#ailments

[ybcpatrick]

fallen victim 2 the ailments . again.

[owlbelly]

okay i seem to be gradually leaving the ~24hr period of temporal lobe hell i was just in, so i kind of want to write a little bit about what i'm calling "deja vu panic attacks" in case it's useful to anyone else who follows me. i don't know if there's a real term for this phenomenon somewhere - searching for the symptoms turned up a lot of overlap with a particular type of epilepsy & while i'm 99% sure i'm not having seizures (i had a student with this kind of epilepsy so i've seen them happen! it's pretty different), it was making me feel worse to keep reading all that, so. "deja vu panic" it is

my particular blend of depression/anxiety/PTSD (+ neurodivergence?) comes with very occasional dissociative episodes - mostly derealization & depersonalization, but i definitely think this deja vu panic thing falls into a dissociative category too. weirdly it's only happened to me twice, once back in 2019 & again just now. this is how it goes: i'm minding my own business going about my regular life (encountering no identifiable triggers) then suddenly i'll have the overwhelming sense that i either dreamed this exact moment or lived it in a past i've somehow returned to, which is combined with instant & total emotional certainty that i am doomed. sympathetic nervous system immediately flushes my body with so much adrenaline & cortisol that i feel cold/sick/dizzy/numb. once the acute "deja vu" moment has passed i'm left with a lingering sense of unreality & dread, like my perspective on my entire life has just shifted horribly & i don't know if i'll ever feel normal or be who i was before this ever again. the acute attacks just continue to happen over a period of hours - in 2019 i only had 2 attacks a few hours apart & started to feel normal after ~12 hours, but this time i had 5 acute attacks over a period of 12 hours & am only approaching normalcy after 24. i don't know what to make of that BUT here's what seemed to help:

physical comfort from & verbal interaction with loved ones. this includes cats. thank you cats for purring, thank you Jules for chatting with me, thank you Laurel & Jey for hugging/talking/letting me cry on you.

unusual/unexpected tactile sensations. a lot of the shit people are supposed to do for dissociation doesn't work for me because i'm a vivid dreamer who experiences nearly every sensation while i'm sleeping, so if i feel like i'm in a dreamlike state, naming 3-5 regular things i can see/touch/hear/taste is just not cutting it. however! something weird or intense is useful if trapped in the deja vu state. for example today Laurel dropped an ice cube down my fucking shirt because they rightly suspected it would jolt me (they asked first). it did!

radical acceptance of being in hell. okay hear me out. i noticed in between attacks that sometimes i would start to feel the deja vu coming on & if i turned towards it in my awareness (like "oh what's that? do i remember this?") i would move right into panic, while if i avoided it ("nope! distraction time") i could stave it off for a while but eventually it would catch up with me and i'd panic again. surprisingly, one side effect of being worn down by 12+ hours of this cycle was that i started to feel it coming & instead responded with "yup. that feeling. that's how we feel now. it's horrible" which amazingly led to NOT PANICKING. not panicking over a period of hours eventually led to not feeling so fucking dissociated, which appears to be leading to normalcy??

like, even as i'm writing this & rereading parts of it, i still feel pretty strongly that all this has happened before - everything feels familiar, but it's NOT feeling like i'm going to die or like my life is about to be horribly changed. i'm taking that as progress & hoping that tomorrow i don't even feel the deja vu anymore

as for "why did this happen" - i have no fucking idea. did i just get back from a very stressful trip? yes. am i anxious about the state of the world? always. but it's like my brain just spins a wheel where the options are various kinds of stress response & this one is an extremely tiny but outrageously horrible sliver of that wheel. love that for me!!!

[technoregression]

"Oh ouch owie I have this symptom, I best look it up on the interweb".

(the interweb):

TOP 10 CAUSES FOR SYMPTOM RANKED BY PRICE TO CURE, the last one will SHOCK you (updated 5 days ago, "no it's not electro therapy stop asking")

14 reasons you have symptom, doctors HATE her

if you have this symptom, this weird fruit could be the cause, it's-

(the dr):

you're fat. also I really hate her

[toacody]

Infection Rahkshi

"Take a pinch of virus and three Rahkshi... throw them in the blender and press Frappe!"

