Ritalin nasal schleimh ute

Throwaway account for obvious reasons
I submitted my SF86 this past week for a TS clearance working for a contractor.

 I was molested and groomed as a child into doing online sex work. Because of this familiar path, I started doing cybersex for money when I turned 18 (in 2014) and I filed taxes for it in 2020 and 2022 because it was through a platform and I completely stopped in 2022 because of the negative impacts of it on my mental health and life. I put the verifier for my self employment as myself and offered to provide the platforms username and password for the investigator to see for themselves. 

I have an extensive psychiatric history due to trauma starting with being diagnosed with depression at 14 years old. I lost count of how many times I was hospitalized as an adult for suicide attempts and ideations. I don’t even remember the name of the first hospital I went to for my mental health because electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) gave me significant memory loss during that time which was 9 years ago (I no longer struggle with this side effect anymore after 8 years of not having it) I have been diagnosed with cluster B personality disorders before (borderline) and bipolar 2 but they were misdiagnosed by psychiatrists who had incentive to prescribe brand name antipsychotics that actively made my symptoms and quality of life worse. After being treated for trauma my mental health symptoms and quality of life has substantially improved. I currently see a psychiatrist once a month and weekly I see therapist, group therapy, and group coaching. I take my medications as prescribed, exercise at least 3 days a week, and eat a more balanced diet.
I misused my medications due to poor supervision of doctors (1 doctor overprescribed me a ketamine hcl nasal spray for suicidal thoughts {not esketamine} he “miscalculated” the dosage where when I filled the prescription I was getting a 3 month supply for a monthly prescription. so there was so much extra at the end of the month and considering this is a schedule 3 substance one could argue this was poor oversight on his part. I even told the psychiatrist at the time that I was overusing it and it wasn’t until I suggested a solution that he changed the prescription. I did not know I was being over prescribed this medication until 3 months later when the pharmacy told me. I misused my stimulants as well to compensate for the extreme fatigue that was a side effect of other medications that i was told I “needed” and overprescribed stimulants as well (Vyvanse and Ritalin at the same time)
I have a little illegal drug use that wasn’t frequent like mushrooms ( 1 time) cannabis (6 times over 13 years) and ketamine powder 1 time
No criminal history or speeding tickets
I have 2 debts in collections and student loans in good standing. I was also evicted in 2021.
My moms somewhere in this country illegally, she’s homeless and has mental health and substance abuse issues. (she’s a Swedish citizen though which a friendly foreign nation)
What Im concerned the investigator will be concerned about is the tendency for me to be manipulated/coerced/exploited based on my background and could that lead to a denial? What do you guys think?

Maybe this is a long shot but as a child I never had any problems like this, in higher education I developed a habit of Ritalin and would use between 30 and 120mg every day mostly through nasal administration. Gradually I started to have a symptom of explosive diarrhoea when on Ritalin due to its ability to stimulate the gut. Now I am coming to the end of 5 years of college and have noticed a whole load of other intolerances I 100% did not have before Ritalin and chalked down to it. Garlic makes me bloated and unwell and caffeine gives me diarrhoea. My stools are rarely normal despite getting a balanced diet.
This is not an attack on Ritalin, I have so much to thank it for but I am wondering if anyone else has had similar or knows of any possible mechanisms of Ritalin on the gut that are seen in the pathogenesis of IBS. (I only know that it stimulates the bowel)

62F, 5'3", nonsmoker, 200lbs, white, diabetic, PTSD, chronic fatigue. Medications: Trulicity, metformin, atorvastatin, albuterol prn, gabapentin, azelastine nasal spray, ritalin, geodon, effexor, wellbutrin. I have mild diabetic neuropathy in my feet. My most recent A1C was 6.5. BP this afternoon was 145/85.
Normally, I open the door to my home by putting the key in the lock, turning it to unlock the door and pushing the door open, all with one hand. And usually it's with my right hand. Today I am not strong enough in my right hand to turn the key far enough to unlock the door. I can do it just fine with my left hand. I was able to do it with my right hand just fine yesterday.
Now I do not have great hand strength to begin with, and have a machine to open jars because I find that hard usually. But not being able to let myself into the house is like decrepit level incapacity. Even putting my left hand over my right hand, it was hard to do.
Am I just getting that old? Do I look up hand strengthening exercises on YouTube? There is no pain or other symptoms that I've noticed.

Hi. I've never posted anything anywhere regarding this kind of thing, but I'm getting incredibly frustrated and desperate, so I'm just throwing this out there to see if anyone has had any similar experiences. Sorry in advance for the long post, it's just a long story.
I was diagnosed with narcolepsy in 2015 during high school. I was put on ritalin initially, which helped me get through high school and even my first years of uni. Eventually my neurologist convinced me to try Xyrem, as not sleeping well during the night and cataplexy became a bigger issue in my life. Sure, the start with xyrem was a bit rocky and it took some adjusting to, but it improved my quality of ife immensely. I went on with xyrem happily for about eight months until I noticed I was having trouble with swallowing. I thought initially it was anxiety from uni and I had just started seeing a psychologist to deal with some unpacked baggage so I shrugged it off. The problems kept getting worse though, I had reflux, dry mouth, terrible snoring etc. It got to the point where I noticed my mental health was getting pretty awful too. I tried getting help for both issues but I was simply told I was just stressed and when I questioned whether Xyrem could cause this, my neurologist simply said she had never heard of such a thing. Fast forward three months of my throat issues getting so bad I only ate liquids and lost one fifth of my body weight. At this point my doctors started getting a bit worried but assured me the issue was psychological. I did not care what it was, at this point I was desperate. I had read that Xyrem could make psychological issues worse and cause nasal and sinus irritation, so I quit it on my own.
It was the worst time. I could barely sleep without it and my cataplexy came back stronger than ever, BUT in a week, my throat issues cleared up. I could eat again, my sinuses werent killing me. I was so happy. But my narcolepsy symptoms were causing me to do poorly with my studies.
After a year of being off of xyrem, my new neurologist and I decided I would try xyrem again with the addition of effexor with it. This improved my ability to study and partake in life in general. My previous issues with worsening mental health did not reappear, but my nose and throat issues did. This time I had taken precautions though. I used antacids and watched my diet and kept very good routinely care of my sinuses. I even got a mouth guard for night so I don't bite my teeth together during the night. I used an air humidifier. I tried cortison sprays and moisturising sprays for the nose. With all this I managed for 4 years to balance the situation. I'd see an ENT every now and then to make sure I wasnt doing any real damage to my nasal passages.
Now I'm at the end of my wits. My employer sent me off to see our workplace healthcare as these nasal and throat issues have been impacting my performance at work. I feel the same issues with swallowing and stuffiness and ent discomfort steadily becoming worse, so much so that nothing I do keep them at bay. I am a teacher and my students notice my discomfort. They notice I don't eat lunch with them. They notice I keep coughing and pinching the bridge of my nose to relieve some of the pressure I feel.
I've contacted the doctors numerous times, asking for help, open to any suggestions on how to manage this situation as it truly is affrcting my ability to do normal things and my job. All I've been told is to use over the counter medicine to manage my sinuses. Just recently I've gotten two denials of referrals from the ENT specialists saying this is not something they can help me with and it's just that my nose and mouth are dry. I don't know what I am supposed to do. I'm thinking of contacting my neurologist to discuss quitting xyrem if it is truly the cause of all this. But if I do that, I know I will not be able to work full time as it really is the only med to help me with my most severe narcolepsy symptoms.
If anyone here has had any similar issues with xyrem causing trouble swallowing, nasal irritation etc, I'd be eternally grateful to hear about your experiences. I just feel very alone with this problem and like I'm banging my head against a wall trying to get help. It's incredibly demoralizing and I get the feeling that I can't be the only one who has encountered this issue with Xyrem.

Guten Tag, Ich habe einen Kumpel (33) der schon mehrere Entzüge (GHB, Alkohol, Heroin und Benzos) hinter sich hat.
Bereits mit 16 Jahren wurde bei ihm Schizophrenie diagnostiziert aber jetzt hat er einen neuen Arzt und er versucht alles mögliche für eine ADHS Diagnose. Das ist ihm auch gelungen. Er kann es einfach nicht lassen. Er hat sich bei Konzentrationstest mit Absicht dumm angestellt und hat jetzt seine Diagnose.
Er ist jetzt traurig weil er ,,nur" Atomoxetin und nicht Ritalin oder gar Amphetamine verschrieben bekommt doch so wie ich ihn kenne wird er sich das bald verschreiben lassen, was absolut fatal wäre. Der Arzt hat keine Ahnung mit was für einen Menschen er es zu tun hat. Ohne Drogen kann mein Kumpel nicht. Der muss ständig alles mögliche konsumieren und ist deshalb sogar schwerbehindert und hat noch nie gearbeitet. Auch keine Ausbildung hat er.
Was kann ich tun? Dem Arzt einen anonymen Hinweis geben? Ich finde es asozial und falsch was diese Person macht. Der Arzt Ost komplett ahnungslos.
Nur damit ihr eine Ahnung habt was das gut einer ist: Er hat wegen diverser Probleme Antidepressiva verschrieben bekommen. Was hat er damit gemacht? Direkt 4 Tabletten nasal gezogen um high zu werden..jedes mal
Was kann man da tun?

I'm a 38F. 30 kg overweight, takes Ritalin (ADD), Cipralex + Welbutrin (chronic depression) and birth control. Moderate activity level (varied).
My issue is that I snore a lot and loudly. People comment on it, and light sleepers can't share a bedroom with me. I seldom wake up feeling rested, but I always wake up with a stuffy and runny nose. I suspect I have obstructive apnea, but my doctor says I need to loose weight before we check anything else. I understand the logic, but I also feel the lack of proper sleep is contributing to my weight problem.
Thing I have tried: I have a sort of mouth guard that helps keep the airways more open, but it's very uncomfortable and doesn't stop the snoring. It helps a little, and boyfriend says the volume goes down with the guard. Unfortunately I keep taking it out in my sleep. Probably because it's uncomfortable.
Sleeping on a sturdy pillow and mattress.
Allergy medicine.
Nasal spray and rinse.
I'm so tired all the time, and I just want to be able to wake up rested - at least some times. What can I do? Any advice is highly appreciated!❤️

36F, 5'4", ~130lb, daily citirizine, Diane-35 and Ritalin, non-drinker, never smoked etc
I"m really struggling to breathe properly. There doesn't seem to be anything that triggered it, but I feel like I'm drowning. Fewer than half of my breaths (normal breaths, deep breaths or yawns) feel like they properly fill my lungs. I've been trying really hard to explain it and searching for good ways to describe it, and I think the best way has been 'air hunger'.
I can deep inhale and fill my lungs to bursting point and hold my breath...but there's still no feeling of the last little bit of air that feels like I've actually breathed (like this person says 'that satisfying last bit of breath'). There's definitely air, it just doesn't feel like there's oxygen or something. I can take a huge breath until I feel like my lungs are at bursting point, then 'top them up' with another breath of air as soon as they're filled.
The other day, I would say I'd yawned dozens of times in an hour. It's so frequent that I forget to count it. Most of my yawns are 'double yawns' (yawn that fills most of my lungs, followed by a second yawn that tries [but fails] to fill the rest of my lungs).
It is just as bad during the day as it is at night. Moving around doesn't do anything - doesn't make it better or worse. Standing or laying doesn't make a difference. At night, I've been having a lot of trouble falling asleep, and I never normally have problems sleeping. I can lie there from 11pm to 2am without sleeping, sometimes gasping and sitting up because it feels like I haven't been breathing, even though I have absolutely been breathing (I haven't fallen asleep, and don't have any sleep apnoea).
Some background information

• I have a 'very high' allergy to dust mites and cats. I have a cat (which I won't be getting rid of) and seem to be surrounded by dust everywhere and at all times. That being said, it has been this way for years and this has only really kicked off in the past six days.
• I had a high inflammation (CRP?) result a few months ago - I was tested after months of feeling overwhelming fatigue.
• Around 5 weeks ago, I had an ECG, and figure that could have detected any lung structural issues?
• I don't have asthma (my doctor told me that asthmatics only have trouble breathing out, not in). Regardless, I've tried an asthma inhaler (over the counter) and it didn't seem to change anything.
• I tend to get breathing difficulties every summer. Where I live is super humid (which is revolting) and I normally tend to have some breathing difficulties with that, but not as much as I'm having now. Plus, it has been awfully humid for weeks and it only started six days ago.
• I'm not at all anxious. I felt anxious after a few hours of not being able to breathe yesterday (at the point of feeling like I was drowning on air that I couldn't feel), but it didn't change anything about the breathing experience. Honestly, I don't really feel anything anymore, so it really seems unlikely that it's an easy identification that it's anxiety.
• I don't believe I've ever had COVID. Even with allergy medication, I've always had post-nasal drip which, over the past few months, seems to have decided to settle around my windpipe and will sometimes catch when I breathe in and make me cough.
• This episode of consistent breathlessness began with a period of 120+ heart rate over a few hours. My heart rate is now somewhere between 75-80 when sitting (likely to do with the heat, because my heart rate is always faster when the weather is hot), but is usually somewhere around 60.

