How much is plavix at walgreens

I worked in a retail pharmacy for about 3 years for Walgreens and I really liked all the experience I learned. However in April unfortunately I had a really bad health issue that prevented me from going to work as I physically couldn't really leave my house. Now in the previous job we were only allowed 5 unexcused absences and I already used up all being sick. The work schedule was made like 3 weeks in advance so I couldn't even request time off if I was sick and I couldn't get anyone to cover my shifts. I missed about a week of work then I had another week off that I requested months ago for vacation. I couldn't even go my vacation due to my health issue.
When I came back from vacation I told my job I wouldn't be able to return due to my health and they were upset I didn't give a 2 weeks notice but even if I did I wouldn't be able to make my shifts. I understand a notice is professional but at the end of the day I would have just kept accumulating absences making things worse. They kept me on the schedule for about a week and then took me off. Its been about 3 and half weeks since I was first initially sick and I'm a lot better now. As much as I enjoyed being home and resting I do need to go back into the work force as my bills are piling up. I have a job interview next week and I wondering how to explain to this new employer why I left my previous job but I don't want to come off as unreliable. I really need another job but if my previous manager is contacted she will most likely say negative things about me as was upset I left when in reality I had to put my health first.

Not shared, nor my shade; but something to be weaved; just as the measure of disappointment became it's own solution. But I talked my way through things forbidden, just to find myself blind in bed with those who are dead. Clumsy, but altogether natural of course, because it's consciousness what you refer in the description, yet that's what we don't get a lot about. See your deeds the way you are seen, and then return to a restless place: and the question in-between sheets will be why. Well, I just can't motivate myself to work without hot bitches staring. And that's the truth. Sad but True
— Hearfelt comment for an instagram witch.
Del desprecio a ese descarte, no he visto muchas cosas. Así se pasa una más para las cuentas, y aquí otro más para los versos, por qué aquí no hemos sido vistos. Cuánto más querría uno, que sino lo cuentas ni mucho menos piensas: << lo de este pibe que cosa más horrible>>, haciendo eso lamentable, por qué en decirlo nadie ha mentido. ¡Es horrible! Que cara es entonces la cuenta de lo que le sale a uno vivir sin más complejos; mejor seria cobrarmelo, para así saber que de algo ha valido. Bloqueame.
— Heartfelt comment for a random supermodel-to-be.
The Spirit of Fire
Flames begone, flames in spite: their warmth I felt - so I closed my fist until I could feel the warmth of my blood in my hand. And in dreams Fire came up to me and said: who am I? And I said unto him: you are bound to my bidding, thus your name misery will be. But fire wretched as he was, got closer and asked: and who are you?
And I said unto him that the blood of David ran through my veins, as I was his heir; for the mother of God claim me from death as a son. So Fire tried me, and figured it out.
You are son of woman —said Fire unto me— but as Fire acknowledged the name, I extended my left hand, and took Fire by the neck throwing him into the gound. — You are going to lace yourself to the right hand of the beast, and you'll keep him steady, so I can cleanly take him down. And Fire stayed down, and with his forehead kissing the ground asked unto me —why would the heir of David do so to earthly man?
And I said unto Fire that the beast from the abyss had left no mother for God, so I was to leave none of his body left for his head; as I was going to make it bleed until the end of the end of times.
The Spirit of Earth
Shapeless and without body, but keen within her many numbers, Earth came up to me in dreams, and said: who am I? And posessed in spirit as I was, I said unto her, that God had made her maiden again, and that she shall become the coins that Judas never received, which were to become the due payment of man and women for the body of Christ. Then I extended my right hand, and grabbed Earth by her hair —which descended deep into the abysses of hell— and cut it short so the demons of Lilith would no longer had her gripped by her back.
You are now a woman, and I'm going to rise you from the grounds. You'll lace yourself to the left hand of the beast, and keep it steady so with one shot I can cleanly take him down.
The Spirit of Air
A dream shaped by written words, whispered down for years by the currents of this Montain, and it's requiem witnessed but by a few — the end of dreams. But from where I standed at the peak, I called upon the distant currents that went down, and asked them: who am I?
And Air came unto me as bird, which had thousands of letters for feathers, and in the tongue of dead men answered.
"Somebody who only a few will remember by strange deeds; as the burden on your back, is a past tainted by impossible dreams. You were a lunatic giving new names to folk, and folk never bothered to remember —so your name must be freak, as you died in a forgotten shack some short time ago."
And as Air said these things upon me, I called Misery —as I had dubbed Fire — and told him to get inside my shot. The burden as Air had said, became lesser as i took the shot from my quiver. And I said upon Misery; that he was to set ablaze this arrow, as I was taking down the bird of Britain, and that I would do so, so God would give the deeds of Earth some better names.
The Lord is making a bridge between the empire of strength, and the last empire of men. Now by God's grace, I'm making the tongue of free men, the tongue of Spain. You will be eventually bound to my bidding, and if not me, it will be to the one I'm preceding; for I'm giving you twenty years to attone your wrongdoing. Alas, now because of your wretchedness, my shot on earthly men won't be clean, for his left leg won't stay steady.
Your old name was apathy, now I'm calling you Cisma, which in the tongue of dead men means schism. So now by the will of God lay unto the ground and say the words you've been teached. And as the arrow blazed forward, it's bending motion pierced the veil hiding the secret ladder of men. The bird of Britain catched on Fire, and it's hollering resounded throught the ladders of the mountain until the depths of the abyss. A column of air turned into fire, then violenty erupted from the vowels of the bird, and the wild fire spread as a storm from west to east all throughout the five kingdoms of men away from its own fiery wings, with a gift of misery and a few words to say.
"The name of your woman or the name of your man, will no longer explain their purpose to a man, a woman, or God. Charred words written by thunder will now be the new ladder of men — but until then, darkness upon thee."
The House of Water
I head into the coasts, and the beautiful beaches in-between, to find the stranger who burns images in the skin of men. He is the stranger, and has adopted the body of a monster, and he is one who cannot be understood, so he went on to only go out home in stunts, for the burdens in his heart have become too great to bear. Through terrible pains he has given all he once was for an identity, and as I pick up on his past, i found familiarity in the feelings of his heart. Oh dear friend how we found looking in sadness to ourselves, after doing same but with different means, carrying into our shoulders the loneliness of this world. As you have in-skin the garments of the strange doctrine that I preach — I shall congrate you, for you truly have fought the world entire, for my doctrine is the words of those who shall defeat the world entire.
I may not have your strangeness in-body, but I have it in these words, and in the true feelings of my heart. And I say in admiration that there's no higher form of art, philosophy or religion: than those who perform the highest thing they can give a name about.
Now even within solitude, and at odds with what old dead men call God, I see you and I found strength in you, as I can see you are within me, and in that, you are within everything as it should be - as is meant in everyone who does something that touches the heart of another man. I call this the kingdom of God. Yet blind men and women will wonder how can the kingdom of God possibly be within two outcasts such as you and me.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Upong giving my regards and waiting for response, I found my way into a bench. It was a warm afternoon, and the wind carried the water of the sea. The bird of Britain came about down from the wind of north, and layed on the bench were I was sitting.
The bird asked: why hast thou become this?
And I said back to bird, scorched he was and nearing death, that it was me someone who was supposed to give names, yet for years I couldn't figure out one for myself. Then on went to being given a name, Alas all the wrong ones. Did Adan gave himself a name? - I asked the bird back. And there was no response from bird. Then I continued.
A man has the essence of his soul retained by what he is seen doing. Yet I did things nobody saw, so my soul wasn't with God but with something just as ancient, and nonetheless unknown by men in its true nature — then Satan as the better known devil, came about and pushed me into a hole. It was my own doing. Yet the things I did, I thought were seen. But nonetheless what I did was without contemplation on a posible return. Just as somebody who prints an image on their own skin. It's permanent. This is the essence of a memory in the soul of the man who's seen by others. But in the familiarity of a man who picked every irreversible decision like the Alien, I find myself feeling sympathy, for the man is still not what he has been seen doing, he shall redeem himself by what he decides to turn himself into.
Is this a way of saying that you want to get yourself a tattoo? Get a new look? - the bird mockingly asked.
And I gave the scorched bird no answer.
Then the bird said unto me: what about your career as a prophet, uh? And the things you said about returning with substance? Do you actually think this is substance?
And i considered what the Bird said, then I negated with a movement of my own head. It is not i answered, but i find the memories of me not making sense unbearable. For those mean the memories of a fool, un pendejo, an insane person, or both. And I will always try to amend what I don't do well. But now I wish for only one thing, and it is to be remembered as someone who makes sense, and who out of that sense, made good upon the world. I don't expect anything in return for what I do now, as it is merely an outlet to keep me sane while I finish editing my work. It's clear I'm too incompetent to be a competent influencer. As for once, I don't care about influencing anyone into what I think; but to perform what I think it's important.
Then every proverbial student is free to take classes so as they see fit, and to interpret such classes as their comprehension gives them grasp of what it's said. In such regard, this is what I offer now, while I make the journey to Madrid. And the bird tilted it's head so as to observe me with his left eye, then after a long impasse, it made a loud and painful caw, and finally flew away. Soon after the bird flew, I looked upon the stars in the nascent night, and confessed to them, that it was the memories of who we were, what often stumps us into wrong beliefs of who we should be, maybe even wasting an entire lifetime retained by that which other people remembered us as being. But we are not the owners of our own names, the place we go, and our destiny. That's the biggest lie the western world of hollywood heros tell you, as in truth is collective agreement what determines what we look like doing and thus the meaning we should comfort to, recalling that names are practical mechanisms to remember the purpose of things, their meaning, and how their motion is described in the world.
But making the task of beating that collective belief, akin to the Nietzschean ideal of the camel turning into the lion, so as to transform it's spirit and become something else. But if it's the golden dragon of all the huamn values which judges you insane, will you be prepared to wrestle with the entire culture so as to have your way?
As I layed my eyes upon each star counting up to the number seventeen, I confessed of being scared of those beliefs, as revisiting the past, became a painful deed — and as I prepared to leave, I uttered one wish on the seventeenth point in the sky.
Lord please grant me strength, the way you have given my friend strenght.
2.
The night deepen, while the sea tide sang its own song of breathing. Some time passed, and then on the stranger showed himself approaching at the distance. I waved my hand at him, and after the instant, he found his way into my bench while I welcomed him with an extended fist which he casually bumped - after the short acknowledgement the dark alien looked at my face in between it's cover of dark, and looking at it undiscernable in its true features, with suspicion asked.
— What is it that you want?
I acknowledged him as a friend, then mentioned my brief research, as I had come to know him as man looking for a job, yet nobody would hire for things mundane due to his appearance. I listened closely to the news, and came to understand that this was a man looking for a second chance.Then I saw the intent behind his doing, and two words came to stick to my own thoughts. The first one was <> and the second one was <>. I was admired.
In analytical psychology I figured this man was the ESFP —the personality archetype related to the performer and the entertainer—, possessed in an abnormal way by the spirit by which a person submits to it's contrary nature, seeking to integrate and find fulfillment through the chase of what's perceived absent. If he was the ESFP then doing the flip by following the radial axis of each Jungian function in the stack towards their opposite resulted in the INTJ. The mastermind. The architect. The genius yet awfully complex individual. That was the elusive spirit he was chasing.
But a spirit and a character that at its most pronounced embodiment in a person, would experience life as an eternal foreigner hiding from the light of other men. Such made sense to me, for I myself was the INTJ, and had at spirit the ESFP. Him. So where as this man chased the spiritual fulfillment of being a complex and deep individual, I chased the fulfillment of becoming simpler, so I could demonstrate with action the deepest desires of my heart. One who was born plentiful in means to be liked, becomes complex, mysterious and uncomprehended, meeting one who will be seen trying to make sense becoming simpler. For Carl Jung portrayed the anima and animus of individuals, as the sense of what its absent, yet deeply cherished an valued. So I said these things to the alien, while he silently listened to me.
— All of that sounds like bullshit to me. -Said the alien after some contemplation .— Sorry but the things you say, don't mean anything to me.
And alas for I expected such response, as if one thing was true about this journey, was that explaining the journey in and of itself would become it's grimmest task. I affirmated what he just said with a slight nod of head.
— These things I say and how they relate to each other, in its excercise are similar to doing stecheometric balance with equations in the head, but simpler I'm afraid. - Then I paused, looked back into the sea, and continued. — That's high school chemistry, but I don't expect everybody to pick up on it, nor like it, nor understand it.
— Now i have called you a friend, and where I came from we dub with this title the people we share destiny with. As far as I'm concerned, we are chasing the same thing, which is the hardest posible thing. We both innately understand that we are not home, as we want our spirit to return to us, and that's not what a lot of people ever honestly try to attempt in a lifetime; as such is anyone's call to feel complete.
— And very few people ever reach true individuality, beyond the name they are imposed at birth.
Then I looked into the black alien, and in-between his foreign facial features, I interpreted something familiar. Disturbance. And I continued.
— We have given ourselves hell as we lived chasing something hard, so we can avoid the same hell later on when we are finally back to our own house. This is a christian precept, altought a rundimentary one. Does that makes sense to you?
And after listening such, the black alien calmly looked at the veil in my face in silence. Trying to discern what my face actually looked like, but the night was dark. Then turned his stare back to the reflection of the moon over the waters, giving some thought to what I just said. I opened up my backpack, and drawed two cans of beer from it. Offered one to him, and he silently refused with a gesture of hand. I popped my can and gave it a sip, while I myself stared at the tides coming in and out of the shore.
— If you wan't a tattoo, we can work that out. But this sounds annoyingly familiar, and my interest is not religious. Are you religious?
I nodded in affirmation, and complemented saying. — But my doctrine is something nobody has heard nor seen. For its aim, is doing as Christ said, in perfect means. Yet its true that the teaching fits you, as it's the teaching of the future man; and there's nothing in common between the current man and the future man, as they may very well be different species. This is the precept of evolution.
The alien seemed surprised.
— These two men don't know each other, for the current man doesn't know where the future man comes from, for he himself doesn't know where he is going. Yet in deep realization of your own artistic concept, I think you might want new ideas to meet with your appearance. So tell me, are you curious about what truly happens to a man after he dies? Do you want to learn how to read someone's mind? Do you want to blast with words of fire the hearts of an amazed crowd?
But the black alien broke his calm contemplation of what I was saying, and slighty disturbed, aggressively rebuked after hearing such.
— But you mentioned 'Christ', so you must be christian. How can a christian even say anything interesting in this current time? Last time I asked, their sayings were dreaded by restriction - so why would anyone condemn themselves to a life of bore? Are you a christian?
And I nodded after the question, in silence. Admittedly, for I knew what the problem was with being what I was, and my new companion was bang on identifying it. Made a pause, then raised my sight to where it met with the sky and the stars in it, and I said back to him.
— I am, but not one of a type you have ever seen, for the Christ that comes, is a Christ of art.
2.
The riptide sang, in its secret dialect of earth and sea. I looked upon the coast, turned an eye blind, and saw the ocean as the scorpio, and the land as the taurus; as it was the struggle between two lovers, never meant to consume each other. Ideal love then - yet not to confuse with this partnership as it was whimsilcally tied by the means in which i arranged my current conversation; for my lady somewhere waited for me. Then i allowed my eyes to rest still.
The alien looked upon me, undiscernable in my intentions, and again figured for himself that my interest towards him wasn’t clear. In suspicion, and after the moment he collected his thoughts asked “In your weird words you dubbed me performer, so what is it exactly that you wan’t from me. To me it seems like you are gathering people for some form of religious clown show. When you forced this meeting upon me, was this a proposal you thought i would find amusement in?”. And after the statement my own stare wandered in my conversation partner. While as he had his say, i returned to my can of beer, and finished it with a long gulp. Tempered in an unwillingness to fall to my new found friend irritation, i said within my own thoughts: “The alien looks easy going, but he is barbed in wit”.
Then i opened the can of beer that the stranger rejected; the loud pop resounded in the relative silence, interrupting for a moment the steady chorus of the sea. Gave it a long sip, and said.
– Theres no proposal in place yet. But im certain of something, and that is that both of us are messed individuals which reached the bottom doing the same thing - but the way my understandment of the human soul goes: two people can act by mere interaction as reactives to each other, creating a new chemical compound after the fact.
– This new psychology is very much like chemistry. But it is not my intention to draw you into something, but to pull myself out of this «something» by doing right on another person and maybe that person reflecting the good back on me. I just need a conversation partner, thats all. And i will do this with you, and with many people more. Presidents included.
The alien reflected on it, and after the hiatus of a long standing position of suspicion he finally gave in, and eased up with a slight smile. A strange smile of relief. But the smile, was all too familiar for me, as i realized the man was a tortured individual: a person in long standing pain. I smiled back the way he did, and continued.
– Our pain has a common name, and is a name that can be written with words unfortunately. It’s the devilish mother of all spiritual ills and its foundation, rests at the concept of a past that wasnt solved. It’s called «inadequeacy», and for people like you and me, understanding one day that such inadecuacy had to be solved by our own means, lead us into an act where our name changed as the changes in our cover up act to solve our inadequacy did.
– We never honored the past or the present in our pursuit, as we desired in passion to find solution to the present, by matching it into the idealization of some future without ever realizing that the old or present essence of ones being would be crushed into non existance by said future.
– Then we found the realization of that new name, only to understand that its demands became a tyranny on the other faces of our soul: as our soul is not something that can be undestood in unity, but something that conceives in the beginning in multiple things which try to give shape to one thing. Theres many people in a village, and our minds, are no exception.
— But happiness is only achieved by those who have their soul entire - or those who are the same person regardless of the context and scenario. And we gave to much to somebody that wasn't us, as our spirit took possession and lead us down.
– This is this the essence by which someone goes to hell, only to do one thing over again, getting an ever lasting pain for all the things that were given up chasing that which was absent. The more someone is forced into being shaped by the thing that was concevied in lust, the more the individual misses the place they used to call home, for that is no longer within ones reach. Does this makes sense to you?
The alien left me with no answer, and as he contemplated the sea, a tear travelled through his strange face.
– In this state of anguish, affliction rarely ever feels company, as the very individual condition that was pursued, became a full suit and persona to be forced upon and wear. Hell, is one lonely place man because we only learn to speak a language, that only makes sense to ourselves. But i think we can find a way out of it. This is why I'm here.
“Look, what you’ve done, it’s not something i can see the way you can see my own doing on me.” The alien replied. “Besides the way in which i canno’t see your face in this night, you seem ordinary — but what you talk and the way you say it, evokes in every word regret. What is it that you’ve done that has you regret like this?”
As the alien finished speaking, I emptied the can of beer, layed my eyes on the irregular grooves that my feet had left on the sand, and then replied back to him, after making a recap of the story i had repeatedly told myself after falling down.
“My story, is the fairy tale of a guy who makes way for the new coming of a new man; a better man for the world, while he casts disarray upon the earth: much to his dismay, at the expense of his own soul as the people who become victims of disasters, were ones who this man deemed unfair; cruel, evil, despicable in past. That was at the beginning."
"Theres a pile of corpses behind that character — even in covid time, people as close as the local priest of the small town he lived in, would break their neck after falling in the shower, as he had the slightest suspicion of their secret deeds. All clean deads for that matter. Untraceable to nothing but sheer randomness. Magic as it seeems. But were this folk truly evil people or even guilty of anything? You may ask - the man never knew it for sure, as he never had faculties such as godly omniscience to actually know it; which has taken a toll on him, as the burden of justice is an unberable one for anything but a god."
"Which leads to another point: spontaneously picturing random numbers in the head, associating them with psychological compounds by angular momentum, and actually being bang on the suspicion. Truth friend, in its stochastic presentation: it's unberable.”
“Consequential of such attempts to rationalize his own story in the eyes of people such as close family, my dude became clinically diagnosed with referenced thinking. Which are fancy words for schizophrenia. Nobody believed the story as it was uttered."
"Yet the consequences are there for everyone to see, altought not visible in their cause and effect by anybody but this guy, which lead him first into regret over ever starting his quest as a reformer; and then repent.”
“Now before he realized of this lets call it «curse», he preached for years over the internet as the disasters started to slowly creep up. He preached in a fashion parallel to Niestzches Zarathustra; Zarathustra meaning a famous philosophical device artificied by the philosopher Niestzche, who’s aim was to portray the best posible man, as something he dubbed the <<Übermensch>> ”.
“Such concept being the seemingly more elegant brand of a humanist ideal for a not so distant future: today - albeit a wrong one, for this guy was not dyonisian himself. The backbone of his framework, is analytical psycholgy becoming a chariot for a true understandment of human nature: and ultimately a facilitator for love within light: not within ignorance; not within darkness. Most philosophers today though would mock anything analytical in it's aim."
"Then on the guy preached and dwelved further into the relative hole of his own doctrine: and became imprisoned by what he didn’t got right at first attempt, making him in the process the character that Nietzsche from the comfort of his own writers seat, never attempted to actually embody within realistic means: eventually figuring out within himself the ultimate Nietzschean aristocrat: a magic pen granted by being capetian by mother: from judah by father."
"But Alas, you have no idea how common suicide is within philosophers after they finish their best work. As language, becomes the ultimate barrier for understandment, and then to ones capacity to feel love. Difference — true saliency in ones individual destiny— leads to the gravest posible pain. Ironic isn’t it?”
“Besides technical work with a new form of psychology inspired by analytical chemistry, as that drawed from his efforts during the light of day, five years ago, once he felt the urge to try to reach out to the world from a position of what he deemed was greater understandment: he primitively preached during night his new set of ideas for people to behave beyond the limitations of manipulative psychology, albeit a harsh doctrine meant to clear the way for a better product: Christ himself."
"This is not a doctrine a human being can actually perform, as such its christianity at its highest capacity to bear fruit. It’s an impossible doctrine, yet solves the oldest problem posed in the bible. All which sounds very sci-fi bullshit-y but actual problems started for the protagonist in this tale, when the preaching matched with terrible consequences. Not figurative, but within tangible reality.”
“So just as we talk, theres a small legion of hackers pretending to be doing internet social experiments while talking in an artsy matter: much in my own style, entertaining the exact same concepts - a legion of dangerous monkeys, i have no control over."
"One of the many unexpected consequences being this, yet prompted by something evil; ancient: essentially replicating what my protagonist developed and then preached over the years, while these "hacktivists" lay their attention on things and people, as they select them and enforce upon them strict surveillance, to behave properly. Then to destroy them, as they did in 2020 with many corporations and institutions.A bizarre combination of theater actors to my own liking, and then cyber-security demigods: omniscient in their claims to surveill, and they are - derivative such of another device of what I've done; which is to build a theater so people can make-believe that they are infact performing within themselves something greater - but that's matter for another story."
“Most of the corpses piling up flat out dead, have no relation to him whatsoever; they became victims as my protagonist took measures to fight back the monster he found at the foundation of the known world. This is not an elaborate analogy for one's own unseen capacity for evil, as i mean this: a monster as literally as it can be. For these things friend, im doomed as in true strenght, i have nothing but the pen i use to write down what i think albeit always at danger of it’s eventual inversion. I have no real friends left. Not one who can understand, or help bear the pain: as friendship and love are all gated by understandment."
"The full story has many more vertients, but i think i’ve done it enough justice. This is the predicament of an insane man chased by his own shadow as he builds a better man: one who delivers heavenly things, and then a shadow stringed to deliver tyranny as the very strings behind him make the better man stumble while he tries to keep a grasp of his own spirit, and then of his own soul."
"That monster behind, is wicked smart — and cannot be outwitted nor overpowered but anything but divine smite."
“I’m heading now to a new country, to try to get friends from the only institution in the world who knows and adresses the current times being, and who by extension, might believe me. And to clarify, these being the end of times; but not the end of the world. Yet now i myself have a damocles sword pending over my own head, and i need to do something about it before it falls.”
And as i said these things, i reached out to my backpack drawing a third can of beer from it — besides my own super laptop, thats what my backpack had: an infinite supply of beer. Corona, Indio, Victoria, Dos Equis, Heineken; you name it. I popped the can, and gave it a long and definite sip as i emptied it complete.
The alien didn't try to show that he understood, but stood still in silence, with his sight in the sand below and pressing lips, knowing by my demeanor; that these things as I've said them was something that I needed to do. Then he said: "I don't follow man. You say you preach and then disasters occur. Like a prophet from the bible?"
"Yes. Then I preached to get rid of the things that are actually making the world worse, and something awoke soon after, and since then; everything I do is subject to being misinterpreted due to the diffamatory action of this thing. Now everytime I do something, it can be twisted and turned against my original intent. Right now the hackers are my worst problem: I may have a degree in computers but I have no fucking idea whatsoever of hacking. I earn my living as an A.I engineer.".
The alien raised his sight to meet with mine, and after doing some contemplation on the fact, quite simply said: "You are insane". Then lowered his own sight, and raised it again to meet with the sea and continued. "If you want a tattoo, we can work that out. But either way and whatever parts of your story are true and even worse; the ones you may be lying about: you sound dangerous in a delusional kind of sense, and my life is hard enough as is."
I pressed my fists, knowing then the old same thing had happened again. For I had never forced anything upon anybody, and I was willing to respect that until the bitter end. Then I released the build up of frustration with a loud sigh, and after this amend, I replied back.
"I understand and respect it. But let me just propose you that if you ever want to figure what is beyond life as it's lived by person who has never seen what is like to be someone you write a great story about; you can pin me, and I'll show you what's beyond that door. Give it some thought."
The alien; The Black Alien Project stayed there sitting, spechless but calm, almost expecting something else to be convinced about. But pointless, for i knew that nobody can be forced into anything without bringing a transgression into play – and i wasn’t one to taint myself in sin if it could be avoided. Not anymore.
3.
I made the distance at steady pace walking along the shore, until i found a small group of pines in-between the liminal space of the beach and the land. I sat with one of the pines trunk behind my back, and drawed the Schizo Pills from my eternal supply of traveller goodies.
Quetiapine 100 mg, and Olanzapine 10 mg, i made a smaller fragment from the olanzapine pill, and swallowed both complete. As their side effects were concerned, they would soon knock me out of conscience, as this little ritual was my own way of calling the day complete – then i layed there, vigilant, waiting for my own drowsiness to claim me into sleep - but the Bird of Britan came flying from above, and stood besides me.
\Chirp, Chirp, Chirp**
I watched the bird, annoyed, as its presence had become an omen for contempt. For me and the death people of my past. I frowned upon the little shit, and said nothing. The bird made a little nod, while tilting its head in excentricity the way birds do, and replied. — Hey Andrew!, do you remember when you tried to penetrate your own computer to make a universe grow inside of it? I just wan’t to know something: did your computer moan? Did it finally learnt how to scream your name?
\Chirp Chirp**
Ignoring the bird, i closed my eyes and stayed like that for a long moment, hoping to make the bird think i was asleep. Maybe that would make him leave.
— Can’t bullshit me like that Sweetheart. So please tell me something; why don’t you command one of your supermodels; these muses, to come here and warm the bed for you. It's a cold night and you seem lonely brah
. \Chirp Chirp**
I opened my eyes, and irritated, pointed menacingly at the bird turning my left hand into an imaginary gun. I had already failed at something today, and wasn’t convinced i needed the memory of the things i failed at before. Not now.

