u/Own_Value2684

DAE get their worst symptoms when they haven't slept enough?

I swear, if I sleep pretty well, I eat regular meals, and have snacks, my pots symptoms disappear. I can live pretty normally.

The problem is, I struggle with sleep a lot. With my sleeping schedule. Sometimes interrupted sleep. Sometimes nightmares. Sometimes falling asleep later and my sleep is really bad quality.

So on the chance I don't sleep well (pretty much guaranteed if I have an upcoming event, or I'm extremely busy, or I'm feeling anxiety), pots symptoms basically go through the roof.

Digestion gets funky, intestines feel like they've been scraped raw, heart does cartwheels, blacking out increases sharply when going from sitting to standing, nausea, limbs feel fatigued/heavy, muscle weakness, dehydrated, headaches, heat intolerance, all the stuff. Pins and needles. Feeling woozy like the faintest sensation of being rocked on a boat. Basically needing to move slow because my body is like, what on earth is going on....movement? Are you crazy?

But if I take a really effective nap? (Well, it's hard to, since once the symptoms are triggered there's a reason why I'm sleeping poorly) The symptoms can reduce sharply like 50% after a 2hr sleep. It's amazing. I've had heat stroke and my body was able to sort itself out completely with a nap in the shade. Whereas people trying to cool me off and hydrating me wasn't working. Because I swear, my body refuses to absorb nutrition and hydration if I haven't slept good....I feel SO DRY until I get that nap in!!

Basically I've been learning for 5~ years how to sleep. I still don't get it right every time. I've had months of recurring episodes that left me drained since the episodes make me feel anxious as fuck and then I still can't sleep.

I just figured this out today though. Dysautonomia is apparently a huge fan of a lack of sleep for me. It's insane that my parents never believed my struggle while I was growing up. They still don't.

.

Basically, this disability is so wild and sometimes random...I never knew I'd have something like this, but considering it's now medically necessary for me to take naps (I've gotten heat stroke on hot days when I haven't slept enough), it's like a dream come true. Getting to listen to my body and give it what it needs feels like the best thing ever.

So, it's backwards I guess, but knowing that taking care of my body the way it needs it results in me feeling better, and I'm allowed to use a cane if I want to, I'm allowed to nap if it means my body will thermoregulate, that's amazing.

Hey y'all, I just wanted to share a success I had.

I did my first ever day of jumproping the other day, I did 700 skips (broken into batches of 25-50), and afterwards I felt so amazing that I was able to JOG for 1/3mi.

What's so amazing about this is that I haven't been jogging in over 3 years-- I had broken my foot which threw off my fascia, left me with muscular weakness, basically I ended up with a "dead" left hip, leg, and I have been working HARD to get sensation and proper musculature back. Like, my whole leg shifted position which caused back pain, shoulder pain, jaw pain, everything-pain, it was quite exhausting.

Finally, after 5mo PT, 6mo swimming, and endless stretches, bodyweight workouts, tears, and over 2 years of frustration, I felt my left leg and hamstring WAKE UP and I have been walking NORMAL for the first time in what feels like forever!!!

I just got my life back it feels like...seriously, as a naturally athletic person, not being able to jog, jump, or walk without significant pain, numbness, and imbalance has been my personal hell.

It's 3 days later now and I'm sore as heccckkkk....I wasn't able to jumprope today since it feels like my glutes want to peel off of my pelvis when I jump, but that's okay, being able to FEEL my whole left leg and hip again is a miracle I never thought I'd see. I've been waiting for this day for a long time 🙏

But I was able to do some banded workouts and bodyweight stuff today, focused on training hip flexors and some deep lunges, etc.....jumping is a no-go right now but I'm so thrilled to try it again tomorrow or the next day.....I think this is the next step in my injury recovery journey!

That's just day 1 of jumping rope.....and I feel so alive I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner!!

Just wanted to share and say thank you for the motivation of all your posts :) have a good day!!

Hi everyone, I take meds daily to address my OCD and ADHD symptoms. They are very effective when I take them, and they help me live a more balanced life as well as do basic tasks without excessive rumination and compulsion.

The thing is though, I often times convince myself out of taking them, for many reasons that come across as ruminations or obsessions with purity.

One of the recent things that came up was I stopped taking a sleeping pill due to having really horrible side effects. I also stopped using medical marijuana since I also started having panic attacks when I would use it.

Naturally, my brain is now telling me that I do not need any medication at all, which is not true. My daily meds help a lot and I would like to continue having them in my body.

