy career, an infant daughter, two active growing stepdaughters, and a wife with a hectic job, and I struggled hard through the years between 35 and 39. Each night was pure torture, as restless leg syndrome robbed me of sleep. Days of sleep deprivation left me barely functioning, often teetering on the edge of collapse while the disease gnawed away. The unrelenting discomfort made it impossible to fall asleep, even as my body craved rest. I had no choice but to continue, as I had yet to find a doctor that knew how to move past the ropinirole and pramipexole stage of treatment, and these medicines had almost entirely ceased to be effective for me. My love for my family drove me to conceal the intense effort that day to day living had become. I managed to keep up with my career by farming a prescription for Adderall. I don't have ADHD, so it had the effect on me of methamphetamine and allowed me to push through the God awful existence that life had become.
The toll became overwhelming. I couldn't escape the agony, even after days of desperate attempts to sleep. More than once, I ended up in the emergency room after going four or five nights without sleep. For some people, this will seem like an exaggeration; I assure you, it is not. I would be nonsensical, having conversations with people tha weren't in the room, drifting in and out of intense 1 second dreams before snapping awake with painful spasms. At the hospital, they would give me percocet, and the painkillers provided brief reprieve from RLS for some reason, allowing me one solid night’s sleep, but the relentless cycle quickly resumed, leaving me struggling once again.
Eventually, I found a neurologist who prescribed Neupro patches that provided temporary relief. For a few months, I managed to sleep more consistently, but the patches quickly lost their effectiveness. It wasn't until I added methadone to the treatment that I finally found more lasting relief.
During those difficult years, I immersed myself in non-dual philosophy. In that crucible of suffering, my conviction solidified: my true nature was more aligned with the energy hallucinations I experienced than with a body made of skin, bone, and brain. That transcendent energy, more real and enduring than the physical form I occupied, became my identity in daily life, watching peacefully as my body and brain navigated the situational complexity of life.
Approaching my 40th birthday, I found that I could sleep at night and dream during the day. My life was in good shape, I lost 60 pounds without effort, and I felt fundamentally and imperturbably peaceful. Suddenly, life was in the palm of my hands, every moment pristine and still and perfect. I felt weightless without the burden of needing to endure trauma every night.
Most importantly to this story, I worked from home and could nap on my lunch breaks.

Rapid learning through iteration:

Rarely, I would fail to nap at all due to RLS. Sometimes I would simply doze off and wake up 10 minutes later to my cell phone alarm. But three out of five times, I would travel.
I visited dozens of worlds in a matter of a few short months and quickly was able to confirm some rules that I had suspected were true from my previous adventures.
One rule is that no one I know in real life ever shows up in the travelling dreams. No matter the place or circumstance or strange beings that I encountered, there was never a familiar face.
Another rule was that no dream person ever had a name or a father. The absence of both seemed to be an unspoken universal truth among these dream world inhabitants. Once I had internalized the significance of this, I began introducing myself to most beings that I encountered as "John, son of Michael." It left a strong impression. My name and lineage seemed to set me apart, bestowing an almost mythical quality upon me that earned me a peculiar reverence among all that I met. This knowledge became the key to navigating the dream worlds with confidence and a consistent purpose of discovery.
I learned accidentally of a unique ability during my travels: a form of telekenesis that allowed me to project force from the palms of my hands. This development led to many episodes of paralysis spent ignoring exploration and instead hilariously and painfully attempting to master this ability for the purpose of travel. Over time, I refined my skill, learning to fly much like Iron Man, but solely through the focused propulsion from my hands. Without stabilization from my feet, I had to carefully control the angle of projection and the amount of force applied to control my trajectory and speed.
Mastering this ability took significant practice, but eventually, I could navigate obstacles with ease and travel great distances in short amounts of time. I also no longer crash landed, thankfully. Importantly, I could harness this power to overcome any threatening beings that I encountered. Previously, my best option was to hide or flee, and that did not always work out. Now I had this amazing sense of fearlessness and confidence that simply cannot be rivaled by real world experience. Every time I heard the buzzing sounds and felt the WUM WUM WUM of energy as I prepared to launch into space, I embraced the journey with eager anticipation, confident in my ability to protect myself and learn about whatever strange world awaited me.

