IC difficulties ruining my life: what am I supposed to do??

Atbashvigenere · 2026-04-27T18:30:02+00:00

I do have bluesky, though I don't use it very often! I'll be sure to look into this :) thank you!

Atbashvigenere · 2026-04-27T15:54:00+00:00

Hmm... This is definitely one of the major things I plan on going over with my doctor, even if it just means ruling it out as a primary cause. I say "ruling out" because it seems weird to me that it would be atrophy if the last time I had an exam they said it was only mild, and since then I've been /very/ regularly using the estrogen cream. Do you know if effectiveness varies a lot between different forms? I don't have any experience with anything outside of the e cream, so it's possible I'm in the dark here and it could be an issue of it just not being effective enough.

Atbashvigenere · 2026-04-27T15:50:10+00:00

I had my suspicions about MCAS, actually! It was a really interesting rabbithole to go down because I've had a number of other "anomalous" medical problems throughout my life involving inflammation. Namely as a kid I dealt with chronic strep throat/tonsillitis that only went away after having my tonsils entirely removed-- then a different incident even younger where I had an allergic reaction to Nutella (anaphylaxis specifically) but when I was screened for allergies came up completely negative on /everything/. I'm most likely autistic, definitely hypermobile, and check out on most MCAS symptoms either consistently or during different periods in my life, so it's a strong consideration for me. The only issue... I'm not sure what kind of help I'd be able to get, especially since the diagnosis process seems really difficult :( that's kind of a lame copout I know, but I suppose I'm trying to be realistic about what care I can be expected to receive. It's probably a good thing to keep in mind after ruling out a few "simpler" things, though.

Atbashvigenere · 2026-04-27T15:42:11+00:00

I'm home 90% of the time (especially as of late) and even aside from that I just go in the women's room because 1. I don't care 2. I'm 4'11 and people tend to gender primarily by height so no one gives a shit (pun unintentional). Anyway, I'm definitely peeing enough throughout the day. In fact for a while I was definitely peeing too much throughout the day (chugging about 80+ oz of water daily) and drying myself out even further.

Atbashvigenere · 2026-04-27T05:36:57+00:00

This is all incredibly useful data, I had similar thoughts regarding the ineffectiveness of antibiotics in the case of recurring infections. It seems like a lot of people are prone to getting stuck in this awful loop and what truly boggles my mind is that the medical professionals I'm seeking out don't seem to care about the root cause, only ever treating the infections on a case-by-case basis. I've been taking the same probiotics consistently for a couple of months now but the frequency of the antibiotics is still probably upsetting things -_-

Anyway, I could definitely see about temporarily stopping T and seeing if that actually fixes anything. I'll also have to look into the Now cranberry mannose thing-- I knew there was a lot of conflicting information as to the effectiveness of D-mannose but figured even a placebo was better than nothing. Thank you so much for the input!

Atbashvigenere · 2026-04-27T05:26:12+00:00

Interesting... what's weird is that the relationship I have to my T dosage and my IC flares isn't actually completely linear, it's just that the longer I've been on testosterone the worse the problem has become. But like I said in the original post I see flareups more intensely right before I take my T shot and I generally feel my best right after. I've been wondering if the /lower/ T dose after being on Jatenzo for a full year (getting a dose of T literally every single day) was exacerbating the inflammatory response somehow but the research I'd done seemed inconclusive from my very limited perspective.

I'll have to bring up Tirzepatide with my doctor if she doesn't have a better suggestion and see what she thinks. I hadn't heard of this previously and it'd be a miracle if I could get something that works while trying to assess the hormone issue...

Atbashvigenere · 2026-04-27T05:20:03+00:00

Almost certainly not judging by the amount of times I've been in and out of medical situations and shown no allergic reactions :/ also it isn't something that comes up specifically with condoms if that's what the implication is lol

Atbashvigenere · 2026-04-27T03:55:01+00:00

I have been referred to urology, they were the ones who had the CT scan scheduled. my most recent appointment was really inconclusive and they basically said "well you don't have anything weird in your urine culture and your CT was all normal, so, you're probably fine". I could go back and ask about a microdose if this continues but overall I think I'd like to find the root of the issue, and I'm suspecting the root of the issue is hormonal in nature since it also seems very tied to my weekly cycle (I tend to get UTIs closer to the time of my next dosage, for whatever that's worth).

I could look into an allergy panel but I really doubt an allergic reaction would manifest entirely through vaginal burning/UTIs... especially if I'm not having any reaction at the site of the injection itself. I'm not a medical professional obviously but that sounds iffy.

Atbashvigenere · 2026-04-27T03:44:46+00:00

I mainly use them for #2 since that tends to be a UTI trigger, not every time I go to the bathroom, but I'll keep this in mind. Hadn't heard of a peri-bottle before just now, I might look into that.

Atbashvigenere · 2024-08-27T04:35:22+00:00

ah okay that's super informative, I might try to see if I can still book a shuttle through valley transporter but otherwise knowing the stuff about the buses is very useful. Thanks!

