Hi there. Can anyone help identify this pair of foils. They appear to be from Solingen, with a beehive logo on the blade base. Some engravings on the blades. Wire wrapped rayskin handles. They taper to a point. I am curious of the year they were made and the purpose. With such a point, they are not for practise. Could they be for duels?
Hi all. Have this Delft pottery and am wondering if any people with interest in this area of collecting can advise what exactly I have? I presume an indoor flower pot of some kind although it is quite large. Many thanks.
Hi all. Looking for some advice.
My sister developed what was eventually diagnosed as Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) in her 40s, and it took several years to get anyone to take it seriously or even identify what was happening.
A lot of doctors seemed unfamiliar with the condition and would often dismiss episodes as indigestion, reflux, anxiety, or panic attacks — even during attacks involving crushing chest pain, intense flushing, tingling hands, dizziness, and feeling like something was seriously wrong.
ER doctors have honestly been the most dismissive at times, despite symptoms becoming severe enough that we felt we had no choice but to go.
Once things escalate to ER level, the hospital treatment that seems to help most is antihistamine injections.
Food is definitely a major trigger, but even with a heavily restricted diet, attacks can still happen unpredictably. Medication like Bellozal (bilastine) sometimes helps, but not consistently, and definitely not on the extreme cases that necessitate an ER trip.
The most worrying symptom is the intense chest pain that comes with attacks. There is no history of cardiac issues, but the pain and physical symptoms are very real and severe in the moment.
Since this seems to be a relatively rare or poorly understood condition, I wanted to ask:
Has anyone here had similar experiences?
Did anyone eventually find effective ways to reduce flares or manage attacks better?
Any useful advice, specialists, medications, supplements, or lifestyle changes that actually made a difference?
Has anyone else experienced severe chest pain specifically as part of MCAS attacks and how best to manage them?
Mostly just trying to understand whether others have gone through something similar and whether anyone received genuinely useful information that improved quality of life or helped make attacks less frightening and more manageable.
Thank you for reading.