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When do you take the Pregabelin? Splitting the dose or taking it in the evening might offset some of the side effects. Weight gain comes with the territory, unfortunately, but pregabelin isn't a direct appetite stimulant. What it's probably doing is decreasing your stress levels which is allowing your appetite to come through and decreasing impulsivity.
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Mar 28, 2018 14:44
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Happy to hear you are doing well ASFB.
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Mar 30, 2018 14:28
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Happy Easter, guys. Today I went to Granny's, pigged out on ham, eggs and cake, and came home with a helluva story. First of all, take a look at the picture I took a few hours ago: Those are the doors of the apartment where my granny is living. A big "Ž" (zh) letter carved into the wood. You see, this writing is a relic of Croatia's Nazi past: "Ž" stands for "ŽIDOVI" - JEWS. At the eve of WWII, Nazi street thugs carved a "beware of the Jews" warning onto the doors, simply because the tenant was Jewish!  There is quite a story about the whole tenement building. Happy merchant memes aside, wealthy Jews did put up great many tenement buildings in Zagreb during the interwar period. The tenement building I'm going to tell you about was completed in 1929, with five stories, two apartments per floor, plus a small, rather damp and nasty studio in the basement for the janitor lady. The Jewish landlord lived on the ground level, while other tenants were a mixed bag - all of them were ordinary people of course, but some of them had Jewish heritage. This didn't matter until Fascist thugs suddenly took power in April 1941, and they immediately started persecuting the minorities they viewed as undesirable, doing everything to make pappy Adolf happy (and overdoing the Nazi thing in quite a few cases.) Jews, Gypsies and Serbs were marked down like cattle before being shipped off to extermination camps, while in some cases their places of business and living were marked down with a sign of shame. Thus the big "Ž" letter carved into the front doors. The Jewish tenant quickly ran out of luck and was carted off to his demise within weeks after he was marked down. The carving on the doors was a sign to freelance state-sponsored thugs, saying something like "gently caress with this Jew here!" Several apartments were rendered vacant as a result of anti-Jewish purges, and the Fascist state soon populated the vacant apartments with their own sympathizers and collaborators. It would remain like this until 1945 when the tables turned completely: now the Red thugs roamed around, tasked with weeding out the collaborators and other 'undesirable elements'. The hunter became the prey. Fearing for their lives, thousands of people expatriated to South America and other remote parts of the world. But still, there were thousands upon thousands of... let's call them minor nazis who sympathized with the regime yet not having done any tangible crimes, their biggest crime being jumping on a big and stupid Nazi bandwagon in 1941. Those former collaborators chose to bow their heads down and live a quiet life in shame, in costant fear of being singled out from the crowd and saddled with ill-defined wrongdoings they couldn't defend themselves against. The postwar Yugo-lore painted the Partisans and Titoists as morally upright fighters for freedom and equality, but if you ask anyone who was there at the time - and I mean anyone, and they'll tell you that the immediate postwar period was a huge free-for-all where cynical opportunism and the inherent awfulness of humanity shone to their fullest. In our example, the Fascist-backed family, who moved into the formerly Jewish apartment in 1941, continued living there after the war. They were constantly harrassed by the Secret Police (the notorious UDBA), and yet they couldn't afford to pack up and hightail it out the country. The UDBA was aware of the fact that this apartment building houses quite a few former collaborators, so they installed an informant into one of the vacated apartments - which happened to be the "Ž" apartment. What happened next just goes to show that anything could happen in those days - the shamed collaborator had a wife in her prime, and she caught the eye of the informant. Lead by his mighty commie boner, the informant then wrote poo poo about the guy which had him carted off to prison, charged with Nazi crimes, and then executed under mysterious circumstances - and the informant then claimed the wife for himself as a trophy. The informant and his new war booty wife soon moved into a bigger apartment, and the "Ž" apartment was once again vacant. There was a severe shortage of living quarters in Zagreb after the World War II. The town had it rather easy during the war, but the postwar period in the town was marked by an explosive growth of industry and the population more than doubled. The stock of newly built apartments also grew rapidly, but it always lagged behind the demand - which meant that many people lived in hilariously unsuitable living quarters. My grandpa, for example, lived in an abandoned grocery store which was all kinds of terrible - he put up papers over the picture windows so he wouldn't live in a literal monkey exhibit. He got his big break in 1952 when the town gave him unlimited tenancy rights to the vacated "Ž" apartment. But grandpa being grandpa, he was too cheap to have the apartment doors fixed, so the Nazi poo poo survives to this day.  And for the goon who wanted Yugo electronic junk, here goes! RIZ Transistor radio from Croatia!  EI-NIŠ Radio/Amp from Serbia!  Both of those are currently broken, and yes Mr Weed wanted to kill me for buying and lugging this garbage at the flea market. The Serbian amplifier alone is a portly, 30lb chunk of wood and metal!
