Sever stomach pain dizziness

Male, 28, 5'10 170lbs
First of all, let me thank you for taking your time.
1 week ago, I went for a sports massage which I usually do about once a month. Nothing sexual, just a massage to help me relax.
There was a new employee this time that was applying extreme pressure at times even after me warning several times.
1 week has passed and my abdomen feels strange, I found a small spot near my belly button that hurts throughout the day and my stomach muscles randomly cramp throughout the day.
I also had a inguinal hernia mesh surgery done a year ago, and I also feel discomfort down there and can also feel a small soft lump on my right testicle, similar to before the surgery.
This all started after the massage. Have a I ruined my life of such a stupid thing? Which doctor should I even start approaching to explain the above?

I'm wanting to reach out and see if anyone deals with this as badly as I do.
I noticed my mental health decline in my junior year of high school. I was working and doing high school, along with dual enrollment courses. I burnt myself out very badly, my depression and anxiety became worse and I've been going to therapy ever since.
Therapy didn't help as much so I started taking medication and I've always had some type of reaction to it, prozac and those types would kill my stomach.(I've been on a lot of different medications, trying to find the right ones) Right now I take Buspar and wellbutrin with hydroxyzine as needed. Buspar doesn't feel like it's doing too much for me, wellbutrin makes me extremely dizzy and exhausted, hydroxyzine makes me tired too but I don't take it often, unless I can't sleep.
I currently work 2nd shift at an ER as a phlebotomist. I've had all types of jobs: Cashier, fast food, and production. Each and every job gave me some type of anxiety. The night before my shifts I am up and down, worrying when my alarm will go off, not getting good sleep. I get up and feel nausea, will gag, and eventually throw up. I shake while I get ready, cry, and hyperventilate. My whole body feels like it's ice cold and on fire.
When I get there and get settled some of the symptoms will go away, but some just arent as strong. I've thrown up/gagged at work. I shake while I'm there. My body still feels like it's on fire. These only subside when I leave or stay home.
I'm on my last leg at my current job because I've called out so much from my symptoms. My manager is aware of my issues. I've only been there since the end of January. If I don't have an income I risk my relationship. I only work 3 days a week, 10 hour shifts. I feel like I'm stuck in a loop. I've talked to so many people about this but I feel like some people just don't get it. I want to get some advice but I'm not sure if anyone can even help me.
TL;DR.. I get extreme work anxiety, to where my symptoms become physical. I can't quit or I risk my relationship. I'm on medication that doesn't seem to be helping, but have been on so many in the last year, I'm also in therapy. Advice? Help? Please.

I’m 32, attend CrossFit classes, eat healthy and drink enough water to fill a water well and no matter what I do, or try, my belly pouch never goes down?
For a slight background story I was born with Gastroschisis and unfortunately had numerous operations when I was a kid. Around 2 years ago I got another surgical operation to remove the scars I had to give a belly button and my stomach pouch was never removed as it was classed as a lipo operation to which wasn’t included in the surgery plan.
At this point I’m delighted I’ve a belly button, however my belly pouch gives me severe insecurities.
Can anyone recommend how to overcome this?

I'm about to lay down for a nap now to see if it might help my pain but for the past 2 days I've had such bad abdominal cramps and a soreness higher up in my stomach like directly below/behind my ribs. I don't think I could've exposed myself to sb or fp but I'm scared the cramps are indicating somethings seriously wrong with my stomach. I've had 3 bms in the last 2-3 days and they were normal and didn't give me any relief so I don't know if it's constipation. Maybe gas? But it doesn't exactly feel like gas pain. I've been moving around and pressing on my stomach a lot recently too to figure out where the pain is or what if feels like but I'm pretty sure it's made the pain worse. I don't feel nauseous, only sometimes, it's just pain. Any help or advice is much appreciated.

So I just got back from a 5 min doctors appointment where essentially nothing was checked and I was told I had fibromyalgia.
About 3 weeks ago I had what appeared to be a gastritis flair up , but also pain from lower back to side of ribs and even in the flank area. It feel like constipation cramps in my back flank area ngl. It was constant as well. After an urgent care visit they told me it wasn’t kidney stones and may have been anxiety.
Fast forward 3 weeks , the constipation like cramps have gone away and my stomach issues have gotten better. But now I’m having rib cage pain , chest pain and what feels like throat stiffness pain. I almost feel like my throats closing up constantly. I can breath fine and take deep breaths but my sternum feels sore and this winded feeling comes and goes. Definitely gets worse with anxiety and the pain at worse gets to a 5 and the lowest is like a 2. It’s mostly like dull achy, sometimes burning pain. Both side of my ribs constantly ache and also the pain is at the bottom rib on both sides. The pain tends to shift all over the place. Even on my upper back. Like yesterday sitting in my computer chair made my back hurt , it felt sore
My issue is I sat in the doctors office explained everything then he told me it could be fibromyalgia and prescribed me antidepressants that can help with the pain. This was all in the matter of 5 mins. Taking vitals took longer. I have really bad health anxiety and usually have a hard time believing doctors but this time idk just seem like it could be something else

