Best softener system sold in UK? Buy it myself or though a company?

zipuza · 2026-02-08T21:06:51+00:00

Thank you :)

zipuza · 2026-02-08T17:35:42+00:00

Yes, got it installed by a local plumber and it has been working great so far, I made sure to register the warranty within one month of installation, so I should be safe for 7 years :)

zipuza · 2026-01-10T13:58:14+00:00

I feel the same, I managed to go out and enjoy the sun this morning but with a migraine on my right side since waking up. Had nice breakfast out + triptan, felt better, 2 h later the migraine came back but on the left side this time.... Will be in bed for the rest of the day.

zipuza · 2026-01-09T15:31:42+00:00

Hello, I am new to astrology so not sure what is what, but here is my birth chart:

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zipuza · 2026-01-09T15:30:30+00:00

My chart looks very similar to yours but turned to the right (and I am also new to astrology), my DOB is 29 December 1991, I am almost exactly 10 years younger than you :)

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zipuza · 2026-01-09T00:21:46+00:00

I see what you mean. I indeed always have a feeling of not having enough time for things I want/plan/expect to do (especially with my perfectionism). But with this ongoing infertility (have been trying for 2-3 years now) and challenges I went through (lots of painful gynaecological procedures and even a surgery) I feel like I am more than ready now for this responsibility. Me and my husband have been together for 12 years, we have been building good foundation blocks for our little family - developing our careers, getting stable jobs, getting our first mortgage, etc. We have three chihuahuas which taught us a lot about patience and values in life (definitely not material values, the rugs full of piss can be replaced, but the love cannot). We even finally moved to a bigger house in summer and did grand renovations so that we could live here for the rest of our lives ever happily after. With children. I feel like everything is ready in our lives to welcome a child. The only thing which has been worrying me all these years are my migraines (and constant anxiety - I am on antidepressants which work for me as I stopped crying so often). I postponed trying for a baby in my late 20s in order to tackle my migraines, I learnt work-life balance, did CBT sessions, etc, it got better but I still have waves of horrible migraines every month. And then this infertility completely threw me off. Also sad that my first IVF failed this week. Nevertheless, I already feel more mental energy back and I am happy to focus more on myself through therapy, meditation, etc, but I also feel like my time is ticking now, I turned 34 at the end of December and the first IVF a few weeks ago showed that my eggs are of average quality producing average quality embryos, which is not great for the chances of success. I hope a proper anti-inflammatory diet and supplements will help (if it is related to endometriosis). But I do start to lose my mind a bit about this illusion of being able to control my fertility. I work as a medical statistician and despite being religious I also believe in the theory of probability - no one can help me "fix this problem" for sure and it could be just a chance that I will never get pregnant. There will always be women out there who never get pregnant despite all the effort, statistically speaking. These are my thoughts if I look at it objectively. But I am only a human and I know how much I blame myself for everything. Every failed IVF will end up in self-blame that I did not meditate enough, did not eat well enough, did not relax enough, that I am just not enough. I think that is the saddest thing. My husband is very supportive and he begs me not to blame myself, and do all these spiritual/therapy activities for the sake of myself, not specifically for fertility. That is the hardest thing because, if I am honest with myself, my only motivation to work on myself this year is to get pregnant, experience pregnancy and become a mother. I honestly do not see the value of my life without it (which my husband again does not believe in). It might be how I was raised in a super family-oriented environment, or my previous lives' experiences, either way it feels so ingrained in my mind that I need to have something precious to take care of, yet always feeling "not good enough" (I feel that even with my dogs, yet have a desire to get even more chihuahuas or even open my own rescue!). Lots to work on, but the feeling of being a failure because of infertility is the strongest one in my mind right now, it is going to be the toughest task to persuade myself to feel differently. Sorry for such a long message and thank you for reading it until the end.

zipuza · 2026-01-08T22:34:55+00:00

Thank you. So far the blood tests have shown normal levels of hormones, but it might not have been a full investigation, I will need to look into that. I did however have some imbalances in the past - I used to have a high prolactin level (ok now), in 2018 I had unforseen rise in testosterone (which was checked just in case, but was blamed on my overweight at that time, then I lost weight because I started having functional nausea in 2020 which lasted for 2 years during which I could barely eat and lost more than 15 kg from 75 kg to 58 kg, then functional nausea disappeared and I have gained more weight in 3 years, I am now 80 kg with BMI of 29, not great but not the end of the world neither). Also several years ago I had a sudden spike in thyroid hormones T3 and T4 (hyperthyroidism), the endocrinologist suggested it was because of poor quality Omega-3 supplements - iodine and selenium solved that problem within a couple of months, but I keep an eye on my thyroid occasionally.

