u/Joker0705

hi everyone, my left shoulder is a lot more hypermobile than my left. i'm always dealing with shoulder pain from having it out of place. i don'r dislocate but i do sublux. i'm working on the known culprits - correcting my posture when i'm sewing, not reaching extra far for stuff (telescopic shoulders anyone) and i got a neck pillow for sleeping so i don't pop my shoulder out to *be* a pillow.

the sleeping one is really the kicker. it doesn't usually cause an injury outright but it makes any shoulder pain i have last longer because it's not in the right position to heal. the neck pillow works until i'm unconscious and don't have control over my movement. generally it happens a lot less now but it still happens from time to time.

the other thing is that i'm finally able to exercise again (yay!!!!) and i've started swimming. it's doing a lot of good for me but my left shoulder doesn't love a more intense swim. i try and make sure my swimming technique avoids my hypermobile range of motion as much as i can, but I think my left shoulder is literally just looser than the other one.​

i know athletes use KT tape. i did try that years ago for a completely unrelated use and my thin skin and sensitivity to adhesives made it very painful. but then again i was using that on a very thin area/am medicated for MCAS now. do any of you find it helpful? i've got tactics for supporting pretty much all my other joints but it doesn't seem like there's such a thing as a shoulder brace. what do you guys do?

i have hair that is too wavy for a straight routine and too straight for a wavy routine. nothing seems to work at all! it looks great when it's wet, very defined sections (maybe 8-12 of them on my head) of waves where it's very happy to clump together. but i just haven't found a way of drying my hair without it looking awful!

plopping or any kind of scrunching to get moisture out makes the waves break apart and it gets very frizzy very quickly, even when i'm being extremely gentle. because it clumps together the centre of the clump takes HOURS to dry, so air drying isn't an option. and if i let the hair hang down to dry, the wave pattern drops from the weight of the wet hair. i've tried diffusing but my hair hates heat. I just end up with lots of frizz, regardless of heat protectants/serums or actual diffusing technique.

i do dye my hair and while it's naturally light i do have to put a 20 vol bleach on the roots every couple of months, but it's about as healthy as vivid hair can be. i know i can't have the most healthy beautiful hair while also having it be bright pink but i really just don't know what to do with it. i've (gently) pinned it to the top of my head to air dry without the weight of the hair pulling out the waves, but it takes so long. diffusing like that yields awful results too.

the other problem is that my hair is so fine it tangles extremely easily, but brushing ruins the waves. even with a comb or wavy brush, it just goes *poof* and frizzes up. but there's absolutely no way i can not brush it because of how tangled it gets. and that's just during the day, let alone after sleeping.

i'm so tired of having frizzy hair. i've tried all sorts of products and all sorts of techniques but my hair doesn't like any of them! when I wash it i double shampoo, use a hair mask, apply conditioner then brush while the conditioner is in. i've tried curl creams, setting sprays, leave in-conditioners, detangling sprays. on recommendation from my hairdresser i got a protein mask but it really didn't seem to do anything. the most success i had was with a hold gel (no cast) but it took centuries to dry so it just wasn't practical. any advice?

looking specifically at the fashion design and technology course in manchester; fashion design in preston. i don't mind living in either as they're both close to home - preston is significantly cheaper though (accom is half price!) which is a bonus.

manchester met has some really great and innovative facilities, but the smaller class size in preston is a huge plus for me. i'm leaning towards uclan. does anyone have experience of either?

also, any tips about my portfolio/personal statement would be very appreciated. i didn't do any art courses for my a levels and am applying as a mature student so don't have the academic support of someone in sixth form.

hi folks, i've played piano for over a decade now. while i started out self-taught i did academic music so had a bit of classical training a few years ago. i've always been very good at the appraisal aspect of music, love theory and the 'listening' skills. but performance has always been tricky because I just cannot read sheet music! i still perform concerts here and there so it makes it tricky when i don't have much notice.​​

i understand the rhythm, i get what all the markings mean but i just can't remember what the damn notes are. no matter how much i try (and i've been trying for 13 years!) i can't reach fluency with the notes. i can do okay with chords sometimes because that's more about shapes, and as long as i can figure out the base note i can work out what totality of chord it is from there. but with any kind of melody it takes me so long to figure out what each note is.