• Hol’ up cowboy ! you wan’t to bang my bird ass when you should be banging a bitch ass. What happened with Tyrone huckleberry? Did you managed to make him as impotent as you are right now? —I held steady my hand; and tired, the tempation to pull again the trigger on the bird was growing larger. I saw red roses in my own sight, making a terrible omen for a migraine forthcoming. Said nothing.

— The glowniggers are out there brah. You may not be a hacker – and its true, but i took notice of your last words: so now the glowies are going to instead dreambooth* people into every posible kind of scenario of extorsion, while they surveil like a motherfucker. Like you dream boothed yourself for your little ahem "art project". Then we will use Suno*, then Sora* when it open sources. Are you going to protect your hoes?
Said nothing.

• Alright cowboy, i will give meaning to that revelations verse. What was it? Ah yes. Revelations 9:6. Every single person with an internet history will be as paranoid as you were in 2020. Everyone will be diffamated into acts of political terrorism! Aren’t you am-

And as i pulled the imaginary trigger from the imaginary pistol, an imaginary arrow in the sky descended with a blaze of not so imaginary flames on the Bird of Britain, engulfing the little shit in heat, and making it’s body explode into a gore of scorched viscera. As if the bird was in a microwave oven. I inmediately gasped as the explosion was too close from where i was sitting - after the conmotion, stared at the red and burned stain in the floor, and left my sight rest there, as sleep finally found its way into my restless thoughts.
"No longer care for love unless it's between good friends”. Said to myself. There was certainly a migraine coming, but maybe my dreams would help convince it otherwise. And as far as the hoes were concerned, Furious Angels would be there for them. Like the Rob Dougan song.
4.
Found my own mind after the slumber – asleep, then awake. I realized several hours passed - at least enough to wake up and witness the sun rise above the sea. But as for dreams, the light veil of their memories wasn't something to rely upon. But i did remember something, and it was some overtone in dread; an atmosphere of fear – and a kind of dread sustained in it’s inevitability by the urgency that builds upon dearth.
Now what exactly was it though? I couldn’t remember from my dreams, but ever since i falled to my own death i had always present in mind the future succesion of events that would follow when things started to go very wrong. Iran, the U.S, Israel - now whatever was it in the news; the outcome would be the same. A thousand more cuts to an already languishing economy. Make that corpse bleed, and then fall off a cliff.
As such things would be cooked, just as the bird of britain. The bird was still there though: just in pieces and roasted like the contents of a dropped KFC bucket would. But the little shit would return - as it always did. The economy? Not so much.
Yet i digress. None of the world circumstances mattered as far i was concerned – i had built a small and portable solar system to power my laptop, and my beer supply was well, infinite - i made myself sure that i had my needs covered whatever happened around me. Not tied to even a house for that matter. I incorporated myself and gave my back a stretch. The morning breeze coming from the sea evocated in my memories some time that had long passed – late childhood. I rejected those memories as they beared with them things i didnt wan’t to remember - then wen’t on as usual in my morning routine scrolling through my instagram feed, figuring if there were any new hoes to maybe motivate me into doing my God imposed labour.
Labour which was to either write, or to finish the House of Water — then after scrolling i did in fact saw a new hoe; i dropped a Faux Pas comment. Maybe she would play along, maybe not. Whatever. Sometimes I would put in a lot of effort to do a rhyme. But the effort depended on the insta-hoe in question. I know. Not the best of habits, but back in elementary school i was the kind of kid that would only get motivation when the girls in the classroom were present in physEd. And then i would run faster: whole lotta faster. Run Forrest! Run! Women love used to fuel me; and the habit sticked — and at the moment, i was kinda done with the idea of female trascendence. Would rely on their love, but not on their validation. Not like a simp. Fuck that.
Furthermore, what results did i demonstrably mustered after pursuing true egalitarianism and sharing it? Exactly. A bitch gonna do what a bitch gonna do, and so does the human female. After publishing the comment, I locked my phone and walked towards the highway, as i was planning to pay a visit to somebody long forgotten - I had kind of a schedule that i was going to follow, before taking the plane to Madrid and become hispanic Jon Snow from the walgreens Nightwatch.

