https://www.reddit.com/GriefSupport/comments/1bykm11/anaia/
https://www.reddit.com/GriefSupport/comments/1bxzqi4/siste
About a month ago, I posted two separate posts on this subreddit about my younger sister, Anaia, who passed away on March 17th, 2024. In one post I gave photos, and in the other I wrote about her addiction, but I don't think I've really talked about myself.
It has been nearly two months since my little sister passed away, and I wouldn't describe it as grueling or depressing, just unusual. On April 22nd, it was confirmed to my family that Anaia died as a result of fentanyl toxicity, which was the reason I always assumed but to have it confirmed was very depressing. Yesterday, I went to my grandmother's house and there were a few copies of Anaia's death certificate, in the onset interval to death section, I said minutes. When talking to my mother (me and my parents talk all the time, my dad sits in my room and plays games while we talk about Anaia or something random, and me and my mother will talk about random things as well as Anaia too.), she told me her perspective of that morning. Long story short, around 11:45AM, I woke up to my mother screaming my sister's name and she soon realized she was unresponsive, me and my father woke up soon after and I called 911, and that's the short version. I assumed my sister was in her covers sleeping and fentanyl overrid her system, but no, my mom told me that when she walked into Anaia's room, she was laid flat out on top of all of her covers, arms outstretched to the side. Learning that was a major shock to me, and I'll explain why.
Sure, Anaia's death was nearly instant. But hearing the details of what my mom said really drove him that once it happened, it didn't matter whether we went into there at the right time or later, there was likely nothing that could've been done. From my understanding, it was almost as if she was up one second and collapsed the next. There was dried vomit on clothes next to her bed, making me assume that after vomiting, she just collapsed instantly after and died. After calling 911, my mother demanded out of fear for me to help her perform CPR, and I didn't hesitate to do so. But, anyone in that situation could tell, with no details given, that there was nothing that could've been done. The typical signs of a deceased body were very present, and even I (doing the mouth resuscitation) knew that if I felt no air coming back onto me, and touching her neck didn't give a pulse, I quickly understood that this was it, like there was nothing me or my parents could've done. When the paramedics arrived at 12 exactly, it took them a minute or two for them to tell us that there was nothing to be done, and ultimately, Anaia had died long, long before we got to her. They said roughly 6-8 hours, meaning at the earliest 3am, and at the latest 5am. It's a disheartening fact for him, and even my father expressed to me too a few nights ago, but we wished that at least there was a chance for us to get to her beforehand. Maybe if he and I or my mom went into her room for no real reason in the middle of the night, we would've been able to save her. What really struck me when my dad was telling me that was him acknowledging that while he and my mom were watching TV, he couldn't bare to imagine that simultaneously Anaia was dying. I felt the same way, I was awake around 3-3:30AM, and if she died during that time, I was totally unaware scrolling through my phone.
I wish that there was something to be done. During her time alive, and when she started doing street dealt percocets, I warned her about fentanyl, and ultimately I wish she had heeded my warning and stayed off them when she did quit in December. I'm a sociable person, and I'm one of those people that have a wide different variety of groups and friends I hang out with, and I may not be in extracurricular activities but even those that are popular in my school know me. As a result of being so sociable, I know people that do drugs, and only a set few who do percocets, one of my closest friends used to be a heavy percocet user and I used to tell her as much as I did my sister to quit. My friend and my sister quit, but one returned and one didn't. One is still here, and one is not. It doesn't matter how many people I told not to do percocets, of course I would've wanted my sister to be the one to really listen to me. But ultimately, the person I wanted to save the most didn't make it. I've saved others, but with my sister, it almost made my words feel like nothing after she died. No matter however many times I told her to please find something less dangerous and more beneficial, to not risk her life, she kept using and lost her life. Said friend and two other friends of my sister (I know both of them) were also at some point active percocet users, and they told me that they felt it like it should've been them, seeing my mother made them see that that could've been their parents, their siblings, their friends and relatives, etc. I told them bluntly that it in fact could've been them in Anaia's position, I told them that just because Anaia's clock stopping running doesn't mean there's has to, they can avoid being in her position. Then it got me thinking, there's plenty of other people who overdose on purpose, who overdose 9 times, who overdose and suffer long term effects like paralyzation, but still remain. Anaia overdosed once, and that was the final time. I believe in God and Jesus but I'm not a preacher, I believe and keep it pushing but I'm not religiously based. I believe in the concept of everyone having a time and a date, but sometimes I find myself questioning that if that's the case, are we just here to live a predetermined fate that we have no control over? At the end of the day, was I meant to go through this? Thinking like that plagues my mind, but I settle for it being her time to go, as seeing other drug users made me wonder what they may be here to prove on earth that Anaia could not. I don't like questioning others' lives and why they get to live longer, that's not me, and I'm glad they've been granted more chances, it just sucks my sister wasn't granted that chance in the grand scheme of things. Predetermined or not, there was so much she could've lived for, but I believe there's a reason time can't be reversed, and there's many unexplained miracles that somehow eases me into thinking that I shouldn't throw myself into a hole of questioning why she didn't get a chance, and just accepting that her race ended earlier than mine. I believe things happen for a reason, it's an insensitive statement depending on the situation, but things happen for people to learn and grow from them, but no one really knows why. I've just had to come to the conclusion hat my sister is okay, she's safe, and I have no reason to continue to question her life and worry about her if she's not here with me anymore, you feel?
From a brother perspective, it sucks. It feels somewhat lonely, to live and breathe as an only child. I've become accustomed to being an older brother to a younger sister, but I turned 16 without her, and that's how it'll be for the rest of my life. At her visitation on March 30th, I didn't cry, but seeing her body just made me shake my head. She looked very nice, the funeral home did an amazing job, but it hit me that this was really her. There were distinct things I saw that she had in life that made me come to that conclusion that that was what was left my little sister, and at the funeral + burial the next day, watching her being lowered into the ground left my head empty. No thoughts, she watching as her casket covered in a white sheet was lowered into the ground, and that'd be it. I grew up with this person, and now I have to look down on this person and go through life without this amazing person. I never imagine something like this happening, especially not like this. I always wanted to die first because I was older, a thought I feared ever since I was a child. That didn't get to happen, and milestones man. She'll never get to graduate the year after me, never get to have that lovely relationship with that special one that she always wanted, she never got to be an aunt, a mom, nothing. One day, I hope to have children and I will tell them about Anaia, but do I wish they'd have been able to meet her if that time came. Everyday, I walk past her room, sometimes I go in there and sometimes I don't. Two weeks after her death, her mattress was taken out by me and my dad's friend, up until a few weeks ago, her room was left scattered the way it was when she died minus the mattress, and now, everything has been cleaned up. It's empty, and the emptiness is another reality check. I'll never see Anaia again, and in the potential next life I believe I will, but the fact I can't now is a hard concept to grasp. No more walking to the bus stop, no more barging into her room or vice versa, no more waiting forever for her to complete her makeup, no more random room hangouts, no more of her asking me to flash a light for her Instagram pictures for an excruciating ten minutes, none of them. Her physical presence is gone, I come home everyday and instantly the thought of her being gone hits me. Riding in the car with my parents, being at school, going out, it doesn't feel the same knowing in the back of my head she's gone, no matter how much fun I have. Regardless, I've returned to normal life, matter of fact, I started going to school every day instantly after the funeral, and during the two weeks of March 17th-March 31st, I showed up to school here and there. It didn't take a toll to do so, because I've accepted that though Anaia died, I'm still alive? I don't stop when she does, that'll have more of an effect. Life still goes on, time doesn't stop for no one no matter how much I may want it to. I honestly sit my current happiness at like a 6.5-7, higher than one may expect. I still have my parents, my friends, and all of my relatives, an important chunk is just missing but I still have my people. I only feel alone in the sibling aspect, but in reality, people make me happy everyday and still continue to. I joke how I've always joked, people have said I look much better than how I did initially, there's notable sadness on my face, but I look happier. If that's true, then I hope it stays that way. I still go out to these afterschool events, outside friend hangous, they bring joy. I just miss my sister 25/8, but I've learned to appreciate life just a little bit more now. If she's okay, I'm okay.
Lastly, I wanted to mention dreams. People say they have dreams of deceased loved ones all the time, I personally haven't yet, would like to, but until then that hasn't been the case. I'm not talking dreams with the person in them, I mean direct communication dreams. My mother has had two, my dad's friend has had one, and my close friend mentioned earlier has had one, but the one that sticks out the most is my little cousin's dream. My mom has a younger sister herself and in 2018, she had her first child, his nickname is JP. During 2021-2022, me and Anaia lived with my grandmother due to losing our apartment (our parents stayed separately at a grouphome my dad worked at, they work for my grandmother's company), and my aunt as well as JP stayed with my grandma. JP essentially became me and Anaia's little brother that we didn't have, and vice versa for him, he sees me and Anaia has his older siblings. Seeing him seem so heartbroken after Anaia died was very sad, as you can see written on this five-year-old's face that Anaia was someone who truly mattered to him and he was so sad about it. However, in his dream, Anaia came to him and told him she loved all of us, that she regretted not seeing him grow older, and that what happened to her was an accident. The part that got me was that Anaia told him that where she was was beautiful, he asked to see it, and she told him he couldn't see it yet. Kids just don't make things like that up in my opinion, and he worded it very detailed for a kindergartener, and JP is at the age where his words don't conflict with other things he's said, he's consistent with it and he tells me the same thing he told me the first time when I ask him here and then. He can see it one day, but he can't see it, not yet. What that tells me is that if life is so hard, death must be so beautiful afterwards, and that there is an afterlife. Even if I believed in a separate religion, or if my current religion isn't the truth, I will always believe in an afterlife. I refuse to believe that this world is it, and kids just don't pull stuff out their butt in a serious situation. I believe him. If that's the case, then I'll gladly wait. It doesn't matter how many people die during my lifetime, whatever remains of it, and how many new people I might meet in my life. If my hope of living to elder age and I meet someone and create a family, and even if said wife and or children die before me if that plan does happen, there's only one person I wish to greet me. I hear that people see a loved one before they die, and I hope Anaia is the one that comes to see me when it's all over. Forever, no matter who else passes before me, Anaia's will stay the worst, the most impactful, and that's a strong statement to make but I'm sure of that. I have plenty of goals I have for myself, but my end goal once the others are done is to get past 70, pass peacefully, and have my sister wait for me there. I hope that wouldn't be much to ask for.
That's it.

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

Childhood

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

Early adulthood:

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

New experiences:

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

The Traveling Years:

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

RLS becomes terrible:

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

Rapid learning through iteration:

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

To Present Day:

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

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

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

The End:

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

I, (32M), have been through a lot in my life. This is in no way a post looking for sympathy or to make excuses.. but more to just vent and get it off my chest instead of trapped inside. I’ve been to both therapists and counseling to try and weed out my story. Maybe someone can relate to what I’m gonna say.
I know now that I was raised in a mentally abusive environment by my mother. Now, let me say this before I go further… I am an only child and my parents are still married, over 40 years of marriage. My dad did the very best he could do to not only be a dad, but also a mom too. All through high school, my friends thought my dad was an only parent because of this very situation. Until she showed up Senior Night of our last football game to stand on the field and receive a flower. (One of maybe 3-4 pictures I have of me and her in my entire life). My mother is a very sick individual. She is an extremely depressed/ bi polar person, and in horrible overall health and shape today. To this day, I don’t refer to her as “Mom”, usually by her first name or just - mother. That’s how much of a relationship, we DON’T have. But this is because when I was growing up, she is frequently abused prescription medication, OTC medication, blamed, lied, twisted, just about everything possible to not take responsibility for anything in her life. She has never had a job, outside of working for my grandfather. So growing up, I was a home with her nearly 24/7. I have vivid memories of watching her take a whole bottle of Advil, because I had made her do it, because I gave her such a headache. I only remember my mother baking me a cake for my birthday ONE TIME in my entire life and she didn’t even put the icing on it, dad did when he got home from work. She never taught me things that I would assume mothers teach their sons, like how to do laundry, or how to cook. I just have done the best I can. But regardless, I could go on and on, about stories that would make you feel sorry.. but that’s not the point of this post.
Now let’s get on with the point, my wife and I celebrate 10 years of marriage this month. We’ve been together a total of 17 years (high school sweethearts). In 2017, we welcomed our first child, a precious baby girl. I felt perfect and complete love, she filled a hole in my heart I didn’t know could be filled. But I made myself a promise, that she would never know the same pain I had growing up. That I would move Heaven and Earth to make sure she knew just how much I loved her, and cared for her. But about 5 years ago, along with a lot of other massive life events, the nail that drove it home was a situation in our marriage sent me to my lowest point in my life and it sent me on a journey to understand me. I like to think of myself, like most, as a good person. But I know I have my imperfections. I started seeking answers, for questions I had always avoided in my head. I knew where they came from, but I tried to suppress it. See, I’m a very - to myself - person. I don’t share things with people. I’m a “silent” person that deals with things quietly in my mind, I don’t rush at the situation. It’s a fault, but one I have. But it has always been a problem between me and my wife, growing up - I was silent. I dealt with my issues, silently. So now, it’s all I know how to do.
I swallowed my pride and booked an appointment with a therapist, here locally where we live. And she is a wonderful, Christian lady who will help find the issues, instead of just prescribing a pill. Because, back to my childhood, I didn’t know if I had the same abusive mentality towards medicine like my mother did. So, after several visits, she cracked me. I opened up to her about my childhood, and the resentment I have towards my mother and what she did and didn’t do to me. I was bitter. And all of it came spewing out of me, all of those years of silence.. was coming out. Working through all of this she had me take a “maintenance” anxiety medicine just to take the edge off. But as we met more, the more the depression came. Until eventually, she suggested counseling. I went several times with a counselor, who was a Christian counselor. And at one of the sessions he flat out asked me if my mother were to die suddenly, how would I feel. I was faced with having to address it, right on the spot. I answered him with, “I honestly wouldn’t feel anything”. He told me, that unfortunately, genetics played apart in my life and outcome of my overall mood. That I just needed to find ways to distract myself when “her” characteristics started rising up in me.
Fast forward to within the last year, me and my wife have been on this cycle, where we are perfect, in love, everything great.. until something ruins it, makes me mad. I’m not looking for anything to be mad at, but it happens. I can’t explain it. It’s so stupid, and immature. But in my mind, I think if I try and hide my feelings… it will blow over. Now I know, this is unfair and unhealthy to her, but I don’t know how else to do it. I grow up not having to care, or account for others feelings or views on the situations. So about a month ago, we had this cycle happen again, after going almost 5 months of everything great. We avoid each other, live two separate lives. It’s not at all what I want, but I feel like I bring it on myself. And talking the other night, she finally said something to me - “it was like I was two different people in those moments”.. and it hit me. She had said it before, but I had never really “heard it”. So this past Wednesday, I had my monthly check up with my therapist. And I just came out with it, told her what was happening. She asked a series of questions and said, it could be that you have Tier 1 of being bi-polar. And instantly, I wanted to crawl under the desk. She explained that it is hereditary and especially is passed down through the mother’s side. And one of my worst fears, had come to life. She was winning, my mother was winning. Even though I have nothing to do with her, she is still controlling my life. Her tendencies and disorders have reared its ugly head into my life, that I’ve spent making sure I was NOTHING like her.
I want to be the best husband/dada I can be to my 2 rugrats and my wife. I love them with everything I have. I never want to make them have those feelings I had as a kid, of pure resentment. I just wish I could wash it off and be who I want to be. I won’t let it define who I am, but it’s killing me inside knowing, it’s still inside of me somewhere. It’s like a stain on your favorite shirt you can’t just wash off..

I was talking with someone elsewhere earlier about the topic of medication and how it can contribute to the rage and anger some mass shooters feel that pushes them over the edge and I just thought I would share it here, too since it's a relevant topic.
These are just raw thoughts and I didn't refine anything for clarity or anything like that, but I thought it was a good topic to share here also so I am copying and pasting what I wrote earlier. There were some people who dismissed the impact of medications on a large number of shooters (despite the data), and it's understandable. A lot of people don't like the idea because they, themselves are on medication and aren't feeling inclined to go on a shooting spree, but that's the point. Everyone is affected differently. And a large number of people are negatively impacted. We can't discount the influence of drugs on the people who are pushed over the edge. With all the research I've done, I can't say it's rare or not normal. On the contrary, people who aren't induced into rage by drugs are the outliers and are lucky.
Someone also brought up how shooters and other people go on rampages of violence while under the influence of various antidepressants and don't remember afterward. This is unfortunately a real thing and it's scary.
//
Sadly, a large number of people really are negatively impacted by antidepressants, and it's self-reported that they feel more violent, angry, and out of control and have intrusive thoughts shortly after starting certain medications. It's not everyone, but an overwhelming majority of mass shooters are found to be on medications that are known to increase and even induce feelings of rage and suicidal ideation. (Of course, mass shooters are somewhat rare, despite media coverage) but most of them are negatively influenced by their medications and many self-report increased feelings of rage and both homicide and suicidal ideation directly from their Rx.
I've been studying mass shooters since 1999 and at one time had the largest database of incidents and can tell you almost anything you want to know about most cases, including unreleased documents and unredacted documents never made public. Once you study the incidents in-depth, the pattern is that most of them were experiencing feelings of rage that were pushed over the edge by the drugs they were prescribed.
I'm by no means saying everyone who takes medication will kill people, but it's absolutely true that an overwhelming majority of mass shooters self-reported feeling more violent because of the medications they were prescribed and their doctors just upped the dose or changed their meds or ignored them.
I see it like this:
These medications do induce feelings of suicidal ideation, rage, and violence in a lot of people and many have been black boxed or removed because of it. Just because it doesn't happen to everyone doesn't mean it doesn't happen. And unfortunately, for many who are prescribed these medications, they end up either knowingly killing people as an expression of that rage or they have a blackout experience where they kill and legitimately don't remember what happened. The topic of who isn't affected by antidepressants is an entirely different conversation.
According to the data, those who are not negatively impacted are actually the outliers. I'm not just saying this, I'm kind of an expert in this area in terms of my life's work for the last 25 years and what I have access to, and the information I have would definitely hold up in court lol (some of it has already in lawsuits). It's a touchy topic, understandably, but the data, which includes self-reporting, says it's true... causes are never across the board.
X can cause Y in one group of people, but not in another group, and X is still the cause of Y for those people. Something doesn't have to create the same impact across the board to be a valid cause. Just like food allergies can cause a person to swell up and/or die, even though it doesn't cause death for others doesn't negate that it did cause death for those allergic people.
In that case you could say the allergy was the true cause; the predisposition... and eating the food was just the catalyst, not the "cause," but that's not very helpful because allergies alone don't kill without a trigger and if someone with a severe allergy to strawberries eats strawberries, it's the strawberries that triggered their death.
At the same time, healing the allergy is also important, but until that allergy is healed, the fact remains that strawberries can kill people with a strawberry allergy. So whatever it is that makes certain people react to specific medications with more rage and increased violent tendencies is a real issue that needs to be acknowledged. It's part of the puzzle. Every piece is valid, and unfortunately medications play a significant role in increasing and inducing violence in certain individuals.
//
The human body really is complex, and changing the chemistry of a person's body can have so many unintended consequences, and it's scary how many things are labeled "side effects" when they are the most prominent effect.
I used to dismiss the impact of drugs on mass shooters because I was attached to a story about my personal experiences (not with drugs, with a couple would-be and actual mass shooters) so I get why it's dismissed, but you're right, it needs to be looked at.

