Cat radioactive iodine treatment toronto

Last month, we told you about Lucky, a brave 3-month-old kitten who was paralyzed from the neck down after a violent dog bite. The person who brought her to us abandoned her and left the country, ignoring our calls and texts.
With your generous donations, we got Lucky treated with laser therapy and exercises at the best vet clinic we could find. She recently developed chest congestion and is now receiving nebulization treatment. Despite this, she’s showing amazing strength and has started putting pressure on her hind legs.
We are two college students who have given everything to rescue and care for cats in need. Every spare moment and penny we have goes into helping these innocent lives. It’s been tough, but our love for these animals keeps us going.
So far, we have helped over 30 cats get the medical care they needed. Lucky is our latest fighter, and we believe she can walk again—but we can’t do it without you.
We know it’s a lot to ask, and we’re sorry to put this burden on ypu guys, but we truly have no other options. We’ve never abandoned an animal in need, and we can’t let Lucky’s story end here. We have a plan for her recovery, but we need your help to make it happen.
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Liquid Gold is a biological immunoterapy treatment for allergies. My cat started on it 2 days ago. I need to apply it today again.
I CANT OPEN THE VIAL.
Anyone who's used it. How. Do. We. Open. The. Vial.???!?
Thank yall 😭😭😭😭
Edit - I think it needs to be PIERCED through the rubber not opened lol. They should have shown that shit.

My cat pee'd on some of my fabric stash. Root cause has been addressed (Litter box was blocked accidentally) but I would like to save the fabric if at all possible.
I've ordered some Enzyme Cleaner specifically to kill the urine smell (tried vinegar before but they still returned to the fabric) but it won't arrive until Tuesday - in the meantime, the fabric really stinks. It's been rinsed but I'm in a small house and the smell is BAD. Would throwing it in the wash before treating with enzyme cleaner be detrimental?
My hope is that a cool wash could effectively rinse the worst off of it and then I can give it another wash after enzyme cleaning but I know sometikes washing before correct treatment can make some smell/stain situations worse

Hi, My cat has been peeing outside of her litter box for about 2 years now but it is just progressively getting worse. We've seen out vet several times, switched her to hills urinary c/d stress (no crystals at this last visit), tried Prozac, adding litter boxes, all the phermone products etc. This last visit she had blood in her urine and the vet prescribed gabapentin which she made clear was the only option she would consider (she was a new vet that we don't have rapport with and after that comment I didn't feel comfortable asking questions). My first question is if there's blood in her urine indicating a likely infection is gabapentin an appropriate treatment vs antibiotics? I'm also looking for any other possible advice as we are $1000s into this between vet visits and damages and are seriously considering trying to rehome her at this point though I'm not sure who would adopt a cat that pees like this. We have added litter attractant even though she does use the boxes and today I started spraying "no mark"

Hello all -
My cat Pip had FIP last year at 3 months old. I treated him with GS and he miraculously survived. He seems to be completely fine now as far as activity levels, appetite, and all that. He is very playful and I work a lot so I wanted to get another cat for him to be friends with. He is about 5 months out from being declared cured, so 8 months out from finishing treatment. I am wary of getting a cat because I don’t want them to get him sick in any way. Any advice? Should he just be an only child? Thanks.

I'm already pretty easily identifiable (IF YK ME IRL NO U DON'T!!!!) so this'll probably be my last post before I switch to another account, but posting this in case this helps anyone bc ik I had really low confidence going in! Keep your chin up, you never know what might happen c:
Demographics

• Gender: F
• Race/Ethnicity: East Asian
• Residence: Bay Area
• Income Bracket: too high to qual for any fin aid LMAO
• Type of School: public, competitive, ~500/class
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): None

Intended Major(s): Computer Science for all public schools + a few privates, interdisciplinary but focusing on CS for the rest of the privates (like Humanities & Engineering for MIT) cuz my essays all focused on intersections between CS & humanity anyways
Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 4.0
• Rank (or percentile): N/A
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 12 tests reported (by the end of senior year), 6 taken by the start of senior year
• Senior Year Course Load: AVID tutor, Journalism, AP US Gov & AP Microeconomics (1 sem each), AP Physics C: Mech + E&M (1 sem each), AP Stats, Alg 1 TA (he was my AP CS teacher), AP Lit

Standardized Testing
List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.

