u/dandelionmakemesmile

I'm not currently diagnosed with epilepsy, I had two seizures December 10 and was referred to neurology but had my first neurology appointment in April, then had an EEG and MRI and my appointment to find out the results is in August. My primary care doctor thinks I have epilepsy so I hope it's okay for me to ask here.

Anyway, the two seizures that I had in December involved me not being conscious for several minutes and waking up on the floor and being wildly disoriented afterwards, I thought it was just fainting but the second happened at urgent care and the doctors said it was a seizure. That didn't happen again since then, but I had strange moments where I basically lost time and my primary care doctor told me that I was probably having absence seizures (I went back because I thought it was some kind of memory issue/brain injury lol). He said about the possible absence seizures that there was nothing he could do except the referral to neurology that he already did, which is fair and I didn't go back since then.

But then on Saturday I had something much more similar to the December incidents, I was chilling on the sofa reading (thank god lol) but lost consciousness and woke up and didn't remember how to walk, it was terrifying and felt just like December except I didn't fall on tile floor this time (again thank god). It felt alarming and scary and my first instinct is to make another appointment with the doctor to at least get it on record, but I don't know if there's any point.

Should I go to the doctor about this?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

Meine Oma freut sich immer, wenn ich ihr eine Postkarte aus dem Urlaub schicke, und ich mach es auch gerne wenn’s ihr Freude macht. Ich kaufe auch gerne die schönste Karten und habe jetzt im Urlaub fast zwei Stunden in allen Läden nach der perfekten Karte gesucht.

Und jetzt sitze ich hier, mit der schönsten Postkarte Granadas, und mir fällt einfach nichts ein. Was schreibt man wenn man schon regelmäßig telefoniert? Ich schreibe auch nur der Oma Postkarten, sonst interessiert sich keiner mehr dafür.

Schon irgendwie schade, ich hab meine Oma sehr lieb aber trotzdem kann ich nichts schreiben.

My first year felt like a hot mess, so I wanted to celebrate that it’s over lol. I spent most of my weekends planning and grading, I didn’t really figure out anything about classroom management until the second half of the year, one parent threatened to sue me for failing his kid for cheating on a test (openly and publicly, no less), and one student threw a chair at me. Nevertheless I survived! I am so excited for year 2, now that I really know what to expect I think it’ll go better.

Celebrating aside, I want to use this summer in a somewhat productive way. Do you have any tips? Is there any prep work that you can do over the summer that makes a real difference in the school year? I want to start getting my weekends back!

I hope I can post this here, please tell me if not. I’m not diabetic myself, but both of my parents have diabetes so I grew up being more informed on the subject than most people I guess. They’ve had diabetes since the 80s and for their parents, they thought they would die early or something, but the treatment options were already great so they were taught by doctors from the beginning that they could eat whatever they wanted as long as they take enough insulin for it. That’s what they do, and their diabetes is perfectly managed, endos say their A1C is good, no problems at all.

The thing is that they both have an incredibly strong sweet tooth (me too), and they will eat sweet things, a donut with their church friends, some ice cream for dessert, whatever (in addition to the jelly beans for lows lol but I don’t think they enjoy the taste of those). Since I was a kid I remember people telling them that they couldn’t eat that stuff because of their diabetes. At school, kids used to say that sugary foods were diabetes or would give you diabetes, and I would argue with them about it, but obviously accomplishing nothing.

That being said, I hear more and more these days that eating bread will give you diabetes, all diabetics have to completely eliminate carbs, and even though I don’t have diabetes, especially my grandparents tell me all the time that I should eat less sweet foods because I’ll end up getting sugar like my parents (I know that the family history means I have a higher risk, but I get my blood glucose and A1C tested every year due to the risk and it’s all still normal, I like to think I’m past the age where I need to worry now).

The misinformation and fearmongering honestly drives me insane, I take it personally on my parents’ behalf, and I would love to know how to push back. What do you say when people say things like that/if you have adult kids what do you wish they would say to people who are telling you how to manage your diabetes?

I actually have always loved exercise in team sports, but for unrelated reasons (terrible eye coordination combined with a minor physical deformity are terrible for being good at sports) I suck at team sports and that means I haven't been able to play in a team since I was a kid (pre-tryout age lol, I never got through tryouts when that time came). Since then I was hugely unmotivated to do any kind of exercise because I just felt bored all the time doing those things alone. Now that I'm 22 I want to get fit, and I tried out all kinds of youtube home workouts and nothing stuck, I felt awful doing all of them and couldn't stick with them.

Anyway, I found some HIIT videos and this feels like it finally clicked. I have the same high now that I used to get playing soccer or swimming with teammates as a kid, but there's some new problems showing up now that I need your advice on.

