Nancy Pelosi. after an interminable delay, has finally announced the start of a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump’s egregious conduct. We still don’t know what exactly this will mean, but things are definitely starting to heat up for Trump.
Discuss. No trolls.
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It sounds like it might be chronic rhinitis. I have that, and Avamys nasal spray (steroids, by Rx only) has made a massive difference in my life. I also have undiagnosed seasonal allergies, and take Reactin or the generic version.
I also take pseudoephedrine at times when I can’t breathe through my nose while lying down, but it definitely raises my blood pressure and heart rate.
Good luck with your Zantac or whatever else might work for you. I’ve been taking Omeprezole (Losec) for over a decade, it was the only thing I could find that works.
@ Surplus,
It sounds like you have allergies. I have several thoughts on this but I’m just going to put this here first, to see if it works. (I had a comment the other day which got eaten.)
Uno momento, por favor ~
OK.
Surplus, it surely does sound like allergies! And no you don’t have to have them since childhood, they can develop at any time.
Let’s start with drugs – be very careful with that 24 hour Allegra. That’s pretty strong stuff and you might want to switch to simple Benadryl (available in generic or ‘store brand’ too, it’s cheap). Allegra is pretty strong and the 24 hour aspect, time release, watch that. So you don’t eat or drink the wrong thing and get the full blast of it all at once.
We all seem to remember Allegra having a kind of “speed” effect. This might be where your newfound “stamina” is coming from.
Allegra is pretty strong and unless you have severe allergies you probably don’t need it. Do not make self sick by taking un necessary drugs. Would this be an issue mixing with the Zantac, also? You probably know this but in case you or anyone else doesn’t – you can ask pharmacists and their assistants about OTC drugs too.
Leg cramps? Are you dehydrated? From your various thoughts it sounds like you haven’t got the best of diets. We saw what you said about vegetables…
I am sure you know what healthy eating is,
DO IT NOW! 🙂
Ha. I am sure you know what to do, you need more fruits and vegetables. Oh, they’re unpalatable? You can *train* yourself to like new things. And we can all find a few things we like.
I mention this in regards to allergies though also. You might actually be *allergic to* something you’re eating. Sometimes the body craves things in effort to desensitize itself. Corn? Is a common enough allergy issue. And of course, as we all probably know – you can be tested for all types of allergies. Allergy tests are simple.
Don’t want the hassle of doctors appointments? Try changing your diet.
There might be something in your home making you sick or allergic also. Do a thorough cleaning. If things are worse in winter – it could be mold*. Do a hardcore cleaning. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but there could be mold or just too much dust.
* In winter, there can be mold spores in the air too, esp. if you live near wooded areas.
You can also get a relatively inexpensive air purifier, which may help as well.
We all have allergies here, I think about everyone here does, it’s very common. Seasonal allergies might be easy enough to figure out, but not always. Food allergies are not always easy to pin down, can be an issue also.
@Surplus
Erm… I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Zantac is getting pulled from the market like everywhere. :/ It was on the news, I read your post and was like, aww, shit, Surplus is not gonna like this… I have no suggestions on replacement heartburn meds, it’s not something I have any experience with, first or secondhand.
But if you get inexplicable bad muscle cramps I might suggest 1) making sure you are not dehydrated, especially if you live in the desert part of Canada, 2) taking Vitamin E if there is a vegetables problem (is there? I just recall that you dislike lima beans, peas, and broccoli) or 3) guaifenesin if 1 and 2 are under control. It was the only thing that allowed me to be mobile when I used to get muscle cramps in my back so bad I couldn’t walk. Well that and a lot of NSAIDS.
No promises that it’ll work, but it can’t hurt to try. 🙂
EDIT: I know guaifenesin is listed as an expectorant (which may also help with your sinus problem) but it is used in veterinary medicine as a muscle relaxant. Specifically in equine medicine. This is how I came to know of its anti-cramp properties.
EDIT 2: Not that a vet prescribed me medicine! That would be illegal and unethical. I ran it by a GP first and it’s over the counter so she (different one than the anxiety one) said, seems reasonable, see what happens. Voila! Muscle cramps gone.
@Z&T
Re: food allergy tests, please see @Rhuu’s post above.
