The GP who would not prescribe and the one who would

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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.