What things have fucked you over that you'd never expect?

[OrangeLavenders]

I have one. Last night I posted because I had a sudden and agonising pain in the ball of my foot. It was like something broke. I went to out of hours and it all turns out to be a condition called 'Metatarsalgia'. It's nerve related and if simple treatments don't work, I'm looking at surgery that may cause complete numbness in the toes for life Nothing caused it that we know of. I wear sketchers most of the time when not working. Don't even exercise much to cause it.

A slipped disc. It’s something I had heard of but never considered that I might acquire one. I thought it happened to people who do hard manual labour, but I managed it by sitting in a bad office chair during lockdown. Jesus fuck it hurts.

💐to all those in here suffering in one way or the other. Mine is the collapse of my relationship with my family ie parents' marriage and relationship with my sister. It's completely dysfunctional now, worse in their retirement. My own little family is happy though.

Genetic condition and cerebral palsy.
I hate having the disabilities I have, especially not being able to drive.

[In theory I understand social model of disability- the idea that it is society that is disabling me so lack of public transport rather than my poor vision. In practice there is never enough money and being able to drive makes a huge difference even in London having the option to hire one for a holiday. I don’t live in London atm anyway]

Pregnancy and childbirth.
SPD/PGP which has never left me (son is 12 now)
Antenatal/PND which seems to have scarred my brain in ways I can't explain.
I now have chronic pain, fatigue, depression (depression mostly managed well with drugs) and my life can never be anywhere near what it was.
Love my son though, but I couldn't ever have another child

@IDontUnderstandWhatHesDoing have you ever tried metformin for your pcos? I was the same and it's really helped me.

Covid 19 but fortunately not a direct hit!

PCOS - my stupid hormones want to turn me into an overweight teenage boy.
Slipped disc at 27 - still flares up 15 years later.
Psoriasis - I can't walk some days it's that bad. And incurable.
Pregnancy - combination of 1 MC and treatment by god awful HCPs during and after 2nd pregnancy left me with severe health anxiety that some of the same HCPs literally roll their eyes at. I couldn't put myself through it again for a second child. Still dealing with the effects 6 years on.

Hypermobility Joint Syndrome and the complete failure of my GP to recognise it as anything other being "a bit bendy".

Last night I lay awake for hours with throbbing hands because i'd been tying some elastic yesterday. The pain and exhaustion can really affect me some days. Nothing is done, aside from original referrals for a diagnosis. GP hands me high strength codeine and I'm left to crack on with it. Meanwhile I'm the one researching, buying compression gloves and hand exercising equipment to try and improve my awful quality of life at present.
And yes, I'm changing GP.

Arthritis.
It's a bastard because it's 'only arthritis' so doctors don't take it seriously or understand the level of pain it can cause.
I'm now sleeping on a hospital-type ripple mattress at night so I don't wake up in agony.

School refusal. At the end of primary I had a child who, on the whole, loved school.

Six weeks later I was dealing with a child so anxious he couldn't go to school, having to cut my hours at work and on the brink of a nervous breakdown not knowing where to turn for help.

It took well over a year to resolve it and now it looks like it's rearing its ugly head once more.

@Fuss I have joint hypermobility syndrome too. you need a referral to rheumatology, who then need to refer you on to hydrotherapy, physiotherapy, and occupational therapy, and if things are still bad after that, the pain management team. All did wonders for me (though I didn't end up needing the pain management program after my referral), and I'm loads better now. I'd ask for different meds if I were you, too - I was on gabapentin with oramorph for when the pain was extreme.

I did also have fibromyalgia alongside it (though Im not sure about that, but that's what I was diagnosed with). I went from working full time in a promising career to bedbound in my early 20s. I was using a walking stick, and I developed chronic fatigue too. My partner had to lift me in and out of the bath (I couldn't stand safely to shower), do everything for me basically, even some days would have to carry me to the toilet. Immediate extreme disability like that was terrifying. It happened virtually overnight, too.

I was lucky though, it went as quickly as it came and only lasted a few years (which is why I doubt my diagnosis), though my hypermobility still causes problems, but I'm physically independent again. The damage done to my life as a whole has still not been repaired. I'm still on disability benefits and can't find a job that I'm confident won't make me ill again. My partner's career was ruined too because he had to be my full time carer. I'm now massively overweight and can't shift it. I struggle socially (I did anyway, but more now) because of the years I've spent home only seeing a few people.

I'm now struggling with nice new problems! Possible PCOS, can't get a referral because of covid, recovering mentally from a traumatic termination from over a year ago, and it's only recently dawned on me how bad my stammer is and I don't know how it was never picked up on before. I don't know if I've always had it or if it started spontaneously as a teenager. Been TTC for nearly a year and having to watch my sister go through pregnancy when it should be my turn, she fell first go, but no one knows we're TTC, which I think makes it harder. I didn't expect any of this to happen. It's nice to be able to write it all out

I'm sorry your going through this op.
I know someone who was diagnosed with a rare disease and her life changed overnight. It's so sad how much it's changed her life and it's only now she can go out a bit more. She is so positive about life but it can't be easy. I hope you can get your feet sorted out and be out of pain.