• ACT: 35, reported everywhere
• SAT: 1550 superscore, didn't report
• AP (all 5s): Chinese, Psychology, Calc BC, Chem, Phys 1, CS A

Extracurriculars/Activities
I don't want to be too easily identifiable, so I'll leave some of these very vague or combined. Others are directly copied lmao

1. Game jam! (lead host since 11th, 501(c)(3)): Negotiated sponsorships ($100,000+ in prizes), recruited 1500+ participants & 30+ judges from 70+ countries, made websites, led team for 5 game jams
2. School's game dev club :D (pres since 11th): increased member retention, made lessons, etc.
3. Competitive programming (club (VP) & my own stuff)
4. Game developer (indie studio & my own stuff)
5. Journalism (editor-in-chief in 12th)
6. Research (Junior -> senior year summer. I barely did anything)
7. COSMOS (game dev cluster in 10th)
8. Sports med (only submitted to MIT, as my 4th activity): interned under our athletic trainer since 11th, helped act as her substitute in the beginning of 12th when we had no AT

Awards/Honors
List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

1. PVSA Gold (this was won through the game jam stuff)
2. National Scholastic Press Association 1st place (won't mention which category cuz that's too easily doxxable) <- I think this one wasn't won until after I submitted EAs
3. USACO gold
4. NSPA again! 3rd place this time
5. MVP/league award in volleyball

Letters of Recommendation
Soph. year lit teacher: 10/10, she literally gave me my Common App idea. Love her so much Soph. year physics teacher: 8.5/10, I think he's really nice but I definitely wasn't as close to him as I was my lit teacher so I'm not sure about his rec letter.
Principal (acted as my counselor LoR): 6/10, she didn't really know me well and probably wrote something generic. But she did choose me (and like 50 others) out of our class so that might mean something?
Art teacher: I'm guessing 11/10 because I got into every school his rec letter was sent to. (UCSB CCS, MIT, UPenn)
Interviews
My MIT one sucked LMAO. Interviewer was probably annoyed with me (I basically begged her to stay overtime so I could show her a puzzlehunt puzzle) and I forgot to mention an important activity.
Northwestern and Cornell were really good, both were really informal. NW, he asked me a bunch of stuff about high school (he was deciding which one to send his daughter to) and expressed admiration about some of the stuff I did/my "professionalism"(?) overall. My interview was the first one my Cornell interviewer did and he stayed WAY overtime. On Valentine's day too. Super cool guy. They were really sweet! Spoiler alert I was rejected from both lol.
Everything else was pretty average.
Essays
Common App was about empathy (I trauma dumped 4 times) & how it got me into game dev. Why us/major was about my research (it's the perfect intersection between CS & humanity; I always wrote that I loved both, even if I was applying CS), community about game development/my game jams, leadership about journalism (that one time our advisor blocked the publishing of an issue bc it depicted tampons lmao).
Added a few quirky things to some of my applications (mainly the private schools), like electing my cat for president or an attempt at an emoji or some random stuff like that.
I spent my summer writing CA & UCs, then refined them later. I put in a bunch of effort for EAs, then burned out after my REA rejection and dropped a lot of RD schools lmao :') some of my RD essays I felt like I threw but they were almost all reused.
Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)
Acceptances:
CS majors:

• Northeastern (RD) -- 1 semester abroad
• Georgia Tech (EA)
• UMaryland (EA)
• UMich (EA)
• UWisconsin-Madison (EA)
• Purdue (EA) -- accidentally applied CE instead of CS so I got accepted into engineering
• ASU (pretty early on)
• UC Santa Barbara College of Creative Studies
• UC Santa Cruz
• UC Davis
• UC Irvine
• UC Santa Barbara
• University of Toronto (RD)
• California State University San Francisco -- after I got rejected from Cal Poly SLO, they automatically redirected my application here

Non-CS majors (felt that interdisciplinary majors were more suited to my profile, and I'm more interested in them anyways :)):

• MIT (RD)
• UPenn (RD)
• Waterloo (RD) -- technically applied CS & Software Engineering, got the latter but not the former (was offered Math Honours instead of CS)

Waitlists:

• UC Berkeley -- applied CS so I don't think I'm getting in

No deferrals! :) (other than USC bc they don't reject EA)
Rejections:
CS majors:

• Cornell (RD)
• Stanford (REA)
• Northwestern (RD)
• Columbia (RD)
• California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (RD)
• UC Los Angeles
• UC San Diego
• University of Washington
• UT Austin (EA)
• UIUC (EA)
• University of Southern California (EA)
• UNC Chapel Hill (EA)

Interdisciplinary majors (all "create your own" majors unless otherwise specified):

• Yale (RD) -- CS & Psychology
• CMU (RD) -- BCSA
• Duke (RD)
• Caltech (RD)

