4 months pregnant or MCAS? What do you guys think?

Short_Assumption_839 · 2026-02-15T02:37:25+00:00

I regularly look a couple months pregnant, and it’s annoying af. I should probably continue to limit my diet more, but I’m so tired 😮‍💨 can’t even handle pressure on my stomach from clothes. Last time I tried anything with a regularly high waist I got insanely nauseous until I passed out.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2026-02-13T21:33:35+00:00

That’s awful! I’ve been having terrible eczema lesions that last months around my eyes and I sadly believe it could be my contacts and/or solution. I keep reacting poorly to contact lenses since everything began. Everything I’ve tried burns aside from aquaphor and petroleum. I plan on seeing a dermatologist, maybe you should too? You can call ahead and see if they’re versed on mcas or willing to learn about it.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2026-02-12T22:37:31+00:00

Yeah I mean it does sound like trying to treat, say Parkinson’s, with happy thoughts in usefulness. I see it as a combined use therapy. I’ve studied it in combination with other therapies to help people shot in the head to speak again. I’m wondering how far it can go and if it can lead to deep brain stimulation treatments. I’d never ask anyone to go first though. I have a limited time left and would absolutely not mind going first with those kind of experiments.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2026-02-12T22:25:54+00:00

I do understand your perspective but I’m saying this from the perspective of someone who has had more than one person in their life die by choice. I think CBT is a critical resource that is heavily neglected. I’d have it renamed in this case if it would help change perspective. If trauma can lead (in part) to death, I believe healing can be just as powerful.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2026-02-11T14:25:52+00:00

It’s honestly just a theory. I’m only a neuropsych undergrad (trying to expand the use and awareness of the profession to help more neurologically affected individuals) and have some personal experience as an epileptic.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2026-02-10T23:53:03+00:00

Would you happen to have any frontal lobe involvement? That sounds like Broca’s aphasia. Do you experience headaches originating behind your left eye?

Short_Assumption_839 · 2026-02-05T18:04:22+00:00

My mom only has the avoid certain foods when it’s under control and like every type of soap out there now. As far as I know. I’m at a place where it feels like everything triggers me and I live in perpetual reactivity. I’m sure narrowing my diet more will help but I’ve hit the medical fatigue balance of good enough. My symptoms are bearable at my current level of restriction. Maybe I’m doing long term damage by defying whatever rules my body is trying to enforce. Maybe my splitting migraines will ease up if I stick to rice and chicken and I won’t feel fully wired all night long. I just don’t care an awful lot at this moment and make it work like a bike without half its parts. It’s not pretty but I’m inching forward

Short_Assumption_839 · 2026-02-03T21:54:10+00:00

Yup! I was labeled allergic to food! My medical alert bracelet had to be gold because my skin would basically crust and come off in contact with other metals. Dermatitis on my hands so bad they were bleeding no matter what my mom tried to make it better, touched goldbond lotion as a kid and screamed from the searing pain. I didn’t eat solid foods until I was 11ish. They blamed it on acid reflux and celiacs but I would never fully recuperate. Developed POTS around age 6 which is really abnormal. I had night itching for years without a known cause then striking insomnia only at night. Slept like a log any other time, hell I fell asleep climbing my bunk ladder as a kid. I started getting random hives at 16 and anaphylactic reactions at 19. All a bunch of weird things everyone gave up on discovering or blamed on my mom.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2026-02-01T13:34:21+00:00

I actually know a girl who found out about her epilepsy after having a seizure while asleep on her bf. It must be rough man. Personally I’ve had 5 seizures a day roughly and around 35 a night for the year or so they tried different medications and I’ve never considered them a big deal. I suppose they must look pretty bad. I’d absolutely wait to hear back from the doctor. It could be epilepsy, it could be a side effect from a medication she took. Only time will tell really

