What the fuck is an Alamo? Is it like an Internet but with less porn?

I’d be interested in this as well, and would love to help test if you would like.

This is pretty slick, thank you for sharing the link!

If the gabapentin helps, have you looked at pregabalin? My doc suggested it and it’s like a super gabapentin. Much more effective, less side effects.

It’s been a huge help for me… Made the difference between active and not active most days.

Steroid epidurals also helped me a lot, but your needs might vary.

My doctor and I suspect a childhood injury initially, but absolutely degenerative over time after the fact. My symptoms had largely been just pain for most of my life, but 2014-2016 saw them start to affect walking and hand use.

The thought was that youth masked things, but middle age caught me 😄

Woah… I’ve caught myself sitting like that unconsciously for years and kept thinking it was bad lol… That position is my go to on bad days. Never thought about it actually putting things into a good state.

Excellent.

The years of misdiagnosis and useless treatments are the worst. I now have a set of docs that I am literally afraid of losing as these actual listen and dig into the why… The listening! So damned important.

My primary guy is amazing and kept going until we found. I went from age 14 until 35 before finding this guy, and he’s the first to actually believe me.

I almost accidentally killed myself on ibuprofen… Pain so bad I lost track of how much I was taking since I couldn’t sleep and almost killed my liver. Blood pressure spike well into the stroke ranges…

Glad you found a good one who got you fixed up.

I went through a severe disc intrusion, 68‰ central spinal compression.

Full treatment was anterior cervical discectomy and fusion, followed by a few years of on/off physical therapies and some follow-up steroidal spinal nerve epidural shots for pain treatments.

I note this is likely a more extreme case than you describe, but it might give insight into potential risks or perhaps unexpected things to look forward to.

My issues went untreated for close to about 20 years after onset of first neuropathic symptoms.

Initial symptoms:

Arms burning/pain from any position angled over shoulder height.

Headaches and neck pain, frequent.

Weakness in left arm and hand.

Later these turned to outright muscle spasm in shoulders and neck. Everything became more painful.

Started losing reliable use of left hand and would lose balance and use of left foot. Lots of aching pain in left thigh.

This was around time of diagnosis, consider baseline for me.

I attempted many months of various physical therapy and drug treatments. Some stalled things getting worse, none resolved things. Important to note, I had nerve damage by this time to the central canal.

A neurosurgeon performed a Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion, removing the bad disc layer and using a structure to bond the associated spinal bones C5 and C6 together, including a titanium plate and 2 screws.

I woke up in the recovery feeling better than I had in literal years.

That said, this surgery took place in 2016. I’m still recovering from the nerve damage and muscle death caused my the initial injury.

From the immediate pressure release, I was back to my baseline function within just a few weeks. Surgery related stuff resolved quickly for me.

I slept better than the previous 20 years. Absolutely worth it for me.

I mainly needed physical therapy exercises to keep the neck and shoulder areas stretching out since the muscle trauma can cause tightening.

Since that time, I’m still recovering from the associated nerve damage from the initial compression, but it’s still an amazing night and day improvement.

Aside from the main surgery itself, the things that made the biggest differences for me:

Steroid epidurals: neuro anaesthesiologists can isolate areas inflamed in the region and can target painkillers and steroids to hugely improve many symptoms, often permanently. Not simplest, but easier than surgery and has also helped me with some associated shoulder stenosis greatly. Takes pressure off nerve damage to allow healing and pain relief.

Tizanidine: prescription muscle relaxer. This one functions a bit different than Robaxin / Soma / Valium, and was a life saver for years before they identified the stenosis itself. It was the only relief for the tightness or cramping I’d experience in neck, shoulders, left thigh and calves.

Swimming and cycling: done in low intensity, these have been the most successful exercises at rebuilding the muscle deterioration in my central and lower back. I use a pedal-assist style ebike that let’s me focus the work based on pace and heart rate, with it taking the brunt of harder hills.

Stretches!!! While the strength stuff from PT matters, the stretching stuff matters 10000x more! Needed to work with the therapist to figure stuff that wasn’t in the books etc… Strange angles to isolate the areas specific to my injury. Once we dialed in what I should try to feel from a good stretch, I’ve been able to catch the bad stuff as it starts early pretty often.

Good luck on your treatment, whatever you choose. I hope you find real relief.

Feel free to DM me if you have specific questions or if I can help. This is a lot to digest, and I’m happy to offer clarity.

Like the ideas so far.

My requests/thoughts:

Option to integrate or remove the bottom icons with the other rows… When setting sizes they don’t match up.

Love the rows themselves, fits my preferences well. Especially the arrangement haptics!

Disable the media players option? Maybe dynamically expand from a single icon when in use? Dedicate to a specific media source?

Widget picker is a bit of a mess, option to sort by application?

So far really liking what it is. Keep at it please!

… Big ass titties.

“Choose interesting jobs”

THIS! A MILLION TIMES THIS!

The absolute best career choices I’ve made, in hindsight, were always from the interest in the work or quality of whom I was working with.

Took jobs for less pay, even turning down much higher offers, to choose the gig that was in the area I wanted to expand in.

Never accept just based on “it’s a few bucks more”. Unless it’s twice the pay AND you have something else to gain from the role, always grab the better experience or less stressful spot.

Came for this gif…

Err… From?

Leaving with leaky… Uhh… Yeah.

Seriously the media needs to use more words like these… “Penetration” , “Thrusting into” , "etc …

It would just grate on 'ol Pootie so nicely.

Full Throttle (any of the LucasArts really…).

Descent Freespace

Not super old, but Shadowrun Returns games.

Yeah… I suspect it has something to do with controlling info on Ukraine pushing back perhaps.

That server sounds a bit older in the teeth… Has new thermal paste been applied to the cpu? Even if the reported temps are under 90c, you might be getting hot spots causing glitches inside the package.

Worth trying a couple of different generations of kernel as well, both newer and older. You might be hitting a regression somewhere.

This. If my parents hadn’t been gracious enough to die painfully from cancer, this would have been the next option.

Not all elders deserve support, respect or compassion.

“Why should I tip?! I’m already paying for the service!”

Immediately leave without even telling them to take a cab.

Edit: 1, I am in the US, yes.

2: the wording sounded like it implied a behavior of a date while out dining. I was answering based on how I’d respond if a prospective mate treated underpaid US staff shitty.

Don’t let others control your life. If someone is only making you hurt, cut them off clean.

This especially is for blood relations! Only scared old people say that shit about obeying your elders! If your family or immediate “friends” only use or abuse, get out fast!

There’s always a place and tribe for you, don’t let assholes dictate who you are or “should be”.

It took 30 years and most of my physical health to learn that one! Injured spine, nerve damage, financial issues … All from the group I grew up around being hideously toxic.

I’ve been free of them for about 5 years now and am finally healing, both physically where I can and mentally. Financially too, just slower.

I now have loving girlfriends, an amazing and healthy daughter, and I’ve been able to start reconnecting with the people that really clicked with me but were forced away by my family and their friends for being too different from them. I barely got a year and a half with my best friend I’d list touch with before he suddenly was diagnosed with and died from pancreatic cancer.

Don’t waste your time on people who drain you with nothing to return! You and the people who improve you don’t have the time and energy to spare!