So this is a long one. Like, I'm going back over it and damn. This is longer than I thought it would be. Throwaway account, I've only made one other post to this relating to what's going on. Instead of updating the other post, I figured I'd make a separate one about the whole shit show I experienced, and the shit circus I uncovered and avoided. I'll try to keep this in as chronological an order as I can.
As the title says, my abusive/narc mom and pos/delusional/golden child brother started trying to reach out to me a few months ago wanting to make amends and build bridges with me again. There were a few people that commented on my previous post in another subreddit that may be a little disappointed in me for how I handled this, and a few that might enjoy that I handled it the way I did. Someone commented to not let them use my good nature. My nature is dependent on who I'm dealing with, and when it comes to that side of my family, I'm more stick than carrot. So their attempts did not go ignored, and did not go unpunished.
Growing up, I was always closer with my Dad than my mom. My brother was the epitome of "pampered mamma's boy". He started having seizures as a child and was diagnosed with epilepsy, which I thought was why my mom babied the absolute fuck out of him long into adulthood. He would go a year or 2 without any seizures, and then there would be a few months where he'd be having them every other day. At Anytime he got in trouble at home or school, my mom would find a way to blame me, for not making sure he knew whatever he was doing would get him in trouble, or she would blame my dad for not being "involved enough in their baby's life." My dad was in the Navy and I remember any time he'd deploy, I'd dread every day until he came back. My brother would taunt me that he knew whatever he did, I'd be the one to get in trouble for it. My dad would always make things up for me when he got back from his deployments though. We'd often have weekend trips just the 2 of us. And then around my 12th birthday, my mom insisted on sitting us all down and explain to that she and my dad were getting a divorce. We got the whole talk about how they still love us and they just can't be together anymore, etc. my dad told us both that he still loved us and he would be there for us whenever we needed him. He explained that he would be moving out, but he would be by to pick us up to spend the weekends with us. I was nervous and honestly scared of what it would be like without him. But I was looking forward to the weekend when I got to see him again. That never happened though, and that was the last time I ever got to see him.
Right before his weekend with us, my mom explained to us that my dad didn't want anything to do with us anymore. There was some news story about a father that killed his kids when he had custody of them and she used that to terrify my brother and convince him that our dad wanted to kill us to start his life over. We left damn near everything behind and moved in with my mom's brother in Florida (from Virginia) a couple days before my dad was supposed to come get us. After that, she went to great lengths to make sure we had no contact from him.
Years went on, my mom seemed more indifferent towards me than ever. She never seemed interested in anything I did unless my brother also seemed interested in it. She didn't show any interest in my wanting to learn guitar until my brother also showed interest in it. Then we got one guitar that we had to share, I'd take lessons on the condition that I taught my brother whatever I learned in them. My brother eventually wound up breaking the guitar and I was blamed for not storing it in the case it came with. I had to share my N64 with him whenever he wanted to play it. I was playing perfect dark one day and having a hard time killing the skedar leader at the end of the game. My brother burst into the room saying he wanted to play his MegaMan game, to which I just replied "give me a minute, this boss fight is hard, once I'm done you can have your turn" He didn't like that. He left the room and came back with a hammer and smashed the console while I was still playing. My fault for not letting him play it. The only thing I had that he could not use was a pair of roller blades my aunt got me for my 14th birthday. I specifically asked for roller blades to get around instead of a bike because my brother and I had different shoe sizes, so he couldn't wear them Because of constant shit like that, I never really put much value in having things growing up. I didnt want to buy something or get something as a gift just to have it fucked up in a few weeks or months. At some point, my "little" brother became the larger one, so my clothes all became "hand-me-ups" as he outgrew everything. So, because I didn't really have any distractions at home, I turned into a high achieving student, rarely got in trouble. made the honor roll all throughout school. But that wasn't something to celebrate as it was expected of me. I had long since decided that I was moving out as soon as I could once I turn 18. I got a job working at a Walgreens as soon as I could and started saving up for a car. My mom however took issue with this and would never agree to take me looking for one and absolutely refused to ever have it put on her insurance. This is where my Aunt comes in. She and her son are the only 2 on my mom's side that aren't some sort of degenerate. She had her son young, but put herself through college while raising him alone and eventually got her MBA and a cushy upper corporate job. She told me to tell my mom I had to go in to work on one of my days off, that she would pick me up and she would take me car shopping. So that's what we did. I couldn't quite afford a cash car, but she helped me with the financing. I put down what I had as the down payment, the arrangement she made with me was that 1- as long as I was in school, she would cover the insurance and payments for me, however, if I got into an accident, I was responsible for paying the deductable. And 2- as long as i was living with my mom, the car remained in her (Aunt's) name. And if anything happened to it, to let her know so she could get the appropriate authorities involved. My mom was PISSED when she found out I now had a car. Her reasoning (that she said in front of my aunt) was that she didn't think it was fair for one of us-either me or my brother- to have something the other couldn't use. Due to him being 13 and having epilepsy, he couldn't drive, so why should i have a car if my brother doesn't? That turned into a long shouting match between my mom and Aunt that basically ended with my aunt explaining that since it was her car, and all paperwork on her name, I was just on the insurance for it so I could drive it. But if anything at all happened to it while I was living at my Mom's, that the police and insurance companies would get involved. My mom still kept track of all the miles on the car to "make sure I was only going to work and school and wherever she told me I could go". Most of the time, when I hung out with friends, I wasn't the one driving. From that that point though, my mindset was very much "keep my head down and nose clean until I can leave." I graduated a month before my 18th birthday. After graduation, my mom and i got into an argument about me contributing to her bills. I eventually dropped the ball that I planned on getting back in touch with my Dad and leaving. She started laughing. Something about that laugh made me really uncomfortable. She then said "well, you can certainly meet up with him whenever you want! I'll supply the gun if you buy the bullet!" And told me my dad had died when I was 15. That. Fucking. Broke. Me. Later that night, i called my best friend and vented everything to him. He was in the DEP program for the Navy and would be shipping out in a few months, he told me to come by first thing in the morning and talk with him and his parents about the whole situation. I basically packed up all of my clothes and left the day after my 18th birthday. I just left my house key and a note that said "I'm not your problem anymore." I couch surfed for a little while until after my best friend left for boot camp, then I was able to move in and live with his parents (chosen parents basically). My only real rules were keep the house and my space clean and make sure I had a job and/or going to school. I spent a few months mourning my dad and kind of in a haze. Since he was in the Navy though, that meant I was reliable for financial aid for school. My second dad helped me get everything put together to start receiving that so I could start college.
Well, after a couple years of this, my brother, who had spent his time at school more as "forced socializing" instead of learning, was expelled from public schools for allegedly setting off a fire extinguisher in a classroom. He had to enroll at an alternative school called "the drop back-in academy" that was specifically for dropouts or anyone that got the boot from the public school system. My mom reached out to me and asked me if I would drive him to this school in the mornings, she'd pick him up in the afternoons, and she'd pay me $20 a week.I agreed to it thinking this was out of character for her, but she surprisingly held up to that agreement. I drove him for a couple years until I was ready to start my bachelor program. My second parents were getting ready to move back to their hometown and I was going to start school on the other side of the city. So, I was moving to that side of town and couldn't really drive out of my way to pick up and drop off my brother anymore. He continued his enrollment at this place for another 3 years (5 years total) and it turned out, he was never attending. I would drop his ass off there every day and he'd just walk home immediately after I pulled out of the parking lot. He'd just tell my mom that he finished his work early and decided to walk home instead of wait around for her. One afternoon, I'm coming home early from work and my brother is just sitting on the steps to my studio apartment. He tells me that he and our mom got into a really big argument and he needs a place to stay. I (reluctantly) let him in. I'm stuck thinking he must be really desperate if he's coming to me for help. But I start thinking at this point, he's 24, jobless, and probably needs to learn some self discipline and responsibility, and our mom just never did that for him. So I try to help. I ask him what their fight was about and he tells me that he started dating this girl at his alternative school. She was 21 and got the boot from the school system for being too old to attend (we actually have several relatives that were kicked out of the school system for the same reason) and that he accidentally got her pregnant and our mom did not take kindly to that. I called my landlord and explained the situation to him. He was okay with it, so I let him crash on my couch for a little bit (until the end of my lease, then I'd be moving) and just told him to clean up after himself, take care of himself, etc until we could all work this out. He crashed there for a few months and did Jack shit. He would complain that I didn't have a computer for him to use (I only had a laptop I bought for school) and I didn't have any video game consoles for him to entertain himself with. So he was stuck there bored all day. I got tired of the complaining and lack of effort and told him he had to go back to our mom's if he wasn't going to be an adult. We started shouting at each other until he dropped this little bombshell. He yelled "I can't go back to Mom's!" And when I asked why, he just blurted out "because it's to close to that elementary school!" That stopped the whole thing. "And why is that a big deal now?" I asked him. I already knew why that would be the problem, but 1% of me was holding onto the hope that he was got jumped by a gang of 5th graders and the trauma was too much for him to bear. I told him he could either tell me what's going on, or I could make a phone call and get every last detail I needed. He confessed that he had been leaving that school and going over to his "girlfriend's" house and waiting for her to get home. And that one day, her mom ended up catching them in the act. I explained to him that he was leaving out important details if that was the reason he couldn't be near a school.
He told me she was 14, not 21. I. Lost. My. Shit. Everything after that is kinda fuzzy, but he was arrested, mom posted bail, and since she lived right around the corner from an elementary school, he couldn't stay there. So they told his parole officer that he'd be staying at my address until his court date.. his PO had swung by a couple times, but I was always either at work or school or out somewhere. At this point, I told him the lease was up in 6 weeks, I couldn't stand to be around him. I packed my stuff early, moved out into a storage unit, and I stayed at an extended stay hotel until it was time for me to move. Called my landlord and told him what was going on, and if my brother was still there the last week of the lease, nail him for trespassing. My landlord was a good guy. I never had any problems with him. I paid up the last 6 weeks and threw him since extra cash for his troubles as I knew I wouldn't be getting my deposit back. That was the last time I saw my brother. After I moved out of state, I cut all contact with everyone in that family except my Aunt who was the only one that ever helped me out or even had my back. But even then, it was just through email. We'd mainly email birthday and holiday wishes to each other. Updates from my side on how life and career are going.
I never had a myspace or a Facebook growing up. I either never had a computer to check it on, or I was just so accustomed to not having any online distractions that I just never got around to making one. I did finally make a Facebook and I did get in touch with my dad's side of the family and reconnected with them. I hadn't seem most of them since I was 4 or 5. Some of them had been in contact with my brother (he fucking knew our dad died) and was spinning some sort of web about how he graduated high school early, had gone to college for pre-med and then got some sort of full ride scholarship to some prestigious medical school in Florida. He told them I wasn't on social media because I had been arrested for selling drugs and that he was taking me in after I got released. He was also using my senior portrait as a profile pic. They were surprised when they saw me and how I "looked just like my brother!" I had set the record straight. They looked dumbfounded when I told them that he couldn't get himself out of the 9th grade in 10 years, and now would likely never complete his high school journey due to the fact he can't be within 100 yards of a school.
So, fast forward to last week. I checked my email for the first time since late January (for my aunt's birthday) and noticed a few from her saying my mom wanted to reach out, then several emails from a new address. It was my mom's first initial and last name. Subject lines usually read "please respond" and "let me know you're okay" and stuff like that. I'd copy some of them over, but holy shit this is already a novella. Basically she got my email address from sneaking my aunt's phone (aunt did not sell me out). She's trying to apologize for how she treated me growing up and trying to excuse it by saying I reminded her of my dad and then she was going through menopause and just any excuse to dishes full accountability it seems. She acknowledges that it was wrong to hold me accountable for my brother's fuck-ups but dismisses that by saying he didn't know any better and she needed me to be a good role model for him. Things have been hard for her since I left, since she "had" to take my brother back in (I would've left him on the street or in jail), she had to sell her house (she was only 10 years into her mortgage) and buy another smaller one further from a school for him. He never did get a hs diploma or GED because how can he? And she's been going through breast cancer treatment for the last several months and just doesn't have the energy to take care of her 33yo baby anymore. She asked me if I lived close enough to them to take him in for a little bit while she focuses on her health. I left Florida 8 years ago and haven't even lived in the same time zone in 6 years. She can only check her email at work since she no longer has Internet at home. She had to cancel her home Internet service because of him. So, I decided to just put my brother's name into a search bar and the first thing that pops up is a FDLE sex offender's page. And holy shit has he gone downhill. He had a second arrest when he was 27 for the same thing, and then was caught in communications with another girl (like Chris Hansen sting) and was released from prison at the beginning of the year. And the mugshot.... You know the pale lady from the scary stories to tell in the dark movie? Think that, but with a patchy beard. Beady eyes, bad skin and all. According to the sheriff's office inmate search, he's been arrested 5 times in the last 10 years. Twice for lewd and lascivious battery of a minor (aged 12-15), once for solicitation of a minor, and twice for probation violations.
The TL/DR: abusive mom took all her frustrations out on me, blamed me for everything my brother did, hid my father's death from me until I was almost 18, and reaches out after 8 years of no contact and wants me to take care of her pedophile son while she's in poor health.
I'm attaching my response to her below.
Hi. I'm alive. I'm well. I'm also not okay with you contacting me, especially under the circumstances that you violated the privacy of your own sister to get my contact information. I have read your apologies and excuses and I do not accept either. You say I reminded you of Dad? He spent more time with me and showed more interest in my well-being than you ever did, and that's including the 6 years he was absent from my life by your own selfish design. Menopause? I find that hard to believe as this went on for the better part of half a decade and not once in that time did your attitude towards brother change. You always treated him with the same coddling infantile obsession and patience that one would show a toddler. It was and is clear that you have a preferred child as that adult-sized pile of shit is still living comfortably with dear old mama. I'm guessing no one else is willing to take him in? Are Uncle and Cousins afraid of him doing something to their daughters or grandchildren? I do believe you when you say you want to rebuild the bridge that you nuked from orbit years ago, but I can't believe it's not for your own selfish desires. And I can't find any reason or way my quality of life could be improved with your presence. The reality is, my life has been far better without you than it could be with you. I've never said this to anyone, but if there is a sense of karma and balance in the universe, your current situation is proof of that. The next time I see your name on my computer screen, had better be for your obituary. But since you and the monster you raised both decided to keep Dad's death a secret from me, and remove any choice I had to mourn or pay my respects, I'll return that kindness to you.
Please die away from me.