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Apr 1, 2018 18:46
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GAY 4 ORGANS
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I love your stories, especially about the history of Zagreb. And your English never fails to impress me.
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Apr 1, 2018 18:57
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Bobbie Wickham posted:I love your stories, especially about the history of Zagreb. And your English never fails to impress me. This. You're quite a dude, ASF.
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Apr 1, 2018 19:10
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ASF stands for A Swell Fella in my book
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Apr 1, 2018 19:31
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A SWEATY FATBEARD posted:And for the goon who wanted Yugo electronic junk, here goes! Love old eastern bloc electronics. They were never really very good but they look great.
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Apr 1, 2018 20:49
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Oh man I would be really happy if you got your hands on a Pravetz 82 or similar. I love the old commie Apple ][ clones.
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Apr 2, 2018 04:41
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A SWEATY FATBEARD posted:EI-NIŠ Radio/Amp from Serbia! We had the exact same one when I was a kid. : D
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Apr 2, 2018 05:45
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you were warned posted:
Yeah. I was hopeful the first couple of times, but I’ve come to accept it’s just part of the cycle. you were warned posted:Also Wait, what? I take 8x300 Gabapentin every day (sometimes I reduce it to 4x when I’m running low), and I’ve never noticed any effect on my. mood or mental state, at all. I actually never notice any mental/emotional side effects from the medications I’m on, and I think it might just be that I’m so far gone into crippling depression and emotional shutdown that literally nothing moves the needle, but I didn’t know Gabapentin even had the potential to do so. My doctor just gave me a ton, said, “This might help a little bit for what you’ve got, or maybe it won’t, take as much as you want,” and I when I told him I was up to 2400mg, he said, “Oh, yeah, that’s pretty much the max,” and that was it. I get it in giant silo-style pill containers from the pharmacy, and gobble it down like candy. I guess it’s possible he mentioned it, but I don’t recall him doing so. I’ve never taken a drug, legal or illegal, that worked as advertised on my system, so I may have just ignored any talk about side effects.
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Apr 2, 2018 06:14
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I didn't even know pregabalin had that kind of abuse potential. Though I didn't know people abuse gabapentin for the longest time, either, even when my prescription went as high as 2400mg/day. I just thought of it as some blah epilepsy drug that wasn't keeping me from being an anxious mess. My vet actually just sold me a few capsules of a low dose of gabapentin to give to my unruly cat if I have to take her to a groomer again. 
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Both gabapentin and pregabelin are well indicated for trauma related anxiety and depression because they chill the overactive limbic system. Depression is a symptom, not a disease. There's dozens of not hundreds of possible causes and medication won't work on most of them because of the complexity of the condition.
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Apr 2, 2018 19:42
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SENSUAL DAD KISS posted:Depression is a symptom, not a disease. There's dozens of not hundreds of possible causes and medication won't work on most of them because of the complexity of the condition. Depression can be a symptom, or more likely a comorbid condition. My depression and ADD can exacerbate each other, but they both require treatment. Source: I thought my depression was a symptom of my ADD, but it turns out I was wrong and eventually went back on an anti-depressant. It was a good run, though, about a year.
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Apr 2, 2018 21:39
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SENSUAL DAD KISS posted:Both gabapentin and pregabelin are well indicated for trauma related anxiety and depression because they chill the overactive limbic system. It's really weird seeing someone here actually know what they're talking about
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Apr 2, 2018 22:21
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But it's so easy why don't you just get happy??? Which reminds me, I need to annoy my shrink to gimme a longer prescription for my ADs, the bi-monthly pestering is slightly annoying. Also, that RIZ radio brought back some memories, I think I had a couple that got scavenged for, uh, I don't really know what. Spare parts for other RIZ that eventually died? I remember throwing away shells of them back in '98.