I tend to struggle with thoughts such as, I don't need this anymore, taking a day off will help me. The kicker is, I do need them, and taking a day off does not help me.

I also have thoughts that say that my medications are a drug, and I should not take drugs, and that somehow I'm using them to get high, even though the effect that I have is not called getting high, it's literally just a baseline of wellness that I see as the bare minimum for me to function and survive, lol.

Basically, I've come up with a lot of reasons not to take my meds. When I am taking them daily my life improves immensely.

But I often skip doses.

This morning I decided not to take them, and I proceeded to go through a 5-hour shame spiral, and then a friend called me to offer support, and I realized that I should probably take my meds.

I took my meds, shame spiral was gone, I started to feel like myself again, and I'm like, I could have just had a really calm day had I taken them when I woke up 😅

Does anybody else handle this or have kind advice please? Thank you 🙏

Basically as the title says.

TW: medical descriptions, medications, blood

I probably have hEDS, POTS, I also am diagnosed with ADHD and I've had a myriad of medical things through my life that doctors don't explain and also specialists have basically told me I'm being dramatic about or they "​can't find proof" of my symptoms with their tests (sobbing and begging isn't proof apparently). I'm basically disabled much of the time though and also deal with severe ​depression, anxiety, and cptsd. And I grew up in a home with an alcoholic, a hoarder, and started using drugs and alcohol ​when I was 16, including overdosing at that age. JUST for funsies. (I'm off the drugs now thankfully but yeah just a very "interesting" life indeed)

Anyways, I'm 28 now and I live in my childhood home again (ugh) after some more trauma stuff (uugghh) and I'm dealing, yet again, with a racing heartbeat and heart palpitations as soon as I lie down to sleep. I'm not anxious at night, but when that happens I feel VERY alert/panicked because my heart is doing things it's probably not supposed to.

This has been happening since I was 8 years old. I have had EKGs and everything showed up "normal".

I've also had what I'm pretty sure are POTS episodes but it also happens when I am very anxious and not eating much (due to The ​Anxiety™), and it has been terrifying.

I started taking a sleeping pill (clonidine) in February and surprise, I'm able to sleep (after trying about 50 alternative remedies) after sleeping like shit for 5 years. What a celebration.

Then I start getting side effects with my eyes until I got a rash so bad on my eyelid that I had to stop cold turkey.

Then I r​ealized that for 3 blissful months, I was able to sleep with no heart racing, no heart palpitations, just NORMAL steady heartbeat the whole time I was on clonidine 🥹 And no sleep anxiety either. Just slept like a rock and felt refreshed.

Well now I'm trying guanfacine tonight because clearly my heart is gonna keep doing the thing at night if I don't take something, and my Dr referred me to a cardiologist and I'm hesitant to even go bc I've been gaslighted by so many specialists, and I live with my mom who *still* completely denies that there's something "wrong" with me and that I should just push through it, shut up, and stop being a drama queen.

Like, I've had shingles when I was 12. I had MRSA NINE TIMES when I was 15. I have holes in my muscles going to my bone to prove it. ​I've gotten hepatitis A and almost died and I ​grew back my liver. Like, the body stuff just keeps on keeping on and I'm frustrated.

Like, adderall helps my mood SO MUCH, helps me to think positively, helps me feel like MYSELF, and yet I think it makes my heart race worse when it wears off, hence I need sedaton to sleep. But then also with no Adderall, I literally have zero self esteem, I feel worthless, and I can't/don't do anything. Bleh.

Like I just feel like my body is a big mystery and I don't even know what the issue is anymore. I don't know how to stay healthy. It's constantly throwing loops at me and I just try to roll with it ☹️

Any support welcome 😭

Hi there, I've been exploring TCM herbs for healing and recently I've been curious about acupuncture and moxibustion and things like that.

I'm willing to seek out a TCM practitioner who can help with these issues, and what methods they might use to restore my body to health.

Basically I have problems with very tight fascia on the left side of my body. Specifically from the foot (I broke a bone a few years back and it's been very painful getting my body back to flexibility and strength), up the leg, into the hip (deep and chronic tension there), through the back, up the shoulder, and then I've had longstanding problems with TMJ in the right jaw and side of my head.

I stretch my body daily, I gently swim laps as much as I can (1-2x/week), I use the sauna afterwards, I practice slow diaphragm breathing, and still, my body tends to revert to its twisting/tension/clamping within a day or two, and I find my body is covered in knots (specifically between left shoulder blade and spine, on the front of the left quad towards the knee, in the middle of my left calf, and inside the left ankle near the achilles).