Similar posts (below) haven't received any replies...I'm really hoping mine might receive some replies, if not only to help myself, but to help any others who have a similar problem:

• http://www.reddit.com/AskDocs/comments/fxhbyh/incomplete_yawning/
• http://www.reddit.com/AskDocs/comments/92t5t9/i_feel_like_i_cant_fill_my_lungs_and_i_have_to/
• http://www.reddit.com/AskDocs/comments/4ypgty/my_lungs_feel_like_theyre_resisting_breathing_i/
• http://www.reddit.com/AskDocs/comments/141lov1/can_anxitey_cause_dyspnea/
• http://www.reddit.com/AskDocs/comments/19577x8/i_find_it_so_frustrating_that_theres_no_simple/
• http://www.reddit.com/AskDocs/comments/1577qd3/dyspnea_for_2_years_all_heart_and_lungs_tests/
• http://www.reddit.com/AskDocs/comments/iah6yh/feeling_like_i_cant_fill_out_the_bottom_of_my/
• http://www.reddit.com/AskDocs/comments/zs2maw/heart_palpitations_and_unable_to_fill_up_lungs/

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This is a really long post, but I wrote it for myself more than anything else. TLDR and video at bottom
I’m 27. When I was 13, I started having weird throat problems all the time. It felt like my throat had a lot of pressure in it, like a burning tense feeling, and the only thing that helped was when I drank or ate something or swallowed. This would help then it would come back a bit later. Sometimes a couple minutes later sometimes a half hour or hour later. But it always came back. I had weird issues swallowing saliva too. I saw an ear nose & throat doctor about this and was told my issue was acid reflux. I was prescribed reflux medication and told to sleep on an incline. I did those things, but it didn’t help. Supposedly I was treating the issue and the doctor didn’t know why I wasn’t improving but told me to continue doing what I was doing to supposedly treat it. I saw some other doctors that weren’t sure either. One doctor told me that the throat issues were perhaps mental and not actually real, especially since treatment wasn’t helping. I learned to just live with it but it was annoying and took over my life to the point that all day every day revolved around coping with my throat. I had bad anxiety because of it, used to avoid things, had to make sure I always had something to drink to help my throat, and felt SO stressed about it all and how it was affecting me. My body also physically felt stressed out and anxious all the time. So bad that I used to call my parents from school to pick me up cause I never felt well. My day to day life was miserable. I knew something was wrong but didn’t know what. I went from being a really outgoing happy kid prior to this to being a completely different person in a short amount of time. It changed me a lot.
When I was 14/15, I started to feel a brain fog on top of the throat and bad anxiety issues. It was like my brain felt like mush all the time. Like the feeling when you sleep bad for a couple nights and your brain feels like crap, except I was sleeping plenty. I felt kind of spaced out, couldn’t concentrate as well, never wanted to do anything, and just felt kind of crappy all the time. Wasn’t severe yet but was definitely impacting my day to day life, in addition to the throat stuff and feeling anxious and stressed all the time. I went back to seeing doctors. Multiple doctors said there was nothing wrong with me and some even said that the brain fog and throat issues were all mental. I didn’t feel like that was it because it felt so real and physical but what did I know at 15. I was prescribed antidepressants and doctors recommended I see a therapist for anxiety issues. I spent the next couple of years trying multiple medications, seeing therapists, I made lifestyle changes but nothing helped. I thought I was going crazy. Therapists made me feel even worse as they further pushed the doctors belief that all my issues were mental. In those few years that passed, I had slowly started to feel worse. It wasn't a day to day difference but a few months would pass and the brain fog and cognitive issues were worse than they were just a few months earlier. Being a perfectly healthy teenager is hard enough, but to deal with bad chronic symptoms that no one can explain was mental hell, especially as a kid. I had zero quality of life.
By the time I graduated high school, the constant brain fog and tired feeling had progressed and were affecting me pretty bad. I felt stressed and anxious nonstop, both because of how much these issues were affecting my life and I physically felt anxious all the time too for what felt like no reason. Sometimes the anxiety was so bad I would literally start sweating. I had almost no social life during high school because these issues and coping with symptoms consumed every aspect of my life. I did just the minimum to get by. My mindset every day was just to get through the day best I could. Multiple doctors told me there was nothing physically wrong with me. I started to believe them about it being all mental. Why wouldn't I believe multiple doctors? I thought it was something I was doing wrong personally. At this point I wasn’t even talking to my family about it as much since supposedly there was nothing wrong and it was all in my head and whenever I did bring it up they gave me crap for it. Especially when doctor after doctor were saying nothing was wrong and because my symptoms were mostly feeling foggy and crappy all the time, I felt guilty even saying anything about it anymore. It felt like it was a personal failure for feeling the way I did. I had the impression that my issues were because of me and I just needed to change my mindset and lifestyle and I’d feel better. I needed to change my thinking, my behavior, take antidepressants, and do therapy. I did every single thing doctors and therapists and family told me to do but nothing helped. I questioned my sanity every day. I often screamed until I was in tears when I was by myself. It was hell.
I was in no shape to go to college, but I did. I ended up going because according to everyone there was nothing wrong with me and I was trying desperately to believe that. So I pushed myself to go, hoping I’d sort it out soon. I didn't. I spent the next 4 years slowly feeling worse, still seeing doctors but getting no real answers. I'd go months and months at a time without even seeing a doctor as I didn't know where to turn and had given up at times. I spent most my time laying down. I'd also go back to thinking maybe it's all in my head, but at the same time my symptoms felt so real and more severe than anything mental could cause. First year of college I saw a doctor about sleep apnea, something I at the time knew nothing about. He examined me and did scans and didn't see anything abnormal and told me sleep apnea most likely wasn't my problem. I also wasn't overweight, which is one of the main causes of sleep apnea. Still, I tried one of those cheap mouthpieces that’s supposed to help with sleep apnea but didn't see any benefit from it. So with all of this in mind, I figured it’s probably not sleep apnea so moved on and forgot about it. I was so desperate for answers, I was constantly trying all sorts of medications, drugs, supplements, and other weird things to try and help myself. I bought bizarre supplements and herbs from overseas, saw alternative medicine doctors. I felt like I was losing my goddamn mind. My mental health was awful. Felt like crap 24/7. I literally felt stupid because my brain wasn’t working and felt so mushy. Dealing with symptoms and figuring out what was wrong with me consumed my entire life. For school, I would occasionally go to class after taking a heavy dose of stimulant drugs, but even those only did so much. It got to the point that no amount of pills, energy drinks did anything either. I was obsessed with figuring out what was wrong with me to the point it consumed my entire life and further made me more mentally unwell.
I experienced nothing enjoyable in 4 years of college and had no life, really no friends, relationships, hobbies, nothing. So pretty much like high school but the symptoms were more severe. My days consisted of me sometimes going to class and then spending the rest of the day and night laying down cause I felt like shit 24/7. Literally the only experience I had in college was when I went on a study abroad trip but it was terrible because I felt so awful the whole time. I had also joined a fraternity in the beginning of college but did almost nothing with them because of my health. The mental fog and cognitive deficit had gotten so bad it felt like I was disconnected and living in a dream. Like I felt kind of drunk. I was so mentally and emotionally numb and exhausted I didn’t even feel human. Like I physically could not feel emotions and felt super spaced out. I was also still dealing with the throat issues. I’d get random dizziness, my vision got worse, I was more sensitive to light, had almost no sex drive. In four years, I also spent thousands and thousands of dollars on medical related stuff. Shuttles and ubers to and from appointments (I didn't have a car at the time and lived almost 2 hours from the major city), saw private care doctors, tried supplements, drugs, etc. I managed to graduate college (I could make a whole separate post about how I managed to do this) and finished feeling way worse than when I began. But I was at least glad college was over cause it sucked horribly.
I spent the next year post college doing the minimum to get by and just get through each day, feeling horrible nonstop. Still having no life because of my issues. Still being told by everyone that they didn't know what was wrong with me. I still didn’t know what was wrong with me either. About a year after college (2019), I had a sleep study done and it came back with sleep apnea. For the first time I actually had an answer. Sleep doctor prescribed a CPAP machine. I spent about a year messing with the machine and the face mask they gave me and got no benefit. I then switched to a different machine and tried other masks. Still not much improvement. It was also really difficult to keep it on and sleep through the night with it. I'd also wake up a bunch during the night, rip it off without knowing, etc. But I was desperately trying to make it work. During this time I couldn’t really hold down a job, other than some really basic, short term jobs. And even those felt brutal. I got fired from a couple jobs because I was so nonfunctional and it showed, despite me trying my best. I was a complete zombie because the tiredness was so overwhelming. It was as an amount of brain fog and exhaustion I didn’t know was humanly possible and would be completely unimaginable to most people. I was making myself sick every day with stimulants. I was taking stuff like Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse, modafinil. I was so tired none were really helping and even had a doctor at one point tell me that I should get genetic testing for depression or have my brain zapped with electric shocks. I didn't go that route. By this point, I'd had nearly every medical test someone could have done. CT scans of my brain, food allergy testing, testing for toxic mold in my body, every possible vitamin and mineral test, blood tests, etc.
After 2 years of messing with different CPAP machines and masks and settings and still struggling, my sleep doctor then recommended I see a maxillofacial doctor, which deals with the anatomy of the face, to see what the underlying breathing issue was being caused by. The doctor recommended I get a custom oral device made that shifts the lower jaw forward to help open the airway to prevent breathing issues while sleeping. The process of having it fitted and made took a couple months. I even took a “real” career type job during this same time because I had two different doctors telling me that this mouthpiece was likely to help me a lot. I felt like I couldn’t have gotten the mouthpiece fast enough. I ended up messing with the mouthpiece for months and had no benefit at all. Literally zero. The dentist who made the mouthpiece said that the mouthpiece wasn’t helping because I might just have “weak muscle tone” in my throat and that I should see someone called a myofunctional doctor to supposedly improve muscle tone in the throat and tongue. I looked into that and it seemed like total quack stuff so I didn’t do it and completely dropped that dentist that made my mouthpiece and suggested this. I then saw an ear nose and throat doctor and later did a sleep endoscopy with him where I was put to sleep and had my breathing monitored with a camera down my throat. The doctor said that my breathing issues were being caused by my throat and jaw and suggested that since the mouthpiece wasn’t helping, I could get surgery or have a device called Inspire surgically inserted into my chest and neck to artificially help breathing. I held off on that cause it sounded pretty extreme and thought there had to be something else. During this time I got fired from the job I should’ve never taken in the first place because I was so non-functional and called out all the time
I pretty much gave up for months. I was jobless, with no end in sight for my suffering. I eventually scheduled an appointment with another ear nose & throat doctor (the SAME kind of doctor I first saw when I was 13). I'd already seen multiple ear nose & throat doctors by this point but didn't know what else to do. Some breathing tests showed that hardly any air was getting through my nose when I breathed in. I had a really severe form of something called nasal valve collapse, which was causing both sides of my nose to almost completely cave in and block most air when breathing in, even when just breathing in a little bit. This issue is apparently worse during sleep as the body naturally tries to breathe through the nose during sleep so all night I was struggling to breathe and then mouth breathing which isn't good for sleep quality and was slowly feeling worse over time as I was never getting quality sleep. So the bad sleep every night just kept accumulating over the course of 10+ years. He also explained that my throat issues were a sign that my nose wasn’t functioning normally, which was causing airflow issues and a throat pressure feeling as a result. Nothing specific caused this issue to happen. Just the way my face and nose naturally developed over time. My doctor said this is not a common issue and when it does happen is typically the result of an injury or prior surgery as opposed to it just happening naturally. A little bit of collapse can be okay but mine was a severe case of it.
Last year (2022) just before turning 27, I had nasal reconstructive surgery and a septoplasty surgery. It took a long, long time to recover from the surgery. Also a long time to recover from the sleep deprivation and sleep apnea damage. Even after treatment my body was so jacked up it took a long time to start being able to sleep normally and deeply. I may still have to look into a revision surgery at some point as the collapse is still fairly bad when I'm not wearing the dilator but over time most of my issues have gone away since it was the crap sleep that was giving me most my symptoms. The slowly worsening constant brain fog, shit tired feeling and cognitive issues that started when I was a young teenager. The severe anxiety/depression/stress feelings I had since I was a kid. Horrible social anxiety gone. Sleep apnea and poor quality sleep stresses out the body and caused me to feel anxious and stressed out all the time. The severe derealization/depersonalization symptoms caused by sleep deprivation. The throat issues are totally gone. I can feel emotions again. I don't feel like killing myself out of misery anymore. It was that simple but untreated made my life constant fucking torture to no end. Feeling horrible nonstop, slowly getting worse over the course of more than a decade, not knowing why, being told there was nothing wrong with me AND that it was maybe all psychological was a mental hell I wouldn't wish on anyone. I don’t feel like my teenage years and most my 20s actually happened because I was in such bad health physically and mentally and in a complete fog of exhaustion 24/7. Like I felt like I was detached from reality living in a dream. Every day was about just getting through the day. I missed out on most "normal" things other people I knew were doing. Things like going out and doing things and having fun, dating, having close friends, hobbies, goals, missed income, thousands of dollars spent on medical bullshit. On and on.
I wish I had been able to see good doctors earlier, but that didn’t happen for some reason. It's also frustrating knowing that I wasn't able to figure this out myself. I think I was just so used to really bad breathing since I was young that I didn’t know it wasn't normal and didn't know any different and didn't ever think to look at myself breathing in a mirror. I wasn't aware of "nasal valve collapse". No doctor ever told me anything either and it never crossed my mind I could have some weird abnormal issue. It's frustrating knowing that all of this suffering was so preventable. These issues consumed and ruined every aspect of my life 24/7 for well over a decade. My life outside of this was complete nothing. I'm doing much better now, but thinking about how much time I lost is really sad. It’s like a massive chunk of my life was stolen from me. I feel like I wasn’t able to develop in a normal healthy way as a teenageyoung adult. Like emotionally/mentally I feel like I’m about 15. It feels like something is missing. I’m having a hard time believing I’m nearly 30 and a good chunk of my life feels like it didn’t even occur. Messed me up bad and I’m still dealing with the effects of it. I've learned there is NOTHING more important in life than proper breathing and sleep. Very basic natural things most people will fortunately never have to think about. Maybe my story can help someone out there or prevent someone’s kid from needlessly suffering like I did. And when you mess with someone's breathing and sleeping every day, it is suffering.
Here's a video I took of my nose last year to give an idea of what I'm talking about. This was the source of every single one of my problems:
https://imgur.com/a/oE2Fpfy
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TLDR: Started feeling a constant brain fog/crappy feeling all the time when I was 14/15. Constant throat problems. Felt stressed out/anxious nonstop. TONS of doctors couldn't figure it out. Slowly felt worse over the next 10+ years to the point I couldn't hold down a job. Affected every aspect of my life horribly. Missed out on life. Turns out I had severe nasal valve collapse when I breathed in that was causing breathing issues during sleep and resulted in sleep apnea which caused me to feel like shit all the time and slowly feel worse the longer it went untreated as the bad sleep just piled on. Feeling like shit consumed my entire life. My life outside of this was complete nothing. Had nasal reconstructive surgery last year. 100% better.

Yo hey, meine lieben Mitstreiter. Ich brauche anderen Stoff. Könnt ihr mir weiterhelfen?
Natürlich hab ich auch einen Neurologen, den ich fragen werde, den sehe ich aber erst in drei Wochen und bin eh noch frisch im game der Medikamententesterei und kann den Arzt auch nicht einschätzen, ob der engagiert ist und lirum larum
Hab 10 Wochen atomoxetin probiert, voll die wunderwaffe, Nebenwirkungen meist psychisch, bis die Stimmung kippte und ich eine kleine, tickende Hasszeitbombe wurde. Eigentlich hab ich auch wieder Lust auf atomoxetin, wenn ich zusätzlich ein Präparat hätte, das das wieder ausgliche. Also vielleicht ein antidepresso für Libido, Lebensfreude und sanftmut und Zen. Gibt's sowas?
Jetzt hab ich hier noch bupropion 150 mg, was mich fast umgebracht hat und das ich mich nicht traue, noch mal auszuprobieren.
Und Elvanse 30mg, was mir bei einmaligem Versuch mit der ganzen Kapsel einen feinen dulli Rausch verpasst hat. Kein masking, komplett extrovertiert mit Lebensfreude, Spiel und Spaß. Und beim zweiten Mal ~15mg wieder fast den Tod brachte mit ruhepuls von 105 und nicht schlafen können, weil mir das Herz aus der Brust fliegt. Sehr bedrohlich. Bei ~5 bis 10 mg merke ich nichts. Komisches Ü-Ei.
Medikinet und Ritalin hab ich privat ausprobiert, nasal und kleine Mengen und bin von den amphetamin medis nicht so überzeugt. Die geben mir zwar mehr energy, passion und footwork aber auch mehr Herzklabaster, Liebeskummer und unstrukturierte Offenheit.
Also was macht man da jetzt? Das ding ist, dass ich in 10 Tagen wieder im Rädchen bin und bis dahin im Urlaub lernen will, worauf ich leider grade gar keine Lust habe und super gerne schon irgendwie halbwegs wüsste, wo es langgeht, idealerweise bereits auf die neuen Medikamente eingestellt, was ich jetzt aber wohl vergessen kann. Vielleicht kann ich den Arzt auch schon früher sehen, aber wahrscheinlich muss ich es aussitzen.
Bestimmt bringt es nichts, dass ich mir Druck mache, nach dem Urlaub 'funktionieren' zu müssen.
Bin grade komplett durcheinander, vielleicht nehm ich einfach gar nichts und quäle mich weiter so durchs Leben, wenn man mit Stoff nur die Problematik verschiebt. Sadlife.
Wie lange geht eure Reise durchs Land der Verschreibungen schon und habt ihr ein gutes Vehikel gefunden? Wieviel habt ihr dafür rumexperimentiert? Machen eure Ärzte das mit und versuchen immer was neues mit euch, bis es halbwegs passt?
Gibt's hier wen, der ähnliche Erfahrungen gemacht hat und was wirkt für dich am besten?
Ich hab grad das Gefühl, dass es mir vor dem ausprobieren der ganzen Sachen viel besser ging, aber das kann auch daran liegen, dass grade in meinem Leben nichts rund läuft.

