u/lythrum-salicaria

Hey there,

I’m in the process of planning a planted low-tech aquarium for the living room (a 22gal bookshelf or, if I can find one, a 40gal long). I have some experience with nanotanks and walstad jars so it’s not foreign territory to me, but the problem of lighting is posing a problem. My fiancé is bedbound and will probably be recovering from surgeries for the next year or so—the aquarium will largely be for her to enjoy watching.

What I’m looking for is a good aquarium light that is controlled manually, not with an app or a remote (which dogs love to try to eat for some reason). Something she can reach over and adjust to her preferences without needing me to put another program on her phone.

I know Kessil lights are fully manual but I think the shimmer effect will give her migraines. Cheaper lights just have an on/off. Are there lights with controls attached to them that don’t have shimmer?

When introducing new foods, how do you go about it? Mostly when we try adding new foods to my partner’s extremely limited diet, they’ll be okay for a few weeks and then they’ll send her into a huge flare. Other times she’ll have a react for a few days and then seem to gain tolerance over time.

I only see people talk about gradually losing foods with repeated exposure. No one has operationalized what slowly reintroducing foods entails. Do y’all have a method? I’d kill to get some sort of dairy back into her diet on a regular basis but I don’t want to overdo it—or underdo it, if tolerance can be built.

Does anyone have a pretzel brand they recommend? My fiance has recently been tolerating corn again and I would love to find her some premade pretzels that she can eat. My attempts to make them myself have ended badly. Hoping for gluten-free, yeast-free, dairy-free, and with minimum amounts of soy or sunflower or citric acid.

My fiance woke up around 4 AM with what we thought was a thunderclap headache. I took her to the ER and explained her medical conditions (EDS, MCAS, POTS, extremely underweight) and that she’d had bad reactions to compazine in the past and didn’t want anything like that. They agreed, but then the nurse slipped droperidol into her IV—I tried to stop her to ask what it was but she was super rude to me (homophobic I assume) and wouldn’t answer my question until she was already drugged. I told her immediately that my fiance can’t take antipsychotics and she rolled her eyes and sarcastically asked me “oh, did you Google it?” and told me that it has lots of uses.

Fiancé has been in hell on Earth ever since. She’s bedbound with a CSF leak and basilar envagination waiting months for treatment and can’t stop writhing in discomfort. She asked me how long this drug will last and I can’t bear to tell her some of the stories I’ve read on here of people suffering for years. I am praying it passes within the next day. I don’t think her body can handle it in the state she’s in now. I’m so scared. I’m so so so so scared.

I really like the look of planted tanks with spotlight effects where the light doesn’t reach the entire footprint of the tank. Are there reasons this wouldn’t be good for a tank (other than not allowing plant growth in those areas)?

I’ve hired several mold inspectors to check the house for signs of mold (dr’s orders, fiance is mysteriously sick) and none of them will check the ceiling or walls and look at me like I’m crazy when I ask them to. They never bring any tools for it and insist it’s outside of the scope of their services.

I’ve always had fine, brittle hair and extremely thin, bendy fingernails that rip easily, along with perpetually peeling cuticles. My nails are somewhat clubbed (doctors aren’t sure why, my blood tests are normal). My fiance with much more severe hEDS has absolutely beautiful nails so I never suspected EDS as the reason for mine.

I’m new to nail care since I always figured mine were a lost cause. Are there products I can put on my nails to help harden them? A dermatologist recommended a $100/month speciality supplement but I can’t afford that. Regular nail polish only lasts a few days before it flakes off horribly.

I’ve “fixed” my hair by dyeing it with henna twice a month, which seems to strengthen it even though red isn’t my best color haha.

My fiancé can’t handle Cromolyn ampules. She can rarely drink more than a swallow or two of fluid at a time without getting nauseated so Cromolyn has been a non-starter for her. We were thinking of trying compounded Cromolyn capsules swallowed whole. I realize that Cromolyn is diluted and swallowed as a liquid because it allows mast cells along the whole digestive tract to be coated. We know and understand this, but it is not physically possible for her at this stage, and so I want to ask if anyone has experience simply swallowing the capsules as pills. I know that in some countries this is one suggested method of taking Cromolyn so it’s not totally unheard of but I’d like to know any first hand stories about it.

My partner and I both have EDS and have started seeing a PT specializing in EDS. She took one look at our top surgery scars and asked if we have back pain—apparently even with diligent massage and scar care, patients with EDS are more prone to weird scar behavior in the fascia and muscle beneath, and advised us to try 2x weekly cupping therapy using silicone cups that can be moved around over the scar area to help loosen the tissue. The silicone cups are pretty gentle and haven’t caused us any bruising and we both think it’s helping (I’m 3 years out from surgery, my partner is 10 years out). Worth considering!