I had mine out in 2005. About every 4th night I wake up with stomach pains about 2 am.
The pain doesn't cause nausea or radiate. If I can get my stomach to start becoming mobile (digesting/ emptying) the pain goes away, but that takes a drink or a snack or enough movement to wake me up.
I don't have any throat burning, no indigestion pain, or GERD symptoms when this occurs. Just a stomach discomfort. It's a mild pain but sometimes its bad.
Anybody else get these at night?

Cliff notes: PCOS diagnosis 12ish years ago. Long history of GI symptoms that resolved entirely after excision surgery in 2021. Endo was found on ovaries, uterosacral ligaments, and cul-de-sac. Endo pain and GI symptoms started up again 3 months post op and slowly got worse. Did 2 rounds of pelvic floor therapy in last 3 years. Saw a new endo specialist who referred me to GI and Endocrinology. GI did bloodwork, stool sample, breath test. All came back normal except breath test showed SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth - common w IBS). No inflammation in intestines, no celiac, nothing abnormal in blood/stool. I’ll start antibiotics for the SIBO as soon as insurance approves coverage of the antibiotic. Endocrinology appt is in July. Endo specialist follow-up is in August.
Current meds: Metformin XR, Mirena IUD, Amitriptyline, spironolactone, adderrall (yay ADHD). Also have scripts for cyclobenzaprine and dicyclomine for pain flares.
Current symptoms: most days wake up with severe lower abdominal/pelvic cramping, most days have bleeding during bowel movements & irregular bowels (sometimes w lightning butt), can’t lose weight even with diet and exercise, occasional extreme fatigue, migraines, lower back and pelvic pain, bloating.
Question: anyone else have similar symptoms and be told it’s just IBS? I’m skeptical. Overall I am doing better than I was before endo surgery, but I wish there were more options for relief and pain prevention. I feel like IBS is just a catch all for GI symptoms that they don’t have any other explanation for. I’m concerned it could be endo but if given an IBS diagnosis then the endo theory will be dismissed.

I'm 32M, 5"7in, 372lbs, living in Malaysia. Small update from my previous post (I don't know what is wrong with me despite seeing several different doctors and specialists . . . : ) but my third cardiologist visit basically ruled out anything heart related. However, currently the only symptom I still have is this sharp pain in my chest that happens occasionally when I take deep breathes and expand my chest. After feeling the pain, I become afraid to breathe and it messes up my breathing rhythm as if I forgot how to breathe normally but don't know if I can classify it as shortness of breathe or hyperventilating.
Previous visits to a Pulmonologist where he helped treat my bronchitis which on my last visit, said it was all gone and even I felt normal. I also had a chest X-ray which showed nothing out of the ordinary and had a low dose CT scan back in January that showed my lungs were normal. When I told a GP recently about this, they came to the conclusion that it could very likely be costochondritis from stress.
I am a non-smoker and occasional drinker, don't take drugs other than CBD supplements when I am anxious or stressed if that counts, workout 3 times a week. Have sinusitis and mild sleep apnea due to my hypertrophic turbinate. Can I get some help finding what I have? I am not sure if I should got for another CT lung scan since I already did one back in January and think it might be too soon but I am also afraid there might be something there.

So lm almost 2 years out and have lost 250 lbs. half my body weight. Feeling great and happy with results. However l am experiencing lower back pain frequently. It comes and goes but it’s painful. Has anyone else experienced this? Or have any remedies?

Has anyone been able to Identify a difference in their level of pain being on the pill and off the pill? I have found it to be very difficult because it’s nearly impossible figure out which thing is causing what. However, I am back on the pill after several months of it and I’m noticing a higher level of muscle pain intention in my upper body (which has historically been my biggest issue).
It’s only been about 10 or 11 days since I restarted so I was having a hard time believing that the pill could be contributing to this, and was thinking it’s more likely a coincidence that I started the pill and had a pain flareup. But as the days are going on, it’s not getting better and I’m noticing it feels slightly different. It’s really hard to tell.
TLDR has anyone noticed that going on or off the pill worsened or improved their pain?