And if people like you have been studying this for so long, and/or dealing with cases in court, why is it kept out of the public's eyes?

That's one of the biggest and most important questions ever. What I can gather is that it's just about profits. The pharmaceutical companies want to protect their profits and that's why they settle out of court with people who sue them. They know the other side won't have the time or money to go through a trial, and so they offer a couple million and call it a day. Hush money.
The drug companies intimidate people and threaten them into accepting settlements as hard as possible to avoid trial. In the Taylor v. Solvay Pharmaceuticals case brought against the makers of Luvox by Mark Taylor (Columbine victim), he went through 3 attorneys. Solvay pressured his first attorney to drop the case and Mark wouldn't drop it, so he fired the attorney. Took on a second who also told him to drop the case after pressure from Solvay. He fired that one, too. By the time he got his third attorney, he said Solvay was making him offers and telling him if he didn't take the money they would make sure he spent the rest of his life in jail. Off the top of my head I believe he got $10,000 and he gave the money to breast cancer research because his grandma died of breast cancer.
After that, we believe he was targeted by Solvay. He went to the hospital for a seizure and they wouldn't release him. They accused him of threatening to blow up a bookstore as their reasoning for keeping him. They put him in a mental institution and drugged him with Luvox and other drugs against his will. They got a court order to separate him from his mother and she wasn't allowed to visit him or know what he was being drugged with. She spent years not seeing him and by the time he was released he was a zombie who couldn't form a complete sentence. He was perfectly fine before.
I think these drug companies make their message really clear to prevent more lawsuits. Anyone who pushes it too far ends up dead or missing or falsely accused of a wild crime.
I don't think there's an online database that has a list of the specific drugs in that way (my research in that dept is offline) but there is a man who has compiled amazing data that has written several books on the matter, and I don't think anyone else does it better than him. I didn't know he existed when I was doing all my research, but I find his work to be incredibly awesome. Peter Breggin.
Yeah drugs are a tricky thing. Sometimes they help, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they increase the problem they're trying to solve. It happens outside antidepressants, too. Personally I am so sensitive that I can only take 1 Advil if I have a migraine coming on, and it makes me loopy. I took codeine once and thought I was flying. lol our nervous systems are not designed to be artificially manipulated, but some people tolerate things better than others.
Even though some work, I wouldn't say any drugs are harmless, there are always impacts on organ systems and the energetic system, but sometimes they are helpful and antibiotics saved my life so I'm not against everything, it just wouldn't be my first choice for myself or my kid if I had kids. They wanted to medicate me when I was younger, and I refused, and took the hard path through life to self-heal and found healing through energy work, but that's a different topic.
Links:
https://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Psychiatry-Electroshock-Biochemical-Theories/dp/0312113668
https://www.amazon.com/Antidepressant-Fact-Book-Doctor-Prozac-ebook/dp/B009G1WBNS
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/medicating/interviews/breggin.html
https://psychrights.org/research/digest/CriticalThinkRxCites/breggin-fluvoxamine.pdf

I, (32M), have been through a lot in my life. This is in no way a post looking for sympathy or to make excuses.. but more to just vent and get it off my chest instead of trapped inside. I’ve been to both therapists and counseling to try and weed out my story. Maybe someone can relate to what I’m gonna say.
I know now that I was raised in a mentally abusive environment by my mother. Now, let me say this before I go further… I am an only child and my parents are still married, over 40 years of marriage. My dad did the very best he could do to not only be a dad, but also a mom too. All through high school, my friends thought my dad was an only parent because of this very situation. Until she showed up Senior Night of our last football game to stand on the field and receive a flower. (One of maybe 3-4 pictures I have of me and her in my entire life). My mother is a very sick individual. She is an extremely depressed/ bi polar person, and in horrible overall health and shape today. To this day, I don’t refer to her as “Mom”, usually by her first name or just - mother. That’s how much of a relationship, we DON’T have. But this is because when I was growing up, she is frequently abused prescription medication, OTC medication, blamed, lied, twisted, just about everything possible to not take responsibility for anything in her life. She has never had a job, outside of working for my grandfather. So growing up, I was a home with her nearly 24/7. I have vivid memories of watching her take a whole bottle of Advil, because I had made her do it, because I gave her such a headache. I only remember my mother baking me a cake for my birthday ONE TIME in my entire life and she didn’t even put the icing on it, dad did when he got home from work. She never taught me things that I would assume mothers teach their sons, like how to do laundry, or how to cook. I just have done the best I can. But regardless, I could go on and on, about stories that would make you feel sorry.. but that’s not the point of this post.
Now let’s get on with the point, my wife and I celebrate 10 years of marriage this month. We’ve been together a total of 17 years (high school sweethearts). In 2017, we welcomed our first child, a precious baby girl. I felt perfect and complete love, she filled a hole in my heart I didn’t know could be filled. But I made myself a promise, that she would never know the same pain I had growing up. That I would move Heaven and Earth to make sure she knew just how much I loved her, and cared for her. But about 5 years ago, along with a lot of other massive life events, the nail that drove it home was a situation in our marriage sent me to my lowest point in my life and it sent me on a journey to understand me. I like to think of myself, like most, as a good person. But I know I have my imperfections. I started seeking answers, for questions I had always avoided in my head. I knew where they came from, but I tried to suppress it. See, I’m a very - to myself - person. I don’t share things with people. I’m a “silent” person that deals with things quietly in my mind, I don’t rush at the situation. It’s a fault, but one I have. But it has always been a problem between me and my wife, growing up - I was silent. I dealt with my issues, silently. So now, it’s all I know how to do.
I swallowed my pride and booked an appointment with a therapist, here locally where we live. And she is a wonderful, Christian lady who will help find the issues, instead of just prescribing a pill. Because, back to my childhood, I didn’t know if I had the same abusive mentality towards medicine like my mother did. So, after several visits, she cracked me. I opened up to her about my childhood, and the resentment I have towards my mother and what she did and didn’t do to me. I was bitter. And all of it came spewing out of me, all of those years of silence.. was coming out. Working through all of this she had me take a “maintenance” anxiety medicine just to take the edge off. But as we met more, the more the depression came. Until eventually, she suggested counseling. I went several times with a counselor, who was a Christian counselor. And at one of the sessions he flat out asked me if my mother were to die suddenly, how would I feel. I was faced with having to address it, right on the spot. I answered him with, “I honestly wouldn’t feel anything”. He told me, that unfortunately, genetics played apart in my life and outcome of my overall mood. That I just needed to find ways to distract myself when “her” characteristics started rising up in me.
Fast forward to within the last year, me and my wife have been on this cycle, where we are perfect, in love, everything great.. until something ruins it, makes me mad. I’m not looking for anything to be mad at, but it happens. I can’t explain it. It’s so stupid, and immature. But in my mind, I think if I try and hide my feelings… it will blow over. Now I know, this is unfair and unhealthy to her, but I don’t know how else to do it. I grow up not having to care, or account for others feelings or views on the situations. So about a month ago, we had this cycle happen again, after going almost 5 months of everything great. We avoid each other, live two separate lives. It’s not at all what I want, but I feel like I bring it on myself. And talking the other night, she finally said something to me - “it was like I was two different people in those moments”.. and it hit me. She had said it before, but I had never really “heard it”. So this past Wednesday, I had my monthly check up with my therapist. And I just came out with it, told her what was happening. She asked a series of questions and said, it could be that you have Tier 1 of being bi-polar. And instantly, I wanted to crawl under the desk. She explained that it is hereditary and especially is passed down through the mother’s side. And one of my worst fears, had come to life. She was winning, my mother was winning. Even though I have nothing to do with her, she is still controlling my life. Her tendencies and disorders have reared its ugly head into my life, that I’ve spent making sure I was NOTHING like her.
I want to be the best husband/dada I can be to my 2 rugrats and my wife. I love them with everything I have. I never want to make them have those feelings I had as a kid, of pure resentment. I just wish I could wash it off and be who I want to be. I won’t let it define who I am, but it’s killing me inside knowing, it’s still inside of me somewhere. It’s like a stain on your favorite shirt you can’t just wash off..

I know this is gonna be long but pls pls read so I’m f 26 I’ve struggled with drug addiction in the past im 10 months clean I was using when I met my now ex boyfriend& sons dad male 27 (also former drug user ) we met in a NA meeting 🙄the whole time I’ve known him he’s been clean until he got off probation about 3 months ago . he gave me the stability I needed to get clean I was living out of my car prior I had a really big problem with running from my problems I had decided to stay single for about two years before him because he had his own place it toke me about 4 months of being with him for me to get off fety our relationship was so toxic in the beginning of our relationship I was on the “run” from the cops I had warrants out of two counties long story short I ended up getting picked up and going to jail on the jail calls he’d tell me he’s not leaving me there’s no one else for him well I found out I was pregnant by him about two week of me being in jail I asked for a test we had a feeling I was prior to going so they released me out of jail with a warrant from another county I come home I found out he had been sleeping with another girl he came to pick me up from the hospital with hickeys on his neck I ended up finding out he fcoed this girl and gave her my clothes to put on after he saw how hurt i was he blocked her before he came to get me she got salty and started messaging me saying “hey girl I have your shorts if you want them back 😉” me and he ended up getting in to it I ended up apologizing but she tried making me feel sorry for her which I did to an extent but she didn’t take into consideration how it felt to be me she only knew him for three days I was in jail pregnant by him and he was lying to me the whole time so me and him would fight all the time I would go to my mom’s for one night he would call me the next day, begging me to come home, telling me he didn’t talk to anybody or with anyone and I would believe him and come home and I would find out he had another girl sleeping in my bed this was an endless cycle of this happening plus every time we “broke up, “he would try to get a hold of the girl he cheated on me with I wouldn’t even consider a breakup. I would call it me leaving so we could cool down. We literally would get back together in the next day. He did this to me almost my whole pregnancy he put his hands on me fast-forward to September of last year. He had her blocked on everything but Snapchat because she had him blocked. She unblocked him and added him. And I picked up his phone and saw it and said something to him about it and I blocked her that was a Thursday Friday He comes home and starts an argument with me mind you I still had that warrant from the other county as soon as we start arguing, he walks outside and I thought it was weird so I walked outside. I was like what are you doing calling the cops he lied and said he was on the phone with his mom inside waited like five minutes and then walked back out as soon as I started walking towards him a cop car pull up I took off running in the woods behind the house he told them what I was wearing which I ran they ended up catching me. I went to jail. He told me he was going to throw all of my stuff out and he hopes that somebody would come steal it. I was on drugs at the time, but I had started taking methadone to get off of them. by the time he threw me in jail, I was barely using I went from doing a gram and a half a day. to doing barely a pinch at night I just had to wean myself down when he put me in jail, I didn’t get my methadone and I was pregnant doing drugs while pregnant is not right by any means and I don’t need backlash because it’s something I have to live with every day the fight wasn’t even that bad He said he threw me in jail to get me clean but he knew I was only gonna be in there over the weekend because it was on a Friday and the court wasn’t open till Monday so I sat there and detox while pregnant I started bleeding When you become pregnant if you’re using it it’s very dangerous to just immediately stop because if you go into withdrawals, it can make you go into pre-term labor. He didn’t put me in jail to get me clean he did it so he could try to screw the girl that he cheated on me with and tries to get with every time I leave to cool off I don’t even think the cop car pulled off and he was already messaging her he put me in jail so he could have the whole weekend to go do whatever he wanted knowing there was nothing I could do about it anyway we had a few more incidents of him talking to his exes all I ever wanted was a family not a broken one and I really really want to make it work with him. I didn’t want to be another person that gave up on him, but he kept hurting me. I ended up getting clean five months into our relationship relationship. I was three months pregnant fast-forward to me, baby. Things were good for about two months before I had the baby . in the hospital He did amazing. I ended up having to have an emergency C-section which I never had before and I have other kids so I end up getting prescribed 25 perk 10. Since I was on methadone. I can’t even abuse the pills if I wanted to because I wouldn’t feel them. Literally all they did for me would take the pain away. I left the hospital after 24 hours because they discharged me because my son went to Children’s Hospital. Because he was two weeks early. And just needed on a CPAP machine to help his lungs expand. His lungs just weren’t fully developed from him being a little early. But other than that, my baby was perfectly healthy. No he had no withdrawals at all of the methadone. So we go up to see our son and all the walking and having to sit in a chair and then getting up really made me sore and my legs were so swollen around 8 PM walking around all day and putting a number on my body I said I can’t take it and I need to take one of my pills I go to get my purse and get them and there’s two left mind you he did good the whole 14 months he was on probation had no slip ups but he had eaten 23 Percocets within a 10 hour time span I was so upset with him I thought it was so selfish because one more up here seeing our son for the first time what if I really would’ve needed those I was in pain he just took them to get high. We bring our baby home. everything’s going good for about two months he starts drinking while playing his PlayStation he turns into an every day thing for four weeks straight I had enough we got into an argument and he left for the night. I Got him to stop drinking another month goes by and he starts taking steroids and injecting them into his butt cheek that his friend got off the dark web so he doesn’t even know what he’s putting in his body it took about two weeks until I noticed he was getting really angry over nothing or the littlest things he would get mad when the baby would cry at night so I started sleeping on the floor next to the baby so I could get to the baby fast enough so it wouldn’t wake him up tell me when he wakes up in the morning he feels like he sees me sleeping on the floor he tells me to stop doing that and just start getting back in the bed so the next night I try to do that and withthin a six hour span at night I’ve gotten up to help the baby maybe three times I get back in the bed and he yells at me and says “damn dude your tripping you’ve gotten up like 14 times” which I hadn’t even before he was taking steroids he was really weird about his sleep. He absolutely absolutely did not like to be woken up. Or he would be really mean. When I was pregnant and had to get up to he would yell at me. So I would either try to be super quiet. And take a long time to get out of bed to not wake him up. Or I would just have to wait until his alarm went off. One time I accidentally woke him up 10 minutes before his alarm went off and he set his alarm for two more hours. And was late to work two hours. We got into a small argument about a week ago and he went to his mom’s house and came back I thought we were doing good and he was changing because I wasn’t hearing anything or seeing anything that had to do with that girl he kept trying to cheat on me he had her blocked but when I got on his phone the other day she was unblocked and I said to him I really thought you were changing, but you’re not I said I feel like the only way for me to get my point across to you is for me to do something like that to you and you have to beg me to stop like I do to you he said he doesn’t care about this girl like that. He just knows that it pisses me off and he wants to piss me off when he’s mad at me anyway, saying that sent him off the edge I might want to add that he goes through my phone and picks my phone up more than I do to go through it anytime anybody text me anytime my phone dings he grabs it I’ve never stepped outside our relationship no matter what he’s done to me. I can’t post pictures on Facebook because that means I’m looking for validation. I am a really pretty beautiful girl and I’m not saying that because I’m self-centered or cocky. Because I’m actually really insecure. But I do get a lot of attention. He doesn’t like that. I’m just trying to give you guy some context so you understand a little better Anyway, me saying that turns into a huge fight, I didn’t want him to leave so I hit his keys and he grabbed my phone. He broke my last one and I didn’t want this one I just gave him his keys. He started packing all his stuff to leave. Remind you, he has the vehicle the lease and electric was in his name I told him to give me back the baby‘s social he rips it up and throws it at me my son is three months old and can’t really do anything so when I’m not holding him, he likes to watch TV we can only stream TV/movies with Amazon prime and we have a Wi-Fi box that we literally got just for the baby he uses it too to play PlayStation he toke that While we were arguing, he grabbed me and started choking me, and shoving his palms into my mouth which busted my mouth open I had welts on my face from where he smacked me as well then just to make everything worse he turned the electric off knowing that I had to pay almost $1000 to put electric in my name knowing his son stays here with me if it wasn’t for the wonderful woman downstairs who ran extension cords once it got turned off, we would’ve been sitting in the heat and dark since I have nowhere to go. He did this all the day before the first. I am in a recovery program, which helps with bills. So they pay my half. Our rent is $800 so they paid my four. I used to be a dancer in Columbus. But it made me really depressed. I haven’t been working since I was pregnant and since I just had the baby not even three months today I was talking to sister which the girl who he keeps cheating on me with his friends with her, which is how he met her talk to her today and told her that her and my sons dad have been talking and that he was on his way over his sister told her don’t do it he did some really messed up stuff to(me) And asked her why she keeps doing this to herself because he’s always gonna choose me and he’s always gonna come back to me and that he’s just trying to get at me. He texted her telling her he didn’t expect her to ignore him when he was on his way to her house And now he feels bad because he knows it’s his fault that she’s treating him like this from what he’s done to her ( he’d message her when we’d separate and get her in her feelings then block her after a day or two cause we’d get back together ) he told me before he left he doesn’t want a “btch he just needs some p*say here and there “ when we would separate (for a night ) I would start freaking out, blowing him up, texting him and calling him from text free numbers because he would block me on everything I even would pay people to drive me around so I could try to find him because I’d be so afraid to give him the time to go mess around just to end up calling me the next day and getting back with me it just caused so much drama in our relationship I saw the landlord today got him taken off the lease and me put on I’m going to work at the club this weekend to pay the other half of the rent and I can get the electric turned on as well.. I’ve been doing this with him for over a year now he always comes back and it doesn’t take long. But I just can’t forgive him for bringing my son into this. It’s one thing to hurt me, but I can’t forgive somebody for being weird to my kid. I’m just so hurt that he could do this to me and our son but he’s pushed me for so long I know I’m not in love with him anymore I have love for him and I think just the security of him how he has a stable job and car He also left knowing that I had to be at court this week. And our son had two doctors appointments. I just feel so lost and don’t know what to do he was my favorite person but I can’t live like this I can’t put my son through this it’s not fair we deserve better 😔