To Present Day:

As I grew more confident in my ability to travel almost at will, I began to incorporate spirituality into my experimentation. One day, on a whim, I expressed to the universe that if there were a being that had my best interests at heart and loved me fully, then I gave them permission to guide my dreams and lead me to greater truths, even if they were uncomfortable. This openness led to a new experience immediately, and I began to preface many of my journeys with a similar, simple prayer.
That first time, I fell down instead of up -- into myself, into the infinite dimensionless darkness where I could spin and burn and bathe in the euphoric sense of my own eternal nature. But my peace was quickly interrupted by an intense feeling of pressure at the base of my spine, though I couldn't have pinpointed where the body was that the spine inhabited. Very, very slowly, with a CRUNCHA CRUNCHA CRUNCHA noise for every milimeter of ground gained, it crawled upwards towards my head.
As it climbed, the energy below it intensified, growing exponenentially as the surface area covered grew. It wasn't painful, exactly, but it was terrifyingly intense. That first time, I managed to stay calm long enough for it to reach my shoulder blades before it became unbearably frightening and I jerked myself out of it, sure that I would die if I allowed it to continue upward. Over the last few months I have vowed to myself that I would endure any level of discomfort to see what happens at the end, but I keep chickening out. I have let it go as far as the base of my skull, at which time my head started vibrating so much that I could feel my teeth chattering violently even in my paralysis.
Another time recently when I made this prayer, I went to space as usual, but when I entered the atmosphere of a lush Earth-like world, my telekenesis failed me for the first time ever. Instead, I was pulled like in a slow tractor beam down beneath the perfectly round canopy of a giant, unfamiliar kind of tree. I felt a great sense of calm and peace and simply meditated there for quite some time, maybe 9 or 10 hours of relative time, before I heard a voice from behind the tree.
The man who stepped out from there had his face hidden in shadows. He wore a long dusty leather coat and a huge cowboy hat that shrouded him. As I write this, I find that I am not yet prepared to write about what he said to me, or how I responded. But when we had spoken, he walked solemnly over to me and lay his hand upon my head, and I jerked awake in a state of perfect bliss, despite some conflicting emotions surrounding our conversation. I call him Cowboy Hat Man, and maybe I will write more about him later.
A third time with the prayer, right before I sped off to my normal adventures, I felt a cat jump onto my bed and snuggle against my left leg, purring. It curled up there, and I assumed that it was my actual cat in real life, although it would be very uncharacteristic for him. I actually thought to myself, "Wow, I guess Buddy Socks is my spirit guide today." However, when I awoke, I realized that my door was shut and the cat was not in the room. On that trip, I went to a world that was reminiscent in quality perhaps to 15th century Europe, except on a world where the surface was far more underneath water than on Earth.
I followed the invisible cat to an old man and asked him, "Do you know the truth?" He answered, "No." I followed the invisble cat to young boy and asked him, "Do you know the truth?" He also answered, "No." It was an odd one, really.
Every time I do this, I am setting an alarm for ten minutes. Sometimes the dreams last days in relative time, but I have never yet failed to wake up before that alarm goes off.

Present Day (like seriously earlier this week is what me want to write this):

