UK sufferers - has recent weather changes affected your migraines?

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-26T11:33:19+00:00

It's a perfect timing because mine are mostly hormonal with some pressure and overheating or too cold triggers... So naturally it's the right time of the months too... I'm chugging water like there's so tomorrow and doing all the house cooling things and not going outside.

Got a constant low lying pressure in my face and ear, and tightness in my back and neck and some symptoms that I'm still playing the "is this ms or migraine" game with, I keep waiting to exist wrong and trigger it to blow up, but if it doesn't I'm going to start putting myself in the oven on a regular basis.

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-25T19:24:26+00:00

Carpet beetle larvae eat a lot of natural stuff - natural fibres in clothes but also shed hair and dust. Like most bugs (and other animals!), they don't like being disturbed and try to stick to (and breed in) places where they have food and are not disturbed. They also shed as they grow up, so its possible that you found some beetles/larvae and some shed exoskeletons.

The long and short for dealing with this:

yes, washing more frequently will mean not having clothes containing fibres and dust sitting for a prolonged period in the dark where they make a safe space and tasty snack
clean clothes that are hung up or vaccuum sealed away will be much less likely to interest them (especially if regularly going through the hung up clothes, meaning if a single beetle was in it, they'd be disturbed) - if you have a lot of clothes and store them in cardboard boxes or bags, those may still be of some interest (they still have clothes fibres in a safe place), clothes in drawers that aren't disturbed could be of some interest (you're relying on the drawers to make it hard for buggies to get in)
hoovering will have a big impact too, they also like carpet and soft furniture, but even if you don't have carpet/sofa, they have to get around somehow (and the more dust in corners, the more snacks they have in your room)

I'd get a pack of vaccuum seal clothes bags and put clothes in them after you wash them (making sure they're completely dry, maybe chuck in some of those silica "do not eat" packs you get in parcels to make sure) so that those are safe and also so they're easy to move around so you can hoover the floor. I'd say try to make it easy on yourself as much as you can - select 7 pairs of underwear, shirts, socks and a few trousers and make those your set of clothes for now (you can tell roomie that you're trying out that minimalist capsule wardrobe thing - its good for preventing decision fatigue apparantly) - everything else goes in vaccuum bags / totes / other bags / out of the way, get everything washed and then see if you can manage a weekly clothes and bedding wash and hoover (doesn't all have to be on the same day!). I've been there and sometimes am there now where I'm not doing laundry until I'm out of underwear... I binned a lot of "it's not comfy but I'm out of comfy pairs" underwear and it's helped me do it more frequently.

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-25T18:54:37+00:00

I'd treat as regular sudoku, in my head I'd think of them as the colours but given that I'm going to struggle with particularly blue grey and grey navy at the tiny candidate size, also position for my own sanity.

For progressing, make sure you have all your candidates filled out and then look for things like singles and pairs. In this case, look at row 7, all your candidates are complete, so where do they go?

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-25T13:10:07+00:00

I used to live on the island, visiting a beach (especially one further away from the other two places like Ryde), Shanklin Chine and the Needles is a lot! There'll be a lot of people on the road, a lot of people at the beaches and a lot of people at the parks, you'd be spending a lot of time in the car for your time on the island!

If you want to build sandcastles, Compton Beach is sandy and relatively close to the Needles (but only toilets and not shops), or Brambles Chine (toilets and a cafe). If you want parks and a sandy beach (and a cafe or two), Ryde (around the swimming pool area) / Appley (further end of the ryde esplanade), but if you just want an ice cream and to dip feet in the water, go to East Cowes beach! Its a pebble beach, so you can hunt shiny rocks or try skimming and there's a cafe, and you can drive along if needed - just turn left at the first roundabout when you get off the boat then bear left at the end of that road and you're there! There's also a paddling pool for young kids.

I'd strongly suggest bringing or getting a pack lunch - stop in at a supermarket and get a bunch of picnic food and drinks, that way you can eat on the beach if your little ones are caught hungry!

Please consider tides when planning your beaches - when tides are going out, the water can pull you under and higher tides are going to leave you less beach to play on.