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Apr 3, 2018 12:42
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Bobbie Wickham posted:Depression can be a symptom, or more likely a comorbid condition. My depression and ADD can exacerbate each other, but they both require treatment. Source: I thought my depression was a symptom of my ADD, but it turns out I was wrong and eventually went back on an anti-depressant. It was a good run, though, about a year. This heavily implies it's a structural issue with the brain and not a chemical one. Comorbidity is a real thing for sure but my point is that the changes to the structure of the brain are the real disease and the symptoms they cause (depression, anxiety, mania, psychosis, etc) are quite difficult to change with medication alone and many of them do far better with therapy because you're creating new neural pathways rather than flooding the brain with serotonin or what have you. Anyway, I'll return to pedantlandia now.
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Apr 3, 2018 12:56
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SENSUAL DAD KISS posted:flooding the brain with serotonin or what have you. Tell me again how this person knows what they're talking about?
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Apr 3, 2018 13:10
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Yeah, that's a weird argument. I don't think you can disqualify something as an illness because it's a "structural" condition and not a chemical one, especially since structure and chemistry are functions of one another in the human body.
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Apr 3, 2018 13:12
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seems kinda ableist
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Apr 3, 2018 18:24
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ChickenOfTomorrow posted:seems kinda ableist He is right and there's nothing wrong with you that you can't fix. Unless you lean on the idea that your problems are all a disease rather than problems and avoid ever changing anything. Then you'll just "be depressed" forever. Depression/anxiety/etc are symptoms that you experience, not explanations for your condition. Nausea and congestion are the worst parts of a flu (imo) but peptobismol and mucinex aren't going to cure it any faster. You do that by eating well and getting lots of rest, and then wow! You're not nauseous and plugged up anymore! Orrrrrrrr double down super hard and make up/misapply terminology to shut down anyone who tries to tell you there's hope. I'm not your real mom, who cares
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Apr 3, 2018 20:05
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Bobbie Wickham posted:Yeah, that's a weird argument. I don't think you can disqualify something as an illness because it's a "structural" condition and not a chemical one, especially since structure and chemistry are functions of one another in the human body. A broken arm hurts but the treatment isn't primarily painkillers - i.e. chemically. It's resetting the bone and a cast to make sure it heals properly, structurally. It's not that simple with depression because whatever's happening in the brain that causes it can't be snapshot on an x-ray and then altered surgically, sure. And antidepressants have their use in easing that distress like painkillers do. But there's a few different kinds of mechanisms those work by and they mostly work better combined with therapy, guiding the brain into a state where it can supply more of the good chemicals on its own instead of supplementing them. There's a plethora of methods for doing that out there too. There's so many forms of treatment because there are actually a lot of conditions that cause depression, i.e. it's a symptom of all of them and not the disease itself. Anyway, I think that's what I read in SDKs post and I feel it makes sense. If not, it's a way of looking at things that helped me deal with depression at least. Don't mean this as a disqualification of anyones suffering from depression btw, or of it being (a sign of) a legitimate illness.
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Apr 3, 2018 20:43
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Old Binsby posted:A broken arm hurts but the treatment isn't primarily painkillers - i.e. chemically. It's resetting the bone and a cast to make sure it heals properly, structurally. Don't forget that chemicals have an effect on structure, though: putting that broken arm in a cast doesn't grow new bone, or smooth away and reabsorb part of the broken bone to make room for said new bone. It can be argued that you want the set the bone properly in order to facilitate the chemistry of healing. Fetal development is dictated by chemical signals that determine how the body is formed, which in turn impacts how chemicals are made, received, and regulated, which in turn impacts the forms and functions of the structures of the human body. Biology is a complex feedback system that relies on chemical communication, so I think it's a bit weird to say that chemistry only a symptom and not a cause. I mean, if thinking about it that way works for you, great, but I'm not sure the science behind it is solid. I do agree with you that medication for mental illness alone is not enough. My recommendation has always been "Talk therapy before, during, and after a medication regime." Drugs are just tools, not the end goal.