I lay down eagerly for my lunch break nap, hoping to avoid the disappointment of an off-day. I flew into the atmosphere of a world that seemed to made of rock, with nothing growing on the surface. However, I caught glimpse on the surface of a bright spot, and when I descended, I found that somehow there was a relatively thin crust of sorts around a hollow inside-world.
I lowered myself slowly through a great opening in that crust, down into a lush jungle. It was beautiful but uncomfortably humid, and I quickly found a cool and dry cavern complex to explore rather than dealing with sweat and unfamiliar insects.
As I navigated through the cavern system, able to see somehow with dim light despite no obvious light source at times, I broke out into a very large open cave with a huge exit out into the jungle. I saw that it was dawn and realized that I had spent the night, however long it was on this world, in the caves.
Suddenly, my four year old daughter, Curly, with her naturally bleach-highlighted rings of long blonde hair and bright blue eyes, drifted slowly over my left shoulder and out towards the exit. She moved at a brisk adult walking pace, her back to the cave opening, her expression curious yet slightly concerned. She called out, "Dada?" in a tone that suggested wonder and slight confusion, but no real alarm in the presence of her father.
Reacting instantly, feeling my gut clench solid into a fist of rock, I used my telekinesis to close the gap between us and gathered her into my arms. She wrapped her legs around my waist and settled her butt onto my forearm, a ritual that we have practiced every day of her life. The force gripping her evaporated instantly, and suddenly, my darling girl was there in my arms, as real as any physical embrace. I could feel the tickle of her hair on my neck, the beautiful warmth of her skin, and was enveloped in her familiar scent.
Initially, I was filled with white hot rage, fueled by my instinctive reaction to the thought that some idiotic dream world inhabitant had decided to mess with my family and harm or kidnap her. But as I held her and she nuzzled her nose into my neck, the anger gave way to sheer amazement. For the first time in a decade of navigating these dreamscapes, someone that I knew from my waking life had entered the dream. This was a rule-defying moment that really rocked me, a serious breach of the established norms of these experiences.
A group of maybe 8 or 10 small winged goblins flew down from out of sight above the top lip of the exit and fluttered into the room, laughing in a very non-threatening way. They radiated a sense of innocent mischief, and my fear and anger subsided and gave way to annoyance. I whipped my right hand out and blasted a huge hole in the cavern wall to my right, startling Curly into a yelp. Unphased, I raised my voice and demanded, "Who is your King? I am John, son of Michael, and this is my daughter and she WILL NOT BE TOUCHED AGAIN."
The goblins scattered, their merriment giving way to concern that I might blast them into dust. Behind me, a deep chuckle seemed to rise from the ground itself. A voice echoed in the cavern, neither kind or cruel, full of what felt like wisdom, though that doesn't make sense in the waking world.
It spoke: "I am Eloxman, and I am their King." At hearing him announce his name, my head whipped around in the dream and in real life so hard that I woke immediately with a sprained neck that is still bothering me. I looked at my phone and saw that there were two minutes and fourteen seconds remaining in my ten minute window. I lay on the couch in shocked disbelief: Curly was in my dream, and someone had a name. As I replayed it over and over in my head, I realized that Eloxman was still speaking. I think he may have been preparing to provide the name of his father.

The End:

Sorry, that's actually it. I am going to just see if this continues somehow, but if it does not, then I might get creative with it and make up my own ending. I hope that you enjoyed this if you read this far!

This is just a rant.
Been having blurry vision, pain, and lots of floaters. Using screens is difficult which sucks because I’m a web developer. It all came on so suddenly about a month after I started using Flonase. Went to an eye doctor and they said I was fine. But I thankfully went and got a second opinion from a different eye doctor who did a very intense exam including a CT scan of the eyes.
I was told my eyes are healthy but I have dry eyes and very minor cataracts. They said I am not eligible for surgery because the cataracts are nowhere near severe enough so the risks severely outweigh the benefit. For the dry eyes they told me it was due to clogged meibomian glands and to just use drops, warm compress, and massage.
I already have astigmatism which I wanted to do lasik for, but I can’t do that now because of the cataracts.
I’m so frustrated. I blame the Flonase as I had no issues prior to using that vile stuff (besides the astigmatism but that was fully corrected with glasses). I am already dealing with so many health issues and now this bullshit on top of it all. And how did the first eye doctor miss cataracts?!
This is just venting. It’s 5am and I’ve been up all night just absolutely depressed at all my health issues lately. I went from a completely healthy man 2 years ago to a literal mess with like 5 chronic and expensive conditions that all blindsided me out of nowhere. It’s like a switch was flipped in my body and I’m just falling apart.

Obligatory: Posted on phone, apologies for formatting
26 AFAB, chronic ear infections since I was 4. Tubes were put in twice (the first time was done badly). Second time, they came out on their own (properly). (Still in that time frame of very young)
I still get ear infections (once every 3-4 months), though people refuse to diagnose it/give me anything to relieve them. Symptoms - low/muffled hearing, ice-pick pain in right ear, throbbing pain in left ear, sinus pressure, headaches, sometimes fevers, pounding head.
I've been dismissed so many times, I'm hesitant to pay more money for nothing to come of it. ("It'll go away", "I don't see anything", "it's just sinus pressure")
Last time - 2023 ENT, they 'saw nothing wrong' but gave me ear drops to try - they caused severe burning pain inside my ears, headaches, and dizziness.
Related issue: every day I'm removing ear wax from my ears (no q-tip, with the back of my thumb so i don't go too far), if i don't, people comment on the ear wax "dripping" out of my ear, it gets on my pillow at night (used to sleep on a towel, so it was easy to wash. Now i wash the pillowcase when it gets too bad)
Hearing test performed 2023 (audiologist, same appt as the ENT) - right ear "off the chart" (High) of recordable values (a table of values where you can mark the result). Left ear - borderline hearing loss
----- What "red flag" should I look for - to say that i SHOULD go in to see someone? Is there a certain type of doctospecialist I should see? Is there a certain test you would recommend? -----
Current diagnoses: Endometriosis, Asthma (allergy and exercise induced), Allergies (cats, dogs, maple trees, penecillin [rash and itchy hives] ), polyps (colon) Hypermobility Arthralgia.
Medications: Zyrtec, Montelukast, Flonase, Magnesium (for muscle cramping), DEPO-PROVera (for Endometriosis management), Albuterol (haven't needed it in years), calcium & D3 multivitamin (for osteoporosis prevention)
Surgeries: April 2024 - colonoscopy -> polypectomy (found 8, largest being 20mm), January 2023 - left ovary removed (chocolate tumor -> endometrial cells), ~2008 - broken arm repaired