Source

Creator: Driftkirby

[curiouscatalog]

What's ailing you today?

Ewell, James. The planter's and mariner's medical companion : treating, according to the most successful practice, I. the diseases common to warm climates and on ship board, II. common cases in surgery, as fractures, dislocations, &c., &c., III. the complaints peculiar to women and children : to which are subjoined, a dispensatory, shewing how to prepare and administer family medicines, and a glossary, giving an explanation of technical terms. Philadelphia : John Bioren, 1807.

RC81.E916 1807

[gramarobin]

[grandma-susan]

I just remembered that during the early Victorian Era, consuming mummies was a popular "medical treatment".

It was called "Medicinal cannibalism". Powdered skull for your headache, dearie?

A smear of "Man's Grease" for those aching joints?

[losersalad]

5th fever of the day -_- i threw up a bit too so ( i am wrapped up in a blanket )

[peaceloveandahardcock]

also im going to start tagging my Symptoms Syndrome posting as #ailments if you dont want to see it or alternately would like to see more of it (by searching my tags)

[poligraf]

Music exalts each joy, allays each grief, Expels diseases, softens every pain, Subdues the rage of poison, and the plague.

— John Armstrong

[martyrized]

How to tell if my body is subconsciously getting tired: my legs start getting the wiggles.

Restless leg syndrome is fun for the whole bed.

[owlbelly]

i just keep thinking about every beautiful perfect showstopping mouthwatering culturally-specific variety of glutenous bread in the world & making myself sad

i can't decide if i want to try to eat as many of my favorite glutens in the next like...two weeks before i give everything up again, possibly for the rest of my life, or if eating a bunch of delicious bread knowing it's the last time i'll have it will make everything worse :')

[delcat177]

I have chronic fatigue, and I was having trouble making it to sessions of a family DnD campaign a couple-few years back. DM is a nurse, so we talked it over, and she came up with an awesome solution: My character sprung a trap that gave her slow-acting petrification. Like, *slow* slow acting. If she didn't take her tonic twice a day, the rock would make her too tired to adventure, and she'd have to sleep it off in town while the rest of the party went out. Perfectly dovetailed with my real-life needs.......BUT MAGIC!

What are some chronic illnesses that can only occur in a fantasy setting?

[pluvioseprince]

here is period cramps kabru

[magpiesmiscellany]

Carpal Tunnel

Hey, any folks have tips for getting feeling back in your fingers faster? Even with my brace I keep waking up with pins and needles.

And it's not healthy, but I only have 3 weeks to finish making plushies to donate, so like I can deal with this once the holidays are done, but this is the worst time for it to get worse.

Just typing I got pins and needles in the last functional finger.

(I had surgery in my left already and told it's not progressed enough for my right, and the steroid injection was amazing the first time and only worked for two weeks this time.)

[ukdamo]

Ode to Aging Bodies

Jan Mandell

Aging bodies wake to blue veins that pop up and travel like river tributaries over paper thin skin pocked with freckles, tags and blotches that look like unidentified sections of abstract art

Aging bodies Rise up to the chatter and creaking sounds of thin, porous bone that feel like cheap metal pipes refitting poorly into their stubborn mates

Waking up the aging body is familiar like an attempt to turn over the frozen engine of a used car left out overnight in a below zero day in the dead of Minnesota winter

The ache and noise of an aging body is like a constant companion, a highly extroverted friend who simply won’t shut up, yet is there thru it all.

This is an ode to aging bodies who cough and spatter and wheeze like sounds of old cars, who drive thru the day anyway making poetry from pock marks, skin tags, speckled hands and remain unbothered by the constant twitch and crunch of bone grinding into thinning cartilage

Rather they hear this noise as music, a jazz riff or a smooth soul remix, a moan of an old-time blues band. Lulling the aging body back to sleep.

If blessed and favoured aging bodies wake up the next day to the twitch, crunch and chatter and of thin, porous bones To the pulse of blue veins The feel of wrinkled, sagging skin The sound of an old time blues band

Calling to every aging body to rise up And do it all again