@ Kupo,
Yes I did read that, what I am thinking of are the allergy tests that a regular doctor gives you, the scratches on your back.
We all here had these. In childhood. I thought of this too, because I seem to remember that you get tested for many things, not just seasonal allergens and pet dander, there are some food tests included in all those scratches as well.
Friend: Bobby Hill had this allergy test too! Ha, yes he did. When they thought he was allergic to Ladybird. And screamed in horror and called his dad from the doctor’s office, Hank walks in and laughs – Oh, an allergy test.
To a kid this was true horror!
Anyway, those sorts of tests.
@Z&T
Ah, gotcha, scratch tests are legit. Not sure if they test for food allergies, though! I’ve never had a scratch test despite having allergies that caused sinus and ear infections regularly growing up. Oh well.
my wedding dress alterations are finished. My aunt did it for me since she’s been a tailor most of her adult life. Saved us some money and I actually started sobbing when I tried it on. my fiancé is just gonna wear his blues and as a bit of surprise for him my friend made me this garter that matches his blues. I think he’s gonna get a kick out of it and that it was a good idea considering a lot of the friends he is having as guest as also marines.
That was just a little update, I’m so excited.
@ lainy
That’s so sweet; I’m so happy for you!
Ooh, you going for a service wedding? I love those. Over here we have a sort of thing where service colleagues form two lines and there’s like a running salute. I’m probably not explaining that very well; but it looks great.
@surplus – allergies can also develop, i’m sorry to say. I have definitely developed some allergies to fruits (apples, pears, cherries, etc) in the last ten years. I also developed something that is bad enough that i was taking a near daily loratadine aka claritin. (Shoulda been daily, but they were expensive and i couldn’t afford it.)
Not sure if it’s allergies or what was described above, just wanted to let you know that it is apparently something that happens.
Anyway, two years or so ago, i went to a walk-in (before i had my family doctor) and got a reference to an allergist, who prescribed me some daily antihistamines. I take cetirizine aka zyrtec, and it is great for my health plan to cover the 30$/month this costs so i can actually feel human.
So yes, a doctor can prescribe an antihistamine to you. I also found that some antihistamines worked better for me than others, and some i could tolerate really well with no drowsiness (loratadine + cetirizine at my current dosage) so they didn’t interfere with my life.
I went to my doctor recently to see if I could get an allergy scratch panel with an allergist, mostly because I suspect I have developed an allergy to scallops. He said that scratch tests for food allergies are unfortunately pretty unreliable. He also said I can never eat scallops again. 🙁
@Lainy
Dress alterations! Very exciting! Must be getting close now to the date, then, yes?
Edit: Misspelled your name. Sorry!
I’m thinking about getting a scratch test, since I think I may have developed an allergy to cashews. I used to eat them all the time with no ill effects, but more recently I ate some and around the same time got a painful rash around my mouth for a week. Not sure if it was an allergy or coincidence, so I’m thinking about getting a test.
@Alan
Yeah kind of. My fiancé is really proud of being a marine since it’s one of the hardest things he’s ever done. we’re doing the sabor run and he wants to cut the cake with his sword
@Viscaria
It is! October 26th is our date since we couldn’t have the Halloween wedding of my dreams lol.
It’s the first time in my teenager and adult life that I will be wearing all white and I’m kind of excited about it but I do have some black pieces to add even more my flair to it. Plus my brides maid dresses are black with silver.
My flower bouquet has yellow tulips in it because they are important to me but then I have some fake flowers in them that I’ve been making out of black paper and folding them to look like roses. They have white ink writing on them and I’ve written poetry that I’ve made about him. Along with tips about how we work and things like that so that when I toss my flowers at my reception the person who gets it can read it sometime if they want to unroll the flowers.
My wedding dress is white but I have a black reception dress I’m gonna change into because the corset on my wedding dress makes it hard to dance properly and we are doing a waltz for our first dance.
We did choose a kind of stressful time for me to being doing this though. I’ve got work and right now this week and next week are midterms time for classes before my fall break. So add finishing up wedding stuff onto that. Plus we both have very large families and a lot of friends invited so It turned into a very big event.