Additional Information: Had a few extra activities & links to some of my games. I also submitted a portfolio to every school that would take one.
Wanted to post just to say that college apps are hella random! Good luck to all the juniors & below :DDD you can ask me anything & I'd love to give advice (survivor bias though...) but I'll be off this account in ~a few weeks just cuz it's got so much doxxable info on it (again if yk who I am no you don't!! please 😭).
Super grateful that I was given the chance to be among such cool people at MIT, will be heading there in the fall (though I also loved GT!) <3

Hi everyone, this is sort of long-winded but I hope it makes sense. I'm 5'6" and 155lbs, and I don't drink or smoke anything.
My (F23) health issues started in late December of 2022. I started struggling with fatigue and my skin began to itch, all over my body, with no rash. It feels like the type of itch I get from seasonal allergies. Additionally, I started experiencing neck pain in my thyroid area which ended up being thyroid cancer and I had my thyroid removed in March 2024. I thought that the under-skin itching was tied to my thyroid cancer since the itching and neck pain started at the same time, but I've completed the thyroidectomy and radioactive iodine therapy and have felt no change in the itching. What's also developed is that my skin flushes/gets red and blotchy very easily which it never used to do. Also, if anything is pressing against my skin, say if I cross my legs, then huge red blotches form wherever there was something pressed against them. This has never happened to me before the itching started either. I've tried antihistamines, gabapentin, Xolair injections, and been prescribed several rounds of prednisone, all of which haven't touched the itch. I've seen my primary care physician, a neurologist, rheumatologist, two allergists, a dermatologist, and an infectious disease doctor (I had mono in May 2022 and got the COVID booster shot in September of 2022 and we didn't know if that was correlated with it), and no one can figure out why I'm itching or make it stop.
Additionally, a lump in my right groin area appeared in the middle of last year, about 6 months after the itching started. I got an ultrasound done then and they didn't find anything, so I let it go. However, the lump hasn't gone away and has slowly gotten more prominent over time. I went to my primary care physician last week and she said it felt like a swollen lymph node and I had another ultrasound done, and I'm still waiting for the results.
Prior to getting mono, I was perfectly healthy. The itching is so unbearable that I can't wear 90% of my wardrobe and I have to take 4 different medications to be able to fall asleep at night. It has completely destroyed my quality of life and I don't know what to do.

i js got scratched by a stray cat in my grandmas house and idk anymore. Im currently 16yr a male and idont want to burden my family anymore, idk why i find it hilarious that im typing this post like its my death note HAHAGAHAHA. i was js sleepin minutes ago and i was woken up by a stray cat, but then it immidiately scratched my head and my arm, idk where the rest is, but im surprised that im not that bruised badly, it didnt bit me or anythng, i felt like its jus playin so i thought to myself that i shouldnt blame that mfckng cat, cuz it didnt know any better. I freaked out at first but js calmed down and js felt lost. my arm is bleedin so much but i js squeezed it a lil and it stopped, and as for my head i js kind didnt notice my bruise i in at first until the pain came, idk if its normal for the bruise to bleed a little darker than usual but im certain that it is not, sooooo im kinda sleepy now and idk if i would tell this to my grandma concidering her finacial issues and iont want to burden her with my own problems (i aint shit to my real parents with their own family lol) and im also askin yall whats the best treatment for rabies? THANKKSS YALL(⁠☞⁠^{⁠o⁠⁠)⁠ ⁠☞} (Is rubbing garlic effective when it comes to rabies?ʕ⁠·⁠ᴥ⁠·⁠ʔ)

