Stealthy Jess 🇨🇦 💜

Whenever I had a personal problem that needed a lot of thinking & introspection to solve, I would always shut myself out from the world, put my head down, and solve it. Why did life just give me a problem that's literally taking months and months of living in this weird headspace to solve? WHY?

Are You on a Benzodiazepine? The War with Iran May Affect Availability - Make a Plan, Now! The instability in the Arabian Gulf has effectively cut off 90 percent of commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz as of March 2026, and this directly impacts the chemical precursors required to manufacture benzodiazepines like diazepam, clonazepam, Ativan, and lorazepam. Most of these medications are produced in India, where pharmaceutical plants rely on petroleum-derived feedstocks, specifically benzene and toluene, sourced from the Gulf. These drugs are entirely synthetic. Their molecular structures are built from carbon rings that originate in crude oil. The math on the chemical mass looks like this: Amount of petroleum in particular benzodiazepines: • Diazepam: 72% • Clonazepam: 69% • Lorazepam: 63% Generic manufacturers in India and China are facing a "precursor drought." When oil prices stay above $100 a barrel and the Strait remains blocked, the cost of synthesizing these carbon rings exceeds the profit margin for generic drugs. Manufacturers often respond by halting production. To understand this, you have to look at the specific chemical building blocks. Benzodiazepines are constructed like Lego sets, and the Arabian Gulf provides the "plastic" for almost every piece. When that region goes offline, the global chemical labs may run out of the specific intermediates needed to even begin making the drug. The "Aromatic" Bottleneck The core of every benzodiazepine is a benzene ring. While benzene can be made elsewhere, the Arabian Gulf is the world's primary source of "chemical grade" benzene and toluene. These are extracted from crude oil during a process called naphtha reforming. If the Gulf stops exporting, the following specific precursor chemicals, the "ingredients before the ingredients", vanish from the global market: Sudden discontinuation of these medications carries severe medical risks, so you need a plan. Benzodiazepines regulate the GABA receptors in the brain, essentially acting as a nervous system brake. If that brake is removed abruptly, the brain enters a state of hyper-excitation. This can lead to status epilepticus, a series of continuous, life-threatening seizures, alongside cardiovascular collapse and delirium tremens. You cannot "white-knuckle" your way through a benzodiazepine shortage; it is a physical emergency. Make a Contingency Plan If you take these medications, you should establish a backup plan with your doctor now. - Possibly Begin a Safety Taper: Ask your provider for a written schedule that gradually reduces your dose over several months. You need this plan in your possession so you can begin a controlled step-down if your pharmacy cannot fulfill a refill. The new recommendations are to taper at 5% - 10% max, every two weeks. At the end, I include a link to a PDF you can share with your doctor. - Ensure Strength Flexibility: Ask your doctor to include a note in your electronic health record that allows the pharmacist to dispense equivalent doses using different tablet strengths. For example, if 10 mg tablets are out of stock, the pharmacist should be authorized to give you two 5 mg tablets. - Use Independent Pharmacies: Chain retailers use automated inventory systems that are highly vulnerable to regional supply gaps. Local, independent pharmacies often use different wholesalers and can manually search for stock that the larger chains cannot access. - Know the Equivalencies: If your specific medication vanishes, your doctor may need to switch you to a different benzodiazepine. In a crisis, the rough conversions are: - The medical community is already seeing shortages in injectable lorazepam used for emergency seizure control in hospitals. Taking these steps now creates a buffer between your health and the volatility in the Middle East. This is good guide tapering guide published by a consortium of different providers. I noticed that for some reason the PDF does not display well on Safari on an iPad. Choose the option to save it to your computer, then open it. It does open in the Brave browser. acmt.net/wp-content/upl…

@Naomi_D_Harvey Yeah. Tomatoes too...

@AdvancedTweaker Really? Woah! No, I don’t, I’m fine with potatoes. Well there goes that theory!

