u/pnddiug

hi!

this may be a very confusing and potentially stupid question, but i also have a very confusing and potentially stupid relationship with caffeine. maybe someone here will know what i'm talking about and has similar experiences.

i have bipolar II and audhd. don't worry, this is not a medical emergency situation or question! it matters simply because it affects the way my body reacts to certain levels and types of caffeine.

unless i'm already manic or are about to be, in which case coffee makes me very buzzed, coffee just tends to make me very tired on a normal day. the little energy boost lasts for just about as long as it takes me to drink it and then i crash. for a while i switched to energy drinks, which was the only thing that worked. but it also ended up messing with my sleep cycles and clearly wasn't the healthiest thing in the world, so i laid off of that again and have been working on my sleep independently since then.

i used to be really into collecting teas and now that my health has been on a good incline, i wanted to get back into drinking tea as my little treat drink of choice! they're not all caffeinated, but the jasmine green tea i bought definitely is.

can anyone who's in a similar boat advice me when it's best to drink it? does the caffeine in it work more similarly to how coffee would work? because in that case it's probably best if i don't drink it in the morning to avoid becoming drowsy and sleepy, right? it'll be a bonus if it ends up helping me sleep in one way or another! i just don't want to make myself sleepy that early in the day.

i know it's a little ironic to view caffeine as the opposite of an energizer, but it's simply not how it seems to work for me. energy drinks have been the only thing that truly keep me up when i needed it.

PS: the tea is very tasty, i highly recommend it to people who already like green tea! the subtle hint of jasmine honestly makes it a hundred times better than plain green tea and i already was a fan before :) i heard it highly depends on the quality of the tea, though

Hello!

i'm a 25 year old trans man. i take testosterone, as well as quetiapine and sertraline for my bipolar disorder. recently got diagnosed with adenomyosis and on the road to getting an ehlers-danlos diagnosis after years of being told it's simple hypermobility and some connective tissue disorder (older sister was misdiagnosed with rheumatism for the last 25 years of HER life and then referred to human geneticists for EDS, so it's already in the family). not sure if any of this is relevant at all, but adding it just in case.

i've always had issues falling asleep, but never STAYING asleep. lately however i keep waking up with my left arm having fallen asleep to the point where it hurts. it's odd, because i tend to sleep more on my right side, i often wake up on my right side and it keeps happening once i've woken up no matter how i lay. even if i dare to move my arm so much as on top of the other on my side, it starts falling asleep again. the only way ive found it stopping has been by awkwardly keeping it lined up with my body, which is not really the most comfortable position for me personally, so i struggle to fall back asleep like that. it also makes me feel like i have to stay stiff in that position or else it will start falling asleep and hurt again.

Is there any way i can prevent this from happening? Is it worth even going to a doctor over it? i feel a little silly, since it's really just my arm falling asleep and that alone doesn't seem like the end of the world, but it happened three nights in a row now and it's starting to really disrupt my already irregular sleep.

at which point it may be important to mention that my sleep schedules has been practically non existent for a WHILE now. i'm unable to work at the moment, but even just having appointments early in the morning stresses me out enough that i usually have to shift my entire week just around when i'll need to get up and go to sleep to be able to attend everything without being miserable. i'm aware it's unhealthy, but the only thing that works for me is to stay up for 24-36 hours maybe twice a week and then sleep a whole lot to a) make up for the lack of sleep and b) get up early or late enough to make it to my next scheduled appointment. having done this for months now, i'm sure it has done some harm to my body. but could it be connected to my arm falling asleep? it seems a little odd that it would only affect that one specific limb.

i get my blood tested regularly for the hrt and the bloodwork seems fine. only minor iron deficiency and something they called "platelet function disorder", which i have an appointment for next week to see whether it's the genetic kind or not. they did say it is very rare though and surely from what i've read it would cause the opposite of making limbs fall asleep. that would seem like more of a clogging issue if anything.

i'm sorry if this information isn't enough on it's own and i'm willing to answer any necessary questions. but my main question really is just whether or not this is something to be concerned about if it keeps happening and if it's worth going to see a doctor.

i started using ipl at the start of this year and am still somewhat new to it, but i usually try to get as close of a shave as i can and do it right after showering.

today however i really don't think ill have the time to use the ipl on my legs before i have to leave (i'm using the shinie and as much as i appreciate the price point, the surface it covers is very small, so doing my legs usually takes A LOT of time). is it okay to wait, shower again later and do it then? or will even the tiniest hair growth be an issue? and if it IS an issue, should i shave again in two days and do it then or can i sit out doing ipl on my legs for one week?

i read being consistent is the key, so i've been doing it every 5-7 days since january. i really don't know if that one week will make a difference and i'm kind of scared to find out.

also to add, not sure if this is relevant at all, i take testosterone. which obviously means the treatment takes a lot longer for me to work since im basically applying the "let's grow more hair" juice everyday and try to work against that haha. my legs do usually feel smooth for at least two days after shaving tho

i haven't played zzz in a WHILE (my main team was miyabi, yanagi and yuzuha) and i came back to the game to try again for aria and her w engine, because she's by far my favorite character. got everything i wanted for aria, lost the 50/50 on remielle but i'm gonna grind out pulls to hopefully get her as well.

everywhere i looked said aria + remielle only really works with velina, but since she JUST released recently, i doubt she's gonna have a rerun anytime too soon and i'd like to be able to use my aria in the meantime. is there any other option if i don't really care TOO much about meta and mainly about fun for now? could i use aria + nangong yu + remielle instead, since id like to pull nangong at some point anyway? i'm aware remielle works best in triple anomaly teams, but i unfortunately just don't have any good options that don't already have their place in a team (my other team is a half baked trigger and cissia team. not fully ideal but it's what ive got).

my grace is c0 (is it C or M lmao), but maybe she could work as a budget alternative? i'm honestly open for any ideas that can make them work together for now!

thank you in advance for any help 💗

Hello everyone reading this!