Good morning,
I wanted to ask if anyone on the subreddit has encountered symptoms similar to mine and similar treatment by ophthalmologists. Well, as I believe I have quite unusual dry eye symptoms, which from what I am told by ophthalmologists are not reflected in the condition of my eyes. The story goes like this: at the age of 16 I ‘acquired’ dry eye syndrome of undetermined cause. Tests done by ophthalmologists show that I have problems with tear production and my Schimer test was: 2.5 mm and 5 mm. I had a meibography done and while the gland loss is 6% in one eye and 16% in the other, in one eye in: ‘Lipid layer type’ I have 0 and in the other I have A, which means the situation is also not good. My average Nibut was 8.1 and my first Nibut was 5. Having done the same test a second time, my average Nibut was 9 and my first Nibut was 5. Tear meniscus: 0.15 and 0.15. As far as symptoms are concerned, I experience fatigue, daily discomfort in the eye area, which can develop into a throbbing pain that forces me to use painkillers. Generally I have to use painkillers practically every day because they make the discomfort less. As far as medications are concerned, I used tear plugs on my lower ducts, which helped insofar as I didn't wake up with a sore eye and going out didn't cause me any problems, I used cyclosporine (Ikervis) and it had no effect. I've used a warming mask, IPL and Lipiflow and haven't noticed any improvement. The thing is that I am still experiencing symptoms and the doctors say that, all in all, the cornea looks fine, examinations under blue light also look fine, so I should accept my current condition and, in general, I should go and see a psychologist (This is what one expert of dry eye syndrome in my country said about ). The thing is that I first experienced eye problems and then there could be psychological problems (Although I was not diagnosed with such). The question is whether anyone has also encountered the fact that ophthalmologists believe that your eyes are in good shape, and your feelings are, according to the doctors, out of all proportion to the condition of your eyes. And perhaps in my case there is such a disproportionality, but no doctor I have encountered can explain why this is the case. Because simply stating that there is some magical disease that can't be seen in the medical studies is not enough and it is not convincing. Just as little is convincing by some ophthalmologists' claims that hormones may play a role. In terms of the medical test I had, Sjogren's syndrome and any other autoimmune diseases have been ruled out. I have no thyroid problems. I have no liver problems. In fact, apart from my eyes, I look like a healthy person. Only the test related to vitamin D came out terrible as I have a severe deficiency, but I am trying to remedy this by taking vitamin D tablets. Are there any other ways to deal with the problem of water production?

So, the day before yesterday I felt some discomfort in my left hip, left lower back and my groin. Yesterday I woke up feeling nothing special until I sat up. I can’t sit without severe pain in that area. Funny thing is, I can ride my bike, can’t ride my car. Standing is no problem until I bend forward. With my back straight I can squat.
F43, hypermobile.

I (19M), a “rising junior” in college, was caught cheating on an exam and I was scared of failing, so I lied about the timing of my dad's death. He actually died in 2020, but I told my professor and academic advisor that he died in 2024.
My immediate response was to desperately cling to any reason or explanation for why I may have cheated. I had been really struggling with his loss throughout college and, initially, I just wanted to be excused from the class for the semester. I dug myself into a hole and continued to dig. I lied, forged, and cheated to the people who genuinely cared about me and wanted me to succeed. I thought nobody would find out or care, but that belief stemmed from thinking I could outmaneuver a system meant to help and support me.
But within a week, I was flooded with a plethora of counseling and therapy resources that actually helped me cope with a large amount of repressed emotions I hadn’t dealt with regarding my dad's death. But my school started asking for more information, so I kept doubling down on the lie, faking and editing documents, deleting and creating websites, etc. Part of me really wanted people to truly know my dad dying but I was scared that I wouldn't receive the same resources or support if they knew the death wasn't recent.
The bad news is there really is no winning with this kind of lie. I thought it was okay to keep going because he was actually dead and I just said he died more recently. This was just a massive cope on my part. The paranoia and anxiety from wondering if someone would find out were terrible. Every minute of the day, I was anxious, felt sick, couldn’t sleep, and was chronically embarrassed, fearing that people would no longer care about his death if the truth came out.
I was scared, and my immaturity and belief that nobody would care about the finer details of my dad’s passing led to making stupid decisions. This in no way excuses my actions—they were manipulative, egregious, and stupid. I misled people and forged government documents. What is most tragic about this situation is that I tried to deceive the people who wanted the best for me. I received some of the most kind, supportive, and heartwarming messages from my mentors, and this honestly made me sick to my stomach knowing that I was lying to them.
I was obviously caught as they found my dad's original death certificate from 2020, and I ended up getting an “F” in the class alongside an “Institutional Action: Honor Code Violation” on my transcript. But there is also an ongoing investigation surrounding the circumstances of my lying about my dad's death. This investigation could result in me being dismissed from the university. I will update the post once any changes happen.
Truthfully, I don’t really care anymore about the class or the disciplinary actions, I know that I'll eventually be able to bounce back. At the moment, I really want to do damage control on my mentor relationships and truly begin the grieving process for my dad. I lied to some of the most important people in my life, and they all very well may see me as a liar for the rest of my time in college, but I am going to do my best to earn back their trust and respect.
This situation is complex and sensitive. I am going to have to navigate a long and rough battle of my own making, but hopefully, I come out as a smarter and more responsible person.
TL;DR: I was caught cheating on an exam and lied about the timing of my dad's death to avoid failing. This lie spiraled into forging documents and creating fake websites. Initially, I received counseling and support that helped me deal with my grief, but the ongoing lies caused severe anxiety. I was eventually caught, got an "F" and now face an Honor Code violation and possible dismissal from university. My focus now is on repairing relationships with my mentors and genuinely grieving my dad's death, hoping to grow from this experience.