i've always masked my issues with dyslexia until i burnt out and couldn't anymore, so it got missed when i was younger. i could always read and spell, but only if i squeezed my brain as hard as i could and used 100% of my focus. i didn't know that other people weren't doing that!

for music i've always learned with synthesia or by writing the notes onto the score, which is a little painstaking. I have a plug in for musescore that automatically puts the notes in for me, but you need the .xml file for it. i've yet to find any pdf scanning software that works to streamline this. i've heard things like colour coding the notes can help, i know you can toggle that on as a feature too so maybe I'll try that. i just feel it's a little embarrassing to be able to have done grade 7 ABRSM piano while still needing to write in the notes!

do any other musicians here struggle with this?

hi folks, i have ARFID and PMOS so eating is a nightmare. i'm on mounjaro and have recently started myo-inositol in a 40:1 ratio so i'm medicated for PMOS. it's helped, but i think I need to re-learn how to eat. i can't eat certain textures and have dietary restrictions so i'm limited in what i can eat, but that doesn't mean i can't do better with what i've got.

for maybe 2 months now i've been hungry non-stop. i get full quickly but hungry again quickly too, so i spend all day either eating or thinking about what i'm going to eat next. i've been trying to do some research but so much nutrition advice on the internet is based on losing weight or building muscle, which isn't really what i'm trying to do. i'm trying to eat in a way that makes me feel like i have enough energy to do what i have to do in a day.

i find it really hard to eat in the mornings but i suffer so much if i don't. i've tried a huge variety of protein shakes but they're miserable.​​ i need something that i don't have to eat a lot of ​but gives me a lot of energy. is that protein? is that carbs? diet culture has really warped my perception of what foods are "bad" and "good". i eat a lot of vegetables, and they make me full quite quickly but hungry again quickly too. does anyone have an unbiased, non-diet culture explanation of what the food groups actually do? and which ones you need to eat to feel full and have energy?

maybe a silly question but I have other chronic illnesses that get worse with bad emotions, so maybe not silly.

i have this mystery pain in my left ovary that increasingly looks like it could be endo. i've got some tests coming up to help us get to a diagnosis, but i was just wondering if anyone else has had this happen. one of the frustrating things about trying to get medical help has been how inconsistent the pain is. i can have it every day for a week and then not have it at all for a week or two. i don't have a cycle as i'm on depo.

there are only a couple of things that consistently make the pain flare - any penetration (sex or scans), eating (pressure on my ovary from the food in my stomach), and physical activity. but i've noticed that whenever i have doctors appointments where i talk about my pain, it tends to flare up. doctors make me anxious and i have a lot of medical trauma so it makes sense, i just think it's funny that when i acknowledge the pain, it says hello afterwards. does anyone else experience this?

hi everyone, i have several health issues including ME/CFS and POTS so my circulation has never been fantastic, and i've always struggled with fatigue. so i know this is in part due to those issues but i feel like PMOS is a big factor here because it gets much worse after I eat.

i'm just freezing cold 24/7.​ i don't live in a particularly cold climate, always dress in several layers, am not undereating (although that does make it worse), am not iron anemic and medicated for folate anemia, don't have thyroid issues, don't have pre-diabetes or diabetes. but i am extremely cold no matter what i do, especially after eating. i don't have notably low or high blood sugar either.

i'm on a beta blocker for my pots which has made the cold slightly worse, but i can't come off of that as I can barely walk off of it. and i'm on mounjaro for pmos which has improved things a lot. ​​i used to have to lie down after i ate anything because my body just kinda turned off? like I couldn't speak, got extremely cold, very weak and couldn't sit upright. i'm glad that's gone being on mounjaro but I can't seem to shake this cold thing.

