My GP took it seriously and ran bloods

Started 2 September 2024 · 24 replies · 265 hearts · read 3.3k times

GudrunAkureyri, IS · 2 September 2024

1.9 years ago

My GP took it seriously and ran bloods — putting it in its own thread so it does not get lost in the check-in.

I have avoided asking about this for six weeks out of pure embarrassment.

My prescriber has been fine, genuinely. The problem is that I get nine minutes twice a year and there is no version of nine minutes that covers this.

I am aware some of this may be nothing. I would still like to know whether other people have had it, because I have spent a fortnight assuming I am the only one.

The thing that has surprised me most is how much of this is about other people rather than about me.

Thanks all. Genuinely.

MargueriteQuebec City, CA

I am the person who had the frightening version of this. I went in, it was investigated, and it was not what anyone feared. Going in is the whole of my advice.

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK

Thank you for writing this. I am not going to add information to it. I am going to say that what you have described is very common and very rarely said out loud.

OsmanAnkara, TR

Practical, boring answer: write the three questions down before you go in. I have never once remembered them otherwise.

15me too 2

DillyNewport, UK

the opening post — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

I did exactly the same and felt terrible about it. You have not done anything wrong.

BlySheffield, UK

I asked my nurse the same question and she said something I have repeated ever since: that the aim is to keep you on treatment, not to get you up the schedule.

MarthaCork, IE

the reply above — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

Please do not read the comments under news articles about this. I lost a fortnight to that.

OttoPrague, CZ

What helped was lowering my own expectations of the week rather than trying to hold the week together.

MairéadMayo, IE

My experience was very boring, which I offer as data. Some of us just get a dull time of it.

6me too 7

IkeChicago, IL

Yes to the burping. It is real, it is unbeautiful, and it does settle.

8me too 3

CoralieMarseille, FR

#10

the reply above — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

I am about four months behind you and I have been dreading exactly this, so thank you for writing it down before I got there.

WinnieCarlisle, UK

#11

It got worse before it got better for me, which I wish someone had said. About ten days of worse.

FabianBasel, CH

#12

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

For what it is worth, the trial data on this is thinner than the confidence of the internet would suggest. Worth knowing when you read the posts.

12me too 8

WystanCheltenham, UK

#13

Can I gently push back on one thing? Not the substance, just the framing — you have written twice that you should be coping better. Who told you that?

EphraimBrooklyn, NY

#14

My pharmacist was more use than anyone. Ten minutes at the counter, no appointment, no charge.

NyreeChristchurch, NZ

#15

the reply above said something I want to sit with for a second.

No advice, just recognition. That sounds exhausting and I am sorry you are in it.

10me too 4

PerrinNice, FR

#16

I keep a two-line diary and it is the only reason I could answer this question about myself. Worth starting even now.

NyalaAddis Ababa, ET

#17

Gently disagreeing with the reply above, or rather adding the other half of it.

Different experience here, for balance. Mine did not improve and in the end I stopped, and that was the right call for me. Both outcomes exist.

AnnikaStockholm, SE

#18

The phrase that unlocked my appointment was asking what specifically she wanted me to watch for. It moved us from reassurance to a plan in about thirty seconds.

GudrunAkureyri, IS

#19

Two things that helped me, neither of them clever: small amounts more often, and drinking a lot more than felt necessary.

MargueriteQuebec City, CA

#20

Reading the reply above, I recognised more of that than I expected to.

I would take that to a clinician rather than to us, and I would do it this week. Not because it is definitely serious — because it is the sort of thing that is much easier to rule out than to worry about.

GroverPortland, ME

#21

Coming back to this a fortnight later to say it settled. Leaving the update because I hate reading threads that stop.

11me too 9

OsmanAnkara, TR

#22

the reply above — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

Similar here, and mine turned out to be a completely unrelated deficiency picked up on bloods.

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK

#23

What the reply above described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

If any of this has landed close to home for you while reading, our support resources page lists the kinds of services worth finding. No obligation and no drama.

BlySheffield, UK

#24

Have you got anyone who can be with you when you do it? It made an enormous difference to me and I felt silly asking.