Hi, I (30M) have been dealing with this problem for around 3 months now. Whenever I go to sleep and start to drift off, I either get a jolt in my stomach, a random strong exhale, or one of my legs, arms or hand twitches. It wakes me up every single time. I know this is normal once or twice, however it happens EVERY SINGLE TIME I start falling asleep, every night. It wakes me up, I start falling asleep, it happens again, wakes me up again. I also hear voices and hallucinate during this time. I go through this vicious cycle keeping me up for HOURS every single night, I have about 30+ hypnic jerks every night. If I'm lucky I'll finally fall asleep around 9-10 am after lying in bed for 8 hours trying to sleep and get 1-3 hours of sleep. This gives me a lot of anxiety around sleeping + sleep deprivation which makes the jerks even worse.
I've been to multiple doctors (GPs) for this issue and they just tell me it's anxiety and are completely dismissive. They've done a few physical tests and a blood test, all values came back normal and they don't think it's neurological. One of them contacted a neurologist to see if I could be put on muscle relaxers. The neurologist replied back saying its "not concerning" and sent me a link to a website that describes what hypnic jerks are. Yes thank you for information I already knew very helpful!! If it was happening to them they'd be a lot more concerned. They said it's normal and I don't need meds but this is NOT NORMAL. Aside this I also have some burning and tingling feelings in my legs and arms along with muscle pain occasionally as if I had worked out and been sore but I hadn't.
I've gotten short term fixes prescribed and zoplicone is the only thing that works because it makes me skip the "falling asleep" stage and go straight into sleep which means I bypass the part that would give me hypnic jerks, once I'm already asleep I don't have them. But these are all short term and they won't give me it for longer than 1-2 weeks. I'm going to write down what I've tried, what's worked and what hasn't.
What's worked: 7.5 mg Zoplicone, 5 mg diazepam (to an extent, I only got a week's worth)
What hasn't: Alcohol, 40 mg propanolol, camomile tea, warm shower before bed, stretching before bed, no screens before bed, weighted blanket, tiring myself out during the day/working out, trying to sleep earlier (I'm a night owl), melatonin (various strengths), vitamin b6, vitamin b12, magnesium, antihistamine sleeping pills, valerian root, listening to music to fall asleep, l-theanine, making room warmer, leaving it cold.
In fact most of the things I've tried that didn't help me had the OPPOSITE effect and ended up keeping me awake in some half-asleep stupor. I occasionally take stimulants (10 mg Ritalin) for ADHD but this started before I started taking stimulants. I use corticostereoid and antihistamine nasal spray for allergies, no other meds. Please help me with how to deal with this or what it could be due to, I am at my wits end!!

This morning at around 3am (yes, I am on the dsp for my insomnia) I heard some loud noises from outside the front of my sharehouse. I stopped reading the Psychology and Gender Dysphoria book I am reviewing for a survey my uni activist collective and I are making about how J. K . Rowling's TERF ideology has created inter generational trauma from Harry Potter fans and PTSD for kids who never received their Hogwarts acceptance letter and put it down next to the almost empty bottle of Ritalin and went to the front window to see what it was.
I saw three teenage children with absolutely no defining features other than they were people attempting to get into my neighbours car parked in their driveway. Obviously, as soon as I realised that these people had absolutely no defining features and were completely unremarkable in any way and that there was no way I could use any adjectives to describe their appearance I closed the curtain and went back to my book and took another Ritalin for my ADHD.
Anyway, at about 7am as I was starting to wind down from watching Fleabag on TV (Such a relatable character) I heard another commotion outside. This time it was the police, my neighbour had called them after realising their car had been accessed and rummaged through! I could hear them talking about some teenagers they'd seen lurking around the local park at the end of our street using all sorts of adjectives and descriptors that should never be said! (unless you are talking about institutional disadvantage or government benefits) Luckily I still had the quick wittedness to realise what was about to happen and rushed outside in my wizarding world PJs to fill everyone in on what really happened. That a tradie in hivis pulled up in his RAM ute and proceeded to break into the neighbour's car. When the Nazi police officer asked me why I didn't call it in at 3am i explained that I had recently been assaulted by another tradie and that I was still processing that trauma and that they had no right to question me about it.
It's pretty scary to me to think that if it wasn't for my colourblindness, the neighbour may have potentially misidentified the actual victims of our society as potential criminals when actual real life criminals are out and about driving fossil fueled abominations and eating animals and wearing hivis the entire time! It honestly feels like I'm taking crazy pills sometimes (it's actually just Ritalin, PREP, Valium and Paroxetine).

Hey all,
So over the years I've been on a few different ADHD meds including ritalin and adderall (both IR and XR). Most recently I've been taking adderall 20 mg XR and I feel like I've had some of the less common side effects.
I feel crazy because I don't think I've heard someone talk about reduced sense of smell as a side effect on adderall but... has anyone else experienced this or is this just me??
I don't mean a loss of ability to smell, I mean more like a dulled sense of smell.
Before anyone asks, no I'm not nasally congested or sick lol I'm breathing perfectly fine.
Like I can still smell things, and I haven't LOST my sense of smell, but I have noticed I'm less sensitive and less aware of different smells everywhere I go. When I walk into a room or go outside and I'm on adderall, I don't notice what it smells like unless I really try to take a deep breath and smell it. For example, last weekend I was at a restaurant and my friend said it really smells like smoke in here, and I had no idea. I have to actively try to smell the air in the room before I notice if it smells odd.
I stopped taking adderall like 2 weeks ago this week I've noticed the biggest difference in how everything smells. I walk outside and immediately the first thing I now notice is how good everything smells. I haven't changed anything in my diet or medications recently except for adderall when I decided to take a break from it. Even when I'm walking around the house nowadays, I go from room to room and the smell from room difusers in the kitchen vs. living room smells way more potent now even though I haven't changed any of them in weeks.
It feels very similar to how emotional numbing is another side effect of adderall (which I have also experienced, it's like my emotions get switched off and I feel robotic when on adderall) but this is more like a numbed sense of smell... if that makes any sense...

Long post so TLDR at bottom.
​
I’m 27. When I was 13, I started having weird throat problems all the time. It felt like my throat had a lot of pressure in it, like a weird burning like feeling, and the only thing that helped was when I drank or ate something or swallowed. This would help then it would come back a bit later. I had weird issues swallowing saliva too. These were feelings I had never felt before. I saw an ear nose & throat doctor about this and was told my issue was acid reflux. I was prescribed reflux medication and told to sleep on an incline. I did those things for a while, but it didn’t help. Supposedly I was treating the issue and the doctor didn’t know why I wasn’t improving but told me to continue doing what I was doing to supposedly treat it. I saw some other doctors that weren’t sure either. I learned to just live like that but it was annoying and started to take over my life to the point that all day every day revolved around coping with my throat. I had bad anxiety because of it, used to avoid things, had to make sure I always had something to drink to help my throat, and felt really stressed about it all and how it was affecting me. I also physically felt stressed out and anxious all the time for what seemed like no reason. I knew something was wrong.
When I was 15, I started to feel like a brain fog on top of the throat issues. It was like my brain felt like mush all the time. Like the feeling when you sleep bad for a couple nights and your brain feels like crap, except I was sleeping plenty. I felt kind of spaced out, couldn’t concentrate as well, never wanted to do anything, and just felt kind of crappy all the time. Wasn’t severe but was definitely impacting my day to day life, in addition to the throat stuff and feeling anxious and stressed all the time. I went back to seeing doctors. Lots of doctors said there was nothing wrong with me and some even said that the brain fog (and even the throat issues) were all psychological. I didn’t feel like that was it because my symptoms felt so real and physical but what did I know. I was prescribed antidepressants and doctors recommended I see a therapist for anxiety issues. I spent the next couple of years trying multiple medications, my mom drove me to see therapists, I made other lifestyle changes but nothing helped. I thought I was going crazy. Psychologists made me feel even worse as they furthered the belief that all my issues were mental. In those few years that passed, I had slowly started to feel worse. It wasn't a day to day difference but a few months or so would pass and the brain fog and cognitive issues were worse than they were a few months earlier. By the time I graduated high school, the constant mental fog and tiredness were affecting me pretty bad. I felt stressed and anxious nonstop, both because of how much these issues were affecting my life and I physically felt anxious all the time too for what seemed like no reason. Sometimes the anxiety was so bad I would literally start sweating. I had almost no social life during high school because these health issues consumed my life and I did just the minimum to get by. Because lots of doctors were telling me there was nothing physically wrong with me, I started to believe them about it being all mental. I thought it was something I was doing wrong personally. At this point I wasn’t even talking to my family about it as much since supposedly there was nothing wrong and it was all in my head. Especially when doctor after doctor were saying nothing was wrong and because my symptoms were mostly feeling foggy all the time, I felt guilty even saying anything about it anymore. And they gave me a lot of shit for it when I did complain. Told me I just needed to change my mindset and think more positively and I'd feel better. Told me I needed to go out and do things with people. Called me lazy, gave me crap for laying down a lot and being low energy. It felt like it was a personal failure for feeling the way I did. I had the impression that my issues were because of me and I just needed to change my mindset and lifestyle and I’d feel better. I need to change my thinking, my behavior, take my antidepressants, and do therapy. I did every single thing doctors and therapists and family told me to do to a tee, but nothing helped. I questioned my sanity every day. By the end of high school I probably had at least 10 doctors tell me there was nothing physically wrong with me. It was hell living like this.
I was in no shape to go to college, but I did. I ended up going because according to everyone there was nothing wrong with me and I was trying desperately to believe it was all in my head like everyone was saying. So I pushed myself to go, hoping I’d sort it out soon. I didn't. I spent the next 4 years slowly feeling worse, still seeing doctors but getting no real answers. I'd go months and months at a time without even seeing a doctor as I didn't know where to turn and had given up at times. I'd also go back to thinking maybe it's all in my head, but at the same time my symptoms felt so real and more severe than anything mental could cause. First year of college I saw a doctor about sleep apnea, something I at the time knew nothing about. He examined me and did scans and didn't see anything abnormal and told me sleep apnea most likely wasn't my problem. Still, I tried one of those moldable mouthpieces that’s supposed to help with sleep apnea but didn't see any benefit from it. So with all of this in mind, I figured it’s probably not sleep apnea so moved on and forgot about it. I was so desperate, I was constantly trying all sorts of medications, drugs, supplements, and other weird things to try and help myself. I felt like I was losing my goddamn mind. My mental health was awful. Felt like crap 24/7. I literally felt stupid because my brain wasn’t working and felt so mushy. Dealing with symptoms and figuring out what was wrong with me consumed my entire life. For school, I would occasionally go to class after taking a big dose of stimulant drugs, but even those only did so much. It got to the point that no amount of caffeine pills, energy drinks did anything either. I experienced nothing enjoyable in 4 years of college and had basically no life, really no friends, hobbies, nothing. Really the only experience I had was when I went on a study abroad trip but it was terrible because I felt so awful the whole time. I had also joined a fraternity in the beginning of college but did almost nothing with them because of my health. The mental tiredness had gotten so bad it felt like I was disconnected and living in a dream. Like I felt kind of drunk. I was so mentally and emotionally numb and exhausted I didn’t even feel human. Like I physically could not feel emotions and felt super spaced out. I was also still dealing with the throat issues. I’d get random dizziness, my vision got worse like being more sensitive to light, almost no sex drive, my voice was sounding more monotone and dead. In four years, I also spent thousands and thousands of dollars on shuttles and ubers to and from appointments (I didn't have a car at the time and lived almost 2 hours from a major city), money spent seeing private care doctors, buying supplements, drugs, etc. I somehow managed to graduate college (I could make a whole separate post about how I managed this) and finished feeling way worse than when I began. I was so glad college was over because it sucked horribly.
I spent the next year post college doing the minimum to get by and just get through each day, feeling like horrible shit nonstop. Still having no life because of my issues. Still being told by everyone that they didn't know what was wrong with me. About a year after college (2019), I had a sleep study done and it came back with a moderate level of sleep apnea. 17 times an hour I was having breathing interruptions while sleeping. For the first time I actually had an answer. Sleep doctor prescribed a CPAP machine. I spent about a year messing with the machine and the face mask they gave me and got no benefit. I then switched to a different machine and a mask that only went into my nose and finally noticed some improvement when I was able to keep it on and sleep through the night with it. However, this didn't happen much as it was super uncomfortable sleeping with air blowing down your throat and a mask stuck to your face. I'd also wake up a bunch during the night, rip it off without knowing, etc. But I was desperately trying to make it work. When I was able to keep it on for most the night I felt a bit better but it was really difficult to do so consistently. During this time I couldn’t really hold down a job, other than some really basic, short term jobs. And even those felt brutal. I was a complete zombie because the tiredness was so overwhelming. It was as an amount of brain fog and exhaustion I didn’t know was humanly possible. I was making myself basically sick with stimulants. Throughout all of this I was taking stuff like Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse, modafinil. I was so tired none were really helping and even had a doctor at one point tell me that I should get genetic testing for depression or have my brain zapped with electric shocks. I didn't go that route. By this point, I'd had nearly every medical test someone could have done. CT scans of my brain, food allergy testing, testing for toxic mold in my body, every possible vitamin and mineral test, blood tests, etc.
After 2 years of messing with different CPAP machines and still struggling, my sleep doctor then recommended I see a maxillofacial doctor to see what the underlying breathing issue was being caused by. The doctor recommended I get a custom mouthpiece made that shifts the lower jaw forward to help open the airway to prevent breathing issues while sleeping. The process of having it fitted and made took a couple months. I even took a “real” career type job during this same time because I had two different doctors telling me that this mouthpiece was likely to help me a lot. I felt like I couldn’t have gotten the mouthpiece fast enough. I ended up messing with the mouthpiece for months and had no benefit at all. Literally zero. The dentist who made the mouthpiece said that the mouthpiece wasn’t helping because I might just have “weak muscle tone” in my throat and that I should see someone called a myofunctional doctor to supposedly improve muscle tone in the throat and tongue. I looked into that and it seemed like total quack stuff so I didn’t do it and completely dropped that dentist that made my mouthpiece and suggested this. I then saw an ear nose and throat doctor and later did a sleep endoscopy with him where I was put to sleep and had my breathing monitored with a camera down my throat. The doctor said that my breathing issues were being caused by my throat and jaw and suggested that since the mouthpiece wasn’t helping, I could get surgery or have a device called Inspire surgically inserted into my chest and neck to artificially help breathing. I held off on that cause it sounded pretty extreme and thought there had to be something else. During this time I got fired from the job I should’ve never taken in the first place because I was so non-functional and it clearly showed.
I pretty much gave up for months. I eventually scheduled an appointment with another ear nose & throat doctor (the SAME kind of doctor I first saw when I was 13). I'd already seen multiple ear nose & throat doctors by this point but didn't know what else to do. Some breathing tests showed that hardly any air was getting through my nose when I breathed in. I had a really severe form of something called nasal valve collapse, which was causing both sides of my nose to almost completely cave in and block most air when breathing in, even when just breathing in a little bit. This issue is apparently worse during sleep as the body naturally tries to breathe through the nose during sleep so all night I was struggling to breathe and then mouth breathing which isn't good for sleep quality and was slowly feeling worse over time as I was never getting quality sleep. So the bad sleep every night just kept accumulating over the course of 10+ years. He also explained that my throat issues were a sign that my nose wasn’t functioning normally, which was causing airflow issues and a throat pressure feeling as a result. Nothing specific caused this issue to happen. Just the way my face and nose naturally developed over time. Doctor said this is not a common issue and when it does happen is typically the result of an injury or prior surgery as opposed to it just happening naturally. A little bit of collapse can be normal but mine was a severe case of it. Prior to having surgery the doctor had me wear a plastic dilator piece in my nose at night to prop it open which helped incredibly. Everything finally made sense for the first time ever.
Last year (2022) just before turning 27, I had nasal reconstructive surgery and a septoplasty surgery. It took a long, long time to recover from the surgery, the horrible accumulated sleep debt and sleep apnea damage but I feel I mostly have now. I may still have to look into a revision surgery at some point as the collapse is still fairly bad when I'm not wearing the dilator but over time most of my issues have gone away since it was the crap sleep that was giving me most my symptoms. The slowly worsening constant tiredness, brain fog and cognitive issues that started when I was a young teenager. The severe anxiety/depression/stress feelings I had since I was a kid. I now know that sleep apnea and poor quality sleep stresses out the body and caused me to feel anxious and stressed out all the time. The throat issues totally gone. My personality is no longer a dead zombie. I can feel emotions again. I don't feel like killing myself out of misery anymore. It was that simple but untreated made my life constant fucking torture to no end. Feeling horrible nonstop, slowly getting worse over the course of more than a decade, not knowing why, being told there was nothing wrong with me AND that it was maybe all psychological was a mental hell I wouldn't wish on anyone. I don’t feel like my teenage years and a good part of my 20s actually happened because I was in such poor health physically and mentally and in a complete fog of exhaustion 24/7. I was robbed of a life during this time. Every day was about just getting through the day. I missed out on most "normal" things other people I knew were doing. Basic things like going out and doing things and having fun, dating, having close friends, having hobbies, goals, missed income, thousands of dollars spent on medical bullshit. I wish I had been able to see good doctors earlier, but that didn’t happen for some reason. It's also frustrating knowing that I wasn't able to figure this out myself. I think I was just so used to really bad breathing since I was young that I didn’t know it wasn't normal and didn't know any different and didn't ever think to look at myself breathing in a mirror. Wasn't aware of nasal valve collapse. No doctor ever told me anything either and it never crossed my mind I could have some weird abnormal issue. It's frustrating knowing that none of this should have even happened and that it was all so preventable. God damn every doctor that told me to my face that there was nothing wrong with me or that the horrible constant physical and mental symptoms I was having was all in my head. It's disgusting. These issues consumed and ruined every aspect of my life 24/7 for well over a decade. My life outside of this was complete nothing. I'm doing much better now, but thinking about how much time I lost is really sad. Through all this I've learned there is NOTHING more important in life than proper breathing and sleep. Such basic things most people will fortunately never have to think about. Maybe my story can help someone out there.
Here's a video i took last year to give you an idea of what I'm talking about:
https://imgur.com/a/oE2Fpfy
TLDR: Started feeling a constant brain fog/crappy feeling all the time when I was 14/15. Constant throat problems. Felt stressed out/anxious nonstop. TONS of doctors couldn't figure it out. Slowly felt worse over the next 10+ years to the point I couldn't hold down a job. Affected every aspect of my life horribly. Missed out on life. Turns out I had severe nasal valve collapse when I breathed in that was causing breathing issues during sleep and resulted in sleep apnea which caused me to feel like shit all the time and slowly feel worse the longer it went untreated as the bad sleep just piled on. Feeling like shit consumed my entire life. My life outside of this was complete nothing. Had nasal reconstructive surgery last year. 100% better.

