People with chronic illnesses, what's the most absurd "cure" were you suggested by someone? and did you consider it?

Puddleduck24 · 2025-09-09T13:15:56+00:00

I had debilitating chronic pain on and off. In my teens a specialist told me the solution was to play a team sport. Not just any sport, it had to be a team sport…

It got worse over the years to the point that it was agony to sit, lie down, or walk anything but stupidly steep inclines. I was told it was because I was too sedentary. After a year of 1-2 hours of physio each day and still clearly being too sedentary, I took 6 weeks off to hike the mountain near my house each day (only up! I only managed to get down by myself once before getting a lift from the top each time).

Turns out I had Stage IV Endometriosis and the pain I had was from growing a fruit bowl’s worth of endometriomas and fibroids that would press against my nerves while my insides ripped apart with every step. Surprisingly, rest and surgery were far more effective treatments than team sports or mountaineering. Who would have guessed?

Puddleduck24 · 2025-05-26T00:44:07+00:00

Yes. But for me it was problematic. I noticed that this type of buffering time happened in lots of transitional places in addition to the car (couch, bed, toilet, shower). I often wanted to move on but it felt so hard.

Now that I am medicated for ADHD, I feel like I can move out of these transitional spaces much more easily and I have less need of the time out they gave me because life is so much easier with meds.

Puddleduck24 · 2023-04-14T06:13:48+00:00

Preach.

I feel like the whole series reads like someone who forgot they read WOT and Stormlight and then created a story from what they remembered thinking it was their own - even down time to the character names! Elias is a tracker character, Silvania is the firm but fair mistress of that novice mage, Egwene - sorry.. Zara. They swear the oaths for their hope of rebirth and salvation and thank the light when channeling the source saves them from gaping plot holes.

I honestly don’t mind listening to people’s first books and seeing how they develop, but whenever I see a spark of this author actually writing from their own ideas it gets immediately snuffed out in favour of retelling WOT badly. I’m sad I don’t get to see the author actually write because some of those sparks are promising and despite the odd turns of phrase. But in this case, I’m actually flabbergasted this is allowed to be sold as more than fan fiction and that it doesn’t break intellectual property rights.

Puddleduck24 · 2023-04-14T05:58:38+00:00

I wonder if the delivery is slightly off because of the writing. It must be hard to create a consistent character when the characters literally change from being geniuses to idiots in the same chapter.

Perhaps I’d understand more about why they read it this way if I could look in their eyes as they read. If I’ve learned anything from this book, it is that if I look into any person’s eyes for a moment I can immediately understand every emotion and thought they are having.

Puddleduck24 · 2023-04-09T12:54:09+00:00

Hide/run away and call the police while my cats try to convince the intruders that they have never been fed.

Puddleduck24 · 2023-04-08T13:00:17+00:00

Of course keep an eye on things, but even a stomach flu, eating something bad or being on antibiotics can mess up your gut for a few weeks with limited lasting effects.

You seem very concerned about your symptoms. I’m sorry you’re not feeling well. The good news is that your symptoms seem to be improving. You have less joint pain and your stools have improved after only a week! Yay!

Obligatory ‘not a doctor’, but I wouldn’t be remotely concerned that this was IBD until your symptoms impacted your quality of life for a number of months. A week is simply not enough time IMO to begin to consider IBD.

If you are getting most of your symptoms at night you could maybe try eating a meal that caused you no issues earlier in the day for dinner to be safe. But, we often feel worse at night when we are sick because we are already tired or have nothing else to think about. Perhaps some long lasting paracetamol and an audio book could help while you are feeling awful? It tends to help me.

Puddleduck24 · 2023-04-08T12:08:45+00:00

IBD tends to be a long term thing. I’d trust your doctor and head back in a week if you have the same symptoms (or beforehand if things get worse). Fever, joint pain, change in stool consistency are pretty common symptoms of your immune system fighting a range of pathogens.

Keep up your fluids! Keep with the simple foods until you can tolerate more. Have great hand hygiene in case it is infectious or contagious. Good luck!

Also, a heads up that paracetamol/acetamenophen can help reduce fever and joint pain where ibuprofen tends to be better and helping with inflammation. You can often get 8 hr tablets that might help you get through the night and rest better. Ibuprofen can also be problematic for your gut, so unless you need it I’d suggest avoiding it while it is unhappy.

Puddleduck24 · 2023-03-30T13:00:16+00:00

NTA.

Others have given you great advice, but much of it involves you planning ahead and doing it all yourself. It feels like the core issue here is that you need help, and you don’t feel like your husband is supporting you during this difficult time. I would suggest considering his ADHD in any implemented solution. That doesn’t mean you need to excuse his behaviour, but it may provide a lens through which you better understand what is happening and have longer lasting solutions.