Hey Guys , I just want to share how my 1st rubber band ligation went @ Kaiser’s GI specialist. For anyone curious or looking for some more info.
(Background ) I’m 26 years old . I’ve had internal/external hemorrhoids for about 10 years! and it’s only gotten worse over the years so I needed to take care of it. I’ve always been very active and in good health but for some reason I’ve been haunted by these hemorrhoids and they have never gone away . I’ve had colonoscopies, Doctors have always stuck their fingers up my ass and gave me ointment but everything was for temporary help. Every Bowel Movement I have , my hemorrhoids stick out and I have to push it back in after I’m done on the toilet (highly recommend this , you feel way more comfortable after. Use Vaseline and a glove if you have one.) BUY A BIDET AS WELL! I even use a portable bidet at work.
(Procedure day ) So anyways, I was scheduled for a Rubber band ligation a couple weeks ago . I’ve always hated appointments for hemorrhoids, I’m sick of getting fingers up my ass just to remind me I do have hemorrhoids and getting ointments, there’s even been times I couldn’t relax and Dr had to send me for a colonoscopy because she couldn’t stick a finger up there all the way to check (CAN YOU BLAME ME?). But this time I told myself I needed to man up and just relax to get this over with. (I smoked weed before the appt. for my nerves )
The night before, I needed to purchase 2 fleet enemas. One for @9pm and another for 1 hour before my appointment which was @10. Walgreens has them for $1 each. When I got to the appointment I had to prepare for the Anoscopy and rubber band . They pretty much just make you bend over the bed and insert a 3 inch thin tube into your anal to see the inside and which internal hemorrhoids they can rubber band (external cannot be rubber band). Now remember, I HATE having fingers and things up my ass and it’s been hard in the past appts. but I just made sure to relax, took deep breaths and took my mind off the situation. It actually wasn’t that bad and was tolerable . It took about 5-8 minutes and the DR told me I had about 4 internal he was able to see and reach for the rubber bands . I did 2 rubber bands , he pretty much used this vacuum like object to suck in the hemorrhoid so the rubber band can be shot on . So you feel air being sucked out your asshole then a lil rubber band just popping on there . After the 2nd one he asked If I wanted to do another or just wait and told me whatever pressure I feel now is what I’ll feel like until they come off so I stuck with 2. Nothing hurt , you just feel pressure and a rubber band in your ass because the hemorrhoids are irritated from the procedure .
(After the procedure)
The first 4 hours kinda suck, I would recommend to take the day off. You just feel uncomfortable and the hemorrhoid is irritated so it’s hard to feel relaxed and comfortable. Take TYLENOL. The rest of the day was okay but you definitely feel something there. All of this is tolerable tho and you shouldn’t be in Pain at all so don’t worry.
Day 2, in the evening you don’t feel anything at all! Feels back to normal and you only feel a little uncomfortable when you Poop. Do not strain or push and take softeners if you feel you need to.
Day 11 ( this experience was not common so don’t let it worry you)
So 11 days have passed by and I haven’t seen any rubber bands in my toilet after BM’s.(which should happen when they fall off) But my poops are way more comfortable and I haven’t seen blood on the toilet paper since day 3. However, Day 11 @1pm I feel the need to poop while at work so I’m holding it and as I’m walking to the bathroom , I feel like I shit myself so I run to the toilet and as soon as I sit down blood and blood clots just start pouring out my ass like diarrhea FOR 2 HOURS. Everytime I stand up thinking I’m done, I have to sit down immediately to bleed more . I finally get up at 3pm feeling dizzy and lightheaded and was recommended to visit the ER. I did not bleed anymore after and the Doctors told me this was normal for some patients after the procedure and too not worry. It was wild to think that was normal but some people like myself just recover more severely then others.
It’s now 3 weeks after and I feel fine. I still suffer with 2 other hemorrhoids that pop out but I haven’t bled and they definitely don’t bother me as much as before. I always push mine back in because I’m very insecure about smelling or feeling uncomfortable . I’m not sure if I’d do it again because of my experience but i do feel better and everyone recovers differently! I do not regret it at all! GET HELP FUCK HEMORRHOIDS AND YOU ARENT THE ONLY ONE SUFFERING!! Good luck

I had a miserable time with bupropion the first go round. Made me sleepy, foggy, and frankly I’m not even sure it made me less depressed. Then, going through a tough time, I restarted it but I was given a different manufacturer, Epic. Omg night and day difference. Like it worked, I was happy, I was doing stuff. The one that didn’t work was Solco, I didn’t know that was a common issue. I stopped bupropion again when the situation got better but sadly, realized that oh it was bupropion that made it better. Fine. Run around, bc my Walgreens now can’t get Epic. But a different one has it.
I picked it up today, and without thinking I took the first pill (my 2nd dose for the day). It was NOT AT ALL like my previous experience. So I pull the bottle out, it says Epic. But look at the pills, they’re all wrong. They say yh133. The epic I had before was e 410. Come to find out this is Slate Run which did not treat me well at all when I tried it in XR.
What the ever loving fuck? How do they do this? All the pharmacists seem to know that bupropion generics ARE different . Like I remember years ago, no one would believe me if I had a problem with a generic brand (I did in the past with spironolactone and sumatriptan generics. I forget which, but I think Sun spironolactone was awful and dr reddy’s sumatriptan didn’t treat me well). Now every pharmacy employee seems to get it and it’s never a problem to ask for a generic manufacturer.
I just want to cry. I had finally gotten relief on the other Epic bupropion (it sounds like it was originally Sandoz) and now I’ve got this garbage shit. It’s not even the “manufacturer” - though the bottle says Epic, it says manufactured by Yichang Humanwell Oral Solid Dosage Plant.
I’m going to talk to Walgreens, they took back the bupropion before when they filled Solco after requesting Epic- it’s just that time I didn’t take any, this time I took the one dose.
I’m really so tired of dealing with medication shit these days. It’s always something- shortages, delays, generics that suck. I’m convinced the Adderall xr (brand) is not much better than a sugar pill. (Yes I’m on both, yes my provider said that’s fine and bup may even help the Adderall last longer).
I’m just having to dedicate so much time lately to medication or pharmacy issues. I don’t want to have this garbage. Anyone have any idea how I can go about getting the right stuff?

Yep. I’m at that point where my study guide is my only saving grace. Does anyone have recommendations for the best print job you can get in the Ithaca area? I’ve seen UPS, Walgreens, FedEx, UncIe Marty’s (lol)and obviously CU print but don’t know which is best/if there is a difference. I obviously plan to use extremely small font and the exam is rather soon so don’t want to spend too much time searching around for printers. Also any tips on how to format, what font, black or color, etc would be much appreciated! Thank you and best of luck to all studying ✌️✊🏿

Thought I'd post a review of our stay in the Endless Summer Dockside as we'd read mixed reviews before our trip. We usually stay in Cabana Bay but the price difference was significant this time so we opted for the cheaper resort.
Pros: The pool is great. Open from approx 9am until 11pm at night, warm, lots of lifeguards, always sunbeds available, decent quality pool towels always available too. The pool side bar also has great drink options. This is such a nice area to relax before or after the parks and we used it more than we expected.
The Pier 8 Market. There's enough variety here with options to suit picky eaters. Nothing particularly exciting on the menu but decent basics that were convenient and affordable. Love the fresh fruit and salad, it's nice to have healthy options on hand. The refillable fountain cups also saved us a huge amount compared to buying drinks on the go.
The rooms. Beds and pillows are comfortable, the toiletries are decent (unless you don't like citrus, in which case bring your own) and there's everything you need including a fridge.
The staff. You might expect a lower level of service from a value hotel but this wasn't the case at all, people were really helpful and requests for extra towels etc were dealt with promptly and efficiently. Couldn't ask for better service.
The transport. We never waited more than two minutes for a bus to or from Citywalk, which was great.
Cons: The room noise. I have a hearing disability so this didn't affect me as much as my partner but you apparently really can hear what's happening in the corridors and adjoining rooms, especially if you have a linking door to your neighbour's room. We were lucky with considerate neighbours, but it's a busy hotel and I could see this being a huge issue for some guests.
Amenities. If you're looking for the extras that some of the other hotels have like a bowling alley or lazy river, you won't find them here.
Access to i-drive. If you're thinking of nipping out to the nearby Walgreens, you'll be walking for 15 minutes instead of five purely down to how the resort was designed, as there's no easy route to walk. I can only imagine this was a deliberate choice to encourage guests to stay on property but it's a bit annoying. EDIT: This is completely wrong, there's a gate hidden away from the main hotel entrance! Ask staff how to get there.
Overall: We would come back to Dockside again, it's good value and we loved the pool.

Hi all. It's that time of year again. Thank you in advance for the advice.
GPA: 3.75, sGPA 3.83. Majored in Microbial Biology at UC Berkeley, class of '23. Ended up with a higher science GPA since my only B's were in psychology and a couple other breadth classes.
MCAT: 517 (130/128/132/127), took in May '22
Clinical Volunteering: General volunteer at OHSU - 100 hrs. Started as a receptionist/scribe volunteer at a local free clinic in March, and I am in the process of starting a hospice volunteer position this month. Projecting to do 10hrs/mo and 20hrs/mo, respectively, for the next year+. This is what I feel least confident about, and I'd love to know how I can improve this part of my application.
Nonclinical Volunteering: Local food banks - Distributing food, running food drives - 50 hrs. Helped an Afghan refugee learn English and adjust to the US through a local program - 30 hrs. Local cleanup events - 20 hrs.
Research: Undergraduate assistant at Lawrence Berkeley Lab - 750 hrs. Two poster presentations, no pubs yet since we were mostly working on a longitudinal environmental microbiome study that had just started recently. Junior specialist at UCSF - ongoing, projected ~3800hrs. Full time lab manager position, and I've worked on a couple projects concerning stem cell differentiation protocols and pesticide toxicity on neurons. Hopefully will have up to 3 pubs within the year.
Shadowing: 20hrs in a dermatology clinic, 10hrs in the nephrology department at the local hospital, 10hrs in a nephrology clinic.
Teaching: Peer advisotutor at UC Berkeley - ~100hrs. Also extensively mentored several underclassmen/high schoolers about career planning and chem/bio/physics, in an unofficial capacity.
Work Experience: Worked in the campus dining hall for 250hrs and at Walgreens for 450hrs. Worked as a manufacturing operator at ThermoFisher for 350hrs as well.
Leadership: I was on the leadership council of several small scale clubs at Berkeley (10-20 members), as well as a social fraternity. In my opinion this had the least impact on my medicine journey; I feel like expecting all doctors to be leaders is setting them up for conflict, but I digress.
LoR: 5+ total. One from a science professor; took their class for a semester, attended office hours often. Two from undergraduate research, the PI and my postdoc mentor. One from the director of the UC Berkeley peer advising program. One or more letters from my current research position.
Personal Statement: I want to inspire young children and adults with a passion for learning and knowledge. I also want to cultivate humility and empathy in the healthcare environment, and emphasize longitudinal care that can properly consider a patient's entire medical history to provide effective therapy. I was inspired by my role models, and a few personal experiences from relatives and friends in the healthcare system.
Artistic Endeavors: I've developed a board game called "Relic Wars". I designed the gameplay, created artwork for the game, wrote a lore book, and I am currently waiting for my prototypes to ship so I can start marketing/promotion. It's been my passion project for a year and a half, and I wanted to explore my creativity before dealing with med school responsibilities even if it doesn't help my application. That being said, I'd love to find some way to show this to adcoms as proof of my independence, work ethic, and commitment to my goals.
School List: I was raised in Oregon, and got a California ID when I moved here around November '23. Not sure if that gives me in-state status for California schools. I prefer to stay close to home but I understand I don't have much choice in this process. Feel free to rip apart my list, I didn't put a ton of thought into it.
Yale, Stanford, UCSF, NYU, Albert Einstein, Keck, UCLA, UCI, UC Davis, Kaiser Permanente, SUNY, Drexel, UW, Loma Linda, OHSU, Rush, UC Riverside, Washington State, U. Colorado, Emory, CUSM, U. Vermont, Wisconsin, U. Illinois

I’m a first time mom to an amazing toddler. She’s incredible and smart and funny and I’m enjoying being a mom so much more than I ever thought I would.
My husband and I were both raised with very strict parents who yelled a lot and spanked. They did the best they knew how, but we’re trying to break the cycle millennial style if you will. I think we’re doing a great job, but I’m starting to question if we’re being too permissive and I need help because we don’t have parents that we can rely on for advice (obviously).
So some background:
We all got Covid when our baby was around 7 months old. We tried to give her Tylenol to bring down her fever and she aspirated on it and vomited multiple times throughout the day until we ended up in the ER where they gave us Tylenol suppositories. Game changer. We’ve used them ever since because they’re available over the counter at Walgreens.
Our daughter is 21 months old this month and starting at about 20 months she started to fight naps. To the point of screaming, crying, and vomiting. We realized we were likely creating negative nap associations and decided to just bump up bedtime and let her play instead of making her nap. She’s been doing okay but will occasionally fall asleep while playing, and we let her nap when she does that. No big deal. We figured we’d get through this sleep regression and hopefully get back on track with naps.
Around this time, our independent girl decides she wants to brush her teeth now. Which involves her saying “AAAAHHHH” and moving a toothbrush around in the open space for about 5 seconds. This is clearly not acceptable but even Miss Rachel won’t hold her attention long enough for us to brush longer than 30 seconds to a minute now where we used to easily get 2 minutes. She’s whips her head back and forth and we can’t get in her mouth. We’ve tried letting her do it then “my turn” and even different shows and nothing seems to work. Should we be holding her down and brushing her teeth every night by force? I feel like this would really make bedtime traumatic and stressful.
Finally, our girl has her first ear infection. We’re needing her to take 7ml of amoxicillin. 7ML. We tried mixing it with milk, honey, smoothie, juice, nothing. We ended up calling a compounding pharmacy and they’re going to try to make a suppository for us. If they can’t though, what options do we have? How do you force a toddler to take meds?!
We also tried to suck out her nose multiple times tonight and she would grab the sucker and scream NONONONO over and over and whip her head around and we never got her nose cleared. Are we supposed to pin her down for this too?
I feel like a dumb parent who’s letting the crazy toddler drive the bus, but I also don’t know where the line is. I’m not going to hit my kid or scream at her, but I also don’t feel comfortable physically overpowering her to force her to do something. She’s a smart kid and she’s not going to just forget about it tomorrow and let us do it, I feel like she’s going to start to avoid things (like bedtime) if we make everything a battle. Am I right, or are we creating a monster? Are there better ways of handling any of the above situations, are we catering too much?