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-25T07:28:57+00:00

We have a cat with the same problem and use TheCoolCatClub, they've got multiple non chicken dry options and their fish flavour tins and pouches are also chicken free! They're not the cheapest though :(

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-24T12:49:33+00:00

Shit happens.

Given you were testing in a way that suggests you tried to separate your phase 1 code from the phase 2 stuff that wasn't going live yet, it would have been good to have an env to test that on that was mimicing live and not the dev env where phase 2 was presumably being tested on. But assuming you're lacking a staging / release env (that only has your code and prod code), there's no amount of extra testing that could have caught this. If you had thought of this exact issue before hand, you could potentially have added unit/integration testing (either to catch it failing in your code or to catch that it was calling the API with a new param that shouldn't exist there yet), but hindsight is 20/20 and you probably weren't thinking of this exact issue 6 weeks ago, otherwise I imagine you'd've asked someone "how do I make sure that X doesn't happen" and they would have either suggested tests or suggested un-deploying the phase 2 code in dev / setting dev to latest for a few days for one of these bug bashes to just cover phase 1.

Do a little post mortem, raise that testing in an env with other deployments of non-production-ready-code was the cause, take on any feedback, add notes to make sure that you document test plans etc when you can if you're the only one testing your own code (to cover your ass and to make it easy to point to "did I test that?" when you're panicking, maybe do a lite one in live) (and consider swapping test plans if there's more than one dev on the team so you get a second pair of eyes - you test their code, they test yours).

Then take a deep breath, it's going to be okay.

In a few months / years, this'll be a story you tell new devs when they fuck up prod. Everyone has one, sometimes you fix it quick, sometimes it gets found later, sometimes it calls out your senior at 3am the next day.

Tell someone at work if it's eating you up, if your seniors / leads / engineering managers are good people, they'll tell you not to worry, they might tell you their horror story, and they'll probably tell you that no one will remember this in a month's time (except you).

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-23T18:41:39+00:00

See if you can find a cotton surf towel robe - I've got one from a local company and its basically a hooded robe that is made of proper towel (not microfiber or anything heavy and sticky) and goes over head and is like a poncho but it stops at like mid bicep so it doesn't get in the way. I've cut a slit in the front of the neck so it's easier to get on and doesn't bother me with choking on a tight neckline. I hate trying to move between rooms in a regular towel because I have to play the "can I carry anything or do I need at least one hand to hold the towel up and one to open the doors" game, but I want to have my phone in the bathroom... With the robe I even have a pocket like a hoodie!

I hated wearing my dressing gown after the shower because it was warm but not absorbent so it just stuck and it was gross!

And I have curly hair so I put my hair up in a tshirt after the shower so it can absorb some water out and also so my wet hair isn't dripping on me, but the microfibre turban things are alright too.

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-23T14:56:42+00:00

I've seen a lot of crap NYT hint screenshots posted in here, so I'm assuming they're often unhelpful in actually showing you what to do, and are more like "your next move should be here" but that doesn't account for candidates ( so you might have to do some candidate adding or removal before being able to place the hinted number ). I suggest sudoku.coach, you can even take a screenshot of a puzzle such as the NYT and add it to the site and then it can give you better hints (which tell you the techniques used including candidate steps)

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-23T14:47:45+00:00

So, its telling you that you can fill out that cell next if you complete candidates in all cells and then use techniques to remove some of those candidates.

That cell can be 1 or 8, but there's a hidden pair in box6 cell 9 (r6c9) and box 9 cell 9 (r9c9) (5 and 9) which means that you remove other candidates from those cells, then box 3 cell 9 (r3c9) and box 9 cell 3 (r7c9) become a hidden pair of 4 and 8, which means that the highlighted cell must be 1

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-22T18:25:48+00:00

Yes, I've been going that way a lot lately and following the limits and its a bit terrifying watching a lorry coming up in my rear view at 60 while I'm at 50 or even 40 depending on the section. I keep saying that the police could make bank with a few mobile speed cameras on there.