I woke up about a month ago with what felt like a knot in my shoulder blade area…it hurt but I was like eh, no big deal. It will go away.
Spoiler alert: it did not go away.
It kept getting worse and spreading pain further. It is up into my neck, my entire shoulder, my tricep, down into my elbow, and makes my fingers tingle occasionally. The pain is BAD and I even ended up in the ER one day because I couldn’t take it anymore. They gave me steroids and one Percocet.
After trying that, plus deep tissue massage, heat, ice, NSAIDs, Tylenol, and stretching, I saw a chiropractor. He saw me a few times and took x-rays that show my neck is completely straight, no curve, and shows bone spurs and disc degeneration at the least. He made an appointment for me at a local orthopedic surgeon office. I was so hopeful.
Orthopedic surgeon saw me for about 5 minutes. He spent most of it going over my x-rays and how he sees like 46 different problems with my neck and thinks the problem disc is somewhere in C-5-C-7 and that it’s probably compressing a nerve. Then he says he can’t help me with pain, but he can get me in for an MRI and see me back in a week and a half! He gives me meloxicam after I beg for SOMETHING stronger than Advil, and gives me a referral to Pain Management, which will apparently take 6-8 weeks.
The pain is so bad and it’s affecting my life. I can’t sit at my desk longer than mayyyybe a couple hours, and NOTHING is working. I’ve even been taking some gabapentin from a surgery last year, and nothing.
Is this the normal course of action? Do they ever give you anything for pain? Or is it just like a “suck it up buttercup” situation?
Has anyone found anything that helps?

Hi, my name is Christian. I just turned 16 on April 4th, but on March 17th, my younger sister, my only sibling, Anaia, passed away. Anaia died from an accidental drug overdose, on what, i’m not sure, but I assume it was a percocet.
Anaia died when she was fourteen, her 15th birthday would’ve been June 18th. Growing up, me and my sister were neck and neck, we were so close we would be considered twins and would do literally everything together. Even as we entered our teenage years, we may have made new friends, and may have had new experiences, but we never pushed eachother away. We lived with both of our parents, the easiest upbringing imaginable.
We talked about everything. Anaia was depressed, not to a suicidal extent, but to a demotivated, aimless extent. Around 2021, she became more secluded and developed severe anxiety, she once told me that during that time she felt like everyone was staring at her and judging her. She became easily overwhelmed by large crowds. This is when she started smoking nicotine and vapes. I used to ask her why and she would always tell me that it was fun. Smoking nicotine and vapes later ventured into marijuana. She then met this girl, Jade, who was far more mentally troubled than my sister and had tried nearly every drug in the book. Good personality, horrible influence. Jade quickly became Anaia’s main friend. Anaia and I differentiated in the fact that I always had a set of different friends, to everyone i know, everyone knows me but i’m not a popular kid, more like one of those kids in school that wasn’t popular but just someone that literally everyone could recognize and easy to talk to. I have a lot of friends, and i interconnect with differing groups, popular, weird, etc; Anaia didn’t. She had friends but she always felt like she didn’t have many friends or people she would consider friends, so when her and Jade connected, it became an unhealthy spark for them both. Anaia would go to Jade’s house all the time, nearly multiple times a week. All she had to do was ask, me and my parents knew that Jade wasn’t a good influence but we didn’t think much of it cuz at the end of the day, that’s Anaia’s best friend. You can’t make anyone do anything.
Drug use became less fun for Anaia and more of a bore reducer more or less. As Anaia invested more into weed, it became the only thing she did. My sister wasn’t interested in anything anymore, she’d go to school, come home, but smoke everyday, whatever she could. In September 2023, she told me that Jade was trying to get her to do a perc for the first time. I told Anaia that doing a street percocet could be horrible, and that she shouldn’t even try it as i knew she’d get addicted and she said she wouldn’t. In the same hour, I told a friend and he said to tell her it’s nearly as bad as heroin, to which she said we were overreacting and in the following days she tried it. Anaia and Jade would try things like percs, LSD, ecstasy, my sister did nothing further than that. The issue came with her attachment to Jade, they dated a few times. Anaia once told me that doing percocets made her happy, because they reminded her of Jade. Jade made her happy, going there gave her something fun, being with Jade gave her something to do because being at home was too boring for her and she knew that if she went to Jade’s house, she’d do some drugs and have fun with Jade. Doing percocets reminded her of that happiness. My sister would never do anything unless she wanted to at this point, my mom would try to spend more time with her but sometimes my sister would shut her away. Sometimes she would have random spurts of energy, like when her and my mom would paint together, or when she would randomly jump on my dads back, or when she would bust into my room and either lay down on my bed, play on my playstation, or just look goofy in my doorway and slam my door hard enough for the hinges to fly off when she was done. Hell, even pick up my change from my room. Jade wasn’t a bad person, just horrible choices, and long story short, her and Anaia stopped talking after my sister did something jade felt was cheating while jade in jail and they fell out. My sister loved the hell out of Jade, and the last thing she told her ever was that she didn’t want to give up on Jade. Jade tried to tell Anaia before that to get off that stuff, I saw the messages, but she didn’t.
Anaia quit for a bit, but I don’t know when she picked them back up. Anaia would tell me often how she felt depressed and unable to do anything that used to interest her when we were kids. She used to ask me how I could have goals, focus, hella hobbies, hella friends, and be happy with simple things that didn’t involve drugs or partying, how i was so secure with myself and don’t let comments bother me. I always told her I didn’t know. She told me she looked up to me in those aspects. Before that final spring break, I went into her classroom and asked her about her grades. We joked about her grades but she told me in a genuine tone she’d bring them up, as low as they were, they were the grades of someone who totally stopped caring about school. Someone who didn’t care about her grades or test scores, something she admitted to me herself. She didn’t care about it no more and that it was what it was, not the grades of the girl she used to be. In November 2023, she was admitted to a mental spot for four days, no suicide attempt, just extreme depression that overwhelmed her one morning. She told the workers she trusted me the most. Unbeknownst to me, she told her closet friends I was her best friend. My sister was such a fun loving, stubborn, dramatically sassy person when she wasn’t huddled up. It always showed.
I say her death was an accident for several reasons, for one, she had planned several things that Sunday. For two, she always caught herself on percocets. They make you vomit and that’s what she often did and she would often stay home from school some mornings cuz she felt unexplainably sick. For three, there was throw up around her mouth and in her trash can when we found her that morning, and that told me all I needed to know. Until the autopsy comes out, I believe my sister vomited in her sleep after taking a percocet and vomiting once and going back to sleep, thinking she’d be fine just like any other time. Four, she’s told people in dreams it was an accident, believers or not here, I firmly believe that regardless of all beliefs there’s an afterlife for everyone. Around 11AM, my mom found my sister cold and unresponsive, the last time anyone saw her the night prior was 2AM when she came out of her room and did something unusual. Anaia told my dad she loved him and went to sleep, not to my mom and not to me. Maybe I didn’t need it, and I think she was mad at my mom from an argument that night. My sister hadn’t been eating the whole spring break, she barely left the house, and my mom got onto her about her eating some food but she just didn’t want to. My dad finds it suspicious she only told him and not my mom, and makes him believe it wasn’t an accident, but I know my sister, she truly loved my mom and took her back on every occasion possible. They texted often too, so I don’t think that. My sister loved my dad, and they had their bouts of bumping heads but she truly loved and still loves all three of us. As a final comment, Jade is not someone I blame and she even came to the funeral Easter Sunday. I don’t want to paint her as a bad person, just influenced my sister and she’s essential to my sister’s story. Jade apologized for everything and feels way, way more guilt than anyone, and has expressed that so many times. I forgive her.
I came here to talk about drug abuse. Ultimately, what I want grasped isn’t the young life lost but the events leading to it. Anaia was someone who lost herself in drugs, she didn’t know who she was (verbally admitted) without them, couldn’t understand fun without them, and found herself demotivated. She truly had the resources, the support, she just was in a hole she couldn’t bring herself out of, a hole she told me she wanted out of. A hole she wish she could understand how to get out of. Drugs may seem fun but once you start using them for other feelings, it’s a downhill journey. If my sister had the chance, the time, to figure herself out and who she was and what she wanted out of it, she would’ve. She didn’t even know what she wanted with her life, she saw herself living, but it was just that, no goals. 14 is too young, and knowing my area (Carrollton), which has been inthe news in the last year for several fentanyl drug trades and teen related deaths and overdoses, I wouldn’t be surprised if the perc my sister took was laced. That’s if she even overdosed on a percocet, I assumed because they were found in her wallet when the police searched it and it was the only logical explanation.
One day, I’m going to become a Medical Scientist. I draw very well, I’m going to finish making my manga concept. Now, I’m going to add something else to that goals list, i’m going to build a massive foundation/organization/center building for teenagers. One with career surveys, tons of hobbies and recreational activities, counselors, courts, everything. Like a Boys and Girls club, where teenagers can come in and discover themselves. Separate themselves from the bad habits, find new interests. Even if they resort to the bad habits again, they would have learned new hobbies to invest in first, two or more options is always better than a singular bad option. I always told my sister that, as well as other drug abusing friends. “Just do something different”, anything different. Anaia’s death is unfair in that aspect, she didn’t have the time to discover herself and really live her life. I will forever miss my sister, and her death has truly inspired me and impacted many close to me in ways she wouldn’t guess. More than a sister, she was my best friend.

Hey guys, last September I got in a really really bad vehicle accident. I received a whole list of injuries, but I’m lucky to be alive. Most of my injuries have healed for the most part, except for my right arm, which sustained a severe brachial plexus injury. Y’all, the neuralgia from my arm made each, and every single one of my other injuries tickle in comparison. When I was hospitalized, I remember begging the doctors to amputate my arm, or at least sedate me. Whether for better or for worse, they never did any of that. At the hospital they started me off with morphine and then transition to around 40 mg of oxycodone a day. but they discharged me with nothing. I am here because it honestly pains me that people are going through something similar. I eventually got a reference to a pain specialist, And since then, I have been trying to do my best to figure how to make the Pain as tolerable as possible, and I just wanted to share my personal results and findings.
What didn’t help me very much
1200mg gabapentin x3 a day - prescribed by my neurologist, If it helped it didn’t really do a noticeable difference, but I definitely noticed the mood swings I got from it.
Duloxetine( generic for Cymbalta) 60 mg x1 a day - exact same as above
Percocet made of 5 mg oxycodone 325 mg acetaminophen x3 a day- it did help at least at the beginning, maybe I eventually developed a tolerance to it I’m not sure, but despite being opioids, I had no trouble quitting it. Like when I had my last appointment I very specifically requested to my doctor that she prescribe me less but it didn’t matter I ended up going from 3x a day for months to 0 a day overnight . As far as Withdrawal symptoms goes, I had extreme fatigue and a completely irregular sleep schedule, but I consider myself lucky, because I had at no point ever desired to take another tablet of Percocet. But I only did this because my other methods seemed to be working.
What did help-
A TENS machine, recommended to me by my OTA, I honestly wish I had known about this sooner. It severely nullifies the pain. Ironically, I ended up becoming addicted to this instead of my opioids, I had it running for 12 hours a day at the max settings. Which I advise you to be careful if you end up doing this. Because it eventually gave me second-degree burns all over my arm. I think there’s also a little bit of research that suggests that it helps promote healing of the nerves it stimulates. Just don’t abuse it like I did.
CBD/THC- I’m not kidding, I would choose this over any of my prescribed medication any day of the week. At one point I was severely desperate and called my pain specialist to ask if my medication would interfere with CBD and if I could try it. She gave me the approval. So I bought CBD tablets online and wow they worked better than anything I had tried so far. CBD is non-psychoactive, but I found it worked best when there was THC in the tablet/pill/edible. At first, because I had never done it before I didn’t know anything about dosages, and was probably asleep on and off for like a week at home. I eventually got it down though. For me, 10mg CBD + 10mg THC P.R.N has been helping me a lot. I’ll put the brands in the comments.
A wrist brace- I still have pain and hypersensitivity, but it’s worth the pain to put it on my arm because then it stays stationary afterwards.
Capcaicin/arnic/thc lotion/cream- not kidding I used to put all three on at the same time. It worked , everyone of those separately worked. But I wouldn’t say that they had a collectively better combined effect. I did eventually drop it, because in order for it to work it had to be applied to the affected areas, which hurt like hell to apply it on. I do feel that it gives me more relief than it does pain and that it’s worth it, but after I optimized my CBD/THC intake, I decided it wasn’t necessary.
What I’m doing now I use an ibuprofen acetaminophen combo , it’s honestly not really doing much but it’s cheap and way safer than opioids, so why not. I Use my CBD/THCV gummies as my opioid replacement. And I use my TENS machine on a modest level for multiple hours a day.
Things worth mentioning. I have this robotic glove that basically moves my right hand automatically on its own. Thing is because of the pain and hypersensitivity and paralysis, It’s a really big pain to put on. Also, the only research I was able to find on it, was that it just helps promote circulation in the hand, therefore, it kind of promotes healing, but not necessarily any better than my TENS machine I guess.
My arm is paralyzed, I have noticed significantly better healing in my sensory neurons, but from what I understand it will take a lot longer for my motor neurons to heal. So I also did research on supplements I could take over the long-term and I will list everything that I’m taking. Omega-3 fish oil, Vitamin B, Vitamin D3, “Neurop away”, “Nervive” ,”Nerve control 911” .
Anyway, I hope this can help some people. My doctors gave me a 1-2 year turnaround time to heal assuming I don’t end up needing surgery. So I will still dealing with this for a long time.

