A few weeks ago, my ADHD-med headaches ramped up in frequency, and I've tapered off entirely over the past two weeks.

It's seriously like a Flowers for Algernon situation. I was a better version of myself! and now I'm the foggier version! I'm really struggling to make progress on a few particular ongoing tasks and when I was on the meds, I could just sit down and work on them. It's depressing.

I haven't reached out to the doc yet, out of general pessimism that none of the meds will ever work for me. I have a vague notion that I should spend a month or two and track how many headaches I get when I'm not on meds, just as a baseline.

Also my reading comprehension has gone totally to shit, like professional emails and things like that that require sustained attention. It's sad. I used to be a sloppy reader, and then I was better, and now I'm terrible again.

My nonogram productivity, however, is through the roof.

2: I've always been like that except when things click.

I feel like if I was only destined to have stimulants for a year, covid was the right choice of when to cash in. But it sure would be nice to have them longer.

1: That sounds like a really frustrating situation; your tracking idea is a good one. I have a similar debate about going back to my doctor for GERD meds; I was on Omeprazole for a couple of years, and it worked great--but the invisible side effects ramp up, so the doctor moved me off and back to famotodine. Which worked about 80% as well at first, but has steadily declined in effectiveness, so that I wind up having to supplement with Tums, or something similar almost half the evenings. So... time to log in and send an email to the doctor, I guess.

Good luck on your end-- I hope that you do find something better. The fuzziness sounds frustrating to deal with.

belated solidarity and best wishes to barry re: the interview, hope the job comes through! am in the midst of moving firms for all kinds of great reasons & lots of clients coming along for the ride yay! but damn it is a butt load of work. best to all!

6.1: I was taking that OTC for several years when the combined admonitions of my doctor and my sister got me to quit. Now I can't drink more than once a week or so unless I want extreme pain.

I guess I just forgot about Tums. Maybe I can drink more.

Thanks sissi!

Go for Rolaids over Tums and Gaviscon over Rolaids.

I can't handle more ranked choice.

My father is remarrying this fall. There is a wedding website, with a section entitled "Our Story" that includes the following overshare from his fiancée:

I was having a problem moving the relationship along. He wanted to move it to the next level and I kinda liked it the way it was. It had been years and I was a bit apprehensive. Ok, more than a bit. We planned a overnight trip to Starved Rock and being a very cold January day and night it all came together.

I am assuming my father is unaware that the wedding website listed on their invitations also includes a nod to the physical consummation of his relationship. I've been gawking with friends, first as a sanity check ("Does this really allude to sex? Am I misinterpreting"), then as a traffic accident.

Global warming is a threat to you dad getting laid.

Anyway, if she was reluctant, she's probably shy and your dad wrote that.

Or the reluctance was just for maintenance of social norms for traditional femininity. She would prefer to brag about nailing your dad, but this is as close as the country club board will let pass.

13 was me.

15: She referred to herself elsewhere as "tenacious and spunky." I am fairly sure Dad neither wrote nor read any of it, not least because he understands punctuation and grammar.

Anyway, I'm glad he's found somebody. He must have had a rough few years in the near past.

Yes, congratulation Barry.

6/8: I started taking Omeprazole regularly last year (I had an esophageal stricture which was dilated, but they said Omeprazole would help reduce the risk of recurrence). What should I be concerned about for medium- or long-term side effect?

6. I had a similar trajectory with GERD meds and ultimately found that my acid reflux went away completely (to be fair, maybe once every month or two) when I cut back a lot on my drinking. These days I rarely drink and when I do it's one and done.

Heebie - I wonder if you could see a neurologist. A coworker of mine was referred to one who sss as I'd he had adhd and offered to prescribe stimulants.

My co worker wanted a thorough evaluation and because he's not a child, he had to go outside our system. The psychologists said he had ptsd and depression but not adhd.

But my point is that a neurologist might be able to help you with the headaches - figure out what stimulant might work or whether there's another med you might take to. Om at the headaches.

