Sulphur burps and the world I did not want to know about

The thing that made mine manageable was accepting that a bad three days did not mean a bad month. I was extrapolating from every rough patch.

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.

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

Brammy said something I want to sit with for a second.

Mine was almost entirely about timing. Moving when I did it by two days changed the shape of my week completely and cost nothing.

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.

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.

What I would ask is whether anything else changed in the same week. Mine turned out to be a completely unrelated thing that I had attributed to the medication for a month.

What I found is that describing it precisely to myself was half the battle. Vague discomfort is frightening; a specific sensation at a specific time is a question with an answer.

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.

Coming back a fortnight later to say mine settled, because I hate threads that stop halfway through somebody's difficult month.

The hardest part for me was not the symptom, it was not knowing which category it belonged in. Ordinary tax, or something to raise this week. That distinction is most of what this circle does.

Thank you for writing this down. It helped.