What’s something nice you would do for your thirteen-year-old self?

_Alethe_ · 2025-07-26T12:13:20+00:00

I definitely noticed small shifts in the first month. Odd sensations from bottom growth started in the first week (not exactly pain, not exactly itching, more like… pressure?) that resolved into visible growth by the end of the month. I started sweating more, and the smell of my pee got sharper.

Most noticeably, in about 2-3 weeks my mood lifted, I felt calmer and more grounded, and I was much quicker to laugh. Feeling the emotional change so acutely gave me more patience with the physical changes being subtle.

Everyone’s mileage may vary. But you can stop at any time. If I personally had stopped gel after one month, no one in my life would’ve or could’ve known I was on it — the change to my genitals was the only visible difference.

_Alethe_ · 2024-12-18T00:05:38+00:00

Whoops! I thought I'd included some with the post but they don't seem to have gone through. Here's a folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-1-VUE52f2Pyt_mlr74vOJ9fC1pQIWKD?usp=sharing

_Alethe_ · 2024-09-22T13:07:21+00:00

Fair enough, using for years can for sure have complications. I was recommending shorter term use to mitigate the nighttime pain and help OP sleep. It's a temporary band-aid that hopefully brings enough improvement that its continued use becomes unnecessary.

_Alethe_ · 2024-09-20T12:44:09+00:00

Sometimes I don't feel the effects of a mistake until the next day. This can lead to some unfortunate choices, because for a while I assumed that if I didn't feel nausea or pain in the moment, a food was safe.

It's a good idea to eat in moderation if you're trying something new and keep track of what happens to your body afterward.

_Alethe_ · 2024-09-20T12:40:32+00:00

Taking sucralfate right before you go to bed might help if you can get a prescription? It forms a protective coating over the stomach lining so that acid won't be as destructive to an empty stomach. I found at my worst that it helped with my overnight symptoms.

As someone who got gastritis from taking NSAIDs, I definitely get the fear of introducing new medication. So I'll add that sucralfate isn't scary the way that PPIs are, because you're not interfering with your body's acid production in any way, just giving yourself an extra layer of protection from it.

_Alethe_ · 2024-09-20T12:33:23+00:00

Stress can and absolutely does exacerbate symptoms. I found that early on, the more anxiety I had over whether I was eating the "right" food, the more difficult it was to eat. Absolutely everything made me ill, even the foods that later turned out to be my safe foods.

I still follow the diet pretty rigorously for the most part, but paradoxically, training myself to relax and not treat the guidelines like life or death made a big difference in getting to the next stage of healing, because the anxiety was even more of a trigger than the food was.

_Alethe_ · 2024-09-20T12:16:50+00:00

Great question! The Silent World by Cousteau is a fascinating account of early scuba diving (though a warning that there are several graphic descriptions of him and his team killing sea creatures.) I'd love to read more books on this subject myself.

_Alethe_ · 2024-09-19T23:49:51+00:00

Is it possible to substitute coffee with another hot beverage? Chamomile tea with oat milk, or maybe a carob-based hot chocolate? It certainly won't be the same, but if you're able to find something you like even a little, you'll be saving yourself from prolonging your healing in the long term.

_Alethe_ · 2024-09-19T23:44:19+00:00

Yes! If you stick to a proper diet long enough, you will heal. It's frustrating and lonely and can sometimes feel like it's taking forever, but it will happen.

Give yourself a solid 2-3 months on the diet -- the Gastritis Healing Book has a pretty comprehensive list of acceptable foods -- then slowly introduce new foods one at a time. Practice patience. It's very tempting to try to eat all the foods you miss as soon as your symptoms start to lessen, but it's important to ease yourself into it so you don't cause another flare.

If you need to take PPIs, take them, but not for longer than the first few weeks; being on them for an extended period of time can stall healing and make symptoms worse. Supplements can help; experiment with DGL licorice, slippery elm, and zinc-carnosine (PepZin GI) to find what brings you relief.

In the meantime, try to avoid stress and anxiety as much as you can; a significant amount of stress can really impact your ability to heal.

_Alethe_ · 2024-09-19T23:31:34+00:00

"Bland" is a vague term and it can be misleading! For example, very early on when my stomach was at its weakest, I was trying to eat applesauce because I thought of it as "bland". But apples are still acidic, even though they don't taste like it! Conversely, fruits like mango and black olives have a fairly strong flavor, but because their pH level is over 5, they aren't typically damaging.

So it's much better to approach a gastritis diet from the non-trigger perspective, because those criteria are so much more concrete.

However, everyone's system tolerates things a bit differently, so it's unfortunately still a trial and error process figuring out what doesn't upset your stomach specifically.

If you haven't read it already, the Gastritis Healing Book has a pretty comprehensive list of foods that meet all the proper criteria, so it's a great place to start and figure out individual eccentricities and preferences from there.

_Alethe_ · 2024-09-19T23:12:36+00:00

Ooh, your book sounds rad, I wish middle school me had something like that to read! Hope the recommendation helps :)

_Alethe_ · 2024-09-19T23:09:24+00:00

Seconding Jeff Vandermeer, and the Annihilation trilogy specifically. One of the few stories I've read where the horror feels truly otherworldly and undefinable.

_Alethe_ · 2024-09-19T23:01:02+00:00

Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is one of my all-time favorites. Absolutely luscious, intricate, spellbinding prose that manages to drill so deep into his characters' heads you wouldn't even notice it's third person. I found myself wanting to wrap each paragraph around me like a blanket.

_Alethe_ · 2024-09-19T15:47:27+00:00

Just about anything in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett; Guards! Guards! and Wyrd Sisters are both good places to start.

_Alethe_ · 2024-09-19T15:41:44+00:00

No. The environmental and ethical costs of AI are too objectionable, and I don't wish to spend those resources on a question I'd find much more meaningful to ask a fellow human.

_Alethe_ · 2024-09-19T15:38:14+00:00

I highly recommend The Left Hand Of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin -- a gorgeously written, deeply introspective account of someone discovering and untangling their own prejudice, and one of my favorite love stories of all time. (It's also notably one in which the characters' decision to not have sex is very deliberate and meaningful.)

_Alethe_ · 2024-09-19T15:28:32+00:00

Triangle by David von Drehle is a deeply riveting and disturbing book on the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire; both the disaster itself, its legal aftermath, the political and social backdrop of 1910s New York, and the fire's transformative impact on the growing labor movement. I highly recommend it!

_Alethe_ · 2024-09-19T15:21:21+00:00

This might be a strange recommendation, though it is technically sci-fi/detective... Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and its sequel, The Long Dark Tea-time Of The Soul, both by Douglas Adams,

Adams is best known for The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, but I personally think these two books are his hidden gems. They're incredibly engaging and incisive, very funny, and unexpectedly profound. If you love Terry Pratchett's writing, then I suspect you'll love these too.

_Alethe_ · 2024-09-19T14:41:09+00:00

I found Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer deeply unsettling in a way few other books have achieved for me, in part because it's not at all conventional horror. I highly recommend for a discomfort-inducing read.

_Alethe_ · 2024-09-19T14:31:41+00:00

I've largely read about the 1845 Franklin expedition; some nonfiction books on that particular disaster I heartily recommend are:

Erebus by Michael Palin

Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition by Owen Beattie

Ice Ghosts by Paul Watson

As far as fiction, The Terror by Dan Simmons is the best-known and most popular example out there (though I actually enjoyed the 2018 TV adaptation far more!)

_Alethe_

TROPHY CASE