u/Honest_Jaguar_4653

I think I'm having more trouble than it's worth finding shoes that look proportionate on me. I'm 5'1 but wear shoe size 9.5-10. I also have larger hands to match. Flats look horrid on me as I also have flat feet so it just looks like I'm wearing flippers. I also avoid pointed toes because my feet are already long enough and they honestly look ridiculous on me - which sucks becaude they look good on everyone else. I can't wear any heels higher than 1in. I want to look sophisticated but most of the recommendations for petite women are things I can't wear.

I'm actually liking the baggier pants or flares because they hide my shoes 😩 but with skinny pants/jeans it's all on display. I'm tired of wearing combat boots/high tops with skinnies but so many shoes look like clown shoes on me which sucks because I actually like my feet size but it just doesn't match well to my height.

I feel I'm a bad patient for refusing to take the prescribed dose, lol. I saw what medication allergies can do to people, so I'm taking the min dose and see what happens. Yes I'm in terrible pain but the side effects suck too. Plus, many times the lower dose I chose is actually plenty effective. Why harm my liver unnecessarily? I'm a smallish person so the cookie cutter doses are usually way too damn high anyway and would probably put me in a coma if I followed it to the letter. Also, going up in dose extremely quickly will not help me. If I need very large quantities of a med for it to do anything, it's most likely the wrong med. Every med I've taken I have had noticeable effects with. If it's small, I slowly increase until I find my goldilocks zone. No I won't continue to increase massively, screw off. One of my doctors seems to have gotten the message and gave me a new med with instructions on how much to take, but did give me the go-ahead if I wanted to take half of what the bottle says. I did just that and the med was very effective in managing my pain and I was happy with the results.

I've only had Lindt's 100% cacao bar. I love Lindt and chocolate in general, but for some reason their 100% cacao bar is weirdly... bland. 92% is deliciously bitter, 99% is very bitter but palatable, but 100% doesn't taste bitter at all - or taste much of anything. It's very rich and really coats your tongue, so I'm glad they make the bars wafer thin almost. It's the only dark chocolate I actually don't eat because of how bland it is, and I wish I liked it more - or if other brands have better 100% cacao bars.

I've been going through some flares and body pains recently, but stretching does help a bit.

Anyway, I stretched maybe too hard, and got the fattest cramp right on my glute. I've never in my life gotten a cramp there and whew that was intense!! I suppose my system couldn't take all the pain from what I already had + cramp because I went PALE and was in presyncope despite me breathing deeply like I was in labor. Had to very quickly lie down and get some air. Luckily (or unluckily) I'm familiar with how my body faints and I could get to a safe spot in time. I was in a cold sweat for a while... that cramp made my butt sore for several days 🥲 Very weird that THIS is what took me over the edge and not me screaming or crying in pain from other things. Kinda mad.

Some venting.

I'm a newbie when it comes to flares, but my neuro added 450mg more to my usual oxcarb dose to try and keep it under control. It's been almost 4 days and while it's definitely not gone, my flare changed from extremely uncomfortable to highly uncomfortable. I now have a small area where I can more or less eat harder foods, but it's risky as hard food can go to my other teeth and it's painful if I bite down.

I have other nerve issues that oxcarb helps with and the dose increase was great and I feel really good in that aspect... but it just barely touched the TN if at all. I wonder if it can work that quickly for TN flares or if more time needs to pass, but I'm a bit dissapointed it didn't do much to prevent me from needing to eat mush 3 times a day. Luckily I can slurp down noodles.

Soft, warm food are the best at keeping the pain down enough for me to actually want to eat at all. I do miss all the non-mush non-noodle food. I almost couldn't eat a floppy chicken wing due to its chewiness. I was also choking on lentils a couple days ago because I couldn't bite through their skin. I thought oatmeal would be okay, but I only have plain rolled oats which were still hard for me to eat after many many minutes of cooking. Bleh. Tofu and saucy noodles, soft scrambled egg and warmed white bread with the crust cut off have been the best food items I've tried so far as I'm learning to navigate through flares. I'm thinking of making a list of safe foods to eat when I go through a flare next time.