40M, 6'2", 200 lbs, white. No smoking or rec drugs (anymore, smoked a pack a day for 10 years, marijuana recreationally in my early 20s), minimal drinking, 2 drinks / week maybe and I've cut down a lot since then. On ritalin 10 mg / 2x day for the last 2 months to treat adhd (and it has been working really well). Valacyclovir 1x daily to prevent hsv outbreaks.
Unfortunately, I've been out of a job and as I'm in America, out of medical insurance. I've ignored this for as long as I can and thought I'd have another job by now, but thanks to massive tech layoffs, both the issue and the lack of healthcare have persisted. I'm worried it's something serious, in which case, I won't be able to afford it anyhow. I recently found out my wife is pregnant with our first, and this changes things a bit... so I'm looking for answers outside of conventional means that won't cost an arm and a leg.
Symptoms:
I got really sick in April: fever, cough, congestion, I lost my sense of taste and smell. I took multiple covid tests that were never positive, but I was out for a week with a fever / covid like symptoms. My sense of smell came back after a few weeks. I've had a persistent sore throat since then though. I have slight problems with swallowing, or rather, things get caught in my throat, particularly something like chocolate which I can still hock up hours later.
I went to an ENT, they overcharged me and gave me antibiotics and steroids. I know I should have taken them, but I haven't. Considering taking them this week finally. Again, if that doesn't solve it, it's going to cost more than I can afford, hence the hesitation and fear.
Googling points towards something serious like cancer and I was a smoker for years so I'm scared it may be that. As awful as it is, I feel if that's the case, I'm better off just letting it run its course as I have life insurance that would pay out much better for my wife and future child. Is there anything that it could be that isn't cancer? Could this be a long covid symptom or maybe even just damage from whatever the infection was in April?
I should mention (I did not with the doctor) that I had a bad fever about 6 months before that for 10 days. I was given a sulfa antibiotic for a skin cyst and I think it was a bad reaction to that. I was also dealing with insomnia for about a year but the adhd diagnosis and ritalin have been helping with that. In the last 4 years, I've put on about 20 lbs. I did a take home test for sleep apnea and it came back with very minor diagnosis (like right on the cusp, I thought it would be serious) and I have not proceeded with a CPAP.
The ENT specialist had these notes from my visit in May '23:
​

He complains of a 6-week history of nasal congestion and sensation of nasal obstruction, productive coughing of discolored rhinorrhea. Occasional swallowing problems, particularly for solids. He has used Flonase nasal spray and Mucinex with minimal relief. He had allergy testing about 5 years ago, here in Austin, positive for several environmental allergens. He was on allergy drops for a couple years with improvement of his nasal symptoms. He quit smoking in 2013. He is not on any prescribed medication. No history of nasal/sinus surgery.
On physical exam, general appearance is well. Voice is normal. External appearance of ears and nose is unremarkable. Patient is alert and oriented ×3. Breathing is without effort. Pulses are strong and symmetric. There is no focal neurological deficit, including no facial droop, hearing is grossly normal. Head is atraumatic. On otoscopy, tympanic membranes are intact, middle ears are aerated. Anterior septum is midline, inferior turbinates are hypertrophic, nasal mucosa is moist, there are scant cloudy secretions. Palpation of the face/sinuses was unremarkable. There is normal oral aperture, no lesions of the mucosa of the oral cavity or oropharynx, uvula is in the midline, tonsils are 1+, Friedman position of the tongue type I. Mirror laryngoscopy and posterior rhinoscopy was difficult due to gag reflex. There are no masses on palpation of the parotid glands. Neck has normal range of motion. Palpation of the lateral neck is negative for masses or areas of induration. Thyroid gland is normal on palpation.

Thanks for any assistance you can give. Happy to answer any questions.