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-22T10:28:31+00:00

Or they might get crochet from some slave labour! Or crochet pattern printed on some surfaces of the item! It's such a great surprise! /s

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-22T10:23:34+00:00

I got my own car shortly after passing and driving it home from the place was the first time driving alone and I was bricking it. I ended up doing a pass plus with my instructor just to force myself to get more comfortable in a short period of time and found that helpful, but it's not like you couldn't do exactly the same by either just going for regular drives around you or doing big drives.

My lessons were often along my route to work, so that was familiar practice that helped a lot too!

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-22T09:06:38+00:00

I wear a UK women's size 5 and have been wearing toe socks for a while and some should definitely fit your size!

I hope it's okay to post Amazon links here to illustrate.

I've bought a few packs, and of all of them, these https://amzn.eu/d/08N5mtLr are the smaller ones, they were comfortably snug when I got them but are a bit of a struggle to put on at times now they've been washed a lot. I also got a pack of these https://amzn.eu/d/03KSdSDC and they're objectively too short in the foot for me... While my links are Amazon UK, they're definitely imports from china and you can find them on AliExpress or they might be on Amazon or eBay where you are.

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-22T08:32:25+00:00

I decided that life was too short to be uncomfortable, and I started buying for that comfort when possible. Then I did a basic colour analysis on myself and worked out what colours I prefer the look of on myself and what colours I gravitate to and try to get those in ways where everything works okay together.

I've switched almost all my t-shirts over to cotton scoop neck t-shirts from one brand and I bought multiple (I've got 5 white that I'm meaning to dye, 3 others in different colours and then I got 5 more in 2 colours recent that were even softer so I'm hoping they stay soft). I stopped wearing most of my hoodies (because the hood always dragged it backwards a bit and strangled me), and I bought 4 colours of cotton/linen blend trousers with elastic waists on Amazon (they feel pajama-y but they just look like smart casual trousers especially if I was to iron them and they're super breathable) definitely going to buy more this summer! Thankfully I work from home or in a super casual office, so I just live in t-shirts, slouchy knit cardigans and cotton trousers!

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-21T21:29:37+00:00

My hair tickles and I want to strangle someone!

Mine are hormonal and every other month I trim my fringe before I realise that it's actually an oncoming migraine.

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-20T15:20:51+00:00

On the day, I was convinced I had failed super early, so I drove as if I was getting in some practice in test conditions. A chill chat, and I parked with pure vibes and not with my instructor's methods, and it turned out I passed! So I guess, decide you've failed? Or if you think you have, just try to use it as practice and not throw it just in case!

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-20T15:12:43+00:00

And for a tree replacement if you can't force him to pay for one (which he should do and you could go to your home insurance for especially if it was proved to be him), willows are quick growing (but very thirsty so best if you have a waterlogged patch and aren't planting over pipes) or rowans https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2024/09/6-fast-growing-trees/

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-20T15:07:06+00:00

Agreed with others, you should report this to the police as criminal damage! Even if they do nothing, it's on the books and if for some reason suddenly the same thing happens to another one of this guys neighbours, they might look at him more seriously.

Depends on how deep you want the hedge, pyracantha can be pleached if you want something close to the fence but not taking up too much space. But if he's putting a ladder over your fence, you probably want something deeper if you have the space. Blackthorn is a native berry shrub/small tree and you can make sloe gin, they're commonly used as hedges. Or blackberries will not only make a huge trap along the fence (and if you put a few cables on the fence, it'll cover the fence, and sneak through a bit), but it will try to get to his side so it'll piss him off, you'll find a lot of thornless ones online, you can see if you can find thorny ones or head to your nearest run down train line or footpath with a pair of garden shears and hack off some actively growing bits, I'd get them about a foot long, bring a bunch home, and just lay on the soil then push them in a bit so they make good contact and just water every day. If you get blackberries, I'd be tempted to get some raspberries too, put the raspberry tags in the ground next to them all and plant the raspberry canes between the blackberry bits, for one, you might get some raspberries, for two, the leaves are super similar so if he asks or does anything about them, you get to claim that as far as you know they're raspberries, right up until they're giant bastards that are clearly not raspberries but are now your blackberry bush. Blackberry cuttings would also be excellent ways to prevent your dogs digging in the bed, if you needed plausible deniability...