I also use gua sha on these muscles, I apply tiger balm over sore spots, I use a massage gun (not the best thing but it works), I gently massage the areas with shea butter, and I focus on gently stretching through the tension when I notice it.

I've been struggling with this for some years now as it really throws off my balance and causes me to compensate by mostly using the right side of my body.

It's been deep enough that I haven't been able to horseback ride without pain (my favorite hobby) as there is also tightness in the left thigh adductor that pulls my leg up/inwards and seems to be coming from the deep inner hip tissue. And the left hip has struggles activating and holding stability there although I work on that through swimming and gently using exercise bands to strengthen the muscles.

It just seems that my body really holds on tightly to trauma as I've been through things that really spun me out several years ago, and I'm looking forward to getting back on the horse metaphorically and physically, lol.

I'm 28 years old, female, and I'm looking into TCM but I was just curious what a TCM practitioner or acupuncturist might do/recommend for me and what I can focus on addressing before my appointment (still looking for a practitioner and probably won't get to it for about a month or more)

Thank you and have a great day!

Hi there, it comes to my attention that aquarists sometimes get really excited about building their dream aquarium and really try to make it work with fish, amphibians, and invertebrates that *technically* could be together but often aren't compatible, or the tank is overstocked.

I'm one of those aquarists-- so I'm not judging or criticizing anyone, and nobody is in trouble here either. I am not upset with any of yall. Just some words for your consideration, that's all.

Something I've learned over the years of keeping aquariums (close to 15 years) is that sometimes we let our human mind (ego) get in the way of what's most pleasing and best for our fish. Well, I have before, and I won't make an assumption about you, but it's something to reflect on perhaps if you are a fish keeper or you're diving into the world of aquatic life.

I can understand that excitement is a factor here.

It's thrilling to dream up a pretty aquarium and design everything yourself, and then you are hosting a gorgeous display that you can show off and see all your cool critters daily.

We really want to enjoy our hobby, especially when tanks get expensive quickly and we want to make the most out of our investments. Cash ain't cheap.

But with a little nod to our aquatic friends, I would just like to say, these little guys get no choice in anything that happens to them. And we represent everything to them-- food, shelter, lighting, substrate, tankmates, everything. We decide how they are going to live and they put up with that. They have no say in these things. They don't have minds or voices like ours to say that they feel discomfort.

So, that betta in a very tall tank who has a heavy tail has no choice but to swim up very high for air each time. It's going to be a lot of work every time he needs to surface for air.

I'm sure that he can be "fine" in there, but I see it this way....is breathing really a struggle we need to be putting our animals through? Or perhaps would it be better to plan an aquarium with a longer footprint, and a lower surface level so that the little guy can grab some fresh air with less strain.

This post isn't about bettas, it's just one example of making a creature's life more comfortable for him to live.

I get it with overstocking too. I've overstocked tanks before that required extra water changes and filtration.

But I wonder, even if our fish are still swimming around and living, does that mean they are necessarily happy living in cramped quarters? Sometimes we dream of having these big huge fish in sometimes small (30-75 gallon) tanks and we think "the water quality is fine so it's a non issue"-- but consider it this way, when you spend all your life in the equivalent of a closet, and you're fighting with your roommate, is overstocking (in some cases) really something that makes fish, any animal, or a human "happy"? How would you feel if your roommate was always picking on you? Do we feel they deserve better?

The same goes for mixing species that aren't always compatible, or require a certain substrate that we don't give to them.

Sure, cory cats can do just fine on pebbles or a bare bottom tank.

But have you ever seen the thrill of a little catfish blasting through soft sand, filtering it through his gills, picking up little morsels to eat? You get to see some really fine natural behaviors when fish have all of their needs met. That is a bonus to having these nice catfish, or others, in your aquarium.

And also, I've posted about African Dwarf Frogs here before, but I wonder, for those who say "my frogs are fine in a community tank and haven't keeled over yet", I wonder, is "they aren't dead" the standard that you are okay with representing to your little guys, or are you doing your best to give these critters happy lives so you can get the satisfaction in knowing you've given them the best lives possible?

(I'm not saying ADFs specifically can *never* live in communities, so excuse me for being a frog fanatic as I keep mine in a species only setup and I get to see a range of froggy tomfoolery, ballerina like poses, and burbling at the surface with my happy little frogs, that I never saw when I kept my frogs with fish before. Just my experiences that's all)

Anyways, I just wanted to say, I think that it's something to consider that requires just a little bit more effort to make our fish and other critters a little bit more comfortable, but it's something they will appreciate for their lifespan.