Hi all, After reading a lot of post here recently, I kinda wanted to tell my story to give others perspective about treatment options. Obviously, this is MY story and everyone here is different. My experience will not be the same as yours, and I am not a doctor telling you to try these options. But I have had a lot done, and I think it might be helpful if people understand what they can try.
I appreciate everyone who reads even one section of this saga. I am happy to answer any questions that people might have. Again, this was my journey and these things might not be the best options for you. But I want to highlight that pain, itself, is not the disease. It is a symptom. Find doctors who will help you find the cause of it. Sometimes it's difficult to pinpoint the source of pain, but there are options to try different things.
Part 1: How it Started
In 2007 I was 17 years old. During the summer, I got a job working as a bus boy at a reception hall. One night, I was sweeping the floor, nothing different than normal, but I suddenly had intense shooting pain down my hip and leg just from the way I bent down to sweep. That was all it took to set me off on what would be a long life of pain.
I remember the sciatica being really bad during this period. My parents and I were taking care trips to look at colleges and sitting in a car was torture. At some point they told me to see a chiropractor so I started doing that on a pretty regular basis. I went to college in 2012 and continued to have pain. There was always constant pain but I would always have times when it was much worse and it was painful to even walk normally. I recall having my parents visit and I was limping all day because I couldn't extend my left leg out fully.
I continued to see a chiropractor in the area for maybe two or three of the years I was away at school. Chiropractor never really helped though. During one of the summer breaks, I went to a chiropractor who had this decompression machine that would literally strap you down and pull you apart in an attempt to relieve pressure. It never helped. I am pretty sure by this time I already had an MRI done that probably showed some level of lumbar herniation so I guess that is why I wanted to try that type of treatment.
Chiropractics is not a legitimate science. I hadn't realized this until later in college (I was a biomed major). Their theories on spinal health do not align with known medical science. Some chiropractor align more with real medical science, but a lot of them only believe what the area of chiropractics says. I strongly recommend NEVER seeing a chiropractor, especially if you have back pain. It could be dangerous.
Part 2: The First Surgery and More Treatments
So when I graduated from college in 2012, I sought out an orthopedic surgeon. We did more MRIs. I can't recall if we tried anything more conservative first, but I did end up having surgery with him in 2013. We did a microdiscectomy and hemilaminectomy on both L3-4 and L4-5. Recovery from this was about what you would expect. Lots of bed rest for maybe 6 weeks or so, but I recovered well and went to PT for a couple of months. I think the surgery was successful in treating a lot of the serious sciatica I was having. But I was still having some level of back pain months and months after. I was then seeing the pain management doctor at the same office as the surgeon, and we tried a LOT of different additional things. Facet joint injections specifically, trigger point injections, medications. Nothing ever helped. I still have this pain in my low back and it was difficult to bend over without bracing myself, and there were times when I would get sciatic pain but not nearly as bad as it was before the surgery.
At one point I went to a rheumatologist because the pain doctor did some blood work and found I was positive for a gene that is related to ankylosing spondylitis. I was never actually diagnosed with this, but we tried to medications (I think maybe methotrexate but I could be wrong). The rheumatologist ended up putting me on humira, which looking back was a odd decision without actually officially diagnosing me with anything. Humira is a monthly injection, and I think after two months, my pain actually got a lot worse, and I stopped taking it and never went back to him.
For the most part after this, I was just taking Tramadol an naproxen to deal with my pain. I was going to the gym and doing what I could, but often the gym would exacerbate my symptoms. It was just difficult to do anything without feeling weak and obviously, it definitely contributed to some depression.
Part 3: New Pain Doctors and Spinal Cord Stimulator
In 2016, I got a new job that brought me into NYC and I now had access to great insurance and a wide array of great doctors. I found a new pain management doctor and tried a lot of things with him. He put me on Nucynta at some point, which is a narcotic, though I would only take it when I had break through pain. Pretty quickly, only a couple months after in 2017, we decided to try a spinal cord stimulator since I had already tried all these other things with other doctors.
I had to see a neurologist who would be doing the actual implanting of the device. I also had to see a phsychiatrist to get I guess "mental" clearance that I was in sound mind to be making this decision about a medical device implant. Not sure if that was just for the insurance or something the doctors also require. Before doing a full implant, they actually do a test run. I guess I had gone under general anesthesia for this, but they implant the wires (explained more below) and the wires come out of my skin to an external device and all of that is taped down to my low back. They do this so that they can make sure you actually get relief from the device before all the time, energy, and money is spent doing the full implant. I had it for a couple weeks, and decided to move forward. They had to remove the wires from me and scheduled me for just a regular office visit, and I was thinking well how the heck are they removing these wires from me. Well, it was very easy. They literally just pulled the wires right out of my back. Didn't feel anything. It was wild.