I'm not very good at reddit stuff or keeping myself short, so i apologize in advance if this post ends up being too long and rambling, but i've had some good help in other subreddits relating to health advice before, so i thought i might as well try my luck here.

I am 25 M (trans, in case that matters for context) and currently located in germany, planning on moving all the way across the globe to be with my boyfriend and his family in australia by this time next year.
We're currently preparing everything for the visa, which includes a bunch of medical things i haven't gotten cleared up yet and for the most part i know what to expect and have help from my social worker.

However, one of the things that spontaneously came up was getting checked for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, since my older sister and niece just got diagnosed and there's a high likelihood that i have it as well.
This matters here because it was the main reason i had to go back to my childhood orthopedic doctor for a referral.

I've been diagnosed with hypermobility and general connective tissue disorder since i was around 10 years old. Back then i had to slowly stop participating in sports, because my pain was so severe that it was unsafe to continue. My two older siblings had the same issues, albeit to varying degrees. Older brother had to stop his football career due to his kneecaps dislocating multiple times, sister was previously wrongly diagnosed with rheumatism and recently had to change her own career path because working with children was simply too physically taxing.
My brother was later able to resume certain activities like mountain biking, but my sister and i have been in too bad of a shape to even be allowed to walk too much in one go.

I'm used to it now. Keeping my physical activity low, managing pain, doing what i can to still somewhat stay in shape. So seeing that my symptoms align with EDS, especially after an adenomyosis diagnosis and learning that endo can be quite common in EDS patients, wasn't all that surprising.

What WAS surprising was my social worker informing me that it said "hip dysplasia" in my medical history tab when we had to wait around for the doctor inside the room. At the time i honestly didn't fully know what it meant. I just vaguely remembered the doctor telling me that my hips seemed uneven back when i last saw him. But it's been 8 years since then (i didn't need another paper informing schools i wasn't allowed to participate in PE, so there wasn't really any reason for me to go back) and it's entirely possible that i'm misremembering what actually happened.
Maybe they did tell me, but surely it would've been more important than mentioning it on the side? Why on earth was this not explained further to me or my parents?

I wish i had known in that moment what exactly it was referring to, so i could've asked the doctor about it. But i was too busy trying to explain to him why we were there that day and because he's an older man on his way to retirement, he never even heard of EDS.
By the time i finally remembered to look up what it was, i was already back home and by myself.
But what i found online sounded quite serious, so i was a bit confused.

I ended up talking to a friend about it and they immediately started giving me condolences and gently trying to explain what it would indicate.
They work as a vet assistant, not quite the same as a human doctor, but they've also looked into it for me some more and what they found didn't sound good. In fact, it sounded pretty much as bad as it would in a dog. Arthritis, hip replacement surgery, relearning how to walk. Surely it can't be that, right? It must be a mistake.

Yes i have constant hip and back pains, but i just attributed it to my past diagnoses. To not walking enough. I'm USED to being in pain and back then i was told there was not much that can be done about it. It's a genetic disorder that's going to be part of my life forever. You can try and strengthen your muscles, but you'll always be in a little bit of pain unless you're careful with what you do. Maybe get into swimming. I didn't think there was a surgery i needed to get at ANY point of this journey.

I was holding out hope that maybe it was a mistake. Maybe my social worker read it wrong, maybe it was just a suspicion and not a full on diagnosis. But no.
My social worker sent me the referral paper yesterday and it very clearly says "hip dysplasia, both sides" as a full on diagnosis. I'm honestly BAFFLED.

Why was i not made more aware of this? How was this a diagnosis given to me in 2018 and i wasn't recommended any physical therapy at least? Is there a possibility it's just not that bad and my friend is wrong on the general severity of hip dysplasia?
My friend and boyfriend are both saying not to get my hopes up too much and that i need to accept this, but maybe my case was simply not bad enough to require help? I mean, i'm in pain, but how bad can it really be if they didn't say anything further about it?
Maybe the information online only speaks on severe cases and my friend was misled? I'm honestly too scared to look further into it myself and start spiraling.

Fact is, i am disabled. I knew this since forever. I have so many small things wrong with me that accumulate into more than they need to be and i'm already getting so much help left and right for different things. It was hard for me to recover from my bipolar disorder and get my life in order, i'm finally stable enough to where i can actually see a future for myself and WITH my boyfriend/fiancé. I thought i had it under control. I know what's wrong, i know what to do and how to work on it and i have the necessary help i can get before i move to where it doesn't need to come to any future expenses in a different country.

But this is completely unexpected. If this truly IS as serious as it sounds, will i become a bigger burden on my boyfriend than i already am? Will i really NEED surgery and it's only a matter of time before it gets bad enough or can i handle this without it? I don't know if i'm in the right headspace to relearn how to walk. I don't know if we have money for a surgery like that.

I also don't know what it really is that i need to hear right now. I guess i'm just feeling quite anxious and depressed and could really use to hear from other people who've gone through the same thing. Hear if surgery really is the only road to recovery or if less severe cases can get away with less. Is it as bad as it sounds? Will i be okay?

I'm well aware this subreddit can't tell me WHAT exactly is wrong with me and i will probably need to go back and ask further questions, but i could really use some general advice and kind words for now.

Thank you in advance and i apologize again for this very long post. I tried keeping it somewhat short, but there's a lot of context as to why this came as such a surprise and why i am as scared as i am.

I hope everyone here has a wonderful day regardless <3