u/TubbyLittleTeaWitch

It feels like any time I've wanted to try something a bit different and dye my hair fun colours, my local salons have disappointed me by trying to play it safe by only ever doing highlights in the fun colours (instead of all over like was asked), or weren't interested in lifting my dark hair enough for them to show, or only had a small selection of vivids and didn't seem all that enthusiastic about them and were much more comfortable with the standard colours.

Does anyone have any recommendations for places that are actually good with vivids and more fun or alternative colours and styles?

Hi all! I'll be visiting at the end of September to get a tattoo and I'm trying to plan what sort of clothes to pack. I'd normally just wear jeans but the tattoo will be on my thigh so I want to avoid jeans and tighter trousers while it's still fresh and healing.

What sort of weather and temperature would you generally expect for the end of September?

I have a couple of maxi skirts but they're light and summery, so I'm not sure if it would be too cold by then for something like that. I also have some loose, wide leg joggers which are comfy but I'm worried that these would be too pyjama/loungewear-esque to walk around in, like the equivalent of wearing pyjamas to a supermarket. They're black, so it's not like they're crazy pattered or anything, but I know some places can be more judgemental over things like that, so just wanted to ask.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I swear to god, every single time I get a cold it hits me like a ton of bricks. Husband can just have the tiniest sniffle and scratchy throat for a few days but I'll be fucking bedbound by the same virus. It turns the headache pain all the way up and messes with all my other symptoms, making every little cold into like having the flu.

I'm lying awake with vaporub smeared under my nose, feeling slightly resentful towards Mr Plague Carrier who's sound asleep beside me, and wondering if this is common with other sufferers.

First of all, gotta preface this by saying I love the NHS and we're so lucky to have it. This post isn't meant to disparage it. Unfortunately decades of underfunding and mismanagement have caused nothing but issues with it.

Now that's out of the way, I wanted to ask those of you who are also in the UK, have you actually had decent help from the NHS? Or have you bitten the bullet and gone private? Whether it was just a consultation with a private neurologist or if it's for treatment, too?

My experience with the NHS and my headache has been pretty abysmal. The headache first appeared in 2009, and when it didn't go away for several months, I started the process of speaking to my GP. Over the next year or two, I had my bloods taken and had an MRI to rule out anything more serious, and was given first amitriptyline and then possibly propranolol to try (I'm guessing about the propranolol - it's so long ago that all I remember is it was something that started with P). Neither of them worked for me. In either late 2011 or early 2012, they gave me the diagnosis of Chronic Daily Headache and basically just told me that some people find that it goes away on it's own.

They didn't suggest any other medication for me to try and because my headache was very low level in those days (maybe a consistent 2-3), I was left to just rawdog my way through life without any treatment. So that's what I did, and up until a few years ago, the pain stayed at that low level so it was manageable.

But then the pain level starts to creep up. By 2023 it's making me miss a couple of days of work every couple of months when the pain level spikes and it's sapping all of my energy. I'm getting more migraine like symptoms and am much more sensitive to heat/light/noise etc.

Cue another round of blood tests and several appointments with the doctor later and my GP eventually refers me to a neurologist. I'm on the waiting list until late 2025. Over this time it's only getting worse.

Phone call with neurologist, she confirms all my symptoms and rattles off a long list of things to try, which she sends to my GP.

So I go back to the GP and we start working our way through the various medications, staying 3 months on each.

So far I've tried amitriptyline, propranolol and pizotifen but none of them have helped and the first two gave me terrible side effects as well as making it worse.

I've just had more bloods taken and have another follow up with my GP next week to discuss the results and what to try next as the 3 months on pizotifen are up.

I guess I'm just frustrated with how long it's all taking and I'm especially frustrated when I look back and see that I was left without help for so long, when all the advice is that the earlier it's dealt with, the more likely it is to respond to treatment.

My pain and associated symptoms have done nothing but grow in all the time it's taken and I've been signed off work for the last few weeks because I've been in a bad flare up and I have no idea how I'm supposed to go back to work or live with this for the rest of my life.

I guess I just want to know is this how others have found the NHS to be or have they had better care elsewhere in the country? And have any of you been pushed to go private for anything because you weren't getting the right care from the NHS?

It's weird. I feel like I should be delighted. I'm officially at my goal weight, which is comfortably right in the middle of a healthy BMI range. This is the lightest I have ever been since childhood.

I should be ecstatic. It's the culmination of just over a year of being on this medication and losing 6 stone but weirdly I don't really feel anything about it?

Maybe it's because I know that that was the easier part of the journey and that the actual hard part is going to be trying to maintain a healthy weight for the rest of my life.

