A frightening night and what the out-of-hours doctor said

My prescriber slowed my schedule down and most of it resolved within a month. I am not suggesting that for you. I am saying the conversation exists.

Whatever it is, you are not being dramatic. Half the reason people end up frightened at midnight is that they talked themselves out of asking at four in the afternoon.

Saying it out loud helps other people say it too. Thank you.

I want to offer the boring outcome for balance: mine was mild, it lasted a month, and it went. Not every account here needs to be dramatic.

Something I only worked out late: two mild things at once felt much worse than either would have on its own, and I kept trying to find a single cause.

Please do not read the comments under news articles about this. I lost a fortnight to that and came out of it knowing less than I went in with.

For me the useful question was not what to do about it but how long it typically lasts, because that turned an unbounded problem into a bounded one.

My pharmacist was more use to me than anybody. Ten minutes at the counter, no appointment, no charge, and she spotted an interaction nobody else had mentioned.

There is a real difference between something unpleasant and something worrying, and if you cannot tell which yours is, that itself is a reason to ask somebody qualified.

I found the anticipation harder than the symptom. Once I had had it twice and knew what it was, the third time barely registered.

This is why I read the boring weeks. Thank you for the boring weeks.

I had one genuinely rough fortnight in two years. One. I say that because if you only read the difficult threads you will get a badly skewed picture.

I logged mine against the day of my week and the pattern was so clear that my prescriber changed one thing and it mostly went. The log did the work.

Brammy, thank you for that. It gives me somewhere to start from.

Somebody here told me early on that the aim is to stay on treatment comfortably rather than to endure it, and that changed how quickly I raised things.

Mine did not settle and in the end I stopped, and that was the right decision for me. Both outcomes exist in this circle and neither is a failure.

I keep a two-line note every day and it is the only reason I can answer questions about my own symptoms. Worth starting even now, mid-way through.