This is a long one, but I've found people's write-ups here to be incredibly helpful, and the more detail, the better. I want to share my own, in case it's helpful to anyone skeptical of either their own or others' experiences.
Even though I had in the past experienced differences between generics, I am still always vigilant against placebo effect and cautious of incepting myself into hysteria about my medication or general physical state. I'm also cautious of believing there's any one magical skeleton key fix when it comes to mental health. But I'm confident my experience is a "generics are NOT the same" experience.
Bupropion has been a miracle drug for me. Before taking it, I was a lethargic, depressed fuckup, but that changed once I started it 12 years ago. I went to law school and became a successful attorney, I started eating right and went from overweight to healthy, I have energy and creative inspiration. During the pandemic I even wrote two fiction novels. There are occasional down periods, of course, but nothing like before.
Many many years ago, after a couple years of taking the Mylan mfg, I was switched to Actavis by my pharmacy. I remember having a pretty severe mood shift at the time, and though I could never be sure if that was an adjustment period issue or just a bad time, I switched back over to the Mylan after a month just to avoid friction. I've been relatively cognizant of mfg ever since, though I didn't notice that at some point I was switched to Par. Par worked like a charm and saw me through school and my career.
As many of us know, Par has been discontinued as of last year. I was switched to Slate Run and was so put off by how bad it smelled (a dumb reason, haha) that I immediately went searching for another pharm with Par in stock, and I had success for a while. But in January, my luck ran out, and I decided to give the Accord the old college try.
Holy shit.
I honestly forgot I was taking a new mfg for a while--which isn't shocking, because I forgot everything. The cognitive decline was gradual, severe, and over the past few months, my memory fell apart completely. I would repeat things and fumble for words and sometimes not remember ten minutes later that I'd been struggling. I struggled to focus my eyes and ended up getting new, very strong glasses. Everything felt fuzzy, like the world was always behind a gauzy curtain, and I was fluttering behind it, never able to draw it back or even put my feet on the ground. I couldn't contextualize things and synthesize information around me--it's hard to describe, but basic logical conclusions like "the sign says the next train is in 10 minutes, therefore I must have just missed the most recent one" were elusive.
It's hard to say how much of that was medication being released too quick, and how much was resultant resurgence of depression. I lost interest in anything that required more than fleeting attention. My writing projects fell aside completely. I started experience suicidal ideations, vaguely forming into plans.
I've walked around for the past few months alternating between feeling like work burnout must be destroying my cognition, and worried I might have a brain tumor 🫠
Around this time, my elderly father went on Bupropion. For three weeks after he started, we thought he was having a full-blown dementia spiral--like, "this is the end of my dad's brain"-level spiral--before his doctor thought to pull him off the meds, and within a few days he was back to normal.
It still didn't click with me, though. I'd been feeling a bit of burnout before the Accord switch, and my brain was so fried that it was tough to think hard enough to come up with anything else as the culprit. By this point, I was completely incapable of focus during the day and spent all day every day procrastinating with fleeting distractions. But finally one night, I forgot something so personal and important that it jolted me into talking to my partner about how disconnected I've been, and we realized that most, if not all, of these symptoms coincided with the Accord switch. It had been three months, more than enough time to adjust.
I jumped into research on what to do. My script was almost out, so I spoke at length to an ExpressScripts pharmacist, who compared the ingredients for each mfg they had on hand. He selected TWI as the drug most similar to Par's inactive ingredients, and we ordered it.
At the same time, I went to my doctor, who agreed to write me a pad script to transmit to Canada Cloud pharmacy and give the name brand a try. I'm fortunate enough to afford it, so I ordered that one, too.
The TWI arrived first. At this point, I'm hyper-conscious of the medication's effect, so a placebo effect is very possible. But I'm telling you all, on the first day of taking it, I felt like a real person for the first time in ages. I had energy, focus, intelligence, creativity, and vibrance. My partner noticed a huge difference, and though I've noticed some ups and downs throughout the day, the improvement persisted until I got the brand name.
The brand name has been even better. Total evenness, all day. My energy and drive are back. Still the occasional procrastination, but only for things that are meaningful to me because I want to, rather than the swirling feeling of having no choice because I have no cognitive ability beyond solving a Tuesday crossword. The past few months are one big blur, but I feel like myself again.
If you're struggling, there's a decent chance it's not in your head.
Of course, everyone is different. Experiences on generics vary wildly, and the best version is the one that's best for you. The best advice I can offer is advice on resources:

• ExpressScripts may be a devil PBM, but their pharmacists have access to a lot of generic brands that the other big boys like Walgreens and CVS don't.
• If you're like me and had something that works but can't get it anymore, a pharmacist can go through inactive ingredients and advise on what's closest to your preferred mfg.
• If you have $200 available for a 90-day supply, Canada Cloud was the most reputable of the Canadian pharmacies. Unlike Northwest, they didn't require a photo of a check. The service was also very fast. I paid $10 extra for shipping and had the script within a week.

Best of luck to all of you.

Long time lurker, first time poster. I (38m) live in Denver. Got diagnosed with ADHD several months back. My therapist indicated she thought I was ADHD af, so I spoke to my psychiatrist (local mental health office) who had me come for in-person testing. Results came back that I was very much in the inattentive camp. I reaaaaaally resisted getting on the stimulant train, so I tried Strattera. After a life-time of anxiety powered by racing thoughts I finally found calm. I slept better. I was nicer. I worked better. Boredom didn’t hurt. Unfortunately I peed worse, had some gnarly sexual problems, and constantly heard my heart beat pounding from high blood pressure. Talked to my provider about these side effects and we agreed to try Adderall. No surprise to anyone here, but I can’t seem to get it filled. I originally tried to get mine filled at King Soopers (grocery store chain) but after getting a text saying it couldn’t be filled because of the shortage and to call them to discuss, I got a very cold, bitchy response from the person on the other line telling me I’d need to call them every week until they have it (they would “cancel” the fill-request every week). She made me feel like a drug addict. So my provider called it in to Walgreen’s. For over a week their website has said “out of stock. More is on the way”. It’s still active, though. Should I just leave it and wait for them to call me when it is ready? I REALLY REALLY can’t make myself call around and ask different pharmacies. It’s so demeaning to be made to feel like a drug seeker. Tbh I don’t know if calling around will help anyway - I read a news article that some woman in Denver recently drove two hours away to get like 10 pills from a pharmacy that did have it. How are y’all doing coping with this? It’s so strange that I went my whole life untreated, feeling like this shitty existence is just life. But then I got a glimpse of “normal” and it feels like torture to go back. Idk if this is a post asking for advice or more of a rant, but thanks for reading.

Hello everyone, I hope this post is not too much “off”. We are on holidays in Miami with a 9month old and I’m struggling finding baby food. We are staying in downtown and all I could find is very limited and overpriced jars at whole food and Walgreens.
Can you please advise a good place with more choices? I’m not familiar with US supermarket so I don’t really know how Walgreens and whole food rank?
Thank you!!

First off I just want to say thank you to this community for all of the valuable information I've taken in over the past few years. I've learned so much from this subreddit.
I'm feeling talkative and would like to share my story with you guys if that's OK. And then I will circle back to where I am now on my journey.
In 2018 I had a very traumatic year and realized one day that I became overweight and unhealthy. Like it literally crept up on me, and I had no idea I weighed that much.
I tried keto and all my old usual weight loss tactics (eating less, going to gym more), but it wouldn't do anything. Looking back, I was severely stressed out by my living situation, recent trauma, and the abusive relationship I was in. My face was so bloated and puffy, and my body didn't even look like the body I've known.
In 2020 I was able to move and escape the living situation and the terrible relationship I was in. This took time and strategy and it wasn't as easy as "Just break up and move on!", he had his claws sunken into my life and I had to create and follow a plan to leave, and become boring to him so he lost interest and moved onto someone else to suck the life from.
In 2021 I also started therapy and began unraveling my internal world. I realized I had been turning to food and sweets as a coping mechanism and it was so deeply ingrained in me, even from childhood. I used to eat a whole sleeve of Oreo's after a stressful school day and my parents enabled it. Never taught me otherwise, commented on it, or did anything other than keep buying the stuff I loved. Not to say they are fully to blame, but the patterns started then.
I did a "juice cleanse" in 2021 that I feel was my pivotal moment. I put it in quotations because I don't consider it a juice cleanse; basically I would blend up any kind of veggies into daily smoothies and I only did that for a week. I finally saw some weight loss and felt much better overall.
In between then and this past year, I didn't do much other than focus on gut health (my stomach was wrecked from years of antibiotic use), figuring out how to help my anxiety issues, and found an exercise routine I loved (mountain biking). I was eating healthier and felt good but I was still overweight and had symptoms that resembled PCOS - extremely painful, heavy periods and an irregular cycle. My doctor pushed birth control as a cure-all and I refused.
I also had possible symptoms of IR - feeling really tired after meals, always hungry no matter what, extreme sugar cravings, and I would feel terrible after eating a lot of sugar (fast heart rate, stomachache, just feeling like garbage).
I tried very low carb for a while and I had barely any energy. It felt terrible but I lost a bit of weight doing that which would obviously come right back after I went back to a normal amount of carbs.
I had blood work done and I was told I had severely low vitamin D and high ldl cholesterol (136), everything else was normal. I started looking into how vitamin D levels, cholesterol, and hormones are all related. I don't know which came first, but my problems all seemed related.
After researching the internet (mainly Reddit...) I began taking inositol which helped me feel better but on it's own I think is less useful. I began berberine which has been a roller-coaster due to the stomach issues it gave me. I added a vitamin d supplement, multivitamin with iodine, magnesium, and chromium picolinate.
I started following the tips from Glucose Goddess (I purchased her book but didn't get all the way through it, and mostly took some pointers from her Instagram): savory breakfasts, eating veggies before anything else, vinegar before meals, a brisk walk after heavy meals, etc.
I started walking as my main exercise and would do 1-3 miles on the treadmill after work for most days. The days I felt like doing nothing, I told myself I would do 10 mins and if I still felt lazy I would get off. Most times, after the 10 mins are up I just felt like continuing to walk, lol. I felt like I was reverse-engineering my natural human laziness.
Anyway, in that time-frame, I went from 154 pounds to 136! And continuing to lose slowly but surely. I just love that I'm no longer constantly gaining, or going up and down. My periods are so much better. I had one the other day, and I didn't even know I was bleeding. No pain. Incredible. My periods are like clockwork now, and I happened to notice they follow the moon cycles. Anyone else?
Here's a breakdown of my daily routine/supplements:

• Lots of water upon waking up and nothing else until breakfast (coffee and tea both made me feel worse)
• Savory breakfast while still being healthy (eggs, omelets, a healthy home-made wrap)
• 1000mcg chromium with breakfast (Walgreens brand)
• Multivitamin with iodine with breakfast (endurance brand)
• Magnesium and vitamin d supplement with breakfast (endurance brand)
• A large salad with chicken and veggies for lunch
• If work had pizza I would have a slice and then walk to the furthest breakroom and back
• Fish oil with lunch (can't remember the brand)
• Berberine a little bit before dinner time (Now brand, 400mg berberine)
• Meat and veggies, maybe a bit of rice for dinner but eat veggies first, then protein, then carbs
• Sugar free cookies or fruit if craving sweets after dinner
• A walk on the treadmill or around the block after dinner
• Sleep as much as possible, go to bed mega early when needed, get on a set schedule
• Taking a warm shower and then stretching my legs/arms before bed helped me get really good sleep

I think it also helps so much to journal and take note on what makes you feel good or bad. For example, I realized my worst mental health days came right after a sugar binge, bad night of sleep, stress, or deviating from my routine in a big way. I figured out ways to keep my routine even when traveling or visiting people. I found my triggers for things I never noticed before (like carrots giving me stomach cramps) just by journaling.
Also, steeping a strong cup of ginger lemon tea with honey right before I expect my period is a noteworthy way to lessen the cramps and severity.
Since doing these routines, my anxiety levels are at an all-time low, I feel good. I still want to lose about 10 more pounds, but I really feel like I'm just giving myself love and care and it's made all the difference. I am still in therapy, much less frequently, but still focusing on bettering myself. I've also nearly quit drinking entirely other than the occasional glass of red wine. That's my personal preference because I felt like it made my body get inflamed and my stomach got upset.
I think stress and trauma can trigger PCOS, insulin levels, hormones, etc. either directly or indirectly. I think our society pushes us to turn to food and alcohol to cope with things (because it makes them money), and when we get sick from those coping strategies they push meds on us and don't help us get to the root of it. There is also just so much freaking sugar in everything. Avoiding sugar has been one of the hardest things about my journey. Luckily, I found a local grocery store that sells sugar free sodas, juices, candy, and cookies for when I want to indulge. I still don't think those things are the best for us, so I only do a bit, but I have been able to still lose weight while indulging them.
For my stoner girls, I get major cravings when stoned so beforehand I always make sure I have some tasty ripe fruit (melon, mango, strawberries, etc.) on hand. Also, for the salty snacks, I get veggie straws which seem to be pretty low calorie and haven't triggered more cravings for me. YMMV. Just a tip to help remain healthy and not ruin progress when stoned, lol.
Walking I think is the best thing for us. Humans are meant to walk. For me it helped to find a reason to walk. I almost bought a dog... But ended up getting an RC car to take on paved trails and parking lots. Also, I found a trail with bald eagles and I naturally want to go there with my camera and try to spot them. I entered a walking challenge at work too. Anything to get you moving helps.
Finally, it's so important to have a good support system. Tell loved ones ahead of time that you aren't doing sugar, prefer not to go out to fast food places, etc. when you plan on visiting. I noticed on "my 600lb life", many of them had enabling partners and family. The people on that show are the extreme cases, but it still can teach us about patterns and how the people around us help or harm.
Good luck to everyone, you're all doing amazing and I have faith you will reach your goals. I'm always open to feedback and discussion; my inbox is open for anyone who even just needs a listening ear!
Edit: forgot to mention I would also not eat past 4:30pm so I was intermittent fasting between dinner and breakfast. I think this helps lower insulin levels and help things reset!