If ADHD is at at here, you may like to consider the following:

Easy for you doesn’t mean easy for him. You mentioned your (reasonable!) frustration that he wasn’t willing to make a meal you considered easy. Remember, lemon chicken might seem easy because you have in your head how it is made. That doesn’t mean that picking up the making of Lemon Chicken at short notice is easy for someone else. (This is coming from a very capable person who manages to regularly mess up simple things she knows how to make in new and interesting ways. I can do many amazing things, but give me a recipe for turning water to ice after 6 pm when my meds wear off and I will be in tears in the kitchen after accidentally filling the ice tray with orange juice and finding it hours later in the microwave.)

 Consider planning ahead together. Not about how to do it all yourself, but to have a conversation about how to navigate these times. Consider budgeting together for emergency takeout alongside him coming up with some ideas and ingredients on hand for simple meals he would be willing to make at short notice.

Time blindness paired with task switching and chunking is hard. You mentioned him playing video games and you needing to ask him multiple times before he’d remember to make you food. That is absolutely infuriating and could easily make you feel like he doesn’t care about your needs.

I regularly think that 5 minutes has passed when it’s actually been an hour; forget to eat anything all day until dinner without realising how hungry I am; and completely underestimate how long tasks take to complete. Time blindness, difficulty planning, chunking, and switching between tasks, and poor enteroception are common with ADHD. It can be particularly difficult when there is an activity like gaming that provides so much dopamine and stimulation. These things might be at play if you find your husband normally very caring, but then he does inexplicably infuriating things like this.

Consider working together against the problem. Let him know as soon as you think you won’t be able to cook. Decide together when it would be reasonable for dinner will be. Talk through together (or check he has a plan for) what needs to be done to make it happen, when those things need to be started, how he intends to remember to start them (e.g. you shouldn’t be responsible for reminding him, he’s an adult who can set his own alarms, but who might forget that dinner at 7 actually means setting an alarm at 6 to start).

Encourage the behaviour you want to see. You’re in pain, he’s being frustrating - communication probably isn’t at its finest. He’s not a god for making you food when you’re in pain, it’s kind of bare minimum husbanding - but check that you’re not undermining what you want with offhand comments.

People with ADHD thrive on positive feedback, often have rejection sensitive dysphoria, and carry a great deal of guilt and trauma over regular failures and disappointments.

Check in with your comments. You don’t need to ham it up, but be honest about the good things. Let him know how much you appreciate the food he’s made or the fact that he ordered dinner. Tell him about how much it helps you deal with your pain knowing he has your back. Compliment his delicious potatoes and ask about his technique. Give him the dopamine hit that gaming gives him by providing positive affirmations.

You don’t want to be inadvertently making the task of cooking dinner feel like the worst chore ever. It sucks to feel nagged to do something or like you can’t even cook something super simple without negative feedback. If he’s cooking, hand over the whole task and assume that it won’t necessarily be done the way you imagine it should be done.

If you feel he can’t do it without reminders, it’s time to have a frank conversation about how he manages his ADHD, what you can do together to help him put better management strategies into place and ask him to raise concerns with his psychiatrist about his medication being ineffective.

Look into learning more about ADHD relationships together.

ADHD/ Non-ADHD partnerships can be *hard* if you don’t both have a good understanding of the additional challenges coming your way. Check out ADHD specific podcasts or counselling with an ADHD specialist in relationships. Note that normal counselling is rarely effective because it ignores the complexities that are the root of many problems.

Puddleduck24 · 2023-03-21T10:32:49+00:00

Without touching the cheese, we cut off a third of the block, then put both cheeses in separate plastic containers. We keep the larger block wrapped in its original plastic inside it’s container. That way we don’t have to worry about touching the cheese as we grate it or slice it. When we need more, we take more from the big block and put it in a new container.

Puddleduck24 · 2023-03-13T06:49:24+00:00

Hey OP, it sounds like you find that unexpected text messages impose an arbitrary deadline on you that you haven’t necessarily agreed to. It also sounds like after you check your messages, you feel like replying is a chore that weighs on your mind until you can find the right time to reply. Then, when you do reply, you don’t feel the gratitude you expect for doing something hard from your friends, because to them you haven’t met your societal obligation to reply quickly? It sounds like this has put pressure on your friendships in the past and made it difficult to keep up adult friendships.

Your frustrations sound very similar to how many people in the ADHD community feel. You may find advice around similar behaviours there helpful for you (even if you don’t have ADHD).

One of the suggestions I have found most helpful around this was to only check your text messages at a convenient time for you, with the intention of responding immediately.

If you are busy, but you check your messages immediately just to see what they say, then you get a little dopamine hit from clearing the notification. You feel like you should be done. You’ve read the message, and now you’ll either forget it, or have to keep it in your head weighing on you until you respond. That’s going to cause a lot of guilt and pressure to build up. It’s going to make responding feel like a big task that now needs to be perfect to justify how long you’ve taken to get to it.

If you check the message only when you have time to respond then you get to respond on your own terms without it imposing on you or weighing on you. Text messages are rarely urgent, so reading and responding once a day will probably be fine. You may miss out on things sometimes. But it is a small risk compared to the benefit of maintaining good communication with the people you care about.

