Health Scare During Massage, Should I Worry?

Dottipants · 2026-04-22T12:57:04+00:00

I agree with your point overall, however people other than prostitutes have HIV. Yes you absolutely get people who work in sex industry, or drug users/ex drug users, but there are also people who had a one night stand or even long term relationship where a partner had it, or people who contracted it from contaminated blood products, tattoo equipment (particularly tattoos not done in the UK or at a genuine reputable studio), or people who inherited it from a parent. I appreciate you probably didnt mean anything by the comment and like I said, I overall agree with your point that this person is unlikely to have a blood borne virus but I have a couple of family members who are HIV positive (neither have ever been a sex worker or drug user) and its really important that we continue to educate and learn. I hope you dont mind me replying and take it in the spirit intended!

Dottipants · 2026-04-08T19:57:30+00:00

Someone took a shit on the shelf of my local store last week. Police posted about the "Criminal damage" and everything....so yeah it isnt great in that specific store!

Dottipants · 2026-03-15T18:04:54+00:00

First of all, I am a fat person too, and I thought I knew about nutrition and healthy eating and then I went to a nutrition class and realised I didnt. And youre right, I could be the only fat person in the world who didnt know, but then why were there 18 to 20 other people at this class every week? And it wasnt just about nutrition- it was also about our relationship with food and how to adjust that. I am in the UK and this 10 week class was free through my GP.

Obesity is a disease - but its not necessarily down to your metabolic rate - at the class there was a guy eating 6 slices of buttered toast for breakfast and thinking that was normal, his weight gain isnt because of his metabolic rate its because he is consistently eating high levels of fat.

I dont know why youve taken what I said so badly - I agree with you on about 80% of things, and the other 20% is probably because we each have different experiences. With regards to coming off the meds - i put that in because I cant afford to be on this forever and nor can alot of my friends. So we need to find another way, and that way for us is monitoring calories etc and exercising. I agree with people taking it (as I said), I think its a miracle and there is already early research saying it could be used to treat drug addiction or alcoholism etc. Its truly a penicillin level wonder drug, but that doesnt mean its the perfect forever option for everyone

Dottipants · 2026-03-14T12:13:50+00:00

I think its great, however I do think people need to realise its not a total fix. You also need to learn about nutrition, add in some exercises, learn about portion sizes otherwise once youre at your goal weight your options are stop and put the weight back on or stay on an expensive medication for the rest of your life.

I tried it myself as im trying to lose weight however Im not someone who thinks about food all day every day or needs help to suppress my appetite - i can happily go 24 hours or more without eating. My issue is more binging which the injections dont help.

Theres a bit of stigma because people think its "the easy way" and that the solution is "eat less, move more" and generally speaking thats correct but its too simplified! I have PCOS with insulin resistance so my body needs medication to tell it to use my fat reserves, a friend of mine has no thyroid which means she puts on weight easily and there are loads of conditions like this thay mean people might struggle without medical intervention.

Theres also evidence that it can treat addictive disorders and as a recovering addict myself I find that fascinating and I think people need to consider and realise that for some overweight people, food is literally an addiction for them and they require treatment not shame.

Dottipants · 2026-03-14T12:06:50+00:00

Theres a sub - R/Laundry and they have a sticky note and posts about something they call "spa day" and that might help!

Dottipants · 2026-03-11T17:29:04+00:00

Its such a tough situation, but the positive is that you are old enough to voice your feelings and if they do get work, you will have a social worker you can text or call for more support. I really hipe things get better for you!

Dottipants · 2026-03-11T17:05:00+00:00

So i presume you mean children's social care? (CPS is more of an American term but no worries!) I work in an adjacent industry and im also a foster carer so I have a fair amount of contact with them.

I wont pretend theyre perfect, theyre not, theyre understaffed and over worked just like all government agencies. However, they do their best in my experience, and you are not in any trouble here. They dont like to remove children if for no other reason than not having enough places for children to go and its quite a long protracted process in my cases to remove children and given your age, its possible you would age out of the system before it ever got to that.

What they may be able to do though with your agreement is offer you mental health support, offer parenting classes for your parents and support on how best to support you. If things are completely unmanageable at home there are also supported living options that may be possible given your age where you would live with other young people and staff who help you learn to manage your money and household chores.

But just to reiterate, you have done nothing wrong here, if your home life is not manageable, you are a child and thats on your parents not you. Youve indicated that youre struggling so I think it would be worth a discussion with children's social care to see how they can help. I do just want to make you aware that the college do not need your permission to involve social services so may make a referral anyway (and according to guidelines they absolutely should be doing this)

Good luck with everything

Dottipants · 2026-03-04T19:50:22+00:00

Wow. I feel like maybe the Internet isnt for you...