Hello, I frequented this thread so often leading up to my surgery, so I thought I’d share my experience.
I’ve (41 F) had a small hernia (size of a quarter) since I played softball in high school. My job involves a ton of heavy lifting and over the last year, I could feel and see the hernia growing in size. This was accompanied by increased heartburn and acid reflux. I got to the point that just bending over would cause liquid to burn up my throat.
A few trips to various doctors plus CT and ultrasound imaging confirmed a lemon size hernia on my upper abdominal wall (ventral hernia). Docs also found a small hernia in my belly button (umbilical). My husband had commented over the last few years that my belly button had gone from an innie to an outie. I disagreed but now I guess I know why that’s what he saw.
I found a great surgeon (former Navy) that specializes in just hernias who recommended open, mesh repair with two separate incision sites, one for each hernia. Finding a good doc seems absolutely critical for this type of operation. Fast forward to this week.
Day 1 arrived at surgical center at 6am, signed a ton of papers and was taken back to be prepped. Was given an IV for fluids (later drugs), and orally took Tylenol and gabapentin with like 3 sips of water. Met with the doc who confirmed the procedure, and anesthesiologist who talked through her role, confirmed allergies and history with anesthesia etc. At 7am I was wheeled back and walked onto the operating table. I remember saying to the anesthesiologist, I can feel myself getting sleepy, and then I was out.
Woke up around 8am, somehow dressed myself and was wheeled into my husbands truck
The real pain started when I got home. I fluctuated between hours of “this isn’t that bad” to moments of pretty excruciating pain. Needed a ton of help doing pretty much everything. Thankfully I have a walk-in shower so that is where I peed, which was a lot to dump from all the fluids given in surgery.
The pharmacy had a snafu filling my pain meds but over the counter advil really did help more than I would have expected. I was only briefly nauseous when I got home and just opened up a window to breath some fresh air until it subsided.
That afternoon my husband picked up Percocet, Valium, ondansetron (for nausea), and gabapentin. The Valium didn’t do much for the pain so I switched over to Percocet and didn’t look back. The pain was no joke but it wasn’t continuous and I could breathe through it fairly well. My redditor friends recommended getting up and walking even when you don’t want to and that really seemed to be the biggest factor in pain reduction. Just tiny laps around my house every 1-2 hours. Mostly ate soup broth and naan.
Day 2- woke up so stiff and sore. It was almost like my legs couldn’t work. I think being unable to use my core to move or sit up took its toll on the rest of my body. I was stiff and in pain pretty much all day; but only occasionally at the surgical site. This day required more help from my husband. Continued the laps. The day wasn’t too bad until 5pm when I started having a ton of bloating and discomfort. I took antacids and spent a few hours in the bathroom trying to relieve the gas. I was allowed at this point to take a hot shower and I think the muscles relaxing in there, plus the removal of the waist binder really helped things move in my stomach. Ate broth and veggies today. Tons of water
Day 3-woke up feeling pretty good. Been doing Percocet every 6hours since first dose on day 1. Today I feel “among the living” as my mom would say. Just had some coffee and an eggo waffle. Still dumping so much gas but feeling better and better. Haven’t had a bowel movement yet since the morning of surgery but hopefully today.
A few tips from my experience: -find a great doctor -expect a good amount of pain and go easy on yourself -have a patient helper at home -I ordered two robes. I wouldn’t have been able to dress myself otherwise -acid reflux is already gone -per a redditor’s suggestion, I tied rope (a dog leash) to my bed and used it to pull myself up. This was a game changer. -walk walk walk. Even when it’s the last thing you want to do
Day 4 - ended up taking milk of magnesia last night and took a break on the Percocet since I hadn’t had a bowel movement.
Well it worked! Biggest bowel movement of my life this morning. Just sharing so others don’t worry about not having one. Mine took 4 days.
TL:DR hernia surgery was pretty brutal, but manageable
Happy to answer any questions

Been a full-time caregiver to my big brother with a TBI for the past 7+ years; my dad came out of retirement and went back to work and i stayed with my brother and mom at their house ~20mins away from me in our childhood home. I’ve managed to retain and grow my relationship with my now husband (his level of love and support is off the charts!) and understandably, he wants to maintain a separate home life from my caregiving life.
My dad came back home to retire again during the pandemic and I’ve cut back from sleeping over four nights a week to two, but i do still spend every day but Saturday basically from sunup to dinner mostly taking care of my brother but my parents have aged DRAMATICALLY since Covid. They’re in a deep rut; both are in their mid 70s and i guess they feel robbed of their retirement or most likely, resentful of how much time and energy caring for my bro actually requires.
They’ve like…. Stopped doing anything. I don’t know how to explain it. They’re both on all kinds of opiates for pain, but it’s starting to feel like they’re mostly getting pills to escape reality and less for pain. I don’t think certain drugs (Percocets and hydrocodone and oxycodones etc) are supposed to be long term, all day drugs. Where is the line where they are abusing their meds and what is actually legit need? It feels insane that they find doctors that keep pushing these drugs on them and they all go through the same neighborhood pharmacy - how is no one throwing up any red flags? It’s literally both of them now; mom takes hydrocodone all day long and takes all kinds of benzos to sleep at night; dad is the one that is basically “doctor shopping” - he has three doctors prescribing him three different medications and no one is communicating and he is getting so much worse. But honestly - what do i know about working your whole life for this promise of freedom and then having to turn around and basically re-raise your child? What do i know about how much it must hurt to be in your 70s; maybe their need for these drugs are legit; all i can see is that the repercussions of their drug use are affecting my brother and his potential recovery exponentially.
Sorry this is so long, I’m not sure how to explain all this clearly.
My bro is 48 and requires 24/7 care and monitoring due to the severity of his TBI. We initially assumed he would go to a skilled nursing facility but that was incredibly obviously not going to work out from the beginning; so therefore the decision was made that resulted in mom and i essentially “retiring” and taking care of him around the clock and dad going back to work. I gave my bf at the time (now husband) every opportunity to walk away bc i knew i was making a major decision that would dramatically alter all our lives; but it was and still is the right thing to do.
In the past 6 months to a year; my folks are barely doing any kind of housework or cooking at all. My bro does not get bathed or have any oral care if I’m not the one to do it anymore. In the beginning both Mom and i were militant about his palliative care; we were all on a strict schedule with him. As he’s gotten a bit better in some aspects, again - not sure if they’ve stopped doing the vary bare minimum because of age, drugs, resentment, or they just know if they wait I’ll do it all when i get there.
What’s really upsetting me the most is that it really feels like brother is deteriorating - he was making so much progress and he has just stopped. And he’s miserable. He stays dirty if I’m not there and I’ve found him with like, a 10lb diaper, because they haven’t bother to change him overnight and only seem to interact with him if he hollers (global Aphasia) bc they just want him to shut up. They are on so much drugs they just … sleep all the time. And if I’m not there he seems extremely neglected.
Getting to my point here, i promise - my folks are getting very old very quick. For whatever reasons they’ve stopped caring for my brother. My husband is supportive in every way but is dubious (understandably) about us finally just moving home with them even though this has been the long term plan for a very long time. Him supporting me in my efforts to support my family was the “deal” going into our marriage- we even wrote it into our vows; he was basically marrying all of us -lol
It really feels like it time to proceed with this process but EVERYONE is resisting it… my folks don’t want to admit they need help maybe? Or they don’t want want to feel like they need a “babysittter”? My husband is worried about the stress that 24/7 care of three people, including us and my brothers kid in college, will put on me and honestly… the utter chaos of that house lately is overwhelming to him. But i feel like i gotta get in there asap and take control or im going to lose all three of them a lot sooner than i should.
My folks have resisted help from almost every agency that has stepped in to help (VA/my brother is a marine vet), he is on the federal TBI waiver yet they barely use any of the services and funds offered with that, my dad stays active with the church a lot but mom is completely isolated. I think my niece and i might be her only friends; she lost her sister to cancer last year and she is just so heartbroken. Every chance we’ve had to get him any kind of therapy in the home (outside facility work is SOOO difficult) has been bc i fought like hell for it. He won’t ever “recover” but he can and has progressed and i will NEVER give up on him.
I’m ready to start this process that will have to begin with my parents agreeing to move to the downstairs master bedroom so my husband and i can have the upstairs as our “apartment” of sorts. My brother is downstairs in a hill-rom bed and the other master bathroom downstairs has already been renovated as fully ada compliant for my brother ergo it’s a perfect setup for me to be able to take care of all of them together down there. But they just won’t let it happen.
When and how do i just… take over? I don’t WANT to but i know i need to and it needs to happen soon. I’m not asking if anyone has ever been in a similar situation exactly (highly improbable) but I’d love to know how you successfully transitioned into the “parent” role once it became obvious it was time?
I know this was long and the crazy thing is it feels like I’ve barely explained it all. Hopefully it makes some sense and gets into the right algorithm to pop up on the right folks to give me a little direction or inspiration - or both!!
Thanks, guys.

I am preparing for an Austin procedure bunionectomy in a few weeks. I cannot tolerate prescription pain meds like Percocet, Vicodin, Tylenol 3. Makes me unbelievably nauseous, dizzy, and sick. How bad is the post-op pain? Can I get by on Advil/Tylenol?
Also how long really is it from surgery to being back to normal? Fortunately it's my left foot and my doctor said I should be able to drive in a week, maybe less. Is that what your experience was? I would love to hear from anyone who has had this procedure. Would you do it again or do you regret it every day? Thank you for your advice.