Wow. What a journey.
I want to start by prefacing, if you have a tonsillectomy scheduled, I would suggest not reading these threads until after you have the surgery because overall, I think the surgery gives awesome benefits, but, boy, is recovery hell. If you are anything like myself, reading this would scare me out of getting it done.
Surgery was as easy as feeling like I blinked and it was over. Woke up with almost no pain, asking if I could see my tonsils (they said they already disposed of them dang it 🥺)
I highly suggest asking for anti anxiety and anti nausea medicine. They gave me some Valium right before they wheeled me back and I am sooooo thankful because if not I would’ve been terrified but I was feeling so loopy and not scared at all.
Day 1 and 2 were not bad. I was up and walking around, even ate a little applesauce/pudding and was just trying to relax. I was taking my prescribed hydrocodone every 6 hours.
Day 3 - woke up in the night with soooo much pain when swallowing (I assume bc I had a box fan on that dried out my throat - *note - make sure to turn off fan)
Day 3/4 I started realizing that my hydrocodone would wear off after about 1.5/2 hours and I would be in severe pain again but had to wait another 3/4 hours to take my next dose. This was the hellish part for me. I would slammmmm ibuprofen and Tylenol (way more than I should have in between the hydrocodone doses)
Day 5/6/7 - endless cycle of pain killers, fall asleep, wake up every 30 mins in agonizing pain, try to readjust, repeat. I did not get out of bed except to go to the restroom. I had no energy for anything. Because I wasn’t eating, my pain medicine was making me feel delirious, naseous, soooo tired, but still in pain.
Day 8/9- Hell. On. Earth. This was where my mental health really started to take a turn and my scabs started slowly falling off. Seering pain. Like nothing I have ever felt before. And lo and behold, on day 8 I ran out of hydrocodone. Dr couldn’t refill until the next day. That was the most painful night. I did not sleep a single minute. Sat up in bed, tried to take ibuprofen and Tylenol alternating on a 2 hour cycle (sorry liver). Cried a lot. Questioned life. Felt like I would never improve and didn’t understand why I was continuing to get worse with no relief. Was getting down MAYBE 1 pudding cup a day and some ice chips.
Day 10 - the Lord must have heard me 🙏🏼 Granted, it started out with me woking up thinking I was going to have to go to the emergency room. When I opened my eyes in the morning I was VERY delirious. I felt like I was in an alternate reality, and my heart beat felt very very slow and I felt like I was getting enough oxygen. I started googling and learned about sepsis and I PANICKED. (Hypochondriac has entered the chat) I instantly ordered a blood pressure pump and oxygen monitor on DoorDash from Walgreens 🤣 thankfully both were normal. So I can to the conclusion that I am taking so much pain medication on an empty stomach and it is literally messing with all of my senses and I am so weak.
So, I ordered some mashed potatoes and convinced myself no matter how much it hurts, I have to get it down if I want to feel better. After I did, I had so much more energy!! This was literally my turning point. I stopped taking the hydrocodone during the day and started just taking at night. This also made me have more energy and I realized when I’m not just sitting in my bed sulking, and I’m up, moving, drinking water, and talking a little, it’s even making my throat feel better.
Day 11/12 - I kept reading on here, “you’ll get to your turning point and just steadily get so much better”, and that is exactly what happened. I am still getting a little pain at night time but nothing unmanageable. My mental health is in such a better state , I’m able to eat pretty much anything (except spicy foods) and excited about life again.
I say all of this to tell you, you’re going to feel like you are in the depths of hell throughout, but it WILL get better. Even though it doesn’t seem like it! And I am now post op day 12 and already feeling the benefits (less to no snoring, just feels like more room in my throat and less nasily) Excited to see what benefits are still to come!
Hang in there!! ❤️

The store is a mess, trucks are showing up days late now. I have a shift lead that is lazy as bones. I’m scheduled with him most of the time. Anytime I come in he is sitting at photo, meanwhile they are photo orders queued up, printed orders just sitting in the printer slots, he just prints orders without checking what they are and leaves it. So if it’s a poster or canvas he doesn’t go back to punch it through. A printer can be out of ribbon or paper he will just hunch at the counter on his phone. He will just grab the 4x6’s and put it away not checking if they were other sizes that needed to go so I always end up dealing with someone unhappy photos are missing. He can sit at photo while I’m covering a break and then go on my break, to find orders are late being filled because he didn’t dare to lift his head up and do it since I am stuck at the register or on my break. If it’s tag day he will put up a couple stacks then just hide in the office or again at photo so it’s pretty much just me trying to put up tags while doing photos and curbsides because he isn’t touching them. Management knows about his habits but just don’t care. Photo computers and printers are always freezing or shitting the bed one way or another. I have another coworker where she takes in a 7-8 hour shift a 15, but closer to 20-25 min break based on how long she takes to get back to the register after. And a 30 but more like 35-40 min break sometimes. She was talked to about doing this before but now is doing it again and no one cares. I always face the backend of the store and I take pride to say I think I do it well. But when it comes to this shift lead I mentioned or the front register person doing it, it’s always a half ass job. But if I work the register I’m expected to face the front so I began holding those people to that standard and only cover my ass doing the back. Everytime I come in it’s the same shit storm and I’m just tired of it. I’m working on another career in my off time but it’s not moving fast enough where I don’t need the paycheck from Walgreens. I’m just frustrated and tired. I’m sorry I just needed to vent. Curious as to if anyone else is dealing with dumb shit like this.

So I (24F) am officially at the point of my life where it feels like everyone around me is getting engaged and I feel left out and that’s exactly how I feel. For the last six months, I go on Facebook and Instagram every once in a while and one of the first things I see is a fucking engagement announcement. I had a boyfriend 6 years ago but we broke up after 8 months because things didn’t work out. Let’s just say he and I were so desperate to date that we didn’t even have a love story. I’ve been single ever since therefore, it really hurts seeing all these people. Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely feel very happy for them but it makes me sad for myself. Everyone tells me that my time will come and it will come when I least expect it but at this point, I’ve heard it so much that it becomes cheesy and pointless with no meaning whatsoever. I’ve tried dating apps (Bumble) but it seems like most of the guys only want to hook up or they ghost me which is dating apps in a nutshell. I bumped into a guy who asked me out at Walgreens a few weeks ago and we went on a date but yesterday he announced that he doesn’t want to date me because “he doesn’t feel a connection.” I don’t understand what that means and why he feels no connection, I was genuinely so excited to finally have a boyfriend. I don’t get it, I’m a very beautiful woman inside and out and I have an amazing personality, why doesn’t anyone want me? I understand that my personal happiness has to come from within and I’ve been trying to live my life to fullest after one of my aunts died from cancer back in February at the young age of 52 but that doesn’t mean I still have these moments. I just feel left out and feel like something is wrong with me when I know there isn’t. I shouldn’t have to rely on men to be happy but here I am feeling this way.

Hello! I’m going through a flare currently and I finally realized that this isn’t something I can “thug out”. Yesterday I called my doctor and her medical assistant left a message. Around 8pm I got a message from Walgreens that my prescription was ready. At this point I hadn’t received any phone call from my doctor. My Walgreens app said that my prescription for 5mg of Prednisone was ready. I’m not really sure how to take it, when to take it, or how much. I’ve never been on any type of steroid and the only medications I take it plaquenil and zofran. Should I wait and see if my doctor calls? Any and all advice is appreciated💜

34M in good health. Non-smoker. Mild asthma triggered by respiratory infections (like this). Mild seasonal allergies controlled with Zyrtec. Vaccinated at work every fall, not sure the exact month (probably Septmber or October)
Saturday: Morning workout, deadlifts + 1 hour cardio. Afternoon work event at museum full of kids coughing and sneezing. With wife and 11 month old baby
Sunday: tickle in my throat in the afternoon. Occasional bouts of coughing without pain. Thought it was allergies (trees in full bloom). Played with baby, hung out with wife basically all day. Went to bed feeling fine (wife next to me). Some coughing fits during night
Monday: wakeup at 3am with muscle aches, chills, temperature 99.5. Take Tylenol, go back to sleep. Wake up feeling reasonable, no fever, but still sore throat and coughing. Now thinking I have a cold. Take home Covid test— negative. Go to work wearing n95 with supply of Tylenol and advil. End up alternating every 4 hours with breakthrough chills, muscle aches in between doses. Starting to feel just like Covid I had in the fall. Call wife and tell her to grab all her stuff out of bedroom so I can quarantine when I get home. Call off work next day. Fever controlled for about 3 hours with each Tylenol/advil dose, then rises to about 101 as I near the 4 hour mark.
Tuesday: wake up at 3am with terrible chills and body aches. 6 hours from last antipyretic dose. Temp 102.2. Take advil and suffer for 45 mins while it kicks in. Poor sleep. Ongoing sore throat (not as bad as strep, 5/10 severity), congestion starts, vertigo/lightheadedness with head movement, minimal headache. Cough continues. Second home Covid test negative. Continue alternating Tylenol/advil every 4 hours. Go to Walgreens in the afternoon for test. Flu A positive, prescribed tamiflu, but can’t be filled until the following morning. Notify work, benched for 7 days from symptom onset per protocol
Wednesday: no significant changes in symptoms, however able to control fever pretty well with only Tylenol spaced out to 10-12 hours instead of every 8. Max temp 101.1. See this as improvement. Decide not to pickup tamiflu after reading about lack of effectiveness if not started early.
Thursday (today): nighttime sweats, not soaking sheets but noticeable without fever. Wake up with no fever. No Tylenol or ibuprofen needed. Congestion improved. Sore throat improved. Cough still present and slightly productive. Muscle aches better but still present particularly upper back. Feeling much better, but not quite ready for anything strenuous
Wife and baby currently showing no signs of infection. I would say Covid was worse. The worst of it was similar, but with covid I only felt 5-10% better every day beyond the initial period of fevers. This feels like a much more rapid recovery so far once it starts. Covid also crippled my exercise capacity for weeks beyond my fever breaking (would sweat profusely and get winded walking on a flat surface).
One last note: I spent a lot of time in bed reading flu trying to figure out how long this would last. I got the impression that this was worse than Covid, fevers could last 1-2 weeks, recovery would be slow, months of crushing fatigue, etc. I’m sure that happens to some, and maybe time will tell, but so far this is tracking with more conventional timelines offered by the CDC, etc of about 3-4 bad days, followed by ~3 days of rapid recovery. The stories on Reddit are likely not a representative sample, so don’t despair if you are on days 2-4 with no end in sight. In all likelihood, you will turn the corner out of the blue and this will all be just a distant memory

So, my players and I finished up a lengthy 8+ hour session over the weekend. We played a homebrew adventure that I concocted, from level 1-2, using a mix of creatures and encounters from the book, with some reflavored and some repurposed. Previously, we had played through the v1.2 Quickstart Adventure, so we have experience with both Open Beta versions of the game. Here are my thoughts, which also partially represent my players thoughts, as we had a fairly lengthy discussion about the game afterwards.
For reference, we all have a couple years of TTRPG experience, mostly with D&D and Call of Cthulhu. Our four players played a Halfling Seraph, an Orc Druid, a Simiah Bard, and a Clank Warrior. We played through 5 combat encounters, as well as a few exploration and social encounters.
And yes, while I will be submitting a GM survey, I just wanted to collect my thoughts and see if others felt the same or notably different about various aspects of the game. Sorry in advance about how lengthy this became (believe it or not, this is after me pruning it down quite a bit).

Love

• "Initiative" - I understand that this might not be a universal feeling from table to table, but the freedom of deciding who goes when just works at my table. It's smooth, it's sensible, and it actually makes combat faster as all of my players tend to be more engaged during combat.
• Duality Dice - Hope and Fear are just super thematic, yet vague enough to fit a variety of situations.
• Components - While I think they still need more tuning and adjustments, the overall components of the game - HP, Stress, Evasion, Armor, Hope, and Fear - feel like they offer a lot of depth and potential for modification, synergy, and build variety.

Like

• Experiences - I love the idea and the freedom to create your own, but I do have minor issues with the mechanical details. First of all, I feel like coming up with a new Experience at level 2 feels too soon, and also, spending a Hope for a +1 (that likely will not be the deciding factor between success or failure) just does not feel worth it. +3? Sure, but not +1 and maybe not even +2.
  • As an aside, when leveling up to 2 I suggested our players think about what they did at level 1 when choosing a new Experience (which I had heard elsewhere, unsure if it was through official channels or not). However, this led to unforeseen issues of the more passive players feeling like they didn't have any major character growth in that way. Additionally, the thought was brought up that since all of the players experienced the same events together, that they should just all pick the same Experience, but that felt counter to the concept of having your own specialties.
• Combat Speed - Even with folks having to spend time acquainting themselves with their abilities, often re-reading cards on their turn, or having to look up a ruling - the speed of combat just feels great. Not too short, not too long.
• Monster Design - While further balancing is likely necessary, monsters feel both simple, varied, and interesting. They are a lot of fun to run.
• Cards - Simply put, I just like the tactile nature of having physical cards as your resources. I have not yet experienced high level play when swapping cards in/out of your Vault comes into play, though.
  • As an aside, I printed out all of the cards we needed (plus Class cards) for levels 1-3, for free, from various Walgreens and CVS promotions. Photo paper + card sleeves I had lying around worked beautifully.
• Encounter Balance - From my experience, the action tracker almost automatically makes encounters balanced (within reason), and just seems to provide the right amount of difficulty to lend to epic battles. Even with little idea of what I'm doing, I'm 3-for-3 on trying to come up with cool, challenging, climactic encounters and having them actually play out that way.
• Death Moves - They're interesting, high tension, and everyone at the table cares. My one issue has been, when a player failed a "Risk It All" move, it felt like he went out with a complete whimper. I would suggest some GM guidance to make it a point to still give that character a moment of spotlight (a minor action, their last words.. something), that I regretted not doing in the moment.