Long post so TLDR at bottom.
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I’m 27. When I was 13, I started having weird throat problems all the time. It felt like my throat had a lot of pressure in it, like a weird burning like feeling, and the only thing that helped was when I drank or ate something or swallowed. This would help then it would come back a bit later. I had weird issues swallowing saliva too. These were feelings I had never felt before. I saw an ear nose & throat doctor about this and was told my issue was acid reflux. I was prescribed reflux medication and told to sleep on an incline. I did those things for a while, but it didn’t help. Supposedly I was treating the issue and the doctor didn’t know why I wasn’t improving but told me to continue doing what I was doing to supposedly treat it. I saw some other doctors that weren’t sure either. I learned to just live like that but it was annoying and started to take over my life to the point that all day every day revolved around coping with my throat. I had bad anxiety because of it, used to avoid things, had to make sure I always had something to drink to help my throat, and felt really stressed about it all and how it was affecting me. I also physically felt stressed out and anxious all the time for what seemed like no reason. I knew something was wrong with me but no one could tell me why.
When I was 15, I started to feel like a brain fog on top of the throat issues. It was like my brain felt like mush all the time. Like the feeling when you sleep bad for a couple nights and your brain feels like crap, except I was sleeping plenty. I felt kind of spaced out, couldn’t concentrate as well, never wanted to do anything, and just felt kind of crappy all the time. Wasn’t severe but was definitely impacting my day to day life, in addition to the throat stuff and feeling anxious and stressed all the time. I went back to seeing doctors. Lots of doctors said there was nothing wrong with me and some even said that the brain fog (and even the throat issues) were all psychological. I didn’t feel like that was it because my symptoms felt so real and physical but what did I know. I was prescribed antidepressants and doctors recommended I see a therapist for anxiety issues. I spent the next couple of years trying multiple medications, my mom drove me to see therapists, I made other lifestyle changes but nothing helped. I thought I was going crazy. Psychologists made me feel even worse as they furthered the belief that all my issues were mental. In those few years that passed, I had slowly started to feel worse. It wasn't a day to day difference but a few months or so would pass and the brain fog and cognitive issues were worse than they were a few months earlier. By the time I graduated high school, the constant mental fog and tiredness were affecting me pretty bad. I felt stressed and anxious nonstop, both because of how much these issues were affecting my life and I physically felt anxious all the time too for what seemed like no reason. Sometimes the anxiety was so bad I would literally start sweating. I had almost no social life during high school because these health issues consumed my life and I did just the minimum to get by. Because lots of doctors were telling me there was nothing physically wrong with me, I started to believe them about it being all mental. I thought it was something I was doing wrong personally. At this point I wasn’t even talking to my family about it as much since supposedly there was nothing wrong and it was all in my head. Especially when doctor after doctor were saying nothing was wrong and because my symptoms were mostly feeling foggy all the time, I felt guilty even saying anything about it anymore. And they gave me a lot of shit for it when I did complain. Told me I just needed to change my mindset and think more positively and I'd feel better. Told me I needed to go out and do things with people. Called me lazy, gave me crap for laying down a lot and being low energy. It felt like it was a personal failure for feeling the way I did. I had the impression that my issues were because of me and I just needed to change my mindset and lifestyle and I’d feel better. I need to change my thinking, my behavior, take my antidepressants, and do therapy. I did EVERY SINGLE thing doctors and therapists and family told me to do, but nothing helped. They made me question my sanity every day. By the end of high school I probably had at least 10 doctors tell me there was nothing physically wrong with me. It was hell living like this.
I was in no shape to go to college, but I did. I ended up going because according to everyone there was nothing wrong with me and I was trying desperately to believe it was all in my head like everyone was saying. So I pushed myself to go, hoping I’d sort it out soon. I didn't. I spent the next 4 years slowly feeling worse, still seeing doctors but getting no real answers. I'd go months and months at a time without even seeing a doctor as I didn't know where to turn and had given up at times. I'd also go back to thinking maybe it's all in my head, but at the same time my symptoms felt so real and more severe than anything mental could cause. First year of college I saw a doctor about sleep apnea, something I at the time knew nothing about. He examined me and did scans and didn't see anything abnormal and told me sleep apnea most likely wasn't my problem. Still, I tried one of those moldable mouthpieces that’s supposed to help with sleep apnea but didn't see any benefit from it. So with all of this in mind, I figured it’s probably not sleep apnea so moved on and forgot about it. I was so desperate, I was constantly trying all sorts of medications, drugs, supplements, and other weird things to try and help myself. I felt like I was losing my goddamn mind. My mental health was awful. Felt like crap 24/7. I literally felt stupid because my brain wasn’t working and felt so mushy. Dealing with symptoms and figuring out what was wrong with me consumed my entire life. For school, I would occasionally go to class after taking a big dose of stimulant drugs, but even those only did so much. It got to the point that no amount of caffeine pills, energy drinks did anything either. I experienced nothing enjoyable in 4 years of college and had basically no life, really no friends, hobbies, nothing. Really the only experience I had was when I went on a study abroad trip but it was terrible because I felt so awful the whole time. I had also joined a fraternity in the beginning of college but did almost nothing with them because of my health. The mental tiredness had gotten so bad it felt like I was disconnected and living in a dream. Like I felt kind of drunk. I was so mentally and emotionally numb and exhausted I didn’t even feel human. Like I physically could not feel emotions and felt super spaced out. I was also still dealing with the throat issues. I’d get random dizziness, my vision got worse like being more sensitive to light, almost no sex drive, my voice was sounding more monotone and dead. In four years, I also spent thousands and thousands of dollars on shuttles and ubers to and from appointments (I didn't have a car at the time and lived almost 2 hours from a major city), money spent seeing private care doctors, buying supplements, drugs, etc. I somehow managed to graduate college (I could make a whole separate post about how I managed this) and finished feeling way worse than when I began. I was so glad college was over. I didn't want to be alive.
I spent the next year post college doing the minimum to get by and just get through each day, feeling like horrible shit nonstop. Still being told by everyone that they didn't know what was wrong with me. About a year after college (2019), I had a sleep study done and it came back with a moderate level of sleep apnea. 17 times an hour I was having breathing interruptions while sleeping. For the first time I actually had an answer. Sleep doctor prescribed a CPAP machine. I spent about a year messing with the machine and the face mask they gave me and got no benefit. I then switched to a different machine and a mask that only went into my nose and finally noticed some improvement when I was able to keep it on and sleep through the night with it. However, this didn't happen much as it was super uncomfortable sleeping with air blowing down your throat and a mask stuck to your face. I'd also wake up a bunch during the night, rip it off without knowing, etc. But I was desperately trying to make it work. When I was able to keep it on for most the night I felt a bit better but it was really difficult to do so consistently. During this time I couldn’t really hold down a job, other than some really basic, short term jobs. And even those felt brutal. I was a complete zombie because the tiredness was so overwhelming. It was as an amount of brain fog and exhaustion I didn’t know was humanly possible. I was making myself basically sick with stimulants. Throughout all of this I was taking stuff like Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse, modafinil. I was so tired none were really helping and even had a doctor at one point tell me that I should get genetic testing for depression or have my brain zapped with electric shocks. I didn't go that route. By this point, I'd had nearly every medical test someone could have done. CT scans of my brain, food allergy testing, testing for toxic mold in my body, every possible vitamin and mineral test, blood tests, etc.
After 2 years of messing with different CPAP machines and still struggling, my sleep doctor then recommended I see a maxillofacial doctor to see what the underlying breathing issue was being caused by. The doctor recommended I get a custom mouthpiece made that shifts the lower jaw forward to help open the airway to prevent breathing issues while sleeping. The process of having it fitted and made took a couple months. I even took a “real” career type job during this same time because I had two different doctors telling me that this mouthpiece was likely to help me a lot. I felt like I couldn’t have gotten the mouthpiece fast enough. I ended up messing with the mouthpiece for months and had no benefit at all. Literally zero. The dentist who made the mouthpiece said that the mouthpiece wasn’t helping because I might just have “weak muscle tone” in my throat and that I should see someone called a myofunctional doctor to supposedly improve muscle tone in the throat and tongue. I looked into that and it seemed like total quack stuff so I didn’t do it and completely dropped that dentist that made my mouthpiece and suggested this. I then saw an ear nose and throat doctor and later did a sleep endoscopy with him where I was put to sleep and had my breathing monitored with a camera down my throat. The doctor said that my breathing issues were being caused by my throat and jaw and suggested that since the mouthpiece wasn’t helping, I could get surgery or have a device called Inspire surgically inserted into my chest and neck to artificially help breathing. I held off on that cause it sounded pretty extreme and thought there had to be something else. During this time I got fired from the job I should’ve never taken in the first place because I was so non-functional and it showed.
I pretty much gave up for months. I eventually scheduled an appointment with another ear nose & throat doctor (the SAME kind of doctor I first saw when I was 13). I'd already seen multiple ear nose & throat doctors by this point but didn't know what else to do. Some breathing tests showed that hardly any air was getting through my nose when I breathed in. I had a really severe form of something called nasal valve collapse, which was causing both sides of my nose to almost completely cave in and block most air when breathing in, even when just breathing in a little bit. This issue is apparently worse during sleep as the body naturally tries to breathe through the nose during sleep so all night I was struggling to breathe and then mouth breathing which isn't good for sleep quality and was slowly feeling worse over time as I was never getting quality sleep. So the bad sleep every night just kept accumulating over the course of 10+ years. He also explained that my throat issues were a sign that my nose wasn’t functioning normally, which was causing airflow issues and a throat pressure feeling as a result. Nothing specific caused this issue to happen. Just the way my face and nose naturally developed over time. Doctor said this is not a common issue and when it does happen is typically the result of an injury or prior surgery as opposed to it just happening naturally. A little bit of collapse can be normal and fine but mine was a severe instance of it. Prior to having surgery the doctor had me wear a plastic dilator piece in my nose at night to prop it open which helped incredibly. Everything finally made sense for the first time ever.
Last year (2022) just before turning 27, I had nasal reconstructive surgery and a septoplasty surgery. It took a long, long time to recover from the surgery, the horrible accumulated sleep debt and sleep apnea damage but I feel I mostly have now. I may still have to look into a revision surgery at some point as the collapse is still fairly bad when I'm not wearing the dilator but over time most of my issues have gone away since it was the crap sleep that was giving me most my symptoms. The slowly worsening constant tiredness, brain fog and cognitive issues that started when I was a young teenager. The severe anxiety/depression/stress feelings I had since I was a kid. I now know that sleep apnea and poor quality sleep stresses out the body and caused me to feel anxious and stressed out all the time. The throat issues totally gone. My personality is no longer a dead zombie. I can feel emotions again. I don't feel like killing myself out of misery anymore. It was that simple but untreated made my life constant fucking torture to no end. Feeling horrible nonstop, slowly getting worse over the course of more than a decade, not knowing why, being told there was nothing wrong with me AND that it was maybe all psychological was a mental hell I wouldn't wish on anyone. I don’t feel like my teenage years and a good part of my 20s actually happened because I was in such poor health physically and mentally and in a complete fog of exhaustion 24/7. I was robbed of a life during this time. Every day was about just getting through the day. I missed out on most "normal" things other people I knew were doing. Basic things like going out and doing things and having fun, dating, having close friends, having hobbies, goals, missed income, thousands of dollars spent on medical bullshit. I wish I had been able to see good doctors earlier, but that didn’t happen for some reason. It's also frustrating knowing that I wasn't able to figure this out myself. I think I was just so used to really bad breathing since I was young that I didn’t know it wasn't normal and didn't know any different and didn't ever think to look at myself breathing in a mirror. Wasn't aware of nasal valve collapse. No doctor ever told me anything either and it never crossed my mind I could have some weird abnormal issue. It's frustrating knowing that none of this should have even happened and that it was all so preventable. God damn every doctor that told me to my face that there was nothing wrong with me or that the horrible constant physical and mental symptoms I was having was all in my head. It's disgusting. These issues consumed and ruined every aspect of my life 24/7 for well over a decade. My life outside of this was complete nothing. I'm doing much better now, but thinking about how much time I lost is really sad. Through all this I've learned there is NOTHING more important in life than proper breathing and sleep. Such basic things most people will fortunately never have to think about. Maybe my story can help someone out there.
Me taking a slightly deeper breath than normal through my nose before surgery last year:
Side: https://imgur.com/a/8DAtfDx
Side: https://imgur.com/a/v09hFXo
Bottom: https://imgur.com/aQWsJeX
Top: https://imgur.com/a/EOaBONL
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TLDR: Started feeling a constant brain fog/crappy feeling all the time when I was 14/15. Constant throat problems. Felt stressed out/anxious nonstop. TONS of doctors couldn't figure it out. Slowly felt worse over the next 10+ years to the point I couldn't hold down a job. Affected every aspect of my life horribly. Missed out on life. Turns out I had severe nasal valve collapse when I breathed in that was causing breathing issues during sleep and resulted in sleep apnea which caused me to feel like shit all the time and slowly feel worse the longer it went untreated as the bad sleep just piled on. Feeling like shit consumed my entire life. My life outside of this was complete nothing. Had nasal reconstructive surgery last year. 100% better.

Hi all,
Not sure where else to post this so please let me know if there’s a better subreddit.
I am from a southern city known for having some of the worst allergens in the country. I would get post-nasal drip/sinus infections all the time. I finally went to an ENT who told me to take an antihistamine every day. (I think circa 2019)
Fast forward to this past December. I live in a different state for school but came home for the holidays. I was having a bad sore throat, but no Covid or strep. I saw an NP who said that because I’m also on an SSRI and Ritalin that I’m drying myself out too much, and she told me to stop the AH. I did, and the sore throat went away.
I went back to school and was really struggling to get work done. I was also really anxious, almost like I wasn’t on an SSRI anymore. I also lost my appetite. I thought this was from burn out and appendicitis the previous September. I thought I had developed ARFID as a result of the illness/surgery.
Finally my psych NP convinced me to take hydroxine, an antihistamine. Low and behold, my appetite came back, my anxiety went back down. No doctors seem concerned about this.
Of course some think that it’s the Ritalin— removing my appetite/making me anxious but the AH helps remedy those things. I think it’s possible, but I take the Ritalin in 4-hour increments so I still eat all three meals. Also, the Ritalin has actually helped with some anxiety as I feel I’m able to get difficult tasks done.
I just find it unsettling that doctors don’t know why this has happened or know if it’s actually ok to continue taking. I’m in my last year of grad school, so I’m hoping to reevaluate my meds when I’m done. My friend who’s in med school said that AHs are actually prescribed for anorexia, something again not mentioned by my doctors.
Any anecdotal/researched advice would be helpful.

Hello everyone,
I recently switched from Ritalin 30mg to Concerta 36mg due to Ritalin's side effects becoming problematic. However, Concerta has presented unpredictable side effects too:

• On days 26-28: Similar to Ritalin.
• On the 29th: I experienced sleeplessness and heightened heart sensations.
• On the 30th: My tongue and throat felt numb, and I had hot flashes.

At this moment, I realized my nasal spray contained cortisone, which affects blood pressure too. So I stopped it.

• On October 1st: Strange feelings and a slightly numb arm (better than usual).
• October 2nd and 3rd: Severe dizziness, nausea, fatigue, and decreased effectiveness in the meds. But scary side effects are gone (no more numb arm)

I wonder if :

• These side effects are common ?
• They will improve ?
• I might need a higher dose ?
• And if I do, will side effects be worse ?

It's also hard to distinguish side effects from other factors, to be honest. Chest pain could be related to my nose fluid affecting my membrane near my lungs for example.
I'm NOT looking for medical advice, just feedbacks and experiences from others. This reddit post will not be a substitute to adress those things with my professionnal.
Thank you in advance.
EDIT : Yesterday : 0 side effects at all. Took concerta 30 min after eating my breakfast

[Male 43 / 183cm / 88kg / caucasian / Depression / No medication (took epival/paxil/zyprexa (obv. not all together) and ended up on carbolith about 20 years+ ago for 1-2 years) / No drinking, used to smoke weed daily over 15 years ago, no regular cigarette use / Canadian in Japan]
My sense of smell got highly reduced (I'd say around 30% of what it was) somehere in the last 25 years.
I went to see a doctor who said my allergic rhinitis, despite no longer having symptoms (throat itching) was likely causing the issue. He did a nasal endoscopy and found no polyps or abnormalities (just said it was a bit "juicy" in there).
He then suggested I'd do a CT Scan but I felt I'd just get a massive dose of radiation to be told they couldn't see what's wrong and opted out.
Now there is a weird part where, if I try to remember when this all started (basically happened very slowly over time so hard to pinpoint), I remember an episode where for several months, everything smelled like molasses cookies (best I can describe that smell) everywhere I went, anything I smelled had this smell attached to it.
The other weird part is that sometimes my sense of smell comes back 100%, once was after taking Ritalin or Aderal (recreatively, never was a continuous thing), another was after using corticosteroids / some other nasal spray prescribed by a doctor for this issue, which worked once or twice but then never again.
A few times, it came back when it was raining outside and I could smell again, every time I get the smell back, it never lasts.
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I apologize if the post is a little convoluted, I am trying to include all relevant details. Do anyone out there has any idea what happened? Especially the molasses cookie smell part...
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Thanks!