I have a Nevro brand stimulator impanted inside me shortly after. Surgery and recovery were as you would expect. I don't thinm recovery was as long as my back surgery was. There is a little 1x1 inch square box that sits above my right glute, around where my waistband would sit. There are two sets of wires that run over my spine to the left side (so I can actually feel the wires right under my skin at this part) and then they go between my vertebral space and then all the way up my spinal canal to my thoracic area. At the end of the wires (aka "leads") there are several evenly spaced electrodes and these are the functional part of the device. From what I understand, they send small electrically pulses very rapidly against my spinal cord and the idea is that these electric signals will over power pain signals coming from below, effectively making my brain blind to sciatic pain. It came with a remote to change the settings and a charger that uses a wireless pad that you hold over the box to charge. I had to charge it ever two or three days. The technician from the company does the initial set up (they device doesn't operate until you are recovered from the procedure and see the technician at your next office visit, I believe). The technician will turn the device on wirelessly and play with the settings and ask you to tell them when you feel something as the increase the magnitude of the stimulation. When you feel it, it does feel like a little electric buzzing in your back. But you aren't supposed to feel it at all, so they the turn it down just below where you felt the sensation. The remote has a couple different programs that I could change through that the technician programs, I guess changes in the frequency of the pulsing or things like that. I could also increase and decrease the magnitude within a set range, but for the most part I never messed with any of the settings. Nevro has a care team that I can contact at any time with questions or concerns and they will follow up with me occasionally to see how I am doing.
Part 4: Life After the Stimulator
I always had the stimulator on, and always said that it did help alleviate the residual sciatic symptoms I had, but I still had this low back pain that wouldn't go away. I continued to see the pain management doctor and we tried so other things. More trigger point injections, medications, etc. He had me on what is called "Low dose naltrexone" which is essentially a very low dose of an existing drug, used off label for chronic pain. It had to be specially made at a compounding pharmacy because the dose you need isn't commercially available. I tried that for a couple months and can't say it helped. In fact, I think it made me very nauseous a lot of the time. I remember I had to stop drinking coffee at one point because the taste of it would make me feel queezy, and one or two times I ran to the bathroom because I felt like I was going to throw up. I decided to stop taking it.
After that, I mostly just lived with my stimulator and dealt with any pain I had (hadn't seen the doctor since 2020). I was going to the gym someone regularly at this point, but like before it would often increase my pain symptoms so I would need to take extended breaks from exercise.
Part 5: Recurrent Herniation
At the beginning of November 2023, I started to feel something new. I was starting to slowly get sciatic symptoms again and was having flashbacks of my symptoms when I was in college. I was starting to get sciatica in both legs, and my right foot would sometimes start going numb if I stood for too long. It was getting more and more severe. Within a few weeks, I had to stop commuting into work because the pain was getting so bad. I contacted my pain management doctor who I hadn't seen in years. Their office was telling me how since I hadn't been there in so long I had to be treated as a new patient and the first opening for a new patient was like 2 or 3 weeks out. I was pretty angry at them about this. I mean, this doctor did the implant of the medical device that I have...should that not exempt me from this rule? Its not like this was an appointment for an unrelated issue. Anyway, the first available appointment was with a different doctor, but I was desperate so I saw him. He was not helpful. I was basically begging for pain meds and he was like welllll the other doctor should really prescribe you something because he knows your case better. It was such a a waste of time.
About a week or two later I did in fact see my original doctor, and he had the Nevro technician come because he thought it could potentially be an issue with the device. The technician found that there was "impedence" on one of the leads, a couple of the electrodes weren't working as they should. So she did some adjustments to compensate for that. I have it a week or so, but that did not fix the problem at all. I stopped charging the stimulator altogether because it wasn't doing anything for me. I had to start using a cane to get around because if I was standing, I needed something to lean on so I didn't have to keep my back straight. It was getting very difficult.
The doctor had me get a regular CT done, because I cannot get an MRI due to the stimulator (the stimulator itself is actually MRI safe and I think most of them are not, but because of the issue with the electrodes, my Nevro care team told me I could not get an MRI). So I and the CT and I could see it myself. It was absolutely clear that there was a herniation at L4-L5. Clear as day. So I had a video call with the doctors assistance soon after and to my dismay, they suggested treatment was to get an epidural to reduce the pain. Here I am, knowing full well that my symptoms and the results of the MRI are definitely worthy of surgery, and they want to give me just an epidural. I asked her about surgery and she said something about not opting for surgery until exhausting other options. I said okay. After the call, I immediately reached out to my friend who worked at the Hospital for Special Surgery in NYC. She actually works with the director of Spinal Surgery. Immediately, I was in contact with him and his entire team and they moved quickly to get things moving. I regret not having reached out sooner.
Part 6: Prep for Second Surgery
So the first thing to do was get better imagining. Since the MRI was out of the question, I had to do something called a CT Myelogram. Oh boy this was not a fun diagnostic procedure.
