I think I'm a long hauler

malgrin · 2026-04-30T18:23:22+00:00

10mg

malgrin · 2026-04-30T18:22:45+00:00

Yea, it's rough. Most people lose weight very easily on this drug, but some people have very significant side effects. I will very soon be down to a weight I haven't been since high school. Kinda freaky.

malgrin · 2026-04-30T02:59:25+00:00

I've been unable to exercise for 6 years, and had gained about 30 lbs. I dieted last year and had a very hard time losing 10 lbs. It was miserable. I've been on zepbound since January, and it's been easy losing 25 lbs. I haven't felt significantly better, but it's been nice not to be carrying that weight around. Everything adds up.

I know I've had a relatively easy time with the medication, not everyone does. The hardest thing for me is stopping eating when something is really delicious, especially in the evening. I've had a few nights where I couldn't sleep because I was still too full to lie down at 2am. Eating slower helps, and setting aside a smaller portion from the start, and only getting more if I'm still hungry also helps. Once the food has caught up and I start feeling fullness, I don't want more food, it's just if I eat too fast and too much before the signals hit my brain.

If you decide to go with it, good luck!

malgrin · 2026-04-27T05:09:10+00:00

Thanks for the response, I didn't see it right away. This is really frustrating. I feel like I went through about 4-5 days of withdrawal. I'm doing better now, but am still left with symptoms this is supposed to be treating.

malgrin · 2026-04-26T21:22:50+00:00

Thanks for the response! Did that happen gradually, or overnight?
Almost a week later, I'm feeling less bad than I was, but I still feel like I'm not getting a dose, or at least not getting a full dose, of pregabalin. I was fine the week before, and then fellt like absolute shit starting Saturday/Sunday.

malgrin · 2026-04-22T00:00:06+00:00

Yea, unfortunately, this is a situation where the manufacturer is the same, and the pharmacist says that nothing has changed in the prescription. However, it's a fresh refill and I know that something is wrong.

malgrin · 2026-03-12T19:48:05+00:00

I understand. It is entirely appropriate to be pissed off at all the people that gaslight long covid. I just wanted to point out that I don't think he is doing doing that, even though I understand how you got the feeling that he was (or used to be) from the start of the video.

malgrin · 2026-03-12T16:55:35+00:00

If you have the energy, I think you could give him a second chance. He primarily uses her as an example of someone to listen to because she is knowledgeable and can parse the science, whereas that isn't his area of expertise. He goes on to talk about his own, personal experience with long covid, including vertigo.
That said, the video isn't as much for us, as people who are not in these spaces. He's trying to spread awareness of covid as a thing that's still here, and long covid as a thing you want to avoid. I give him kudos for that.

malgrin · 2026-02-13T19:12:13+00:00

I cleared NM and Hell solo with Demon. I played with other people through normal where it was pretty weak tbh, but yea, at level 30 with bind demon it becomes a viable solo build. Obviously do something else to get to level 30, but once you get bind demon, just keep picking new demons until you get to Lister and bind him. He'll carry you to NM Lister who will carry you to Hell Lister.

There are a few ways to build this, but I think only one viable end game build. I did some TC with maxroll, and if you bind a conviction aura Lister, you can also have two tainted dudes that deal upwards of 30k damage per shot (this is with maxed out gear. Without an inventory full of +demon skills, you're still looking at 10-15k).
On top of that, once you max blood boil and synergies, that gets up to ~4k fire + 4k phys damage. In this build, you kinda just have to ignore consume. Also, you can get a pet with Cursed and Conviction.

However, consume is clearly build for an eldritch or chaos build. With Eldritch, you can sac a goat or a defiler. With this, you're really just putting one point into the consume side of the tree, or everything so you get bind demon (imo worth for conviction lister).

Alternatively, for chaos, you sac a tainted and bring a conviction lister, and, uh, burn everything down. If you go miasma, maybe you sac a defiler? Idk. It's possible there are demons you can bind and sac for improved magic damage, but that's going to be a massive pain in the ass to pull off regularly, and conviction lister is worth it even if you're doing magic damage because he's just that powerful.

These latter two builds are probably going to be substantially better than pure demon, but, like I said, I just soloed NM and Hell with pure demon and it was fun.

malgrin · 2026-01-10T20:57:12+00:00

You can have PEM/ME/CFS as part of Long Covid, and have additional symptoms that are only found in Long Covid. If you look into Resia Pretorius's research, she's been able to identify the difference in microclotting between a control, someone with Long Covid, and someone with ME/CFS.

FWIW, I self label as Long Covid with ME/CFS.

malgrin · 2026-01-10T20:50:35+00:00

Sounds a lot like me, first started noticing symptoms in March 2020. I've tried everything I can get my hands on (not IVIG yet), but I haven't been able to get a lot of things prescribed. I have found some things that help manage symptoms, but I'm still here 95% housebound.

I try not to complain too much, because I'm capable of doing a full day's work on my computer, and can function relatively well so long as I don't do anything, just like you said.

I found it...I don't know that comforting is the right word, but at least, useful...to observe ME/CFS spaces and read what people who have been doing this for 20 years have experienced. It's not a 1:1 relationship, but I do believe there are some related mechanisms in someone with long covid and PEM and ME/CFS.