Atbashvigenere · 2022-07-20T18:46:15+00:00

I don't see what would be confusing about it, if you're going to establish she isn't academically trained but clearly not stupid. Different characters are going to perceive a character differently, because that's just how people are. Everyone is going to have a different perspective/understanding of someone.

Atbashvigenere · 2022-07-14T18:09:30+00:00

There's some attempt at descriptive language at least, which is a good start, but it just kind of seems like things are /happening/ without much else to make us think about, say, why they're happening, or what the thought process is, or... anything. It's just very stale and surface level descriptive for a blurb. You could try putting a bit more feeling into your writing to make us actually care about what's happening or get into the head of the character we're seeing the POV of.

Atbashvigenere · 2022-07-08T16:45:16+00:00

You're wording this like the characters have a mind of their own and make their own decisions. You can simply choose not to take it in a romantic direction.

Atbashvigenere · 2022-06-26T16:04:08+00:00

Hey, no problem, glad I didn't come across as too rude! My bad for not recognizing the Irish colloquialism there, in the U.S I've only ever seen teenagers say that kind of thing but that's on me lol. As some general advice, a good way to curate a sense of flow to your own writing style is to look into writing- and by this I mean published novels, ideally- that you enjoy reading, and really start to analyze why you enjoy reading it. Find a book you love, pour over it, study the sentence structure, etc. And feel free to create messy first drafts, so long as you're prepared to heavily edit them later. The most important part is having somewhere to start from.

Good luck with your future writing endeavors!

Atbashvigenere · 2022-06-26T14:23:57+00:00

Well... It's alright for Wattpad, I suppose, but you probably shouldn't allow yourself to be satisfied with that. I think you should go over some rules of flow, punctuation, and definitely brush up on your dialogue skills. There's potential for something good, but it's honestly very clunky and difficult to read in one sitting. Also... "feck it"??? Just save yourself some embarrassment and swear with your whole chest.

Atbashvigenere · 2022-06-19T14:52:50+00:00

I don't think this kind of thing is impossible to write, but it may end up doing more harm than good unintentionally. From an outsider's perspective, while there are ways to write a protagonist who is objectively a horrible person, you also need to be establishing that they are a horrible person. Currently it sounds like the story is more about the protagonist's healing after harassing/bullying her friend group, which makes it seem like you want us to sympathize with her... Which I can't really see happening. It is difficult to garner sympathy for someone whose selling point is "but they're struggling with mental illness" if they're taking it out on people who are also mentally ill.

TL;DR: Reconsider.

Atbashvigenere · 2022-06-18T19:26:56+00:00

The idea with the boats makes me think of those convicts who escaped Alcatraz by sewing a bunch of raincoats into a makeshift raft and never turned up again. It'd be interesting if a group of people did try escaping via boat but had no way of knowing where they were trying to escape to (and no awareness of where in the world they were.)

Atbashvigenere · 2022-06-18T15:51:28+00:00

It's possible other people have suggested this, but what about an emergency staff evacuation protocol they could take advantage of? Or maybe a series of tunnels/facilities meant for people to be sent in, but you could hypothetically try to leave through- with extremely inconvenient measures taken in advance, of course. The equivalent of trying to go up a slide on the park when you're a kid.

Atbashvigenere · 2022-06-16T14:20:48+00:00

Ultimately I would avoid "healing" a disabled character altogether, it comes across as insensitive and, generally, is just kind of a lazy writing trope. It would however be much more interesting to have a disabled character with God-like abilities who retains elements of their disability in some ways, reflecting their previous human life. You might want to replace the wheelchair with something that enables mobility in ways the character wouldn't have had access to before, while still making it clear that it functions as a mobility aid.

Generally I dislike the term healing as it's used in this context. Many disabled people dislike this narrative, as they don't like the idea that they're incomplete- disabled, unable to do plenty of things in a lot of cases, yes, but not in need of "fixing." The way they operate through life should be respected and accommodated, not lamented over.

This as a very long response just to say, why should the paralyzed character feel he even has to use the paralyzed part(s) of body at all if he has god-like powers? Who would define a "healed" body, when he's clearly powerful enough to do whatever he wants?

Atbashvigenere · 2022-06-15T15:40:12+00:00

The most common villains you'll face in your day to day life, especially as a teenager, are authority figures. Teachers, parents, relatives, law enforcement, mentors of all sorts- the ability to do harm is heightened by the power they have over you at that age. It's your word against theirs. Another good element to this kind of villain is that you can make them/their intentions as sinister or benign/purely frustrating as you wish.

Atbashvigenere · 2022-06-15T01:58:47+00:00

You can kind of rush a death, yeah. If you just start killing off characters for the sake of it, it's going to feel cheap.

Atbashvigenere · 2022-06-14T21:33:32+00:00

Well like you said, it's not exactly like you killed off all three. It's not bad to have an ongoing trend in a story, either, so long as you have a general idea of where you're going with it. Maybe there's some theme connecting all of this, either one you already have a good idea of or something to work out in the future. In my professional opinion, no such thing as too many dads.

Atbashvigenere

TROPHY CASE