15,000 fans file into the Budokan for Great Voyage. 15,000 fans watch great action for hours on end, waiting for one colossal main event. 15,000 fans are here for the Occident vs. the Orient, but it might as well be Greek Gods vs. Roman Gods. How did we get here?
Brock Lesnar, a man who lives by his own code. A man who decided to leave the biggest wrestling federation in the world simply because he didn’t like their schedule. He was given his ideal conditions by New Japan Pro Wrestling, but decided to eschew the traditional Japanese wrestling value of loyalty, despite wearing the company’s championship on his massive shoulders. Why does he do all of this? Because he’s Brock Lesnar. Because he can.
Everybody wants Brock Lesnar, and Pro Wrestling Noah is no different. Brock Lesnar waltzes into Noah without any regard for their history, for their hierarchy. He wants their two biggest names in the same match. Mitsuharu Misawa and Kenta Kobashi are forced to team together, to cater to Brock Lesnar’s whims because it’s good for business. Brock Lesnar picks a familiar man as his partner. A rival, at that. The Wrestling Machine himself, Kurt Angle has a ticket right to Tokyo.
Outsiders and insiders clashing in perhaps the biggest tag match of all time. Brock Lesnar, a man whose special status relies solely on his continued ability to demolish anything and anybody that dares to cross his path. Kurt Angle, painkillers altering his bodily chemistry, recently cast away from the only wrestling company he’s ever worked for, forced to survive in waters that he doesn’t quite know how to swim in. Mitsuharu Misawa, carrying the company he built on his ever-weakening spine, the spine that may one day snap and cause everything to crash down to the ground. Kenta Kobashi, enjoying legend status but fighting to keep doing what he loves. Everyday his chops get weaker, his lariats carry less weight, and he won’t know why until he gets his kidney checked in just a few short months.
Four legacies that will forever be altered by what happens between those ropes. Crimson red spilled on emerald green, staining the pages of history forever. This is two sets of rivals fighting to prove that their philosophies reign supreme, that they themselves reign supreme. A Wrestling Machine. A Beast. An Emerald Ace. An Iron Man. When the fans file out, the lights dim and the ring is taken apart, who will be able to call themselves great?
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Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle vs. Kenta Kobashi and Mitsuharu Misawa
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Gold Medal begins to blast through the speakers here in Nippon Budokan, and Kurt Angle jogs out onto the ramp, head down in focus. He seems a little bit on-edge, almost like he’s not quite used to hearing a theme song that doesn’t lend itself to a crowd screaming “You Suck”. He’s in unfamiliar territory, and he’s not exactly coming in with training wheels. No tune-up matches, no tests. He’s right in the fire. Quickly, he kisses his Olympic Gold Medals and hands them off to the timekeeper’s area, before getting in the ring and stretching a bit. He’s a machine, and tonight he gets to show what he can do when he’s in no man’s land.
Then, Kingdom Comes plays, signifying the arrival of perhaps the most singular, unique man in wrestling history. Brock Lesnar is not motivated by glory, or respect, or gold. He’s motivated by conquest. He’s motivated by money. He’s motivated by violence. Many people thrive when they put themselves in uncomfortable positions, but that’s impossible for Lesnar, because every match is just another match for him. He’s walking into a battle alongside a longtime rival, against two of the greatest to ever do it, and yet he looks incredibly calm. Nobody can touch him. Nobody can hurt him. A regular entrance, because there is not a bone in Brock Lesnar’s body that is treating this match like anything to be afraid of. Why should he? He’s Brock Lesnar.
The crowd comes unglued as Grand Sword starts to echo through the storied venue. Kenta Kobashi is here, one of the greatest to ever do it, and the camera follows him as he walks through the backstage area and down the ramp. A million words are etched on his face. Tonight, things come full circle for him. He came up teaming with Mitsuharu Misawa, trying to unseat him as the Ace for years on end. While their feud was quite evenly-matched, with Kobashi being the only man to kick out of Tiger Driver 91, and Orange Crush having to debut wrestling’s most dangerous move, the Burning Hammer, against Misawa, many believe that Kobashi only truly surpassed his former mentor in 2003. Now, Kobashi teams with Misawa once again, but he enters before Misawa. Is he truly the ace? Have fences mended enough to allow them to turn back the outsiders? Kobashi keeps his eyes on his opponents, not looking at the ramp as…
…Spartan X starts to play, and the Budokan starts to shake. THE greatest of all time. THE goat. Qualifying statements are not needed when discussing Mitsuharu Misawa, but the brutal battles that he built his name on have taken their toll and then some. He marches out, already looking a little bit stiff. His gait tells his story, and it’s not an easy story. However, tonight, while Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar will try their hand at walking the King’s Road, can they measure up to the King himself? Misawa and Kobashi nod at each other, while Kurt Angle looks over at Brock Lesnar, who doesn’t break the piercing gaze that he’s been directing at his opponents for the past few minutes. After a short discussion, Misawa cedes the ring to Kobashi, and without even speaking, Kurt Angle just knows that he’s going to start this one on the apron.
There are 15,000 screaming fans filling the vast sea of seats of the Budokan Hall, and 15,001 hearts palpitate increasingly at the sight of Brock Lesnar, as Orange Crush joins the amount of people completely entranced by the BEEF of Brock Lesnar. A pure demon in human form, the half-man, half-hellhound hybrid embeds fear merely by standing on the apron. Not a man, a fucking grizzly bear. Meanwhile, his former rival turned comrade chuckles at the sight of Kobashi’s dread and terror, knowing he’s got to be on the winning side. However, as astonished the men and women in the audience may be at the deadly duo of Angle and Lesnar, they’re just as ecstatic to see a man many consider second only to Christ himself, the man who assembled the Ark we’re on today. A clash of gods we shall witness today, Angle and Kobashi already circling each other like sharks in the ocean, the Wrestling Machine shooting first as he lunges for a leg, albeit a bit too predictable though as Kobashi’s able to successfully spin it around, shoving Angle back-first into the ropes! Tensions flare, and our referee immediately steps in once skin hits steel cord, working to separate the two lions. Kobashi is the first to unhinge his proverbial jaw, releasing grip as the two men back apart from each other…
BUT AS SOON AS THE MEN BREAK, KOBASHI LUNGES BACK! He traps Angle in a side headlock, wrenching tightly as the Olympic Gold Medalist seeks to do all he can to escape. As he can’t slip free, Angle locks his hips in instead, driving the larger Kobashi backwards into a neutral corner to force the break. Kobashi seems to oblige to the clean break, but Angle betrays his trust, lunging forward for a BRUTAL HEADBUTT THAT SHOWS HE MEANS NOTHING BUT BUSINESS! One perc. Two perc. Three perc. Four. An enraged Kobashi swings for a chop that could take down a tree, but his battle-axe of an arm only hits air AS IT’S ANGLE WITH THE SINGLE LEG TO DROP KOBASHI TO THE GROUND! Kobashi drops into half guard, frantically scooting away as he attempts to evade the shark where he may be most dangerous, but Angle barrels forward like a bulldog instead, leaping into side control before eventually trapping Kobashi in a wrestling sprawl as he tries to roll away.
Budokan gasps as Orange Crush is suddenly trapped deep in a dark cavern where no man is supreme but the cavemaster himself, who laughs as he finds himself exactly where he wants to be. Using nothing but his freakish strength, he attempts to power back to his feet, but Angle is able to expend a ton of energy wrestling him back to the mat at each and every attempt. Legs frantically kicking out like a seizure victim. Like a kangaroo with his neck trapped under a Dodge Durango. The Olympic Gold Medalist has done it all before. Broken necks render this man supremely beyond intensity. Supremely beyond integrity. Supremely beyond intellect. He could wrestle a tiger all by himself, hell, he is a fucking tiger. And through his razor-sharp fanged teeth he heaves heavily in and out, indicating to our man in the cavern that his captor may be growing weary. One great push manages to knock Angle off his game, and desperately the American “Hero” is able to roll him into a lateral press! Kobashi secures a quick kickout at one however, and eventually both men are finally separated.
Twas a tiring struggle on the ground for both men, but while Kobashi returns to his feet fearful of returning to the mat, the Wrestling Machine appears even more thrilled at the prospect of grappling. Shere Khan thirsts for his prey. Without haste, he lunges for Kobashi’s right leg, looking for another single leg takedown, BUT KOBASHI’S PREPARED THIS TIME AS HE RAINS DOWN THREE SWIFT DOWNWARD ELBOWS TO THE BACK OF ANGLE’S HEAD! Dazed, Angle drops down to Kobashi’s foot, though he’s not out of it fully AS ANGLE RISES BACK TO HIS FEET WITH KOBASHI’S ANKLE IN HAND! One-legged, Orange Crush hops around in defense of the Ankle Lock, knowing how devastating the hold is with the user. The abuser. Hit her but don’t quit her Mr. Kurt Angle. In order to escape, Kobashi must do one thing, potentially the thing he knows best… HE MUST CHOP!!! A THUNDEROUS CHOP SLICES AT THE CHEST OF KURT ANGLE, ALLOWING KOBASHI TO DIVE TO HIS CORNER AND TAG OUT TO THE EMERALD PRINCE HIMSELF! Budokan ERUPTS! God is standing among us in the ring, but can he outwrestle a wrestling machine?
Chuckling at the sight of the massive Mitsuharu Misawa, Angle sizes up his threat to the best of his abilities, before circling his prey and preparing to pounce. Slinking down to one knee, he wraps his arms around the ankle of Misawa, plucking it straight from the ground as he rises back to his feet, gleefully showcasing his American flag mouthguard as he prepares to cinch in the Ankle Lock, BUT BEFORE HE CAN GET MISAWA TO THE GROUND, THE EMERALD KING LETS LOOSE AN OUTRAGEOUS ELBOW SMASH TO BLOW THE AMERICAN HERO AWAY! Angle stumbles towards the ropes after bouncing back to his feet, searching desperately for Misawa THOUGH HE DOESN’T SEE THE BASTARD UNTIL HE’S RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM FOR THE BELLY TO BELLY! Slowly, the legend rises back to his feet as he grapples with Angle immediately following the toss, locking in the headlock as the drunken Angle rushes back up in a daze, but Angle’s able to slip free using those olympic credentials, twisting his arm into the ground and throwing the big one into a seated position AS HE LEAPS FOR THE TAG TO TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE POUNDS OF COLD UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BEEF!!!
It feels like sitting at the edge of the world when you’re looking up at Brock Lesnar. Misawa certainly believes that he’s deep past the edge though, as he scrambles to return to his feet, sizing up the other behemoth on the other side of him. Holyfield vs. Tyson. Godzilla vs. Kong. Misawa vs. Lesnar. Budokan Hall is decisively on their feet as the green beast prepares to go to war with the blond bear, and as each second passes, they eventually grow closer and closer to each other. It becomes inevitable. The forces collide. Misawa lunges for the side headlock as he seeks to wrestle the animal down, BUT IT DOESN’T WORK, AS LESNAR SLIPS BEHIND HIM, ENDING UP EXACTLY WHERE HE WANTS TO BE, AS HE’S ABLE TO GET BEHIND MISAWA FOR THE GERMAN SUPLEX!!! BUT NO!!! MISAWA DOESN’T STAY DOWN, DEFIANTLY RISING BACK UP TO HIS FEET! THIS IS HIS HOME, BUDOKAN HALL BELONGS TO MITSUHARU MISAWA!!!
Lesnar doesn’t waste any time getting back on Misawa, immediately looking for the second German Suplex because this fucker’s got a lot of them in him, however Misawa’s able to prevent the second suplex from ever taking off, turning around AND WRECKING HIM WITH A FLURRY OF THREE ELBOWS! The Beast stumbles, seemingly knocked off his balance by the godly elbow smashes of the Emerald King, and we see him seek refuge by backing out of the ring… AND IN TURN, MISAWA CHARGES! We don’t see him go for feats like this too often! On the outside, the human personification of a Mammoth shuffles to the side, and to avoid crashing and burning, Misawa catches himself on the top rope and allows himself to topple over onto the apron, barely keeping his footing! Brock lunges for a leg, trying to drag his prey down on the floor with him! Misawa starts kicking at Lesnar, shaking The Beast Incarnate off of him for a moment, only for Kurt Angle to hop onto the apron and try for a Belly-to-Belly Suplex! The Emerald Ace clutches the top rope like his life depends on it, but the Olympic Gold Medalist is trying his damndest to drop him straight on his head, and Brock Lesnar is ready to jump back in and help him out! All seems lost for Misawa, UNTIL KOBASHI DARTS ACROSS THE RING AND TACKLES ANGLE THROUGH THE ROPES! KOBASHI, ANGLE AND MISAWA ALL FALL FROM THE APRON ONTO LESNAR, AND ALL FOUR MEN ARE SPRAWLED ACROSS THE FLOOR!
Mr. Puroresu collects himself, dragging Misawa back up to the apron and tagging himself in. He waits in the middle of the ring for Lesnar, and he doesn’t have to wait long, as The Conqueror Among Conquerors stumbles in like a zombie! Kobashi starts throwing his piston-like forearms, blasting The Beast with everything he’s got, but BROCK EATS THE SHOTS FOR BREAKFAST, MANHANDLES KOBASHI INTO POSITION AND HITS HIM WITH THREE THUNDEROUS GERMAN SUPLEXES AS THE CROWD MARVELS AT HIS POWER! Overcome with explosivity, Brock pops up, backing into his own corner, still a lot of menace in his stance…but Angle kills his high, reaching over the top rope and tagging himself in. Sexy Kurt doesn’t even look at his partner, grinning as he struts in, not feeling the holes in his back that Lesnar is currently burning with his eyes. Kobashi is still loopy on the mat, and Angle immediately locks in a Texas Cloverleaf! Kobashi is in Dreamland, but luckily for him, the man could grapple in his sleep! He manages to turn himself onto his stomach and shake Angle off, BUT THE RELENTLESS WRESTLING MACHINE GRABS HIS ARM, WRENCHES IT, AND LOCKS IN A CRIPPLER CROSSFACE! It’s 2006, that move still exists for at least one more year.
Kenta Kobashi has experienced a lot of pain in his life, but there’s very few things that compare to a submission hold being applied by one of the greatest grapplers to ever live! After what feels like an eternity, Kobashi manages to reach the ropes! As he struggles to his feet, Angle goes to grab him again, drag him back into the deep end, but Kobashi isn’t having it! MACHINE GUN CHOPS, SHREDDING ANGLE’S CHEST! THIS ISN’T KOBASHI’S USUAL CONCENTRATED BUZZSAW-LIKE ATTACK, THIS IS A LOOSE FIREWORK, THIS IS SURVIVAL MODE! He knocks Angle backwards and musters up everything he has to dive to his corner! Sweet salvation! NO, ANGLE PLUCKS HIM OUT OF MID-AIR, DRAGS HIM TO THE CENTER OF THE RING, AND CRANKS AS HARD AS HE CAN! ANKLE LOCK! KOBASHI’S HAND IS IN THE AIR, HE MIGHT GIVE IN! Angle grinds his boot in Kobashi’s face, the ultimate disrespect! MISAWA’S HAD ENOUGH, HE BREACHES THE SQUARED CIRCLE AND BOOTS ANGLE IN THE FACE! LIFTING KOBASHI UP, HE BASICALLY BIELS HIM INTO THE CORNER AND TAGS HIMSELF IN! ANGLE GETS UP AND THROWS A LARIAT AT MISAWA, WHO CONNECTS EVEN QUICKER WITH A CORKSCREW JUMPING LARIAT! ANGLE GETS BACK UP, AND IMMEDIATELY GETS BROUGHT DOWN WITH A CRADLE SUPLEX! Misawa wants to finish this one, and HE’S LOOKING FOR THE TIGER DRIVER! ANGLE’S OUT OF IT, BUT HAS ENOUGH PRESENCE OF MIND TO SPIN OUT OF THIS ABSOLUTE DEATH BLOW! UNFORTUNATELY FOR THE PATRON SAINT OF PERCOCETS, HE CAN’T ESCAPE THE TIGER SUPLEX THAT MISAWA SETTLES FOR! BRIDGING COVER! ONE…TWO…ANGLE GETS THE SHOULDER UP!
Angle is looking to tag in The Beast and get some rest, but as he tries to crawl to his own corner, Misawa begins to drag him back into the fire. Angle manages to trip The Standard Bearer Up, and to make sure that he doesn’t eat any more elbows in this one, he locks in an Armbar! He’s wrenching on the limb, but he knows damn well that Misawa has too much pride to tap out to this, so he takes this opportunity to let go and tag in Buh-Rock. Lesnar has had ample time to re-stock his energy, AND WITHIN THREE SECONDS FLAT, MISAWA IS OFF THE GROUND AND IN THE AIR! BELLY-TO-BELLY, AND BROCK KEEPS HIS BEARHUG GRIP ON MISAWA TO HIT ANOTHER ONE! AND THEN A THIRD! HE LANDS RIGHT IN TOP MOUNT! Misawa reaches at Lesnar’s head to try and shove him away, but LESNAR SEES THAT SHIT COMING! GRABS THE ARM! TOP MOUNT KIMURA IS CINCHED IN DEEP!
Misawa is suffering here, and Lesnar is just too strong! Misawa can’t fight the arms, so he fights the body, dragging himself inch by inch, centimeter by centimeter to his own corner! He wants this tag, he NEEDS this tag! Kobashi is reaching as far as he can, as is Misawa…THEIR FINGERTIPS BARELY BRUSH, AND THE REFEREE SAYS THAT ORANGE CRUSH IS THE LEGAL MAN! But since when has Brock Lesnar cared about the law? He keeps the Kimura locked in, despite the official’s pleading! Kobashi takes matters into his own hands, launching a chop that catches Lesnar RIGHT IN THE FACE! Finally, he lets the hold go, stands up, and squares up with Kobashi! Lesnar throws something that has never been taught in any dojo, seen in any organized fight, a strike that has no name. It’s simply an explosion of raw, primal power, a two-handed shove right to the face! Kobashi’s head snaps back, he feels like he’s going to fall! He overcorrects, stumbling forward, a GRAVE MISTAKE! HE WALKS RIGHT INTO LESNAR’S GRASP! F5! THAT MUST BE IT, MISAWA IS IN NO WAY CAPABLE OF BREAKING THIS UP! ONE…TWO…TH-NOOO!!!
When a gorilla gets angry, it throws its own shit. Thankfully, Brock Lesnar is not a gorilla, despite the uncanny resemblance. When Brock Lesnar gets mad, he DECIDES TO CAVE IN HIS OPPONENT’S SKULL! KOBASHI IS BARELY BREATHING, AND LESNAR IS ON TOP OF HIM, DROPPING ELBOWS FROM HELL RIGHT TO AN UNPROTECTED FOREHEAD! A GASH OPENS ON KOBASHI’S SKULL, BLOOD STAINS THE MAT! Lesnar unleashes a guttural scream, but his monkey brain gets shut off when Kurt Angle starts calling for a tag! Reluctantly, Brock obliges, and throws Kobashi to Angle. Angle looks for the ANGLE SLAM! BUT KOBASHI FIGHTS HIS WAY OFF OF KURT’S SHOULDERS AND PLANTS HIM QUICKLY WITH A PUMPHANDLE SIT-OUT POWERBOMB! BROCK RUSHES AT HIM, BUT KOBASHI MANAGES TO CATCH HIM WITH A DESPERATION DROPKICK! ALL THREE MEN ARE DOWN, KOBASHI ALMOST DROWNING IN A POOL OF HIS OWN BLOOD!
Misawa is now conscious again, and he gets all 15,000 fans to start clapping in unison, a heartbeat reverberating, trying to get Kobashi’s own heart to start pumping blood again. He’s up to his feet, but Kurt Angle, from the mat, AGAIN GRABS THE ANKLE! kOBASHI CAN’T BE BROUGHT DOWN HERE, IF HE GETS TAKEN DOWN IT’S THE END! ANGLE’S UP TO HIS KNEES, AND KOBASHI MANAGES TO SHAKE HIMSELF FREE! SPINNING HEEL KICK KNOCKS THE THREE-I’D MONSTER CLEAN OUT! HE TURNS AND HEADS TO HIS CORNER, ONLY TO RUN INTO BROCK LESNAR! IMMEDIATELY, HE’S SCOOPED UP FOR THE F5! FIGHTING SPIRIT CONQUERS ALL, THOUGH, AS HE LANDS ON HIS FEET AND FINALLY, MERCIFULLY, FALLS FORWARD AND MAKES CONTACT WITH MISAWA! THE FOUNDER IS LEGAL, AND LESNAR GETS SENT BACK TO HIS CORNER BY THE REFEREE, COMPLAINING THE WHOLE WAY!
Misawa knows that Angle is in bad shape here, the painkillers finally wearing off, and he wastes no time at all, RUSHING AT HIM, HOOKING HIS ARMS, AND DRIVING HIM INTO THE CANVAS WITH THE TIGER DRIVER! THIS FEELS LIKE THE END! ONE…TWO…THR-LESNAR ENTERS THE RING AGAIN AND MUSCLES MISAWA OFF OF ANGLE WITH A GUTWRENCH SUPLEX! BUT MISAWA NO-SELLS IT, POPPING RIGHT BACK UP AND FIRING ELBOWS FROM THE HIP AT THE SCARIEST GAIJIN TO EVER SET FOOT IN THIS COUNTRY! Elbow Smashes, Upwards Elbows, Spinning Elbows, Roaring Elbows, the whole nine yards, and Lesnar looks mortal! He’s stumbling! But in his moment of weakness, he SOMEHOW FINDS EVEN MORE STRENGTH! IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE, MISAWA IS IN THE AIR AND SPINNING! A FLASH F5! LESNAR GOES TO MAKE THE COVER, BUT REMEMBERS THAT ANGLE IS THE LEGAL MAN, AND INSTEAD DRAPES KURT OVER MISAWA’S CARCASS! ONE…TWO…THR-MISAWA GETS THE SHOULDER UP!!! BROCK’S LAPSE IN JUDGMENT MEANS THAT SOMEHOW THIS ONE IS STILL GOING!
Lesnar’s default state is angry, but right now he’s FURIOUS. With purpose, he drags Angle to the corner and tags himself in, before looking to once again lock in the destructive Kimura that almost ended the match earlier! Misawa has it scouted this time, PUTTING LESNAR ON HIS ASS, GOING BEHIND AND APPLYING THE STRETCH PLUM! IT’S LOCKED IN TIGHT, THIS KAWADA TRIBUTE HAS MADE THE CROWD LOSE THEIR COLLECTIVE SHIT! BUT BROCK LESNAR DOESN’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT SENTIMENTALITY, THE SHAVED APE MANAGING TO FIND HIS FOOTING AND DRAG MISAWA UP WITH HIM! ANOTHER F5? NO, MISAWA ELBOWS HIS WAY DOWN, AND HOOKS THE BEAST’S ARMS! THIS IS GREEK GOD VS. GREEK GOD, AND SOMEHOW, MISAWA MANAGES TO LIFT LESNAR OFF OF HIS FEET! TIGER DRIVAHHHHHHH!!! HOOKS THE LEG! ONE…TWO…THRE-NOOOOOOO!!!! BROCK LESNAR IS BREATHING, AND THAT MEANS THAT BROCK LESNAR IS STILL FIGHTING!
It feels like it’ll take an Act of God to stop Brock Lesnar, and Misawa can’t call in a favor from the Heavens, but he can do the next best thing. Conjuring up the last little bit of power left in him, Misawa LIFTS LESNAR UP FOR THE EMERALD FLOWSION! IF ANYTHING CAN STOP THE BEAST, THIS IS IT! BUT LESNAR SLIPS FREE! And now, if an Act of God can stop Brock Lesnar, it’ll take an Act of Satan to stop The Emerald Ace. Brock Lesnar brings hellfire and brimstone to the Budokan Hall in the form of TWO NECK-CRUSHING GERMAN SUPLEXES, AND THEN AN F5! BUT THAT’S NOT ENOUGH FOR THIS MONSTER! HE SCOOPS UP THE LIFELESS MISAWA FOR ONE MORE F5! HE HITS IT! Popping up, Lesnar looks to unleash one more primal war cry, BUT IT’S INTERRUPTED BY A BURNING LARIAT FROM KENTA KOBASHI! WHAT A SAVE BY ZETTAI OZA!
The referee is trying his very best to calm this absolute bedlam, wrangling Kobashi and trying to send him back to the apron. Before Kobashi can cooperate and limp back to his corner, though, in comes Angle! Kurt Angle IS LOOKING FOR A BELLY-TO-BELLY! KOBASHI HOOKS HIS LEGS AROUND ANGLE’S, THOUGH, AND LOOKS FOR AN ARM TRAP BELLY-TO-BELLY OF HIS OWN! ANGLE PLANTS HIS FEET AND TRIES TO MUSCLE KOBASHI INTO A REGULAR BELLY-TO-BELLY, BUT THESE TWO ARE LOCKED IN A STALEMATE! You know who can help them figure it out, though? A RECOVERING BROCK LESNAR, WHO RUSHES OVER TO GRAB A WAISTLOCK AND SEND KOBASHI FLYING WITH A GERMAN SUPLEX, NOT GIVING A SHIT ABOUT KURT ANGLE, WHO GETS SENT FLYING ALONG WITH HIM! Lesnar’s energy reserves are depleted as well, though, and he collapses! Everybody’s down!
Mitsuharu Misawa may not know where he is anymore, but he knows he has to get to the corner. On the other end of things, Kenta Kobashi knows that he has to tag in, but he’s barely able to find his footing, his leg is killing him. This is a war, and he’s wounded, but his partner is at death’s door. Misawa crawls to him and makes the tag, and Kobashi immediately guns for Brock Lesnar, the most dangerous option, the only option! He backs Brock further into the corner and BEGINS TO DELIVER CHOP AFTER CHOP AFTER CHOP, RIGID CONCENTRATION, HE’S LOOKING TO PUT A HOLE IN LESNAR’S CHEST! NOTHING ELSE MATTERS, NOT THE BAD LEG, NOT KURT ANGLE, NOT MITSUHARU MISAWA, NOT THE 15,000 SCREAMING FANS! ONLY CHOPS ON CHOPS ON CHOPS! HE GRITS HIS TEETH THROUGH THE ACHING IN HIS MUSCLES AS HE SCOOPS LESNAR UP AND PLANTS HIM ON THE MAT WITH A BODYSLAM! HE IGNORES THE SEARING PAIN IN HIS ANKLE AS HE CLIMBS TO THE TOP ROPE! HE DOESN’T BOTHER CROSSING HIMSELF AS HE LOOKS FOR A MOONSAULT! BUT HE DOESN’T GET A CHANCE TO DIVE OFF, BECAUSE LESNAR, THIS INHUMAN FORCE OF NATURE, FOLLOWED HIM UP! AVALANCHE GERMAN SUPLEX!!!!
BROCK LESNAR IS AN AGENT OF PAIN, AND HE TAKES TOP MOUNT AGAIN! ELBOW AFTER ELBOW AFTER ELBOW, MAKING THE WOUND ON KOBASHI’S HEAD EVEN DEEPER! Then, it seems like a moment of clarity washes over The Beast. Kobashi’s legs. They’re shot. Lesnar immediately goes for them. No quarter. HE CRANKS KOBASHI’S LEG OVER HIS SHOULDER! BROCK LOCK, AND KOBASHI IS SCREAMING, SHRIEKING, IN A WORLD OF HURT! ORANGE CRUSH TRIES TO CLIMB HIS WAY UP BROCK LESNAR, SCALE THIS MOUNTAIN OF A MAN, BUT LESNAR, SHOWING OFF HIS IMMENSE STRENGTH, PRESSES KOBASHI INTO THE AIR AND TRANSITIONS INTO A FIREMAN’S CARRY! ANOTHER F5 INCOMING! KOBASHI SOMEHOW LANDS ON HIS FEET, BUT HE CAN BARELY STAY UP, HIS ANKLE FAILING HIM! HE STUMBLES BACKWARDS, AND LESNAR STARTS RUSHING AT HIM AGAIN! DESPERATE, KOBASHI LAUNCHES A BURNING LARIAT! COLLAPSES INTO THE COVER! ONE…TWO…THR-BROCK KICKS OUT!
Lesnar rolls to his corner and tags in The Wrestling Machine, who smells blood in the water. He darts RIGHT FOR KOBASHI’S ANKLE! IF HE LOCKS THIS IN, IT’S OVER! THRASHING, KOBASHI KICKS HIM AWAY AND FIGHTS TO A STANDING BASE! Angle shoots for a Takedown, but ends up LOOKING FOR A BELLY-TO-BELLY! KOBASHI IS FULL OF HATRED, PISS AND VINEGAR, THOUGH, AND HE CLAWS AT ANGLE’S FACE, BENDING HIM BACKWARDS AND DELIVERING THE MOST BRUTAL BURNING SWORD HE’S EVER THROWN! ANGLE FALLS, CLUTCHING HIS CHEST, AND KOBASHI HEADS TO THE TOP ROPE, ANGRY ENOUGH THAT HE CAN’T EVEN FEEL HIS LEG BEGGING FOR MERCY! MOONSAULT! FLATTENS ANGLE! HOOKS THE LEG! ONE…TWO…TH-BROCK BREAKS THE COVER!
Kobashi squares up with Lesnar, the crowd at a fever pitch, and Brock throws a punch that gets dodged easily! Kobashi RESPONDS WITH A HEADBUTT, ECHOING THROUGHOUT THE BUDOKAN! HE RUNS THE ROPES! BURNING LARIAT! IT’S DUCKED, AND LESNAR GOES BACK TO THE WELL WITH ANOTHER F5 ATTEMPT! KOBASHI KNOWS HOW TO COUNTER IT NOW, THOUGH, WRAPPING HIS ARMS AROUND LESNAR’S THROAT AND SQUEEZING THE LIFE OUT OF HIM! LESNAR BEGINS TO STUMBLE, AND KOBASHI ESCAPES, LANDING BEHIND HIS OPPONENT! Weighing his options, KOBASHI DECIDES TO LIFT HIM UP FOR A BURNING LARIAT!!! THE CROWD KNOWS THE GRAVITY OF THIS! THIS MOVE IS A GOD-KILLER, AN ATOMIC BOMB AMONG HAND GRENADES! THIS WOULD BE THE ACE IN THE HOLE, BUT LESNAR LANDS ON HIS FEET, SHOWING TREMENDOUS ATHLETICISM! HOWEVER, HE EATS A KICK TO THE GUT, AND KOBASHI PLANTS HIM WITH AN ORANGE CRUSH! Kurt Angle is back up to his feet, stumbling, vulnerable, and a ragged Misawa also crawls back into the squared circle, laying down on top of Brock Lesnar, keeping him from factoring into the remainder of this match! He nods at Kobashi, WHO CHARGES AT ANGLE AND TURNS HIM INSIDE OUT WITH A BURNING LARIAT! COVER, HOOKS THE LEG! ONE…TWO…THREE!!!!! AN INSTANT CLASSIC, AND THE TWO MOST HEAVENLY PILLARS MANAGE TO COME OUT VICTORIOUS ON HOME TURF AGAINST THE TWO MARAUDERS OF THE WEST!
​
Kenta Kobashi and Mitsuharu Misawa def. Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle in 31:25