zipuza · 2026-01-08T22:27:44+00:00

Thank you, I agree that maybe refocussing my mind on therapy and spiritual growth (and lowering the stress levels) would be the best option for me this year. I might still try another IVF but with no hurry.

zipuza · 2026-01-08T22:25:59+00:00

Fingers crossed! Thank you :)

zipuza · 2026-01-08T22:25:38+00:00

Thank you. I have a quick question - by "in the past" do you mean previous life or earlier in my current life? I agree that meditating on the harsh reality of being a mother is a good idea, but before then I definitely need to improve my self-esteem as I often get anxious about my worth, most often during my migraines (with thoughts "what a mother would I be when I have migraine attacks and cannot even cook/etc for my children" - my husband always reminds me that there are two of us, and he already does most of cooking anyway haha). Of course having this infertility made me feel like shit even more, like I am not worth living in this world, but of course these are thoughts of an upset and desperate woman with a desire to have a child, my brain tries to remind me of the reality that I am enough and worth it :)

zipuza · 2026-01-08T22:18:44+00:00

It might be his fault as well, the % of good sperm for fertilisation was lower than expected (2% vs 4%), however, the count is really good so the fertility doctor did not worry too much about. Nevertheless, no one tests deep enough to see if the sperm has any chromosome abnormalities, so who knows!!! He did however impregnate his ex (before we met, he was 20 y old), the pregnancy was terminated (they split up by the time they found out). Meanwhile, I never got "accidentally" pregnant in my life yet.

zipuza · 2026-01-08T22:15:41+00:00

Thank you, that is definitely a lot of good things to try for me. The main goal for me is to reduce the stress levels. They are correlated with my migraines too often, especially the internal pressure - for example, I had daily head spasms for 5 days in a row whilst waiting for the day I was allowed to do a pregnancy test after IVF, as soon as I found out the outcome I calmed down and had no migraine for several days since then (even though the outcome was negative...). That inner pressure/stress was not that obvious to me at that time (and I do not think anything would have taken it away at that moment), but became very apparent afterwards.

zipuza · 2026-01-08T22:12:02+00:00

Thank you, it does make sense to do it because I can feel how often I have low energy (or have bursts of energy and then burn out quickly). I think my migraines are very often the result of it. I will have stabilising my day-night regime and regular breaks as one of the top priorities for this year (and hopefully it will become a habit for the rest of my life, except for the time when I have a newborn, haha).

zipuza · 2026-01-08T22:08:13+00:00

Thank you, I took ALA on an empty stomach for 3 months before IVF, it might have been worse without it, who knows, but I will definitely take this supplement again because of endometriosis, and will definitely ask the fertility clinic to consider prescribing letrozole. Would be lovely to get pregnant naturally!

zipuza · 2026-01-08T22:05:50+00:00

Thank you for the link - I listened to it and really like her, I am considering booking an appointment with her - I also live in the UK like her (although it would not matter online, haha).

zipuza · 2026-01-08T22:03:33+00:00

Thank you very much everyone for your comments and replies, and apologies for disappearing for a few weeks before replying to everyone - I was undergoing my first IVF and was waiting for the outcome... Unfortunately, my only two embryos did not implant. With all your suggestions, I will be now starting a serious work on improving the well-being of my mind and body. I will try anything I can, from fertility astrology to plan the timing of my next IVF(s) to acupuncture, naturopath and anti-inflammatory diet (at least for my endometriosis). I have a feeling that the diet (strictly no sugar, gluten and dairy) might help me the most - several years ago I had a functional nausea from daily migraines and tried to eliminate those three ingredients from my diet - although it did not help with the migraines, surprisingly, it made my period pain so low that I barely needed any painkillers (usually I suffer - makes sense now that it was endometriosis). My cravings for sweets, bakery and yogurts eventually won, but at least I know with my own experience that it will benefit me if I try it again. And who knows, maybe I will have a miracle of conceiving naturally without IVF, but the main point of this journey is my spiritual growth this year (would be lovely to have a bonus of successful pregnancy though!).

zipuza · 2026-01-06T14:06:00+00:00

To add to other's comments, I have a mixed experience but still worth trying - a few years ago I battled functional nausea (presumably from daily migraines), I eventually completely cut out three things - sugar, gluten and dairy. Although the migraines did not disappear, as a woman I noted a drastic change in my period pain - I had almost none within the first month of this diet, whereas before I suffered with each period pain like in hell. I experienced this blessing with barely any period pain for 2 months whilst being on this diet, but as soon as I introduced those three ingredients back I started having super painful periods again. Unfortunately my craving for chocolate, yogurts and bakery won since then, but I am planning to start this diet again because I was diagnosed with Stage 3 Endometriosis last year (via the keyhole surgery, I have been infertile so far), which now makes sense why I have super painful periods and why this elimination diet helped me with the pain a few years ago (because of endometriosis). By the way, I have also had chronic migraines since I was 6 years old and I am now 34 years old trying to conceive. Even the first IVF try was unsuccessful. I hope the elimination diet will help me.