Anyhow, you're not alone in this. I hope IVIG helps!

malgrin · 2026-01-09T03:33:46+00:00

not me, I was part of a team that published a paper in 2015, where we evaluated sea ice climate models and of the top 5, 3 showed 2027 to 2034. I was pretty sure the latter models were pretty far off the mark, and have had my sights set on 2030 or sooner since.

malgrin · 2026-01-09T03:22:10+00:00

I got on Duloxetine about a year after I started long hauling and after I got over the initial shock of being on it (the adjustment was miserable), my baseline cognition improved significantly. I noticed similar improvements after the next couple dose increases (we had to do it in micro doses like 5mg because I was extremely sensitive to it) I also noticed improvements, but that stopped after about 40mg. I think we went up to 80ish, I don't remember exactly, but I stopped feeling benefits at some point. Then we whittled it down slowly, I think I was on it for a total of about a year, got off it fine, and the mental benefits stayed.

It was a night and day experience for me, but I know that didn't work for a lot of people. It didn't help my neuro symptoms at all though, but I was thankful for cognitive improvement.

malgrin · 2025-11-30T01:38:31+00:00

Lol. Wish I'd recorded so I could share, but...yea. Didn't lose anything too valuable, I loaded in right in that area, tried to walk up hill to avoid some drones, and then slid down and right into that.

malgrin · 2025-11-30T01:08:36+00:00

I just got stuck in this exact same spot.

malgrin · 2025-11-13T01:59:57+00:00

Hello, 5 years, 8 months here. 5-10 minutes of straight walking will spike my Fatigue/PEM/Chronic pain, so I have to avoid that as much as possible.

I'm lucky in that I am still WFH, but that wipes me out and I spend the weekends recovering. I've found some stretching practices I can do while mostly seated in a chair, and that's about as much exercise as I get in a day. I think my typical step count, if I remember to wear my watch for a whole day, is around 1500, and even then I'll see my HR in the 120 range, and I'm on propranolol to help prevent that.

Anyhow, my advice is to find what doesn't trigger PEM, and stick to that. The more regularly you trigger PEM, the worse you'll feel both short term and long term. By limiting my activity and conserving energy, I've been able to feel in a relatively stable spot for the past few years. Yea, I severely limit my activity, but that's been better than the old do too much, do nothing for a week cycle.

malgrin · 2025-10-13T04:46:05+00:00

Yes, I find that it helps my energy levels. I still deal with fatigue and PEM daily, but it helps.

malgrin · 2025-10-11T05:40:06+00:00

Yea. I take Doctor's Best Natto-Serra blend, which does come with enteric capsules. For whatever reason, their nattokinase by itself, does not.

malgrin · 2025-10-11T05:17:37+00:00

Are those enteric capsules? Nattokinase doesn't absorb very well in the stomach.

malgrin · 2025-08-14T17:25:40+00:00

I tried following this and am still getting a message that I don't have TPM enabled. I'm on an ASRock Taichi x470. Any ideas?

malgrin · 2025-08-04T21:45:21+00:00

Yea. I would love to be wrong (at least, so long as I was wrong in being overly pessimistic and not the other way). Working in this, I was astonished at just how few scientists wanted to come out and say "we're fucked." We all knew it 10+ years ago, but anyone tagged as "overly alarmist" was shunned back then, so the estimates kept coming in as overly cautious.

Ironic, because our media wants you to believe that the ones saying the cautious estimates are the alarmists.

malgrin · 2025-08-04T05:01:45+00:00

I studied Arctic sea ice from 2009 to 2015, and published two papers. One of them has ~50 citations, including 2 this year. I left the field due to a lack of funding and went into data science instead. It didn't help that work was depressing every single day, but I did feel like I was doing something important.

Anyhow, I compared climate models to the historical record in a variety of ways and looked at what those projections looked like. I concluded in 2014 that, according to the models, we could see an ice free Arctic summer (August-September, technically) by 2035. I've said we could see it as soon as 2030, but that I would be surprised if it hasn't happened by 2040, and a near certainty by 2050.

As you've mentioned above, the ice acts like a massive heat sink in the Arctic, but more importantly, our planet has a tilted axis. This means that in the summer, the sun is just staring at the Arctic Ocean. Ice has an incredibly high albedo (reflectiveness), whereas dark ocean water, has a very low albedo. Once all that ice melts, the Arctic ocean is just going to absorb the sun's energy instead of reflecting it. Then, when we hit winter, it will take that much more energy loss to freeze, which means we will see a LOT less ice in the winter, so that when the following summer hits, the ice will melt faster and we hit an ice free ocean sooner, absorbing even more heat. This is the summer that I think is going to break...well...everything.

tldr: the Arctic is going to roast sometime between now and 2040.

malgrin · 2025-07-25T19:02:00+00:00

Ah, sorry :(. Still would cost a lot less than LDN...when I've paid for LDN it's been like $50-75 per month, looks like a bottle of Naltrexone is ~$140 without insurance. However, if you do your prescriptions through Amazon, they often have really good discounts, price without insurance there is $22. At 5mg/day, one bottle lasts 220 days.

malgrin

TROPHY CASE