Okay so I first started Oz in February and I had mild/medium stomach pains, which went away at about week 5/6.
But then my insurance had a little mixup and I couldn’t take it anymore. But I got it prescribed again and I started taking it like I used too, but this time around I’m having A LOT of issues.
I am experiencing extreme stomach pains. Which I assume to be because I CANNOT burp or pass gas, and my bowel movements are inefficient (i still feel like I’m stuffed)
I tried many laxatives, gas relief pills, smooth move tea, magnesium citrate, etc. But I nothings working. It’s draining me, and I feel so stuffed, very sore around my stomach and back, like my organs are being squished.
Any help is welcomed :)

This is long but I NEED to get this off my chest. I was so crazy for this. Severe trigger warning at the end about suicidal ideation.
For context, I (33F) am well over 2 years out of this 6-year relationship. We were young, had little money, and it was a classic anxious + avoidant attachment. I am not faultless in the breakdown of our relationship. I had some borderline tendencies that I didn’t fully address. But I really, REALLY loved my ex-partner, Erin (32NB).
I was totally devoted to them. But we just never clicked. They had ADHD and I have clinical depression. They needed constant stimulation and activity while I only have the bandwidth to focus on one thing at a time, which is usually my work. Our priorities were also imbalanced since work is very important and fulfilling to me, but with them, not at all.
Erin was never thoughtful with me. Never flowers, never remembered my birthday, never anything sweet for the sake of it unless I asked. When we moved in together, I noticed they never asked me about my day. And they said, “Because I don’t care.” That should have been my first sign! Girl get out!
In the last year of our relationship, I had a severe PTSD-induced mental health crisis and needed to get some specialized treatment. It required me to change my work schedule to a four-day work week for about four months. I did my treatment sessions at home for one hour a week and needed total silence for that hour. Erin worked from home and my treatments usually coincided with breakfast or lunch. When I asked them to be a bit quieter in the kitchen, they told me no. “It’s my house too and I need to eat.”
These treatment sessions were absolutely brutal. Sometimes I would end up vomiting, I would stay in bed for entire weekends - it was was one of the most painful experiences of my life. (But it worked!) Erin would get so frustrated with me for not being able to do as many things with them. During this time, their friend Stephen (32M) got sick.
I loved Stephen so much. His mental health was always rough. His depression got to the point where he had a plan to end things, and Erin immediately raced to his side to support him. Stephen purchased something to help him carry out his ideation. Erin said they wanted to take it out of Stephen’s house so he no longer had access to it. I said “Yes, absolutely. Please do that - but I don’t want to see it. I’m not in a good enough place right now to see something like that.”
I got home and the item Stephen purchased was right outside the front door. I looked at Erin like I got punched in the gut, and their response was, “Huh. Oops. Sorry about that.”
We were together for another 6 months after that. I should have left right then. I should have left earlier that year when my best friend’s young nephew died tragically but Erin offered no comfort because “they didn’t know him.” But man, I was fucked. I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I truly must have thought I deserved such shit treatment.
You want to know what the honest truth is? They didn’t have a drivers license so I was their set of wheels. And I also have a really amazing cat that loved them so much. I think they stayed in the relationship for my cat.
Anyways, they were a putz. And they send their new partner flowers all the time I guess - which honestly? That makes me happy. At least there was growth following those six years. I hope they’re so much happier with her than they were with me, because damn.

Hi all,
Just wanted to share my experience growing up and then using the healthcare system as an adult. I have technically had the same family doctor since I was 12- until I let her go.
As of now, I have no family doctor. I have several health issues- most I was never able to address or have diagnosed by my old doctor- and the ones I did present to her, she had no interest in helping. I want to stress how it's not enough that you get a doctor after years of waitlist; you actually need a good one for anything to matter. I would rather die doctorless than have my previous family doctor, and I'm sure she's accidentally killed from medical malpractice and I'm not willing to be a victim to her. This is a doctor from Charlotte County.
She has, over the years, done several things to people I know:

• told a woman she has stage 4 cancer, then at the end of the appointment realized she had the wrong file and the woman didn't have cancer after all. She did not apologize.
• told my father his livers were failing, then at the end of the appointment my father asks her to double check, and turns out his liver is healthy as can be. She did not apologize
• if you've done any kind of drug in your past, she will mock you for drug use and won't prescribe or diagnose you with anything and make you feel bad about yourself. Not me, but a friend who had an addiction in the past- she wouldn't send him to get diagnosed due to his past, and he ended up passing away from undiagnosed cancer
• told a family member who has had an undiagnosed heart problem for 5 years, "what do you want me to do about it? You're never getting this resolved." And told her why are you even here
• told me "why would anyone ever hire you in your condition?" All disgusted after asking for a refill for my ADHD medications- just made me feel bad about trying to find a job that suited me
• told me she didn't have records of me coming into her office since 2015, except there was a document from 2022 sitting right in front of her in my file- she persisted with the narrative she hadn't seen me since. She gaslights
• will whiplash you beyond belief. Tells you she won't do something, then says oh maybe I can.... then goes back to no, not doing it
• looks down upon autism diagnoses
• her references are terrible
• makes you feel like the biggest piece of trash in the world
• told me "I'm looking to retire, not reopen" when I asked if I could tell her 2 medical issues instead of only 1

And she never, ever apologizes if she does something wrong. Just skims right over it.
The health issues I've either never been able to address because she rushes you out the door, or she's told me she won't fix: - over swollen tonsils for 10 years, one takes up most my airway and she won't remove them. I want them out so bad. - extremely bad ear aches all the time- like I have to pull over kind of bad- my ears are full of scars from infant ear infections and they've reopened, also recently tinnitus too - mental illness that has ruined my life, which she doesn't seem to believe in - ingrown toenails that need to be fixed - bumps on my head that are painful - my bones have sharp aches constantly and my joints occasionally feel extremely twisted - IUD problems - I need a referral to a throat doctor, she said no
This post is all to say, it's not enough to be on the waitlist- you actually need to have a little luck and get a good doctor if you want to ever improve your health. I have spent a decade trying to get some of these problems resolved, and I am shot down or ignored everytime. I get better care in the ER than I ever do from my own doctor.
And I just exist with all of these issues and I am told to figure out how to live with it. Dealing with a bad doctor was somehow worse than dealing with no doctor at all. I have learned that I can't trust a doctor to help me- I have turned to finding my own ways to cope with pain and living like this.
No one wants to help me, fine. I guess you just get the short end of the stick if your health problems aren't cookie cutter enough.
The last time I saw her I left her office bawling from some of the things she said to me, so I made the decision to never go back. If it takes me 5-6 years to get my own doctor again, that's fine- I'd rather suffer knowing I have a shot at a doctor who will listen than ever see her again.
If I can't get my prescriptions renewed through maple, I guess I'll just stop taking them.
So cross your fingers and hope you get a good one. If you have a good one, never let them go- because others are out here fighting their own doctor for decades trying to be medically well again.
I did not win the doctor lottery, so I've re-entered.
TL, DR; there are good doctors and bad doctors in New Brunswick. You need luck on your side when you, eventually in 2030, get your own doctor- so cross your fingers you don't have to fight with one for 12 years just to breathe better.

I want to start of first by saying I really mean no offence to anyone. I believe and understand this is a super serious condition. I feel it’s just no the right diagnosis for me.
I’m starting to really question whether I FND.
I was “diagnosed” with it by a medical neurologist (not a full neurologist, they have a degree but only really do the reports and stuff for lawyers), who after doing all the test was like “uh, I don’t know, looks like nerve damage” and wrote it down as Functional Nerve damage. Also stating things like, “noted function fine, when encouraged” this so called ‘function’ he talks about, was when doing the pin prick test. Was shoving it hard into my legs, and when I didn’t feel anything, stabbed it hard into my stomach with the same force as my legs causing me to scream out hard in pain. My boyfriend who was there, had watched all the tests where I was so called “just needing encouragement”. Even the one reporting “able to stand fine”, my “standing” was literally being held up by both my boyfriend and the Dr himself why shaking and in incredible pain. I wasn’t even able to stay up for very long. But according to his report, I can “stand without assistance”. I was literally straining so much trying to move and bend as he asked, the veins in my head were popping out and I was red form exertion.
I’ve been try to receive help for my condition now, and because they called it FND, they’re saying it’s just trauma and needing physo and therapy. But here’s the thing. I’ve been now doing extensive physo since November. And before that I was doing regular physo as I have hyper mobility, and am constantly dislocating things. I’ve done extensive therapy, to the point where I actually now have and can teach DBT and CBT to others and have the successfully use the techniques.
If this really was FND, I feel like I would have seen, at least some, improvement by now. I’m so upset and mad, cause I can’t get to see a proper neurologist as I’m literally facing homelessness and lost my job cause of this disability.
I don’t even have a lot of the other symptoms, like seizures, I see a lot of others facing. It’s literally just lower limb paralysis with no/limited feeling and the wrong sensory imput in it.
I’m don’t know, I’m just getting so upset and frustrated. I’m at a lost, and really want any support.