Ok, maybe not ALL you need to know, but I'm going to do my best to inform you with all I know.
I had a hard time finding a doctor to do the excision procedure. I'd spoken with 3 different gynos over the 3 years I’ve been dealing with the cysts, all of whom said the same thing: I don't recommend gland removal except for patients who are getting extreme, abscessed cysts once or twice every month.
For me, once I developed a cyst, it never fully went away. It would vary in size, oftentimes quite small and manageable, but still bothersome at times, mostly during sex. When it would grow in size, it would happen suddenly, and nothing I did at home worked. And I tried EVERYTHING. Then I would go to the doctor and have some version of a I&D (incision and drainage) and then it would heal, but the cyst would still be there, but smaller than it was - back to my "normal". I would then deal with it being a large blueberry size until it got bigger again the back to the doc. In all, I had 4 I&Ds before I got the gland removed. First, just I&D. Second, I&D with word catheter. Third, just I&D (abscessed this time). Fourth (just a few weeks later, still abscessed), I&D with 'mini marsupialization' - more on that below.
The surgeon who removed my gland said, in his opinion, if the cyst returns more than 3 times, it’s time to remove the gland. I was lucky to find someone with this opinion and I hate that so many of us have been advised against the gland removal. Unless you have extreme hesitations about it, I highly suggest going for it if you can find a surgeon and if you are sick of having recurring cysts.
When trying to find a doctor who: 1. will do the surgery 2. is experienced with the surgery,
I can only offer advice on what I did. I took to google and searched "Bartholin Gland removal [insert city name]" and I was able to find a website for a practice that actually had some details about this procedure on their website, so I knew I found the right place. It was a large practice with a lot of physicians and was not all about delivering babies and doing pap smears. You need to find a OB/GYN who does minimally invasive surgeries and treats a wider variety of gyno disorders. That being said, I contacted the surgeon who did my endometriosis excision surgery a few years ago, and he does not perform the Bartholin gland removal. Also, not a bad idea to ask your gynecologist if they have any recommendations for surgeons who do this or call around to different offices and ask if they do it and if they don't, do they know of a practice in the area that does? In addition to finding my place on google, one of the gynos I'd seen in the past actually responded to a patient portal message and recommended the same place I found on google.
Questions I asked my doctor prior to surgery:
Q: Why do so many gynecologists say gland removal is too risky and continue to recommend multiple I&Ds? A: Because they don’t know how to do the procedure. Or maybe they tried once and didn’t know enough and it was a bad, bloody experience. There is a blood vessel involved and if the surgeon doesn’t know how to navigate it, it can be bloody. My take: Doctors sometimes have egos and instead of saying “It’s a procedure I’m not experienced in but here’s a doctor or practice that does the procedure” they essentially leave you feeling like you have no other option than useless baths and I&Ds every few months.
Q: What is recovery like compared to other procedures like word catheter and marsupialization? A: About the same. Maybe a little bit more intense. Should feel pretty much normal within 1 week and completely healed within 3 weeks. My take: Excision is definitely more intense than less invasive procedures like simple draining, word catheters, and marsupialization. But all in all, the doctor was pretty much right. I found it to be a mostly similar level of discomfort as my marsupialization (I had what another doc called a ‘mini’ marsupialization because it was essentially her making an incision, not being able to get the word catheter to stay in place, so she stitched the incision open on both sides so it would stay open and drain. God, it was awful. Being abscessed made it SO much more painful. This unfortunately worked for less than 2 months - as soon as the new opening closed/healed completely, I was right back to cyst town.)
Q: Can I have the surgery if I don’t have an active cyst? A: No. There needs to be a cyst present in order to do the procedure. So if you woke up one day and it was suddenly drained and you went in for surgery, the doctor wouldn’t operate. In fact, if you wait until the cyst is rather large and even abscessed, the procedure is a little easier both for the doctor and the patient. Reason being that with everything inflamed, it is easier for the doctor to see the blood vessels, cyst wall, etc and requires less stitches for the patient. My take: I wasn’t interested in letting it get out of control again, so I just went ahead and scheduled the surgery for as soon as I could. I can’t make a comparison obviously, but in my opinion, the size/severity of the cyst probably doesn’t make much of a difference.
Q: Will there be any long term pain with intercourse? A: No. Should not cause any chronic pain. My take: Remains to be seen. In my other experiences with the word catheter and marsip, I found the area to be pretty sensitive with intercourse and took several months for it to not feel a stinging type of sensation during sex. It’s also hard to say because every procedure I had still left me with fluid that never fully drained, so it always felt constricted on the side of the cyst. Also, I have always had dyspareunia, so take my experience with that in mind.
Q: Will the cyst ever return? I’ve heard of people still getting cysts even with gland removal. A: It could. In the doctor’s years and years of experience, he only saw it happen to one patient. My take: It seems like very low chances that the cyst would ever return after gland removal. I pray to every god in the universe I am not that unlucky.
Surgery experience:
I was put under general anesthesia for the procedure. It lasted about 30 minutes and I was in the car on the way home within maybe 10 minutes of waking up. You go through the general things - get hooked up to an IV, get some relaxation medicine through the IV, wait for them to take you back to the OR. They walked me back to the operating room, I got on the table and they put me to sleep. I woke up in recovery not feeling anything really. I had a pad and an ice pack down there. I was equipped with a donut to sit on for the car ride home (highly suggest that). I did have to pee really bad on the way home (about 45 min commute) - the IV fluid caught up with me and I felt a huge urgency to pee. When I got home, I had a hard time relaxing my pelvic floor enough to actually urinate. It took me about 3-4 times to feel like I fully emptied my bladder. This may have also been due to the bladder kind of ‘falling asleep’ from the anesthesia. Also, the pee burned the incision, so I tried my best to block the incision with toilet paper and it kind of helped but it still burned. This burning stopped by the next morning.
I feel like 45 mins to 1 hour post op, the numbing medication was out of my system and I felt some pain and I got very scared so I took a Percocet and some Tylenol. That early afternoon/evening, I didn’t feel like I needed anything stronger than Tylenol/Advil, so I didn’t take anymore Percocet. I especially didn’t want to overdo it because it can cause constipation. I did end up having a very hard time with constipation for the next few days, but this is probably not standard for most people. I think it was a combo of my pelvic floor being pretty tight in protection mode, not having a BM the morning of surgery, the Percocet, and the fact that general anesthesia slows down your digestive system. The day of surgery, I stayed laying down as much as I could but also tried to get up and move around too. I felt like I could do mostly what I needed to, but just tried to take it very easy and keep other life stress low. All in all, the pain level was never more intense than what I normally experience with period cramps. Put another way, I would say the most intense pain I ever felt the entire time was maybe a 6 out of 10 on the pain scale. (My period cramps can sometimes be an 8 or 9 and cause my body to shake and my heart to race. And I think the lidocaine injection you get with other procedures, while brief, is a 10/10 on the pain scale.) I felt it necessary not to actually sit down and if I did I used the donut. I just tried to lay or walk for most of the first week.
It's been a week since my surgery and the swelling has gone down a lot. It now feels a little less swollen than it did with my cyst present before surgery. It has bled a little every day, but never soaking through a pad or anything. It’s just a little blood. I was advised not to take any baths during healing because it could lead to infection. I was kind of surprised because all anyone ever wants to suggest is baths, even after I&Ds, but I was relieved not to have to soak a million times a day. I just made sure to shower each day and wash the area carefully.
I will update after my 3 week post op appointment and will also update after the first time I have sex, which I probably won’t attempt until at least 4-6 weeks post op.
Bartholin cysts are rare and it's even more rare for them not to drain on their own, even more rare not to resolve after I&Ds, so I guess it makes sense that it's difficult to find a surgeon who can remove the gland and has experience doing so. My personal theory on the whole issue is that maybe the duct/gland gets blocked by endometriosis cells. I have confirmed endo and I feel like it's very possible that women with cysts that won't drain have a blockage caused by endometriosis cells. Endo affects 1 in 10 women and that figure is likely much much larger because it is only informed by confirmed, laparoscopic surgeries. Any other ladies with endo and bartholin cysts?
Happy to answer any questions I can if you have them. I wanted to write a lot of detail because I found it very hard to find information online.
Update: about 2 months post op and just had successful sex in that there was very little sensitivity at the surgical site. It did take me a full 2 months though. Tried about 2 weeks ago and it was still too sensitive. After that I got consistent with scar massage and was able to soften the scar tissue pretty significantly.
My 3 weeks post op appt went well. It healed well. No endo was found from the gland pathology, so there goes that theory. Wasn’t told to do scar massage by the doctor but highly recommend seeking out a pelvic floor PT after this procedure to work on desensitization and scar tissue massage.
I’d say the procedure was very much a success. It is soooo nice not having a huge swollen hard lump down there. I didn’t realize how much it was affecting sex until I had sex without it.

Hi all! I have an infected tooth (back left top molar, #15) that is causing me crippling pain.
TL;DR - the only thing helping the pain is constantly, and I literally do mean constantly, swishing ice water. This has been my life for the past two and a half days, I can barely sleep or eat. I’m at my wit’s end and I’m not sure how much longer I can take this. Does anyone have any other suggestions for pain management?
I have been to my dentist for it on Tuesday and I was prescribed antibiotics (penicillin) and told to take over-the-counter pain meds as needed. We think the infection may have been caused by me grinding my teeth while sleeping, since I don’t remember ever breaking or chipping the tooth and occasionally I would wake up with mild tooth pain that would go away within an hour or so. My dentist did a quick bite correction with the drill and I was referred to a couple clinics to get a root canal, but unfortunately the clinics I was referred to either won’t take my insurance or are much too far away. Ultimately I made the decision to schedule with my dentist to get the tooth removed next Thursday. (Unless something works out with a separate clinic for a root canal; I’m making calls when I’m able). I took the antibiotics for a couple days but the pain was just getting worse- I couldn’t eat or sleep and was missing work- so I ended up in the ER and getting prescribed Percocet to help me sleep. I also called my dentist and they were able to prescribe a stronger antibiotic (Augmentin). (Sorry for the long winded backstory, I wanted to be clear that I am consulting professionals for my issue.)
My pain is still 10/10 and I’m losing my mind. I’ve tried the all over-the-counter medicine I had on hand (dual action Advil with acetaminophen, ibuprofen, naproxen sodium, etc.), brushing my teeth (which helped a bit in the beginning but doesn’t anymore), gently flossing, using orajel, using orajel medicated mouthwash, swishing with salt water (hot and cold), ice packs, heating pads, standing in the shower with the hottest water I could stand, using a mini massage gun over my cheek and jaw, even old wive’s tales like clove oil (I think I gave myself a small chemical burn on my lip with this one), swishing with milk, or packing the tooth with bread (absolutely didn’t help).
The only thing I’ve found that actually helps is swishing with ice water constantly. As soon as the water gets warm in my mouth I have to take another sip (I was originally swallowing the water but it was making me ill because I was drinking SO MUCH, so I switched to spitting it out- let’s just say my kidneys are now clean as a whistle!), or else the pain comes back full force. I have to carry a thermos of ice water and a cup or empty bottle to spit in with me at all times in order to function, even at work and even in the bathroom. I’m having to swish and spit every two minutes or so. I can’t really talk and I can barely eat let alone sleep; the Percocet helped me get tired enough yesterday that I passed out even while in pain, but today the pain is so bad that it isn’t even helping much.
The pain is bad enough that it literally makes me scream and cry; it ranges from feeling like the tooth is being ripped out to the feeling of needles and razor blades digging at my gums. I’m honestly surprised I’m not bleeding, it feels as though blood should be pouring out of my mouth. In my 29 years of life, this is some of the worst pain I’ve ever been in. It’s especially bad when trying to lay down to sleep and try as I might I can’t even sleep while propped up with pillows, the tooth just constantly throbs. The pain radiates both down into my jaw and up into my cheekbone.
The medical professionals I’ve talked to don’t seem to care much about my pain RIGHT NOW and only really focus on getting the problem fixed in the long run, which is great and all but I’m really, really struggling in the present. I’m so overwhelmed, I feel like I can’t function and I’m beginning to lose hope, I know it sounds dramatic but I feel like I’m dying. (Just to clarify, I do happen to struggle with my mental health but I’m absolutely not going to do anything drastic to myself.)
I have fairly good dental hygiene (though depression has made it hard, I still manage to brush and floss at least once a day, I know I should do more and I do try to when I can), my dentist even thoroughly complimented my teeth during my appointment and really did want to try to save the infected tooth with a root canal so it’s pretty unfortunate that it most likely will have to be outright removed.
Anyways, am I doing something wrong? Is there anything else I can do to help with the pain? I feel like I’m being punished by the universe and the pain seems never ending. Since starting typing up this post I’ve been through two full thermoses of ice water. I’m desperate!
Sorry for the long post, it felt really good to type out the entirely of this absolute nightmare since I can’t really talk out loud right now, plus I wanted to provide as much detail as possible in the off chance someone can actually help me (I know this is above Reddit’s pay grade). Thank you so much for reading!
Edit: also want to clarify that I don’t smoke, I barely ever have alcohol, and I don’t have any other major health concerns. The only medication I’m on currently is oral contraceptives, which I’ve never had major issues with.

