I feel for them. I really do. I just couldn't imagine never being able to just be alone. Not even for just one single second. Everyone needs time alone sometimes.
True, but in some ways it's not as bad for them because they've never known that feeling, so maybe they don't know why people would particularly want it. Like if I asked you if you ever want to spend time away from your legs. I know it's not the same because it's another person but just saying they might never think about that at all.
I would absolutely love a synthetic spine. I'm 36 and my back is just miserable.
It would be one thing if it consistently got relief from something, but it's a constant shell game. Will heat help today? Will ibuprofen work this afternoon? Is PT going to help this time or make me feel terrible?
It's just a terrible process to go through and makes me want to go around telling everyone to sit up straight, stand more and do core exercises.
Damn dude I feel you. My sciatica is so bad that I wish I could just depart from my legs briefly. I'd saw them off if walking wasnt important to me. Those nerves are fried anyway
makes my pain worse... I even committed to it for 2 weeks but it was horrible, just kept getting worse. im working on it and in physio atm i hope i can catch it early im still young
did you catch this in a scan specifically for that reason/because of the pain or an unrelated scan? I got some weird back, shoulder, next, arm, hand shit going on that im in physio for. I've had a couple big picture scans or just scans in general for other unrelated things and there was supposedly nothing abnormal but the public medical system is garbage where I live.
I've had xrays. They want me to go through 6 weeks of PT before they'll recommend an MRI. The MRI would be part of the pre-surgery procedures and then at that point I would qualify for the microdiscectomy if they show a herniated disc.
It's been a multi-year journey with this involving many ups and downs...let's hope it ends soon.
I'm in a similar situation. I've tried various injections and procedures....Thus far, the only thing that has helped is a combination of Meloxicam 2x per day(with tylenol) and Duloxetine 1x per day. Be aware that the Duloxetine is actually an antidepressant and just "happens to help with arthritis", so you may experience other side effects. I deal with some mild sexual dysfunction, but....it actually kind of made my sex life better anyway....So....maybe talk with your doctor?
I currently take Effexor and Lyrica. At least it has helped with those really sharp, take-your-breath-away shooting pains that you get when you sit or stand the wrong way.
Mine's on and off horrible at 29 :D lower back pain that's recently started showing signs of sciatica. swears in leg pain. Something that does seem to help a little is doing some exercises from physiotherapist (cat to cow stretch for example).
Used to be painful for a week at a time but christ... Lasted over 4 months the most recent time ;_;
That’s so rough and sounds really miserable. You may already be doing it or been suggested it a million times but regular yoga (even 10 mins a day) can be a miracle for back pain. I learned from a personal trainer that, for lower back pain, strengthening your glutes is the key, don’t skip ass day at the gym
Nah, I actually haven't been recommended yoga. Honestly, it's lately been really bothering me how stiff I am. I'll look into a routine and give it a try, although I don't know what I'm doing.
Appreciate it, definitely get that. We dropped $4k on a Temperpedic a while back and it helped a lot, especially when my back seized up completely.
As for my chair, I currently have a Leap V2 and it's helped a lot. Unfortunately, I'm afraid I've just been too sedentary and let my muscles deteriorate too much.
I would love so much to be able to disconnect my head and put it in a slot on my chair so that i don't feel all the pain in my body (i have a neurological illness that make me in pain 24/24 7/7 for all my life).
I even asked doctors if they could give me something strong enough to not feel my body for a few hours, and that i could use it once per day but sadly they didn't want to.
I've got a hypermobility disorder that causes chronic pain, and I often joke about how I need to go to the body shop to get my joints tuned up and so I can take a break from my knees.
I was on a course once that required a full day of walking around London. Let me tell you, when I got home I wished I could have unscrewed those fuckers just to alleviate the ache in my soles. My husband gave me a foot massage that night and if I could have orgasmed from that, I would have.
Not quite the same thing, but it's one of the few perks of having terrible vision. At the end of the day, I just take a break from seeing. No more shapes and details. Only blobs
I knew a kid with a prosthetic growing up and he would definitely get cranky if he didn’t get time off it. I’ve heard similar from kids with cochlear implants asking for hearing breaks lol
I follow a deaf creator on social media and sometimes they have days where they don't wear their cochlear implant. Even though it's hard for me to imagine choosing not to hear when you have a device that can help, I get it. It's how they were born. Their natural state of being.
The deaf community is fascinating. I never thought that cochlear implants would be a divisive topic but some deaf folks view them as instruments of genocide. Learning about that for the first time made me ponder other arguments that could be applied to and just sort of makes me rethink concepts of cultural assimilation, erasure, appropriation, genocide, etc. I dunno how much my opinions shifted overall, but I'm glad to have learned about a unique perspective from a world almost totally unknown to me.