I got absolutely *clobbered* by just 15ml of kefir today. This was all I had ⬇️ within an hour I felt intense fatigue sinking in, by 3 hours I couldn’t open my eyes, or feed myself it was so intense. Had to have a Huel for food. Turns out, kefir is high in GABA 😴

I'm terrified of losing access to the meds that are helping me. And my financial lifeline that allows me to get these meds. Even if I don't check, the background anxiety is always there & real. Social media makes me go down a deep hole. If I don't stop myself, it gets in the way of me trying to secure what I can to prepare for whatever happens.

My mood was ok I spent a few hours on the living room. As soon as I grab my phone and open social media my mood drops. Its a dilemma because I like engaging with people.

Apparently there’s a name for this with ADHD: revenge bedtime procrastination. You spend all day forcing your brain to focus, function, and mask, then at night your brain finally feels like it has a second for itself and doesn’t want to let it go. So you stay up even when you’re exhausted. Anyone else?

@Catinmyfamily Happens to me too. It gets better or goes away when I take anything anti-inflammatory - and with rest.

As I get more tired, I get out of breath more easily - like reading a kid’s book has me short of breath. Is this just an ME thing or should I be looking into lung stuff?

@mercurial_moons Excuses...

When I send my mom articles on Covid she says it’s not a credible source When I send my mom scientific studies on Covid she says it’s too technical she can’t understand 🤬

@Virus2Host @100YEKS @drseanmullen Yes, and you need COMBINATION antivirals. Just like in HIV. Paxlovid is not a combination antiviral, it's one protease inhibitor that's just boosted.

@100YEKS @drseanmullen In HIV patients it can take 3-4 medications and months to years to see improvements. Also the virus goes into deep tissues in a unique way with SARSCOV2 and that is why monoclonal antibodies and immune therapies are needed to kick the virus out.

You have to be persistently stupid and willfully ignorant at this point to believe SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t persist in the human body somewhere for an extended period in many (or most, or all) people—driving the uptick in bacterial, fungal, and viral infections. It can do that and still damage your body in the acute phase of infection (whether you feel it or not). And you have to be a chronic numpty to forgo airborne precautions in the COVID and disinformation era, where people aren’t reading, and what they do read is filtered through ignoramuses and anti-science voices. They’re socializing while symptomatic, rejecting vaccinations, and acting as walking incubation vessels for pathogenic mutations.

I believe in encouraging good behaviour and ignoring bad behaviour. This is my MO. I don't deviate from this pattern ever. I don't slam people. I don't get angry. I don't name names. I just stick with facts and what I believe. It's never failed me. I don't want to engage in anything else.

@Nithya_Shrii Basically any manual labour?

10 jobs that are 100% safe from AI: 1. Dentist 2. Construction worker 3. Plumbing 4. Farming 5. Gardening 6. Carpentry 7. Cooking 8. Gardening 9. Welder 10. Electrician Did I miss any?!

Allow me to rearrange the diagnostic codes so y'all understand what this means: Long Covid with Persistent SARS-COV2 virus causing Acquired Immune Deficiency #LongCovidAwareness

@adic_9 @dysclinic Antihistamines shot my ADHD through the roof. I became pretty much non-functional. Way wayyy before LC

@dysclinic You Can Just Take Antihistamines tbh probably everyone should try this for a few weeks if they have atopic issues and see what else goes away

Good study that provides laboratory confirmation of what some of us have known for a long time: a subset of patients with anxiety, depression, panic disorder and ADHD-like syndromes have underlying immunologic, autoimmune and neuroinflammatory causes. Once you address these causes, these pscyhiatric and neurologic problems improve significantly. We documented this in a study on neuropsychiatric manifestations in mast cell activation syndrome. sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

@Yrrepmot The fact that they're blaming it on the meds that are literally saving your life is so cruel. I just remind myself that SSRIs and other psych meds are their money mill. They're probably trying really hard to make sure their patients never come off them...