First, I have had problems with really exaggerated sweating for years now, it's humiliating already but now with that kind of exercise it's much worse. I don't want to risk my normal clothes for workouts obviously, but most workout clothes seem super tight and that's beyond uncomfortable with the sweating. Do you have any tips for workout clothes that won't make me miserable lol?

Second, this might be related to my other physical issues, but my hips and knees are absolutely killing me now and I don't know if that's normal. It literally is hurting me to walk. Should I try to get to a doctor for a referral to physical therapy to see if that's related to my other problems or is this just part of exercising and moving in a different way for the first time in basically ten years?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

I'm honestly asking because I'm curious, I've been in therapy for a few months now and sometimes my therapist will compare his work with mine (I'm a teacher) so I was wondering how comparable it is. As a teacher, I definitely care about my students and I generally try to keep boundaries between work and my free time, but these are kids that I see so much that I do sometimes find myself thinking about them outside of work, how to help them with certain situations, etc. At the same time I hate running into them outside of work lol.

Is that what most therapists think about their clients? Or are you better at setting those boundaries and keeping a better work life balance?

I lost 32 kilograms so far, and I'm only 2 kg away from my goal weight, so I decided to reduce my deficit a little bit and start getting used to maintenance again. That being said, I decided to cook one of my all time favorite meals but "healthy" today and after adding up the calories, I suddenly see how I managed to get so heavy in the first place.

It's just chicken gyros, homemade, with a Greek salad. That added up to almost 900 calories without even considering my air fryer fries, which I won't be making after all (greatest invention ever, I can make my own fries with next to no oil!), and the ice cream that I used to eat for dessert every time I got gyros. That's more than half my maintenance calories already.

Now I'm nervous about my ability to maintain my weight at all, if I go back to trying to cook meals like this that I think are healthy but end up being high calorie. If you're in a maintenance phase, how do you deal with it? What kinds of foods can you eat that don't feel like "diet" foods but still in a normal calorie range?

One of my students wrote and gave me an apology letter during a lesson earlier this week. I have been thinking about it since then and still don't know how to respond.

The context about this student is that he did have behavior issues, especially at the beginning of the year. He was difficult to deal with, and it culminated in him getting removed from my class a few months ago because he reacted very aggressively to a new seating chart. He was back the next day, but he's been steadily improving since that week (behaviorally and academically) in my class (not in his other classes). With his improvement, I really really focused on positive reinforcement with him, and it really worked. He's doing great and is now one of the most motivated kids in his class.

He has been high energy since the beginning of the year, and that hasn't changed at all, but now that energy is directed towards the class and doing well. Sometimes he'll get up and wander around, but it's usually because he's trying to ask me a question (which is a very physical activity for him). I have to admit that he had a very difficult start to the year, but I am super proud of his progress in my class and I'm really happy with him.

That being said, he gave me an apology letter apologizing for being too energetic in class and being a distraction and explained that his behavior has been because of a) a medical condition (that I was aware of already) and b) that he lost two people close to him in the last year and c) because his grades have been dropping badly in his other classes and it's making him stressed.

With the additional context, of course a lot of things make sense, but at the same time my feeling is that he has no reason to apologize, he's become one of my best students. At the same time, in my response to him, I want to acknowledge everything else that's going on because I know that everything is difficult for him.

I'm still a first year teacher (but the end of the year is fast approaching and then the first year will be done! thank god lol), and this is the first time that I've had a situation like this. Nothing about my degree even remotely prepared me for this. Veteran teachers, how do you respond to something like this? What do I do?

This is middle school, by the way. I know that's an important detail, this is a very unique age group.

I have seen gynecologists in the past about this issue, they prescribed birth control and that's it. I'm wondering now if I should try again.

Ever since my periods started, they have been incredibly heavy and incredibly painful. Before taking birth control (since I was 12, first period was shortly before my 12th birthday and was light thank god), I would always throw up on day 1 like clockwork, would be literally bedridden from the pain, missed out on school and extracurriculars, and could bleed through an overnight pad in 1-3 hours on the first 3-4 days (my period is usually 7 or 8 days). I passed out from pain a lot of the time.

I started birth control once I turned 18 (my mother had some bad side effects when she took birth control, so she never let me get a prescription) and it helped a lot. The vomiting stopped completely, and I can at least get up and move a little bit, enough that I could go to school and now (currently 22 years old) I can go to work on my period. Thank god! But ever since I started birth control, I have had two periods a month - one during the placebo week obviously, and another usually around the second week of the pack. The dose just keeps getting increased and it doesn't help. I still go through one overnight pad after 3-5 hours the first few days, and I get dizzy, and I still feel awful.