I’m 27. When I was 13, I started having weird throat problems all the time. It felt like my throat had a lot of pressure in it, like a weird burning feeling, and the only thing that helped was when I drank or ate something or swallowed. This would help then it would come back a bit later. I had weird issues swallowing saliva too. I saw an ear nose & throat doctor about this and was told my issue was acid reflux. I was prescribed reflux medication and told to sleep on an incline. I did those things, but it didn’t help. Supposedly I was treating the issue and the doctor didn’t know why I wasn’t improving but told me to continue doing what I was doing to supposedly treat it. I saw some other doctors that weren’t sure either. I learned to just live with it but it was annoying and started to take over my life to the point that all day every day revolved around coping with my throat. I had bad anxiety because of it, used to avoid things, had to make sure I always had something to drink to help my throat, and felt really stressed about it all and how it was affecting me. I also physically felt stressed out and anxious all the time for what seemed like no reason.
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When I was 15, I started to feel a brain fog on top of the throat and anxiety issues. It was like my brain felt like mush all the time. Like the feeling when you sleep bad for a couple nights and your brain feels like crap, except I was sleeping plenty. I felt kind of spaced out, couldn’t concentrate as well, never wanted to do anything, and just felt kind of crappy all the time. Wasn’t severe yet but was definitely impacting my day to day life, in addition to the throat stuff and feeling anxious and stressed all the time. I went back to seeing doctors. Multiple doctors said there was nothing wrong with me and some even said that the brain fog and throat issues were all mental. I didn’t feel like that was it because it felt so real and physical but what did I know. I was prescribed antidepressants and doctors recommended I see a therapist for anxiety issues. I spent the next couple of years trying multiple medications, seeing therapists, making lifestyle changes but nothing helped. I thought I was going crazy. Therapists made me feel even worse as they further pushed the doctors belief that all my issues were mental. In those few years that passed, I had slowly started to feel worse. It wasn't a day to day difference but a few months would pass and the brain fog and cognitive issues were worse than they were just a few months earlier. Being a perfectly healthy teenager is hard enough, but to deal with this shit on top of that was horrible. I had zero quality of life.
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By the time I graduated high school, the constant mental fog and tiredness were affecting me pretty bad. I felt stressed and anxious nonstop, both because of how much these issues were affecting my life and I physically felt anxious all the time too for what felt like no reason. Sometimes the anxiety was so bad I would literally start sweating. I had almost no social life during high school because these health issues consumed my life and I did just the minimum to get by. Because lots of doctors were telling me there was nothing physically wrong with me, I started to believe them about it being all mental. I thought it was something I was doing wrong personally. At this point I wasn’t even talking to my family about it as much since supposedly there was nothing wrong and it was all in my head. Especially when doctor after doctor were saying nothing was wrong and because my symptoms were mostly feeling foggy all the time, I felt guilty even saying anything about it anymore. It felt like it was a personal failure for feeling the way I did. I had the impression that my issues were because of me and I just needed to change my mindset and lifestyle and I’d feel better. I needed to change my thinking, my behavior, take antidepressants, and do therapy. I did every single thing doctors and therapists and family told me to do but nothing helped. I questioned my sanity every day. By the end of high school I probably had at least 10 doctors tell me there was nothing physically wrong with me. It was hell living like this 24/7.
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I was in no shape to go to college, but I did. I ended up going because according to everyone there was nothing wrong with me and I was trying desperately to believe that. So I pushed myself to go, hoping I’d sort it out soon. I didn't. I spent the next 4 years slowly feeling worse, still seeing doctors but getting no real answers. I'd go months and months at a time without even seeing a doctor as I didn't know where to turn and had given up at times. I'd also go back to thinking maybe it's all in my head, but at the same time my symptoms felt so real and more severe than anything mental could cause. First year of college I saw a doctor about sleep apnea, something I at the time knew nothing about. He examined me and did scans and didn't see anything abnormal and told me sleep apnea most likely wasn't my problem. Still, I tried one of those moldable mouthpieces that’s supposed to help with sleep apnea but didn't see any benefit from it. So with all of this in mind, I figured it’s probably not sleep apnea so moved on and forgot about it. I was so desperate, I was constantly trying all sorts of medications, drugs, supplements, and other weird things to try and help myself. I felt like I was losing my goddamn mind. My mental health was awful. Felt like crap 24/7. I literally felt stupid because my brain wasn’t working and felt so mushy. Dealing with symptoms and figuring out what was wrong with me consumed my entire life. For school, I would occasionally go to class after taking a big dose of stimulant drugs, but even those only did so much. It got to the point that no amount of caffeine pills, energy drinks did anything either.
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I experienced nothing enjoyable in 4 years of college and had basically no life, really no friends, hobbies, nothing. My days consisted of me sometimes going to class and then spending the rest of the day and night laying down cause I felt like such shit 24/7. Literally the only experience I had in college was when I went on a study abroad trip but it was terrible because I felt so awful the whole time. I had also joined a fraternity in the beginning of college but did almost nothing with them because of my health. The mental fog and cognitive deficit had gotten so bad it felt like I was disconnected and living in a dream. Like I felt kind of drunk. I was so mentally and emotionally numb and exhausted I didn’t even feel human. Like I physically could not feel emotions and felt super spaced out. I was also still dealing with the throat issues. I’d get random dizziness, my vision got worse, I was more sensitive to light, had almost no sex drive. In four years, I also spent thousands and thousands of dollars on medical related stuff. Shuttles and ubers to and from appointments (I didn't have a car at the time and lived almost 2 hours from a major city), private care doctors, supplements, drugs, etc. I managed to graduate college (I could make a whole separate post about how I managed this) and finished feeling way worse than when I began. But I was at least glad college was over cause it sucked horribly.
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I spent the next year post college doing the minimum to get by and just get through each day, feeling like horrible shit nonstop. Still having no life because of my issues. Still being told by everyone that they didn't know what was wrong with me. About a year after college (2019), I had a sleep study done and it came back with a moderate level of sleep apnea. 17 times an hour I was having breathing interruptions while sleeping. For the first time I actually had an answer. Sleep doctor prescribed a CPAP machine. I spent about a year messing with the machine and the face mask they gave me and got no benefit. I then switched to a different machine and a mask that only went into my nose and finally noticed some improvement when I was able to keep it on and sleep through the night with it. However, this didn't happen much as it was super uncomfortable sleeping with air blowing down your throat and a mask stuck to your face. I'd also wake up a bunch during the night, rip it off without knowing, etc. But I was desperately trying to make it work. When I was able to keep it on for most the night I felt a bit better but it was really difficult to do so consistently. During this time I couldn’t really hold down a job, other than some really basic, short term jobs. And even those felt brutal. I was a complete zombie because the tiredness was so overwhelming. It was as an amount of brain fog and exhaustion I didn’t know was humanly possible. I was making myself basically sick with stimulants. Throughout all of this I was taking stuff like Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse, modafinil. I was so tired none were really helping and even had a doctor at one point tell me that I should get genetic testing for depression or have my brain zapped with electric shocks. I didn't go that route. By this point, I'd had nearly every medical test someone could have done. CT scans of my brain, food allergy testing, testing for toxic mold in my body, every possible vitamin and mineral test, blood tests, etc.
​
After 2 years of messing with different CPAP machines and still struggling, my sleep doctor then recommended I see a maxillofacial doctor to see what the underlying breathing issue was being caused by. The doctor recommended I get a custom mouthpiece made that shifts the lower jaw forward to help open the airway to prevent breathing issues while sleeping. The process of having it fitted and made took a couple months. I even took a “real” career type job during this same time because I had two different doctors telling me that this mouthpiece was likely to help me a lot. I felt like I couldn’t have gotten the mouthpiece fast enough. I ended up messing with the mouthpiece for months and had no benefit at all. Literally zero. The dentist who made the mouthpiece said that the mouthpiece wasn’t helping because I might just have “weak muscle tone” in my throat and that I should see someone called a myofunctional doctor to supposedly improve muscle tone in the throat and tongue. I looked into that and it seemed like total quack stuff so I didn’t do it and completely dropped that dentist that made my mouthpiece and suggested this. I then saw an ear nose and throat doctor and later did a sleep endoscopy with him where I was put to sleep and had my breathing monitored with a camera down my throat. The doctor said that my breathing issues were being caused by my throat and jaw and suggested that since the mouthpiece wasn’t helping, I could get surgery or have a device called Inspire surgically inserted into my chest and neck to artificially help breathing. I held off on that cause it sounded pretty extreme and thought there had to be something else. During this time I got fired from the job I should’ve never taken in the first place because I was so non-functional and it clearly showed.
​
I pretty much gave up for months. I eventually scheduled an appointment with another ear nose & throat doctor (the SAME kind of doctor I first saw when I was 13). I'd already seen multiple ear nose & throat doctors by this point but didn't know what else to do. Some breathing tests showed that hardly any air was getting through my nose when I breathed in. I had a really severe form of something called nasal valve collapse, which was causing both sides of my nose to almost completely cave in and block most air when breathing in, even when just breathing in a little bit. This issue is apparently worse during sleep as the body naturally tries to breathe through the nose during sleep so all night I was struggling to breathe and then mouth breathing which isn't good for sleep quality and was slowly feeling worse over time as I was never getting quality sleep. So the bad sleep every night just kept accumulating over the course of 10+ years. He also explained that my throat issues were a sign that my nose wasn’t functioning normally, which was causing airflow issues and a throat pressure feeling as a result. Nothing specific caused this issue to happen. Just the way my face and nose naturally developed over time. Doctor said this is not a common issue and when it does happen is typically the result of an injury or prior surgery as opposed to it just happening naturally. A little bit of collapse can be normal but mine was a severe case of it. Prior to having surgery the doctor had me wear a plastic dilator piece in my nose at night to prop it open which helped incredibly. Everything finally made sense for the first time ever.
​
Last year (2022) just before turning 27, I had nasal reconstructive surgery and a septoplasty surgery. The surgery was brutal. It took a long, long time to recover from the surgery, the horrible accumulated sleep debt and sleep apnea damage but I feel I mostly have now. I may still have to look into a revision surgery at some point as the collapse is still fairly bad when I'm not wearing the dilator but over time most of my issues have gone away since it was the crap sleep that was giving me most my symptoms. The slowly worsening constant brain fog, shit tired feeling and cognitive issues that started when I was a young teenager. The severe anxiety/depression/stress feelings I had since I was a kid. Sleep apnea and poor quality sleep stresses out the body and caused me to feel anxious and stressed out all the time. The throat issues totally gone. I can feel emotions again. I don't feel like killing myself out of misery anymore. It was that simple but untreated made my life constant fucking torture to no end. Feeling horrible nonstop, slowly getting worse over the course of more than a decade, not knowing why, being told there was nothing wrong with me AND that it was maybe all psychological was a mental hell I wouldn't wish on anyone. I don’t feel like my teenage years and a good part of my 20s actually happened because I was in such poor health physically and mentally and in a complete fog of exhaustion 24/7. Every day was about just getting through the day. I missed out on most "normal" things other people I knew were doing. Things like going out and doing things and having fun, dating, having close friends, hobbies, goals, missed income, thousands of dollars spent on medical bullshit. On and on.
​
I wish I had been able to see good doctors earlier, but that didn’t happen for some reason. It's also frustrating knowing that I wasn't able to figure this out myself. I think I was just so used to really bad breathing since I was young that I didn’t know it wasn't normal and didn't know any different and didn't ever think to look at myself breathing in a mirror. I wasn't aware of "nasal valve collapse". No doctor ever told me anything either and it never crossed my mind I could have some weird abnormal issue. It's frustrating knowing that all of this suffering was so unbelievably preventable. God damn every doctor that told me to my face that there was nothing wrong with me or that the horrible constant physical and mental symptoms I was having was all in my head. It's disgusting. These issues consumed and ruined every aspect of my life 24/7 for well over a decade. My life outside of this was complete nothing. I'm doing much better now, but thinking about how much time I lost is really sad and surreal to think about. I've learned there is NOTHING more important in life than proper breathing and sleep. Very basic innate things most people will fortunately never have to think about. Maybe my story can help someone out there.
Here's a video I took last year to give an idea of what I'm talking about:
https://imgur.com/a/oE2Fpfy
Photos breathing in:
Side: https://imgur.com/a/8DAtfDx
Side: https://imgur.com/a/v09hFXo
Bottom: https://imgur.com/aQWsJeX
Top: https://imgur.com/a/EOaBONL
​
TLDR: Started feeling a constant brain fog/crappy feeling all the time when I was 14/15. Constant throat problems. Felt stressed out/anxious nonstop. TONS of doctors couldn't figure it out. Slowly felt worse over the next 10+ years to the point I couldn't hold down a job. Affected every aspect of my life horribly. Missed out on life. Turns out I had severe nasal valve collapse when I breathed in that was causing breathing issues during sleep and resulted in sleep apnea which caused me to feel like shit all the time and slowly feel worse the longer it went untreated as the bad sleep just piled on. Feeling like shit consumed my entire life. My life outside of this was complete nothing. Had nasal reconstructive surgery last year. 100% better.

