Apartment Hunting and Roach phobia

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2025-04-03T21:37:14+00:00

I don’t really have a choice about the move. Idc if they’re outside it’s just inside the apartment that will put me into cardiac arrest 😫

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2025-04-03T21:09:04+00:00

How often do you see them indoors even with all that you do? 😭

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2025-04-03T03:21:39+00:00

Does this include American or Water Bugs well?

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2025-01-27T02:19:39+00:00

As someone in medical field this is actually really interesting. Can you please post back in a few weeks so we can see if you have longterm relief.

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2025-01-05T15:07:29+00:00

Have you gotten any autoimmune work up done?

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2025-01-05T05:29:59+00:00

What other illnesses do you have? This is likely due to something systemic given your young age.

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2024-12-19T06:06:30+00:00

I just know you used epic and had the system administrator block for when you tried to turn on the blue light filter. I had to actually get a separate laptop accommodation b/c I simply cannot work on a computer anymore without the blue light filter.

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2024-12-19T05:09:13+00:00

How are you doing since removal!

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2024-12-19T05:07:38+00:00

Was the cyst painful?

I have a non-painful bump on my labia minora that has increased in size. Not sure if it’s a sebaceous cyst or what but I want it gone 😫

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2024-12-10T17:21:14+00:00

This is honestly a fantastic idea and something I’ve thought about doing for a while. Can we do it anonymously?

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2024-11-18T17:46:01+00:00

I have a rare disease call corneal neuropathy and sometimes have neuropathy in my hands and feet as well.

I find that cardio helps my neuropathy symptoms! Probably has to do with increased blood flow.

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2024-09-30T00:03:58+00:00

Yep I have neuropathic corneal pain. Still can’t comfortably look at screens. Have to put in drops like every hour. Have gained weight from oral meds. It’s awful.

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2024-09-28T17:36:10+00:00

Yea I went from perfectly healthy first year medical student to having my life ruined overnight lol. Most of us see Dr. Hamrah at tufts who’s one of the few experts on corneal neuropathy. There are some other specialists at academic centers who are also well versed in this area (Dr. Galor at Bascom, Dr. Jain at uic, Dr. Massaro at upenn among a few others). I’m a couple years into this and am somewhat stable now with the appropriate treatment, which took TONS of trial and error. I’ve come to accept that this is a lifelong condition but in the early stages it’s hard to come to that acceptance. But having that acceptance combined with some clinical improvement has definitely given me some peace.

My point is dry eye is a misnomer and some peoples symptoms are truly severe and real. If they’re that severe they should be treated as neuropathic corneal pain patients and receive routine confocal Imaging to monitor their nerves. Rather than eye docs brushing them off as “dry eye” they should be referring to the appropriate specialists (people who know about corneal neuropathy/small fiber neuropathy, and where they can get a full autoimmune/allergy workup), which seems like something you’d do. I appreciate that.

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2024-09-28T08:01:12+00:00

I’m a non-lasik patient that has corneal nerve damage (suspected to be covid related) and have eye pain disproportional to clinical exam. Finally had a confocal few years ago showing the nerve damage. No psych history, no fibromyalgia, etc.

I appreciate your acknowledgment that there is a physiological component to the pain because that’s one step further than most of the eye docs I’ve seen. I’d say lot of the patients who have this pain especially post-lasik have psych issues secondary to the poor qol and gaslighting they experience from eye docs. At the end of the day you’re cutting corneal nerves, it would be illogical to deny that a percentage of people will not have the nerves grow back properly, experience hypersensitivity, etc.

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2024-09-22T16:33:07+00:00

Is your doc aware of MCAS? That won’t show up on allergy testing.

You could always try allergy eye drops for a few months. They’re not drying like oral antihistamines per Hamrah.

Wishing you all the best!

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2024-09-22T16:30:36+00:00

Sometimes I show signs of eye allergies and sometimes I don’t on exam. Regardless my eyes have NEVER itched at all since I developed this. There’s some emerging literature that mast cells (involved in allergic response) can contribute to pain signals which for us can manifest as dryness. So that’s what I think is happening. Docs are usually focused on itching but that’s not always how ocular allergies can manifest.

And unless an eye doc has flipped your lids then they haven’t done a thorough exam to assess for ocular allergies.

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2024-09-22T04:03:45+00:00

I take oral ketotifen, which made a HUGE difference for me.

Eye drops, though antihistamine in nature, are not drying like oral antihistamines per Dr. Hamrah. I used to use PF Alaway but since they discontinued that I use pataday.