I have been diagnosed with hypothyroidism, but that's a relatively recent thing and my TSH was always normal before. Thyroid medication hasn't helped with my period.

Is this normal? Do I have to take birth control until I hit menopause? I'm honestly getting increasingly worried, I go through 3-5 packs of pads a month and they're not cheap, and I keep hearing that unusual bleeding is supposed to be a warning sign. Should I push for some kind of test? What test?

I’ve been enjoying some really nice banana chocolate chip baked oats lately, but it’s a ton of effort. So I want to just put my regular rolled oats in a bowl (cereal style) with milk and maybe some fruit mixed in, but I haven’t seen that done before. Are raw oats safe?

I’m proud of myself for standing my ground lol, finally getting the hang of being a teacher now that my first year is almost over. But this situation was genuinely ridiculous. I teach English (as a foreign language, not located in the US) and my students have to take a unit test this week. I specifically set aside two days for it for each class. I announced the test two weeks ago, and reminded students every day that they had a test at the beginning of this week.

This might not be a surprise to the veteran teachers here, but I wasn’t expecting it. Half of my first period class had no idea that the test was today. They were totally shocked and convinced that it was set for the end of the week. They argued with me that I couldn’t possibly give them a test today because they didn’t study. And Wednesday is also impossible because then they only have two days to study. Friday at the earliest!

And one student has been absent for half of the unit (not sick, just absent) and obviously doesn’t know any of the content, and she argued extensively with me that I had to postpone the test for at least two weeks and reteach the whole unit. For her benefit, with the whole class sitting through it anyway. There’s not even enough time left in the school year for that. It’s such an out of pocket thing to demand but she didn’t see any problem with it?

In the end, they took that test today, but I don’t think they’ll finish by the end of Wednesday’s class because they wasted so much time. Then I have to see how I deal with that.

I’m so ready for summer to arrive, I don’t know where these students get these ideas from. The world doesn’t revolve around you!

I started getting periods at 11, now 22 (half my life oh my god), and I always had a very heavy flow (one memorable day, I bled through three pairs of pants just trying to get ready for school in the morning), on my heaviest days usually went through 7-8 night pads in a day. I had terrible pain, reliably vomiting on the first day of each period, couldn't move from the pain and missed school every period.

The second I turned 18 I started on birth control and it helped a lot. The pain is now manageable with ibuprofen, I can move and go to work on my period, but it's still miserable (on my period now, I can't walk more than 10 minutes without needing to sit). More notably, before, my period came on a more or less reliable 25-30 day cycle, but now with birth control I have my period on the placebo week (obviously) but also on the second week. So maybe the bleeding per period is less, but I'm having two periods a month now.

I have gone to multiple doctors, they keep increasing the birth control dose, but I have never had any tests done or anything because I was told that they were unnecessary. Is this really normal/something I have to live with until I finally stop having periods? I know periods are just part of life and totally normal but the thought of having to deal with this for a couple more decades feels like an absolute nightmare.

I just had an EEG after my GP sent me to neurology with suspicions of epilepsy. No one told me about the results now, obviously, I have to wait to follow up with the neurologist. The thing is, during the EEG I didn’t lose consciousness, which happened with my other events, so I’m worried that the test won’t show anything. Of course I would prefer to have nothing, but since I am having seizures, I’m desperate to know why so the doctors can treat me.

Is that a reasonable thing to worry about? Will they be able to see some results regardless?

Thank you!

I love spinach, but I just saw a video where someone said raw spinach is unhealthy because of the oxalate content and when I looked it up it seems to be true. I don’t know if I’m personally prone to kidney stones, but someone in my family had pancreatic stones and has diabetes now as a result of that so I want to be careful to avoid that happening to me and now I’m also worried about not being able to absorb nutrients because of it. Sadly I can’t stand cooked spinach so I have been eating lots of raw.

So I need advice, how can I substitute spinach? I was always raised on the assumption that fruits and vegetables are healthy but it seems to be a lot more complicated than that and I’m starting to feel like everything is unhealthy, so what can I have instead?

Thanks!

My latest blood test results show:

Cholesterol: 229 mg/dL

HDL: 67 mg/dL

LDL: 123 mg/dL

Triglycerides: 194 mg/dL

I'm 22 years old, and I thought I had a healthy diet. Only whole wheat bread, almost all of my fats come from EVOO, nuts, and avocados, I eat red meat maybe once a month, my diet is maybe 80% fruits and vegetables. Maybe I salt my food too much, but that's all. I'm worried about these numbers even though the doctor said it's not at a point where I need medication yet. How can I fix my diet/lifestyle to get my cholesterol back to a normal range?