I’m 27. When I was 13, I started having weird throat problems all the time. It felt like my throat had a lot of pressure in it, like a weird burning feeling, and the only thing that helped was when I drank or ate something or swallowed. This would help then it would come back a bit later. I had weird issues swallowing saliva too. I saw an ear nose & throat doctor about this and was told my issue was acid reflux. I was prescribed reflux medication and told to sleep on an incline. I did those things, but it didn’t help. Supposedly I was treating the issue and the doctor didn’t know why I wasn’t improving but told me to continue doing what I was doing to supposedly treat it. I saw some other doctors that weren’t sure either. I learned to just live with it but it was annoying and started to take over my life to the point that all day every day revolved around coping with my throat. I had bad anxiety because of it, used to avoid things, had to make sure I always had something to drink to help my throat, and felt really stressed about it all and how it was affecting me. I also physically felt stressed out and anxious all the time for what seemed like no reason.
When I was 15, I started to feel a brain fog on top of the throat and anxiety issues. It was like my brain felt like mush all the time. Like the feeling when you sleep bad for a couple nights and your brain feels like crap, except I was sleeping plenty. I felt kind of spaced out, couldn’t concentrate as well, never wanted to do anything, and just felt kind of crappy all the time. Wasn’t severe yet but was definitely impacting my day to day life, in addition to the throat stuff and feeling anxious and stressed all the time. I went back to seeing doctors. Multiple doctors said there was nothing wrong with me and some even said that the brain fog and throat issues were all mental. I didn’t feel like that was it because it felt so real and physical but what did I know. I was prescribed antidepressants and doctors recommended I see a therapist for anxiety issues. I spent the next couple of years trying multiple medications, seeing therapists, making lifestyle changes but nothing helped. I thought I was going crazy. Therapists made me feel even worse as they further pushed the doctors belief that all my issues were mental. In those few years that passed, I had slowly started to feel worse. It wasn't a day to day difference but a few months would pass and the brain fog and cognitive issues were worse than they were just a few months earlier. Being a perfectly healthy teenager is hard enough, but to deal with this shit on top of that was horrible. I had zero quality of life.
By the time I graduated high school, the constant mental fog and tiredness were affecting me pretty bad. I felt stressed and anxious nonstop, both because of how much these issues were affecting my life and I physically felt anxious all the time too for what felt like no reason. Sometimes the anxiety was so bad I would literally start sweating. I had almost no social life during high school because these health issues consumed my life and I did just the minimum to get by. Because lots of doctors were telling me there was nothing physically wrong with me, I started to believe them about it being all mental. I thought it was something I was doing wrong personally. At this point I wasn’t even talking to my family about it as much since supposedly there was nothing wrong and it was all in my head. Especially when doctor after doctor were saying nothing was wrong and because my symptoms were mostly feeling foggy all the time, I felt guilty even saying anything about it anymore. It felt like it was a personal failure for feeling the way I did. I had the impression that my issues were because of me and I just needed to change my mindset and lifestyle and I’d feel better. I needed to change my thinking, my behavior, take antidepressants, and do therapy. I did every single thing doctors and therapists and family told me to do but nothing helped. I questioned my sanity every day. By the end of high school I probably had at least 10 doctors tell me there was nothing physically wrong with me. It was hell living like this 24/7.
I was in no shape to go to college, but I did. I ended up going because according to everyone there was nothing wrong with me and I was trying desperately to believe that. So I pushed myself to go, hoping I’d sort it out soon. I didn't. I spent the next 4 years slowly feeling worse, still seeing doctors but getting no real answers. I'd go months and months at a time without even seeing a doctor as I didn't know where to turn and had given up at times. I'd also go back to thinking maybe it's all in my head, but at the same time my symptoms felt so real and more severe than anything mental could cause. First year of college I saw a doctor about sleep apnea, something I at the time knew nothing about. He examined me and did scans and didn't see anything abnormal and told me sleep apnea most likely wasn't my problem. Still, I tried one of those moldable mouthpieces that’s supposed to help with sleep apnea but didn't see any benefit from it. So with all of this in mind, I figured it’s probably not sleep apnea so moved on and forgot about it. I was so desperate, I was constantly trying all sorts of medications, drugs, supplements, and other weird things to try and help myself. I felt like I was losing my goddamn mind. My mental health was awful. Felt like crap 24/7. I literally felt stupid because my brain wasn’t working and felt so mushy. Dealing with symptoms and figuring out what was wrong with me consumed my entire life. For school, I would occasionally go to class after taking a big dose of stimulant drugs, but even those only did so much. It got to the point that no amount of caffeine pills, energy drinks did anything either.
I experienced nothing enjoyable in 4 years of college and had basically no life, really no friends, hobbies, nothing. My days consisted of me sometimes going to class and then spending the rest of the day and night laying down cause I felt like such shit 24/7. Literally the only experience I had in college was when I went on a study abroad trip but it was terrible because I felt so awful the whole time. I had also joined a fraternity in the beginning of college but did almost nothing with them because of my health. The mental fog and cognitive deficit had gotten so bad it felt like I was disconnected and living in a dream. Like I felt kind of drunk. I was so mentally and emotionally numb and exhausted I didn’t even feel human. Like I physically could not feel emotions and felt super spaced out. I was also still dealing with the throat issues. I’d get random dizziness, my vision got worse, I was more sensitive to light, had almost no sex drive. In four years, I also spent thousands and thousands of dollars on medical related stuff. Shuttles and ubers to and from appointments (I didn't have a car at the time and lived almost 2 hours from a major city), private care doctors, supplements, drugs, etc. I managed to graduate college (I could make a whole separate post about how I managed this) and finished feeling way worse than when I began. But I was at least glad college was over cause it sucked horribly.
I spent the next year post college doing the minimum to get by and just get through each day, feeling like horrible shit nonstop. Still having no life because of my issues. Still being told by everyone that they didn't know what was wrong with me. About a year after college (2019), I had a sleep study done and it came back with a moderate level of sleep apnea. 17 times an hour I was having breathing interruptions while sleeping. For the first time I actually had an answer. Sleep doctor prescribed a CPAP machine. I spent about a year messing with the machine and the face mask they gave me and got no benefit. I then switched to a different machine and a mask that only went into my nose and finally noticed some improvement when I was able to keep it on and sleep through the night with it. However, this didn't happen much as it was super uncomfortable sleeping with air blowing down your throat and a mask stuck to your face. I'd also wake up a bunch during the night, rip it off without knowing, etc. But I was desperately trying to make it work. When I was able to keep it on for most the night I felt a bit better but it was really difficult to do so consistently. During this time I couldn’t really hold down a job, other than some really basic, short term jobs. And even those felt brutal. I was a complete zombie because the tiredness was so overwhelming. It was as an amount of brain fog and exhaustion I didn’t know was humanly possible. I was making myself basically sick with stimulants. Throughout all of this I was taking stuff like Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse, modafinil. I was so tired none were really helping and even had a doctor at one point tell me that I should get genetic testing for depression or have my brain zapped with electric shocks. I didn't go that route. By this point, I'd had nearly every medical test someone could have done. CT scans of my brain, food allergy testing, testing for toxic mold in my body, every possible vitamin and mineral test, blood tests, etc.
After 2 years of messing with different CPAP machines and still struggling, my sleep doctor then recommended I see a maxillofacial doctor to see what the underlying breathing issue was being caused by. The doctor recommended I get a custom mouthpiece made that shifts the lower jaw forward to help open the airway to prevent breathing issues while sleeping. The process of having it fitted and made took a couple months. I even took a “real” career type job during this same time because I had two different doctors telling me that this mouthpiece was likely to help me a lot. I felt like I couldn’t have gotten the mouthpiece fast enough. I ended up messing with the mouthpiece for months and had no benefit at all. Literally zero. The dentist who made the mouthpiece said that the mouthpiece wasn’t helping because I might just have “weak muscle tone” in my throat and that I should see someone called a myofunctional doctor to supposedly improve muscle tone in the throat and tongue. I looked into that and it seemed like total quack stuff so I didn’t do it and completely dropped that dentist that made my mouthpiece and suggested this. I then saw an ear nose and throat doctor and later did a sleep endoscopy with him where I was put to sleep and had my breathing monitored with a camera down my throat. The doctor said that my breathing issues were being caused by my throat and jaw and suggested that since the mouthpiece wasn’t helping, I could get surgery or have a device called Inspire surgically inserted into my chest and neck to artificially help breathing. I held off on that cause it sounded pretty extreme and thought there had to be something else. During this time I got fired from the job I should’ve never taken in the first place because I was so non-functional and it clearly showed.
I pretty much gave up for months. I eventually scheduled an appointment with another ear nose & throat doctor (the SAME kind of doctor I first saw when I was 13). I'd already seen multiple ear nose & throat doctors by this point but didn't know what else to do. Some breathing tests showed that hardly any air was getting through my nose when I breathed in. I had a really severe form of something called nasal valve collapse, which was causing both sides of my nose to almost completely cave in and block most air when breathing in, even when just breathing in a little bit. This issue is apparently worse during sleep as the body naturally tries to breathe through the nose during sleep so all night I was struggling to breathe and then mouth breathing which isn't good for sleep quality and was slowly feeling worse over time as I was never getting quality sleep. So the bad sleep every night just kept accumulating over the course of 10+ years. He also explained that my throat issues were a sign that my nose wasn’t functioning normally, which was causing airflow issues and a throat pressure feeling as a result. Nothing specific caused this issue to happen. Just the way my face and nose naturally developed over time. Doctor said this is not a common issue and when it does happen is typically the result of an injury or prior surgery as opposed to it just happening naturally. A little bit of collapse can be normal but mine was a severe case of it. Prior to having surgery the doctor had me wear a plastic dilator piece in my nose at night to prop it open which helped incredibly. Everything finally made sense for the first time ever.
Last year (2022) just before turning 27, I had nasal reconstructive surgery and a septoplasty surgery. The surgery was brutal. It took a long, long time to recover from the surgery, the horrible accumulated sleep debt and sleep apnea damage but I feel I mostly have now. I may still have to look into a revision surgery at some point as the collapse is still fairly bad when I'm not wearing the dilator but over time most of my issues have gone away since it was the crap sleep that was giving me most my symptoms. The slowly worsening constant brain fog, shit tired feeling and cognitive issues that started when I was a young teenager. The severe anxiety/depression/stress feelings I had since I was a kid. Sleep apnea and poor quality sleep stresses out the body and caused me to feel anxious and stressed out all the time. The throat issues totally gone. I can feel emotions again. I don't feel like killing myself out of misery anymore. It was that simple but untreated made my life constant fucking torture to no end. Feeling horrible nonstop, slowly getting worse over the course of more than a decade, not knowing why, being told there was nothing wrong with me AND that it was maybe all psychological was a mental hell I wouldn't wish on anyone. I don’t feel like my teenage years and a good part of my 20s actually happened because I was in such poor health physically and mentally and in a complete fog of exhaustion 24/7. Every day was about just getting through the day. I missed out on most "normal" things other people I knew were doing. Things like going out and doing things and having fun, dating, having close friends, hobbies, goals, missed income, thousands of dollars spent on medical bullshit. On and on.
I wish I had been able to see good doctors earlier, but that didn’t happen for some reason. It's also frustrating knowing that I wasn't able to figure this out myself. I think I was just so used to really bad breathing since I was young that I didn’t know it wasn't normal and didn't know any different and didn't ever think to look at myself breathing in a mirror. I wasn't aware of "nasal valve collapse". No doctor ever told me anything either and it never crossed my mind I could have some weird abnormal issue. It's frustrating knowing that all of this suffering was so unbelievably preventable. God damn every doctor that told me to my face that there was nothing wrong with me or that the horrible constant physical and mental symptoms I was having was all in my head. It's disgusting. These issues consumed and ruined every aspect of my life 24/7 for well over a decade. My life outside of this was complete nothing. I'm doing much better now, but thinking about how much time I lost is really sad and surreal to think about. I've learned there is NOTHING more important in life than proper breathing and sleep. Very basic innate things most people will fortunately never have to think about. Maybe my story can help someone out there.
Here's a video I took last year to give an idea of what I'm talking about:
https://imgur.com/a/oE2Fpfy
Photos breathing in:
Side: https://imgur.com/a/8DAtfDx
Side: https://imgur.com/a/v09hFXo
Bottom: https://imgur.com/aQWsJeX
Top: https://imgur.com/a/EOaBONL
TLDR: Started feeling a constant brain fog/crappy feeling all the time when I was 14/15. Constant throat problems. Felt stressed out/anxious nonstop. TONS of doctors couldn't figure it out. Slowly felt worse over the next 10+ years to the point I couldn't hold down a job. Affected every aspect of my life horribly. Missed out on life. Turns out I had severe nasal valve collapse when I breathed in that was causing breathing issues during sleep and resulted in sleep apnea which caused me to feel like shit all the time and slowly feel worse the longer it went untreated as the bad sleep just piled on. Feeling like shit consumed my entire life. My life outside of this was complete nothing. Had nasal reconstructive surgery last year. 100% better.

I’m 27. When I was 13, I started having weird throat problems all the time. It felt like my throat had a lot of pressure in it, like a weird burning like feeling, and the only thing that helped was when I drank or ate something or swallowed. This would help then it would come back a bit later. I had weird issues swallowing saliva too. I saw an ear nose & throat doctor about this and was told my issue was acid reflux. I was prescribed reflux medication and told to sleep on an incline. I did those things for a while, but it didn’t help. Supposedly I was treating the issue and the doctor didn’t know why I wasn’t improving but told me to continue doing what I was doing to supposedly treat it. I saw some other doctors that weren’t sure either. I learned to just live like that but it was annoying and started to take over my life to the point that all day every day revolved around coping with my throat. I had bad anxiety because of it, used to avoid things, had to make sure I always had something to drink to help my throat, and felt really stressed about it all and how it was affecting me.
When I was 15, I started to feel like a brain fog on top of the throat issues. It was like my brain felt like mush all the time. Like the feeling when you sleep bad for a couple nights and your brain feels like crap, except I was sleeping plenty. I felt kind of spaced out, couldn’t concentrate as well, never wanted to do anything, and just felt kind of crappy all the time. Wasn’t severe but was definitely impacting my day to day life, in addition to the throat stuff. I went back to seeing doctors. Lots of doctors said there was nothing wrong with me and some even said that the brain fog (and even the throat issues) were all psychological. I didn’t feel like that was it because my symptoms felt so real and physical but what did I know. I was prescribed antidepressants and doctors recommended I see a therapist for anxiety issues. I spent the next couple of years trying multiple medications, seeing therapists, and making other changes but nothing helped. I thought I was going crazy. Psychologists made me feel even worse as they further made me think that all my issues were mental. In those few years that passed, I had slowly started to feel worse. It wasn't a day to day difference but a few months or so would pass and I would feel a bit worse than I did a few months earlier. By the time I graduated high school, the constant mental fog and tiredness were affecting me pretty bad. I felt stressed and anxious nonstop, both because of how much these issues were affecting my life and I physically felt anxious all the time too. Sometimes the anxiety was so bad I would literally start sweating. I had almost no social life during high school because these health issues consumed my life and did just the minimum to get by. Because lots of doctors were telling me there was nothing physically wrong with me, I started to believe them about it being all mental. I thought it was something I was doing wrong personally. At this point I wasn’t even talking to my family about it as much since supposedly there was nothing wrong and it was all in my head. Especially when doctor after doctor were saying nothing was wrong and because my symptoms were mostly feeling tired and foggy all the time (what parents want to continually hear that), I felt guilty even saying anything about it anymore. It felt like it was a personal failure for feeling the way I did. Everyone gave me crap for seeming lazy and low energy. They gave me the impression that my issues were because of me and I just needed to change my mindset and lifestyle and I’d feel better. Changing my thinking, behavior, antidepressants, therapy. I did every single thing doctors and therapists and family told me to do, but nothing helped. They made me question my sanity every day. By the end of high school I probably had at least 10 doctors tell me there was nothing physically wrong with me. It was hell living like this.
I was in no shape to go to college, but I did. I ended up going because supposedly there was nothing wrong with me and I was trying desperately to believe it was all in my head like everyone was saying. So I pushed myself to go, hoping I’d sort it out soon. I didn't. I spent the next 4 years slowly feeling worse, still seeing doctors but getting no real answers. I'd go months and months at a time without even seeing a doctor as I didn't know where to turn and had given up at times. I'd also go back to thinking maybe it's all in my head, but at the same time my symptoms felt so real and more severe than anything mental could cause. During college, I saw a doctor about sleep apnea but didn't seem to fit most of the symptoms. Things like waking up trying to get air, choking, stopping breathing, snoring, wasn't overweight, wasn't unhealthy, didn’t have a family history of it or other health issues. Doctor also did scans and didn't see anything abnormal. Still, I tried one of those moldable mouthpieces that’s supposed to help with sleep apnea but didn't see any benefit from it. So with all of this in mind, I figured it’s probably not sleep apnea. I was so desperate, I was constantly trying all sorts of medications, drugs, supplements, and other weird things to try and help myself. I felt like I was losing my damn mind. My mental health was god awful. Felt like crap 24/7. I literally felt stupid because my brain wasn’t working and felt so mushy. Dealing with symptoms and figuring out what was wrong with me consumed my entire life. For school, I would occasionally go to class after taking a big dose of stimulant drugs, but even those only did so much. It got to the point that no amount of caffeine pills, energy drinks did anything either. I experienced nothing enjoyable in 4 years of college and had basically no life, really no friends, hobbies, nothing. Really the only experience I had was when I went on a study abroad trip but it was terrible because I felt so awful the whole time. I had also joined a fraternity in the beginning of college but did almost nothing with them because of my health. The mental tiredness had gotten so bad it felt like I was disconnected and living in a dream. Like I felt kind of drunk. I was so mentally and emotionally numb and exhausted I didn’t even feel human. Like I physically could not feel emotions and felt super spaced out. I was also still dealing with the throat issues. I’d get random dizziness, my vision got worse like being more sensitive to light, almost no sex drive, my voice was sounding more monotone and dead. In four years, I also spent thousands and thousands of dollars on shuttles and ubers to and from appointments (I didn't have a car at the time and lived almost 2 hours from a major city), money spent seeing private care doctors that, buying supplements, drugs, etc. I somehow managed to graduate college (I could make a whole separate post about how I managed this) and finished feeling way worse than when I began.
I spent the next year post college doing the bare minimum to get by, feeling like horrible shit nonstop. Still being told by everyone that they didn't know what was wrong with me. About a year after college (2019), I had a sleep study done and it came back with moderate sleep apnea. 17 times an hour I was having breathing interruptions while sleeping. For the first time I actually had an answer. Sleep doctor prescribed a CPAP machine. I spent about a year messing with the machine and the face mask they gave me and got no benefit. I then switched to a different machine and a mask that only went into my nose and finally noticed some improvement when I was able to keep it on and sleep through the night with it. However, this didn't happen much as it was super uncomfortable sleeping with air blowing down your throat and a mask stuck to your face. I'd also wake up a bunch during the night, rip it off without knowing, etc. But I was desperately trying to make it work. When I was able to keep it on for most the night I felt a bit better but it was really difficult to do so consistently. During this time I couldn’t really hold down a job, other than some really basic, short term jobs. And even those felt brutal. I was a complete zombie because the tiredness was so overwhelming. It was as an amount of brain fog and exhaustion I didn’t know was humanly possible. I was making myself basically sick with stimulants. Throughout all of this I was taking stuff like Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse, modafinil. I was so tired none were really helping and even had a doctor at one point tell me that I should get genetic testing for depression or have my brain zapped with electric shocks. I didn't go that route. By this point, I'd had nearly every medical test someone could have done.
After 2 years of messing with machines and still struggling, my sleep doctor then recommended I see a maxillofacial doctor to see what the underlying breathing issue was being caused by. The doctor recommended I get a custom mouthpiece made that shifts the lower jaw forward to help open the airway to prevent breathing issues while sleeping. The process of having it fitted and made took a couple months. I even took a “real” job during this same time because I had two different doctors telling me that this mouthpiece was likely to help me a lot. I felt like I couldn’t have gotten the mouthpiece fast enough. I ended up messing with the mouthpiece for months and had no benefit at all. Literally zero. The dentist who made the mouthpiece said that the mouthpiece wasn’t helping because I might just have “weak muscle tone” in my throat and that I should see someone called a myofunctional doctor to supposedly improve muscle tone in the throat and tongue. I looked into that and it seemed like total quack stuff so I didn’t do it and completely dropped that dentist that made my mouthpiece and suggested this. I then saw an ear nose and throat doctor and later did a sleep endoscopy with him where I was put to sleep and had my breathing monitored with a camera down my throat. The doctor said that my breathing issues were being caused by my throat and jaw and suggested that since the mouthpiece wasn’t helping, I could get surgery or have a device called Inspire surgically inserted into my chest and neck to artificially help breathing. I held off on that cause it sounded pretty extreme and thought there had to be something else. During this time I had to leave the job I should’ve never taken in the first place because I was so non-functional.
I pretty much gave up for months. I eventually scheduled an appointment with another ear nose & throat doctor (the same kind of doctor I first saw when I was 13). I'd already seen multiple ear nose & throat doctors by this point but didn't know what else to do. Some breathing tests showed that hardly any air was getting through my nose. I had a really severe form of something called nasal valve collapse, which was causing both sides of my nose to almost completely cave in and block most air when breathing in, even when just breathing in a little bit. This issue is apparently worse during sleep and the body naturally tries to breathe through the nose during sleep so all night I was struggling to breathe and was slowly feeling worse over time as I was never getting quality sleep. So the bad sleep every night just kept accumulating over the course of 10+ years. He also explained that my throat issues were a sign that my nose wasn’t functioning normally, which was causing airflow issues and a throat pressure feeling as a result. Nothing specific caused this issue to happen. Just the way my face and nose naturally developed over time. Doctor said this issue is not common and when it does happen is typically the result of an injury or prior surgery as opposed to it just happening naturally. Prior to having surgery the doctor had me wear a plastic dilator piece in my nose at night to prop it open which helped incredibly. Everything finally made sense for the first time ever. I even recorded my sleep and could hear myself struggling to breathe all night.
Last year (2022), I had nasal reconstructive surgery as well as a septoplasty surgery. It took a long time to recover but I feel I mostly have now. I may still have to look into a revision surgery as the collapse is still fairly bad when I'm not wearing the dilator but over time most of my issues have gone away since it was the poor quality sleep that was giving me most my symptoms. The slowly worsening constant exhaustion, brain fog and cognitive issues that started when I was a teenager. The severe anxiety/depression/stress I had since I was a kid. Sleep apnea and poor quality sleep further making my body feel stressed out and anxious as a result. Throat issues completely gone. I no longer feel like killing myself out of misery, as I did every day since I was young. It was that simple but untreated made my life constant torture. Feeling horrible nonstop, slowly getting worse over the course of more than a decade, not knowing why, being told there was nothing wrong with me or that it was all psychological, trying all sorts of things with no benefit, and having my entire life be ruined was a mental hell I wouldn't wish on anyone. I don’t feel like my teenage years and a good part of my 20s actually happened because I was in such poor health physically and mentally 24/7. Every day was about just getting through the day. Life felt like it was on hold. I missed out on most "normal" things other people I knew were doing. I wish I had been able to see good doctors earlier, but that unfortunately didn’t happen. I’m not even sure how I wasn’t able to make the connection myself. I think I was just so used to really bad breathing since I was young that I didn’t know it wasn't normal and had no reason to think I had some weird issue. It's frustrating knowing that none of this should have even happened to begin with and that it was so preventable. Fuck every one of those supposed medical experts that told me to my face that there was nothing wrong with me or that the very real horrible physical and mental symptoms I was having was all in my head. These issues consumed and ruined every aspect of my life 24/7 for well over a decade. My life outside of this was complete nothing. Through all this I've learned there is nothing more important in life than proper breathing and sleep. Such basic things the vast majority of people will fortunately never even have to think about. Maybe this can help someone out there.
Photos I took of myself breathing in slightly deeper than normal prior to surgery:
Side: https://imgur.com/a/8DAtfDx
Side: https://imgur.com/a/v09hFXo
Bottom: https://imgur.com/aQWsJeX
Top: https://imgur.com/a/EOaBONL