LATEST UPDATE: Week 12 update and golf update 4 (03/17/24)
———
Hey there. First off, if you've found yourself in this subreddit, I'm sorry. Sesamoid issues are a sincere pain in the ane and it can be a very drawn out and exhausting injury.
Agenda for this post
- How my sesamoid issues started (fibular)
- Solutions I tried
- Surgery Decision
- The Surgery
- Post-op recovery
- Return to golf
How my sesamoid issues started
One day after a basketball game, I noticed I couldn't move my big toe without a ton of pain. Then it became really hard to even walk and it remained that way for a week. Eventually, I went to the podiatrist. We did some X-rays and the doc came back and told me I fractured one of my sesamoid bones and that because the bone is in an area with not a lot of blood flow, it may take up to 3-6 months to heal, even in a healthy 17-year-old male.
I did the classic boot and wait and it did well. I also did PT and a lot of swimming and water-based exercises to recover which helped a lot. By the time track season came around I was ready to go.
For a couple of years after that, I would get intermittent pain after extreme use, but nothing brutal. I played soccer in college, which, as you can imagine, is a ton of running, cutting, and physicality. Like I said, still had some pain, but didn't prevent me from playing at a high level and very often.
Then afterward I went to law school. In law school, I picked up basketball again and before you know it every time I played a few hours of rec ball, my foot would hurt. The weird part was that the pain would eventually go away after a few days or at worst weeks, and it didn't feel similar in intensity to the fracture I had a few years prior.
Fast forward to 2022 now and I'm 29 playing in a men's league with all ex-D-1 22-25 year old soccer players. As you can imagine, this was a bit of a challenge because they were all still so fit from coming off their playing days so recently. As a washed up 29-year-old does, I went wayyy too hard and stress fractured the foot again. Did the boot and wait, but here's where things got tricky.
After the 2022 break and healing, I thought I might be okay, but honestly even after the podiatrist said the X-rays indicated it was healed, something felt wrong still. This is where golf comes in. After law school, I started focusing on golf as my main sport because it's a sport you can play forever (hopefully) and one that comes with far less risk of injury than say soccer or basketball.
While playing golf this whole season I noticed I was loading the outside of my right foot on my backswing out of habit to protect the sesamoid area. If I was truly healed, that would make no sense. So, I started to try to keep weight on that right foot. Sure enough, the pain started to come back. I started popping like 3-4 Advil per round and gutting through it. This, while clearly stupid, worked for a while until after a workout I noticed a lot of pain again. This time instead of the podiatrist I went to an orthopedic surgeon (more on picking a surgeon later). We did X-rays and an MRI and found out the bone was fractured in half. Since this was the third known break and the second within 14 months, we determined it was best to move forward with a sesamoidectomy, as the bone was likely diseased and incapable of properly healing on its own.
Solutions I tried
After this first fracture, I did icing and a boot for 8-10 weeks, PT, and got custom orthotics. I was very young at this point and just making sure to be diligent with the boot was a major help in getting me back to sports. That said, this of course didn't fully solve the issue.
After the second fracture, we not only did the boot for 8 weeks, but also tried a weekly laser bone stimulation treatment, and new orthotics. Honestly, can't say the laser treatment was worth it, though insurance did end up covering it for me so that does make it easier to swallow. Again, felt moderately better after the boot session, but still, something was off.
Finally, surgery. More on that to come.
Surgery Decision
Surgery was my last resort, but at a certain point, enough is enough. I couldn't keep doing rounds of conservative treatment only to break the bone again a year later, or anytime I tried to push myself during a workout or sport.
I would highly recommend trying conservative treatment at least once before going to surgery, but there does come to a point where the opportunity cost of not getting surgery gets too high. I was at the point where I couldn't do the activities I wanted the way I wanted to solely because of a bone the size of a pea in the ball of my foot. So the analysis is this:

• Do nothing
  • Best Case: I can perform activities reasonably well by walking on the outside of my foot, but I can't push myself or walk/run/swing correctly without extreme pain. However I can do most things in a modified way.
  • Worst Case: I break it again and waste another 8 weeks treating it. It gets worse and worse over time, and combined with my age going up, recovery times on conservative treatment keep getting longer with worse results. I get to the point where I cannot do most things even in a modified way and I have to get surgery or be miserable
• Get Surgery
  • Best Case: I have to battle through recovery, but I am completely healed and performing at a level I haven't experienced in over a decade.
  • Worst Case: Even after going through an arduous recovery, the pain remains to some degree and I get some sort of weird big toe alignment issue which causes difficulties in performing my activities.

The analysis of the above is relatively clear-cut. Both worst-case scenarios are relatively similar (downside is equal) but the upside for surgery is far better than the upside for doing nothing. Once I came to this conclusion, it was an easy decision.
The Surgery
The way I picked my surgeon was through personal connections. A sesamoidectomy is RARE. Yes, it's a relatively common remedy for repeatedly broken or chronically painful sesamoids, but those conditions are super rare. This matters because you need to pick a surgeon who does these types of surgeries often, despite their general infrequency, and knows exactly how to do the surgery while mitigating potential issues. The way I found my doctor, Dr. Daniel Bohl, was through my cousin who went was in residency with him. Great educational background, good residency experience, he has been practicing at Rush for many years, but most importantly, he is a professional sports surgeon. This last note was huge for me because it assures he not only has done this surgery many times before since it's an athlete-dominated issue, but he also treats people with difficult problems that need to recover fast. Time on the field/court is money as an athlete and getting back into shape quickly is imperative at the pro level. You don't make it as a surgeon with that patient clientele without a successful track record.
I was very lucky my cousin knew of the right people, but if you do know someone in the medical profession, ASK THEM FOR RECS. If you don't, make sure you research the doctor's background and make sure they've done this surgery before (preferably many times).
I had the surgery itself yesterday. Pretty classic surgical experience. Got to the surgery center, checked in, and got to my "room". I got hooked up to an IV and then was given a sedation primer. The anesthesiologist asked me some questions, then I got wheeled back to the surgery room. I got some additional heavier sedation and then the next thing I knew I was waking up in my original room telling the nurses to buy Solana (which turns out was great stoned financial advice).
An hour later I was on my way out with some crutches in my hand and a completely numb lower leg. Full time from in the door to discharge was about 4 hours.
Post-OP recovery
Here comes the fun part. I have a deluge of medicine to take 3x per day and I need to be resting my foot in an elevated position for the first few weeks whenever possible. I am going to post a recap of my daily recovery for the first 7 days and then I'll start to widen the gap of updates.

• Day 1 - My leg from my shin down was completely numb, so there was no pain at all. The numbness was a bit annoying in its own way, but it's not so bad. All I did was mess around on my laptop and watch TV. Not a bad way to kick off the holiday szn.
• Day 2 - I slept through the night pretty well and had no pain, but that was purely because my foot was completely numb. Around the 26-hour mark after the initial numbing, my foot started to regain feeling..... and I wish it hadn't. Once the numbness wore off the pain set in. I have a relatively high pain threshold, nothing extreme, but generally takes a lot to put me in real discomfort. I would say this pain is oscillating between a 3/10 and a 7/10 depending on the hour, what I'm doing, and whether I've had the oxycodone I was given recently. Overall, at this point the pain is annoying but bearable, but it's day 2 so sometimes you just have to be realistic about these things (shout out to First Law fans).
• Day 3 - Slept through the night again outside of maybe two waves of pain. The last oxy I took was at the end of day 2, so the lack of consistent oxy likely contributed to feeling those waves of pain in the early morning. The pain at this point is a mix between a burning/tingling sensation and a strong ache. The burning/tingling sensation I think is largely due to the nerves repairing, and from what I read, pretty normal for the first couple of months. Hoping that doesn't last super long, but at the moment my feeling in that foot and up into the shin is not 100% yet -- maybe around 70%. That said, I did get out of bed today and go to my in-law's for Christmas Eve morning and another family party in the evening. All in all was out and about for a good 12+ hours today. A little aggressive perhaps, but worth it. I tried testing some heel weight bearing on the foot today and I could do so comfortably in a seated position, but when standing up it's still really difficult and pretty painful if I put any real weight on it. The nurse said I could walk while heel weight-bearing without crutches after a couple of days if I was able to, though I'm pretty sure you'd need the athletic and recovery ability of LeBron James to pull that off. Much to my chagrin, I ain't that guy, pal. Onward we go.
• Day 4 - To those of you that celebrate—Merry Christmas! Slept through the night easy, no interruptions, which was great. Also woke up with much less tingling and more feeling in my foot/lower leg. Still some tingling to be sure, most heavily concentrated on the sole of my foot. Feeling is still only about 70-75% up the rest of my leg to the knee area. There is also still an ache and tightness to the area where I suspect the incision is and just below. All that said… I might be LeBron James after all. I was able to “walk” quite a bit today without the assistance of crutches. I also made it up and down the stairs (shoutout to the banister) without human help. Admittedly, my “walk” is at best a 1 mph shuffle. That didn’t stop me from feeling like a god as I hobbled into my living room this morning. This is certainly NOT medical advice, and you should 100% listen to everything your doctor says, but what has worked well for me in past recoveries is being as aggressive as possible within the parameters your doctor gives you. Due to soccer I’ve had two knee surgeries in the past and in the first recovery I was very timid. This overly conservative approach cost my recovery dearly and the atrophy caused by fear was ultimately more harmful than helpful. Again, your aggressiveness absolutely and unequivocally has to stay within the parameters your doctor gives you, but even when it’s uncomfortable I like to push it. Now, I might be writing an update tomorrow about how sore my foot is from pushing it today and you can all say “look sir esquire, you’re an idiot” and you might be correct, but that’s the angle I’m coming at this with. Overall, day 3 to day 4 has been by far the biggest improvement in pain and functionality. I don’t expect another chunk gain like this tomorrow, but it’s nice to soak up a W when you can during recovery. Onward we go.
• Day 5 - Didn’t do a whole lot today so going to keep this update short and sweet. I barely used the crutches today and was mostly doing my shuffle everywhere. Foot really wasn’t as sore as I expected it to be from being so active yesterday, so that was very encouraging. One thing I have noticed the last few days and continue to notice is that when standing my calf and into my foot feels strained and almost swollen after a while. Of course you always want to be in the lookout for a blood clot when you have symptoms like that, but that’s not what this is as there is no visible swelling or discoloration and the symptoms alleviate depending on position of my foot. I suspect it’s more so from keeping the foot elevated 90% of the day that when it’s not the blood flow feels weird/swollen. Not really a huge deal, but is something i notice consistently when standing after a while so wanted to note it. Other than that, when “walking” you can definitely feel the point in your foot where if weight would get there it would be v painful so just being cognizant of that when moving around is helpful. Anyway, overall I think it’s doing quite well for day 5, but nothing else major going on at this point. Onward we go.
• Day 6 - No crutch use at all today and much less painful to walk! Of course, gait is still very odd but the shuffle is closer to a half walk now. The numbness is still there but the tingling is isolated completely to the sole of the foot and is getting less aggressive day by day. I’m still taking acetaminophen, meloxicam, gabapentin and aspirin, but honestly not sure i need anything but the aspirin at this point. Gonna ask the doc if i can cut the others at the one week mark. I’m going to try to do a non-foot-weight-baring workout tomorrow so we’ll see how that goes (think core and isolated upper body). Last daily update tomorrow then i’ll follow up in a week after that. Onward we go.
• Day 8 - Doing this update on the morning of day 8 since I missed the day 7 update. At this point progression seems pretty linear so far and I’m still not using crutches and walking is getting even easier. I did sit in a normal position for an extended period of time to play some poker and I definitely felt my foot was more swollen after that but didn’t have any functional inhibition as a result. Planning on going out to dinner on NYE which will be another couple hours sitting in a non-elevated position so I expect the same thing to happen, but gotta live your life! I have my follow up with the doctor on Jan 4, so I’ll update after that. Onward we go.
• 2 Week Post-Op - Just left my two week post-op. First thing we did was take x-rays to confirm that all of the fibular sesamoid was successfully removed, which it was! Next we chatted about recovery moving forward. Still in the heel weight bearing boot for four more weeks (that makes 6 weeks total in the boot) then should be back in a shoe at that point. I can stop taking all meds except for the aspirin since it’s vital for blood clot avoidance. I’ll probably just taper off slowly over the next 3-4 days. I’ll also be able to start PT at week 6 which i am STOKED about. I can also workout as long as nothing is weight bearing on my recovering foot—more on this in a separate section later. After that discussion we went to stitch removal. Holy F did that hurt. Idk if it’s because my skin tends to heal around the stitches or what but the nurse remarked several times that they were dug in really tight and that’s the second time i’ve had stitch removal where the nurse has said that. Anyway, I’m glad they’re out now but that was the most painful part of any of this process so far. Now i’m in a lighter wrap (some light gauze and an ace bandage). I have to keep the foot dry for 2 more weeks then i can take off the wrap and shower normally(!!) I’ll update in a week. Onward we go.
• 3 Week Post-Op - So I started working out over the last week or so. The good news is that it feels great to do some activity again, bad news is definitely more swollen than I was prior to working out. It’s mostly from having my foot in a non-elevated position, but still a challenging consequence of activity. The good news is if you’re creative you can do a lot of different workouts. As long as I don’t weight bear outside of the heel area i’m good to go. Outside of that i have noticed way less/almost no nerve burning in the foot. The upside to that is my nerves are healing, the downside is.. well… my nerves are healing. I have more “traditional” pain while walking now than I did before the stitches were out. The reality is it’s been three weeks since my foot was sliced open and a bone was pulled out, so frankly not shocking. That said, pain is always way worse when the foot is more swollen, which perhaps is no shocker. Still targeting week 6 as gym shoe switch day so we’ll see. Onward we go.
• 4.5 Weeks Post-Op - Alright so things are still progressing but definitely getting to the grind part of surgery rehab. As I’ve mentioned before, this isn’t my first rodeo when it comes to surgeries and right around the 4-8 week mark you really gotta start grinding mentally. You get to the point where you’re sick of being hamstrung and you also have quite a bit of recovery to go. I’m hitting that part, but also cognizant this is the time to not get complacent. I’ve been able to workout every day and that’s been a god send. Mostly i’ll do core work, but also will do 3x10 hamstring curls and quad extensions (on both legs) by using a door anchor with resistance bands strapped to my ankle. This is a very cheap set up and highly effective. I want to be in the best shape I can be once i’m back at it, so not getting discouraged during this down time is pivotal. From a pain standpoint, im more or less constantly experiencing some level of aching pain in my operative side lower leg and foot. It’s not enough to stop me from working or doing stuff, but it does get very annoying at night when im either trying to go to sleep, or i wake up from it. It’s the nature of the beast though, i’m walking a lot and doing things in a boot that elevates half my body higher than the other, reality is that’s going to cause discomfort. My incision area and big toe are still very very numb but i’m trying to poke the incision spot and massage it to start to get that feeling back and desensitize some of the weird pain associated with the numbness. I’m supposed to go to the doctor a week from today to switch into gym shoes which seems optimistic, but i’m gonna give it a shot. I can walk ok right now but all in the boot and sometimes i take a step that’s just brutal. I suspect this is a function of the tissue repair and scar tissue, but going to ask the surgeon when i see him how much i can push through the pain before it’s counterproductive. Still targeting PT starting at the 6 week mark then no restrictions at week 10. I’ll update after the doc. Onward we go.
• 6 Weeks Post-Op - OUT OF THE BOOT. Got out of the boot on Tuesday and it has been an absolute revelation. Doc said everything is healing great so far and to my eye the incision looks better than expected (basically just a light pink scar). First time putting the shoe on was tough, but I was able to get my foot in and limp out of the doctor's office just fine. Definitely a lot of pain, but actually less than in the heel-weight-bearing boot, because after six weeks both my heel and outside of foot we're aggravated. Over the course of the next few days, walking around in sandals and taking showers barefoot started to get easier and easier. I started PT on Friday and that has been refreshing. I was itching to get some rehab exercises to help stretch and strengthen the foot area and I'm glad I can start grinding. Now, five days after being out of the boot I have't put it back on once since and I feel really good. I can walk with almost no limp and very minimal pain--less pain than pre-surgery. I could see a world where, assuming I grind PT, at the ten week mark I'm ready to start golfing in the simulator again. Pretty wild how big of a stride the healing took between weeks 4-6. At week 4 I thought there was no way I'd be moving around as seamlessly as I am now. Granted, I'm not walking miles on end or anything and it's still sore, but I am stoked about where I'm at to this point. I'll follow back up around the 10 week mark
• 12 Week Update - Since week 6 we’ve made MASSIVE strides (literally and figuratively). I did PT for 6 weeks (though 2 of the 6 were self-guided since I was out of town) and it couldn’t have been more impactful. What I hypothesized going into this injury has so far been proven correct and that is to be very aggressive in my recovery. All I can recommend here is doing your PT relentlessly and pushing yourself as much as you can. At this point I am walking with no limp, working out pretty normally and doing 80% of the activities I want to do, which at 12 weeks is a great spot. The pain is minimal (WAY less than pre surgery) and my strength is returning. At this point the only thing I haven’t tried, which is mainly because I never did it outside sports anyway, is running. Once I give that a shot I will update. One thing that has been a really big help and that I would definitely recommend to help fight the potential hallux deviation (which causes bunions) is using toe socks and separates when you can and using Yoga Toe Gems at least once a day for a period of time. I will be switching to five finger shoes with toe socks shortly and plan on spending a lot of effort on foot strength and mobility. I’ll update again at 16 weeks, but at this point I couldn’t be happier with my decision to get surgery. Onward we go.

Return to golf
If you don't play golf, feel free to ignore this section--though it will have information about my functional progress so still may be good.
My background in golf is that, as I mentioned earlier, I started playing for real post-law school in 2019. At that point, I was probably around a 25 handicap and really just had no consistency at all and overall sucked. Since then, I've worked my way down to an 8.5 low H.I. and can't wait to get it lower (is my handicap relevant at all to this? Probably not, but it took a lot of work to get there so I'm going to not humbly brag about for now).
I wanted to create this section with the sole purpose of showing what optimizing recovery to play golf as soon as possible looks like. I will chronicle my timeline to the first swing back, how the swing is feeling, if there are any complications with the foot, whether my swing and scores improved post-surgery, and really anything else foot and golf-related that happens throughout this time.
I used to go to the range 2-3 times a week and play 2-3 times a week, so I will consider getting back to that frequency, getting back to "normal".
Hope you all enjoy this and can at least get more information on what a surgical route and post-op looks like. Cheers.
Update 1 (one week out from surgery): Nothing major but i was able to practice putting. I can stand in an almost normal putting stance, but of course weight distribution is less balanced than i’ll be once healed. In any case I was able to do a full putting drill in my basement that took around 15 minutes. Short game is going to be dialed!
Update 2 (4.5 weeks out from surgery): More or less the same on this front. However, i have been doing core and thoracic mobility exercises to help with my swing mechanics. I’ve also been able to do a lot of standing drills for 10 minute periods. Nothing with club in hand, but hip rotation and shoulder position take back drills are in play. Should have more ability once i’m out of the boot at the 6 week mark.
Update 3 (6 weeks out from surgery): Continuing to putt, but I can also do take back drills now. Since I'm out of the boot, and the pain isn't prohibitive, I've been trying to work on slow motion take back drills until I can start doing full swings. I expect that over the course of the next couple weeks I'll continue along this path and may go try to do some light chipping at an indoor range, but we'll see.
Update 4 (12 weeks out from surgery): I PLAYED 18 THIS WEEKEND. That’s really all I need to say. I played 18 in cart path only on a windy cold day. I’m still getting used to trusting the foot on the push off, but I shot in the 80s still from the tips so that should be some indication that it wasn’t hampering me too bad. Still a lot to be done to walk a full 18 and play pain free and strong, but i’m just so happy i’ll be able to play all season. Once I can walk 18 and push off extremely hard on my swing I will update again. Cheers.
P.S. HUGE shoutout to my wife who has made this recovery 1000x more bearable than it would have been otherwise. Love her to death and she’s been a total champ with helping and deserves major props.