One of my cousins is flying in from New York with his two girls and his wife to attend and he’s been trying to “help” with my wedding a bit. It’s kind of turned into don’t let our familes take over the wedding lol. My cousin is a lot older then I am, I’m only a few years older then his daughter right now. And he’s a half Itilain New Yorker so when he has an opoioon it gets heard, and I appreciate it but he’s also use to these huge fancy upstate ballroom weddings. This was the conversation we had two weeks ago
“you know what this needs? an ice sculpture”
“I don’t think we need an ice sculpture Jamie, There kind of expensive and that’s a lot of money for something that’s gonna melt”
“eh you know what, you want an ice sculpture, I’ll get you an ice sculpture, do I look like some kind of smuck that can’t afford an ice sculpture”
“Jamie your a guess, I don’t want you to pay for anything in my wedding and I don’t need an ice sculpture”
“how about we get one as tall as you, it will add some elegant to the room”
Proceeds to start an ordering process to get me an ice sculpture. I proceed to bang my head onto an archaeology text book.
Then there is my fiancé who doesn’t really want his older brother and father to be there but I know just as well as him that if his father doesn’t go that he won’t let my fiancé mother attend as well.
It’s been a real adventure getting to where we are right now and my stress levels are up. I’m excited but they are up. Been a lot of stress eating and sleepless nights.
My fiancé made himself flash cards to try and remember all of my familes names. It’s pretty cute. He’s trying to live down the time, because there are two Todds in my family on the opposite side and he can never remember anything. So when he met the Todd from my dad’s side he was shaking his hand and went ” are you the Todd that’s a preacher or are you the Todd that went to prison for kidnapping the lady when high on drugs?” long pause ” I’m the Todd that’s a preacher”
“oh”
There’s a lot of repeat like that on both sides of my family.
But his nephew is gonna be our ring bearer and one of my like third generation cousins is gonna be our flower girl. It’s really cute because you have this little lantino boy walking down with this little red head pale Irish looking girl with freckles and I just started laughing because it looks like if my fiancé and I had meet as children.
Sorry that was long but I just had to get all of that out
This is the song we are gonna be dancing to as well.
There’s a lot here so I’m just going to quote and respond to bits and pieces.
@Z&T:
Please elaborate?
Also, how can the “permacold” be an allergy if it is not obliterated by a “pretty strong” antihistamine?
Mold requires humidity, so would be worse in summer. The air in here is quite dry all winter. And hardcore cleanings have not affected the “permacold” in the past.
Define “relatively inexpensive”. And keep in mind that something like that will also have operating costs: electricity, filters that need replacing, and possibly more.
@various:
Not relevant in my case. Symptoms are upper respiratory, not swelling up like a balloon and needing an Epi-Pen to save me, and there’s no significant seasonal variation in my diet.
Whatever the cause is, it’s something in the air, and it’s almost certainly humidity-influenced since it seems to be something in the indoor air and the only thing about that that’s different seasonally is the humidity, and to some degree the temperature.
@Lainy,
That all sounds lovely. I love your bouquet idea! I hope you have a wonderful wedding day and an even better life together.
The best piece of advice I received before my own wedding was try to carve out a moment or two with just you and your new husband where you can absorb what’s happening. It all goes by very fast, so you need a moment to be like, whoa, we just did the thing!
I wasn’t able to listen to your song because the link was borked. If you see this, maybe give us another link if you want 🙂
The song is afterlife by hailee stienfield
I hope it all goes well but come hell or high water I am marrying this man lol.
@Lainy, that all sounds wonderful. I hope it is a lovely day and ceremony for you and your sweetie.
@Surplus to Requirements, the worst case food allergies involve Epipens and trips to the hospital. Mild food allergies can be strictly local/upper respiratory symptoms. New allergies can show up at any point in a person’s life, not just in childhood. And some people grow out of childhood allergies.
I developed a new food allergy this year. I figured it out when I was with friends on the dessert of a 5-course set menu and suddenly had uncontrollably itchy throat break into uncontrollable coughing. Benadryl and cough drops saved me in the moment.
The restaurant was kind enough to give me a detailed list of ingredients for the whole menu. It was a little puzzling because 99% of it is stuff I eat pretty regularly. I immediately went to an allergist and got a scratch test for some of the likely culprits. Everything came back negative (again). Doesn’t mean I don’t have allergies. Plus, he pointed out that the test for onion is not definitive.
