Eight minutes and a chair, twice a week, for two years

Started 22 March 2025 · 17 replies · 171 hearts · read 3.1k times

BertrandToulouse, FR · 22 March 2025

1.3 years ago

Eight minutes and a chair, twice a week, for two years — putting it in its own thread so it does not get lost in the check-in.

Practical question, and possibly a silly one.

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.

What I would find most useful is not advice. It is somebody describing what their version of this was, and how long it went on for.

What I keep tripping on is not the physical bit. It is the not knowing whether what I am experiencing is normal, and having nobody to ask who is not either selling something or frightened for me.

I will report back either way, because I have been helped by other people's follow-ups more than by their questions.

OsmanAnkara, TR

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

NikoTbilisi, GE

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

PietPretoria, ZA

Building on what the opening post wrote rather than answering the original question.

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.

RenFacilitatorBristol, UK

Two things, both boring. First, none of us can tell you what to take. Second, the conversation you want to have is with your prescriber, and we can help you write it down.

16me too 9

BrimHalifax, UK

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

I have been in this circle a year and this question comes round every few months. It is not a silly question. It is the question.

12me too 5

OllyReading, UK

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

OttilieCheshire, 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.

LucasSão Paulo, BR

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

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

BertrandToulouse, FR

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.

OsmanAnkara, TR

#10

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

11me too 1

NikoTbilisi, GE

#11

Yes. All of this. I had the same in my third month and I remember thinking there was something specifically wrong with me, which there was not.

PietPretoria, ZA

#12

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

Mine lasted about seven weeks and then lifted over a few days. I cannot tell you why. I can tell you it lifted.

EdwynNewcastle, UK

#13

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

BrimHalifax, UK

#14

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.

OllyReading, UK

#15

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

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.

RenFacilitatorBristol, UK

#16

I will leave this open for a few more days and then add it to the circle's resources, because the answers here are better than anything I would have written.

20me too 6

LucasSão Paulo, BR

#17

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.