I'm a migraine patient of 12+ years. I'm 30 years old.
I was in 3 serious car accidents, 1 year apart each in my early 20s. Each I received a concussion and whiplash/neck pain.
I was assaulted at work in 2020 where I also received a concussion and was on work comp absence for 6+ months, I was seen by a concussion doctor where I was diagnosed with post concussion disorder, as well as an orthopedic doctor for my neck pain who prescribed Physical Therapy. PT did vertigo therapy and cervical ridiculopothy along with dry needling. PT consistently said I had an abnormal amount of tension in my neck, jaw, and shoulders.
During this time I also received trigger point injections (one time) in neck and shoulder, and did not find relief, so I did not continue. Had a clear MRI but suggested I could have arthritis beginning in my neck.
I was then referred to a pain specialist who suggested I do nerve block in my neck. I was uneasy about this but they did a test spot of lidocaine to see how I would react. I left the office unbalanced, literally felt drunk, and was an emotional wreck the rest of the day. I decided this route was not for me.
Shortly after, concussion doctor wrote me back to work for MMI even tho I was having daily headaches. Long story short, my employer never got back in touch with me regarding return to work, work comp said they had accidently over calculated my pay and had overpayed $8000 during the time I was off, and could not continue payments. I contacted a lawyer, was not protected under work comp because I missed signing some form, had to go back to work for another employer, and dropped all work comp doctors because the stress of all that mess was just contributing to the headaches.
Long story short, my headaches got better, I'd have about 1-2 a week, more frequent and more severe when I'd have my period. I was able to treat them with Maxalt or Excedrin.
Aside from that, I have horrible TMJ, which severely triggers my headaches. My jaw clicks everytime I chew (both sides) and clicks out of place when I lay flat, or turn on my side. The pressure from the pillow on the side of my face (have tried multiple pillows) causes my jaw to dislocate so essentially I have to sleep on my back. What I have found most helpful for the TMJ and neck pain is Biofreeze. I apply this to the sides of my face and down my neck and shoulders about 10+ times a day and notice almost immediate pain relief.
I had my wisdom teeth removed exactly a year ago to see if that would help with the headaches and TMJ. I had a lot of complications with that surgery but all is well now. Sadly, getting the teeth taken out did not help with the TMJ or headaches.
Got in with a neurologist who referred me to medical Botox, and stared that in March. I get injections every 12 weeks. I have found a lot of relief in tension in my neck and shoulders. He also puts Botox in my massater muscle which helps a bit with the TMJ. I still have headaches 1-2 times per week but usually are treatable with Excedrin/Biofreeze if I catch my symptoms soon enough. If not, the Maxalt will take care of it and the headache usually does not return.
A separate issue from the headaches.... In 2020 (right when COVID was hitting USA) I was seen in ER multiple times for swollen throat. Was told it was a virus, sent home. Told it was a virus again, sent home. Finally, I was taken seriously and they did a CT and found a peritonsillular abscess. I was hospitalized and treated with three rounds of antibiotics and steroids; however, the abscess would not shrink and I ended up having surgery because I could barely breathe or swallow. They had to remove my tonsils and found that the abscess had 10CCs of fluid. I was sent home the following day, and was told to not come to my follow up appointment (as it was right when COVID hit, nobody knew anything about COVID at the time, and they didnt want to risk me catching COVID after having that kinda surgery.) Anyways, I've not been back to see an ENT. However, everytime I get sick post surgery, my throat (or what I believe to be my abnoids) swell up to the halfway point of my throat and my uvula elongates so much so that it touches my tongue. It is very uncomfortable.
Fast forward to a couple of months ago.... I went to urgent care for sickness. Was told it was a virus. Was told to come back if symptoms didn't go away after 14 days. Went back, was prescribed amoxicillin and told I had an upper respiratory infection.
I did not get better. Headaches started and worsened. Different than my migraines, severe pressure behind my eyes accompanied with facial pain. Went back to the doctor was given 5 day Prednisone prescription 5mg twice a day. Finished that and has relief from the headaches for about 5 days.
Went back to the doctor for headaches they said I still had the upper respiratory infection, prescribed me Amoxicillin and Clavallin. Headaches worsened. They prescribed me Naproxen for headaches.
Naproxen did not help. Advil did not help. Excedrin did not help. Maxalt did not help. If it did kill the headache for a few hours, it would still return. I tried a few days with no meds in case I was getting rebound headaches and that did not help either. My headaches took a turn for the worst last week.
I became completely unfunctionable. My face and sinuses were so swollen and I was having so much sinus pressure and pressure behind my eyes. Went to the ER. Told them all of this history, they did a CT with contrast dye, said my sinuses were fine - no clots, no cysts, gave me a migraine cocktail of benedryl and something else, and prescribed me doxycycline hyclate 100mg antibiotic that's supposed to target the sinuses. Said it could be a sinus headache.
Began the antibiotic, 2 days after starting it I developed a fever, body chills, and congestion in my face to where I could not breathe. Clogged ear. Swollen throat. Woke up yesterday with a pea sized lump in my cheek next to my ear. Went back to ER. Was told the lump is a swollen lymph node. Gave me another migraine cocktail, a shot of steroids, fluids, and sent me home with a taper pack of Prednisone. They had the ENT on call review my CT scan from the last visit and said my sinuses looked okay. So why is my lymph node swollen? All lab work normal.
So now I am on my 3rd round of antibiotics and second round of steroids with no relief yet to my sinuses or headaches.
I have also tried Mucinex D, allergy meds, nasal spray, Flonase... All to no avail.
I have an appointment with ENT Jan 2nd and neurology end of January. I am on cancellation list at both places.
My issue is the headaches. They are unlike any headaches I've ever had. They throb all around my head, make me want to pull my hair out. I have bruised and burned my face from trying to relieve the pressure by massaging or with hot rags. And last night I just puked all night long from the pain. I had my mom come get me and she is taking care of me for now. I had a brief moment of no pain so figured I'd consult you Reddit experts for any suggestions you may have about what is going on.
Thank you!

(This story will jump around randomly considering there was a lot that happened for 3-4 months lol I’ll keep it as organized and on topic as possible)
Okay to start the story off last summer i ended up leaving the stratosphere and returned. I had access to a variety of drugs weed, acid, mush, molly, ketamine, coke, dmt etc. I was in college and decided to start experimenting with coke heavily. Then proceeded to mix molly, acid, and ketamine on a regular basis. Sometimes mixing even more drugs. And these doses were on the heavy side a normal night would look like maybe gram of coke, tab or 2 of acid, share a gram of ketamine with friends, having molly water all day, taking fatty bong rips
My addiction got so out of hand I ended up dropping out of college, fast forward to few months later. Still using these large amounts, one night I ended up crashing my car while under the influence, shortly after I’m staying at a trap house for a few days. Ended up doing that mix I mentioned earlier, I was watching diary of a wimpy kid, my friends fell asleep and that’s when I started peaking. started seeing realistic eyes opening out of the walls. Had a demon open the door while I was taking a shit. Later that night I tried falling asleep and woke up having a seizure, stayed up the rest of the night scared of sleeping.
This is when my early stages of psychosis started, I began to become extremely paranoid people were stalking me and trying to kill me, threw away tens of thousands worth of various drugs because I was scared of police.
I made the unfortunate and unwise decision to continue smoking weed and drinking during psychosis, which in turn I would get intense hallucinations and the voices would get louder.
First hallucinations I remember started while smoking a joint. Seen Saturn spinning in front of me, person I was with said “you see those guys in suits? Do you want to sign a contract” I look in the direction was a wall with shadowy figures. I said yes and the hallucinations got progressively worse it was very difficult to separate these delusions and hallucinations from reality.
Another time after that I went to a “friends” to drink and smoke I thought I was able to communicate telepathically with people. I thought me and buddy were entering into a betting ring to make billions of dollars. ( I thought I was selling drugs just by talking to voices in my head) It reminded me of frank and mason from black ops 1 somehow. In this scenario I was mason and I would legit hallucinate numbers and repeat them.
I was put into detox for a short bit then ended up staying at the homeless shelter after, tried to trade my Louis belt for a 26 of rum, lost my iPhone 12 Pro Max along with my backpack full of clothes, after leaving the shelter I started heading to my moms. it was so cold I had to stuff my shoes with paper towel so I didn’t get frost bite
On the way home one of my exs voice said “you can go get a bottle of liquor and put it on my credit” so I just walked out with a bottle.
Then headed to a subway got the lady to make me a sub it consisted of guacamole and chicken on white bread. I then took the sandwich and left without paying.
I believed the cia was talking to me and telling me to kill people, I later thought my brain was downloaded into a super computer by the cia. I remember my thoughts would race like crazy, I then asked “Calvin” one of my voices to download my brain into a floppy disk so my thoughts wouldn’t race so fast. I believed the world ended and we were in a fallout 4 situation with an institute. Thinking people were robots.
I thought the colour of food and drinks was related to certain drugs for example broccoli: weed, eggplant: lean etc
I broke into someone’s house just to take a bong rip, got stuck in the house cuz the lock was broken, had to leave via balcony.
One day after taking a bong rip I thought my brain was powerful enough to communicate with planet and aliens, i was walking “Calvin” said if you don’t kill this person I’ll hurt you, I said no and I got the most painful head pain I’ve ever had. I proceeded to hallucinate an alien in the sky put a glass jar over me. The alien was scared of me for what the cia was turning me into.
I ended up stealing a car and crashing it, then had a warrant for me to get sent to a ward for 30 days first day I tried to escape made it to the parking lot and got tackled by 3 guys.
Ended up getting put on olanzipine, respiradone, Ativan, and some sort of tremor med.
Shortly after getting out of the hospital I overdosed on the entire bottle of Ativan, I thought I could hear my ex gfs they were nice sometimes but other time’s extremely mean and told me to do bad things.
One night I can’t explain, I had one Advil. Within seconds I went unconscious. Woke up gasping for air and having the most intense hallucinations I’ve ever had in my life and I’ve done salvia and dmt.
The car ride to the hospital I hallucinated an retro tv playing random channels, hearing a rap song I’ve never heard that wasn’t actually there. A clown and a black man kept walking up to me and saying how I had a good run and it’s time to die now, got to the hospital and seen earth spinning in front of me then turned into a digital looking sphere and I heard “dmt experience number #113 now complete) it may have been one of my scariest experiences in my life.
It’s been almost a year since that happened. Still currently on respiradone gained about 40 pounds on it. I don’t feel the same anymore my thoughts can get dark and random at times sometimes getting auditory and visual hallucinations, not as bad as it once was. Other than that I’m doing better unfortunately I still use, but not the amounts that put me into that state.
Ever since I started getting very vivid, meaningful, random, cool dreams and started getting lucid aswell.
If I’m being completely honest I do miss the voices in a sense, it’s lonely without someone saying that old lady in line has a fat ass, or pushing me to do illegal activities.
There’s so much more I’m forgetting about It amazes me how the brain can get so turned around you start believing things that aren’t true. It was an experience I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life mentally and physically. My brain will never be the same again
Ask me about details or other scenarios during my psychosis.

My Surgery was Thursday Afternoon and this is Sunday so day 3.5?
For the most part I am doing reasonably well considering what the surgery entails. I had no comprehension on what major surgery was since I haven't had anything in the past to judge this on. It definitely knocks you for a loop. Everyone said take it easy and that was the best advice so far!! Also there are not much other options...
Everyone handles this differently and this is my reaction so far.
Day of and recovery: I arrived at the Hospital at 1030 for a 1215 surgery. Last minute checks, insert two IV's, draw blood for typing and meeting my amazing team. The surgeon stopped by to check and let me know scheduling was on time.
Surgery was 1220- 4pm as per my wife following on the update board. I remember waking up around 520 or so and was moved to my room at 715. I had 6 incisions and lost my belly button. I had no strange after effects of the anesthesia but had a very sore throat from the Breathing tube. I didn't know I would have one until the day of surgery. The nurse gave me ice chips which helped a lot, I wasn't allowed to drink liquid until I passed gas and was checked on by my surgeon the following morning. Side note.... I accidentally sipped the water out of the cup and had a slight cough... I thought I was going to be scraped off the ceiling! I was hoping to get up and walk that night but it was a busy night and two people are required when walking so that was postponed until the next morning around 8.
Day 2; I was in/out of sleep all night, then blood draw at 0500 started the day off. I was still having slight effects of the anesthesia, not as mentally sharp and no pain to speak of that Tylenol and Advil didn't work on. My surgeon stopped in at 0600 to let me know how it all went. She was very happy and had no surprises and no swelling in the lymph nodes as well. There were very good clean margins and nerve sparing ( icing on the cake). I had gas in the middle of the night a few times, no pain with it and cleared for clear liquids for bfast. The nurse said to get one of everything and I did, Popsicle, broth ( veg, chic & beef), jello and water. Throat was feeling better by now and Dr said it may take a few days to be better. Got two walks in , Catheter instructions, supplies and discharge orders. I was checked out around 1pm so only at the Hospital for just over 24 hours.
Whichever Redditor recommended the Pillow for the ride home deserves a MEDAL!!! That was on our checklist and was great to have instead of the seatbelt pushing on the stomach.
A HUGE SHOUT OUT TO MERCY HOSPITAL IN PORTLAND MAINE!!! They were AMAZING from the top down and made this experience the best it could be!!! I actually asked and did speak to the Chief Nurse to commend them for an amazing team!! I wasn't to prepared for their excellent level of caring , knowledge and compasion. They far exceeded anything I was prepared for. I only hope all future RALP surgeries have this wonderful experience!!!
We stopped at the grocery store on the way home and I opted to walk ever so slowly with the cart. I felt like a slow turtle but it was progress.
We have stairs and I was able to manage them without too much of an issue. I did walk around the first level of my house for 10 minutes to get my walk in.
They sent me home with the leg bag catheter and I switched to the night bag when I got home.This was awkward and challenging. I was doing this on the bed with a Chuck pad under me. Later I moved to the toilet with the seat down and this has been easier and more comfortable position to work this. I did take one Tramadol at night to help with discomfort and some slight pain on trying to get comfortable in bed.
One item of note! Due to the amount water was drinking I noticed that my catheter night bag would not last all night. I set an alarm for 3.5 hours and was glad I did since this was almost full. I then set another alarm again and it wasn't as critical but glad on night one home to have no accidents/ issues!
We bought a waterproof bed covering and also purchased 3' X 3' Chuck pads to put under me while sleeping.
I was on liquid diet all day until Bowel Movement; Apple Cider, jello , tomato soup, popsicle, lots of water.
Day 3: Feeling better, Liquid diet for breakfast and then finally a Bowell Movement and luckily very soft, then followed by several that were very liquid. Definitely a bit nervous on the first one with a catheter. I will do my best to make sure they all stay soft as I'm prone to constipation and that would be miserable.!! Lunch switched up to Tomato soup with a grilled cheese. This tasted like the best one ever!! I made two10 min walks around and had a visit from my Wonderful Grandchildren and Parents. This made my day!! They asked to see the scar and the youngest jaw dropped when she saw the Belly button was gone! It was cute and priceless!! So obviously no bloody incisions or bandages and almost no bruising visible. The Abs are still tender with movements but walking felt better. I only took one Tylenol and one Advil all day. I am still taking the prescribed stool softener Colac twice/day. dinner was baked beans and jello, not much of an appetite especially with all of the water I was drinking.
I am lucky I have a split King bed that is adjustable, so sleeping upright at night has been good. I set alarms as well this night but didn't need to since I was only less than half full. but better safe than sorry.
Day 4: Definitely woke up not feeling as well as I did the day before.. Part of the Ebb and Flow of recovery. The reason was swollen in the crotch area as well as the abdomen and there was significant bruising visible. I would not have shown the incisions to anyone in this condition.. Things moved much more slower today to start. My voice wasn't as strong but became better as the day wore on. I had fruit and jello for breakfast as well as my apple cider. I am a HUGE coffee lover but I am forgoing all coffee for a few weeks. I know coffee is a bladder irritant for me so I don't want to cause or inflame any issues until better. Home made butternut soup with baguette for lunch! I have the best wife!! I have had two walks today so far and plan on 3 more before bedtime.
One item that is consistent and is the first thing everyday I forgot to mention is the Shower. I keep the night bag on with the bag outside of the shower ( although they told me it's completely waterproof.) someone also suggested plugging the catherter for the shower.. I don't feel great about that since I take long showers. So this is what has worked for me. The shower is a great place to get really clean around the tip and the catheter tubing as well as the groin area. I then use a blow dryer which is easier than trying to towel dry the area. Once I'm dry I change to the leg bag for the day, Luckily my wife is a seamstress and has left over fleece around. She cut two strips to go under the velcro against the skin. This has been amazing. I have just ordered a bag holder that is a sleeve that slides up the leg. If it's any good I will link it with my next update.
We have 3 Labs and my wife has been keeping them separated from me until the Catheter comes out.
Thank you all again for your support, kindness and information!! This is not a path any of us chose to go on but it is so much more manageable with all of your support. Please excuse me if this is wordy or too long... Im not great with short and concise information to complicated issues.
Have a great day!!! Hug your Family