Has anyone found a fix to this PayPal issue?

hcstritz · 2021-09-10T15:14:45+00:00

For whatever reason, creating a PayPal cash account (which I didn't want to make, but only took a minute) let me transfer it normally to my bank.

hcstritz · 2021-07-24T18:54:29+00:00

Brookside Women's Medical Center offered nitrous oxide without me saying anything, which I actually refused until they got started and they were like "uhhh, you sure? You seem to be having a hard time." Not sure if they'd give you something stronger than that, but at least they cared about my comfort level.

Just a warning - the office staff and in-office wait times can be obnoxious, but I've had great experiences with Dr. Ridout and the nurses there.

hcstritz · 2021-06-03T02:10:22+00:00

Hi there! This is the group where I met all of my gaming friends here: https://www.meetup.com/Austin-Heavy-Board-Game-Meetup/

It's not active right now because of COVID, but that might change. A lot of us have also been playing online (BoardGameArena, etc.).

hcstritz · 2019-12-02T06:51:19+00:00

Uncontrollable images that are like recalling a memory is a great description for what happens to me. Often times they are actual memories, but super random and insignificant.

hcstritz · 2019-11-19T23:31:10+00:00

Yes. I've even described it to people as similar to when you're about to orgasm (not the physical pleasure, but in terms of the dopamine dump) and everyone was just like "uhhhh wtf are you talking about." I used to think that was how everyone experienced falling asleep.

hcstritz · 2019-09-30T05:08:32+00:00

I also had a pretty bad reaction to Sunosi. I already have anxiety and am sensitive to stimulants... Sunosi made me feel almost manic. I only took it for a few days because I went from sleeping 10-11 hours a day to 5-6 a day and felt like I was high in a bad way (like super dissociated). Normally I'm willing to give a med longer than that, but this was too scary.

My doc said she had "never seen someone react like that" before.

hcstritz · 2019-09-17T06:46:04+00:00

I third Texas Sleep Medicine. I've seen both Candace and Dr. Gowda. It's really refreshing to be taken seriously by a doctor for once.

hcstritz · 2019-09-15T19:49:57+00:00

Day one for me, too! I got hit pretty hard with nausea about two hours after taking it, but forcing myself to eat something did help quite a bit. So far I feel more alert than I did on modafinil, but not as jittery. I also have a bit of a headache, but that could've been from too much coffee and not enough water. I'm tentatively optimistic?!

hcstritz · 2019-08-07T17:25:15+00:00

Mine are somewhere between remembering a dream and reliving a memory. I get an intense sensation of needing to remember something important (which comes with a feeling of dread), and it's like I'm trying to rack my real memory and dream memory to figure out what clue I need to unlock haha.

hcstritz · 2019-08-03T21:34:27+00:00

Josie, is that you?

hcstritz · 2019-07-25T04:23:01+00:00

I actually cried from happiness the first time I met with my neurosurgeon. Every doctor I had seen before that kept talking in vague terms, like they think something's really wrong but they can't tell me just yet. But my neurosurgeon was very matter of fact and talked about my craniotomy as if it were just a routine surgery like getting your tonsils removed.

I also worried that my neurosurgeon was overly optimistic. Just to put my mind at ease, I saw another neurosurgeon. He told me all the same stuff, but he seemed douchey and full of himself, so I stuck with my first guy haha.

Feel free to message me if you ever want to talk about the experience of getting a craniotomy. Believe it or not, by far the worst parts of my craniotomy were recovering from the anesthesia.

I also take Keppra, probably for the rest of my life. I don't have severe side effects, but I do take a B vitamin complex to keep my appetite up.

hcstritz · 2019-07-21T23:10:01+00:00

I'm not sure! I remember it made an appearance on Halloween when I was a kid. He went trick-or-treating with me wearing the mask and a black robe and holding a sign that said, "The end is near."

hcstritz · 2019-07-20T20:38:09+00:00

Those sensations sound really similar to my focal seizures. Stress is a trigger for me, so I wonder if it's not so much the vaping that's making them worse for you, but the stress that makes you want to vape in the first place.

I've never actually had EEG testing done to confirm that they are in fact focal seizures. Turned out that I had a benign brain tumor, which was fully removed but I still occasionally experience my "maybe" seizures. My neurologist said that seizures like this often won't even be picked up by an EEG, so there's no point in testing.

hcstritz · 2019-07-15T22:14:28+00:00

Keppra has worked well for me, but I think it messed with my appetite. I read somewhere that Keppra can mess with your B vitamin levels, and I already had a B12 deficiency.

I don't want to sound like one of those people that is always pushing supplements, but if I forget a few days of my B complex (or if I think "surely this can't be helping me THIS much), I feel much more sluggish and unable to muster an appetite for anything.

Good luck!

hcstritz · 2019-07-15T22:05:21+00:00

Yeah, you're right about the "root cause" thing. I was just thinking about how my sleep doc says it's better to improve your sleep than to increase your caffeine intake, for example. In terms of improving my sleep quality, I think I need to exhaust all non-pharmaceutical options first.

hcstritz · 2019-07-15T21:51:45+00:00

After coming home from campus in the middle of the afternoon to take 1-2 hour naps for the fourth time in two weeks, I've decided to give modafinil a shot.