19: Talk to your sister.
20: Yes. That's the fucking problem.

22.1: ???

My sister would probably be a little weirded out if you asked her.

Anyway, I forgot what my sister said about long term use.

I'm tellin' ya, for sudden flareups, Gaviscon is the thing. I could also forestall this problem by refusing to drink excessive amounts of beer when I over-eat pizza. But Gaviscon lets me live my best life.

So, Icelandic murder mysteries are more depressing than Swedish ones.

Cycled through central London yesterday for the first time since the Before Times and even though everyone says things are more or less normal, there was very much less traffic than I remember. That is not true in the countryside, where car usage is right back up again.

I found found that horrendous acid reflux problems could be solved by changing job, wife, etc. But now I can't drink much anyway because of heart medicines, and because it interferes with my sleep. Does anyone have a good answer for sudden caffeine intolerance? A good answer is one that leads to a resumption of coffee drinking.

Mobes, did you read all of the S/W books?

re: 28

I'd love to know. I also have developed a caffeine intolerance. Any more than two caffeinated drinks a day and I get regular and discomforting heart palpitations. I had an episode about 4 or 5 years ago that then got better and I was able to go back to drinking coffee. Flared up again last year, and I'm back to having a single (weakly caffeinated) coffee once or twice a day.

I also got rid of my own horrendous acid reflux problems. Weight loss and diet changes, mostly. Although I very very rarely have the odd bad day, it self corrects. I think the medication tends to get you locked in a cycle, or at least it felt that way to me.

I cycle quite a lot in London for exercise. I've not ridden into the centre for a while, but I ride a lot between where I live and the various parks: Richmond, Bushy, Hyde Park, etc. Traffic seems like it always was. But when I've ridden into Oxford St and around Soho it does seem much quieter.

29: I'm up to The Locked Room.

I rode from Greenwich to Richmond Park the other week and foolishly came back via King's Road. It was pretty much jam packed (and not pleasant to ride -- won't be doing that again). Most of my more local riding is on cycle paths or quietways, so it's hard to tell if there's much of a difference from the beforetimes, but it doesn't really seem like it. Might be different inside the congestion zone, especially around the City.

re: 33

I came up the King's Road a month or two back, riding from Richmond Park down through Putney and up to The Mall and then round to Hyde Park. Putney Bridge and the area round there was rammed, but the King's Road itself was quiet. That was a few months back, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if it has gotten a lot busier.

Also GERD suffering and appreciate seeing other people's strategies/results. I get the impression that my symptoms are a bit unusual: I only get the acid reflux pain a minority of the time, instead it manifests as like an all-consuming discomfort, especially if I'm lying down. Maybe feels more like a mild shock than pain? Sometimes I won't even notice it or clock it as a stomach/esophagus symptoms until it's quite strong so I don't think it's entirely in my head. When it's at its worst it leads to panic attacks. (Completely awful, my sympathies for any other sufferers.) Had an endoscopy two years back that showed I have a small hiatal hernia which I assume is the root cause. (Also a few benign-looking polyps in the stomach, but as things get so much worse when I lie down, regardless of orientation, they don't seem like the likely cause.) My unverifiable head canon is that maybe the hernia's pressing up against the vagus nerve in a weird way.

It'd be really nice to be able to just lie down in the middle of the day again.

Whether PPIs work for me is hit or miss, but omeprazole is working now so I'm using it OTC. I have a prescription for lansoprazole and it was also helpful. Tried a few others in the US with mixed results. Not a sustainable solution but sometimes it goes away for a few months, so hoping that happens.

The extra strength prescribed Gaviscon didn't do much for me. I used Sucralfate in the US--it isn't prescribed here--and it seemed to help but that might be placebo. I also keep Rennies, which are like British Tums, at hand, but if everything else isn't working they probably won't either.