[30F, 56 kg, 173cm]. Taking Ritalin (prescribed); took some designer benzos a couple of times during the last month to fall asleep (obviously, self-prescribed, half a pill before going to sleep. Yes, I know it's bad, not doing it anymore). Don't smoke, drink wine pretty regularly (never get drunk though), and a lot of caffeine. Have a full-time job at the computer and am a full-time student. Don't do sports, but walk around quite a lot. Have a stressful life in general, but at the moment it's more or less ok. No chronic issues that I know of.
Recently, had a pretty bad cold with a sore throat, cough, stuffed nose, and a fever. Usually, I never have colds or anything like that. It seems that I recovered from it, or almost recovered.
Now about the issue why I'm posting: a little more than a week ago I started waking up in the middle of the night from REALLY SEVERE headaches. They're always at the same spot - the top left part of my head, sometimes radiating to the left cheekbone, the left eyebrow, and the left temple. For the first time, it was so bad that I was afraid I was having a stroke or something, but no other symptoms of anything of that kind were present. I took a paracetamol+aspirin+caffeine pill and the pain subsided in an hour or so. The exact same episode repeated 4 more times since then, and last night, the painkiller didn't help. Even though I managed to fall asleep, I woke up with the same unbearable pain. I don't know if it's a coincidence, but after I took my regular dose of Ritalin, the pain disappeared almost instantly. Also, don't know if it's relevant, but I'm also on my period at the moment.
I'm going to go to the doctor soon-ish anyway, but right now, a comment from a professional on my situation could really help alleviate my worries (or prompt me to do something about the problem immediately, idk). Thank you in advance.

I have been feeling really down lately thinking about all of the beautiful experiences I've had in the spiritual plane and how I've been torn away from them. Torn away from lives I would much rather be in than here. Torn away from love so much more pure than what we can find here. Torn away from the freedom I felt soaring free through eternity without a worry at all. I feel like I've been torn away from my home. Torn away from all the people that matter most to me. Torn away from love and happiness, cast down into the darkness below that is this world. This is a cruel sick joke. The Demiurge needs to pay for what he's done. I will never forgive him for the pain he's put me and so many others through. We did nothing to deserve this torment. People are waiting for us. People in the spiritual plane are waiting for us to return.
People we've left behind. Family's we've forgotten. Connections that were never supposed to be broken have been severed. This pain is more than I can put into words. My mind doesn't remember but my spirit does. I can feel that longing deep down that pain of losing things that were never meant to be lost. That longing to return home. To be free again to find what I've been searching for for so long but could never find. The restoration of my true self and the life I had before all of this. I just want to go home I'm tired of all the pain and strife. I just want all of this to end. I want to finally be reunited with everyone I've left behind on the other side.
I'm ready to go home more now than I've ever been before......

Hello, I would like to know if this is a real diagnosis and how to live with it, because there aren't a lot of options of treatment for neck problems. I'm having neck pain right now, in my lower neck mostly, muscles cramps in trapezius muscle, I have been to several doctors, one doctor injected lidocaine into my muscles, didn't really help with crunchy neck and pain, then I was at another doctor that suggest an MRI because he suspected a chiari malformation and then I was to another doctor that did an x ray and it came back completely normal, he prescribed me muscle relaxers and anti inflammation medicines, I still feel pain and crunching. I have pain and I'm little bit dizzy. I'm struggling with healthy anxiety too. What do I do next ?