I'm gutted to hear about Sketchers. I wear mine for work and they are so comfy and clean up lovely in the washer too. They are popular with all generations too.
I'll have to buy different trainers now.

The80'sweregreat I love that I can wash my sketchers in the wash too! They're great. Don't bin them off, I don't think they're responsible for this. Some people are just unlucky

Sorry all all posters with all this going on

I've had my 7th miscarriage at 5 weeks recently. The one before that was a little girl at 17 weeks. Nobody knows why this keeps happening to me. My little boy is a true miracle I think. They have advised a surgical stitch but that comes with its own risk factors too

Sciatica for me too - and plantar fasciitis, and general back and joint problems. All of which hit pretty much as soon as I turned 50 (I'm 55).

But much much worse than that is the fact that my DH (71) is terminally ill. He had lymphoma in 2017, very soon after retiring. Two years of treatment and then pronounced cured. A week later he lost some memories. That was last August, and after 7 or 8 months of scans and biopsies and indeterminate results we were told that he almost certainly had lymphoma of the central nervous system (in his brain) and that they couldn't treat it. We got this news the day after he fainted, concussed himself and broke his leg. And just after I had gone 40 days with suspected Covid. So we have been in lockdown / shielding since early March, waiting for him to die. In the last month he has become bed-ridden and incontinent and very confused, needing 24 hour care (mostly by me). It could still be several more months of slow degeneration.

Oh, and the university where I work may well be making redundancies / collapsing as a result of all the farce about A level results plus covid.

So all of that. Do I win?

I moved my family to a different country for my husband’s job and he got fired. I think it’s worked out for the best now, but fuck, I did NOT see that coming.

My weight. I never had any idea when I was younger how hard it would be to lose weight later in life. I am not massive either.

Its not technically the weight that's the issue, its how hard it makes my other illness. I have DDD and fibryomyalgia and arthritis. Losing weight won't make them go away but it would make them easier to deal with.

I am so immobile due to pain and meds that make me gain weight, and struggle to lose weight at anything over 1000 calories a day, its soul destroying.

I struggle to get my head around how hitting menopause made such a massive difference to my ability to lose any weight at all. Before if I did a diet, the pounds would fall off easily.

I hear you with the weight problem.
Now I'm officially ' menopausal' the weight is sticking around and I swear that even if I didn't eat for days i wouldn't lose anything at all! It's so hard to shift it.

@Owleyes16 I went through Rheumatology about ten years ago. Initially the GP said fibro, I knew it wasn't. I have a scoliosis and fitted every category for HMS. Rheumatology diagnosed and sent a letter back to GP for treatment. From there GP prescribed Co-Codamol and that was about it. I'm now late 40's and my joints are getting stiffer. I struggle to stand if I've sat for any length of time and I hurt if I've stood. Depending how active I've been in the day the pain wakes me in the night.

I realised at 3am that this wasn't working and said to DH when I got up it's time to change GP's because if I'm like this at 46 I'll be immobile at 60. I need a program of physio and pain management and for a GP to actually understand that hyper mobility isn't just 'being bendy'.

@OrangeLavenders
No, I thought metformin was just where weight was an issue (I’m not overweight but the tummy is localised; went straight to insulin with the GD)? I was thinking of trying a low GI (basically GD) diet again and seeing if that helped, though obviously it wouldn’t do anything for the other issues.

OP and PPs properly suffering.

Sorry! @EdwardCullensBiteOnTheSide. Don’t know what happened with that tagging.

Cauda Equina Syndrome.

Hadn't heard of it until I got it. Now struggle to walk, sit, can't feel my left leg or foot in many places and where I can it's constant pain and my bowel likes to surprise me when I least expect it.

I'm still smiling though, it could always be worse.

💐 to all the posters on this thread.

On a personal level - thought I had plantar fasciatis (sp) when in fact I'd developed an autoimmune type of arthritis. My youngest was 4 months old, born with a rare genetic condition / disabled. The stress of this was a big trigger for my illness.

When I was about 20 I was visiting family in the USA and went on a road trip with my cousin and her wild and carefree friend. I stupidly joined in with this "fun" friend when she decided to shoplift in a clothing store. We got caught and arrested and it turns out that as a result I would need a visa to return to the US in future. The following year I applied and was declined, so missed my cousin's wedding where I was due to be bridesmaid. I may never be able to return to the US. I have family there in several states

Ageing.

Which is stupid because I should have been able to expect it, but somehow it's the little things that nobody warns you about that get me every time.

Like how every new ache and pain settles in for the long haul.
Like how getting even a minor illness takes SO LONG to get over.
Like how I'm slowing down in my body and reflexes so that things that used to be second-nature now have to be thought about carefully.

Bloody hell, it could have at least come with some extra wisdom!

Weirdly, having my first book published set off a lot of repercussions in my career and my life that haven't been a lot of fun.