I think this video gives some very good context on why that might be the case (at least in the USA) I don’t agree with cochlear implants being bad but I’m also not deaf so…
The circumstances were awful, but when a group of deaf children grew up without learning official sign language, they developed their own (sign) language.
And sign language is highly complex. It would be a shame if an entire community just disappeared.
It really puts into perspective the way the west calls someone a backwards country/locations.
I'm sure their cases of workplace violence, and road rage are much smaller in nameless countryside village in Mongolia.
Happiness shouldn't be judged on how many things you have from the store. Hell, even having access to stores. Their life and ability to enjoy it are on different scales (cultural, ethical, environmental)!
From what my Deaf friends have told me, the sound and hearing experience is just really not the same from a cochlear as it is to us hearing folks. The sound is very distorted and they describe it as “loud”. A few prefer not to wear it at all because it’s more comfortable. My hard of hearing friend straight up turns off her hearing aids when she’s done with classes, she hates wearing them and having to hear everything “so loudly.”
Not Deaf or HoH but total opposite-misophonic (I hear every little thing) and can definitely relate to the feeling of wanting straight quiet. All the sounds of the world can just be overwhelming and annoying. I can get irritated and stressed by something as unnoticeable (to most) as the low buzz of a fan in another room, constant chirping, door banging, sniffling, tapping, etc.
And I am hearing so I'm used to the sounds and they still bother me a lot.
One of my best friends wears a lot of jewelry and these bangles and jade bracelets that constantly.jangle. she never takes them off. It actually drives me crazy but I deal. But sometimes I can't take it and just grab her arm and cup the bracelets so they stop jangling for like 5 seconds just so I can have peace.
So I can imagine if not hearing or being hard of- is like having earplugs (not to say it is just for example) I can see how taking the earplugs out (ie. Using Hearing devices) and having all the raw noise would be overwhelming.
Some people react better to the implants than others, from what I have read, it can be, “similar”, to, “normal”, hearing or a mess of distorted robotic sounds.
Brains don’t always, “interpret”, the implant’s stimulation correctly or well.
I just love the peace and quiet. I am sitting here right now having my morning coffee and have not put in my hearing aids yet. I love this totally quiet hour to myself.
The same is true for people who need to wear glasses all the time. And I didn't need glasses until I was eight years old or so, its not just about how you were born. Aids are wonderful, but they do come with drawbacks, and sometimes people need a break from said drawbacks.
Or you could get some herniated discs and get sciatica so bad that you both cant feel, and are torture by the pain in, your legs. Nerve pain is a fucking
That's a nice thought but in reality I don't think that would be the case. I mean there's lots of things out there that I dont know the feeling of but I could imagine what it would be like and I'm sure the thought has crossed one of their minds at some point in their life.
I'm an only child, and I get asked often if I feel like I was missing out on something by not having siblings. Of course, being an only child is all I've ever known, and while I know people often treasure sibling bonds, I can't say I'm missing out if I have no idea what its like.
Damn dude I never knew I wanted that. I have sciatica so my legs just have nerve pain all the time. I want to be able to walk for the rest of my life so I choose to not hack them off with a hatchet but damn a brief break from that pain would be fucking amazing
It's not really that different. They are so entwined, each controlling one half of the body, that there is hardly a seperation going on. I'm pretty sure being alone would feel horrible for either of them.
I disagree, never knowing that feeling could lead to them wanting to experience it at least once more if anything, especially considering they see other people alone or at least capable of being alone most likely every day. If they were born let's say on a planet by themselves where the idea of it is completely non-existent, then it'd most likely not be as bad, because they wouldn't know that being alone is even possible ( Even though they'd still be able to imagine it maybe ).
I saw a documentary about twins that featured these two. Another of the sets of twins were two brothers (not conjoined) who were in their 70's or 80's. They had spent every day together as if they were, though. When asked how they felt if one of the two passed first, they couldn't even think about it. The thought immediately sent them into tears. It was heartwrenching.
In this context you’d be walking all the time, everyday, for the rest of your life. So yes, you do get a rest from your legs, every time you sit down or sleep
I mostly feel for when one of them dies for whatever reason, old age, one’s sides organs get cancer but the others side is fine, etc. Since their body relies on each other, once one goes, it’s just a ticking time clock till your own death. Then the emotional toil of losing the person you’re closest with your entire life… That shits scary imo. Losing that person, losing your sister, and knowing you’re next and soon. Like how does one prepare for that?
No, as they do share blood supply, one dying would result in the others death. In fact it would probably make for a scary situation depending on the circumstances, cause they may or may not be able to move afterwards, or have limited movement but will know death is coming and they are now alone to face it.
This is actually a horrifying thought. Once one dies... is her... head going to be removed from their shared body? Since it's dead? My belief is that when one dies, the other one will die very, very shortly after, because they do share most of their organs
This is one of the most uncomfortable scenes in American Horror Story, a show with a shitload of uncomfortable scenes (spoilers obviously).