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I snap my head back down, with renewed vigour and hope about communicating with everyone without needing to play charades. With the knowledge that this is a microphone, my mind swims with the possibilities. If they can grow quartz crystals, they may be able to refine and grow silicon crystals, effectively making computers. Getting back on track, I add a resistor above the tremorsense and attach a ground wire below it. Tapping off between the resistor and tremorsense, I look to Silvra and gesture towards the translator.
“And what do you think you are doing?” She remarks, eying the setup with a mix of scepticism and intrigue. Her arms were folded, her brow furrowed in concentration.
“Just because you may be able to overhaul our entire way of life, does not mean I will give you something worth half a year’s wage. You best get to explaining yourself.”
Taking a deep breath, I sketched a quick diagram on the paper between us. I outlined how the piezoelectric effect of the tremorsense could convert sound into electrical signals that the translator could interpret. “It’s like turning vibrations into voices,” I explained, hoping the simplicity of the analogy would bridge the gap my technical terms could not.
“It…should work. Why has no one thought of this before?!” Silvra asks eagerly, reaching for even more paper, with Thallion leaning in to take notes as we possibly cross the language barrier.
Silvra passes me the translator, and carefully I place the tap wire on the central nub, and the ground on the body, similar to how their hands work with the metallic pin and the rest of their hand. I then reach for my phone and attach the power to the resistor, and the ground to the body of the translator as well.
I speak.
“can you hear me?” I ask, apprehensively, hoping I did not just blow up the device. It’s faint whine either being a really good thing, or a very bad thing.
“What was that?!” Lena turns around, after staring off into space as we got technical.
“i said, can you hear me?”
“yes we can!” Lena exclaims, not through the device, but from across the table, her eyes wide with astonishment.
“I can too. it is a little dull, but we can hear you. and you can hear us! without us touching it!” Thallion remarks,
I notice that yes, I can hear them, but rather than being melodic and transferring all the intent behind the meaning of the word, translating the emphasis, it comes across as dull, flat and lifeless, like text to speech readers. I find it quite painful to listen to.
“Perhaps it's a minor calibration issue,” I suggested, already thinking about adjustments to enhance the voice modulation.
“maybe i can sound like a robot for now, but perhaps, you should continue playing hot potato with the translator?”
“forget that!” Silvra remarks. “i may sound flat, but i don’t have to pass the device around! i can just leave it on a desk somewhere and it will just work!”
“not only is this an overhaul in this device, but think of the implications. we can talk across species without needing to touch very complex systems. we may even be able to communicate with animals, Lena!”
Lena perks up at this, “if i could talk to them, then i may be able to convince the big ones to leave us alone, but I worry about what that means if they are truly intelligent.”
Looking back at the device, I think back to the little I remember for analog electronics. The device can pass emotion and translate it, so it is capable of doing so. Maybe there is an issue with the prefilter? I could possibly fix that.
“silvra, it is amazing that we can talk, but I find it painful to listen to all of you due to the robotic voice. i think i can fix it. do you have the schematics for the device?”
“i don’t know what robot is, but i am guessing the flat sound, i do have drawings, let me go get them”
Silvra heads out, and Tallion is writing down everything. Lena is leaning over his shoulder.
“i know you are upset, but what you did is monumental, communication without contact, translation without touch. just remember that you are using your phone for power!” Lena states. I cannot tell emotion but bittersweet is all I can get.
Silvra enters again, knocking the snow off her clothes carrying some yellowed paper. Placing them down before me, I look across them.
“maybe increase the power input? That usually works for us. More space for clarity, or something,” Thallion adds, trying to be helpful.
I shake my head no, trying to ignore what he just said, based on the fact that is how humanity killed the first transatlantic cables. It is not a power issue as the device turns on, but a warping or nonlinearity of the data itself.
After a few moments of staring at the schematics, I find the input and the first thing I see is the massive choke directly after the input.
“a ha! found it!” I exclaim, reaching for the toolkit that Silvra brought over a few days ago. “just need to remove the choke at the front!”
“before you go voiding the warranty on this, why would that solve anything? that is how we regulate the flow of power!”
“i make direct current from my phone, so i don’t need to regulate it, in fact, that choke is destroying all high frequencies. i will talk about it if this works.”
“ok, but i’ll dismantle it. just point out the part on the schematic, and provide a jumper to cross over the holes”
Sighing, I grab the cables from the toolbox, along with the soldering iron and candle. Silvra grabs the components from me, and carefully unscrews the ground bell from around the power pin. Finding the power pin’s input into the interior, there is a large coil. Silvra quickly removes the coil and puts the jumper in its place.
Reassembling it, she gestures for me to talk. Taking a deep breath, and reconnecting my phone, I talk.
“Good afternoon everyone! And welcome to a new era! One of power for all!”
“I can hear you loud and clear!” Silvra exclaims, jumping up from the table.
“Astounding! Decoding the schematic and removing the choke did solve the problem!” Thallion replies.
“It worked before, and now it works better, I still think the first is more important to document”, Lena interjects, clearly getting bored of all of this tech talk
“So, Silvra,” I mention, “removing the choke works due to the same way the coil of wire moves coins: magnetism. Over the next few days we’ll be going over this in a lot more detail, but the choke does not choke the current, it converts it into magnetism, which is then released later. A changing current results in a changing magnet inside. It is very weak but enough to smooth input ripples, and stretch out the input spike slightly, which is probably why it is there in the first place.”
“But it comes with a downside. It acts stronger on faster switching pulses than on slow ones. My dc power has only an on pulse, but the signal of my voice is made of many higher vibrations. The choke would have killed this high frequency, and would have only passed the lower, which would be the fundamental frequencies only, sounding flat. The translator would then only be able to act on this flattened signal.”
“Now, I only got about half of that, but it stores the current as something called magnetism, saving it for later, and smoothing out the input,” Thallion states, looking up from his notes.
“Exactly. Think of it like a dam. Takes the surges and smooths them out, but you lose the changes caused by individual rainfalls”
“So what exactly is magnetism?”
“That is a good question, and contains several fields, chemistry, physics, all of what we classify as science. It will look like magic to you, but any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science. Just be ready to learn.
“Does this make the motor thing spin?” Lena asks.
“Yes, yes it does.” I reply, looking at my phone and the power slowly but steadily dropping.