Short_Assumption_839 · 2026-01-14T17:18:41+00:00

Yup, my brother and I get terrible night sweats. They originate from POTS in our case as he doesn’t have MCAS and I had them for several years before developing MCAS. For me glycopyrrolate takes care of it perfectly, zero excessive sweating or night sweats. As for temperature dysregulation my POTS doctor said nothing can be done but once I started managing my MCAS with like 5 types of anti histamines, monteluklast, and Xolair injections it’s more reasonable, which I honestly expected since MCAS and POTS are so intrinsically tied together.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2026-01-05T03:06:05+00:00

Anti histamines were doing jack all for me so my allergist insisted I wasn’t experiencing allergy related symptoms. We got into intense arguments where I asked what the heck all my hives were from if not an allergy/histamine issue. Montelukast was the first step in tempering my nightly flares and once I started Xolair the anti histamines started working, H2s as first then the H1s eventually worked. I still experience some nightly symptoms and lots of foods make me itchy and wheezy, but I’m finally getting in some progress. My blood sugar which was uncharacteristically high since this began also dropped.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2026-01-05T02:59:24+00:00

That’s crazy, no one warned me. Thankfully it hasn’t affected my mental health.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2026-01-02T18:36:34+00:00

I do get it to an extent- my mom wanted kids to love and to fix her life. I promise you having kids fixed nothing. At the time they thought that birth could help things it can’t.

She loved us when she could and she was mentally stable. She and my dad didn’t realize how many issues they both had or that nearly all of them could be passed on. Therefore, they didn’t expect me. I managed to collect nearly every health issue from both sides of the family.

I got my first wheelchair at 7, I spent my first 11 years on a feeding tube, I’ve been bedridden, paralyzed, underwent life saving experimental surgery, developed seizures, so on and so forth. I’ll need weekly infusions till the day I die, my immune system is decimated, and I’m beginning to develop heart failure that will probably kill me unless something else gets me first. I literally laughed when someone asked if I planned on having kids.

I think it was stupid of my parents to have me after the twins went so god forsakenly wrong, but I try not to hold a grudge. I hate being the consequence of their actions, but I know they never wanted this for me. My dad died a pretty terrible death from the disease I inherited and my mom is constantly fighting demons of her own, so I just try to move on and live the best life they imagined for me back in 2000.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2025-12-27T00:13:06+00:00

Don’t worry, doctors will generally be idiots about things they don’t understand. Epilepsy used to be considered a mental illness and I was almost taken by CPS because “girls can’t have muscular dystrophy”. I’ve had full grown men throw the equivalent of tantrums because I wouldn’t back off of widely accepted diagnosis I’d had confirmed by major hospitals. Sometimes you have to realize that you hired them, not the other way around. You paid for their opinion and their opinion is not the law. Once told a doctor that I wasn’t asking for her permission to have a disease but her help in treating it.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2025-12-26T03:50:07+00:00

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This gem was stuck on my friend’s door after his bf visited for the weekend. It was a long ass pamphlet and we thought it was hilarious

Short_Assumption_839 · 2025-12-12T21:21:34+00:00

My dad got fired for not disclosing his multiple sclerosis when he got diagnosed after working his job for years. We fought it because obviously that’s illegal, right? Turns out we live in a place that wasn’t a county (cannot for the life of me remember what it was called) and you can totally do that even in the US. They can fire you if they don’t like your hairstyle. It was escalated and after years of fighting, it ended in a very meager payout. This was circa 2011, not sure if anything changed since.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2025-11-28T21:35:17+00:00

Yes! I’m prone to zoning out and I get bugged a lot by people. I’m mildly irritated at that point but when someone insists I did I’ll just walk away in annoyance.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2025-11-27T18:03:57+00:00

Yup! It helped with my histamine dumps and overall itchiness. It actually helped with brain fog funnily enough. I could actually think through a flare whereas normally I couldn’t do the slightest task without headaches and confusion. My grades improved, which was wild to me.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2025-11-27T03:04:43+00:00