I've cut my drinking down a lot to maybe 2 units a week (a bit over a pint of beer) over the past couple months. Before that I would be at 13-15. Maybe when I run out of my current omeprazole I'll see if my symptoms have calmed down. I also drink the occasional non-alcoholic beer--not as good, and the first three bottles or so were horrid, I assume because my body was reacting to expected-but-missing alcohol, but after that I got used to it. Keeps me from reaching for decaf coffee at the end of the day (always a bad idea).

I should take up cycling, but the roads here are scary. (Also: people bike on the 4 ft wide canal paths shared with pedestrians. Seems like an obviously bad idea, especially when there's a parallel wider path?) But I'm close to the Parkland Walk, at least. Unfortunately there aren't very many city bikes up here to experiment with.

The Lee Valley is good if you want to stay off the roads, though as you say you have to share a path with pedestrians most of the time.

21: hmm, maybe. I'm unsure of how to connect with one. At one point the psychiatrist did have me get a scan just to rule out any serious brain issue or something.

32. I think that's Den Vedervärdige Mannen från Säffle, in which a bullying policeman is shot in a hospital room. I had friends who lived right round the corner from the hospital so I could never pass the windows without a feeling of unease.

Almost the last good one, though I have a soft spot for the one in which an evil businessman [spoiler alert] murders everyone on a number 47 tram.

The Regent's Park canal path is horrid to cycle on. But I have always enjoyed the death-defying aspect of cycling in central London and some of the main cycle paths, like the Torrington Place one, are now quite safe.

Some time in the next few weeks, three of us are cycling from Cambridge to Kings Cross; much of the last bit is down the Lea Valley, at least as far as Tottenham Hale (I think I can remember the commuting route in from there). It's a very pleasant ride in parts. The hilly bits of Herts/North Essex are lovely, and there is solid cycle path from Ware into Enfield.

I suspect that weight loss and stress avoidance is the answer to most GERD type problems. Neither is easy, particularly.

38: I've read both of those. The one I'm on is after the bully-cop one.

OK. I've got all of them somewhere so I had better look it up.

Bank robbery one.

Acid reflux: I took famotidine daily for a long time but now only as needed, maybe twice a week. One trick that worked was never eating anything at all rich less than four hours before bed. A less rich diet helped also. Another was never sleeping flat but always with my shoulders higher than my hips. I also lost weight when I moved from a place where I was all sedentary to a place where extensive walking was natural.

Back in the day I never would have thought that acid reflux was something I shared with you-all.

I remember. It was all class war and bestiality.

Reducing my drinking was out of the question, of course.

45 = me.

I have/had acid reflux and took Nexium, then Prilosec for a couple of years, but have managed it effectively for the past several years by, no joke, eating an apple every morning.

And now I have yet another interview with a different U, this one would be stateside.

Be careful. I heard there was a crime wave there.

Also, good luck.

Good luck, Barry!

I'm back to working full-time at the office. This is the stupidest idea ever.

Ever since they closed the Skyline, that part of town has been pointless.

52: Is this about downtown Columbus?

Skyline? Skyline Chili?

I suppose everyone has seen this but me.

https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/another-word-for/unfogged.html

53: Yes. I used to eat lunch there.

Thanks!

43: That's been my solution, a wedge pillow, which helps but doesn't solve it. Unfortunately, I can't blame mine on alcohol consumption--probably because that'd be too easy a fix. It's never an issue for me, except when I lay down... which was why I had high hopes for the pillow. I do wonder if it's doing anything any longer--it felt like it worked for the first few months, but even with famotodine and the wedge, it's still affecting me... which leads to questions about whether the pillow is still helping at all. I'm a bit too cowardly to abandon it, so...

Gaviscon seekrit knowledge for USians: Gaviscon Advance, with the sodium alginate, can work much better than the just-Gaviscon, and AFAIK has to be ordered from the UK, and is $$ that way. (But worth it if it works.) Our compounding pharmacy couldn't make it up, either.