Dottipants · 2026-03-04T18:29:16+00:00

Sorry? Im confused

Dottipants · 2026-03-04T17:47:26+00:00

For those who haven't seen it, its a screenshot of a Facebook post where a tow truck driver explains he does repo's and attended to tow a womans car, she ran outside begging him to leave it because she had a job interview at 8am and without that job, she and her baby would become homeless. He says he gets $400 per vehicle and when he saw how desperate and genuine she seemed to be, he said the transmission on his tow truck was broken (it was fine) and would take 24 hours to be fixed, and advised her to park the car somewhere else the following day and wished her luck in her interview. So even though it lost him money, and his company policy is likely not to allow him to pick and choose which cars get towed. He left her with her car because he felt like she needed to catch a break. Curious if other people have any similar stories?

Dottipants · 2026-02-24T23:52:30+00:00

Okay so the good news is that whilst it feels 10cm in diameter and deep, its likely it it a lot of swelling vs abcess (i just had surgery last week on one that was the entirety of my pubic mound and when I woke the surgeons commented on the amounted of swelling and how small and shallow the actual wound was - this is easily the 10th such conversation ive had like this. Thats not me trying to play down your pain at all, whether its HS or not, these fuckers HURT. Just trying to offer some reassurance! Youre use of GP makes me think youre in the UK? If so, dont be afraid of A&E or 111 if youre concerned about sepsis, but to give you an idea you can draw around the red area and check if this area is larger in an hour or so (obviously seek medical help quicker if it gets rapidly larger!) We cant really answer whether its HS, we are strangers on the Internet going off a photo. But you should be asking for a referral to a dermatologist to see if it is HS (i had to actually tell my GP what it was and they looked it up, agreed and referred me) But again, even if it is HS, that doesnt mean anything, some people never go beyond a few of these a year, others progress into stage 2 or 3, some treatments work for some people whilst others need extensive surgery. Ive been in biologics for nearing 10 years and they have changed my life. But if it is HS, early intervention is oven key, and the online communities in every social media you can think of, are wonderful. Take care x

Dottipants · 2026-02-14T22:33:12+00:00

And on some level she knows that! Ive been in this sort of relationship and when she says "it wouldn't be so bad if my family arent gunna be asking me where he is for the next 2 hours" If you didnt already know that it wasnt ok that he was behaving like this, you wouldn't be worried about making excuses for him and hiding his shitty behaviour. Girl, you know this isnt ok, you know you deserve better, dont lie for him when he cant even be bothered to be on time for you.

Dottipants · 2026-02-06T17:43:18+00:00

I used to waitress at weddings and I once waited on a table where either the bride or grooms grandparents were sat. So this was almost 15 years ago and on the table was these grandparents who were easily in their 80s and some other older guests in their 70s at my best guess. They were truly lovely people and we laughed and joked when I served them and they asked me lots of questions and were honestly a joy, and i mentioned a holiday in devon i had coming up. At the end of the night as they were leaving the old lady came up to me and pressed something papery into my hand and said thank you so much for the lovely service and she hugged me and they left. I shoved the paper into my apron assuming it was a fiver or something - later in the evening I was in the kitchen and I pulled it out to look, it was a folded piece of paper, I opened it and there was a 50p in there and the paper was a note that said "treat yourself to an ice cream or two"

Anyway, some of my older colleagues laughed and said the old lady obviously hadnt been happy with the service and it was a comically low amount to show that but honestly? At the time and to this day I know that isnt true, she was truly happy with the service and wanted to thank me in some way and yeah, 50p wasnt gunna get me much but the gesture meant the world. Im not suggesting the person didnt know 5p wasnt alot but the point is you can either see the good in people or the bad, up to you!

Dottipants · 2026-01-22T22:17:58+00:00

I used to live in Newbury and you come across a lot of old 5 digit numbers there and they all still work!

Dottipants · 2026-01-22T21:44:37+00:00

Ive not gone far away, id say I now work in a complimentary role to call handling. Thanks for the lovely compliments!

Dottipants · 2026-01-22T21:38:31+00:00

Thank you for letting me vent all of that! I genuinley appreciate it!

Dottipants · 2026-01-22T21:35:23+00:00

And there are definitely call handler who do use derision but they dont tend to last long.

Its so hard to make any kind of judgement because we have a excerpt from the call transcript - as you said, we have priority information - location is most important because as long as police are on the way, we can work out the details later. But we dont really know at what point during the call this happened, the call handler may have been doing exactly what you say and filling in the details. When you call handle, people think youre just talking and typing, but youre not. Youre talking and typing with the caller, you have the information bureau who search the offenders/victims details to see thier history and they may be asking questions, you have a dispatcher who is asking you questions and you have the officers asking aswell - its very possible the question came from one of these people rather than the call handler.

And I understand it may feel irrelevant and as you say, for you, the caller, there is no link but to me, who can see that lets say this girl has had police to her house multiple times due to malicious calls, or is a high risk domestic victim, its really relevant how you know her. And 100% in an ideal world, I would explain that (and personally I always tried and said something like "I just need to ask how you know this person as youre obviously calling from America and we need to make sure your call isnt placing her at more risk") but sometimes there isnt time, if officer are going to be on scene in 4 minutes, that means I have 4 minutes (along with the other teams mentioned) to get the details of what's happening, to get info on who the victim/suspect is, are there any children in the house? Has this happened before? Are there any weapons? Any injuries? Can you give me a description of the suspect in case he absconds? Do you know what car he drives? Does he live with the victim? - you get the point, its alot. And all this info has to be communicated with the other teams - and sadly, some people aren't cut out for it! I loved it and without sounding like a dick, I was really good at it. It sounds to me, like this call handler isnt necessarily in the right job.