You need to be accompanied to the appointment because they will be giving you some very light sedative. You are hooked up to an IV, and they bring you into a room with a special x-ray table that rotates so you can be either laying flat or raised up so you are nearly standing, and the X-rays can be taken from many different angles. The doctor there take a couple of initial scans to find the location where they go in. I am queezy just talking about it right now. What they need to do is inject contrast dye right into my spinal canal. An epidural goes AROUND your spinal canal, but for this they need to pierce the dura and go in.
So they do local anesthesia and then take quite a large needle and go in. It is painful because it is going so deep. But God, you can feel the piecing of the dura layer when the needle goes through. I immediately feel my body hating it. Then they inject the dye, and you can feel that sort of cold sensation spreading across your back. And then he takes the needle out. I start to get VERY hot and am about to pass out, so they put some ice on the bacm of my neck and give me a minute to come back down. They also gave me some IV zofran to help with nausea and some IV sedative for the pain Thankfully it passed. But that wasnt even the difficult part.
Next, they have to make sure the dye gets into all the crevices. So the doctor rotates the table to different angles and has you try and bend in specific ways. It was incredibly painful to do. When he had me in an almost standing position, and the pressure of the dye was increasing my leg pain beyond anything I had experienced so far. It was really difficult. But once they are satisfied with the X-ray that shows the dye has spread well, they send you to the CT scan. Once I was laying down again the pain subsided and I was feeling better. They did the CT scan and then rolled me back to the recovery room, and by the time I was back in there I was feels 100% back to normal and had no issues getting up and walking. So that was that.
The image results were very telling (gunna try and include them here or in a comment if I can). The point of this type of imaging is that the contract dye with spread anywhere that the CSF can go. You should be able to clearly see the space all around the spinal cord, and if there are spots where you don't see the dye, you will be able to see what is causing some problems. It was plain to see how severe this herniation was. It was compressing my spinal cord and pushing it all the way to the back of the spinal column.
So the doctor said we have two options. A microdiscectomy or a fusion. We decided to do a MD though I would be okay with a fusion. Well guess what, two days before the surgery the doctor changed his mind and said that after reviewing the imaging again the best course of action would be to do a fusion. I was very excited for that.
Part 7: The Fusion
So at the end of Feb 2024 I had my fusion done. It was your standard surgery, nothing too crazy. Recovery was tough though. Basically with a fusion, they take out the herniation and most of the disc and they put this rubbery block in there that contains bone graft. That is what is going to grow to fuse the two vertebrae, but that process can take a year to fully fuse the bones. So they put in four screws, two in each vertebrae, and join them together with rods. This holds the bones together completely so that they do not move independently. They are essentially fused at this point, but only with the rods.
For recovery, the first couple days were difficult, mostly trying to stand up from laying down because I had like no low back strength. The pain was also pretty constant so I was taking a lot of muscle relaxers and narcotics to help me stay asleep as much as possible.
The surgery area was quiet large. There were two large bandages and two small bandages and the entire area was covered in a large adhesive patch to keep everything clean and dry (it was also very orange from the iodine). So I could shower without worrying about it. Within two weeks I was moving around a lot better. I might have stopped using my cane at this point, though anything that required me to reach forward, like washing my hands at the sink, was difficult because it would require back strength. By 2 weeks, the bandage had because really really frustrating. The huge adhesive patch was causing my skin to become itchy and irritated, and I could see they I was starting to develop some red bumps like pimples underneath. Thankfully 2 weeks was the point I could remove it (after my first follow up call with the doctors team). So I took it off which was not easy. The whole area was soooo sticky, I tried to remove a lot of the stickiness with either rubbing alcohol, soap, or Vaseline. I was able to get a lot of it off but some stickiness still lasted for several days. There will tiny bandages over the incision sites that covered the stitches and those would eventually all fall off themselves. I had two larger scars at the top where they did most of the work of cutting out the disc and putting in the graft, and then two tiny scars lower down where I assume they put in the screws for the lower vertabrae. My back does not look pretty.
I started PT at four weeks was doing better but still had a weak back and was very cautious with my movements. Did PT for 12 weeks and made a lot of improvement. I was back to how I was. The fusion 100% fix the issues that this new herniation had caused, and it was such a relief to finally have a procedure that was totally effective. However, the back pain that I had already had for many many years was and is still there and I am still not certain what is causing it.
Part 8: Now
I am about 20 weeks out of surgery and am still doing great. I still do not use my stimulator and don't plan to, but having to get it removed would be a really huge pain. I have started to actually go to a gym again and life weights to stay active. I am mostly convinced that this low back pain I still have is really muscle related, caused by the years of instability, and that I can address it by strengthly my core muscles and following my PT exercises. I think a lot of these muscles issues, like trigger points, can mimic sciatic symptoms. Knowing what REAL sciatic symptoms feel like again, this pain doesn't feel like I have a herniation pushing on my nerves. So I am going forward with that in mind and trying to deal with this pain muscularly.
As for the fusion, I don't notice any new limitations in my movement. I avoid rubbing the area because I could feel the rods if I rub it hard enough. But I feel normal. I had a follow up with the doctor with another X-ray and everything looks great. I am hoping that this can be a turning point for me to really live as close to a pain free life as possible.

