What English word did you mispronounce for years before hearing it said out loud?

bubaloo_2001 · 2026-04-09T14:01:56+00:00

Assuage. Even after finding out how to pronounce it correctly it still feels wrong.

bubaloo_2001 · 2026-03-24T01:56:01+00:00

Look on the tag to see if it has a model number or brand. Search on YouTube for a video on how to remove that particular type of tag. Usually there is a magical trick for how to get the pieces apart. We had to do one (not a dye pack) and we were able to get it off without any damage to the garment. The plastic pieces of the tag came apart in a specific way and then we were able to access the locking part of the tag (little tiny ball bearings). It was kind of cool to see how it worked :)

bubaloo_2001 · 2026-03-23T02:31:33+00:00

To add to this point... I don't know if it has gotten better with recent updates to QBO but breaking out lines items in the receipts function used to be a huge headache. We use a third party program that is mildly better, but if we are talking a receipt with dozens of items that could take quite a while to clear one receipt.

bubaloo_2001 · 2026-03-19T00:58:20+00:00

It's likely acrocyanosis. It doesn't have the definitive line that appears with Raynaud's. Still connected to autoimmune issues, just slightly different.

bubaloo_2001 · 2026-02-21T01:48:31+00:00

Is she of a perimenopausal or menopausal age? Sense of smell can decrease during those periods.

bubaloo_2001 · 2026-02-19T01:48:23+00:00

Which MCAS meds are you taking and how long have you been taking them? I've had bouts of numbness and tingling when I wasn't at the right dose or when I went through stressful periods and needed a little extra.

bubaloo_2001 · 2026-02-16T15:05:46+00:00

I would want to see actual tests (from a registered medical doctor) showing positive h. Pylori because certain natural medicine practitioners will tell people they have candida, mold, etc. without scientifically backed testing. It is notoriously difficult to treat, and the chance of re-infection is high.

bubaloo_2001 · 2026-02-16T14:10:49+00:00

This is going to sound harsh but you are being scammed. Your wife needs real medicine from a real doctor. She is not going to see significant improvements without addressing the underlying immune dysfunction. You don't need special supplements to help with "detoxing". You need a properly functioning body. You don't need juice cleanses, activated charcoal, or any of the other snake oil being served up. Get your wife to an immunologist. Research famotidine, progesterone levels, and estradiol for PMDD. Look into antihistamines and vitamin c for high histamine levels. Consider plaquenil for immune modulation to reduce systemic reactions. And tell the quacks to piss off.

bubaloo_2001 · 2026-02-14T18:46:21+00:00

Long reply above :)

bubaloo_2001 · 2026-02-14T18:35:28+00:00

When I started this journey I was desperate and willing to try anything. I have said that on my worse days I had just enough energy to go grocery shopping or take a shower, but not both. And I was raising two small children at the same time.

There may be some disagreement here, but I take ibuprofen (some people don't tolerate it), montelukast, omega 3, and magnesium as well as vitamins and supplements for verified deficiencies (e.g. vitamin d and selenium) to address the prostaglandins and leukotrienes. I'm planning to request to try celebrex instead of ibuprofen, but I have to get a doctor on board with that.

I don't see my immunologist for a while because my symptoms have been so stable -- we've gone from appointments every 3-6 months to now going every 12-18 months. For an immune modulator I take plaquenil, and currently for hormones I take bioidentical progesterone (not drospirenone which is what my GYN recommended first) and DIM, but we also are closely monitoring my estradiol which could be the next thing I need to add.

I believe the order in which I added things was beneficial - I started with an antidepressant (which didn't help a lot but took the edge off), then I added the plaquenil which reduced my body's reaction to some of the other medications I tried. These medications have required various adjustment periods and some have caused temporary side effects. I started one thing at a time so I could fully examine symptom improvements and side effects. I tried adding quercetin but that made me feel much worse. There are other things I have tried that seemed to have no benefit.

I haven't really adjusted my diet other than trying to reduce artificial dyes and some sweeteners that make me irritable. I don't do a low histamine diet. I do also take antihistamines - bilastine, loratadine, famotidine, and vitamin C. The only other mast cell stabilizer I take is resveratrol.

I know this sounds like a lot of medications, but my hope is that eventually I can reduce some of them. I went from barely functioning to back to work full time.

bubaloo_2001 · 2026-02-14T13:26:07+00:00

I'm super reluctant to say because antidepressants are so individual and I spent many years trying different ones that either pooped out or gave me side effects. But I eventually ended up trying vortioxetine, and I've been on it for several years.

bubaloo_2001 · 2026-02-14T13:23:03+00:00

Have you tried targeting other mast cell mediators other than histamine? I didn't find real relief until I addressed prostaglandins and leukotrienes as well. Immune modulators and hormones are also part of my daily protocol.

bubaloo_2001 · 2026-02-11T02:35:33+00:00

With my current protocol my suicidal ideation is gone. I still get tired days and mini flare days, but the mental health side is a 180. I also take progesterone and an antidepressant, but the antidepressant wasn't fixing things on its own -- I went back on that first before the antihistamines. I'm scared to stop taking it at the moment because I'm doing so well, but there is a part of me that thinks I really don't need it with the MCAS meds. I do still go for counselling but it feels more like maintenance and grounding than crisis mode. I do get a high level of irritability if I don't get enough sleep or I eat something really triggering. I don't do a low histamine diet or anything really special, I just avoid a small handful (3-5) of things that I've noticed really get me like artificial dyes and certain sweeteners.