You can buy sodium alginate, and I have read blog entries from people who worked out how to more or less make their own Gaviscon Advance. Hint: DO NOT just dry-swallow a dose of the sodium alginate.

I ordered Harry Potter from the UK because it was supposed to be better, but the binding sucked.

I've basically had to quit drinking. I think it means I never get any less tense or less tightly wound.

The Atlantic had a tip for that. Soak a tampon in vodka and put it up your butt.

I used a wedge pillow with mixed results. I found it very unpleasant. Laying flat is satisfying and not being able to do that is such garbage. The "real" solution is to tilt the bed, but I think that'd also be unpleasant and would be unfair to my partner.

The Gaviscon I have is Advance, aniseed flavour. I used it when I had a bad flare-up. Might have helped a bit, but not much.

It's frustrating: hiatal hernias and GERD can exhibit in so many ways (including in ways that look a lot like other conditions); treating them seems so idiosyncratic.

I sleep in a recliner chair and make sure not to recline it too much. "Sounds horrible" says my son, but by now I'd be uncomfortable sleeping flat.

I also have an apnea-type problem which the inclined sleeping also minimizes. (I'm headed to the sleep lab for that one.) Are the two related.

My results aren't perfect. If I indulge myself in some favorite tasty food, for example at a family occasion, I'm more likely to have bad results. On my own I just snack as needed.

I have the opposite thing - pillows start to give me neck cramps part way through the night and I fling them on the floor. If I don't sleep flat, I get neck and trap muscle cricks. I like pillows when I'm reading to sleep, though.

Just reminding you young folks that after a certain stage maturation resembles a car nickel-and-diming until finally the engine or transmission seized up. I have 3 someone serious conditions and I'm luckier than most. But it would not be statistically unisual for me to drop dead tomorrow, though the odds give me about 8 years and I could beat the odds.

Agreeing that tilting the whole bed is much nicer than a hips-up pillow -- I'm the other half and I'm just sleeping tilted. Who knows, maybe it's forestalling GERD I would otherwise have.

We didn't tilt the bedframe because it's a big old wooden one and I was dubious of its strength if skewed. We have a mattress topper that's wedge-shaped. (I think it's actually a mattress-underer, because our mattress is a nicer texture foam.)

They used to call them "Wedge pillows" before you could buy pillows printed to look like every Star Wars character.

oh my god does anyone answer any question in an exit interview??? what a spectacular waste o time! quel dispiriting job to conduct them! only possible utility would be to identify stone cold idiots, but pointless bc they're on the way out!

I've never had once, unless you count when they checked that I didn't steal anything on my last day.

68 I've been dreaming about unloading about all the BS in my eventual exit interview but if I get this job at the American Uni here that would probably be a bad idea.

I did because I unloaded on the new director and made it clear his incompetence was a major reason I was leaving. A couple years later he was fired for some kind of sexual harassment policy violation.

As long as we aren't going to start firing senior people for lack of competence.

Loki is really confusing if you think of "TVA" as I usually do.

seting aside situations involving actionable conduct, in which case ianyel but please high yourself to one stat, in all other circs ...

if you will be staying in the same field, what could possibly be in it for you to say anything* in an exit interview? they're just fishing for free info and you have no way of knowing who will get it or what they'll do with it. if there are poorly run aspects of the org, the org is well placed to use its own resources to identify and address them. why in hells bells would you do anything for them gratis, especially when you may well be giving some asshole ammo to use against you in future?

unload here! 🤣🤣🤣

* i did answer one question - what did i like? "great colleagues! great clients" note vague as to extent/prevalence of either.

seting aside situations involving actionable conduct, in which case ianyel but please high yourself to one stat, in all other circs ...

if you will be staying in the same field, what could possibly be in it for you to say anything* in an exit interview? they're just fishing for free info and you have no way of knowing who will get it or what they'll do with it. if there are poorly run aspects of the org, the org is well placed to use its own resources to identify and address them. why in hells bells would you do anything for them gratis, especially when you may well be giving some asshole ammo to use against you in future?

unload here! 🤣🤣🤣

* i did answer one question - what did i like? "great colleagues! great clients" note vague as to extent/prevalence of either.

whoops! apologies for double post.

but while i'm here, another free tip - if someone asshole starts screaming at you down a phone line just tell him you need to put him on speaker, do so, and turn your attention to something else. eventually he'll run down and start asking if you can hear him. which is hilarious bc he's been - screaming. oh yes you say gently.

