This you?

Not a lawyer but a guy with shoulder problems from teenage antics. I just want to add that you really need to aggressively pursue treatment for that shoulder. The better you handle it now, the more you’ll thank yourself.

Ooooh, that sounds like the Göta Canal, making you Swedish! The Masurian Canal was built far too late to be correct but my brain was fixated on the uselessness aspect.

I think you’re referring to the Masurian Canal, so you could be in either Russia or Poland.

Unrelated to anything here, I love your username.

As someone also with a largely mysterious, if diagnosed, medical condition, have you tried meditation?

Just kidding! I get tons of well meaning, often worthless advice, but that’s by far the most common. I’m like, bitch, I meditate so goddamn much I’m giving the fucking Buddha pointers. Meditation is the only reason I’m not throwing you (and maybe myself with you) out the window right now.

If I may give you one non-medical suggestion from someone who has been there and to some extent still is there, it’ll get better as long as you don’t give up. You have to be dogged about improvement and it won’t be fast or easy, but it’ll be there if you put in the work. People who don’t understand will think you’re being crazy and obsessive, telling you that you need to just come to terms with your condition. Coming to terms is a part of it, but there’s always, always something to try. Improving my condition is my biggest hobby and primary job.

I’ve been plugging away at improving my health for four years now and went from barely being able to function to being 80% normal. I’m working full time again (I know, oh joy) and I can do a lot of the things I used to be able to do. You’ll get there, just keep at it. Let me know if I can help or if you ever need to talk, even just to vent.

It took me a second to figure out if you’re my wife or not as that’s exactly my story too. It’s depressing how frequently I encounter people, typically Americans, that took years or even decades to get a diagnosis. My issues started around the age of 5 and I didn’t get a diagnosis until 31 years and literally dozens of doctors later.

The doctor that diagnosed me didn’t know how to handle it or who to send me to. It took nearly a year to find a doctor who was willing to even try to help. Even with a helpful doctor, I still had to piece together an effective treatment plan myself through trial and error plus a ton of literature review.

I had the same issue, I only had a few safe foods. I have a mast cell related disorder. I’m on a slew of meds to help, but the thing that helped more than anything else was getting my chronic, 24/7 stress under control. It turns out being keyed up all the time isn’t good for you. Who knew?

Same here. We have about 10 pounds of chocolate in a storage bin that’s slowly growing stale.

Your life will forever be divided into a time before you had one, and a time after you had one.

You nailed it, this is exactly how I describe my bidet experience. My father-in-law is a convert and spontaneously began presenting it the same way.

How did I live before?! Gross!

Agreed. I’ll never understand why people who don’t actually want children have children.

Testicular torsion. As a teenager, I woke up early in the morning with the worst back and stomach pain I had ever felt in my life. I remember thinking I might be sick, vomiting, then passing out from the pain. My parents found me later that morning because I was delirious and moaning. They took me to the hospital and it was fixed.

Just kidding! My parents are shit bags so they told me I just had the flu and I was being dramatic. After my testicle swelled up to over double the size later that day, they called our family doctor who said I probably had a hydrocele and he’d look at it when he got back from vacation. For the record, mine was textbook testicular torsion, my doctor was as idiotically negligent as my parents.

The pain again became excruciating that evening and I was exhausted from lack of sleep, so I started yelling and demanding my parents take me to the hospital, which they did the next morning. There was TV to be watched, they couldn’t bother with taking care of their children. The ER determined my testicle was quite dead. Surgery was scheduled for that evening and I’ve had one testicle since. Get fucked, mom and dad.

Give yourself some credit. That’s at least half as bad, so your decision was twice as good.

I agree with you on good French toast.

The best French toast I’ve had was made of slices of stale, rock-hard French bread soaked to saturation in a cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom seasoned egg and milk solution, fried on a very hot griddle with a generous amount of butter, then served with maple syrup and orange marmalade. It was slightly crispy on the outside and warm and dense on the inside.

Waffles, but I have celiac so made of blue corn masa. If you haven’t tried it, get some! It’s amazing with blueberries, plus your house smells like popcorn as it’s cooking.

If you think Americans are bad, check out Italy. Breakfast is small but it’s typically a bread product or sugar laden pastry served with espresso or caffelatte. I have celiac and can’t drink coffee without spazzing out for six hours, so I skip breakfast.

I have thermal underwear, thick flannel shirts, a heated vest, and thermal coveralls. It feels like a mild spring day when I go outside.

I use Liftoff and it works great, plus it’s free and doesn’t sell any of my personal data.

That’s just disgusting. This is why aliens won’t talk to us.

I feel like my comments here have received more thoughtful responses than Reddit. I’m guessing it’s pretty community dependent and I’ve just lucked out so far.