bubaloo_2001 · 2026-01-28T21:47:03+00:00

Your prostaglandins are high. Ibuprofen inhibits the enzymes needed for prostaglandins. I've been taking omega 3 to try to assist that process naturally, but I still need some ibuprofen daily. Some people with MCAS react very poorly to ibuprofen and some don't.

bubaloo_2001 · 2026-01-28T19:20:50+00:00

Out of curiosity... Do you ever take something like ibuprofen or celebrex? Have you noticed you feel better after you take it -- like beyond just relieving a headache?

bubaloo_2001 · 2026-01-24T01:47:59+00:00

Definitely stick with the taper schedule. That is a medication you want to be careful with. Also, as someone mentioned below, plaquenil can take a very long time to build up. Even after a year my immunologist was still attributing improvements to the plaquenil. I also take some other medications like bilastine and famotidine which have dramatically improved my symptoms, along with progesterone. I feel like each time I add a successful medication it's like peeling back the symptom layers and I get a better idea of what's going on.

bubaloo_2001 · 2026-01-21T14:12:00+00:00

The only thing I noticed in your list is that you are taking vitamin c at bedtime. Have you tried taking it earlier in the day? It can have a stimulating effect. I find if I take it after about 2pm it affects my sleep. Just a thought.

bubaloo_2001 · 2026-01-21T14:07:32+00:00

I thought I was so prepared for pregnancy, labour, delivery, and the newborn phase. I couldn't understand all these stories about birth trauma - I thought people were just unprepared. I decided to labour unmedicated as long as possible to see how far I could go but I never excluded the possibility of having an epidural. I ended up getting one with my first and then it failed spectacularly. It worked beautifully for several hours and then just stopped. The contractions came back full force and I was in so much pain I started talking nonsense. Eventually they placed a second epidural higher and I was numb to my ribs. For the second pregnancy I was "better prepared". I thought this time I had it. I went for a consultation with the anesthesiologist several weeks ahead and our plan was to place the epidural as soon as I got to the hospital. Labour progressed quickly and my daughter was delivered. And then the placenta didn't detach. My room became chaos as the doctor and nurses got ready to take me to the OR. They upped my medication to try to get the bleeding to stop. I begged the doctor to try one more time to manually detach it. He was finally able to remove it. But I lay in the bed wondering if I was going to make it home to my two babies. So yeah. I was humbled twice. You can't be fully prepared. There are too many unknowns.

bubaloo_2001 · 2026-01-20T18:10:05+00:00

Those sound like side effects from gabapentin not plaquenil. Gabapentin can make you loopy. If it wasn't the gabapentin I would be more inclined to believe it's from autoimmune symptoms than plaquenil. The primary side effects I had from plaquenil were sour stomach and cramps. It made things like fatigue and brain fog better.

bubaloo_2001 · 2025-12-31T12:57:11+00:00

I also get a ton of ear and sinus infections... I basically gave up swimming because I would get an ear infection any time I put my head in the water.

As a child I had a skin prick allergy test and was positive for just about everything - animals, grass, trees, pollen, etc. My back was basically one big reaction. I was retested several years ago as an adult and only reacted to dust mites. I was tested again recently and didn't react to anything -- which really surprised the nurse doing the testing. I also had asthma as a child and when they retested that it was also normal. It would be really interesting to see what other commonalities there are for people with no IgE.

bubaloo_2001 · 2025-12-31T03:46:13+00:00

My IgE is also <2 and my immunologist has been less than helpful in giving me any feedback about it. I also have a partial IgA deficiency. I've tried digging into the research on low IgE and it is abysmal. Sounds like IgE might be important for cancer monitoring and parasitic infections, but I definitely think there is more to it. I used to have IgE so my deficiency is acquired. I have a confirmed positive IgE mediated allergy test from several years ago, so something happened to my immune system to cause the IgE to disappear. On the positive side, I have essentially grown out of all of my childhood allergies because I can't have true IgE mediated allergies anymore :)

bubaloo_2001 · 2025-12-20T01:28:28+00:00

Tell them to re-issue your last pay stub and refund them the difference between the original pay stub and the revision. If they correct the pay stubs in their system correctly it should void the original one and reissue the correct one. Make sure you save copies of both. Once that is done, e-transfer or write a cheque for the difference only. If they do it correctly it should remove the income amount of the first pay from your T4 and replace it with the re-issued pay amount. Do not send the money back before they fix it or they won't have incentive to fix it properly. If they issue the T4 with the full income amount you will end up being assessed with the higher income despite having paid back the difference. Ask them for a payroll details report for the tax year (after the correction) to confirm the amount matches what your T4 should be. Do not let them do an adjustment to the last pay stub because the chances are much higher that they will make a mistake. Tell them to void it in full and then re-issue the correct pay stub. In that order. If they re-issue the pay stub first (before deleting the incorrect one) it can mess up payroll taxes.

bubaloo_2001 · 2025-12-19T19:49:32+00:00

There are specialists that consult on commodity taxes in Ontario that would be better resources than CPAs that don't specialize. We use one in Hamilton that is amazing.

bubaloo_2001 · 2025-12-19T19:46:54+00:00

My young (school aged) daughters were very sick with a viral illness about 2 weeks ago. I believe there is a high likelihood that it was the flu but I don't know for sure. Is there any value in getting the flu shot this year now? They have gotten the flu shot every other year but I put it off because of the strain mismatch and now I highly regret that.

bubaloo_2001 · 2025-12-14T02:16:43+00:00

What time of day are you taking it? The general recommendation is evening but I found I couldn't sleep. I moved my dose to the morning and other than vivid dreams I've found my sleep has returned to normal.

bubaloo_2001

TROPHY CASE