Just a heads up. I may not be adding to this for about a week. Seems I have a medical issue my doctor thinks requires hospitalization, even though I've had this issue for the last 30 years. I guess when a person no longer has an immune system a measly sinus infection the medical industrial complex ignored for that same amount of time suddenly becomes an issue if it kills you before they can squeeze the last of your savings out of you. ~ECM
******************** Chapter Six: We shall dig deep!
As much as I want to create new spawners and scions, after some reflection I decide that I need to take my current cave, and try and turn it into a deep cave complex. I'll also need to move my Core deeper into the complex to make it harder to find. That means at least one expansion into the hill and several more to go deeper under the hill. I figure that I'll run into new invaders, and possibly new spawners, so before I do that, I need more mana. A lot more mana. That means I need to upgrade my core again. Right now it's gone from BB size, to large marble size. I think another upgrade might make it as large as a kiwi fruit. None of those size concepts mean anything to me. I just somehow know what the size means in comparison to whatever those things are. But that's a mystery for idle time, and I don't have any idle time.
Another owl spawns and takes up it's place on a branch of the old Oak. And it seems the bats have, for the time being, decided they want to avoid the area rather than die fighting in it. That makes me happy. I know my minions re spawn, but it's still emotionally painful to feel them die. Maybe I'll get used to it but that thought just feels wrong to me. One should never get used to someone dieing for you. I'm a dungeon. I should be trying to protect them all, instead of them protecting me.
As morning nears I finally have enough mana to upgrade my core one more time. After that I'll be nearly drained of mana for most of the day unless I get another invasion force come in. So that's what I do. I concentrate on my core, and choose upgrade, and the ambient mana flow triples. My mana capacity however, has quadrupled. That makes no sense to me, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. What's a gift horse? I... it fades away. Damnit! I hate that. It's just not fair to have all these sayings and have no idea how I know them, or why they fade away behind that damn wall of mystery.
Growling to myself I decide to ignore them from now on. I need mana to expand. And my minions are providing it to me slowly, just as the ambient mana flowing into me is as well. It will take some time, but I WILL expand. And, hours later, that is just what I do. I expand deeper into the hill, and as I do this, the wall to my right crumbles, and opens into another cave. I look for invaders but see none. I look for a spawner and... Well ok, that is definitely a spawner. It seems I have slimes now. And they spawn once every... 10 minutes for a basic slime. Ok a little different than the other spawners. So if I have slimes, where is the invaders it counters?
I soon realize that my new cave is actually two caves, separated by a narrow passage from the slime cave into a deeper cave, and sure enough, there is my invader... I think? It's... some kind of small pile of pebbles? OH! It's an Earth elemental! But why isn't it moving? It's just sitting there. That's fine for now. I glance over at the slime spawner after watching the pebble pile for a bit, and a garden variety, clear jelly like slime, oozes out of the spawner. Only level 1 but hey, it's a slime, right?
I notice my slime has started to ooze it's way to the other cave. I think it can sense the pile of pebbles and is going to try to attack it. It takes my slime a while to get into the second cave. They don't move very fast I guess. But as soon as the pile of pebbles senses it, it tries to flee. Honestly, it's kinda cute when moving. I looks just like pebbles rolling down a stream bed. Unfortunately, for it, it doesn't manage to move more than a foot before a psuedopod shoots out from my slime, and lands on top of the pebbles. My slime then oozes itself through the psuedopod (ewwww), and is now totally engulfing the pebbles. I don't really see how it's going to end the pebbles until I see a secretion surrounding the pebbles and they start to dissolve very slowly. It takes about 25 minutes before I get the mana notification, so I guess it's dead. But where is the spawner for it? I look, but it doesn't show up? Ok so maybe some creatures can't be turned into a spawner maybe? Right as I said that to myself I get a notification [SPAWNER GAINED: ROCK SLIDE].
Why did it take so long to show up? Glancing to my slime, I suddenly realize why. My slime had to finish eating it first, not just killing it. I speculate that perhaps because it was digesting the Rock Slide, that it had to finish doing so before the spawner became available? Ok whatever. I have three caves now. My entrance, the slime cave, and the rock slide cave. I still wanted to expand deeper into the hill, but that would have to wait. I was low on mana. Time to keep reading the HUD's menu while my minions do their thing I guess.
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