I bought my home about 10 yrs ago. In the South. Every summer we are inundated with tiny flying gnats inside the house. We have no houseplants. We have one cat and one cat litter box. We clean the litter box every day (I have a reminder on my phone). No kids, no other pets. We don’t leave food out. We suspected it could be drain flies. So every summer we treat the drains weekly. We also leave out drain fly traps which do sometimes catch the little f-ers.
We are at our wits end. The drain fly treatment seems to help but is not entirely effective - and is expensive to keep up with. The gnats show up in every room. We are so frustrated and I start to really dread warm weather.

hey y’all.
i’m 21 m, don’t have family support, and live with a roommate and my cats. i work full time, and can’t afford to leave work for treatment.
at the same time, i have lost a lot of weight within the past few months and especially weeks. my safe foods are becoming increasingly restricted, which is a surprise to me because of how few there were in the first place. i’m struggling to eat even just one meal a day, occasionally able to supplement with the ensure clear.
the past few weeks has been solely me working and sleeping. i have no energy and am constantly nauseous, despite a zofran prescription.
my PCP is amazing, has had other ARFID patients, and recommended Equip: i’m set to start this week, but am not feeling very confident about it after reading reviews. he has local dietician recommendations lined up in case Equip doesn’t work out, but none of them seem super competent with treating ARFID.
i do have a therapist i connect well with, but she does not have the education to treat ARFID.
my labs and vitals are mediocre, but it makes me think, at what point do i admit defeat and need a higher level of care (inpatient or residential)? i have prior treatment trauma and medical trauma, and the thought of an NG tube terrifies me.
does anyone have any suggestions or ideas? i just feel very alone and am starting to lose hope.

