Whole-known-network
<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@whitequark" class="u-url mention">@<span>whitequark</span></a></span> Every time I started to drift off to sleep I'd swallow some spit and jerk awake from the pain, until I was exhausted enough that I'd fall asleep anyway</p>
<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@whitequark" class="u-url mention">@<span>whitequark</span></a></span> now imagine this happening every few minutes, over and over, for probably two or three days (I'm not even sure how long it was with the time zone changes etc) between the symptoms hitting their peak and the antibiotic starting to have a significant impact.</p>
<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@whitequark" class="u-url mention">@<span>whitequark</span></a></span> Yeah the anticipation was the real psychological torture for me.</p><p>Constant pain from an injury or surgical wound or something? It's bad, but it's constant and I know it's there and I can kinda dissociate from it a bit.</p><p>But when you have saliva slowly building up in your mouth, or you just took a bite of food, and you know you have to swallow it, but you know it's going to hurt like hell to do so... different story. I found myself taking several seconds to work up the gumption to swallow and I'd still jerk a bit trying to involuntarily pull away from the pain.</p>
<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@whitequark" class="u-url mention">@<span>whitequark</span></a></span> Overall 1/10 do not recommend.</p><p>Ear now feels basically back to normal, throat is "irritation detectable when swallowing" but a tiny shadow of what it had been.</p><p>I'm still exiled to my little "leper colony" in the lab and guest bedroom until my recovery is a bit more complete, wife has exactly zero interest in catching it from me. Lab is completely isolated from the house airflow wise, I have a HEPA air purifier running in the bedroom or office when I'm there, and I wear a N95 when I have to go upstairs to get food or anything. Anything I've eaten from goes through the dishwasher on the sanitize setting and we'll probably be washing all of my clothes and bedding too.</p><p>(Might be a little paranoid but this thing was *not* fun, and without any identification of what the bug is we don't know how it spreads so we have to consider surface transmission and airborne routes)</p>
<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://social.noyu.me/@hikari" class="u-url mention">@<span>hikari</span></a></span> of course it's by shaft</p>
<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://ioc.exchange/@azonenberg" class="u-url mention">@<span>azonenberg</span></a></span> <br />it's actually more about _inconvenience_ of it than the raw _pain_ itself. like how it's a barrier between me and doing what i want to do that doesn't seem to go away no matter what. (a lot of chronic pain/fatigue are perceived like this, though thankfully i can at least eat fine for the most part)</p>
<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://ioc.exchange/@azonenberg" class="u-url mention">@<span>azonenberg</span></a></span> oh jesus, that description really drives the idea in</p><p>for the record, despite my high pain tolerance, what you got would probably have me on the verge of a breakdown, if not past it. i've had similar things happen in the past and throat stuff, for better or worse, is incredibly mentally taxing</p>
<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@whitequark" class="u-url mention">@<span>whitequark</span></a></span> Unpleasant is an understatement.</p><p>I'm not quite as insane or high pain tolerance as you seem to be, but I've self treated ingrown toenails in the past. When I had my wisdom teeth pulled I ignored the opiate I was prescribed, took a total of two doses of the 800mg ibuprofen they gave me, then went about the recovery unmedicated.</p><p>The ear was just adding insult to injury, it wasn't the primary source of my discomfort.</p><p>The throat, OTOH... I lost four pounds between the two doc visit maybe a week and a half apart because eating was so painful.</p><p>After I had seen the doctor (but before the antibiotic had had time to take effect) my wife made me some nice soft udon noodles, even overcooked them slightly so they'd be softer. It took me like 45 minutes to work my way through a bowl I'd normally have finished in 5.</p>
<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://ioc.exchange/@azonenberg" class="u-url mention">@<span>azonenberg</span></a></span> oh huh. that sounds very unpleasant, glad you're doing better now!</p>