i know in some part with chronic illnesses we have to learn to deal with chronic symptoms but this is causing huge issues in my life and seems to be getting worse. i eat mostly protein and veg, try and avoid carbs, never eat wheat, avoid snacks. i make sure to eat enough calories every day too.

what do i do? the doctors don't know what to do with me. i genuinely can't get anything done because i get too cold and have to lie down fetal position under heated blankets for hours​, i get brain fog where i can't focus with it too, muscle weakness. for hours a day sometimes i just can't do anything! has anyone got any advice? 🩷

hi everyone, trying to think through how this would work. i've made a dress (V9252) that fits decently, but could do with a little more ease to feel comfortable after dinner! i've ran out of seam allowance to take from and i don't have enough fabric to cut more bodice pieces. i've been thinking about how i would replace the zipper with an adjustable lace-up panel while still being able to get in and out of the garment.

one of those lace-up closures where the modesty panel attaches at both sides of the opening wouldn't work as i still need to get in and out. i'm thinking a modesty panel that's just a rectangle attached to one side would do, but how do you make sure it does its job of maintaining your modesty? i feel like it would be easy for it to roll up on itself without some way of attaching it at the other side. obviously you could put a hook and eye(s) in on the bodice piece, but how do you do the same in the skirt? i feel like it would become very fiddly to put on very quickly. or is stiffening the modesty panel with some sort of interfacing enough to keep it from doing that?

the skirt itself would be laced as tight as possible because i don't need any extra room there. the waist seam and bodice section would be laced with at most an inch or two gap between the centre back edges. that makes me think that it might be better to use one of the stitches on my machine to make 'sewn grommets' (don't know the actual name) for the lace to go through rather than attach little rouleau loops, as i really don't need that much more room. but would that make the fabric pull unflatteringly?

any advice would be appreciated. i'm sure i could just come up with something and it would work well enough, but it's a very pretty dress and i want to do this alteration in a pretty way​ 😅

hi all, i did a year of uni for english lit in edinburgh a few years ago before i fell ill and couldn't continue my studies. since then i've been in recovery for my health issues and am considering the idea of going back into education when i'm well enough.

since taking some time out i discovered a love for sewing and fashion. i make all my own clothes now and do alterations for others. i'm very interested in the technical and personal side of it, things like complex garment construction, how clothing fits bodies, how we use clothing to express certain aspects of ourselves. i want to be able to make more complex garments, design them for myself, be able to cut my own patterns, learn more about why fashion is so important to us.

i've not done any kind of textile study but i did do art, craft and design at GCSE. for my A levels i got A*A*A + distinction in english lit, media, music and welsh baccalaureate. so i'm not quite sure what academia even looks like for a fashion student - is it mostly lectures, or practical work? are there written exams, portfolio work or garment presentations?

how good of a uni do you need to go to for an actual chance to get a job in the industry? most of what seem like the best courses are centred around london (fashion atelier degree at UCA, etc). can you go anywhere and get a "good enough" degree?

with my health, i may never be well enough to have a full-time job. would a fashion degree give me enough knowledge in pattern cutting to make and sell my own? would i be able to work as a tailor and make alterations? and as part of the degree does your work have to be completely self-drafted or can you use pre-existing patterns as a base to work from?

i know a lot of these questions would be answered by going to an open day or two. but i guess i'm asking to know what kind of unis to shoot for in the first place. if anyone has any advice or experience i would be very grateful 🩷

hi everyone! just made myself a knit tiered skirt and i love it, but it has one minor problem: the elastic is a great fit at the waist, holds up the fabric well, very comfortable, but it doesn't stretch enough for me to pull it down over my hips. i'm very curvy and have large hips so i have to put it on and off over my head. I get this with RTW clothing so no big deal, but what can us sewists do about this? any larger on the waistband and it wouldn't fit my waist/would sag with the weight of the skirt so i can't just do that.

obviously i could put a zip in but with very stretchy knits that can be complex (stabilising etc). do you get extra stretchy elastic? any advice would be very welcome :)