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Apr 5, 2018 01:16
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Bobbie Wickham posted:I do agree with you that medication for mental illness alone is not enough. My recommendation has always been "Talk therapy before, during, and after a medication regime." Drugs are just tools, not the end goal. And this is why Mr Weed and I have formed such a strong friendship: he is my personal psychiatrist whom I can call for help at any time and vice-versa! We have agreed upon an open-door policy, if any of us is badly freaking out or if someone just needs a friend to talk to or a shoulder to cry on, then sure, get your rear end over here and we'll talk about it over a cup of coffee, doesn't matter if it's half past three in the morning.  You know, both Mr Weed and I are not religious and we don't really believe in fate and all that stuff - but a guy has to wonder sometimes. What were the chances that the two of us - both seriously hosed in the head and having a ton of emotional baggage - could become not only next door neighbors, but best friends as well?
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Apr 5, 2018 20:30
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A SWEATY FATBEARD posted:And this is why Mr Weed and I have formed such a strong friendship: he is my personal psychiatrist whom I can call for help at any time and vice-versa! We have agreed upon an open-door policy, if any of us is badly freaking out or if someone just needs a friend to talk to or a shoulder to cry on, then sure, get your rear end over here and we'll talk about it over a cup of coffee, doesn't matter if it's half past three in the morning. If you were religous you would've described the traditional American rural trailer park.
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Apr 6, 2018 00:22
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That is how the poor live all over the world, whether it's in an ex-soviet apartment block southern trailer park or inner city squat. That is what keeps us strong enough to one day eat the rich. The converse of "it's lonely at the top" is equally true: there is love at the bottom.
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Apr 6, 2018 01:51
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A SWEATY FATBEARD posted:We have agreed upon an open-door policy, if any of us is badly freaking out or if someone just needs a friend to talk to or a shoulder to cry on, then sure, get your rear end over here and we'll talk about it over a cup of coffee, doesn't matter if it's half past three in the morning. Oh! Your english is super good and this is the first chance I've had to help, I'm almost excited or maybe I misunderstood. AnywaysIf you're just talking about the two of you it should be "either of us", any denotes that there's more options and either is for when there are only two. Did you mean that the open door policy is between just you two, or a larger friend group?
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Apr 6, 2018 07:00
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A SWEATY FATBEARD posted:And this is why Mr Weed and I have formed such a strong friendship: he is my personal psychiatrist whom I can call for help at any time and vice-versa! We have agreed upon an open-door policy, if any of us is badly freaking out or if someone just needs a friend to talk to or a shoulder to cry on, then sure, get your rear end over here and we'll talk about it over a cup of coffee, doesn't matter if it's half past three in the morning. I’m glad for you asf, everyone deserves at least one close friend like mr weed. Finding one right next door is pretty lucky but sometimes apparently even your life doesn’t overcomplicate itself Bobbie Wickham posted:chemistry, structure, etc You’re right, I meant to illustrate the symptom/disease thing and ended up with the arm analogy. Reality is more complex than that. I thought you were arguing fundamentally different concepts initially, which warranted a bit of hyperbole. Turns out you weren’t really, I mostly agree with you. Maybe we could argue definitions but that wouldn’t contribute much to this thread so I’ll not do that
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Apr 7, 2018 00:02
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I'm glad you found a good friend, ASF, and that things are looking up in general.
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Apr 7, 2018 00:33
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I hat these long dry spells while we wait for enough wacky stuff to happen to A Sweaty Fat Beard that he decides to make another post.
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Apr 13, 2018 20:11
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420 SWAGLORD posted:there is love at the bottom. New thread title!