I'm on mobile, so I apologize in advance for any format issues.
Let me start this by saying, I (F33) haven't been on Facebook for over a decade because it was detrimental to my mental health. My son is currently on an out of state trip, so I made an account in order to get updates and photos.
Well, curiosity killed the cat this morning; I decided to check my ex-boyfriend's page and in doing so I found out that he has stage 3 testicular cancer and he's unrecognizable from the chemo treatments.
We did not part on good terms. I was pregnant with our son-the one on the out of state trip- and he broke up with me when I decided not to terminate the pregnancy. My ex has never met our child, nor have I seen or spoken to him in over a decade now. I receieve no child support and his name is not on the birth certificate.
I find myself conflicted now on if I should reach out to him, or his mom, so I can ask them about their family health history for my son's sake since I read testicular cancer can be hereditary.
I wish no ill will on my ex and I'm sorry he's having to go through this. I guess I'm concerned on what may happen if I contact them since I have no desire to have them in my or my son's life.

I've seen a lot of Spidersonas that are mixed with something, and I'm wondering what the origin story would be for that kinda thing??
The most common one I see is spider + A cat, so I'm wondering how one would get BOTH abilities? Like would the character get bitten by a radioactive cat AND spider or something?😭 I'm genuinely confused

Hi all. Long time listener, first time caller. On mobile so sorry for whatever that causes that I see other people frequently apologize for. Formatting?
This is going to be a lot long, apologies in advance. I have suffered from PTSD/CPTSD, GAD, and treatment resistant major depressive disorder for most of my teenage and adult life, or at least that's what the diagnoses are. I'm 34, bio female.
I lived a rough home life and moved out at 16, was homeless for a while at 17. This is just to say that I did have bad things going on, so the problems were not completely internal. But then I got a place and a job and my boyfriend at the time eventually stopped being physically abusive (not making any excuses, he was a bag of shit), but my life was going relatively smoothly at the moment, though still a bunch of unresolved trauma of course. Then thing kept getting worse mentally. Quit my job, went on disability, lost the ability to leave the house, and then after six months almost bed bound and two weeks of non stop crying I started my first antidepressant. Back story over, I promise.
I started with mirtazapine which worked wonders at the beginning. It gradually lost its effect, raised the dose until we couldn't anymore. Tried escitalopram and serroquil, couldn't handle the immediate side effects and didn't wait the weeks to let the meds start to work. For info escitalopram made the physical symptoms of anxiety go into overdrive (mostly racing heart) and serroquil made me unspeakably angry. I'd try escitalopram again, I feel at the time I didn't have the recreational drug experience to just ride it out. I do now.
Stayed on mirtazapine for over ten years, it clearly wasn't doing anything for me though. Was just afraid to stop or try something new. Spent a few years self medicating with coke and mdma while holding a job that I loved and was literally living my best life, and I was so functional! My job was abnormal and let me work when I could, I knew I still couldn't handle 9-5 5/7, but I was happy. In this time I'd also tried a lot of therapy.
Some time before the pandemic I stopped using recreational drugs, and then my work closed because pandemic. I started to really slip back down. My partner (at the time and now) had also done some retraumatizing due to his coke addiction (why we both stopped, he was never abusive, just lied about stuff, and is the most amazing partner now). I started Zoloft. The first day I felt like I had taken a bunch of M, spent half the day freaking out until reddit told me I wasn't alone. Zoloft worked wonders for me. Until after about a year, and it stopped.
Since then, we've tried abilify as an addition to the Zoloft (also really helped at first, then stopped). Keeping the abilify, I have also tried wellbutrin (did nothing, not even a side effect), Prozac (was effing allergic, boo), citalopram, and just tapered off citalopram and started Effexor. Also got rid of the abilify about a month ago because I couldn't afford it and I didn't feel it was doing much, and I'm not missing it. Taper from both citalopram and abilify was very manageable.
This whole time I've also had lorazepam to manage anxiety emergencies, and it has always been extremely useful when I need it.
I have also spent the last few years trying to get an adhd diagnosis, to limited avail. My psychiatrist finally gave in, told me I'd "jumped through enough hoops", and I started Adderall over two months ago. It has allowed me, for the most part, to get my shit done without feeling overwhelmed and shutting down.
Now here are my thoughts/questions (finally, I am so sorry). Except for the brief periods when I started mirtazapine and then later Zoloft, I have felt this background glumness that pervades everything. I think it's emotional bunting, except I am fully capable of feeling bad things if I'm drunk. I'm also tired of the weight gain and sexual dysfunction. I feel like I'm at the end of my rope with antidepressants (I once thought I'd be on them forever). I no longer know where my baseline mental health is and what are actually constant side effects/withdrawal from ssris/snris. I tried a couple years ago to wait a month on nothing between Zoloft and wellbutrin (my doctor made me keep the abilify) and it got really bad. But the withdrawal from Zoloft was so bad (brain zaps, intense paranoia, SI, intense moods) that I feel like I didn't get past that hump. And now with the Effexor, I slept in the other day and took my pill 5 hours late and was a mess all day with vertigo and really low mood. I'm tired of the mental and physical toll antidepressants have taken on me.
Now that I have the Adderall and can function, I'm wondering how much of my depression/anxiety was coming from just not being able to get through my regular responsibilities and self care without drowning. I can do these things now, and I havey lorazepam for anxiety/PTSD emergencies.
I have an appointment with my doctor next week where I plan to discuss all of this but, what do you guys think. Is there a chance the antidepressants have just been making me worse? I clearly have trauma but could untreated ADHD have caused a lot of the major depressive symptoms? Is it worth it to try to stop them altogether (I'm on the min dose of Effexor as of two weeks ago, no abilify) and just keep going with the Adderall. Is it possible to stop them completely but maybe go back on them for shorter periods if I'm having an MDD episode? Hell is it worth it to just quit antidepressants and just do MDMA a few times a year (I used to get great stuff and never crashed after, always felt great for days after a roll). Have any of you ever been in a similar situation and can share your experience so I feel less alone? I feel like I'm doomed to cycle through antidepressants forever and never really be happy and just have to keep going through withdrawals plus side effects when one stops working and I have to start another. But I'm scared that things could get really bad again if I stop. I run a business with my partner now and we are losing our one employee so it'll just be us and I'm afraid I'll screw our livelihood with an extended episode. I just don't know what to do. If you have any advice, any meds I haven't tried that you feel are worth a shot given my history, any therapies I haven't tried, any hopeful stories, or tales of caution, anything, I feel lost.
For what it's worth, for therapy I've done CBT (didn't finish) DBT (super helpful) and extensive talk and trauma therapy. Still have a therapist but can only see her once a month due to finances. I have a great relationship, great home, great job, dogs, cats, my life on paper is amazing. I'd really like to know that beyond objectively.
I also drink moderately, no weed, went through a phase with shrooms (microdosing and larger doses), not against doing them again, no other drugs at all, not even caffeine.
I'm so sorry that this has been so long, I didn't know how else to do it. If you've made it this far I can't thank you enough for taking the time and energy to try to help or sympathize with a complete stranger, you are an absolute gem.

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