Are there any antihistamines that don’t cause drowsiness!? I became a zombie on Allegra, Claritin, and Zyrtec - even the D versions. Benadryl puts me out for 2 days. Azelastine nose spray is also exhausting.
I use Cromolyn Nose Spray, Mucinex & Flonase. I take Pepcid at night sometimes.
What’s left? Prescription Clarinex? Xyzal and Singulair? Are they any better?
Are there other options? I follow a low histamine diet.

Also needs to be heart safe. Usually I use Flonase but that has a pax interaction. My nose isn’t congested, it’s completely swollen and clogged from inflammation. Is Xlear my best bet?

My name is Walter Hartwell White. I live at 308 Negra Arroyo Lane, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87104. This is my confession. If you're watching this tape, I'm probably dead– murdered by my brother-in-law, Hank Schrader. Hank has been building a meth empire for over a year now, and using me as his chemist. Shortly after my 50th birthday, he asked that I use my chemistry knowledge to cook methamphetamine, which he would then sell using connections that he made through his career with the DEA. I was... astounded. I... I always thought Hank was a very moral man, and I was particularly vulnerable at the time – something he knew and took advantage of. I was reeling from a cancer diagnosis that was poised to bankrupt my family. Hank took me in on a ride-along and showed me just how much money even a small meth operation could make. And I was weak. I didn't want my family to go into financial ruin, so I agreed. Hank had a partner, a businessman named Gustavo Fring. Hank sold me into servitude to this man. And when I tried to quit, Fring threatened my family. I didn't know where to turn. Eventually, Hank and Fring had a falling-out. Things escalated. Fring was able to arrange – uh, I guess... I guess you call it a "hit" – on Hank, and failed, but Hank was seriously injured. And I wound up paying his medical bills, which amounted to a little over $177,000. Upon recovery, Hank was bent on revenge. Working with a man named Hector Salamanca, he plotted to kill Fring. The bomb that he used was built by me, and he gave me no option in it. I have often contemplated suicide, but I'm a coward. I wanted to go to the police, but I was frightened. Hank had risen to become the head of the Albuquerque DEA. To keep me in line, he took my children. For three months, he kept them. My wife had no idea of my criminal activities, and was horrified to learn what I had done. I was in hell. I hated myself for what I had brought upon my family. Recently, I tried once again to quit, and in response, he gave me this. [Walt points to the bruise on his face left by Hank in "Blood Money."] I can't take this anymore. I live in fear every day that Hank will kill me, or worse, hurt my family. All I could think to do was to make this video and hope that the world will finally see this man for what he really is.

Like the title says, I’m 5 months out from septoplasty / turbinate reduction. I’ve had great months, active, healthy, all of the benefits of the surgery.
The last two weeks, however, have been strange. The air feels cold on nasal inhalation and I feel it in my throat. There’s not crusting, but def. some burning from the cold. Occasionally I hear my sinuses (I think) cracking.
The weather has changed from 80 to 50 to 80 degrees over and over again and the pollen and allergens are at their highest. I’ve been on and off Zyrtec and Flonase bc I wasn’t sure if it was helping or hurting.
My breathing is fine. I competed in a 64 mile bike race last weekend, nose was runny during the race but it was humid and raining for parts.
This may be health anxiety, I truly can’t stop focusing on my breathing and the cold sensation. Went to the ENT who performed the survey and he felt it was nothing, looked inside, said he was very conservative with the surgery. If it helps, I’ve included part of the surgery report below that focus on the turbinates:
The inferior turbinates were now infractured and outfractured using a 0 degree scope and a freer elevator. They were reduced with a Denis bipolar bilaterally. Pledgets were placed for hemostatic purposes for several minutes. These were then removed.