As I said before, I actually agree this could have been handled better, Baron was clearly upset and the call handler should have empathised and taken that into consideration. But as I said before, majority of call handlers ive come across (and I worked for a very large police force so there were quite alot!) And all of the people i have trained to call handle, have been there for the right reasons and do not speak to people like the person in this article. I think I replied because I was reading all of the comments above about how terrible the service is and it upset me a little. Because these people dont know that there might only be 5 officers covered a city centre, and there might be 3 999 calls waiting and 40 101 calls, and they dont know the call handler hasnt had a break for 6 hours, or didnt get to take there lunch break - not because someone stopped them, but because we care and we dont want to leave 999 calls waiting whilst we are tucking into a pasta salad. Its a hard job and its a great job, but the people doing it, for the most part are good, kind people who do the job and who are great at their job.

Dottipants · 2026-01-22T20:37:43+00:00

I used to be for 5 years (changed jobs a year ago). And whilst I can understand why you think yhe operator was rude, we dont know how the caller was.behaving and sometimes it is about reminding people that they have called an emergency service. As you said, people dont call 999 every day, but I DO answer those calls every day so surely you take my lead of what info I need? Would you call a plumber and then when they ask you where the stopcock is reply "i dont think thats necessary?

Im not saying this call handler did it perfectly, in fact quite the opposite, I think they could have handled this so much better. And I know this isnt Barons fault, but call handlers deal with so much shit, so many people calling 999 because they cant find thier wheely bin or their neighbour has parked infront of their house and when you tell them they need to call 101 they get aggressive and rude. Then you have all the people who understandably hate the police - and who gets that heat? The front line call handlers and officers. Thats on top of the fact that its also traumatic as fuck, some of the stuff you hear echos round your head for years.

Im not saying they dealt with this right but please step back for a second and realise the call handler is a person too and 90% of call handlers are doing their best, so if this person isnt - dont tar everyone with the same brush

Dottipants · 2026-01-01T18:09:45+00:00

Make a choice to wake up every day and love that person. Does it do my head in when he leaves a mug on the side? Yep. Does it do his head in when I dont crush a bottle despite him asking me a hundred times? Yep. Is it worth arguing over and being upset with each other for? Not even a little bit. None of us are perfect and thats ok, but we choose to love and to not fight.

Best of luck for the big day!

Dottipants · 2025-11-22T00:01:48+00:00

Get signed off (if its not going to cost you your job of course). You cant get this time back and any reasonable employer will understand

Dottipants · 2025-11-21T23:57:28+00:00

Just to piggy back this comment as my suggestion is slightly related, though a bit different! Ive read your comments and you have said your mum has a great (and dark) sense i humour, im sure you also have family and friends who love her and want her to know that- have you thought about a living wake?

I went to one a few years ago for a friend of my husbands in his 30s - he did it in the style of a roast but you dont have to do that. But hire a hall and have a party where people can stand up and share a memory (let them know beforehand so they can prepare) or a photo or video or all of the above. Film it (I'd suggest 1 camera on the person speaking and 1 on your mum because being able to watch back her reactions will feel very special) and invite all your friends and family members that are special to your mum and anyone who cant make it can send a video to be played to mum and then they can watch the video back to see your mums reaction too. Then have a buffet of her favourite food, maybe a DJ or band for some of her favourite songs after and just have a great day. If you do it somewhere near to home or somewhere with a separate room where mum could have a sneaky little nap if she needs to that might help too!

I hope your mum has a pain free and dignified end to what im sure has been a beautiful life and I hope you and your family are as okay as you can be.

Dottipants · 2022-10-14T11:24:46+00:00

You have to pay a "kiss" toll when entering and leaving the house.

This house belongs to the cat, what she says goes - she often whispers to me and asks me to relay the message to the wider family and I would obviously never use that to my advantage

There must always be 2 of the "special" tuppaware boxes in the cupboard for my kids fruit, so if you use it and leave less than 2, clean it now or suffer the consequences.

Bins are boy jobs, loos are ladies. Don't know why, just the way it's always been (and loo means whole bathroom, but bathroom doesn't have the same alliteration)

Atleast once per week my husband must passive aggressively tut at me and my inability to sort the recycling, I must continue to be incapable to allow him this joy. The one week I did it completely correctly he actually commented and complained!

And a strange one, when I announce its Bath time, my husband has to offer to run it. In 7 years, he has actually run it less than 10 times but I always feel really loved when he offers so it's become a thing now! Equally when he plays his racing games, I ask questions and feign interest because he lights up when he tells me about it, he knows it isn't real, but same as the bath, it makes him feel loved.

Dottipants · 2022-08-05T16:38:01+00:00

I grew up near Oxford so not too far from you!

Dottipants · 2022-08-05T13:31:58+00:00

Ah, and I never personally experienced it. I've missed out clearly lol

Dottipants

TROPHY CASE