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Apr 13, 2018 22:49
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An update! Last Sunday Mr Weed and I went to the flea market and of course, paid a visit to the Drug Dealing Baba. We bought two packs of trams and a few packs of valiums - didn't want to overdo the drug thing because both he and I have cleaned up entirely. Mr Weed and I then munched on our tramadol and threw a helluva party, and I have to admit that we had tons of fun. The following day I loaded up on trams, flipped the gently caress out and pedaled on my bike for forty-five miles without stopping. Rode my bike to the neighboring town of Velika Gorica and then had dinner there at their McDonalds, then pedaled back home without stopping of course. Now that we're on McDonalds, I ate at their joint for the hell of it, haven't eaten there in fifteen years or more, and last time I ate there I was rather underwhelmed by the quality of their grub. This dinner just proved that their food hasn't improved a slightest bit - the burger was decidedly mediocre and soggy, while their fries were undercooked, dripping with oil and salted to high hell, but I was too hungry to complain. Nevermind. There are better fast food joints in Zagreb, and McD is a total loss in my book, as it has always been. This is not the point of this post, however. Much to our surprise, both Mr Weed and I were totally sick in the aftermath of our drug binge. I wasn't really dopesick, I just felt wrecked - and not in a good way - and spent several days sleeping and sweating like a pig in my bed which was... uh let's just say that it wasn't pleasant. Mr Weed, on the other end, was so sick that he spent the past few days puking his guts out, he was doing so badly that I went out and got him active charcoal pills to soak up the garbage and death from his stomach, which seems to have done the trick, at least, for now. It's strange to say, especially coming from someone like me, that our druggie career has seemingly come to an end. We have cleaned up, and when we tried to relive the old glory days, we just became sick, and I mean BADLY sick. What's the point in doing drugs then? I'll be going to the flea market again tomorrow. I will pay a visit to Drug Dealing Baba, but I'll only buy a few packs of valiums while leaving tramadol the hell alone - it just isn't a part of my world anymore. Man, it seems that I've really come a long way since my druggie days. And that's a Good Thing (tm).
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Apr 14, 2018 03:49
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The thread conundrum: Man do I enjoy these stories. I hope one day ASF actually undergoes the changes needed to no longer use drugs.
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Apr 14, 2018 05:32
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*says he's completely clean* *proceeds to do a bunch of drugs*
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Apr 14, 2018 08:28
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spankmeister posted:*says he's completely clean*
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Apr 14, 2018 16:24
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Do you think it could have been the age or even possible the genuineness of the trams? I once got very ill and puked all day from taking about four 25 year old T3's (sorry grandma).
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Apr 14, 2018 17:00
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Croatia: I'll only buy a few packs of valiums
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Apr 14, 2018 19:57
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A SWEATY FATBEARD posted:Last Sunday Mr Weed and I went to the flea market and of course, paid a visit to the Drug Dealing Baba. We bought two packs of trams and a few packs of valiums - didn't want to overdo the drug thing because both he and I have cleaned up entirely. A SWEATY FATBEARD posted:Much to our surprise, both Mr Weed and I were totally sick in the aftermath of our drug binge. A SWEATY FATBEARD posted:I'll be going to the flea market again tomorrow. I will pay a visit to Drug Dealing Baba, but I'll only buy a few packs of valiums while leaving tramadol the hell alone - it just isn't a part of my world anymore. So...Baba's drugs made you violently sick because who the gently caress knows what she sold you (my bet is on expired horse steroids) buuuuut... IT DOESN'T MATTER, MAN! Baba has more goodies waiting, gotta try them all! Sense of self-preservation, where did it go? On the other hand...YOLO, I guess.
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Apr 15, 2018 14:37
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Horse steroids are actually very expensive.
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Apr 15, 2018 15:02
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It's pretty easy to tell what pills are, because he has internet and can look up what the stamps on them are. Also, most drugs past expiration just have a diminished effect, I believe the expiration date is <90% effectiveness, though I'm not sure about stuff like penicillin, steroids and a few other things, but benzos, opiates, acetaminophen, and a whole bunch of other poo poo is fine to take past expiration.
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Apr 17, 2018 06:43
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Lots of antibiotics are stable for a long loving time. For example the US Army has a giant horde of ciprofloxacin from the Korean war that is used to define the expiration date of ciprofloxacin because they check it every 5 years and it's still >99% effective.
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Apr 17, 2018 16:21
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| # ? May 9, 2024 22:51 |
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A SWEATY FATBEARD posted:Nearly missed this one! CPB has no brand whatsoever. Every chain of grocery stores stocks CPB under their own store brand; BUDGET, K+, Value and so on. It is manufactured in Buzet, Istria, and absolutely insane amounts of it are sold every day. 2L bottle of CPB typically costs 13 Kunas which is roughly two US dollars. A friend of mine in college used to refer to Coors Light as "Cougar Piss", so that's what I originally thought CPB might taste like. Your description puts it more in the category of one of our nastier malt liquors like Crazy Horse or something, though. (As someone who's had her days of scrounging for scrap metal, bringing it to the yard, then buying a 40 of Steel Reserve at the gas station next door, I'm not judging, and actually drat curious as to how bad CPB is.)
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Apr 17, 2018 18:52
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