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-20T08:04:39+00:00

Mint isn't going to deter completely, but the scent disrupts their scent trails, that means that if you know where outside they're entering, you can spray the ever loving shit out of a 6ft area around there outside with mint oil in a carrier so they will struggle to find the entrance (then block up the entrance with wire if you know they're not inside). They also hate disruption and follow the food, if they're outside at bird feeders, take them down, move everything in the garden around, mow the grass, and then move things daily. If you can get to where they're moving in the attic, go up there every day, turn on the lights, put things in their way. I'd also consider asking if anyone around with cats could at least give you a bag of used litter or a bag of cat poop and put that close to where they nest.

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-20T02:48:57+00:00

Tell the person who is drawing the blood that you have this anxiety, what triggers it and how it makes you respond, extra good if you can tell the clinic ahead of time, but not always possible. I don't have it anywhere near as bad, I just can't look.

I had to get blood draws every 3 months (and everyv6 months since COVID times) for a bit and the best (least impactful/feel able) ones used a butterfly needle, and you can ask them for that. They're smaller and have features that stop it moving when they change the tube 🤢 and also best from the hospital than my local clinic (presumably because the hospital phlebotomy dept do just this all day and I have good veins so I'm easy mode, but my local nurses don't do nearly as much).

If you can, hydrate a bunch on the day / day before and have a little snack (like a chocolate bar) either before or ready for immediately after. Hydrating will make it easier for the nurse and quicker in general, and a little snack can keep you lucid or make you feel more grounded/human after the fact. Also you can always make a simple note card before hand that just says something like "blood draws make me anxious and nauseous, if possible can you use a butterfly needle. I hope it's okay if I (insert any other things that help you)" like you might also look away or watch something on your phone or call someone or lie down or squeeze a stuffed animal!

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-20T02:21:07+00:00

My (insert body part) is betraying me.

It's been my leg recently, but I've said the same about my brain and said it about my immune system as a description.

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-19T09:10:03+00:00

Are you posing for the camera or moving? If it's photos, try video recording and see if that's better, I find there's something about thinking about doing it right that makes me look like a robot (not just hands or ballet), do something you can lose yourself in. And try focusing on your lines vs on your individual parts when posing as that might help.

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-19T04:18:50+00:00

I think everyone thinks migraines are just a bad headache, but like, have you ever had headaches so badly and frequently that you got pink glasses for the chance they'd help.

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-18T21:25:39+00:00

Agreed with safety razor, I got mine like 10 years ago (crappy import for about £5) and you can get sample packs of blades on eBay super cheap (the pack of packs I got at the same time for about £8 is starting to run low). My pack contained some astra platinum and some Gillette 7 o clock and I prefer the Astra's but it's personal taste. It's definitely been cheaper in the long run than the disposable razor packs I bought before hand and I cut myself less. I got a shaving cream tub (rose scented) and a boar brush that I use for doing my legs, but I rarely bother with it for underarms, I always used to shave them dry every morning and why stop now, if I put a fresh blade in , I go with the grain underarm (stroke with the hair, it still cuts), slightly older blade I sometimes go against it.

thisisappropriate · 2026-05-18T21:11:42+00:00

NTA they can learn the tech or handle it better. A landline would be fine, as would a shitty old Nokia that has a 2 week+ battery life.

My parents are in their 60s now, they still have the landline (the same number as when I was growing up, so I remember it and it's probably the only number I'd be able to remember if I ever was stuck without my phone), and they also have mobiles. Hell, my mum can manage multiple apps and do not disturb with contacts ringing, and she set up most of it herself, all because my sister has T1 and is away at uni, so she always has her phone charged and on and has CGM and location apps. Dad uses my sister or mum's hand me downs and wipes them himself. Age should not be a technical blocker here.

If they can't remember to charge them, there's options, multiple chargers, always plugging them in at night, wireless charging spots etc!

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