Or maybe it's because I don't really feel any different about myself. Like, yes, I fit into smaller clothing now but my body is still the same body I've had my whole life and I still have the same relationship to it as I've always had. I have the same hangups about the same parts of it that I've always had.

Maybe it's a good thing that I'm not delighted. I don't want to think of my past self as anything lesser.

This is a bit of a ramble, but I guess I'm asking if anyone has felt anything similar upon reaching or approaching their goal weight? This has really confused me, to be totally honest. I was fully expecting to celebrate the day when the scales showed that magic number but instead it just feels like any other day.

M&S always used to sell the best supermarket chocolate chip cookies by a mile. They were perfectly soft and chewy and the flavour was just on the right side of sickly sweet.

What happened in the last couple of years? I bought some the other day and was so disappointed in the recipe. The dough doesn't have the same sweetness and it has a weird taste to it that never used to be there. I got about half way through one and had to throw it out.

What the fuck changed? Why are they disgusting now?

Crackpot theory time! Buckle up, folks!

What if Isobel isn't really the villain she's being set up as? Sure, we might be pit against her and have to fight her as we try to stop whatever she's doing, but what if that's just how Humphrey's framed it?

We know that Jack's back, and there's a lot of speculation that Isobel might be working for him, but what if she's actually working against him and it's Humphrey that's secretly working for him?

What if he has us recruiting new heroes because he needs us to fetch things for him or to stop Isobel from thwarting his plans, or maybe even needs some sacrifices or his own personal elite forces team somewhere down the line?

In the latest trailer, we got Isobel explaining her tragic backstory, which is when her powers first manifested. With it being a moment of tragedy, it mirrors the player character's own backstory, with them developing powers after whatever happened at Briar Hill. We also know that in our own tragic backstory, poor old granny (and possibly more of the village) is turned to stone. We've seen footage of an area that is perhaps Wraithmarsh which seems to have this giant stone figure on the edge of it.

What if... Humphrey is somehow behind both attacks on the villages? Maybe there was a bigger reason behind it (like sacrificing to Shadow Court style stuff) or maybe it's a way of finding new Heroes that he can then shape and mould to his own purpose. We know that he trained Isobel and he tells us that she went bad, but what if she just found out what he was up to and is trying to put a stop to it?

We see a glimpse of Isobel near the Sword of Aeons, and in Fable lore we know that this is the only thing that can stop Jack of Blades, so what if she's trying to get it because she knows that Humphrey's working with or trying to unleash (or even become) Jack of Blades?

This probably isn't what we're in store for at all, but my brain decided to have fun putting this theory together! What do we think? Have I missed anything super obvious that would make this impossible?

My original goal weight was 10st. I reached that and changed my goal to be 9st since I'm still not quite happy with my size and to give me a bit of a buffer for trying to find maintenance and eventually titrating down the dosage.

Got down to 9st 9lbs about two months ago and ever since then have been bouncing around between 9st 9lbs and 9st 12lbs. I can't seem to get out of this range.

I don't really want to cut more than I already do, because I'm trying to get used to what the rest of my life is going to look like and I feel like I have a good balance at the moment of eating healthily but still enjoying treats.

I also don't want to move up a dose, partially because I can't afford to but also I don't want to make the maintenance/titrating down part harder by going up to a higher dose when I'm so close to my end goal.

Has anybody else had a similar experience?

Maybe it's just a little plateau and I'm overthinking it. Either way, I'm still celebrating the fact that I reached and surpassed my original goal and am in the healthy BMI range. That's the lightest I've been in 10 years. And not only that, but the biggest change is how much better my mental health has been, without the food noise and then all the negative self talk that that triggers. The silence has been liberating!

What a weird question. As opposed to what, Karen? Letting a ghost possess my body and doing the work for me? (Which I might totally be down for if any gym-loving ghosts wanna get in touch...)

I'm assuming that she was alluding to GLP1s without outright saying so. Do these people honestly think that we don't have to change anything about our diet or lifestyle while on this medication to be able to lose weight? Do they genuinely believe that we're sitting here stuffing our faces while the medication just dissolves it all and more?

If I hadn't been at work and this wasn't a customer talking, I might have taken the time to explain it to her but I really didn't feel like doing that because I'm burnt out on customer interactions as it is, so I just said "Yep. It's nothing that we don't already know about eating healthier, I've just been making more of an effort this last year." Which... isn't a lie. I have done this myself. I have made the changes to my diet which result in losing weight. It's just that those changes weren't sustainable for me prior to taking this medication, no matter how hard I tried.

Sorry, I just needed a rant after more weird comments at work.

PS: But I'm serious about that ghost thing. Hit me up, Casper, if you wanna take control of my body and take it to the gym for a while.