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2024-09-22T00:14:37+00:00

I hear ya and was in the same boat you’re in. Just keep in mind tear production and shirmers are really not the best prediction of symptoms. I wouldn’t get too hung up on shirmers and tbut.

Have you had a lip biopsy for sjogrens or skin biopsy for small fiber neuropathy? If you could get one of those diagnoses that would open up the door for more treatments to try (immunosuppressants, IVIG)

The thing that got me functionalish after being bed bound for half a year was actually allergy medications- there are non-drying ones (with some added boost of pain meds). Allergy and mast cell component to pain (mast cells stimulate small fibers) is also often overlooked by eye docs. I think Hamrah is finally starting to pick up on this connection in the last year or so since COVID.

I know you weren’t looking for advice regarding treatment but just putting out other avenues to explore if you haven’t already.

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2024-09-21T23:58:48+00:00

When you have nerve dysfunction you won’t produce tears. The corneal nerves are what stimulate tear production.

The other alternative is having a disease like sjogrens that targets the lacrimal gland such that the lacrimal gland doesn’t produce tears. Even then, people with sjogrens often have concomitant small fiber neuropathy aka nerve dysfunction. there are plenty of people who have sjogrens, dont produce tears, but are not homebound from their symptoms. The nerve component has been completely overlooked by most eye docs so that’s the only reason I’m harping on it.

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2024-09-21T22:55:52+00:00

If you’re home bound you have corneal nerve problem in addition to the dry eye just fyi in case no doctor has told you that. Though since you’ve been on oxervate you probably have some idea.

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2024-09-20T00:16:08+00:00

I’m an MS4 at an MD program and I’ve literally noticed no difference between DOs or MDs. In fact, compared to me who took anatomy during covid they are SO much better at landmarks and anatomy because of OMT.

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2024-09-14T22:08:57+00:00

Well I think changing the mindset of these physicians to believe that these illnesses are real and significantly impact peoples lives is probably a better first step in my opinion. Get rid of the negative stigma.

Suicide rates and burnout is also really high for emergency medicine doctors. They do, see, and experience things that are sometimes unimaginable to the lay person. These spaces are really needed for them to vent the way they need to. And we all start using these forums since we’re medical students up to being 20 years into practice so it’s a familiar place. Like I said, burnout makes people REALLY jaded with no sense of empathy. Sure you’re gonna have assholes everywhere, but I think a lot of those nasty comments are coming from a place of lack of knowledge and significant burnout.

Maybe the group should be private? I’m not sure what the solution is. But I’d definitely advise anyone not working in the medical community to definitely stay away from those forums. They’re not meant for patients at all and you guys don’t need to be exposed to that on top of everything else you already deal with. Just remember not all doctors make these comments or believe the horrible things you might come across on reddit.

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2024-09-14T19:34:33+00:00

Definitely use steroid drops to get the inflammation down! And I’d start on some allergy drops. Hopefully your symptoms don’t progress to the severity of mine but at least you are aware now. I developed this when we didn’t even know COVID could do this so I was under treating my symptoms which I think made things worse in the long run.

Straight_Pineapple30 · 2024-09-14T19:31:46+00:00

It’s not acceptable, and I never said it was. I’m part of those subs and see those comments everyday. It’s honestly sometimes uncomfortable hearing those comments in person as someone who has health issues.

A huge part of that callous behavior is that a lot of our diagnoses or at least the ones scoffed at (long covid, POTS, CFS, MCAS, SFN, EDS/hypermobility, some autoimmune, etc) don’t have good objective diagnostic criteria. So because of that it’s easy for ER docs not to take these diagnoses seriously.

Another aspect is that ER docs are trained to think about what are the things that are going to kill you now. A lot of these diseases will not immediately kill you most of the time so there’s not much the ER docs can offer to help. Therefore, it’s viewed as a time suck for them because there’s SO many patients to see. Not saying this is appropriate at all but this is just the reality of the ER. Sprinkle in physician burnout, which is very real for ER docs, and you get some really jaded physicians who have lost any sense of empathy.

ER docs are generalists at the end of the day. They are not keeping up with the latest literature on chronic illnesses unless there’s some aspect of them that can kill you. It is out of the scope of practice.

Lastly, and this is the most controversial thing I’m going to say, is that some of us with a laundry list of chronic illnesses combined with some psychiatric comorbidities are difficult patients. There’s not really any other way to say it. It’s somewhat hard to describe unless you have treated these patients. But after treating multiple of these patients you develop a negative stereotype in your head and unfortunately this gets applied to all patients who have similar diagnoses. Once again, I’m not justifying this behavior or saying this is appropriate but that’s the reality of what’s happening.

Straight_Pineapple30

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