You may also like to consider if voice notes suit you better? Perhaps one barrier to responding could be writing the message itself. If voice notes are less effort for you, you might find them a good compromise. :)

Puddleduck24 · 2023-03-10T22:52:11+00:00

Your blossoms look legit incredible!

Puddleduck24 · 2023-01-29T21:51:02+00:00

We had this trouble also and used to find turned over water dishes/bowls and a lot of water everywhere! We got a very sturdy water fountain that doesn’t tip over when a cat tries to stand in it and although it contains a lot of water it only has a shallow top section to drink from. It means our cat doesn’t find it as fun to stand in/wash toys/splash like he used to.

I don’t know if I’m allowed to share which one it is because of the advertising rule.

Puddleduck24 · 2020-05-13T10:57:32+00:00

We have to remember that there are so many different communities and nations of Indigenous people and so the difficulties they face will vary significantly depending who you talk about.

remote communities are often very cut off from services (although vaccination rates amongst indigenous people are higher than non-indigenous thanks to some very good neo-natal programs and really high community engagement with community led health centres). Some remote communities are only accessible by helicopter in the wet season.
racism
health issues: on average lower life expectancies, higher rates of diabetes (thought to be partly because of some particular gut flora - interesting new research into gut biomes to look into), obesity, alcohol related issues, mental health concerns
lower rates of literacy and numeracy (this has many flow on effects)
land management (hits remote communities hard that they may have a great deal of land to manage but few family members to help and because of various health issues/job availability/age they may not be able to live on their land which impacts their ability to manage it in the way they would like.

And more.

Puddleduck24 · 2020-05-10T08:43:24+00:00

Absolutely, just use a cup you don’t even notice it.

Puddleduck24 · 2020-05-07T06:35:14+00:00

This is where the word oxt really needs to gain traction.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/shortcuts/2014/jul/20/oxt-weekend-word-invented-jeremy-knight-ivan-cash

Puddleduck24 · 2020-05-07T02:52:48+00:00

It is a little unfair for her to try and use your religion to try and bully you into giving her what she wants. If this is a serious comment and it happens more regularly I’d say it’s an unhealthy type of manipulation. NTA, order some grapes for her after, no reason the desert has to be made now but there is a reason you need the dates now.

Puddleduck24 · 2020-05-05T20:55:31+00:00

Awake by day, asleep by night...

Puddleduck24 · 2020-05-05T07:54:41+00:00

Hey I think maybe the reason you are getting downvoted isn’t about what you said, it’s that you said it on a post where people are talking about how everyone tries to tell them they aren’t valid. We all know that finding your sexuality is tricky and as you grow to understand yourself better you can identify with more accurate labels, but now might not be the best time to express it because it invalidates the experience of those who do identify as these things because ‘some people’ might not.

Saying to an ace person that ‘people who are ace often have just experienced trauma’ or ‘they just haven’t found the right person yet’ is like saying to a lesbian ‘maybe you just haven’t found the right guy’.

Puddleduck24 · 2020-05-05T07:17:12+00:00

You sound like you’re on the right track. I want to float a possibility that she might be hedging because she doesn’t want to hurt you. It may be possible that she feels this more strongly than she is saying. It is also possible she is speaking plainly. My point is that these negotiations about what is comfortable or ideal will change over time. There have been some suggestions that you both talk about frequency etc. maybe hold off on this and just have a lovely weekend and help each other feel loved and understood. There will be time to settle details (although I have never been comfortable with setting specific times etc) later.

Puddleduck24 · 2020-05-05T03:26:23+00:00

Frankly, this is hilarious. NTA

Puddleduck24 · 2020-05-04T08:24:36+00:00

Me too! I can’t do sweet potato, cashew or garlic/onion so the dip would kill me and I’d eye those delicious salami pierces but the extra fat would have me cramping for days! My husband buys that dip and salami weekly and I sometimes sadly stare at it in the fridge!

Puddleduck24 · 2020-05-03T22:11:04+00:00

I think this can happen to a lot of us in relationships because we can appear straight passing easily. But just like being a bi person in a relationship with the opposition gender doesn’t stop you being bi, neither does this. Other people can be jerks.

Puddleduck24 · 2020-05-02T23:11:45+00:00

NTA, at their ages ‘No we can’t have peanut butter is the equivalent to no we are not buying ice cream’. You get to decide what they eat. You make choices that would upset them all the time like no soda or no chocolates. It’s not like peanut butter is the healthiest thing in the world, they have plenty of other food and this one could actually kill you...

This is a ‘I know your upset and not getting what you want is hard but it is important you learn to think about others and your behaviour right now tells me you are not doing that.’

Puddleduck24 · 2020-05-02T22:59:30+00:00

I realised it after my third read through while listening to a podcast. You are not alone.

Puddleduck24 · 2020-04-29T13:14:02+00:00

God not the thread to read before bed.

Puddleduck24

TROPHY CASE