Uto-Aztecan Consonant Clusters
​
Table mostly follows Stubbs, with Californian after Alexis Manaster Ramer. Since some branchings are uncertain (and are not definitely better than changes across several groups (dialect continuum)), I have put Luiseñan as intermediate within Takic (between Serrano-Gabrielino & Cupan). Do not assume all is certain, but all groups are based on good similarities. Some of these are likely dialects; other dialects/divisions below (when needed). When multiple names exist, given with / (not all included).
​
UA Uto-Aztecan / Yuto-Nawan

North Uto-Aztecan Hp (Hopi) Numic > Central Numic \[ Co(manche); Ss (Shoshone); Gia(mina); Kos (Koso / Panamint / Timbisha / Tümpisha); \] S. Numic \[ Kaw(aiisu); Cmv (Chemehuevi); SPt (Southern Paiute); Ute; \] W. Numic \[ Mn (Mono); NPt (N. Paiute / Numu / Paviotso); \] Californian > Tü(batulabal) Takic > 

Serrano-Gabrielino [ Srr (Serrano); Ktn (Kitanemuk); Gb (Gabrielino / Tongva); ]
Luiseñan [ Lñ (Luiseño); Juaneño; ]
Cupan [ Cll (Cahuilla); Cñ (Cupeño); ]

South Uto-Aztecan Tepiman \\ Tepehuan-Piman > Pimic \[ Od ((Tohono) O’odham / Pima / Papago); PA (Pima Alto / Upper Pima); PB (Pima Bajo / Lowland / Mt / O’ob); Nv (Nevome); \] Tpn (Tepehuan / O’otham) \[ North Tpn; South Tpn; Tepecano; \] Tarahumaran \[ Tmr (Tarahumara); Gj (Guarijío); Tr (Tubar); \] Cahitan \[ Yq (Yaqui); My (Mayo \\ Yoreme); \] Opatan \[ Op(ata); Eu(deve); \] Corachol-Aztecan > Cora-Huichol / Corachol \[ Ca (Cora); Hl (Huichol); \] Nahuan / Aztecan \[ N (Nahuatl); Tet (Tetelcingo / Mösiehuali); NPb (North Puebla); Nahuate / Nawat / Pipil; Poc (Pochutec); \] 

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’ glottal stop (in transcription)
? glottal stop (in reconstruction)
ü rounded i or ï
V any vowel
N any nasal consonant
C any non-nasal consonant (or any consonant when discussing words in which C vs. N is unimportant, older levels of reconstruction, or theories in general)
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Uto-Aztecan consonant clusters of many types must have existed, but they are not well understood. Alexis Manaster Ramer attempted to show the existence of some in many papers (below). Seeing that no progress has been made in over 20 years, with linguists often ignoring simple evidence or going backwards, I felt it was best for me to add my insights. I know it is difficult to understand UA phonology (sometimes it seems like you can only find the truth if you reconstruct backwards and fowards at the same time), but some kind of progress is needed. For cognates that show k- vs. n-, is it too much to ask to reconstruct *kn- for both, even as a stopgap measure, instead of *k- \ *n- as if no cluster could give both? If any progress is made, it is easier to look for words with *kn- and replace them rather than see if any *k- are related to *n- and later put them together. Some clusters reappear later due to compounds, etc., with different outcomes. If no language is indicated for the cluster, it is in PUA (all after the first 3).
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N. *p? > p
Since *p > 0 is regular, words that sometimes show *p > p need an explanation. In *pa?wi, *-pa?an ‘water’ (Gj. pa’wi, etc.) the “glottal stop hop” could move *? to any previous syllabe and create words with *pa?- > *p?a-. *p > 0 vs. *p? > p would then explain 0- vs. p- in words for ‘water’ (loans from other UA are not likely for so basic a word). *pa?wi coming from *pa?uy is likely from similar metathesis in *pa?uy-ya > *pay?uya > *pay?wi ‘carry/fetch water’ > Od. wa’ig, Nv. vaigi (see https://www.reddit.com/language/comments/14wk9at/to_kill_and_die_in_ua/ for ev. of *ya forming verb stems).
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N. *pt > *tp > kp
Since N. šokpal-li ‘sole of the foot’ could be related to *tala (Gj. tala ‘sole of the foot’, Od. tad ‘foot’), a compound *supï-tala ‘clothing + sole of the foot’ could refer to the sole of sandals, etc., with a shift/mix of meanings very common in languages around the world. This would show *supï-tala-ta > *suptal-ta > *sutpal-ta > šokpal-li.
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Tü. *tw > *kw
Alexis Manaster Ramer’s *t-w from *t#w reconstructed in grammar in https://www.academia.edu/38527270 shown by *tuukut-wï-ta > tuugukwï-t ‘mountain lion’. Stem *tuukut- seen in *tuukut-ta > Lñ. *tuukut-ta > tuuku-t ‘wildcat’ with -t from *-tt. More on *tw from other sources in UA below.
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*wt
Alexis Manaster Ramer’s *tw in https://www.academia.edu/38527270 is better taken as *wt ( > wl in Lñ. but with *wt > *tw in most UA ), since it sometimes is similar to clusters with *p that also have optional metathesis (see below) and some *wt > *tw is more likely than some *tw > *wt (and no evidence from *t#w in grammar, etc.). This also allows the haplology needed for Lñ. and Sr. to take place at the same time, for *ïwta-ta > *ïwta (if *tw > *wt existed in Lñ, 2 separate unconnected cases of haplology of different natures would be needed, very unlikely). Lñ. and Sr. are ALSO the 2 languages in which the outcomes of *tw most resemble *t, so separating them here seems unneeded. The stages:
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*wt > wl : *ïwta-ta ‘blood’ > *ïwta > Lñ. owla (with haplology; like *Vt > *Vl)
*wt > *tw > *kw : *ïwta-ta > Tü. ïkwa-l (after *kw > w )
*kw > ŋw : *ïwta-ta > Hp. ïŋwa
*tw > *c̣c̣ : *ïwta-ta > *ïwta > *ïc̣c̣ > Sr. ïc̣-c̣ (with haplology; like *Vt > *Vc̣; reanalysis gave -c̣)
*tw > *sw > s : *ïwta-ta > *ïsa-tla > N. es-tli
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*kw > ŋw is the most odd, yet has the most evidence. It is simply a sonorization of *k before *w; if connected to *t > l, etc., a stage with *k > *L first is possible (this path likely depends on whether *n and *l, etc., were related in PUA and later UA).
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*pw
This is very simple: *pw > *hw / w / p? / p . A plain *p would not explain all data; it is preserved in Mono (unlike *p > v ). Also with *hw > *h? before w in Gj. (like *ww > ? in *taywa > MYq taiwo ‘east’, *tawwa > Yq taa’a ‘sun’), *hw > h in Eu.; likely *pw > p caused V > V: in Takic (as *? ?)
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*tapwiwï ‘sparrowhawk’ > Gj. tahi’iwe, Tmr. rawiwi, My. tááwe, Eu. tohawo, N. tloh-
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*tapwiwï > *tap?iwï > *ta?piwï > Lñ. táávi-š ‘flicker’, Cll. távi-š ‘~big woodpecker’, Cñ. távi-š ‘~red bird with spots on breast’
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*tapwiwï dissim. > *tapwiï > *tappii ?? > Mn. tapidigidí’ ‘~little grey very fast hawk’
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*pk \ *kp
Words for ‘sand’, etc., like Cmv. siwam-pi ‘coarse sand’, siwam-pï ‘gravel’, siwa’aavï ‘sandstone’, Kaw. sihwa(m)bï, SPt. šïŋwampï ‘sandy gravel’, Hp. ciwavi, Tü. sïwaal show ev. of *Cw > w \ hw \ ŋw \ wŋ. which resemble outcomes of *wt > *tw > *kw in Hp. (but something different since NOT like *wt in Hp. itself). If SPt. šiuŋ ‘gravel’ is from *šiwaŋC < *šiŋwaC and Cll. ŋáči-š is from *čiŋaC- this would show a wide range of outcomes and be evidence of a stage *kw > *xw > ŋw or *xw > *hw \ *?w (with *sihwam-pi > *si?wam-pi > *siw?am-pi > siwam-pï , etc.). Of course, not original *kw (which had different outcomes), so what gave *kw? It would be like *kw but not exactly the same, so *kp fits.
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An odd *kp is actually better, since so much variation exists in ‘sand’, and optional changes to *kp would not be odd. Some variation can come from *pk > *kp. More ev. of *pk exists in languages that merge *pt with *p, etc., or show a cluster with p (hp in Tü. implies *k since some *k > h ). There’s no reason to exclude Tü. šiihpi-t, Od. -hia ‘sand dune’, Tr. sihá-t, Yq. sée’e, Gj. seté, Ca. seh, sáa-ta’a ‘sandy ground’, N. šaalli ‘sand’ (some with V-assimilation). Note that these words are obviously related, but some of the languages here are the same as for *kp above, showing that it was old and optional. Since N. shows *p > 0, *pk > *p first would merge both these explanations (before late *tp > kp ). In some, *pk > *px > *x > h. A single *CsipkaNC for all these words fits (*Cs- since not the same as *s-; it could reasonably be ps / ks / kWs ). *CsipkaNC \ *CsikpaNC was old then both *kp > *kïp and *pk > *pïk (for V-assimilation to explain -i- vs. -ï- in some). If Uto-Aztecan consonant clusters were fairly common, at least a single word with 3 in a row would would be excpected.
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*ps
The fairly clear insertion of V in *kp > *kïp and *pk > *pïk implies that this in similar clusters could also be behind -ï- appearing from nothing in words with *CC. In https://www.academia.edu/38601519/1997_Uto_Aztecan_ps_and_similar_clusters_again Alexis Manaster Ramer’s analysis separating *ps from *pVs is based on solid evidence, but my insertion of V allows the 2 groups to be related. It is not reasonable for *yïpïsya ‘arrive / come (back)’ and hapsï ‘overtake/reach/arrive’ to be separated; *-ps- vs. *-p-s- in 2 words of the same meaning would be a little much. Optional *ps > *pïs and V-assimilation explain the rest. Like the words above, variants are old and both seen within some languages. For *h- vs. *y-, see below ( *x^ ).
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*yapsya > *yapïsya > *yïpïsya > Yq. yépsa, *yifïxya > Od. jiwhia- ‘arrive’, PB divia, NTpn. dyidyíívai \ dïidïíívai ‘come (back)’, etc.
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*hapsya > *hapïsya > *hapïsi > *hapïsï > *hapsï ‘overtake/reach/arrive’ > Tü. apsV-, Yq. háse, Gj. asi-, N. ahsi, Od. aha
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*sp
*paspuul ‘sweat’ > Od. *pasul > wahul-, STpn. voor ‘sweaty’, pl. vapor
For a *CC that either becomes p or merges with *s, *sp is the obvious choice (since *ps is taken). Most UA had all *sp > *s; normal *p > v in Tpn. but it was prevented in *sp ( > -p- in vapor). The double outcomes likely show *sp > *pp before a stressed V, *sp > *s elsewhere: *páspuul, pl. *paspúul (from *-0 vs. pl. *-V in Proto-Tpn.?).
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*ksp
Since both *ps and *sp are taken, the cluster in ‘teardrop’ that Alexis Manaster Ramer had trouble with over the years (latest in https://www.academia.edu/38601519 pg. 253 ) must be something else. Since it became *ks or *ps in some, *ksp seems best. Since I also see *x that became *k or 0 (below), *xsp works as well. There is no optional suffix *-wa-, since this w is just the outcome of *p in some. Since some UA show 3 sounds, a *CCC is needed (Cll. *okṣwai with *kṣw > kṣ / *kw > pw ).
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*okspahï ‘teardrop’ > *opksai > Tü. opsi-
*opkṣai > *opṣi > Ktn. opši-č , Sr. -öṣp
*opkṣai > *okṣwai > Cll. okṣa-m \ *okwa-m > opwa-m
*okspahï > *oxwa?ï > *o?xïwa > Gj. o’ke-wa (metathesis)
*oxwa?ï > *oxa?ïw > Od. oo’og (met., V-assimilation)
*okspai > *okpi > Eu. ope-t
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to be continued