In a dream in Freak Show, when one of the conjoined twins dreams her sister dies, and she’s just lying there while her literal other half is stone-dead, and she can feel herself rotting from the inside out. She also cries because she can’t hear her sisters thoughts anymore, and she’s alone for the first time in her entire life. Fucking grim.
the only way I see one twin being able to live on is if the other passes from something that only hurts the one brain, and even then im not sure if the other brain would be able to fully control the body
That's what happened to Chang and Eng, the original so-called "Siamese twins". After Chang died, Eng reportedly said "Then I am going", and died 2 hours later.
The worst part will be if one of them has a fatal brain injury/condition. It has happened before that one conjoined twin dies first then the other knows their death is imminent in hours/days.
That was a hoax account, not actually them. They refuse to make any comments on it, but if you watch the wedding videos it is pretty clear they are all in on it.
If you've lived all of your life sharing a lot of your body with your twin, you probably get very good at weaving your attention in and out as appropriate.
Kind of like how most people tune out large amounts of sensory inputs as we go about our day, but notice almost instantaneously if something needs attention.
I watched an interview with them back when they were younger, and the interviewer asked them to name some of the upsides of being conjoined twins. And their first answer was that they're never alone.
Being able to "imagine being alone" requires you to understand the concept of it. Just because they are conjoined doesn't mean they can't see or perceive the idea of being alone, especially knowing everyone else is.
I always wondered how they masturbate. Two brains one clit. Do they both need to be horny? Who holds the phone while the other does the diddling? Do they both finish at the same time? I have so many questions.
The real thing that sucks is that when one of them dies, the other one will be essentially on a timer for death as well, since the dead body will fill the other with toxins.
Again, the ethics of their survival are extremely questionable. They undoubtedly have a massive slew of health issues, and if one dies, the other is screwed
There is a fantastic play called Side Show, about to conjoined twins. There's a whole song where they meet houdini, and he teaches them how to be alone in their mind.
They may have their own ways to have privacy and freedom. I remember watching the story of another conjoined set of twins (forget their names), they made compromises to respect each other’s individuality + boundaries.
For example, one of the twins was a singer. She had her own space. And when she wanted to sing in there, the other twin wasn’t allowed to interfere (unless I’m assuming there was an emergency). The other twin would space out mentally.
With showering, only 1 twin would go at a time. The other would block her view with a shower curtain.
These twins have passed on now, unfortunately, but Abby and Brittany may have similar coordination.
I wouldn't pity them too much; They've always had each other from the moment of birth, so I cannot imagine they would want to be "normal." Their current lives are all they've ever known, so that is normal to them. It would probably be cruel to separate them at this point (in a hypothetical situation where it is possible).
But, what I do pity them for is how this greedy ass system fucked them over. Have to purchase 2 tuitions, but get a single pay check? It's infuriating how fucked our system is.
My friend has an identical twin and he says they’d never have a problem if they had to be around each other all the time. They constantly miss each other when they’re separated, too — even if just for a day. He says they often feel like they’re one person, since they spent every moment of their childhood together. Maybe these women have similar feelings.
They've addressed this before. If one of them wants alone time the other will simply check out for a while. This seems tough for most people, but they've had a lifetime of learning how to figure out things like this.
I’ve known non conjoined twins who I can tell are happy to be in each others company the majority of the time. If I invite one to hang out, the other one attends. No one even thinks about it anymore
Dude fucking for real. I don't know why but it's like a burning need to see all different types of human women naked. And this is a very unique type of human women.
Honestly, it seems like there's at least some shared bandwidth between their brains, so it's honestly probably less like being two completely separate people and more like two expressions of the same person?
The documentaries are very eerie, I see what you're saying. But I think it's more that they've been ear to ear since birth. Exact same lived experience.
Okay, slight tangent, but the single season animated adult comedy "The Oblongs" had a deformed family and two brothers were conjoined. They then explained that whenever one of them wants some privacy the other can goluntarily go into a trance state in which their eyes dialate and they go unconscious. Rely on the other to wake them up from it afterwards
Wonder if something like that fould work, just train yourself to go numb to the world for a bit
Never had a conversation with the voice in your head before? You're missing out. Nothing quite like arguing with yourself when you're weighing the pros and cons of something.
What does that have to do with this at all? That's not even what I'm talking about. Yes, of course I have a voice in my head. I didn't learn until around last year when it was all on the news that there's a high percentage of people that don't have one. I thought everyone talked to themselves but I guess not. When I say high percentage I think it was somewhere around 30% that don't have an inner voice. That's just strange to me that anyone could just be sitting there with absolutely nothing going on in their head. Makes me question their mental capacity.
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u/One_time_Dynamite 1d ago
I feel for them. I really do. I just couldn't imagine never being able to just be alone. Not even for just one single second. Everyone needs time alone sometimes.