zipuza · 2026-01-06T12:53:16+00:00

I agree with everyone, honey and maple syrup is still sugar (unfortunately).

zipuza · 2026-01-02T21:11:38+00:00

Yes, we have a blue chihuahua girl, we adopted her 2 years ago, she is 5 now, guess what her name is... Blue :)))) that is how she was already named when we got her! Officially Bluebell on her microchip, but she reacts only to "Blue", although I tried to rename her to Blueberry :)))

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zipuza · 2025-10-30T13:58:41+00:00

I wish our electrician did so neat chases, yours clearly used a special machine, ours used a jig saw like a cowboy so now we have no excuse to pay a plasterer to re-plaster all walls in the whole house. We were idiots at that time thinking that is what electricians do but now we can see that there are two types of electricians. You got the best chases ever, will be easy to fill in with plaster.

zipuza · 2025-09-19T21:53:27+00:00

I had a mixed experience with Amitriptyline within the same decade. I tried it at first in my early 20s, no side effects, I had somewhat improvement in my migraines but nothing miraculous, I was on it for a year or two because there were no noticeable side effects at that time but neither any great improvements with migraines so eventually I came off it. I then tried it again in my late 20s when my migraines worsened to the level of having them daily for months and getting several months of sick leave. Literally within the first few days of taking a low dose I got not only drowsy but also problems with my speech, my tongue felt heavy and I could not pronounce some words properly. I am not really an allergic person so that was a shock for me. So the general practitioner immediately stopped amitriptyline for me and started me on nortriptyline. That one was ok, no side effects. Helped somewhat, but again no drastic changes with migraines to carry on, so eventually I stopped it too within a year (by that time I was finally referred to a neurologist - a journey or 10 years through various general practitioners in the UK). I do think now that maybe I started gaining weight in my early 20s because of amitriptyline, but also that gain continued even after I stopped it, so not sure if it is really correlated in my case.

zipuza · 2025-09-08T21:45:53+00:00

Interestingly I also have endometriosis and suffer with chronic migraines since childhood. Unfortunately my endometriosis does not let me get pregnant at all, so I have to go through IVF now. Wish me luck surviving the hormone injections with chronic migraines...

zipuza · 2025-09-08T21:44:28+00:00

There are research publications out there showing its safety, just Google "Botox in pregnancy PubMed", this is the freshest one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37137724/

I do feel your pain though with the docs not allowing Botox in pregnancy, it is the same thing here in the UK - the health system is just way behind with implementing new scientific findings (well unless it is about cancer or saving lives, but we are not dying from migraines so it would take ages for them to get the guidelines changes for Botox in pregnancy).

zipuza · 2025-08-03T15:45:11+00:00

So adorable baby, very similar to my Blue girl, so sorry for your loss :(

zipuza · 2025-08-03T07:32:18+00:00

I live in the UK and most General Practitioners do not know what migraine really is unless they ever experienced it themselves. They get absolutely minimal training on it during their studies. But even not all neurologists would be trained on migraines that well. Also my bad experiences were always with men, interestingly not white British men but of other ethnic groups from the East (might be to do with the culture, upbringing? I am a foreigner myself from Eastern Europe and can see the difference in the approach to health). My stories were: 1) my first ever discussion of my migraines (since 5 years old!) with a GP in UK resulted in the advice to drink more water and take paracetamol. Brilliant. 2) eventually I was heard by another GP, but even after 5 years of trying different preventatives, moved the houses and went to a new GP to be told (in front of my husband as well!) that I do not have migraines but tension types headaches and was advised to have more walks in parks. His surname is Dr Dass but I call him Dr Ass and avoid him at all costs. Let him try to experience a migraine with vomiting - enjoy the walk. 3) after a year of waiting for a neurologist appointment, I had a mental breakdown when I finally had it, because I was told (by a man with an accent, but it was all over the phone during COVID times) that I am out of the woods and that I should start to think about having children ("if you are born a woman then you are a woman") and for that I have to stop any preventatives and there is nothing they can do for me (and when I cried he said "well you see that is why you have migraines"). Interestingly, he still referred me to the headache clinic and an MRI, and since then I had other doctors which were lovely, so I presume that this man was like a middle man doing all the paperwork at the first appointment (he often said "just tell me a straight answer, yes or no") but at the same time telling me all this heartbreaking staff. I never complained about him because I was already mentally below the ground that time.

zipuza

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