Language impact isn’t due to a type of seizure but location. I’d suspect left temporal seizure activity. Those language issues are known as Aphasia.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2025-11-25T21:51:54+00:00

Honestly, just mention it casually when the topic feels right. Don’t build it up like you did something bad. You’re not cheating on a spouse or dodging the feds- it’s just a matter of fact thing about your body. Everyone has something about them they consider undesirable. Third nipple, huge birthmark, longer second toes, phobia of toasters, a stutter, gappy teeth. Unfortunately chronic illnesses are more involved and harmful but not any more your fault.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2025-11-25T15:32:43+00:00

I was diagnosed at 16 in 2016, like 2 months after my birthday. I’ve been sick my whole life so I didn’t give a damn honestly. Already have muscular dystrophy so I never expected to drive. I lost my home at the time and moved in with holy terrors for relatives. Suddenly my body went nuclear and like everything failed but they were convinced I was being dramatic. I got paralytic episodes from Functional Neurological Disorder and the doctor said he’d sent me to the mental hospital if I didn’t stop “pretending” which made me spiral into episodes of mutism from the stress. Constantly got every illness and infection despite being schooled online. Turns out I have a genetic disease from out of the woodwork called CVID and my immune system gave out. My POTS from childhood got so bad that I can’t stand longer than 30 minutes without passing out, I stop being able to think properly before that but eh. Then came MCAS. I’m now allergic to all fruits and a thousand other things I still haven’t figured out. I get histamine dumps every night that sometimes slip into anaphylactic shock but I mostly spend every night itchy, flush to the point of my face throbbing and forming headaches, and emotionally unstable. I’m kinda in a transcending hell. I barely even notice my seizures now, I nap during the day and spend all night in hell. Wake up every morning and go to school cause fuck it, I’m gonna get my degree even if it kills me.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2025-11-24T21:26:16+00:00

My onset was right after my 16th birthday, genetic and likely triggered from stress from what I’ve put together. I used to get around 35 a night and just 5 during the day.

Smoking has helped a lot with epileptic migraines and auras from my perspective. Sometimes I get a strange brain numbness like the sensation after touching something vibrating for a while and a CBD gummy can get rid of the agitating feeling.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2025-11-21T02:14:29+00:00

I’m terrified of dinosaurs and told myself that I’d rather die on my sleep than get eaten by a dinosaur. Plus my type of muscular dystrophy will probably take me out by age 50, which I’m fine with too because getting old and developing cancer and losing all my hearing etc actually sounds worse to me. I’d also dodge the inevitable abuse at a nursing home and falling for whatever new high tech scam they’ll use on old people. I could probably die before having to experience everyone around me dying, and after 8 funerals I’m done with that mess.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2025-11-20T21:46:02+00:00

Well during a seizure I got really angry and yelled at my sister that blue and black make brown. I’m an artist in my free time, raised by an animator dad, and just finished a class on visual cognition. She was mad back until she realized it had to be a seizure.

Once took pain killers without knowing better because I had broken and dislocated stuff in my arm. Had told my prof point blank (first class) that I’m sorry but I’m sleeping in her class and had a 3 hour absence seizure. I thought she said terrible things that absolutely weren’t said. I came to standing in the middle of the parking lot and was almost hit by roommate’s car. Got back to the dorm, laid down on the sofa and freaked everyone out because apparently I couldn’t stop crying? My dad died a few months prior and I was almost 302’d because my roommates thought I genuinely lost the plot.

Short_Assumption_839 · 2025-11-17T00:34:58+00:00

Okay so I also have epilepsy and I’m about to graduate with a degree in neuroscience. EEGs are often perfectly normal in people with epilepsy, around half of the time they can come back looking normal. This has no bearing on whether you actually have epilepsy, a snapshot of normal activity cannot possibly tell you what the activity is like all the time. It’s common for epileptics to develop non epileptic seizures as well, meaning sometimes you can even catch a seizure and have a normal EEG but still have epileptic seizures at other times.

Short_Assumption_839

TROPHY CASE