74.3 I have in the past and will no doubt do so again

||

This is charming -- photos of Paul Dirac's 1926 PhD thesis titled, simple, "Quantum Mechanics" https://twitter.com/quantizedreza/status/1412909440496508934

Legend.

|>

The bank robbers wore Donald Duck masks, as is apparently the style for fictional and real robbers in Europe.

Of possible relevance to SAT scores, I have been checking out what happened to the joint winners of the $2,400 Westinghouse National Science Awards for schoolchildren in 1946. One of them spent the money on pre-med at Harvard, and became a successful pathologist. The other became a psychologist. The boy in third place had to leave Harvard after a year, but returned and became one of the most important evolutionary biologists of the last century.

If they kept up with the times, Westinghouse would be trying to encourage kids give presentations on how to default on pension obligations to workers.

I had a yearly mammogram, which got me sent to ultrasound, at which "a new oval" on the opposite breast of the previous cancer was determined to be "not simple fluid" so I have to get a biopsy. "It has very smooth margins" said the ultrasound man, who expressed tentative confidence that it is benign, but I have the world's worst luck with my fucking body so I'm in a pretty bad mood

Oh gosh, best of luck.

Oh, fuck, Messily. Sorry to hear that.

I'm sorry. I hope the ultrasound man was right.

(I did just have a very comprehensive series of scans which showed no cancer. It's probably fine. I'm still in a bad mood.)

Thanks guys

86.1: Glad to hear it!

Good luck with the follow up, E. Messily. Hope it's benign weirdness.

That all sounds very stressful, E. Keep us posted.

Best wishes to you, Messily.

Yes, best wishes Messily.

There is a big difference between, "is this [good,bad] news relative to the worst possible case" vs "[good,bad] news relative to whatever I was expecting a month ago."

It sounds likely that it's not the worst case, but still a lot of stress and concern relative to baseline.

I'm also in the middle of planning back surgery because the site of my previous back surgery has become a disaster area and also there is a bunch of nerve compression in my neck and my left arm has been kind of numb for a couple of months and all of that is getting progressively worse, plus I seem to be anemic for reasons that have not been identified but it is an extra amount of exhaustion and also it's been over 90 degrees here for weeks and weeks and I don't have air conditioning. Life is very hard.

It is nice to complain about things! I'm fine. Everything will be fine. I just like people to feel sorry for me.

Complaining is the best! I love complaining.

Best wishes, Messily, and sorry for what sounds like (and is hopefully no worse than) a very stressful time.

I got the job!!!!!!

Congratulations. Now you need to steal the Declaration of Independence.

Congratulations (but saying that feels a little less exciting after 95 which clearly wins the thread).

Yay, Barry!

Sorry for the stress and the physical malfunctions, EM. Hope it all work out for you.

Sorry, Messily, hope things get better.

Congrats, Barry!

94: Yayyy! This is the one for the American university but still located in Arrakis?

Congrats, Barry!

99 Yes

And thanks all

woo hoo barry!

em - fuck, super hoping it's something benign & v sorry about all other extremely unpleasant health ick.

Barry that's awesome.

Congratulations, Barry!

Much sympathy for E. Messily. Those are too many unpleasant things. It isn't right!

Congrats, Barry! Do you have your inflatable slide and beer all picked out?

Mabrook, Barry!!!

I forget Barry, is this the cat, the rat, the old man, or the bag of gold?

I think it's a wolf cub.

well done, barry

Hooray, Barry!!

whoops, this is off the front page.