He recommended that I try to narrow down specific food triggers and bring them in for a prick test. I haven’t done that yet because I really haven’t been able to narrow it down. I’ve had several reactions to food, though none as severe as that one, since then (and before then, once I recognized it as an allergic reaction and thought back to past instances). I also had far more noticeable seasonal allergies this year, sometimes noticeable as soon as I stepped outside.
I suspect that I have some form of cross-reactivity between a food and a botanically related hay fever allergen. That’s what’s behind oral allergy syndrome. I think I have a variant of it but not involving the usual suspects of birch, mugwort, grass, or ragweed pollens.
So you could be experiencing something similar. Regarding mold allergies being worse in the winter:
https://www.achooallergy.com/learning/mold-allergies-in-winter
Your permacold is probably due to low-level ongoing exposure to some allergen causing a chronic mild reaction.
@Lainy:
Will there be champagne? I’ve always wanted to see someone sabre open a bottle of champagne with an actual sabre.
@Moon Custafer
I don’t know what that is to be honest.
If the link decides to play nice:
It did!! And the edit timer showed up. It’s a miracle day.
@ Surplus,
We all here, taking an exercise break, because it’s raining, so we decided to drink some beer instead of taking a walk, we have some more thoughts for you.
Which could largely be summed up with: What Solecism just said.
Will address your recent thoughts –
Starting with, strong Allegra.
IMO it’s pretty strong stuff. Really dries you out too much and makes you feel weird.
Regarding the 24 hour or time release aspect, and this would apply to anything like this – you don’t want to eat or drink (or mix the wrong med) certain things with such meds that would, I guess, cause the time release coating to come off too fast. If that happens, you’ll get the full blast of it at once, right? Which you do not want.
Not med people or chemists here, maybe someone else here can explain better the mechanisms and coatings of these time release pills.
Hopefully that conveys the general idea.
And I myself would rather take pills every X hours because then you are in control of that, and you might not need it 24 hours. It’s raining here today, rain can clean the air. So you might not need any meds at all. Or, maybe just in the morning.
T also reminded us that there are “other versions” of Allegra, non time release, and children’s which would be a lower dosage, so you might keep this in mind too.
I’m a ‘less is more’ sort of a person, or ‘try the light version first’ so to say.
Mold.
Not humid enough there? Leaky pipes hidden behind walls might say otherwise. It can be anywhere. It can be in the air.
Like foods, these things can be hard to pin down. It might be something else. Laundry soap, bath soap. And as with food, what you can try to do is stop using things or change things, to try to figure it out.
You might just have low grade allergy, sinus issues.
In this case, find a med that works and try to keep super clean.
Air purifiers –
Go look online, there’s inexpensive in the $20 range. And more expensive ones, which can also be found cheaper, discontinued, remanufactured, older models, – as I’m sure you know there are all sorts of discount sellers online. As well as resale shops, garage sales, look around and you can find something affordable.
Yes, everything takes a lot of thought and work.
Hang in there, Friend 🙂
@Z&T: Unfortunately, most of those sellers are non-options for me. Online ones require credit cards and garage sales are sporadic, random, and won’t usually have any specific item. There’s no way to find or search them online since they’re informal, strictly meatspace events. And I get around on foot. So that would be miles and miles of walking looking for them probably for months on end before I chanced upon anything remotely like what you’re describing.
It would pretty much have to be a normal, bricks-and-mortar retailer. I don’t suppose Wal-Mart would have such a thing? Because there’s one of those within reach of me, and it’s probably the store with the broadest overall selection of stuff of all those that are close enough.
As for the Allegra, I really don’t want to lose the restored stamina …
Don’t know why anyone still tries to give Surplus help or advice. Don’t you all know by now that he wants to hear us that he has the worst life out of anyone ever and there is no solution?
@Surplus
Most debit cards in Canada function as credit cards for the purposes of online purchasing. Mine has for years now.
Even if you don’t want an air purifier, having the option to order things online to be delivered may be very useful for you, due to your remoteness and being limited to walking. I’d recommend looking into it.