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Will do. I'm not hopeful, though! They can reduce potassium levels or shift the electrolyte balance, which will be the reason you're being monitored. In HypoPP, glucose intake has the same effect, as does salt intake. Other things that cause unhelpful shifts are alcohol, getting very cold, or...

Sorry to hear that, @Shadrach Loom. It must be a real struggle. This is another N=1 anecdote, and I really hesitated about posting it. But here goes, in case it's useful. I also have problems with steroids, even the small topical doses in my asthma inhaler and nasal sprays. The inhaler leaves...

Oh, that's helpful, thank you. I haven't even started on mine yet in case the delays are still ongoing by next year. This is entirely possible, given that some people whose reviews are/were due this summer may be postponed until then!

I didn't actually ask for a GP letter, just my records. It seemed to be enough for them to make my award, and next time I'm only planning ask for the summary record starting from the date of my last claim, which I can get fairly easily from the receptionist. Since I stopped work eight years ago...

Hopefully it'll be good news for people who couldn't get their Blue Badges renewed until they'd had their review, even though they were still receiving PIP. I know some folk have really struggled with this, especially when they need to use on-street disabled bays to park for essential travel...

I know what you mean, but I've seen definitions that include at least one behavioural aspect to the sickness response (as it applies to humans): withdrawal from social contact. There might be others, it's just that that one stuck in my memory. I prefer the term sickness response, as it seems a...

Given that she left her first degree at Oxford after failing exams due to lack of application, there might be some doubts about the tenacity even if the ability is there! Most people who go on to work in other areas quickly leave their degree subjects behind anyway. My career was in...

Ah, but he's talking about trust among people who think the DWP's job is mostly about fending off benefit scroungers. People who've never had any dealings with it themselves, some of whom might genuinely be horrified if they found out how it treats people who're extremely vulnerable and living...

Bet they're regretting picking that name for their company, though.

No, we aren't. But one of the things I was saying, in my usual wordy style, is that the internet is part of the problem. It encourages people into echo chambers, where unhelpful and at time offensive attitudes are normalised, validated, and ingrained deeper. There were fewer opportunities to do...

Well, I suppose if I look on the most optimistic side of it... Reddit isn't real life, so there's a limit to what we can read into the conversations—people show off and say macho stuff online in a way that they probably wouldn't in a clinic. And even if junior doctors do let some of those...

I kind of understand that, if they're trying to encourage people to come forward to discuss unpublished work. It just never does seem to get published, though, even years later—unless there are obstacles I don't really understand (which is pretty likely, tbh!).

Is the book part of the Cormoran Strike series? I saw TV productions of a couple of those stories, and I quite enjoyed them—especially the first series, which was done really well. Until, that is, someone revealed they hadn't cast an actual disabled actor as Strike, but created the shots of the...

It will be interesting to see how it changes, now that everyone's doing self-testing and answering the survey question online or by phone. I've been part of the study since it first started, and I did my first self-test today. One of the issues with the face-to-face visits was that they rattled...

I've said it before, but this kind of data is critical if the studied population is on the mild-to-moderate spectrum. Many of us simply don't have the option to rest, as we live alone and need to eat, toilet, and keep ourselves, our clothes, and our living spaces at some level of cleanliness...

I agree, but also worry that it's not quite that simple. For instance, if my activity were being recorded over a few days recently, it might suggest I was probably on an even keel health-wise. But only because it wouldn't capture the quality of the activity. It couldn't know that half of what...

Yup! A tide with a five-metre range that makes the rivers run backwards twice a month, and can flood areas miles inland during the worst storms. Yes, it's true that it ought to be possible, specially in more experienced patients, to identify useful indicators of the state of their ME (or tidal...

This approach worries me a bit. One of the most important things I've learned in 46 years of illness is that I can't predict anything, and there's no point trying. I can give myself the best chance of "surviving" an unavoidable major activity by resting pre-emptively and making sure I schedule...

You really would think it might have occurred to someone to do this as soon as it became clear that it's a widespread phenomenon, wouldn't you.

I'm still waiting for one of these oiks to grasp that patients will always try to do more than they can, whether through frustration, cussedness, or sheer bloody necessity, and that any therapist who's actually interested in helping them needs to address it.