I know many people say that fish don't have feelings, but they certainly do respond to their environment, and certain things make them happy, and certain things can decrease their quality of life.

I don't necessarily think that we can compare it to our feelings, but I just think that every critter appreciates a high standard of living conditions, and then they can really be themselves.

Let's be responsible stewards of life and just consider if we are pushing our limits with a tank, or that we are possibly causing our critters discomfort by putting them into a situation that satisfies our human ego, but makes them feel unhappy, unsafe, or their true colors & personality don't get to shine fully.

Again, this is not a criticism, I'm not judging anybody here because I believe that fishkeeping is a hobby where we are all learning. And I am not mad at you for making mistakes or learning to do better with time.

I've certainly kept fish and other aquatic critters in aquariums that weren't the best for them-- I find it best to forgive myself for my mistakes, to find a better way, and then move on and enjoy making an oasis where my little guys can enjoy themselves more fully, and I get more enjoyment from their happiness.

Just my .02, have a great day ☺️

Hi there, thank you so much for reading this.

I'm looking for advice on the best flea & tick prevention for my two cats, specifically my older cat Boo who is quite sensitive to medications, as well as had a bad experience with an OTC flea/tick prevention (it was quite a scary 3 days for us!) with lethargy, vomiting, diarrhea, etc. Never using that stuff again! Open to buying prevention from veterinarian or anything you'd recommend can be found online.

8yo old male domestic cat, neutered, 13lbs (larger cat on the chonky side, we are working on it)

Cat seems to deal with anxiety which is alleviated by outdoor time in spring/summer/autumn. Much more relaxed after spending a day in the yard. He loves pooping in the dirt and lounging in the sun. Our 1/2 acre yard is securely fenced (tall wire fencing with zero gaps or escape routes) and he loves to zoom through the grass, hide under a bush, etc. However, I found a few ticks on him recently which has never happened before. Ticks must be bad this year, I removed them and he was very nervous/running around/ripping out chunks of fur near the ticks before they were off him. I'm looking for a flea/tick prevention that is inexpensive as possible as both my cats (female, domestic, 1yr old, 8.5lbs) will need treatment, as lymes disease is prevalent locally and deer seem to be entering my yard and dropping them lately.

Length of time: just saw ticks on him a few weeks ago, otherwise I've never found ticks on him before and do regular tick checks. I'm not doing any tick prevention in my yard yet as I haven't found anything that is safe for cats and my small dog to be around.

Pennsylvania USA

Anyone here that quit smoking or wants to??

I started smoking at 18 as a way of feeling like I was in control of something when my life felt very much not that way. I smoked on and off for a few years.

The last 4 years I've been smoking a lot. I went through something extremely traumatic and it wounded me. So I picked up smoking again to cope with it. And I smoked a lot. Not a pack a day, but like half a pack a day sometimes. Usually 3-4 cigarettes a day and they're strong (American spirits)

I have very pale, thin porcelain skin and at 28yrs old I'm already starting to see many fine lines forming under and around my mouth. Smoke damage.

I feel deeply ashamed of this. I've been shamed for smoking countless times by "well meaning" people. All it did was make me feel even worse, and when I feel shameful I smoke cigarettes because it's my comfort.

People say that I am a beautiful woman and I shouldn't smoke, as if beauty and having problems don't go hand in hand. The more I feel shamed the more I feel the urge to smoke. My mom has shamed me many times even though she used to smoke cigarettes. It's like, what the hell makes people think that shame helps people heal?! It doesn't!!

I want to stop but I have quit cold turkey many times and come back just as many. I quit for 72 days last year and it was lovely. But now I'm feeling so much anxiousness I keep smoking.

I'm afraid for my beautiful skin and I want to start tretinoin and get laser treatments someday. I want to stop because this habit is showing up on my face. I love my beautiful body and skin so much but I have smoked way too much 😭

People say they don't see the fine lines at all but that's all I see when I look in the mirror now. I feel ashamed of this.

People say nicotine cravings last 15 minutes, but mine last 45 minutes or more. I feel like I have a total meltdown without it.

I love love love the taste of smoking, the habit, I love the routine, comfort, familiarity, but at the cost of my skin. (Please don't tell me about the other health risks. I'm aware of them)

Any advice/support? If you quit successfully, how did you do that?

I quit smoking marijuana recently (I was a heavy user the last 4yrs also) and that was easy peasy in comparison to tobacco-- even with physical withdrawals and anxiety spirals and whatnot.

With tobacco it feels more personal and like my safe zone, my bubble.

Thanks for listening <3