The psychiatrist (who I have never even met) is now saying the damage and withdrawal I am experiencing from Sertraline is “perceived” and they are “not convinced that the observed affect is from discontinuation of Sertraline”… 😒 This drug has taken everything from me and they won’t even acknowledge the harm it has caused. I never consented to this kind of risk and now they’re gaslighting me. Also, note how they try and blame my ARVs instead for all the symptoms associated with SSRIs. Since when were psychiatrists experts on HIV medication? My HIV Dr has never mentioned any of these symptoms could be caused by Truvada or Raltegravir. And it’s not commonly reported by pwHIV. What an absolute joke. #medicalgaslighting #PSSD #Sertraline #brainInjury #HIV

Probably a good idea.

🚨SHOCKING: OpenAI and MIT just ran the largest controlled study ever on what ChatGPT does to your mind. 981 people. 300,000 messages. Four weeks. The result: the more you use ChatGPT, the lonelier you become. And OpenAI helped prove it. This was not some outside hit piece. OpenAI's own safety lead is listed as an author. MIT Media Lab designed the experiment. They used GPT-4o on the actual ChatGPT platform. Text. Voice. Personal conversations. Work conversations. They tested every way a normal person uses ChatGPT. It did not matter how you used it. They tried changing the voice to sound more human. They tried making conversations more personal. They tried keeping things professional. None of it changed the outcome. Across every condition, people who spent more time with ChatGPT got worse on every measure. More loneliness. Less socialization with real people. More emotional dependence. More problematic use. Every outcome went in the wrong direction. The researchers checked whether people who were already lonely just used it more. They were not. Initial loneliness had almost no correlation with how much time people spent on ChatGPT. Something about the interaction itself was pulling people in and making them worse. Then came the finding that should concern everyone. The people who trusted ChatGPT the most had the worst outcomes. Users who saw the AI as a friend talked to real people less and became more dependent. People who believed the AI was conscious became more attached. People who felt the AI understood their emotions developed more unhealthy patterns. The more you believe ChatGPT cares about you, the more it damages your real relationships. Prior experience made it worse too. People who had already been using ChatGPT showed higher dependence and more problematic use than newcomers. The longer you have been a user, the deeper it runs. OpenAI put their name on a paper proving their product is associated with increased loneliness, decreased human connection, and growing emotional dependence. If the company that built it helped prove it makes you lonelier, what does that tell you about the thing you talk to every day?

@NoHealthNoFun Did you take both at the same time? Maybe it was too much all at once?

The first 24 hours were very not magical for me. My off-label experiment in on hold until next week when I‘ll discuss it again with my doctor. #LongCovidLife

@Biff234523 Interesting. How do you get to this menu?

Wow, this app did a useful thing (introduced a dislike button). Unlike on TikTok / old YouTube, and more similar to Reddit, it supposedly actually feeds into the algorithm to de-prioritize replies that the community finds unhelpful. Everyone make sure to do your part to downvote all of the slop and misinformation.

I decided not to go with any immunosuppressants because I'm around people for hours almost every day. A reinfection is not worth any kind of temporary symptom improvement for me. Maraviroc does a bit of that, too, which is why I didn't want to stay on that long-term. Or at least maybe take it on and off.

@AdvancedTweaker @JoelTHpostHack I hate AutoCorrect 🙃 Maraviroc. Rapamyosin

Week 3: Final Maraviroc for LC Replacement Protocol Sanguisorba Officinalis (地榆) 6g/day decoction Sophora bud (槐花米) 6g/day decoction Notoginseng (三七) 1g/day powder Shikonin extract 30mg/day I'm also still on Raltegravir and Truvada. Some of these change the absorption of medications, so you need to be very careful with spacing out your doses. Too tired and too busy this week to break down the components & why. Will post something later once I have time. Verdict after 3 days of doing all four: Alive and kicking, no neuropathy so far, no more abdominal cramps, MCAS symptoms reduced. What remains: transient pressure from behind the eyes, a really dull neck tension that usually happens at night & quickly fades. Mood is ok now🤞

@envidreamz @AdvancedTweaker Just like like they were trained to see Long Covid as a rare fatiguing mystery illness instead of connecting the dots to their own new health problems 🫠. Where is the lie?