Concerns

• Components - I did still have minor issues with each of them:
  • Hope - While this is likely a matter of poor optimization, my characters simply aren't the types to make optimal choices, and pick thematic ones instead. This lead to, for example, our Halfling Seraph, constantly being low or out of Hope, as most of their abilities required it. This felt contrary to what one would suspect of such a creature (as Halflings seem naturally Hopeful, and Seraphs seem like they would be beacons of inspiration to others). I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, just something worth noting from our playtest.
  • Stress - Similarly to the above, our Orc Druid was constantly high on Stress. Also, without the obvious and regular relationship between Stress and HP (as was the case in v1.2), the two feel disconnected, which makes losing HP when at maximum Stress no longer feel as intuitive. It also was not at all intuitive to my players that causing Stress damage to enemies would be useful to make them Vulnerable, as they did not have the slightest idea how much Stress a given enemy might be able to endure.
  • Fear - As a GM, I was often full or nearly full on Fear, and I'm not entirely sure what I was doing wrong. I've seen advice to not have players roll for minor things, but simply put, my players enjoy rolling dice. At times, I would consider the rolls to be "Reactions," and thus, not accrue Hope nor Fear, if it was for something relatively inconsequential. However, regardless, over time, and especially outside of combat, they would roll with Fear and I would take a token, not knowing how else to react in the moment (see: Complications below). I already had some challenges and encounters planned, so I would occasionally 'pretend' to spend a Fear token to make something happen that was going to happen anyway. Maybe I just don't have a full grasp of how to approach this.
  • Armor - Just does not negate enough damage to feel worthwhile. Only once in our 8+ hours of play did a character successfully reduce damage to 0 or below, so even our most heavily armored still took at least 1 HP of damage on virtually every attack against them. This does not make the players feel heroic or capable.
  • Evasion - Similarly to the above, the values just felt far too low. At level 2, my players had to roll at least a 14 in order to hit a Tier 1 enemy (the Mortal Hunter). Conversely, to hit our Seraph, he had to roll just a 2. With the exception of Minions, it felt like enemies hit a player's evasion score with the vast majority of attacks, whereas the players hitting enemies felt more like 50/50. Against bosses or high-level adversaries that would be understandable, but this was often against basic tier 0 monsters.
• Action Economy - While it works well for balancing an encounter, I've noticed some issues when dealing with lower or higher amounts of enemies. Individual creatures often feel like they can't do much (as you're advised to activate them for only 1 action at a time), and large groups of monsters feel like they're often just standing around doing nothing (as you often don't have enough tokens to activate them all). Not a major issue, and I know that certain monsters that are intended to be encountered solo have ways to help make up for this, but there were just a few moments like this that felt odd.
• Complications - These are generally obvious enough in combat, and even out of combat when dealing with more tangible traits like Strength, Agility, and Finesse. However, I'm at a loss for how to handle complications for traits like Instinct, Knowledge, and Presence, without it feeling hokey or forced. I would just love far more examples as guidance to the GM.
• Distance & Movement - The distances, as well as cutouts provided in the Quickstart Adventure, inspired me to try the "Maps & Miniatures" approach to combat, which I had never done before. However, simply put, the distances felt like they didn't matter, and in fact, couldn't matter, unless I had a far bigger table. Between the character sheets, domain cards, action tracker, and various tokens, the game already takes up more space on the table than usual, so I was left with combats where 'Far' was the absolute maximum from one side to the other. When Close movement is free, this led to movement feeling like a non-factor (outside of the Warrior's Attack of Opportunity).
  • As an aside, both my players and myself are often confused by the distance terms, since they're so similar. It also feels like Melee and Very Close are often similar enough to not have the need to separate the two. I would personally suggest changing the primary ranges to something like: Melee (0-10 feet), Close (10-X feet), and Far (X-100 feet), adjusting the X threshold as necessary. somewhere between 30-50 feet.
• Group Action Rolls - The example given shows a group of 5 all utilize a different trait. I like that in theory, and that's how I've run Skill Challenges in the past, however, with only 6 traits in Daggerheart, this felt highly unlikely. In practice, my players often wanted to use the same 1-2 Traits, as they simply felt the most sensible for the activity at hand.
• Help an Ally - The idea that you cannot help an ally unless you spend a Hope just feels strange to me. Within the bounds of combat, as a balancing tool? Sure, I understand that. But outside of combat, it just felt punishing and unnecessary. I want to encourage cooperation in my players, not discourage it by putting a cost on it.
• Tag Team Rolls - They are definitely cool and thematic, but I worry that the cost is too high for what is something that doesn't feel significantly better than providing Advantage on a roll. Limiting it to once per session already makes it so that it's not abusable (especially when you run 8+ hour sessions like we do). Personally, I think I'd like to see it cost 2 Hope for a Tag Team Move, but with the option to spend more Hope to add more players (3 Hope = 3 Players combine actions, 4 Hope = 4 Players, etc).

Dislike

• Minor Threshold - I thought the game just felt so much better and more sensible back in v1.2 in this regard. I hate how virtually every attack is guaranteed to deal at least 1/6th of a player's health.
• Proficiency - When I discussed leveling up with my players, they - as expected - all immediately picked Proficiency as one of their two options. It simply feels far more valuable than anything else, and as such, feels more like losing a choice than having two. I would propose that Proficiency becomes the new guaranteed bonus at certain levels (replacing new Experiences, as that would instead become optional). I especially think this would be a welcome change to add at just levels 2, 5, and 8 (or, honestly, just 5 and 8), so that the number of dice rolled for basic attacks doesn't get out of hand. Some will disagree, but I have no interest in rolling 6d10 - and adding all of that up, plus modifiers - for a simple swing of my sword at level 10.
• Mutliclassing - This is not something we actually did, so my thoughts are purely theoretical, but I am against the idea of mutliclassing. Simply put, I think it makes a game impossible to balance. I also think that it leads to individual classes being neutered so that that overly-powerful combinations are less attainable. I suspect that 'broken' mutliclass builds are at least partially responsible for the tuning down of Evasion and Armor, which I think just adversely affects the masses.

Not Overly Concerned With

• Gold - The system feels worse than v1.2, which felt pretty bad in its own right. Each player joking about having 2 gold pieces to their name just made them all feel both samey and poor. Personally, I'd rather ditch gold entirely, as I don't think it feels heroic to concern yourself with such things. In any case, this system still needs lots of work, but I also trust that the developers are well aware of that.
• Sizes - Our Halfling Seraph wanted to be able to fly above all else, so naturally she chose the Winged Sentinel subclass. However, the line of text saying that she "can spend an additional Hope to pick up and carry another creature that is approximately your size or smaller" just felt punishing. Because she chose to be shorter, despite her exceptional Strength, she could only pick up other small creatures? I thought that was dumb, and just said that she could pick up any other player, or something of around that size. If there's no inherent benefit to being smaller, there shouldn't be an inherent downside, either.
  • On a related note, looking through the Druid Beastform features, I feel like I would have to make the same sort of sensible adjustments for their carrying capacity. A massive mammoth can "carry 1-4 people and still maintain speed." So, if 1 represents the high end of people, let's say that's a 300 pound Giant. That means the same creature could only carry 4, 2ft tall, 30lb Faeries, despite being less than half the total weight of the Giant? I feel like providing specific numbers like actually doesn't help in a case like this, and that common sense should simply take over.
• Non Actions - I'm still not sure if using consumables like potions is supposed to cost an action token or not.
• World & Ancestries - In addition to wanting more lore and world-building to work with, I struggle at times with some of the ancestries. First of all, I think it's safe to assume Daggerheart doesn't want to imply that any ancestry is inherently good or evil, but are we supposed to assume that every ancestry simply gets along with all others? Do they live segregated, or together in perfect harmony? Personally, I like having nuggets like Dwarves being unfond of Elves, and vice versa, and while I know I can always ignore or change the lore to suit my own world, some guidance would be helpful.
  • Additionally, on the topic of animal-ancestries, I personally find it hard to wrap my head around how I would expect them to act towards the animals they're based on. How does a Katari feel about a cat? How does a Simiah feel towards a chimpanzee? Do they keep them as pets? View them as poor, unfortunate souls? Feel no differently towards them than a Human would? It's just something that never feels quite right to me, and I think is why I tend to feel more natural with Human-based species.

Random Thoughts

• At one point, our Bard was excited to unleash an Arcane Barrage, spending all 3 of his Hope to fuel it. When it dealt just 1 HP of damage, it felt absolutely deflating. One problem with everything dealing at least 1 HP in damage is that it just feels even worse not meeting that Major Threshold, as you could have been just as effective dealing 1 damage.
• The Druid's Warden of the Elements subclass grants the ability to Hover, but I'm not entirely sure how that mechanically differs from flying. I assume it's just a few feet off the ground, and that they need solid ground beneath them (i.e. they can't cross over a lengthy canyon)?
• Our Warrior felt useless against a flying creature, as even throwing their weapon was limited to a Very Close range (5-10 feet). While this is solved by getting a Bow or a Grappler or the like, this still felt bad and unnecessarily restrictive.

I’ve made a lot of piecemeal posts in this sub, but wanted to detail my experience of long covid over the past year and a half and what has helped. Prepare for a long post! I will update the sub as things change.
TL/DR: I have made very significant improvements with functional medicine and a cocktail of drugs tailored to my personal issues and probably some element of time. Nothing groundbreaking here, but I have learned a few things. I’m back to living life, but not 100% recovered. Have not had a crash/PEM since December. I am sharing my experiences in case it’s useful to anyone as they seek treatment.
MY LONG COVID EXPERIENCE/SYMPTOMS:
I got Covid for the first time (that I know of) in October of 2022 from my school-age kid. I had already received 4 different MRNA vaccines at the time, including a very recent booster. My husband got it the exact same day I did. We both began to recover, but about a week and a half after my initial positive test, I began to have a whole new set of symptoms that I now recognize as long covid. Meanwhile, my husband was feeling better and better, so I knew something was wrong.
I was brushed off by my primary care doctor multiple times, but eventually she did test me for dysautonomia in the office based on my symptoms. I received an initial diagnosis of orthostatic hypotension (not POTS, but similar). Blood tests also showed elevated d-dimer, so I got a CT scan of my lungs to look for clots, which was negative.
Oddly, after this first bout of symptoms, I felt much better for about six weeks, but then my symptoms returned, and my long covid started in earnest in January of 2023. My symptoms only got worse from there.
Major symptoms included fatigue, PEM, low blood pressure when standing, feeling of internal “shakiness,” “lactic acid” feeling in the muscles after minor activites (i'm talking doing a few dishes), pain at the base of my skull, headaches, flushed face, occasional insomnia, a heavy feeling like gravity was 10x stronger than normal, dizziness, temperature dysregulation, nerve pain, visual issues like “graying out” and trouble focusing my eyes for extended periods, difficulty walking, feeling absolutely terrible right before my period, trouble waking up, feeling poisoned in the morning, feelings similar to a panic attack without the anxious thoughts, frequent sore throat, and probably many more that I’m not thinking of.
Over the past year, I’ve seen multiple doctors and undergone lots of tests including 2 MRIs and more blood tests than I can count. I am now SIGNIFICANTLY improved and mostly able to live life without thinking too hard about long covid beyond keeping track of all my meds. My absolute lowest point was last summer, and although I wasn’t bedbound, I felt that I was going in that direction if I hadn't been lucky enough to find my first game-changer treatment (valtrex). I now feel fairly functional and have been working on increasing my physical activity with a physical therapist. I am able to work a full day without taking breaks and attend my kids’ activities and socialize and leave the house many times per week. I’m not fully recovered and may never be. At this point, I mainly have mild symptoms of dysautonomia. I wanted to share what helped me in case it can help others.
Note on exercise: I was exercising regularly before long covid, but was never an athlete like so many people here seem to be. So I don't expect to be able to exercise heavily for some time, and to be frank, I’m still kind of scared to try. I am now able to walk good distances and do my PT strength exercises, which is good enough for me right now. My priority is being able to participate in life again as much as possible and especially to participate in my kids’ lives since this past year has been such shit.
OVERALL THOUGHTS:
I don’t believe that there is any one answer to improving or recovering from long covid, at least until they figure out the underlying cause and trial more aggressive treatments. I think, unfortunately, that personalized medicine is required for many of us, especially in the absence of proven treatments. It sucks that so few doctors will take it on. Much of my improvement came from working with a functional medicine doctor who did an insane amount of testing to try to identify problems specific to me. She was willing to prescribe both drugs and supplements and took my ideas into account. I now think of my covid infection as a kind of trigger (or possibly an ongoing attack?) that aggravated my immune system and created or exacerbated inflammation to a level that my body couldn’t sustain and function.
I want to note that although my long covid was extremely difficult for me over the past year+, especially given that I have two youngish children and a job that I needed to keep, I was never bedbound or severe. At my worst, I was moderate/housebound. My heart goes out to those of you dealing with more severe versions of this illness or who have been dealing with it since the beginning of the pandemic.
I also am extremely lucky that I didn’t have a lot of medication side effects/reactions. I generally reacted fairly well or just simply didn’t react to medications. YMMV with any of the treatments below.
I also want to specifically recommend the podcast “Unraveled” on Patreon featuring Drs. Ruhoy and Kaufman, which I have posted about before in this sub. There is so much information out there in the world about long covid and ME/CFS, but their podcast helped me put the pieces together and be much more effective in working with my functional medicine doctor.
Below are treatments/lifestyle changes that helped me personally. I am not recommending them to anyone else, but simply sharing in case my experience helps anyone as they look for treatment options.
VERY EFFECTIVE TREATMENTS FOR ME:
Midodrine - given that my blood pressure drops when I stand up, this drug prescribed by my cardiologist allowed me to be up and about much more over the course of my long covid.
Valtrex - I had extremely high levels of EBV antibodies, but NO positive IgM. nonetheless, Valtrex gave me a significant baseline boost, and the “poisoned” feeling dissipated and never returned. I’m still on a maintenance dose. No side effects.
Oxaloacetate - I suspect mitochondrial issues, and I learned about this supplement from the podcast. It’s insanely expensive, but for me, it helps dramatically with my energy levels and helps me turn crashes around. Hoping the price will come down.
Ketotifen - Although I initially struggled with it making me sleepy, this medication has helped me fairly dramatically. It seems that the “heavy feeling” might have been MCAS-related, since ketotifen seemingly made it go away. Importantly, I didn’t have particularly obvious signs of mast cell issues, and my blood tests for MCAS were negative.
Pacing with Garmin Watch - miserable to learn, but I think it helped me avoid decline in the first year. I hate it though. I use my step count, HR, resting heart rate, and “body battery” to keep tabs on how I’m doing with pacing, and I try to take it with a grain of salt.
THINGS THAT HELPED:
Low-dose naltrexone - I debated putting this above. It helped me with pain and perhaps with fatigue/pem and definitely with brain fog. Maybe sleep too? it made me feel more “like myself” but it's a slow burn to get the full effect, so it's a bit hard to tell exactly what it does.
Statin - I had high cholesterol following LC (previously high-normal) and also tested high for markers of endothelial inflammation, so I was put on a statin. I didn’t think the statin was doing much, but when I went off it to take Paxlovid for a recent reinfection, I noticed a real difference in how i felt. It also lowered my cholesterol.
B12/Iron/Vitamin D - I tested as deficient for all of these and am working to get them up to normal levels. I think it’s helping to support my recovery, but again, not a game-changer. I had to resort to B12 injections at home because the pills weren’t doing much to help my deficiency
Beta blockers - although I am no longer on beta blockers, I found them tremendously helpful at a certain point in my long covid when I had more tachycardia and sympathetic overactivation. However, at a certain point, they just made me too tired and I discontinued.
Zyrtec/pepcid - I’ve been on these since the beginning of my long covid thanks to recommendations from this group. Perhaps that’s why my MCAS never became too obviously symptomatic?
Synthroid - I have apparently developed Hashimoto’s, sigh, so getting on thyroid meds helped my overall energy level and probably a lot of other things.
Melatonin - Getting good sleep seems to help me overall. Melatonin + ketotifen + magnesium before bed helps me sleep.
Electrolytes & Compression - Well documented, but electrolytes have helped me with my dysautonomia. I do at least one LMNT packet before I even get out of bed and one nuun tablet per day, at a minimum, with lots of water. Abdominal and leg compression seem mildly useful as well.
Vagus Nerve Techniques - Definitely helpful, especially during the worst of things, for symptom relief. I tried various different strategies like breathing, sensate, yoga nidra, etc.
Physical Therapy - Controversial and has been a mixed bag for me, even with a specialist PT. However, the neck exercises and manipulations were very helpful as well as learning about hypermobility and how to build strength with dysautonomia. I would ONLY consider PT once you are at a certain level of recovery and not getting PEM from minor things.
BLIS K12 Probiotics - positive impact on the ongoing sore throat i’ve had since the beginning. Maybe it’s keeping bad bacteria in check?
Gluten-free Diet - sadly, it seems I am unable to tolerate gluten very well. I REALLY hope this will change.
Ice - sounds dumb, but daily ice packs on the back of the neck helped to calm my symptoms and helped me recover a bit when I overdid it. Discovered this by accident, but it helps a lot.
THINGS THAT MADE NO DIFFERENCE/I’M NOT SURE IF THEY MADE A DIFFERENCE:
Plavix/Natto - Though I know many long-haulers have benefitted from blood thinners and nattokinase, I don’t seem to be in this category. Nonetheless, I had no terrible side effects either. I took Plavix for three months and natto for a month or so.
Most supplements - although it’s hard to say, I tried a large number of supplements with seemingly little effect. I still take CoQ10, trybuterin, fish oil, and magnesium as well as the ones recommended for my specific deficiencies above.
Gut stuff - I was lucky not to have many gut symptoms, but a GI MAP test showed indicators of “leaky gut” so I was put on some herbal treatments. I’m not sure if it helped, but it didn’t hurt either.
Collagen - I have some hypermobility (NOT EDS) and am concerned about how ongoing inflammation is affecting my connective tissue. I take collagen peptides, but have no idea if it’s helping!
Novavax - I opted for the Novavax vaccine for my most recent booster (fall of 23). It didn’t help my long covid, but it also didn’t hurt, so I consider it a huge win.