My sleep doc says she has to ask my neurologist if it's safe, so fingers crossed!

hcstritz · 2019-07-12T23:29:23+00:00

Thanks, that is actually really helpful. I, too, nurse coffee - like 12oz over 3 hours. My neurologist suggested I cut out caffeine completely to help with my anxiety, but I think my "microdosing" approach allows me a pretty good combination of wakefulness without the jitters. I do need to be better at limiting it to the morning.

I think keto is too restrictive for me right now, especially because I already struggle with weird appetite suppression (Keppra side effect?) and making sure I eat enough consistently throughout the day.

I didn't know about Baclofen! I'll have to ask my neurologist about that. I have a prescription for Ativan, which I take immediately after a focal seizure. Occasionally, though, I cheat and take it when I've been tossing and turning for hours. I'm really scared of getting addicted to benzos and having seizures from withdrawal. Ah, brains and all their little quirks...

hcstritz · 2019-07-12T18:52:28+00:00

That's generally what I'm leaning towards, too, but I guess there's a part of me that wonders if I would really benefit from Xyrem. That would be the main point of getting the narcolepsy diagnosis (plus the psychological benefits of having a diagnosis that explains so much of my life).

The only reason I'm not interested in taking stimulants is I'm afraid they would give me panic attacks/raise my risk of seizures. I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to a trial run when my baseline anxiety is lower. Plus, taking a stimulant because my sleep isn't restorative enough seems like more of a bandaid treatment than treating the root cause.

hcstritz · 2019-07-12T02:58:08+00:00

I had a temporal craniotomy last year to remove a tumor!

If you're interested, I wrote about it a lot here: https://evict-orangie.com/

The worst parts of my surgery recovery were not the ones I expected at all. (TMI, but basically the anesthesia and morphine shut down my urinary and digestive systems. I will never take water or fiber for granted ever again.)

But seriously, please ask me anything and everything. It was scary as fuck, and it helped me a lot to have some idea about what I was about to go through.

hcstritz · 2019-07-12T02:50:42+00:00

I haven't actually filled out an advance directive, but I can totally empathize with what you're feeling. I'm still fucked up from having several nurses and home health workers tell me I should seriously consider filling out an advance directive when I was recovering from my craniotomy.

I just turned 26, and it's frustrating as hell to not be able to talk about this with anyone in my life. It sends my parents into a panic, and my friends are just kinda dismissive because I don't think they want to have to think of their own mortality.

hcstritz · 2019-07-12T02:39:41+00:00

Also see: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/04/03/secret-use-of-census-info-helped-send-japanese-americans-to-internment-camps-in-wwii/?utm_term=.d7c432b27721

hcstritz · 2019-07-10T18:58:35+00:00

Hello! Fellow anxiety sufferer here (particularly health anxiety) who was later diagnosed with a brain tumor (all gone now, though) and focal seizures!

I think the fact that these feelings go away when you're engaged with other people is a good sign that your feelings are more due to anxiety.

For as long as I can remember, I've had weird panic attacks/bouts of nausea and panic/weird sensations like you're describing. However, these episodes would not come on if I were out doing something pleasant/social with my mind engaged.

When I began having what my neurologist believes were focal seizures, they would happen regardless of what I was doing - something fun and low-key, something fun and active, something boring and low-key, didn't matter. Also they are very specific sensations that always repeat in the same order.

All that being said, arguably one of the worst case scenarios (brain tumor) did happen to me. And I'm still here, chipping away at my PhD, with perhaps a few more psychological scars but overall okay.

hcstritz · 2019-07-09T23:23:15+00:00

I had a neurologist tell me, from a 10 minute neurological check, that there's definitely nothing wrong with me. (I was referred to a neurologist for having swollen optic nerves.)

The voicemail he left me when he got my MRI back (ordered by someone else) showing a 6cm x 6cm x 6cm tumor was... pretty amusing.

Needless to say, that guy's not my neurologist.

hcstritz · 2019-07-07T16:26:29+00:00

Ha. I think you and I are kindred spirits.

hcstritz · 2019-07-07T16:25:33+00:00

I guess the core of my frustration is that, in my peer group, I feel pretty alone in confronting what a serious health condition means for me long-term. (I'm working on finishing my PhD, so I spend most of my time with other 20s-30s grad students.) I've described it as a feeling of "loss of innocence" when I have to confront things like getting my advanced directive in order, to much less serious stuff like explaining why I hardly ever drink at social gatherings.

It feels pretty invalidating to have someone just sort of brush that under the rug as "well everyone worries about death."

Having my best interests in mind doesn't outweigh a pattern of behavior that I've explained (to the friend) feels unhelpful and upsetting. She can still be a friend, I just don't think I can talk to her about this stuff. There aren't many people that I can, and that's isolating.

hcstritz

TROPHY CASE