Before a month ago, I was perfectly fine besides the extremely low hemoglobin level I was living with for two years. The only issues I had were I could only walk from my room to my bathroom, my room to the living room, living room down the stairs to my car, and back up to living room, then to my room. Just those little distances had me taking about a minute and a half to catch my breath, heart beating really hard. Besides that, absolutely no symptoms. Until a month ago, when all of this started. I wrote the following from memory as best I could from the first day to the day I got treated.
I know this is long winded and may be kind of hard to follow, to my dad it’s really clear bc he lived it with me, but to my sister she said some people might have trouble following. Regardless, I am not distrustful of doctors. And I know it’s very specific, but that’s just because it’s an account of how it happened, how I came to the conclusions I came to, and how I know I was experiencing a certain symptom.
I know it’s not easy to take peoples word at face value, but I’m not a paranoid person. I just know my body extremely well. Any change in it, any pattern and I will notice it. & what I was going through is hard to mistake as I was completely bed bound, awake for days at a time bc there was no position I could sit or lay in to help. I feel like I’m constantly being gaslit as if I didn’t go through any of this. I have no reason to have faked these extreme symptoms for a month, as you’ll see it took a full month of this to get me to go to a hospital, and in the end I was forced by my dad and sister….
I had a hemoglobin level of 5 about a month ago, & I was living like that for years, then I woke up one morning extremely bloated like a balloon, & my arms & legs were weak & any position I tried to lay in, I’d wake up gasping for breath or my blood pressure would instantly drop & then come back, I stayed like this for 2 days hoping it would just stop & it didn’t. So I went to hospital & they told me my hemoglobin was 5 but that my heart was fine bc my blood pressure & echocardiogram came back normal. So I got one bag of blood then left the hospital for person reasons.
When I went home, I completely deteriorated. It started with my heart not being able to beat strong enough when I layed down, especially flat on my back. (I have a really bad wound on my foot), I was retaining an insane amount of fluid & the more fluid I retained, the harder it was to find a position where my blood would circulate well enough, so I kept losing oxygen. The more oxygen I lost, the more issues I had. I couldn’t sleep for days trying to find the right position to get oxygen, it felt like I was suffocating or drowning in my own blood. If I was too exhausted and tried to force my body to stay in a position I wasn’t getting oxygen, my body would force me awake w a gasp or my limbs would just move on their own. If I found the right position & slept in it, I’d wake up feeling much better, but the second my body and organs were waking up, the issues would start again. If I forced myself to sleep in the positions I wasn’t getting oxygen & didn’t move regardless of my body trying to get me to, by morning i was experiencing hypoxia. I was dizzy, confused, had extreme difficulty breathing, it felt exactly what it feels like when you suffocate but you just aren’t dead. I was seeing flashes of white and floaties, I couldn’t talk right, I couldn’t think straight. So I began to think this was full on heart failure bc all the symptoms matched. I found out the fluid buildup is what was making it even harder for my blood to circulate & that indicated kidney issues bc it was holding onto any sodium I ingested & wasn’t doing enough to expel the fluids from my body, so I started taking over the counter diuretics to help & I stopped eating any sodium At all so my kidney wouldn’t hold onto it. The only position I was able to sit in was on my computer chair with my feet flat on the ground I could even lean left or right or move an inch. Everytime I urinated I was able to breathe a little easier. You could literally instantly feel the relief. I began taking supplements/ nutritious foods to help my body work. Iron, fish oil, potassium, beet juice, oranges, apples, avacados, fish, yogurt, bananas, carrot juice, pomegranate juice (organic), celery, & these were the only foods I was eating. When my blood pressure would get high, it would make everything instantly worse, much harder to breathe. I smoke 2 packs a day normally & I couldn’t smoke one drag of a cigarette without worsening my symptoms ten fold. I was scared to drink water or fluids bc my body would just hold on to them at normal levels, but I’d have no choice but to keep drinking enough to flush my kidneys bc they weren’t doing it on their own so I’d have to take a diuretic & keep drinking water until I urinated enough bc my kidneys weren’t cleaning the toxins from my system it was making my chest tighten and blood pressure issues to get worse. Once I’d urinate enough until it was clear colored, Id feel a lot better. My legs had gotten extremely extremely swollen and were holding most of the fluid in my body, my blood would pool, especially in the foot with the wound, I’d have to put my legs up and then down to help myself breathe, bc it was helping my blood to move. I looked up ways to get rid of fluid retention and found a lymphatic massage which I followed to get the fluid into my arms, & the next day when I woke up my arm was as big as my legs so I knew it actually worked which surprised me bc I didn’t think it would do much but I couldn’t get it to go to my right arm too bc I only have a right hand, my left arm is amputated from the elbow. It took some relief off my legs but not nearly enough and it actually made the breathing even worse bc now the fluid was closer to my lungs. I would not get a wink of sleep for days trying to find a position where I wasn’t suffocating, all that lack of oxygen was causing hypoxia & after ever time I experienced severe lack of oxygen & hypoxia, another organ would stop functioning as well. Anyway, after so long I flushed my kidneys so much that I was completely depleted of sodium. I know this bc over the course of about 18 hours I urinated 2 buckets, I literally could only rest for about 10-20 min before I would have to pee again and this was without any diuretics, at first I was okay with it bc the less fluids i had the better I felt & was able to breathe much better. (I forgot to add that by this point, my heart had gotten much worse and couldn’t even pump blood while I was sitting up, so finding a position by this point was nearly impossible) by the end I was so insanely tired of going to the bathroom and anything I tried to eat or drink would not absorb in my body it would just be peed right out. It was causing severe pressure in my brain, it felt like my brain was swelling. I threw up a bunch of beet juice. I had severe nausea. My head was pounding, I couldn’t stand up. Doing research through all of this was really hard for me with what i was going through, but i eventually realized it was hyponatremia and I just needed salt. So then I had to figure out how to balance the salt in my body which wasn’t as easy as it sounded. (I also went through symptoms days before of high acid in my blood which was another sign that my kidneys weren’t functioning properly, I took tums by accident while I was trying to figure out what was wrong and i instantly felt a little better that’s when I was able to find out sodium bicarbonate is needed to clean the acid out of your blood, so i also was taking that whenever I felt those symptoms) so for the salt, first I had just gotten some salami from the fridge and I would eat one piece at a time trying to slowly give myself salt throughout the day, I had complications w that, then I saw that you could drink Gatorade or anything with electrolytes to fix it, so my dad got me electrolyte drinks and after 3 of them I was feeling much much better, it says to them incorporate salt into your diet after you feel stable again, and I took that as eating the amount of salt I used to eat, which was dead wrong, I ended up eating a quarter of a burrito from chipotle & once again my brain felt like it was swelling & I had all the same symptoms again so I knew I messed up trying to balance for my kidneys again but this time was another bout of constant urine until it started to smell, the second it started smelling I suddenly couldn’t eat anything at all, anything I had been eating fruits, vegetables, even beet juice, even the smallest bit of an orange if I tried to eat it would make my chest tight, blood pressure spike, more pressure in my head. I was sitting on Komode in my room too sick to do research to figure out what was wrong this time, but after a while I was able to research low blood sugar, i wasn’t totally sure but I felt I was dying and I had to take a chance and I happened to have jolly ranchers in my desk right next to me and the second I put one in my mouth I started feeling better. So at that point I had figured out the issue was now my pancreas. I didn’t know much about pancreatic issues (I was gonna be a doctor before I dropped out of college so I am really good at anatomy) but my symptoms pointed to the pancreas. When there is too much pressure on the kidneys the pancreas apparently starts having issues too. The smell in my urine was amylase, I was having pain in my right front side and in the back, I couldn’t eat anything. So the treatment for that was to completely stop drinking fluids and eating completely. I did this for 24 hours hoping it would be enough then I only ate pancreas friendly foods which for me was pineapple, but it was too early to eat and it caused issues again. My blood sugar got low again and my dad gave me a spoon full of honey which made me feel better & ur supposed to have protein after to stabilize the sugar, my dumbass asked for eggs, forgetting the yolk has fats in it which you are not supposed to eat w pancreatic issues, so once I ate the eggs I felt bad again. By this time I was so fed up with my body not working and having consequences to every little thing I put in it, I was excessively hungry from all the fluid loss plus it’s another symptom of pancreatic issues, another symptom is irritability and anger, and I got so mad at my own body I decided to pretend nothing was wrong I just wanted to eat some walnuts and once again it made things worse making me more angry so my DA said f it is gonna smoke a cig while I’m at it & im not going to move all night looking for a position with oxygen so that night I severely severely deprived my body of oxygen. I was just soo soo beyond exhausted, when I woke up I had the worst hypoxia I had had so far. I knew the damage was wayyy too far gone now. I was full on suffocating no matter what position I was in, & I still refused to go to hospital and my dad was worried so he did some research and found something called boost oxygen it’s 95% inhalants oxygen and the second I started using it it brought back oxygen to my head, my foot, my left arm, my left artery was so tight I couldn’t move my neck to the left- it made that feel better too, all my extremities that were fully deprived of oxygen suddenly were feeling a lot better. It made my lungs work better too but it was still like I could feel the tissue death in them, like they were holding the normal amount of air but it felt weird…hard to explain. I knew I was gonna end up in the hospital soon. That night I ran out of the boost oxygen I fell right back into the hypoxia, my dad had to rush to Walgreens at 1130 at night to get more and I spent the next couple days using this oxygen to keep me hanging on by a thread. I woke up one of those days my stomach/abdomen was distended, I wasn’t digesting any food, I couldn’t urinate no matter how hard I tried, my organs were making gurgling noises, and this is the only part I’m unsure of. I was having severe pressure in my neck at this point for days, and now when I was sleeping or trying to sleep, my breathing would stop as if it was no longer involuntary, and I would have to manually breathe to get it going again, then it would happen again. I was also having sleep apnea during all of this. So at this point I was feeling like my lungs were going to collapse, and that finally made me scared enough to call an ambulance and go to the hospital. Yet once the emts came my blood pressure was normal and my pulse ox was 100, so they didn’t believe I was going through anything I was saying I did. Once I got to the hospital I had a male doctor & the second I told him I think I’m in organ failure he was combative and just wanted to prove me wrong and he condescendingly asked how I know that and anything I said he just didn’t believe. Then they did some blood tests and another male doctor came back and said none of my organs were in failure, my kidney & pancreas levels were slightly off but nothing crazy, they acted as if none of my symptoms made any sense especially since my pulse ox was normal. The only thing they could find wrong was my anemia level of 5 that I had been living with for 2-3 years. I told them to please test my heart, I figured it had to show up on at least an angiogram. They tested everything and said my heart was fine. They gave me 2 bags of blood and I was feeling a tonnn better but I was still feeling shortness of breath, pressure on my chest, everytime they injected anything into my iv even saline my chest would tighten, i was still getting bouts of dizziness, & every time I told them these issues they did nothing. Just “ok”, oh, your heartbeat is constantly rapid? Okay. Oh it feels like someone is pushing you into quicksand when you try to sleep? Ok. I talked to my doctor after they did every heart test and I was upset I said why is it that none of you care to explain any of my symptoms as if they didn’t and aren’t still happening? You only care about what you can see on a test, but that doesn’t change the fact i went through and am still feeling these symptoms. She said “we’ve done every test and there’s nothing wrong with your heart to explain your symptoms” I said ok I believe you there’s nothing wrong with my heart but is there anything at all that can explain the symptoms I’m having? And she pretty much said no or that these issues are hard and sometimes it takes longer for other symptoms to show up. So she completely gaslit me, and I started questioning myself. But when I got home from the hospital and remembered everything I went through the last month day by day I knew that I felt what I felt, so I went to read more about anemia and severely low anemia like I had explains my symptoms ALONE, yet none of them ever said that. When I told them I wasn’t getting enough oxygen they acted like it made no sense when it’s KNOWN hemoglobin carries oxygen to your body & when it’s low it makes the heart work harder and my hemoglobin was FIIIIVVVVEE. Like WDYM you don’t know why I’m having these symptoms? When my pulse ox came back 100 (which still confuses me as to how it could’ve been 100 when my hemoglobin was so low) they acted like my symptoms were so far fetched and how the more I read about it the more I’m insanely confused as to why they didn’t attribute my symptoms to my anemia? I get that I was wrong thinking my heart was in full failure, but anemia also causes heart DYSFUNCTION that is reversible once you get more blood. Some heart tests were before I got blood and some were after. My question is is there any reason my tests could have been coming up as normal? And why did my doctors act like my symptoms made no sense simply because my heart tests came up normal?
I know I waited much too long to get treatment, but it’s bc I truly hate dealing with doctors and nurses and not being listened to.